Emperor of Thorns

29

Five years earlier

The board lay between us, the game of twelve lines, counters marshalled, dice ready in the cup. I knew the rules well enough: we had the game in Ancrath, almost the same but named battamon. Yusuf’s explanation of the mechanics gave me time to study him, to consider my options. The way he spoke of the game, of the combinations, the scatter of odds, and the basic strategies, all marked him out as a mathmagician. If not for the teeth though I might not have done my own arithmetic and added the two and the two.

‘Why don’t you go first?’ I said.

He took the shaker and rattled the dice.

Clearly they had done their sums, worked a little magic, and anticipated me. Had they predicted me with certainty, or just mapped out the paths that I might take, weighted them with probabilities, and deployed their resources appropriately? Either way it unsettled me to find myself the subject of calculation.

Yusuf threw the dice, a three and a three. His hand moved almost too fast to see, clicking counters along the board.

‘Don’t expect me to do well, I’m a slow study.’ I took the shaker and dice from him.

The Moor seemed relaxed. He could afford to be if he had me figured out, if he knew before I did what course I would take. How many slates had they covered with their equations, how many men passing their calculations back and forth to balance and simplify my terms? Did they know already at what point I might draw steel for an attack? Did a man stand ready for it at a dark window, crossbow wound and aimed at the spot I would choose? Did they know the hour when I might elect to slip away, or the direction I would take? If they all had Qalasadi’s skill I would not be surprised to find they had already written down the next words to come from my mouth.

‘Well that’s not good!’ A one and a two. I advanced my counters.

Yusuf shook the dice. All around us men played the game, smoked, sipped their dark and bitter brews. From time to time a face would turn my way, lined and sun-stained, usually the grey hairs outnumbering the black. No smiles for the traveller here, nothing to read from those incurious eyes. I wondered how many of them worked for Qalasadi? All of them. Only Yusuf and his servant?

I could stand and make for the Keshaf, still tied at the quay. But they already knew if I would or not. Maddening.

Yusuf threw and took his move. White counters sweeping around the board. My tea arrived, and his java. Would it be poisoned? I lifted it to my lips.

‘Oranges?’

‘It is scented with the blossom of the orange tree,’ Yusuf agreed.

If they had wanted me poisoned the deck-boy on the Keshaf could have put powders in the water he brought me. I touched the cup to my lips, a thin work of porcelain set round with a delicate pattern of diamonds. They would want me as a hostage for Ibn Fayed’s war against my grandfather.

The tea tasted good. I threw the dice and made my moves, taking longer than I needed to puzzle them. Yusuf’s next moves seemed wrong to me, not foolish, but overcautious. I reminded myself that even mathmagicians are fallible. They had meant to poison grandfather, and yet he lived. They had meant to further Ibn Fayed’s cause, and yet a dozen and more highborn deaths along the Horse Coast were now piled at his door, dishonourable killings. The stench of them tainted his house.

I rolled the dice. Six and four.

Beneath the table my fingers curled around the hilt of my dagger. ‘Do you know what I’m going to do next, Lord Yusuf?’ I asked.

I could have the blade in his throat quicker than quick.

A slow smile. ‘No, but I can guess.’

I took my move.

Yusuf hesitated a moment before scooping the dice into the cup. A frown creased his forehead. Perhaps he was recalculating.

While the Moor took his go I made a mental list. A list of six options, choices other men might make.

1) Rike: Reach out, catch Yusuf behind the head and slam his face very hard into the table. Go with the flow thereafter.

2) Makin: Make a new friend. Turn on the charm.

3) Gorgoth: Part company without fuss. Take a path to protect those most depending on me.

4) Father: Purchase whichever loyalties can be bought. Dispense whatever justice can be paid out without loss. Return home to consolidate my strengths.

5) Gomst: Pray for guidance. Follow Yusuf, obey the rules, run when a chance presents itself.

6) Sim: Show no defiance. Go with Yusuf and his man. Murder them both in a lonely spot. Continue on disguised as the Moor.

The dice came my way again. I picked one out. If I let the die choose, if I let chance decide among unlikely options, that might break the network of prediction that had me snared.

‘Maybe one at a time will improve my luck,’ I said.

Yusuf smiled but said nothing, watching with intent.

I rolled the die. Predict this!

A two. Make a friend? Damn that!

I set the second cube spinning across the table. Alea iacta est, as Caesar put it. The die is cast. I would tie my fate to this one.

It spun for an age on one corner, caught an edge, clattered off the table. Yusuf bent to follow it and brought it up in his hand. ‘Another two!’

Damnation.

I moved my counters, hoping for some kind of inspiration. Yusuf was already pretending to be my friend. How to turn that into something real I hadn’t a clue. In fact I wasn’t entirely sure I understood the difference.

A disturbance in the white heat outside caught my eye. A hunch-backed giant in black mobbed by a sudden crowd? No, mobbed by children, a man surrounded by ragged children as he dragged something across the square.

‘Your pardon, Yusuf.’ I stood, rewarded by momentary confusion in the Moor’s eyes.

Short steps and sharp turns brought me through the clustered tables and into the sunlight. The modern in his blacks, his hat dangerously askew, pulled on his trunk whilst the children, mocked, taunted, threw pebbles, or tried fishing in his pockets.

‘A friend in need …’ I shrugged and strode across, raising my arms and doing a passable impression of Rike scaring chickens to death. The children scattered and the modern managed to slip, losing his hat in the process. I scooped it up and had it ready as he got to his feet.

‘Marco Onstantos Evenaline of the House Gold, Mercantile Derivatives South,’ I said. ‘How the hell are you?’ And I handed over his ridiculous hat.

I hadn’t formed an impression of the modern’s age on the ship and even now it was hard to pin down. Beneath that hat Marco maintained a wispy comb-over, pale hair failing to hide a fish-belly scalp. The style demonstrated a talent for self-deception — such a man could forgive himself anything.

‘My thanks.’

I’d never heard thanks offered with less gratitude.

After close and suspicious examination of his headgear Marco settled it back in place and dusted down his jacket.

‘The House Gold can’t stretch to a porter and a guard?’ I asked, watching a couple of the boldest urchins edge from the shadows again.

‘Not one at the quay could speak the empire tongue.’ Marco frowned. ‘They wouldn’t take my coin.’

‘Well I already told you I’d take your coin, banker.’ I gave him what I hoped might be a friendly smile. I’m not used to pretending to like people. ‘And I speak six languages.’ I didn’t mention that none of those were Moorish, but I find hand gestures and a sharp edge go a long way toward cutting through misunderstanding.

‘No,’ he said, quick enough that I thought he must have seen me for what I was the moment he laid those small black eyes upon me.

‘I’ll help you without charge, gratis, pro bono.’ I tried a different smile, imagining Sir Makin stepping ashore with a joke to hand. ‘You could use a friend, now couldn’t you, Marco?’

At the last, still heavy with mistrust, the banker managed a smile, as ugly as mine felt. ‘You can bring my trunk and find us some transport.’ He held out a hand in its white cotton glove. ‘Friend.’

I met his grip, a soft one, moist despite the glove, and released him quick enough. ‘And where are we bound, Marco?’

‘Hamada.’ He pronounced the word carefully.

‘And what’s in Hamada?’ I kept close watch on that pasty face, wondering once more if I were playing a game of chance or if chance were playing a game with me.

‘Banking business,’ he said, pressing thin lips thinner.

I nodded. Ibn Fayed had his palace in Hamada. There would be no banking business in that city that was not also Ibn Fayed’s business.

The banker’s trunk weighed far more than I had expected. I put my back into it and hauled it toward the java house, with new respect for the modern’s strength. I’d worked up a good sweat by the time we reached the shade.

‘If you’ll attend the trunk for a moment, Marco, I will make my apologies to Lord Yusuf.’

I found Yusuf studying the board, his java cup resting at his lips.

‘I’m not a lord you know, Sir Jorg. We have our rulers on the north coast, sultans, caliphs, emperors, all sorts. And below that we have a vast array of princes, more than you can count, some as poor as mice. Anyone you meet with silks or a jewel who does not declare themselves a merchant will be a prince. And beneath the princes, beneath the ones with lands and great houses at least, you have the friends of princes, most often soldiers, but sometimes sages. When our patron calls we are at their service — when they do not call we are our own men.

‘So, you will journey with this modern? You should come to my home, meet my wives, eat pomegranate, try roast peacock. But you won’t. Travel with the modern then, and take a care, my friend. The man is not welcome. No harm will be done to him but the desert is a hard place without the support of fellow men. And strangers, men like yourselves from gentler lands, will die in the Margins before you even reach the sand.’

I held out my hand and he took it, his grip firm and dry. ‘Sometimes men must take their chances,’ I said, and leaning in I took the nearest die. ‘If I may. You never know when one of these might save your life.’

‘Go with God, Jorg of Ancrath,’ he said and returned to the study of the board.