Dark Dreams (6 page)

Shouts came from the street below, a combination of Ghebite soldier cant and the common trading tongue delivered imperiously. Tulkhan strode to the window.

Imoshen rolled her eyes. ‘What now?’

He had to smile. ‘We are honoured. The Beatific herself is here.’

Imoshen’s heart sank. Since entering this home she had been labouring under the dead mother’s despairing heartbreak, which hung thick as a blanket, on the air. The effort of calling the Parakletos, then controlling them, had drained all her reserves. She did not have the strength for a confrontation with the Beatific.

Several pairs of boots sounded on the stairs. The door swung open and a priest announced the leader of the T’En church. The Beatific swept into the room, still dressed in the rich fur mantle she had worn to the tourney. Her elaborate headdress brushed the doorjambs.

Taking in the body on the bed and the four candles, she turned on Imoshen. ‘What have you done?’

‘I have done nothing but serve my people.’ Imoshen chose her words with care.

The Beatific’s eyes narrowed. ‘You overreach yourself.’

‘It was necessary. I could not refuse –’

‘No? You have not given your Vow of Expiation. By what right do you perform this holy office?’

‘By right of birth.’ Imoshen lifted both hands, fingers splayed like fans before her face. Looking over the twelve fingertips, she held the Beatific’s eyes until the woman’s gaze wavered, then lowered her hands. ‘I trained at the Aayel’s side. Many times I have said the words to bind a baby’s soul.’

‘That may be so,’ the Beatific conceded. ‘But the words for the dead are powerful tools. You should have sent to the Basilica for –’

‘T’Imoshen saved my daughter’s life.’ The cooper lurched to his feet. ‘I begged her to say the words.’

The Beatific ignored him. ‘You said the words without your T’Enchiridion, Imoshen? Or do you have it with you?’ She looked pointedly at Imoshen’s empty hands. ‘What were you thinking? The Parakletos are not to be called lightly. One wrong word and they could take the soul of the caller!’

Tulkhan cursed. ‘You risked yourself?’

Imoshen stiffened, meeting his eyes. ‘I am a healer. I could not let the infant die. And I did not need the book because the Aayel made me memorise the verses.’ She faced the Beatific. ‘If we had sent for help, it would have been too late. The baby’s life force was ebbing, its soul lured by the mother’s restless –’

‘You are not qualified to speak of such matters!’

There was a fraught silence.

Then the Beatific massaged her temples, sighing heavily. ‘You thought you were acting for the best, this I understand, but the sooner you take your Vow of Expiation the better.’

Imoshen dropped to one knee, both hands extended palm up, offering the obeisance of a supplicant. ‘Wise Beatific, hear me. I was ready to take the vow on the seventeenth anniversary of my birthing day, but Fair Isle was at war and I could not travel to the Basilica. I am prepared to take the vow –’

‘Of chastity? Are you ready to follow the true path for a pure T’En woman, the one dictated by your namesake, T’Imoshen the First?’

Imoshen looked up startled. The Beatific knew she was supposed to bond with the General. Did this True-woman favour tradition over political expediency? No... Imoshen understood in a flash of insight. The Beatific feared Imoshen’s throwback blood.

Tulkhan strode forward. ‘I have claimed Imoshen. She cannot –’

‘I cannot take the vow of chastity,’ Imoshen spoke quickly before Tulkhan could reveal that she carried his child. According to the records, no T’En woman had given birth in six hundred years. Cloaking her pregnancy was instinctive. She came to her feet. ‘Once I would have taken that path willingly. But the Empress granted me dispensation even before the Ghebites invaded Fair Isle. Now I must serve my people in another way.’ She felt for Tulkhan, who took her arm, linking it through his. He was reassuringly solid.

She drew on his certainty. ‘In other circumstances I would have called on the church to say the words for the dead, and I concede it is wisest to speak those words from the T’Enchiridion.’ Her mouth went dry as she recalled her discovery that the Parakletos were not merely an abstract concept. Even worse, they were not the benevolent beings of the church’s teachings. She shuddered, forcing herself to go on. ‘This is no longer the Old Empire, Beatific. We must bend before the winds of change or be uprooted.’

The True-woman’s mouth tightened in an angry line.

Imoshen had not meant it as a threat. They were all vulnerable, none more so than she.

‘What is this Vow of Expiation, Imoshen?’ Tulkhan asked.

The Beatific replied for her. ‘Before they can be accepted into society, all pure T’En must give the Vow of Expiation to the church, offering themselves in its service.’

Imoshen noted the Beatific omitted to mention that the only other pure T’En throwback, Reothe, had also given his Vow of Expiation, and now served only himself. Perhaps he regarded regaining Fair Isle as serving the people?

‘Imoshen can give this vow when we make our marriage vows on Midwinter’s Day, that is less than one small moon away,’ Tulkhan announced, sweeping the problem aside.

Imoshen caught the Beatific’s eye. Bonding was nothing like a Ghebite marriage.

‘No harm has been done here today,’ Tulkhan announced. ‘And a life has been saved. My men wait outside in the cold, grumbling for their dinner. Come, Imoshen.’ He gave the Beatific a nod, insulting in its brevity.

‘Beatific.’ Imoshen offered the leader of the T’En church the proper obeisance and waited for her to leave. Imoshen knew if General Tulkhan had had his way, he would have simply marched out, leaving them to trail after him. Every day was filled with a thousand small insults, salt in the wound of Fair Isle’s surrender.

Chapter Three

T
HE RIDE BACK
to the palace was swift but not swift enough. Their meal had spoiled. Imoshen had to soothe the cook’s feelings. She had just left the royal kitchen behind, with its lingering smell of burned sauce, when a young boy ran into her.

‘What’s so important that you cannot walk the palace corridors in a civilised fashion?’ Imoshen asked, hauling him to his feet.

He rolled his eyes. ‘The Ghebites –’

What now? Distantly she heard their raised voices. ‘Take me to them.’

The boy led her through a connecting passage to an old wing dating from the Age of Tribulation. Curious servants clustered in doorways, pointing and giggling.

A dozen of Tulkhan’s commanders and elite guard marched past Imoshen. Some held braces of candles and wine flagons, others carried massive oak chairs between them, all sang at the tops of their voices. There was much laughter and they stopped every few paces to share the wine.

Imoshen experienced a strong sense of dislocation. In the Old Empire, ritual and protocol guided every moment of the day. This bizarre Ghebite parade was so out of place it left her disoriented and bemused.

As the song ended Tulkhan’s voice echoed down the passage, ordering them to take care. Imoshen edged past the men, brushing against wainscoting and ancient weaponry. She entered a disused hall, where she found fourteen men staggering under the weight of a feasting table. Leaping candle flames cast frantic shadows on distant walls but could not illuminate the high ceiling.

‘What are you doing?’ Imoshen demanded of the nearest man.

He blinked owlishly, realised who she was and made the Ghebite sign to ward off evil, fist before his eyes.

‘Imoshen?’ Tulkhan located her. ‘Is our meal ready?’

‘Not yet. The cook is trying to muster up enough cold meat and cheese to feed forty people. Our spoiled food will be fed to the pigs.’

‘Then we have time to get these tables and chairs upstairs. Come on, men!’

They launched into a rousing drinking song while manhandling the solid oak table out of the room. Imoshen winced as one corner chipped the doorway.

‘Take care!’ Tulkhan bellowed, then tilted a flagon across his forearm and drank deep. ‘Take it up the marble staircase. Should be wide enough.’

Imoshen caught Tulkhan’s arm. ‘But why? What’s wrong with the tables and chairs that we’ve been using?’

‘Too small. I’m tired of sitting on chairs that protest every time I move. This furniture’s more to my liking. A man can get his knees under that table!’

‘That table was built at T’Ashmyr’s command nearly five hundred years ago. He was the first throwback Emperor of Fair Isle.’

Tulkhan stared at her.

Imoshen realised the General was not drunk at all. ‘You can get your knees under that table because it was designed and built for a pure T’En leader who could have looked you in the eye. In the parts of the palace built during the Age of Tribulation, all the furniture is T’En size. You might be a giant amongst your own kind, but you would have fitted right in with my people.’

Wax from Tulkhan’s brace of candles fell on his wrist. He grimaced, then shrugged. ‘Well, at least I’ll be comfortable.’

And he strode after his men.

Imoshen lengthened her stride to keep up with him. They entered the royal wing, where upper-echelon servants clustered in statue niches, pointing and whispering. Tomorrow the tale would be all over T’Diemn, how the barbarians marched roughshod over palace treasures.

In the long gallery they found the elegant gilt-legged, red-velvet chairs piled carelessly on their matching table. Anger and dismay flooded Imoshen, but she did not reveal it. Turning to the servants, she directed them to clear the furniture away and store it. ‘We will have our meal now.’

Tulkhan offered Imoshen his arm. When they walked into the formal dining room, the Ghebites gave a cheer. Raising their drinks, they indicated the new table and chairs. Well pleased, Tulkhan took his place at the head of the table and Imoshen joined him. None of them seemed aware how incongruous the heavy dark furniture looked set against the pale splendour of the room’s mirrors and gilt-edged plaster work.

‘Wine?’ Tulkhan offered to pour Imoshen a glass. She declined. He took another mouthful from the flagon, then appeared to recollect that he was not on the battlefield and poured a generous glass. The fine T’En crystal looked fragile in his hands. ‘A toast to the greatest army in the known world!’

The men echoed his sentiment, downing their drinks lustily. Crystal goblets slammed emphatically on the tabletop as soon as they were emptied.

A memory of the Empress graciously finger-clicking her approval for a pair of duelling poets struck Imoshen with renewed pain – the Old Empire was truly dead, supplanted by these barbarians. How would the remnants of the T’En nobles react when they saw this kind of behaviour?

Imoshen caught Tulkhan’s arm, dropping her voice so that only he could hear. ‘General, the nobles from the Keldon Highlands will be here soon. They have not formally surrendered and you have every right to expect an oath of loyalty. But...’

Servants entered with trays of cold meat and cheeses, presented in patterns which were works of art. The Ghebites fell upon them with gusto, grabbing chicken legs and tearing into the white flesh.

‘Don’t wrinkle your nose like that, Imoshen. The men are hungry. They’ve been out in the cold all day doing a man’s work.’

‘I suppose I am lucky they will even eat with me. Men don’t share the table with women in Gheeaba, do they?’

He put his glass down. ‘Business and battle plans are discussed at the table. These are not for women’s ears. In the privacy of his own home a man might invite his favourite wife to eat with him. But this is not Gheeaba and my men have not been home for eleven years.’ He gave her a shrewd look. ‘We’ve seen all sorts of customs in mainland palaces. Eating with women is the least of it. Why, I remember one banquet which was served on the naked bodies of nubile virgins.’ His dark eyes challenged her. ‘They were dessert!’

Imoshen refused to rise to his bait. ‘The southern nobles are a proud lot. They traced their blood lines back to the dawn people, children of the Ancients. They were the last to adopt T’En rule and there were sporadic uprisings for two hundred years. It was only at the beginning of the Age of Consolidation that the locals truly accepted their T’En nobles, and by then the highland T’En had grown away from their cousins in the north.

‘The Keldon ravines might be rich in precious metals, but they don’t provide an easy living.
Scrawny sheep and stiff-necked Keld
, as the saying goes.’ She smiled at his expression. ‘I’m asking you to go slowly with the Keldon nobles. Soon they will come to the capital to give you their oath of fealty, because they must. But they –’

‘They shielded the rebel leader while they smiled and gave me false welcome,’ Tulkhan growled. ‘I hunted Reothe in those ranges. I know how wild and unforgiving they are.’

Imoshen nodded. ‘The land shapes the people. The Keld are few and fiercely loyal. They cannot hope to stand against your army, but they are quick to take offence and slow to forgive. Unless you want to split Fair Isle with civil war, you need to win them over.’ She felt General Tulkhan watching her curiously. ‘Yes?’

‘You advise me against your own people?’

‘I advise you for the sake of my people. The fields lie blackened from T’Diemn to the north of Fair Isle. This is a fertile island. Once her towns had great stores of grain, but your men raided them.’

‘An army on the move needs to eat.’

Imoshen sighed. ‘We’ve had this conversation before and I argued for cooperation then. I don’t want to see this spring’s planting ruined because of more fighting. I will not watch my people starve.’

‘What do you care? They are True-men and women, not even of the same race as you.’

Even though she knew Tulkhan was baiting her, Imoshen could not hide the heat in her cheeks. ‘I belong to Fair Isle. In the centuries since the T’En took this island, my race has interbred with the locals. The blood of T’En, True-man and woman alike has enriched the soil. Only the land endures.’

Tulkhan grimaced. He could not argue with Imoshen’s logic but he knew what she was saying. How long before his Ghebite army was absorbed into the larger population of Fair Isle? Would they one day cease to be Ghebites? Would his grandson don the badge of fatherhood and invite everyone to celebrate the birth of a daughter? In Gheeaba the father did not even bother to name a daughter.