The Thousandfold Thought Page 8

  “The Scarlet Spires?”

  “Our source insists this is the case.”

  “Our source … you mean Neberenes.” When Werjau nodded in assent, she said, “Bring him to me tomorrow … discreetly. We need to know precisely what they’re doing. In the meantime, I will speak to our Lord and Master.”

  The flaxen-haired Nascenti marked something on his wax tablet, then continued. “Earl Hulwarga was observed performing a banned rite.”

  “Irrelevant,” she said. “Our Lord does not begrudge the faithful their superstitions. A strong faith does not fear for its principles, Werjau. Especially when the believers are Thunyeri.”

  Another switch of his stylus, mirrored by those of the secretaries.

  The man moved to the next item, this time without looking up. “The Warrior-Prophet’s new Vizier,” he said tonelessly, “was heard screaming in his chambers.”

  Esmenet’s breath caught. “What,” she asked carefully, “was he screaming?”

  “No one knows.”

  Thoughts of Achamian always came as small calamities.

  “I will deal with this personally … Understood?”

  “Understood, Consort.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “Just the Lists.”

  Kellhus had called on all Men of the Tusk to attend to their vassals and peers—even their betters—so they might report any inconsistencies of appearance or character, anything that might suggest recent substitution by a skin-spy. The names so volunteered were marked on the Lists. Every morning, dozens if not hundreds of Inrithi were numbered, then marched beneath the all-seeing eyes of the Warrior-Prophet.

  Of all the thousands so far listed, one had killed the men sent to retrieve him, two had disappeared before arrest, one the Hundred Pillars had seized for interrogation, and another, a Baron client to Count-Palatine Chinjosa, they had affected to overlook, hoping to uncover the greater ring. It was a blunt and inelegant instrument, to be sure, but short of Kellhus risking exposure, it was all they had. Of the thirty-eight skin-spies Kellhus had been able to identify before revealing his hand, fewer than a dozen had been taken or killed.

  The most they could do, it seemed, was to wait for them to surface behind other faces.

  “Have the Shrial Knights gather them as always.”

  Following the Summary of Reports, Esmenet walked the circuit of the western terrace, both to bask in the sunlight and to greet—albeit at a distance—the dozens of adulants gathered on the rooftops below. She found their attention both distressing and exhilarating. Even as she despaired over her worthiness, she tried to think of ways she might reward their unwarranted patience. Yesterday, she had several guardsmen distribute bread and pepper-soup. Today, thanking Momas for the sea breeze, she cast them two crimson veils, which twisted like eels in water as they floated over their palms. She laughed as they scrambled.

  Afterward she oversaw the afternoon Penance with three of the Nascenti. Originally, the rite had been intended to shrive those of the Orthodox who had fomented against the Warrior-Prophet, but against expectations many Men of the Tusk began returning, some once or twice, some day in and day out. Even Zaudunyani—including those initiated in the first secret Whelmings—started to attend, claiming to have suffered doubts or malice or some such during the misery of the siege. As a result, the numbers who gathered had increased to the point where the Nascenti had to start administering Penance outside the Fama Palace.

  At the direction of the Judges, the attendees stripped to the waist and assembled in long, uneven rows, where they knelt upright, their backs slick and burnished in the setting sun. While the Nascenti recited the prayers, the Judges methodically worked their way among the penitents, lashing each man three times with a branch shorn from Umiaki. With each stroke they cried out, in succession:

  “For wounding that which heals!”

  “For seizing what would be given!”

  “For condemning that which saves!”

  Esmenet still wrung her hands as she watched the dark branches rise and fall. The bleeding unnerved her, though most received no more than welts. Their backs, with protruding spine and ribs, seemed so frail. But it was the way they watched her, as though she were a milestone that marked some otherwise immeasurable distance, that troubled her the most. When the Judges struck, some even arched back, their faces riven with expressions whores knew well but no woman truly understood.

  Averting her gaze, she spied Proyas kneeling in the rearmost line. For some reason he seemed so much more naked than the others. Possessed of an old animus, she glared at him, but he seemed incapable of meeting her eyes. After the Judge had passed, he buried his face in his hands, shook with sobs. To her dismay, Esmenet found herself wondering whom he repented, Kellhus or Achamian.

  She did not attend that evening’s ceremonial Whelming, opting to take a private dinner in her apartments instead. Kellhus, she was told, remained preoccupied with the Holy War’s imminent march on Xerash, so she dined and joked with her body-slaves instead, siding with Fanashila in what—she gathered—was a dispute regarding coloured sashes. Let Yel be teased for a change, she thought.

  Fanashila could scarce contain herself, so overwhelmed was she with gratitude.

  Afterward Esmenet ducked into the nursery to check on Moënghus, then crossed the hall to what she had come to think of as her private library …

  Where Achamian had been recently installed.

  The Fama Palace was a place of architectural flourish and extravagance, sheathed in the finest marbles and displaying the elegant sensibilities of the Kianene at every turn, from the bronze fretting that shuttered the windows to the lines of inset mother-of-pearl that traced every pointed arch. At its outskirts the complex consisted of a radial network of courtyards, compounds, and galleries that stacked higher as the structure climbed the various faces of the summit. She and Kellhus occupied the suite of apartments on the height’s pinnacle—the highest point in Caraskand, she liked to tell herself—overlooking the Apple Garden with its ancient teeth of stone. This, Kellhus had said, exposed them to unconventional means of attack. Sorcery, it seemed, paid no heed to walls or elevation. And this was why Achamian had to reside so painfully close.

  Close enough, she realized, to hear her cries on the wind.

  Akka …

  She stood before the panelled door, realizing in a rush the lengths to which she had gone to avoid all thought of him. He’d not been real that first night he had come to her. Not at all. He’d been real enough when she glimpsed him in the Apple Garden, but he’d seemed perilous as well, as though his mere image might strip away all that had happened since the Holy War’s march from Shigek.

  How could seeing someone old peel the years from one’s eyes?

  What am I doing?

  Fearing she would lose her nerve, she rapped on the wood with her left hand, staring at the bruised serpents tattooed across its back as she did so. For the briefest of instants, before the door swung open, she was sure that it wasn’t Achamian but Sumna that would greet her on the far side. She could almost feel the brick of her window’s sill pressing cold against the back of her naked thighs. And she remembered, with a visceral intensity, what it was like being her wares.

  Then Achamian’s face floated into view, more grizzled perhaps, but as stout and heartwarming as she remembered. There was far more grey in his pleated beard: the fingers of white had joined into a palm of sorts. His eyes, though … they belonged to someone she didn’t know.

  Neither of them spoke a word. The awkwardness was like ice in her throat. He lives … he really lives.

  Esmenet fought the need to touch him, to … reassure herself. She could smell the River Sempis, the bitter of black willows on the hot Shigeki wind. She could see him leading his sad mule, receding into the distance that had, she thought, swallowed him forever. What brought you back to me?

  Then his eyes fell to her belly, lingered for a heartbeat. She glanced away, looking airily to the shelved
walls beyond him. “I’ve come for The Third Analytic of Men.”

  Without a word, Achamian strode to a brace of shelves along the southern wall. He withdrew a large chapped folio, which he hefted in his hands. He tried to grin, but his eyes would have none of it. “You can come in,” he said.

  She took four tentative steps past the threshold. The room smelled of him, a faint musk she had always associated with sorcery. A bed had been erected where her favourite settee had been—where she had first read The Tractate.

  “Translated into Sheyic, even,” he said, pursing his bottom lip in appreciation. “For Kellhus?”

  “No … for me.”

  She had meant to say this with pride, but it had sounded spiteful instead. “He taught me how to read,” she explained, more carefully. “Through the misery of the desert, no less.”

  Achamian had blanched. “Read?”

  “Yes … Imagine, a woman.”

  He scowled in what could only be confusion.

  “The old world is dead, Akka. The old rules are dead … Surely you know this.”

  He blinked as though struck, and she realized it had been her tone and not her assertion that had prompted his scowl. Achamian had never begrudged her her sex.

  He looked to the embossed lettering across the cover. There was a curious, endearing reverence to the way he drew his fingers over it. “Ajencis is an old friend of mine,” he said, holding out the book. His smile was genuine this time, but afraid. “Be gentle with him.”

  Taking care to avoid his touch, she lifted the thing from his hands, swallowed at the thickness in her throat.

  A moment of locked gazes. She thought to murmur something—a word of thanks, maybe, or a stupid joke, like those they’d used to cement so many loose moments between them—but she found herself walking toward the door instead, hugging the leather tome to her breast. There were just too many old … comforts between them, too many habits that would see her in his arms.

  And he knew this, damn him. He used them.

  He called out her name, and she paused at the threshold. When she turned, her eyes were forced down by the stricken expression on his face. “I …” he began. “I was your life … I know I was, Esmi.”

  She bit her lip, resisted the instinct to deceive.

  “Yes,” she said, staring at her blue-painted toes. For some perverse reason she decided she would have Yel change their colour tomorrow.

  What does he matter? His heart was broken long before—

  “Yes,” she repeated, “you were my life.” When she raised her face, it was with weariness, not the ferocity she had expected. “And he is my world.”

  She stared across the broad planes of his chest, followed the grooves of his stomach into the downy gold of his pubis, where she could see the base of him shining in the erotic gloom of partially drawn sheets. For some reason he always seemed so vast when she laid her cheek on his shoulder. Like a new world, both beguiling and terrifying.

  “I saw him tonight.”

  “I know … You were angered.”

  “Not by him.”

  “Yes … by him.”

  “But why? Save loving me, what has he done?”

  “We betrayed him, Esmi. You betrayed him.”

  “But you said—”

  “There are sins, Esmi, that not even the God can absolve. Only the injured.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That this is why he angers you.”

  It was always the same with him, always the same remembrance of things beyond human memory. It was as though she—like every other man, woman, and child—awakened every moment to find herself stranded, and only he could tell her what had come before.

  “He will not forgive,” she whispered.

  There was indecision in his look, frightening for its rarity. “He will not forgive.”

  The Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires turned, too numb to possess any force of person and too drunk not to. “You live,” he said.

  Iyokus stood dumbstruck at the threshold. Eleäzaras watched the red-irised eyes survey the smashed pottery and congealing wine. He snorted, neither in humour nor disgust, then turned to look back out over the balustrade, at the Fama Palace, dun and inscrutable upon its hill.

  “When Achamian returned,” he drawled, “I had assumed you were dead.” He leaned forward, glanced back at the wraith once again. “Even more,” he said, raising a finger, “I had hoped you dead.” He returned his gaze to the walls and buildings encrusting the opposite heights.

  “What happens, Eli?”

  He tried his best not to laugh. “Can’t you see? The Padirajah is dead. The Holy War prepares to march on Shimeh. We prepare to march on Shimeh … Our foot lies upon the neck of our enemy.”

  “I’ve spoken to Sarothenes,” Iyokus said, unimpressed, “and to Inrûmmi …”

  A mawkish sigh. “Then you know.”

  “I confess, I find it difficult to believe.”

  “Believe it. The Consult exists. All this time, laughing at the Mandati, and it was we who were the mumming fools.”

  A long, accusatory silence. Iyokus had always told him he should heed their claims more seriously. It seemed plain enough … now. Everything they knew about the Psûkhe suggested it was a blunt instrument, far too cumbersome to fashion something like these … demons.

  Chepheramunni! Sarcellus!

  In his soul’s eye he saw the Scylvendi, bloodied and magnificent, hoisting the faceless head for all to see. How the mobs had roared.

  “And Prince Kellhus?” Iyokus asked.

  “Is a prophet,” Eleäzaras said softly. He had watched him—he had seen—after they had cut the man down from the Circumfix … Eleäzaras had watched him reach into his chest and pull out his fucking heart!

  Some kind of trick … it had to be!

  “Eli,” Iyokus said, “surely this—”

  “I spoke to him myself,” the Grandmaster interrupted, “and at quite some length … He’s a true prophet of the God, Iyokus … And you and I … well, we’re quite damned.” He looked at his Master of Spies, his face screwed into an expression of pained hilarity. “Another little joke we seem to have found ourselves on the wrong side of …”

  “Please,” the man exclaimed. “How could you—”

  “Oh, I know. He sees things … things only the God could see.” He swung at one of the earthenware decanters, caught it, shook it in the air to listen for the telltale slosh of wine. Empty. “He showed me,” he said, casting it against the wall, where it shattered. He smiled at Iyokus, letting the weight of his bottom lip draw his mouth open. “He showed me who I am. You know all those little thoughts, all those half-glimpsed things that scurry like vermin through your soul? He catches them, Iyokus. He catches them and holds them squealing in the air. Then he names them, and tells you what they mean.” He turned away once more. “He sees the secrets.”

  “What secrets? What are you saying, Eli?”

  “Oh, you’ve no need to worry. He cares nothing whether you fuck little boys or press broomsticks up your ass. It’s the secrets you keep from yourself, Iyokus. Those are his interest. He sees …” A pang gripped his throat so violently he had to look at Iyokus and laugh. He felt tears spill hot across his cheeks. His voice cracked. “He sees what breaks your heart.”

  You have doomed your School.

  “You’re drunk,” the chanv addict said, his tone both unnerved and disgusted.

  Eleäzaras raised his hand in a foppish wave. “Go speak to him yourself. He’ll discern more than pickled meat through your skin. You’ll see—”

  He heard the man snort, then kick away a metal bowl as he withdrew.

  The Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires reclined in his settee, resumed his study of the Fama Palace through the afternoon haze. The network of walls, terraces, and Fanic colonnades. The faint smoke rising from what had to be the kitchens. The clots of distant penitents filing beneath the square gates.

  Somewhere … He’s in there somew
here.

  “Oh, yes, and Iyokus?” he abruptly called.

  “What?”

  “I would beware the Mandate Schoolman if I were you.” He absently pawed the table beside him, looking for more wine—or something. “I think he plans to kill you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  CARASKAND

  If soot stains your tunic, dye it black. This is vengeance.

  —EKYANNUS I, 44 EPISTLES

  Here we find further argument for Gotagga’s supposition that the world is round. How else could all men stand higher than their brothers?

  —AJENCIS, DISCOURSE ON WAR

  Early Spring, 4112 Year-of-the-Tusk, Caraskand

  The dry season. On the Steppe, it betrayed its coming with a variety of signs: the first sight of the Lance among the stars on the northern horizon; the quickness with which the milk soured; the first trailers of the caünnu, the midsummer wind.

  At the beginning of the rainy season, Scylvendi herdsmen ranged the Steppe in search of the sandy ground where the grasses grew quicker. When the rains waxed, they drove their herds to harder ground, where the grasses grew slower but remained green longer. Then, when the hot winds chased the clouds to oblivion, they simply followed the forage, always searching for the wild herbs and short grasses that made for the best meat and milk.

  This pursuit always caught someone, particularly those who were too greedy to cull wilful animals from their herd. Headstrong cattle could lead an entire herd too far afield, into vast tracts of over-grazed or blighted pasture. Every season, it seemed, some fool returned without horse or cattle.

  Cnaiür now knew himself to be that fool.

  I have given him the Holy War.

  In the council chamber of the dead Sapatishah, Cnaiür sat high on the tiers that surrounded the council table, watching the Dûnyain intently. He did his best to ignore the Inrithi crowding the seats about him, but he found himself continually accosted—congratulated. One fool, some Tydonni thane, even had the temerity to kiss his knee—his knee! Once again they called out “Scylvendi!” as though in salute.