He tried to speak, had to pause and try again.
‘Any word – of League reinforcements?’
‘Still inbound. Marsalas, are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ he grunted, and he waved Halahan away, for the man was unbuckling his swordbelt as though he meant to come in after him.
Pain like needles shot through his veins and he knew that he was anything but fine. His legs gave out from under him.
Creed dropped beneath the surface, barely aware of the hands that reached out to grab him, or the shouts of concern muted through the womblike embrace of the water. He felt bubbles rushing past his face while all of life collapsed down into a single moment of intense pain, and then he knew no more.
They agreed to a parley on neutral ground the morning after Sasheen’s death, in a tent hastily erected not far from the bridge that led into Tume. Alone and unarmed, Sparus and Romano came face to face in the cold light of day.
Romano was exultant this morning. Sparus could see it in his eyes.
The Archgeneral himself felt only lingering sadness.
‘What will you do with her?’ Romano asked with a smirk.
Sparus refused to allow the anger to show on his face. There was too much at stake to make this a personal matter.
He took a deliberate breath before he answered. ‘The mortarus will preserve her body, then we’ll have it flown back to Q’os.’
‘Perhaps you should be on that ship also.’
Archgeneral Sparus removed his helm and held it at his waist. ‘You are not having this army, Romano.’
A look of genuine puzzlement came over the young man’s eager features. ‘Why ever not?’
‘Because it was the Matriarch’s final command to me.’
‘Ah,’ he replied, and began to pace in front of him. ‘I knew she would try to wreck my chances. Yet I wasn’t certain that you would follow her command, once she was gone and it no longer mattered.’ And he looked to Sparus, a question left open for him. ‘It will be civil war otherwise.’
‘Romano, if you wish to declare yourself Patriarch then do so. I won’t stand in the way of that. Return to Q’os with your men and seize the capital if you can. And while you do that, I will carry on to Bar-Khos and take it for us all.’
It seemed Romano had already thought of that. ‘My claim will be a stronger one if it comes from the ruins of Bar-Khos. I need the Expeditionary Force, Sparus. I need it for myself.’
‘Then it is war,’ Sparus told him plainly. ‘Unless we can think of some other way out of this.’
Romano gave a flick of his eyebrow, and stopped his pacing a few feet before him.
Sparus tensed, sensing the sudden change in the atmosphere.
He looked into the man’s eyes and saw it in an instant – Romano intended to kill him, here and now.
It was a soldier’s reflexes that brought his helm up to strike at Romano even as the young man was lashing out with his hand. Sparus jerked back, his helm crashing across Romano’s head as the young general’s fingertips brushed past his face.
Poison! he thought, as he jumped back another step and brought a hand to his cheek. Lucky. The man’s nails hadn’t broken his skin.
‘Guards!’ Sparus hollered as he backed out of the tent, glaring at the young man across the empty space. ‘You will die for this,’ he promised him.
‘We will see,’ replied Romano, then turned and fled.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Dining with the Natives
When the family of Contrare saw him walking along the riverbank towards their hut, caked from scalp to foot in hardened mud and with his fierce eyes staring, his sword in his hand, they stopped what they were doing and opened their mouths agape as though he was some bog monster come to pillage them. In an instant they had taken flight into the trees.
Ash could hardly blame them, for he knew what a sight he must be. As he picked his way along the bank of the Chilos, he whistled an old tune so they would know at least that he was human. When he came to the small clearing before their hut of sticks and leaves, he stopped before the smoking fire, with the pot of boiling fish stew hanging above it, and sat down with weary groan and helped himself to it.
The forest folk failed to reappear, though he knew they watched him from the undergrowth. He heard one of them knocking rapidly on wood. Moments later, the signal was returned from deeper within the forest.
To placate them before they started any trouble, he rummaged around in his filthy trousers where he fumbled with the drawstrings of his purse. At last he produced a coin from it, a whole golden eagle, and held the small fortune over his head so they could see. ‘It is yours,’ he called out, and carefully laid it down on a wooden chopping block that stood in the dirt nearby. ‘I will not be long here. Just passing through.’
He felt that was enough to buy him a little time. He went to the water’s edge and stripped off his stiff clothes and scrubbed himself down with handfuls of leather-leaves, using their rough undersides as he hummed a tune from Honshu. He washed his clothes next, almost rags by now, and let them dry in the breeze as he sat on the bank and watched the waterfowl cluck and preen themselves in the water.
There were two canoes tied to the shore. When he was dressed and ready to leave, he stepped into one carefully and lay down his sword and picked up the paddle. He sat and nudged the boat out into the flow.
‘My thanks!’ he called out to the people as he held up a hand.
The breeze played noisily through the bushes. The trees creaked overhead.
They both woke at the same time, and lay there beneath the blanket, blinking at each other bleary-eyed and dirty, the sounds of the camp all around them.
‘Good morning,’ Che said with a smile, and Curl smiled back at him.
He watched her roll onto her back and stretch, then sit up and look about her. She took a sniff of her leathers, wrinkled her nose. ‘I need a wash,’ she announced.
He limped down to the river with Curl helping to support him. His wound had been cleaned and stitched the night before, though it still hurt enough to make him pant. Together they washed naked in the river, Curl drawing the eyes of the men there, soldiers and civilians alike, until Che scowled at them, and they made their interest less obvious.
He’d heard of the spiritual properties of the Chilos. And even though he hardly believed in such things, he dunked himself anyway, and tried to make himself believe there was truth in it. All the while, he wondered what he would do with himself now, what he was even doing here with this girl he’d grown fond of so quickly.
Afterwards, they helped themselves to breakfast in one of the military mess tents that had been set up amongst the encampment. He saw Curl look about her for faces she knew. She talked to a couple of them, asking after a few people by name, pleased when she heard they still lived.
Together, they took their wooden platters outside and sat on a mound of grass to eat their plain meals of hash and beans.
‘What is that thing?’ he asked Curl as she absently fingered the wooden charm about her neck.
‘This?’ she said, noticing herself playing with it. ‘My ally.’
‘Yes?’
‘It looks after me,’ she explained.
Che gave a tilt of his head. Lagosians had some strange notions, he reflected. But then that was a little rich, being a Mannian himself. ‘Do you miss it?’ he asked her.
‘What?’
‘Your home.’
She looked at him over her plate of food, her brow furrowed.
‘I’m sorry. That was stupid of me.’
