The Margrave (15 page)

“Of course I can speak.”

“God help us, boy, you’ve gone all day without a word! Two days, come to that. I thought you were weak in the head.” He glanced ruefully at the hard bread and onions and then laughed. “Well, you’d better eat too.”

Raffi tore the bread and sucked it; it was too dry to bite. The onions made his eyes water.

“So why the dumb act?” The one-armed man considered him.

“It’s not an act.”

“No. You look sick, lad. Feverish.” He backed off hastily. “Not catching, is it?”

Raffi drank some water clumsily. His hands were so sore; the pain had come out of nowhere, into his back and shoulders, and to hide from it he said, “Where are we? Are we prisoners?”

The man roared with laughter, showing broken yellow teeth. “Flainsthumb, son! You
are
an idiot.” But then he stopped abruptly and said, “This is the Wall we’re building. This is Cato’s Cleft, in the Sarno hills, three leagues from Maar, and they’ve had fourteen men crushed here in the last week in rock-falls. Our chances don’t look good.”

“Maar?” Raffi whispered. “Did you say Maar?”

“Sure. Just up the road.”

It was a syllable of horror. He didn’t know why. Like a touch on a raw wound, his mind flinched away from it.

The man was watching him carefully. “You’ve had some bang on the head, haven’t you? What do they call you?”

“Raffi.” He looked up suddenly. “Do the Watch know my name? Did I tell them?”

“You told them some name. Is it important?”

“I don’t know.” Raffi looked around, utterly confused. They were in a small wooden hut, the door chained and bolted. It was crammed with prisoners, men and women. Most were asleep, others huddled together open-eyed. They were all filthy. So, he realized, was he. His hair was matted with mud; as he scratched, things crawled in it.

“Look . . .”

“Silas.”

“Look, Silas, something’s happened to me. I’ve been ill. For days . . . I think . . . perhaps days . . .”

“Take it easy.” The man edged closer. “Keep your voice down and tell me quietly. Anyone in here could be a spy.”

Knees up, Raffi struggled to think. It was getting harder again. “Including you,” he said slowly.

“Sure, son.” The man rubbed his stump; it ended in a filthy dressing at the elbow. “Sure I could. And so could you. But if you want to talk, I’ll listen. If not, get some sleep. You need it. Tomorrow’s a long day.”

“It’s just . . . I get lost . . . my mind drifts. I was on some sort of journey.” He shivered, putting his forehead on his knees. “Galen would know, but . . .”

“Galen?” the man asked quickly.

Raffi shook his head.

“Who’s Galen?” Silas leaned nearer. He stank of onions and sweat.

“I can’t remember. It’s just, if I start saying things . . . the Watch . . .”

“Then keep shut. Like you did today. Say nothing.”

“But if I do, will you warn me? If I tell them?” He was so giddy, he couldn’t sit up anymore, and had to lie on the damp floor, struggling through weariness for the words. “If I tell them things. Do you understand?”

“Things?”

“Secrets.” His voice trailed off; his eyes closed.

Silas bent and whispered in his ear, “Whose secrets, Raffi?”

Raffi turned sleepily. When he answered, his voice was barely there. “The Order’s.”

Silas stared down at him a long time, and then nodded. “Sure,” he muttered. “Sure. I understand.”

THEY WORKED FROM DAYBREAK until dark. Cato’s Cleft was a fearsome place. The Wall had to cross it, a sheer ravine of loose scree where the streambed had been hastily diverted and the rock-falls made the task of raising the highest levels dangerous. It was hard labor: hauling rock or carrying it in great baskets, up the hills of rubble, tipping it into the infill of the Wall, the dust choking them, filling their eyes. There was little water, less food. For three days Raffi worked almost without thinking, the rare moments of clarity flecking his bruised mind like shafts of sunlight in a dark wood. He kept silent as much as possible. Slowly, he forced himself to remember that he was a prisoner of the Watch, that this was the Wall, that there was someone called Galen and someone else called Carys who didn’t know where he was. There was some great unhappiness just behind him; he became convinced it was following him like a shadow, a nightmare that would devour him if he even let himself think of it. Only at night would the knowledge wake him out of terrified dreams; a distorted creature watching him from a maze of mirrors, but when he woke and sat shivering and rocking himself among the sleeping slaves, he could never remember what the terror had been or whose long, strange hand had gripped his.

Silas stayed close. The scrawny man worked stripped to the waist, a makeshift scarf wound around head and mouth and nose. He made one for Raffi too, and though it was hot and smelled of horses, Raffi was glad to wear it, because it made him feel disguised, hidden, and his tangled hair and ragged shirt were unrecognizable too. Silas was a survivor; he quipped with the guards, stole water, kept them off the dangerous jobs.

“I’m looking out for you, boy,” he would mutter, hauling a basket of broken stone one-handed onto the barrow. “Your head’s getting better. You even remembered my name this morning.”

Once, when the terrible blankness had gone for a moment, Raffi asked him about his hand.

Silas spat. “You’ve guessed, or you should have. Cut off for theft. I was lucky not to lose both.”

“You!” A Watchman came up; Raffi ducked his head instantly, his heart thudding. “Silas! You and your idiot friend up on the top, now. They need a few extra hands.”

“Sure,” Silas said drily. “So do I.” He pushed Raffi toward the ladders. “Go on, lad. It’s a chance to get out of the dust, at least.”

Scaling the ladder, Raffi felt the dizziness creep back, had the feeling he was climbing and climbing into some great castle, but as he hauled himself wearily over the edge, a roaring wind struck him and he staggered up, balanced on the half-built top of the mighty Wall. Out there, like a nightmare, stretched the Unfinished Lands.

Here, they were stark and empty. A great desert of hot sand, in places vitrified by some intense heat, with oily black pools that bubbled and spat and stank. Not far off was a structure that might once have been a house. Now it was a ruin in the sand, half lost, its cracked roof glinting with tiny rainbows.

“God!” Silas gripped Raffi’s shoulder, staring out into the raging wind. “So that’s what we’re keeping out,” he yelled. “No wonder the Makers left!”

Small flies buzzed up here, clouds of them. Raffi beat them off feverishly. “Makers?” he whispered. And instantly, the light went on in his brain. He gasped, clutching his head in agony. It was a small red light, and it pulsed right through him. For a second, all around him, a net of sense-lines woke and crackled.

“Raffi. Get up!” Silas was hauling at him.

“I can feel it,” he gasped. “It’s the signal!”

“Signal?”

“It must be Carys! The relic!” It was all flooding back. The relic power lit his mind like a Maker-lamp in a dark room; it energized him. He remembered everything. He grabbed the man’s arm. “She must be close. Somewhere near!”

Silas looked around. Two Watchmen were closing in. “For God’s sake, Raffi . . .”

It was too late. A crossbow jabbed Raffi’s ribs. “All right, what’s going on? Get on your feet.”

He was hauled up; a whip flicked. Stinging pain slashed down one arm. “Leave me alone.” Raffi snarled it; the Watchman’s eyes widened.

“Since when could you talk!”

“He’s not been well,” Silas said hastily. “Had a bit of a knock.”

“Has he! Then I’ll give him another one.” The Watchman caught hold of Raffi, dragging him around.

“
Don’t touch me!”
Anger charged him; it surged from the awen-field. The air cracked with a vivid explosion, a blue spark that struck the Watchman full in the chest and flung him back, senseless, hard against the heaped stone.

There was a stunned silence. All work had stopped. Raffi glanced around. A ring of crossbows pointed at him.

Silas stepped back quickly, raising his hand.

“He’s nothing to do with me,” he said rapidly. “Don’t bring me into this.”

“He was with you,” a Watchman hissed.

“I don’t know him. But I can tell you what he mutters in his sleep.”

Something shifted behind; before Raffi could turn, a rope was around him, pinning his arms tight. He was grabbed and hauled down, struggling, kicking.

Silas gazed down at him. “It’s about the Order,” he said, his voice very quiet. “A lot of stuff about the Order.”

T
HE BLIND MAN HAD BEEN TIED between two deathwort plants. Any movement would have been lethal; it had to have been Scala’s idea. Carys crouched at his feet and said, “For Flain’s sake, won’t you shut up!”

“Why should I?” he hissed. “You murderers killed my wife. If I could see, I’d slice every one of you up slowly. God, so slowly.”

“You listen, and listen hard.” Carys took the letter out of her secret pocket. “I’m not in the Watch. Got that? I’m working undercover. I’m a spy for the Order.”

“Are you? And I’m the Emperor’s lapdog.” His hatred was like a wall, a solid barrier between them.

“I haven’t got time to argue. These two are the enemy here, not me. Now take this. If anyone finds it on you, destroy it.” She shoved the letter inside his shirt; he squirmed and kicked out blindly as if it were poisoned. Carys jumped back. “It’s true,” she snarled fiercely. “The letter is for a keeper. His name’s Galen Harn. He’ll be here in hours. Or should be.”

“You must think I’m totally stupid!” The blind man had stopped struggling. Now he gazed toward her, head tilted, his features distorted with loathing. “And that bitch of a castellan wants me dead.”

“You knocked her down. She’s not the sort to forget.” Carys looked around anxiously. “But Quist’s talked her out of it. They’re just going to leave you here. Listen! Get the letter to Galen. It’s important! Tell him the Margrave wants Raffi! He’s got to leave Raffi behind. Have you got that?”

For a second he looked doubtful. “A keeper.”

“Yes.”

“They’re all dead.”

“Not this one.” She scrambled up. “I’ve got to go. We’re riding on.” She walked away, then stopped and turned and stood for a second looking down on him. “Have you ever heard of a place called Mathravale?”

There was silence. Then, deliberately, he spat at her. “You lying, murderous scum,” he whispered.

 

 

“AND I SUPPOSE YOU WANT ME to attack this as well?” Alberic gazed sourly at Flor’s Tower through the relic-tube; Galen took it from him impatiently and snapped it up.

“No. Carys came through here, so we have to follow. What do your people say?”

The dwarf leaned back against the birch trunk. “They say the road’s all broken up with mudslides. We’ll have to go through the Hungry Wood.”

“May I ask,” the Sekoi asked apprehensively from up in the tree, “just why it’s called that?”

“Deathwort. Clusters of it.”

“Ah.”

The dwarf scrambled up, Milo hastily brushing leaves from his clothes. Alberic gave him an absent clip around the ear. “Stop fussing me, boy.”

“Sorry, Uncle.”

“And stop Uncle-ing me! It’s Chief to you. Go and find Taran; tell him he’s to take over the rearguard.”

As the boy ran off, Alberic stared after him in exasperation. “Never promise your sister you’ll make a warlord of her son.”

“You have a sister?” the Sekoi asked politely, dropping through the branches.

Alberic scowled. “Ugly as sin. Looks nothing like me.”

They made their way down the track. Below, in a hollow, the war band rested and drank, their gaudy greens and scarlets lighting the wood. Galen stalked ahead, dark and morose, bending under the low branches with their delicate spring leaves. Last night, the Sekoi knew, he had been deep in the newly made sense-grid, sending messages to Tallis and to the keepers at Tasceron. Shean and his group had left the Pyramid; things were so bad in the city they were searching for the House of Trees, and three new keepers in the forest of Alkadis had been traced. But none of them had any news of Raffi. When the Sekoi had asked what Tallis had said, Galen had shaken his head sourly.

“She wasn’t surprised.”

“She said that?”

“She didn’t need to.”

Now, watching the keeper climb into the saddle of one of Alberic’s horses, the creature felt Godric at its elbow. “Well, Graycat,” the big man said. “What’s at Maar for him?”

The Sekoi scratched gloomily. “Death.”

“His?”

“Or the Margrave’s. It will come to that.”