Col Buchanan - Stands a Shadow

War, he thought with a sudden sobriety. Tomorrow, I set off for war.

A letter was waiting for him on the table by the front door when he arose in the afternoon from his sleep. Whiskers was gone, returned to her slave quarters in the basement of the building.

He had an aversion to letters. They came bearing only bad news or reminders of responsibilities. Still, he picked it up anyway and opened it.

I hope the new ointment is working. Come and see me, my son. I miss you. Please come.

His mother. The leash they kept on him to ensure his loyalty to the order.

Che held the letter for a while, not sure what to do with it. In the end he opened the drawer of the table, and took out a plain piece of paper and the stylus and ink. In careful lettering he wrote:

Dear mother. I must leave with the fleet in the morning. No, I do not know how long I will be gone. I will think of you, as I always think of you.

Your son.

He blew on the ink until it was dry, then folded the paper carefully, and scratched instructions for delivery to his mother at the Sentiate temple. He left it where Whiskers would see it.

For a moment Che considered sending an invitation to Perl or Shale, or even to both of them. But the young women would expect their fair share of pleasure narcotics for the evening, and would expect him to join them in their vices. He didn’t feel like being intoxicated tonight, nor most nights for that matter; he didn’t like where his mind sometimes went in those altered states.

No, better if he remained inside tonight so that he was fresh for the morning. Besides, some peace to himself would be a luxury in itself. Best to make the most of that too while he still could.

Che dug out his leather backpack and started to pack for the morning, wanting to be done with it so that he could properly relax. He packed some clothing without any great attention to what he was doing, though when he came to his bookcase he paused, and sat down to give some it proper deliberation.

It was Che’s job to know as much of the world as he possibly could. Hence the shelves held many travelogues and diaries and books of maps, and texts of religion and history. It was this knowledge, Che sometimes suspected, that really lay behind the sense of distrust he sometimes felt from his handlers; this abundance of learning of other cultures and the ideologies that ran contrary to Mann.

In the end he selected one of the works by Slavo, an account of the Markeshian’s travels – imaginary most likely – to the far side of the world and the foreign peoples he’d discovered there. It had been a while since Che had read that one.

As an afterthought, he turned to his copy of the Scripture lying closed on top of the bookcase. Only once had he actually read the thing in its entirety since his return to his life of Mann. It had been part of his re-education after living all those years as a Roshun apprentice in the mountains of Cheem, when the spypriests of the Elash had slowly reintegrated him into the ways of the divine flesh, before informing him that he was to become a Diplomat for the Section.

He lifted the thin volume and packed it only reluctantly.

In the darkening hours of evening, with the living room lit by gas lamps, Che sat down in his armchair dressed in a clean white robe, his stomach comfortably full, a modest glass of Seratian wine in his hand, gazing out onto the street below, lost in thought.

His mood of earlier was long gone. Instead, he felt vaguely depressed now that his packing was done and there was nothing left but to wait for morning, the reality of it finally sinking in. This life of a Diplomat allowed him to exist in relative, blessed isolation from his peers. Now, though, for weeks on end, he would be expected to live shoulder to shoulder with his fellow priests, and the Matriarch and her entourage of sycophants. He would have to watch his every step, his every word. Not an easy thing that, not now with his thoughts running ever more contrary to everything around him.

Since Cheem and his betrayal of the Roshun, a seething anger had been rising within Che. He could feel it whenever his temper snapped in a dozen little ways during the course of an ordinary day, or when he said things he shouldn’t be saying, or when he provoked those of authority with his seeming arrogance towards them, which in truth wasn’t arrogance at all, but a nonchalant mental shrug, a lack of caring. It was as though he wished to be challenged on his behaviour, as though he wanted to have it out with the priests at last, regardless of the consequences. A kind of deathwish perhaps, gathering slowly in momentum.

Che took another sip of the wine, appreciating the soft rasp of bitterness against his palate, the perfect accompaniment to the peppered rabbit he could still taste from dinner. In the kitchen, he could hear Whiskers cleaning the dirty pots and plates.

It had stopped raining at last, and people were stepping out to enjoy the evening entertainments of the streets below. For a while, Che watched a pimp running his little empire from the corner of the street, the fellow strutting and preening himself beneath the streetlights. When he grew bored of that, he shifted his attention to a group of young men and women sitting on a low wall behind a tram stop, passing hazii sticks amongst themselves, chatting and laughing, warming each other with their companionship. They seemed not much younger than Che, yet he watched them as though with the eyes of an old man.

At first he didn’t notice Whiskers as she emerged into the living area, her hands folded before her, waiting to be relieved for the night. The woman cleared her throat, and he turned and blinked and stared at her tired, sagging face.

Che had no idea what this woman was really called. Non-indentured slaves weren’t allowed names as a rule, save for what their masters chose for them; hence he’d coined her nickname when he’d first been given the keys to this apartment, and laid eyes on the house-slave that came with it, this middle-aged woman with blonde downy hairs on her face and a pair of fierce blue eyes. He knew that she was from the people of the northern tribes, though only because of the colour of her hair, and the blue-ink tattoo he had once glimpsed on her upper arm.

Not much of a life, he’d often thought. Seven days a week at his beck and call with only the late nights truly to herself; and even then, only if she wasn’t required in her master’s bed. He imagined she had been well used by her previous masters, for she was womanly enough. He’d toyed with the idea himself for a while, before deciding he preferred more consent in these matters.

Behind Whiskers, shadows hung across the apartment in heavy veils that shifted in the gaslight. They hid the clock that ticked its isolated ticks on the far table, and the piles of reference materials stacked against the wall, and the lacquered globe of the world, turned so often it needed oiling again already. Not much else, though, save for emptiness and bare walls and the sounds of the world outside it.

‘Stay a while longer,’ Che heard himself say to the woman, motioning with his open hands.

She seemed to misunderstand him, for a little colour came to her pale features.

Not for the first time, a suspicion crossed his mind that perhaps Whiskers really could read lips, as many slaves learned to do after they’d been rendered deaf – and that she was keeping the fact to herself for reasons unknown to him.

‘No, I didn’t mean…’ He shook his head and looked away, then noticed the ylang board on the small table before him. He gestured to it. ‘Perhaps you could join me for a game, if you play?’

Her stare took in his gesturing hand then returned to his eyes. Pity crossed her features. For an instant he saw it clearly, and he wondered what caused such an emotion towards him. The woman remained where she stood.