Farlander (57 page)

He headed along a street of identical buildings, the windows tall and standing open to the city air, leaking sounds of industry from within. He stopped at one of the ground-floor windows to chance a look inside. It looked like a workshop, though a massive one, spacious and dusty. Hundreds of people, mostly women and young children, sat on rows of mats on the floor and worked at simple repetitive tasks that made no immediate sense to his eyes. Other children swept loose debris from the floor and the few grown men sweated as they pushed handcarts filled with material along the aisles. Those sitting on the mats tossed finished items into the carts as they passed by, while others grabbed things out. A few supervisors stalked between the workers, shouting at one every so often. After a minute, Nico passed on, seeing no sign of Serèse. He had clearly lost her.

For a moment he considered returning to the hostalio, but the mere thought of sitting there all on his own, dwelling on what he had done last night, was a depressing one. He might as well take a stroll, even if the city streets were barely more welcoming than his room.

He walked on into a prettier district, where trees lined the avenues and small plazas offered space for chee houses or fountains of clear running water, the mood of the area less hectic than the eastern docks. Still, Nico could feel in his blood how he did not belong in this city. It had little for him to relate to, little he could settle his eyes upon in welcome recognition. It was all so daunting to him, not simply the scale of the architecture but the manner of the people themselves.

At least in Bar-Khos strangers still spoke to strangers. Smiles appeared readily on the faces of shopkeepers; if there was a sudden fight or argument, others would always be quick to calm things down. As war-weary as Bar-Khos might be, or perhaps even because of that, there was still a spirit of community amongst its beleaguered populace, a sense of lives shared in a common purpose that transcended creed or religion or acquaintanceship. Here, though, there was something sour and self-contained about the people. It was as though they had been promised much in their lives – yes, and had gained it all too – and yet here they were, even more harried and discontented than before.

Perhaps what Nico needed most was to see something green and spacious as opposed to this endless oppressiveness of concrete and brick. On a whim, he stopped a boy in the street and asked him where the nearest park could be found, hoping the youth would not squint at him in confusion and say there were no such things.

But the boy gave him simple enough directions, a mere block away it turned out. As he turned a corner, Nico’s eyes lit up, for there, directly ahead of him, was indeed a small green park surrounded by a black iron railing. He quickened his pace and hurried through a gateway, his shoes crunching on a pathway of gravel. He slowed, gradually, to take in the scenery. It was attractive in its own way, and largely empty, save for the occasional figure squatting in the bushes to relieve itself, and a few drunks lying sprawled in the overgrown grass as though someone had staked them out under the sun.

Nico chose a spot as far away from these park denizens as he could find, and sat himself down beneath a tall cicado tree. With his face to the weakening sun, he almost began to relax.

Eventually, Nico closed his eyes and imagined he was elsewhere. He imagined he was back home in Khos, sitting in the forested hills that rose up behind his mother’s smallholding.

On days like this one, back home, he had often gone hiking with Boon by his side, the pack on his back holding a loaf of keesh freshly baked by his mother, also some cheese, a flask for water, his bird whistle, some hooks and twine. He would climb away from the mundane problems of his life, sweating and panting his way into the crisp air of the higher valleys, his mood lightening with every footstep as Boon ranged to one side or the other, sniffing for rabbits, mice, anything he might chase.

Sometimes, after Boon had calmed enough to lie down and be still, Nico would fish in the cold mountain pools, catching one small rainbow trout after another, fish which he would proudly bring back to his mother for supper. At other times, in a more contemplative mood, he would find a slab of ancient rock overlooking some deeper pool, and would fish with pebbles instead, tossing in a small stone so that it plopped gently into the water. He would watch it keenly as it sank beneath the surface. If he was lucky, a young trout would dart for the sinking pebble from some hiding place by the edge of the pool, only to dart away again when it realized it was not potential food. In this way Nico would fish not for the meat of the animals, but for the sight of them. He would spend hours at this, hours.

If it was still early enough, Nico would choose the nearest mountain and climb to the very top of it, regardless of how tired or hungry or footsore he became, wondering if his father had ever come this way when he had hunted for game, or on one of his own solitary hikes. Once he reached the summit he would collapse to the ground next to Boon, his breath ragged in his throat, his eyes absorbing the vast spread of the land below and the blue-green press of the sea beyond. Salt would lace this high air that he sipped. His skin would cool against the soft ruffle of the wind. He would feel at peace with the world, his life placed in a truer context, his problems petty, without meaning; nothing really mattered, he would realise, not his fears and insecurities and hopes and desires, shifting and transitory, only the permanence of the moment, this presence of being. He would look into Boon’s soft eyes and realize that the dog already knew this state of mind, and he would envy him his simple existence.

‘Hello, you.’

The voice was of the present, and Nico returned to it simply by opening his eyes. Colours returned to his vision slowly, so at first all he could see was a green silhouette framed against the sky, looming above him. He craned his neck and shaded his eyes.

Serèse, her hands on hips, frowning.

‘You’re on my spot,’ she announced before he could say a thing.

‘What?’ he asked, sitting up.

‘
You
, you’re on my spot,’ she repeated, and Nico smiled it her, puzzled, and cast a look around at the drunks and the addicts scattered about the little park.

‘I see. You come here a lot, do you?’

She sat down next to him, and nudged him aside to gain more room against the tree. He felt her heat against his own; it sent a physical shock reverberating up and down his spine.

‘Our hostalio is nearby,’ she explained. ‘My father refused to let me stay in the squalor he and Aléas have been putting up with down at the docks, so he had us all move to better quarters. They have returned to our rooms to lie low and discuss plans. I can’t think of anything more tedious. I thought I’d take a walk, find somewhere to sit in the sun.’ She looked about her, wrinkling her nose. ‘And, I am afraid, this is it.’

Serèse took a brown roll-up from her pocket and struck a match to light its tip. The smell of hazii weed filled Nico’s nostrils as she inhaled life into the stick and exhaled.

‘Smoke?’ she ventured, passing it over to him.

His mother had claimed hazii was bad for the lungs, worse even than tarweed. True enough, she herself often coughed fit for dying after a heavy night of smoking it. Nico almost waved her offer away, but then he thought, why not, and took it warily. He drew a trickle of smoke into his lungs. With a cough he passed it back to her.

‘Am I interrupting something?’ Serèse asked at his silence, for Nico was still partly back in the hills of Khos.

‘No. Only a few memories.’

‘Well, in that case I’ll leave you to them.’ She stood up in one single graceful movement, like a big cat.

‘Don’t go on my account,’ said Nico quickly.

She held out a hand. ‘I’m only playing with you. If we’re going to spend the afternoon together, I’d rather it wasn’t here.’

Nico couldn’t help but agree, so took her hand and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. ‘Where do you suggest, then?’ he asked, their hands still clasped.

She shrugged. ‘Let’s walk a while.’

She released his hand, and instead slid an arm through the crook of his own. The air was growing cooler as the sun dipped behind the surrounding buildings. On all sides, pedestrians hurried to and fro; and iron-collared slaves carrying heavy burdens balanced on their heads. They passed several restaurants with the scents of cooking wafting from their open doorways.

‘Are you hungry?’ asked Nico, though he himself did not feel any need to eat.

Serèse shook her head, her dark hair rippling around her shoulders. ‘I need some fresh air. Don’t you like to just walk sometimes?’

‘Of course,’ he replied quickly.

She passed him the hazii stick again, and he took a deeper pull this time.

‘You and Aléas,’ she said, ‘you seem to have become friends after all.’

‘I suppose so. Not that Baracha . . . I mean, not that your father approves very much.’

‘No, he wouldn’t. You are Ash’s apprentice.’

Nico looked at her with questions in his eyes.

She shrugged. ‘Master Ash is the best the order has, and all know it. That is something that displeases my father, for he has always had a consuming desire to be only the best. He can’t stand it when he’s not. But you mustn’t hold it against him. My mother told me of his childhood, about his father, who was fierce and overbearing, but also small, in his own mind. He put down his son at every chance he could, and showed him nothing but contempt, till the day that he died. It has shaped my father’s spirit in some way, and he can do nothing to change it.’

Nico considered this, and tried to match it with the overbearing Alhazii that he had come to know.

They strolled past side-street cafés, the chatter of the patrons becoming loud and raucous. The shadows began to stretch further.

‘My mother is like that, too, in a way,’ he said after a time. ‘Something in her past still shapes her now.’

‘Her parents?’

‘No. My father.’

Serèse said something in return, but he didn’t hear it. His steps faltering, he came to a stop.

Straight ahead of them something was spinning quickly to the ground. As it landed, he squinted down at it.

A cicado seed, its fresh greenness contrasting with the dull greyness of the cobbles. Around it, all across the street, fallen leaves lay trodden and torn, and amongst them were similar winged seeds, though smaller than he was used to, not as large as they should be. Nico looked up, his eye travelling past floor after floor of the building they were walking alongside. Over the edge of its lofty roof hung the branches of a tree.

Serèse followed his gaze. ‘A roof garden,’ she explained. ‘The wealthy like to keep them.’ Her lips pursed briefly. ‘Come on,’ she said as she ducked into an alley running to one side of the same building.

With Nico following her, Serèse stopped beneath a ladder fixed to the brickwork over their heads: a fire escape running beside a window on each floor all the way to the top. He realized what she was thinking.

He felt distinctly light-headed as he gave her a boost up on to his shoulders; himself grinning, wobbling under her weight, as she flexed her knees and made a leap and a grab for the lowest rung of the wooden ladder. She hauled herself suddenly upwards, and Nico admired her lithe figure as she tugged on the latch securing it.

The sliding ladder clattered down, with her aboard, and came to a stop right beside him.

‘What are you gaping at?’ she breathed.

*

It was a small roof garden, though beautifully arranged. A careful hand had allowed it to grow naturally, without appearing overly wild. Around its edges stood undersized trees in clay pots, and bushy shrubs in troughs of soil covered in wood chippings; wild grass grew over most of the space between, dotted with blue and yellow flowers. At the very centre were a small fountain and water course constructed from smooth but irregular stones to give the appearance of a miniature mountain stream.

The artful combinations of growth screened off the surrounding buildings, giving Nico and Serèse the impression of standing anywhere but in the midst of the largest city in the world. A shack with a doorway stood at the rear of the flat roof, obviously leading to some internal stairs. It was locked, when Serèse tried it, which was only to her satisfaction. Together they sat on a bench beside the flowing water, both appreciating the secret garden in silence. From here the constant buzz of the city could only dimly be heard.

Serèse lit another hazii stick, blew smoke into the fading light.

‘You did well,’ she said ‘Last night, I mean.’

It was the one subject neither had yet mentioned.

‘You think so? I was so gripped by fear I was numb with it.’

‘So? You were hardly the only one. But you did what you had to do. You showed courage.’

Nico looked long and hard at the girl by his side eyeing her properly, without shyness or agenda. At once he noticed something else behind the mask of spark and beauty. Serèse was on edge, and badly in need of company.

She took another deep puff of the stick, then passed it to him.

‘Courage?’ Nico repeated, as though trying out the word for the first time. For an instant the face of the one he had slain rose before him; the man’s determined glare even as Nico stabbed him, changing first to wonder and then, by degrees, to a terrible awareness of everything lost to him. ‘No, it wasn’t
courage
that prompted me to stick my blade into that man’s belly last night. It was fear. I didn’t want to die there. I didn’t want him to kill me. So I killed him first.’