Salt (15 page)

Footsteps, Hari said.

Someone’s coming.

If they use the door behind us, we’re caught.

The footsteps came closer and Hari sighed. They’ve passed the small corridor, Pearl said. They’re stopping by the guard.

They heard him stamp his feet, coming to attention. The door was thrust open and a man in the uniform of an Ottmar Whip burst in, swinging a bolt rifle to cover the room.

‘Safe,’ he called.

A second man, more senior, came in and pushed him aside.

‘King Ottmar. The Lord Kyle-Ott,’ he cried.

The men at the table had turned, slow and heavy in their metal suits. They tried to come to attention. More feet sounded in the corridor.

Ottmar came through the door and Pearl almost gave a cry at the sight of him. He was a big man, he almost filled the doorway. She had not remembered him so swollen and so broad, but perhaps his new importance inflated him: King Ottmar. He had dined in the war room and his face shone red from food and wine – as she had seen it across the table only a few months before, at a dinner in the Bowles house, arranged by Pearl’s father to bring Ottmar’s courtship to a head. He had seemed to take no notice of her, had been more interested in his meat, in snapping his fingers to have his wine glass filled, but every now and then she had felt his eyes settle on her face and had known this man would use her for a while, to further his importance, and for his pleasure, then throw her away. And she had felt him sip her fear as though it were wine, and seen him gulp from the glass and swill the liquid in his mouth, and heard the greedy sound as he swallowed. If it had not been for Tealeaf, by the wall with the personal maids, Tealeaf telling her to be calm, she would have jumped up and run from the table.

Now he was with her in the room again, less than a dozen steps away. His shaved head gleamed, yellow-white. The weight seemed to have slipped from it into his cheeks and jowls, leaving the skull fragile, but rolls of fat melted over each other on his neck. The uniform he wore, velvet and silk adorned with brocade and newly minted medals, shone with rainbow colours, blue and yellow and red. An odour of sweat advanced with him into the dormitory, not hidden by the perfumes he wore – the smell, Pearl thought, of lust to rule, lust to crush everything and raise it again in his image.

Kyle-Ott came behind him, and stopped a pace in the rear. But he had the same lust. It was in his eyes, restless, pushing everything back and making it small. She saw how the fire had marked him: a livid scar curved like a knife blade on his cheek.

Hari?

Don’t even breathe.

He felt Ottmar’s threat – felt that the man could sense something not right in the room; could smell something, perhaps. His eyes – small, set deep, taking an intensity from the darkness hiding them – saw into every corner and seemed to wind through the tangle of beds to Hari’s face. He closed his own eyes slowly, so no gleam or movement would catch Ottmar’s attention.

The man turned away. ‘This room must be cleared. See to it in the morning.’

‘Sir,’ said the chief Whip.

‘And put two guards on the door, not one. Now –’ he turned to Slade and Coney – ‘you are ready?’

‘Ready, my Lord,’ one of the lead-suited men replied.

‘Show me.’ He stepped to the table. ‘The salt is there?’ – indicating the box.

‘Yes, Lord. Locked inside.’

‘There’s enough?’

‘Enough for a thousand bullets if you need them, with a grain of salt locked in each. But Lord Ottmar, Majesty . . .’

‘Where are the bullets?’

The man stepped ponderously to the table. ‘Here, Lord.’

The objects ranked on the surface looked like mice. Hari and Pearl could not see what they were.

‘How many?’ Ottmar said.

‘One hundred.’

‘Enough. Have them loaded by morning.’

‘Lord . . .’

‘By morning. If they’re not ready I’ll have you stripped out of your suits and see if that makes you work any faster.’

‘Father,’ Kyle-Ott said, ‘one must be saved. When I find the girl, Radiant Pearl, I’ll lock her in a dark room and make her open it. Then she will burn the way she burned me.’

Pearl felt his hatred. It found her through the broken bed legs. She went deeper into herself, where he could not reach her; and, safe there, saw that hatred bent him into a creature locked inside itself, with no way out. She saw it made him powerless, and she pitied him.

‘You can do what you like with the girl,’ Ottmar said. ‘But stay behind me, remember your place.’ He turned to Slade and Coney. ‘At dawn,’ he said.

The Whips stepped back and Ottmar strode out of the room. Kyle-Ott hurried after him. The door slammed and footsteps marched back down the corridor.

‘We are dead men,’ whispered Coney.

‘Tomorrow he will pay us. Then I’ll eat and drink and buy myself a woman. Do the same,’ Slade said.

‘We are dead.’

‘The dead will play. Now, Coney, work.’ He picked up the box.

‘No,’ Coney cried, ‘leave the seal. Open the bullets.’

Pearl put her hand on Hari’s arm. Now, she said.

Hit them hard, Pearl. These metal suits might keep us out the way they keep out the salt.

They rose to their feet and walked quietly to the men, who stood with their backs turned at the far end of the table.

Slade, Pearl said, making Hari pause. He had meant to take Slade.

Coney, he said, using all his strength, pushing it like a spear through the lead helmet deep into the man’s head.

Turn and face me, Slade, Pearl said.

Turn, Coney, Hari said.

The men turned slowly. Their eyes looked out dully through the glass plates in the helmets.

Tell me, Hari said, what are these things on the table?

‘Bullets,’ Coney said in a thick voice.

What are they for? Pearl said.

‘To shoot into the city and kill the rebel army,’ Slade said.

Tell us how, Hari said, holding Coney still and joining Pearl inside Slade’s mind. He picked up one of the objects from the table. It was not bullet shaped but was a ball made of the grey metal, lead.

‘It’s hinged on one side. It opens out,’ Slade said.

Hari understood. And inside there’s a hollow for a grain of Deep Salt? One grain?

‘One is enough.’

How does Ottmar shoot it? Pearl said.

‘He’s built a cannon on the city wall. He’ll shoot the bullets down like seeds. Each one is sealed, but they’ll break open when they strike and the grain of salt will fly out. Then . . .’

The light will be free in the city and everyone will die.

‘That is Ottmar’s plan. Then we’ll go down in our suits of lead and find each grain from the light it throws, and put them in their box again.’

And he’ll kill the burrows the same way? Hari said.

‘Yes, the burrows. Then the rebel armies in the south.’

And himself.

‘We haven’t told him that. Ottmar wouldn’t believe us. He believes only in Ottmar the King.’

Hari, take the box and go, Pearl said.

Wait, he said. Slade, here’s what you’ll do. Are the bullets empty?

‘Yes, empty.’

Seal them, each one. When Ottmar sends his men in the morning, tell them there’s a grain of salt inside. They won’t check, they’ll be afraid. They’ll take them to Ottmar. When will the cannon shoot them into the city?

‘At night, so Ottmar can stand on the hill and watch his salt lights come on.’

Does he know he’ll kill every living thing?

‘He knows, or he does not. Ottmar isn’t like other men. He orders us to find a way to make the salt safe only for him.’

No one can do that.

‘No one.’

The man seemed to speak with satisfaction. He and Coney were easier to control than Hari had expected. Perhaps it was because they were afraid – fear had weakened them and opened them out. Yet the man, Slade, had enough of himself left to take pleasure in the death of everyone, almost to taste everyone dying and smile at it. Hari recoiled from him. Then he thrust his mind back into the man, reducing him to a self no bigger than a rat.

I could kill him, he thought; and he felt something twist in him like the sickness in the cave when he had reached the fringes of the green light.

No, Hari, Pearl cried. That isn’t why we can go inside them.

I can’t stop it.

Yes you can. Hear your name. She breathed it into him: Hari, Hari. He recognised it, held it hard, settled it deep in his mind, and moved back inch by inch from the dark place he had been. Gradually the sickness slid out of him. He breathed deeply, stepping back from Slade.

Are you all right?

Pearl, there’s another voice. I heard it. I nearly went there.

It’s what Ottmar hears, Hari. And Kyle-Ott. But we hear the other voice, they don’t. Now come on, we’ve got to go.

Yes, out of here. Make these men forget. I don’t want to talk to them any more.

He went along the table and picked up the lead box, and its weight almost made him let it slip. It was warm, like the body of a newly killed rat. He opened his pack and pushed the box inside, anxious to get it out of his hands.

Pearl spoke to Coney. Fear had weakened him so thoroughly it was like laying a child in a cot. She brought Slade back from the state Hari had left him in. She told him no one but Ottmar and his son had been in the room. Time had stopped when they left and would start again when midnight chimed on the house clock. He and Coney would close and seal the bullets, and give them to the soldiers who came in the morning. They would say that the salt box was back in its lead safe. That was all. Except – Pearl hesitated – except: Go from here, if you can, get far away, before Ottmar finds out his bullets are empty.

The men stood like plaster statues, not even moving their eyes.

Come on, Hari.

They went to the door beyond the broken beds and let themselves out without a sound. They slipped through the women’s eating room and up the stairs. The sentry stood at his post outside the door. Pearl stole his consciousness, then made the other sentry at the corner watch a breeze rippling through the grass away from him. They ran for the fountain and into the dark.

The journey along the cliff edge, over the walls, through the gardens, took longer. Hari was weighed down by the box. He grunted as he ran, and could not understand why tears slid on his face and why they seemed to come from the salt, not from himself.

Pearl turned the wall sentry to face the burrows while she and Hari crossed the road and wriggled into the drain. The Ottmar clock struck midnight – a dying sound – as they dropped through the narrow wet ways. Hari wore his pack in front as they slid down inclines on their backs. In the large drain, Pearl was able to light the torch and lead at a fast unbroken pace. She dowsed it at the entrance and Hari took the lead, keeping them in the ditch that ran to the sea. In places it was lined with stone, but mostly the walls had crumbled. Hari would not have used a way so perfect for ambush except that he heard, far off, the howling of dogs, punctuated as though someone controlled it. He supposed the meeting was still taking place, and perhaps an alliance was made, in Blood Burrow or in Keech. All of the burrows would be there.

Tarl, he thought, be careful – but had no strength for more than that, because the box, holding its warmth and weight against his body, seemed to drain him in another way.

They reached the place where the ditch emptied into the sea.

Along here now, to the wharves.

Dark alleys, back ways he was unfamiliar with. He called Pearl beside him and let her feel for hidden men, hidden women too. It was almost dawn when they reached the wharf that concealed their boat. They swam through the piles and climbed inside, and Hari pulled his pack off at once. It had almost dragged him down.

I can’t keep this near me, he said.

Pearl lifted it and felt its weight and its prickle of warmth.

Hari, tie a rope on it and drop it over the side. The water might keep it from hurting us.

It might make it worse.

But he tied a piece of cord to the straps, then climbed as far away as he could through the piles and lowered the pack into the water. The weight of the box dragged it down. He tied the cord to a pile strut. Swimming and climbing back, he felt cleaner.

They ate, then slept, exhausted enough not to care that they were wet. Sun rays slanting between the wharf planks told them it was mid-afternoon when they woke.

We can’t go till dark, Hari said.

Why not? There are no boats to chase us. Why chase us anyway? Won’t everyone be looking into the city, waiting to see what Ottmar’s cannon does?

She was right.

And we’ll be out at sea before they know it’s nothing. Slade and Coney won’t tell. They’ll be gone.

Hari was glad she was able to think. He did not seem to be able to work things out any more.

They waited a while longer, listening for sounds. Then Hari went through the piles and brought back his pack, trailing it under water all the way.

Tie it on the back of the boat, Pearl said. We can bring it up when we get to Deep Salt.

It’ll drag. It’ll slow us down.

But we’ll be safer. It doesn’t matter how long we take.

He tied the pack and let it sink. They guided the boat through the piles into open water, raised the mast and sail, and slowly, in a breeze almost too light to feel, steered away from Port and out to sea.

Sunset was golden, and the mansions on the cliffs shone white and yellow and blue. Their windows flashed, but neither Pearl nor Hari, straining their eyes, could see any movement of people. Below the city wall, the burrows were still, with only here and there a feather of smoke.

The wind grew fresh and swung round, pushing them further from land, but the little boat moved sluggishly, with the pack and heavy box acting like a sea anchor. Hari worked the sail, wanting more speed. Ottmar would start his light-show before the moon came up. And, when it failed, Hari sensed he would know who had stolen his salt, where it had gone. Ottmar had a voice that spoke to him too.

An afterglow held light in the western sky. Then it was gone as though someone had thrown a spade of earth on a fire. Night came quickly, sparkling with stars. Ottmar would not like the stars. He would want blackness as deep as he could get.