The Heart of the Mirage (8 page)

I rose, fighting the feeling that the floor was a moving deck beneath my feet. ‘All the more reason why no more time should be wasted. Prefect Martrinus, I thank you for your help and I would like to see the weapon and these people without further delay.’

‘
Today?
’

‘Certainly. I have been idle long enough getting here.’

He swallowed his surprise. ‘Yes, of course.’ He rang for a slave and a lad appeared, an Assorian if his curly hair was anything to go by. ‘Agamin here will show you to your apartments,’ he said formally. My tone had evidently made him wonder if he had been too casual. ‘As soon as I have made arrangements, I will send someone to fetch you.’

I rarely bothered to read the emotions of slaves. They were either a seething mass of sullen resentment and fatigued indifference, or they were vague dreamers, escaping reality into thoughts of no importance to me. If they did their jobs well, they were like any other tool, easily ignored and irrelevant until something went wrong, and I took no more notice of them than I would a comfortable chair or a sharp knife. But now, my complacency rattled by the slave girl, I reached out to absorb the Assorian boy’s feelings as I mounted the stairs behind him. And was immediately intrigued.

He could not have been more than twelve, yet he possessed the calm self-assurance of someone much older. He kept glancing behind to look at me, ostensibly to see if I were still following, but his fervid emotions told their own tale. He wanted to remember everything about me. Every detail. His passion startled me, yet also struck a distant chord of childhood memory.
Oh, goddess,
I thought.
That’s me. The way I was once, aching to be an agent of the Brotherhood…
And then:
I wonder who the sweet hells he wants to spy for?

On the next floor he opened a door, saying, ‘Your rooms, Domina.’ He had cast his eyes downwards, which was proper, but still his fascination to know me spilled out, enthusiastic, intrusive. It was an effort to ignore it. I wondered if he were already spying for someone. Martrinus? Fabia? The Tyranian Governor of
Kardiastan in Madrinya? Or perhaps something more nefarious? Too many political intricacies to be considered, and it was dangerous to tread where the ground was unknown. Reluctantly, I let it ride and did not question him. ‘Agamin,’ I said, ‘I wish to speak with the Kardi slave girl. The one who spilled water on me—I do not know her name. Tell her to come here.’

He bowed and left wordlessly; on the surface, the perfect slave.

While I waited, I looked around with approval. The Prefect’s house was not unlike my own villa in Tyr, and the rooms given to me, overlooking a garden courtyard, were cool and spacious. The furniture and carved statuary were obviously imported from Tyrans, all of good quality. There was even a head of a youth by Mattias, one of the finest sculptors of Tyr.

I was running admiring fingers over the perfection of the piece when the slave, a frightened girl of about eighteen, arrived at my door. Her face, swollen where Fabia had slapped her, was also red and blotched from a recent bout of crying. She entered the room and stood with her eyes downcast. She wore an anoudain, the form of dress the Kardi women seem to prefer—loose trousers and a long top. The bodice was fitted, attached to skirting split into back and front panels.

‘What is your name?’ I asked, careful to sound neutral.

‘Othenid, Legata.’

‘Have you been beaten for spilling the water, Othenid?’

Her face tightened. ‘Yes, Legata.’

‘Where?’

‘On—on my back.’

I walked across to her, turned her around and touched her back lightly with my left hand, trailing
gentle fingertips over the thin blouse in an attempt to express my concern and win her trust. As far as I could see, she had been bruised but not badly hurt. Still, it must have been sore.

The girl turned surprised eyes to me. ‘The pain—it’s gone!’

While I was still trying to make sense of that, she knelt to seize my left hand and press her lips to the swelling there. It was all the confirmation I needed to tell me what had startled her into dropping the ewer. ‘Theura—?’ she asked, questioning. It was not a word I knew. And Goddess above, why did she think I had taken away her pain? For that was what she appeared to believe.

‘Othenid, I need your help,’ I said. ‘Why did you get such a shock when you saw this?’ I pointed to the lump on my palm.

‘Why, Theura—’ she began.

‘
Silence
, girl!’ The words cut across the room like a sword slash. We both looked around to see Aemid in the doorway, her eyes blazing with the intensity of rage. Her emotion was so tangible to me it was almost a physical assault.

‘Keep out of this, Aemid,’ I said, furious. ‘Leave us.’

But Aemid didn’t go. She continued to address the girl, not me. ‘Can’t you see she is not Kardi? She is Tyranian to her very essensa! Go—’

Othenid whirled and was gone, without waiting for permission.

I turned the full swell of my fury on Aemid. ‘How
dare
you!’ I raised my hand to strike her, more angry than I had ever been before with any of my slaves. But Aemid did not move, nor did her eyes drop; it was my hand that fell away. ‘You stretch your luck, Aemid,’ I said, breathing hard. ‘I
own
you; don’t you forget it.’

‘I never forget it,’ she said. ‘Not for a minute.’

‘If I’m wholly Tyranian, whose fault is it anyway? You were the one person who could have taught me what it was to be Kardi, who could have told me what the meaning of this is’—I indicated the swelling on my hand—‘but you kept silent. You
still
keep silent.’

Her eyes fell and a slow flush coloured her face. ‘Yes. I admit it. But I thought if I told you, you might tell the General and he would use what he learned to harm Kardiastan. Later I feared
you
would be the one to turn the knowledge against us. I couldn’t risk it.’ Her eyes begged for understanding. ‘You don’t want to know what it is to be Kardi; you want to know our weaknesses so you know how to defeat us.’

‘You are already defeated.’ I took a deep breath to calm myself. ‘Tell me what Theura means.’

‘Nothing. It means nothing!’ And then, knowing I would hear the lie, she amended her words. ‘It’s a—a word designating rank. She was just being polite, that’s all. Legata, if you show your hand to any more Kardis and probe their knowledge, you won’t live long enough to use the knowledge you gain. There’re people out there who would kill you, rather than have a Tyranian learn our secrets.’

My jaw dropped. ‘You
threaten
me?’

She winced. ‘No! I—I warn. And you know the truth when you hear it. Be warned.’

‘I’ll have you whipped!
And sold!’

I couldn’t have said anything worse. I saw her resolve harden before my eyes, as though I had cast her spirit in stone with the power of my words.

She nodded. ‘That is within your rights. But I will see to it that any Kardi slave you buy to serve you in my place will watch you and report what you do. Legata, if you pose as a Kardi and show that hand of
yours as proof, you are in danger. You will learn too much, and no Tyranian who knows too much can be allowed to live.’

I shook with shock and outrage. ‘You want me dead!’

‘No, child. I love you. I have always loved you. You are right; it is my fault you never became Kardi, and it is a decision I have had to live with all these years. I could have deceived General Gayed and taught you all I knew, but I didn’t. I will never know if it was the right decision, because I can never know what would have happened had I followed the other road.’

I felt the love and pity and grief of the woman who had been my nurse, but turned from it. Right then, I wanted to believe the worst of her, not the best, and her resolve had not wavered. Vortexdamn her, she had as good as admitted she was now spying on me. It sounded as if she were contemplating passing on information to the very Kardi rebels I was hunting.

Her tone softened subtly, imploring. ‘I beg you, Ligea, don’t make your death necessary. Hide your hand. Hide your knowledge of our language. Walk the streets of Kardiastan as a Tyranian, one of the dreaded Brotherhood. Because if you dupe Kardis into betraying secrets by using your knowledge of our language and your Kardi looks, there will be a hundred thousand people ready to fling a knife into your back.’

‘You’re going to tell them!’ I accused. ‘You are going to tell them I am a Kardi who speaks the language and is intent on betraying their leader.’

She shook her head and her distress was filling the air. ‘I don’t want to tell them. They would kill you the moment you stepped out of the door! Just promise me you won’t disguise yourself as a Kardi and I won’t say
a word, I swear. And I’ll stop Othenid from mentioning what she saw in your hand. I can’t tell them,’ she added in a whisper. ‘How can I? You are like a daughter to me. But I need your promise!’

I stared at her. She meant what she said; her truth was blatant. But did
she
know
me
so little? ‘All right,’ I said, my voice gravelled with genuine anger. ‘You keep quiet and keep Othenid quiet, and I will do my work as a Tyranian. I’m proud of my citizenship, and I don’t need to hide behind a Kardi skin. Now leave me. And be glad I’m not ordering your whipping.’

She left, her back proud and straight.

‘Goddess,’ I muttered. ‘What
is
this Kardiastan?’

I looked down at my palm and rubbed the lump. A childhood memory surfaced: an old slave woman with aching joints and gnarled fingers telling me, after I’d held her hand, that I had ‘the healing touch’. And a much later adult recollection: a tortured prisoner of the Brotherhood spilling out his secrets to me in gratitude because he thought I’d alleviated his agony, when all I had done was pat him on the arm in sympathy.

I shivered. It was all nonsense…surely?

A knock at the door prompted me to pull myself together. It was Brand, to tell me a legionnaire had arrived to take me to the Military Headquarters. ‘Come with me,’ I said, suddenly in need of company. I laid a hand on his arm, feeling the hardness of his muscle, taking strength from his solid reality. ‘This is a mad land, Brand.’

He smiled slightly. ‘I can’t say I much like the idea of snakes on the portico. Does it have a certain symbolism, do you think?’

I tried to smile back. ‘I hope not. Come, let us begin to make the acquaintance of this fellow, this Mir Ager.’

I braced myself to face the street again. I was back among those seething emotions that filled the air. Hatred dominated. Hatred for Tyrans, solid in its unity. The Kardis refused even to look at the legionnaire who was escorting us. Brand they stared at, intrigued. They considered me with initial interest, because of the darkness of my skin, but once they’d taken in my Tyranian wrap, my bare shoulder, my hair highlighted and styled in the Tyranian fashion, the glances would fall away, filled with contempt.

Brand bent to whisper in my ear. ‘They look at us as though they wish us dead,’ he said.

‘They do,’ I replied, with certainty.

I felt uncomfortable. Had fate thrown my destiny into another wind, I might have been one of these people. They looked so much like me with their tan skins, earth-coloured hair, brown eyes. A desert people who would have blended into the brown soil and the burnt-sienna adobe of their buildings if it hadn’t been for the bright patches of colour in their clothing. The men wore loose brown trousers, plain light-coloured shirts with full sleeves, sleeveless boleros, cloth belts—
and the boleros and belts were always in vivid, unpatterned primary colours. The women were all clad in the anoudain, and often the tops were brightly coloured, or adorned with a spray of embroidery from the shoulder across the slope of a breast.

I eyed them with envy. I liked to wear trousers, but Tyranian custom frowned on such informality outside the home. I wondered if the highborn of Tyr would approve of the anoudain. The long thin overskirt, slit almost to the waist on either side, did lend a graceful femininity to the trousers underneath, yet the wearer still had the freedom of movement trousers provided.

Anoudain…

The harsh light of the square flicked out and memory swamped my senses.

I was in a tiny room, being rocked with hypnotic rhythm. I was drowsing, lying back in cushioned comfort, a woman’s arm round my shoulders, and the perfume I associated with happiness was in my nostrils…until the noise began. The room lurched. Screams, terrible screams of agony and anger. The woman became another person, a frightening person, ripping away the filmy skirting of her anoudain to reveal the more substantial trousers underneath; grabbing up a sword—

I cried out in my panic. The woman turned to me, tenderness briefly returning. ‘Hush, little one,’ she said. ‘Remember, you are of the Magor. You must be brave.’ She took my hand in hers and curled the fingers closed over the palm. ‘But from them—from them you must always hide it. Do you understand, my precious? Always.’ She hugged me and looked over my head to the woman who was the third occupant of that tiny room. ‘I leave her in your care, Theura. Do what you can.’

And then she was gone, jumping out with a ferocious cry.

When I moved to follow, the other woman held me back and drew the curtains so that I could not see—but not before I had glimpsed hell first. My mother bathed in golden light, surrounded by evil, her sword cutting a swathe of red blood…gold and crimson, light and blood.

And I began to scream.

The memory was abruptly, painfully, cut off. I tried to seize it again, to bring it into focus, but it blurred away.

I knew part of me did not want to remember.

‘Are you all right?’ Brand asked, puzzled.

I took a breath, forcing myself to nod. We were on the other side of the square from the Prefect’s house and I had no recollection of crossing the open space to reach the white stone edifice dazzling in the sunshine in front of me.

Theura. That other woman in the room of my memory had been called Theura
. And just this morning, the slave Othenid had called me Theura…

‘The barracks,’ the legionnaire explained unnecessarily. The number of gorclaks tethered outside, all wearing military saddles, made it clear what the building was. The animals did not seem to mind the heat of the street; their thick grey hides protected them from both sun and cold. I could never look at them without thinking of war. With their small mean eyes, their single razor-sharp horn, the folds of thick skin they wore like armour, the cruel spurs on muscled legs built for endurance rather than speed, they looked as if they had been created to be mobile battering rams. Machines of war, of death. I thought of Favonius. He rode a gorclak.

The legionnaire took us to meet Deltos Forgra, the centurion in charge, and Deltos took us, with obvious
reluctance, to see the weapon Mir Ager had used. Deltos was a tall, sad-eyed man with a slow, measured way of speaking, and he did not like the whole subject of Mir Ager, or his weapon, a fact he made clear. ‘The sword is dangerous,’ he said. ‘We would destroy it if we knew how to.’

‘Dangerous? Then why not learn to use it?’ I asked.

He gave a hollow laugh. ‘We don’t even know how to pick it up.’ He lit a torch and led us down into the cellars under the barracks, then still deeper down another flight of steps.

‘Sweet Melete, wherever do you keep it?’ I asked. ‘In the sewers?’

‘In the furthest dungeon cell. There are eight locked doors between it and daylight. Here we are.’ He unlocked the last door and swung it open. In the windowless cell, a bundle lay on a table. Deltos remained standing by the door. ‘That’s it. It had to be pushed with staves onto the skin that wraps it now. Don’t put your hand to it, Legata.’ He nodded at Brand. ‘You unwrap it, slave, but be careful not to touch it.’

I held Brand back as he moved to obey. ‘No. I will.’

‘Legata, if anything were to happen to you—’ Deltos began to protest, but I was already unrolling the skin, spilling what it contained onto the table. At first I thought it was just a sword. It was far from gigantic; the Prefect’s memory was faulty on that point. It was, if anything, abnormally short. The hilt and the hand-guard were ordinary enough, patterned but not jewelled. Then I realised the blade was not forged metal as I had at first thought, but translucent like frosted glass—and it was hollow. The tip was open, the edges razor-sharp. I reached out my left hand to touch the hilt.

‘Vortex, Legata,
don’t
!’ Deltos cried. ‘It’s a spirit thing. Protected by—Goddess knows what! Numina spells. I know it sounds ridiculous.’

‘Quite ridiculous.’ A numen was an amoral spirit of ancient beliefs, not part of our pantheon of deities. We weren’t even supposed to believe in them any more. I turned to smile at him. ‘It will not hurt me, Centurion.’ Somewhere in my distant memories, something told me I had nothing to fear. My hand closed around the hilt and I lifted it from the table. It was as light as cork wood and slipped into my hold as though it belonged there. I uncurled my fingers and looked at the hilt again; there was a rounded hollow there into which the swelling on my palm fitted when I closed my hand.
And the sword recognised me
. Shock squeezed my heart painfully, but I tightened my grip on it once again.

Deltos gaped as I held it up. ‘Goddess! It took six men to carry it here. Six men to lift it. And not one could touch it for the pain.’

I blinked at that extraordinary statement, but decided not to ridicule him. He believed every word he said, so I decided to make use of his credulity. ‘Never underestimate the Brotherhood, Centurion.’ I wanted him to think it was my Brotherhood associations that made me special, but I knew differently. It wasn’t easy to quieten the fear—the fear of my past, of my blood, of what I was—that jerked my heart to such unevenness.

I turned my attention back to the weapon that was not quite a sword. I slashed it through the air, bringing it down on the table. Had it been glass, the blade would have broken; had it been an ordinary sword, it would barely have marked the wood, because the force I used was insufficient to do much damage. This
weapon sliced through the planks like a gorclak horn through horseflesh.

‘Goddess preserve us!’ Deltos exclaimed.

‘A formidable weapon,’ I said, impressed in spite of myself. ‘Tell me, Centurion, has anyone tried to steal this from you?’

He shook his head. ‘We spread the rumour we’d thrown it into the sea. The Kardis don’t know we have it. If I’d had my way, we
would
have thrown it into the sea from a ship on its way to the Wild Waters.’

I smiled. ‘You don’t have it any more. I’m taking it.’ I wrapped it up once again and tucked it under my arm.

‘But, Legata, I can’t let you do that! I don’t have the authority—’

‘Perhaps not, but I do. The Brotherhood claims this weapon, Centurion Deltos. Would you question the Brotherhood?’

He was aghast. ‘Of—of course not, Legata. But have a care.’

‘That I will. Believe me, I haven’t the slightest doubt of its potency. Now, I wish to speak with some of the legionnaires who actually saw this man, this Mir Ager.’

‘I’ll see to it.’ He ushered me back upstairs. ‘I have one of the men who was present during the torture sessions, as well as the officer who was in charge of the execution. I’m afraid they are the only two who are here in Sandmurram at the moment. Which one do you want to see first?’

‘The torturer, I think.’

‘A man by the name of Achates. A rankman legionnaire coming up to the end of his time in Kardiastan. Not a torturer really, just an old reprobate who can’t keep out of trouble and is always given the jobs no one else wants. He was assisting only. The man
in charge, Regius, died of blood-poisoning soon after.’ He took us up onto the second floor of the main wing of the building and indicated a door carved with military motifs. ‘You can use this office. I shall send Achates in to you immediately. Is there anything else you require, Legata?’

I shook my head and he left. I looked across at Brand as we entered the room. ‘I don’t want any word of this to come to Aemid’s ears, Brand. Especially nothing about the weapon.’

‘As you wish. Do you want me to stay now?’

‘If you will.’ I would want to talk about this afterwards with someone I trusted.

I went to the window to wait. The room overlooked the Commander’s walled garden. Several unfamiliar fruit trees and a number of flowerbeds were a tangled mass of blossoms—scarlets and purples and oranges predominating. ‘How bright the flowers are here!’ I exclaimed. ‘Have you noticed? Every garden I’ve seen seems to be overwhelmed with colour. It’s as if the flowers want to compensate for the dullness of the trees and the lack of grass and all those brown buildings.’

‘All that brown getting to you already, Legata?’ Brand asked. He sounded as if he were secretly laughing at me.

‘No, of course not. Why should it?’ I looked at him sharply, but he was opening the door in answer to a knock and had his back to me.

The man who came in did not look like a soldier. He was a little too unkempt, a little too knowing. I knew his type, though; I had met it often enough during the course of my work for the Brotherhood. He was the sort of fellow who would always be on the lookout for a way to make an extra sestus, but who didn’t like to take too many risks. He’d probably only
joined the legions to escape trouble elsewhere. And he would have no compunction about uttering a lie or two if he thought it would benefit him.

‘Legionnaire Achates?’ I inquired. I sat down at the desk in front of the window and indicated he was to approach the other side of it.

He nodded, his glance roaming over me in unconcealed—but respectful—appreciation. I said, ‘I am Legata Ligea of the Brotherhood.’ His look abruptly changed. Now he was deferential, but it was the deference of fear, not respect. ‘I wish to ask you questions about the Kardi known as Mir Ager.’ The look changed again; there was an animal wariness in his eyes now, and the fear I sensed deepened.

‘What do you want to know, Legata?’ Reluctance and trepidation warred within.

‘First, describe him to me.’

‘’Bout your height. Typical Kardi mud-colour skin and hair. Not overly muscular, not like the slave you’ve got there.’ He nodded at Brand. ‘But no weakling neither. More like an athlete than a soldier. Handsome sod, he was. Got a smile I’d walk a league or two to have: the sort of smile that charms the wraps off the ladies—begging your pardon, Legata.’

‘Did he speak Tyranian?’

‘Oh, yes. With an accent, but passable.’

‘What sort of torture was used on him?’

Achates stirred uncomfortably. ‘Oh, the usual. Branding irons, beating, hanging weights—’

I looked at him in surprise. ‘You’re lying. Why?’

The fear flared and he shuffled his feet.

‘The truth, Achates.’

‘That
is
the truth, so help me, Legata.’

‘It is not the truth.’ Intrigued, I asked, ‘Do you mean to tell me the man wasn’t tortured at all?’

He almost choked on his alarm. ‘I didn’t say that!’

‘What did happen? Achates, I’m not here to punish you. Whatever you say to me will not be repeated to any military authority. That is not the way the Brotherhood works. We deal with information—the truth. Tell me exactly what happened as you remember it, and the only thing I’ll tell your commanding officer is that you’ve been cooperative. Lie to me, and you earn the enmity of the Brotherhood. And I think you know what
that
means. We are not beyond using the torture iron ourselves.’

He nodded with unhappy wariness. ‘He was—Legata, he wasn’t like no ordinary man. He was a kind of—of numen. Or worse.’ He looked thoroughly miserable. ‘If I do tell the truth, you’ll call me a liar.’

‘Try me.’

‘Legata, I hardly believe it m’self.’

‘Achates, just tell me what happened.’

He licked his lips nervously. ‘Well, Rego—Regius, that is, he was in charge. He did
try
to torture the fellow. But this Mir Ager, he could do things other men can’t. He could make things, um, happen. Things that should never be able to happen. I even—well, to tell the truth, I wondered if he could be a—well, an immortal.’

I just stopped myself from snorting. Immortals were the offspring of a god, or goddess, and an ordinary human. Supposedly, they could not die of illness or old age, although, as there were ways in which they could be killed, their claim to true immortality was suspect. They were reputed to have certain magical powers. There were hundreds of temple stories, religious-based myths, about how gods and goddesses came down from their heavenly home in Elysium to seduce mortal men or women, but oddly enough all such stories seemed to be about the past. From time to time someone would
come forward to proclaim themselves an immortal, but they were always ultimately exposed as a fraud.