Part 30 (1/2)

'Don't bother him,' one of the other boys whispered fiercely to the curly-headed lad. 'He's lost his girl. Dad said not to bother him.'

'Was jus' asking. Thought he might want to talk.'

'Would you? Say it had been Ina swept away. Would you want to talk?'

Curly-hair grunted something unintelligible in reply.

The village lay half an hour's walk inland from the sea. By the time they arrived darkness added its own distance, making conversation much less certain: no one liked talking when the listeners' faces were hidden. Torve was thankful.

'This is Foulwater,' said the quietest of the three youths. 'The name was given the village by the Undying Man hundreds of years ago. But we call it The Water. Dad says you're to come straight to our place. He's asked Ma to get a bath ready for you.'

A pause; no doubt Torve was supposed to be impressed. And he was. Not by the bath, but by the trouble these villagers had taken on their account. The wave wasn't their fault, but the townspeople had acted as though it was, and were not prepared to let the strangers go on their way without caring for them first.

'Foulwater,' Torve repeated, his brain still slow.

'Aye. Nothing wrong with the water, but apparently not to the Undying Man's taste, so he cursed us with the name. We ignore it. Easy to do, this far south of Andratan.'

'How far south?'

'Two months' walking, they say, or a month aboard.'

To the right and left of them doors to small houses opened, letting yellow fingers of light into the street. One by one the strangers were shepherded into homes by earnest villagers. Torve noted where his master was taken, and the inevitable question raised itself: Will he require me tonight?

Of course he will. He will not be able to resist.

So the village would pay for its hospitality with a life.

He was welcomed into a tiny hut by a spectacularly wrinkled woman and a bent-backed man, who treated him like a visiting prince. He spoke politely to them in his rapidly improving Bhrudwan, but giving the conversation only as much attention as required. His mind still rested on a difficult but beautiful woman, lost in the water and the darkness. Ignoring his preoccupation they fed him, then showed him the barn where he would bathe and sleep, and the aroma of scented water brought a tear of longing to his eye, reminding him of easier days in Talamaq Palace. Days before the Emperor went mad.

As he lay in the rusty metal tub, his exhausted body fighting sleep, Torve realised that, apart from those days spent in the House of the G.o.ds with Lenares, this would be the first night for many years he had slept in a different house from his master.

He awoke to cold water, a wrinkled body and a hand on his shoulder.

'Did you not mark where I was housed?' his master asked him, anger freighting his words. 'I expected you before now. I wait for an hour or more, only to find you taking your ease rather than serving your rightful master. Get out and get dressed. We have work to do.'

Torve scrambled out of the tub, and found his clothes neatly folded on a chair, courtesy, no doubt, of the wrinkle-faced woman. And I will thank you by tormenting one of your fellow villagers.

'Haven't you learned enough yet, master?' Torve asked. The question slipped out before he could exercise his usual caution, tiredness and heart-sickness contributing to his rash words.

'I have learned, Omeran, not to tolerate criticism from slaves.'

The last word bit into Torve, as it was intended to, reminding him that he had been a gift to the young Emperor-in-waiting, had been brought up with him, partaking of all the privileges of the Palace while his fellow Omerans suffered abused, shortened lives at the hands of their masters.

But then the Emperor smiled at him, removing much of the force from his words.

'You were once a friend, Torve,' he said, his voice softening a little. 'We shared superior minds and insatiable curiosities. But since this cosmographer entered our lives, you have drawn away from me. You bring me little more joy now than any beast, and less value.'

Dare he say it? Could he say it? Drawing the strings of his tunic closed, he opened his mouth-and the words came out.

'Might it not be, master, that you have changed more than I? I have no right to ask, but were someone of status to comment on your altered behaviour, could you deny it? I am not defending my own actions, save to say I have remained ever loyal, as my nature commands; rather, as I once did, I am acting as a mirror, reflecting your question back on yourself. Since the day Lenares appeared, you have changed.' A final risk. 'Why, my friend? Why?'

To his astonishment, his master closed his eyes and bowed his head. 'Ah, Torve, you shame me. You are right: I kept many secrets from you.'

A long pause. Something obviously under consideration. The eyes opened, a decision made.

'You were not privy to what happened late one night, the night following our dear cosmographer's presentation to the court at Talamaq. I was visited, Torve; visited by a G.o.d.'

His eyes widened and he stared at the Omeran: they were black, rimmed with white, the pupils mere pinp.r.i.c.ks in the darkness. Profoundly disturbing.

'A G.o.d, Torve. The Son, no less. I know I abolished the G.o.ds, but that night they taught me better. They are real, my Omeran. They speak. The Son did not require wors.h.i.+p, he said to me; indeed, far from making me abase myself before him, he acknowledged me as an equal. He had heard what the cosmographer had to say, and asked if he could sift my thoughts and memories. I know it sounds incautious of me, but his presence was so...so starkly real, everything else felt false and hollow. I doubt I could have resisted even had I wished to. So I opened myself up to him.'

The Emperor raised his arms, spreading them wide, and a grinding weight came down upon them both, setting the air itself to groaning. A deep rumbling and shuddering shook the barn, sending dust drifting across the lamplight. In the rear of the barn a cow lowed nervously.

'I opened myself to the Son,' the Emperor continued, in a deeper and more commanding voice, 'and he came. He changed me. At every stage he asked my permission and, after examining what he had done, I granted it. He enlarged my mind and changed me for the better. One of the many benefits, Torve, is that the halfwit Lenares can no longer read me. She will never a.s.sociate me with the mask-wearing Emperor.

'And neither did anyone else. The court acknowledged the mask, just as they did the afternoon we played a prank on them and you wore it. But under the instruction of the Son, I shed my mask and walked through the corridors and halls of the Talamaq Palace. None marked me. Even you did not mark me.

'It was that day I conceived my plan to secure absolute control of the Empire. t.i.tular head to a murderous group of Alliances does not offer me the security I need, nor the power I desire. I used the fool Duon as the excuse to organise an expedition with a twofold purpose: to go north myself in search of the secret of immortality, and to be rid of the Alliances forever. So I contacted the Marasmians.'

Torve staggered and slumped against the bath, slopping water everywhere. 'You contacted the Marasmians? You masterminded the death of your own army?'

His master's smile was wide and self-satisfied. 'Indeed, my friend. We lost many soldiers that day, but the price was worth it to be rid of so many drones. We can grow more soldiers! You see the logic of it, do you not? Many times we talked about the Alliances and what it would take to break their power over the Empire. Now they are broken, without any cost to Talamaq. Not a house burned, not a single murder on the streets. A plan breathtaking in its elegance.'

'Yours or his?'

'Now, Torve, no need for bitterness. Changed though I am, I am still your master. I hope I have demonstrated this on our nocturnal forays. To tell the truth, in an attempt to convince you I am still whom I once was, I have been more vigorous in my pursuit of answers to our eternal question. Yes, it was the Son's plan, but it was my execution, and it could not have been more perfect. Even the intervention of those interesting desert children served my purpose, delivering us from the Marasmians who were about, I suspect, to double-cross us. And here we are, in the company of powerful men, none of whom suspect my real ident.i.ty.'

Certainly Torve had not suspected the mercenary of being his Emperor. He'd wondered about that in the weeks after Dryman had revealed himself, but he'd not seen the Emperor maskless since his tenth birthday, his Masking Day. So how was he to read his childhood companion in the soldier's bland face? The voice ought to have given him away, but it had subtly altered; deeper and huskier now than the voice he remembered. Altered just enough to confound Lenares, who had repeatedly expressed her frustration at her ignorance.

So now his master carried the Son with him.

Torve decided to make it his mission to find out what benefit the Emperor thought to derive from the arrangement, and what cost he-and, by extension, everyone-might be paying.

If only Lenares were here, he said to himself.

The Emperor selected their victim with patience and care. The village of Foulwater was a small one, with perhaps five hundred residents, and as a consequence the starlit roads were almost empty: few people were about after dark. Torve and his master waited for perhaps an hour and saw no more than a handful. Those who were to be found outside appeared to be fetching things for their guests inconvenienced by the destruction of the Yacoppica Cliffs Tea House: food, drink, washwater and washcloths.

As soon as Torve saw the woman, he knew his master would not be able to resist her. Her face was shadowed, but it was clearly the same woman who had hosted them in the tea house that morning.

The Emperor stepped into the street. 'Excuse me, we've lost our way,' he said. 'Can you help us?'

'Of course.' Her face was drawn, weary in appearance; the bags under her eyes were recent additions to an already unflattering appearance. A day searching for a lost workmate can do that to a person, Torve considered. 'You're staying at the Nevem place. If you return the way you have come-'

Her breath hissed as the Emperor placed his knife against her belly. She didn't cry out. She would later, Torve knew. Oh, lady, you should have cried out. Perhaps someone would have heard.

'You know what this is?' the Emperor said.

'I know.' Remarkably calm. 'I have no money, but the village would be happy-'

He moved until he had the knife pressed against the small of her back. 'You do not yet know what we want,' he whispered into her ear, and this intimacy alerted her to the likely nature of this encounter.