The Darkness that Comes Before (85 page)

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Authors: R. Scott Bakker

BOOK: The Darkness that Comes Before
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“That way,” one man said, his Sheyic heavily accented, “across the dead canal.”
She understood why the canal was called “dead” before she even saw it. The humid air grew dank with the smell of rotting vegetation, offal, and stagnant water. Dwarfed by a band of Conriyan knights, she filed across a narrow wooden bridge. Below, the canal was black and motionless in the torchlight. One of the men leaned over the rail to watch his spit plop into the water; he grinned sheepishly at her.
“Yashari a’summa poro,”
he said, in Conriyan, perhaps.
Esmenet ignored him.
Unnerved more by the size than by the demeanour of the young noblemen, she struck off the main track, with its shadowy packs of carousers, and threaded her way into the deeper gloom. Most believed the greater stature of caste nobles was a consequence of greater blood, but Achamian had once told her it was more a matter of diet. That was why, he insisted, the Norsirai seemed tall regardless of caste: they ate more red meat. Usually she was attracted to statuesque men, to “muscle trees,” as she and her harlot friends had jokingly called them, but not this night, not after her encounter with the Tydonni, anyway. This night they made her feel small, diminished, like a toy—easily broken, easily discarded.
She was fairly skulking between tents by the time she found Xinemus’s pavilion. Cutting across silent camps, she had followed the dead canal north. She saw a bonfire and more revellers before her. While pondering how to best circumvent them, she glimpsed the standard of Attrempus hanging limp in the smoke and light: an elongated tower flanked by stylized lions.
For a time she could only stare at it. Though she could see nothing of those congregated beneath, she imagined Achamian sitting cross-legged on a mat, his face animated by drink and his famous mock disdain. Every so often he would draw his fingers through his grey-streaked beard—a meditative gesture, or a nervous one. She would step into the light, smiling her equally famous sly smile, and he’d drop his wine bowl in astonishment. She’d see his lips mouth her name, his eyes glitter with tears . . .
Alone, in the dark, Esmenet smiled.
It would feel so good to feel his beard tickle her ear, to smell his dry, cinnamon smell, to crush herself against his barrel chest . . .
To hear him speak her name.
“Esmi. Esmenet. Such an old-fashioned name.”
“From the Tusk. Esmenet was the wife of the Prophet Angeshraël.”
“Ah . . . a harlot’s name.”
She wiped her eyes. That he would rejoice at seeing her, she had no doubt. But he would not understand the time she’d spent with Sarcellus—especially once she told him of that night in Sumna and what it meant for Inrau. He would be cut, outraged even. He might even strike her.
But he would not turn her out. He would wait, as he always did, for the Mandate to call him away.
And he would forgive. As he always did.
She warred with her face.
So useless! Pathetic!
She combed her hair with her fingers, smoothed her hasas with sweaty palms. She cursed the darkness for preventing her from using her cosmetics. Were her eyes still swollen? Was that why those Conriyans had treated her so gently?
Pathetic!
She prowled along the bank of the canal, never pausing to think why she did so. Secrecy seemed crucial, for some reason. Darkness and cover essential. She glimpsed the bonfire through odd angles between tents, saw bright figures standing, drinking, laughing. A large pavilion stood between the festivities and the canal, flanked by a number of smaller tents—slaves’ quarters and the like, Esmenet imagined. Breathless, she crept behind a threadbare shelter immediately adjacent to the pavilion. She paused in the darkness, feeling like a misbegotten creature from some nursery tale, one who must hide from lethal light.
Then she dared peek around a corner.
Just more revellers around yet another golden fire.
She searched for Achamian but could see him nowhere. She realized the one, the stocky man dressed in a grey silk tunic with slashed sleeves, had to be Xinemus himself. He acted the host, barking commands to the slaves, and he looked a lot like Achamian, as though an older brother. Achamian had once complained that Proyas teased him for looking like Xinemus’s weaker twin.
So you’re his friend,
she thought, both watching and silently thanking him.
Most everyone around the fire was unknown to her, but the man whose corded arms were ribbed by scars, she realized, had to be the Scylvendi everyone was talking about. Did that mean the blond-bearded man, the one who sat next to the breathtaking Norsirai girl, was his companion? The Prince of Atrithau who claimed to dream of the Holy War? Esmenet wondered who else she might be watching. Was Prince Proyas himself among them?
She watched wide-eyed, a sense of awe squeezing the breath from her lungs. She stood, she realized, at the very heart of the Holy War, fiery with passion, promise, and sacred purpose. These men were more than human, they were
Kahiht,
World Souls, locked in the great wheel of great events. The thought of striding into their midst beckoned hot tears to her eyes. How could she? Awkwardly concealing the back of her hand, instantly branded for what she was by their far-seeing eyes . . .
What’s this? A
whore?
Here? You must be joking . . .
What had she been thinking? Even if Achamian had been here, she would only have shamed him.
Where are you?
“Everyone!” a tall, dark-haired man cried, causing Esmenet to jump. He sported a trim beard and a sumptuous robe with an intricate floral brocade. When the last voices trailed, he raised his bowl to the night sky.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “we march!”
His eyes shining with fervour, he continued, speaking of trials endured and nations conquered, of heathen struck down and iniquities set aright. Then he spoke of Holy Shimeh, the sacred heart of all places. “We war for ground,” he said, “but we do not war for dust or earth. We war for
the
ground. The ground of all our hopes, of all our convictions . . .” His voice cracked with passion.
“We war for
Shimeh
.”
A moment of silence passed, then Xinemus intoned the High Temple Prayer:
Sweet God of Gods,
who walk among us,
innumerable are your holy names.
May your bread silence our daily hunger,
may your rains quicken our undying land,
may our submission be answered with dominion,
so we may prosper in your name.
Judge us not according to our trespasses
but according to our temptations,
and deliver unto others
what others have delivered unto us,
for your name is Power,
and your name is Glory,
for your name is Truth,
which endures and endures,
for ever and ever.
 
“Glory to the God,” a dozen voices rumbled, resonating as though a temple congregation.
The sombre air lingered for a heartbeat, then the voices swelled once again. More toasts were raised. More steaming portions were cut from the spit. Esmenet watched, her breath tight, her blood slack in her veins. What she witnessed seemed impossibly beautiful. Bright. Bold. Regal. Even hallow. Part of her itched with the suspicion that if she called out and confronted them with the secret of her presence, they would all be whisked away, and she would be left standing before a cold firepit, mourning her impertinence.
This was the
world,
she realized.
Here.
Before her.
She watched the Prince of Atrithau speak into Xinemus’s ear, saw Xinemus smile then gesture in her direction. They began walking toward her. She shrank into the blackness behind the small tent, huddled as though cold. She glimpsed their shadows, side by side, ghostlike across the packed earth and grasses, then the two men passed her, following a wavering lane of light toward the stagnant canal. She held her breath.
“There’s always,” the tall Prince remarked, “such peace in the darkness beyond a fire.”
The two men halted at the edge of the canal, hiked their tunics, then fumbled with their loincloths. Soon two arcs were gurgling across the filmy surface.
“Hmm,” Xinemus said. “The water’s warm.” Even terrified, Esmenet rolled her eyes, smiled.
“And deep,” the Prince replied.
Xinemus cackled in a manner at once wicked and endearing. After securing himself, he slapped the other man on the back. “I’m going to use that,” he said merrily, “the next time I piss back here with Akka. If I know him, he’ll damn near fall in.”
“You’ll have a rope to throw him at least,” the taller man replied.
More laughter, at once hale and warm. A friendship, Esmenet realized, had just been sealed.
She caught her breath as they retraced their path. The Prince of Atrithau, it seemed, stared directly at her.
But if he saw anything, he did not betray it. The two men rejoined the others by the fire.
Her heart pounding, her soul buzzing with recriminations, she crept around the far side of the pavilion to a vantage where she need not fear discovery by pissing men. She leaned up against the stump of some kind of tree, crooked her head against her shoulder, and closed her eyes, letting the voices about the nearby fire carry her away.
“You gave me a fright there, Scylvendi. I thought for sure . . .”
“Serwë, is it? Ah, I should’ve known the beauty of the name would . . .”
They seemed good people, Esmenet thought, the kind of people Akka would prize as friends. There was . . .
room
between these people, she decided. Room to fail. Room to hurt.
Alone in the darkness, she suddenly felt safe, as she had with Sarcellus. These were Achamian’s friends, and though she did not exist for them, somehow they would keep her safe. A sense of drowsiness embalmed her. The voices lilted and rumbled, shining with honest good cheer.
Just a snooze,
she thought. Then she heard someone mention Akka’s name.
“. . . so Conphas
himself
came for Achamian? Conphas?”
“He was none too pleased. Smarmy bastard.”
“But why would the Emperor want Achamian?”
“You actually sound worried about him.”
“About who? The Emperor or Achamian?”
But this fragment was submerged by the tide of other voices. Esmenet felt herself drift.
She dreamed the stump she slept against was a whole tree but dead, stripped of leaves, twigs, bark, and branches, its trunk a phallic shaft ringed by winding limbs that hissed through the wind like switches. She dreamed that she could not awaken, that somehow the tree had rooted her to the suffocating earth.
Esmi . . .
She stirred. Felt something tickle her cheek.
“Esmi.”
A warm voice. A familiar voice.
“Esmi, what are you doing?”
Her eyes fluttered open. For an instant, she was too horrified to scream.
Then his hand was over her mouth.
“Shhhhh,” Sarcellus admonished. “This might be hard to explain,” he added, nodding in the direction of Xinemus’s campfire.
Or what was left of it. Only a few small licks of flame remained. With the exception of a lone figure curled across mats near the fire, everyone was gone. A pall had unfolded across the distances, as cool and as barren as the night sky.
Esmenet sucked air through her nose. Sarcellus removed his hand, then pulled her to her feet so he could draw her behind the pavilion. It was dark.
“You followed me?” she asked, pulling her forearm from his clasp. She was still too disoriented for anger.
“I awoke, and you were gone. I knew I’d find you here.”
She swallowed. Her hands felt light, as though they were preparing of their own volition to shield her face. “I’m not going back with you, Sarcellus.”
Something Esmenet could not decipher flashed in his eyes. Triumph? Then he shrugged. The ease of the gesture terrified her.
“That’s good,” he said absently. “I’ve had my fill of you, Esmi.”
She stared at him. Tears traced hot lines across her cheeks. Why was she crying? She didn’t love him . . . Did she?
But
he
had loved her. Of this she was certain . . . Wasn’t she?
He nodded in the direction of the abandoned camp. “Go to him. I no longer care.”
She felt desperation cramp the back of her throat. What could have happened? Perhaps Gotian had at last commanded him to turn her out. Knight-Commanders, Sarcellus had once told her, were largely forgiven indulgences such as she. But surely keeping a whore in the midst of a Holy War had caused tongues to wag. She had certainly endured enough lurid glares and crude laughs. His subordinates and peers alike knew what she was. And if she’d learned anything about the world of caste nobles, it was that rank and prestige could carry a man only so far.

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