Читать книгу The House of Sacrifice - Anna Smith Spark - Страница 14

Envoys came to Arunmen from Chathe and Immish and every city of his empire, brought him gifts from every corner of the world. Treasures and jewels, objects of great beauty and wealth. White horses. Silver cloth as light as sea foam. A thousand ingots each of iron and copper and lead and tin. The emissaries from Chathe came to kneel before him, swear their loyalty. He smiled at them, raised them up, promised them his faith back in return as long as they remained loyal to him. Ryn Mathen nodded, eyes bright with happiness. On a whim, Marith ordered the emissaries to be given a hundred chests of gold and silver, to bring back to King Heldan as an honour gift. The lords of Marith’s empire knelt and crowned him with wreaths of flowers. He held races and dances and feasts. The soldiers paraded for him, dressed in their finery, polished bronze, red plumes nodding on their helmets, red cloaks, gleaming, marching and wheeling in the snow. The music of the bronze: they danced the sword dance, clashed their spears, shouted for joy. So many of them, uncountable, like the trees in a forest. They roared out his name with triumph, he who had given them mastery of the world, made them lords of life and death. Their love burned off them, warm and joyous; Marith gasped as he watched them, his face radiant, breathless, still, after everything, half unbelieving, all this, all this, for him. The emissaries departed, leaving more allied troops in his army’s ranks. The Army of Amrath prepared to march out. The forges rang with the clash of hammers, the glowing fire of liquid metal, burning day and night. More swords! More spears! More helms! More armour! Grain carts rumbled in beneath the ruins of the gateways. Provisions for a long hard march. A new levy of troops marched in from Illyr, young men who had not yet seen the glory of his conquests, staring wide-eyed and hungry at the ruins of the city, the tents piled with plunder, the campfires of his army numberless as the stars. They marched in between towers of white newly slain bones, white skulls grinning, the shriek of carrion birds. He saw in their eyes the wonder, the longing to be part of this. They saw him, and he felt their love rise like mountains. A marvel, a gift unparalleled, that they could look upon him, fight for him, swear to him their swords and their spears and the strength in their body and all the length of their lives, to kill and to die at his will.

Onwards. Ever onwards. New lands to conquer. The road goes on and on. Issykol. Khotan, with its sunless forests. The lawless peoples of the Mountains of Pain. Turain, with its wheat fields and its silver river. Mar. Maun. Allene.

The Sekemleth Empire of the Golden City of Sorlost.

Gods, he sees it, so clear in his mind. Yellow dust, yellow sand, yellow light. Magnolia trees and lilac trees and jasmine, all in flower; women in silk dresses, bells tinkling at their wrists and ankles; in the warm dusk the poets sing of fading beauty and the women dance with grief on their crimson lips. The golden dome of the Summer Palace. A boy falling backwards through a window, lit by a thousand glittering shards of mage glass. In Sorlost I saw her face for the first time, radiant, and when I saw her I knew. My hands wallowing for the first time in innocent blood there. In Sorlost I killed a baby, I looked down and I ran my sword through it because I could. Sickness filled him. Fear. He thought: don’t think of it. There are so many places to conquer before I have to go back there.

At night he lay with Thalia in the bedroom with the green glass windows, beneath the mage-glass stars. Thalia naked and glowing, bathed in light. He rested his head on her stomach, imagined he could hear the child’s heart beating. In the dark inside her body it swam and dreamed. Absurd and impossible.

‘I can feel it move,’ she said. ‘Fluttering inside me. Like a bird. Like a butterfly landing on my hand.’ My child! he thought. My child!

He said, ‘This time it will live.’

The shadow flickered across his mind. He who had killed his own family. The fear, that it would live.

Alleen Durith held a celebration dinner the last evening before they marched. A private thing, Marith, Thalia, Osen, Kiana Sabryya, Dansa Arual, Ryn Mathen. Alleen’s chambers were decked with silk flowers. Marith was noisy, happy, laughing, the lights were very bright, the air smelled fresh and good. Thalia glittered in his vision, silver and bronze, silk and water, summer rain.

‘Do you remember the morning it rained,’ he said to her, ‘in the desert, and the flowers came out pink, and the stream came rushing down?’

Thalia said in surprise, ‘No. I … I don’t remember.’

‘I remember it so clearly. The way the desert came alive. How can you not—?’ Or …? ‘No, that was before, wasn’t it? You didn’t see that. We saw the stream with the willows, and that first stream, where we threw pebbles, and I told you who I was. It didn’t rain in the desert when you were there with me. But you’d never seen running water, until I showed you the stream, and you bathed your hands and feet in it …’

‘No,’ Thalia said, confused. ‘No. I hadn’t. I—’ She smiled then: ‘It was beautiful, Marith, when we saw the stream. I remember that. I’ll never forget that. Like seeing the hawk – was that on the same day?’

The hawk? What about the hawk? ‘We’ll go back there soon,’ he almost said.

‘Drink up, everyone,’ Osen shouted. Bustling around, refilling cups. ‘Tastes like goat’s piss, but we can all manage another cup.’ A good and clever man, Osen Fiolt. A good friend.

‘Goat’s piss? Goat’s piss?’ Alleen raised his cup. ‘I looted this stuff personally, Osen, you barbarian. Horse’s piss, at least.’

Kiana threw a flower at Osen. ‘War horse’s piss. I helped him choose it.’

‘Did that woman ever send a bottle of her good wine?’ asked Thalia.

‘I don’t know.’ Looked at Osen and Alleen. ‘Did she?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Marith.’ Osen chucked Kiana’s flower at him and shoved over a plate of sweets.

‘I found a girl in Arunmen who can sing like a skylark,’ said Alleen, ‘if anyone’s interested in hearing her sing?’

‘“Sing like a skylark”?’ said Kiana. ‘Cousin, really.’

Thalia yawned. ‘I will go to bed, I think, Marith. I’m tired.’ She was very tired, suddenly, the last few days, slept and ate a lot. But she looked well, her face was shining, it would be well, this time, surely, the doctors said that it was good that she was tired, because it showed that the baby was strong. It will live, it must live … he felt sickened, thinking of it, gulped down his drink, found himself looking away from her. My child. My child. I who killed my mother and my father and all of them, what will my child be if it lives?

‘Stay a bit longer, Marith,’ said Osen. ‘This girl of Alleen’s can sing The Deed of the New King and The Revenge of the King Against Illyr like a skylark. The proper songs and the dirty versions.’

‘Her dirty version of The Revenge is … dirty,’ said Alleen. ‘You have no idea.’

Osen began to sing, ‘His big big sword thrusts hard and wide.’

‘I will certainly go to bed,’ said Thalia.

‘I fear you may be wise, Thalia my queen,’ said Osen. ‘Whole cities call him to thrust inside.’

‘Come to bed soon, Marith,’ Thalia said as she left them. Her hand brushed his arm as she walked away. ‘Won’t you?’ Pregnancy seemed to leave her insatiable. It made her flatulent, also. Slept and ate and farted and wanted to fuck. All the good things.

‘And she sings it completely straight-faced, too,’ said Alleen. ‘A marvel.’

Umm …? Oh. Yes. ‘Do I really want to hear a woman singing obscene songs about my triumphs?’

‘Of course you do,’ said Alleen.

‘Do I really want to find myself humming it the next time I …?’

‘Of course you do,’ said Alleen. ‘And it makes me happy just thinking of it. Why else are we conquering all the world, wading through the blood of innocents, if not for people to make you the subject of obscene songs?’

A loud click of metal as Kiana put her cup down. Alleen went white.

‘It’s no worse reason than some.’ Try to laugh. Try to smile. Try to laugh. His face felt so hot. That feeling, that he had had when they were cheering him, singing his name outside the ruined wine shop, joy, bliss, wonder, but I felt shame, he thought, then, hearing them, and I feel shame thinking about it now, and thinking about a girl singing songs about me … My eternal fame, my glory, the songs of my triumphs … His face felt hot and red. Like it’s humiliating, that they praise me. Like they and I are both wrong, should be ashamed.

My head hurts, he thought. I need to go to bed as well. I should have gone with Thalia just now.

‘I won’t have the girl summoned,’ said Alleen. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from. Stay and have another drink, don’t leave looking like that. Please.’

‘One drink.’ It is no worse reason. He’s my friend, I …

Osen and Alleen were singing something. Kiana was crying with laughter at it. He was singing it too. He was stumbling back to his chambers. It suddenly seemed to have got very late. The girl had sung like a skylark. Even Kiana had admitted as much. Kiana had smiled at Osen: it would be so good if she was to return Osen’s feelings. Make him happy to see it. Poor old Matrina, Osen’s wife. He had always rather liked Matrina. But Osen liked Kiana. Kiana didn’t seem to like Osen. I wonder if Matrina would like Kiana? he thought.

‘My Lord King!’ his guardsman Tal shouted.

He was blind. Felt like he was being buried in sand. Thrashed about, gods, it was sticky, coating him. Hands flailing. Filth, coming all over him. His skin burning. Itching. Filth coming up through his skin. He had seen a dog once all covered crawling with ticks and sores and lice, its skin its fur moving. His skin was crawling. Erupting. Rotting. He retched. Vomit filling his mouth, vomit and sand, and he tried to swallow it, he couldn’t swallow it, it burned at his lungs, felt it in his nostrils, his eyes bulging, his head going to burst, choking, trying to claw at his nose and mouth. I’m drowning. Gasping to breathe and there was nothing. His arms and legs trembled. Cold sweat pouring off him. Tore at himself he itched he was crawling his skin was crawling his skin erupting his throat erupting choked blocked crumbling he was choking, drowning, his skin, his throat blocked with filth.

The sound of metal. Voices cheered. A trumpet rang.

Swords, he thought. Fighting. A vast battle, men fighting in their thousands in the hallway around him. A hundred thousand shining sword blades.

Gasped, vomited up sand. On his knees, sand pouring out of his mouth. Great gouts of it, like the dragons pouring out fire. Breathing again. Gasping down air. His throat and lungs raw. Sand and vomit dripping from his nose and mouth.

A shadow stood over him. A thing like a man. Dark, like a shadow, featureless, an outline of a man, like a man’s shadow in the half-light, and then it moved, poured itself back towards him, a thing like a man but all formed of black sand, crumbling away as it choked itself over him.

He had seen such things in the ruins of his victories. The destruction of the body in a wave of dragon fire. Flesh and bone turned into black ash.

Its hands reached again for him. Pouring towards his throat.

Buried his hands in it. It came apart around him. Flowed over him. The faceless head pressed towards him. Its arms embraced him. Pouring itself into him.

Threw his hands up over his face. Covered his mouth with his hands, bent down pressing his face into the stone floor. Hugging him to itself, kissing and devouring him. In his eyes. His ears. His mouth.

Vengeance. Hiss of sand in the wind. Tried to squeeze his eyes closed, tried not to breathe. It clambered itself swarmed itself over him into him. Vengeance.

A hand on his shoulder. He sat up.

‘Easy there, My Lord King. Careful.’ Tal helped him up carefully. Propped him against the wall. Marith bent forward and coughed up a last trickle of vomit.

‘Heavy night, was it, My Lord King?’

Blinked, stared down the corridor. ‘There was … was …’

Tal helped him up the stairs towards his own chambers; he had hardly gone a few steps when Thalia was rushing down to him, her guard Brychan there beside her with his sword out. Pain in her face when she saw him.

‘Marith!’

‘It’s nothing. Nothing.’

Her foot slipped on a step, he cried out but Brychan caught her arm, then she was beside him.

‘It was nothing,’ said Tal.

Black sand gushed off him. When he looked there was no sand on the floor. Sand crunched in his mouth. He spat. Thalia looked shocked at his spit on the floor. Gleaming. Someone else spat, he thought, I saw a man spit green phlegm at my feet.

‘Have some water, Marith.’ A cup in his hands, heavy goldwork that heaved beneath his fingers. Itching, crawling, moving. He drank and gulped it down. Tasted so sweet. A grating feeling in his throat as he swallowed. Hair and gristle. Dirt stuck in his throat. His mouth was running with lice. He gagged, his hand over his mouth, don’t be sick here in front of her, my wife, do I want my wife to see that? The shame … once I didn’t want her to see my face, because she’d see it there, vomit and death, I’m human fucking vomit, filth like I’m choking down.

Thalia brought all the lamps in the room to burning. They were in their bedchamber. He couldn’t remember walking there. The green glass windows were black and hollow, black voids; the lamplight made the mage-glass stars in the ceiling faint and dull. The silver hangings on the bed moved, trembled: the warm air from the lamps, someone had told him, one of the maidservants. Her sweat in the lamplight, running down inside the neck of her dress … The leaves and flowers on the walls looked too real, like wax flowers. Obscenities like a swollen body. Draw his sword, hack them down to bits. The scabs on his left hand were diseased. The scar tissue alive with parasites. The scars on Thalia’s left arm were alive with parasites. The scars on her arm were crusted cracking infested with maggots. His throat was dry with dust.

‘You almost slipped,’ he said. ‘On the stairs.’

‘Brychan caught me.’ She put her hands over her belly. Her nightgown was very sheer, very fine silk, he could see the swell of the child growing there. No other child had grown this big in her womb. Blood smear things on her thighs. Clots of stinking blood. Pregnancy had made her breasts huge. Sweat on her, between her breasts, staining the sheer cloth. He felt sick. For a moment it seemed to him that her belly was swollen not with a child but with ash.

‘He’s safe,’ she said. ‘I was worried about you.’

‘He?’

She blinked. ‘Our son.’

‘You know? How can you know?’ I don’t want it to be a boy, he found he was thinking, not a boy, not another murderer, parricide, dead thing, rot thing like I am. Will it kill her, tearing itself out of her? Cut her up into shreds, laugh in her face, curse her, take her heart to pieces slowly over years and years? I don’t want a child. I don’t want a boy. I want it to die like the rest, before it can harm her or I can harm it. It struck him suddenly: it is not dangerous for the mother to lose a child in the first early months.

She said, ‘I … Of course I don’t know.’

Did I kill them? he thought. The other children? Kill them in her, will them dead, give her poison in her sleep? I cannot father a living child. One of your generals himself plots to destroy you! Conspires against you! What if one of them is poisoning her, killing our children?

‘Why do you call it “he”, then? As though you think it will live, as though you pretend it will live?’ A wound, a rotting wound inside her already infected and dead.

‘He will live.’ Her hands clutched over her belly, tight, so tight like she might crush it, smother it in the womb. She was lying, they both knew it, it would die soon, any day, any moment, like the rest, just let it live let it live.

‘Don’t call it “he”.’

‘I – I want—’ And it came to him sick and horrified that she did not want it to be a girl. Look at her, the former High Priestess of the Great Temple, sacred holy beloved chosen of god who was born and raised to kill children, men dreaming in hot sweat about her hands stabbing them. She doesn’t want to have a daughter any more than I want to have a son. A perfect clarity, as he coughed the black sand of human bodies from his lungs: we both want this child more than all we have in the world, the last hopeful thing left to us, the only reason for anything. A child, to build an empire for. A child, to show our happiness and love. And we both want it to die unborn.

He remembered, so clearly, kissing Ti’s pink screwed-up face, kissing Ti’s pink flailing fist.

‘He will live,’ Thalia said again. ‘We should not be talking about this, Marith. Not now. You’re frightened, angry,’ she said. ‘You need to calm, to sleep.’

‘I saw …’ I can’t tell you, he thought, not you, I can’t speak it, I can’t have the child, my son, he can’t hear. Black sand crunched between his teeth.