The mills from which the bakers of Perysse bought their flour had not been replenished from the autumn’s harvest. The farmers who usually shipped their flour to the granaries on the Yssil by barge had taken their grain harvests to sell elsewhere. Many bakery ovens remained cold now; the moonmoths had infested every community within the city from the eminent silk guilds down to the humblest bakers and brewers.
Queues grew outside bakeries; queues that soon formed themselves into arguing knots of discontent. They had welcomed Clodolë back to Perysse in the belief that, reunited, the Arkhan and Arkhys would work together to alleviate the city’s suffering. But there seemed no end to the tribulations they were forced to endure. Was there some truth in the hierophants’ warnings? Were they bearing the brunt of the excesses of the House of Memizhon?
Mutterings grew to cries of dissent. People joined together, spilling out onto the streets in one great crowd, surging up the hill towards the citadel.
A distant roar penetrated the audience chamber at Myn-Dhiel. The Haute Zhudiciar glanced uncomfortably at Rho Jhan.
‘Mel–meth! Mel–meth! Mel–meth!’
Clodolë slammed the shutters and stood, her back up against the gilded panels, as though to block out the shouting of the crowd.
‘Are they never satisfied?’
‘They’re hungry,’ Rho Jhan said bluntly.
There seems to be a general belief,’ the Haute Zhudiciar added, choosing his words with care, ‘that until you and Melmeth are reconciled, Arkhys, there will be no end to the plague.’
‘Oh, please!’ Clodolë let out a cry of irritation. ‘If your men had enforced the edicts more rigorously, there would be no plague at all by now.’
These moonmoths are impossible to exterminate. What are my men supposed to do? The city streets stink of burning mothherbs … and still the damned creatures multiply.’
‘Mel–meth! Mel–meth! Mel–meth!’
‘I’ll send out the guard,’ Rho Jhan said.
‘Wait.’ Clodolë put out one hand to stop him. ‘We must humour them. Let them shout themselves hoarse. Then distribute fresh bread from the palace bakery. A gift from the Arkhys, rewarding her people for their fortitude. There will be more – and wine – at Sh’amain.’
Rho Jhan clicked his heels together in salute and left the chamber.
‘They are dangerously close to insurrection,’ Jhafir said. ‘Will they be satisfied with a few loaves of bread? The hierophants have stirred them up, they want their blood-sacrifice.’
‘And they shall have it.’ She smiled at him and he noticed that beneath her veil, the red stain on her lips was dark and glossy as fresh-spilt blood. ‘At Sh’amain.’
Rho Jhan brushed a smear of dust off the rich crimson cloth of his tarrakh’s tunic as he waited to be admitted to the Arkhys’s presence. He was pleased enough with his promotion to the command of the Tarkhas Zhudiciar, but this private audience made him wonder whether higher honours were imminent.
A dhamzel appeared in the doorway and beckoned him to follow her. So he was to attend her in her bedchamber – a privilege he had not been accorded in a long while.
Dark-spangled gauzes hid the windows, swathed the bed; the room was dim, a perpetual twilight. He blinked as his eyes strained to become accustomed to the shadowy light.
‘You wanted to see me, Arkhys,’ he said.
‘Yes.’ He glimpsed a pale figure behind the cloudy gauzes hung about the bed. Was she naked behind the drifting veils? The thought was curiously stimulating.
‘Rho …’
‘What?’
‘Am I still … desirable?’
‘You are the Arkhys. You are the most desirable woman in all Ar-Khendye.’
‘You mean that my power is desirable.’
He fidgeted with the hilt of his razhir. Where was this leading?
‘I’ve served you well, Arkhys.’
‘Nobody could have served me more faithfully than you, Rho.’
‘And would you agree that such faithful service deserves a reward?’
‘Of course you deserve a reward.’
‘And you deserve a consort.’
‘What are you hinting at?’ She moved closer until only a single gauze floated between them.
‘Melmeth’s blind, half-crazed with drugs. Addicts tend to be prone to accidents. An overdose … found choked on his own vomit …?’
‘But I still need him. He is useful to me. Besides, I might not want to take another consort.’
The gauze twitched. In the darkness her skin seemed to give off a faint luminescence.
‘Or you might change your mind …’ And she suddenly pressed her mouth to his, sliding her tongue deep into his mouth and it was no human tongue any more, it was long and narrow and probing, an insect sucking nectar from a flower—
‘Nnnnno!’ He squirmed free, holding her at arm’s length, staring at her with revulsion. ‘You’re – you’re Changing.’
She suddenly began to weep, crouching down on the bed, her long, pale hair falling like a veil over her nakedness.
‘How long can you go on hiding it from the palace? From the people? When they see you – they’ll try to destroy you.’
‘I’m still Arkhys—’
‘In their eyes you’re a freak. A monstrosity that must be destroyed to put it out of its misery.’
‘And in your eyes too, Rho. Oh, don’t try to pretend otherwise—’
Distant shouting, like the ominous buzzing of an angry swarm, dried her words to silence.
‘Firemobs,’ she whispered.
He watched her drift towards the window and gaze out over the darkened city. A burst of flame lit the night sky and died away.
‘Go on,’ she said, whirling around, her dark eyes wild, challenging. ‘Do your duty as a citizen. Call the hierophants here. Give me over to them.’
He stared at her, the feel of that alien tongue still tainting his mouth. He wondered if she knew what he was thinking, how much his eyes betrayed.
‘Go. Leave me.’
He hesitated a moment – then bowed abruptly and turned for the door.
That brief, cruel flowering of fire …’ he heard her say, ‘and then the dark.’
A trickle of damp, dark and viscous, stained the cell wall, oozing out as if the lifeblood of the rough stone were slowly haemorrhaging away.
Lai sat glazedly staring at the slow-spreading stain. His face was stiff with caked blood and his mouth fouled with the rank salt taste of it. He wanted to wipe the blood away but they had chained his hands so tightly behind his back that he could hardly move. Breathing was difficult enough through his battered nose; the cartilage felt pulpily sore and swollen. Broken, probably …
Not that it mattered now. What mattered was that he had failed. And failure meant death – his first, then Laili’s. Bitter knowledge, more bitter than the taste of dried blood in his mouth. That there was no hope any more.
He heard the metallic scrape of the cell key turning in the lock. Had they come for him already? He had wanted a time, just a little time to prepare himself, to steel himself for the Torquistar and his machines of torment.
He slowly raised his eyes and saw Clodolë.
‘Lai.’
‘I’ve nothing more to say …’ The words came out clumsily, almost drunkenly; his mouth seemed swollen out of shape.
‘Look at me, Lai.’
‘I had no – accomplices.’ Such an effort to get the words out. ‘I was alone. And now I’m tired. So very tired.’
‘Please, Lai.’
Please? His drooping eyelids opened again. She had said please?
‘Keep looking at me.’
She lifted her silvergauze veil, slowly revealing her face. Now he saw what she had been concealing from him – and from the rest of Myn-Dhiel.
Her tawny brows had vanished and in their place sprouted slender wisps as fine as the pale hair that cascaded about her shoulders, spidersilk strands that were whiter than moonlight. Huge, dark-slanted eyes stared at him from a bone-white face as though through a forest of silver-frosted fronds.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Say it. I’m hideous.’
‘No,’ he said, still gazing at her. ‘Not hideous.’
‘I’m a freak. A monster.’
She came closer now, bending over him, her Changed face floating above his, a moon illuminating the darkness.
‘Look more closely, Lai.’
He looked directly into her eyes.
‘Why don’t you turn away? Why don’t you recoil from me like all the others?’
‘Because … I find you strangely –beautiful.’
‘You’re lying. Lying to save your skin. You think I’m grotesque.’
‘I’m too tired to lie. I only say what I see …’
The wailing – thin and desolate – came from behind the nailed-up shutters of a silk merchant’s house. Azhrel pushed the door; the lock was broken and it swung slowly inwards. A miasmic stench of decay enveloped him; he took out his kerchief and clapped it over his nose.
The wailing stopped.
‘Anyone there?’
Thieves had already been in and stripped the place; the furniture, the hangings had gone, even the lucernae had been tugged from the ceiling by their chains, leaving gaping holes in the plaster.
He looked into the downstairs room: in the checkered light filtering in from the shuttered window he saw the body of a woman sprawled on the floor, head-down. Even the balsam-impregnated kerchief could not block out the all-pervading smell of death.
The wailing began again – but softer, weaker this time.
He ventured up the stairs; a covering of moth carcases muted his footsteps. On the first floor landing he stopped, blinking back tears. Children lay dead; two dark-haired boys and a little girl of no more than four or five years …
Looking upwards he saw newly hatched moths clinging to the ceiling, clustering in the corners of the room; the walls seemed papered with new-drying moth-wings.
A stir of movement in the far corner caught his eye. He had not seen the crib till then. He hurried across – and saw cowering inside a thin, emaciated child, a babe who stared at him with dark, terrified eyes.
‘Don’t be afraid.’ He gently lifted the child; she was soaked in filthy rags, half-starved, a featherweight in his arms. How long had she been left there alone, untended, whilst the rest of her household lay dead?
He stared up at the quivering whitewings – then down at the dark-tousled head drooping against his chest. It took but a few seconds to scoop some of the live moths into his jar. For his purposes, he must keep them alive … even if for just a few days longer.
The child whimpered at the sight of the crawling creatures.
‘Don’t be afraid, sweetheart. I won’t let them harm you. You’re coming home with me to Mirali. She’ll look after you.’
The Grove was lit with shafts of lemon-luminous sun; Lai wandered amongst the blackened stumps, feet scuffing through the thick cinder piles, the charred smell of burned wood in his nostrils.
Far in the mist-drifted distance, a bird called, long and low, a curling note, an unanswered question.
Such desolation. Such emptiness.
A single pearl of water dripped onto his face. He looked upwards.
Rain was falling; cool, spring rain, drop by still drop onto his head, onto the barren, cinder-choked ground. And as it fell, he saw the new green begin to push its way through the ash. Vines uncurled before his eyes, branches put out buds, freshly verdant leaves opened …
And still the rain fell—
Lai opened his eyes to see Clodolë leaning over him. She was silently weeping; tears dripping like spring rain onto his face.
‘Clodolë?’ he said dazedly, floating between dreaming and waking.
‘Stop it,’ she said in a stifled voice. ‘Stop it happening, Lai. You can make it stop.’
‘Stop – what?’ He was still dizzy with sleep, disorientated.
‘This.’ She clutched at her pallid face, her fine white hair. ‘The Changing.’
‘Don’t you realise yet? It’s irreversible. I can do nothing to help you.’
‘Don’t say that, don’t say that!’ She clapped her hands over her ears, rocking her body to and fro in grief. ‘You’re an Aelahim. If anyone can do something, you can. Listen, I will save your sister from the hierophants if only you can stop this happening to me. I promise I will restore her to you, Lai. Please, please help me.’
Lai swallowed. He could lie to her – to save Laili. He could pretend powers he did not possess. But somehow he could not bring himself to lie to her. She was so distressed – so genuinely distressed. He sensed that maybe she was changing in other ways …
The dream image haunted him.
Her tears.
‘Clodolë,’ he said more gently this time. ‘I can do nothing to help you.’
‘Don’t say that, don’t say that!’ She clapped her hands over her ears. ‘You were my last, my only hope.’
‘No one can stop it now. It is irreversible.’
She turned her head away, the fine pale hair shimmering like a silken cloak about her white shoulders; she was weaving her slender fingers agitatedly together, in and out, in and out.
‘You see this Changing as a punishment – but perhaps it is something else.’
‘What else could it possibly be?’
‘A transfiguration …’ he murmured, still wreathed in the mists of his dream. What had it meant? Out of her grief … could come a new beginning? Out of the tears of the Changed would come renewal?
Damp air, chill with the earthy fragrance of autumn rain, penetrated Melmeth’s cell. But a deeper, more pervasive cold chilled his mind as he huddled, wrapped in a blanket, on his bed. The last, lingering effects of the drug had left him weak in body, but his powers of reasoning were returning, his thoughts were less confused. He could distinguish now between reality and boskh-induced hallucination.
What day was it? Lai had told him Laili was to be tried on Sh’amain, the Day of the Dead. And whilst he had been lying here in the grip of the drug, his city had fallen into the hands of fanatics.
The door grated open; he glanced up, half in fear, half in hope of release.
‘I’ve brought your son.’
‘Clodolë – is that you?’ He peered into the shadows. There was a faint brightness there, a glimmer of white in the darkness.
‘Your son, Melmeth.’ Her speech seemed stilted, as though she were having difficulty enunciating the words clearly.
‘My son,’ Melmeth repeated in awe. He lifted his arms – and felt a warm, wriggling bundle placed in them. The bundle gave off a sweet milky smell: a nursery smell. His hand gingerly explored the contours of the baby … The soft, silky down on his head, the button nose … And then a small fist gripped his finger – hard.
‘What a grip!’ he said, unutterably delighted. ‘And I don’t even know your name, little one.’
‘She named him Dion. After your father.’
‘Where is she?’ he said, suddenly sobered. ‘And why have you brought him here now?’
He heard her hesitate.
‘I thought you might like to be together for a while.’
Clodolë’s fingers brushed his head. The brief touch evoked a pinprickle of white light. Shivering, Melmeth closed his eyes – then opened them again.
For a moment he saw her. Imperfectly, but the essence of vision was there. She seemed to radiate a star-glimmer, ephemeral as evaporating mist.
‘What’s … happened to you, Clodolë? You’re—’
But she had already gone, leaving him alone with his son.
Suddenly he felt a drowning wave of fear for Laili wash over him. Overwhelmed, he hugged the baby to him, murmuring into his soft hair.
‘Oh, Dion, Dion, what a bitter inheritance your father bequeathes you.’
Tread of distant footsteps in the unlit passageway outside Lai’s cell, coming steadily nearer—
They were coming to interrogate him again. Sweet Goddess, he couldn’t take any more; he had come to the end of his endurance …
The footsteps stopped outside his cell door – he held his breath, awaiting the inevitable.
The key clicked and turned in the lock. The door swung slowly open. The footsteps receded down the passageway. Lai waited. No one came in.
It must be a trap. The prisoner was killed as he attempted to escape …
He crawled slowly towards the open door and looked out into the passageway. There was no one there.
He followed the high-walled passageway until it led out into the donjon courtyard; blinking in the daylight, Lai stared around, waiting to be challenged.
No one seemed to notice him. He began to wonder if he had become invisible.
He pulled the cowl down to hide his bruised face and limped across towards the gate. Now, surely, they would stop him.
The tarkhastars on duty hardly glanced at him.
‘Pass, brother.’
The day was drab and a thin, cold wind blew over the city from the east. Lai walked out onto the bridge and crossed the Yssil, waiting all the time for the sudden cries, the rasp of drawn blades, the feet pounding after him. Once he glanced back uneasily over his shoulder – but no one had followed him.
On the quay, he stopped at a pump and, cranking the handle till the water gushed out, tried to wash off the clotted blood from his face, grimacing as he did so. The cold of the pump water was real, at any rate, as was the dull stinging ache of the half-healed lacerations.
What day was it? How long had he been in the donjon? Day had merged into night in an endless ordeal of interrogation. Had they set him free too late to save Laili? Or was there still a chance?
As he raised his wet face, he became aware that there were people about on the quay. People moving, as if with one purpose, venturing out of their boarded-up houses, clutching spice balls stuffed with acrid-scented moth herbs. Everywhere Lai saw pinched faces, hungry faces. Many coughed as they shuffled onwards up the hill.
He drifted in amongst them, letting himself be carried onwards, flotsam on the tide.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
‘Haven’t you heard, brother? They’re trying the witch. The witch who caused the plague.’
It must be Sh’amain. The Day of the Dead.
A long line of hierophants was wending its way towards the arena, chanting, purifying the streets with incense herbs; some whipped themselves in their frenzy with knotted flails until the blood ran down their backs.
Lai bowed his head and followed in their wake, gradually merging in amongst the brotherhood, one dun-coloured robe amongst the many.
Blue, bitter incense fumes wafted into the subterranean laboratory.
Azhrel sniffed the air, frowning. Sh’amain funerary smoke here, beneath the armoury? He had heard the chanting, he had seen the processions of flagellants and penitents, the crowds surging towards the arena. The Tarkhas House was deserted, all the tarkhastars drafted to guard the Arkhys as she made her way to the arena to attend Laili’s trial.
And no word from Lai.
Azhrel forced himself to concentrate on the task in hand; setting up the slow-burning fuse that – if his calculations were correct – would trigger off a series of firedust artifices more complex than any devised by any other Memizhon Artificiar. It was vital to ensure that a suitable time lapse occurred between the moment of fuse-ignition – and the moment of combustion.
His mind wandered again from his final calculations …
Had they caught Lai? Had they slit his throat and thrown his body into one of the plague pits? Or had they handed him over to the Torquistar for interrogation?
The thought nagged like a deep-festering sore. He could not bear to think of it. If they had put Lai to the question, the Torquistar would have tortured the truth from him by now. Everyone broke – sooner or later. Azhrel knew their methods. He had tried to repair the damage inflicted on political prisoners – but all died in agony, broken and mutilated beyond his healing skills.
The smell of incense wafted in again …
He looked up, suddenly uneasy. So little time to finish.
Even if Lai was dead, he must keep his part of their agreement. He must try to save Laili. He could only hope that his artifices would cause enough of a distraction to enable him to get to the girl in the confusion. Orthandor was primed in his part as well. There was just this final length of fuse—
The door was kicked open. The stink of incense billowed in from their Sh’amain lanterns. Suddenly the laboratory was swarming with dun-robed men.
‘Arlan Azhrel!’
Azhrel grabbed his lantern in one hand, the fuses in the other and began to back towards the tunnel door.
One hierophant swept his hand along the rows of glass alembics and pipes, sending them crashing to the floor.
‘The work of Ar’Zhoth! What vile heresy have you been practising here?’
Azhrel fumbled for the catch of the tunnel door; the fuses hampered his shaking fingers. They came towards him, smashing jars of iron filings and saltpetre, lacquered granules and metallic salts until a cloud of dry chymical powders clogged the air.
‘You’ll burn for this!’
‘Be careful – ’ he begged them. Why wouldn’t the damned catch click open?
‘Heretic!’
The door gave way and he half-tumbled into the darkness, kicking the door shut against them. Carefully setting the lantern down, he rolled one of the empty barrels against the door as the hierophants battered their fists against it.
The door timbers juddered; they must have picked up a bench to use as a battering ram. The barrel would not hold for long against such an assault.
And if they caught him – what help would he be to Laili then?
Fingers sweating, he forced the end of one of the fuses into the nearest barrel of firedust. Then, bringing the other end of the fuse to the lantern flame, he waited as the thuds of the ram shook the door timbers, each blow setting his heart thudding in sympathy.
‘Light, curse you, light …’ he muttered.
Why wouldn’t it catch fire? His sweat must have dampened the fuse-cord.
A tiny flame caught – and began to travel slowly along the thick cord.
The timbers splintered and faces appeared behind the broken door. Hands tore at the wood as the hierophants began to clamber through the jagged hole.
‘There he is! Take him!’
Azhrel snatched the lantern and made off into the darkness, offering up a silent prayer as he ran to any god or goddess who happened to be listening.
If his calculations were wrong, they’d all go up together.
‘Help build the pyre, brother.’
A log was thrust into Lai’s arms; staggering under its weight, he carried it across the arena sand to where the other hierophants were stacking logs and branches about a central stake. He handed it to them and watched as the pyre-builders poured oil onto each fresh log. This pyre would flame like a pitch-torch when it was lit.
Shading his eyes, he looked about him, searching for a glimpse of Azhrel’s dark, scarred face.
It was nearly dark; the dull light of day fast fading to a dismal twilight. Guttering torches illuminated every tier of the arena, fast filling with spectators. Lai could sense the tension in the air; the mood of the crowd was sombre and dangerous.
Individual shouts rang out.
‘Show us the Aelahim woman!’
‘Show us Melmeth’s whore!’
Clodolë and Jhafir entered and took their places on the Arkhan’s dais, the Haute Zhudiciar, in his crimson robes of office, Clodolë in her ivory gown, both figures as stiff and monumental as the effigies in the mausoleum.
The shouts of the crowd suddenly became more frenzied. ‘Witch! Witch!’
A slender figure was being led across the white sand; her russet hair was loose about her shoulders, her feet bare, her coarse prison gown tied about the waist with a length of twine.
The tarkhastars on the lower tiers linked arms, struggling to keep the spectators from bursting into the arena.
Lai felt as though a feversweat had chilled his body; now hot, now cold, he struggled to master his anger. She looked so frail, so defenceless – and yet she bore herself with utter self-composure as if she were oblivious to the shouts and threats of the crowd.
I’m here, Laili. You’re not alone.
A brazen clamour of gongs dinned out, drowning the roars of the crowd.
The High Priest of Mithiel entered the arena. He was robed in his full ceremonial attire and the splendour of his gold-embroidered vermilion and scarlet vestments dazzled the eye. He stopped before Laili.
‘Why have you brought me here?’ Laili fought to keep her voice low and steady, determined not to show them how afraid she was.
‘You are here to answer the charges put to you by the people of Perysse.’
‘Charges?’ Laili said. ‘If this is a trial – then why is there no one here to speak on my behalf?’
Ophar turned away and climbed the stair onto the dais to take his place beside the Arkhys; two other priests, dressed almost as splendidly as he, followed. Gradually, other hierophants filed in, lining the walls until the arena was ringed with dark-robed men. Ophar raised his hand and the tarkhastars stepped back, leaving Laili standing alone, wrists and ankles shackled, before her judges.
‘Our first charge is that you did summon the moonmoths by means of chants and sorceries.’ The priest on Ophar’s right read the accusations from a parchment. ‘Our second charge is that you did seek by use of the drug boskh carried by the moonmoths on their wings to enchant the Arkhan and to bend him to your will.’
‘Our third and most serious charge,’ Ophar said, ‘is that you did then persuade the Arkhan to renounce the faith of his fathers and adopt the pagan ways of your Goddess – an act which has had grievous consequences for the Arkhan and the city of Perysse. How do you answer these charges?’
‘Grievous consequences?’ Laili forgot her own plight in her fear for Melmeth – what could have become of him?
‘How do you answer?’ repeated Ophar in a voice of stone.
‘I deny them all,’ she said, raising her head and staring him directly in the eyes.
A derisive murmur ran through the crowd; they were against her already, they would not take any notice of what she said.
‘Let us proceed to the first charge.’ Ophar sat back in his chair, folding his hands together. ‘Bring in the witness.’
Lerillys was ushered into the arena. She glanced once at Laili and then, with a demure expression, declared her name and her position in the Memizhon household.
‘Describe to us what you saw the night of the feast last Mithiel’s Day.’
‘I was passing through the courtyard below the Torella Sarilla’s apartments when I heard singing. Strange singing … It made my flesh creep. The moon was rising and as I looked up, I saw that woman,’ and she pointed accusingly at Laili, ‘at her open window. She had stretched her hands out to the moon – like so – and was murmuring words in a tongue I did not recognise. Magical words. And then she brought out a flute – and began to play. Such weird music …’
The muttering of the crowd grew louder.
‘Is this true? Did you sing at your open window the night of the feast?’ Ophar asked.
‘It is true,’ Laili said softly. They were going to twist the truth their way, no matter what she said.
‘Summoning the moonmoths?’
‘On my island we sing to greet the moon in spring. And yes, we of the adept, do try to charm the moonmoths to dance in the Grove—’
‘We of the adept!’ Ophar interrupted. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I am – was – a priestess. On Ael Lahi both men and women serve the Goddess. And I served the Goddess of the Grove.’
‘Make sure every word is set down,’ Ophar said to the priest at his side who was scribbling busily in a ledger. ‘And for what purposes do you summon these moonmoths?’
‘To celebrate the Goddess.’
‘And to take the dust from their wings?’
Ophar’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly; Laili knew she must phrase her reply with infinite care.
‘Only the Elder Ones know how to use the dust. I have not been instructed in its secrets.’ Her milk-heavy breasts had begun to ache; Dion would need feeding soon. She wished she could ask to sit down – and yet she wanted to appear strong before her accusers. She wanted them to know that they did not frighten her.
‘Even though you deny summoning these moonmoths, nevertheless they appeared in Perysse the very next night! I put it to you that this must be more than coincidence.’
‘I don’t understand how they could have crossed the seas in a night and a day,’ Laili said, beginning to falter.
‘Yet they came! And with them came blindness, plague and death. Worse than death! And meanwhile you worked your spells upon the Arkhan, inducing him to divorce his lawful consort Clodolë and banish her.’
‘What proof do you have that I was in any way involved in that?’ Laili cried. ‘Where is the Arkhan? Only he can answer that accusation!’
Ophar rose from his chair, one finger pointing at her.
‘The Arkhan does not have to answer any accusations. He is beyond inquisition. He is the law.’
‘Then why is he not here to judge me?’ Laili gazed imploringly around the arena at the impassive faces; nowhere could she see the slightest flicker of compassion or even concern. They had judged her already; this trial was merely a formality. She was guilty.
‘This is an ecclesiastical court. Here we deal with matters of the soul.’
‘Who saw me plying the Arkhan with boskh? Who heard me persuading him to take the drug?’
‘Our proof is that the Arkhan is blind!’
‘Blind!’ Laili dug her nails into her hands, willing herself not to break down. Her dreams. Sweet Goddess, all her dreams had been true—
‘And we are still in the midst of this devastating plague. The looms are silent, the ships are held in port to prevent the spread of the illness. The city is dying. And these cursed moths breed and multiply in the flesh of our citizens—’
The mutterings became a rumble of discontent. A single voice rose above the others.
‘Burn the witch!’
‘Tell us how we may end this plague. You summoned the moonmoths – now you will send them away.’
‘But I can’t. I don’t know how.’
‘Oh come now, a powerful witch who can call these creatures from across the seas can just as surely send them away again.’
Laili felt the milk leak out from one breast, staining her dark prison gown.
‘I – I’m just an ordinary woman.’ She turned to the blur of faces in the tiered seats. ‘I gave birth a few weeks ago. I have not caused this plague. And I cannot stop it. Believe me – I would, if only I knew how!’
Ophar was not even listening; he was conferring with the two priests who sat beside him.
She let her mind wander far from the arena, longing to hold Dion in her arms again, to feel his soft cheek against hers; he was the only constant left to her in this crazily shifting world. And how long would she be allowed to keep him with her?
Ophar rose to his feet.
‘Laili Dhar. You have been accused of grievous crimes. This court finds you guilty.’ Laili felt her legs begin to tremble; she willed herself to stay upright. ‘In order to appease the god whose anger you have incurred in bringing these creatures to our city, you are to face the fate of those found guilty of witchcraft. Death by fire.’
‘Death!’ arose the echo from the watching crowd.
Faces staring at her; impassive faces, triumphant faces; Lerillys, a little smirk of a smile playing at the corners of her lips.
‘Death by fire.’ Laili repeated without expression. She had gone numb, she felt nothing. Her mind was a blank. Any moment now she might begin to shout, to rage at the injustice of this farce of a trial – but for now she could only think of Dion.
Had they expected her to shriek, to faint? They seemed a little disappointed at her apparent lack of reaction, these venerable priests. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her despair. She would walk to her pyre, her head held high.