The House of Sacrifice Read online

  “What about our pay?” a voice shouts. “Never mind bloody poetry. We’re two months’ pay in arrears, Lord King!”

  There is something in that voice he has not heard for a long time. “Prince Ruin. Gods, you stink.” “You’re disgusting, Marith, look at the state of you, how can you do this to me? To your father? Look what you’re doing to him.”

  “What about our pay? Yes!”

  A great roar, like the waves when the tide is high and the storm wind is blowing, wave crashing against wave: “What about our pay, you cheap bastard? Pay us!” “You can’t abandon us! You are our king! Don’t abandon us!” “Pay us, you cheap bastard shit!” A voice shouts, “Pension us off, will you? Who made you all this, eh? Who made you king?” “You’ve got a fucking palace!” a voice shouts. “What have we got?” “You can’t abandon us,” a voice shouts. “You owe us. We made you king.”

  He looks down on his army who have conquered three kingdoms for him, and a great fear takes him.

  “You will have all that you are owed. Those who wish to remain here in Illyr will have land to farm. Those who wish to go home to their families I will provide with passage.” His voice is shaking. His hand goes to the hilt of his sword. “You are dismissed.” A few of them still jeer. Dogs’ faces, snarling at him. Many of them stand openly weeping. Frozen. The tears on their faces look like snowflakes. “You are dismissed,” he shouts at them. He walks down from the dais away from them into his palace. His back is turned to them inviting a sword blade between his shoulders. He can almost, almost feel one of them stabbing a sword blade into him. No one dares to go near him: they see his eyes, they see the shadows around him, they hear the shadows scream in triumph. If he had dismissed them after he took Malth Tyrenae. After he took Malth Elelane. If they had never crowned him king… They howl and moan behind him, prayers, entreaties, curses, “Amrath,” they beg him, “Amrath. You cannot do this to us.” “They are dismissed,” he shouts to Osen Fiolt and Alis Nymen. “Dismissed.”

  Thalia looks at him with sorrow. “They don’t mean it, Marith. They have shed their blood for you. Of course they are upset.” She says, “They will be glad enough soon, when they have got back home safe to their families.” She is pregnant, soon he will have a family. “We marched all across the Wastes with them,” she says, putting her arms around him as she will soon put her arms around their son. “They suffered for us. They shared in our glory, crowned us, celebrated victory with us. I feel sad myself,” she says, “to see this ending, to be dismissing them after everything they have done for us. But we will be glad of it,” she says, “and they will be. When we have our son and they have their homes and their families around them.”

  Yes: he thinks of his own father King Illyn, running with him in the gardens of Malth Elelane, his father’s stern face creased up with laughing. “Catch me, Daddy!” “Caught you, Marith! Caught you!” He walks up and down in his chambers, trying to block out the sound of their voices, cursing them.

  “Leave them,” Thalia says, “Marith. Look,” her face changes, “look, Marith,” she says suddenly, “they are beginning to disperse.”

  “They are?” He comes to the window to join her. It is coming on to evening, growing colder, the smell of their evening meal cooking hangs warm in the air. It is true, they are beginning to drift away, more and more of them. Their shouts are fading. The courtyard cannot be more than half full.

  “I told you they would,” Thalia says. Her voice too is almost regretful. “They suffered so much for us,” she says. “Pay them double, Marith, when you send them off.”

  “I can’t afford to pay them double. I can’t afford to pay them anything. You wouldn’t happen to have two months’ pay arrears in your jewellery box?” Already, he thinks. Already. I thought they might stay there calling on me a little longer. As Thalia says, they suffered for me, they were victorious with me, they shed their blood for me. And yet this is so very easy. I have my kingdom, my palace, my queen, soon I will have a son. Sweet golden dreams of peace. In the courtyard only a very few of the soldiers are left now. Outraged shouts turn to muttered grumbles. Grumbles to knowing complaints. “Oh well,” they say to one another, “oh well, we knew it would be coming. If he packs us off soon at least we’ll be home for the spring.” “Got my wife a diamond necklace when we sacked Tyrenae. Was looking forward to giving it to her. Lost it to a whore one night when I was hammered. If the bastard pays us off, maybe I’ll buy her another one.” “A farm, yeah? Never been outside Morr Town’s walls before we started marching. A farm might be nice.” “Bastard. Throwing us over. But that’s kings, yeah? What else did we expect?”

  That night the city of Ethalden is filled with whispers. Some of the soldiers drink to celebrate their return to homes and families. Some sit in lonely silence, weeping. Some shout their anger to the night sky and the sea. Marith walks the walls of his fortress, paces the corridors and halls. Seabirds scream in the darkness. Something that might be a hawk screams. It cannot be this easy. In the grey light of dawn he comes back into his chambers. In the bedchamber Thalia lies asleep, her face crumpled and strained.

  “The day when we were crowned King and Queen of Illyr, Thalia. Do you remember that?” Little more than a month ago. He cannot remember it properly now. Too bright. Too unreal. Too wonderful. They stood in the great golden feasting hall, silver trumpets rang out like birdsong, every living soul in Illyr acclaimed them, the air itself seemed to blaze with gold. “The most perfect moment in any human lifetime.” Grief overwhelms him. Self-pity and shame.

  There are reports the next morning that there has been fighting in the city, groups of soldiers fighting each other, a mob of soldiers has been looting houses and shops. A small group of soldiers returns to the great courtyard to entreat him. Alis Nyman and Yanis Stansel go out to them, pay them off with silver pennies. They are grateful. Cheer their king. File away. Marith and Thalia, Osen and his wife Matrina, Kiana Sabryya and Alleen Durith go out for a day’s hunting. Blackthorn is budding in all the hedgerows. There are snowdrops in bloom by the roadside and faint traceries of frost on the north slopes. In the distance the great central spire of his fortress flashes out silver and pearl, hung with red banners that dance in the morning wind.

  “Are you growing a beard, Osen?” Thalia asks.

  Osen strokes the stubble on his chin, grins at Marith. “Possibly.” He seems to be wearing a very ugly new brown coat as well, loose and badly fitting.

  Thalia looks very hard at Marith’s chin.

  They ride past a stream where the willow trees are furzed yellow with catkins. In the fields, they are ploughing the soil for the summer wheat. Thalia says, “I might well have two months’ pay arrears in my jewel box.” The air smells so nearly of spring. When they get back to Ethalden there are petitioners waiting to ask the king’s judgement. A dispute needs to be settled concerning an Ithish lord’s inheritance rights. A messenger has come from Malth Tyrenae to report on the work rebuilding the city. The tax official on Third Isle has been dismissed for embezzlement, the king must approve his replacement. There is a letter from Malth Elelane reporting the financial situation on the White Isles, so that the king can be advised and take action. There is a letter from Malth Elelane reporting that a lord’s son on Seneth Isle has run off with another lord’s wife, the lord’s son’s mother is asking the king to do something.

  That evening a group of soldiers gathers before the closed gates of the fortress, shout demands to see the king. But in many taverns the soldiers are drinking happily, raising a cup to their king who will soon send them home.

  He goes to bed early. Thalia is tired out after hunting. He lies in bed listening to her breathing, and he cannot sleep. He goes up to the window, throws open the shutters, Thalia makes a moaning sound in her sleep. The night is clear and cold. He thinks of riding down to the sea, standing in the dark to listen to the waves beating on the shoreline. Tastes the salt damp on his skin. A gull screams high in the rooftops of his fortress. He thinks
of dead bodies cast up on a beach.

  At noon the next day he again summons the Army of Amrath before him. Stands again to address them on a dais hung with silver silk. The men stare up at him. They are wary. Frightened of themselves. Frightened of him They move and murmur like waves. A voice shouts, “Pay us!” and is hushed. A voice shouts, “Don’t abandon us! Lord King! Please!”

  How could he have thought it could simply end?

  He cannot speak, at first. His mouth feels dry as desert sand. He stares down at them. They stare back at him.

  His hand rests on the hilt of his sword. I don’t have to do this, he thinks. All I have to do is walk away.

  He rubs hard at his eyes. His voice and his hands tremble as he speaks. “The army will not be disbanded. Not a single man of you. My companions, my most loyal ones, my friends. The Army of Amrath will be doubled in number! Every one of you shall be re-equipped in new armour with a new sword sharp enough to draw blood from the wind. There will be places in my army for your children, your lovers, your friends. All your arrears of pay will be compensated twice over. And in three weeks’ time the Army of Amrath will march out! You will be glutted with gold and with killing! My companions! My friends!” He draws the sword Joy, holds it shining aloft, white light dancing along its blade. “We will see victory and triumph!” His soldiers cheer with tears of happiness running down their faces. Alis Nymen cheers. Osen Fiolt cheers louder than any of them.

  He thinks of Thalia cupping her hands over her belly. She just about shows now, when she wears a tight dress. The women of the court croon over her, fussing, “Oh, My Lady, how wonderful, how wonderful, oh, the greatest blessing a woman can have, My Lady, oh, joy to you, joy to you, My Lady Queen, My Lord King.” Many of them had mothers or sisters or friends who died in childbirth. His own mother died in childbirth, a dead child rotting in her womb, it had to be cut up inside her, they say, extracted piece by rotting piece. The sounds a woman makes, in childbirth… The greatest joy of your life,” the women say to Thalia, fussing. He knows it is.

  He has some claim to the throne of Immier. His great-great-great-great-grandfather’s second wife was a princess of Immier; her father died without a male heir and the crown passed to someone else. Disgraceful. The throne should have gone to… whatever the girl’s name was. And the first Amrath conquered Immier a thousand years ago. Well, then. Immier is not a rich land. But there are many people there for his army to kill.

  “Death!” the men chant, loud as trumpets. How much they love him! “Glory! Glory! King Marith!”

  His uncle’s voice, mocking him: “You were such a happy child, Marith. But one might have guessed, even then, that this would be where you’d come to in the end.” Where any man would come to, once they started on this.

  He thinks: Immier, Cen Andae, Cen Elora, the Forest of Maun in the furthest south of Irlast… it doesn’t matter where we go. We will march, we will fight, we will kill, we will march on. We dream of glory, and we must have more glory, and more, and more. Men grow restless, look wistfully on swords growing blunted, dream of times past when they were as gods. Looted coin is soon spent.

  Thalia miscarries that same evening. The first of them: she has lost two more children since, on the march; they are marching still and now she is pregnant again. He still owes his men two months’ arrears of pay. But, now, behold, half the world is conquered.

  The dragons were black dots in the white snow sky. Marith rode back to Arunmen through the snow falling heavier. Thick soft white flakes like feathers. Falling until he could barely see his hand in front of his face. He rode along unconcerned. A king in his kingdom. Silent in the snow. A wolf slunk past almost in front of his horse’s hooves. Looked at him. Sadder eyes than the dragons. What might have been a scrap of human flesh in its mouth. The horse snorted, rolled its eyes. The wolf was injured, like the green and silver dragon, a long wound running down its flank. Maggots crawled there, even in the winter snowfall. It was heavy and fat from glutting itself on his dead.

  “Denakt,” he shouted at it, as though it was another dragon. Go. Leave. It stared at him. Padded off, disappeared into the snow. He rode on, in a while came across the body it had been feeding on, a man, torn apart lying there. Someone who didn’t want to be a soldier, he’d guess. Tried to escape his men. The face was untouched. Mouth open. Eyes open. The snow slowly covering it.

  Chapter Seven

  Envoys came to Arunmen from Chathe and Immish and every city of his empire, brought him gifts from every corner of the world. Treasures and jewels, objects of great beauty and wealth. White horses. Silver cloth as light as sea foam. A thousand ingots each of iron and copper and lead and tin. The emissaries from Chathe came to kneel before him, swear their loyalty. He smiled at them, raised them up, promised them his faith back in return as long as they remained loyal to him. Ryn Mathen nodded, eyes bright with happiness. On a whim, Marith ordered the emissaries to be given a hundred chests of gold and silver, to bring back to King Heldan as an honour gift. The lords of Marith’s empire knelt and crowned him with wreaths of flowers. He held races and dances and feasts. The soldiers paraded for him, dressed in their finery, polished bronze, red plumes nodding on their helmets, red cloaks, gleaming, marching and wheeling in the snow. The music of the bronze: they danced the sword dance, clashed their spears, shouted for joy. So many of them, uncountable, like the trees in a forest. They roared out his name with triumph, he who had given them mastery of the world, made them lords of life and death. Their love burned off them, warm and joyous; Marith gasped as he watched them, his face radiant, breathless, still, after everything, half unbelieving, all this, all this, for him. The emissaries departed, leaving more allied troops in his army’s ranks. The Army of Amrath prepared to march out. The forges rang with the clash of hammers, the glowing fire of liquid metal, burning day and night. More swords! More spears! More helms! More armour! Grain carts rumbled in beneath the ruins of the gateways. Provisions for a long hard march. A new levy of troops marched in from Illyr, young men who had not yet seen the glory of his conquests, staring wide-eyed and hungry at the ruins of the city, the tents piled with plunder, the campfires of his army numberless as the stars. They marched in between towers of white newly slain bones, white skulls grinning, the shriek of carrion birds. He saw in their eyes the wonder, the longing to be part of this. They saw him, and he felt their love rise like mountains. A marvel, a gift unparalleled, that they could look upon him, fight for him, swear to him their swords and their spears and the strength in their body and all the length of their lives, to kill and to die at his will.

  Onwards. Ever onwards. New lands to conquer. The road goes on and on. Issykol. Khotan, with its sunless forests. The lawless peoples of the Mountains of Pain. Turain, with its wheat fields and its silver river. Mar. Maun. Allene.

  The Sekemleth Empire of the Golden City of Sorlost.

  Gods, he sees it, so clear in his mind. Yellow dust, yellow sand, yellow light. Magnolia trees and lilac trees and jasmine, all in flower; women in silk dresses, bells tinkling at their wrists and ankles; in the warm dusk the poets sing of fading beauty and the women dance with grief on their crimson lips. The golden dome of the Summer Palace. A boy falling backwards through a window, lit by a thousand glittering shards of mage glass. In Sorlost I saw her face for the first time, radiant, and when I saw her I knew. My hands wallowing for the first time in innocent blood there. In Sorlost I killed a baby, I looked down and I ran my sword through it because I could. Sickness filled him. Fear. He thought: don’t think of it. There are so many places to conquer before I have to go back there.

  At night he lay with Thalia in the bedroom with the green glass windows, beneath the mage-glass stars. Thalia naked and glowing, bathed in light. He rested his head on her stomach, imagined he could hear the child’s heart beating. In the dark inside her body it swam and dreamed. Absurd and impossible.

  “I can feel it move,” she said. “Fluttering inside me. Like a bird. Like a butterfly landing on m
y hand.” My child! he thought. My child!

  He said, “This time it will live.”

  The shadow flickered across his mind. He who had killed his own family. The fear, that it would live.

  Alleen Durith held a celebration dinner the last evening before they marched. A private thing, Marith, Thalia, Osen, Kiana Sabryya, Dansa Arual, Ryn Mathen. Alleen’s chambers were decked with silk flowers. Marith was noisy, happy, laughing, the lights were very bright, the air smelled fresh and good. Thalia glittered in his vision, silver and bronze, silk and water, summer rain.

  “Do you remember the morning it rained,” he said to her, “in the desert, and the flowers came out pink, and the stream came rushing down?”

  Thalia said in surprise, “No. I… I don’t remember.”

  “I remember it so clearly. The way the desert came alive. How can you not—?” Or…? “No, that was before, wasn’t it? You didn’t see that. We saw the stream with the willows, and that first stream, where we threw pebbles, and I told you who I was. It didn’t rain in the desert when you were there with me. But you’d never seen running water, until I showed you the stream, and you bathed your hands and feet in it…”

  “No,” Thalia said, confused. “No. I hadn’t. I—” She smiled then: “It was beautiful, Marith, when we saw the stream. I remember that. I’ll never forget that. Like seeing the hawk—was that on the same day?”

  The hawk? What about the hawk? “We’ll go back there soon,” he almost said.

  “Drink up, everyone,” Osen shouted. Bustling around, refilling cups. “Tastes like goat’s piss, but we can all manage another cup.” A good and clever man, Osen Fiolt. A good friend.

  “Goat’s piss? Goat’s piss?” Alleen raised his cup. “I looted this stuff personally, Osen, you barbarian. Horse’s piss, at least.”