The Rose of the World (78 page)

Tycho grabbed her with more force than he’d been aware he owned and tried to haul her from her saddle into his. Her screaming stopped abruptly, but if he had expected thanks for his rescue, he was disappointed. She struggled out of his grasp, slipped to the ground and stood there, her regard harrowed.

‘Death! Death everywhere! Stop it, stop it! I have lost Virelai. Where is my son?’

‘I have not seen him.’ This was a lie: he had seen the sorcerer’s horse go down in the melee.

‘Stop this bloodshed: find my son!’

Tycho stared at her. ‘For Falla’s sake, let me help you.’ He leaned down, reached out to catch her wrists, but she stepped away from him, wild-eyed, stumbled over a pair of twisted bodies.

She looked down and wailed again, muttering all the while, ‘Virelai, Virelai, where are you?’ Blood had begun to soak into the hem of the white robe; already the ermine trim of the cloak was sodden with it.

‘Are you mad? Do you want to die here?’

A soldier blundered up to her, stopped in his tracks at the sight of her and stumbled like a dreaming man into the path of a runaway horse. She covered her face with her hands.

Manso Aglio despatched the Eyran he had taken prisoner and looked to where his commander appeared to be in conversation with the White Woman in the midst of battle. He rolled his eyes, kneed his mount and grabbed her up. ‘No indignity intended, lady,’ he apologised, tucking her over his cantle. ‘This way, my lord,’ he shouted to Tycho. ‘We’ve got them on the run!’

A riderless horse came thundering over him. He rolled into a ball, his arms wrapped around his head and cowered into the neck of his own mount. Dying, the creature whinnied again and shifted its bulk minutely. He shoved at it, but to no avail; all it did was to settle itself even more firmly on his crushed leg. Panic and pain gripped him like a vice, putting all thoughts of magic to flight. He lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness, remembering the last time he had lain on a battlefield thus; but then the number of men involved in the fray had been a fraction of those involved in this chaos, even without the innocents and animals which had been caught up in the battle. He sucked in a breath, expelled it slowly, tried to gather himself. From nowhere, a spell came to him and he clutched at it gratefully and muttered it over and over. The mantra took his mind off the pain in his leg, which was as well, for it was the worst he had ever experienced. After a while, the carcase of the beast had lightened so that he found he could move it just an inch, then two; and at last he dragged himself out from beneath its bulk and heaved himself up.

Of his mother and the Lord of Cantara there was no sign. The movement of the battle, if movement could be discerned amidst the melee, was away from him, towards and beyond the gap in the cliffs ahead. True fear struck him now. What would happen if she were to be broken and battered down as he was, before she came into the full extent of her powers? What hope would there be for the world? What hope for him?

‘Help me,’ he moaned and tried to make a shout of it. The sound vanished into the general noise without a trace.

He tried to stand, found his leg would not do anything he asked of it, fell back down.

Suddenly, rough hands were upon him, lifting him up. He gazed around and found himself confronted by a giant of a man with an Eyran beard and steely eyes. He had no quarrel with the North; but how to convey that before the man slit his throat?

‘You’re the lord’s sorcerer, aren’t you?’ the man said in the Old Tongue.

Virelai did not know whether to assent to this or not. He looked from the big Eyran to his companion, a small round man with a shock of black hair standing up in spikes sticky with sweat, or blood, or who knew what else?

‘Got to be,’ opined the little man. ‘We’ll get a reward for him.’

‘Aye, but from which side?’

‘Does it matter?’

The big man raised his eyebrows. ‘I suppose not,’ he said, and threw Virelai over his shoulder.

‘We saw her, sire. We got as close as we could, but we could not capture her. She seemed unharmed, though distressed.’

Ravn Asharson’s face was alive with calculation. ‘How many of them?’

‘Hard to say.’ Aran frowned. ‘Some thousands, though they are ill-disciplined and broke ranks at first blood. And there are a lot of ordinary folk – not soldiery – heading this way on foot, and in wagons. It’s as if they’ve been drawn here, just like those in the boats.’ He gestured down at the strand where vessel after vessel was putting in.

‘War is often a curiosity to those who have never fought,’ Ravn said dismissively. ‘Perhaps now they’ve seen some of its horror at first hand they’ll turn back. Where’s Stormway?’

‘Overseeing the arrival of the rest of the fleet.’

‘Get down there, hurry them on. We’ll carry the battle to them while they’re in disarray. If we let them regroup down on the plain their numbers will overwhelm us.’

Manso Aglio roared commands up and down the Istrian lines. He chivvied, he swore, he whacked stragglers with the flat of his sword, he bullied them into some sort of order. Partway down the track to the wide plain, he drew them up behind a wall of rough lava which made a fine natural defence, the closest thing to a battlement you’d find in open ground. He was pleased with this strategic bent of mind he’d discovered in himself, pleased that he’d got it in him to command an army, pleased, too, in a way he didn’t quite understand, that he’d saved the woman. It wasn’t that he wanted her as a prize of war; no, it was something more . . . noble than that, though that seemed the least likely epithet he would ever apply to himself. She had seemed so vulnerable, so fragile, in the midst of the violence, so out of place, that he had been filled with what he could only think of as compassion. That had surprised him. He’d thought himself beyond finer feelings after serving in the Miseria all those years.

He looked for her now, safely back in the Lord of Cantara’s custody, saw where the southern lord stood with his arms around her. It seemed, at first sight, as though they were locked in an embrace, but when he looked again it was clear that she was trying to pull away. For a moment, he felt compelled to help her; then he remembered who he was and laughed at this unwonted chivalry, then took himself off to do what he was good at: ordering soldiers around.

Tycho Issian wrestled the woman around so that she faced the plain. ‘Look, we can see the Rock from here: will this not do?’

She turned to look at him in disbelief. ‘Of course not.’

Desperate now, his erection so hot and hard he thought it might burn away the clothing that thwarted him, he pressed himself against her pelvis, felt the bones grind beneath him.

‘It may be as close as we can get.’

She pushed at him in disgust, thrust her head back and looked him in the eye, her gaze like ice. ‘I shall claim you on the Rock, or nowhere.’

The voice of command entered his soul: there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Turning to the gathered troops, he yelled: ‘Forward! To the Rock! To Falla’s sacred Rock!’

Manso Aglio watched in dawning horror as his beautifully arrayed troops broke rank yet again and charged like the rabble they were down the slopes, screaming like souls in the torment of the Goddess’s fires.

Mounting, Tycho Issian turned and grabbed up his prize. ‘Death or the Rock!’ he cried again. ‘I will not be denied!’ Forcing a kiss upon her, he saw in consternation that at his touch her eyes rolled up in her head.

The press of vessels trying to put into the ashy strand was absurd, but the merchant had some little while ago transformed from the plumply ineffectual, nervous fellow whom his wife bullied mercilessly about what he should or should not say, eat or do into an expert steersman with a glint in his eye. Smaller craft saw the barge coming and got out of the way.

Mam was up on the prow like the worst kind of figurehead, roaring at obstacles like a sharp-toothed troll: that encouraged those competing for the same piece of beach to change their minds, too. She scanned the scene ahead and turned back to report, ‘If there’s a goddess in amongst that lot we’ll have a job finding her.’

Saro craned his neck. The sight which offered itself was alarming. He didn’t know where to look first, for the entire vista was teeming and fraught. In the foreground seasoned Eyran warriors shoved their way up from their beached vessels through a crowd of what appeared to be mere spectators, as if people had forgotten there was a war on and had turned up early to do business at an Allfair and were milling about in a purposeless way.

Farther up the strand, where only last year his family had pitched their booth, the melee deepened as a thick wave of fighters pressed its way up the slopes. Ahead of this, a line of Eyran spearmen held off the hapless cavalry of an enemy he could only suppose to be Istrian militia. It was a short defensive line, already dented in places, the Istrians flowing around the broken parts like surf around skerries.

Beyond the spear-line, more chaos.

Everywhere he looked, something odd snagged at his attention: a group of Eyran matrons in breeches made of sailcloth wading ashore from their anchored fishing smack; what appeared to be a herd of wild pigs dodging in and out of the crowd; Istrian women in robes without veils; mixed bands of nomads and townsfolk staring in bewilderment up the slopes as if they had expected something else here entirely. Amongst all this disorder, the great rock rose like a castle, massive and foursquare, its shoreward face rosy in the sunlight.

As if she sensed his attention, Katla Aransen turned her own face to the rock, known for generations in her land as Sur’s Castle, even if the southerners dedicated it to their goddess. Its proximity called to her above the cries and howls of the mass of humanity that washed around its foot as an ecstatic shudder in her bones, her skin; a shudder which flickered in her belly like the promise of life.

‘Saro—’ It was barely more than a whisper, but he turned at once, so attuned was he to her needs. ‘Saro, the Rock. You must take me to the Rock.’

He gazed down at her in dismay, then back out into the melee.

She tugged at his sleeve. ‘Please, I know it’s where I must be. I can feel it . . .’

He shook his head. ‘We would never be able to get you there, and even if we did—’

Her eyes were febrile and bright. ‘You must. It’s a place of power. Even if I die, I must die on the Rock.’

The word caught at Saro’s heart, gripped it painfully. He wrapped his fingers over hers. ‘All right,’ he said softly. ‘I promise, though I’m not sure how we’ll manage it.’ He wondered why he had promised this as he disengaged himself gently and went to find Alisha Skylark.

The nomad woman was sitting down in the hold with her arms around her knees. She did not look up when he lowered himself down beside her.

‘Will you look at Katla again, Alisha? She asks that we take her to the Rock but I’m sure she’s not strong enough to survive the attempt. Is there something you could give her, maybe even a draught that would put her to sleep while Mam and I carry her? I worry about the pain – it could be too much for her to bear.’

Alisha shook her head. She was pale, he could see, paler than usual and her knuckles were white where she gripped her knees. ‘It is wrong,’ she said. ‘It is all wrong. Something terrible is here. I can feel it, but I do not understand it. It should be wonderful, but it is all wrong.’ She paused. Then: ‘Death is here,’ she whispered. ‘Death’s shadow lies over everything.’

Saro took a breath. ‘Alisha, we need your help. Katla may die otherwise.’

She looked up then, and her eyes were sunken and hollow. ‘We are all going to die, Saro Vingo, every one of us.’

And after that she would say no more.

When he went miserably back to the brig, he found Mam kneeling on the planking beside Katla. ‘It’s not looking good,’ Mam said briskly. She beckoned to Saro. ‘Here, you feel. Her pulse is very fast.’

Filled with dread, Saro flung himself down beside the Eyran girl and placed his fingers on the side of her neck. The pulse there was weak and fluttering, twice its normal speed. He made up his mind before he could allow panic to set in. ‘You and I must get her to Falla’s Rock,’ he said to the mercenary leader. ‘Now.’

The merchant and his wife were at the gunwale, surveying the scene nervously. ‘I didn’t think it would be like this,’ the man said. ‘I thought it was a pilgrimage. I thought everyone would be on their knees, praying; that the Goddess would walk amongst us.’

His wife smiled suddenly, her doughy face – pale from years of being hidden from the sun beneath a veiling sabatka – suddenly beatific. ‘She is amongst us. I can sense her presence. If you pray, you can feel her.’ She put her hand out to Saro. ‘Pray with us,’ she said.

Saro shook his head gently. ‘I’m sorry. I wish you well, and I thank you for our passage, but now we must leave you.’ He paused, remembering Alisha’s words. ‘I hope you find the Goddess,’ he finished, and squeezed the matron’s shoulder.

Somehow, they got Katla to the shore. She murmured at the jolt as Mam handed her down to Saro, but after that made no sound at all, nor did she open her eyes. The mercenary leader raked the way clear with the flat of her sword, growling at anyone who dared to impede her. Behind this great battering ram of a woman, Saro struggled along with Katla in his arms. He could not see where he was going, could see hardly anything at all but the tangled white braids of the mercenary leader’s head bobbing and weaving in front of him, that and the looming silhouette of the Rock an impossible distance away through all the conflict and confusion.

By now, the fighting had spilled down onto the plain itself. Black dust rose into the air, kicked up by the crazed passage of feet and hooves, by the charge of the living, and the fall of the dying. No way ahead seemed easier than any other; and Mam was soon forced to use both point and blade. A miasma of blood sprayed around Saro. He could feel it every time he breathed in; feel it, too, on his skin and in his hair. Katla moaned and twisted in his arms and opened her eyes.

Katla Aransen had never been one to shrink from bloodshed, never one to shirk a fight. If she were truthful about it, she had felt most alive at those times when she had had a sword in her hand and an enemy at the other end of it. She had lost count of the number of men she had killed, and felt no shame about any part of that. She had fought because she must, to defend herself or her kin, she had fought when the cause was clear and needs must. But as she gazed upon the scene before her now, waking suddenly out of what seemed a dream of pain and torture into something far worse, she felt a powerful repulsion at what seemed a vista of random violence. It was as if the whole world had run mad. Everywhere she looked, something terrible was happening. It was not just that man fought man, or that Istrian fought Eyran: she took that much for granted. It was the extraordinary mixture of folk entangled in the conflict, for clearly not all of them were combatants. There were women, cowering out of the way of the men and their horses, women in traditional Istrian robes, nomad women, women in Eyran dress, women without veils. And children, too. Who in Sur’s name would bring a child to this place of horror? she wondered, appalled.