The Tower of Living and Dying. Anna Smith Spark

out his hands to the fire.

      A strange man, Selerie Calboride, King of Ith. Some people said he was mad. Though they said most Calborides were mad. Tall, reddish fair, with pale grey wide bulbous eyes. It was the eyes that made the madness convincing. Nothing like Marith’s father’s eyes, and he did not remember his mother to whom he had been told there was a close resemblance. But Marith felt self-consciously as though it was his father who looked at him.

      The girl stepped forward to offer him a drink. Marith took it. Felt his hands shake. Very good wine, naturally. The warmth spread pleasantly through his fingers. The cup was almost empty suddenly. His hands were shaking and he almost dropped it. Tried to keep himself from staring at the girl with the jug.

      Selerie raised his own cup. ‘As one king to another, then, Marith of the White Isles.’

      ‘One king to another, Uncle.’ Tried to look at his uncle speaking to him. ‘You’ve come, I’m sure, to congratulate me on my success. Such a triumph! But of course you always knew what I had in me to do.’

      Selerie shifted in his chair. I hate you, Marith thought. I hate you. I am a man, a king. ‘I came to offer you my aid,’ Selerie said slowly. ‘Hail you as a fellow king. Promise alliance. The old sacred bonds between Calboride and the Altrersyr, back even to Amrath and Eltheri, that your father spurned. Help you kill the whore’s son who claims to be heir in your stead. I came to confirm with my own eyes that my only sister’s only child was still alive. My sister would weep with shame, were she to see you now.’

      So it’s lucky then my father killed her. You think I don’t weep with shame myself? Marith said, ‘It was your decision to come, uncle. I was perfectly happy sitting in my tent in the filth. My soldiers had just found something alcoholic for me to drink, I’m told.’

      Selerie said crisply, ‘Happy, were you? Perhaps I’ll leave you be, then.’ They looked away from each other, both caught. Can’t leave. Can’t tell you to leave. Can’t ask you to stay. Can’t ask you to ask me.

      ‘Your brother the whore’s son has claimed the throne,’ Selerie said at last. ‘That is why I have come. There are some things I will not permit. The whore’s son wearing the crown of Altrersys is one of them.’

      I …

      ‘My brother the whore’s son is claiming the throne,’ Marith said dully back.

      ‘And you seem to have done a most wonderful job of opposing him.’

      Marith looked away at the walls. Shadows. Hate. Pain. Leave me alone, he thought. Just leave me alone.

      Selerie said, ‘Don’t fret, dear Nephew. War’s a difficult game at which you’ve had very little practice. I’m sure even Amrath himself made mistakes occasionally. You’ll learn.’

      ‘I’m sure I will.’ His cup was empty again. Held it out to the girl for more. Her eyes flicked to Selerie. Selerie’s eyes flicked back. She stepped backwards away from them, leaving Marith’s cup hanging.

      ‘It’s a very fine rug you’re sitting on,’ Selerie said kindly. ‘I wouldn’t want it spoilt by you vomiting on it.’

      Felt like being back being raged at by his father for turning up falling-down-dead drunk at some important event. Felt like being laughed at by Skie for killing a dragon and it somehow being embarrassing that he had. ‘I’m the king, Uncle. Not Ti. A greater king than you are, indeed. King of the White Isles and Illyr and Immier and the Wastes and the Bitter Sea. Ansikanderakesis Amrakane. You’re only king at all because my ancestor spared yours. I should make you kneel at my feet.’

      Selerie said nothing. Looked around him with his bulbous mad eyes. The gilded leather. The fine furnishings. The furs and the wine and the jewels and the girl. Marith twirled the empty cup in his fingers. Gold. Don’t pretend you didn’t want this, Uncle. You sit in your tower drinking quicksilver and seeing the same things I do. Days, it takes, to get from Ith to the White Isles, even with magic in your sails: you sailed well before my failure at Malth Elelane, to join me, secure me as king. You must have been readying your troops since first you heard I was still alive. Look at this tent, these fittings, the men with bright bronze spears outside the door. Why else did you come, if not for this?

      Selerie looked away at the walls, seeing something there in the leather in the corner where the light from the brazier hardly reached. ‘And what would you do, King Marith of the White Isles and Illyr and Immier and the Wastes and the Bitter Sea, Ansikanderakesis Amrakane, parricide and dragonlord and dragon killer and despoiler of the holiest woman in Irlast, if I knelt at your feet?’

      Tell you my father was right to kill my mother. Tell you it’s lucky indeed neither of them are alive to see what I’ve become. Tell you to kill me and bury me beside Carin in one grave. You might even do it, I think, perhaps, Uncle, you who once gave me an old sword with a ruby in its hilt like a clot of blood.

      Marith said, ‘You know what I’d do.’

      Selerie gestured to the girl to refill Marith’s cup. ‘Do I? Do you?’

      ‘I’d ask you to give me your ships, and your men, and your allegiance.’

      ‘And why would you do that, then, Nephew?’

      Marith looked at him. ‘You know why.’

      Selerie smiled back. ‘I remember you when you were a child, Nephew. You seemed so very bright. Full of laughter. Yet one might have guessed, even then, that this would be where you’d come to in the end. King Ruin, I hear they have named you. King of Death. Very well then. I’ll give you my ships. And my men. And my allegiance.’ Sipped his wine. ‘But I do not think that you will thank me for doing so.’

      Marith thought: no. I do not think perhaps that I will. I told you, I was perfectly happy sitting in my tent.

      Selerie rose to his feet, placed his cup back on the tray the woman held. ‘I have another ten ships riding at anchor around the next cape. Twenty ships in all. Two thousand men. We’ll meet again this evening, then, to discuss. You’ll bring your woman to dinner afterwards, perhaps? I would be most interested to meet her, this holy and incomparable creature who gave up god and empire for you. For this.’

      Hateful old man. Selerie’s eyes like his father’s eyes again. Yes, I failed. Yes. I know. But next time … Marith tried to think of other things. Thalia. Dinner. Plans. There’d be better fare for her here than whatever his soldiers had managed to hunt up in the marsh and the village huts. A few hours’ warmth in a dry tent. A pretty dress and some jewels and a chance for her to be treated as she deserved. Oh, she’d looked so perfect, seated beside him in the high seats of honour at Malth Calien, radiant by firelight with the men all eying her with jealous desire in their hearts.

      Selerie said, ‘I have a man with me whom you may I think be interested to meet, given your current circumstances.’

      ‘A hatha merchant, is he?’

      Selerie’s face went dark with anger. ‘A weather hand.’

      ‘A weather hand?’ Marith started. Never met one. Half convinced they didn’t exist. Just lucky men. And not loved, on the Whites. Storm-bringers, death-dealers, things you scared fisher children with. But he’d seen the ships last night, sails swelling against the wind. ‘Really? That might be … handy.’

      Selerie snorted. ‘So I thought when I found him. Handy. Though lacking his right hand.’

      Marith got to his feet. ‘At sunset, then. Osen had better come as well; a couple of the other lords. There’s a fishmonger somewhere here who lent me his house and everything in it after I tore apart his liege lord’s fortress. I said I’d give him some high post somewhere.’

      Selerie said nothing. Looked away at the gold and the furs and the girl.

      Hateful old man.

      He stopped outside his uncle’s tent watching the Ithish soldiers raise the last section of a scrubby palisade. All neat and efficient. One thousand Ithish men