The Warrior Prophet (67 page)

Read The Warrior Prophet Online

Authors: R. Scott Bakker

The Prince took another deep draught of wine. “He finds it unbearable, I think …”
“As a Scylvendi among Inrithi?”
Proyas shook his head, set his empty bowl curiously close to his right foot.
“Liking us,” he said.
Without further word he stood and excused himself. He bowed to Kellhus, thanked Serwë for the wine and her gracious company, then without so much as glancing at Esmenet, strode off into the darkness.
Serwë stared at her feet. Kellhus seemed lost in otherworldly ruminations. Esmenet sat silently for a time, her face burning, her limbs and thoughts itching with a peculiar hum. It was always peculiar, even though she knew it as well as the taste of her own mouth.
Shame.
Everywhere she went. It was her characteristic stink.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the two of them.
What was she doing here? What could she offer other than humiliation? She was polluted—polluted! And here she stayed with Kellhus? With
Kellhus?
What kind of fool was she? She couldn’t change who she was, no sooner than she could wash the tattoo from the back of her hand! The seed she could rinse away, but not the sin! Not the sin!
And he was … He was …
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry!”
Esmenet fled the fire, crawled into the solitary darkness of her tent. Of
his
tent!
Akka’s!
Kellhus came to her not long after, and she cursed herself for hoping he would.
“I wish I were dead,” she whispered, lying face first against the ground.
“So do many.”
Always implacable honesty. Could she follow where he led? Had she the strength?
“I’ve only loved two people in my life, Kellhus …”
The Prince never looked away. “And they’re both dead.”
She nodded, blinked tears.
“You don’t know my sins, Kellhus. You don’t know the darknesses I harbour in my heart.”
“Then tell me.”
They talked long into the night, and a strange dispassion moved her, rendering the extremities of her life—death, loss, humiliation—curiously inert.
Whore. How many men had embraced her? How many gritty chins against her cheek? Always something to be endured. All of them punishing her for their need. Monotony had made them seem laughable, a long queue of the weak, the hopeful, the ashamed, the angered, the dangerous. How easily one grunting body replaced the next, until they became abstract things, moments of a ludicrous ceremony, spilling bowel-hot libations upon her, smearing her with their meaningless paint. One no different from the next.
They punished her for that as well.
How old had she been, when her father had sold her to the first of his friends? Eleven? Twelve? When had the punishment begun? When had he first lain with her? She could remember her mother weeping in the corner … but not much more.
And her daughter … How old had she been?
She had thought her father’s thoughts, she explained. Another mouth. Let it feed itself. The monotony had numbed her to the horror, had made degradation a laughable thing. To trade flashing silver for milky seed—the fools. Let Mimara be schooled in the foolishness of men. Clumsy, rutting animals. One need only pay with a little patience, mimic their passion, wait, and soon it would be over. In the morning, one could buy food … Food from fools, Mimara. Can’t you see child? Shush. Stop weeping. Look! Food from fools!
“That was her name?” Kellhus asked. “Mimara?”
“Yes,” Esmenet said. Why could she say that name now, when she could never utter it with Achamian? Strange, the way long sorrow could silence the pang of unspeakable things.
The first sobs surprised her. Without thinking, she leaned into Kellhus, and his arms enclosed her. She wailed and beat softly against his chest, heaved and cried. He smelled of wool and sunburned skin.
They were dead. The only ones she’d ever loved.
After her breathing settled, Kellhus pressed her back, and her hands fell slack to his lap. Over the course of several heartbeats, she felt him harden against the back of her wrist, as though a serpent flexed beneath wool. She neither breathed nor moved.
The air, as silent as a candle, roared …
She pulled her hands away.
Why? Why would she poison a night such as this?
Kellhus shook his head, softly laughed. “Intimacy begets intimacy, Esmi. So long as we remember ourselves, there’s no reason for shame. All of us are frail.”
She looked down to her palms, her wrists. Smiled.
“I remember … Thank you, Kellhus.”
He raised his hand to her cheek, then ducked from her little tent.
She rolled to her side, squeezed her hands palm to palm between her knees, and murmured curses until she fell asleep.
 
The message had arrived by sea, the man said. He was Galeoth, and from the look of his surcoat, a member of Saubon’s own household.
Proyas weighed the ivory scroll-case in his hand. It was small, cold to the touch, and finely worked with tiny Tusks. Clever workmanship, Proyas thought. Innumerable tiny representations, each figure defined by further figures, so that there was no blank ground to throw each into relief, only tusks and more tusks. There was a sermon, Proyas mused, even in the container of this message.
But then that was Maithanet: sermons all the way down.
The Conriyan Prince thanked and dismissed the man, then returned to his chair by his field table. It was hot and humid in his pavilion, so much so he found himself resenting the lamps for their added heat. He’d stripped down to a thin, white linen tunic and had already decided that he would sleep naked—after he investigated this letter.
With his knife he carefully broke the canister’s wax seal. He tipped it, and the small scroll slid out, fastened by yet another seal, this one bearing the Shriah’s own mark.
What could he want?
Proyas brooded for a moment on the privilege of receiving such letters from such a man. Then he snapped the wax seal, peeled open the parchment roll.
 
Lord Prince Nersei Proyas,
May the Gods of the God shelter you, and keep you.
Your last missive …
 
Proyas paused, struck by a sense of guilt and mortification. Months ago, he’d written Maithanet at Achamian’s behest, asking about the death of a former student of his—Paro Inrau. At the time, he hadn’t believed he would actually send it. He’d been certain that writing the letter would make sending it impossible. What better way to at once discharge and dispose of an obligation?
Dear Maithanet, a sorcerer friend of mine wants me to ask whether you killed one of his spies
… It was madness. There was no way he could send such a letter …
And yet.
How could he not feel a sense of kinship to this Inrau, this other student Achamian had loved? How could he not remember everything about the blasphemous fool, the wry smile, the twinkling eyes, the lazy afternoons doing drills in the gardens? How could he not
pity
him, a good man, a kind man, hunting fables and wives’ tales to his everlasting damnation?
Proyas had sent the letter, thinking that at long last the matter of his Mandate tutor could be put to rest. He’d never expected a reply—not truly. But he was a Prince, an heir apparent, and Maithanet was the Shriah of the Thousand Temples. Letters between such men somehow found their way, no matter how fierce the world between them.
Proyas continued reading, holding his breath to numb the shame. Shame at having sent such a trivial matter to the man who would cleanse the Three Seas. Shame at having written this to a man at whose feet he’d wept. And shame for feeling shame at having fulfilled an old teacher’s request.
Lord Prince Nersei Proyas,
May the Gods of the God shelter you, and keep you.
Your last missive, we are afraid, left us deeply perplexed, until we recalled that you yourself once maintained several—How should we put it?—dubious associations. We had been informed that the death of this young priest, Paro Inrau, had been a suicide. The College of Luthymae, the priests charged with the investigation of this matter, reported that this Inrau had once been a student of Mandate sorcery, and that he had recently been seen in the company of one Drusas Achamian, his old teacher. They believed that this Achamian had been sent to pressure Inrau into performing various services for his School; in short, to be a spy. They believe that, as a result, the young priest found himself in an untenable position.
Tribes
4:8: “He wearies of breath, who has no place he might breathe.”
The responsibility for this young man’s unfortunate death, we fear, lies with this blasphemer, Achamian. There is nothing more to it. May the God have mercy on his soul.
Canticles
6:22: “The earth weeps at words which know not the Gods’ wrath.”
But as your missive left us perplexed, we fear that this missive shall leave you equally baffled. By allying the Holy War with the Scarlet Spires, we have already asked much in the way of Compromise from pious men. But in this it has been clear, we pray, that Necessity forced our hand. Without the Scarlet Spires, the Holy War could not hope to prevail against the Cishaurim. “Answer not blasphemy with blasphemy,” our Prophet says, and this verse has been oft repeated by our enemies. But in answering the charges of the Cultic Priests, the Prophet also says: “Many are those who are cleansed by way of iniquity. For the Light must ever follow upon the dark, if it is to be Light, and the Holy must ever follow upon the wicked, if it is to be Holy.” So it is that the Holy War must follow upon the Scarlet Spires, if it is to be Holy.
Scholars
1:3: “Let Sun follow Night, according to the arch of Heaven.”
Now we must ask a further Compromise of you, Lord Nersei Proyas. You must do everything in your power to assist this Mandate Schoolman. Perhaps this might not be as difficult as we fear, since this man was once your teacher in Aöknyssus. But we know the depth of your piety, and unlike the greater Compromise we have forced upon you with the Scarlet Spires, there is no Necessity that we can cite that might give comfort to a heart made restless by the company of sin.
Hintarates
28:4: “I ask of you, is there any friend more difficult than the friend who sins?”
Assist Drusas Achamian, Proyas, though he is a blasphemer, for in this wickedness, the Holy shall also follow. Everything shall be made clear, in the end. And it shall be glorious.
Scholars
22:36: “For the warring heart becomes weary and will turn to sweeter labours. And the peace of dawn’s rising shall accompany Men throughout the toils of the day.”
May the God and all His Aspects shelter you and keep you.
Maithanet
 
Proyas lowered the letter to his lap.
“Assist Drusas Achamian …”
What could the Shriah possibly mean? What could be at stake, for him to make such a request?
And what was he to do with such a request, now that it was too late?
Now that Achamian was gone.
I killed him …
And Proyas suddenly realized that he’d used his old teacher as a marker, as a measure of his own piety. What greater evidence could there be of righteousness than the willingness to sacrifice a loved one? Wasn’t this the lesson of Angeshraël on Mount Kinsureah? And what better way to sacrifice a loved one than by hating?
Or delivering him to his enemies …
He thought of the whore at Kellhus’s fire—Achamian’s lover, Esmenet … How desolate she’d seemed. How frightened. Had he authored that look?
She’s just a whore!
And Achamian was just a sorcerer. Just.
All men were not equal. Certainly the Gods favoured whom they would, but there was more.
Actions
determined the worth of any pulse. Life was the God’s question to men, and actions were their answers. And like all answers they were either right or wrong, blessed or cursed. Achamian had condemned himself, had damned himself by his own actions! And so had the whore … This wasn’t the judgement of Nersei Proyas, this was the judgement of the Tusk, of the Latter Prophet!

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