The City (9 page)

‘But someone would pay for information like that. Someone in power,’ she said.

She nodded at him, emphasizing her point, but he shrugged. When
he
was someone in power he had no interest in what went on beneath the streets of the City. If someone had crawled out of a drain and told him of a missing barrel in a mechanism which chewed sewage he would have sent them on their way with a flea in their ear and perhaps a hard kick to the backside.

But, ‘It is important information,’ he told her pleasantly. ‘Yet I would not know who to tell.’

It was true. The emperor’s palaces were awash with administrators. The armies could not move without teams of scribes creating
wagonloads of paperwork. New roads and bridges were built only after a thousand counsellors had made work, and wealth, for themselves. The long, and increasingly fragile, supply lines which brought food and materials into the City were the subject of continuous debate for palace officials, administrators and, of course, the generals.

But who considered what went on beneath the streets of the City? In that other City, which continued to give its own vital service daily – unseen, unconsidered, essential.

Ysold frowned at him. ‘The emperor, of course,’ she told him eagerly. ‘Someone should tell the Immortal.’

Then, seeing the party was dawdling along, she snapped at them to pick up speed and hurried to the front, holding her torch high.

Bartellus remembered the last time he had seen the emperor. He hoped fervently he would never see the man again.

Up ahead Ysold marched along, setting a cracking pace, on a wide stone path bordering a low-running stream on their right. The six Dwellers had become strung out, with Em and Bartellus, holding a torch, as the dog-end.

Suddenly Ysold cried out, and in the instant Bartellus saw swift movement to his left. He ducked and twisted, and a club swished past his cheek. He lashed out with his torch, catching someone a glancing blow. He glimpsed black shapes against the moving torchlight. The man who had attacked him was big and broad. He was also slow. As he lashed at Bartellus again with a club, the old soldier drew his dagger and, twisting, slashed the man’s forearm. The attacker dropped the club, his arm nerveless. He snarled and ran at Bartellus, head down. Bart, his back to the stream, threw himself sideways, letting go the torch. He hit the ground hard, and groaned as his knee shrieked in pain. He forced himself up. His attacker had fallen on the edge of the stream, and was levering himself up on all fours. Bartellus kicked him hard in the ribs and the man plunged into the flowing sewage and disappeared without a cry.

Bartellus turned to find Emly. He could not see her, and hoped she had scurried into the dark. He could hear shouts and blows and scuffling, but only one torch was alight, and it was lying on the ground at the far end of their party. He could see a man with a sword raised, menacing a huddled shape on the ground. Bartellus reversed his dagger and threw it, with practised accuracy, into the man’s head.
He dropped like a stone. Bartellus ran to the fallen woman, but she was dead.

Another of their party, a fair woman, was being dragged away into the dark by a man armed with a knife. Bartellus retrieved his dagger and ran towards them, but the man saw him coming, and with a single sweep slashed the woman’s throat and dropped her, disappearing into a tunnel at his back.

Cursing, Bartellus turned to the only other survivor, a youngster who was defending desperately against a man with a sword. The boy held a quarterstaff inexpertly, and was being forced back to the stream. He was wounded, and stooping painfully.

Bartellus shouted and the attacker turned, his blood-drenched sword raised. Bartellus leaped at him, fury fuelling his old bones, and sliced at the man’s head. The man backed away from the blow and swept his sword up towards Bartellus’ belly. Bartellus twisted away awkwardly.

‘My sword against your knife, old man,’ grunted the black-bearded attacker, grinning.

Bartellus said nothing. He took deep breaths, rallying long-unused skills. The two circled and the black-bearded man risked a glance around, seeking his companions.

‘No one can help you,’ Bartellus snarled, and for the first time in aeons he felt the thrill of battle rising in his chest. Strength coursed through him. Then time started to slow. He could feel the hilt of the dagger, comfortable and familiar in his palm, the texture of the rocky floor firm beneath his bare feet, and the strength in his shoulders and legs as he circled, balanced and ready.

The bearded man lunged towards him, his sword thrusting for Bartellus’ throat. He was so slow that the old soldier almost laughed. He had all the time in the world to sway sideways, all the time in the universe to choose his spot and to ram the dagger accurately under the man’s armpit, seeking the heart.

The man fell in the dust and was still as only the dead can be. Bartellus picked up the lone torch and thrust it into a cleft in the rock.

‘Emly!’ he cried, all strength suddenly gone, familiar fear returning. There was only silence, and he found it hard to breathe through the pain in his chest. He looked around. Ysold was gone, perhaps into the stream. Bartellus sighed, his heart cramped with regret.

Then he forgot his pain as the little girl came running out of the
darkness. She ran straight to him, cannoning into him, and he bent down and picked her up. He held her close, relief flooding through him. He felt faint and leaned against the tunnel wall, the girl still in his arms.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked her. ‘Not hurt?’ She stared at him, and he said again, ‘You’re not hurt?’ She shook her head reassuringly. After a while he put her down and walked over to the semi-conscious wounded boy. He sat with him for a long while until he died.

He thought back to that sunlit day when he rode from home for the last time. Companionably, it had seemed, the two men travelled slowly, talking occasionally. Astinor Redfall seemed subdued, Bartellus now believed with the unreliable clarity of hindsight. What was he thinking, this old comrade of his, as he escorted him unknowing to his trial?

The general’s home was in the far eastern outskirts of the City, in the farming country. As they rode, most of the land they traversed belonged to him. Who owns that land now, he wondered to the darkness? My old friend, as payment for treachery? Even as he thought it, despite everything that had happened, he could not believe it.

It took them most of the day to reach the palace, riding through bustling Burman Far, the ratruns of Lindo, wealthy Otaro and finally the palace precincts. They had been in no hurry, and even now he liked to think the man was reluctant to bring him speedily to his fate. When they reached the broad avenue called Clarion, he paused, as he always did, to gaze up at the palace. He had first seen it as a child, yet he never failed to be awed by its beauty. Carved from rosy-red rock, its source now unknown, the emperor’s palace entranced the eye and dazzled the comprehension. Men argued about how many spires and turrets there were. There was no answer. A man could walk round the palace and count them, of course, but that would be merely the number seen from outside. Within the palace, each window looked out on minarets, each internal courtyard was surrounded by spires, each narrow stairway climbed another tower. There was no internal plan anyone knew of. A man would go mad trying to make one. There were sixty-seven domes, he had been told. He had no reason to think this was true or untrue. He was not a man with a mathematical bent. Mathematicians and philosophers, astronomers and prophesiers attended the emperor in droves. They were learned
men, each in their way. They could speak on the harmony of the stars, the movement of the planets, the wisdom of the seasons and the majesty of the tides. Yet only the uncaring birds knew how many towers there were in the emperor’s palace.

And deep within the vast building were the emperor’s quarters, a fortress within a fortress, for the Red Palace was nothing if not a stronghold. For all its beauty, for all its flowered courtyards and gardens and fishponds and carvings, it was designed to keep out an invading enemy. The Immortal’s residence was walled with green marble, cladding the ancient stone of the mighty fort built on the site more than a thousand years before. It was called simply the Keep. There were few portals between the Red Palace and the Keep at its heart, and even the general had never set foot in there.

The riders trotted their mounts into the outer courtyard at the Gate of Peace. Here wide shade trees welcomed the tired traveller, and there were cool fountains to slake his thirst. The palace guards, knowing them well, stood aside, letting them through to an inner courtyard, called Northmen, its alabaster walls covered with carvings of wolves and the fierce werewomen who were their companions.

‘I must leave you here, my friend,’ said Astinor Redfall, black-bearded and powerful, as they climbed from their mounts. ‘I have supply business with a lord lieutenant.’

The general grasped his friend by the hand. ‘I will see you later,’ he said warmly.

‘Yes, you will,’ replied Astinor, looking into his eyes.

The general walked the familiar corridors through the new wing. It was said that three entire palaces of minor Families had to be demolished to make way for this addition to the Red Palace. The corridors were higher than in the old part, and wider, the windows larger and the way lighter. He passed a dozen courtyards, some buzzing with life, some quiet and sombre even on this sunny afternoon.

Then the pale marble walls around them gave way suddenly to the richly decorated gold-encrusted alabaster of the public rooms. A wide shallow flight of stairs rose up to huge golden doors. The staircase was flanked by members of the emperor’s elite warriors, the Thousand, in their black and silver livery. The high doors opened.

The Immortal was seated in the public throne room, surrounded by the usual generals, handmaidens, counsellors, lickspittles and toadies. Bartellus later remembered feeling flattered to have an
emperor wait on him. He bowed deeply. When he lifted his head he was surprised his lord had not risen from his throne, embraced him, called him brother, as was his usual habit. Rather, the emperor frowned. The general’s stomach lurched.

Araeon was tall and fair, of late middle years, with a blond beard closely following the line of his chin. Only his eyes were black, a peculiar absolute blackness which contrasted with his pale countenance. Shuskara knew one of them was glass, but at times both eyes seemed to be deep wells brimming with painful experience. At others, as on that day, they were dead as the eyes of a butchered deer, reflecting dully the flickering torchlight.

The Immortal frowned and asked, ‘Are you really Shuskara?’

Shuskara smiled faintly, hoping for a joke. ‘Lord?’

The emperor twisted his face as if having difficulty remembering. ‘You look like the Shuskara I have known and loved for a lifetime, a well-made man of elder years, his eye clear and his brow free of the stratagems of compromise.’ He looked around at his subjects, his face a mask of bafflement.

Stratagems of compromise? Shuskara had heard these elliptical ominous speeches from his lord many times before, but never as their target. He was unarmed, of course, in the emperor’s presence, but his general’s mind started evaluating tactics, seeking ways of escape. His eyes flickered over those present, seeking friends. He saw the Vincerii – Marcellus, First Lord of the City, and his brother Rafael – his fellow generals Boaz and Flavius Randell Kerr, these two making no attempt to hide their satisfaction. No help there.

‘Have you nothing to say, soldier?’

I will not argue, Shuskara thought. They always argue, and the words always sound like pleas for their lives. And it never makes any difference.

‘You have and always will have all my loyalty, lord.’

The emperor gazed at him for a long while. ‘Loyalty is an odd beast,’ he said finally, musing. ‘Men speak of loyalty as if it were a simple constant, solid as that statue,’ he waved a hand at something behind Shuskara, ‘reliable as the sunrise. Then we discover that loyalty can mean something else; it is dependent on changing conditions, perhaps passing seasons. It can mean compromise, appeasement, concession. Astonishingly,’ he went on, his voice grave and entirely free of astonishment, ‘it can mean betrayal.’

Betrayal? As Shuskara’s world fell apart his first agonized thoughts were for his family. He forced out the words, ‘You have and always will have all my loyalty, lord.’

He drilled those words into his brain, determined they would be the only words he would speak that day and in the brutal, pain-filled days to come as the emperor’s inquisitors tried to force from him information he did not have about events of which he knew nothing.

He was used to pain. As a soldier he had endured the agony of wounds great and small, and he had stoically endured other men’s torture. He could deal with pain. What he could not tolerate, what sapped his strength and dignity more quickly than he believed possible, was the constant torment of thirst, hunger and sleeplessness. He was given sips of water, barely enough to keep him alive. After a few days he was lapping the dank walls of his cell like a dog. He chewed his own lips to make the blood flow. When the torturers came for him it was almost a relief, for the pain of their work distracted his suffering mind from his thirst. It seemed that whenever he fell asleep he was woken to be dragged off to torture, so in a while his brain refused to rest at all. He felt his mind slipping, sliding, breaking under the unrelenting horror, leaving cracks into which the torturers slipped their implements. Within only a few days he was begging for relief. The disinterested torturers watched him cry and plead, using their long experience to mine nuggets of useful facts from the undiscriminated mountains of information he tried to give them. He did not know what they wanted, but had he known he would have told them in a heartbeat.

The hideous days crept slowly by, and he was brought before the emperor again. Araeon was not in his throne room this time, but a quiet parlour. Shuskara, his body battered and filthy, was held upright on trembling legs on rich thick carpets between two tall impassive soldiers. He watched the emperor drink a goblet of water, cool droplets splashing and running down his chest.