CHAPTER 24

‘When you said I could watch you die, I didn’t believe you.’ Elenya was kneeling up, letting the salt spray from the white wave-tops soak her to her bones. The darkness around them was soft, the high cloud turning the moon-glow into a rainbow-touched pearl. ‘You always seemed so indestructible. Not a man, a force of nature. You could do whatever you wanted and the world had to bend to your will.’

‘You were mistaken.’ Va pulled at the oars rhythmically, each stroke as strong as the last even though he grunted with pain. The sea-water was opening the wounds on his hands. He fixed his attention on the Kenyan, who was huddled in the stern, the struggle long since frozen out of him.

‘Do you remember the first time we met?’

‘I remember the last time.’

‘Why didn’t you want me?’

‘Because I’d moved Heaven and Earth to win you, and all I was left with was Hell.’

‘I was in my wedding dress.’

‘And I was red, head to foot, with other men’s blood. The only white you could see were my eyes.’

‘I was yours, Va. Totally, completely yours. Who could have imagined a love that would turn a murderer into a saviour, a gutter-born orphan into a king, a mercenary into the greatest general for a thousand years? At that moment you had everything.’

‘And you think me mad for dropping my sword and walking away? It was madness that drove me there. A cold dose of sanity was what I needed.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘Are you looking out for rocks or do I have to do that too?’

‘We’ll miss them.’

‘And you can see underwater, can you? There are too many breaking waves.’ He turned the boat further out to sea and gave the black headland a wide berth. An Cobh and its sparking fires finally dropped out of sight.

‘Shall I untie Akisi?’

‘No. You can ungag him if you want.’

She stood up and fearlessly stepped over Va to the stern. She tried to loosen the knot at the back of Akisi’s head, but it had shrunk with the cold and the water until it had welded itself together. She took out her knife, and momentarily enjoyed the abject fear that drained the Kenyan’s face of blood. The blade slipped between his cheek and the gag, and she cut, not particularly caring how she did it.

He spat out the remnants of the cloth. ‘Are you mad? Setting out to sea in this? Who are you? What do you want?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she said. ‘Of course we’re mad. But we’ve got the book, and you. Why don’t you tell us who you think we are?’

‘Are you with Cormac? If you are, I can do a deal with him. I can do much more for him than I ever did for Ardhal. He took me by force. He made me work for him.’ Akisi looked from Elenya to Va, and back again. ‘I’m telling you the truth.’

‘What’s he saying?’ asked Va.

‘He’s trying to save his own skin. He thinks Cormac sent us.’

‘Tell him who we really are. It’s a long time since I’ve seen a man piss himself with terror.’ He glanced up at Elenya. ‘Just because I have to try and love my enemies doesn’t mean I’ve succeeded yet.’

‘What language is that?’ said Akisi. He pushed himself with his bound legs so that he was more or less sitting upright.

‘Rus,’ said Elenya. ‘Va is from the monastery of Saint Samuil, Arkady. Recognize the name?’

‘Va? No.’

‘The name of the monastery, stupid. It’s the one you burned down to get to the books.’

‘I got this book from the emperor himself, not some monastery. Where was it?’

Elenya sat on the stern. ‘Va, he’s denying all knowledge of Saint Samuil. What do you want me to do?’

‘Hold on tight.’ Va shipped the oars and stared at Akisi, then took in their position. They’d rounded the headland, and there seemed to be a beach in the next bay. They were sheltered from the worst of the easterly wind, and the waves were pushing them towards the shore.

Finally Va got to his feet and braced himself against the gunwales. Then he started to rock the boat. Slowly at first, then more and more violently, so that water started splashing over the sides and swamping the boat.

‘Enough!’ shrieked Akisi. ‘Enough. I stole the book. I stole it and I’m sorry. I didn’t think the emperor could reach this far.’

Elenya held up her hand, and Va stopped. ‘You stole the book from your emperor? Not from the monastery?’

‘I’ve never heard of the place. I don’t know where it is. I don’t know what you want from me. I just want to get out of this boat before it sinks.’

‘We’re not going to sink, are we, Va?’

Va sat back down and started bailing with cupped hands. ‘Did he admit it?’

‘After a fashion,’ said Elenya. ‘He says he stole the book from his emperor, not from you. Which means that the emperor of Kenya stole the books, killed your brothers and burned everything to the ground.’

‘What do you know about this man?’ Va gave up bailing and picked up the oars again. The pre-dawn light gathered strength and showed the broad mouth of a river in the bay. He began to row the heavy, waterlogged boat towards land.

‘The emperor of Kenya is the most powerful ruler in the world. His influence stretches as far south as the Maghreb, where it meets the Caliphate, and thanks to you, maybe further. If he wants your books, you might just have to let him keep them.’

‘Never. I have to take them back to the patriarch, every last one.’

‘I’ve seen maps. He rules over a vast area of land far to the north. It’s much bigger than the tsar’s kingdom; it’d take months just to get from one side to the other. Imagine the armies he’d command. And he has spies everywhere.’

‘I still have to go.’

‘And you know the way?’

Va thought of the map caught in the folds of his habit, its edges scratching his skin. ‘If it’s that big, it won’t be too hard to find.’

Akisi asked Elenya: ‘What did he say? Will he kill me or let me go?’

‘We’re not talking about you. We’re talking about the books you and your emperor thieved. Va seems to think that the patriarch should have them all back, starting with yours.’

‘But His Imperial Highness would never permit it.’

‘I don’t expect he permitted you to swipe one from under his nose either, which is why we find both you and it at the edge of the Outer Ocean.’ Elenya watched the shore grow closer. ‘If we sink, you drown.’

‘Don’t you think I know that? Untie me.’

‘You see, he probably would. I wouldn’t. I was outside the monastery the day you attacked it. I saw what happened. I’ve seen worse, but that was on a battlefield. These were men of prayer, and you showed no mercy.’

‘I have no knowledge of this,’ said Akisi. ‘I wasn’t there; I know nothing about what went on. You can’t hold me responsible.’

‘What about what you did to Cormac’s army? Can I hold you responsible for that?’

‘Ardhal made me do it. I was his prisoner.’

‘You can be ours just as willingly.’ The water swirled around Elenya’s ankles. ‘Va, can’t you make this leaking tub go any faster?’

Normally so pale, Va had gone red in the face with the effort. ‘Could you do better?’

‘I wouldn’t have filled it with water in the first place, so probably, yes. Akisi says he was Ardhal’s prisoner, although he doesn’t seem very grateful to be freed.’

‘I know the look of a man when he’s in a position of power, and when we came in through the gate, he had that look. He’s got a snake’s tongue, Elenya. Don’t believe a word he says.’

‘He’s a man, isn’t he? That’s enough never to trust him.’

Va struggled with the oars one last time, and the sea was finally level with the gunwales. It slopped over the sides with a sucking sound, and the hull dropped away under them.

Akisi shrieked again, certain he was about to die.

The bottom of the boat rested gently on the shingle underneath and tipped slightly to one side. Elenya looked around and sighed. ‘That appears to be that.’ She stood up, stepped overboard and waded the rest of the way to the shore.

Without her weight, the wood tried to rise in the sea. Va unhitched the oars and wedged the blades under his seat. He got out too, and the hull lifted clear of the bottom. He felt in the water for the painter, and having found it drifting backwards and forwards like a frond of seaweed, he put it over his shoulder and started dragging.

When the rowing boat became grounded, Va cut Akisi’s leg bonds and made him walk. He then pulled the boat clear of the sea and tipped the water out onto the stony beach. The book flopped out, a heavy, wet lump.

Akisi instinctively stepped towards it, and Va growled deep in his throat. ‘It’s not yours, thief.’ He let the boat fall back and picked up the jet black bundle.

‘Any idea where we are?’ Elenya searched the sky for clues.

‘Between An Cobh and An Rinn.’ He walked further up the beach and onto the edge of the scrubby marshland, cut by a hundred riverlets. He got out the map he’d taken from the tower and shook it so that it opened.

‘What’s that?’ asked Elenya.

‘Something I took from Akisi.’ He passed it over.

She held it up to the first light of the sun. ‘I’ve seen better drawings made by children. I’m assuming this bit here is Aeire. This is the other landmass we skirted crossing from Frankland. That’s supposed to be an island too, yes?’

‘Is this to scale?’ Va turned his head to make better sense of the lines. ‘Ask him.’

Elenya waved the map at Akisi, who sat and shivered in the poor shelter provided by the boat. ‘Where did you copy the map from?’

‘The book. Not this one. Another one.’

‘Another one. How many did you steal?’

He hung his head. ‘Two.’

‘What did you do with it?’

‘Sold it.’ His head came up again. ‘I had to eat, didn’t I?’

‘You really are a little shit, aren’t you?’ Elenya turned the map upside down. ‘He took it from another of the books. And before you ask, he sold it for food.’

‘Where?’ Va was suddenly agitated.

‘I don’t know yet. If you want, I can go and hold his head under the water until he tells me. Or not, and he drowns.’

‘No, don’t.’ He took the parchment from her. ‘Have you seen a pre-Reversal map before? They look wrong, so this might be of limited use.’

‘This is the Inner Ocean. The emperor’s lands are to the north, so that’d be at the bottom of the map. And look, he’s marked a route from down here on the coast, up this squiggly line to this bay here.’

Va turned the map the right way up again. ‘The Caliphate is here, to the south and west. Mother Russia is south of there again, off the map. This is his escape map. Find the point furthest from his emperor, and go there.’

Elenya bent down and wrung the water from her skirts. ‘It’s day. We ought to think about getting away from here. Ardhal will be out, looking for his man.’

‘We need to leave this island, get this book back to the patriarch and find the one Akisi sold. Then we must retrieve the ten remaining ones from the emperor of Kenya, wherever he is.’

‘That should be straightforward enough,’ said Elenya, her voice tightening. ‘After all, getting the first one was a piece of piss!’

Va bared his teeth and growled like a wolf. ‘You can go home if you want. I will not rest. Now get Akisi on his feet. We’ve a walk ahead of us.’

She cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘You, Kenyan. Up.’ Then to Va: ‘Where are we going?’

‘To see a man about a boat. A man called Rory macShiel.’

They took the boat across the mouth of the river and started the climb up the valley. Solomon Akisi followed reluctantly, alternately pushed and pulled when his speed dropped below what the two Rus thought acceptable.

Halfway up, during one of his frequent rests, he spotted a group of horsemen on the wrong side of the estuary. He opened his mouth to call out, and felt something sharp prick his neck.

‘Crouch down, Akisi. And if you make a sound, I’ll stick you like a pig and leave you to bleed.’ Elenya put her other hand on his shoulder and showed him the way to the ground.

The horsemen wheeled around aimlessly, then one of them spotted the abandoned rowing boat on the far shore.

‘I should have set it adrift,’ said Va. ‘Fortunately the river’s too wide for them to cross.’

‘The nearest bridge could be just upstream.’

‘It doesn’t mean that they’ll come back here. They might take the road, or follow the river.’

‘What would you do?’

‘Split up and cover as much ground as possible.’

‘Which is what they’re going to do. They’re not stupid.’ She watched the men ride off inland with renewed urgency. When they were far enough away, she pulled her knife away from the African’s throat. ‘Careful how you go, Akisi. The cliffs are high, and you might trip.’

They gained the top of the hill and started along the edge where the land met the sky. The sea boomed below, and the wind whipped up the sheer rock face.

‘Cold?’ asked Elenya of Akisi.

‘Miserably so. Cold, hungry, tired. I need to rest again.’

‘We don’t have the time. If you want to stay warm, walk faster.’

‘Why are you doing this to me? Him,’ said Akisi, jabbing his tied hands at Va, ‘him I can understand. He’s a fanatic. Nothing else is in his head. But you–you’re not like him at all and I don’t see why you’re helping him. You could have a much better life than this, I’m certain.’

‘You understand nothing at all,’ she said, ‘because you’ve never felt what I feel about him. He is my sun, and I revolve around him whether I choose to or not. I might hate myself for it, to be used in such a way by someone who swears never to return my love. I help him because I can’t help myself.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘You pointed that out to me earlier. But I won’t take your pity. Where he goes, I follow. And for the moment so do you.’

She pushed him on again, to where Va was waiting.

‘We’re here,’ said Va.

Akisi stopped sharply. ‘It’s An Rinn. Why did you bring me back here?’

Va scanned the church, the collection of houses, the windmill. ‘I can’t see any of Ardhal’s men below.’

‘I won’t go,’ said Akisi. He dug his heels in.

Elenya spun the knife in her hand. ‘If you’re worried that they’ll find out you killed their priest; they already know.’ She kicked him in the gut, then threw him down the slope.

A boy sitting in a tree spotted them coming. They saw him climb down and race along the road and through the village as fast as his legs would carry him. As he passed, people came out of their houses, and after looking at each other, they shielded their eyes and looked up the steep slope to the east.