This Forsaken Earth (20 page)

“He’s dead,” Rol said. “Rowen and I killed him.”

“I have heard this. Canker told me. There was bad blood in Michal Psellos, and I cannot think where it came from, for his parents were good people, untainted by the strain of the Fallen that infects so many folk of the Blood. In any case, you gave him the end he deserved.”

Rol remembered a horrific night, eight years ago now, when he and Rowen and Canker had murdered Michal Psellos, pushing his grinning face into the coals of a fire while he kicked and screamed in their grasp. And yes, that death had been well deserved.

“Bar Asfal took the throne, and Bar Hethrun, Amerie, Ardisan, and Emilia fled the country, taking ship for I know not where. That was more than thirty years ago now. They are all dead, those formidable people, and here I remain, holding only their memories. But their children have survived. Rowen, the image of her father, is here trying to make herself Queen. And now you are sat with me listening to this old man’s rambles as the sun rises over the mountains and winter lies white upon the world.”

“What about after they left Bionar?” Rol demanded. “Do you know what happened to them then?”

“I know only what is common knowledge—though it’s fast becoming legend. Amerie and Bar Hethrun took to the sea along with many of their followers, and lived as privateers, operating out of a hidden pirate city on the Ganesh coast. But a storm came one day, and their ship was wrecked. The ship’s company was scattered in small boats, separated by the whim of Ran. Amerie was lost for years, and when she returned she had a son, who sits here before me.”

“Who were they, my grandparents?”

“Nomads from the Goliad, the Birthplace of Man. That is all I know.”

Rol’s wine was tepid now, but he drank it back without a thought.

“Your family’s name was Orr-Diseyn,” Phrynius said gently. “In old Waric it is not a proper name, but merely a phrase meaning
the folk of Orr.
Do you know that name?”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“Then you know that Cambrius Orr was the greatest of the Elder Race, and the land he named for himself is still reputed to exist, somewhere out in the unexplored regions of the world. There are those who think that the nomads of the Goliad are not truly Men at all, but are the last remnants of the people of Orr. The last of the Weren, who once knew the face of God.”

“I thought Cambrius Orr’s people were all twisted monsters; it’s why he fled to Orr in the first place.”

Phrynius opened his hands like a man releasing a bird. “I have heard that also. There are many legends and myths, and not all of them agree with one another. I will tell you this, for what it is worth: I have met Rowen, and now I have met you. The blood of Bion runs in your sister; it’s plain for any man to see—but in you there’s something else, something unfathomable. I don’t believe your parentage is what you think it to be.”

Rol smiled. He stood up. “You never told Canker that.”

“I am only sure of it now I have seen into your eyes.” Phrynius looked Rol up and down as though registering his features.

“You have a strange name—your first name, that is. Your sister Rowen—”

“I know. Psellos told me. In Waric her name means
queen.
”

Phrynius cocked his head on one side. His eyes gleamed. “It could mean that, I suppose. It comes of two roots.
Ro,
signifying
high, masterful,
and
wren,
meaning
woman.
”

“And my name means
king.
”

“No. It does not. Properly speaking, your name is
Ro-uil.
You have the same
ro
-element, but in Waric the root
-uil
has been added, meaning…” He trailed off and dropped his gaze. “It signifies a spirit, a thing not of this world. In its very earliest forms it denoted a thing akin to God.”

Rol smiled. “I am a god, then? Your brains are addled, Phrynius. You’ve been breathing the dust of the past for too long.”

“Not a god, but something connected to the One God, the Creator who forsook this world. Or something sent by Him.”

Rol shrugged. “What’s in a name, after all?”

“There is power in a name. In the Elder times they were not given lightly.” Phrynius raised his head. The genial old scholar had disappeared, and his face seemed that of a younger man with certainty shining out of his eyes.

“Below the Turmian Library in Myconn there are caves, deep under the rock of the foundations. That place was a shrine once, back in the times when men toiled with flint and did not yet know the names of any gods. In that darkness, the early men painted pictures upon the stone of the cave walls. One of those pictures would, I think, be worth your seeing.”

“Why?”

“It is of you.”

PART TWO

KING
of
THIEVES

Eleven

COLDER THAN KEUTTA

THEY LED BETTER THAN FIVE THOUSAND MEN OUT OF
Gallitras, and pointed them south across the bitter snowbound countryside toward the siege-lines about Myconn, almost two hundred miles away. Their campfires were left burning, the tents left standing, and the army sidled out of its lines along the river in the dead hours of the night, the hooves of the horses wrapped in sacking and the wagons manhandled inch by creaking inch through frost-sharp snow that cracked and shattered under the metal-rimmed wheels. Canker was leaving a skeleton garrison to man the Ruthe crossings, gambling that the costly failed assault of days before would keep the loyalists in camp for a while. That, and the increasingly bitter weather.

Five thousand men, most of them infantry, trudging in column of fours along the broken stones of the Myconn Road. Along with the wagons of the baggage train, they formed a column over a mile long. Rol rode near the head of the army, beside Canker. Gallico was still confined to a wagon by his wounds, and Giffon and Creed had chosen to keep him company rather than chance the back of a horse again.

The Council of War the night before had not deserved the name. Canker gave orders, and they were obeyed. Moerus, governor of Gallitras, had raised a few murmuring objections to being stripped of half his command, but all in all it would seem that the Thief-King’s word was not to be gainsaid in this part of the world. Rol had still not become accustomed to Canker’s lofty status. He remembered the derelict filth of the Guildhouse in Ascari which had been Canker’s headquarters when last he knew him, and could not equate it with this current man of power, this politician, this general who marshaled armies and gave orders to thousands on a whim.

“What is it?” Rol asked his companion. “Chamberlain or chancellor? I have heard you called both.”

“That is because I am both,” Canker told him gaily. The sun was breaking through gaps in the sullen slate cloud overhead, lighting up the morning snow on the fields around them, and spreading a little cheer along the thousands who sweated upon the road. Once again, the Thief-King had changed his wardrobe. His leather cuirass was now swamped by a scarlet cloak, and a feather protruded jauntily from his headgear.

“The chamberlain is the master of the Queen’s Court, and the chancellor is the keeper of the Treasury—such as it is—and the Queen’s right hand, as it were, in any capacity she sees fit for him to undertake. I am a jack-of-all-trades, Rol, always have been.” And Canker laughed. It was mid-morning by now, and they were five miles out of Gallitras, leaving behind them the scorched and bloody battlefield of the Ruthe crossings. The Thief-King seemed glad to be on the move again, and so was Rol. Never in his life had he been so far from the sea. He felt that he was remote from his natural element, and the changing horizons of a journey made that knowledge easier to bear, left him less time to dwell on things.

I am sick of dwelling on things, Rol thought. Give me back my
Revenant
and my ship’s company, and I would be well content.

It was not entirely true, but he would not bring himself to admit it.

“You met Phrynius,” Canker said casually.

“He met me first. Did you tell him to seek me out?”

“Yes. He was interested, of course, but it took a prod to get him away from his damn books. I’m glad. He’s a good man, though not long for this world. I don’t suppose you thought to…” Canker hesitated, an odd thing for him. “No, I suppose not.”

“What?”

“As I said, he’s not long for this world. A few swallows of your blood would have given him another five or ten years of being a bookworm.” And Canker laughed unpleasantly.

Rol stared at the backs of the troops ahead, their breath and heat misting up the frigid air above them. “It never occurred to me.”

“I thought as much. It may become more important when we reach Myconn. It is the ultimate in incentives, you might say; the best bribe in the world.”

“It’s how Rowen first gained support, isn’t it?”

“Partly, yes. She bleeds herself each week, and it goes out to all the brave, the loyal, the best of the army. A man will do much for an extra decade or two of life. Look at me!”

Rol did. “It had struck me that you’ve changed little with the years.” He felt a growing disgust, but kept it out of his face. Canker knew, though.

“I got my first taste in Ascari, as you should remember. A gift from Psellos,” Canker said. His voice was not so jovial now. “If a loyalist bullet does not find me before my time, I’ll see out a century with ease. Now, there’s power for you, Rol—the ability to give that to a man. Not all the gold in the world can match it.”

“And yet Bar Asfal is bribing your cities away from you.”

A small puncture in the balloon of Canker’s smugness.

“Not everyone can have it for the asking; they must prove themselves worthy first. Some are too impatient to wait, and some fools reject the whole idea, preferring to keep their blood their own. And besides,” he added irritably, “there’s not enough of the damn stuff to go around.”

Rol smiled. “Is that why I’m here, Canker, another cow to be milked dry?”

Canker tugged at the brim of his hat. He looked annoyed with himself. “That’s certainly part of it, yes. Don’t look so outraged, boy! This is the way the world works.”

Rol did not look outraged; he was perfectly composed. “It’s a smaller world than we give it credit for, it’s true. You and I, Phrynius, Psellos, Rowen. I sometimes wonder if there is more than chance to all these many meetings.”

“If there were still a God to direct the world, perhaps there might be. But it’s more likely to be humdrum coincidence.” Canker cocked his head at Rol. The brim of his extravagant headgear cast one bright eye in shadow. “Then again, we live in interesting times. Phrynius certainly thinks there’s more to the tale of your life than meets the eye.”

“He’s lived too long with books for his only company. He reads things between the lines that are not there.”

“Well. Well, we shall see, I suppose. Rowen has become something of a reader lately also—hardly surprising when she has the greatest library in the world within her grasp.”

“Let me guess; she has secrets to tell me. You need a new line of patter, Canker.”

The Thief-King, chamberlain and chancellor of Eastern Bionar, guffawed. He doffed his feathered hat to Rol with elaborate courtesy. “You may be right at that.”