The Tower Broken(99)

‘The duke has retired to his rooms.’

‘May he come to the Tower?’

Herran did not reply but continued to steer Farid towards a set of stairs set behind the broken ones in the Great Hall. Farid followed him down elegant hallways where the doorknobs glowed in the lantern light and the highly polished wood shone. In Farid’s rented rooms above the marketplace, the wood that lined the walls had been roughly hewn and dull. Running his hands along the windowsill had been enough to give him splinters. Thinking about his old place made him remember the creaking bed and the threadbare old blankets, and he realised how much he would have loved to return, even if just long enough to get some sleep.

At last they stood in front of one of those elegant doors. It looked just like every other they had passed, but Herran walked straight to it with no hesitation.

Farid pulled the sash tighter around his waist. He wanted these men to respect him, to believe he was worthy to be a mage of the Tower. He swallowed as he faced the door. Duke Didryk held all the secrets he wanted to know – how to break a pattern; the meaning of the design he had drawn on the walls of the library; why he had been called by Mogyrk instead of Meksha or Keleb, gods he had worshipped all his life.

Herran knocked, and the door was opened a crack by a redhaired Fryth who towered over Farid and the assassin both, but who was still not as tall as Didryk. He looked from one to the other and finally said in a rough accent, ‘No Cerani.’

‘Didryk,’ said Herran, motioning past the door.

Someone spoke from within the room and the red-haired man opened the door the rest of the way. Farid had thought his Tower room luxurious, with its silver mug and high window, but the room he looked into now showed not one uncovered surface. Tapestries hung on every wall. A carpet covered the floor. Everywhere there were scattered cushions embroidered with golden threads.

A dark-skinned man dressed in elegant robes stood to greet them. He glanced at Herran only long enough for recognition, but his gaze lingered on Farid for several seconds. Farid looked back at him, then with a shock realised he might be standing before someone royal. He prepared to go into an obeisance, but before he could lower himself the man gave a slight bow and motioned them forwards. ‘Come.’

Duke Didryk was sitting before a Settu board, studying the placement of the tiles. From the look of it, they had just begun a game. When he saw Farid he stood, knocking the table, and the pieces scattered. ‘What is it, Farid?’

Farid looked at the red-haired guard and the other, blond and threatening, and his words came out in a tumble. ‘A pattern was laid around the Tower, Duke. It’s destructive, but beyond that I can’t tell what it is. We caught some men but they – they died.’ He did not mention they probably had been innocent. He pushed aside the memory of their blood, and of Moreth, rolling in the ecstasy of killing, and swallowed; this was not the time, with everyone watching him. He continued, ‘We can’t go back until the pattern is destroyed – but I don’t know how.’

The duke said, ‘I will accompany you back to the Tower.’

‘We had hoped you would, Duke.’ The ‘we’ came from his mouth as easily as ‘four bits for this mango’. He pressed his lips together. He had to remember his humility.

The assassin, Herran, still standing by his side, gestured at the man in elegant robes. ‘Lord High Vizier Azeem, perhaps you should come too.’

So that elegant man was the grand vizier. He felt a fool.

Azeem closed the shining door with care and turned down the corridor. ‘This way,’ he said, and everyone followed him without a word. Farid thought Rushes must be somewhere in the palace and wished he had time to look for her. He hoped she and the baby were well – or even better, not in the palace at all but travelling down the river, far from the Yrkmen.

They travelled along simpler halls where the servants walked, warding-patterns bright on their skin, past the kitchen where he smelled baking bread and roasting meats and out into a courtyard filled with barrels and crates. On one side laundresses plied long sticks to stir the palace linens in great coppers; on the other an old man sat on a chair twisting the necks of chickens. At the sight of Azeem many of the workers gasped and hurried to drop to the floor, but he paid them no notice and glided to an iron gate which led to a yet more elaborate gate, which led to an even larger and more impressive one. There Azeem stopped to speak with an officer, a captain, and twelve more men joined their party, all dressed in the blue uniform of the royal guard, proud feathers rising from their hats.

Finally they reached the street. It felt hotter outside the palace gates. Sweat trickled down Farid’s back. They moved with haste to the Tower.