The Path of Sorrow Page 19

  “Commander Samshi,” said Hoshea in a tone of calm authority, “take your horse out in force and disperse the rabble outside. Bring me as many officers as you can, alive.”

  Samshi bowed and hurried away. The High Priest turned to upbraid Hoshea, his leathery face mottled with rage, but was not given a chance to speak.

  “I have heard enough from you, old man,” said Hoshea, and spoke words of incantation. The priest’s eyes opened wide in terror and disbelief as the Maker’s cold hands squeezed his heart. He took a step towards Hoshea, feebly lifting his staff as if he meant to strike, and a ghastly rattling noise sounded in the back of his throat.

  Knowing that the eyes of everyone nearby were on him, Hoshea placed his hand against the priest’s shallow chest and pushed him off the parapet. The man was dead before he hit the cobbles far below, but Hoshea meant to make an impression. If the people of Hasan would not be ruled by common sense, they would have to be ruled through fear.

  He had now used the dark arts to resurrect one man and kill another. Sorcery was becoming a dangerous habit.

  * * * *

  At the northern end of the hall was a low stone platform. On top of the platform was the Dynastic Chair, a five-legged stool made of bronze. The legs were carved in the shape of long sinuous necks and the feet in the shape of horned bull’s heads. Flanking the platform were two slender bronze tripods mounted by trays full of burning incense that filled the Hall with a sweet smell.

  In times past, General Saqr had sat on the Chair and dispensed his version of justice, as had his father and grandfather. Hoshea had given some thought to bringing out Saqr and seating him on his dynastic chair for the coming audience, but one look at the man had persuaded him otherwise.

  The interior of the General’s bedchamber was dark, the shutters on the windows all shut and bolted, and the air was foul. Hoshea’s master was an indistinct shape huddled inside the enormous bed, trembling as if he suffered from fever and uttering low moaning noises.

  Hoshea turned on the General’s attendants. “Is this how you care for your master?” he cried angrily, holding his hand to his nose against the stench. “Open the shutters, in the name of the Gods, and allow some air in the room!”

  The chief attendant, a wizened old servitor whom Hoshea had known for many years, spread his hands helplessly. “We have tried, Master Secretary,” he replied, “but the master would not let us. Every time we attempted to unfasten the shutters or coax him out of bed, he threw himself at us like a wild beast. One of my boys had to be treated for a bite on his arm. The master has lost his reason entirely and is best left alone. He eats, spitting crumbs and bones on the floor, and defecates where he likes.”

  Hoshea leaned his head against the door frame. “I must ask you a great favour, Anshar,” he said in a kinder voice. “Can you clean him up for me? I will give you extra attendants if you wish. Get him into his best clothes and give him some narcotic that will lend him the appearance of sanity for an hour at least? I realise it is a hard thing to ask.”

  Anshar thought for a moment and shook his bald head. “I am loath to disappoint, but it cannot be done. The master has little control of his bodily functions, and the best any narcotic could do is drive him into a stupor. If you mean for him to sit on his throne, you will have to nail him to it.”

  Hoshea gave up, and after wishing Anshar and his attendants well, made his way back to the Hall of Ancestors.

  General Saqr had been a vicious incompetent. Hoshea knew that. He had drained his lands of money and manpower for his bloody and unsuccessful wars and thought nothing of having men and women tortured to death for his amusement. Hoshea knew that also. He knew other things about the General very few others did, certain acts of unspeakable depravity that Saqr had taken care to commit in private. Hoshea knew because it had been his job to arrange them and tidy up afterwards. And still, for all that, the General’s fate made him sad. Truly, he thought, I am slave to my very marrow. Dogs do not question their masters.

  Like most intelligent men, Hoshea knew how to compromise. He had a plain stool and a desk placed at the foot of the short flight of steps leading up to the Dynastic Chair. Then he sat behind the desk looking and feeling rather like a schoolmaster. Hoshea wanted to give the impression that he was in command, but only on a temporary basis, and was no usurper.

  He had time for a hasty supper of bread, onions, goat’s cheese, and a little wine. Apart from him, the Hall of Ancestors was empty. Hoshea was allowed a short time to savour the peace and stillness of the vast chamber, to clear his mind and gently inhale the sweet clouds of incense. The brief peace was shattered by the tramp of marching feet and the groan of hinges as the great double doors at the southern end of the hall slowly swung open.

  Commander Samshi strode in looking tired but euphoric, his helmet tucked under his arm and the rest of him spattered in blood, sweat, and slime. Behind him came a squad of equally dishevelled cavalry troopers. Between them marched six prisoners, bareheaded, battered and bleeding, their faces raw with the shock of the morning’s events.

  “They ran like rabbits, Master Secretary!” roared Samshi, halting smartly at a respectable distance from the Chair. His men clashed to a halt behind him. “Like rabbits! Never has there been such an action. We charged out of the gates and went straight through them. I let my boys off the leash, and even now they are pursuing fugitives in all directions.”

  Samshi remembered to salute, thumping his chest, and Hoshea acknowledged it with a nod. He was studying the prisoners, two or three of whom he did not recognise. They were difficult to identify, being so covered in gore and filth, and then he found the one he was looking for.

  “Tiglath,” he said, pointing at the man in question, “step forward.”

  The nobleman named Tiglath looked up, glowering, and reluctantly shuffled forward. Knowing the man’s vanity, Hoshea was pleased to note that his fine uniform was mangled and torn and one of his eyes closed by a hideous yellow-black bruise.

  “You do not look so fine now, my lord,” Hoshea said, leaning his elbows on the desk and resting his chin on his laced fingers. “In happier times you were the glittering star of every ball and feast, masque and revel. You would not have noticed me then, of course. I was a mere clerk, standing in the shadows and counting the money you and your friends wasted on frivolities.”

  Tiglath said nothing, but his good eye burned with contempt. He was a gentleman and an aristocrat, and the words of a slave, no matter how cutting, meant little to him.

  Hoshea was aware of an interesting silence in the room. Samshi, still flushed from his victory, looked confused. His men wore the carefully blank expressions of the lower ranks everywhere when they are pretending not to absorb everything being said and done around them. Tiglath’s fellow prisoners looked nervous, their attention fixed on the battle of wills between Tiglath and the neat little man behind the desk.

  “Why did you betray us at the White Bull, Tiglath?” Hoshea asked quietly. “What did the late General Anma offer you?”

  Tiglath’s pride was unconquerable, and he was a stranger to shame. “The lands that your General Saqr denied me,” he replied, and spat on the floor, “not that it’s any of your damn business, slave.”

  “I suspected as much. Disappointing. If I were to turn traitor, I would have to be bought for much more than a bit of decent farmland my ancestors once owned. But then I am not a gentleman and do not understand these things.”

  The nobleman’s face coloured, and an angry flush appeared on the side of his neck. “Do not presume to mock me, you offal!” he rasped. Hoshea could actually hear his teeth grinding. “The land was merely part of the contract. I wanted what every true Temerian wanted—a strong ruler on the Imperial throne and a peaceful united Empire, as in the days of old!”

  He had a fine, rich speaking voice, and his words rang around the chamber. One or two of his fellow prisoners, those with a spark of fight left in them, shouted in approval. Samshi glared horribly, and on
e of his guards slashed a vine rod across the backs of the offenders.

  “To that end, you betrayed your sworn comrades on the battlefield and dipped your hands in the blood of your fellow countrymen,” went on Hoshea, unperturbed. “Hardly the behaviour of a patriot, and despite your best efforts, you find yourself on the losing side after all. My lord, we will not endure any brave speeches from you.”

  He steeled himself for what came next. The Gods knew, or he hoped they did, that he merely did whatever was necessary to protect his people and his city. A noble ambition, surely, but it had already led him several long strides into darkness. And now he was required to take another.

  “Tiglath, you are condemned out of your own mouth,” he declared. “We have no time or leisure for a trial, so you will die now, in this room. Rough justice, perhaps, but these are rough times.”

  Commander Samshi loosened his sabre in its scabbard. “Let me, Master Secretary,” he pleaded, but Hoshea raised his hand for silence.

  “Wait. We are not wholly given over to barbarism, at least not yet, and I will allow the prisoner a choice. Tiglath, you can face execution or take the matter into your own hands. Which is it to be?”

  Tiglath glanced at Samshi’s sword, then closed his good eye, tilted his head back, and inhaled a deep breath as if savouring a last taste of this world.

  “I will die by my own hand,” he said. A low moan broke out from the gaggle of prisoners, quickly silenced by another swat of the vine rod.

  “In other circumstances, and if you were a different man, I would admire your courage,” said Hoshea. “Samshi, give him your sword.”

  One of the guards stepped up behind Tiglath and cut the bonds on his wrists. Samshi drew his sword and warily offered it to him, hilt first. The condemned man slowly unbuckled his dinted breastplate, allowing it to fall to the floor with a clang. Then he accepted the sword.

  “My thanks,” he said, smiling ironically at Samshi. He held the blade up close to his good eye, testing the edge with his thumb. “If we were characters in a story, I might use this to kill you all and escape.”

  No one laughed. “I never read such things myself,” Hoshea said levelly. “I don’t have the time.”

  “Nor do I, any more,” answered Tiglath. He quickly reversed the sword, gripped the hilt in both hands with the point pressed against his belly, and pushed.

  “Oh, my Gods,” he whispered as blood spilled over the blade and he gently buckled to his knees. “Oh, my Gods, it hurts.”

  * * * *

  Tiglath was a long time in dying. In the end he had to be dragged away by the guards to some private chamber, there to writhe and scream until the life finally bled out of him. It was all quite unseemly, but Hoshea noticed that the spectacle of his agony had a marked effect on the rest of the prisoners. Their remaining courage, such as it was, swiftly drained out of them, replaced by blatant terror and an almost endearing desire to please.

  After Tiglath was taken away, Hoshea decided it was time. Rising from his stool, he placed his knuckles on the desk and glared sternly at everyone, looking even more like a disapproving schoolmaster.

  “Hear me, all of you,” he said in the same tone of quiet authority he used on junior scribes, “let Tiglath’s fate mark the end of the age of Generals and Emperors. Temeria will be unified, but not under the sway of another foolish aristocrat. The land will be governed by a council drawn from people of all classes, chosen for their ability and distinction, rather than the supposed quality of blood running in their veins.”

  Hoshea was mistaken. One of the prisoners, a satrap of some minor province whom he didn’t recognise, still possessed a spark of defiance. “And I suppose you will be the head of this remarkable assembly,” he demanded in a hoarse voice.

  “I will indeed,” replied Hoshea, nodding, “though I will rule in the name of my master, General Saqr, for as long as he should live. And I am no longer the Master Secretary, but the Protector, a new rank I have just invented. I was born to serve, gentlemen, and I still serve, only on a much larger scale.”

  He raised an expectant eyebrow at Commander Samshi, who had been briefed for this moment. “All hail Hoshea! All hail the Protector!” Samshi bellowed, slamming his fist against his chest. His words were echoed by the guards, and then, after a flurry of encouragement from boots and vine rods, the prisoners.

  “All hail Hoshea! All hail the Protector!”

  The shouts rang through the Hall of Ancestors and found echoes in the rooms and corridors beyond. Hoshea gloried in the feeling of newly-acquired power—power of a very different kind to sorcery, but just as potent.

  Later, in the privacy of his chambers, he would check on the progress of his golem.

  11.

  Up, and farther up. Those were the essence of the directions given in Professor Denez’s notebook: a mess of random notes, diagrams, and illustrations scrawled on bits of parchment by numerous different hands over centuries.

  However, they all agreed on one thing. The Heartstones had been buried somewhere in the highest, remotest, and most inaccessible regions of the High Places, above the snow line, where even the mountain goats and snow lynxes preferred not to tread.

  “It couldn’t be easy, could it?” Bail panted, though he knew it was folly to waste breath. The air was becoming lethally thin, and his lungs burned with the mere effort of expanding and contracting.

  For the third time that morning he stopped and leaned against a handy tree for support. He closed his eyes, fighting against the pains in his chest and preferring not to see the contempt of his companions.

  Amkur Beg had sent eight of his best warriors to accompany Bail and Sorrow on their quest for the Heartstones. They were led by the tall, thin hook-nosed warrior—though Bail had protested against him coming along.

  “That man has looked at me with murder in his eyes ever since I came here,” he told Amkur, “and he must have been embarrassed by the way I disarmed him in front of the clan. He will surely try to stick a knife in me at the first opportunity. I know his type, because I’m one myself.”

  The old chief had merely laughed. “That man, whose name is Sadaf, is a steady man and does not bear grudges. We are not so eaten up by pride and jealousy as thee, lowlander. If a man knocks my spear out of my hand, I applaud him for his skill. Besides, Sadaf is one of my sons, and I have commanded him not to bear any malice towards thee.”

  Bail was unconvinced, though his spirits lifted a little at the sight of the warriors—tall, rangy lean ruffians in grey robes and goatskins with long hooked knives stuffed into their belts. They chewed and spat and scratched themselves, careless and leaning on their spears like negligent sentries after too many illicit brandies.

  “These are the best I have,” said Amkur, “and will see thee safe. I cannot give more, for greater numbers might attract the attention of the other clans.”

  Bail could not argue with that, and Sorrow said nothing. The boy had been very quiet since coming to the tower, watching events unfold with his bland, owlish expression. Bail was convinced that Sorrow was capable of sorcery, especially since Amkur had nearly choked to death at such an opportune moment. Bail had always felt uncomfortable in Sorrow’s presence, which was one reason he had tried to sell the boy into slavery.

  Thus, he set out from the tower in an uneasy state of mind, troubled by fear of knives in the dark and magical fingers clutching at his throat. A suspicious and vengeful character himself, he had no doubt that both Sadaf and Sorrow wanted to exact revenge on him and would do so at the earliest opportunity.

  “We must push on,” insisted a familiar childlike voice. Bail opened his eyes and looked wearily down at Sorrow. The boy didn’t seem affected by the altitude, and in the three days since they left the tower, he had kept up a steady uncomplaining pace that impressed even the hard-bitten clansmen. By contrast, Bail feared he would soon have to be carried, even though such an admission of weakness would destroy any respect the High Bloods had for him.

 
Had he more energy, he would have snapped back a retort. As it was, he played for time by admiring the view.

  “Magnificent,” he murmured, and no one could argue with that. Below him the broken ground dipped steeply, leading precipitously into the heavily misted forests the party had spent days climbing out of. Rows of lesser peaks spread out far to the south, putting Bail in mind of jagged teeth or the spine of some monstrous skeleton, and brooding giants dominated the central mountain range. Green forests clung to the lower slopes of these ageless peaks like mossy growths of beard, and layers of snow and ice crystals shimmered at their peaks.

  The party was now toiling up the rocky slopes of one of the lesser mountains. It was hard going, and only the odd patch of spiny undergrowth and scrubby foliage existed to provide cover against the white glare of the sun.

  “Come, we have no time to stop and stare,” Sorrow said irritably, plucking at the hem of Bail’s jacket. The boy trotted away, clambering up the loose shale and pebbles as nimbly as a mountain goat. Sadaf and his warriors followed in silence, though one or two glanced sideways at Bail. He took a moment longer to gather himself for another effort, and then trudged after them, sucking in lungfuls of the thin air and breathing slowly.

  Led by Sorrow, who frequently consulted his notebook and seemed to know where he was going, the party gained another couple of miles before noon. The pace was slow since the mountain grew ever steeper, and Bail threatened to collapse at any moment. At last, when the northerner was wheezing audibly and tottering like a new-born calf, Sadaf called a halt.

  The big clansman had spotted a rough track overgrown by a patch of gorse and barked harshly at his warriors. Two of them started to hack at the tough evergreen tangle with their spears, clearing a gap big enough for a man to push through. Sadaf would have led them but hesitated and looked uncertainly at Sorrow.