The Princess and the Captain (45 page)

‘Let me tell you, then, about the Archipelago,' snarled the Archont, moving forward with the sword held in front of him.

Malva knocked her chair over as she retreated, shouting, ‘Orpheus!'

‘He won't hear you,' snapped the Archont. ‘We have all the time in the world to talk, like the old friends we are! Let me tell you what I have endured to reach the end of our story at last, Princess.'

He slashed the air with his sword and it whistled in Malva's ears. She was shaking. The terror flooding through her took her breath away, but suddenly she remembered the secret passage. Its entrance was in the back wall of the room just a few steps behind her.

‘Let me tell you about the sailors whose Nokros I stole so that I could hold out … they lost their heads, all of them, as you, Princess, are about to lose yours now!'

Malva retreated further and further until her hands were touching the wall. Her fingertips felt for the way into the passage.

‘I thought you'd died in the Immuration,' she said, trying to gain time. ‘I was so happy to think of you undergoing Catabea's tortures!'

The Archont, smiling, advanced on her. ‘As you see, Catabea let me go! I followed the Law of the Archipelago, I explored my true self. All my hatred, and even beyond it …'

Malva felt the slight recess marking the entrance to the secret passage beneath her fingers. She pushed with all her might. The door gave way, and Malva fell backwards. Taking advantage of the Archont's surprise, she rose, turned, and began running down the narrow passage. It was bathed in darkness.

Behind her, she heard the Archont crying, ‘You won't escape that way a second time, Princess! This isn't Temir-Gai's harem. I know these secret passages as well as you do!'

And he set off in pursuit of her, uttering demented cries.

Orpheus felt the need to walk in the Citadel gardens for a little while. It was not warm, for a north wind had risen, but the sky was clear, and fountains played cheerfully in the basins. He turned up his collar and was wandering along the garden paths at random, hands in his pockets. As he walked he thought of his father. He no longer felt revulsion or anger towards him. He even told himself that he would ask Malva to go to the graveyard with him that evening, and they would place flowers on the graves of the Coronada and Hannibal together.

It was at this point in his reflections that he began to feel cold. He sneezed once, then a second time, and decided to go in.

When he was within sight of the sycamore avenue he met the servants who had been at work with the Princess in the Hall of Delicacies all day. ‘Is the audience over?' he asked them.

One of them explained that there was a single visitor left, a poor cripple, but Malva was talking to him alone and had told them to go. Orpheus frowned. Without quite knowing why, he
didn't much like the idea of Malva alone with the stranger. He turned back to the terrace and entered the great hall through its glazed door.

There was no one there at all. A vague fear seized him.

‘Princess?' he called.

There was no reply. He moved forward, and saw the overturned chair … and the pair of crutches lying on the floor. His heart leaped in his chest.

‘Malva!' he shouted.

At that moment he saw that the door of the secret passage in the back wall was open. This final clue convinced him that something had happened. He stepped inside the entrance to the passage and called again. Holding his breath, he listened. There was no reply but silence.

Panic took hold of him. He raced back into the Hall of Delicacies, snatched up a musketoon from the weapons handed in by the soldiers, and thus equipped made his way into the secret passage.

It was dark, but he had only to follow the narrow passage, guiding himself by its walls. Malva had already taken him there to show him the way she had escaped the night before her wedding. Orpheus remembered the turns in it, the flights of stairs, the marks she had mentioned to him. Musketoon held before him, he began to run.

The further he went, the more he feared that something terrible had happened. Who was this cripple who could chase someone without his crutches? An impostor, of course!

‘The Archont?' Orpheus asked himself out loud.

The possibility chilled him to the bone. He had so much wanted to believe that the man had died in the Archipelago. Was it possible that he too had escaped?

Orpheus reached a place where the passage branched, and stopped. To his right, it went up to the apartments. To his left it skirted the kitchens. He hesitated, listening carefully to the confused sounds that came to him, but none of them resembled sudden cries or running footsteps. He opted for the passage on the left, remembering that it was the one along which Malva had guided him.

He ran on into the darkness, his throat dry, his eyes strained until he thought he saw light at the end of the passage. Yes, a door was open to the air outside! That was the way Malva had gone!

Orpheus cocked the musketoon. As he reached the open door he slowed down. He heard horses pawing the ground with their hooves; this was the way to the stables. A gust of cold wind blew back his hair. The smell of the horses filled his nostrils, and he felt like sneezing. He pinched his nose very hard with his free hand to stop the sneeze.

At last he put his head through the opening. There was Malva, hiding behind heaped bales of straw. She was breathing fast, and perspiration ran down her face.

Orpheus took another step. Now he saw the Archont, sword in hand, prowling round the bales of straw, snarling.

Orpheus's vision blurred slightly, the result of fear and strain. His hands were sweating on the butt of the musketoon. And his nose was itching so badly!

Holding his breath, he raised the barrel of his firearm to eye level and tried to take aim at the Archont. But the man kept moving, bending down, straightening up. He drove his sword blade into the straw with a hideous smile on his lips. At last Orpheus made up his mind to push the door further open; otherwise he couldn't do anything. The draught was stronger.
Orpheus pinched his nose even more tightly. He raised the musketoon again, and suddenly the Archont was in his line of fire.

He crooked his forefinger on the trigger of the weapon.

There was a little click.

The Archont turned to look at the door, and saw Orpheus holding him at bay. A flash of surprise showed in his grey eyes. But just as Orpheus pulled the trigger, he sneezed so hard that the trajectory of the bullet was deflected.

He sneezed again, twice, losing control of the situation. And suddenly he felt the sword blade pass through his chest, and heard the Archont's exultant voice.

‘I've run you through once before! This time it's for good!'

Orpheus opened his eyes. The Archont was standing over him. He had taken advantage of the sneezing fit to leap in and disarm him. Orpheus felt such pain that he thought he was exploding inside. He fell to the ground without even uttering a cry.

Then he heard nothing but the beating of his heart pulsing in his skull. He saw a bale of straw fly through the air and come down on the Archont. He saw Malva pass in front of him and straighten up with the musketoon in her hands. He saw the Archont retreat, open-mouthed.

He didn't hear the shot, but he realised that Malva had fired.

The Archont staggered and fell back, his chest bloody, his face wrecked by the bullet, and then disappeared from Orpheus's field of vision.

Head back on the straw, Orpheus smiled at Malva as she leaned over him. How beautiful she was! Her face, her amber eyes, her black hair … but why was she crying? Why was her mouth moving like that? What was she saying?

She's saying my name, Orpheus told himself. She loves me.
Those were his last thoughts.

They buried Orpheus three days later.

At the head of the funeral procession the Coronador, Berthilde and Babilas supported Malva. The young Princess, looking dazed, could not take her eyes off the coffin. Behind them came a crowd of silent Galnicians.

A hole had been dug in the graveyard, not far from the two graves where Hannibal and Merixel McBott lay at rest. In spite of her deep distress, Malva had wanted to arrange everything herself. She had ordered a gravestone from a craftsman in the city – not a stone, but a slab of mesua wood, the hard timber found in the Orniant – and she had had an inscription carved on it:

Orpheus McBott. Twenty-five years old. Captain of the ship
Fabula
which crossed the seas south of the Known World for the first time. Loyal to his country, a friend to all, the first love of one
.

A month passed. Then another. And then another.

Summer was beginning.

In the languid afternoons, Malva would go to sit on a stone bench in the graveyard. She spent hours there with a bunch of wild flowers in her hands. Sometimes she fell asleep.

The memory of Orpheus haunted her: his eyes, his hands, his voice. Her heart was laid waste, a desert, a wilderness.

Yet she was only just seventeen. Her legs carried her about almost despite herself. So she went on living day by day, or at least appeared to go on living. She talked, she listened, she received ambassadors, soldiers and simple washerwomen; the Hall of Delicacies remained open until late in the evening. And when the Princess could bear it no longer, she took refuge in the arms of Babilas. The giant whispered words in his strange Dunbraven language. Malva understood what he was saying, and it comforted her a little in her grief.

One day Malva found a delegation waiting for her in the Hall when she got back from the graveyard. Amidst the gilding and silk hangings stood several men with lined faces and slanting eyes. They wore dusty clothing and big leather boots.

In the middle of the group Malva saw a tall, strong man, and a woman with cheeks as smooth and shining as apples. When she saw Malva come in, the woman flung her arms wide and began crying.

It was Philomena!

Uzmir the Supreme Khansha stood beside her, and they were accompanied by several Baighur horsemen.

Malva thought her heart would explode with joy. She flung herself into Philomena's arms, crying her name aloud. Their embraces, tears of joy, trills of laughter and exchanges of words all went on for a long time, before the astonished eyes of the servants, who had never seen anything so out of keeping with protocol in the Hall of Delicacies.

‘Malva! Malva!' repeated Philomena, hugging her. ‘I feared for you so much! I thought you were dead. I looked for you everywhere, everywhere! All over the Orniant!'

‘I feared for you too,' said Malva, gulping. ‘Oh, if only you knew!'

After a while Uzmir came over and embraced Malva as well. ‘I always told Philomena that you were still alive somewhere,' he said in his guttural voice.

‘You speak Galnician!' said Malva in surprise.

‘Philomena taught me your language,' smiled the Khansha. ‘The first time I came here I didn't know a word of it. That was long ago, very long ago. How is the Coronador?'

Malva sighed, and explained that he was losing his memory, and soon his legs would not carry him any more.

‘I heard that the Coronada was dead,' murmured Philomena. ‘Your friends told us the whole story.'

‘Hob and Lei? You've seen them?'

Uzmir and Philomena nodded their heads at the same time.

‘They spent a long time looking for us in the great steppes,' Philomena explained. ‘They gave us your letter, and when I knew where you were I asked Uzmir to saddle the horses. Your friends have gone on their way to Balmun now.'

So much good news all at once, so many things to say, such strong emotions … Malva turned her amber eyes on her former chambermaid.

‘I want to know all about it!' she demanded. ‘Everything!'

‘Very well,' replied Philomena, laughing, ‘but first I want to show you something. Come with me.'

She led Malva outside. A dozen Baighur horses were tied up behind the West Wing, grazing on the lush grass of the orchards. Three carts stood in the shade of the plum trees.

A boy of about five or six was sitting on one of the horses. He was handling the reins of his horse, watched closely by a fat woman who was giving him advice in the language of the steppes. Malva observed him for a moment in silence. Under his cap of oryak skin embroidered with gold thread, his face was paler than those of the other Baighurs, but his slanting eyes certainly resembled Uzmir's.

‘Let me introduce you to Hainur,' said Philomena. ‘My son.'

‘And my son too,' added Uzmir proudly, going towards Hainur. On seeing his father, the boy pulled at his reins and dismounted. Uzmir took his hand and leaned down to whisper something in his ear. The child happily clapped his hands, ran to one of the carts, searched in a chest and took out something wrapped in fabric. He looked at his mother, asked her a question
in Baighur, and then turned to Malva, smiling. He gave her the package.

‘Here is a present for the Princess of Galnicia,' he said in Galnician.

Malva had tears in her eyes. Hainur's beauty, his movements and voice, all he represented, touched her to the heart. She bent down to take the package, trembling.

‘Open it,' Philomena encouraged her.

Malva undid the wrappings. Inside she found a long-stemmed pipe made of precious metal.

‘A chibuk?' she said in surprise. ‘Why, I thought the chibuk was only for married women!'

Philomena cast her a mischievous glance. ‘Lei and Hob told us that you were in love, Princess. They mentioned a certain Captain Orpheus … even if you aren't married, that deserves a chibuk, I think!'

Malva smiled, but there was a sudden lump in her throat. Her heart sank, her smile disappeared, and before Philomena's distressed eyes she burst into sobs.

‘What's the matter, Mama?' asked Hainur anxiously. ‘Doesn't your friend like our present?'