Sarmin waited. Normally the high mage had much to say, and more elegantly. After a silence he asked, “Can your rock-sworn not replace what has been lost? Replace the stone as it fades away?”
“They can.” Govnan paused, and the space between his words told the rest. “It only slows the nothing. Gives us a few more hours. My rock-sworn have not the strength. Had we more mages…” But there was no time to recruit and train mages, and nobody to do it.
And so it fell to Sarmin. There was nobody else.
But he did not know what to do.
After a moment he noticed Azeem in obeisance at the door. Sarmin was not certain how long the vizier had been waiting, but now he stood and said, “Rise, Azeem. How goes the empire?”
Azeem rose and smoothed his silks for a moment before speaking. “The empire is strong, Magnificence,” he said, though his voice sounded wary, “Only one small blemish on its proud face disturbs our peace today.” As he spoke Govnan shuffled out, leaning heavily on his walking-stick. Sarmin thought to stop him, to ask more questions, but he knew the old man was at the limit of his power and beyond. He could not solve this. Instead he turned to Azeem.
“What is that blemish, Azeem?”
“Nooria has received refugees from a town upriver, Migido. Also from the desert. These people say-”
“Migido?” Sarmin recalled the bodies in the marketplace, the blood making a sickening pattern beneath the sun. Helmar’s work. He looked down at the parchments on his desk and felt the world spinning. “Nobody lives there.”
“The town was abandoned during Helmar’s rule, it is true, but it is located along the river, where barges load pomegranates and olives for shipment to Nooria. Such a place attracts settlers. It was soon half-full with new residents.”
“And now?”
Azeem looked at the carpet, picking between unfamiliar words. “Some kind of natural disaster, Magnificence. I cannot tell whether it is a sandstorm or a blight. The way they talk about it is… odd.”
With dread Sarmin remembered his dream, the grey spot that grew in the desert, devouring the tent and the boy. Hollow. Beyon’s tomb. An emptiness that devours. Migido had been another anchor point for Helmar’s pattern. How many had there been, in the sands and in the cities? How many wounds had been opened to the world? They could not move from the palace if nowhere was safe. He thought of Pelar and his brother Daveed, both so small and helpless, both so loved. “Allow the refugees into the city, Azeem,” he said, his mouth feeling strange with fear, “It is my order they will be given bread, salt and water. Here they will be…”- safe teetered on the edge of his lips-“welcomed.”
Azeem nodded, his eyes still on the carpet, his mouth twitching with the need to say something more, something uncomfortable.
“What else have you come for, vizier?”
“Not I, Your Majesty,” he said, motioning towards the door, “It is the Marke Kavic. He wishes to speak with you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sarmin paced. Memories crowded his old room, and the story of his life ran across each wall. The Many clamoured at him with each step and in time one would seize him, speak new words to the world with his mouth, have him act out their desires and their rage, take him once more to the dungeons or into a stranger’s bed.
No. He would not allow it. He would speak with Marke Kavic, begin to put a shape to the peace.
Azeem cautioned against an informal meeting, especially here, in this ruined room, but Sarmin had always longed for visitors before the Pattern Master came, and he found he could not refuse one now.
The young marke entered, flanked by three of his tall, blue-clad guards. They were flanked in turn by Sarmin’s own sword-sons, hands on their hachirahs. In Sarmin’s memory the room had never been so full. Sweat dripped down his back as he watched the marke make his obeisance. Soon the small chamber would become intolerably hot.
“Rise,” he said, too quickly; he imagined Azeem, somewhere behind him, pursing his lips in disapproval, and even more so when he said, “Ta-Sann, your men can wait outside.”
“Magnificence-!” Ta-Sann looked with horror upon the Fryth and their swords. But the marke motioned to his men, and when they filed out to the landing Ta-Sann could not ignore the gesture. He allowed the sword-sons to leave, and at last only four men remained in the room-Kavic, Azeem, Ta-Sann, and himself. Sarmin eased into his chair with a sigh of relief.
“A fine evening to you,” said Marke Kavic, subtly rubbing the plaster dust from his cloak.
Sarmin was pleased by the man’s informal tone, but he must be careful. An emperor did not make friends. He remained silent until Kavic remembered himself. “…Magnificence.”
Thankfully he had not taken so long that Ta-Sann pulled his weapon. “A fine evening indeed,” Sarmin said. He looked at Kavic more closely than he had in the throne room. He had a strong, but narrow, face, and his eyes were a colour of blue Sarmin had seen once before-but where? He had thought the man young, but he was not so very young. Thirty, or thirty-five. The marke examined the broken walls and window with an air of appreciation, as if he found this room just as fine as any other in the palace, and Sarmin once again was charmed.
“Your Majesty, may I express my sympathy for the loss of your father-in-law. He was a great warrior. When he was hit with one of our arrows he was ahorse, urging on his fellows. I saw him fight and I was impressed with his bravery.”
Sarmin imagined the scene. His visions of The Megra allowed him to conjure the scents and colours of the Fryth mountains, the feel of the sun and the rain, the voices of the soldiers, the fear of death and the grief of loss. Only the sensation of riding a horse eluded him. “Thank you,” he said, wondering whether Kavic was moved to speak by affection for his own father-in-law. Did he have a wife? A child? Was he afraid for them-did he keep secrets from them? He could not ask, with Azeem hovering behind.
When Sarmin said nothing more, Marke Kavic continued, eyes focused in concentration as if he had memorized the words, practised them. “Your Majesty, since our negotiations begin in the morning, I thought we might speak outside the hearing of our advisors.” The marke himself had only one, the Mogyrk austere. That he had come here without the priest meant something-perhaps more than Sarmin realized. Sarmin watched the man with interest, delighting in his strange accent and exaggerated politeness. “Advisors have agendas of their own, Majesty. My grandfather is the duke, not I, but I am familiar with the back and forth that comes with rule.” He paused before finishing with blunt words. “I want you to know that I am committed to the peace.”
Sarmin smiled. “As am I.” He saw the other man’s relief in the relaxed set of his shoulders. He wished he could ask him things, about Fryth, and about his life there. He wondered if Kavic had brothers, if he rode horses, if he knew how to climb a tree. Once Beyon had come to this room and Sarmin had thought of him like a new book that he could not keep. He felt the same of Kavic.
“Do you know the story of how we became a colony of Yrkmir… Your Majesty?”
Sarmin had read all he could about Fryth, once he realised he was at war. “Fifty years ago your grandfather, the Iron Duke, held the Yrkmen off for over one year.”
“He did,” said Kavic, with a sad smile, “and that is how he earned his name. Iron for his will, and duke where he once had been king. Our city is against the mountains, and a river rushes through it. My grandfather had everything he needed and would not come out from behind his great wall. It came down to fighting, and numbers. They had five times our men with more coming every day. Once they had my grandfather on his knees they made his people take down their wall, stone by stone. In its place they built one of wood, thin and useless. One that reminds my grandfather, every day, that we depend upon Yrkmir to protect us.”
But it had not protected Fryth from Arigu. Had the Yrkmen, too, been held up by snows, or had their First Austere decided to let the colony fall? Kavic had told him that story for a reason.
The marke said no more about Yrkmir, instead nodding towards Helmar’s writings, scattered across the desk.
