Unholy War (59 page)

‘So, what will we do?’ Kazim whispered.

‘Spring the trap – but not the way they think.’

He caressed her forehead, ran fingers through her hair. ‘You knew some of them, didn’t you? I could tell by the way your breathing changed.’

He sees so much now
. It was part of how their auras were beginning to blend. She’d given up trying to stop it; it just kept happening, faster than could be prevented. They were turning into something new: two bodies, one aura. Perhaps only physical separation could stop that? That was the last thing she wanted.

‘Rutt Sordell was there. He nearly killed me, back in Brochena. He stole my youth, for a time, using necromancy. I went grey – it took me months to recover. He’s a body-thief now, a little beetle.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘The one that crawled from your mouth?’

‘Yes, exactly. And Mara Secordin’s here too. She’s a monster, nothing more or less.’ She looked up at Luna’s silver arc. ‘I’d like to kill them both, if I can. It’s long overdue.’

‘You keep telling me not to let emotion colour my thinking,’ he chided her.

‘I know, but this is why we fight: to rid the world of people like Rutt and Mara.’

‘I understand. But how will we do it?’

She kissed his cheek and whispered, ‘As it happens, I’ve got a plan.’

26

Hermetic Magic

Elena peered through the stone lattice at the crowds, mostly women, marching past below. There were thousands of them and the air was throbbing with their chanting and wailing. Many had lowered their bekira-shrouds, apparently so that they could rip clumps of their hair from their bleeding scalps as they wept. There was an air of mass hysteria about the whole procession as they displayed their sorrow and fury, baring and then pummelling or even lacerating their breasts, all the while wailing louder and louder. She’d seen such sights before when prominent Jhafi had died, but nothing had ever come near this. The sounds and sights etched themselves into her brain, made her skin tighten like drum skins and her ears throb. Every women marched with her left hand in the air, the Nesti crest etched in henna on the palm, or freshly carved in with a knife. ‘CERA! CERA!’ they shouted, and her name came echoing back from the surrounding mountains.

‘It’s been like this for days,’ Emir Mekmud bin al’Azhir told them. ‘Ever since the news came of the death of the Dorobon. We do not believe the lies they say, that she was a perversion. She has slain the Dorobon king. She is a hero-queen, like the legends tell: a martyr of the shihad. So they march: women mostly, but many men also. It has not abated, even though word has come that Cera Nesti is dead.’

Cera is dead
. Elena could barely believe it, though all along she’d feared Gurvon would turn on her former charge. ‘Has there been rioting?’

‘No, except for a few hotheads and criminals who sought to use this situation to their own advantage. The people know that my sympathy lies with the queen as well, and I have not sought to hinder their demonstrations. They march round the lake seven times daily, as a sign of bonding themselves to Queen Cera. They burn effigies of Gurvon Gyle and call on me to rise against the Dorobon.’ He chuckled. ‘All quite peaceful, really.’

The emir was not a man from whom laughter was ever expected, but he had a subtle sense of humour. He was almost as large as Kazim, though his waist was thickening as his life became less about riding and raiding and more about ruling and judging. He was a man entirely composed of rough edges: he had a rugged, weatherbeaten face, stern eyebrows and a thick, unkempt beard. Elena had met Mekmud once before, when Olfuss still reigned, when he’d come to Brochena for some state occasion. She’d been impressed then by his zeal and intelligence, and his ability to hold a grudge. He wasn’t an immediately likable man, but he was a fearsome presence.

Lybis was one of the most isolated of the cities of Javon, not so much by distance as by the terrain. It lay high in the mountains of the western coastal range, around a sacred lake, and the road there was difficult, especially the latter stretches. Elena and Kazim had flown over it the previous day, and realised it would take Sordell’s party more than a week to get here: so plenty of time to arrange a welcome.

Lybis had a long history, mostly of banditry and cattle-raiding onto the plains. The castle had been considered impregnable until the Rimoni and Jhafi had combined forces and brought modern siege equipment to pummel the walls. The emir of the time had sued for peace; his mighty outer defences had been torn down and he had pledged never to rebuild them. No emir since then had broken that promise – but they had vastly strengthened the inner walls, the palace-keep where Elena now stood. Mekmud’s ancestry informed the way he viewed the world: as a hunting ground, where status, safety and security were won by the strong, the fierce and the cunning.

‘CERA! CERA! CERA!’

The rhythmic chant intruded again, drawing her attention back to the masses below as they continued to flow past. There were dozens of young women, bare to the waist and smeared in animal blood, being carried on the shoulders of their men-folk while they howled in grief and outrage. None of them would have ever even seen Cera Nesti, let alone met her.

I knew her better than anyone, and all I feel is … what?

‘Lady Elena, about your plans—’ the emir began.

She raised a hand to stop him, too overcome to deal with the practical just now. ‘Please, I wish … I need to be alone.’

Mekmud had probably never been spoken to so abruptly by a woman in his life – but this was not just a woman: this was the legendary Elena Anborn. The White Shadow, the Jhafi were apparently calling her. He closed his mouth and left. Kazim looked at him, then her, and followed.

She turned back to the lattice, letting the sounds from below wash over her.

Cera – oh Cera, what have they done to you?

They had not expected to find the city of Lybis in ferment, but a windskiff had flown in, part of the Dorobon courier network, with news that King Francis Dorobon was dead, murdered in his bed by Cera Nesti. There was a sordid story being circulated of Cera and her maid Tarita being safian lovers, but the Jhafi had simply refused to believe that: Cera was a heroine and a martyr and it didn’t matter what lie the Rondians used to justify their murder of her. Apparently a Regency Council had been formed in the name of the baby growing in Portia Tolidi’s belly. They’d condemned Cera and Tarita to death and carried out the sentence before Elena even heard the news.

The awful thing was, Elena did not know how to grieve. Cera had been like a younger sister during her time as bodyguard to the Nesti children, her favourite: smart, diligent, and passionate about statecraft and politics. When Olfuss had been murdered, Cera had become her younger brother’s regent and Elena her closest confidante. For a time it had seemed that nothing could stop them. They had won over Olfuss’ officials and advisors, defeated the Gorgio and driven Gurvon’s magi into hiding.

But then Gurvon did what Gurvon did: he
polluted
things, twisted and confused people until they acted against their nature, all the while believing they were doing the right thing. Cera was just an immature girl, besieged and tricked into doubting her closest counsellors and falling under the spell of her enemy.

When Cera betrayed Elena, handing her over in exchange for Gurvon’s pledge to protect her family from the Crusaders, she doubtless thought she was preserving her line. It was the kind of cold-hearted decision that Elena herself had coached her in, feeding her political books on statecraft written by some of the most ruthless minds in history, filling her head with the need to separate heart and head. The irony was that at that time, Elena herself had been losing her faith in such methods; she had been relearning love and compassion.

So how can I hate you, though I once said I’d kill you myself?

And how can I grieve, after what you did to me?

But she did grieve, here where she was alone. She slid to the ground, and let the tears flow. Her shoulders heaved as she tried to breathe through the horrible pain of visualising a faraway arena and
her girl
, alone in a crowd of hate, as the stones began to fly.

Whether Cera had been safian or not, she didn’t care. She’d known men who loved men and women who loved women and she wasn’t about to judge. The fringes of society, where she’d lived most of her life, attracted such people. They had their passions and cares, the same as anyone else’s, but different too, because they were always wary of exposure, judgement and condemnation. Living as a spy wasn’t so different: you concealed who you really were, took fleeting consolation when you could, and tried to maintain the façade of normality.

To Gurvon it’s just a move in the game. He doesn’t give a shit that two beautiful young women died horribly because of it. And the Sollan and Kore priests and Amteh Godspeakers who put their name to supporting it, damn them too. Who is their imaginary god to condemn love of any kind?

When at last she looked up again, the sounds had dimmed as the marchers had passed by and were heading out around the lake again. The streets below fell into the never-quite silence of city life. She wiped her eyes.

Kazim was leaning against the doorway to the small chamber, watching her. When she saw him he hurried to her. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, bending over her, offering a hand up.

She slapped his hand away, not sure why except she was angry, now the sorrow had been wept away. ‘I’m fine,’ she snapped, clambering to her feet. ‘I said I wanted to be alone.’

‘I thought you wanted to kill her yourself?’ he said, his face puzzled.

‘Well I can’t now, can I?’

‘Is that why you’re upset?’

She whirled on him. ‘Of course it rukking isn’t! Imbecile!’

‘But if she did …
that
… then she deserves to die. It is the law.’

Her temper snapped. ‘Oh, is that right? Those dirty girls deserved to die, did they? Too bad she was sold into marriage to a fucking idiot and made to do whatever he wanted! Too bad she was surrounded by poisonous bastards like Gurvon until she don’t know what wall to put her back against!’

‘But it’s the law … If every woman—’

‘Oh shut up! Tarita wasn’t safian! I know that for a fact! And I very much doubt Cera is either. And even if they were, why should they be killed?’

‘But the
Kalistham
says—’

‘The
Kalistham
says,’ she echoed with dripping sarcasm. ‘The
Book of Kore
does too: books written by poisonous old men who hate women and hate love because they’ll never know it and don’t want anyone else to put something ahead of their god. Everything pleasurable in life is anathema to them, because the only happiness they acknowledge is some paradise you can only reach by dying!’

Kazim’s mouth dropped open.

She had to fight not to slap him. ‘Do you love me?’ she rasped.

‘Huh?’

‘I said, do you love me? Simple question: you say you do all the damned time! Say it now!’

He blinked, wavered. ‘I … yes, I love you …’

‘Good, now take a stone and throw it at me.’

‘What?’

‘Go on!’ she looked around, spied a small pile of stones left over from a recent repair, flicked her hand and made one sail into Kazim’s hand. He caught it, staring.

‘Ella, what are you doing?’

‘Go on, killer! Throw the rukking stone at me. I’ve lain with women, two of them. Once when I was a stupid college girl wondering who I was, because my sister told me I was a safian because I liked sword-fighting and archery: so when a girl who really was safian made advances, I tried it. It wasn’t my thing. But still, when a mission called for me to seduce a target’s wife, I did it. She was good, too: she wet my purse.’ She glared furiously at him. ‘
Now, throw the fucking stone!
’

He dropped it, backed away and fled.

And she collapsed to her knees again, and those Kore-damned tears flooded out, more of them than she’d ever imagined, and she couldn’t make them stop.

*

Rutt Sordell stared at the back of Etain Tullesque’s head as the column wound its way into Lybis, another clay-coloured semi-ruined maze of stone and shadows, but this one was the end of the road, a hill-town built around a so-called sacred lake. There had been some trouble at the gates with Jhafi mourners for the queen. The townsfolk were still chanting Cera Nesti’s name, as if her calumny meant nothing.
Kore’s Blood, the histrionics of mourning here are incredible!
The Kirkegarde had needed lances to drive the crowds back.

Of course, it could have been handled better, with some show of respect perhaps, but Tullesque had allowed blood to be spilled and the crowds had grown and started hurling abuse and stones at them.
Kirkegarde: they never change.

In the Noros Revolt, Rutt had attached himself to Gurvon Gyle’s Grey Foxes, even though he was an Argundian, and the Revolt wasn’t his fight. War meant easy access to dead bodies. Necromancy had many uses, and a lot of those were not sanctioned by the Gnostic Code – the most interesting parts, in his view. Not all the Foxes had wanted him, but Gurvon needed a Diviner and Necromancer in his unit and he’d soon proved himself. Gurvon didn’t care
how
he got information as long as he got it, and Rutt could wring secrets not just from the living and the dead, but from the spirits too.
If you’d fallen into my hands, Etain Tullesque, I’d have had you begging for mercy through your toothless gums …

A pleasant fantasy, when Tullesque could crush him like a cockroach.

The journey to Lybis had taken two weeks and still Elena Anborn had not shown her face. Every passing day mocked them.
She’s no fool. She’s seen through this foolish trap – and who wouldn’t
? He hung his head, clenched his teeth.
We’re failing Gurvon
. He glanced back at Mara, who had two pythons draped about her torso and shoulders. Her massive horse was wobbling from her weight and its eyeballs were almost popping out with terror, despite her gnostic control. The crowd were terrified of her.

he sent to the ogress.

Mara returned, grimacing at every jolt of her horse.