The City (30 page)

‘We all choose what to believe,’ she commented. ‘When I returned to the City I was told you had been executed. It was said you were plotting with the Gaeta pretender. I forget his name now. He had a brief run of glory before being caught and butchered. Others said the Immortal was taking his revenge on you for the trial of the hostages.’

Bart frowned. That had not occurred to him. ‘But that was so long ago. More than twenty years.’

‘Twenty-seven,’ she corrected him briskly. ‘Who knows what goes on in his mind? We know he has a long memory for slights.’

‘Then he would have more likely blamed you.’

She said haughtily, ‘He does not dare. Marcellus is perhaps the only one he still fears.’ She shook her head. ‘He would not dare move against me.’

‘Marcellus is loyal?’

‘Scrupulously.’

Bart sat back and sipped his wine. He glanced out of the small window and saw that the sun had set and night was gathering round the house.

‘It is getting dark,’ he said.

‘Then I will have to rely on my warriors to get me safely home.’

He remembered the long-ago day in the sewers, and the obnoxious red-haired woman in the Hall of Watchers. ‘Is Indaro still one of those warriors?’

Irritably, Archange replied, ‘No. Thanks to you, I lost Indaro shortly after our last meeting. You shamed her into returning to the army. She re-joined the Maritime. She is almost certainly dead now.’

The total obliteration of the Maritime army was something Bartellus still found hard to comprehend. ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘How did the Blues destroy an entire army?’

She shook her head. ‘I know nothing of military matters.’

‘And …’ For a moment he could not remember the name. Yes, of course. Astinor. ‘Astinor Redfall? What became of him?’

‘The man who betrayed you. Astinor died five years ago. Of a cancer of the belly. It was a long, hard death. He had little time to enjoy the fruits of his treachery.’ She gazed at Bartellus. ‘Does that give you satisfaction?’

He shook his head. It didn’t. They sat in silence for a while. Then he asked, ‘Why did you come here, Archange? You could have easily sent me a message, considering how little information you have given me.’

‘I did not come here to give you information,’ she said tartly. ‘A scrap of paper crosses the City much more easily than I do.’

He waited, and eventually she said, ‘When we met last, you asked me about a brand you found on a tattooed corpse. Did you ever discover its significance?’

He was surprised and wondered that she should remember that after so long. He shook his head, ‘No, but only today I came across the meaning of some of his tattoos. That was why I was looking at that book.’ He thought of Fell and the fact that he bore a brand too, but decided not to mention it. ‘I could follow the soldier’s career, in part, from the pictures on his body. Anyone with access to army records might be able to find out who he was.’

She appeared be half listening. Absently, she said, ‘Tell me.’

‘He served with the Twenty-fourth Vincerii, and the Emperor’s Rangers when they called themselves the Lepers. Now, that was for a very short time about eighteen years ago, when I was serving at the Salient.’ She nodded. ‘And,’ Bartellus added, ‘he had fought at the Second Battle of Edyw.’

She nodded. ‘The survivors from that are a small, select company. Quite easy to trace, I’d have thought.’

A peevish part of him felt like saying, I thought you weren’t interested in military matters? but instead he told her, ‘Of course, it does not mean he fought on our side. We don’t know how many Blues still walk around bearing that tattoo.’

‘You think your dead man could have been an enemy?’

He watched her face as he answered, ‘He also bore on his back the symbol of the royal bodyguard of Odrysia. Under Matthus.’

‘An intriguing corpse indeed,’ she commented drily.

There was a long silence, and Bartellus watched the woman. She seemed to be thinking, staring sightlessly at one of the lamps. He wondered again how old she was. How much he could trust what she said. Could he trust her at all? He looked away, out at the darkness resting against the window pane. This meeting felt like a conspiracy, but what poor conspirators they were, two old folk, both with failing memories.

At last Archange said, in an apparent change of subject, ‘Indaro’s name was Indaro Kerr Guillaume.’

Bartellus had a sudden image of a slender, ascetic man, with dark, hooded eyes, staring at him across a dinner table, subdued anger, then a sudden burst of laughter.

‘I knew her father,’ he said. ‘Does he still live?’

‘I believe so.’

He shook his head. ‘That is a miracle. They bear the name of two Families, twice the threat to the emperor.’

‘The Immortal valued his advice. Still does, perhaps,’ she said. ‘And Indaro was just a common soldier. And a woman. Twice
un
threatening. There was also a son, who disappeared.’ She looked at him. ‘That was why Indaro was in the Halls. She was seeking her brother.’

‘Tell me about the Hall of Watchers.’

Her hand went to the silver at her neck. The hand was brown and wrinkled and looked as if it had been dried in the sun. ‘It was as you guessed. It was a lifeline for young women who did not want to fight in the war. And did not want to get pregnant to avoid it. A way station before I could smuggle them away to safety. You disapproved, at the time, I remember,’ she added pointedly, flicking her gaze to Emly, who was watching them both, drinking in their words.

He was not going to defend himself. ‘I changed my mind,’ he said simply. ‘What happened to them?’

‘They went mostly to non-aligned lands, and sometimes to our enemies.’

‘I read a book recently, it was hundreds of years old, but it spoke of wraiths living in the sewers of the City.’

She frowned. ‘I saw no wraiths or ghosts or spirits.’

‘Does that work still go on in the Hall of Watchers?’

She shook her head. ‘It is under many feet of water now. The Great Storm wrought untold damage to the sewers. I’m told,’ and she
shrugged as if to take no responsibility for the news, ‘that one of the engines that filters the water was destroyed.’

‘The Eating Gate?’

She looked at him blankly, clearly not remembering their previous conversation. ‘Possibly. I only know what I was told. Debris, pieces of houses, tree branches, corpses, were swept further down into the sewers, breaking existing dams and creating new ones elsewhere. The geography of the Halls is completely changed. Where once it was dry it is now underwater. And some tunnels which were raging torrents are now dry. I am told. I have not been there for years. And it changes all the time. It is unstable. It was once a dangerous place to be. Now it is deadly. And,’ she added, ‘the water level is rising throughout the City. Many levels below the Red Palace, in the ruins of palaces long forgotten, the water rises daily.’

Then she offered: ‘The Hall of Watchers was under the Keep.’

‘How did you get to it?’

But she looked out into the night. ‘I must be gone,’ she said. She struggled to get up, impatiently waving away Bart’s proffered hand, leaning on the arms of the chair. When standing she gazed at Em. Archange asked, ‘Did you know your father was a great general, child?’

Em, eyes huge, shook her head.

‘Did you know he is not your father?’

Bartellus felt dread clutch his stomach, for it was something they had never discussed and he had no idea how much Em remembered.

But Emly nodded her head calmly.

‘And do you remember your brother?’

Another nod.

‘You don’t say much, do you?’

The girl lowered her eyes.

‘She has got out of the habit of talking,’ Bartellus said.

Archange looked at him and her face was grave. ‘I will make you the same offer I made eight years ago. Give the girl to me. I will see she is safe. She will be educated, well treated. She may even, after a while, somewhere, take up glass-making again. Can you do any of that for her?’

Bart glanced at Emly, who was watching them both warily. He said, ‘I will give you the same answer I gave then. I will leave that up to Emly.’

The woman replied, ‘Your danger now is greater than it was then. Then you merely faced death by drowning. Now you face imprisonment and torture, both of you.’

A bolt of fear shot through Bart’s chest, but he nodded calmly, ‘I will think on it, Archange. Truly. Thank you. How can I contact you?’

She thought. ‘You cannot. But I will find you.’

He asked, ‘One more thing. Was it you who freed me from the dungeons?’

He thought she was going to give one of her annoying elliptical replies, but she said, ‘Yes. Not personally. But it was one of my women.’

‘Thank you. You must have thought I was mad when I did not know you in the Halls.’

She reached out and patted his hand. ‘No. I saw a man grievously wounded. I am glad you are healing. Be safe. Get away from here.’

He opened the door and stepped out into the side alley, looking both ways. He could see no one. Then she stepped out with him, and he saw a shadow, two shadows, detach themselves from a wall further up. She gave Bart one last glance then hurried away. He watched as the three turned into Blue Duck Alley. He went back in and closed the door, locking it. Em was watching him.

‘Who is she?’ she whispered.

She had been born into the nobility, Bartellus told Emly. Into the great imperial Family of Vincerus. She was sister to Marcellus and Rafael, considerably older than the brothers. But, or at least this was how the story was told, when their father died Archange became completely dependent on the boys, then just children, and she a woman of mature years and independent nature.

She was a great beauty, Bartellus explained, with many suitors among the rich and powerful, and among those seeking to be rich and powerful. Yet she chose to marry a soldier: not a common soldier, but a foreigner many years younger than herself. The marriage did not please the two boys who controlled Archange’s life, and they opposed the liaison and shortly afterwards the young foreign soldier disappeared, killed, paid off, fled – no one knew.

Archange then vanished from the pages of the City’s history. When she reappeared many years later it seemed she was still determined to embarrass the Vincerii. She chose to call herself an advocate,
interpreting the City’s labyrinthine and frequently contradictory laws before the emperor’s counsellors on behalf of supplicants. This was clearly no suitable task for a woman, and the Vincerii, it is said, tried to dissuade her with promises and with threats, but she had already gained the permission of the emperor, who clearly had his own agenda, and Marcellus and Rafe had no means to rein in their sister.

At first Archange was outstandingly unsuccessful as an advocate. She represented mainly women left destitute by the death of a father or husband or elder brother, falling calamitously from a life of ease to one of hardship and shame. Archange tried to wrestle the City’s serpentine laws into a shape which benefited them. And mostly she failed. But after a while she had some small success, and her causes became, for a while, fashionable.

Then Archange overstepped herself. She agreed to speak at a criminal trial, a sensational one, one which Bartellus could never forget, a trial which the woman won, in a way. Afterwards she disappeared for a second time, and eventually the uncaring world forgot her name again.

‘You can pack one bag,’ he told Emly. ‘We will leave at dawn.’

Then he frowned, remembering their servant. ‘Where is Frayling?’

EMLY WAS PACKING
her bag in her tiny candlelit bedroom. She folded into it her two spare dresses, and added stout winter shoes, thick stockings and drawers. There was also her warm coat, but she would wear that, for it would be cold at dawn. Into the cloth bag she threw a handful of the cheap jewellery she had bought at market stalls, wooden bangles and beads of painted clay. She took a deep breath and tried to be practical. What would they need? Then she went downstairs to the kitchen and found candles and soap.

Trudging back up to her bedroom she realized tears were running down her cheeks. She hurried into her room and closed the door. She did not want Bartellus to see her crying.

She lay on her bed in her old brown dress and stared at the ceiling. There was no chance of sleeping, so she would lie there until dawn. She wondered where they would sleep tomorrow. Her mind was full of the words she had heard, and she sorted through them, trying to make sense of them.

Despite what her father thought, she had no regrets about leaving the House of Glass. She had allowed herself to become happy, but deep down she had known that happiness would be short-lived. Her life had been a story of flight, and she was grateful for their four years there. The most important thing, the only important thing, was to keep Bartellus safe. Although the old woman Archange had called him Shuskara. Was that his real name?

She got off the bed and went upstairs, paying a last visit to her workroom, to see if anything there might be useful on their flight. She picked up the heavy pliers used to cut the calms, and a narrow scalpel for slicing paper. Both could be used as weapons, she thought. She wandered over to the north window, opening it and peering down to the alley. Below was a pit of darkness. No one moved. She heard distant sounds, muffled laughter, the hoot of an owl, the rumble of carts. She remembered it was the middle of the night, for Archange’s visit had kept her up far beyond her normal bedtime and most of Lindo would be fast asleep.

The only lights were further up the alley, where a few low windows shone on to the cobbles. Early shift workers, she thought, or whores. Then in the distance he saw a shadowed figure appear briefly in a patch of light, then vanish again into darkness. Her heart beat faster and she watched as the figure appeared again in the next light, and before it vanished again she saw it was a man with a crutch, coming slowly towards the House of Glass. There was a long gap before the next light, and Em waited impatiently. Finally the figure crept into view and then there was no doubt, for he stopped and leaned against the wall as though he could go no further, beaten and bowed.