In the courtyard the sun dazzles on pale paving slabs, the heat enfolding—a Red March summer, golden and endless. I listen to the whirr of the boy’s thoughts, struck by how at odds his desires for the season are to mine. He sees exploration, battle, discovery, mischief. My vision is of indolence, dozing beneath the olive trees, drinking watered wine and waiting for the night. Waiting to scatter my silver across the hot dark streets of Vermillion, spilling from one pool of light and decadence to the next. Fight-pits, bordellos, card halls, and any social gathering that will have me, so long as the hosts are of sufficiently high rank, and the noble ladies broad-minded.
We walk across the plaza beneath the watchful gaze of sentries on the walls of the Marsail keep. Guards look down from the turrets of Milano House too, the stone pavilion where the heir sits among his luxuries, waiting for Grandmother to die. Uncle Hertet rarely leaves Milano House, and when he does the sun paints him as old as the Red Queen, and less hale.
Heat suffuses the boy and I bathe in it, remembering what it’s like to be truly warm. My hand grows sweaty within Mother’s grasp, but neither the boy nor I wish to let go. She’s new to me again, this lost mother of mine with her skin the colour of tea and her talent for hearing silent voices. I may be older, changed by the years into something very different from the boy trailing in her wake—but I have no intention of letting go.
Jally’s thinking of the blind-eye woman and that touch of hers which stole his senses and left him dark for so long. The fear she puts in him is like pollution in a clear spring. It’s wrong and it makes me angry, an unconflicted rage of a kind I’ve not felt in a long time—perhaps since I last knew my mother’s hand was there for the taking. The shadow of the Inner Palace falls across us and I realize that I’ve lost all recollection of this visit that now unfolds before me. The story I’ve told myself so often is that after presentation to the Red Queen at the age of five it wasn’t until the age of thirteen that I came before her again, a formal introduction at the Saturnalia feast with my brothers and cousins whispering at the margins of the great hall, Martus seeking takers for his bet that I would faint again.
We pass the looming facade of the Inner Palace and keep going.
“Grandmother lives in there . . .” Jally points back to the golden portals of the Red Queen’s palace.
“We’re seeing her in the Julian Palace.”
The building in question rises before us across the broad square dedicated to our nation’s many victories. The Poor Palace everyone calls it. A foolish number of years ago it was the seat of kings, then some name I’ve forgotten decided it wasn’t good enough for him and built a better roof over his throne. So now it houses impoverished aristocrats who’ve thrown themselves upon the Red Queen’s mercy. Lords who’ve fallen on hard times and are too old or too inbred to mend their fortunes, generals who’ve grown ancient while putting young men in the ground, even a duke ruined by gambling debts—a cautionary tale to be sure.
We climb the steps to the great doors, Mother waiting patiently as Jally labours up them, his legs—my legs—a touch too short to take them in his stride, though mostly it’s reluctance that holds him back. The doors themselves tower into the shadowed heights beneath the portico, huge slabs of rosewood depicting, in inlaid brass, the long march of our people from the east to claim the promised lands as the shadows of a thousand suns retreated. The red march that gave our kingdom its name.
Two guards, half-plate gleaming, elaborate poleaxes held to the side, blades skyward, affect not to notice us, though Mother has married a son of the queen. They’re Grandmother’s personal guard, loath to show deference to anyone but her. They’re also a sign that she might truly be waiting for us in the Poor Palace.
The left door opens on noiseless hinges as we approach, just wide enough for us to slip within, a grudging acknowledgment of our right to enter. Inside we pause, sun-blind in the comparative gloom of the reception hall. As my vision clears I see at the far end of the foyer an old man, bent by age but very tall. He shambles toward us from the bank of votive candles by the opposite wall. His tunic is mis-tied and grey from too many washes, the stubble of his beard white against dark red skin. He seems uncertain.
“Come away, Ullamere.” A young woman, a nurse maybe, comes from the far doorway and steers the ancient out of sight. As he turns a pale scar is revealed, so broad I can see it even at this distance, running from the bridge of his nose past the corner of his mouth.
Mother turns from the aisle of marble columns, from the mosaiced splendour of the floor, and takes a small, unguarded arch leading onto a tight spiral of steps. Winding our way up the stairs makes me dizzy. Jally counts them to keep his fear at bay, but the Silent Sister’s colourless face keeps surfacing between the numbers. I hate her on his account with an intensity I’ve never quite managed on my own.
“A hundred and seven!” And we’re there, a small landing, a heavy oak door, a narrow window showing only sky. I know it for the tower room atop the western spire, one of two rising spear-like above the entrance to the Poor Palace. This is deduction rather than experience for I’ve never climbed these steps—or at least I had thought that I hadn’t until this moment of recollection.
“Wait here, Jalan.” Mother directs me to one of the two high-backed chairs to the side of the entrance. I clamber into the seat, too nervous to complain, and the door opens. Just like the grand portals this door opens narrowly—few doors it seems are flung wide in royal circles—this one reveals the angular features of Nanna Willow. Mother slips through and the old woman closes the door behind her, shooting me a hard look through the thinning gap. Clunk—and I’m alone on the landing.
I say the boy and I share nothing save a name . . . but he’s off that chair and crouched with his ear to the door fast enough. I would perhaps have been slower, more scared of being caught, but I’d have listened even so!
“—why make me bring Jalan? You know how badly he reacted when—”
“That was . . . unfortunate. But he must be tested again.” An old voice, deeper, and more stern even than Nanna Willow’s but still a woman’s. My grandmother then.
“Why?” Mother asks. A pause, perhaps remembering herself. “Why must he be, your highness?”
“I didn’t have you brought all the way from the Indus to question me, Nia. I bartered dynasties with your cantankerous raja to make a match for my fool of a son in the hope that if I bred eastern wolf with Red March ass the promise of my line might out once more in a third generation.”
“But you tested him, your highness. He doesn’t have what you hoped for. He’s a sensitive boy and it took so long for him to recover . . . Is it really necessary for him—”
“The Lady Blue has thought him important enough to send assassins after. Perhaps she has seen in her crystals and mirrors something that my sister missed in her own examination.”
“Assassins?”
“Three so far, two this month. My sister saw them coming, and they were stopped. Not without cost though. The Lady Blue has dangerous individuals in her employ.”
“But—”
“This is the long game, Nia. The future burns and those who might save us are children or have yet to be born. In many futures the Ancraths are the key. Either the emperor comes from their line or finds his throne because of the deeds of that house. They carry change with them, these Ancraths, and change is needed. The future-sworn agree that two Ancraths are required—working together. The rest is harder to see.”
“I know nothing of Ancrath. And my son isn’t some piece to move on your gaming board!” Mother’s anger surfaces now. If the Red Queen scares her she isn’t letting it show. She is the daughter of a king. At night she sings me old songs from her homeland, of marble palaces set with jewels, where peacocks strut and beyond the gates lie tigers and spice. “Jalan is not your toy, any more than I’m some broodmare you bought at market. My father is—”
“That’s exactly what you are, my dear. Your royal father sold you west. Raja Varma took my rubies and silver rather than pay your weight in gold as dowry to some local satrap in order that he might overlook the taint in you that I so value. And I paid the price because in many futures your child stands at the right hand of the emperor, laying waste his enemies and restoring him to the throne.”
“You—” I take my ear from the door and the thickness of timber reduces the rest to angry but indistinct denial. Some cold dread pulls me from my eavesdropping. Now it turns me toward the archway and the stairs beyond, just as if a hand had settled upon my neck and steered me, icy fingered.
She stands upon the topmost step, bone-thin, bone-white, the dead skin around her mouth wrinkled into some awful smile. I can’t tell what colour her eyes might be, only that one is blind and the other a drowning pool. The sun splashes across the floor, the wall, the chairs, but the archway where she stands is so deep in shadow she might almost be a trick of the light.
I run. In this we are in accord, the boy and I. One swift kick sends the chair skittering across the flagstones. I chase it and when it stops I’m up and climbing, fear boosting me so that I gain the seat in one stride, the back in the next, and as it topples I launch toward the window. I’ve not been in the west spire before but I’ve been in the east. The young Jalan assumes they are the same. I pray it.
I’ve learned to fear a lot of things as I grew. Most things perhaps. Heights though, they still thrill me. I hang on to the stonework as I swing through the window, feet searching for the ledge that should be down and to the left. The boy doesn’t look to check but slides lower, letting the window’s edge slip through his hands. He lets go and a moment later his boots find purchase. We stand flattened to the outer wall, the windowsill above our head, arms wide to embrace the stones, a three-inch ledge supporting us.
By degrees I circle round to the gargoyle, twin to the ugly demon that watches the realm from the side of the east spire, just below the highest window. There are a series of such demons set in a descending spiral on both spires, all of the same design but as individual as people, each with its twin in the corresponding spot on the other spire. I know their faces better than I know those of my small tribe of cousins. My fingers tremble but it’s the fear of the blind-eye woman that puts the tremor there rather than of the fall beneath me.
I drop from ledge to gargoyle, slide around horns and barbs to reach the supporting ledge, circle to the next, drop again. This is how I discovered the old man in the tower—only then I was climbing upward, and nearly a year younger. It’s a wonder I didn’t die.
Great-uncle Garyus lives, or is kept, in the east spire. When I first climbed there I was too young to understand the danger. And besides, the spires were made for climbing. There can be few towers in the empire with so many handholds, so much ornamentation placed at convenient intervals. It had seemed like an invitation. And even at an early age escape obsessed me. If the guards and nurses at the Roma Hall took their eye off me for more than a second I was off, running, hiding, climbing, learning all the ways out, all the ways in. Any high window drew me. Except the one in the west spire—that always looked like a devouring mouth, just waiting for me to clamber in.
I reach the palace roof and scamper up the tiled slope, over the serrations of the crest, and down toward the east spire. The dark slates are burning hot, scorching my hands. I try to keep my arms and legs clear, sliding on my arse, feeling the heat even through my trousers. Sweat-slick palms lose traction on the slate. I slide faster with nothing to grip, jolting my spine. A misjudged effort to slow myself turns me sideways and in a heartbeat I’m tumbling, rolling down the roof toward the drop. Arms flail, the world blurs, I’m screaming.
• • •
Thump. Something hard stopped my tumble, taking away in one painful crunch all the momentum the slope thrust upon me. The impact wrapped me around the immovable object that arrested my fall, and I lay there moaning. Somehow I’d become entangled in an old blanket—a damp old blanket—and it seemed to be raining.
“Jal!” A man shouting.
“Jal!” Another man, closer.
I moaned a little louder, though not much. My lungs had yet to refill after being so rudely emptied of air. Seconds later hands found me, pulling the wrappings from around my head. I found myself staring up at Snorri’s face, framed by dripping black hair, with trees rising on all sides, terrifyingly tall and stark against a grey sky that seemed too bright.
“Whu,” I managed. It seemed sufficient to convey my feelings.
“The trolls dropped you.” Tuttugu, head thrusting into view, obscuring the sky, wet ginger hair dripping around a concerned expression. “Luckily you hit a tree.”
I puzzled this new definition of “lucky.”
“Did I fall off the roof?” I still wasn’t really following the conversation. Tuttugu looked confused. “You’ve lost weight,” I told him. Perhaps not relevant to the situation, but it was certainly true that the road’s hardships had stripped a few pounds from the man.
The Vikings exchanged a glance. “Let’s get him back up,” Snorri said.
With a distinct lack of tenderness they unwrapped me from the tree. A tall conifer with sparse branches—others like it dotted the slope. Snorri hefted me to my feet, gasping as he straightened, as if it pained him. He looped my arm over his shoulder and helped me up toward a ridge maybe fifty feet above us. The troll column stood there, black and watching, Gorgoth at the front, Kara to the rear where Snorri angled me. It looked to be late evening with the shadows thickening toward night. Hennan watched from the back of a troll as we drew close. It seemed they had taken to passing him about their number. It hadn’t struck me before that although there were both he-trolls and she-trolls in our merry band they hadn’t a child amongst them.
The cold rain started to clear my head and I remembered the slap Kara had given me. By the time we reached her I felt exhausted. “What happened?” I asked, aiming the question at anyone listening.
“Hit a bump and you tumbled out.” Tuttugu gestured toward what appeared to be a crude travois laid down on the trail.
“Can’t see a bump myself,” Snorri said. “Trolls dragged you for four days. Probably thought they could tip you out and nobody would notice.”
Kara stepped closer and started to squeeze bits of me through my tunic. They all hurt. “You’re fine,” she said, looking slightly apologetic. She wiped at some graze on my cheek with a piece of cloth smelling of lemons.
“Ouch!” I tried to push her hand away but she proved persistent. “I was dreaming again . . . What the hell kind of spell did you put on me, völva?”
Kara frowned and put her cloth away, stuffing it into a little leather pouch. “It’s a simple enough working. I’ve never seen it have this much effect on someone. I . . . I don’t know.” Her frown deepened and she shook her head. “I guess the Silent Sister had her reasons for choosing you as Snorri’s partner to hold her magic. You must have an affinity for it, or a susceptibility. I could test you tonight . . .”
“You can keep that orichalcum stuff away from me is what you can do.” I flomped down on the heap of bracken covering the network of bark strips that joined the travois poles. “I’ve had enough of witches. North, south, young, old, I don’t care. I’m swearing off them.” I put my head back, spitting out the rain. “Let’s go!” I saw the smallest smile twitch across Kara’s lips at that, in defiance of her will, and to my surprise the trolls bent to their task, dragging me along as the whole column resumed its trek.
For a few minutes I lay with eyes closed, struggling to recapture the dream. The word “assassin” had been in the air, perhaps the key took that memory from me and unlocked a might-have-been, perhaps Taproot’s condolences for my mother had been balanced on rumours of the three visiting murderers that the Red Queen buried. Dreams though, like sleep, are elusive when you’re hun
ting them, and sneak upon you when you’re not. After a while the rain splattering my face became irksome and I sat up, wiping my face.
“Four days?” I looked from Snorri to Tuttugu, tramping along behind the trolls. “How come I didn’t soil my—” Glancing down I discovered I wasn’t wearing my old trousers but instead some sort of rough kilt. “Oh.”
“Hungry?” Snorri fished out some strips of dried meat and held them toward me.
I rubbed my stomach. “Not for that.” But I took them anyway and started to chew, discovering within moments that “hungry” was too small a word to cover it. It takes a lot of chewing to get through dried meat, so that kept me busy for a while. I call it meat rather than beef or pork or venison, because once it’s been adulterated against decay it’s really not possible to say what animal died to put it in your hand. Probably a donkey. The taste is similar to leather, of the kind that’s been worn as a shoe for several hot weeks. The texture is too. “Any more?”
• • •
“So where are we?”
I’d feigned weakness all night and planned to carry on doing so as long as the trolls would drag me. The travois was hardly a royal carriage but it beat walking. Now though as dawn broke, and the trolls spread out through the forest to hunt, and Snorri hung an oiled cloth between the branches to keep off the worst of the weather, I started to take more of an interest in proceedings.
“Central Gelleth.” Kara squatted down beside me. Tuttugu was sitting on a log nearby, tending a small fire above which a cauldron of stew simmered, hanging from an iron tripod. “According to Gorgoth you can plot a path from one side of the country to the other that never leaves the forests. A good thing too. The land’s in uproar, marauding army units everywhere, levies summoned by a dozen nobles all battling away. There’s been some kind of disaster around Mount Honas—they say the duke’s dead and all his armies burned . . .”
“Mount Honas?” I’d never heard of it. But I knew the duke was a relative of mine, albeit distant. “Burned, you say? Damn fool of him to go poking around a volcano!”