‘Bigger than yours,’ said Rate. ‘As the serving girl has already pointed out.’
Tobias was just rising to order food when a bell sounded, loud and low and sad. The room fell suddenly silent, the musicians stopping playing, voices breaking off in the middle of a word. A long pause, a silence that hung in the air. Everything and everyone very still. Marith felt something between a laugh and a scream well up inside him. A dim confused memory of a silence like this.
On and on, drawn out painfully, tense as knives. Suddenly, finally, the girl laughed loudly, a high-pitched squealing sound. Something broke in the air. The bell tolled again. The drinkers turned back to their drinks, muttering. The musicians started to play.
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Emit asked.
‘Twilight,’ said Tobias. ‘The bell marks the moment between day and night. Considered a dangerous time.’
‘Seserenthelae aus perhalish,’ murmured Marith. ‘Night comes. We survive.’ Carin used to say it sometimes, his voice deep and solemn; they’d both laugh. It had all seemed almost funny, back then.
‘Speak bloody Literan, now, do you?’ Emit growled. Marith blinked back to the present. They were all staring at him. Speak bloody Literan, now, do you? Oh gods. He was getting careless. Slipping. Letting out things they shouldn’t know. But it was so hard to think here. Shadows. Laughter. Carin. Ah gods, Carin … Pain, clawing at him. Something screaming, just out of reach. He rubbed his eyes and tried to smile at them. ‘Plain as day I’m highborn. You didn’t think I’d be well educated as well?’
‘Speak the lingo, know the customs …’ Emit was glaring. ‘I’m starting to wonder about you, boy …’
‘My Lord,’ said Alxine, trying for levity. ‘I’m starting to wonder about you, My Lord. He can recite dirty poetry too.’
‘Course he can,’ said Rate. ‘Basis of a good education, dirty poetry. “My love is like a lily fair, With lice around her pubic hair”. But can he recite dirty poetry in Literan?’
‘Actually, yes,’ said Alxine helpfully. Emit snorted beer.
‘The best dirty poetry is written in Literan.’ Marith’s face felt hot. ‘Maran Gyste …’ Digging a hole. Big as a latrine trench. He shut up. Tried not to look at Emit or Rate.
‘Yes. Well. On that note. Yes.’ Tobias, trying to smooth things. Tobias went up to the bar, returned with a goblet of wine for him and the promise of food to be brought shortly. It was good wine, rich and heavy. Thank the gods. Marith drank it in small sips, trying to make it last. The food when it came was good too, cold meat in a hot sauce and fresh bread. They were finishing eating when the musicians put down their instruments and the piper addressed the audience in a loud voice. In Pernish, fortunately, like almost all travelling singers: Marith had a sudden image of Tobias forcing him to translate from Literan in time to the beat.
‘Good gentlemen and ladies—’ laughter from the girl, the only woman in the room ‘—tonight we bring you a story, a tale of telling old, of heroes, of dangers, of warriors fierce and bold, of Amrath, greatest lord of all, who caused all men to fear. So listen, my good audience, this mighty tale to hear.’ The drinkers groaned and cheered in equal measure.
Oh gods. Oh gods and demons. Marith’s hands started to shake. He had a sudden fear he was going to be sick.
‘And a happy birthday to Him,’ said Emit. ‘Just let it go, Rate, lad. Let it go.’
The lyre-player struck a few chords while the piper licked his lips, adopted a dramatic pose and began to speak:
‘This is a tale of the first days of Ethalden, before the wars came, when Serelethe and Amrath were still building the city’s strength. A great fortress, they built, using Serelethe’s magic and Amrath’s power. All of white marble, it was, each block twice as tall as a man, and no mortar was needed to hold it together, so smooth were the joins. Five floors it went down into the earth, deep cellars and dungeons and secret rooms. And five floors it rose up into the air, council chambers and feasting halls and armouries. It stood on the very top of the White Hill, and from its windows you could see for a hundred miles. Lost, it is, now, even the hill flattened into dust, but, then, ah then, then the fortress of Amrath was the greatest and the most beautiful and the most feared building in all the world.
‘But great and beautiful and feared it may have been, but the fortress was also haunted, and Amrath could find no peace in it. Filled, it was, with Serelethe’s spells and secrets, but this was something else. A thing that Serelethe herself could not understand, could not solve. For each month at the dark of the moon, a soldier or a serving maid or a noble was found dead in their bed, and not a mark on them but the burning marks of a great fire running all up the length of their right arm. But no smoke was smelled, and no cries were heard, and what was killing them and how they died no man knew. And the guards and the maids and the nobles began to lose faith in Amrath, if He could not keep His own people safe within His own walls.
‘So Serelethe and Amrath were in despair, for try as they might, they could not find an answer to the mystery, and their people were dying and muttering against them. And Amrath had angry words with Serelethe, who had promised Him mastery of an Empire but could not defend His own men for Him. And so things went badly in Ethalden.
‘Now, this had been going on for a year, and no man was any closer to finding the truth of it, when there came to Ethalden a young mage, a wandering sorcerer from Tarboran where the fires burn. And he stood before the throne of Amrath, and dared look even Amrath full in the face. And he promised Amrath that he knew the secret that was plaguing His fortress, and could destroy it. And all he wanted in return was a chance to stand beside Amrath, and be His lieutenant, and lead His armies with fire and blood.
‘So Amrath roared a great roar of laughter, and promised the mage gold and silver and precious jewels, and a lordship, and the command of His armies, if he should only defeat the evil that was plaguing Him. For He saw in the mage a brother, and a comrade, and a tool to be used. He gave the mage a great chamber for lodgings, and put all of His wealth and His power at his disposal.
‘The mage walked the corridors of the fortress, sniffing the air and looking at the stone. And at length he stopped in a certain place, a small room in the outer keep looking down over the city, and he gave a great cry and said, “This is the place. And now we shall see what we shall see.” And he ordered the men with him to dig.