The Shadow of Tyr Read online

  This one is for my sister Margaret with thanks for all the good memories

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Part One Ligea and Brand

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Part Two Liga and Arrant

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Part Three Arrant and Tarran

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Part Four The Battle for Tyr

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Part Five Son of the Exaltarch

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other books by Glenda Larke

  The Mirage Makers

  The Isles of Glory Trilogy

  Voyager online

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Map

  PROLOGUE

  Temellin stood on the seawall and watched the Platterfish manoeuvre through the moored fisher boats. In the windless waters of the harbour, four oars stroked in unison from the lower deck, while the sail hung like a rumpled blanket from the top spar. On the upper deck, a woman leaned at the railing, looking back at him.

  Ligea Gayed, who was also his cousin Sarana Solad. She really was leaving him, taking his unborn child with her. Nothing he’d said had persuaded her to stay, and his sense of betrayal was matched only by the intensity of his loss. She could have chosen to rule this land alone, she could have chosen to share his rule, she could have done neither and just chosen to stay anyway. Instead, she had put her own quest for revenge, justice—call it what you would—before their love.

  He understood, yet was bitterly angered, but it made no difference anyway: he loved her and always would. Mirageless soul, how was he going to live a life without her now that he had known what it was like to share one with her?

  As the boat slipped past the arms of the narrow entrance and out of the harbour’s embrace, the shipmaster manning the stern sweep called out something to Ligea, and indicated the limp sail. She laughed and waved at Temellin, pointing to it in turn. He knew what they were asking, and obliged because he liked the irony of it—using his own power to send the woman he loved away. A breeze sprang out of nowhere to fill the sail’s patchwork of flaxen squares ribbed with leather along the joins.

  She raised her hand in farewell as the boat picked up speed and slid over the first of the ocean swells. Even across the distance, he felt the emotion she let free for him to sense: that mix of love and sorrow and determination that was peculiarly hers.

  As he watched, he saw Brand come and stand by her side. Damn his eyes. And yet he was grateful the Altani was there for her. Gratitude and jealousy, side by side…nothing was simple any more.

  Cabochon take it, Sarana, you turn a man inside out.

  A voice spoke softly from behind him, echoing his sentiments, but for a quite different reason. ‘She should not go. No Magoroth should leave Kardiastan now. Not when those murdering blond bastards walk our streets and war is coming.’

  He turned to look at the speaker: a crinkle-skinned fisherman weaving closed a tear in the side of an aging lobster pot, a man too ancient to sail with the fleet any more.

  ‘She will still fight our battles, old man,’ he said. ‘She will be in a position to stop legionnaires from landing on our shores, one day.’

  The fisherman grunted, his disbelief strong in the air. ‘How much longer, Magori?’ he asked. ‘How much longer before I don’t fear to walk me own streets again? Will these old bones last long enough for me to smell freedom on the seawind once more, eh?’

  Temellin gave a grim smile. ‘You look as tough as shleth leather. You’ll make it.’ In his heart, he wasn’t so sure. It was one thing to start a war—they could, and would, do that soon. They’d been on the way to mount a challenge to Tyranian rule in Kardiastan when Sarana had brought the news of the Stalwarts’ incursion across the Alps. She’d repelled them, Mirage be thanked, but to expel all legionnaires? That was another matter.

  Hostages, he thought as he walked back along the seawall towards the town. The Tyranians have a land full of ordinary Kardis to use as hostages, and they’ll do it, too. How much stomach will we have to go on fighting when they can attack the innocent in retaliation?

  Sands take it, maybe Sarana was right. Maybe her help in Tyr would be crucial. Maybe without it, Kardiastan would never be free, for all their Magor power.

  Power, he mused, his thoughts bleak, even Magor power—it’s not everything. It might not even be enough.

  PART ONE

  LIGEA AND BRAND

  CHAPTER ONE

  The writing over the archway said simply: APOTHECARY. Most such signs would have been followed by a symbol—in this case, a herb leaf—for the benefit of the illiterate, but no such drawing graced this entrance.

  Ligea Gayed knew why. Merriam of Istia, apothecary and herbalist, was renowned for her greed and her exorbitant charges. As the illiterate rarely had enough money to pay for her services, Merriam did not bother to tell them of her existence.

  Fortunately, the cost of a consultation was irrelevant to Ligea; all that concerned her was that the Istian woman was not just an apothecary, but also the best midwife in Tyr. And she needed the best. She had to find out what was wrong. And, more importantly, how to fix it.

  For a moment she leaned against the archway, delving within for the courage to find out. Too much to ask of an unborn child, she thought, sliding a hand over the slight bulge of her abdomen. To have his essensa travel as my guide across a whole land—how could it not leave him wounded? He should have been safe in my womb, not asked to become an insubstantial shade. Perhaps it has scarred his very soul. And yet, if he hadn’t done that, they would both have died. Gods above, why do you never give us easy choices?

  She sent her senses to touch on the occupants of the rooms on the other side of the door under the archway. Two people: one a woman seeping avarice into the air like the stink of sweat, the other a man whose lack of passion spoke of stoicism and acceptance—a slave, surely. Only slaves exuded that kind of staid forbearance. It was what kept them alive.

  Ligea took a deep breath and raised her hand to knock. She had to know, damn it. What had she done to her son by the choices she had made?

  The slave answered, his greeting rudely abrupt. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wish to see Merriam of Istia.’

  ‘And you are—?’

  She said the first name that came into her head. ‘Estella.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘Estella of Corsene.’ Anot
her lie, but she had the right colouring for a Corseni.

  He looked her up and down, the contempt in his glance indicating that Merriam’s clientele did not usually come clad in artisan’s clothes and wrapped in a tattered shawl. ‘Domina Merriam charges two sestus for a consultation, potions extra.’

  The amount was outrageous, and an apothecary was not usually addressed as domina, but Ligea dug in her pouch and extracted the coins anyway. He plucked them out of her fingers, still unwelcoming, but stood back to allow her entry.

  The space on the other side of the door was small and mean, curtained off at one end, the only furniture a shabby divan. The air was redolent of alchemy, heavy with the smell of herbs and the smoky fragrance of burning incense.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said and disappeared through the heavy woollen curtain. She flung off the shawl she’d worn to help conceal her identity and dropped it onto the divan, then bent to undo her sandals. No one came forward to wash her feet, so she did it herself in the bowl provided.

  She heard the murmur of voices, but resisted the temptation to enhance her hearing. A moment later, the man beckoned her through the curtain.

  Shelves laden with jars lined the walls of the inner room; a brazier and a mortar and pestle were among the items sitting on a bench and bunches of fresh herbs hung from the ceiling. In the middle of the floor, a narrow table was covered by a thin pallet and a cloth. A stool had been placed underneath.

  The woman waiting for her was tall and scrawny, with a narrow, pinched face; her demeanour had the warmth of a marble pillar.

  Hells, Ligea thought, she looks more like an embalmer than a midwife. Probably scares babies into taking their first breath.

  ‘I am Merriam. Why are you here?’ The staccato of her Istian accent was sharply unpleasant to Ligea’s ears.

  ‘I wish to know if there are any problems with—with my pregnancy.’

  ‘How many months?’

  ‘Four—no, almost five.’

  ‘Loosen your wrap and climb onto the table. I will examine you.’

  Ligea stared pointedly at the man.

  ‘He’s only a slave,’ Merriam said, her contempt thick in the air.

  Ligea did not move.

  Merriam snorted. ‘Timon, leave us.’

  Once he’d disappeared into the next room and Ligea was lying on the table, the woman began her examination, her touch impersonal and assured, her questions probing. Had there been any bleeding? Did she vomit in the mornings? How was her digestion? Her water? Finally she listened to the child’s heartbeat, and then Ligea’s own, using a hollowed-out piece of gorclak-horn pressed to her skin. After she had finished, she pointed to a nearby door and shoved a pot into Ligea’s hand. ‘Pass water into this,’ she ordered.

  When Ligea returned, Timon took the pot into the next room. She had no idea what he was doing with it and didn’t ask.

  ‘My services for delivery,’ Merriam said as they waited, ‘cost eight silver sestus for a daytime birth. Extra one sestus if I must go out after dark.’

  ‘That’s a lot of money.’

  The midwife shrugged indifferently. ‘My patients do not die of afterbirth fever. What price do you put on your life?’

  ‘I won’t be in Tyr when the baby is born.’ She’d just have to hope that when the time came she would find someone as skilful as this woman apparently was, for all her coldness. ‘I do have a question now, though.’

  Merriam’s lips thinned. ‘Don’t ask if it’s a boy or girl. I don’t know. Nor do I care.’

  ‘It’s not that.’ She touched the scarring on her face and hesitated, at a loss. How could she describe being submerged in the Ravage? Finally she said, ‘When this child was less than four months along, I suffered a physical attack. I was also possibly, um, poisoned. I nearly died. For a day I hovered close to death. Will that have—have damaged the child?’

  ‘If it had, you would have miscarried.’

  The lie was potent to Ligea’s senses. ‘I paid good money for the truth, midwife! Do me the courtesy of speaking it.’

  Merriam stared at her, surprised by her assertiveness, and not pleased. ‘Worry won’t do you any good. Truth is, I don’t know. Beaten mothers can deliver healthy children. Or deformed ones. Poisoned mothers can have crippled babies. Or not. The gods dispose such things, and who knows the mind of a god? All I can say is that this child lives; I have heard its heartbeat.’

  Hells, why did I come? I might have known I wouldn’t get the assurance I want. Still she persevered, wanting answers. ‘There are times since then when I feel that all is not well with him. He weakens and I have to—’ She groped for words to explain how her son had faltered and faded within her, not once, but four or five times, each time to such an extent that she’d known he would die unless she intervened to heal him. The last time it had happened was just the evening before, as she and Brand had sailed into Tyr harbour from Ordensa.

  Before she could think of a way to explain, Timon came back into the room. ‘Nothing amiss,’ he said, wiping a forearm across his mouth. ‘Clear, and unsugared.’

  Merriam nodded and turned back to Ligea. ‘Your health is good.’ She sounded bored. ‘Your baby is normal. Its heart is strong. I foresee no problems. This is your first child. First-time mothers worry needlessly. Do not listen to the arrant nonsense other women say about such things. If you are further troubled, go to a temple and pray to the Goddess of the Unborn.’

  Ligea stifled a sigh. I am a fool. How did I expect her to help anyway, even if there was something wrong?

  However, as she slipped out into the street once more a few moments later, her shawl well wrapped about her head and face, worry still chafed her mind. She knew the feelings she’d had weren’t nonsense, arrant or otherwise, and she certainly wasn’t influenced by women’s gossip. She’d felt her son slipping away; she’d coddled his tenuous hold on life and brought him back. Again and again. Perhaps they’d both pay for her intervention. Perhaps she should have let him go.

  But he was all she had of Temellin.

  Gods, if he were born alive and well, she’d call him Arrant just to remind herself of how silly she was, imagining things.

  I will try and keep him safe, Temellin, I promise.

  She walked on, never thinking to cast her sensing abilities behind to the apothecary’s. There were too many other things abrading her mind. Tonight she would go to the Meletian Temple, but not quite for the reason Merriam had suggested. She wanted to take a good look at the Oracle. And tomorrow, tomorrow she would tackle Arcadim, her moneymaster…

  ‘Never met her before,’ Merriam said to her slave, Timon, ‘but I do remember her from somewhere. Just can’t think where. Strange that I’d forget someone with a face as badly scarred as that.’

  She began to enumerate all that had bothered her about her visitor. ‘Dresses like an artisan, but has the accent of the highborn. And the arrogance. Didn’t question the cost, so she has money. Yet didn’t book me for the birth. That’s odd. Wrapped herself well in her shawl. Didn’t want to be recognised, I dare say. Maybe she will be hiding out on some country estate when the baby is birthed. I wonder why her hand was bandaged?’

  She tapped the side of her nose. ‘Secrets, Timon. And secrets are always of interest to the Brotherhood. Perhaps she’s the highborn wife of a general who hasn’t been home for a good many months. I wish I could remember where I’ve seen her before.’

  She considered for a moment, then made up her mind. ‘Not much to go on, but I have a hunch she’s important. Fetch me pen and ink and a papyrus scroll. I shall write to Compeer Clemens. After all, you never know what information might be useful enough to earn us some money, do you?’

  ‘Guards?’ Brand asked her.

  ‘Only two,’ Ligea whispered. ‘One at the back, circling right. The other standing still, on the other side of the temple.’

  ‘The priestesses?’

  ‘Asleep. In the building beyond the temple.’

  ‘How come?’ he
asked. ‘Surely the Oracle should be tended day and night by a priestess in case one of the gods has something to say!’

  ‘That’s what they tell the public, yes. In practice—why sit up all night when you know damn well the Oracle is a sham? There is one young man in the temple itself. He’s awake. Probably the acolyte who tends the lamps.’

  I wish Magoroth power included the ability to make myself invisible. Or even make an illusion or two. But it didn’t. She couldn’t be too reckless with her use of power, either, or she’d end up weakened and vulnerable.

  She felt a pleasurable excitement, the stimulus of adventure. No one visited the Meletian Temple in the middle of the night, yet here they were, like thieves on their way to rob a counting house, dodging among the treasury buildings that surrounded the Pilgrim’s Way.

  ‘And the four-legged night watch?’ Brand persisted.

  She smelled the fear he deliberately unfurled for her. The temple hounds, Pythian ridgebacks reared to hunt mountain bears, were the reason that the temple only had two guards at night. The dogs tore intruders to pieces. She glanced at Brand but couldn’t see him properly in the darkness. ‘They’ve got our scent. They’ll be here in a minute.’

  ‘Ocrastes’ damn. I didn’t need to hear that.’

  ‘You didn’t have to come.’

  ‘Blame Temellin. He’s the one who said I had to look after you. When, of course, he ought to have been asking you to look after me. You’re the one with the Vortexdamn power.’

  She tried not to feel annoyed that he had insisted on coming with her in the first place. Experience told her a protective man was usually more hindrance than help.

  Confound this baby, she thought. He changes everything, even Brand. Then, more incredulous: Temellin asked Brand to look after me?

  She waved a hand at the back wall of the building they were passing. ‘This looks like a good place. Stand next to me, back to the wall, so I only have to worry about what comes at us from one direction.’ She pulled out her sword and called the light into the blade. Other buildings, heavy with statuary, loomed up out of the night as if beckoned by the glow.