In the Earth Abides the Flame (29 page)

When Leith could endure the silence no longer, he asked: 'Have you had breakfast?'

'No - well, yes,' she said. 'At least, I ate some bread. But not the fruit. I hate fruit.'

'Do you?' he said. 'I've eaten all mine. Do you want my bread? I haven't eaten any of my bread.'

'Thank you,' she said, and for a time there was silence again as Stella chewed on the crusty bread. I can't believe this, Leith thought. Possibly the last morning of my life, and I'm consumed with anxiety about what 1 am going to say to Stella. Was there ever a bigger fool?

'Do you think we will get out of this?' she asked him. 'After everything we've been through together, this seems an awful way for things to finish.'

'I hope they let us go,' he said to her. 'There are a few people back in Loulea I wish could hear our story.'

'All the people that mean anything to me are here in this room,' she said to him. Her face wore that strange expression again. She seemed to be wanting him to understand something.

Leith shrugged. 'The Company has been through a great deal,' he said. 'I can't imagine it is all going to end here. There is still so much to do.'

'That's what you said on the night of die Collocation,' she said. 'I've never heard you speak like that. Except perhaps that night we spent together on the ice. Remember that night?'

Leith grimaced and shook his head. 'I don't know what came over me,' he said.

Stella bit her lip. 'Whatever it was, I liked it. So strong, so courageous.'

Oh. Leith acted as though he hadn't heard. No, that wasn't me, I'm hearing voices. But he could not say the words, not to a girl whose drunken brother heard voices even while sober.

He couldn't speak, and sat there dumbly as the moment passed. Her face closed up, a knife in his chest.

'Did you really have a dream that night in the basement?' he asked her suddenly.

'Yes,' she whispered, and he could see in her eyes that she told the truth, and the truth meant a great deal to her. Whatever happened to her that night had affected her powerfully.

'Yes,' she repeated. 'It was more than a dream. I was really there, really hearing them. I know they said what I heard.'

'Really where? What was said? Who said it?'

So, shyly at first, she told him about her vision. And as she spoke she clearly relived it, Leith could tell: every word, every nuance, as though the dream had taken up residence inside her head. Leith could feel the power of it, and could imagine how it must have worked on her.

Tears formed in her eyes, and in his; and she saw them and knew he was not as hard, as closed as he seemed.

'I've not been honest with you,' she said. 'Deep down I do miss my home, and my parents, and everyone, even Druin. I don't want to miss them, but I do. Perhaps all the more since I learned how to love on our journey.'

She means Wira, Leith thought, and his chest tightened. Her face seemed to be telling him something else, willing him to hear die words she could not say.

'I also had a dream,' he said, pushing through his hurt. 'Would it be all right - I mean, would you mind - if I told you about it?'

The Haufuth glanced over to where Leith and Stella sat, engaged in animated conversation.

'Good to see them talking,' he said.

'Mmmm,' Kurr replied, swallowing the last of his bread. 'About time. They've avoided each other ever since this started.'

'You were young once. Don't you remember what it was like?'

'No,' the old farmer said sadly. 'I spent most of my youth trying to survive in Sivithar.'

'They're sharing the secrets of their hearts,' Phemanderac said. 'There is danger in such talk.

Sharing intimacy builds intimacy.'

'They're young. What's wrong with that?' the Haufuth wanted to know.

'We need as few complications as possible on a journey like this one,' came his reply.

'Then we certainly could have done without Escaigne,' Kurr observed wryly.

Leith told Stella of his dream and what it meant to him, and did not attempt to keep the feeling out of his voice as he spoke. For a time he forgot about the girl at his side, as he saw again the solidity of the vision he had been given.

She heard the words and saw the dream with him, but most importantly felt the passion; and she knew beyond doubt he was capable of deep feelings, of giving and receiving love.

'Leith,' she said, and her use of his name thrilled him to the bone. 'I want to tell you something.' She pushed her hair back from her temple in the way she always did, and to the boy from Loulea she appeared altogether lovely.

He looked into her eyes, her deep dark eyes. He knew what she was about to say.

He held his breath.

At that moment the door opened with a stunning crash, and people armed with swords burst into the room.

'So you believe you will be executed tonight?' cried the younger of their two guards. 'I heard your talk, you know. Your reckoning is wrong. Did you idiots think you could outwit the Watchers? We heard what passes for your plans. They caused much mirth in Escaigne. We prepare to once again outwit the Instruian Guard. Did you think we would be distracted by a group of people such as you?'

The Company sat speechless.

'The tide comes in twice a day,' the young man continued, no longer concealing the smile.

'Did you forget that? It comes in this evening, yes, but it also comes in this morning. This evening would have been better, but this morning will do. Now stand and follow me. You have an appointment with the river.'

Other men strode into the room, a dozen or more filling all the available space. Their faces swam in front of Leith's eyes. He seemed to have lost the strength in his legs. His eyes sought Stella's, desperate to explore the unspoken bond between them, but she had already been hauled to her feet and was being shepherded towards the door. Ashamed of his weakness, he allowed himself to be unfettered, then hauled himself up by sheer willpower and forced his overwhelmed and unwilling body to follow the others.

Out into the main room they went, where they were divided into small groups by their captors. The Escaignians appeared agitated, anxious and in a hurry. Those at the rear, including Leith, Kurr and the Haufuth, were roughly handled as a consequence. Ahead, a frustrated guard pushed Hal against a wall. As Leith watched, the guard rammed a fist into his brother's stomach. Hal stifled a cry, but Leith did not. He tried to go to Hal's aid, but was prevented by the guards keeping watch over him. To his relief Stella threw herself at the bully, clutching at his arm. Leith lost sight of her for a moment, then caught a glimpse of her and Hal being taken through a door. He saw nothing of the others.

'They've divided us up,' Kurr growled. 'I didn't expect that.'

The Haufuth had the answer. 'They need to get us through Instruere undetected.'

'There's more to it than that,' argued the old farmer. 'Escaigne is under some sort of pressure.

This is Chance Three: they have been betrayed. Look! These people carry their possessions with them. Over there, see that family? And there!'

'Escaigne is being evacuated,' the Haufuth agreed.

Through the door they were herded, and Escaigne closed behind them. Ahead, the rest of the Company had already disappeared out into the city, but the last three members of the Company did not immediately follow them. The seconds lengthened into minutes, and still they waited. Finally their guards were given the signal they sought, and Leith and the others were taken out into the daylight.

The morning was heavily overcast with a strong sea breeze driving in a thick drizzle, but the light was sufficient to pain their eyes after the days in Escaigne. Heavy cloaks would have afforded them more comfort, but since the night of the Collocation the Company retained only the clothes they wore. Not only their weapons but their spare clothes, their money and all their other possessions were gone. Even Wisent the aurochs was beyond their reach.

The city seemed on edge this grim morning. A few people -far fewer than one would expect on any normal morning in the city - scurried this way and that, not risking prolonged exposure to the rain. Or maybe to the eyes that might be out on the street. There was no sign of the other members of the Company, and the old farmer began to suspect they were being taken to the Water Chamber by different routes in order to avoid detection. Neither could Kurr see any evidence of the Instruian Guard. Perhaps Escaigne had taken alarm unnecessarily, and there had been no betrayal after all.

The Arkhos of Nemohaim fumed with rage. Anyone with sense kept away from him. Servants with the misfortune to be summoned by the Arkhos performed their duties quickly and silently, each praying his or her performance would satisfy. Even Deorc, the Keeper of Andratan, was impressed by the sheer extravagance of the Falthan's towering anger.

Fortunately for everyone concerned Deorc did not discern he was the subject of the Arkhos's rage. In this, the blackest of moods, when the dark voices took him and rationality faded into the background, the Arkhos was unable to muster up enough control to express his thoughts.

The overrated, meddling fool! The spies he set the previous evening told him Escaigne had been alerted, so he had prepared his plans, arranged his men and issued his orders, yet Deorc frustrated him at every turn, countermanded his orders, confused his men, tried his patience.

Then when reports flooded in, all with the same message - the Escaignians were coming out into the city - the Arkhos sought to regain the upper hand in this contest of wills by delaying his strike. He sent no signal to his forces. No attempt was made to capture the Escaignians, to cut them off, or even to follow them. 'Let them go a while longer,' he said, taking a gamble, a risk calculated to impress upon the Bhrudwan his coolness under pressure. 'Let all the rats emerge from their holes before we pounce. They will walk into our traps. Have patience,' he assured the impatient Deorc. But they had not walked into the traps. With synchronised suddenness the various groups of Escaignians around the city, all under observation at a distance by the Instruian Guard, simply disappeared.

'My master will hear about this,' Deorc gloated. 'If you cannot redeem this situation quickly,'

the Keeper of Andratan told him, 'it may be me who replaces you. It may be me who extinguishes you.'

The Arkhos put a brave face on it, but he had been seriously compromised by the day's events. It galled him to have been so publicly humiliated. He knew that unless the situation was recovered quickly and spectacularly his life would be miserable or short, or most likely both. But what rankled most was he had been showing off in front of this poseur, this dandy.

Of course he should have ordered the attack earlier, but by delaying it as long as possible he had hoped to dazzle the Bhrudwan. It was Deorc's fault. He, not the Arkhos, should be made to pay for this. And deep in the back of his mind die suspicion began to form that the thin, foppish man had outwitted him. After all, the Keeper of Andratan had made the long journey from his castle in order to place his own man, Asgowan, at the head of the Falthan Council.

He had underestimated this man's capacity for politics.

As the two great men contended in thought, their captains willed them simply to make a decision. Every moment they delayed afforded the Escaignians longer to make good their escape, and the guard fretted with anxiety, failing to understand the circumstances that paralysed them. In two instances local captains took matters into their own hands and captured a number of Escaignians, though the leaders eluded them. The other, more disciplined captains saw little or no action that morning.

The Escaignians had not been caught without a plan. It had been obvious to their leaders ever since the initial establishment of the rebel enclave that their existence depended entirely upon secrecy, and at some stage in their history they would be discovered or betrayed. So huge resources and effort were expended in preparing a parallel Escaigne, places of refuge in Instruere that not even the ordinary citizens of Escaigne knew about. Some were in the upper floors of tall tenement buildings, others in forgotten corners of warehouses, still others under the city in discarded sewers or old hiding places, legacies of the Bhrudwan occupation. As soon as news of their betrayal came to the Escaignian Eldership the long-laid plan was put into action. Provisions and possessions were transferred to the new hideaways, and gradually people were also moved. Though aware of the watch maintained by the Instruian Guard, they trusted their skills, long in the developing, in avoiding detection. Even with all of this, much work had still to be done when the guard moved in early on this bleak morning, catching Escaigne underprepared. For a time their situation was desperate, but for some unfathomable reason the guard did not press home their advantage and they were able to complete the move to the new Escaigne right under the noses of their enemies. For a while this would be seen as a triumph, but in reality their time was short. The days of Escaigne were numbered, as the Elders well understood. The most important secret, the concealment of Escaigne within Instruere, was now a known fact. Soon the guard would be assigned the task of searching every corner of every building in the vast city. It was time for Escaigne to take the offensive.

And that was according to plan.

Leith kept his mind from thinking very far ahead, concentrating instead on what happened around him. For a time he wondered how the Escaignians were going to get them through the walls of Instruere. After all, the sole gate to the Docks, where this Water Chamber waited for them, would undoubtedly be heavily guarded. Had he been feeling more himself he might have laughed at the coincidence which saw them use the same small gate he himself had used to get the Company into Instruere. If Kurr or the Haufuth remembered the gate they made no sign.

The guards led them around the wall for at least half an hour. Here, outside the city to the west, the air was markedly colder and the chilly grey rain pinned them to the dark wall.

Eventually they came to a series of low buildings, where their Escaignian guards sought and found a small door in the side of an iron-clad shed. This in turn led to a narrow corridor between the buildings and the wall, barely wide enough for the Haufuth. It certainly would have been too narrow for the Loulean village headman as he had been before all this began.