The City (44 page)

His mind finally made up, he hammered on the high oak doors to be let in. The guards who opened them seemed surprised to see him.

Fell had been a soldier for thirty years, and for all that time his mind had been filled with strategies for the battle he was fighting or plans for the next one. In the brief periods of rest he had blurred
his thoughts with alcohol and willing women. Memories of Sami’s hideous death, and the vow he had taken, had been buried in the back of his brain. These last weeks of enforced idleness and reflection had returned to him a perspective he had mislaid for three decades.

He had taken the vow with the other boys, had submitted to the agony of the brand. Even the smallest, Evan, had suffered the ordeal. At the time, in the immediate aftermath of the horror in the arena, Fell had believed his vow. He believed that one day, when the time was right, he would kill the emperor. But the very next day, as he rode out at Shuskara’s side, suddenly plunged into an exciting new life, it was easy to set aside that childish pledge.

Yet he had never forgotten it. And when Evan Quin had reported for duty with the Wildcats the previous autumn Fell had known him instantly, although he had gained the new name Broglanh. But the younger man had not recognized him.

Doon’s death at the hands of the emperor’s men had been the final affirmation that the vow he had made so long ago was one he was fated to fulfil. And the thought kept running through his brain –
it could have been Indaro
. It could have been Indaro, captured, raped, tortured and killed by soldiers of the City.

He had never felt this way about any woman. When she was out of his sight all he could think of was her. When he was with her he wanted to touch her, hold her, and protect her. She was sitting next to him at the table of the high council and it was all he could do not to reach out and take her hand.

He had asked Gil Rayado, ‘Why me?’ but it was Mason who took a breath and replied, ‘To return briefly to the travellers.’ Fell sighed inside. He had had more of the history of the City than he could stomach.

Perhaps Mason was aware of the frustration among his audience for he paused for a moment before going on. ‘It is said that the crimson eagles that live in the Mountains of the Moon live for a thousand years, for they have no predators and even man the hunter cannot reach them in the high peaks where they make their nests. To the rabbit or stoat that fears the great bird and whose lifespan lasts only years, the eagle must seem immortal.’

Mason seemed to be choosing his words carefully. ‘So,’ he went on, ‘a man whose life is many times longer than the generations of those around him will also be called Immortal. We do not know how
long the travellers – the Serafim – lived, but it must have been a very long time, for their descendants, those products of unions between City folk and their gods, those with only half, or a quarter or less of Serafim blood in them, their lives still spanned many generations of normal men and women. We do not know how old the Vincerii are, for instance, but they might be only one or two generations from the travellers.’

‘You are saying that Marcellus and Rafe are a thousand years old?’ Fell asked, his voice rich with disbelief.

Mason nodded. ‘Possibly.’

Fell smiled and shook his head. ‘You are an intelligent man, Mason, but you are speaking of children’s nightmares or the midnight tales of old men. How can men live for a thousand years?’

‘They have abilities we don’t fully understand.’

‘And you believe the emperor is the same age?’

‘No, Fell. I believe he is much older.’

Fell leaned back and folded his arms. He could see Indaro better from that angle. She turned to him, her face serene. What on earth was she thinking? He could never guess.

‘Listen, Fell.’ Gil took up the argument, knowing Mason had lost credibility. ‘We believe Araeon is one of the original Serafim. One of the first. And the only one, perhaps, with no descendants of his own.’

‘He has no sons?’

Gil looked at Saroyan to answer. She said nothing for a long while, as if reluctant to give away information.

Then, ‘Among the descendants of the Serafim it is said he kept himself pure,’ she said reticently.

Fell snorted. As a soldier he had little time for concepts of male purity.

Indaro said suddenly, ‘You told me he is not a man.’ She was addressing Mason. ‘What did you mean? What is he?’

‘I said he is not a man
like me
. But he
is
a man.’

Indaro frowned, and Fell remembered what she had told him about the man who had survived, impossibly, when the emperor’s carriage was destroyed by explosion. ‘Is he a sorcerer?’ she asked in a small voice, as if embarrassed to be asking the question.

Mason seemed unwilling to speak. He looked at Gil, who shrugged, and at Saroyan, but she was staring at the table.

‘The word is meaningless,’ he said finally. ‘He has skills, abilities,
which seem like sorcery to some. But all that matters to us is that he is a living man made of flesh and blood who can be killed.’

‘Why do you want Fell to kill him?’ asked Indaro. ‘I mean, why Fell?’

‘You must understand,’ replied Gil, ‘that Araeon is very difficult to get to. He is guarded by the Thousand, and hidden behind layers of … proxies, you call them. It is uncertain even what he looks like. There are many pictures of him, imperial portraits, but they are all of a fair bearded man of middle years with no distinguishing marks. You and Fell have both seen him, but could you pick him out in a crowded room?’ He looked at them both in turn. ‘No? So the only way to get to him is to draw him out. He has lived a very long life, much of it in the confines of the Keep. He is the emperor. He has complete power. Anything he wants or needs or commands, it is instantly fulfilled. Our sources suggest that the only time he lets down his guard is if his curiosity is piqued. We hope to offer him something that he cannot resist.’

‘And what is that?’

‘A son.’

Fell gave a bark of laughter. Elija, eyes wide, asked, ‘Fell is the emperor’s son?’

Gil exchanged glances with Saroyan. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He is not. But the emperor believes he could be.’

‘You said he kept himself pure,’ commented Indaro, puzzled.

‘Purity is a matter of interpretation,’ replied Mason. ‘For Araeon it means not spreading his seed, not mingling it among the common folk. It does not mean celibacy.’

‘Then how …?’ asked Indaro.

Mason turned to her. ‘We believe he kills any woman he has sex with.’ He glanced at Fell. ‘We have the testimony of witnesses who say he visited the Lion’s palace and seduced or raped your mother, Fell, but for some reason he did not kill her. Years later his forces attacked the palace. Both your parents died there. It is said that he killed your mother himself, although she took his eye out first.’

Fell was silent for a while, remembering the child Arish and the one-eyed man. He asked, ‘Why did he not kill me?’

‘Perhaps he was conflicted. Perhaps after so long a life he was curious to know what a son was like. You were no threat to him. He could have had you killed at any time. So perhaps he let you live,
day to day, year to year. Watching and waiting. Until suddenly you disappeared after the trial. He could not find you for many years. You were thought to be dead. Finally, we believe, he, or someone in the palace, connected the boy Arish with the general’s aide Fell Aron Lee. Shuskara was grievously punished for his part in that deception.’

Fell shook his head. ‘That was years ago. If he has known about me since then, why am I still alive?’

Mason spread his hands in an admission of ignorance. ‘We do not know. What we do know is that the emperor ordered Flavius Randell Kerr to keep watch on you, to pull you out of the fighting and keep you safe. But you disobeyed orders and disappeared again, this time into a battle from which there were few survivors.’

Fell thought it through. The only sound he could hear was his own heart, and a distant dripping from the damp walls of the hall. Despite himself, he was excited. He could feel the charge building in his blood.

But he shook his head. ‘It was mere coincidence that your riders came across us,’ he said, looking at Gil.

‘We had been searching for you for a time,’ replied Gil. ‘Both we and the City had roving bands seeking survivors from the battle, seeking you. It was no coincidence that we found you, merely luck that you survived to be found.’

‘Why do you need Fell?’ Indaro asked. ‘Why not have someone impersonate him? The emperor would not know.’

‘Because Fell is the son of his mother, and it may be that the emperor is able to see that. Also, Fell is a consummate warrior, and if anyone can fulfil this mission, it is he,’ Gil said. ‘We do not know when they will meet – in the imperial chambers, which is unlikely, or in a hall crowded with bodyguards, which will probably be the case. Fell might well have to kill a dozen or more highly trained men to get to the emperor.’

He gazed at the table in front of him, and when he next spoke Fell detected the taste of deceit. ‘And the Immortal can kill without weapons.’

‘So can I,’ Fell said grimly.

Mason nodded bleakly. ‘We will discuss this later, you and I,’ he said.

‘It is suicide,’ said Indaro.

‘Yes,’ agreed Mason, ‘of course.’

Indaro looked at Fell. For the first time in that long afternoon he was again the man she knew. Nothing that had gone before was important – who his father was, whether the emperor was immortal or not. Now there was a battle to be fought and Fell was himself again.

‘So the invasion through the sewers is merely a distraction?’ He addressed Gil, the other military commander there.

‘A diversion, yes, but also a fallback,’ the man replied. ‘If you fail in your mission then the invasion force will attempt to kill Araeon. That is why we want you with them, Indaro.’

She nodded, but she was wondering why they all thought she was going along with the plan. No one had asked her if
she
wanted to kill her emperor.

‘Two hundred invaders against the Thousand. Poor odds,’ Fell commented, glancing at her. She shrugged, as if uncaring, or confident. Inside, she agreed with him.

‘That is why we have chosen the Day of Summoning,’ Saroyan told him. ‘At least three centuries of the Thousand will be elsewhere.’

‘We have chosen two hundred warriors because we must use small boats to smuggle them to the coast beneath the Salient, into the maze of caverns there. Anything larger will be noticed,’ Gil explained. ‘Surprise will be our best weapon. Better than a hundred extra warriors.’

Indaro thought she would rather have surprise
plus
a hundred warriors, but she held her tongue. Despite herself, now they were speaking of battle, she, like Fell, was lifted by the prospect of action.

‘Who will the invasion force be?’ she asked Gil.

‘Odrysians and Petrassi mostly. I will lead.’

Fell said, ‘Good. Add Stalker and Garret. They are worth two men apiece.’

‘You will order them?’ asked Mason.

‘No. I will ask them to volunteer. And we will need plans of the palace, of the Keep.’

‘We have a friend in the palace who is charged with finding them for us. And maps of the sewers. We have only days before we ride. We must use the time well.’

They all sat back and there was silence. Indaro knew they were all deferring to Fell.

‘This cannot be the first plan to assassinate the emperor,’ he commented. ‘Others must have failed before. We need to know why.’

Saroyan answered him. ‘There have been several that we know of and, I’m sure, many that we don’t. The last was some eight years ago. The assassin came within moments of killing him.’ They watched her and eventually she went on, ‘He must have planned for some considerable time. He dressed as a Panjali messenger.’ She explained, ‘These men are used by the Odrysian kings to send vital messages to their counterparts in other lands. The man’s head is shaved, a message is tattooed on the scalp and the hair allowed to grow back. The foreign leader then has the head shaved again to reveal the message. The messengers elect to have their tongues cut out as a token of their discretion. He was a very brave man.’

Indaro saw the reflection of memory in her face. ‘You were there?’

Saroyan nodded, glancing at her.

‘You know the emperor?’

The woman nodded.

‘Then why,’ Indaro burst out angrily, ‘don’t
you
kill him?’

Saroyan’s face went pale and her lips tightened.

‘It is not that simple,’ replied Mason.

‘Why?’ Indaro asked. ‘You are expecting us to risk our lives on this half-baked conspiracy, when all she has to do is walk up to the emperor and stick a knife in his gut.’

‘Indaro is right,’ said Fell. ‘You are asking us to die for this cause. At least you could tell us the full truth.’

‘Everything we have told you is the truth,’ Mason answered.

‘We have been rotting for weeks in your gaol,’ growled Fell. ‘Fed lies and half-truths. Now you present us with this ramshackle plan and tell us we must execute it within days. It is doomed to failure without the luck of the gods. Indaro and I, and Stalker and Garret, are lucky soldiers. We would not be here if we weren’t. But luck can only achieve so much. It is not enough that everything you tell us is true. That is a politician’s answer. We need complete honesty. We need to know everything you know. We do not want any unpleasant surprises when it is too late.’

In the silence that followed, Indaro realized he had not named Doon, and a cold numbness reached into her heart.

Then a voice asked, ‘Who will be emperor?’

They turned to look at Elija. Reddening, he lowered his gaze.
‘When the emperor is dead, who will be emperor?’ he asked again. ‘One of you?’

‘No,’ Gil replied, sitting down. ‘Marcellus Vincerus.’

‘Is he in on this conspiracy?’ Fell asked. ‘Does he know he is fated to be emperor? Is it
his
plan? And are you just his agents?’

Gil shook his head. ‘He knows nothing of this. He is loyal to the emperor. But with Araeon dead, Marcellus will take the throne. He is First Lord of the City. It will be his duty.’