Despite everything, Orhan couldn’t help but laugh too. ‘I’m not that good a lover, Celyse.’ He’d wondered about Darath’s reasons himself on occasion. The thrill of the game? The chance to be something more than he was? The need to find something new to spend his money on? Or perhaps he really did share Orhan’s vision of a renewed Empire, better governed, stronger, more disciplined, kinder to its people.
Kinder! He almost wept thinking that. A few hours ago he’d been torturing an old friend and he was still trying to believe it was for a greater good.
But it would be. It would be. Things had to change. They had to. If he had to make every change himself.
People, he thought wearily. Not ‘things’. People. No euphemisms. The bone-white truth, as he’d given Tam. People had to be changed. A whole lot of people. We killed people, in order that others may live. We soaked the city in blood, to make it clean. It’s for the best. One day people will see that. Yes?
He sighed again, and left Celyse in charge while he had a bath and a sleep. She would have managed to pull it off properly, he thought sourly. Probably at a lower cost, in coin and lives.
Chapter Thirty-Two
If Skie was still alive, Tobias would have to kill him.
Tobias had reached this conclusion before everything had even started. Been contemplating it for a year or more, indeed, before this job came up and offered the ideal opportunity. Skie and Geth were good comrades. Skie was an excellent commander. But … Couldn’t really put it into words. He’d just outgrown them. Needed to be his own man. And Skie had bloody shafted him, not telling him about Lord Prince Marith bloody Altrersyr. ‘Not much for us there, I’d have thought’! Fed up with splitting the rewards of his labour three ways, seeing Skie pocket most of it ‘for the Company’. The money from Lord Rhyl was all his. They’d agreed, him and Skie, that Geth was becoming expendable. Getting old. Making mistakes. Never been the same since he took a spear in his arm the winter before last. Betraying Skie as well was just a logical extension of that.
So now he was on his own with a good haul of money and two half-decent men to build on. Things looked like they might be getting rather more unstable all over the place, what with conspiracy in Sorlost, deeping fever in Chathe and whatever the hell was going on in the Whites. Could only be to the good for a man in his line of work.
And then on top of that there was poor lost little Prince Marith. Currently passed out in a pool of vomit in the best bedroom, apparently now entirely dependent on Tobias for everything in his sorry excuse for a life. The gratitude he’d shown when Tobias had given him a bottle of spirits from the house’s larder had been almost touching. Gone upstairs quiet as a lamb, smiled sadly when Tobias had locked the door on him. Could probably butcher all three of them in a heartbeat. Instead, he’d just looked at them with tired eyes. Worth a lot of money to the right people. Showed almost frightening promise as a hired killer, too.
Prince Marith. Marith wasn’t passed out in a pool of vomit in the best bedroom, he’d be sitting in an impregnable fortress at his father’s right hand learning how to be a king. How to command people. Lead armies. Wield power. Make people grovel. All that crap.
Tobias would have pissed himself laughing just thinking about that, not long ago. Pretty new boy Marith, who dug the latrines.
Descendant of Amrath. Demon born, dragon kin. All that crap.
His face, killing people.
Somehow it made the skin crawl.
Skie has been a fool there too, Tobias thought then, not to have kept a closer check on the boy. Cost them Emit. Emit would have died anyway, so it hadn’t been the worst thing ever to have happened in Irlast. But it was still bloody dangerous, having something like that around without knowing it.
Oh, yes, Skie was getting old and making mistakes. Misjudged how to handle Marith. Got too complacent with Tobias. Secrets and firewine drunks and betrayal – if Skie’d not been getting rusty he would have seen the danger in one of them, at least.
Even going to Sorlost at all. An unreal city. A dream. They killed children here to ensure that old men were able to die. What did Skie think, that they could come here and not be changed by something?
Rate’s leg was recovered enough the next morning that he was able to stand to cook breakfast. Fast healing, he was, he said proudly. But Alxine was still shaky and in pain, his arm heavily bandaged. Tobias didn’t feel particularly good himself, his leg aching like an old man, slightly feverish. Could do with another few days in bed. They’d have to move on soon, though. Someone was bound to start wondering where whoever had lived in the house had disappeared to. And the smell coming out of the cellar was becoming frankly vile.
The streets outside were still empty. There had been men out at first, some armed and shouting about invasion, some obviously taking the opportunity to engage in a little light looting while no one really knew what was going on. The shop next door had been ignored, fortunately. Bringing down an empire and then being killed in the subsequent petty violence when someone did over a bookshop would have been a particularly pathetic way to go. But now everything was quiet, the occasional figure scurrying from one house to another but nothing more.
‘We ought to be leaving,’ Tobias said to Rate and Alxine over a breakfast of stale bread and stale meat. Marith sat silently in the corner, nursing a cup of water with his head in his hands. Really didn’t look well. The only reason he was there at all was because they’d dragged him downstairs. If he was awake, Tobias wanted him firmly where he could see him.
‘You need to eat something, boy,’ Tobias said encouragingly at him. ‘Get some strength up. The bread’s not that bad.’
Marith shook his head, blinked red-rimmed eyes.
‘Suit yourself.’ Tobias surveyed his men. ‘I’m going to send Rate out for a look round. If the gates are open, we’ll head out after lunch. Try to get up into the hills before dusk. Be slow-going, but I’ll feel a lot better once we’re out of here for good and all.’
With a nagging feeling that he was repeating a previous mistake, Tobias gave Rate a handful of dhol for some more new clothes and supplies.
‘You sure there’ll be shops open to buy from?’ Rate asked.
Alxine rolled his eyes. ‘This is the heart of an empire built on trade, Rate, not a village of cow herds. Course everything’ll be open. A couple of buildings burning down and some big nobs being dead doesn’t stop people wanting bread and novelty goods.’
Rate looked at the coins and grinned. ‘Fine. In that case, I’ll see you all in a firewine pit around sundown, then. Or shall I just be extra generous and give it all to a dying street whore straight off?’
‘Don’t even bloody joke about it, you bastard. And don’t be so cruel as to mention the f-word in My Lord Prince’s presence, either. Look at his poor little face. Looks like he’s going to cry.’