Awakening (16 page)

‘My name is Leetha,’ Leetha said.

My Lord Sinistral rose up, a golden goblet in his hand, and proposed a toast: ‘To Leetha who, her mother gone, her father unknown, has finally named herself. Any who calls her by any other name will have me to answer to!’

He was laughing too, but when he sat down his expression darkened, his eyes glanced to his hands, whose skin was breaking up again, his nails already thickening and ugly.

He hid his hands and said to no one but himself, ‘Why Leetha? Why that name? What’s in her wyrd that I don’t know?’

She danced back to her place.

‘Do you like my name?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Call me it.’

‘Yes, I do, er . . . Leetha.’

‘Do you like
him
?’

She pointed at a courtier’s son who was mouthing words at her.

‘What’s he saying?’ asked Sinistral.

‘Margret, Margret, Margret, but I won’t kill him because I love him.’

‘I won’t either then,’ he whispered.

‘Why have you hidden your hands, my Lord?’ she asked.

‘I think I may have to leave you for a time . . .’

‘Does it hurt, being old?’

‘Yes.’

‘A lot?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Is it getting worse again?’

No one else spoke to him like that, no one ever had.

‘I’m afraid it is.’

‘Everyone wants to know your cure. They say you hide away and drink an elixir made by ancient gods. Then you wait a bit until it works and emerge again looking young.’

‘Do they?’

She stared at him quizzically, saying nothing. He wondered where she got her looks, her joy. It was something he once had, which he had lost.

‘
So
, is it an elixir?’

‘Something like that, I suppose.’

‘Will you tell me what it is one day?’

It was a moment of truth.

He had wondered if he ever would tell her, or tell anybody. Now, at that moment, he finally knew he would. If he was going to die, someone should know. Leetha was . . .

Leetha was . . .

He was astonished her new name had embedded itself in his mind so fast, but then, he had to agree with her, Margret was not the best of names and its choosing had been offhand and disrespectful of her newborn life.

Leetha as a name was as good as any other and better than most. Now it was her name. It had just been waiting for its owner to discover it.

‘Do you know what it means?’ he asked her.

She shook her head.

‘You chose well. It’s a word from Englalond, the country of my birth, used long ago in Beornamund’s time.’

‘So, what does it mean?’

‘Midsummer,’ he said, ‘which is the day you were born.’

Leetha came to him in the Chamber at last, her hand to his.

‘My Lord,’ she began.

‘Leetha . . .’ he continued.

Their conversations never seemed to cease, continuing seamlessly where they left off, the first time in his long life that Slaeke Sinistral knew what it felt like to be loved simply for himself, his real self, whoever that might be.

‘You look worse than I have ever seen you,’ she said. ‘Disgusting really. I got here just in time.’

‘You did. Tomorrow, I think I must submit to the gem’s power once more . . .’

‘Tomorrow, definitely. I have told Blut that. I’ve even told the Remnants, not that I needed to. They know. They’re terrified you’re going to die. But happy they will know the gem’s light once more.’

‘I’m the one who should be terrified.’

‘We’ll be here, the two who love you, Blut and me. We’ll see you through it.’

They sat in companionable silence.

‘Blut says that your son Witold Slew has become Master of Shadows,’ said Lord Sinistral.

‘He can become whatever he likes. I do not like him and he does not like me.’

‘Well, I like him . . . and I wish to see him.’

‘Now, Lord, before your trial?’

‘I might die. He
is
your son. I wish to see him . . .
Blut!’

Not long after, Witold Slew was ushered in.

He was tall, taller even than the Emperor in his prime. His black Fyrd uniform, of leather in parts and of the highest quality and cut, contrasted with the near-white-blond of his neat, greased hair. He had pale skin, black eyes and the glittering cold beauty of a cut diamond.

Court gossip was scurrilous but mistaken regarding the connection between Slew and the Emperor – their similarity of height and hair was chance.

The chair had been swung round.

Light flooded over the Emperor’s hideous form.

Blut whispered to Slew, ‘He does not see as well as he once did. You will be a blur to him.’

‘I wish,’ said Slaeke Sinistral, his voice a little slurred, his eyes weeping yellow pus, ‘that I could see you better. But I cannot. So I must rely on words and on the
musica
. Look on me, Witold Slew, look on me hard and long . . .’

Slew, who towered over Blut as well, examined the Emperor coldly, dispassionately, without expression.

The music of the rain played around them.

Among the skeins of mist shapes wound and unwound.

The air grew cold.

‘What do you see?’ asked the Emperor.

‘Decay,’ said Slew.

‘Who do you see?’

‘He who was Emperor but, for now, is only so in name. I hope—’

‘I am not interested in your hopes,’ said Sinistral sharply, ‘but in your education. Who taught you to fight so well?’

Slew named his teacher.

‘The best,’ said the Emperor. ‘Did he tell you that I taught him?’

The first flicker of an expression in Slew’s eyes: surprise, then respect.

‘Who else do you see, apart from an Emperor?’

Slew hesitated.

‘As I am Master of Shadows, so I see my Lord to whom I owe life and loyalty before all.’

‘Good. And as Master you shall follow the command I now give you which, whatever may happen to me on the morrow, you will see through to the end. Understood?’

Slew nodded.

‘So . . . my orders are simple enough. They are to be acted on at once. I want you out of Bochum and heading for the coast within the hour . . . time is precious. Blut here will give you the details.

‘I command you to journey to Englalond and bring back the one thing it has which I need. Blut will tell you what that is. Be speedy, be resolute, if you must kill to get that object, then kill, but do so sparingly.’

Slew nodded.

The interview seemed over.

The Emperor’s eyes were closing.

But as Blut led Slew out Sinistral called out, ‘Witold, you should know that I am pleased with you but . . . why is it your mother is . . . wary of you?’

‘She dislikes me, Lord.’

‘Why?’

He shrugged indifferently.

‘She told me once but I did not know what she meant.’

‘What did she say?’

‘That I have no compassion.’

‘She’s right. I can feel it like a cold breeze. You will need to find it one day.’

‘Why, my Lord Emperor?’

‘You’ll know why, just as I did, only in the moment that you find it; for your sake, I hope it will not be too late. You accept the command of your Emperor?’

‘I do. What is this thing that I must bring back to you?’

‘Nothing much, just a little stone, that is all. Blut will explain. He knows about such things. He has studied them . . . Trust him, as I do.’

As he left, Leetha came from where she had been eavesdropping.

‘I like him, my love.’

‘I do not.’

‘You will. Now, your other son, Leetha, the one due as I went into my latest sleep. How is he?’

‘Didn’t Blut tell you? I gave him up for his own good. He’s gone. You would not have liked him.’

‘Why not?’

‘You like perfection and he was a giant-born. The Fyrd chased us because you were not there to protect me and Blut had not then found his feet in power. They would have killed him.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘My love . . . what is it?’

She buried her head in his weak chest. His hand went slowly to her head and caressed her hair. He could bear his pain much better than he could hers.

‘What is it?’

She wept.

‘My beloved, whatever is it?’

‘I miss him, he was so beautiful. I gave up the thing I treasured most because I loved him too well.’

He sighed, weak from the effort of responding to her tears.

‘Witold knew it, hence his anger. But . . . what’s a mother to do? Be thankful you have only me to worry about, my Lord!’

‘Leetha, go away . . . If I am to hold the gem tomorrow I must sleep again today.’

‘Don’t be afraid,’ she said before, looking down at him with love, she kissed him on his ruined head.

But he did not sleep and nor did she go away.

Leetha was so worried by the Emperor’s state of mind that she dozed on a palliasse in the cold, damp quarters of the office Blut had made his own, adjacent to the Chamber of Sleep. Blut himself slept in his own room nearby, the doors all open. That way they could hear the Emperor’s mutterings in the dark, his cries through the broken rain, his sobs, his pain.

‘Blut!’

She roused him from sleep.

‘My . . . my Lady?’

‘He wants something we cannot give him.’

She had been up and sat with him and he talked to her, asking for something.

Together they hurried to his side.

‘I am afraid I may have too little strength left to survive the gem’s scorching power, Blut, and I am afraid I will never see the world again. I have been too long in this dark in which there is not night or day.’

‘My Lord,’ Leetha whispered, ‘there are but a few hours to go until we can begin. The Remnants take things slowly, they will be ready then.’

He reached for her hand, he shook his head, he wept.

‘Is it night up there in the real world?’

‘It is, but—’

‘I want to see the stars.’

‘We cannot take you there, my Lord, it will kill you,’ said Blut.

‘If I cannot even see the stars when I wish to, what is it that I am the Emperor of? Eh?
Eh!?
’

The Emperor of the Hyddenworld moaned in his agony.

‘I . . . want . . . to . . .’

Leetha made a decision.

‘Fetch Kreche, Blut,’ said Leetha. ‘
Now!
’

‘Lord . . . my Lady!’

‘Help me, Blut. Tomorrow I may die, tonight . . . I . . . want . . .’

‘My beloved,’ said Leetha, stroking his gaunt cheek and wiping his dribbling mouth and eyes, ‘it is all right, we’ll take you where you need to go. It will give you strength for the morrow.’

Otta Kreche, once the Emperor’s Master of Shadows, still his friend, was brought into the Chamber by Blut.

He was a huge hydden, old now but strong, with arms and hands like the branches of an oak.

He had seen his Lord sick and ill many times, but never as he was now. He looked at him and wept.

‘My friend, I want to see the stars,’ said Sinistral.

Kreche, who was a father and grandfather and knew how to be gentle, bent down and eased his hands and arms under the skin and bones that were all his Lord Emperor was.

He picked him up like a sick child and cradled him.

Leetha put a blanket over him, Blut another.

They covered his head with a corner of the soft material.

Blut went ahead to the old lift shaft that was the only way to the surface from Level 18. The space was narrow but they all squeezed inside. As the lift jerked its way up, the Emperor’s head resting against Kreche’s chest, the movement was painful, his moans very pitiful.

But up they went, level by slow level, clanketing their way to the surface of the Earth, up into the cold night air.

‘Do not drop me, Kreche, do not let me fall . . .’

‘No, Lord.’

They moved outside.

The night sky, all stars and moon, stretched away for ever and for ever. My Lord Emperor reached a hand to touch it, laughing with joy, crying with pain.

‘It is so beautiful,’ he said. ‘Listen!’

‘What can you hear?’ asked Kreche.

‘The
musica
, my friend, I hear the
musica
, it is the starshine in my eyes, it is the cold air on my face, it is the strength of your arms and the touch of my beloved. And Blut . . . ?’