Moths to a Flame Page 18

  ‘You watch … and listen. Any report of moonmoths, go straight to the source and collect any trace of their presence you can find. I’ll give you phials, tweezers, all you need. Write down all details in this notebook, no matter how trivial they may seem.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me?’ Azhrel yawned. ‘I’m going to bed. I’ve been out since dawn.’

  CHAPTER 14

  Laili woke in the night, certain she had heard screaming, a woman’s screaming, high-pitched, crazed, terrified. She turned to Melmeth – only to find he had left her bed; the place next to her was cold, in spite of the night’s warmth. And she had not even noticed him go.

  She tried to sleep again but she kept seeing Sarilla’s face, her wandering eyes glazed with fever …

  ‘I’ve brought you your morning qaffë, lady.’

  ‘Don’t you remember, Sarilla, no more qaffë …’ Laili turned over sleepily, nose wrinkling in disgust at that distinctive aroma – and then she realised it was not Sarilla standing at her bedside.

  ‘Who are you?’ She sat up. ‘And where is Sarilla?’

  ‘My name is Lerillys. Sarilla is dead.’

  Laili felt the room spinning, twisting about her; she clutched at the bed post, determined she should not faint. If she fainted, Lerillys might guess her secret.

  ‘Dead? But – how? And why was I not called earlier?’

  ‘The physician said it was some kind of pestilence, there have been similar cases in Perysse … They’ve sealed off her chamber.’ Lerillys seemed impassive, limpidly untroubled by Sarilla’s death. Laili wanted to grab her by her plump white shoulders and shake her.

  ‘Pestilence?’ Laili tried to work out how many hours it had been since she saw the Torella, had she touched her, might she have caught the infection from her?

  ‘They’re burning the body tonight.’

  Poor vain, silly Sarilla. Tears started to Laili’s eyes. To die so swiftly, so horribly from this virulent disease.

  ‘Do drink this qaffë, lady, I prepared it myself especially.’ Lerillys had such a soft voice, the cooing of a plump white-feathered pigeon.

  ‘I do not take qaffë in this heat,’ Laili said carefully, blinking back her tears. ‘I brew my own infusions. Perhaps you would like to drink it yourself?’

  Lerillys smiled, shaking her head. ‘I have already broken my fast. Let me help you dress.’

  ‘I thank you,’ Laili said hastily, ‘but I need no assistance. You may leave.’

  Lerillys did not move. Whoever had sent Lerillys had told her not to take no for an answer. Anyone who helped her dress would see the evidence her clothes so cunningly concealed.

  ‘I have no desire to dress yet,’ Laili said, taking up a book, opening it, pretending to lose herself in reading one of the verses. Still she stood there. But now Laili could sense her will had begun to waver.

  ‘I told you,’ Laili said, suddenly looking her directly in the eyes. ‘You may go.’

  One last hesitation; Laili caught the involuntary flicker of fear in her limpid grey eyes. Suddenly she snatched the enamelled bowl, qaffë spilling onto the embroidered sheets and left the bedchamber.

  Laili stood taut, unmoving until she heard the outer doors slam shut. Then she sank back on the bed, trembling.

  Sarilla was dead. Now there was no one left whom she could trust.

  The shutters in the Arkhys’s bedchamber were closed to protect the room from the day’s sultry heat. A faint breeze stirred the feathers in the fans that two body slaves wafted to and fro above the Arkhys’s head as she lay listlessly on a couch, eyes half-closed.

  Lerillys entered the room.

  Clodolë clapped her hands. ‘Go!’ she said sharply to the bodyslaves.

  Lerillys waited until they had left the bedchamber.

  ‘Well?’ Clodolë demanded.

  ‘Sarilla’s servants were right. Four, maybe five months, I would guess,’ Lerillys said in a soft, sweet voice.

  Clodolë drew in a thin, gasping breath.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I can’t be sure. But she has the look …’

  ‘Lack of exercise.’

  ‘The seamstress’s evidence? The dresses altered, the loose robes fitted?’

  ‘Too many cakes and sweetmeats.’

  ‘And she would not drink the qaffë I brought her. It is well known that pregnant women cannot abide the taste of qaffë.’

  ‘Four, five months,’ Clodolë repeated tonelessly.

  ‘The child will be born before leaf-fall is over.’

  ‘I can work that out for myself!’ Clodolë rose from the couch and went over to the table to pour herself a glass of sherbet. With trembling fingers she prised open the stone on her ring and tipped a white sparkling powder into the glass, then drank the sherbet down in one draught.

  ‘I want to see Ophar,’ she said, without turning around.

  ‘The foreign woman was seen at her window, worshipping the moon. Invoking a pagan goddess.’ Ophar’s bony finger jabbed at Melmeth, sharp as a sacrificial blade. ‘Now is it not a strange coincidence, my lord, that these moths arrived the very next night?’

  ‘You’re surely not implying that she—’

  ‘Sorcery, my lord. Witchcraft. Moonmagic.’

  ‘She’s no witch! I know her and I love her. This talk of witchcraft is superstitious nonsense.’

  ‘And they’re saying that she has used her powers to beguile you, to ensorcel you, my lord.’

  ‘Who has been spinning you this moonshine?’

  ‘They are serious allegations. Allegations of heresy. As scion of the Undying Flame, it ill behoves you to be seen consorting with unbelievers. With pagans.’

  ‘This is Clodolë, all Clodolë,’ Melmeth whispered.

  ‘Consider, my lord. The very fact that you defend her so stubbornly proves how strong her enchantments are.’

  ‘But of course. I must be enchanted!’ Melmeth said, his voice harsh with irony. ‘Why else would I prefer an Aelahim woman to my own faithful wife?’

  ‘I urge you – make an example of her. Give her to us to be tried.’

  Melmeth felt a sudden shimmer of fear for Laili; Ophar was utterly serious in his accusations.

  ‘But what proof have these rumour-mongers furnished against her? Is it a crime to sing at an open window? To play the flute?’

  ‘If my lord is so certain of the woman’s innocence … then he can hardly object to a routine interrogation.’

  ‘It is out of the question.’

  ‘Her refusal to be examined could be seen as an admission of guilt.’

  ‘I will not permit it!’ Melmeth cried, rising to his feet, overturning the chair.

  Ophar remained seated, staring obdurately into space.

  ‘So be it.’

  Azhrel arrived at the Torella’s apartments to find the doors guarded by two of the Tarkhas Zhudiciar.

  ‘No one’s allowed in.’

  ‘But I’ve come to check on the progress of my patient, the Torella.’

  ‘Haven’t you heard? She’s dead. Died in the night.’

  ‘Dead!’ Azhrel said, puzzled. ‘Why did no one call for me?’

  ‘They say she caught the pestilence – and took poison to end her agony.’

  ‘Poison? What poison?’

  ‘The death of white crystal. That’s what the note said. The note she left.’

  ‘I’d like to see the body.’ Azhrel made to enter, one hand reaching for the door-handle.

  ‘Sorry, doctor.’ The halberds clicked together, blocking his way. ‘Our orders are – no one’s allowed in.’

  ‘But I’m her physician, damn it.’

  ‘They’re fumigating the apartments now. The body’s been taken away. It has to be burned. To stop the spread of infection.’

  ‘So where are her servitors? Who found the body?’

  ‘Some little slavegirl from the kitchens. No one knows where she’s gone. Took fright and ran off.’

  Az
hrel went down to the kitchens; but no, no one had seen the slavegirl since the morning’s grim discovery.

  ‘That lazy little runt, Miu? She’s no great loss,’ said the cook, sniffing scornfully. ‘Probably caught with her fingers in my lady’s jewel casket.’

  Fuming with frustration, Azhrel went hurrying up the kitchen stairs. Miu was the only witness, the only one who could answer his questions.

  Someone tugged at the sleeve of his gown. He looked around and saw a little eunuch boy was beckoning him to follow. They climbed up and up, a spiral servants’ stair that led to the top of the tower, to the poky garret rooms. In the last and meanest of them all, she lay on a mattress, curled up like a sleeping kitten.

  ‘Miu.’ Azhrel knelt beside her, gently touching her arm.

  ‘Mmm …’ She did not wake. Beside her lay an empty screw of petalpaper. Azhrel picked it up, sniffing it. A faint trace of boskhscent still lingered, though all last traces had been licked from the paper. A little pile of discarded papers lay in the corner of the room.

  ‘How long has she been taking boskh?’ demanded Azhrel.

  The eunuch boy shook his head, pointing to his mouth. He was mute.

  ‘And how long has she been like this? One hour? Two, three?’

  ‘Mmm …’ sighed Miu.

  ‘Keep a watch over her. And fetch me if she wakes. You’ll find me in Galingal Lane.’

  At the dye works the huge slave-manned treadmills were rumbling round, the vats were bubbling, steam billowed across the yard. Lai stood, face pressed to the high iron railing, watching the human machinery in motion.

  The Arkendym treated their animals with more care than their slaves. Even Orthandor’s watch-hounds were better fed and groomed than the unfortunates condemned to toil in the steamheat and stink of the dye vats until they dropped from exhaustion.

  To his dismay he realised that he knew one of the toiling workers. That thin frame shuffling across the courtyard, weighed down by a bundle of indigo leaves, was Eryl.

  Lai whistled softly to attract her attention; slowly she raised her drooping head. Sunken eyes stared dully at him – through him, as if he were a phantasm of her imagining. And then he saw a glimmer of recognition light her lustreless eyes. She remembered him.

  ‘Why are you back at work?’

  ‘Your miracle dust healed me. They say I am fit.’ He could scarcely hear her voice above the rattle of the treadmills.

  ‘But you need to rest!’

  She shrugged and, hefting the basket up onto her hip, continued her slow trudge towards the vats.

  A clear, cold rage washed through him, cleansing all other thoughts from his mind. Days had passed since he had made her that promise. He had seen the gleam of hope flicker in her eyes as she recognised him … and die away again. And as he knew from his own enslavement, once hope died …

  He walked around the spiked perimeter walls, looking for a hole in the defences. Armed overseers prowled the perimeters; chained guard dogs protected the boundaries. But skeins of raw silk had to be brought in to be dyed and dyed silk came out again to be taken to the weavers. If he watched and noted the times of the deliveries …

  A slave dropped a laden basket of skeins; he knelt in the dust to pick them up, knocking them against his thigh to remove the dirt. Some went rolling across the yard close to the iron grille and the slave crept closer to retrieve them.

  ‘Remember me?’

  Lai started.

  ‘I am Mirghar, Eryl’s brother. You said you would help us.’

  ‘My name’s Lai. Lai Dhar.’

  ‘Pretend to shake a stone from your shoe. Even now they are watching.’

  ‘If I brought you weapons …’ Lai shook his shoe vigorously.

  ‘Food, first. We are too weak to fight. And these shackles …’ He pointed to his ankles and wrists. ‘You can’t get far with these.’

  ‘Food. Then knives. You can pick the locks with knives—’

  ‘Hey there!’ A whip cracked across the dust, sending up a little puff of dirt. Lai looked up and saw one of the overseers hurrying towards him. ‘No talking to the slaves.’

  Mirghar snatched up his basket but not before the overseer had caught him a crack across his raw-scarred shoulders with the lash.

  ‘And that’s for clumsiness.’

  ‘There was no need!’ Lai cried, facing the overseer through the bars.

  ‘Relative of yours, is he?’

  ‘The man’s exhausted – no wonder he’s clumsy.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me my job?’ The overseer came towards Lai, tapping the whip-handle menacingly against his palm. ‘Why … wait a moment. That ginger hair. I know you. You’ve been here before.’

  ‘And what of it?’ Lai spat back.

  ‘Looks suspicious to me.’ The overseer jabbed his whip at Lai through the bars. ‘You hanging around here, talking to the brandslaves …’

  ‘Ah, Lai, there you are.’

  The strong dark voice startled Lai. Azhrel came striding along towards him, his leathern bag in one hand.

  ‘Anything the matter?’ he asked the overseer briskly.

  ‘You know this young man, doctor?’

  ‘Know him? He’s my new assistant. I’d arranged to meet him after I’d seen my morning patients … but I was late. Come, Lai, have you bought that red ginseng from the herbalists that I asked for?’

  Lai stared at Azhrel in amazement.

  ‘Why didn’t you say you were Dr Azhrel’s assistant?’ growled the overseer.

  ‘He’s foreign … still has a few difficulties with the language.’ Azhrel took Lai by the arm and started to lead him away. ‘Must hurry – patients to be seen, physic to be prepared—’

  Once they were out of sight of the dye works, Lai pulled his arm free from Azhrel’s grip.

  ‘I spoke with Mirghar, Eryl’s brother. If I can smuggle weapons into the works—’

  Azhrel stopped dead.

  ‘Weapons!’ He whirled around to face Lai. ‘What the hell d’you think you’re playing at?’

  ‘Playing! Is this a game? They’re suffering. Their lives are a living hell.’

  ‘And you think nothing’s being done?’

  ‘Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s been achieved.’

  ‘Oh, and you are going to change things? All by yourself?’

  ‘Someone has to,’ Lai said defiantly.

  ‘Fine! Very heroic!’ Azhrel walked off down the street. Lai went after him.

  ‘Better to try than let things continue as they are.’

  ‘You’ll be crushed underfoot, destroyed. Who are you, one man, to stand alone against the might of the Arkendym empire? This city was built on slave labour, made rich by slave labour.’

  ‘I can’t just stand by and watch. I have to do something—’

  ‘And who will you have helped? You’ll find yourself back in the donjon – and there’s no second reprieve from the Zhudiciar’s justice. You’ve seen the bodies hanging from the spikes. Carrion-fodder.’

  A flock of pigeons drinking and bathing at a water-trough took to the air, startled by the raised voices.

  ‘I never thought to hear you saying that. To hear you sound so defeated.’

  ‘You would have released a horde of convicted criminals into the streets?’

  ‘Most of them are political prisoners, people who dared to speak out against the Arkhan, and you know that full well, Arlan. The violent criminals are trained for the arena.’

  ‘You know that, I know that, but the people of Perysse believe otherwise. And if you set the brandslaves free, the people will raise the cry of slave-riots! They’ll send out the Tarkhas Zhudiciar and, “to keep the city safe”, there’ll be a massacre.’

  They had come to a halt in the middle of a lane.

  ‘You believe that, don’t you? That’s what they want you to believe. And that way, nothing ever changes. You’re condoning the system. You’re just as bad as they are!’

  ‘Maybe I am. But I won’t see
you throwing your life away needlessly – and scores of other innocent lives in the process. How can you help Eryl and her fellow slaves when you’re put to the question by the Zhudiciar’s Torquistar in the donjon? How can you help them when you’re left to die on the spikes? Believe me, it’s a slow death, Lai. It was devised to be slow. Excruciatingly slow.’

  ‘And your way is better? Do nothing – or little better than nothing? Prolong their lives, prolong the living hell with a little food here, a little medicine there …’

  ‘Is that all you think I do?’ Azhrel’s eyes blazed, dark fire in his ruined face. Lai saw he had gone too far this time – but he didn’t care, he was in a mad, fighting frenzy of anger. ‘Djhë, Lai, if you knew how close you’d come to spoiling it all, spoiling everything I’ve been working for all these years—’

  ‘You never told me,’ Lai said defensively.

  ‘I couldn’t risk telling you. Not yet. You were too close to the court. And I had to know I could trust you. Besides, to know too much would have endangered you.’

  ‘And you couldn’t trust me?’ Lai cried.

  ‘The time wasn’t right. It’s not right even now. But he’s beginning to listen.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Melmeth. It’s the only way things will ever change … when the Arkhan tells his people he wants it so. He’s had to live in the shadow of his father for too long. And only now is he beginning to emerge into the light, to question the old ways.’

  ‘Can’t you trust me now?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘There are others?’

  Azhrel nodded. ‘No names,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder as if fearing he might be overheard.

  ‘Can’t you let me in on this?’

  ‘It’s risky. You’re so easily recognised.’ Azhrel gently tugged a lock of Lai’s bright hair. ‘And they’re already suspicious.’

  ‘I’ll cut my hair, dye it if need be—’

  ‘That,’ Azhrel said with the trace of a smile, ‘would be a pity.’

  Lerillys came running in to Melmeth’s study, her plump bosom heaving in distress.

  ‘Don’t you ever knock, dhamzel?’

  ‘Lord Arkhan, my mistress is asking to see you.’