The Face of Chaos Part 13

As she spoke, Cythen yanked loose the cord that bound her hair, shaking her head until the brown strands rose like an untidy aura around her face.

'Good intentions will not deceive him, either.' Myrtis had become kind-voiced again. 'Your need for vengeance will not make you a courtesan. There are others here who can bell our cat.'

'No,' Cythen protested. 'He'll come here again and make his mistake again, and he might kill another of your courtesans. Isn't it to your advantage to let me risk my life rather than sacrificing one of those who belong to you?'

'Of course it would be to my advantage, child, if I owned anyone. But just because I keep account books on love a.nd pleasure, do not think I am completely without conscience. If Voyce is all he is suspected of being, I would be as guilty of your death, or anyone's death, as he would be.'

Cythen shook her head and took a step closer to Myrtis, resting her fists on the table. 'Don't lecture me about death or guilt. For five years since those bandits swept down and attacked us, I travelled with Bekin, protecting her, bringing her men, and killing them if I had to. It would have been better if she had died that first night. I'm not sorry she's dead, only sorry that she was murdered by a man she trusted, as she trusted all men. I don't blame you, or me, but I can't get her out of my memory until I've avenged her. Do you understand that? Do you understand that I must close the circle completely, myself, if I'm to have peace, if I'm to be free of her?'

Myrtis met Cythen's rabid stare and, whether she understood the dark emotions and memories that drove the younger woman or not, she finally nodded. 'Still, if you are to have a chance at all, you must abide by what I tell you to do, Cythen. If he does not find you attractive, he will search elsewhere. I will give you her chambers and her clothes; that will give you an advantage. I will send Amb.u.t.ta to bathe you, to help you dress and to arrange your hair.

'When he returns again, if he returns again, he will be yours. You may stay as long as you please, but he is not to be harmed in this house! Now then, you must also seem to belong here, and it will rouse suspicion if you take no others while you wait. I will set aside your portion -'

'I'm a virgin,' Cythen interrupted in a far from steady voice. When her mind was focused on the fish-eyed murderer other sister, she could manage to ignore the implications of the plan she had agreed to; but faced with the pragmatic logic of the madam, she began to realize that vengeance and determination might not be enough.

Myrtis nodded, 'I had suspected as much. You would not want your sister's slayer, then, to be the first -'

'It won't matter. Just tell everyone that I'm being saved for just the right man. That's often the way of it anyway, isn't it? A special prize for a special customer?'

Myrtis hardened. 'In those places where courtesan and slave are the same that may be so. But my women are here because they wish to be here; I do not own them. Many leave for other lives after they've grown tired of a life of love and earned a healthy portion of gold. But pleasure is not your talent, Cythen; you wouldn't understand. Men have nothing you desire and you have nothing to give them in return.'

'I have a talent for deceit, Myrtis, or neither Bekin nor I would have survived at all. Honour your promise. Give him to me for one night.'

With a gesture of worried resignation, Myrtis consented to the arrangement. She summoned Amb.u.t.ta, who some said was her daughter, and had Cythen led into the private sections of the house where, for a night and a day she was fussed over and transformed. Before sundown of the next day she was ensconced in the plush seraglio where Bekin had lived, and died. Her garrison clothes and knife had been hidden in the dark panelled walls and she herself was now draped in lengths of diaphanous rose-coloured silk - a gift to Bekin from the man who had slain her.

Staring into the mirror as the sun set, Cythen saw a woman she had never known before: the self she might have become if tragedy had not intervened. She was beautiful, as Bekin had been, and she preferred the feel of silk to the chafing of the linen and wools she normally wore. Amb.u.t.ta had skilfully wound beads through Cythen's hair, binding it into a fanciful shape that left Cythen afraid to turn quickly, lest the whole affair come tumbling down into her face.

'There was a message for you earlier,' Amb.u.t.ta, a disturbingly wise woman no older than thirteen, said as she daubed a line of kohl under Cythen's eyes.

'What?' Cythen jerked away in anger, her stance becoming that of a fighter, despite the silk.

'You were bathing,' the child-woman explained, twirling the brush in the inky powder, 'and men do not come upstairs by day.'

'All right, then, give it to me now.' She held out her hand.

'It was spoken only, from your friend Walegrin. He says two more fish-folk have been found murdered: Actually it's three -another was found at low tide - but the message came before that. One of them was a cousin to the Beysa herself. The garrison is ordered to produce the culprit, or any culprit, by dawn or the executions will begin. They will kill as many each noon as fish-folk who have already died. Tomorrow they'll kill thirteen - by venom.'

Though the room was warm and draughtless, Cythen felt a chill. 'Was that all?'

'No, Walegrin said Turghurt is h.o.r.n.y.'

The chill became a finger of ice along her spine. She did not resist as Amb.u.t.ta moved closer to finish applying the kohl. She saw her face in the mirror and recognized herself as the frightened girl beside the wise Amb.u.t.ta.

The hours wore on after Amb.u.t.ta left her. Two k.n.o.bs had burnt off the hour candle and none had come to her door. The music and laughter that were the normal sounds of an evening at the Aphrodisia House grated on her ears as she listened for the telltale accent that would betray the presence of the fish folk, whatever common Ilsigi or Rankan name Myrtis gave them.

Couples walked noisily past her closed door; women already settled for the night. The smells of love-incense grew strong enough to make her head ache. She stood on a pile of pillows to open the room's only window and to look out on the jumble of the Bazaar stalls and the dark roofs of the Maze beyond them. Absorbed by the panorama of the town, she did not hear the latch lift nor the door open, but she felt someone staring at her.

'They told me that they had given you her room.'

She knew, before she turned, that he had finally come. He spoke the local dialect well, but without any attempt to conceal his heavy accent. Her heart was fluttering against her ribs as she turned to face him.

He had left his cloak downstairs and stood before her in fish-folk finery, filling the doorway with his bulk. It was no wonder Bekin had adored him - she'd had a child's delight in colour and s.h.i.+ne. His pantaloons were a deep turquoise, embroidered with silver. His tunic was a lighter shade, slashed open to the navel with sleeves that shone and rippled like the rose silk she wore. His fez was encrusted with glittery stones; he removed it with a smile; his shaved scalp glistened in the candlelight. Despite herself, Cythen flattened against the wall and regarded him with a mixture of fear and awe. His eyes shone as he watched her without blinking, and after a moment she looked away.

'There is no need to be frightened. Little Flower.'

His arms circled the rose silk and drew her tightly against him. Strong blunt fingers pressed around her neck, digging in behind her ears so she could not resist as he forced her lips apart. She willed herself to numbness when he found the knots that bound the silk around her and undid them. Screams of outrage echoed in her mind, but she clung silently, unprotestingly, to his powerful arms.

'You are still frightened?' he asked after a while, running a finger over the curve other hip as she lay limp on the pillows beside him. He was strong, as Walegrin had said he would be, but she did not quite have the nerve to find out if he was a coward as well.

She shook her head when he asked if she was afraid, but could not stop her hands from coming to rest on top of his, stopping his incessant motion. He bent over her, caressing her breast with his lips, tongue and teeth. With a strangled whimper, she stiffened away from him.

'You will see. There's nothing to be frightened of. Just relax.'

He was staring at her: cold fish-eyes peering into her body and soul. All the warnings that Myrtis, Walegrin, and even Amb.u.t.ta had given her chorused out of her memory and she wished she was Bekin: either dead or willing to love any man.

Her confidence went out like a guttered candle. She felt him loosening the heavy belt that bound his pantaloons and knew she could not stifle the next screams that would rise from her throat.

There would be no second chance. She would fall, and probably die here in this room with her sister's ghost hovering in her thoughts. But she was a master of deceit, as she had claimed, which was much more than simple lying or pretending.

'Yes, I'm frightened,' she whispered in a coy, little girl's voice she had just discovered, using the truth to buy a few more moments. She s.h.i.+vered and clutched the discarded silk against her as he let her slide away from him. 'Do you know what happened to the girl who lived in this room? While she slept, someone let a serpent into here and it bit her. She died horribly. Sometimes I think I hear it on the pillows, but they won't let me have another room.'

There are no snakes in this room. Little Flower.'

In the shadows, she could not be certain of his expression, and his accent made it difficult to read the sound of his voice. Recklessly, she continued.

'That's what they tell me. The only snakes in Sanctuary which are poisonous are the Beysa's holy snakes - and those never go far from her in the palace. But she was killed by snake venom. Someone had to have put it in here. But she was only a mad girl from the Street of Red Lanterns, so no one will search for her killer.'

'I'm sure your Prince will do all that he can. It would be a crime among us, as well, if someone had stolen the Beysa's serpent.'

'I'm afraid. Suppose they didn't need to steal the serpent, suppose they only needed the venom. Suppose the Harka Bey are angry because men like you come here to women like me.'

He took her in his arms again, brus.h.i.+ng the sweat-dampened hair back from her face. 'The Harka Bey is a tale for children.'

She caught his hand in hers and felt the design of the ring on his hand: a serpent, with fangs that rasped on the ridges of her fingertips. He pulled his hand quickly away.

'I'm afraid, Turghurt, of what will become of me -'

He struck like a snake, grabbing at her throat and wrenching her head around into the candlelight. Her right arm was hopelessly twisted in the silk and her left bent backwards into agony.

'So Myrtis thinks it's me, does she?'

'No,' Cythen gasped, aware now that she had used his real name, as she had been warned not to do. 'She knows it could not have been you who killed Bekin. Only women handle the serpents...' but they were both staring at the serpent ring s.h.i.+ning in the candle-light.

'What are you?' he demanded, shaking her jaw until something ripped loose in her neck and she could not have answered him if she had wanted to. 'Who sent you?

What do you know?' He bent her wrist back until it was in the candle flame. 'Who told you about our plans?'

Tears flowed through the kohl, was.h.i.+ng the black powder into her eyes - but that was the least of her pain. She screamed, finally, though wrenching her jaw free of him was almost enough to make her faint. He caught her again, but it was too late. Even as he beat her head against the wall, someone was banging on the door. She fell back on the candle, extinguis.h.i.+ng it with her body, and they struggled against each other in the darkness.

She broke free more than once, digging her filed nails into whatever vulnerable skin she could grab. But she did not have the strength to break his bones with her hands and could not find, in the darkness, the panel that concealed her knife. Someone was using an axe on the door now, and she thought perhaps it would not all have been in vain if they caught him for her death.

He caught her by the shoulder and brought his fist cras.h.i.+ng into her weakened jaw. The force and the pain stunned her. She hung limp in his grip, defenceless against his second punch. He heaved her body into a corner, where it hit with a dead-weight thud; then he began moving frantically through the darkness as the axe continued to bite against the door.

Cythen had not lost consciousness, though she wished she had. Her mouth and jaw were on fire, although, ironically, one or another of his punches had undone the dislocation, along with loosening a few of her teeth. She could have screamed freely now, as she heard his glittery clothing dropping to the floor, but the anguish of her failure was too great.

A piece of wood had splintered away from the door. Light from the lanterns in the hallway glinted off the serpent ring which he held before his eyes. She realized that he must think her dead or unconscious, and she thought she might survive if she continued to be silent, but he came at her as a second, larger piece of wood came loose. The glistening serpent's head rose above his fist.

She lunged away from him and felt something strike her shoulder. In the swirl of pain and panic she did not know if the fangs had pierced her; she knew only that she was still alive, still wrapped around his legs and trying to bite him with her already battered and b.l.o.o.d.y teeth. He kicked free other with little difficulty and made a leap for the window as a hand reached around into the darkness and worked the latch.

Though the door was open almost at once, Turghurt had heaved himself clear of the window before they reached him. And though Cythen protested her health and survival, they made more of a fuss over her and the ruined silk than they did over the escaping Beysib.

'He won't get far. Not without any clothes,' Myrtis a.s.sured her, holding up the discarded turquoise pantaloons.

'He'll be bleedin' naked!' one of the other women t.i.ttered.

Cythen had already learned that the pain was bearable so long as she didn't try to talk, so she ignored the chaos of conversation and searched for the panel that concealed her proper clothes and knife. The Beysib wasn't naked, she was sure of that. Somehow he'd managed to exchange his bright silks for dark clothes such as the Harka Bey had worn. He hadn't been able to change his boots, though, and the light leather should be easy to spot - if he wasn't already safe at the palace by now. She shoved Amb.u.t.ta aside and pulled on her own boots.

'You aren't going after him, are you? The garrison has men at both ends of the Street. They'll have him by now. I've already sent for a physician to see you.'

Myrtis reached gently towards Cythen's battered face, and Cythen warned her away with an animal growl.

With her hair still loose and glittering, she shoved her way to the door. Maybe Walegrin really was out there; it would be the first good thing that had happened. Maybe they had already caught Turghurt. She'd rather have Thrusher tend her vIounds than some cathouse doctor. She kicked at the doorman when he tried to stop her and burst out into the Street.

Although the walls of the Palace were closer, they were more dangerous. She guessed Turghurt would have gone south past the Bazaar and into the Maze before heading back to the palace. It had not occurred to her that he might still be on the Street until a hand loomed out of the shadows and closed over her mouth. Her throat tore with an almost soundless shriek and she lashed back with her heels and fists before hearing a familiar voice.

'd.a.m.n you, b.i.t.c.h! We've got him cornered in a loft not a hundred steps from here.'

She pried Walegrin's fingers from her face and stood before him, tears streaming down her cheeks and her whole body trembling.

'What happened to you?'

'I... got... hit,' she said slowly, moving her mouth as little as possible.

'Did you get the proof?'

She shrugged. Was the ring and his attempt to kill her proof he had killed Bekin or the Beysib men and women?

'C'mon, Cythen. He broke out of there like a bull. He didn't punch you out 'cause you're ugly -'

She shook her head and tried to explain what had happened, but her mouth was too sore for so many words and he could make no sense of her gestures.

'Well, all right, anyway. Maybe we can pry something out of him now. We think he's found a regular hideout behind some of the older Houses.' Walegrin led the way off the street to a dark jumble of buildings where two of his men waited.

'It's as quiet as a tomb up there,' the soldier informed his captain; then, noticing Cythen, added: 'What happened to you?'

'She got hit. Don't ask questions. Now, you're sure he's still up there?'

'There's only two ways out and he ain't used either of them.'

'Okay.' Walegrin turned back to Cythen. 'You get him at ally She shook her head to say no and he looked away. 'Okay. Thrush, you come with me. Jore, you bellow if you see something. And Cythen,' he tossed her a scabbard. 'Here's your sword; redeem yourself.'

They dashed across an open s.p.a.ce and flattened themselves against the rough stucco walls of the building. It had been abandoned for some time. Chunks of stonework broke loose as they made their way to the gaping doorway. The central column of stairs to the upper room was only wide enough for one person and missing a good third of its boards as well. Walegrin drew his Enlibrite sword and started up them, motioning for the others to remain behind.

He moved smoothly and silently until, while he was raising his leg over two missing steps, the lower board gave way. The blond man lurched forward, using his sword for balance, not defence, and another sword swished through the air above him and bit deep into his arm. Metal began to sing loudly against metal; green sparks danced in the air. By their faint light it was clear that Walegrin, with a cut in his shoulder and his legs entangled in the ruins of the stairs, was taking a beating.

Thrusher shouted outside for help, though with Walegrin wedged in the stairway, there was no easy way to reach Burek, nor to protect their captain - but there was one way. While Thrusher watched in surprise, Cythen drew her own sword and prepared to get up to the second floor by running up and over Walegrin. With a handful of his hair and one foot planted hard on his thigh, she propelled herself over him, hoping that the sheer audacity of her move would keep Burek guessing for the moment it would take for her to regain her balance. She raised her sword just as his blade arced towards her - and Walegrin reached out to parry it aside.

The Beysib circled away from the stairwell, and Cythen edged along the walls.

This room was not the dusty wreckage the lower parts of the building had been.

Someone had been using it recently. Knives littered an otherwise clean table and a crude map of the town hung on the wall. There was another curved Beysib sword on the wall as well, but Turghurt hadn't taken it. The room was too small for the swirling double-sword style the Harka Bey had used. His stance was not that much different from her own, though his reach was substantially longer.

Walegrin, still struggling to free himself from the stairs, broke through another board and fell from sight, shaking the entire structure as he landed.

From the commotion, Cythen knew they were trying to improvise a human ladder, but at that moment Turghurt was easily parrying her best cuts and she doubted they'd reach her in time.

She wouldn't have the strength to ward off many of his thunderous attacks. She could stall and hope they'd get something together in time, or she could charge him and hope for the same sort of clear shot as she'd gotten at the Harka Bey though that would kill him and might make everything worse.

He guessed her intention to attack and back-pedalled across the room, laughing to himself. He was silhouetted by a hole in the walls where a window might once have been and he seemed very large, but perhaps his laughing had made him drop his guard just a fraction. She sprang at him.

His eyes went wide with disbelief. He was falling towards her before she touched him, the disbelief becoming a fixed, deathlike stare. His momentum pushed her backwards and off balance, knocking her sword aside. But he was no longer attacking, only falling. They both went cras.h.i.+ng to the floor and through it, as the old wood gave way beneath them. Cythen heard a scream - her own - then nothing.

3.

The sun was bright in the courtyard of the palace. Cythen, the swelling still apparent in her face, and Walegrin, his arm in a sling, stood with the h.e.l.l Hounds in the places of honour. There were, as yet, no Beysibs in sight. Enas Yorl let the curtain fall from his hand and sat back in the shadowed privacy of his study. It seemed the whole population of the town had crammed around the high platform whereupon the Beysa would p.r.o.nounce judgement.

'Would you have stopped him for the courtesan's sake alone?' he asked the darkness beside him.

'The girl-soldier has conquered her fears and her past. We have made her a part of our sisterhood. We, too, must adapt. Her vengeance is ours,' the voice of a Beysib woman replied.

'Ah, but that wasn't the question. If all you knew was that the Blood of Bey, as you call it, had been used to slay an innocent courtesan, and that it had been done to make the suspicion fall on you; if there had been no other crimes, would you have stopped him?'

'No. We have always been blamed for crimes we do not commit. It is part of the balance we have with the Empire. One insignificant life would have made no difference.'

Trumpets blared out a fanfare. Yorl lifted the curtain again. Sunlight fell on a four-fingered, ebony hand. The Beysa had arrived at the platform, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s so heavily painted they scarcely seemed naked. Her long golden hair swirled plumelike in the light breeze. The moment had arrived and the crowd grew quiet.

Terrai Burek, the prime minister, ascended the platform and behind him, in chains, came his son, Turghurt.

The young man stumbled and the guards rushed forward to get him back on his feet. Even at this distance, it was plain that something had happened to the young man and that he had no clear idea why his aunt, the Beysa Shupansea, was standing in the sun, telling everyone that he was going to die for the deaths of his own people and for the death of a Sanctuary courtesan. Yorl let the curtain drop again.

'Then why did you use just enough venom on your dart to destroy his mind but not enough to kill him?'

The Beysib woman laughed melodically. 'He overstepped himself. He thought to arouse Shupansea's rage by slaying Sharilar, her cousin, while they walked along the wharf. But he killed not only Sharilar, but Prism - and that we could not forgive.'

'But you could have killed him outright. Wouldn't that have been the true vengeance of Bey?'

'Bey is a G.o.ddess of many moods; she is life as well as death. This is a lesson for everyone: for town and Beysib. They will respect each other a little more now. Shupansea, herself, needed to p.r.o.nounce this judgement. She must rise to rule here or Turghurt will be only the first.'