The Tower Broken(21)

Govnan’s joyful smile had faded and now he watched his student with a frown.

Sarmin let her admiring words float upon the moving air until she remembered herself. When she appeared properly disquieted, he asked, ‘What is the duke’s business here?’ Perhaps this pattern mage was turning his skill to the marketplaces of Nooria …

‘Your Majesty, these men want peace.’

Sarmin leaned forwards, and she shrank from the heaviness of his gaze. ‘Chief Banreh is a traitor and a breaker of alliances. You are a mage of the Tower, and have made a binding oath to serve the empire. Tell me why these men have come into Cerana, or suffer their fate.’

The sword-sons shifted their weapons. Now three pointed at Chief Banreh’s throat and three at the wind mage’s.

Mura’s eyes grew wide. She made to speak, but only moved her lips. He could see her arms shaking. He turned to Banreh instead. ‘Then tell me, Chief: why should I not kill you?’

The small room lay so quiet that Sarmin could hear Azeem’s rapid breaths beside him, and the rustle of Mesema’s dress as she clutched it. When he spoke, Banreh’s low voice echoed against the walls. ‘Because if I die, the duke will know it and he will kill your General Arigu. Because he can help you. Because Yrkmir is coming.’

So the general was still alive.

‘Arigu …’ Nessaket whispered to herself.

Sarmin leaned back in his throne. The chief’s threat could not be allowed to pass without reprisal. It was lucky there were so few in the room; in the presence of the full court he would have had no choice but to have the man killed immediately, and that would not have gone well for Mesema – or Arigu, for that matter. Yet he dreaded the thought of sending any man to the dungeons – he had emptied them for a reason, and had kept them empty, since the slave revolt. The thought of the oubliette where he had found Helmar’s stone filled him with a cold sickness. But he could not let Banreh go.

‘My brother would have had your head by now,’ he told the man.

‘Your brother had a chance at my head, Magnificence, and he let me live.’

Sarmin stood, ignoring the familiar ache in his legs. ‘Is this true? You met my brother and he let you live?’ Azeem looked up at him, a curious look on his face, as if he were seeing him for the first time. Mirrored in the grand vizier’s eyes he saw not the emperor, but a lonely boy who had lost his brothers.

‘It is true, my husband,’ said Mesema, touching his elbow. ‘Your brother let Banreh go, heaven and stars keep him now.’

Anger stirred in Sarmin, for he remembered what she had told him of those times. ‘And then he came here, to work against Beyon further – is that not true?’ He turned to the chief. ‘You came here to plot against the emperor, did you not?’

Banreh looked at the swords poised to cut him. ‘As did Arigu.’

And there it was: a reminder of Arigu’s double betrayal. Arigu had brought Mesema to the palace at the Empire Mother’s request; he had been hoping to undermine Beyon, and then he had gone to war against Sarmin’s wishes, ignoring his emperor’s many messengers. To be reminded now, even before this small audience, was a humiliation to the throne – but Sarmin, in spite of all of this, did not want Arigu returned to a punishment; he wanted Arigu returned to his command.

Sarmin descended to the tiled floor and stood before Chief Banreh. He needed no tricks of steps and thrones to tower over the man. If the chief died here, in the dungeons or somewhere out in the desert, he was ready. Sarmin could see it in his eyes. What had Banreh lived through that three swords against his neck counted for so little? Curiosity won out over anger.

‘So,’ Sarmin said, ‘how does this duke propose to help me?’

‘He will teach your mages how to use the pattern to fight Yrkmir.’ From all corners of the room rose a startled murmur, and Sarmin struggled to disguise the visceral desire that rose in him.

‘Govnan,’ he said, without moving his gaze from those steady green eyes, ‘I put Mura into your care. I trust she will remember herself once she is in the Tower.’

‘Majesty.’ The mages removed themselves and closed the doors behind them.

He had one last question for the chief. ‘Tell me, where is this duke who offers Cerana so much?’

‘I do not know.’

‘A lie.’ Sarmin had no choice. ‘You, Chief, will go to the dungeon. You will tell us where your duke is hiding, and you will tell us anything else we want to know.’ He thought of the duke somewhere in the sands, the awesome power of the pattern at his fingertips, and wondered whether his offer could possibly have been honest. Perhaps it was, and the duke erred only in his choice of messenger.