The Age of Ra (44 page)

David raised the Lightbringer mask to his nose and inhaled the smell of his brother's hair and sweat.

Briefly, for a handful of seconds, Steven lived on in this world.

38. Detainees

S
he found him.

Late in the evening, Colonel Gavrilenko had granted the Freegyptians some freedom of movement around the city ruins. The Setics distributed military rations among them and escorted those who needed toilet breaks. A cautious trust had been established between detainers and detainees.

Zafirah approached David as one of the Freegyptian medics was inserting fresh stitches into his arm. David's smile of greeting was a contorted thing, the best he could manage with a large curved needle worming its way through his flesh, unmitigated by any form of anaesthetic.

''You made it,'' he said. ''You survived. I was about to start looking for you.''

''I've saved you the trouble,'' she said. There were cordite burns on her face and a patch of scorching on her neck - a near-miss from a
ba
bolt, it was safe to assume - but otherwise she was unharmed. ''Is it true? We're all going home?''

''If Colonel Gavrilenko is to be believed, and I think he is. He says he's ordered up some troop trucks from the rear. Should have them here by the morning.''

''Unexpected kindness from our enemy.''

''I'm not sure the Setics
are
our enemy,'' David said. ''Frankly, I stopped being clear on the whole business of friend and foe a while back.''

''I've heard rumours. Horusites fighting in league with the Setics. The Hegemony offering to help out the Nephthysians.''

''It's an unholy mess. Or maybe a holy one, I don't know. All I know is, even though we helped trigger this turnabout, no one seems to be holding us to account for it. We were the catalyst, we did our bit, and already we've almost been forgotten.''

''The Lightbringer...'' Zafirah began.

David set his jaw. ''What about him?''

''I didn't see... how they killed him. I was over on the far side of the mountaintop. They had us huddled together there. It was a firing squad, yes?''

''Yes.''

''And he... People are saying he tricked us. Used us. All his talk of ridding the world of the gods - it was all lies.''

David picked his words with care. ''It seems that way. He was playing a different game.''

''But we believed him!'' she exclaimed. ''We believed
in
him.''

''I know. And many of us died for him.''

''How can someone do that? How?''

''Maybe... maybe because he had no choice. He couldn't see what else to do.''

''No, that is too generous. Too forgiving. He had a choice. He chose to deceive. And now he's paid for it, and good riddance.'' She spat on the ground. ''I only wish I'd been there, at the execution. I wish they'd let me have a
ba
lance. I wouldn't have been merciful and aimed for his head, either.''

The jewels of her eyes blazed, and David knew that, even if the medic hadn't been there, this would not have been the moment to tell her everything he knew about the Lightbringer and reveal the truth of his relationship with him. That would have to wait till later, assuming he and Zafirah had a ''later''. He hoped that she would see that he had been misled by Steven as much as anyone, if not more than anyone.

''One good thing he did, though,'' she said. ''He explained you to me.''

''Me?''

''About how you were. I went to see him yesterday morning. I wanted to talk about you. I thought he might be able to give me some insight into you. Tell me what made you tick. He was an Englishman, so are you, and the two of you appeared to get on well. I felt, if anyone could help me, he could.''

She was referring to the meeting that David had, by chance, spied on, while drunk. The one he'd taken to be the aftermath of a lovers' tryst.

So it wasn't?

''And did he?'' he said. ''Help?''

''He said you were inhibited. You had emotions, buried deep down inside you, but you didn't always know what they were or how to deal with them. He said what made you happy was when you didn't have to think about things too hard, when everything was stripped down to the basics. That made you good at being a soldier, he said. Good at being a schoolboy too, and a son. But not so good in more complicated situations, when the rules weren't so clear cut.''

''Ah.'' David gave a slow nod. ''Well, he might not have been wrong.''

''He was very gentle about it. These weren't criticisms. He just described the sort of man you were, and then ended it by touching my cheek and telling me to be patient with you, not to put pressure on you. You'd sort yourself out, given time.''

''Just touched your cheek?''

''Like so.'' She pressed the palm of one hand to the side of David's face, softly, warmly, for several seconds. ''To reassure me. He was...'' She thumbed at the corner of each of her eyes. ''I hate him. I'm glad he's dead. But he was sincere then, I'm sure of it. He wanted me to be able to understand you. And he wanted to give me the courage to be able to do this, something I promised myself I would do when I next saw you.''

She leaned forward and kissed David. Her mouth was hard against his, unequivocal. He closed his eyes. He heard the medic chuckle beside him. The kiss ended. He wanted it to go on. His lips tingled with it. He wanted Zafirah to kiss him again. He opened his eyes, and she was walking away. She didn't look back. She had made her point, and now it was up to him. What happened next was up to him.

''Finished,'' said the medic, tying a knot in the surgical thread. ''Go now. Go after the woman.''

David stood. His arm throbbed and he felt woozy.

Steven, faintly, like an echo of an echo:
She isn't for you
.

Protecting him. Unselfishly. A younger brother looking out for the older.

And everything he'd seen when paralytic on sake was not what he thought he'd seen. He'd assumed the worst, and overlooked the alternative possibility.

''Go,'' urged the medic, jabbing the needle in the air, like an incentive.

David tottered forward.

39. Courtdene

A
blustery summer afternoon on the south coast of England. A pebble beach beleaguered by the Channel, wind-whisked waves rising and lapsing against the breakwaters. A triptych of warships - frigate, destroyer, frigate - steaming from east to west, their grey silhouettes perched right on the horizon line, as though sailing on a knife-edge.

David stood at the midpoint of the mile-long strand, staring off into the distance. At his back rose the chalk cliff that denoted the southern boundary of the family estate. In front of him, at his toes, was the beach's high tide mark, sketched in skeins of dried-out bladderwrack. The wind buffeted him. He shivered inside his jacket. It wasn't at all a cold day, not by British standards, but he'd spent the past few weeks in far hotter climes and his skin had thinned as well as tanned.

He observed the warships' progress, and the mirroring glide of the clouds above. British navy vessels, out of Chatham, bound for the Bay of Biscay. Once assembled there with the rest of the Osirisiac fleet, they would be heading down to the Gulf of Guinea to engage with the Horusites. It was already being heralded as one of the greatest sea battles of all time, a clash that would make the fracas in the Aegean look like model boats bumping into one another on a park pond.

Horus in direct conflict with his own parents.

Under any other circumstances, David might have found that amusing.

He was in the country for just a week, here on a false passport that a friend of a friend of Zafirah's had whipped up. He'd come to visit his parents, gather up a few personal belongings and go. He'd phoned ahead, rather than turn up unannounced, and consequently his father was not at Courtdene. Jack Westwynter was making a point of not being there for that period, electing to board at his London club instead. David's mother, on the other hand, had stayed, and spent the time roaming the corridors of the house, alternately trying to be helpful and trying to talk David out of leaving.

''We've only just got you back,'' pleaded Cleo Westwynter at one point, holding out his monogrammed hairbrush for him to put in his suitcase. ''Back from the dead. Can't you stay a little longer?''

He told her he couldn't. She must see that. He just couldn't. If nothing else, the surname Westwynter was not a comfortable one to have in England at present. The family cartouche had lost its cachet. A Moscow newspaper had unearthed certain facts about the Lightbringer's true identity, embellished them as only a newspaper could, and generated a scandal that had spread across the world. Stock in AW Games had dropped sharply, and David's father was constantly under siege from reporters wanting to know what he thought of his younger son and indeed his older son, who was alleged to have aided and abetted the Lightbringer. Jack Westwynter disavowed his children as vehemently as possible. ''If one could legally divorce one's own offspring,'' he told one journalist, ''I bloody well would.''

There would be no rapprochement, David knew that. Nobody could hold a grudge quite like his dad could, and besides, the man's anger was justified. Steven and David had done nothing but bring shame on the family. It was regrettable, but it was also irremediable. Everyone would simply have to live with it.

David was about to turn and head for the set of concrete steps that climbed the cliff face when he caught sight of someone making their way along the beach towards him. It was an old man dressed in a shabby long-coat and carrying something bundled to his chest. It was only when he saw the bundle writhe that David realised it was alive. Some kind of small animal. A cat.

The man puffed laboriously over the pebbles. Now and then he missed his footing, and pebbles would tumble against one with a sound like the clatter of castanets, and the cat, startled, would tighten its claw-grip on his coat.

David decided to wait and say hello to the man as he passed. After all, they were alone on the beach, the only two people within sight. It would be impolite simply to walk off.

In the event, the old man got in first with a greeting. ''Lovely day for a stroll!'' he called out.

''A little bracing for my liking,'' David replied.

''Oh, I don't mind a bit of a chill,'' the old man said. ''I'm always warm inside.''

He had olive skin, a Mediterranean complexion, and a hint of an accent, although David couldn't pinpoint what country the accent belonged to. He also had one eye that was much paler than its counterpart. Its iris was so mistily pale, in fact, that David wondered if the man didn't have a cataract. Partial albinism, at least, if there was such a thing. As for the cat, it was delicately slender, with a smooth, light-brown pelt that showed just a hint of tabby stripes. The man halted beside David and set the animal down at his feet. The cat yowled plaintively, then set to washing itself.

''Unusual,'' David said. ''Taking a cat for a walk.''

''Ah, can't bear to be parted from her. She comes with me everywhere, don't you, Bast?''

At the sound of her name, the cat glanced up, blinked at the old man, then carried on with her ablutions.

''Bast,'' said David. ''If I had a penny for every cat I'd met called that.''

''Apologies for the lack of originality,'' the old man said genially. ''I like to think this one, though, has a special connection with the feline goddess.''

''If I had a penny for every time I'd heard that too.''

''Ha! Yes.'' The old man glanced out to sea, eyeing the warships, which had by now almost disappeared from view past the next headland. His face grew sombre. ''There they go,'' he said. ''Bad business. Another few thousand young men and women destined for the seabed. And nothing will come of it, you mark my words. After the battle's over, nothing will have changed. More warships will be built to replace the ones lost. More young men and women will volunteer to man - and indeed woman - them. The cycle will go on. It's sad. So sad.''

David grunted.

''You don't agree?''

''Huh? No. No, I do. Very much so. It's futile, utterly futile. Achieves nothing. But you have to be philosophical. This is how it's always going to be. Unless we can tell the gods to bugger off and leave us alone, this is the future, for all time. We'll keep fighting in their name, killing each other with their
ba
. I can't foresee an end to it.''