Corvus

FOUR

It is a fine line, sometimes, Rictus thought, between guest and hostage. The key to it is left unspoken, buried in courtesies. The fist inside the glove.

They were escorted back down into the glen of Andunnon as though the men about them were for their own protection, and the strange youth who called himself Corvus walked beside them, as though he were a friend of theirs. Some of his companions relieved Rictus and Fornyx of the weight of their shields, helms and spears, but they were allowed to keep their swords. Courtesy.

“This is a beautiful place,” Corvus said, as the woods thinned and the column came out into the open sunlight of the valley bottom. “A man could be happy here. I do not wonder that you wanted to keep your home a secret, Rictus.”

“I am curious as to how I failed in that regard,”

Rictus said tartly.

The youth nodded. “There’s a lot to be said between us. I hope you will perhaps count me a guest here and not an intruder. It is no part of my intent to harm you or your family.”

“If talk were commerce, all men would be rich,” Fornyx said, and spat into the snow. “A guest does not bring a full centon of warriors to test his host’s hospitality.”

“If I had brought any fewer, you would both have fought me,” Corvus said, holding up one long-fingered hand as though to catch something. “I had to take away hope of winning to make you listen to what I have to say.”

“They’re a patient bunch,” Rictus said, gesturing to the ranks of soldiers who marched on all sides. “How long were they buried in the woods?”

“They are my Igranians,” Corvus said. “From Igranon in the high eastern Harukush. It’s so cold up there they think this is a mild spring in comparison. They are my light troops, my foot cavalry. Druze is their chieftain, and one of my marshals.”

“I hope they brought their own bread,” Fornyx drawled. His tone was mocking, insolent, but his face was white and drawn as a fever-victim, and his fist was knotted on the hilt of his sword.

“In this valley, my hounds stay on the leash,” Corvus said gravely.

They made good time. As the column approached the farm, they saw that Aise and Eunion had not yet left, Garin and Styra were in the front yard packing up bedrolls. The two shrank together as the long line of armed men came into view and began splashing across the shallows of the river. Then they bolted like hares, sprinting for the north. Corvus swept an arm forward and at once the dark smiling fellow Druze led off some two dozen of his men at a run. They skeined out into two lines that flanked the farmhouse and surrounded it. The two fleeing slaves were tripped up, pinioned, and prodded back down the valley towards the house. Rictus and Fornyx looked at one another. These Igranians’ discipline was almost as good as that of the Dogsheads. High mountain tribesmen they might be, but they had been well-drilled.

The main body of the centon halted short of the farmyard and stood there in rough ranks. Corvus turned to Rictus.

“Call to your family. Tell them there is no need for alarm. I’ve brought good food and wine on the horses – if you will permit me, Rictus, I would like to dine with you this morning.” The sun caught him full in the face; his skin seemed more colourless than ever, and his eyes were as pale as tinted glass.

The house was in disarray, blankets, pots and lamps all askew, things strewn over the floor in the panic of packing. It was dark inside as they entered – the fire had gone out – and Aise, Eunion and the children were in a huddle at the far wall. Eunion had his old boar spear levelled, and Aise was clutching a hatchet.

“Wife,” Rictus said, his voice harsh, “get the fire lit, and clean up this mess. We have guests.” A cup broke under his foot as he strode over to them. He set a hand on Ona’s head and touched Aise’s shoulder. Softly, he said, “This is not what you think.” He wiped a tear from Rian’s cheek, her face white and defiant in the gloom.

“Father, are they here to kill you?”

“They’re here to talk, my honey. And we must be clever about this. Set the table and light the lamps.” To Aise he said nothing, but they gripped each other’s hands bone-tight for a long moment.

“Do as your father says,” Aise said at last, her voice as hoarse as a crow’s. Her gaze did not leave Rictus’s face. “He knows best. We are in his hands.”

Outside again, Rictus spoke to Corvus and his waiting men. “You might want to give them a moment. They’ve had an unsettling morning.”

“My apologies,” Corvus said, grimacing. “Grakos, unload the horses. Druze, the men may stand easy and break out their food. Then you will accompany me inside, as soon as Rictus here is willing to extend an invitation.” He bowed slightly to Rictus.

He had old-fashioned manners, a kind of courtesy that Rictus had not seen for a long time, as though he had stepped out of an earlier age. His accent was strange also. Rictus had heard Machtic spoken by men from every corner of the Harukush, and a few from beyond it, but he could not place this Corvus at all.

“What is this, some kind of game?” Fornyx demanded. “We are your prisoners – what’s all this talk of invitations?”

“I mean everything I say,” Corvus said mildly. “If Rictus does not wish us to enter his house, then we will remain outside. It’ll be colder, mind.”

Fornyx shook his head, torn between anger and sheer bafflement.

“I’m willing to let you in,” Rictus said, with the ghost of a smile. “My wife may have other ideas though.” Despite himself, he was beginning to believe that this strange young man meant what he said.

“We’ve brought good wine, Minerian from the western coast,” Druze said. “Inside or out, it’ll still taste better than anything you can drink within a hundred pasangs.”

“Minerian? You hear that Rictus?” Fornyx said. “If we’re to die, at least our bellies will be thanking us.”

“Let us not talk of death today,” Corvus said, and a coldness came into his pale eyes. For a moment he seemed a much older man.

Aise did well. She had always been good at bringing order out of chaos, and she had never been anything other than level-headed even in the most brutish moments of their life together. When Rictus finally, formally invited Corvus and his companion Druze into the farmhouse, the place was as neat and ordered as if this were any other morning of the year. The fire was a yellow blaze in the hearth, and the good lamps had been hung from the ceiling beams and were burning sweetly. There was food and wine on the table, and the two dogs were being held back in the corner by Eunion. Their low sing-song growling was the only discordant note in the proceedings.

Aise came forward bearing a dish of salt. She had piled her hair up on her head and was wearing the sleeveless scarlet chiton Rictus had bought her one drunken night long ago, when they had both been young and full of fire. Her eyes were made up with kohl and stibium; it recalled something of her old, heart-stopping beauty, and it brought Corvus and Druze up short. Corvus bowed to her as though she were a queen, lifted a pinch of salt to his lips and said, “Antimone’s blessings on you and your house, lady.”

“You are most welcome,” Aise said, and Rictus loved her in that moment for the pride and the courage of what she had done. If they were all to die today, then he was glad he had seen her like this one last time.

“You must be seated – I have -” but Aise trailed off. Corvus had gone straight to the corner and had knelt down in front of the dogs.

“What beauties these are. Release them, friend. They have no quarrel with me.” Startled, Eunion let go his grip on the hounds’ collars and they sprang forward, sniffing, growling, baring their teeth and licking Corvus’s face, alternately. He laughed, sounding like a little boy as he played with their ears and scratched their flanks. Old Mij rolled over like a puppy, tongue lolling.

Rictus caught Druze’s eye and the black-bearded man shrugged with a wry smile. “Dogs, horses, he has a way with them.”

“And men?” Fornyx asked.

“You’ll find out. It’s what we’re here for.”

Corvus rose, the hounds dancing around him as though he was their long-lost master. “Forgive me, Rictus. I have not yet met the rest of your family.”

Ona stared at him silently, sucking her thumb -she had not done that for years. Rian, in her pale, defiant pride, looked every inch a younger version of her mother – a woman, no longer a girl – and Rictus felt a jolt of pure fear as Corvus took her hand and kissed it.

“Your household is filled with beauty,” he said to Rictus, his gaze still fixed on Rian. “You are a fortunate man. Druze, the gifts.”

Druze set a skin of wine on the table, and then a net of oranges and fat lemons from the far eastern coast.

“Let’s eat,” Corvus said briskly.

It was perhaps the strangest meal Rictus had ever shared. They sat about the long pine table and passed the dishes up and down it to one another in perfect amity, as though there were not a hundred soldiers squatting outside, as though Corvus was a family friend who had chanced by.

Rictus and Fornyx sat in their black cuirasses, which lent a certain sombre glory to the proceedings, and Druze poured them all cups of the good Minerian as though he were the master of ceremonies. There was little in the way of talk, until Rian, having ripped her bread to shreds on her plate, said; “Are you really him? The Corvus we hear about, the man from the east?”

“I am he,” Corvus said, sipping his wine.

“How do we know that? You don’t look like him – you could be some bandit who’s trading on his name,” Rian said defiantly.

Corvus looked at her. His red-lipped smile was like a scar across his face. “What does he look like, this Corvus you’ve heard about?”

“He’s – he’s tall, for one thing. And he rides horses, I hear tell, and leads an army of thousands, not some mountain band of brigands.”

Corvus set a hand on Druze’s shoulder. “I would not call my Igranians brigands, lady. At least, not any more.” The two men grinned at one another. Druze leaned across the table, black eyes shining. In a mock whisper he said, “We were once, it’s true – it is in our blood. But things are different now. There’s no money in banditry anymore.” And he laughed as if at some private joke.

“You’re too young to be the man in the stories,” Rian persisted.

Corvus shrugged. “Ask your father about the truthfulness of stories. The farther the truth travels, the less it becomes the truth. That’s the way of the world. I was brought up with tales of the Ten Thousand and Rictus of Isca who brought them home from the land beyond the sea. He was a hero, a giant of myth to me – when I was a boy. But your father is a real person, one solitary man who sits here drinking wine with us. Every legend begins with the ordinary and the everyday, as the acorn begets the oak.”

“You’re too short!” Rian exclaimed, colour rising up her face. Aise set a hand on her arm. “Enough, daughter. You will eat in silence now.”

Corvus seemed to have taken no offence. “My mother was a wise woman, like yours,” he said. “She always told me that a man is as tall as he thinks he is.” He raised his cup to Rian. “And besides, lady, I am tall in the stories, am I not?”

The stilted meal ended, and Aise led the girls out of the room, Rian still smouldering. Eunion took himself off to a corner where he affected to read a scroll, though he fooled none of them; he was as prick eared with curiosity as a bald-headed cat. Rictus, Fornyx, Corvus and Druze remained about the table, watching one another, until finally Fornyx, who had drunk deep of the superb wine, rose with in irritated hiss of breath and turned to Rictus. “Get me out of this damned thing, will you?” And he slapped at the black cuirass on his back.

“Let me,” Corvus said, rising as swiftly as a dancer. And before Fornyx could protest, he was working on the clasps of the armour, opening them with sharp clicks. He lifted the cuirass off Fornyx and held it in his hands a moment.

“It amazes me, every time I touch one of these,” he said. “The lightness of it, the strength inside. What are they made of, Antimone’s Gift? Do you ever wonder, Rictus?”

“Gaenion made the stuff of them, they say,” Druze put in. “Out of the essence of darkness itself. And because she wove them into chitons for us, Antimone was exiled from heaven, to watch over us in pity, and to take us behind her Veil in death. I’ve heard it said that the life and fate of the Macht are woven into them in patterns we cannot see.” Druze had awide, broad-nosed face, that of a farmer, and he had the olive colouring of the eastern tribes. But his eyes missed nothing, and the hilt of the drepana hanging from his shoulder had seen much use.

Corvus was turning the cuirass this way and that to catch the fire while Fornyx stood looking at him owlishly.

“You see the way it takes the light sometimes – a gleam here or there. And yet at other times it will reflect nothing, but will be as black as a hole in the earth itself.”

Fornyx took his cuirass back, swaying a little.

“With all the conquering you’ve been doing, I’d have thought you would have one of your own by now,” he said to Corvus.

The strange youth’s face hardened, became a pale mask. “I have one,” he said softly. “I choose not to wear it.”

“Why so?”

“A man must earn his right to the Curse of God, Fornyx.”

Fornyx snorted, and then wove his way to the end wall where he placed his cuirass on its stand there. He set a hand on it.

“They do not care who wears them,” he said over his shoulder. “They fit your bones like a second skin, whether you’re fat or thin, tall,” he turned round with a sneer, “or short.”

Corvus seemed all at once to grow very still, and in the room the only sound was the crackle of the fire, and the breath slowly exhaling from Druze’s mouth.

“Rictus, your friend has savoured too much of the wine,” Corvus said quietly. “He forgets himself.”

“I forget myself, do I?” Fornyx snarled. He strode hack to the table. “You short-arsed little fuck – how about I break you in two over my knee?”

Rictus stood up. “Enough.” One look halted Fornyx in his tracks.

“We’ve played your game,” he said to Corvus. “Now I want to know your intent. Are you here to kill us, or make some kind of offer? We’re mercenaries, not seers. Be straight, and get it over with.”

Corvus nodded, and some life came back into the mask-like face. He really was as fine-boned as a girl, Rictus thought. It did not seem possible he was the man who had been conquering the cities of the eastern coasts for going on three years now, the unstoppable conqueror of rumour. A leader of armies.

And yet, when one looked in the eyes… There was a coldness there, an implacability.

Corvus stood by the hearth and splayed his long white fingers to the flames, the nail-paint on them black in the firelight. It was barely midday outside, but here in the farmhouse it might have been the middle of the night. There was the low murmur of talk from the men beyond the walls, but no wind in the valley. The Andunnon River was a mere liquid guess of noise.

Corvus turned around. He was smiling.

“It is very simple,” he said. “I am here to hire you, your friend Fornyx, and your men. I wish you to come and serve in the ranks of my army.”

Rictus took a seat, squirted more wine for himself into a clay cup, and methodically filled cups for them all. Druze raised his in salute before sipping at it, black eyes as watchful as those of a stoat. Fornyx sat down beside him, the two dark men looking more than ever like children of the same father, though one was hefted with wide-boned muscle, the other as lean as a blackthorn stick.

“Mercenaries pick their employers,” Rictus said. “They choose their contracts, and vote on them. You may wish to hire us, Corvus, but that does not mean you can.”

Corvus approached the table, lifted a cup, and studied the trembling face of the wine within.

“Oh, I think I can,” he said softly. “Druze, tell him.”

“Your senior centurions, Valerian and Kesero, are guests of our army as we speak,” Druze said, flapping a hand in apology. “Your centons have been rounded up and are in our camp outside Hal Goshen.”

“Prisoners,” Fornyx hissed.

“Guests,” Corvus corrected him. “I have already broached my terms of employment to them, and they find them agreeable. But they want to know your word on it, Rictus of Isca.”

There it was. The glove slipped off, the fist shown at last. This slender cold eyed boy held Rictus and his family in the palm of his hand.

“What if I said no?” Rictus asked.

Corvus looked back down into his cup. “This is a harsh world. A man must do what he can to safeguard those he loves. And he will do what he must to make the life he has chosen for himself. I know that Karnos of Machran has approached you and your centons with a view to employment – employment against me. The Dogsheads are renowned across our world – how many are they now, Druze?”

“Four hundred and sixty two,” Druze said instantly, “Not including those present here.”

“Four hundred and sixty two men, only – but those men have been trained by Rictus of Isca. Their prowess, their very name – your name – is worth ten times those numbers of ordinary spearmen. And if Karnos sees sense, and offers you, Rictus, overall command of the League’s field-army, why then, my work would be doubled. The leader of the Ten Thousand, at the head of the Avennan League’s army – think on it! You would light a fire in the Harukush, one that might consume my ambitions forever.”

Corvus was smiling now, tight-lipped, and in the firelight his high-boned face did not. seem entirely human. His eyes caught the flames like those of a fox.

“So you see why I am here.”

Rictus’s voice rasped like gravel out of his mouth. “What if I take employment with none of you -what if I wish to stay here and till my land and live out my life in peace, here in this valley?”

Corvus nodded. “Your centurions have told me that you have spoken thus. You think of hanging up your spear, of following a plough, herding goats, laying down that scarlet cloak.” He paused. “You have loyal friends, Rictus. They almost convinced me.”

Slowly, he tipped his cup and poured a thin stream of the ruby wine onto the tabletop. It spattered and pooled like fresh spilt blood.

“For Phobos,” he said. “A libation.” He placed his hand in the wine and then raised it, palm outwards.

“We are men of blood, you and I, Rictus. Sons of Phobos himself. You can no more set aside your nature than can I. In the times to come, you will don that cloak once more, you will heft a spear, and you will follow your calling. Do not try to tell me different. I see in you the restlessness that I have felt in myself all my life. If you join with me, you will be a part of great things; you will live your life as it was meant to be. You will have a part in the changing of the world. And I will keep faith with you forever. This I swear, to Phobos himself.” Then he looked Rictus in the eye.

“If you do not join with me, then I will do what I must. You will die here today. But I promise you that you will die alone. Fornyx here will be spared – as will your family – and your men will take service with me. Your name will have a place in the story, but your part in it will be over. Today.” He smiled a little, and in his face there was something genuine -an earnest regret.

Then he turned away, and at once his eyes blazed like those of a hungry animal.

“I will let you think on it. And I will see you outside when you have made up your mind. Druze, let us go.”

Druze rose and opened the door, letting in a blare of white light and the chill air of the world outside. He and Corvus went out, closing the door behind them. For a few moments Rictus was blind in the dimness of the farmhouse, his vision flaring with afterimages. It seemed that not only his eyes but his mind was reeling a little with what he had been told. As his vision returned, he drank deep of his wine.

“Modest little bastard, ain’t he?” Fornyx said, sitting down heavily.

“A phenomenon,” a voice said, and both Rictus and Fornyx started. It was Eunion, forgotten in the corner. He rose stiffly now and approached the table with the scroll still hanging in his hand. The dogs whined as they picked up the mood of the room.

“A slave’s gift,” he said with a tight smile. “To have oneself overlooked.”

“A gift I find myself wishing I had,” Rictus conceded.

“You think he means what he says?” Fornyx asked.

It was Eunion who answered. “He means it, master, he means all of it. He is a man who has a certain picture of himself in his head, and he will do anything to keep that picture real. Such men are the most dangerous of all to know. They are not pragmatists, but dreamers.”

“His dreams have taken him far,” Fornyx said sourly, running his fingers through his beard. “Rictus, we’re in a corner here – we’ll have to go along with the little fuck, for now at least.”

Rictus sat rolling the wine around in his mouth. He was curiously detached. He felt that he had never in his life tasted a cup of wine so completely, enjoying every nuance of its taste. There were complexities within it he had not guessed at, far beyond the run of his own mountain vintages.

Something else – this Corvus knew him, knew him well enough to prod at the weaknesses in his makeup. Not just the veiled threats to his family and his men, not just a crude leverage. One gained men’s obedience that way, but not their loyalty.

Corvus had lifted a curtain and made a promise of something greater beyond it, and Rictus knew, without question, that if this slender, terrible boy gave his word on something,” he would keep it. Because, as Eunion had said, he was a dreamer, and to break his word would destroy some picture he held of himself in his mind.

Rictus looked at his friends. “We can trust him,” he said. “I know it.”

Fornyx let out a low whistle. “You’re going to do it.”

“It’s that or death – why not?” Rictus replied. He stood up, the wine loosening his brain. Looking around the homely room, he realised that this place had always been a refuge for him, and he hoped it always would be. But Corvus had been right – and Fornyx too.

He would live and die with a scarlet cloak on his back.