The Scarab Path (28 page)

Everyone else recognizes the risks
. Maybe that was it. Che
Maker never seemed to realize the danger she constantly put herself in. Watching
her progress through life was like witnessing a constant series of near-misses,
like seeing someone sleepwalk through a battle.

He shook
his head. Once more he had written,
The Collegium
ambassador is known to me
, but that begged the obvious question. He put
down the pen and rubbed his eyes, smudging ink across his cheek. He was willing
to bet that Marger would have completed his own report hours before, despite
having the added chore of reporting on Thalric.

There
was a scream from outside, so shrill with terror that Thalric leapt up
instantly, spilling everything from the desk. He went to the window, found it
too narrow to exit through. There was a lot of shouting from downstairs and
from across the square. The scream was repeated, like the desperate cry of a
man on the rack.
An attack! But on who?
He grabbed
up his sword, discarded the scabbard and bolted out of his room.

He ran
into a half-dressed Marger on the stairs, and with a common glance the two of
them made for the door. As they hit the cool night air they found Gram outside,
sword already drawn, the other hand held out with palm open towards the
building on the other side of the Place. There were people spilling out of it,
too, and Thalric spotted one of the Vekken already armoured, and glimpsed Che’s
Flykinden as well. Both of them held crossbows.

Oh, this could get messy
. Gram and the Fly began shouting
at each other, each demanding to know what the other had done. Without having
to look, Thalric knew that Vollen, with his sting ready, would have taken
station at one of the windows.

‘There!’
Marger snapped, and pointed. Thalric saw the body at the same time. Near the
larger arch, a man lay on his back, one hand upraised as if to ward something
off, the other arm flung over his eyes.

It was
Osgan.

Thalric’s
heart sank as he ran across, dropping to one knee beside the fallen man. There
was a lot of shouting going on, the pitch of tension rising and rising. ‘Get
them to shut up!’ he told Marger, who backed away to quieten things down.

Osgan
was shaking violently and he clung to the proffered arm as Thalric went to
touch his shoulder. His face was a mask of tears and he reeked of alcohol. He
kept pointing, though, and was trying to get some words out. Thalric followed
the trembling finger, and for a second felt a twitch of what Osgan must be
feeling. Then he cursed the man wearily and rounded on the escalating
confrontation behind him.

Che had
emerged now, bundled up in a grey Mothkinden cloak and calling for her own side
to back down. Thalric could sense that Gram was more than ready for a fight,
and even Marger had abandoned his easy manner and had drawn his sword.

‘Down!
Swords down! Back inside!’ Thalric bellowed, and for a moment he was neither
Rekef nor traitor, but Captain Thalric of the Imperial army shouting at a bunch
of recalcitrant soldiers. ‘We are not about to restart the war with the
Lowlands here in Khanaphes. There is no problem, there is no attack. Everyone
get back inside and go to sleep!’ Even as he shouted it he could hear his words
echoed by Che Maker ordering her people to do the same.

‘Accius,
listen to me,’ she was yelling. ‘Or Malius, whichever. Just … I will find out
what’s going on …Trallo, put that cursed crossbow down.’ An old Beetle had come
out, wearing a nightshirt and carrying a sword, until Che turned and swore at
him, telling him to get back inside and leave this to her. ‘This isn’t a
fight,’ she insisted. ‘Nothing’s happened.’

Not yet
, Thalric thought,
but it very
nearly did
.

‘That
man of yours is a liability,’ Marger remarked disgustedly.

‘Right
now we’re all liabilities,’ Thalric told him grimly. ‘I’ll deal with Osgan. You
get your men back inside.’

It
seemed to last for ever, this moment on the edge of violence. Then Marger
turned away, and Gram followed him with such a belligerent backwards stare that
Thalric guessed he must have scores to settle with the Lowlands, left over from
the war. The Vekken had already stamped back inside and Che was shepherding the
rest of her errant people out of sight.

Osgan
had crawled over to the pond and was splashing water on his face. In the sudden
quiet, Thalric could hear the ragged catch of his breathing.

‘You
bloody fool,’ he said, but quietly. Osgan rolled over onto his back. He looked
ill.

‘You
can’t know …’ he got out, ‘what I saw—’

‘I know
exactly what you saw,’ Thalric snapped, ‘and be grateful I understand enough
not to hand you over to Vollen and Gram,’ He glanced over at what had spooked
Osgan: just a statue. It was partly overgrown, hidden in greenery until now, and
depicted a Mantis-kinden standing with his clawed gauntlet on, the blade folded
back along the line of his arm.
And I do understand.
Tisamon could have modelled for it
.

The
release of tension left him feeling weak, shaking his head. He had no will left
to discipline Osgan. The whole business just seemed ridiculous. He sat down
heavily on one of the benches as Osgan eyed him cautiously.

‘I’m
sorry, Thalric. I’m sorry,’ he mumbled.

‘Oh,
shut up,’ Thalric said, without rancour.
We could have been
killing each other, over this
. He chuckled despite himself, resting his
head on one hand and staring into the water.

‘Midnight
manoeuvres for the Imperial army, is it?’

He
jumped up and turned to find Che standing not ten feet away, still clutching
that grey cloak about her. He snorted half a laugh before he could stop
himself.

‘Just an
… It’s not a problem.’

‘Is he
all right?’ She peered round him at the prone figure of Osgan.

‘He’s
fine. He’s drunk.’

‘Lucky
him.’ To his surprise one of her hands came up holding a clay jar from which
she took a swallow. ‘He’s more than drunk. What happened?’ She asked the
question without guile, not a Lowlander agent prying for information – just
Cheerwell Maker and Thalric caught up in another awkward situation.

‘He ran
into that statue over there, the Mantis one, and it gave him a bit of a
fright,’ Thalric explained. One harsh winter during the Twelve-year War, he had
crossed a frozen lake on foot, his armour weighing him down too much for
flight. He was reminded of that now: just pressing on carefully while waiting
for the ice to give way, for everything to fall apart.

‘Well, I
can understand that.’ She sat down with a whoosh of breath, raising the jar to
her lips again.

Everyone gets a drink tonight except me
, he thought.
Now is that fair?
‘I don’t suppose,’ he said, still
negotiating the ice, ‘there’s enough there for a swig?’

She gave
him a long look, and in his mind he heard the ominous creaking and cracking,
but then she passed it over. He knocked back a gulp, tasted harsh spirits, far
stronger than he had expected. He choked, forcing it down, then handed the jar
back wordlessly.

Che gave
a delighted shout. ‘You know, I always thought temperance was one of your lot’s
virtues. I don’t think I ever saw a drunk Wasp before.’

Osgan began
to protest about being called drunk, but he slurred the words so much he was
incomprehensible.

Thalric
felt himself smile. ‘Oh, bring three bottles of this gutrot to my room some
time, and I’ll show you one.’ He waited for the final crack, the sudden icy
cold, but she laughed out loud, the sound ringing around the Place of
Foreigners. What Marger and the rest must have thought, he had no idea.

‘I’m not
… not that drunk. I’m not that … that drunk,’ Osgan muttered, getting one elbow
on to a bench and dragging himself into a sitting position. ‘That … not that
drunk … but … but I saw –
it
,
him
…’ The words fell off into a choking sob.

Thalric
gave Che a look of exasperation but realized she was nodding. ‘Oh, the
Khanaphir are far too good at statues,’ she agreed. ‘I had enough of a fright
when I saw our door guards.’

Thalric
glanced across at the Collegium embassy, not understanding for a moment, then
reinterpreting the stone Moth-kinden there. ‘Of course,’ he added more quietly,
‘he is dead.’

‘Yes,’
Che echoed. ‘Yes, he is dead.’

‘I’m
sorry.’

‘Are you
really?’ And the ice began to give way, just as it had in the Commonweal.

‘You
forget, I knew him,’ Thalric said, in a tone that was quick and clipped.
Why do I care what she thinks I think about her dead Moth?
‘We went through that mad business in Jerez together. For that matter, I did my
best to stop him getting stabbed.’

She was
nodding, slowly. Another step taken and he hadn’t fallen yet. ‘I wasn’t there.
He wouldn’t take me with him.’

‘You …
wouldn’t have been able to change anything,’ he declared.

She
glared at him. ‘Would I not, then?’

He
turned away from her to look into the water again, his own expression looking
as distant as those of the statues themselves. ‘It’s just what one says, in
these situations, to spare people. To tell the truth there were things
happening that night that I will never understand.’

There
was a long pause, and he found her studying him, nodding slowly. ‘I believe
you,’ she said, almost too softly for him to catch. ‘I believe you, because I
understand it a little, now.’ He frowned at that and she shook her head,
casting around for another topic of conversation. ‘What’s your friend got
against Mantids?’

Osgan
gave a hollow laugh. ‘You can’t know. You weren’t there.’

Che
frowned at Thalric. ‘Where?’

Osgan
struggled further up onto the next bench, and lay back on it, gasping like a
dying fish.

‘He was
…’ It was not a pleasant tale, would seem even less pleasant to her. Thalric
pressed on regardless. ‘He was a guest of the Emperor during a celebration to
mark the anniversary of the coronation. There was a big blood-fighting match.
He had the honour of serving as the Emperor’s scribe for the evening. For the
Consortium it’s a real accolade.’

‘Oh, I
was doing well, back then. Well, well, well,’ Osgan interrupted. ‘I was flying
high.’

‘So what
happened?’ Che asked. ‘Did the Emperor—?’

‘Oh, the
Emperor nothing,’ Thalric said. He waited for Osgan to speak, then filled in
the silence. ‘It was because of your friend. I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard all
about it. Your friend the Mantis.’

‘Tisamon.’
Che breathed. The very name seemed to make the night more chill, and she
shivered under the cloak, leaning closer to him, anxious to hear the rest.

‘He was
fighting for the Emperor’s pleasure, but he got up into the stalls somehow. He
went … mad,’ Thalric said slowly. ‘Tisamon went mad, that’s what I heard. There
were guards that tried to stop him, but …’

‘You …
weren’t there,’ said Osgan clearly. ‘You can’t know. They tried to stop him.
They ran in from in front of the Emperor, and from all sides, and they flew
from across the pit. They tried … they had stings and spears and swords, and
they were trying to get between him and the Emperor, but he just … killed
them.’ His voice sounded raw, like an unhealed wound. ‘He killed them and he
killed them, and they didn’t have a chance. They were throwing themselves on to
his blade. They – so many – they were … so brave, all of them so brave. They
were dying for the Emperor, and the Mantis wouldn’t stop killing them. They
didn’t have a chance.’ He choked again, descending back into his misery. ‘So
brave,’ he got out one last time.

Che was
looking somewhere beyond Thalric now, while automatically passing the jar back
to him. ‘She never said,’ she murmured. ‘Tynisa would never say just how it
happened.’

Thalric
put a hand to her shoulder, without thinking.
All these
dead we have in common
. She covered it with her own, still peering into
her own mind. For a moment, lost in memory and in drink, she had forgotten who
he was.

‘And the
Emperor died, of course,’ said Thalric.
And from there come
all my woes
.

She
focused her gaze on him again, and instead of the anger he had expected there
was only puzzlement there. ‘What are you doing here, Thalric?’

‘Keeping
an eye on you.’ He said it before the Rekef in him could prevent it. ‘And you?’

‘Me? Oh,
I’m mastering the art of self-deception. The others, they’re here to study –
although I don’t expect you to believe a word of it. But I myself came here
looking for … something else.’ She gave a fragile smile. ‘Something that isn’t
here, that never was.’ No longer clutched so tight, the cloak had fallen open
as she leant closer. Beneath it he saw the thin shift she wore, and under that,
the swell of her breast. He felt a stab of arousal, absurdly inappropriate but
powerful, and made to remove his hand from the warmth of her shoulder. For a
second she held on to it, then let him reclaim it.

‘We are
such fools, aren’t we?’ she said. ‘Brawling in the streets.’

‘To the
great amusement of our hosts,’ he agreed.

‘Well,
Thalric, where does this leave us?’

‘I don’t
know,’ he said. ‘Are we enemies, here and now?’

She met
his gaze. ‘You made a slave of me.’

‘Che—’

‘You
would have had me raped. You would have tortured me – you
would
– don’t think I’ve forgotten.’

He had
gone cold. The ice had finally cracked and he had forgotten to be ready for it.
‘I won’t deny it.’

‘I
didn’t think you would. You’ve never been less than honest.’ She shrugged. ‘And
Uncle Sten thinks there’s even hope for the Vekken, so why not you? What are
you asking for, Thalric?’