The Godspeaker Trilogy (59 page)

Ursa was tidying her bottles and salves into her battered bag. “It’s not asking him that’s the problem, Jones. It’s understanding his answer. I doubt there’s a soul in Kingseat who’d be able to translate his gibberish.”

Unfortunately, it was more than likely she was right. “I know,” he said, brooding.

She glanced at him slyly. “You could always ask Hettie.”

Very funny. “How long before you’re certain Zandakar’s out of danger?”

“A little while yet. We’ll have to sit, and see.”

So they sat, in silence, and waited for Zandakar’s fever to rise again or his convulsions to return. They waited in vain. Zandakar slept. Not easily, he was still restless, he still muttered his gibberish language under his breath. But his skin remained cool, his temperature low, and that was the main thing.

Dexterity sighed. “You should go home, Ursa. Bamfield will be wondering what’s happened to you.”

“Bamfield’s my apprentice, not my keeper. Are you hungry?”

He was starving, but lacked the energy to stir. “I’m fine.”

She snorted. “You’re pale as whitewash is what you are. I’ll boil you an egg.”

“No, no, I can—”

“I’ve got to make our patient some gruel anyway,” she said, pushing to her feet. “I don’t trust you to make it, Jones. Sit there quietly and keep an eye on him for me. I shouldn’t be too long.” With her hand on the doorknob, she paused and added over her shoulder: “You do have the fixings for gruel, Jones, don’t you?”

He nodded. “In the pantry.”

“Any molasses?”

“Yes. In the pantry.”

“Don’t be snippy,” she told him, and continued on her way.

Beyond the open window, dusk surrendered to evening. The first stars came out, winking as though they shared some private joke. Dexterity closed his eyes and breathed in the last of the day’s warm air, laced with perfume from the flower garden Hettie had planted, and tended, and loved so much.

Well, it seems I’ve saved Zandakar for you, dearest. Now perhaps you’d like to tell me why.

She didn’t answer.

Hettie, my darling, you mustn’t be so mysterious. Why is this man here? Why did I buy him? What kind of trouble is Ethrea facing?

And still, no answer.

Hettie, what kind of trouble is Rhian in? Hettie? Hettie!

“What’s the matter, Jones?” said Ursa, in the doorway. “Having a bout of constipation?”

She was nearly sixty, and looked tired to the bone. Burying resentful exasperation, he levered his aching body out of the armchair. “Ursa, you should go. I’m perfectly capable of making gruel and boiling an egg.”

She didn’t snap his nose off, which told him precisely how weary she was. Instead she crossed to the sleeping Zandakar and, bending over him, laid her palm on his forehead. “Still cool,” she murmured. She checked his pulse. “A little fast, but nothing alarming.” With a groan, she straightened. “All right, Jones. If you’re tired of my company. But I’ll be back after breakfast. If anything should go amiss overnight—”

“I’ll bring him straight to you,” he promised. “But I think he’ll be fine.”

“Hmmph,” she said. “We’ll see. The gruel’s on a low simmer and your egg’s about to boil. Make sure you have some bread and butter with it. And a good strong cup of tea. I’ve left you some feverkill, in case you need it. Extra ointments for those wounds I’ve left uncovered. If he wakes, and you think he’s thirsty, offer him water. Nothing else. If he keeps that down you can try him with the gruel. Add a dollop of molasses to it. Just a small one, mind you. And whatever you do, don’t let him up. He needs to rest a good while before I’ll trust him on his feet. Can you remember all that?”

He smiled. “Yes. Of course. Ursa, I should drive you home.”

“Tosh,” she said, and picked up her physicking bag. “I don’t live that far away. A walk in the fresh air will do me good. Besides, you can’t leave the poor wretch. And you’ll have to keep yourself awake through the night, in case he has need of you.”

He often worked from sunset to dawn. Besides, he had his shepherdess marionette to finish. “At least let me walk you to the gate. I can do that much, after all you’ve done.”

He watched her from the end of his front path, marching down the tree-lined street with her head high and her shoulders square, daring anyone to call her old.

Once she’d gone from his sight he hurried to feed Otto and tidy the donkey’s small stable. Those tasks completed, he returned to his cottage. The gruel was cooked so he took it off the hob. The egg had boiled dry, but he ate it anyway with a thick slice of buttered bread, surprised to discover how hungry he was. As he waited for the kettle to boil he put tea-leaves ready in the pot and collected his whittling tools and the unfinished shepherdess marionette. Then, with his hands full of puppet, knives and steaming mug, he returned to his vigil in Zandakar’s room.

Zandakar’s room . How odd, to think that. Odder still to find he didn’t resent this mysterious stranger, thrust upon him so outrageously, who’d cost him quite a lot of money, really. Not to mention his brand-new curtains.

But to resent him would be churlish. What is a little spent gold compared to this poor man’s sufferings? How strong must Zandakar be, to have survived that dreadful slave ship, and his brutal mishandling, and that terrible fever … and all the misadventures that have brought him to me here. I do hope we can find a way to understand each other. I want to know his story, I’m sure it’s quite amazing.

Settled once more in his armchair, with the lamps softly burning and his hot tea in one hand, Dexterity rested his gaze on sleeping Zandakar’s drawn face. No tears, now, no whispered muttering. But the man’s eyes were restless beneath his closed lids, and a certain tension thrummed through his long, blanket-covered body.

Ah, well. I’m certain we’ll come to some arrangement. Clearly he’s not a stupid fellow. One way or another we’ll learn to communicate, even if it’s only with signs.

He let his thoughts drift then, hoping Hettie would return and explain … well, everything. She didn’t. So he finished his cooling tea, set the empty mug to one side and turned his attention to his shepherdess marionette, who looked like Hettie when she was young, and alive.

Lost in the past, deep in stuporous sleep and burned hollow by fever, Zandakar godhammer dreamed … and remembered.

The hardest thing about the journey home to Et-Raklion was the silence. Dimmi refused to speak to him. Refused even to look at him, if he could help it. All their lives they’d been so close. Laughing and affectionate, teasing and together. This terrible coldness, this implacable rage, it was as though he rode with a snakeblade between his ribs, pricking his heart, blood weeping like tears.

He’d long since given up trying to explain.

The thought of Lilit sustained him, growing their son in the warlord’s palace. He was riding to his woman, to the woman the god had sent him. Knowing that she waited, knowing how she loved him, knowing she was his future, it made his brother’s rejection bearable. Just.

The highsuns passed, and passed, and passed. For the god’s glory he wore his gold-and-crystal gauntlet but he never used it, smiting was not his purpose now. One by one the godless lands he’d conquered fell behind them: Na’ha’leima. Harjha. Targa. Drohne. Bryzin. Zree. They did not stop at the Mijaki settlements, where godspeakers would try to interfere. They skirted the ruined cities he’d smitten to rubble and bones, he did not want to go there, they were haunted places echoed with screams. Several times they encountered caravans from Mijak and mounted messengers riding from the Empress or Vortka with questions or commands to be answered and obeyed. He did not stop to speak with them, they of course did not presume to delay him. He was Zandakar warlord, son of the Empress and the god’s smiting hammer. He and his silent brother reached the Sand River and cantered into its dry embrace.

There were no accidents this time, no blinding moments of stark terror where it seemed as though he would fail his beloved little brother, lose him to the quicksand, to the demons who everywhere lay in wait. In that first crossing, the knowledge that their mother would not mourn her second son had spurred him on when the strength born of griefstruck terror threatened to fail.

This time they crossed the Sand River as easily as if it had been a soft green meadow in the heart of Et-Raklion.

And the thought of Lilit beckoned, beckoned.

He almost wept at his first sight of Raklion’s Pinnacle, that mighty upthrust of the land with Vortka’s godhouse at its peak, and Mijak’s greatest city spread like bright jewelled skirts about its base.

In the city named for his father there was Lilit, and there was the Empress. Hekat. Yuma. His mother. Who must be pleased, surely, he had at last bedded a virgin and sown her fertile soil with his son. Though doubtless she would be taken aback by the reason for his unheralded return.

As he and Dimmi rode through the city’s main gates they were greeted by a panting, sweat-stippled godspeaker.

“Zandakar warlord,” he said, his godbraids and the hem of his robes dusty. “The god sees you in Et-Raklion, and every heart must fill with joy. Your arrival has been announced to the Empress. She and Vortka high godspeaker await you in the godtheatre.”

The godtheatre? Aieee, his timing was unfortunate. The news he brought home with him deserved a private telling in the palace, without witnesses. But this was not the godspeaker’s fault.

He nodded. “Then my brother and I will ride to the godtheatre with haste, that we might not keep the Empress and high godspeaker waiting. My thanks, godspeaker, for your welcome.”

If the godspeaker noticed Dimmi’s ominous silence he did not comment. He only stepped back, so the horses might continue. “Warlord.”

Aieee, the sights and sounds and smells of glorious Et-Raklion! City of his childhood, city of his heart. After so long in the godless lands, in forsaken countries among peoples unseen by the god, to hear all around him the pure tongue of Mijak and the dulcet chiming of silver godbells, to taste in his mouth the promise of home.

He turned to Dimmi, his tired eyes blurring. Through a veil of tears he saw his brother’s cold, hard face, his hands tight on his stallion’s reins, no pleasure in him. Only rage, and pain.

Not for one moment would he relinquish his hate.

“Aieee, little brother. What a wound I have dealt you.”

Dimmi did not answer. It seemed more and more likely he never would.

Homecoming’s pleasure shrivelled and died.

It was not long before they attracted attention, attracted a crowd on either side of the road. The people threw amulets, threw gold coins, threw copper. They threw silver godbells and long years of godbraids cut from their heads. They had not forgotten him, they knew his blue hair.

“Zandakar! Zandakar! Zandakar warlord!”

No-one called for Dmitrak. Out in the world he’d become a tall man. He looked like a warrior, an obedient attendant. That was all the people saw.

Did Dimmi care? It was impossible to say.

They rode to the godtheatre on waves of acclaim. He entered that sacred space ahead of his brother, hot Mijaki sunshine on his face, in his eyes. The gold-and-crystal gauntlet on his arm drank down the heat, fractured the clean light into prisms of memory.

So many cities, killed in his eye. Killed by his hand. They would haunt him forever.

Ahead was the dais, and the Empress on her scorpion throne. Vortka beside her, aieee, he’d grown an old man. Lilit was on the dais, round as a fat godmoon, bursting with new life. Their child. His son.

Lilit … Lilit …

Yuma and Vortka faded away.

The laughing shouting pointing crowd of witnessing Mijakis fell silent. They were close enough to see his face, close enough to see the face of his brother. They were not stupid people. They saw something was wrong.

At the foot of the dais’s stone steps he drew rein. His horse was weary, it was glad to stop. He slid his feet from the stirrups and vaulted out of his saddle. So was he weary also, his bones shrieked for rest. With the gold-and-crystal gauntlet so heavy on his arm he trod up those stone steps till he stood with Lilit on the dais.

Their eyes met. She smiled, aieee, she smiled. The smile of his dreams was before him in the flesh. The lips he kissed after closing his eyes, the breasts that pillowed him instead of his saddle, his heart’s love, his Lilit, his gift from the god.

His appetite for Lilit’s face scarcely blunted, he looked at his mother. Six seasons he’d been gone from her, all this time riding home he’d wondered how much she was changed. If she was changed. If time had healed her ravaged body, if it had blunted, just a little, her burning godspark’s merciless edge.

She looked no different. She did not smile. She held herself rigid, tormented still by her stone scorpion throne. There was no silver in her hair but there were lines on her face, which was thinner now than it had been before. Vortka moved a little closer beside her, he was silent but his eyes were wide.

Aieee, such a pity they must do this in the godtheatre. He had hoped to speak with Vortka first, tell him of the god’s command in his heart, ask him how best to tell the Empress. He had never forgotten Vortka loved his difficult mother. The high godspeaker was a wise man. A good man. A man in whom the god burned gently. The friend of his green days, who softened Hekat’s blows.

Looking at Vortka now, he hoped the man was still in the god’s eye. That he too had heard its changed message. For if he was not, had not, then how much harder his task would be.

He turned to his mother and pressed his fist to his heart, felt the pounding in his chest. “The god sees you, Empress. Godtouched and precious, it sees you in its merciful eye.”

Her eyes were like blue ice, like the frozen water he had seen for the first time in the godless lands. “I did not look to see you here, warlord.” Her voice was cold too. She did not sound pleased to see him. “Tell me of your prowess in battle. Tell me of the new lands you have conquered, making great the god’s empire of Mijak.”

He wanted to kiss her cheek, take her hands in his, rest his head on her shoulder. Instead he removed the gold-and-crystal gauntlet from his arm and gave it to her. Though the sun was still shining his fingers were cold. “Empress, that is not why I am come.”