TWENTY-FOUR

Over Zila, grey clouds blanketed the sky, turning midday into a muted, steely glower. A horseman in Blood Vinaxis livery rode from the massive south gate of the town, down the hill towards where the lines of troops waited, overlooked by tall siege engines. Behind him, the gate boomed shut.

Xejen watched him go from the window of his chamber at the top of the keep, hands clasped behind his back, drumming his fingertips nervously on his knuckles. When the rider was out of sight, he swung around to where Bakkara stood scratching his jaw. Mishani reclined on a settee against one wall, her hair spilling over her shoulder, her eyes revealing nothing.

‘What do you think?’ Xejen asked them.

Bakkara shrugged. ‘What difference does it make? They’re going to attack us anyway, whether we give them a “gesture of good faith” or not. They just don’t want the embarrassment of dealing with a bunch of minor noble families who’ll be angry if their sons and daughters get killed during the liberation.’

‘Liberation?’ Xejen said, with a high laugh. ‘Spirits, you talk like you’re on their side.’

‘They’ll call it a liberation if they win,’ he said equably. ‘Besides, what’s the choice? We can hardly send them out any hostages. The mob had them when we took this town.’

‘That news will not win you any friends,’ Mishani pointed out.

‘So we just refuse, then,’ Xejen concluded, snapping his fingers at the air. ‘Let them believe we have the hostages. As you say, they’ll attack us anyway, sooner or later. But I have faith in Zila’s walls, unlike you.’ He finished with a sharp look at the grizzled soldier.

‘I would not advise that,’ Mishani said. ‘A flat refusal will make them think you are stubborn and unwilling to parlay. Next time, they will not trouble themselves. And you may need to fall back on negotiation if things do not go according to your plan.’

Bakkara suppressed a smile. For such a small and dainty thing, she was remarkably self-assured. It was evidence of her skill at politics that she had, over the last few days, installed herself as Xejen’s primary adviser while still never giving him a straight answer as to whether she would declare her support for the Ais Maraxa or not. Xejen was pathetically eager for her help, for Bakkara’s help, for anyone who was more decisive than he was. In matters concerning Lucia, his mind was sharp and clear and inflexible; but now he had won himself a town, he appeared increasingly unsure of what to do with it. He may have been a powerful motivator, but he knew nothing of military matters, and left most of it to Bakkara, whom he had declared his second-in-command in Zila after the revolt.

‘What would you do, then, Mistress Mishani?’ Bakkara asked with exaggerated reverence. She ignored the tone.

‘Send them Chien,’ she said.

Bakkara barked a laugh in surprise, then shut his mouth. Xejen glared at him.

‘Is there some joke I’m missing?’ he asked.

‘Apologies,’ Bakkara said wryly. ‘I’m merely touched by the noble sacrifice Mistress Mishani is making. She could have pleaded her own case, after all.’

Mishani gazed evenly at Xejen, disregarding the soldier’s jibe. She had no intention of pleading her own case. If she went out there, news of her presence would be everywhere within a day, and she would be an easy target for her father’s men. Besides, she knew perfectly well that Xejen would not allow her to leave. She was too precious an asset to him, and she remained so by making him believe that she shared the same goals and beliefs as he.

‘Send them one hostage as a gesture of good faith,’ she said. ‘He does not know that the other nobles have died; for all he is aware, there could be many more imprisoned in the donjons of the keep. Chien is useless to you anyway, and what is more, he is very ill and your physician has been unable to do anything to help him.’ She glanced at Bakkara. ‘He is innocent, and does not deserve to be here.’

‘He will tell them of the strength of our forces,’ Xejen said, stalking around the room. ‘He will name names.’

‘He has barely been outside the room you put him in,’ Mishani replied. ‘He knows nothing of your forces.’

‘And as to naming names,’ Bakkara put in, ‘isn’t that what we want to happen?’

‘Exactly,’ Mishani agreed. ‘Chien is a major player among merchants and maritime industries. If he starts talking, his ships will carry the word across the Near World.’

Xejen twiddled the fingers on one hand. He was obviously persuaded, but he was making a great show of deliberation. Evidently he thought someone like Mishani might be fooled by that, and he would not seem quite so eager to agree with her.

‘Yes, yes, it could work,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Will you talk to him, Mistress Mishani?’

‘I will talk to him,’ Mishani said.

As it turned out, it was not quite as easy as Mishani had thought.

‘I will not leave you alone here!’ Chien raged. ‘You can’t ask me to do this!’

Mishani was as impassive as always, but inside she was frankly shocked at the sudden fierceness of his emotion. He had been moved to more comfortable quarters after his confinement had ended. It was no different from the rest of the drab keep, comprising a few heavy wall hangings, rugs, a comfortable bed in consideration of his weak state and a few odds and ends like a table and a chest for clothes. She had not exaggerated the severity of his fever to Xejen; but he obviously felt well enough to get angry, even if he was still too weak to stand up.

‘Calm yourself!’ she snapped, and the sudden harshness in her voice quieted him. ‘You are acting like a child. Do you think I would not rather come with you? I want you to go because you must do something for me that only you can do.’

His hair had grown out a little during his confinement, a black stubble across his broad scalp, and he had evidently not been inclined to put a razor to it yet. He gave her a reluctantly mollified look and said: ‘What is it, then, that only I can do?’

‘You can help save my life,’ she said. It was calculated to stall the last of his indignation, and it worked.

‘How?’ he asked. Now he was ready to hear it.

‘I need you to take a message for me,’ she told him. ‘To Barak Zahn tu Ikati.’

Chien watched her suspiciously. ‘The Barak Zahn who is besieging this town?’

‘The same,’ she said.

‘Go on,’ Chien prompted.

‘You must ask to meet him alone. You cannot let anyone else know I am here. If you do, my father’s men will be waiting for me upon my release.’

‘And what will I tell him?’

Mishani lowered her head, the thick, braided ropes of black hair swaying with the movement. ‘Tell him I have news of his daughter. Tell him she is alive and well and that I know where she is.’

Chien’s eyes narrowed. ‘The Barak Zahn doesn’t have a daughter.’

‘Yes, he does,’ Mishani said levelly.

Chien held her gaze for a moment, then sagged. ‘How can I leave you here?’ he asked, more to himself than her. ‘There is an army outside, waiting to assault this place, and it is defended by peasants and tradesmen.’

‘I know your honour demands that you stay, Chien,’ Mishani said. ‘But you will be doing me a service greater than all the protection you can offer if you leave Zila and take my message. That is all I ask of you. Barak Zahn will do the rest.’

‘Mistress Mishani . . .’ he groaned. ‘I cannot.’

‘It is my best chance at surviving this siege, Chien,’ she told him. She walked over to his bedside and looked down. ‘I know who sent you, Chien,’ she said quietly. ‘She swore you to secrecy, did she not? My mother.’

Chien tried to conceal his reaction, but against Mishani it was hopeless. The flicker in his eyes told her everything she needed to know.

‘I will not ask you to break your oath,’ Mishani said. She sat on the edge of his bed. ‘She must have had word of me when I passed through Hanzean on my way out to Okhamba. I can only thank fortune that it was her people and not my father’s who spotted me. During the month I was at sea, she contacted you; I imagine it was through a Weaver, but I doubt it was our family’s. She asked you to safeguard me against my father.’

She felt tears threatening again, but she forced them down and they did not show. Her mother, her quiet, neglected mother, had been working behind the scenes all this time to protect her daughter. Gods, what if Avun had found out? What would have happened to Muraki then?

Chien was watching her silently, refusing to speak.

‘She offered you release,’ Mishani said. ‘The bonds that tie you to Blood Koli have been all that have held your family back these long years, the marriage price of your mother, who was a fisherwoman in my father’s fleet. If you were free of your debt, you would no longer need to offer my family the best price, the best ships to distribute their produce. You could rule the trade lane between Saramyr and the jungle continent.’ She studied him closely for confirmation, although she was already certain that she was right. It all fitted at last. ‘You would risk much for that, to free your family. My mother offered it to you. She is the only one other than Avun with the power to annul the contract. And she would do it, whatever the cost to herself, if you would keep me safe on my journey.’

Chien’s eyes dropped, ashamed. He wanted to ask how she knew, but to do so would be to admit that she was right. Mishani did not wish to torture him. She understood now. All the time, she had been looking for his angle, trying to determine what he hoped to gain from her; but she had never considered this.

‘There was one more thing,’ Mishani said softly, pushing her hair back over one shoulder. ‘My mother gave you a sign, in case there was no other way to persuade me. She knew how suspicious I would be. It was a lullaby, a song which she herself wrote. She used to sing it when I was young. It was about me. Only she and I knew the words.’ She got up, her back to him. ‘You sang it in your fever dream last night.’

Chien did not say anything for a long while; then finally, he spoke: ‘If I do this for you, you will tell her that I fulfilled my oath?’

‘I swear it,’ Mishani said, not turning around. ‘For you have acted with honour. Forgive me for mistrusting you.’

Chien lay back in his bed. ‘I will do as you ask,’ he said.

‘My thanks,’ Mishani said. ‘For everything.’ And with that, she left.

They did not see each other again before Chien was carried out of the gates and down to the waiting army. Mishani did not watch him go. She stood with her back to the window, alone.

Later, she offered herself to Bakkara, and they coupled urgently in his room.

She could not have said why she felt moved to do so then; it was entirely against her character. She should have waited, should have ensured that the moment was right. She found him appealing, and sensed that he felt the same towards her, but that was as far as it went; beyond that, there was only politics, and the fact that it made good sense to lie with him. She had ascertained by now that Xejen was not the leader his reputation made him out to be, and that Bakkara was eminently more suitable for the position. And she knew well the power a woman’s art could have over a man, even one to whom she was merely an interesting and pleasurable diversion.

Yet, in the end, it had been something else that had driven her to him, to discard subtlety for immediate gratification. The episode with Chien had made her ache with a loneliness she had not imagined she could feel, a throbbing void that was too much for her to bear, and she wanted rid of it any way she could. The ethereal touch of her mother in her affairs had reminded her how adrift she was, how much she had given up to oppose her father. But she could not afford to grieve here. There was too much at stake.

She was not foolish enough to think that she could bury the pain permanently amid the throes of orgasm, but she could at least push it aside for a time.

Afterwards, when the treacherous glow had faded that sometimes made her say unguarded things, she lay alongside the soldier and ran her tiny hand over his scarred chest, curling her fingertips in the coarse hair between his pectoral bulges. His arm was around her, dwarfing her, and though she was bony and angular and thin she still felt soft against him. The warmth of a man’s body was something she had almost forgotten that she missed.

‘You do not think Xejen can do this, do you?’ she said quietly. It was a statement.

‘Hmm?’ he murmured drowsily.

‘You do not think he is capable of running this revolt and winning.’

He sighed irritably, his eyes still closed. ‘I doubt it.’

‘So why—’

‘Are you going to keep asking questions all night?’

‘Until I get some answers, yes,’ she smiled.

He groaned and rolled over a little so that they were face to face. She gave him a little kiss on the lips.

‘Every man’s nightmare,’ he said. ‘A woman who won’t shut up after she’s been seen to.’

‘I am merely interested in my chances of surviving the situation you put me in,’ she said. ‘Why are you here at all?’

He picked up a handful of her unbound hair that had fallen between them and rubbed it idly with his calloused fingertips.

‘I come from the Newlands,’ he said tangentially. ‘There was a lot of conflict there when I was young. Land disputes, merchant wars. I was a boy, poor and hardworking and full and anger. Being a soldier was the best I could hope for, so I joined the Mark’s militia, a tiny little village army. It turned out I was good at it. I got recruited into the army of a minor noble, we won a few battles . . . Gods, I’m even boring myself now.’

Mishani laughed. ‘Do go on.’

‘Let me skip all that. So many years – many years – later, I ended up a general in Blood Amacha’s army, on the other side of the continent. I was something of a mercenary by then, not blood-bound to any master since my original Barak had managed to get himself killed and his family wiped out. I was there at the battle outside Axekami five years ago.’

Mishani stiffened fractionally.

‘Don’t worry,’ he chuckled. ‘I hardly blame you for what your father did. Especially after what Xejen told me about you and he.’ His mirth faded, and he became serious. ‘A lot of men I’d known died in that battle. I was lucky to get out alive.’ He was silent for a moment, and when he continued his tone was resigned. ‘But that’s the way of it as a soldier. Friends die. Battles are won and lost. I do the best for myself and my men, but in the end, I’m just one part in thousands. A muscle. It’s the brain that directs us all. It’s those higher up who take the responsibility for a massacre like that. Sonmaga was a fool, and your father was treacherous. And many people were killed for both of them.’

Mishani was not sure what to say to that. She was suddenly terribly conscious of how strong he was. He could snap her bones like twigs if he just tightened the arm that he had around her shoulders.

‘After that, I said I was done with soldiering,’ he went on. ‘But soldiering wasn’t done with me, I suppose. Thirty years and more I’ve spent fighting other men’s wars, sitting round fires with people and not knowing whether they’ll be alive in the morning, living in tents and marching all over Saramyr. It may not sound like much, but it’s hard to give up. There’s a feeling between fighting men, a bond like you can’t imagine that doesn’t exist anywhere else. I tried to settle, but it’s too late for me; I’m a soldier in the blood now.’

Mishani relaxed a little now that he had strayed off the more dangerous subject of her family’s crimes. She began to idly trace lines on his arms as she listened.

‘So I drifted. Couldn’t find a purpose. I’d never needed one till then. I was drinking in a cathouse when I heard about the Ais Maraxa. Don’t know why, but it caught my interest. So I started to investigate a little, and soon they heard about it and they found me.’

‘You had something to believe in,’ Mishani supplied for him.

His face scrunched as if in distaste. ‘Let’s just say it was a cause I thought was worthy. I’m a follower, Mistress Mishani, not a leader. I might command men, but I don’t start wars, I don’t change the world. That’s not for people like me; that’s for people like Xejen. He might not know a thing about war, but he’s a leader. The Ais Maraxa would die for him.’

‘Would you?’

‘I’d die for Lucia,’ he said. ‘Seems much more sensible than any of the other causes I’ve been willing to die for in the past. Which were mostly to do with money.’

Neither of them spoke for a time. Bakkara was drowsing again when he felt Mishani’s face crease into a smile.

‘I know you’re going to say something,’ he said warningly. ‘So have it over with.’

‘You never answered my question.’

‘Which one?’

‘Why did you help take Zila if you thought that you couldn’t hold it?’

‘Xejen thought we could. He believes. That’s enough.’ He considered for a moment. ‘Maybe the tide will turn yet.’

‘So you don’t take any of the responsibility? Even thought you think it’s foolishness, you’re following him.’

‘I’ve followed greater fools,’ he muttered. ‘And responsibility is a matter for philosophers and politicians. I’m a soldier. Hard as it may be to imagine, I do what I do with no clearer motive than because I do it.’

‘Or maybe you do not see your own motive.’

‘Woman, if you don’t shut up right now then I will be forced to do something to you to shut you up.’

‘Oh?’ Mishani said innocently. ‘And what might that be?’

Bakkara showed her, and after that she let him sleep; but she was awake, and thinking.

She could not leave Zila: Xejen would not let her. And she certainly had no intention of remaining trapped in here for the next year. Instead, she had concocted a plan to invite Barak Zahn into the town in order to sound him out about Lucia, to make the negotiations she had wanted to make in Lalyara. To try and recruit him to the Libera Dramach with the news that they had his daughter. In Zila, she would bargain from a position of advantage, and Zahn would have to listen to her. But again, Xejen was the problem; he would stop her as soon as he knew what she was up to.

Xejen was an obstacle that had to be removed. Bakkara was not only the better leader, and the person most able to keep Zila in order and safe from their enemies, but he was also more malleable. Therefore, she would slowly work on both Bakkara and Xejen, undermining the one with the other to bring Bakkara – and hence herself – out on top. Once Bakkara had the primacy, she could manipulate him into her way of thinking, but Xejen was too intransigent, too rigid in his zeal.

This was her aim, then. She only needed time . . .

It was dark where Mos was.

The air stank of blood. Monstrous shapes loomed half-seen to either side and overhead. A quiet clanking came from above, the tapping of chains as they stirred in the heat. The only light was a sullen red glow from the embers of the firepit.

Into that light came a dead face, a corpse-mask of emaciated flesh in a ghastly yawn, hooded and shadowed. Mos looked at it across the fire-pit. His own features were haggard and drawn, his eyes swollen with weeping, his features slack.

Above them, Weave-lord Kakre’s kites of skin gazed down emptily from the blackness.

‘He is gone, then?’ Kakre croaked.

‘He is gone,’ Mos replied.

‘You have sent men to search for him?’

‘He will not get far.’

‘That remains to be seen.’

Mos looked down into the embers, as if there might be some solace there.

‘What possessed me, Kakre?’

The Weave-lord did not reply. He knew well what had possessed Mos; but even he had not expected the Empress to commit suicide. It would have been enough for her to be beaten so that Laranya’s father could learn of it and be incited to gather the armies of the desert in outrage. This was a better result than he could have hoped. And having Mos kidnap Reki in order to minimise the damage was just perfect; all it would take was a small leak of information, arranged by Kakre, and Tchom Rin’s response would be assured.

Kakre had gone to Mos after the beating and found him weeping and pathetic, pleading for help – as if Kakre was someone he could confess to, who might offer succour. It had been made to look like coincidence, but very little that Kakre did was without forethought. While he was with the Emperor he could not Weave, for Weaving required all his concentration and Mos would know.

He had not been able to witness Laranya’s last moments; but he had been provided with a perfect alibi that exonerated him from any suspicion of a hand in the Empress’s death. Even Mos – poor, poor Mos – had never even thought of the possibility that the dreams that sent him mad had been coming from Kakre. Kakre had been too sly; he had cut away that line of reasoning from Mos’s mind, so that it never got to flower.

‘Barak Goren tu Tanatsua will hear of his daughter’s death long before Reki reaches him,’ Kakre rasped at last. ‘And he will know the circumstances. Laranya was not discreet about her condition.’ He stirred, his hood throwing his face into shadow. ‘Her hair was cut, Mos. You know what that means.’

‘Perhaps if we have Reki, his father may pause and listen to reason.’ Mos’s words were empty of feeling. He did not really care either way. He was merely going through the motions of being Emperor, because he had nothing else left now.

‘Nevertheless,’ Kakre said, ‘preparations must be made. With your marriage to Laranya, the desert Baraks were pacified for a long time; but now that link is severed, they will react badly. They have ever been the troublesome ones. Too autonomous for their own good, within their trackless realm of sand.’

Mos gazed blankly at Kakre for a time, sweat creeping from his brow in the heat of the skinning-chamber.

‘If they come to Axekami, they will encourage the other discontented Baraks,’ Kakre told him. ‘Imagine a desert army marching through Tchamaska and up the East Way, intent on demanding satisfaction for Laranya’s death. Imagine how powerless that will make you seem.’

Mos could not really picture it.

‘You should send men to Maxachta,’ the Weave-lord advised. ‘Many men. If you must meet them, meet them in the mountains at the Juwacha Pass. Contain them there. Prevent them from coming into the west.’

‘I need all my men here,’ Mos replied, but there was no strength in his voice.

‘For what? For Blood Kerestyn? They have made only noises and taken no action. It will take them years to become strong enough to challenge you. Axekami is unassailable by any force in Saramyr at the moment; unless the desert Baraks join with those in the west, that is.’

Mos thought on that for a little while.

‘I will send men,’ he said, as Kakre had known he would. Mos had not been listening to his advisers, and Kakre had carefully underestimated the size of the forces that were being ranged against the Emperor in the wake of the gathering starvation. The signal would be sent tonight to Barak Avun tu Koli, advising him to begin the muster of the armies. The Imperial forces were dividing, and many thousands would be marching far from Axekami to meet the potential desert threat, leaving the capital weaker for their absence.

The game begins, Kakre thought, and behind his mask his ruined face twisted into a smile.