‘Kings can trust no-one — you told me that once.’
‘I did not. I believe those are your mother’s words. There is wisdom in them, though. But your mother has not known life above the snowline like I have. She has ladies in the harem and at the court who would spill their last breath for her. For myself, if I need a friend, I buy one. You will be like me, Kouros. The throne will not make you happy.’
Kouros was shocked. His broad, heavy face worked in genuine perplexity. His father had never before spoken to him thus.
‘If I could go back to the early years, before Kunaksa, then I would know what it was like to trust others. I trusted my brother — I loved him, for all that he was a self-centred, unlovable fellow. He brought the Macht into our world, and you know the result. We are still paying the price for that today. A brother’s betrayal. My forbearance.’
Ashurnan turned away, set the chased crystal of the wine-glass on the gold table.
‘I killed him with my own hand, Kouros. And there is not a day in my life since I have not seen his face as my sword took the life out of it.’
‘It was the right thing to do,’ Kouros grunted. He had a bewildering urge to set his hand on the Great King’s shoulder, as though Ashurnan were a normal father, and he a normal son.
‘Of course it was. But it has never left me. We grew up together, you see, as real brothers do. It is why, when I had sons of my own, I swore to keep them as separate as I could.’
He turned back again. He was smiling.
‘Do you remember — can you remember — how you and Rakhsar used to play together, and look after little Roshana, all of you naked and filthy in the gardens like three little hufsan brats? I carried all three of you in from under the trees one day, just like that, and sat on the throne with you all in my arms, and blessed God and the women who had borne you. I thought myself as lucky as any man in the world.’
‘I was too young. I do not remember,’ Kouros said, looking down. He did not want to remember.
‘I resolved to go back on my own decision, to raise you all together as a family should be raised. Perhaps I was a fool. I probably was. In any case, your mother kept me to my word. She was first wife, and Ashana was a gentle soul who bowed to her commands.’
‘My mother is a great woman,’ Kouros growled.
‘Yes, she is. She brought me ten thousand Arakosan cavalry. One does not gainsay a woman with a dowry like that.’
‘You insulted her with that other one. You would have supplanted her. You humiliated her!’
‘I was in love,’ the King said quietly. ‘Have you ever been in love, Kouros?’
Kouros bent his head, blinking, his jaw working as though he had a lump of gristle between his teeth. It was a question no-one had ever asked him before, but he knew the answer instantly.
‘No,’ he said, the word choked out of him.
His father watched the workings of his face, his own dark with sadness.
‘Son, you lie.’
Kouros turned away, eyes burning, the rage rising in him, the black desire to choke the life and light out of something, someone, anything.
‘Do not turn your back on me.’ The snap of command.
Ashurnan’s eyes flashed.
‘You will not understand this truth until it is too late, but you will hear it now. Kouros, if you hunt down your brother and sister — if you kill them — then I promise you that you will never know a moment of true peace for the rest of your life. Even throned in glory over all the empire, that remorse will eat at you, and you will grow old and empty with the gnawing of it. Listen to one who knows.’
‘One cannot be a king, and do what one wants — you did tell me that,’ Kouros snarled.
‘What eats at you will one day put a canker into your reign. You are young, Kouros. You do not have to be the man your mother wants.’
‘I am my own man!’
‘We are none of us our own man. We only try to do what is right and honourable, and in time that honour becomes part of us. Once it is lost, it is gone forever. Hear me in this, son.’
Kouros faced his father, the blackness rising in him, that familiar sweetness. It would be so easy to bring up the iron brim of his helmet and swing it at the old man’s head. He knew he had the strength in him for that one blow, and one blow was all it would take.
But instead he strangled the impulse, as he daily murdered so many others. He leaned close and kissed his father on the cheek.
‘Do you think I have it in me to be a good man?’ he asked, child-like, unable to hold in the question.
‘You are a better man than Rakhsar.’
And that was all he was given.
He bowed deeply, his heavy face impassive, and left the Great King’s tent without ceremony. The Honai straightened as he passed them. Beyond them, the immense encampment hummed and steamed and smoked to the far horizon. He felt that the blackness in his soul could have eaten it all and asked for more.
Mot’s Blight is in me, he thought. It must be done. My mother is right. The old man is too soft for the days ahead.
He called his guards to him, and then stalked off to his own complex of tents, where he would find something suitable to defile.
My dearest son,
I write in some haste and with my own hand and I will add no polish to my words, but know they come to you with all your mother’s love. If the seal upon this letter is broken, you must hold the messenger to account. If it is not, and it has reached you before the two moons rise on the month of Granash, then you may reward him.
Kouros looked at the sweating, filthy, horse-smelling hufsan courier who had brought this letter, along with a bucket of others as a blind.
‘What is your name?’
The hufsan was light-boned as a girl, and he looked as though he had not slept in days. His brown skin had a greyish tint.
‘Jervas of Hamadan, my prince.’
‘You have done well. Eleven days from Ashur to Carchanis — it must be something of a record.’
‘Thank you, my prince. I killed nineteen horses — ’
‘You stopped at Ab Mirza, as we had arranged?’
‘Yes, lord. The second letter is hidden in the rim of the scroll bucket. The seal is intact, I swear it.’
‘Excellent. Now leave me, Jervas of Hamadan. My chamberlain will see to your needs. Remain close at hand. There will be a return journey soon.’
The hufsan sagged a little. ‘Thank you, my prince.’ He withdrew, taking the acrid stink of horse-sweat with him.
Kouros began to read again, but was distracted. ‘Anarish!’
The chamberlain tucked aside the tent flap and bowed.
‘Get that girl out of here. Her snivelling is making my head hurt.’
The naked, weeping girl was led away, red, bloody stripes livid upon her skin. Kouros’s face closed, as it always did when he was deciphering his mother’s code. He knew it off by heart, but still had to mouth the words aloud as he rearranged them, and occasionally he had to count upon his fingers down the alphabet.
Rumour outruns horses, they say, and I am certain as I write that Darios has failed to hold the passes of the Korash. If that is so, your father will take the opportunity to remove him. He has had his suspicions about Darios for many months now.
That leaves our position weakened. You must make sure of Dyarnes if you can, and if not, then Marok, his second in command. I know Marok’s wife, or one of them, and he is well pleased with his gifts. But you must not approach him directly. It is enough to hold him in play.
I shall hold the capital. It has turned out well. The nonentity, Borsanes, whom your father left in command,
