Mark Lawrence - Emperor of Thorns

‘Lesha. One sixteenth of the Provost’s horde of grandchildren.’

‘Her granddaughter? I’m surprised. I had the impression that the Provost wasn’t expecting to see us return.’

It seemed that Lesha wasn’t going to answer for she rode a hundred yards in silence at our side as we led our animals away from the city.

‘I’m sure my grandmother’s assessment of the expedition is accurate and remains unchanged.’

I still could see nothing of her within the fold of her cloak but something in the way she held herself made me sure she was kind to the eye, maybe beautiful.

‘So why would she send you, Lady Lesha?’ Sunny asked. He broke the silence I’d left for her to fill. Often the lack of a question will prompt an answer, sometimes an answer to a question you might not have thought to ask.

‘She didn’t send me — I decided to come. In any case, she won’t miss me too much. She has plenty of grandchildren and I’m far from being her favourite.’

That left a long silence that none of chose to break. Lesha dismounted and led her horse beside us.

The dawn broke, a gentle fading of greys until the eastern sky grew bright with promise. At last the first brilliant corner of the sun poked above horizon, throwing long shadows our way. I glanced at Lesha then, and lost any sting from when she had touched her cheek to mark my scarring. Each part of her face had been burned as badly as the wound I bore. Her skin held a melted quality, as if it had run like molten rock then frozen once more. The burns surprised me, but less than the fact that she had survived them. She met my gaze. Her eyes were very blue.

‘You’re still sure you want to go to the Iberico?’ She pushed back her hood. The fire had left no hair, her scalp piebald in whites, unhealthy pinks, and beige, holes where her ears lay.

‘Damned if I am,’ Sunny gasped.

I reached out and took her reins so we both stopped in the road. Balky stood shoulder to shoulder with her horse, Sunny a few yards ahead, looking back.

‘And why are you so keen to return, lady?’ I asked. ‘Why not twice shy, for you’ve surely been bitten?’

‘Perhaps I’ve nothing to lose now,’ she said, her lips lumpy lines of gristle. She didn’t look away from me.

I closed my eyes for a second and a point of red light blinked against the back of my eyelids. Fexler’s tiny red dot, drawing me across all these miles.

‘And what desire drew you there in the first place? Did you think to find wealth in the ruins, or to come back to Albaseat a great and famed explorer?’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so. Those are bad bets — not for a daughter of the provost’s family. I think the secrets called you there. You wanted answers. To know what the Builders hid there, yes?’

She glanced away then, and spat, like a man. ‘I found no answers.’

‘But that doesn’t mean the place holds none.’ I leaned in toward her. She flinched away, not expecting intimacy. My hand caught her around the back of that bald head, the skin rippled and unpleasant beneath my fingers. ‘It doesn’t mean that asking our questions is not the truest thing that creatures such as you and I can do.’ I drew her very close though she strained against it. She stood tall for a woman. ‘We can’t be trapped by fear. Lives lived within such walls are just slower deaths.’ I spoke in a whisper now, bowing my head until a bare inch stood between our faces. I half-expected her to smell of char, but she had no scent, not perfume, not sweat. ‘Let’s go there and spit in the eye of any who says the old knowledge is forbidden to us, neh?’ I kissed her cheek then, because I feared to do it and though commonsense may occasionally bind me, I’ll be fucked if fear will.

Lesha snatched herself away. ‘You’re just a child. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ But she didn’t sound displeased.

We rode until noon and took shelter from the sun in the shade of a stand of olive trees. The farmer’s wife proved enterprising enough to delay her own siesta and toil up the slopes to offer us wine, cheeses, and hard brown herb-bread. The old woman crossed herself briefly when she saw Lesha but had the grace not to stare. We set to the meal, and sent her back with an empty basket and a handful of coppers, enough for twice the amount of food were it served in a fine tavern.

‘Tell me about the Moors,’ I said to nobody in particular. The piece of cheese I licked from my finger was soft and crumbly both at once. It smelled like something that shouldn’t ever be eaten, but had a pleasingly complex and pungent taste.

‘Which ones?’ Lesha said. She looked asleep, stretched on the dusty soil, head pillowed on her bundled cloak at the base of the tree shading her.

She had a point. I’d seen at least a dozen Moors in Albaseat, wrapped in white robes, most of them all but hidden inside the hood of a burnoose, some trading, some just bound upon their business.

‘Tell me about the Caliph of Liba.’ It seemed a good place to start.

‘Ibn Fayed,’ Sunny muttered. ‘The thorn in your grandfather’s arse.’

‘Has he many like Qalasadi working for him?’ I asked.

‘Mathmagicians?’ Sunny asked. ‘No.’

‘There aren’t many like that,’ Lesha said. ‘And they don’t work for masters in any case. They follow a pure path. There isn’t much that men like that want.’

‘Not gold?’ I asked.

Lesha raised her ruined head to watch me then sat up against the tree. ‘Only rarities hold interest for their kind. Wonders such as we might find in the Iberico, but just as likely old scrolls from the Builder times, ways of calculating, old lore, the sort of cleverness that never seemed to get written down on anything that lasts, or at least that we can read.’

‘And Ibn Fayed sails against the Horse Coast to raid, or to settle, or is it punishment for not following the Moors’ prophet?’ I had my grandfather and uncle’s views on this but it’s good to look at such things from other angles.

‘His people want to return,’ Lesha said.

This was new. The provost’s granddaughter took her wisdom from the whole book, not just the current page.

‘Return?’ I had seen a Moorish hand behind much that stood in Albaseat though no one seemed eager to admit it.

‘Caliphs have ruled here as many years as kings have ruled. Before the Builders and after. The scribes today call them raiders, burners, heathens, but there’s Moorish cleverness mixed into everything we take pride in.’

‘Not just a pretty face, then,’ I said. She read, this one, for her opinions weren’t ones that could be formed on what others might think it safe to teach. The church held the Horse Coast Kingdoms and the West Ports close — any closer and they’d choke them. Priests kept a low opinion of heathens, and this far south disagreeing with a man of the cloth often proved to be a dangerous pastime. In every town a church scribe busied himself rewriting history — but they couldn’t rewrite what lay written in stone all about them.

Lesha took no offence at my jibe, or at least I think not for her scar tissue couldn’t mirror the emotions below.

We lay quiet for a time then. Almost no sound but for the distant clang of a goat bell. Why the old nanny wasn’t lying in the shade I couldn’t say. The heat wrapped us like a blanket, taking away any inclination to move.

‘You were slow to save that boy, Jorg,’ Sunny said. I thought him asleep for the past quarter hour, but clearly he’d been replaying the morning behind his eyes.

‘I didn’t save him. I saved you. You’re of some use.’

‘You would have let him die?’ Sunny sounded troubled by it.

‘I would,’ I said. ‘He was nothing to me.’ Golden curls and blood, the image played over the back of my eyelids. I opened my eyes and sat up. They broke William’s head on a milestone, swung him by the feet and beat him on the stone. It happened. The world rolled on regardless. And I learned that nothing mattered.