The Heart of the Mirage Page 7

  ‘See to the luggage,’ I told Brand. ‘And keep an eye on Aemid.’

  He nodded, and I set off on foot with the officer.

  My first impression was one of monotony. The streets were unpaved and narrow, the brown of their earth a mirror reflection of the plain brown walls of the houses. Burnt-sienna brown everywhere, unrelieved by any other colour. No paint, no ornamentation; no grass even. Trees were misshapen gnomes with thick gnarled trunks, arthritic limbs and spindled leaves, growing only where the lanes swelled to become public well-squares—where, greedy for water, they could nestle up to the well itself.

  The only flashes of colour were in the clothing of the local people, people who were always walking away, turning their backs, retreating into houses, closing doors. The brown streets with their brown houses were unnaturally quiet. There was no noise of hawkers, no whine of beggars, no litter carriers jostling for custom. Even the pack animals—strange, dullbrown creatures—padded along on soft unshod feet. Once or twice I did catch a glimpse of an inner courtyard, and had a brief impression of flowers, of laughter, of animation, of life—but then the view would be cut off, the life killed by the closing of a gate.

  It was a while before I noticed the snakes. Then, once I’d seen one, I saw them all the time. They were also brown, blending into the ground as if they were made of the soil. They coiled themselves on house steps, draped themselves along gate tops, dozed lethargically in the sun at the edge of the wells. If we approached, they slid lazily away to the next patch of sunlight.

  Goddess, I thought, what sort of place is this?

  And even while I saw its strangeness with my eyes, I also felt its strangeness. The air brooded; malevolent, expectant. Never before had I been so aware of atmosphere. A confusion of overwhelming emotion rendered every breath an effort. I was made uneasy, troubled, tense, as though at any moment something terrible was going to happen. Yet, when I tried to pinpoint the source of my unease, it slid away from me, as slippery as a half-remembered dream.

  I even became accustomed to it. By the time I reached the Tyranian Prefect’s house—built of white marble, thanks be!—and was received by the Prefect and his wife, I’d pushed the feeling of oppression into the background and was able to ignore it.

  I’d read the Brotherhood intelligence report on the Prefect Martrinus, before I’d left Tyr. He’d risen through the ranks of the military magistrates, from a lowly position as a law court lictor to his present position, a change of status made possible by his judicious marriage into a highborn family from Getria. His first reaction on seeing me was predictable: he was taken aback to find I was a woman. I didn’t blame him for that. I’d never heard of a legata before, either.

  Once he recovered from his initial surprise, he bowed low over my hand in greeting, evidently deeming it prudent to show extravagant respect for a Brotherhood Legata even though he did outrank me. When he asked about my first impressions, I gave a casual answer. ‘It’s a strange land,’ I said. ‘Everything is so different. This is the first time I have been so far from Tyrans, you know. I am filled with wonder. The mud-brick houses with such thick walls, all the flat roofs—and what are those animals the Kardis use for carrying their goods?’

  ‘They call them shleths,’ the Prefect said. He was a thin man with shrewd watery eyes and a nervous habit of tapping his bent forefinger against whatever was to hand. ‘A difficult word.’

  His stylishly attired wife, the Prefecta Fabia, shuddered. I suspected she did a lot of shuddering in Kardiastan. ‘An unpronounceable name for impossible beasts,’ she said, her distaste thick about her. ‘There are three kinds, you know. The little ones that carry small packs, larger ones that people ride and the huge ones that are found further inland. On those, five or six people can ride in a howdah—but we are content with horses and gorclaks. These shleths are heathen beasts, vicious things of uncertain temper.’

  ‘And the snakes?’

  Another theatrical shudder. ‘Ugh! They come into the house, you know. They are everywhere! The Kardis feed them.’

  ‘Are they poisonous?’ I asked Fabia, glancing at the Prefect. He was busy reading the letter-scroll I had brought him from Rathrox.

  She shuddered. ‘Praise the Goddess, no! I’ve tried to get the slaves to kill them, but they won’t. These stupid thralls think serpents bring prosperity to a household.’ She paused to indicate the spread on the low table in front of me. ‘Legata, will you not eat a little of what we have prepared for you?’ As one of the waiting Kardi slave girls hurried over to pour water for me to wash my hands, she added, as if it were a self-evident virtue, ‘We do not eat Kardi food in this house.’

  I held out my hands over the washbowl but, as the girl poured the water, she suddenly gasped and dropped the ewer. It knocked the washbowl flying, splashing water everywhere. I jumped up in surprise and chagrin, my wrap soaked. I was wet and the water was cold. And then the girl’s emotions hit me: shock, wonder, fear…

  Domina Fabia was both furious and humiliated. She slapped the girl and fussed over me. By the time the mess had been cleaned up and I had convinced her it was a minor matter, the Prefect was impatient. ‘The Legata and I have business to discuss, Fabia.’ Ignoring the angry flush on his wife’s face, he waved her out of the room, together with the slaves.

  ‘I abhor fuss,’ he told me irritably, then reverted to a more formal tone to say, ‘It is time to discuss this letter you have brought.’ He tapped his forefinger on the letter-scroll. ‘The Magister Officii indicates I should give you every assistance. But I do not understand, Legata, why it has been thought necessary for you to come in the first place. This matter is already closed. The man in question, this Mir Ager, was executed by fire, as is customary for insurgents. Hundreds of people saw him die. There are rumours, it’s true, and unrest. However, that is nothing new for Kardiastan. He died, and there was certainly no resurrection of the dead, I assure you!’

  He added unhappily, ‘Do you know we still have the same number of garrisoned troops here as we had in the years immediately following the conquest? And every single one of them necessary. We can do nothing unless we are backed by legionnaires. The Kardis never cooperate willingly. Not ever.’ He leant forward to put some food on my plate. ‘That incident with the slave just now—it was probably deliberate. The girl will be beaten, but it will make no difference. Nothing makes a difference to these people. Sometimes I think they are here to plague us, sent by the God of Acheron himself.’ His forefinger beat a dismal rhythm against his knee.

  ‘Perhaps if you were to tell me all you know about this Mir Ager?’ I prompted.

  ‘Rumours say he came from the quarter of Kardiastan that’s on the other side of the desert they call the Shiver Barrens, to the west. We never did find out whether that was true. The first we knew of him was at a slave sale here in Sandmurram. There were slavers from Tyrans wanting stock, so we cleaned out the prisons and brought others down from Madrinya and similar inland towns, but there still weren’t enough. Well, you know how it is at times like that—the legionnaires become a little stricter and a little more provocative, the number of lawbreakers increases, and so you get enough stock.’

  I blinked, wondering if I had heard him correctly. They tailored their law enforcement to their need for slaves? The civil law courts didn’t behave like that in Tyr!

  Oblivious to my reaction, he continued, ‘It looked like being a good sale. The Exaltarch would get his sales fee, the administration here would get its slice, and everyone would be happy. But there was a disturbance during the sale.’ He took a deep breath but his tapping finger, now thrumming on the table, never paused. I tried not to stare at it. ‘This man, this Mir Ager, appeared and posed as a bidder. Well, we were all surprised because he was a Kardi. There’s nothing to say Kardis can’t own slaves, but it had never happened before. They don’t hold with slavery. However, he had money so no one questioned his right to be there.

  ‘Anyway, to cut the story short, suddenly the auction
square was—well, I know it sounds unlikely, but it was full of smoke and fire and colours and wind and noise…it’s hard to describe. I’ve never seen anything like it. And this man was at the centre of it.’ Martrinus shook his head in disbelief at the memory. ‘Everything was so confusing; it was so hard to see what was happening. The women were shrieking, gorclaks went berserk, people ran in all directions, screaming. Even the legionnaires were spooked. Somehow the slaves got free. The only thing most of us knew for sure was that this Mir Ager fellow was at the middle of it all. He seemed to—well, glow.’ Martrinus was embarrassed, but ploughed on anyway. ‘And he had some sort of weapon in his hand, a gigantic thing that shot sparks. Well, one of the legionnaires, who had a little bit more sense than the others, managed to render him unconscious with a shot from a whirlsling. Mir Ager was packed off to the dungeons, but we lost the slaves—by then, they’d just melted away into the crowd. Worse still, the slavers took fright. They said they weren’t going to trade in slaves who could escape from chains in the middle of a public sale. There was muttering about them being numina, or some such supernatural beings. Needless to say, we’ve had trouble selling Kardi slaves on markets throughout the Exaltarchy ever since.

  ‘Mir Ager was tortured, but we couldn’t get a thing out of him. Not a thing. He was sentenced to death by burning for inciting rebellion, which is high treason, as I am sure you know. He was taken out to the main square and chained to the stake. The fire was lit, but unfortunately the idiots who supplied the wood must have sent damp stuff. Instead of getting a lot of flame, there was enough smoke for a smokehouse. By the time it cleared, the flames were too fierce to see a damn thing. So that’s when people began to say Mir Ager didn’t burn at all, that somehow or other he escaped in the smoke.’ At the memory, his eyes watered even more copiously and he produced a square of silk to dab away the moisture. ‘Sorry about the eyes. It’s the dust, you know. Irritates. There’s always dust here in Kardiastan.’

  ‘Weren’t there bones? Some human remains?’

  ‘I suppose so, although I don’t know that anyone checked at the time. You must understand: we were hardly expecting a public execution to be questioned! The rumours didn’t start until much later. Felons executed by burning are not entitled to a marked grave, you know. So any remains would have been thrown away.’ He sniffed and used the silk to wipe his dripping nose.

  ‘Is that all you can tell me about this Mir Ager?’

  ‘Well, not quite,’ he admitted. ‘There have been reports from other places since, some of them true. Prisoners miraculously escaping, whole patrols of legionnaires disappearing, officers being assassinated. That sort of thing. And everywhere people whisper about how this Mir Ager out of the Shiver Barrens is behind it all. Sometimes I think the whole of Kardiastan is one big calabash of whispered rumours. It’s so damned hard to find out the truth about anything— no two Kardis will ever tell you the same story, no matter what you do to them.’ He’d lost his initial exaggerated respect for me and, formal tone forgotten, was treating me more like a confidante. His patrician accent faded into the roughness of a man who spent his days with military officers rather than politicians. I felt sure his wife would not have approved. ‘Ocrastes’ balls,’ he complained, ‘how I hate this place. Legata, I’m not giving away any secrets when I say there’s not a Tyranian citizen, from the Governor in Madrinya to the lowest legionnaire cookboy, who doesn’t wish his tour of duty here was up.’

  I kept my face and voice expressionless. ‘Did you know that the land beyond the Shiver Barrens is sometimes referred to as the Mirage?’

  ‘I’ve heard the term, yes.’

  ‘Mirage, Mir Ager. Mirager.’

  ‘It has occurred to us, naturally. That’s why I don’t think it was his real name. He took it as a way of making people think of this mysterious place beyond the desert. It’s a symbol of hope to the ordinary Kardi—and a place that scares the crap out of legionnaires. Over the years, various military commanders have sent Goddess knows how many patrols into the Shiver Barrens in search of the Mirage—on foot, with horses, with gorclaks, with shleths. Every way you can think of. And no one has ever returned. Yet Kardis are seen riding off on their shleths in that direction, and back again, too.’

  I nodded and changed the subject. ‘This weapon you mentioned of Mir’s; what happened to it? You do have it, I assume?’

  Martrinus looked uncomfortable. In his agitation, his forefinger was rattling the edge of his plate. ‘It’s kept in the military barracks, I believe.’

  ‘I would like to see it. And I would like to interview the legionnaires who tortured him and those who were responsible for his execution. In fact, I’d like to speak to anyone who saw him at close quarters, or who spoke to him.’

  ‘The Sandmurram Military Commander is away in one of the eastern towns. Some trouble or other. I shall arrange for his next-in-command to help you. Some of those you want to see may not be here any more. This all happened some twelve months ago, you know.’

  I rose, fighting the feeling that the floor was a moving deck beneath my feet. ‘All the more reason why no more time should be wasted. Prefect Martrinus, I thank you for your help and I would like to see the weapon and these people without further delay.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Certainly. I have been idle long enough getting here.’

  He swallowed his surprise. ‘Yes, of course.’ He rang for a slave and a lad appeared, an Assorian if his curly hair was anything to go by. ‘Agamin here will show you to your apartments,’ he said formally. My tone had evidently made him wonder if he had been too casual. ‘As soon as I have made arrangements, I will send someone to fetch you.’

  I rarely bothered to read the emotions of slaves. They were either a seething mass of sullen resentment and fatigued indifference, or they were vague dreamers, escaping reality into thoughts of no importance to me. If they did their jobs well, they were like any other tool, easily ignored and irrelevant until something went wrong, and I took no more notice of them than I would a comfortable chair or a sharp knife. But now, my complacency rattled by the slave girl, I reached out to absorb the Assorian boy’s feelings as I mounted the stairs behind him. And was immediately intrigued.

  He could not have been more than twelve, yet he possessed the calm self-assurance of someone much older. He kept glancing behind to look at me, ostensibly to see if I were still following, but his fervid emotions told their own tale. He wanted to remember everything about me. Every detail. His passion startled me, yet also struck a distant chord of childhood memory. Oh, goddess, I thought. That’s me. The way I was once, aching to be an agent of the Brotherhood…And then: I wonder who the sweet hells he wants to spy for?

  On the next floor he opened a door, saying, ‘Your rooms, Domina.’ He had cast his eyes downwards, which was proper, but still his fascination to know me spilled out, enthusiastic, intrusive. It was an effort to ignore it. I wondered if he were already spying for someone. Martrinus? Fabia? The Tyranian Governor of Kardiastan in Madrinya? Or perhaps something more nefarious? Too many political intricacies to be considered, and it was dangerous to tread where the ground was unknown. Reluctantly, I let it ride and did not question him. ‘Agamin,’ I said, ‘I wish to speak with the Kardi slave girl. The one who spilled water on me—I do not know her name. Tell her to come here.’

  He bowed and left wordlessly; on the surface, the perfect slave.

  While I waited, I looked around with approval. The Prefect’s house was not unlike my own villa in Tyr, and the rooms given to me, overlooking a garden courtyard, were cool and spacious. The furniture and carved statuary were obviously imported from Tyrans, all of good quality. There was even a head of a youth by Mattias, one of the finest sculptors of Tyr.

  I was running admiring fingers over the perfection of the piece when the slave, a frightened girl of about eighteen, arrived at my door. Her face, swollen where Fabia had slapped her, was also red and blotched from a recent bout of crying. She entered the
room and stood with her eyes downcast. She wore an anoudain, the form of dress the Kardi women seem to prefer—loose trousers and a long top. The bodice was fitted, attached to skirting split into back and front panels.

  ‘What is your name?’ I asked, careful to sound neutral.

  ‘Othenid, Legata.’

  ‘Have you been beaten for spilling the water, Othenid?’

  Her face tightened. ‘Yes, Legata.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On—on my back.’

  I walked across to her, turned her around and touched her back lightly with my left hand, trailing gentle fingertips over the thin blouse in an attempt to express my concern and win her trust. As far as I could see, she had been bruised but not badly hurt. Still, it must have been sore.

  The girl turned surprised eyes to me. ‘The pain—it’s gone!’

  While I was still trying to make sense of that, she knelt to seize my left hand and press her lips to the swelling there. It was all the confirmation I needed to tell me what had startled her into dropping the ewer. ‘Theura—?’ she asked, questioning. It was not a word I knew. And Goddess above, why did she think I had taken away her pain? For that was what she appeared to believe.

  ‘Othenid, I need your help,’ I said. ‘Why did you get such a shock when you saw this?’ I pointed to the lump on my palm.

  ‘Why, Theura—’ she began.

  ‘Silence, girl!’ The words cut across the room like a sword slash. We both looked around to see Aemid in the doorway, her eyes blazing with the intensity of rage. Her emotion was so tangible to me it was almost a physical assault.

  ‘Keep out of this, Aemid,’ I said, furious. ‘Leave us.’

  But Aemid didn’t go. She continued to address the girl, not me. ‘Can’t you see she is not Kardi? She is Tyranian to her very essensa! Go—’

  Othenid whirled and was gone, without waiting for permission.