Ричард Морган - The Cold Commands

Weeping into quiet.

Egar looked about vaguely, already sensing the fight was done. No more intruders, the open chamber doors yawned wide, but there was only gloom beyond. Imrana was knelt sobbing at her husband’s side, holding his head in her hands while he finished choking to death. Brinag fumbled to his feet, came and stood beside Egar, nursing the hole in his arm where Hanan had stabbed him. His face was a garish fright mask, red-streaked and smeared with the blood from his torn scalp.

“Quite the harem adventure this morning, my lord,” he said acidly.

Egar lifted and turned his own left arm, looked at the dark spreading soak of fresh blood through his sleeve where Hanan’s blade had sliced him up. He grimaced.

“Bit tight, yeah.”

From the floor, Imrana turned a hectic, tear-streaming face on him. “You killed him! Eg, he’s fucking dead , you killed him!”

He spread his arms, blood-clotted knife still clutched in his right hand. Not a lot you could say, really. Second or third blow to Ashant’s throat, he’d felt the windpipe crush inward, he already knew he’d killed him. Wished she wasn’t so visibly upset about it, though. Could have done without that.

“You’d better get out of here.” Brinag, at his shoulder. “Somehow, I don’t think we’re going to get away with dumping these two down the old well. Not this time.”

“Yeah.” Egar glanced at the eunuch. “I owe you, Brin. You going to be all right?”

“They cut off my balls at fifteen,” Brinag said tonelessly. “What else is there?”

Egar, who in his time had seen the mutilated enemies of the Dhashara hill tribes and the roasting pits of the Scaled Folk, thought this showed remarkably little imagination on Brinag’s part. But now was really not the time. He clapped the eunuch on the shoulder.

“Good man. You take care of her, then. Blame whatever you need to on me.”

Brinag looked steadily back at him, nodded.

“Eg?” Imrana, back on her feet, wiping away tears with angry swipes of her palm. “Eg, what are you talking about? What are you going to do? You can’t just…”

He sighed. “Imrana, they’re going to put your slaves to the question, they’re going to know I was here. And you told me yourself we’re pretty much an open secret in court circles. Hanan certainly knew, seems he fronted Saril with it, in front of who knows how many noble witnesses. You’ve got to hang this on me.”

She stared at him. “No.”

“Don’t be a fucking idiot, woman. It’s either that, or we conspired together to murder your husband, and you’ll go to the chair for it. Is that what you want? Look—you’d given me up, right? Fallen back in love with your husband. I broke in here furious, to rape you or whatever, that whole Majak steppe-thug thing, Hanan and Saril arrived just in time to stop me, but I killed them and fled. You’re just a victim of a noblewoman’s silly indiscretion that got out of hand. That’ll wash, right? You’ve got friends at court who’ll see it done?”

She nodded numbly. He tried to take her in his arms, but she was still rigid with the shock. He settled for running a rough thumb down her tear-ribboned cheek.

“Then that’s the way it has to be, Imrana.”

“But they’ll… they’ll hunt you down.”

He snorted. “Yeah, they’ll try. I’ve been hunted by steppe ghouls and starving wolves, Imrana. I think I can handle the Yhelteth City Guard.”

And for one crazy moment, he wished he was back out there on the steppe once more, back under that great icy sky with staff lance and ax and knives at hand, and nothing more complicated to worry about than some pack of howling hungry creatures on the horizon who’d ill-advisedly decided they wanted a piece of him.

Instead of which…

This fucking city .

He nodded once more at Brin, looked once more at Imrana standing there. Then he turned and headed back out into it.

You could hear the yelling from twenty yards off down the alcoved and colonnaded corridor. As they approached, Ringil glanced sideways and saw Archeth pull a face.

“Worse than you thought it’d be?” he asked her.

“Yeah.” But then she shrugged. “No. No, I suppose not.”

“Fucking merchants, eh?”

“You will keep your seat!” came through the door at full pitch. A young, unseasoned voice, trying for command and fraying at the edges. Ringil made it for Noyal Rakan. He’d eavesdropped on the young Throne Eternal captain earlier in the week, and had to agree with Shanta. He wasn’t the man for this job.

Nice arse, though .

They reached the door. Stood wordless, looking at each other. The storm raged on within, Rakan’s attempt to close down debate by now pretty much washed away in the waves of revolt. One heavily accented, bass voice trampled down the Throne Eternal captain’s commands. Behind that, other speakers with more homegrown Tethanne vied for mastery undeterred. Archeth looked at Ringil’s face and saw a cold smile wash across his eyes but barely touch the crooked line of his mouth.

“Well, here we go,” he said.

He reached down with a showy flourish of sleeves, laid hands on the ornate handles of the double doors. He turned each handle sharply and shoved inward. The doors hinged smoothly back, letting out a waft of stale, body-heated air and the surf of raised voices.

“…a fucking choirboy !”

“That’s exactly right, you—”

“…shame! Shame!”

“…no intention of…”

“Gentlemen!”

To Archeth, it didn’t seem as if Ringil had raised his own voice by much, but it stilled the room like a battle clarion. There was an almost comical nature to the way the company froze, heads twitching around to the door and the figure that had just come through it. Half of the assembled worthies were on their feet around the table, caught in furious mid-gesture, the others slumped in their chairs with lordly disdain. Rakan, looking beleaguered, headed the table with another equally young Throne Eternal by his side, but the focus of the room was Shendanak—big, broad-shouldered, and these days swinging a belly like a saddlebag under his robes. Shendanak, who still affected the knotted hair and iron talismans of a youth and a heritage he’d left three decades and a thousand miles behind. Shendanak, who wore the jagged scar on his forehead like some diadem of rank and covered his big, cut-up hands with savagely wrought steel and silver rings.

Shendanak, who spoke first. Full-body swivel, straight in.

“And who the fuck are you?”

Ringil met his eye and dropped into Majak. “Want me to show you?”

It backed the other man up a scant couple of heartbeats. But Shendanak matched the language shift and came right back.

“Oho—and which Skaranak bum-boy’s mouth did you steal that shit out of?”

Ringil let the smile seep out onto his face. Said nothing.

Shendanak bristled, spat out an oath. “Don’t you grin at me, boy!”

The rest of the room had puddled into quiet around this, the new confrontation. At the corner of his vision, Ringil saw a palpable relief course over Rakan’s features. Closely followed by mortification at the way the balance had shifted away from him. He’d blurt something out in a moment, and it probably wouldn’t help.

“Well?” Shendanak’s eyes measured Ringil for an early grave.

Ringil kept his smile. Felt the tug of the scar tissue in his cheek, the soft-tugging weight of the dragon-tooth dagger in his sleeve. The matter of a moment to clear the blade, leap the table and open that prodigious belly like a millet sack—let Shendanak look and find that knowledge floating there in Gil’s gently smiling gaze.