The Tower of Living and Dying. Anna Smith Spark

      Thus in the pale afternoon sun they marched out of Toreth, a long thin column of men in armour, with their king and queen at their head. Marith made a speech praising the soldiers’ valour, calling them the first, the truest of his warhost, the army of Amrath that would dazzle all the world. The soldiers beat their swords on their shields, shouting, cheering him. ‘King Marith! Amrath returned to us! King Marith! Death! Death! Death!’ The townspeople mourned to see them leave, the shining new young king who had been made before their walls.

      Familiar to Thalia, marching and riding and the creak and clash of armour and men’s voices grumbling and the tramp of boots. All she really knew of the world of men. She found some comfort in it, riding into the light and the wind. Marith’s face too was brighter, at peace, eyes glittering, looking out over the high curve of the land and the vast sky. The bier carrying his father’s body followed behind them, the horses drawing it stamped, tossed their heads.

      She turned to look at the soldiers. The survivors of two battles against King Illyn, who had fought to make Marith king. She thought of them as like the priestesses in her Temple. They did as was required by Marith, as the priestesses had done as was required by the God. They died as was required, as the people of her city had volunteered themselves to die under her knife for the God. Life and death balanced. Those who need death dying, those who need life being born. She touched the scars on her left arm, where she had cut herself after every sacrifice. Rough scabbed skin that never fully healed.

      She looked at them, and for a moment, a moment, she thought she saw a face she knew. Tobias, she thought. Tobias is here. And I thought, did I not, that I saw him last night. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, she could not see him. Men in armour, marching, helmets over their faces half covering their eyes. Tobias is probably on the other side of Irlast, she thought, with the money he made when he betrayed us. The men shifted position as the road widened coming down into a valley and yes, there was a man who looked a little like Tobias but was very clearly not him.

      ‘Look,’ said Marith, pointing. ‘The woods we rode in.’ Brilliant red leaves clung to the beech trees, but the snow had brought the other trees’ leaves down.

      Thalia smiled, remembering. They went through the wood for a while. The ground was soft and pleasant, their horses’ hooves made a lovely sound in the dried leaves and the beech mast. Thala saw a rabbit, its white tail flashing as it ran from the soldiers, and squirrels in the trees. Rooks cawed overhead.

      ‘I like woodland,’ she said to Marith. ‘I like this place very much.’

      As he had done when they rode in the wood before, he turned his horse, rode to a beech tree in glory, brought back a spray of copper leaves. She placed them in the harness of her horse, like a posy of flowers. Soon after, they came to a river, forded it with the horses up to their knees. The river was very clear, the bottom smooth and sandy. Marith pointed out a place in the bank upstream where he said there was an otter’s nest. There were yellow flowers still in bloom on the further side of the river, and a mass of brown seed heads covered in soft white down that caught on their clothes and on the horses’ coats.

      ‘This is a good place for fishing,’ Marith said.

      Then the land rose, the trees ended, they came out across the moors, riding into the wind. Thalia’s hair whipped out behind her. Marith’s vile blood-covered cloak billowed like a flag. In the last of the evening sun the hills were golden with sunlight, purple with heather flowers; a great number of birds turned and wheeled in the sky. This too, thought Thalia, this too is a beautiful place. They followed the banks of a stream for a while. In one place the water made a song as it rushed down over rocks.

      I thought I could live here with him, Thalia thought. I don’t know, I don’t know … Why did I let him live? Not just for his beauty. For the beauty of this place?

      They slept that night in a way house, built down in a valley between the sweep of two bare hills. The men set up the few tents they had or slept wrapped in their cloaks with fires against the cold. All so familiar. The god stone by the entrance made her shudder; she saw some of the men nod their heads to it, place little offerings of pebbles or a coin, a lock of their hair. But the things that walked on the lich roads were silent and afraid.

      A crown, she thought. For that? Only for that?

      A soldier came running, eager-eyed, with a dead hare still warm as a gift. They had brought food up from Toreth, bread and wine and meat, but Marith smiled in pleasure, ordered it prepared for cooking, thanked the man. You can keep the skin, he said cheerfully. Make yourself some good mittens out of it. You’ll need them, on campaign. Gets cold guarding the king’s tent at night. Guarding the king’s tent? the man echoed, breathless and radiant. Oh, I think you’ve earned that, don’t you? The man’s face lit like a lover’s. What’s your name? Tal? A good name. Start tonight?

      They are falling in love with him, Thalia realized. There was a light to Marith’s face as he spoke to them, savouring the fact that they bowed to him, gazed at him with rapture, their beloved, they looked to him already as something fixed and certain, King Marith, Great Lord Amrath, Ansikanderakesis Amrakane. She remembered the people of Malth Salene hailing him as king, clapping their hands and chanting his name. The people of Toreth Harbour, throwing flowers, cheering his entry through their gates with his sword still dripping his father’s blood. A few months ago he was believed to be dead. But they followed him now as though they had done so for years. As though all this was natural and real.

      A bed was made up for them, blankets piled up on the hard stone bench of the way house. Outside the soldiers fussed, talked, sang, cooked food. Tal proudly served them the hare, roasted whole on the blade of his knife. Marith and Osen Fiolt ate it off the bones, licking grease from their fingers, laughing as they ate.

      ‘It’s better than the ground,’ Marith said cheerfully. ‘And only for one night.’ He would have pressed on, she thought, marched them through the dark, except that he had seen her tired face. ‘When we get to Malth Calien we’ll be able to arrange things properly.’

      Unless you decide to burn that too, Thalia thought for a moment. The shadow of the godstone loomed in the firelight like it was burning. The fire rose up and the flames flickered on the thin silver band of Marith’s crown. Osen and Marith passed a wineskin, laughing. Poked at the fire to send up showers of sparks. Outside Thalia could hear the men talking, the stamp of horses, the clatter of bronze. Some animal cry, off in the dark: she started fearfully, then heard the men laugh. This darkness, alive and heavy with life. There was a smear of fresh blood, a tiny pile of entrails, at the foot of the godstone. She tried to look away from it, up through the doorway at the stars. So many stars.

      ‘Open another wineskin?’ Marith said behind her, to Osen.

      ‘It tastes like goat’s piss,’ Osen replied. ‘And you need to get some sleep, My Lord King. Save yourself for tomorrow night.’

      ‘Oh, dull. All right, it does.’ Marith poured the last dregs of the wineskin onto the fire, sending up a cloud of acrid black smoke.

      ‘Oi!’ Osen shouted. Laughing. ‘What—?’

      ‘I didn’t realize there was that much left,’ said Marith. His eyes were watering. He poked at the fire with a stick, trying to make it burn up again. ‘Sorry,’ he said to everyone and no one. The man Tal came forward to rebuild the fire.

      Yesterday he was at war killing his own father, Thalia thought.

      The country grew wilder the next day, grey rocks clawing up out of the earth, coarse grass and a harsh wind. The mountain of Calen Mon rose up to the south. Its peak shone gold in the pale sun. They marched on fast, meeting no one, following the old straight track of the lich roads across the moor. No people. Where were the people? Thalia wondered. This land was emptier than the desert. An empty land and an empty king. Behind them, the bier of the old king Marith’s father followed, drawn on a cart with a red cloth covering the barrel in which the body lay. A dead land and a dead king. She could see, though she had not seen it, the rotting crow-eaten face lying in the barrel, just visible through thick black-yellow honey, eyes open, drowned.

      Did