The Tower of Living and Dying. Anna Smith Spark

said, ‘Is March really our enemy, Orhan? Was he really conspiring with the Immish against Sorlost?’

      ‘Who told you that?’

      ‘Celyse.’

      Naturally. Why even bother to ask? Orhan said, ‘Celyse shouldn’t be telling anyone.’

      ‘That’s not an answer.’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Orhan said. That’s not an answer either, he thought. His head was hurting. He thought: I need another drink.

      Such slow going, with the swarm of guards around them with knives out. Bizarre and absurd, that they could possibly need that many. Orhan had a knife, too, tucked quietly beneath the litter cushions, his hand resting on the hilt. Patterned metal slick with sweat. Yet it still felt … absurd, to need so many guards. Orhan shoved off the wreath; the flowers were sagging despite the enchantments on them, petals crushed and brown. They felt grainy, like they’d been crystallized and left to go rotten, unpleasant, like rotting ice. A funny smell to them now. It filled the litter. Maybe cover the scents of sweat and wine and two people’s bellies over-stuffed with food. Bil sighed and stared out through the green curtain, giving up attempting to talk. I wonder if she’ll take one of the new guards as a lover? Orhan thought. Or already has? The gates of the House of the East swung open before them, the litter passed through, the gates shutting again noiselessly, sealing themselves. Relative safety, unless an assassin could climb a wall. The litter servants helped them carefully down, guards still flanking them, watching, torches raised to check for shadows that might be men with drawn blades. Elis might be taking Leada up to bed by now, Orhan thought. Darath no doubt cheering as he followed behind. He handed Bil carefully in through the pearl doorway.

      ‘Good night, Bil.’

      She frowned. ‘You’re going back out?’

      ‘I am.’

      ‘Where?’

      None of your business. Where do you think? We agreed, once, that we wouldn’t ask these things, either of us. She sighed, walked away. She wasn’t sleeping with any of the new guards, Orhan thought.

      ‘Be careful, Orhan.’

      ‘I’ll go in the litter. With half the guards. Order the rose blossom tomorrow, then, if you like.’ His head was aching. The litter was foetid with sweat and flatulence. Candied dogs’ hearts gave a man truly terrible wind.

      The litter bearers went slowly. Tired out, like everything. The streets still swam with people. In the heat sleep was painful, so they wandered endlessly around the city day and night. At the House of Flowers the wedding feast was ending. Feathers and sequins and gemstones and flakes of paint and flower petals were scattered over marble floors. The detritus of beautiful wealth. Servants smiled in the corners, had probably made bets on whether he’d come back. Darath smiled in his bedroom doorway, held out his arms.

      The bride and groom went the next morning to pray and light candles at the Temple; Orhan and Darath and March and Eloise went with them as bride and groom’s kin. The mad-eyed child High Priestess knelt ragged before the altar as she did now even on days when there was no sacrifice waiting, chewing on long fingers red ragged bloody at the tips. Glorious omen! But people tried now not to care. Days passed: Darath hung around Orhan’s bedroom complaining of the strangeness of having a woman living in his house; Bil slunk in her chambers, brittlely restless, swollen like a bluebottle in the heat. The hot weather continued, the world red and sweat-sticky, dust in heaps on the pavements, trees withering in the heat. Stone walls too hot to put a hand on. Plaster and gilding crumbling into more dust. Orhan stared dully at old ledgers in the palace offices, dictated letters, tried to govern an empire of one decaying city in a desert of yellow sand.

      And then ten days after the wedding Darath came to Orhan’s study to tell him in triumph that March was dead.

      ‘How did he die?’ Orhan asked. He hadn’t heard anything. Must have been sudden. Or his spies were even more useless than he’d thought. But it still must have been sudden. Celyse would have been round to tell him otherwise. She’d already passed on the news that Elis had bedded Leada four times so far and the girl had very much enjoyed every moment of it. So that was something else Orhan would now go to his grave unable to forget.

      ‘He technically hasn’t. Yet. Soon. Tomorrow, maybe the day after. By Lansday, anyway, or I’ll sue the man who sold it me for false trade.’

      ‘That’s—’ Orhan looked up at Darath’s glittering eyes. ‘God’s knives, Darath, what did you use?’

      ‘I told you I’d take care of it. I have. You really want to know?’

      ‘No! No. Yes.’ Dear Lord. Dear Lord. Great Tanis have mercy.

      ‘Deadgold leaves and sysius root and beetle’s wings and bear’s gall and powdered lead.’ It sounded like a lullaby. ‘Poured in his wine with his lunch today. He complained of the sour taste but the man who gave it to him told him it was the heat affecting his tongue.’

      ‘I …’ God’s knives, Darath. ‘I mean …’

      ‘You mean: “thank you, beloved of my heart, for killing the man who tried to kill me so I don’t have to do it myself”.’

      ‘I … Yes … But … I mean …’ But, I mean: it’s such a horrible, horrible way to die.

      ‘This way everyone will think it’s heat flux. You would have done it all nicely with something cool and sleep-inducing and obvious like sana fruit? Would that have made you feel better about it?’

      ‘I …’ Silence. The ox heavy on Orhan’s tongue.

      ‘Your plans, Orhan my love, have led to my brother saddling himself with an unwanted wife. Your plans have led to me being stuck with said wife strolling round my house like she owns the place. Your plans have cost me a great deal of money and almost seen both of us fucking killed. If I want to do something to help you the way I want to, you should thank me.’

      And there’s nothing to say to that. Orhan looked at Darath and Darath looked at Orhan.

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘Oh, your gratitude is like music.’

      ‘Thank you.’ Orhan took Darath’s hand, held it to his cheek. Hot and angry. His face and Darath’s hand. Long drawn silence, where they could hear the click of a house servant somewhere going about the house with a bucket and broom. The drapery at the windows fanned out with a snap. The air changing. A hot wind. In the central gardens the birds in the lilac trees felt it, rose up a moment all together in a puff like a skein of silk unravelling then came back to roost.

      ‘You’re welcome.’ A grunt. Grudging. Darath sat down again, leaning back in his chair. Orhan sat again also. The wind banged at the windows again, the open shutters creaking, hiss of sand blowing onto the marble floor. In her desiccation I am entombed in ecstasies of rain. Doesn’t some poet say somewhere that life is like the sand wind, blasting heat teetering on the edge of a storm from which one will never get relief? A house servant came hurrying in to close the shutters, the room dark for a moment before the candles were lit.

      ‘We hired a troop of sellswords to assassinate the Emperor,’ said Darath. ‘We killed hundreds of people, we killed Tam Rhyl, we almost burned the palace down. We desecrated the Great Temple. We’ve told so many lies I can barely keep up. We did all that because you told me March Verneth was conspiring with the Immish, that the Immish would invade the city, that the world would be over if we didn’t do something. Remember? Remember, Orhan? All those things you told me? “The city’s dying, Darath. The Empire’s a joke. The Immish will come with twenty thousand men and a mage, and we’ll fall in days.” “We’re too weak, the way we are, sitting on our piles of gold pretending nothing exists beyond our walls. We need to be ready. And yes, that does mean blood.” Remember?’ Pause. Cold eyes. ‘And now you’re getting squeamish about March dying?’ Slammed his fist down, hard, on the arm of his chair. ‘I could have died that night, Orhan. Stop claiming morality at me.’

      God’s