Tetrarch

F ORTY

The river, the principal defence of Morgadis, ran fast and deep. No horse could have swum it, while waterfalls upstream and rapids downstream restricted the use of boats to a couple of leagues either side of the island. A rope bridge, supporting a plank walkway, was the only way in or out. It hung low to the water and Nish did not like the look of it. How was he going to lead his horse across that?

Fortunately he did not have to, for people appeared out of the forest and took the animals away. Mounce went with them. After an exchange of signals with the other side, they went across on foot.

The bridge held no fears for Yara or the children, who had crossed it many times. Nish followed, trying to appear nonchalant. It swayed underfoot and he was uncomfortably aware of the weight of his pack. If he fell in it would take him all the way to the bottom. But then, if he fell in he would drown anyway, for Nish was a poor swimmer.

He reached the other side in safety. To his left was a timber boatshed with two dinghies propped against one wall. Beyond were stacks of sawn timber and a partly erected timber frame, perhaps an extension to the boatshed. He followed the others up the hill, thinking of a cool drink and, with any sort of luck, a long scrub in a hot bath.

Up a steep series of steps, they turned onto a broad veranda. There they were met by a small woman, a head shorter than her sister, trim of figure and with neat, regular features, though set in hard lines. Her eyes were crinkled as though laughter had once not been far away, but no longer. Her lush brown hair was threaded with grey yet she could not have been more than thirty-five. She did not look anything like Yara.

They embraced. 'I thought…' the woman bit her lip.

'What?' smiled Yara.

'That I would never see you again, or the twins. Everyone I love goes away and they don't come back.'

'I will always come back,' said Yara. 'Liliwen, Meriwen?'

They embraced their aunt, who then turned, looking questioningly at Nish.

'My sister, Mira,' said Yara. 'Mira, this is Cryl-Nish Hlar, known to his friends as Nish. He has escorted us all this way.'

'I'm pleased to meet you, Mira,' said Nish, holding out his hand.

Mira's hand stopped halfway. 'Hlar?' she said, studying his features. 'Is he related to that warmongering perquisitor, Jal-Nish?'

'His father is Jal-Nish Hlar, now acting scrutator for Einunar,' said Yara.

Mira let her hand fall to her side. 'I'm sorry, Cryl-Nish Hlar, but I don't care what service you have rendered my sister. No Hlar is welcome in my house.'

Nish felt as if he had been slapped across the face. He stepped backwards, gained control of himself and bowed. 'I am not my father, Mira, but if my presence causes you distress I will go at once.'

'Stay,' said Yara, waving her hand at him. 'Mira, know that after the fall of Nilkerrand, Meriwen and Liliwen were lost and wandered alone on the road for a night and a day. Had not Nish befriended them they would have been despoiled and murdered by two of the vilest ruffians in the world. And he has done us further service since. Twice he saved my daughters' lives.'

Mira stared at the girls. She put her hand over her open mouth. Nish thought she was going to scream, though her eyes were as dry as dust.

'They were not harmed,' said Yara, 'though they will remember it to the end of their days.'

Mira threw her arms around the twins and wailed. It went on for ages. Nish looked on uncomfortably. Her eyes were webbed with red.

Yara stood back, head cocked to one side. 'And so,' she said when the embrace finally broke up, 'if Nish is not welcome at your house, neither am I, nor my daughters.'

Nish was astonished. Although Yara had thawed since the monastery, he would never have expected her to defend him against her sister.

Mira pulled away, rubbed her eyes and made a supreme effort which dissolved the lines from her face and for a moment made her seem ten years younger. She must have been a striking woman, he thought, before.

'I am sorry, Nish,' she said, giving him her hand. It was deathly cold. 'No doubt my sister has told you of my troubles. The war has torn out my heart and hacked it to pieces, leaving nothing but the curse of my own life. But that is not your affair. You must be weary. Come inside. The hospitality of my house is yours, though I cannot promise you entertainment.'

'All I look forward to,' said Nish, 'is hot food, cool drink, and a bed wherever I may find one. I swear if you propped me against the fence I would go to sleep.'

Mira managed a smile and once again her face was transformed. 'I can promise you all those things. This house has plenty of vacant beds, including my own.' Her face crumpled, she choked back a sob, then froze her face and turned inside.

Yara said something to Nish with her eyes, though he could not read it. He followed her up the steps. The house was large, efficient and well run. Nish was provided with a handsome room lined with boards, walls and ceiling, looking out onto the veranda and down to the river, where mist was already rising with the evening. His dirty clothes were taken away and shortly a servant knocked at the door.

'Your bath is ready,' she said. 'It is the door at the end of the hall.'

Nish sank into the warm scented water with a sigh of bliss. After scrubbing himself until his skin shone, he hung his arms over the side of the tub, closed his eyes and the next he knew the servant girl was knocking on the door. 'If you would come to dinner, Mr Nish.'

Clean clothes were laid out on the end of his bed. Dressing hurriedly, he went down the hall to the stair, where another servant pointed him to the dining hall. This room was long, with panelled walls of dark timber and a steeple roof, also panelled. A fire crackled in a stone fireplace. A long table was set for five people.

Mira came in, wearing a gown of some clinging fabric that revealed a trim figure. Sitting at the head of the table, she indicated the chair to her right. 'Please sit down.'

He hesitated, for Yara and the girls had not yet appeared.

'I do not go in for pointless ceremony,' she said.

Nish sat, looked at Mira, and away. What was he to say? 'I am sorry,' he said, 'to hear about your -'

'You did not know my man or my boys,' she said, not harshly. 'Let us talk of other things.'

Nish was generally comfortable with women of his mother's age, and Mira was nearly that, but there was something about her that tangled his thoughts and he could not think of anything to say. 'What would you like to talk about?'

'Anything but war! What are you, Nish? A warmonger like your father?'

'I am not. How do you know my father?'

'My mother corresponded with every person of note on the continent. I have continued that tradition. And even among the monsters of this world the name Jal-Nish Hlar stands out. But the son is not necessarily the father.'

'Do you travel a lot?'

'I do not travel at all. Skeets were first tamed in these mountains by my family, more than eleven hundred years ago. We have been breeding them ever since. It is my sole pleasure, and I exchange with like-minded people all over the world, as my family have done for thirty-five generations.'

'I never imagined such a thing,' said Nish.

'The Council of Scrutators think they own the world,' said Mira, 'but there are more powers, and older, than they know about.'

'What do you mean by like-minded people?'

'Is that the scrutator's son asking?'

'Of course not.' He flushed.

'I mean those who want peace rather than endless war.'

'But the lyrinx -'

'They did not start the war, and their every peaceful overture has been brutally rejected.'

Nish was staggered. 'Are you saying that the scrutators want the war to continue?' Another piece of a puzzle.

'Some do, or did – those at the top. It suited their purpose in the early days, for it gave them control of the world. But control is slipping from their grasp. They cannot lose face by compromising, and the lyrinx no longer wish to. So we must fight until they are extinct, or we are. I do my small best to change that. What is your profession?'

'I was forced to become an artificer at the age of sixteen,' he said carefully, and as her face hardened he rushed out, 'but before that I was a prentice scribe to a merchant of Fassafarn.'

'What name?' she interrupted.

'Egarty Teisseyre. Do you know him?'

'Only by reputation. He is honest enough, for a merchant.'

'I loved being a scribe,' he said wistfully. 'And I was a good one, too.'

'I suppose artificing was your mother's doing, to save you from the army.'

'So it seems, though it was a long time before I realised it. I hated being an artificer. I worked hard at it,' he added hastily. 'I did my duty, though I have little talent for that kind of work.'

Yara appeared with the twins, and the talk went on to other matters. It was an uncomfortable dinner, with long silences, and when the girls began yawning uncontrollably Yara rose, saying, 'I will take my leave, sister, for I am quite as tired as they are. Good night.'

Nish rose as well but Mira said, 'Stay awhile, unless you are weary. It is not yet nine.'

'I napped in the bath and feel quite refreshed.'

'Would you care for wine?' The opened flask had been sitting on the table all through dinner but, as Yara had declined, Nish had felt out of politeness that he should do the same.

'I would love some,' he said. 'I seldom get the opportunity to taste good wine.'

'My man loved wine.' She shivered. 'Come, let's sit by the fire.'

Nish was not cold, but he took his wine cup and sat in the other chair.

'Ten years I have lived without my man,' she said. 'No man; no sons.' She dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve.

Again he did not know what to say. They stared at each other.

'What was his name?'

'Chamfry, but I always called him Cham. It was my special name for him. Cham and I did our duty. I bore our first son when I was fifteen, the last three years later. I lost my man when I was twenty-two, my first son seven years after that. Each was fourteen when the war took them, one after the other. They were still children. That is my life, Nish. What is yours?'

Nish began on his tale from the moment he arrived at the manufactory. He told Mira everything, and with complete honesty for the first time in his life. He could not do otherwise, not to someone who had suffered as she had. Nish spoke of his difficulty with women of his own age – that he found himself tongue-tied and speechless. He told her about his crude pursuit of Tiaan, her rejection, and everything that happened afterwards, all the way to Tirthrax.

The level in the flask went down. Mira opened another.

'I'm not a very nice fellow,' he said, a little tipsy, and proceeded to tell her every one of his failings, real and imagined.

Leaning forward, she topped up his cup. 'Go on with your tale, Nish. It quite takes me away from my own troubles.' She pulled her chair closer.

Nish went on with his story, from Tirthrax. She poured, he talked, she listened. It was a kind of confession. The drink had taken away his inhibitions and Nish poured out his entire life to her. He told her about his mother, Ranii, who took every care for his health and welfare but gave him not a second's praise, no matter how hard he worked to please her. 'She was a careful mother, but indifferent. Cold!'

'I was not like that,' she said, looking into the fire. 'My boys were no duty at all. I loved everything about them.'

Nish talked at length about Jal-Nish. 'We were just tools to him, a part of his plan to climb to the top. Dutiful, successful children were required, so he had them, but he never seemed to care about us. Now he is scrutator, I am told, but even that will not satisfy him.

'And yet,' Nish continued, 'he is my father and I love him. When I saw him lying on the edge of the cliff, his face torn to shreds, his arm smashed, I wept. My father begged to be allowed to die, but I could not let him go. Poor man! How he suffers now.'

'I loved my man and my boys too much.' She stared at the flames. 'They are gone but I cannot move beyond. I just don't want to!' she wailed, reaching out until her fingertips touched the fire.

'The war burns me, now and forever,' she said. 'I can't get past it either. How can there be war? How can we birth our babies, in love and pain, bringing them up as best we can, and then, when they are still children, send them to the slaughterhouse of battle? Where is the meaning in that? I cannot find any.'

'You must despise me,' he said.

'I do not. You have suffered too, Nish, but you have overcome it. I cannot. Their deaths go round and round; I can't break out of the circle. And do you know why? I don't want to, because it would mean leaving behind everything I love.'

She leaned away from him. 'My sister tells me to move on. I am still young and must live. Why? I say. What advice would you give me, Nish?'

'How can I tell you anything? I don't know what you need.'

'What do you need?'

'I would have swapped everything I've ever had for an embrace with my mother or father.'

'I gave my boys that! It did not save them.'

She bent forward, and in the flickering candlelight the front of her dress hung down and he saw the valley between her breasts. Once he would have feasted on her but now Nish pulled his eyes away. It was not seemly.

She caught the direction of his glance but to Nish's surprise she reached for him. 'Hold me.'

He took her in his arms, but the distracting thoughts refused to go away. When had he last held a woman? Ullii, in the balloon, months ago. He imagined what Mira's dress concealed. She was no girl; Mira was a mature woman, fourteen or fifteen years older than he, yet he desired her. As she drifted her hand across his back, he wondered if she felt the same for him.

Her man had been dead twelve years and she still mourned. But there is truth in wine and she'd had a lot of it. Too much. He desired her but not this way. Pulling back, he reached for his cup. She smoothed her dress at the front.

'You've told me your past, Nish,' she said. 'What of the future? Are you going back to the army, to kill and kill again?' She said it with a bitter twist of the mouth that turned his mood.

'I am ambitious, Mira, as you know. Selfish, too. But I want to stop the war, and I know how it might be done.'

Taking his hand, she drew it to her, examining it in the firelight. Nish had a strong, square hand, not elegant but workmanlike. 'I like you, Nish. Not because you are handsome, or tall, or clever with words. You are none of those things. But you don't lie about yourself. Or to yourself!'

Her words made him think about Ullii. Kindness and gentleness was what she had liked most about him; and yet, when Nish thought about himself neither of those attributes came to mind. He had not thought himself to be particularly honest, either. Privately, Nish considered himself cold, calculating and out for what he could get.

'Honest?' he exclaimed.

'You know all your faults, Nish, and are not afraid to admit them. I know many people who are honest in their business dealings yet lie to themselves all the time.'

He did not answer.

'How can it be done?' she asked.

'What?' He had lost track of the conversation.

'End the war.'

'Vithis wants Tiaan, and especially her marvellous flying construct. If I could find them I would offer them to him in exchange for an alliance against the lyrinx. The war would be over in weeks.'

'So you would end the war by making it worse.'

'Only for a little while.'

'To do so you would sacrifice Tiaan to her enemy?'

'It would not be like that -' he began. He was deluding himself. Vithis would not bargain; he was not that kind of man. And he never forgot an injury. To give Tiaan to him must doom her.

'You're right,' he said. 'You see so much more clearly than I do, Mira.'

'That's because I neither hope nor believe.' She was slurring her words a little. 'So I am worse off than you.'

'Just the construct then,' he said. 'I will just deliver that to him, if I can find it.'

'And you truly believe that will end the war? Do you trust such a man, who has stated that he wants to conquer our world?'

'Then what am I to do?' he cried. 'My every idea you demolish. If I listen to you I will never do anything at all, for fear of doing the wrong thing.'

'Then do not listen to me. Trust your own judgment, Nish. Do what you think is right. And if you fail, at least you will know you tried. I cannot even try any more.'

He looked at her dispassionately. The distracting thoughts had gone away. The flickering firelight blushed her pale cheeks, put a sparkle in eyes that were dead in daylight. Then she leaned toward him and he saw her bosom again.

She caught his eye. Nish flushed. 'Ah, I'm sorry, Mira,' he said. 'I am a man of base desires, and it has been a long time -'

'Why base, Nish?' She swayed in her chair. 'It is a fine thing and you should not apologise for it. It has been a long time for me too. Come here.'

She drew him to her. Nish knew that it was the wrong thing to do, but he'd had nearly as much wine as she had, and lacked the willpower to resist. Mira put his hand to her breast, and while he was occupied there she was working on the fastenings to her gown, all the way down.

The dress fell open. She had the odd scar and stretch mark, but none of that mattered one iota. She pulled him to her breast. Her hand slipped inside his shirt. Nish nibbled at her ear, her throat, her bottom lip. He kissed her eyelids and they fluttered against him. She sighed; she gasped.

'Ah,' she said, easing her knickers out from under her hips and pulling them all the way down.

Nish worked on his belt buckle, which did not want to come undone. She helped him with it, and the trousers, easing them down. They touched, skin to skin, and he wanted to hug her, to touch, to cling, but Mira was impatient now. Sliding her arms around his back, she pulled him down on her.

'Cham,' she said, squeezing him tightly. 'Ah, Cham. Now, now.'

Nish went still in her arms and his desire vanished. She was thinking of her dead partner, not him. His first urge was to tear himself away, but that might hurt her more. Should he pretend he had heard nothing?

He pressed himself against her. She spread her thighs, guiding him, but as soon as he touched her there she cried out 'No! You're dead, Cham!'

Nish reared back, not knowing whether to try to calm her or quietly disappear.

'Dead!' she screamed at the top of her voice. 'You're dead, Cham. Get off! No, no, no!'

Down the corridor people began shouting and yelling. Feet thumped along the hall. Nish shook his head, trying to clear the wine away. What would happen when they found him with his trousers around his ankles and Mira naked on the floor, screaming her lungs out? They'd put a rope around his neck and heave him up over the branch of the nearest tree, and nothing he could say would make any difference.

Nish jerked his pants up and hurled himself out the open window just as the servants burst in through the door. Three jumps and he was off the edge of the veranda and pelting for his life down the grassy slope toward the river.