The Emperors Knife (36 page)

The man passed and went down the stairs, the soldiers behind him.

Her guardsman stood with caution. “Go on, quickly—and don't wander again. This is not a night for it.”

He left her without another word and hastened after the men.

On the far side of the landing stood a wooden bench piled high with cushions. Mesema had just one more hallway to cross, but suddenly she felt too exhausted to move. The bench reminded her of her longhouse bed. She could have curled up among those cushions and slept for a week, if her stomach hadn't been twisting with hunger. Instead she grabbed a cushion, cut it open and shoved her dagger inside. The cushion was not stuffed with wool, as she had expected, but fine white feathers that rose in the air like snow. She hurried on, not pausing until she passed the grand staircase and saw the heavy carved doors. What would they think, to see the Felting woman in a torn dress smeared with Sarmin's blood, carrying a ripped pillow? The sound of soldiers on the stairs gave her no time to think. She pushed against the wood and ran through into the women's wing.

Lanterns cast low light, glimmering off the golden trim in the ceiling. Nobody sat on the cushions or wandered the dark corridor. All the women must be sleeping. Mesema rubbed her tired eyes. There were so many doors, she could barely remember which was hers.

Under the window, as high as her hips, stood a green vase with a golden lid. Perhaps she could hide her dagger inside until the morning? She leaned down to open it. A familiar scent tickled her nostrils and brought her back home to her mamma, sitting in the longhouse that last day. She reached in and touched the contents to be sure.

Her mother needn't have given her the resin for stopping babies. They had enough of it here, at the palace. That was why Beyon had no heirs: they'd been denied him.

When a Felting girl showed herself barren, she became the property of her father and brothers for ever, forced to play whatever role they decided she should play. But perhaps for Beyon the opposite was true: if he played a role, then they would give him a child.

But he hadn't, and so they had turned to his brother and fetched Mesema from the Wastes.

But who were
they?

She sat next to the vase, the pillow dropping from her hands. She remembered Arigu's deceptions, and Eldra's death. She remembered how Nessaket had mocked her son the emperor, telling him he was slow—slow to understand that there was more to fear besides the pattern and its Master.

Beyon was not, as he claimed, the final authority in the palace. Others—the Pattern Master, his mother, Arigu—wrapped strings about him and pulled, and when they were finished with him, they would get rid of him, just as they had his brothers.

And then what would happen to Sarmin?

Mesema grabbed her pillow from the floor and hurried down the hallway, looking for her ocean-painted room.

Sarmin sat on his bed, running his mind across the pattern-threads like a musician would bow his strings. Meeting Mesema—his bride—made it difficult to concentrate.

He'd lived with his five books since he came to this room. They told him of the empire, statecraft, the gods, war, and how to behave at court, and now he had a new book, that made his skin feel hot. But none of his books spoke of love. He thought of the poets who had come to his father's court. With the women cleared from the room they would sometimes speak of their hearts, though Sarmin couldn't recall the words they had used.

He wanted Grada. He recalled the closeness of her, the intimate touch of her skin and her mind. Mesema's lips invited him, but he knew Grada, muscle to bone. Was that love? He hadn't been able to answer Mesema on that point. It disturbed him, a flaw in the design.

The diamond that was Grada's soul hid in the Tower, but he felt it gleaming at him from across the city. He concentrated, moving lightly along the pattern's threads, bypassing charms of ice and fire set to protect the Tower's residents from intrusions such as his.

“Grada.”

“Prince!” Surprise and relief, followed by hesitation. “You need me?” A flash of a white room, simple clothes, more than she'd ever had, but nothing too rich, nothing that felt wrong to her.

He felt foolish. “No, nothing—”

“What of the pattern? Have you freed more of us?”

He sent a simple thought, a negative.

She fell quiet, occupied with something. Her hands moved and pulled—weaving, perhaps—but so late? He could move into her, watch from behind her eyes, if only it didn't feel like invasion, him sliding into her as she had slid her knife into him. “It is late. Forgive me.” He began to turn away.

“Prince!” Her hands went still. “What have you learned?” With those words she lifted a weight of stones from his chest.

“I will tell you.” He told her of Mesema, of her pattern-mark, and of the church that rose from the sands. Sometimes he told her in words, other times he grew tired and instead offered images, scraps of ideas, and the tinge of questions that ran along the edges of his mind.

When he finished she was quiet, though her thoughts were turning. Then she opened her own mind and showed him her room, the door ajar and the ladder leading down, the streets of the city, loud and dark, and at last, the Low Door, the one he had never seen before, that led out to the desert sands.

“I can be a knife hidden in your sleeve. I can help you,” she told him.

Chapter Thirty-One

S
armin sensed his brother's arrival long before the secret door swung open. He felt the draw and the power of the pattern, the full force of the design wrapped around his brother's soul, and the way Govnan's protections struggled against it. He sat up in his bed and turned to where his brother would appear.

Beyon slipped through. His hair shone like black marble. His eyes, eagle-sharp, scanned the room and his hand lay strong on the hilt of his great sword. But he stooped, and his skin looked sallow and waxlike.

Then Beyon smiled, like the dawn sneaking through the broken window, slow and bright.

“Brother,” said Sarmin.

“Brother.”

Beyon had always looked the emperor, broad-shouldered and powerful. When they were just boys, the wives would say, “Look at Sarmin, such a pretty boy.” But whenever they saw Beyon they would use just one word, always: “Strong.” And he had been strong, fighting the pattern these many years. Now he grew tired. Could Mesema keep his head above the quicksand?

Beyon reached for the bed and sat down, but his eyes were elsewhere. “When I came before, I spoke of bringing you to court.”

“I remember.” Sarmin smiled. How long ago that seemed.

“But they have seen the marks on me. Now my court is just two people,” said Beyon. “You and the assassin. My throne is a crumbling bed in the old women's wing. Do you remember how we used to run and hide in those halls?”

“I do.” He took his brother's hand.

“I spent much of the night in the secret ways.”

“You are lucky to know the ways so well, how one leads to the next, like secrets, one after the other.”

“Yes, just like secrets. I hope to use them all the way to the desert.”

“They go that far?”

Beyon grinned. “I think so. I've heard tell that they do.”

Sarmin thought about Mesema, somewhere in the women's wing. He could not leave his room—he could not protect her. He imagined her travelling across the desert, free. They could keep going, all the way to the west and the great ocean there.

“My bride—”
Mesema.
Her face came to him: a good face, with strong lines, like Beyon in her way. She had that look; she gazed at the world as if she knew she belonged to it.

Beyon answered quickly, “I can take her with me.” Their eyes met, and Sarmin saw the doubt there, the hope. Beyon had lost everything, his health, his family, his throne. Mesema was all he had.

Sarmin used to think he had nothing to risk, nothing to lose. He laid a hand on his own dried blood, felt its stiffness rub against his palm.
I gave this blood for you, brother, and I will give yet more.
“Good,” he replied, staring into Beyon's eyes. “I have other things I need to do.”

Beyon hesitated, but he was the emperor: he wanted, he needed, and so he took. He put a hand on Sarmin's shoulder.

“Won't you come with us? To the desert?”

Sarmin remembered the dizzying space beyond the door.

“I'll stay. The mages will protect me.” He felt a rush along his skin. Grada would soon leave the city. Sarmin wanted Beyon to leave him in peace so that he could join with her and see the desert through her eyes.

He still had Grada.

Beyon stood, his shoulders more square than before.
Good.
Mesema would continue to give him strength. Sarmin didn't need strength, only courage. Courage, and Grada.

“If I should die, brother…” Beyon's voice trailed away. “You must fight for the empire. It will be yours.”

“And Tuvaini?”

“He is a traitor. Be strong, my brother.”

“I will be strong.” Grada had left the Tower and now she moved through the city streets, covered, unnoticed in the dark. He wanted to walk with her. “You must go, my brother. The Pattern Master watches you.”

Beyon bowed in the manner of equals. “I will see you soon,” he said.

“And I you,” said Sarmin, inclining his own head the same way.

And yet Beyon paused by the secret door, his finger tapping the stone. “Eyul told me of a city that rose from the desert—a city just like ours, except that in the place of my tomb there was a Mogyrk temple. He saw strange things…'

It came in a flash, the pattern laid over Nooria, the desert city a map of things past and things to come. More than ever, Sarmin wanted Grada by his side. “You must go, brother.”

Beyon slipped away and Sarmin leaned back against his pillows, reaching out for Grada in his mind. She moved along the riverfront now: in the low light of dawn, the fishermen hauled their nets and serving women filled their barrels. Where Grada walked, her feet sank into cool mud. She directed her gaze to the white flowers floating on the surface of the water. They were precious and delicate, the sort of thing you didn't expect to last. It made him feel braver.

“Do not be afraid, Grada,” he said. “I know what you must do.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

E
yul stalked the dark corridors, watching the guards, searching for the ones who looked indignant or grieved, the ones who turned away, their mouths tight, when the subject of burning the former emperor arose: the ones who showed hate in their eyes when they saw Eyul, believing him to be Beyon's killer. His task was to find these men and tell them when and where to honour their oaths.

It was not easy; most were reluctant to share their true thoughts with him. He had to avoid the ones who were shaking and frightened, though even they might turn to Beyon's side when the time came.

Beyon had not revealed his plan; he had only told Eyul to send half of the loyal men to Mirra's place in the desert and leave the other half here, in the palace, ready to turn on their fellows and Tuvaini. So to every other man Eyul told the path through the secret ways to where the river ran down the mountain at the edge of the desert. After three days he had sent a total of fifty-three men through the dark passages. Not enough to take back an empire.

Perhaps, as the days went by, Tuvaini's leadership would create more men who were loyal to Beyon. He wondered; Tuvaini could come across as a good man, concerned and pious, and he did care about the empire. It was just as Amalya had said. Caring for the empire meant different things to different people. Tuvaini felt that meant he must lead. Eyul felt that he must not.

How odd it was that Beyon had turned to him, of all the people in the palace: the man who had killed his brothers. And he had meant to do so even before Tuvaini's betrayal; weeks ago he sent Amalya to sound him out. Beyon had never been a friend, but he had known better than Eyul himself what it meant to be the Knife.

In the last hours Eyul had told Beyon about the city that rose from the desert, and how Pelar's demon had directed him to the temple. He told him about Tahal's otherworldly visit. He told him of the dead girl in the sand, and how two palace guards had tried to kill him. He told him Amalya was dead, and that only four mages remained in the Tower.

He held back that he had killed Amalya; he held back the voices in the emperor's Knife; he held back his meeting with the hermit, and the deal he had made to kill Govnan. He did not want the Carriers to learn these things should Beyon lose his battle against the pattern-marks.

He turned a corner and came upon another guard standing alone. The feather on his blue cap tilted forwards sadly as he contemplated his hands. Eyul settled back against a dark wall to watch him. Finding the loyal men took time, time they didn't have. He wanted to kill Govnan now, but he must attend to Beyon's tasks first; Amalya would have wanted it.

How he longed to draw the Knife across the old man's veins, taste the blood as it sprayed in the air. His throat almost hurt with excitement to think of it. This thirst for a kill was something new. It was ugly, but part of his soul now. He would have his revenge, and then the hermit could work his magic.

Soon now, soon.

The Blue Shield guard looked up and registered Eyul's presence. His lips curled in disdain.

Eyul moved forwards.

At dawn Tuvaini rose from his chair and called for his body-slaves. He looked through his window at the courtyard where a few White Hats leaned in the shadow of the wall, their heads bent in conversation. The tiles spread out bare and white from their boots to the palace door. A quick movement caught his eye, but it was just a slave-boy, running after a ball—one of Beyon's favorites, always playing when there was work to be done. He would not want to throw his ball in the courtyard once the pyre was lit. If it ever were lit.