Reign of Iron (57 page)

“So it’s true then,” Aruan said. “You go to the Islands to fight for the lady?” I found myself disliking the tone in his voice, it sounded uncomfortably like awe.

“It’s true.” He clasped hands briefly with Aruan and nodded at the captain of his guard before turning to me. “My lord. Shall we?”

“You may be one of the first in line to lick your Emperor’s feet, scribbler” – the ship’s captain stabbed a finger into my chest – “but this ship is my kingdom. You berth here or you can spend the voyage roped to the mainmast.”

He had shown us to our quarters, a curtained-off section of the hold near the prow of the ship. The hold stank of brine, bilge water and the intermingled odour of the cargo, a sickly, cloying mélange of fruit, dried fish and the myriad spices for which the Empire was famous. It was all I could do to keep from gagging.

“I am Lord Verniers Alishe Someren, Imperial Chronicler, First of the Learned and honoured servant of the Emperor,” I responded, the handkerchief over my mouth muffling my words somewhat. “I am emissary to the Ship Lords and official escort to the Imperial prisoner. You will treat me with respect, pirate, or I’ll have twenty guardsmen aboard in a trice to flog you in front of your crew.”

The captain leaned closer; incredibly his breath smelt worse than the hold. “Then I’ll have twenty-one bodies to feed to the orcas when we leave the harbour, scribbler.”

Al Sorna prodded one of the bedrolls on the deck with his foot and glanced around briefly. “This’ll do. We’ll need food and water.”

I bristled. “You seriously suggest we sleep in this rat-hole? It’s disgusting.”

“You should try a dungeon. Plenty of rats there too.” He turned to the captain. “The water barrel is on the foredeck?”

The captain ran a stubby finger through the mass of his beard, contemplating the tall man, no doubt wondering if he was being mocked and calculating if he could kill him if he had to. They have a saying on the northern Alpiran coast: turn your back on a cobra but never a Meldenean. “So you’re the one who’s going to cross swords with the Shield? They’re offering twenty to one against you in Ildera. Think I should risk a copper on you? The Shield is the keenest blade in the Islands, can slice a fly in half with a sabre.”

“Such renown does him credit.” Vaelin Al Sorna smiled. “The water barrel?”

“It’s there. You can have one gourd a day each, no more. My crew won’t go short for the likes of you two. You can get food from the galley, if you don’t mind eating with scum like us.”

“No doubt I’ve eaten with worse. If you need an extra man at the oars, I am at your disposal.”

“Rowed before, have you?”

“Once.”

The captain grunted, “We’ll manage.” He turned to go, muttering over his shoulder, “We sail within the hour, stay out of the way until we clear the harbour.”

“Island savage!” I fumed, unpacking my belongings, laying out my quills and ink. I checked there were no rats lurking under my bedroll before sitting down to compose a letter to the Emperor. I intended to let him know the full extent of this insult. “He’ll find no berth in an Alpiran harbour again, mark you.”

Vaelin Al Sorna sat down, resting his back against the hull. “You speak my language?” he asked, slipping into the Northern tongue.

“I study languages,” I replied in kind. “I can speak the seven major tongues of the Empire fluently and communicate in five more.”

“Impressive. Do you know the Seordah language?”

I looked up from my parchment. “Seordah?”

“The Seordah Sil of the Great Northern Forest. You’ve heard of them?”

“My knowledge of northern savages is far from comprehensive. As yet I see little reason to complete it.”

“For a learned man you seem happy with your ignorance.”

“I feel I speak for my entire nation when I say I wish we had all remained in ignorance of you.”

He tilted his head, studying me. “That’s hate in your voice.”

I ignored him, my quill moving rapidly over the parchment, setting out the formal opening for Imperial correspondence.

“You knew him, didn’t you?” Vaelin Al Sorna went on.

My quill stopped. I refused to meet his eye.

“You knew the Hope.”

I put my quill aside and rose. Suddenly the stench of the hold and the proximity of this savage were unbearable. “Yes, I knew him,” I grated. “I knew him to be the best of us. I knew he would be the greatest Emperor this land has ever seen. But that’s not the reason for my hate, Northman. I hate you because I knew the Hope as my friend, and you killed him.”

I stalked away, climbing the steps to the main deck, wishing for the first time in my life that I could be a warrior, that my arms were thick with muscle and my heart hard as stone, that I could wield a sword and take bloody vengeance. But such things were beyond me. My body was trim but not strong, my wits quick but not ruthless. I was no warrior. So there would be no vengeance for me. All I could do for my friend was witness the death of his killer and write the formal end to his story for the pleasure of my Emperor and the eternal truth of our archive.

I stayed on the deck for hours, leaning on the rail, watching the green-tinged waters of the north Alpiran coast deepen into the blue of the inner Erinean Sea as the ship’s bosun beat the drum for the oarsmen and our journey began. Once clear of the coast the captain ordered the mainsail unfurled and our speed increased, the sharp prow of the vessel cutting through the gentle swell, the figurehead, a traditional Meldenean carving of the winged serpent, one of their innumerable sea gods, dipping its many-toothed head amidst a haze of spume. The oarsmen rowed for two hours before the bosun called a rest and they shipped oars, trooping off to their meal. The day watch stayed on deck, running the rigging and undertaking the never-ending chores of ship life. A few favoured me with a customary glare or two, but none attempted to converse, a mercy for which I was grateful.

We were several leagues from the harbour when they came into view, black fins knifing through the swell, heralded by a cheerful shout from the crow’s nest. “Orcas!”

I couldn’t tell how many there were, they moved too fast and too fluidly through the sea, occasionally breaking the surface to spout a cloud of steam before diving below. It was only when they came closer that I fully realised their size, over twenty feet from nose to tail. I had seen dolphins before in the southern seas, silvery, playful creatures that could be taught simple tricks. These were different, their size and the dark, flickering shadows they traced through the water seemed ominous to me, threatening shades of nature’s indifferent cruelty. My shipmates clearly felt differently, yelling greetings from the rigging as if hailing old friends. Even the captain’s habitual scowl seemed to have softened somewhat.

One of the orcas broke the surface in a spectacular display of foam, twisting in midair before crashing into the sea with a boom that shook th
e ship. The Meldeneans roared their appreciation.
Oh Seliesen
, I thought.
The poem you would have written to honour such a sight.

“They think of them as sacred.” I turned to find that the Hope Killer had joined me at the rail. “They say when a Meldenean dies at sea the orcas will carry his spirit to the endless ocean beyond the edge of the world.”

“Superstition,” I sniffed.

“Your people have their gods, do they not?”

“My people do, I do not. Gods are a myth, a comforting story for children.”

“Such words would make you welcome in my homeland.”

“We are not in your homeland, Northman. Nor would I ever wish to be.”

Another orca rose from the sea, rising fully ten feet into the air before plunging back down. “It’s strange,” Al Sorna mused. “When our ships came across this sea the orcas ignored them and made only for the Meldeneans. Perhaps they share the same belief.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “Or perhaps they appreciate a free meal.” I nodded at the prow, where the captain was throwing salmon into the sea, the orcas swooping on them faster than I could follow.

“Why are you here, Lord Verniers?” Al Sorna asked. “Why did the Emperor send you? You’re no gaoler.”

“The Emperor graciously consented to my request to witness your upcoming duel. And to accompany the Lady Emeren home of course.”

“You came to see me die.”

“I came to write an account of this event for the Imperial Archive. I am the Imperial Chronicler after all.”

“So they told me. Gerish, my gaoler, was a great admirer of your history of the war with my people, considered it the finest work in Alpiran literature. He knew a lot for a man who spends his life in a dungeon. He would sit outside my cell for hours reading out page after page, especially the battles, he liked those.”

“Accurate research is the key to the historian’s art.”

“Then it’s a pity you got it so wrong.”

Once again I found myself wishing for a warrior’s strength. “Wrong?”

“Very.”

“I see. Perhaps if you work your savage’s brain, you could tell me which sections were so very wrong.”

“Oh, you got the small things right, mostly. Except you said my command was the Legion of the Wolf. In fact it was the Thirty-fifth Regiment of Foot, known amongst the Realm Guard as the Wolfrunners.”

“I’ll be sure to rush out a revised edition on my return to the capital,” I said dryly.

He closed his eyes, remembering. “‘King Janus’s invasion of the northern coast was but the first step in pursuance of his greater ambition, the annexation of the entire Empire.’”

It was a verbatim recitation. I was impressed by his memory, but was damned if I’d say so. “A simple statement of fact. You came here to steal the Empire. Janus was a madman to think such a scheme could succeed.”

Al Sorna shook his head. “We came for the northern coastal ports. Janus wanted the trade routes through the Erinean. And he was no madman. He was old and desperate, but not mad.”

I was surprised at the sympathy evident in his voice; Janus was the great betrayer after all, it was part of the Hope Killer’s legend. “And how do you know the man’s mind so well?”

“He told me.”

“Told you?” I laughed. “I wrote a thousand letters of enquiry to every ambassador and Realm official I could think of. The few who bothered to reply all agreed on one thing: Janus never confided his plans to anyone, not even his family.”

“And yet you claim he wanted to conquer your whole Empire.”

“A reasonable deduction based on the available evidence.”

“Reasonable, maybe, but wrong. Janus had a king’s heart, hard and cold when he needed it to be. But he wasn’t greedy and he was no dreamer. He knew the Realm could never muster the men and treasure needed to conquer your Empire. We came for the ports. He said it was the only way we could secure our future.”

“Why would he confide such intelligence to you?”

“We had … an arrangement. He told me many things he would tell no other. Some of his commands required an explanation before I would obey them. But sometimes I think he just needed to talk to someone. Even kings get lonely.”

I felt a curious sense of seduction; the Northman knew I hungered for the information he could give me. My respect for him grew, as did my dislike. He was using me, he wanted me to write the story he had to tell. Quite why I had no idea. I knew it was something to do with Janus and the duel he would fight in the Islands. Perhaps he needed to unburden himself before his end, leave a legacy of truth so he would be known to history as more than just the Hope Killer. A final attempt to redeem both his spirit and that of his dead king.

I let the silence string out, watching the orcas until they had eaten their fill of free fish and departed to the east. Finally, as the sun began to dip towards the horizon and the shadows grew long, I said, “So tell me.”