The Heart of the Mirage Page 12

  Madrinya may have been a Tyranian city, but the area just beyond the Governor’s residence managed to retain its Kardi appearance. The street leading to the well-square was of hard brown earth; the walls on either side were adobe, the plainness of their façades broken only by the house gates.

  I had no intention of lingering, but when I heard music I came to an abrupt halt. The sounds of several stringed instruments being played in harmony drifted out from one of the houses through a gate left ajar: Kardi music, a plaintive, mournful tune with a complex counterpoint weaving through the melody. It was the first music I could remember hearing in Kardiastan and so it should have been alien to my ears—yet I was suddenly awash with longing, so moved I stood as still as a temple pillar, forgetting where I was going, oblivious to the presence of Brand behind me. The clothes I wore, the language I heard spoken around me, served to reinforce something the music awakened.

  I had thought of Kardiastan as a cultureless, barbarian land. This music did more than give me the lie, it stirred the Kardi soul I hadn’t even known I possessed. The wrench of that melody pulled me into another world, into memories of childhood I had tucked away out of reach.

  Playing hopsquares. Being cuddled when I cried. Sitting on a man’s knee hearing stories told. Paddling at a lakeside. Loving and being loved…

  The thoughts I had then were of things that had never bothered me before. I’d never thought a brown skin made me a Kardi. I’d never thought an accident of birth ensured my allegiance. I was Tyranian by inclination, by upbringing, by desire, by citizenship. Yet now the mere sound of a few instruments made me question who I was.

  Shaken, I blocked out the sound, quenched the memories and walked on. Don’t be stupid, Ligea. You are Gayed’s daughter, educated to be a highborn woman of Tyr.

  The well-square was a wholly Kardi scene too, but at least it aroused nothing in me except a vague distaste. By the time I arrived, it was crowded. In contrast to Tyr, the market stalls along one side conducted their business without argumentative bargaining or noisy rivalry. I saw no beggars. In the middle of the square, in the scant shade of a deformed tree, slaves and free Kardis waited their turn to draw water. The stone well with its narrow steps was only wide enough for one person to go down to the water’s edge at a time, but those in the queue were orderly, chatting among themselves, with no pushing or jostling for position. They came just for drinking water, I knew; professional water sellers transported water used for general household purposes up from the lake in amphorae on shlethback.

  The use of such a primitive method of collecting water puzzled me. Surprising, too, were the large spitting beetles lurking around the lip of the well, their wings shining iridescent purple, their spit drying in dirty yellow pools on the brickwork. Why hadn’t Tyranian culture prevailed here, as it had in most conquered cities? Why hadn’t the administration replaced the well with a public fountain or channelled water to the city along aqueducts? Why hadn’t they rooted out the pathetic excuse for a tree, planted parks, eradicated the beetles? How did the Kardis manage to maintain their identity so easily?

  I thought I already knew the answer, even as I framed the question. No Kardi ever cooperated on anything—and that made change difficult, especially when there was little labour other than what the Kardis cared to supply.

  Even as I hesitated at the edge of the group waiting at the well, I heard the tail end of a conversation confirming my thoughts. A youth was saying, ‘—and so when he wasn’t looking, I dropped the bag of grit into the mill mechanism. Chewed everything up beyond repair in five minutes. You should have heard what he had to say! He was as wild as a whirlwind.’ The lad laughed. ‘But the barracks has had to buy its flour from old Warblen ever since and I don’t think they’ll try to mill their own again—’

  I noticed the difference in being a Kardi among Kardis immediately. The speaker had not bothered to lower his voice at my approach, none of these people turned from me, there was no hate hanging in the air around them.

  ‘New here?’ a voice asked in my ear. I turned to find a girl of eighteen or so, with large brown eyes and a pert, inquisitive manner, smiling at me. She was wearing an iron slave collar. ‘I haven’t seen you before,’ she added.

  I gave what I hoped was a shy smile.

  ‘Put the jug down in the queue first,’ she said, indicating my ewer. ‘Someone will move it along for you. Come and sit on the wall with me.’

  I did as she suggested. I glanced up the street as I settled down on the low wall bordering the steps to a house, to see Brand lounging beside a horse outside a shop, as though he were caring for the animal while waiting for his master.

  ‘I’m Parvana,’ the girl said. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Derya.’ It was a Kardi name, of course, one I had chosen for myself.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Sandmurram—once,’ I said and added the story I hoped would explain any gaps in my knowledge, ‘but my mistress took me to Tyr some years ago. We’ve only just come back to Kardiastan.’ I stopped, afraid of saying something inappropriate.

  Luckily Parvana was happy to do most of the talking and before long I’d learned her father was a street sweeper, her mother carded shleth wool for a spinner, while Parvana herself had sold twine for a string-maker. She was newly enslaved, bonded for deliberately untethering a military gorclak which had been tied to the gatepost of her house. Her term was only six months and she was working for one of the military officers and his family. As she told her story, I realised there was one aspect of the Kardi language, at least among people of her class, that Aemid had failed to teach me. Parvana used swearwords with a flair and variety that spoke of much practice; unfortunately I didn’t know what most of them meant.

  ‘The (curse) work’s not (curse) hard,’ she was saying, ‘but those (curse) sods think we poor (curse) bints are only (curse) here to be (curse) screwed.’ I blinked. It was an impressive string of expletives for one short sentence, and Parvana hadn’t repeated herself once.

  However, I didn’t need to know the meaning of the words to realise she was far from philosophical about her position; the only decent part of her day was when she had to fetch the water; the rest was torment. The officer’s wife fondled her whenever she could and Parvana was sure it was only a matter of time before she insisted on more. Then, because they lived in military quarters, it was a constant battle to dodge randy soldiers, many of whom did not have their wives or families with them and ached to relieve their frustrations on any available female. And slaves were considered available.

  Sitting there listening to this recital, I had a sense of unreality. The girl was describing a life that seemed more fable than truth; did the Exaltarchy really make slaves of people for so little? What could it possibly be like to be someone’s toy, to be fondled at will? Did legionnaires really hunt down slave women to use as they pleased without fear of disciplinary action? This was not Tyranian law. This was not the kind of civilisation the Exaltarchy was supposed to extend to the conquered peoples of its provinces.

  I must have let some of my distress show on my face, because Parvana said, with numerous more unidentifiable words in between, ‘Ah, don’t look so upset, Derya. I’ve more or less decided how to wriggle my backside out of this one—if I can’t escape, that is. I’m going to let the cat think she can bed me eventually.’ She grinned. ‘Maybe she’ll get me a pretty bronze necklace like yours, instead of this bloody big castration ring. And if I play it right, she’ll at least keep the other pricks out of my trousers. What’s the matter? You look as if you’ve got a beetle up your arse—’

  I saw my opportunity. I made a show of looking around to make sure no one else was listening. ‘I have a problem,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  As I had intended, my secretive, conspiratorial tone immediately had her interested. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Parvana, listen, my owner was sent here from Tyr by the Brotherhood. Have you heard of the Brotherhood?
’

  She shook her head, her eyes already wide with wonder. She wasn’t quite as jaded as the rest of her conversation had suggested.

  ‘It’s a secret, um, cabal of men—well, mostly men, working directly for the Magister Officii. My owner was sent here by the Exaltarch himself to find a man the Tyranians know only as Mir Ager.’

  I had worded the latter sentence carefully and was rewarded by her breathless, ‘The Mirager!’

  I nodded. ‘Yes. Parvana, I’ve been in Tyr. I don’t know what has been happening here. I heard the Mirager was burnt alive in Sandmurram…’

  She snorted. ‘You don’t want to believe what Tyranian sods say! Of course he’s still alive.’

  I endeavoured to look relieved. Inside, I was perplexed. Could the man really have survived? I said, ‘I have something of the Mirager’s that must be returned to him. Something left behind at the slave auction in Sandmurram. And I have to warn him of danger from the Brotherhood. I must talk to him, but I don’t know how to contact him. What can I do?’

  Parvana’s air of world-weary disenchantment vanished fast. ‘Don’t worry—I don’t know any of those cold-arsed Magor bastards, but we all know how to pass a message—one that will get right to the balls at the top if need be. Will you be sent for water tomorrow?’

  I both heard and felt her breathless awe and guessed she wasn’t as disparaging of the Mirager as her vocabulary suggested. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I will.’

  ‘Then be here. I shall tell you what to do then.’ She jumped down from the wall. ‘It’s my turn to get the water. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She gave a happy smile and went to pick up her ewer, now at the head of the line because an obliging slave had been moving it along in front of his own.

  That was easy, I thought. But the Mirager may well be a different matter…What sort of man survived his own execution?

  My thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a thunder of hoofs. I turned my head to see two gorclaks being ridden at racing speed down a lane that disgorged into the square. The riders, both junior officers, were whipping their beasts and calling for a free way ahead. The people at the well scattered in fright as the animals ploughed into them. One older woman who wasn’t quick enough was brushed aside, a child disappeared under churning legs, ewers were smashed. The first rider, laughing, brought his whip down on a Kardi man who shook his fist at the racing men. The other gave a whoop of delight and caught the awning over a fruit stall as he rode by, so that the whole stall collapsed in on itself, spilling produce.

  Then they were gone and the silence they left behind them was deathly. The child, ripped open from throat to pelvis by a gorclak spur, lay in a widening pool of blood so thick it seemed black. A woman rose to her feet, looked around in a panic—and saw what she didn’t want to see. She sank down again, onto her knees this time, twisting her hands over and over as if she were participating in some strange ritual of cleansing, of absolution. Her mouth caverned open, but no sound came out.

  The square was filled with hate and I found myself part of it, hating with a black hate, despising those laughing men for their casual murder, dreaming revenge.

  The crowd closed in on the body and the grieving mother. I slipped down from the wall and went to fill my ewer, but my thoughts were elsewhere.

  ‘I’ve written a message for the Military Commander,’ I said harshly. ‘See that he gets it, Brand.’ I had removed my slave collar—unlike other such collars it snapped open—and I’d changed my clothing, but the atmosphere of the square was still acid in my mind.

  Brand took the scroll I handed him and, after a nod from me, read it. He raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Harsh words, Legata.’

  ‘Officers, Brand! Behaving like that! Fortunately the gorclaks had their numbers newly painted; it should be easy enough for the Commander to have them identified and punished.’

  ‘But will he bother? They only killed a Kardi child, after all.’

  ‘That’s what’s the matter with this place,’ I snapped, even though I knew he was deliberately baiting me. ‘The standards that apply back home don’t seem to apply here. How can we earn the loyalty of the people we rule if we behave like lawless ravagers ourselves?’

  He gave a cynical snort. ‘You won’t change anything with this note. Haven’t you learned yet that any society practising slavery is innately unjust? When you have the power to make a free man a chattel to be bought and sold, then it is you—not the slave—who loses humanity; you who become a little less than what a man or a woman should be. The system is marginally less arbitrary in Tyrans simply because lesser men like those legionnaires are not at the top of the midden heap there; they are near the bottom.’

  I wanted to deny what he was saying, to brush the words aside because I did not like them, but the scene in the well-square stayed with me. And I knew at least one part of what he was saying was true: the system here was arbitrary; it was too dependent on the whims of individuals. Back in Tyrans, power was divided up: the Exaltarch, the Brotherhood, the generals, the highborn, the moneymasters, the court praetors, the temple priestesses, the trademasters—everyone had his or her say. There were checks and balances even the Exaltarch had to obey. But here, in Kardiastan? The Governor, the Prefects—they relied on the legions to enforce the law and the only courts were military ones. It was a system that could be easily abused; and in my heart I knew military men were notoriously unwilling to discipline their own kind for crimes committed against civilians, especially subjects who were not even citizens of Tyrans.

  ‘I am sure other outposts of the Exaltarchy don’t have a similar, um, anarchy as here,’ I said in protest. ‘Besides, we only enslave those who have committed a crime. Some would say that slavery is a preferable punishment to other forms. In Assoria they used to cut off the right hands of thieves. In Corsene they used to blind them. Nowadays, in all the Exaltarchy, thieves and other petty criminals have a chance to lead useful lives as slaves, well fed, clothed and housed. Society is therefore more stable. Crime is reduced. The punishment is more tolerable. Which is better?’

  ‘Legata, enslavement was just as arbitrary in Altan, where I was born, as it appears to be here. Do you know why I was made a slave? No, of course you don’t. You never bothered to ask. Well, now perhaps is the time for you to learn—my parents died. I was ten years old.’

  ‘And—?’ I prompted when he did not go on.

  ‘That’s it. I was ten and parentless. There was no one to protect me. No one to protect the property that was my father’s. It was stolen and I was sold into slavery, with the open connivance of the legionnaires stationed in Altan. Where was the crime that justified the sale of a grieving ten-year-old boy into a lifetime of slavery? That is the truth of your Tyranian civilisation, Legata. Certainly we have peace—but at what price?’

  I didn’t want to think about what he was saying. I looked away from him to pick up the slave collar again and fiddle with it. It felt weighty, cumbersome, awkward in a way I hadn’t even noticed when I was wearing it. Brand stood quietly, waiting for some acknowledgement of the truths he uttered. I should have scolded him. Chided him for criticising the Exaltarchy that ruled him, but the Altani and I had a more complex relationship than that. I said finally, ‘You’ve never spoken like this before, Brand. Why now?’

  ‘You’ve only just started to listen.’ He held up the scroll. ‘I shall deliver this.’ He turned and walked away, leaving me feeling upset and restless. It was all too easy to remember a pool of blood, black blood, seeping into a woman’s clothing as she knelt, wringing her hands…

  The next morning, I thought about having Brand follow me again, but I did not want anything to jeopardise my meeting with Mir Ager. The Mirager. I would risk going alone. Brand did not protest my decision; I would have been surprised if he had. We both knew being a member of the Brotherhood often involved danger. We both knew I revelled in risk and that nothing Brand said would ever change that.

  Parvana was in the group of women waiting at the well. She n
odded to me and drew me apart from the rest. ‘Leave your ewer. I’ll fill it and leave it over there, with the vegetable seller just behind us. You can pick it up any time. Now, see that neat-arsed hunk at the fruit stall on the other side of the square?’

  I looked around. There was a man, a Kardi with no slave collar, idly poking at some fruit on display while he chatted to the stall owner. I put his age at about thirty, and took in his slim but muscular build and easy posture. I turned back to Parvana and nodded. ‘I see him.’

  ‘In a minute he will begin to walk away. You must follow him. He will take you to the person you want to see.’

  Across the square, the man bought some of the fruit, placed it in his belt bag and, without glancing around, began to move off even as Parvana smiled encouragement and took my ewer. I crossed the square and entered the labyrinth of lanes on the other side, keeping the fellow in sight. I tried to probe ahead to see what his emotions were, but the alleys were full of Kardis doing their early morning shopping and it was impossible to separate one person’s feelings from another’s. I was jostled by the crowd and found myself pushing in an attempt to keep up with my guide.

  It was my fault, of course; slaves did not jostle legionnaires. Slaves were submissive and polite, not pugnacious. But for a moment I forgot I was a slave and shoved a legionnaire out of my path. He grabbed at my arm and yanked me to a halt.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, in Tyranian. ‘What have we here? A willing slave wench throwing herself into my arms?’

  I pulled away sharply and stepped backwards, only to find myself seized from behind. Another voice said, ‘No, into mine I think, Xasus.’ Laughter followed as this second man pulled me hard back against his chest, his intrusive hands fondling my breasts. I stood rigid with shock.