The Path of Anger (25 page)

The assassin retreated a step, surprised by such fury.

‘Logrid! I curse you!’ the general yelled at the top of his lungs. ‘By the gods I curse you! I curse you . . .!’

Out of breath, his energy spent, he became suddenly weary, lost, devastated like never before. He who had always believed he would fall to an enemy’s sword on the battlefield, was yielding to this stroke of fate. The assassin seemed to sway on his feet, head bowed, one shoulder leaning against a column.

‘Is it done?’ Azdeki enquired.

Logrid nodded his head briefly. And with a gesture of his hand, the captain ordered the soldiers to release their captive. Dun-Cadal fell to his knees, exhausted, his body shaking with sobs.

‘You have no right . . .’

‘Lo and behold the great Dun-Cadal Daermon,’ murmured Azdeki.

‘Lo and behold the great Dun-Cadal Daermon . . .’

‘I am sorry, my friend,’ confessed the Emperor in a shaky voice. ‘I had no other choice. His treason will remain secret forever and only his honour on the fields of battle will be remembered. It was necessary, Dun-Cadal . . . I am the Emperor. It is for me to take the most difficult decisions. It is my duty.’

‘. . . the great Dun-Cadal Daermon . . .’

‘Arrest him . . . but only for as long as it takes for him to come to his senses . . .’

‘Lo and behold . . .’

The dank odour of the dungeon cell . . . the clunk of the iron door, the helplessness that comes from confinement, as if he had been excluded from life itself. He had experienced all this once in Emeris. And now he was living through it again in Masalia.

‘Lo and behold the great Dun-Cadal Daermon,’ said a voice.

Asleep, he had not heard the man enter. The words roused him from his slumber with a certain gentleness before the clanking of the door closing again awakened him fully with a start. The dusk shed a weak light through the window and the silhouette before him remained in shadow for a long moment. Dun-Cadal sat on the pallet, massaging the back of his neck. He already knew who had come to see him. There was no doubt about it. He recognised the slender figure, dressed in a long white toga.

‘More reunions . . .’ he muttered.

‘As you say,’ acknowledged his visitor in an ironic tone.

His hand on his neck, bent forward, Dun-Cadal paused, raising his eyes towards the shadow standing a few feet away from him. He looked just as arrogant as he had at the port. It was not Enain-Cassart who had most deserved to be assassinated . . .

‘Come in, Etienne, please, make yourself at home.’

Azdeki moved into the dim light, revealing his gaunt, smooth-shaven face, his aquiline nose above thin pinched lips, the grey hair combed back over his skull. With an arm folded across his stomach and a red cloth draped over his shoulder, he eyed the prisoner disdainfully.

‘I was just reliving some old memories,’ said Dun-Cadal bitterly. ‘When you locked me up and they put you in charge of defending Emeris.’

‘The past is the past,’ replied Azdeki, keeping his calm.

The general longed to leap at his throat and strangle him until the man’s haughty face finally showed some fear. It was inconceivable to him how Azdeki could have ended up in his present position. He, who had been the first Imperial leader to be confronted by the revolt and by those who would later found the Republic, was now one
of their number. Yesterday’s enemy was today’s friend. But not for Dun-Cadal. For him, an enemy remained an enemy, and time would never change it.

‘And only the future matters, is that it?’ sneered Dun-Cadal. ‘Should I congratulate you on having so brilliantly survived the fall of the Empire?’

Azdeki did not respond, but advanced towards the pallet, keeping his eye on the window feebly lit by Masalia’s setting sun. Sitting on the edge of the board, Dun-Cadal observed him without saying a word, noting the mud staining the bottom of his toga.

‘So you’re not dead,’ said Azdeki, still looking up at the opening.

‘As you can see,’ sighed Dun-Cadal. ‘And you must surely be a better politician than you were a military strategist.’

Perhaps he’d rather leave this world than see so many old acquaintances, friends, or brothers-in-arms, flouting their oaths of loyalty to the Empire.

‘I believed you had fallen at the time of the capture of Emeris and the death of Reyes.’

‘The death of the
Emperor
,’ corrected Dun-Cadal.

Azdeki nodded with a thin smile before sitting down next to the general.

‘I didn’t kill him, Azdeki,’ he muttered, head bowed.

‘I know,’ admitted the councillor, joining his slim hands before him.

Hands far too well-groomed to hold a sword.

‘I wanted to save Negus, I wanted to warn him of Logrid’s return, that’s why I was there,’ Dun-Cadal continued, in a grave voice.

‘The world has changed, Daermon . . . Yesterday’s saviours are no longer today’s. But you’re lucky. Given your identity, you would have made the ideal culprit. A young woman vouched for you.’

Viola . . . Although he showed no sign of it, Dun-Cadal was relieved. The girl was definitely very likeable. His whole life seemed to have changed since she had come to see him, and now she had come to his rescue.

‘You are extremely lucky. Without her . . .’

He left his sentence unfinished, darting a discreet glance at the general as if imagining the worst kinds of torments.

‘Because I never surrendered, is that it?’ murmured Dun-Cadal.

‘Hatred against the Empire still runs strong in some quarters,’
Azdeki conceded. ‘But all of the renegade generals considered truly dangerous have been arrested.’

Dun-Cadal held back a burst of nervous laughter, passing a hand over his face. Of course he wasn’t dangerous in the eyes of the Republic, despite having, in his days of splendour, so often changed the course of a battle. But now, without Frog, he was just a harmless shadow. His splendour had dissolved in wine.

‘So you have nothing to fear on that score,’ added Azdeki as he rose to his feet.

‘Why, then?’

‘Why come see you?’ the councillor guessed. ‘I’m marrying off my son on Masque Night. I am a councillor elected by the people and, I hope, loved by them. I’ve always associated with the powerful . . . and to think, once upon a time, I lived in the shadow of a general . . .’

Azdeki had his back turned now, with a proud bearing, savouring this instant by prolonging the silence. Dun-Cadal remained seated on his crude wooden pallet, his face haggard, the dirt on his skin hidden only by his beard. Now he understood why Azdeki had visited and he closed his eyes. It was painful for him to wait to hear this answer, knowing it would trample what remained of his honour. The councillor tilted his head to one side, without even turning round to address the prisoner. Why would he do so? To humiliate the general still further?

‘I wanted to see what had become of the great hero, Dun-Cadal Daermon, with my own eyes.’

He walked slowly towards the door.

‘Azdeki!’

The councillor halted, ready to pound with his fist on the metal to signal to the gaoler that the interview was over. But his hand remained suspended in the air.

‘How many are there like you?’ asked Dun-Cadal. ‘Who else sold themselves to the Republic to hang on to a little power? Tell me.’

There was no hatred in his voice, just disappointment. He’d asked these questions in a long sigh. Facing the door, Azdeki did not make the slightest gesture. He took his time thinking before he replied in an icy tone.

‘You never were very intelligent, Daermon. You never saw, never understood what was happening. The world could have crumbled beneath your feet and you would not have felt it.’

Negus had said the same sort of thing. Had he really been so blind? In the end, had he been no more than a simple warrior, a tool, an instrument . . . ?

‘It was . . . so predictable, readable . . . as if it had already been written,’ Azdeki said with a smile. ‘It was how things were supposed to happen. The Empire was just like its Emperor . . . sick.’

He turned towards Dun-Cadal, his fist still raised against the door.

‘It’s strange, I thought I was going to enjoy this more, seeing you in such a piteous state.’

Without even looking up, the general replied, joining his hands together before him as if in prayer.

‘It is strange, Azdeki. But now I’m happy I couldn’t stop Logrid.’

Then his gaze rose very slowly to challenge that of the councillor.

‘Because none of your power games will protect you from his vengeance. And he will do what I’m incapable of doing.’

Azdeki’s mouth twisted and then his jaws clenched. He hesitated before banging violently on the door with his fist. With an unpleasant clanking noise, the gaoler opened it up.

‘The gods take pity on drunks, Daermon. You’re free to go.’

For the space of an instant, Dun-Cadal thought he detected a gleam in the councillor’s eye. It was enough to make him smile faintly.

For just an instant, he’d seen fear on that ever-so-proud face.

12

AT THE CROSSROADS

After his memories have awakened him,

I shall reveal myself.

Here, at the crossroads

Between what we were, what we are now

And what we will come to be.

‘I know what you’re thinking, my friend. I know you don’t understand.’

The Emperor’s voice was muffled by the heavy cell door. Plunged into pitch darkness with his head leaning against the cold metal, Dun-Cadal could hear his ruler’s wheezing breath. The general was sitting on the damp earth, mute with rage. His fingers slowly dug furrows in the ground, as an outlet for his anger.

‘But don’t judge me too quickly,’ the Emperor continued. ‘This is what it’s like, the burden of power, it’s a curse. Sometimes, in order to preserve the integrity of my Empire I must wound someone close to me . . . Don’t judge me for it.’

He waited but Dun-Cadal did not speak.

‘I had to protect you. I had to lock you up, and keep you here for as long as takes for you to regain your calm, your reason. Try to understand . . .’

There was no answer to his plea. So the Emperor continued to speak.

‘You knew, didn’t you? That associates of Laerte of Uster had infiltrated the city, inciting even my most faithful advisers against me. You knew that. I welcomed the Saltmarsh refugees, thinking to show kindness, but they bit the hand I extended to them. What folly to believe that rotten fruit can become green again. The blacksmith’s
daughter was one of them; he is now dead. Perhaps she wanted to avenge him, what do I know? But I could not let her pervert someone as important as your apprentice. She incited him against you and you were blinded, Dun-Cadal. The knight Frog was—’

‘Don’t say his name!’ snarled the general, close to tears.

His voice cracked like a clap of thunder, and after his words came a fraught silence . . . He tilted his head back, the cold of the metal studding the door immediately chilling his skull. His fingers continued to dig into the earth, and he slammed his head back against the door with three sharp blows, enduring the pain that ran into his temples. The hurt failed to ease the suffering that bore into his soul.

‘Sooner or later he would have chosen his camp, Dun-Cadal,’ the Emperor said in a sad voice. ‘You know that, don’t you? He loved her. He would have been forced to choose her side. A young man will do anything for love. Including losing his way . . . It had to be done.’

Something wasn’t right about the way he was speaking. He enunciated the words in a curious fashion, as if he doubted them, or was restraining himself from saying the opposite. The only certainty, for Dun-Cadal, was that his Emperor wasn’t telling the whole truth.

‘I had no other choice,’ he said, this time with astonishing assurance. ‘The real culprit in all of this is Laerte of Uster, who has divided my people. And believe me, I will protect Emeris. I will push the revolt back into the deepest corner of the Empire. As for Laerte . . . Laerte . . . he shall have no rest, no refuge. Whether by day or by night, wherever he goes, he shall be no more than game fleeing from the hunt.’

He measured each sentence, each word, with such gravity that the air itself seemed to grow heavier. Asham Ivani Reyes had often confided in the general. He had known Dun-Cadal since his childhood. But this was no question of confidences; it was if he were seeking absolution.

‘I lost my mother when I came into the world. I lost my father when I was ten years old. I had to learn to rule very quickly, my friend. I had a duty, that of leading my people. And you always knew how to protect me, from the moment of your arrival. You were always here to protect me, Dun-Cadal. You were so full of ambition; I respected you so much . . . right up to the day when I placed Eraëd upon your shoulder and made you a general. Was that not a mark of my affection?’

He paused to regain his breath. His voice was quavering and muffled. He sounded ill.

‘The strong man from the West protecting a stricken Emperor, only half-standing . . . a weak and foolish Emperor,’ he murmured. ‘You deserved to be knighted by me, personally, because Eraëd is the Empire, did you know that? Its power, its beauty . . . its strength. Proud, straight . . . perfectly balanced. Some say it has held magic ever since it was forged. It has always been worn at the belt of the fathers of this realm, throughout history. It has traversed time without being weakened by it. It has been more than all that, more than time, more than men, more than anything else of their creation. At the end of the world this blade, Eraëd, shall remain . . . It is capable of breaking anything, they say. And while my people tear themselves apart, while this rebellion continues when it should have been broken, I have not even taken it out of its scabbard . . .’

‘You are weak,’ said Dun-Cadal in a terribly neutral tone.

It was not even an attack. Just the truth proclaimed in a brutal fashion.

‘I am weak,’ the Emperor agreed with a laugh. ‘I always have been.’

It was laughter drowning in sadness and, when it faded, there remained only sorrow in his voice.

‘Is that not why my uncle and my father made you my Hand? You know how I am . . . stricken. Weak. Repellent. I am a monster to so many, when in truth . . .’

He paused, cleared his throat and then continued:

‘In truth, I am a father to them. To the people, I mean. What will they do without me? They’ll want to make decisions on their own. That’s Oratio of Uster’s famous
dream
, isn’t it? But do they ever imagine what it would be like, being responsible for their own choices? They are merely . . . children. I am responsible for them. For this Empire. It has been written so since time immemorial.’

‘But you listened to them . . . to
them
,’ muttered Dun-Cadal. ‘To Azdeki, Rhunstag, Bernevin . . . They’ve made you their puppet. So don’t speak to me about responsibility.’

He took the long silence that followed as a confession.

‘It’s not as simple as that,’ the Emperor defended himself on the other side of the door. ‘So many things happened here while you were away at the front, fighting for the Empire. I could tell you
about them, yes . . . but someone else would describe them to you in a very different manner.’

There was a metallic noise from behind the door. The clink of a coin against door.

‘Like a coin with two sides,’ murmured the Emperor. ‘On one side, you have the image of my mother. And on the other . . . the seal of the Empire. Two things that are as different in their forms as in their meanings, and yet . . . it’s still one and the same coin. And it’s the same thing with events. Depending on who brings you the tale, the story may change altogether . . .’

What was he trying to say? This man, who Dun-Cadal had defended since his earliest years, was now damned in his eyes. This same man had taken away the most precious thing he had ever acquired, more than his honour, more than his victories. He had ripped away a part of Dun-Cadal’s self.

‘I ordered Oratio of Uster’s execution because he was dangerous. He was, Dun-Cadal . . .’

The general heard the Emperor stand up.

‘I know because they told me about it,’ added Reyes.

Just as he heard the sound of his hand on the icy metal of the door.

‘With your young friend, it was the same way . . . That’s how things happen, Dun-Cadal. It’s all just murmurs in one’s ear. And in truth, everything has already been decided in advance. This is how things must end . . . without forgiveness on your part, I imagine.’

His steps faded away slowly, like a memory . . . a very distant memory.

And the darkness of the cell dissipated beneath a soft light, tropical and warm. The sun was setting in the distance behind the tall houses with their flowery balconies. The Emperor was just a memory now and Dun-Cadal an old man with a weathered face covered by a salt-and-pepper beard.

‘Don’t bother thanking me!’ exclaimed a sweet voice as he was walking down a deserted alleyway, preferring to avoid the tumult of the commercial avenue.

Glancing over his shoulder, he recognised the friendly face of the young historian from Emeris. She smiled at him. He had no desire for this and did not wait for her, rubbing the back of his neck as he went on. A stiff drink would do him the greatest good.

‘Well, if you wanted to thank me, I’d take it as compliment,’ continued Viola, almost running after him.

He carried on walking with a quick, determined stride. But she’d go on dogging his heels and he’d never be able to get rid of her, he knew that. Logrid’s words were echoing in his head . . .

‘I will not fight with you. Not until I have the rapier.’

Eraëd. Viola wanted it. So did Logrid. He knew he could take the secret of its location to his grave, but his curiosity was piqued. Nothing happened by chance.

‘They believed you’d killed Negus, I told them it was impossible,’ Viola explained as she struggled to keep up with him. ‘I had to intercede in your favour. But Councillor Azdeki was very clear that you are to remain in my custody from now on and I – damn it!’

Her voice had progressively risen in volume until it cracked like a whip, at the very moment when she came to a halt.

‘You could at least listen to me for an instant, couldn’t you?’ she growled. ‘Or is even that asking too much?’

She stood stiffly with her fists balled against her thighs, her eyebrows forming a deep frown above her round spectacles. Her green eyes pinned Dun-Cadal as he turned round. He felt lost in them, completely ensnared by her smooth, youthful face. Viola would never leave him in peace. But it was not simply self-interest that had prompted her to free him from gaol, no. He could see that in the depths of her pupils. He detected a touch of respect there. His own expression softened.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘Well, that’s something at least,’ she sighed, relaxing her shoulders. ‘You really don’t make things easy, Dun-Cadal.’

At last, he gave her a faint smile.

‘Why are you doing all this?’ he asked.

‘Doing what?’

‘Making my life a misery,’ he replied, keeping his smile.

She raised her eyebrows.

‘For the rapier,’ she admitted. ‘I help you. You bring me the rapier.’

He nodded his head slowly.

‘Very well.’

And he resumed walking.

‘What? That’s it?’ said the young woman in surprise. ‘But wait!’

She tried to catch up with him, but he was walking faster and faster, reaching the end of the alleyway.

‘What about Councillor Azdeki, did you speak to him? What did he tell you? And Logrid? What happened?’

She was pressing him with questions, but he was far from inclined to answer them. They had joined a paved street where a few passers-by were strolling unhurriedly. There were no traders, no cries, no guards here. Just ordinary city life. Some of the citizens were going home, others were conversing on a bench near a fountain which spilled clear water into a basin covered with green algae.

‘But . . . where on earth are you going?’

He spied a statue at the end of the street. Standing in the middle of a small crossroads, no one seemed to take any notice of it, half-hidden by ivy, with a mossy coat joining the base to the damp paving stones of Masalia. It showed a man holding some sort of parchment scroll before him, about to announce an important piece of news.

‘I’d like your tattooed
creature
to leave us in peace for a while,’ he said suddenly.

When he turned to her, Viola grew pale.

‘He’s there to protect me . . .’ she assured him.

Behind her, the Nâaga’s massive silhouette detached itself from the shadow of a balcony. Dun-Cadal gave him a black look before smirking at the young woman.

‘You know what? I’m not so sure of that.’

Upset at being trapped in this fashion, Viola opened her mouth to protest, but Dun-Cadal had already started walking again, accelerating his pace.

‘Is this how you thank me? You’re being unpleasant again! What dreadful dive are you hurrying off to get drunk in, this time?’

‘I’m not going to get drunk,’ he replied curtly.

He slowed down once he reached the crossroads. ‘Then what?’ Viola asked impatiently.

Before him rose the statue, its base surrounded by an iron fence through which the stagnant water from the streets drained. The figure’s nose had been broken, its features were dulled, and ivy climbed up as far as its shoulder, but he would have recognised it among a thousand others. He had not passed it again since he first arrived in
Masalia. He closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath to chase away his memories. But it only made matters worse. The images of the fall of Emeris came out of nowhere, blinding, reddened by the voracious flames that wavered frantically among the clouds of dirty smoke. He saw himself in the hallways of the palace, coughing his lungs up, lost . . .

An explosion awoke him and he discovered, in a daze, that the door of his gaol cell was bent backwards and gaping open, beside a collapsed portion of the wall. The sound of detonations surrounded him, like peals of thunder shaking the building. They were mixed with the sound of distant fighting, the clash of swords, without his being able to determine their origin. He’d run through the hallways, his brow bloodied and his face covered in dust. Did he even know where he was going? Emeris was under attack and the rebels were taking the palace by storm. Azdeki had not held them back. Did he even know . . . ?