Paul Kearney - Corvus

“You want her under your roof, knowing you had a hand in her fate?”

“I deserve it. I too must pay.”

She stood beside him and twined her fingers in his.

“Karnos, they burned a thousand men on a pyre today, and it was counted a victory. The times we live in are full of blood. Before this thing is done, we will have it on all our hands.”

“I wonder sometimes if it’s worth it. To fight like this – and for what? So we can tell ourselves that we are free men? What did freedom mean to my father? He was more a slave than Polio is. Freedom is a word, Kassia.” “There has to be something worth dying for. Remember what Gestrakos said: a man who cares for nothing is a man already dead.”

Karnos grimaced. “There’s another saying, about ends and means. Let me show you something.”

He led her down to the end of the long room. At the bottom a tall cabinet of dark wood stood, barely lit by the oil lamp in the corner. Karnos touched the bottom of the cabinet and there was an audible click. A door opened, taller than either of them.

“I had Framnos make this, the same time he built me my couches,” Karnos said. “Now you know how it opens, as only he and I did before.” He swung open the door. There was a darkness within, and in that darkness a deeper black.

“Reach out and touch it.”

Kassia put her hand out hesitantly, then recoiled. “I can’t see – what is it?”

Karnos brought the lamp over and held it high. Set within the cabinet was a black cuirass. It seemed to soak up the light of the flame, like a hole in the fabric of the world. And then they saw a gleam run over it here and there, like a delayed reflection.

“The Curse of God,” Karnos said.

“Karnos – I never knew – how did you find this?”

“I stole it,” he said with a crooked smile.

Her mouth opened. “You cannot steal this, Karnos. These things -”

“It belonged to Katullos. I was with him when he died. He wanted it given to his son, but his son is not twelve years old. So I took it for myself. I, the Speaker of Machran.” “It’s not right. His family -”

“Call it fortune of war.” Karnos reached out and touched the lightless contours of the armour. “I shall wear it on the walls, when the end comes, for good or ill. It will do the city more good on my back than in the family vault of the Alcmoi.”

They stood looking at it, until Kassia shivered. “I don’t like these things – they are not of this world.”

“You may be right. But they are part of what we are. They cannot be pierced, damaged or destroyed. They simply exist. As long as they do, so shall we.”

He closed the cabinet door again. “You think me a thief now, I suppose.”

She looked at him closely, studying his face, the mark she had left upon it. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“What is it, Kassia? Are you ashamed of me?”

“No – not ashamed. Afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“I know you, Karnos. You are many things, but a thief is not one of them.

“You stole that armour because you see yourself dying in it.”

With the morning came the light in the room, a bright winter sun edging over the Gostheres to the east. She lay and watched it brighten the blue slots above her, breaking in the slatted windows up on the wall. With it came the smell of woodsmoke, of bread baking, and the unfamiliar sea-surf sound of the waking city beyond.

Her daughters were with her in the bed, Ona curled up in her arms, Rian spooned against her back. For a few moments, Aise was able to lie and listen to them breathe, and be herself again. She could put out of her mind the pain of her blistered feet and throbbing face, the dull ache of her insides. There was not a part of her they had not touched.

The moment was gone, so quickly lost it had not truly existed. She lay in the clean bed breathing quickly, heart hammering, no longer seeing the sunlight on the wall. Her mouth was full of dirt, her face pressed into it, and they were holding her down, entering her in the darkness, filling her body with foulness, the hot filth jetting out of them to find its way to her very heart.

She drew breath deeply, listening to the sleeping heartbeats of her daughters, blinking her way back to the present. It was over, it was finished with.

And yet the men who had done this to her were still in this house, mere yards away.

She sat up in the bed. Rian and Ona stirred, but did not waken. She wriggled out from between them and pulled the blanket over their shoulders, smoothed the hair from their faces.

I made the bargain, and the gods kept it. I took the worst thing on myself, and they allowed me that grace. I must be thankful.

She kissed her sleeping daughters one after the other.

There was a pile of cloaks and clothing on the other bed in the room. She selected a heavy peplos, a woman’s winter garment, and wrapped it around her shoulders. The stone floor was cold underfoot, but it soothed the ragged tears in her feet. She limped out of the room, closing the door without a sound.

She was in a tiny courtyard with a pool in the middle, a colonnaded walkway all around, and plants in pots. In pots. She touched a pungent juniper, smelled lavender, bay, and mint. All dying back, all past their best, but easing her mind with their scents and their memories.

How marvellous it was to be free of fear, just for now. To stand and feel the winter sunlight on her face and rub lavender between her fingers…

The smell of the clothes chests at Andunnon.

A slave entered the courtyard with a basket, looked at her, startled, then bowed and scurried away. Aise sank back against a pillar, not sure what this might presage. It was only a few moments before a well-dressed woman appeared in the slave’s place. A dark-haired lady with a broad, handsome face, her hair braided up behind her head. She was young, perhaps not yet thirty, but she had a direct gaze, and there was nothing hesitant about her as she approached.

“I am Kassia, my dear. My people looked after you last night. Did you sleep well? How are the children?”

Aise folded her arms inside her cloak. “We are well,” she said.

“Perhaps you would like to break your fast? Karnos’s cook baked bread fresh this morning, and there is honey to be had, and clean water.”

Aise stood as if rooted to the spot. At last she said, “I’m sorry. I am not -”

The woman called Kassia took her arm. “It’s all right. You’re safe now. You brought your children through this, and you are all alive. The rest is a matter for time and Antimone’s mercy.”

“I must go back to them. They’re sleeping,” Aise said, edging away.

“Let them sleep,” Kassia told her. “Please. Come with me, Aise. There’s a fire burning and a table laid.”

Eunion, biting into a purple onion at breakfast, the last thing he would ever eat.

“No, I cannot.”

“Listen,” Kassia said, and her eyes left Aise’s face for the first time. “I have news you need to hear, something you should know. And it were best I tell you now, while your children are asleep.”

Aise’s face became blank. “Tell me, then.”

“No, please, not out here. Come join me at the fire. We’ll have some wine.”

“I will not drink wine,” Aise said.

“Then I will.” Kassia smiled, flustered now. “Please come with me.”

Unwillingly, Aise allowed herself to be tugged along by the arm. They left the courtyard and entered a room in which the walls were painted the colour of an earthenware pot. There was a small corner hearth, its beehive interior full of fire – olive wood, by the smell. And a balcony. Aise stepped over to it in wonder. There was a thick wooden balustrade the height of her thigh, and beyond it, a soaring view of Machran. She caught her breath at the sight.