Dark Heart (45 page)

A crowd had gathered in the town square. A misnomer: the space was circular, with a scaffold in the centre, noose swaying slightly in the late afternoon sea breeze. It was as though the buildings had drawn away equidistant from the scaffold. Stella had seen nothing like this in any other Bhrudwan town, but this was the northern extremity of the Fisher Coast. Perhaps justice was more brutal here.

The townspeople weren’t quite ready to hang anyone, but they clearly could not understand why these strangers wanted to claim one of their own.

For one of their own Lenares clearly was. Person after person talked of how Cylene had been a permanent fixture in the town, growing up in a famously large family, and, with the death of her father, had learned to fend for herself from a young age. Lenares denied it all, of course, with an entirely credible look of puzzlement on her face. Stella would have believed her without question—except how could she say with certainty where Lenares had come from? By her own admission she had been deposited in Raceme by a hole in the world. Now, in the light of the townspeople’s claims, the story sounded dubious at best. Was the Daughter really held captive by this woman? Had there been, was there still, a hole in the world? Only now did Stella realise just how much of their understanding of this crisis depended on Lenares’ word.

She decided to risk open conversation. ‘Don’t you think it might be time to ask Umu for help?’ she called to the cosmographer.

‘I told her not to, not just yet,’ Heredrew said from close behind Stella. ‘I wish to let this play out for a while.’

One of the young men holding the cosmographer’s shoulders spoke up. ‘Cylene’s been gone for months. I should know, I saw her the night before she left. No, I can’t explain how she left aboard ship and then turns up with these strangers, clearly having come overland. But that’s Cylene. No doubt about it.’

‘Here they are!’ a boy cried.

Everyone looked towards the landward gates, through which, amid a cloud of dust, rode at least a dozen people; the first mounted travellers Stella could remember seeing on the Fisher Coast.

Horse after horse drew up in the town square. The crowd waited patiently as the riders dismounted, tied their mounts to a hitching rail, dusted themselves off and presented themselves. A thin, pinched-looking woman in a florid pink dress came forward, unfurled a lime green parasol, which she held over her eyes to shade out the low sun, and peered at the people gathered there. Behind her, a few of the figures fingered large cudgels in their belts.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ she snapped out. ‘Why have we been summoned?’

In answer, the proprietor of the Silver Tankard pushed Lenares forward.

‘So you have come home,’ the woman said to her, her voice nasal and haughty in tone. ‘What have you done to your hair?’

‘That’s not Cylene, Mother,’ said one of the smaller boys standing behind the haughty woman.

‘Of course it is. Well, girl? What do you wish to say in your defence? I hear you left on a smugglers’ ship, serving as the captain’s whore. How do you justify our continued shame in Sayonae?’

Lenares stared at the woman, her face pale. ‘I don’t know what a whore is,’ she said, ‘and I don’t know who you are.’

‘We brought you up to speak better than that, Cylene. Is this how your smuggler captain has corrupted you, even to the extent of coarsening your tongue? And those clothes!’ The woman turned to the riders behind her. ‘Boon, take your sister home. The rest of you, remain with me. I’ll have a word with these strangers, to see if thanks are in order.’

‘The girl goes nowhere,’ Heredrew said. He took six swift strides to where the townspeople stood and put a possessive arm on Lenares’ shoulder.

‘Boys,’ the woman said, quietly enough.

‘You don’t want to oppose the Umertas,’ one of the townspeople said, his voice breathless.

‘I thank you for the advice,’ Heredrew replied, ‘which was no doubt well meaning. But the Umertas, whoever they are, would do well not to oppose me.’

‘I offer you a last chance,’ said the woman. ‘Let my daughter go, or my boys will be forced to take measures.’

The crowd edged back. Clearly they expected the woman’s threat to be made good.

‘Don’t hurt anyone,’ Stella said.

‘Very well.’ Heredrew leaned back against the scaffold, his hand still grasping Lenares’ shoulder.

Eight young men, all with sandy hair and narrow noses, made for Heredrew, cudgels drawn. The sorcerer pushed Lenares behind him and stepped forward a pace, no expression on his face.

‘We require you to move,’ said the oldest of the young men. Mid-to-late twenties, Stella reckoned.

‘No.’

With no further negotiation, the man drew his cudgel and aimed a blow at Heredrew’s forehead. It struck, there was no doubt of it: the crack echoed around the square. One of the younger boys grunted and fell to the ground, while Heredrew remained unmoved.

‘Take a look at your brother,’ the sorcerer said, ‘and try to figure out what just happened.’

The man hissed, then ran his hand through his hair, tilted his head and struck again, this time at Heredrew’s arm.

The youngest boy, a lad no more than ten years of age, shrieked and clutched at his upper arm. The man wielding the cudgel turned at the sound.

‘Nasty break the boy has,’ Heredrew said. ‘It will take weeks to heal, and all that time it means someone not helping with the horses. Three, counting the first lad you struck and the person who will have to look after them both. I don’t think your mother will be pleased.’

The young man backed away, returning to the line of his brothers.

‘Greenstick fracture,’ said a girl, looking up from the young boy’s kneeling form. The first boy remained stretched out on the ground, unmoving. One of the other boys knelt beside him.

‘What did you do?’ the woman asked Heredrew, her voice thinner now, a mask of fear on her face. ‘Are you some sort of sorcerer? You’ll be reported to Andratan for this.’

‘I’ll save you the trouble,’ Heredrew said, pulling out his seal and lifting it high. ‘Hear this,’ he said, his voice amplified somehow so everyone in the square could hear it clearly. ‘I’ve travelled through this ignorant and backward country for the last few weeks and have seen nothing but contempt for Andratan and the servants of the Undying Man. I have been treated with disrespect. Because I have chosen to travel with guests of the empire, I have tempered my response to this. And now I have finally heard the name of Andratan invoked—as a threat.’

He took a step forward, then another, and as he did so his body seemed to grow taller: ten, twenty, thirty feet tall. The crowd cried out and pushed each other to get away from the sorcerer.

‘You are wondering who I am,’ the giant figure said, and buildings shook as his voice roared. ‘I am neither Recruiter nor
Maghdi Dasht
, fatal as that would have been should you have shown them lack of respect. So who could I be? I am the Undying Man himself come amongst you, surveying the empire I built—and I am displeased!’

Stella wanted to cry out, but a deep dread had seized her heart and she could not move.
So…much…power!

The figure crooked his arm and the oldest Umerta boy rose into the air, his cudgel still in his hand. ‘The honour of Andratan has been impugned, son. You struck your ruler’s person and you must pay the price. I will have the respect I deserve.’

Higher and higher the boy rose, whimpering as he did, and the acrid smell of urine wafted around the square. The helpless boy was not the only source.

The sorcerer made a fist. The young man arched backwards, going into convulsions, and strangled cries issued from his open mouth. The fist opened and the youth fell thirty feet to the ground. A small cloud of dust rose, then dispersed.

Stella watched for any signs of life, but there were none.

‘May I approach?’ the woman asked, her voice shaking. The parasol lay discarded on the ground behind her.

‘You may,’ said the sorcerer.

He held me in his arms a few hours ago,
Stella found herself thinking.

The woman knelt before the giant figure, her face working, betraying the great effort she made to keep her composure. ‘I make plea neither for myself nor for my son, whom you have…’ she licked her lips, ‘whom you have rightly punished. Instead, following protocol, I invite the guests of the Bhrudwan Empire to sup with us this evening, and stay the night should they wish.’

The giant vanished and Heredrew stood in its place.

‘We accept. And there we will solve the mystery of our travelling companion whom you claim as your daughter. Perhaps reasoned discussion will achieve what violence could not.’

The Umerta steading lay half an hour’s ride north of the port, a little inland of the golden beaches ribboning the coast, surrounded by forbidding forest. The land they worked was extensive, with a significant live-in workforce in addition to the matriarch’s many sons—their number now reduced by one.

Their homestead was enormous, and palatial in almost every respect. A stone exterior, in contrast to the wooden houses of Sayonae. How far had the stone been brought, and at what cost, Conal wondered. He had not imagined Bhrudwo, which he’d envisaged as a poor place, sucked dry by the Destroyer, would contain places such as this.

The entire steading gathered to receive their unwelcome guests, and to pay respect to the body of the Umerta heir.
They have an awkward task,
Conal thought.
To lie with everything they have in order to convince the monster they are pleased to entertain him on the night they should be mourning the loss of the eldest son.
There stood the matriarch, head high, a smile pasted on her face, which had sagged noticeably since this afternoon. Either side of her stood her sons and daughters, bowing and curtseying as the Destroyer led the Falthans into the large reception room.

‘So the bear reveals his claws,’ Conal hissed as he approached Stella.

‘Tonight is not about your feelings,’ came the reply.

‘But some night must be. The monster must die for the sake of the world.’

‘My hand will be on the knife that separates him into a thousand pieces,’ his queen said, and his heart rose. ‘As soon as he has served his purpose.’

Conal found himself presented to the stony-faced matriarch. He kissed her hand, as seemed to be tradition in this barbaric land, then looked up into her dead eyes and whispered: ‘I will kill him.’

‘You are a fool to think such things,’ the woman said, but her eyes sparkled as she spoke. ‘And an even greater fool for saying them. Perhaps, if it lies within the grace of our lord of Andratan, you could give me some time to correct your thinking.’

Conal nodded, wondering what the woman could mean, and allowed himself to be led into the dining room.

The Falthans were accorded privileged positions directly opposite the hostess, yet their number, including the obviously bedazzled Pernessa, filled less than half one side of the enormous table. Conal was seated next to Robal; Stella had clearly manoeuvred things to ensure he was close to the guard. To his left were a pale Phemanderac and, next to him, Moralye, who patted at his mouth with a cloth and appeared ready to spoon-feed him. On the far side of Robal sat Stella, then Kilfor, Sauxa and Pernessa. The remainder of the table was filled by the Umerta family.

Eight exquisite courses served on the finest porcelain, and yet no one but Heredrew ate more than the smallest portion of food. Surely the monster must notice? If so, he did not acknowledge it.
So much sorrow and fear resting on this place, and all he can do is stuff his cheeks full of his victim’s food.

A side door opened and a woman entered, tiptoed across the room and stood at the matriarch’s left; a place away from the Destroyer, who of course had been given the honoured place at her right hand.

‘My lord, this woman was to have been my daughter-in-law,’ the woman said, her voice level. ‘She was betrothed to my son.’

The monster looked up from his feast. ‘Plenty more brothers,’ he said, and turned back to his meal.

‘Providing any of them are alive by morning,’ Conal breathed. The pretty but wan-faced girl beside him—Sena, she’d named herself—drew in a sharp breath.

‘I don’t doubt some of your brothers will try to revenge themselves tonight,’ he said to her. ‘If they try, they will die. Tell them that, will you? And you can also tell them,’ he added, lowering his voice, ‘that there are others, more capable, working to rid the world of this man. Let them take heart from that.’

‘Why do you travel with him?’

Sena really did have the most intense blue eyes, which bored into his as she asked the question. She had a pretty face too, and—he was a priest. These thoughts were distracting him.

He smiled at her, shaping his face in what he imagined was a ruthless look. ‘I travel with him for a chance to see him dead.’

‘Now, it is time to talk of Lenares,’ the Destroyer said to the woman whose son he’d killed. ‘I would have this mystery solved without further bloodshed. You may speak without fear, as long as you speak the truth. But first, I would have you speak of yourself.’

‘My name is Martje,’ she said without hesitation. ‘I am not from the Fisher Coast, and have not been raised in its ways.’

‘No,’ the Destroyer agreed. ‘You have the look of one from Astralagus.’

‘The Hanseia Hills, actually, near the Nordalagus border.’

‘Ah, the Hanseia Hills, from which come at least half the rebellions in Bhrudwo—and half the
Maghdi Dasht
. I am beginning to understand. Now, for one foreign to the Fisher Coast, you seem well versed in its etiquette, no matter what you say. A pity your son did not have your natural caution.’

‘You forget it was I who ordered him to strike,’ she said, raising her chin.

‘I needed someone to punish, in the interests of preserving public order.’

‘You should have chosen me,’ she said.

‘I still could, Martje.’

She blanched at this, but did not pull away.

‘Now, Lenares,’ he said, turning to her, ‘please oblige me by standing against the far wall.’ He waved his hand at a wall covered in portraits of men and women.