Corvus (11 page)

GRINDING THE CORN

SPEAKER
OF MACHRAN

Karnos ran his
fingertip down the
spine of the girl from her nape to the silky crease of her buttocks. She was
wet there, and she shifted slightly under his touch, her white body arching up
like a cat being stroked. His fingertip moved upward again, traced the geometry
of her ribs, touched the side-swell of one breast. He brushed her ear-lobe
where the dark tresses of shining hair fell over it.

“I don’t care what
Polio said, you were worth every obol,” he murmured.

A knock on the
door.

The girl smiled as
Karnos kissed her delicate ear. His hand ran down her body again, more urgent
this time. A flare of base delight as she lifted her rump up in invitation.

Again, the knock -
not so discreet this time. A rapping of knuckles.

“Fuck you, Polio!”
Karnos shouted. “I was not to be disturbed!” The girl stiffened beside him, and
her eyes took on the blank slave-look. Duty had replaced arousal in a moment,
though she remained stock still with her white buttocks up in the air.

“Master, my
profound apologies, but there is news here that cannot wait. Kassander himself
is here, and awaits you in the court.”

“Kassander? Ah,
shit,” Karnos said. He rose to his knees in the bed, pushed the slight
pale-skinned girl to one side and reached for his chiton.

“Get him some wine
- have Grania bring it.”

“I have already
done so, master. He demands to see you at once.”

“Of course he
does,” Karnos snarled, pulling his chiton over his head. To the girl he said, “Get
out and clean yourself up.” She scampered naked from the bed, leaving by a
side-door. The hanging that half-hid it was still twitching as Karnos rose
barefoot and said, “Tell him I’m on my way. And it had better be important -
Phobos’s arse, it’s the middle of the night.”

Polio came in
bearing a bronze lamp, shielding the wick with his long fingers. “Shall I call
for the cook?”

“No, let’s see
what we have first. Light the way for me, Polio. Kassander is an impatient son
of a bitch, but even he doesn’t turn out at this hour on a whim.”

The two men walked
along the passageway in a fluttering globe of yellow lamplight while their
shadows capered around them. Polio was a spare, elderly man with a broad grey
beard. He wore a slave-collar, but it was chased with gold, and from his
shoulders hung a himation of fine white linen.

Karnos wore a
food-stained chiton of plain undyed wool. He was a broad, beefy man with a
round paunch and a close-cropped black beard. His hair, worn long, was dressed
with oil and he bore several rings on each hand. His bare feet slapped on the
stone floor.

“Was he alone?”

“He came with an
escort of spearmen, master, but they remained outside.”

“Fuck - then it’s
official. Rouse the household and lay out my council robes, and a good cloak.”

“Some food,
perhaps -”

“Wine - lots of
it. The good stuff. It must be bad news; no-one ever brings good tidings in the
dark. We’ll have it in the study. And have some sent out to the escort.”

A wide space
surrounded by pale-pillared colonnades, open to the sky. Karnos gritted his
teeth against the cold. There was the rill of water from the courtyard
fountain, the glow of the solitary lamp kept burning by the gate-shrine, and a
brazier for the doorman, the coals dull and almost dead. Beside it stood a
large shadow, red-lit by the charcoal, and to one side the slim shape of a
shivering slave-girl, a glass jug in her fists.

“Leave us, Crania,”
Karnos said crisply. The girl fled, feet pattering on the chill stone.

“Kassander?”

The shadow
resolved itself into a massive cloaked figure, as broad as Karnos but taller.

“You keep buying
up all the pretty girls, Karnos. How many do you have stashed away here now?”

“If you want one,
I’ll lend her to you - now what’s the news that has me shivering like a spent
horse here in the night with Phobos leering down at me?”

Kassander drained
his cup. “Word from the east. Hal Goshen has surrendered to him.”

Karnos leant
against a marble pillar, the last of the bedroom’s warmth sucked out of him. “Ah,
hell.” He rubbed one hairy-knuckled hand over his face, and seemed to feel the
weight of his years and the loom of the winter weigh down his very bones.

“I told them, didn’t
I?”

“Yes, you did,”
Kassander said. “You have been proved right at every turn. There’s good in that
- it means they may pay heed to you now.”

Karnos raised his
head sharply, a sneer splitting his beard. “You think so? Brother, you have a
faith in the rationality of men that makes me wonder whether to laugh or weep.”

“If this does not
unite the League, nothing will. This could be good news, Karnos - it may be the
turning point.”

“Ever the
optimist, eh? Who else knows this?”

“It’ll be all over
the city by dawn. I’ve already sent couriers to the hinterland, and the Kerusia
is being waked as we speak.”

“Come inside with
me. My prick has shrivelled up like a raisin in this cold - or maybe it’s your
news has done it.” Kassander followed him like an obedient bear, tossing his
cup into the courtyard pool with a silver splash.

“Light, light!”
Karnos roared. “Am I to stagger around in the dark in my own home? Bring a lamp
there!”

Polio appeared
again. He bowed to Kassander, who nodded curtly in reply. “Master, your study
fire has been lit, and -”

“Have my clothes
laid out there, Polio, and rouse out the stables. I want the black gelding
warmed up and shining, my best harness. I’ll be going to the Empirion with the
dawn.”

Polio bowed again,
handed his lamp to Karnos, and glided away.

The household was
coming to life, slaves scurrying everywhere with lamps in their hands,
unintelligible shouts emanating from the kitchens at the back of the house.
Karnos and Kassander strode along the corridors, oblivious, until a heavy door
was swung back to reveal a firelit room, littered with scrolls and papers, and
a wide-eyed slave who bowed deeply, placed a tumble of clothing on the desk and
fled, mumbling inanities.

“You’ve too many
slaves,” Kassander said, unlooping the end of his cloak from his arm. “They’re
underfoot like damned cockroaches. Can’t you hire some free-men to light your
fires and groom your horses?”

“Free men have
loyalties and families and worries of their own,” Karnos said, sweeping the
piled papers from two iron-framed chairs. “Slaves only have to worry about
their job. They do that well, and they have no other worries in the world.” He
threw off his woollen chiton and stood naked in the firelight, then began to
dress in the clothing the slave had abandoned.

“You’d have been
Speaker far sooner if the world did not look askance at the harem you have
here. There’s jokes about you and your insatiable prick scrawled across every
wineshop wall in the Mithannon.”

“Insatiable, eh?”
Karnos said with a grin. His head emerged from the neck of a black linen
chiton. “I like that. The people love a politician whose vices are out in the
open, Kassander - they know he has less to hide. Me, I love women -”

“Then marry one.”

“Are you insane?
No, no. I flirt with power and I fuck slaves. Good decent women are too
dangerous for a man like me. And I’m near forty now - too old to be learning
the ways of a wife. Have a seat. No, you make my blood run cold merely by
mentioning it - and you know the regard I have for your sister -”

“She thinks the
sun rises and sets on you, Haukos knows why.”

“She is the very
picture of a virtuous lady, a credit to your family. If I married her, she’d -
well, you know what would happen. No, one day soon she will see sense and marry
some other worthy fellow who will come home sober every night and plant her
with babies. Enough.” He patted down his fine chiton and stepped into a pair of
beaten sandals. “Now where is the fucking wine? Polio!”

The wine arrived,
borne by an absurdly pretty girl whose tunic barely reached her thighs. Polio
stood over her like a stern father.

“Master, will that
be all?”

“For now. We’ll
eat later - have the cook run up some of that good broth we had yesterday. And
make sure no-one comes near this door, Polio.”

Polio bowed and
withdrew, as stately as a grey-bearded king.

Karnos sat down
and poured two clay cups of wine. He stuck his fingers into his own glass and
flicked a few drops into the fire. “For Phobos, the rotten bastard - a
libation.”

Kassander did the
same with a big man’s slow smile. “For Haukos, who has not turned his face from
us yet.”

“Your sunny
disposition makes me want to puke,” Karnos said. “What are the details of the
thing, or don’t we know them yet?”

Kassander leaned
back in his chair with a sigh, making the ironwork creak under his bulk.

“The same story we’ve
seen before. Scare the little people with the size of his army, offer them easy
terms, and move on.”

“He had only just
arrived before their walls,” Karnos said, punching his knee. “I thought we had
time - Phaestus assured us he would hold out.”

“Phaestus was
overruled, and declared ostrakr. Sarmenian was installed as governor.”

“Sarmenian! That
rat-faced prick. I had him to dinner last month and he was full of shit about
how Hal Goshen would halt the invader in his tracks. Bastard. He has a tiny
cock, too; Grania told me.”

“Whatever the size
of his instrument, he now rules Hal Goshen as tyrant, under Corvus. But there’s
more, Karnos.”

“I see it in your
face. You’re saving the best for last, you big fuck. Well, toss it at me if you
must.”

“Rictus of Isca
was at Hal Goshen. He has thrown in his lot with the invader.”

Karnos stood up.
He set his wine cup on the desk, spilling some of the berry-dark liquid on the
papers there. He stood before the fire and stared blindly into the flames
whilst Kassander wiped up the spill doggedly with the hem of his cloak.

“Rictus,” he said
dully. “I would not have thought it of him.”

“Who is the
optimist now? Rictus is a mercenary,” Kassander said, irritably. “He goes where
the money is; and this Corvus must have a fortune in his treasury by now.”

“No.” Karnos
turned round. “Rictus is one of the old-fashioned Macht. He believes in things.
I thought I had him, Kassander. This summer, we spoke, and I thought I had him.
Imagine, if we had lured him here to lead the army!”

“My imagination
runs riot,” Kassander said. “It’s unfortunate you’ll have to make do with
Kassander of Arienus instead.”

Karnos waved a
hand at him. “Don’t be a girl about it. You know damn well what it would have
meant to have the leader of the Ten Thousand on these walls. Phobos! I never
would have thought it of him.”

“You’re repeating
yourself.”

“A politician’s
habit - it keeps the mouth working until there’s something new to say.
Kassander, we must push this issue now, while the shock of the news is getting
around the streets. If we argue it out in the Kerusia, Corvus will he at our
walls before we’ve even managed to convene the assembly.”

“Something tells
me I have a role in this.”

“You’re polemarch
of the army. For God’s sake, he’s ten good day’s march from these walls - we
don’t have time to fuck around!”

Kassander sighed
heavily. “You want me to call out the army on my own initiative.”

“By dawn. We must
have the streets full of men -we must wake up the people to the danger, and
force the Kerusia’s hand.”

“I can do that - I
can have the host called out, but it’ll mean the end of your political career,
you know that. You by-pass the Kerusia and they’ll vote you down. They hate you
anyway.”

Karnos flapped a
hand in dismissal. “I was voted onto the Kerusia by popular acclaim. If they
throw me out of it they’ll have the people to answer to.”

Kassander looked
into his wine. There was a silence in the room, broken only by the cracking of
the fire. Olive wood was burning upon it, and the subtle blue fragrance of it
stole about them in the quiet.

“You got me this
post,” Kassander said. “You made me polemarch, so I am tied to you. I owe you
for it.”

“This is not about
calling in favours -” Karnos cried. Kassander raised his head, smiling. That
slow, broad smile of the honest man.

“I know that. We
have been friends a long time, Karnos. If I do this it will be for two reasons.
Because it is the right course of action to preserve this city, and because you
are my friend.”

“The only real
friend I have,” Karnos said, with feeling. “After this the rest will desert me
like rats running from a burning house.”

“Look on the
bright side; you’ll still have your slaves to fuck.”

M
achran was six
pasangs from west to
east, and three parts asleep. Even up in the Mithannon Quarter, the wineshops
and brothels shut their doors for a few hours at this time of night. It was
remarkable, then, how fast news could travel the narrow streets, how it lit up
at window after window.

Kassander started
it, storming into the dormitory of the city criers with Karnos’s seal affixed
to a Kerusiad edict and shouting them awake. Brass-voiced men with fast feet,
the criers took to the streets within minutes, shouting the news at every
crossroads they came to. Hal Goshen had fallen. The army was being called out.
Every able-bodied man of the first and second property classes was to arm and
make his way to the Marshalling Yards on the Mithos River.

By the time Karnos
was mounted and riding to the Empirion, the streets were wide awake and teeming
as though it were festival time. Men shouted at him as they thronged the wide
avenue to the Amphion Quarter, many bearing shields and spears. He tugged his
black cloak about him and rode on with a practised look of remote authority on
his face, feeling as though he had just opened the gate on a fractious bull.