Stands a Shadow (50 page)

Sparus bowed his head, keeping his thoughts to himself. He found it difficult to look at her. Already, his head was playing out the possible outcomes of his position now. Romano, with the backing of his family, was the strongest contender to be the next Patriarch of Mann. If Sasheen failed to recover, if she died here in Tume, Romano would declare himself Patriarch, never mind any successor she might name. He would demand to lead the Expeditionary Force himself, for the glory of taking Bar-Khos.

He could have it, he decided, if it meant Sparus could return to Q’os with his reputation intact. But he wasn’t certain even that was possible now. Romano would call for another purge, and Sparus could very well be at the top of the list.

I could approach him with an offer of loyalty now
, he thought, and wondered who he could entrust with such an errand.

Sasheen was studying him closely, her gaze darting about his face.

‘I’m dying, Sparus, aren’t I?’

She sounded like a young girl, her voice frail and breaking.

Look at me. I plot my own survival even as she lies here fighting for breath
.

‘There’s hope,’ Sparus tried. ‘We’re sending for a fresh supply of Milk.’

Her head settled back on the pillows. ‘Then make it fast. I can feel it worsening with every breath I take.’ She tilted her head to one side, watched the physician Klint unscrew the jar containing Lucian’s head. Within it, Sparus could see the man’s preserved scalp, the level of milk having been reduced that far.

‘Be sparing with it,’ said Sasheen as the physician lowered a small ladle into the jar.

Klint came to her and poured some of it into her open mouth. At once, her lips grew less pale, and colour returned to her face.

‘Let him stay out,’ she instructed him. ‘Next to me.’

Klint looked to Sparus as though he had any say in it. The physician removed the head from the jar and settled it on the bedside table next to her. His eyes were closed, and they flickered behind their eyelids as though he was dreaming.

‘Let us talk later,’ Sasheen said gently as her own eyes closed too.

‘Yes Matriarch,’ he replied, then turned and left the room with the physician following him.

Sparus felt relieved to be gone from there. ‘Keep her condition to yourself,’ he instructed Klint as they removed their masks and gloves. ‘And no mention of poison either.’

He strode for the stairwell that would take him up to daylight, his thoughts in disarray.

‘She’s dying. She has a matter of days at most.’

‘You’d certain of it?’ Romano demanded.

The physician Klint tried to hide his annoyance. ‘Of course. They have sent for more Royal Milk, though I doubt it will arrive in time to do much good.’

General Romano digested the news with a thrill of excitement. His uncle had been right all along. Give it enough time, enough patience, and all things came to those who desired them.

He looked down at the red-faced physician before him. ‘Your assistance shall be remembered.’

‘Thank you,’ replied Klint with a bow of his head. ‘I must return now, before I am missed.’

‘Then go,’ drawled Romano.

He watched the man climb onto his zel, and kick the flanks of the animal harshly until it was cantering back towards the Tume bridge.

Beside Romano, his second-in-command’s expression was as sombre as it always was. ‘It’s time, then,’ Scalp said in his rough voice.

‘It would seem so.’ He showed his teeth in a feral smile. ‘I hope that bitch suffers to the very last.’

The tent was open on one side, and as they stood there with the rotten breeze in their faces, taking in his men and the lake and the island city that floated upon it, Romano felt restored in every way he could be, his doubts scattering like so much chatter. How strange life could be at times. At home in Q’os, he hardly stood a chance of usurping the Matriarch. Now here he was, in Khos of all places, at the very point where the throne was to be lost.

‘What of the Archgeneral?’ Scalp asked by his side.

‘Sparus is no fool. He will be looking out for himself now. Once she’s dead, I’ll demand his loyalty and that of the Expeditionary Force. With the army mine, I can take Bar-Khos. No one will be able to dispute my claim as Holy Patriarch then.’

‘If we wait much longer we might lose our chance at taking the city.’

‘
Tsk
!’ exclaimed Romano. ‘Don’t bring me down just yet. Let me cherish this a while.’

‘Still,’ said Scalp. ‘We must be swift.’

‘It can’t be helped, I tell you. We play a larger game here, even if your narrow mind can’t grasp it.’

Romano, Holy Patriarch of Mann
, he tried in his mind for size.

‘We could at least start making some preparations.’

Romano sighed. He wanted to be rid of the man now, so he could celebrate the news properly with his entourage.

‘Very well. Approach the captains and other lower officers. Offer them promotions if they side with us. Anyone who refuses an immediate answer, mark for the purging.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Parting Ways

They slept off their hangovers for most of the day, waking occasionally to the odd sound of gunfire in the distance. Curl lay on the tiles they had placed over the beams of the attic, with Ché pressed against her back, an arm across her body to keep her warm.

The old farlander remained outside on the roof, perched in the shadows of a chimney stack, watching the citadel and the streets below.

Curl was hungry, and thirsty too since they had run out of water. Venturing outside was beyond her, though. She’d panicked enough when they had heard noises from the rooms below them; a door closing, a rattle of glasses. She hadn’t moved, staying silent as a rat in hiding.

Ché fidgeted against her in the fading light that filtered in through the hole in the roof.

‘Have you fleas?’ she asked him.

‘Why?’

‘All your scratching.’

He stopped moving. She could feel the ruffle of his breaths against her neck.

‘It will be time to leave soon,’ he murmured in her ear.

Curl nodded. She had been trying not to think of it. She felt safe here in this hiding space, at least as safe as she could be given her circumstances.

‘I’m frightened,’ she admitted.

He held her tighter, though it wasn’t what she needed just then. Curl needed a stiff snort of dust, and some hard liquor to wash it down with.

‘Aren’t you afraid?’ she asked him, turning her head slightly.

‘No.’

How strange
, she thought.

‘You still haven’t told me anything about you. I recall it was me doing most of the talking last night.’

‘Amongst other things. And no. I’m not much of a talker.’

‘You don’t
want
to tell me, is that it?’

A heavy breath. ‘It’s better this way, trust me.’

Curl rolled onto her back, her hipbone sore after lying against the hard tiles. Through the hole in the roof she saw an evening star glimmer in the darkening sky.

She turned her tired eyes on Ché.

‘So, do you still think I’m beautiful?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Yesterday, when you were drunk, you told me so.’

‘Well, the important word there would be
drunk
.’

She feigned annoyance, and turned to roll away from him. Felt his hand rest on her shoulder and gently pull her back.

‘Curl, if there were a thousand beautiful women standing naked before me, you’d still be the one to catch my eye first.’

‘Oh?’

‘Oh.’

‘So that’s all that matters to you, pretty looks and a firm body?’

It was Ché’s turn to scowl. His expression softened, though, with the flicker of a smile. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not with you.’

He seemed to mean it.

A scrape sounded from overhead, and the old farlander’s face appeared in the hole. ‘Ché,’ he said. ‘A word with you.’

Curl watched as the young man climbed to his feet and stepped over to speak with Ash. She sat up and dusted herself off. Thought suddenly of a hot bath and a warm meal in her stomach.

The two men were arguing over something in equally hushed tones. Curl waited, staring at a web that hung in the shadows of the beams, a fat spider sitting in the middle of it, fishing the air for flies.

Ché’s voice rose louder. ‘She might already be dying, you old fool. You’ll get yourself killed, and for what?’

‘
Because I must
,’ hissed the old man.

They were both quiet for a moment, both angry. Ché glanced down at her, and Curl pretended to look elsewhere.

Ché offered the man an outstretched hand. The farlander hesitated, then took it. They shook, and as Ash withdrew his hand Ché grasped his wrist suddenly. ‘It’s settled, between us?’

The old man studied his face.

‘I think, at least, that we are not enemies,’ he said.

‘Then that shall do,’ Ché replied, releasing his grip.

Ash glanced once at Curl, and then swept out into the twilight.

When she stood next to Ché, she saw the farlander walking lightly over the rooftop with his sword in his hand. A pair of imperial soldiers were drinking from a cistern in the street below. As they continued on their way, Ash began to stalk them.

At the end of the roof he stopped, looked down at a street they could not see. Gently, he lay his sword down, then plucked two tiles free, one in each hand.

He held his hands over the edge of the roof, as far apart as he could, then brought them together by an inch, judging something. He whistled down at the street.

Released the two tiles at the same time.

In an instant he was scrabbling down the slope of the roof.

‘Ash!’ Ché called out to him.

The farlander stopped and looked back. ‘What?’

‘May you find your peace, old man.’

Ash swung himself off the edge of the roof, and then he was gone.

‘
Who are you
?’ demanded the old priest an inch way from his face.

It was the thousandth time his interrogator had asked Bahn that question. For the thousandth time, Bahn told him who he was.

‘Bahn,’ he panted at the floor. ‘Bahn Calvone.’

It hurt when he talked, the wound in his cheek inflamed and tender.

‘And what is your rank?’

Bahn felt his hair being tugged back so that he faced the old priest. The man’s skin was creased with deep wrinkles, though it was scarred too from acne he must have suffered as a youth. ‘Lieutenant. Of the Khosian Red Guards.’

‘Yes,’ soothed the old priest, stroking his face. His vile breath made Bahn want to gag, to turn away. ‘But who are
you
?’

It was hot in the confined space of the tent. A brazier smoked near the far wall, and sweat beaded Bahn’s forehead. ‘I don’t understand,’ he sobbed.

The priest smiled and glanced at the Acolytes stationed behind the chair Bahn was strapped to. The Acolyte released his hair so that his head lolled forwards again, and he could see the bare earth of the floor. Through his eyelashes, he watched as the priest turned his back on him, his withered hands reaching out to the small table, across the vials upon it, the folded papers, the blades.

‘Are you a traitor?’ asked the priest without turning from the table.

Bahn felt a burst of fire in his stomach. He was going to be sick, he thought, right here at his feet.

‘Are you a traitor?’ repeated the man.

A fist struck the back of his head.

Bahn tried to focus. The sweat was pouring down his face now, mixing with the blood in his mouth. ‘No,’ he rasped. ‘I’m no traitor.’

‘Oh? So you would never be a traitor to your people?’

‘Of course I wouldn’t!’

The priest turned around. In one hand he held a slip of folded paper, and in the other a delicate curved blade. ‘Yet all men are traitors.’

He leaned towards Bahn’s face, and his thumb opened the folded slip of paper. Bahn drew back, his breath caught in his chest. He watched as the priest pressed his lips together and blew once across the paper. A fine white dust engulfed Bahn’s face. In his panic he sucked in a breath and the powder with it, and his mouth instantly went numb.

Colours, dancing on the edges of his vision. White light flickering in the midst of a gathering darkness.

Bahn lolled his head back, his body going slack. Hands steadied him from behind.

‘Now,’ came the distant voice of the priest. ‘Tell me again. Who are you?’

Ché looked up at the hole in the roof. It was twilight outside, and the sky was a deepening shade of violet. Thick banks of smoke were rising into it as more of the city burned around them. The air seemed to be growing thicker with the smell of it. It was starting to sting his eyes.