The Tower of Living and Dying Read online

  She assumed they would sleep now, her head was spinning with tiredness after the long ride, but a maidservant laid out a dress of blue velvet for her, a shirt and leggings and jacket for Marith. They were ushered down into the main chamber, where a feast was spread, hot smoky air reeking of meat and alcohol and sweat and salt water, a huge fire casting flickering shadows, cheering faces livid in the flames. The king’s soldiers, the men of Malth Calien, Lady Fiolt and her women, all rose and bowed their heads as Marith entered, and the cry went up hailing him. Lady Fiolt placed a cup in his hands, smiling; she was dressed now in scarlet, with red jewels in her hair and at her throat. Marith drained it, gave it back.

  “King Marith,” Lady Fiolt said.

  Chapter Five

  I cannot leave him.

  Cannot? Will not? Do not want to?

  Who can tell?

  But there is pleasure, is there not, in being loved by a king?

  Chapter Six

  Darkness. A narrow passage closing around her like a fist. For a long time now it had tunnelled downwards, creeping deep into the earth. Worm lair. Grave pit. She had felt, for a long time as she crawled, the anger and hate following her. The earth ringing with the crash of stones falling. The world being ruined.

  The tunnel dipped again. Sobbing, she crawled on, the rough ground cutting her hands. Her family’s death riding on her back. She was tired now. So tired. Her grief came quicker. Grief and guilt and rage. She was hungry, she began to realize. She had no idea how long she had been crawling. Hours. Minutes. Days. Her mouth was dry with thirst. Her head hurt, where the mage fire had struck her. She desperately needed to piss.

  The tunnel flattened, then began to rise. A smell came into the air, damp and fresh. A ghost of light ahead of her. A sound. Her pace slowed to inching forward, desperately eager, terrified of what she would find. Get out, escape this. Stay here in the dark of the tunnel, where nothing is real. Out there everything is ashes. Everyone is dead and the world is burned. She came on slowly to the end, where the mouth of the tunnel opened as a hole in the cliffs, shielded by tumbled rocks. The sea beat on the beach below her, making the shingle sing and sigh. The last light of evening, a few stars being swallowed by rising cloud. She crawled out of the tunnel gasping, clawing at the air that smelled of the sea. Alive. The grief in her turned to laughter, that she had beaten him. Alive!

  Landra Relast, the eldest daughter of the Lord of Third Isle, kin to the Altrersyr and the Calborides and the kings of Bakh, descendent of Amrath, a great high noble lady of the White Isles. Landra Relast, whose brother and sister and mother and father had been murdered, whose home had been destroyed, who had watched Marith Altrersyr her promised husband burn everything she had to dust. Landra Relast, who alone had escaped the power he had over them, the glamour of King Marith who was Amrath returned to them, the madness of their glorious hunger for killing and death. Landra Relast, who had fled from him, wormed her way through the old secret tunnels beneath Malth Salene, away from banefire and mage fire and sword strokes, to the safety of an empty stony beach.

  Landra Relast, who had nothing left.

  She pissed behind a rock, though there was no one about to see her. Rinsed her hands and face in the sea, the salt on her wounds searing pain. Her dress was torn to shreds, she must stink of smoke. Dreaded to think what had happened to her hair and scalp.

  It was very cold. The wind was picking up, the waves pounding the shingle. Thin, bitter rain. Landra tipped her head back, licked the water from her face. Her head was aching.

  There should be a village ahead of her. An hour’s walk, perhaps. Her legs were shaking with hunger so she would go slower. The shingle was hard to walk on, slipping under her feet, after a while she took off her shoes thinking it might be easier, then put them on again when the stones cut her skin. So dark, the sea roaring half invisible beside her. Finally, ahead, the lights that must be the village, the creak and chatter and smell of human life.

  Landra sat down on the shingle and began to think.

  Lady Landra Relast. Someone would recognize her. Impossible that they would not. Even if they did not recognize her, it would be obvious where she came from, with her fine dress and her burned skin. Impossible to guess how they had taken all that had happened, or what side they might be on.

  But there was nowhere else.

  The first house was in utter darkness. At the next a light burned, thin lines through the gaps in the shutters. A string of stones hung from the doorpost. Hagstones, wards against the powers of dark. A good omen. Landra knocked. Through the shutters she could hear voices whispering, a clatter of metal and then a silence, and then the door opened a crack. A man stared out. In his hands a long rod of iron, black in the night.

  “I’m unarmed,” Landra said urgently, showing her white lady’s hands cut and bloodied and burned and rubbed raw. “I need … I ask your help. Please. Shelter. Food. I can pay.”

  “Help?” Pale eyes stared at her fearfully. Saw her burned hair and burned face. The door moved to close.

  Not back out into the night. The dark. Her legs almost buckled. So hungry. So thirsty. So tired. Not back out into the night. “Please.” She almost screamed it. “Please. I am Landra Relast of Malth Salene, Lord Relast’s daughter. There has been fighting … You will know, I suppose. Please, I beg you. Food and water. Help.”

  “Lord Relast’s dead,” the man said. “They’re all dead. Malth Salene’s smoking ruins. The king’s dead there. There’s a new young king come.” He studied her doubtfully. “Well, you’ve the look of him, the young lord that died in the springtime. Lord Carin, Lord Relast’s son.” Turned his head back to the warmth of the house, muttered something to someone, then opened the door wide. “You’d best come in, then, whoever you are. Not a good night to be outside stone walls.”

  The house was tiny, one room for living and sleeping, a beaten earth floor beneath the rushes, the ceiling hung with fishing nets. In the light of the hearth fire Landra saw that the man was young, not yet thirty, fair haired and fair skinned. A woman sat by the fire, also young, darker haired. A cradle stood in the corner, painted with the image of a deer.

  The man set the iron rod back beside the hearth. “I’ll get you something hot to eat. There’s some stew left, Hana?”

  The woman Hana nodded. She got up and helped her husband fetch a cup of water, a bowl of fish stew, a hunk of bread. Landra ate, frowning at the rough salty taste. Her hand shook exhausted on her spoon. The sound of wind and sea came loud through the shutters, over the sound of the fire and the calm soft rhythm of the child’s sleeping breath. The man and woman watched her eat, fear in their eyes.

  “My name’s Ben,” the man said at last. “This is my wife, Hana. My son, Saem. She says she’s Lord Relast’s daughter, Lady Landra.”

  Hana stiffened, then nodded. Turned kind eyes on Landra. “I’m sorry, then.”

  “You saw it? The battle?”

  Ben shook his head. “We saw the light in the sky where it was burning. Men up on the moor with swords.”

  “Some men from the village went to look,” Hana said. “Five, there were, went up there. Two came back. Said the other three … the other three weren’t coming back.” Frightened eyes. Blinked, looked away.

  “We’ll make you a bed up,” Ben said. “Get Alli the Healer to look you over in the morning.”

  Grief and guilt and rage. She’d never sleep, worms gnawed at her heart. The bed was heather branches covered with a wool cloth, probably infested with fleas, poking at her, smelling of fish. She fell asleep immediately she lay down.

  Woke again with a start. Grey faint dawn, the first traces of light clawing their way through the shutters, the sound of the sea very loud. Disorientating, the room unfamiliar, full of the sound of others’ breathing, the smell of damp. Earth smell from the floor. A great shriek of gulls came up suddenly, wild and angry, filled with pain. Something else behind it. Landra sat up, jerking her head around in fear. A roar like laughter. Silent out bey
ond the sky. The child whimpered in its sleep, the man and the woman stirred fretfully. Then quiet again. The rhythmic sounds of sea and seabirds and the world waking as the light came. The house waking, Hana making oaten porridge, the child awake singing, spilling its cup of watered milk down its clothes, Ben sitting down with a mug of weak ale to mend his nets. Does it not concern you? Landra kept thinking as she watched them. That the king is dead? My father is dead? That the world is changed?

  A little before noon, a man from the village came calling. Ben told Landra to hide herself in the half-loft where they kept their stores while he stayed. The visitor and Ben and Hana spoke in low voices so that Landra could not hear what was said. But when it was safe again they told her, and she saw then that they were concerned. The king was dead indeed, they said. His son was king now in his stead. Marith, whom rumour had had it was dead. He was known on Third, Prince Marith, visited often, a friend of the Relasts, he’d be a king they knew, where Illyn his father had been a stranger. Almost an enemy, indeed, old King Illyn: the Murades, Queen Elayne’s kin, were not loved on Third, being long the sworn enemies of Lord Relast. The fighting was over, for the meantime. That mattered most of all to Ben, that it had not spread beyond Malth Salene to encompass his tiny corner of the world.

  Concerned, yes. They looked grave as they spoke of it. Fear in their eyes. But Landra understood with slow puzzlement that for them the world was not changed.

  They would not let her stay another night. Too dangerous, Ben said sadly and shamefacedly, looking not at Landra but at his son playing on the shingle throwing stones. If the king’s men came …

  “I’m nothing,” Landra said, “nothing. The Relasts are all dead.”

  Ben shrugged. “Riders are out on the road already, proclaiming the new king, calling troops. Can’t risk anything.” He was young and strong enough to be a soldier, Landra realized then, looking at him. Any danger, however remote, however small, any voice mentioning there was a stranger at his house, his name being spoken to anyone, anywhere, must be avoided.

  “We’ll get your wounds looked to,” said Hana, “but then you must go.” She too looked at the child. Landra heard in her voice both the kindness and the threat.

  Alli the Healer was the village wise woman, witch woman, bone charms at her neck, hagstone beads over her breasts, the green of leaf juice ground into her skin. Kind face. Kind, thoughtful eyes. She smeared a greasy ointment on Landra’s burns. It smelled meaty and fishy and bitter, stung her, shimmered on her arms like a slug’s trail. But she had to admit it soothed the pain a little. The raw red wounds looked softer, afterwards. When this was done the woman rubbed a switch of green marsh hazel over Landra’s scalp, muttering prayers and healing words. Toth, that is the cold of water. Ran, that is the peace of evening. Palle, that is smooth sheen of a calm sea. Broke the stick in two, gave one half to Landra. The other half Alli took herself to cast away into the waves. “Keep it safe,” she bade Landra. “Keep it safe and it will help your skin heal.”

  Hana gave Landra a cloth to bind up her head, making her look like an old shy widow woman. A dress, also, far too tight at the chest and waist. Stocky plain-faced Lady Landra. Never been pretty and her appearance had never been anything to take pride in and she’d never cared. A great lady, trained to rule a great household, raise a lord’s sons or the sons of a king. A beggar woman, half bald with no home and no name.

  “What will you do?” Ben asked her. “Where will you go?” he meant, encouraging her to leave. Or perhaps he feared she would throw herself into the sea.

  She had tried to think of this. How can I live? Where can I go? What can I be? She said, “I’ll go to Seneth. To Morr Town.”

  “Morr Town?” Ben looked at her sharply. Sadly. “That’s where the new king will go.”

  Landra looked back sharply. Sadly. “Yes. I know.”

  Thoughts moved in his eyes. “I can take you to Seneth. But not Morr Town. The coast to the south, somewhere well out of sight. You can take the road across the moors.”

  Honoured guests disembark from their ships at Toreth Harbour and ride the golden road to Malth Salene. Murderers and outcasts and dead men take the lich way, and come in through the back gates where the middens are piled. So she had told Marith, bound and filthy, her prisoner, when she brought him back to Malth Salene, sealing all their doom. Such scorn in her voice. Cruelty. It had been a cruel thing. And Marith had bowed his head with shame.

  “Tonight, then?” she said slowly.

  Ben nodded. “Tonight.”

  Hana gave her bread cakes, salt fish, a hard small round of goats’ milk cheese. She gave them in return the gold bracelet she wore at her left wrist. In the dark Ben took her over to Seneth, seat of the kings of the White Isles, where her ancestors Serelethe and Eltheia and Altrersys had once come ashore seeking shelter after the death of Amrath the World Conqueror, the King of Shadows, the King of Dust, the King of Death. Dark and cold, the only sound for long hours the slap of water against the hull, the creak of the oars. No light, for fear another boat would see them. The water in the darkness looked solid like black stone. Had to drop anchor and wait a little, when the mass of Seneth appeared half visible before them, Ben would not risk the cliffs and rocks in the dark, though he seemed to know the water without needing to see.

  The light was breaking. A faint lifting of the night. Landra could see the land ahead of them, details in the cliff line, the slump of rocks.

  “You sure?” Ben asked.

  Morr Town, where the new king will go. She almost laughed. “Yes. No.”

  The oars dipped again. Light enough to see the water churned up before Ben got into his rhythm again. The cliffs in front of them looked like faces. Vast grey stone, sheer up to the sky.

  Ben rowed south along the coast, past the first beach they came to, round a sheer point where seals slept. The cliff dipped, scrubland running down to meet the sea. As they rowed closer, Landra saw a rough path scrambling up. Seabirds circling in the morning air, riding the dawn wind. A few seals sat on the rocks and stared at them as they came in. The boat crunched against the shingle. Wave breaking round the sides.

  “You sure?” Ben asked again. Landra clambered awkwardly out into the water. Cold up to her waist. She gasped at the cold. Sting of the salt on her legs. Ben handed her the bundle of food.

  “Thank you,” Landra said awkwardly. Ben was already pushing the boat off back into the sea with the oars. She dragged herself over the shingle through the water, her dress clinging heavily around her legs. Slipped stubbing her foot against a rock and plunged her left arm into the water, the salt stinging her burns. Got up onto the steep rise of the beach, climbing upwards like climbing a hill. The pebbles moved down around her feet in a landslide. A thick band of rotting seaweed, alive with hopping flies. Cuttlefish bones and a dead jellyfish, glistening silvery red, tentacles splayed out. Looked like bones and a dead heart. The grey cliffs stared down like faces. Old gods watching. The old things of the land. The gulls circled, screaming at her.

  Landra turned to look out to where Ben’s boat was already disappearing into the sea. Raised her hand and waved. Pointless. But he’d been a kind man.

  Eltheia. Fairest one. Keep safe. Keep safe. Him, and Hana, and the child.

  She sat down on the shingle. The pebbles pressed uncomfortably into her skin. She picked up the first pebble her hand rested on. A hagstone, grey-greenish, the hole blocked by a smaller pale grey stone. An omen? She threw it wide into the sea. Made a lovely deep sound. She chewed a little bread, drank from the skin of water. Nasty, fishy, stale taste.

  She got up and began to walk stiffly up the cliff path, a weary peasant woman in an ill-fitting dress, smelling of fish and tallow and herbs.

  Chapter Seven

  A month, they stayed at Malth Calien.

  “What are we doing here?” Thalia asked Marith, after a few long dull days.

  “Waiting.” He smiled with terrible heavy sorrow. “Calling in all who will come to me.”


  “For what?” she asked, feeling her ignorance. The place bustled with men, soldiers, business; a ship had gone out at dawn the first morning and Marith chafed after its return, watched the sea every day.

  Marith said slowly, “To claim my throne.”

  “But … you are crowned king.” A crown of silver in your shining black-red hair.

  “King of what, exactly?” Irritation in his face, that she did not understand this world of his. “Third Isle is one island of the White Isles. The seat of the king is Malth Elelane, on Seneth, the Tower of Joy and Despair, the tower raised for Eltheia, the tower from which Altrersys ruled as the first king. There is my throne. My crown. My home. I have told Ti that I am coming. That I am king, returning home. Ti and … and Queen Elayne. They do not answer. So I must come with swords and spears, and make them kneel to me as king.”

  “They thought that you were dead,” said Thalia. “They may not even believe that it is really you. Tiothlyn only saw you so briefly.” You killed your father, she thought. What else are they likely to do?

  “They never believed I was dead,” said Marith. “That would have been too much for them to hope for, that I was dead.”