Carnelian woke to find Tain kneeling beside him looking agitated. 'You must come, Carnie. I wanted to let you sleep but you've to come and make him move.'
'Eh? Make who move?' Carnelian sat up bleary-eyed. 'Open the shutters, will you, Tain?'
The morning flooded in. Carnelian hid his eyes, smiled with pleasure as the light fell on his face then, remembering, frowned.
'Crail. Crail's refusing to move,' said Tain.
Carnelian looked at him, confused. 'Move…?'
'His room's to be pulled apart like the others and he refuses to move.'
Carnelian stood up. 'And Grane, Keal?'
They're down at the ship and can't come up.'
Carnelian saw the pleading in his brother's face. He chewed his lip. 'OK. You'll have to get me dressed first.'
They hurried through it, and when Carnelian was ready Tain sprang towards the door. Carnelian ignored him, went to the window and stood for some moments looking out at the ship. People swarmed over her hull, spilling onto the quayside. One of her masts was down. She had a skirt of boats and rafts bobbing in the swell around her. A carcass awrithe with maggots, he thought. He turned his back on her and walked over to join Tain.
They had to cross the alleyway. It was loud with people. Things were scraping along the wall, feet scuffing and kicking. From either side came workshop sounds. Carnelian looked neither left nor right. He kept his head up and only relaxed once they had passed through a door on the other side.
He faltered. His body had anticipated warmth. The floor was dusted white and chunked with plaster. Holes gaped on either side where doors had been ripped out. Even their frames had been torn away, leaving the walls ragged. He and Tain picked their way along the passage. In places where the ceiling had caved in, water had soaked into floor and walls. There was the derelict smell of wet plaster. Even a waft of cooking smells brought only resentment.
The noise had been growing louder. Tearing, ripping, thuds and cracking. They came into the Little Court and Tain gave a yell. The courtyard had been ploughed to mud. The buildings that had hugged it were crumbling shells. They had played their games here as children. The older people had lived here because it had been the most sheltered part of the Hold. Amongst the rubble, strange creatures turned to stare. Chalk-faced, hair powdered white. Seeing Carnelian they began to kneel. Carnelian jerked his hand up, Rise. 'Continue your work,' he said, his voice too shrill. They turned away and stooped to fish bits and pieces out of the wreckage, passing them back hand to hand till they were dropped into the centre of the court.
One building was still intact though its face leaned out. A slate scraped down from above and shattered on the cobbles. Carnelian pulled Tain after him as he ducked in. It was hard to see anything in the corridor. They found Crail's room. Carnelian pushed into the small space. Two women were there, bent over an old man crumpled in a chair.
'Master,' one of them said.
Thank the Gods,' said the other.
Carnelian whipped off his mask and knelt before the chair. 'Crail, you must leave.' He looked into the old man's rheumy eyes. This had been the commander of the tyadra. Now he was wasted to a bony sag, his mind so faded that sometimes he did not even know his own name. He was also the Master's brother and so Carnelian's uncle.
Crail shook his prune of a face. 'Won't.'
Carnelian looked round, saw the cracks that had spread like branches up the walls. This is all falling down, Crail.'
'And me with it. I'm too old for this.' He reached up a trembling arm and touched Carnelian's face. 'Just leave me be, child.'
Carnelian was seeing him through tears. He snapped round. 'Get out,' he shouted. The women fled. He turned back. 'Come on, Crail, don't do this,' he sobbed. He reached his arm out to gather the old man up.
Crail sank back. His soft face bunched itself into a well-used expression of stubbornness.
'You will move, you old fool,' cried Carnelian, stepping back against someone. Tain. He had forgotten him. There he was, his hair dusted white in a mockery of the old man's. Two stripes had washed down from his eyes.
Carnelian stood tall, put his mask before his face, pulled himself together. 'Crail, you will leave this place,' he said in the level tone his father used. 'For I command it.'
The old man looked up, straining his eyes. 'Master…?'
Tain, help him up.'
For a moment, Tain was startled by Carnelian's tone, then he bowed. 'As you command, my Master.' Soon he had the old man propped up and was manoeuvring him out of the room. Carnelian followed them out, helping as he could without being seen to do so.
People had gathered outside. Carnelian went out to meet them. He pointed here and there into the crowd, affecting brusqueness. 'Help Tain take Crail away to some place of safety.' He watched the old man being carried off. People started kneeling, in ones and twos. They surrounded him with their abasement so that he could only move out of their circle by treading on them.
'Make way,' he said, controlling his voice, glad he had his mask to hide behind.
No-one moved.
'Master,' one said and then another, and then their voices rose all around him, breaking, almost wailing.
He wanted to be a child, to run away, but there was nowhere left to hide. At last he lifted his hands for silence. He bent down. 'Mari, what's all this?'
The woman he spoke to lifted up her face. Her eyes were red, sunken. 'Carnie… Master…'
Carnelian removed his mask. 'Carnie will do fine,' he said gently.
They're taking our food, Carnie.'
There were murmurs of assent: He looked at them. They all wore the same face of hope. He felt his lip quiver. 'It's needed for the ship.'
'But they're not leaving us enough,' someone said.
Carnelian nodded. He was trying to hold in his tears but they could see by the way the paint was smeared around his eyes that he had been crying. 'It's the Masters who've demanded it, and their needs are greater than ours.' He felt the hollow betrayal in his words. Their heads sank as the fight went out of them. He almost let his pain out in a wail.
'And you'll be leaving us too, Carnie?' asked Mari.
He could not bear to look at her. 'Yes… yes, I must go with them,' he looked up, said fiercely, 'but before I go I promise I'll do all I can.'
He stood up and rehid his face behind the golden mask. They made way for him. It was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other.
Carnelian went to the storerooms and saw that it was as they had said. Fish were being sealed into jars. Dried fowl were being baled in woven seaweed. The walls were blank with naked hooks, the shelves empty. He opened one of the stone flour bins and had to lean over to see its level. Behind him on the floor, stacked and packaged, was by far the greater part of what the room had held. The faces that had gathered at the door told the story. Children frightened by their mothers' looks. An old woman gnawing her hand. Even with rationing he knew she would not see another summer.
Carnelian pushed through them and stormed back through the kitchens, where lavish dishes were being prepared for their guests. The sight of all those riches patterning the plates made him rage. He stumbled into the shambles of the Great Hall. Among the columns there lay a clearing with its stumps. He walked into it. Most of the roof had come down. Capitals for so long hidden in the ceiling's dusk showed their colours. It was already difficult to remember the way it had been.
Of the doors to the Long Court only the splintered wooden hinges remained. Beyond was another scene of devastation, like a view onto a battlefield where the camp women were despoiling the dead. He moved into the shadow of the archway. He watched the women shredding covers, blankets, clothing. The tattered ribbons they
