The Heart of the Mirage (12 page)

Instead, I reached behind to touch the weapon I had stowed across the back of my saddle. It vibrated
slightly at my touch as though it were a living thing. On the journey I had been very much aware of its presence, but oddly enough, the shleth did not seem to notice its weight any more than I had. I felt an intense desire to meet this Mir Ager face to face, to find out what sort of man carried such a weapon. If he were still alive. It occurred to me that if he were, then he might present the greatest challenge of my career as a Brother.

I felt the familiar thrill of anticipation. The excitement of a hunt, the challenge of a cunning opponent, the false trails and wrong turnings, the sudden inspiration that solved a problem, the unravelling of a plot: those things I understood and loved. Especially that final moment when everything came together, when the enemy fell into a trap of my devising—it was as satisfying as the climax of lovemaking. It made life worth living.

I was suddenly glad Rathrox had sent me to Kardiastan.

Two hours later, the Governor was droning a bitter tirade about the country and its heathen people into my ears. Like most officials I had met in Kardiastan, he seemed to have succumbed to a feeling of hopelessness, the only bright point he could see in his future being the day he would return home. Kardiastan had defeated him.

‘We’ll never change these people,’ he said. ‘Never. My wife died here, you know. They said it was a fever, but I know better. She died of a broken heart. She couldn’t take being surrounded by hate every minute of every day. I try to explain to those back in Tyrans what it’s like, but how can you put such things in writing so that others can feel it as we do? I felt myself
to be still young when I came here. I was ambitious then.’ He ran a hand over his balding head. ‘Now I’m as old as the desert itself and fit only to sit in the sun by the sea in Tyrans and remember.’

I did not comment, saying instead, ‘Tell me what you know of this Mir Ager.’

‘Nothing. Except the Kardis still seem to think he’s alive, and a legionnaire officer—a good man—says he saw him a few weeks back. Rumour has it he wasn’t burnt to death and that he now runs a secret escape route for slaves, spiriting them away into the desert and so to this place called the Mirage. Some say he was the one who murdered the officers; others say he was responsible for the disappearance of the military caravan. That can’t be true. At least, he certainly couldn’t have done all those things by himself. We are not facing a single enemy, but a whole host of them—the whole Kardi nation, if you ask me. And they are slaughtering our men without mercy. The legions call them terror riders. They are no better than savage beasts.’

‘How bad is this business of runaway slaves?’

‘Terrible. Almost every household has lost someone; sometimes as many as half their slaves.’ He kneaded the worry lines of his forehead with restless fingers. ‘We hardly ever seem to catch those who escape. They just disappear like morning mist in the heat of the sun. We tried to replace them with paid servants, but the Kardis refused to work for us freely. They
have
to be forced. So now we seize people off the street for minor infringements and give them terms of limited enslavement. I thought perhaps if they could see an end to their slavery ahead in a year of two, they wouldn’t want to escape. It does seem to help.’ He heaved a noisy sigh. ‘What else can I do? Legata, presumably this Mir Ager, Mirager, or whoever he is, is
some kind of a leader. If you can catch this man, we will be eternally obliged to you. Without him, perhaps the Kardis will lose heart.’ He spoke as though he thought such a happening was unlikely.

‘I’ll do my best.’

‘Are your apartments, er, suitable?’

‘Ideal. I notice they have separate access to the street.’

‘I thought—you being a Brother—it might be best—’ He trailed off, embarrassed.

‘You were right. I do like to come and go unobtrusively. Should I disappear for a few days at any time, please do not concern yourself.’

He nodded tiredly. ‘Is there any way I can help you? The orders you brought are explicit. You are to have every facility extended to you.’

‘You have already very kindly arranged for a woman to attend my slave and for a physician to see her, but there is something else. I would like the services of a bronzesmith. Someone who is discreet and absolutely trustworthy.’

He nodded again, with a total lack of interest. ‘I’ll get a military man.’

His despair irritated me and I was relieved when I finally left his office and headed back across the gardens to the apartments where Aemid and Brand and I had been quartered.

Brand greeted me at the door. ‘Guess what,’ he said cheerfully. ‘There are no brown snakes in Madrinya.’

‘Don’t tell me—they’re yellow instead.’

He laughed. ‘You spoiled my line. No, there really are no snakes. But wait till you see the beetles. They’re the size of a man’s fist, and they’re everywhere! Be careful not to tread on them; they spit back.’ He pointed to a blistered patch of skin on his ankle.

I grimaced. ‘How’s Aemid?’

‘Worse. The Governor’s physician has been. He says she’s just worn out, emotionally as much as physically. She has to be kept quiet for a few days. He agreed she would be best sedated, just as you suggested.’

‘Good. This whole trip has been more of a strain on her than I anticipated.’ Still, I thought, this couldn’t have happened at a better time from my point of view…

The next morning, after the smith had left, I surveyed myself in the mirror with smug satisfaction and then showed myself to Brand. ‘What do you think?’ I asked and spun on my heel so he could see me from all sides.

His lips gave the faintest of quirks. ‘Not particularly appropriate to your personality.’

‘Hmph. Why do I have the feeling you mean that as an insult?’

‘Slaves do not insult their owners. It is not wise.’

I turned to face the mirror again. The woman who stared back was not the one normally there. This woman was a slave, wearing a bronze slave collar around her neck, and she was wholly Kardi. I smiled, and felt no guilt at breaking my promise to Aemid. How could she have ever thought I would let her dictate the way in which I served Tyrans? She knew me not at all.

I turned my head to see myself better. My hair, instead of being caught up high on my head, was free about my shoulders. It was crimped because I had slept with it plaited, and it lacked its usual artificial gold highlighting. As a consequence, it appeared
darker and thicker. The change made my face seem younger, but also more peasant-like. The anoudain I wore was typically Kardi: the bodice and the panels of the overskirt were pale green and embroidered, the trousers darker.

My satisfaction suddenly vanished.
This wasn’t me. This was a Kardi woman
. Disgust crawled my skin. Or was it foreboding?

‘You are unrecognisable, Legata,’ Brand was saying, ‘but it takes more than clothes and hair to fool people.’

‘Are you worried about my command of the Kardi language? I
am
fluent, I assure you. Aemid taught me well. If I use outdated idioms I can explain it away by saying I have lived in Tyrans for years, as a slave to the Legata Ligea. Don’t worry about me, Brand. I’ve gone in disguise often enough in Tyrans.’

‘But never as a slave.’ He reached out and touched my collar. ‘This does more than encircle your neck. It turns you into a chattel. A thing. You can no longer behave as though you have any rights to anything. A slave
has
no rights. And don’t forget, in Tyrans you had the Brotherhood behind you no matter what hellish hole you stepped into. The Brotherhood is a long way from here.’ For a brief moment he deliberately unveiled his feelings so that I was swept with his concern, his fear for me.

I turned from the mirror, sobered, to stare at him in silence. ‘Ah,’ I said at last—a sigh of understanding and acceptance. ‘Stupid of me. How long have you known I could read feelings as well as lies?’

‘Since I was a lad. It took me a little longer to find ways to hide my emotions from you. What do you do, smell them?’

I shook my head. ‘No. It’s more like having another sense altogether. One that interprets the way people
feel. I don’t need to see the person, or hear them speak, and I certainly don’t need to smell them.’

He wanted to ask me more, I could tell. I did not give him time to frame another question; I didn’t want to have to explain the inexplicable. I said, ‘You are much cleverer than I ever gave you credit for, Brand. I had no idea you hid yourself deliberately. I always thought my inability to read you was a flaw in my talent—that what you did was more, um, instinctive, rather than intentional.’ I forced a smile. ‘I will be careful. Moreover, you will be following me. Get me a water ewer from the kitchens, and then we’ll go.’

Madrinya may have been a Tyranian city, but the area just beyond the Governor’s residence managed to retain its Kardi appearance. The street leading to the well-square was of hard brown earth; the walls on either side were adobe, the plainness of their façades broken only by the house gates.

I had no intention of lingering, but when I heard music I came to an abrupt halt. The sounds of several stringed instruments being played in harmony drifted out from one of the houses through a gate left ajar: Kardi music, a plaintive, mournful tune with a complex counterpoint weaving through the melody. It was the first music I could remember hearing in Kardiastan and so it should have been alien to my ears—yet I was suddenly awash with longing, so moved I stood as still as a temple pillar, forgetting where I was going, oblivious to the presence of Brand behind me. The clothes I wore, the language I heard spoken around me, served to reinforce something the music awakened.

I had thought of Kardiastan as a cultureless, barbarian land. This music did more than give me the
lie, it stirred the Kardi soul I hadn’t even known I possessed. The wrench of that melody pulled me into another world, into memories of childhood I had tucked away out of reach.

Playing hopsquares. Being cuddled when I cried. Sitting on a man’s knee hearing stories told. Paddling at a lakeside. Loving and being loved…

The thoughts I had then were of things that had never bothered me before. I’d never thought a brown skin made me a Kardi. I’d never thought an accident of birth ensured my allegiance. I was Tyranian by inclination, by upbringing, by desire, by citizenship. Yet now the mere sound of a few instruments made me question who I was.

Shaken, I blocked out the sound, quenched the memories and walked on.
Don’t be stupid, Ligea. You are Gayed’s daughter, educated to be a highborn woman of Tyr.

The well-square was a wholly Kardi scene too, but at least it aroused nothing in me except a vague distaste. By the time I arrived, it was crowded. In contrast to Tyr, the market stalls along one side conducted their business without argumentative bargaining or noisy rivalry. I saw no beggars. In the middle of the square, in the scant shade of a deformed tree, slaves and free Kardis waited their turn to draw water. The stone well with its narrow steps was only wide enough for one person to go down to the water’s edge at a time, but those in the queue were orderly, chatting among themselves, with no pushing or jostling for position. They came just for drinking water, I knew; professional water sellers transported water used for general household purposes up from the lake in amphorae on shlethback.

The use of such a primitive method of collecting water puzzled me. Surprising, too, were the large spitting beetles lurking around the lip of the well, their wings shining iridescent purple, their spit drying in dirty yellow pools on the brickwork. Why hadn’t Tyranian culture prevailed here, as it had in most conquered cities? Why hadn’t the administration replaced the well with a public fountain or channelled water to the city along aqueducts? Why hadn’t they rooted out the pathetic excuse for a tree, planted parks, eradicated the beetles? How did the Kardis manage to maintain their identity so easily?

I thought I already knew the answer, even as I framed the question. No Kardi ever cooperated on anything—and that made change difficult, especially when there was little labour other than what the Kardis cared to supply.

Even as I hesitated at the edge of the group waiting at the well, I heard the tail end of a conversation confirming my thoughts. A youth was saying, ‘—and so when he wasn’t looking, I dropped the bag of grit into the mill mechanism. Chewed everything up beyond repair in five minutes. You should have heard what he had to say! He was as wild as a whirlwind.’ The lad laughed. ‘But the barracks has had to buy its flour from old Warblen ever since and I don’t think they’ll try to mill their own again—’

I noticed the difference in being a Kardi among Kardis immediately. The speaker had not bothered to lower his voice at my approach, none of these people turned from me, there was no hate hanging in the air around them.

‘New here?’ a voice asked in my ear. I turned to find a girl of eighteen or so, with large brown eyes and a pert, inquisitive manner, smiling at me. She was
wearing an iron slave collar. ‘I haven’t seen you before,’ she added.

I gave what I hoped was a shy smile.

‘Put the jug down in the queue first,’ she said, indicating my ewer. ‘Someone will move it along for you. Come and sit on the wall with me.’

I did as she suggested. I glanced up the street as I settled down on the low wall bordering the steps to a house, to see Brand lounging beside a horse outside a shop, as though he were caring for the animal while waiting for his master.

‘I’m Parvana,’ the girl said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Derya.’ It was a Kardi name, of course, one I had chosen for myself.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Sandmurram—once,’ I said and added the story I hoped would explain any gaps in my knowledge, ‘but my mistress took me to Tyr some years ago. We’ve only just come back to Kardiastan.’ I stopped, afraid of saying something inappropriate.

Luckily Parvana was happy to do most of the talking and before long I’d learned her father was a street sweeper, her mother carded shleth wool for a spinner, while Parvana herself had sold twine for a string-maker. She was newly enslaved, bonded for deliberately untethering a military gorclak which had been tied to the gatepost of her house. Her term was only six months and she was working for one of the military officers and his family. As she told her story, I realised there was one aspect of the Kardi language, at least among people of her class, that Aemid had failed to teach me. Parvana used swearwords with a flair and variety that spoke of much practice; unfortunately I didn’t know what most of them meant.

‘The (curse) work’s not (curse) hard,’ she was saying, ‘but those (curse) sods think we poor (curse) bints are only (curse) here to be (curse) screwed.’ I blinked. It was an impressive string of expletives for one short sentence, and Parvana hadn’t repeated herself once.

However, I didn’t need to know the meaning of the words to realise she was far from philosophical about her position; the only decent part of her day was when she had to fetch the water; the rest was torment. The officer’s wife fondled her whenever she could and Parvana was sure it was only a matter of time before she insisted on more. Then, because they lived in military quarters, it was a constant battle to dodge randy soldiers, many of whom did not have their wives or families with them and ached to relieve their frustrations on any available female. And slaves were considered available.

Sitting there listening to this recital, I had a sense of unreality. The girl was describing a life that seemed more fable than truth; did the Exaltarchy really make slaves of people for so little? What could it possibly be like to be someone’s toy, to be fondled at will? Did legionnaires really hunt down slave women to use as they pleased without fear of disciplinary action? This was not Tyranian law. This was not the kind of civilisation the Exaltarchy was supposed to extend to the conquered peoples of its provinces.

I must have let some of my distress show on my face, because Parvana said, with numerous more unidentifiable words in between, ‘Ah, don’t look so upset, Derya. I’ve more or less decided how to wriggle my backside out of this one—if I can’t escape, that is. I’m going to let the cat think she can bed me eventually.’ She grinned. ‘Maybe she’ll get me a pretty
bronze necklace like yours, instead of this bloody big castration ring. And if I play it right, she’ll at least keep the other pricks out of my trousers. What’s the matter? You look as if you’ve got a beetle up your arse—’

I saw my opportunity. I made a show of looking around to make sure no one else was listening. ‘I have a problem,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

As I had intended, my secretive, conspiratorial tone immediately had her interested. ‘What is it?’

‘Parvana, listen, my owner was sent here from Tyr by the Brotherhood. Have you heard of the Brotherhood?’

She shook her head, her eyes already wide with wonder. She wasn’t quite as jaded as the rest of her conversation had suggested.

‘It’s a secret, um, cabal of men—well, mostly men, working directly for the Magister Officii. My owner was sent here by the Exaltarch himself to find a man the Tyranians know only as Mir Ager.’

I had worded the latter sentence carefully and was rewarded by her breathless, ‘The Mirager!’

I nodded. ‘Yes. Parvana, I’ve been in Tyr. I don’t know what has been happening here. I heard the Mirager was burnt alive in Sandmurram…’

She snorted. ‘You don’t want to believe what Tyranian sods say! Of course he’s still alive.’

I endeavoured to look relieved. Inside, I was perplexed. Could the man
really
have survived? I said, ‘I have something of the Mirager’s that must be returned to him. Something left behind at the slave auction in Sandmurram. And I have to warn him of danger from the Brotherhood. I must talk to him, but I don’t know how to contact him. What can I do?’

Parvana’s air of world-weary disenchantment vanished fast. ‘Don’t worry—I don’t know any of
those cold-arsed Magor bastards, but we all know how to pass a message—one that will get right to the balls at the top if need be. Will you be sent for water tomorrow?’

I both heard and felt her breathless awe and guessed she wasn’t as disparaging of the Mirager as her vocabulary suggested. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I will.’

‘Then be here. I shall tell you what to do then.’ She jumped down from the wall. ‘It’s my turn to get the water. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She gave a happy smile and went to pick up her ewer, now at the head of the line because an obliging slave had been moving it along in front of his own.

That was easy, I thought. But the Mirager may well be a different matter…What sort of man survived his own execution?

My thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a thunder of hoofs. I turned my head to see two gorclaks being ridden at racing speed down a lane that disgorged into the square. The riders, both junior officers, were whipping their beasts and calling for a free way ahead. The people at the well scattered in fright as the animals ploughed into them. One older woman who wasn’t quick enough was brushed aside, a child disappeared under churning legs, ewers were smashed. The first rider, laughing, brought his whip down on a Kardi man who shook his fist at the racing men. The other gave a whoop of delight and caught the awning over a fruit stall as he rode by, so that the whole stall collapsed in on itself, spilling produce.

Then they were gone and the silence they left behind them was deathly. The child, ripped open from throat to pelvis by a gorclak spur, lay in a widening pool of blood so thick it seemed black. A woman rose to her feet, looked around in a panic—and saw what
she didn’t want to see. She sank down again, onto her knees this time, twisting her hands over and over as if she were participating in some strange ritual of cleansing, of absolution. Her mouth caverned open, but no sound came out.