Haelward and Willem exchanged glances. ‘I will visit their brothel and ask for a meeting,’ Haelward said. ‘I hope it will be as simple as that.’
‘No need,’ said Marten. ‘Odo Kegertsa knows all about you and is ready to meet to discuss his terms.’
‘Great,’ said Haelward. ‘When and where? The sooner the better obviously.’
‘Good,’ said Marten, ‘because him and his boys are downstairs right now.’
‘No, no, you are swinging the blade like it’s a ten-foot pole.’ Reynard could barely stop himself laughing.
They had been practising for over an hour and Reynard still had hardly broken sweat. Morgan stood facing him, his shield tied to his right hand and arm, as he still could not grip properly. He
was actually doing fine with the shield, though; it was his left hand that was the problem. He was using his own blade, little more than a soldier’s regular-issue weapon but one that he was
so familiar with it often felt like part of his arm. His right arm, that is; with his left he could barely coordinate a forward swing.
This was an informal practice; they were using regular weapons because neither of them seriously intended going for the other, Morgan now realised that intent was not the issue here –
basic ability was. How was he ever going to lead his men into battle?
It was an odd thing but, until the last few months, he had barely met Reynard, even though they had both been fighting on the same side for many years, different duties and deployments usually
keeping them apart. Until recently, too, he was aware that Reynard had displayed that worst characteristic of one noble born, that of looking down on his fellow soldier. However, he now had to
accept that he had changed a little, matured perhaps with the extra responsibilities handed to him in having to lead the knights, liaise with the elves on the field, and time and execute his own
assaults on the enemy in the fluid cavalry war that was now going on between the rivers Vinoyen and Whiterush. It was not just the elves keeping the Arshumans in check.
Morgan attempted another swing at Reynard’s shield. The knight had time to check to see if the sun had reached noon, wonder if all the knights’ horses were stabled and fed, and
cogitate on the nature of attritional war, before idly blocking his feeble blow. Morgan blocked the riposte and shook his head.
‘It’s no damned good. I can’t land a single blow of my own.’ His mood was gloomy.
‘Keep practising,’ Reynard replied. ‘By the spring you might be a match for my grandmother.’
‘I think you are being overly optimistic; I can’t see Trask turning to jelly at the sight of me, somehow. Mytha’s third eye, this is just hopeless.’
He sheathed his sword, struggling a little even to do that properly.
‘Leadership is about more than swinging a sword properly,’ said Reynard. ‘You know this without me having to tell you. If a battle is well planned and executed, then the
general does not even have to draw his blade.’
Rain started to fall on to the dark courtyard, sending blacksmiths back to their armouries, merchants to their wagons and chambermaids back to the keep, to resume the duties they had tried to
escape for five minutes. Morgan and Reynard followed them through the great iron doors.
‘Shall I tell Mathilde that you will attend her and Kraven shortly?’ Reynard asked.
‘Say presently rather than shortly, I have to see someone else first.’
As Reynard marched brusquely through the inner oak double doors that led to the rooms of the nobility, Morgan ducked through a narrow side gateway, its aperture barely large enough to admit one
man. He then ascended an equally narrow flight of steep steps, before finding himself on a broad landing of stone facing a heavily studded door of hide-covered wood. The place was poorly lit by
just a slit window, but he could see enough for his purpose. He rapped the door twice and waited as the man he wanted to see eased it open on well-oiled hinges.
‘Good day to you, Baron. I have had the message to say you would be coming I trust your health is improving.’
The jailor was a man in his fifties, silver-haired, wiry and polite to a fault. He was so completely unlike other jailors Morgan had seen before that when he first met him he thought Lukas
Felmere was setting him up for a jest. He then came to realise that any prisoners kept here would have so little hope of escape than even the services of a jailor seemed superfluous. An escapee
would have to clear the keep unseen, breach the castle walls and then get through the city and its walls. It could be done, Morgan supposed, but it would not be easy.
‘I am improving, thank you. Now, tell me, how is our prisoner?’
‘She is so quiet, I forget she is there. She never asks for anything, never complains; just sits or sleeps. If I did not know better, I would say we had the wrong girl.’
‘And her hands are restrained?’
‘Yes, my Lord, they are bound and attached to a chain fixed to the wall. She has the freedom to move around the cell but no more. Do you want me to tighten the chain before you go
in?’
‘No, that will not be necessary.’
‘But what if she tries to kill you?’
‘I will take that chance. I doubt somehow that she will try, though. She seems keener for me to kill her rather than the other way round.’
The jailor led the way down the hall past four other cells before stopping at the final one, the fifth. He opened the iron door with his great keys before shutting them again once Morgan had
walked inside.
The cell was light and whitewashed; an iron grill in the wall even gave a view on to the courtyard. There was a stone platform on which lay a blanket and a thin mattress, a plain wooden table
and one chair, on which sat the prisoner. She was cleaner than when he had last seen her, clad in a plain white linen robe with soft white shoes that could almost be slippers. Her hair had grown a
little; it was now just over her shoulders and looked soft and recently washed. Her hands were loosely tied, as the jailor said, and were attached to a chain that ran through and around a black
iron ring affixed to the wall. She looked up at him as he sat on the bed with her large blue, curious eyes.
‘I have just watched you practice,’ she said in a neutral tone. ‘It is going to take you a while, isn’t it, to get used to using your left arm.’
‘It appears that it will,’ said Morgan. ‘Do you know how to use a sword?’
‘Yes.’ Her eyes never left him. ‘Daggers are good for assassinations but when we attend the Emperor’s person we carry swords. They are different to yours – the
blades are light, thin and curved – but we are trained to use all such weapons.’
‘You do serve the Emperor of Koze then.’
‘I never said which Emperor I served.’
Morgan snorted derisively. ‘Come off it, there is only one Emperor whose vanity dictates that he has only female bodyguards, which brings me to my question. How did an assassin from Koze
come to be involved in this war?’
‘I do not know, and if I did I would not say. Are you ready to kill me yet?’
Morgan smiled. ‘Maybe not, maybe I will let you live and keep you here.’
A most curious expression came over her. It was almost as if being allowed to live was an infinitely worse option than the alternative. Morgan continued.
‘Why so eager to die? It is not this surely?’ He pulled something from a pouch at his waist and threw it on to the table in front of her, a gnarled piece of root with shavings carved
off it. revealing the flesh underneath, the coal-black flesh.
‘I see,’ she said guardedly. ‘So you know.’
‘A friend of mine pointed me towards a book in the library here.
The Nature of Power in the Empire of Koze
. A most interesting read. I take it you are a Strekha?’
She nodded.
‘How is it you survive the blackroot? It is usually lethal.’
‘It is a long story.’
Morgan poured himself a clay goblet of water from the jug on the table. He offered it to her, and after she waved him off, took a long draught of it himself, before stretching his legs out on
the bed.
‘I have plenty of time.’
‘What exactly do you wish to know?’
‘Everything.’
‘What? About my training? My entire life?’
‘You tried to kill me not so long ago and got closer than anyone has in ten years of war. I think my demands are reasonable therefore.’
‘And if I tell you?’
‘You can have some blackroot. It cannot be long before you start getting the withdrawal symptoms now. From what I have read they are not pleasant.’
‘No, they are not. It is slow to leave the body but when it does...’
‘Yes? When it does?’
‘You have obviously read about it.’
‘I want you to tell me.’
He could tell he was vexing her; her voice had a petulant, impatient tone when she replied.
‘When a Strekha attempts to deny herself blackroot she is probably committing herself to an agonizing death. About one in twenty survive the symptoms of withdrawal; the others die from
internal bleeding, haemorrhaging of the eyeballs, ears, mouth and genitals, putrefaction of the skin or of the liver or kidneys... Shall I go on?’
‘Please do.’
‘Those that survive that ... well, some are very lucky and can live with their newly purified body; the others, though, end up with the “screaming madness” for which there is
no cure. There is a place under the Lilac Palace for such Strekha, a cell with many locks. I have never been there.’
‘Hence your eagerness for execution.’
She nodded. ‘Partly – the shame of my failure is another.’
‘There is no shame; you were unlucky.’
‘No, a Strekha should be prepared for everything. Will you cut me a piece of root now?’
‘In good time. How old were you when you first started taking it, and why didn’t you die?’
She gave an exasperated sigh. ‘You really do want to know everything, don’t you?’
Morgan said nothing but pulled out his knife and cut a sliver off the root.
‘No,’ she said, ‘that is too much; cut it in half.’
He did so and she greedily grabbed it with both hands before stuffing it into her mouth. As he watched, her eyelids fluttered, her eyes glazed over and she shrank back into her chair with a
mournful sigh. Her eyes were now shut. Morgan sat there patiently and waited. She seemed asleep but Morgan knew this was not the case. Her breathing was long, deep and relaxed. Morgan kept his eye
on her; it was easy to forget how dangerous she was and that chain could be used quite easily to choke someone to death.
The sky was beginning to darken when she suddenly opened her eyes again. Morgan saw the transparent black film covering them, which Cedric had told him was a symptom of blackroot addiction. She
sat back up again and drank some of the water. Then she started to talk.
‘I grew up as part of a gathering of families, a “clan” you would call it here. We lived in the foothills of the mountains, real mountains many times higher than the ones here.
We would hunt elk and ox, fight off ettins and wolves and spend the nights in a longhouse, over a deep fire pit, to keep us warm. I was athletic as a child, stronger and more agile than my older
brothers. There were five children, two boys and three girls. We would all share the same bed, a necessity in the cold winters. All I knew of the Empire of Koze were some occasional derogatory
remarks made by my father and uncles. It was seen as distant, and cruel, but nothing more than that. No one had seen an imperial soldier for many, many years.
‘That all changed when I was ten. The main town of the Norvakko people was Palakau, which was sited on a river equidistant from many clans and so was used as a trading post. Not just for
our people, for it sat on a trade route and saw many people from many different lands. I do remember looking at silks, spices, gems and textiles; as a child I thought it truly wonderful and
exciting... That was before my re-education taught me the truth about coveting such idle frivolities. Anyway, when I was nine or ten I travelled there with my father and brothers in order to sell
the hides of creatures we had hunted and killed. There was ettin and troll hide, both of which fetch a high price from outsiders, so we were expecting to make a good profit from their sales. We had
been there two days when the soldiers arrived, dark-skinned men with tall helmets and spears. They rounded everybody up and ordered all female children between eight and twelve to come forward and
stand in a line. Then some soldiers started to walk down the line with a woman wearing black armour. She went from girl to girl saying no, no, no and sending them back to their families. I thought
it was really funny, this woman going from girl to girl for what seemed no reason at all. When my turn came I was poised, ready to run to my father, but she saw me and stopped. She caught hold of
my chin and tilted my face up to look at hers. I remember her grip cold, hard and strong. Then she struck me. It stung but I did not cry. I stared straight back at her, defying her to do it again.
It was just what she was looking for. She just said one word – ‘Her.’ And before I knew it the soldiers started to drag me away. I kicked, struggled, bit and swore, but it was no
use. I was chained, put in a wagon and the door locked. It was my home for the next four weeks.
There were other girls in the wagon with me and more were added as the days passed. They told me that I was to be a bodyguard for the Emperor. It meant nothing to me.’
She stopped and drank some more water. ‘Bored yet?’
‘No,’ said Morgan, ‘you don’t get out of it that easily. Carry on.’
‘The Strekha follow a ten-year cycle. It takes that long to cover the Empire when they recruit. It was just the Emperor’s divine will that I was there when they were; otherwise, I
would never have got to serve.’ She stopped for a second, lost in thought. ‘Anyhow, we were all taken to the Lilac Palace for training. I remember the heat before the wagon door was
opened, and the smell of all those sweating bodies, mine most of all. You have never seen the Lilac Palace, have you? For a girl from a mountain village it was a barely comprehensible megalopolis.
It is huge, built over a dozen islands linked by slender bridges; it has towers twenty or thirty storeys high, all connected by walkways. Nobody knows how many people live there, over fifty
thousand say some and when we got there we were all bottom in the order of importance. We were taken to a series of lightless cells built underground for our training to start. It was just us,
rats, chains, darkness and overseers. For a Strekha, training takes five or six years and we do not see natural light again until it is completed.