Snare, Page 3

  ‘The cavalry I joined did. In the past few years –’ Warkannan shrugged. ‘Gemet’s paranoia is going to poison the whole khanate, sooner or later.’

  ‘Unless we supply the antidote?’ Indan smiled, a wry twist of his mouth.

  ‘Just that. It’s a tall order, but if God wills, we’ll succeed. If He doesn’t, well, then, who am I to argue?’

  Outside the sunset was darkening into twilight. A servant slipped in and began lighting the oil in silver lamps. While he waited for the man to leave, Warkannan looked round the table at his allies, at the luxurious room, at all the comforts of life that he might never see again. As the lamp flames grew, they sparkled on silver, on crystal, on the enormous ruby at the centre of Soutan’s headband. The fitful light seemed to be illuminating not just the room but the moment, a point of history upon which the destiny of the khanate would turn. The servant bowed and left the room.

  ‘Warkannan,’ Indan hissed. ‘If the Chosen find any evidence at all to back up their suspicions, leaving the Guard will brand you as a traitor. You’ll never be able to ride back to Kazrajistan.’

  ‘Oh yes I will. At the head of an army.’ Warkannan turned to Soutan. ‘It’s time Jezro’s letter got an answer.’

  Soutan considered him with a thin smile. His puzzling old man’s eyes were unreadable in the shadows.

  ‘I always intended to take someone back to Jezro,’ Soutan said at last. ‘And you’ll never make it across the Rift alone, so I’d better go with you.’

  ‘Someday you’ll be the vizier of a Great Khan in return for all this.’

  ‘If your God allows. But there’s nothing left for an exile but one gamble after another, is there? We might as well deal the cards.’ Soutan took a slice of pickled blakbuh from a silver tray and nibbled on it. ‘The omens say the time is ripe for a change in the Great Khan’s fortunes, and it’s not a good one. A malefic current is forming a vortex around his personal symbols – a time of budding danger for him.’

  Arkazo laughed. ‘Then let’s help the malefic along.’

  Soutan favoured him with a look of contempt. ‘That, my dear child, is my point and not an occasion for bad jokes.’

  Indan leaned forward before Arkazo could reply. ‘And what about your nephew, Captain? You’d better send him back to his father’s estate before you leave.’

  ‘No!’ Arkazo slammed his hand down on the table and made the oil dance dangerously in the lamps. ‘All my life I’ve been shut up, either on Father’s lousy estate or at university. Now I’ve finally got a chance at some excitement.’

  ‘My dear young fellow,’ Indan began.

  Warkannan raised a hand and interrupted him. ‘He’ll have to come with me, Councillor. He’s been staying in my bungalow. If the Chosen decide we don’t pass muster, he’s the first one they’ll arrest.’

  Arkazo laughed with a toss of his head.

  ‘Listen, Kaz,’ Warkannan said. ‘This isn’t any joke. It’s going to be dangerous, and your mother’s going to curse my very name for this.’

  ‘Not once she’s got the favour of the new Great Khan’s wife. Mama’s always been the practical sort.’ Arkazo turned abruptly sour. ‘Why else would she have married my father?’

  ‘This is no place to bring that up.’ Warkannan took the silver flagon and poured them both more rose-scented water – Indan kept a pious table. ‘I wish to God I’d kept you out of this.’

  ‘You tried. It didn’t work.’

  ‘It’s too late now, anyway. The dice are thrown, and if it weren’t for you, I’d be glad of it. I’m sick to my gut of all this creeping round and worrying about spies.’

  ‘Spies, indeed,’ Indan said. ‘Which reminds me –’

  ‘Just so. We’d better get this over with.’

  Everyone pushed their chairs back and stood, suddenly grim, suddenly quiet, even Arkazo.

  Warkannan fetched a bucket of hot coals from the kitchen – he told the cook that he wanted to take the chill off his room – then followed the others up to the attic. As stiff as a rolled-up rug, Hazro lay on the floor. When Warkannan set the bucket of coals down, he whimpered and twisted in his ropes. Warkannan knelt beside him and pulled him up to a sitting position, propping him against the wall. Hazro’s dark eyes flicked this way and that.

  ‘Arkazo?’ Warkannan said. ‘You can leave. You don’t have to watch this.’

  ‘What are you going to do to him?’ Arkazo was staring at Hazro.

  ‘You don’t need to know that.’

  ‘But I –’

  Warkannan got up and took one long stride to come face to face with his nephew. His own disgust with what he would have to do in this room turned to cold rage. ‘Get out of here,’ he snapped. ‘Now.’

  ‘Yes sir.’ Arkazo stepped back sharply. ‘I’m on my way.’

  Warkannan waited to ensure that Arkazo was following his orders; then he closed the door and locked it. Indan stuffed a threadbare bit of carpet into the crack at the bottom of the door. When Warkannan knelt down next to him, Hazro moaned under his breath, then steadied himself, forcing defiance into a tight tremulous smile. Warkannan drew his dagger and looked at him over the blade.

  ‘Listen, boy. This is your last chance. You wouldn’t be refusing to tell me unless you had something to hide.’

  Hazro said nothing.

  ‘Why?’ Indan stepped forward. ‘Why won’t you tell us?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ Hazro said.

  ‘Yes, there is,’ Warkannan said. ‘You’ve been giving information to someone. Who?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Then why do the Chosen suspect us?’

  ‘They suspect everyone.’

  ‘You told them about us.’

  ‘Never. I didn’t betray Jezro.’

  Warkannan made a cut on his cheek, just under his eye. ‘I’m going to keep doing this till you tell me. If your face isn’t sensitive enough, I’ll work on your balls.’

  Sweat glazed Hazro’s forehead. ‘I didn’t tell anyone anything.’

  Warkannan made another nick, then another till Hazro’s face was sheeting blood. When Warkannan took the lid off the bucket of glowing charcoal, Hazro fainted. Warkannan slapped and shook him to bring him round while he fought his own honest revulsion. He hated extracting information this way, but if he didn’t, what then? The Chosen might well gather them all in, and worse things would happen to his friends, his mistress, his allies, his nephew, down in some hidden room under the Great Khan’s palace. Indan pulled over a wooden storage box and sat down, his eyes weary.

  ‘Now,’ Warkannan said to Hazro. ‘Who did you tell?’

  Hazro shut his bloody lips tight. Warkannan pulled up Hazro’s tunic and made a nick on his scrotum. Hazro screamed.

  ‘I’ll put a bit of charcoal on that cut next,’ Warkannan said. ‘That’s the procedure – a nick, then a bit of fire, all the way up your cock.’

  When Hazro hesitated, Warkannan took the small tongs and fished a glowing coal out of the bucket.

  ‘It was Lev Rashad. Rashad of the Wazrekej Fifth Mounted. I didn’t realize at first he was one of the Chosen.’

  Warkannan felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He knew Rashad, just distantly, but he knew him. You never think it’s going to be someone you know, he told himself.

  ‘What do you think he was going to do?’ Warkannan said. ‘Announce it in the regimental mess?’

  ‘I – I –’

  ‘Wait!’ Indan looked up. ‘You said you didn’t know he was one of them at first. This must mean you realized it later. How?’

  ‘He must have been the one.’ Hazro started gasping for breath. ‘It couldn’t have been anyone else.’

  ‘Oh?’ Indan said. ‘He must have dropped some hint. Why didn’t you come straight to us then? You were dangling us like bait in front of him, weren’t you? You were using us to try to buy your way into the Chosen.’

  Hazro made a small choking sound deep in his throat.

  ‘How m
uch did you tell him?’ Warkannan said. ‘Did you mention Jezro?’

  ‘No, never, I swear it! All I said was that I was on to a good thing with this investment group. I thought he’d join us. We’d been drinking, and I –’

  ‘You stupid little bastard!’ Warkannan raised the knife. ‘What did you tell him about Jezro?’

  ‘Nothing!’

  ‘Why did you want to join the Chosen?’

  ‘I didn’t. I didn’t.’

  Warkannan kept working on him until the smell of charred flesh hung in the room and Hazro was gibbering, not speaking. A bit at a time, Warkannan extracted the information that Hazro had mentioned Soutan, come from the east with ancient maps that might show deposits of blackstone. He admitted bragging, hinting that perhaps he was a man who knew important things.

  ‘But not Jezro, never Jezro.’ He was sobbing, twitching when his tears touched the open cuts on his face.

  ‘Indeed? Are you sure of that?’

  Over and over he denied having mentioned the name, even when he was at the point of shrieking and writhing at the very sight of a piece of charcoal. Warkannan finally laid down the tongs and sat back on his heels.

  ‘I believe him. A man in this state tells the truth.’

  ‘So do I,’ Indan said. ‘As for this business about his wanting to join the Chosen –’

  ‘I didn’t!’ Hazro tried to shout, but he was gagging on his own blood. ‘I just thought –’

  ‘What?’ Indan said. ‘What were you thinking?’

  ‘Insurance.’ Hazro started to cough, then gagged again and spat up bloody rheum. ‘If –’

  ‘If they were on to us, you were going to turn informer.’ Warkannan finished the thought for him. ‘That’s why you wouldn’t tell us.’

  Hazro slumped back against the wall, his bloody lips working.

  ‘Yes,’ Indan said. ‘I think we finally understand.’

  Soutan stepped closer to stare at Hazro’s mutilated manhood, what was left of it. ‘What are you going to do with him now?’

  ‘Put him out of his misery.’

  Hazro screamed, choked again, and tried to speak, but Warkannan grabbed his hair, forced his head back, and slit his throat in one quick stroke. When he looked up, he saw Soutan smiling, his eyes bright, as if from a fever. Soutan nudged the dead body with the toe of his sandal.

  ‘Do we throw him in the ocean?’

  ‘No. The Chosen have recognizable ways of torturing a man, and this was one of them. The councillor is going to find something big enough to hide the body. We’ll take it back to Haz Kazrak, and I’ll dump the corpse over the wall of Hazro’s father’s garden at night for the slaves to find. His father won’t suspect us. He’ll think that the Chosen have killed his son, and then he’ll be more loyal to Jezro than ever.’

  They left the body in the attic. Warkannan stayed out of sight while Indan ordered the servants to bring up a tub of hot water for his guest room. Once the tub was ready and they were gone, Warkannan could at last bathe away the stench and the gore. He only wished he could wash away his revulsion as easily.

  Hazro had been a stupid young fool, a snob and apparently a coward as well. But to think that Lev Rashad – Warkannan shook his head. The very curse of the Chosen was simply that they were secret and very good at staying that way. An army within an army, they existed to spy on their fellow soldiers as well as do the Great Khan’s dirty work among civilians. They lived in the same barracks, ate at the same mess, carried the same insignia as the other members of their regiments, but somewhere in their career, they’d been taken aside and initiated into a brotherhood with rules of its own.

  And they force the rest of us to sink to their level, Warkannan told himself. Maybe that’s the worst evil of all.

  In the morning, when they set off for Haz Kazrak, one of Indan’s servants followed them in the cart which was laden with an enormous woven basket filled with dried fruit and other delicacies, or so the servant thought. Certainly it smelled of rich spices and rose petals. Once they reached the city, the servant and the cart both headed for Indan’s townhouse, while Warkannan and Arkazo went openly to Warkannan’s cottage, which he kept as a relief from officers’ quarters when off-duty.

  Down on one of the lower hills in town lay a district full of these places, decent accommodations, complete with stables, for aristocratic officers like Warkannan, who had income from property but who weren’t wealthy enough to keep townhouses with a full staff. Warkannan’s little bungalow sat at the back of the communal garden, six irregular rooms bound together by vines and furnished with shabby wicker chairs and old rugs. When he and Arkazo walked in, his only servant, Lazzo, met him with a letter.

  ‘It’s from headquarters, sir.’

  ‘Ah. I wonder if they’re taking my resignation?’

  Warkannan took the sheet of pale pink rushi over to the window. The letter read exactly as he’d hoped, a bland official statement of regret at losing such a good officer. He was to report one last time to determine his pension settlement.

  ‘So that’s that,’ Warkannan said. ‘If they’re so sorry to lose me they might have promoted me.’

  ‘I’m glad now I never enlisted.’ Arkazo flopped onto a wicker sofa.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. The discipline’s good for a man. I don’t regret –’

  One sharp jolt like the slap of a giant hand made the room sway. The flexible walls creaked and chafed against their binding vines as they rippled in the shock. Warkannan braced himself and glanced at the wall. A long strand of blue beads hung on a leather thong attached to a plaque of true-wood, marked out in numbered, concentric circles. The beads swung back and forth against the gauge. As he watched, the quake died out in a long shiver. The beads quieted and hung steady.

  ‘Just about a five,’ Warkannan said.

  ‘It didn’t feel like much, no,’ Arkazo said. ‘Anyway, you’ve always talked about the discipline. That’s one reason I don’t want to join up.’

  ‘Huh! Well, you’re going to learn about discipline now. You follow my orders, or you stay at home.’

  Lounging on overstuffed cushions Arkazo raised one hand in salute. ‘Yes sir!’ he said and grinned. ‘At your service!’

  ‘All right. For starters, you can pack my clothes as well as yours.’

  They went into Warkannan’s bedroom, where, in a chest woven of pale orange reeds, Warkannan kept what few civilian clothes he owned – khaki trousers, shirts to match, a broad-brimmed riding hat, worn brown boots. He dumped the lot on the bed, then looked away, startled at a feeling much like grief. Civilian clothes. Tonight he would be taking off the Great Khan’s uniform for the last time. As an honourable retiree he would be allowed to keep his sabre – but I’m a traitor, he thought. I have no honour. They just don’t know it yet.

  ‘Uncle?’ Arkazo laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No, no, nothing. I’ll just go report in to settle my pension. I want our gear properly packed when I get back. Make sure you have a hat with you. The sun’s fierce out on the plains.’

  Just after sunset, Warkannan and Arkazo were sharing some smuggled wine in the study when Lubahva arrived from the palace. Normally she wore modest dresses and a headscarf when she left the palace grounds, but that evening she’d draped herself with the grey veils of the ultra-orthodox, which turned her into a pious bundle indistinguishable from a thousand other women. Her behaviour, however, was far from restrained. She giggled while she tipped the old servant and made a show of lifting her veil to give Warkannan a kiss. Once the servant was gone, Lubahva sat down on a divan and pulled the veil off to reveal her black hair, done up in rows of beaded braids.

  ‘Are you sure this is safe?’ Warkannan said.

  ‘Why not?’ She smiled briefly. ‘I told them I was on my way to a women’s prayer service, and I am. I’ve just stopped by for a minute with news. A Kazrak rode out from one of the northern border forts, a merchant saying he was going to take his goods out to the Tri
bes.’

  ‘Oh really? With the chance of running into prowling ChaMeech? That I don’t believe. We’ll leave from the north and try to catch up with him.’

  ‘You’re really going to go through with this?’

  ‘I don’t have any choice. Arkazo and I are leaving tomorrow. The sorcerer’s joining us on the road.’

  ‘Ah, Soutan!’ Lubahva said with a sigh. ‘Well, even fake magicians can carry letters. All right. I’ll keep in touch with Indan while you’re gone.’

  As they walked to the door, she veiled herself, but she left the panel over her face down for one last kiss.

  ‘Idres?’ she said. ‘Will I ever see you again?’

  ‘That’s up to God, isn’t it? I hope so.’

  ‘I suppose it is, yes. I’ll miss you.’

  ‘I’ll miss you, too. Remember me in your prayers.’

  ‘Every day. I promise.’

  Lubahva pulled up the veil, turned fast and started off down the path to the street. Watching her shoulders tremble, Warkannan realized that she was weeping. He was honestly surprised.

  Deep in the night, after Arkazo had gone to bed, Warkannan put on his civilian khakis, hid a dagger in his shirt and took a stout walking stick as well, then hurried through the dark streets to Indan’s townhouse, some five blocks uphill from the compound owned by Hazro’s family, the Mustava clan. At the back gate Indan’s mayordomo, a man with years of loyalty behind him, met him in the darkness. Together they rolled the wicker basket down the silent mews to the Mustava garden. The white wall stood too high for the pair of them to lift or throw the grisly contents over. A porter’s little hut at the back gate, however, stood empty. Warkannan rolled the basket inside, tipped the mayordomo, then hurried away, trotting through back alleys, keeping out of the occasional pool of lantern light. He met no one and returned to his bungalow without waking Arkazo.

  Warkannan lingered in the city the next morning to hear the news about Hazro’s corpse. It reached him early in the person of a light-skinned eunuch, Aiwaz, the supervisor of the court musicians, who knew both the Mustavas and the Warkannans. Swathed in white gauze robes he waddled into Warkannan’s living room and stood shaking his head, his face deathly pale, while he repeatedly wiped his mouth with a yellow handkerchief.