Unholy War (88 page)

Alfredo Gorgio had not touched her since the day she’d emasculated him. She had no idea if she could restore him even if she wanted to, but the hint that she could was enough to have him bowing and scraping and doing her bidding in an eye-blink. That all she really wanted was to be left alone made that easier; he wasn’t forced into any corners and neither was she. Hytel continued to produce its tribute of metals and stone to be shipped south, and Dorobon magi visited occasionally and gave her rudimentary lessons in the gnosis. Alfredo concealed his humiliating injury so no one except the two of them knew – she guessed his wife and the girls he victimised were just grateful to be left alone.

‘Sol et Lune,’ she gasped as another burst of agony wracked her and she felt something begin to tear her in half at the hips. She was completely exhausted now, and no light flared, no winds blew or threw furniture about, so the midwives took heart and came forward to swamp her in reassurance and firm, gentle hands.

‘Breathe,’ they told her, so she breathed. ‘Push,’ they ordered, and she pushed, and then, ‘Stop,’ they said, and she paused and breathed in deeply until they commanded again, ‘Push …’

The baby came easily in the end, in a gush of blood-smeared flesh and fluids that soaked the bedclothes and her thighs. When the child wailed, her heart burst. ‘It is a boy,’ someone told her. ‘A little boy.’

Some part of her had assumed that she would hate it, that she would physically and mentally reject it, because hate was her most powerful emotion and this creature had been planted in her by
him
, and it was enemy and it was alien.

But Francis is dead now. I’m a widow. I’ll never have to be anyone’s whore again.

So instead of hate, she felt a strange ambivalence as she took in her child’s knowing eyes and serene face. She recognised him as a piece of herself as well, and quite unexpectedly, love of the little being came flooding into her and filled her, through and through like purest light.

Gurvon Gyle felt Elena Anborn’s hand touch his shoulder, the first physical contact they’d had since his capture. ‘Wait here,’ she said softly, her eyes on the far end of the bridge.

He followed her gaze. Perhaps Rutt Sordell would try something, though he doubted it; Rutt didn’t have the imagination. At the far end, he could see a dozen men and a wagon. Rutt Sordell’s ‘Guy Lassaigne’ body was easy to see: he was the only one in battle-mage robes, surrounded by mail-clad legionaries. The bridge was over a ravine outside Lybis – he remembered crossing it on the first day of his trek into the mountains, with Arnulf Rhumberg and his men. They were now just ash in the lamiae’s valley, or strips of smoked meat in their larders.

He shuddered.

It was three weeks since he’d fallen into Elena’s hands, but they’d not spoken again. She refused to engage in conversation, though she’d visited him every day, to ensure he was still penned and that her Noorie lover’s Chain-rune held. It did: he could feel it constraining him so thoroughly that he was beginning to wonder if Rutt would be strong enough to break it. They fed him, and let him wash in a cave-pool, but he’d not been allowed near a razor and the stubble irritated his sense of self. He’d not had a beard since the worst days of the Noros Revolt. The last week they’d returned by paths through the mountains that were far more direct than those he’d found on the way in, just he and Elena, her Noorie and a handful of lamaie. The snakemen were out of sight, but he knew they were close by.

Looking at Elena now, he was sickened by how damned
well
she looked. Her blonde hair had been bleached almost white by the sun, and she was letting it grow. Her skin was brown and healthy, her face freckled and youthful. Her body was toned and limber – age was certainly not biting yet, showing only in the crow’s feet at the corner of her eyes and a few lines on her brow.

‘He’s half your age, Ella,’ he commented, glancing back at Kazim Makani.

‘Gurvon, I can still gag you,’ she said coolly.

‘He’s a Dokken, for Kore’s sake! He’s leeching off you! He’s killing you slowly!’

‘Mmm. Yes, I feel so deathly at the moment. I’m just wasting away.’ She snorted dismissively. ‘Come on, Gurvon, you can do better than that! Where’s that old snide magic gone?’

‘We made plans,’ he reminded her. ‘We dreamed together—’

She spat over the parapet. ‘Plans to rob and kill undeserving victims. I’ve moved on.’

‘You’re going to fight for a treacherous little bint who’s already sold you out once. You’ll never be able to trust her. She doesn’t care about her little brother – he was never anything more than a pretext. She only wants the power – she got a taste for it and she’ll never let it go. You’ll see.’

He watched, smiling inwardly, as these words struck home. She really did
want
to able to trust Cera Nesti.

That old snide magic.

She stomped away, then came back and snarled, glaring at him, ‘Listen well, Gurvon. These are my last words to you. Get out of Javon, because if you stay, you will die. The Javonesi are going to take back what is theirs and you’re not going to be able to stop it happening. So if you don’t want to waste the lives of the last few sentient beings who still trust you, you’d better run.’

Before he could respond, she stalked onto the bridge. At the far end, the wagon lurched into motion, carrying all the gold he and Rutt had managed to collect. It sickened him to be giving it away, but at least it meant he kept his head.

He’d tried telling Elena that it wasn’t about the money. ‘That’s just one way we keep score,’ he told her.

She’d smiled and told him that was fine: he was losing fifteen thousand to nil.

He spat sourly over the parapet and prayed Rutt didn’t cock up this exchange. He had a lot to do to win this game.

It’s never over, Elena … It never will be, until you’re a corpse.

*

Elena peered at the pallid mage driving the wagon. Different body, same bastido, she decided. ‘Rutt. I’d recognise you in any body.’

The face twitched with the telltale tick of someone imperfectly controlled by a scarab. ‘This body’s pure-blood, Elena,’ he replied. ‘I’ve upgraded.’

‘I bet you miss your real body, though. All your normal senses are distorted, aren’t they? Taste, touch, smell – they all feel second-hand, don’t they?’ She fixed him with a hard smile. ‘I hear Betillon’s arrived in Brochena.’

Sordell flinched, as she knew he would. Someone in Rykjard’s legion had panicked when they’d lost contact with Gurvon and Rhumberg, then some Imperial informer had got wind of the crisis and now the Butcher of Knebb was in Javon. He’d flown in with a legion of Kirkegarde, and direct orders from Lucia to take over.

The phoney war is over. Thank Kore I got Timori out.
Gurvon had wriggled and pleaded, but he’d been forced to concede both the money and the boy-king in the end.
I just wish we could have given Kekropius something for all he’s lost.
All she could promise him was that their existence would be very delicately raised, and she’d ask that the lamiae be given their own lands and left alone.

‘Sure, the Butcher’s in Brochena now,’ Sordell sniffed. ‘But we’ve got Endus, Adi, Hans and Staria in play. Betillon might think he’s in charge, but he won’t be for long. Either way, we’ve got magi everywhere, and you’ve got what? Two? You’re doomed, Elena.’ He looked towards the far end of the bridge. ‘Let me see the boss.’

‘Of course.’ That was the arrangement: an inspection of the goods before the exchange. ‘Don’t do anything silly, Rutt. Kazim is ten times the warrior you will ever be.’

‘I will conduct myself correctly. See you do the same,’ Sordell snapped.

Elena watched him carefully as they crossed, then approached the wagon.
If I was pulling some kind of stunt, there would be men in the wagon, crouching in the boxes, or even clinging to the underside.
But there was no trace of gnostic activity, and no interlopers. Elena ran a hand over the flanks of the horses, scanning them too, because you really couldn’t be too careful. Only then did she turn to the two young Nesti, huddled in the back.

Timori dropped from the cart and ran forward. ‘Tante Ella!’ The boy-king leapt and clung to her as she struggled to cope with his weight. He’d grown so much – he was almost up to her chest now, and a lot heavier. ‘I’ve missed you so much, Tante Ella,’ he whispered.

She lightly touched Timi’s mind and found only the wide-eyed innocence she’d always found there, albeit with a little more maturity and a lot more fear.
Poor boy, hidden from sight, kept as a prisoner. But not abused, thank Kore
. She squeezed him back, then lowered him down to the ground. ‘It’s good to see you, Timi. Please wait here a moment while I see to Cera.’

She turned to the princessa.

So many emotions, all at once: anger and bitterness warred with a desire to find a reason to forgive, but she couldn’t, not yet. Her fingers twisted into claws just to look at her. It didn’t matter that the princessa looked miserable, lifeless, broken down by the weight of all she’d seen and done.

You sold me to Gurvon, you little piece of …

Their eyes met …

Deep breath. Deep breath.

‘Cera.’

‘Elena … I’m so sorry.’ Tears began to well from the young woman’s eyes. ‘Please, please,
please
forgive me.’

She was conscious of the weight of Timori’s gaze, the way the boy was holding his breath, not really understanding, but achingly aware of the unexpected hostility in the air when he’d expected only joyous reunion.

But she couldn’t lie either.

‘I don’t know if I can,’ she replied, then for Timori’s sake she added, ‘but I’ll try.’

Vannaton Mercer was playing tabula with one of his guards, a bluff, middle-aged man named Pol Tannor. After nine months of being cooped up with each other they were something like friends. Tannor was affable enough, more than happy to open the wine or bring eastern delicacies from the markets. Goods from Antiopia had been flooding into Pontus for months now, the harvest of conquest, and the markets were going insane, with prices spiralling and gold coin becoming harder and harder to find. The fact that the plunder was far less than expected had driven the prices even higher.

‘They say the Imperial Treasury has stopped issuing hard coin,’ Tannor was telling him. ‘Ain’t got none, way I hear it.’

‘Dubrayle’s a smart man,’ Vann replied, stretching his legs. ‘I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.’

It was hard to get enough exercise here in the protective custody of the Merchants’ Guild. The courtyard was barely sixty yards across, and there were no gardens – the building was just another small, anonymous house crammed into the trading district of Pontus, a city that went mad four years in twelve, then was left virtually derelict for the rest of the Moontide cycle.

Vann would dearly have loved to be allowed to go for a walk: anywhere. Escape wasn’t on his mind, not at all, but despite being a ‘guest’, his movements were very much curtailed.
For my own good, or so they keep telling me
.

‘Aye, sure Dubrayle knows what he’s doing,’ Tannor grumbled. ‘He’s stringing the guilds along and praying he can ride this out, same as last time. But it ain’t like last time, I’m telling yer.’ Everyone associated with the Merchants’ Guild fancied themselves as men of business, even the guards. Tannor slugged back his ale and was about to launch into another of his discourses on the duplicity of Imperial Treasurers when the door swung open, and Jean Benoit entered, his face grim.

‘Vann! We need to talk. Pol, you may go …’

Tannor stood, and all levity left his face. He flashed Vann a sympathetic look, then scurried out, meek as a serving girl. Vann swallowed, then indicated the now vacant chair.

‘I’ll stand,’ Benoit said, not quite meeting his eye.

Vann slowly stood also, wondering. Benoit’s normally confident, genial face was rigidly set.
Bad news, or unpleasant tidings then
…

‘Vann,’ the Guildmaster began, ‘we’ve hidden you from the empire these past nine months. The Quizzies want you, but I’ve never questioned your story, not once.’

Vann felt his mouth go dry. ‘I’m grateful, Jean. If there is any way I can repay you, you know I will …’

‘I know, Vann, I know,’ Benoit replied, his voice a little choked and uncomfortable. ‘But the thing is, I’ve finally gained a greater insight into why the Inquisitors have been hunting your son.’ He put his hands to his hips and took a deep breath. ‘The fact is, new information has come to light.’

Vann felt the ground shift beneath him. ‘No, Jean …’ He threw up his hands. ‘Kore’s Blood, man, you
know
these people! You know the lies they tell!’

And the gold they sometimes share …

Nine months, and I’m sure he’s been touting me around every dealer-in-secrets from here to Pallas …

I knew I didn’t trust you, you silk-stocking full of shit.

The door opened again, and a stiff-backed woman entered, her haughty face of faded beauty framed by severely tied grey hair. Her eyes glittered like diamonds. The cassock she wore was so deeply purple it was almost black, and chains of gold hung about her neck and waist. A key emblem was embroidered on her left breast, a sign he’d been told of but never before seen. His heart crumbled.

‘My name is Delfinne de Tressot,’ the woman said in a cool, brittle voice. ‘Do you know what I am?’

Vann nodded, his eyes caught by hers. Benoit’s change of heart became all the more explicable. ‘You’re a Keeper, Lady; one raised to the Ascendancy as a reward for loyalty and service to the empire.’

In fact, you’re the bitch who ran the Imperial Orphanages … while your husband Lord Aldemar ran a chain of brothels.