Darien, page 29
‘I am sure one city will do,’ she said. ‘For now.’
She leaned forward as if to kiss his cheek and whispered the words Tellius had revealed to her into his ear. Arthur stiffened as she pulled back. He bowed deeply to Lady Sallet then.
‘I am yours to command, Lady Sallet.’
‘You will rule in Darien, as a just king?’
‘If it is your wish, I will.’ Arthur glanced at Tellius, to find the old man’s expression completely blank, as if he was controlling great emotion.
Lady Sallet watched them both.
‘You may spend the summer as you planned, my lord,’ she said softly, wondering, but deciding not to ask. It had been a long night.
Vic Deeds was weary and fed up with the spiteful anger all around him. He hadn’t really expected to walk away from the Immortals, not once they’d surrendered and been rounded up. There were too many in the ranks of that elite cavalry whom Deeds had scorned or insulted, safe at the time in his position as the general’s right-hand man. One or two suspected him, correctly, of having slept with their wives. Of course they would point him out, claiming him for their own as he scowled at them and wished for bullets he no longer had. That was one thing about a sword. It didn’t run out.
The Hart guards didn’t know exactly who he was, of course, nor what he had done. They were still happy to take his four pistols and tie his hands behind his back with all the other prisoners. They didn’t care what happened to him after that, not really. Someone else would sort the wheat from the chaff as the city restored order.
Deeds had not even been too dismayed at being captured. Once the anger had settled, once all the passions of battle had eased, he knew the city would still need its Immortal legion, with hard, killing men in it. Perhaps more importantly, there would always be killing men in Darien who needed a legion. What fools they’d be if the Twelve Families destroyed their own defence in a fit of righteous retribution and were then invaded! No, as long as he kept his head down, Deeds thought he had a good chance to survive the cull and the floggings that would certainly follow.
He had not expected to be denounced a second time. He had never read a bible, but his mother had once told him some story about a fisherman who kept being accused, every time he turned round. You were with him, weren’t you? You’re one of his apostles. He’s the one. He’s one of them.
Deeds felt a little like that when half a dozen guards from the royal palace came down the line of prisoners, staring at faces, grabbing dazed and wounded men and peering at them before letting them fall back. Deeds had been in the process of being shackled to a slave chain with a dozen Immortals already slouching on it in their fine boots and white coats. He’d seen the guards coming and turned away on instinct. It was just bad luck that one of them seemed to recognise him, pointing a quivering finger like an old maid identifying the fellow who took her purse.
Deeds had done his best to look astonished at the awful accusations they were making, but his chances of living through it all had dropped considerably. There were still groups of men exacting revenge in a few places, dragging Immortal officers aside to be beaten and kicked to a pulp. No one was stopping them, Deeds saw. It was an ugly business, but not particularly personal. Darien was just a hard place and there was always a price to be paid.
Deeds had killed a lot of the palace guards, but not quite enough of them, it seemed. He said nothing when a burly fellow was called over, half his head wrapped in bloody bandages. The man bent to smell his coat, the cloth of it still thick with smoke. Deeds saw his own death in the fellow’s one bright eye then and his heart sank.
‘Yeah. He was there,’ the man said. That was the end of anyone listening to his protests.
Deeds staggered as they shoved him along the road, away from the Hart soldiers and back towards the western gate. He saw sullen anger in the men who had failed to protect King Johannes. Shame and spiteful pleasure too, which did not bode well for him. He grimaced as he saw that one of them was carrying a coil of rope, loosening loops of it as they walked along. It seemed they were only looking for a place to string him up. Deeds could still not quite believe his mother had been right all along. He really had been destined to be hanged.
Despite his predicament, he could not help staring as he and his captors came back to the area by the western gate and saw the destruction there. Deeds had been right at the heart of the opening moments of the attack, but it had clearly grown much worse when he’d left in pursuit of Elias Post and the general.
He whistled in amazement at the fires and rubble strewn all over. One of his guards smacked him across the face in response, making his nose bleed. Deeds would have liked his hands freed then. Some men were ever so brave when they were dealing with helpless prisoners.
He looked across a scene of desolation almost like a painting. Bodies lay sprawled everywhere, right up the huge steps to the wall and the western gate. He could see soldiers standing in neat lines there around a noblewoman in skirts. He did not know Lady Sallet, though he recognised the colours of her men well enough. His eyes widened at the sight of the looming green warriors turning back and forth, watching for threats to their mistress. Deeds shook his head in awe. He knew the general had hoped to take them down with cannon fire, but that chance had been lost in the chaos by the gate.
Deeds sighed suddenly, so tired then that he could barely stand. Perhaps it was time to stop struggling. He recalled there had been some ancient fellow forced to carry his own cross to where they crucified him. The thought was in his mind from before, when he’d felt like an apostle. Deeds thought he might resemble the man with the cross then. He just wanted to put his burden down and go to sleep.
His swinging gaze sharpened and grew still when he saw three figures sitting on a bench in the shadow of the gate. Elias was looking straight at him, red as a devil and with his arms around his two daughters. A puddle of chains lay beside them on the bench, where he had placed them.
Deeds shuddered under that awful stare. None of his weary guards could stop the hunter if he chose to stand up and come over. Deeds tutted. It was that sort of thinking that had driven the general to the edge of madness and probably cost him the city. You lived or you died. There was no point worrying about it. He raised his head and nodded to Elias. In response, the red man stood up, one hand held out for each of his daughters. He made no sign he had seen and Deeds realised suddenly that he too could accuse.
He had not been alone in the palace, after all. No matter who had fired the final shots, the Twelve Families would be very interested in Elias. Deeds understood the man would be afraid of his own pointing finger and for a moment he considered dropping Elias as deep in it as he was himself.
He shook his head and turned away, leaving Elias to take his daughters through the gate. When Deeds looked back, there was no sign of them. They had left the chains behind, he saw.
One of the guards flung the rope he carried up over a balcony that hung above the street. Deeds watched them tie the famous long noose with scorn on his face, though he felt fear grow. There’d be no sharp drop and quick ending for him, not the way they’d arranged it. The thought of strangling and turning on the rope while they all watched him die was infuriating. He felt himself growing frantic as they took him by the arms. He had not found any last words worth saying.
The actions of that little group had drawn a Sallet soldier over from across the road. Deeds watched him come, trying not to hope, though the guards all stood steady and respectful in the presence of a house officer.
‘Who is this man?’ Captain Galen asked.
‘He was seen in the palace, sir. One of the killers, as I heard it.’
‘Has anyone even asked his name? Has anyone questioned him?’
The guards looked shiftily at one another and Deeds grinned at the man who had struck him. One extra day, then, surely.
‘I am innocent, sir – and I fought against the Immortals in the end. There will be someone who’ll vouch for me, I do not doubt.’ It would not hurt to muddy the waters a little on that score, Deeds was certain. He saw doubt in the officer’s face, but then watched the man shrug.
‘Take that rope off his neck for now. He can wait with the others to be questioned. We can always hang them later, can’t we?’
The lickspittle guards all smiled at that. Deeds rolled his eyes and found the captain’s gaze still on him. One of the guards kicked him in his seat as he trotted away with the soldier, all the vengeance they could manage. He turned his head and winked at them. There was many a slip between cup and lip, his mother had always said. A hanging postponed was a hanging avoided. The woman had been full of stupid sayings. He missed her still.
Epilogue
Deeds sat up in the darkness, hardly daring to hope. The sound he’d heard could have been a man having his head knocked against a stone wall. That was the weakness of cells, even those beneath the Sallet estate. Every part of them, every flight of steps or locked door, was guarded by ordinary men, with keys on their belts. Elias Post had no better chance of getting through iron bars than anyone else, but he could knock the wits out of the man guarding it well enough.
Deeds stopped smiling when he considered Elias might also have come to kill him. He put that aside as mean-spirited. Yes, there was a very small chance the hunter had taken his daughters to a safe place and then come back to make an ending. Deeds could still betray him in exchange for his life, after all. He knew exactly where Elias lived and Deeds knew more about his knack and how to counter it than anyone alive.
Deeds raised his eyebrows in the darkness. It had not actually occurred to him to use that information to free himself, though he supposed it would have done by the time they got round to questioning him. He could not honestly have said if he would have betrayed Elias Post. The man deserved better than that from him – but Vic Deeds deserved to live as well, and if the choice was one or the other, he suspected he’d have sung like an opera.
Deeds pressed his ear to the door of the tiny cell in time to hear someone padding closer outside. It seemed the designer of those Sallet cells had thought light a luxury for prisoners. The bare stone rooms were so far beneath the ground that the air itself was thick, and so warm he sweated all the time, while thirst became its own torture.
Deeds licked cracked lips and stood back at the sound of a key scraping in the lock. He heard the hinges creak and felt air move across his face as the door swung inwards, yet he could see nothing at all. It might as well have been the door to hell and he had a terrible sense of Death standing there, come for him.
For just a moment, Deeds was caught in a state of frozen, supernatural fear, then he shrugged and walked out. Staying in the cell meant torture and public execution in front of the baying crowds of Darien. Walking out could hardly be worse.
He felt the air shift again as someone moved aside from the doorway.
‘I hoped you’d come back,’ Deeds said into the darkness. There was no response, though he imagined a scowl he had come to know well. ‘Elias? I didn’t set those palace dogs on you by the gate and so I hoped you’d get me out. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ Elias said at last, his voice hoarse and low. ‘I remembered you knew where I lived.’
Deeds swallowed uncomfortably at the words spoken into his ear, much closer than he’d realised.
‘If not for that, I’d have left you to hang.’
‘We’re friends, though,’ Deeds said. ‘I’d never have betrayed you! You’re not intending to kill me, surely?’
There was a long silence and Deeds could feel his heart thumping. Then a sigh.
‘No. If you promise to leave the city and never return, I’ll set you free.’
‘Done,’ Deeds said immediately. ‘I couldn’t think of any last words anyway.’
He felt his hand guided to the other man’s shoulder and followed him out until there was moonlight. A few sprawled guards lay still on the cobblestones. Deeds saw one of them groaning and trying to sit up. He hurried past.
They climbed over the gate on a piece of carpet laid across the spikes. Deeds eyed two more guards lying unconscious and shook his head at the hunter he’d first seen calling cards in a Wyburn tavern. As they dropped down to the street outside, he put out his hand.
‘Thank you, meneer.’
After a moment, Elias took it.
‘We’re not friends, Deeds,’ he said. ‘Understand? This is me settling my debts, that’s all.’
The man’s grip was impressive and Deeds nodded, just pleased to be out.
The streets all around were quiet, nothing like the madness of the night before. That whole part of Darien had been battered still, stunned or dazed, like a sandy shore littered with sea-wrack after a great storm. Elias held his gaze for a time, then unclasped his hand. Deeds took a deep breath of cool night air. The two men set off together towards the western gate.
Acknowledgements
I haven’t called on friends to accompany me to far-flung ruins for this one, nor on researchers to seek the names of Caesar’s assassins. Instead, I would like to acknowledge some of the authors who filled my mind with colours in the first place – and made me want to write. Every writer is a reader first. We do it because we love it.
Please raise a glass to the thieves of time, to the storytellers:
David Gemmell, Raymond E. Feist, Orson Scott Card, Robin Hobb, Peter F. Hamilton, Philip José Farmer, Michael Crichton, Jim Butcher, Mark Lawrence, Terry Pratchett, George R. R. Martin, Piers Anthony, David Eddings, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, David Feintuch, Harry Harrison, Ursula Le Guin, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir, Brent Weeks, Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Stephen King, Sheri S. Tepper, Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Lois McMaster Bujold and Spider Robinson.
Honestly, every name on that list is a greater joy than the last, read forwards or backwards. The world is a better place because they walked it once, or perhaps because they still do. Thank you, all.
Conn Iggulden
THE BEGINNING
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MICHAEL JOSEPH
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Michael Joseph is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published 2017
Copyright © Conn Iggulden, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Cover artwork by Larry Rostant
ISBN: 978-0-718-18649-4
C. F. Iggulden, Darien
