Karnos blinked. His face came slowly to life. The old grin spread across it.
“It was last summer, as I recall…” he said.
EIGHTEEN
The white, clean world of the highlands was behind them, and they were trudging downhill now, always downhill, through the small farms and olive groves of the Machran hinterland. The olive trees were black in the winter light, and seemed scarcely alive at all; gnarled relics of a forgotten summer.
They camped beneath them when they could, for shelter against the rain, and Aise cupped her bound hands full of the dead leaves of the year gone by, brittle shavings with the shape of spearheads. She smelled them, inhaling a last scent of the world’s warmth.
The party grouped about the fire, Ona and Rian huddling up to her like pups seeking warmth. Ona was pale and empty-eyed, but now and again her furious barking cough would make the men start and curse.
“Shut that fucking brat up,” the one named Bosca snapped. He rubbed the scar at his eye where Styra had exacted payment for her rape and murder. “Boss, do we really need to be hauling that little shit with us? She’s not even of an age to fuck.”
Sertorius was rebinding the straps that bound his thick-soled sandals to his feet. He did not look up. “Take it up with Phaestus, or stow it.”
“If we have to move quiet, she’ll be the bane of us all.”
Sertorius raised his head at that. He looked at Aise, then shrugged. “We’ll see when the time comes.”
Phaestus stumbled into camp, his son at his elbow. His face had become ossified, a skull in which his bright eyes burned. He half-fell in front of the fire, and Philemos reached for the flaccid wineskin.
“Easy on that,” hulking Adurnos said. “It’s the last one.”
“He needs some warmth in him,” Philemos protested, and uncorked the skin, holding the nozzle to his father’s mouth. Phaestus choked and swallowed, the red liquid running down his neck in trickled lines.
“You’ve done well to get this far,” Sertorius said to Phaestus. “For a while there I thought we’d be leaving you for the kites and ravens.”
Phaestus mastered his heaving breath. “I have enough in me yet for the job to get done.”
“He should be on the mule,” Philemos said, wiping his father’s mouth.
“The mule can barely manage that barking brat as it is,” Adurnos grunted. “Another few days and it’ll go the way of the last one.”
“Good eating, though,” Bosca said with a grin. Adurnos and Sertorius laughed.
Philemos stared across the fire at Aise and her children. They were hollow-eyed scarecrows, flesh worn close to the bone, hair matted with filth. The company had been ten days on the road, and the pasangs had left their mark upon them all, but the three captives had fared worst.
He scrambled through the grey leaf-litter and knelt in front of Aise, holding out the skin.
“It might help her.”
Aise nodded, her eyes flickering with gratitude. She held Ona in her arms and put the spout of the wineskin to the child’s mouth. Rian raised the skin, almost empty now. She looked at Philemos.
“Thank you.” The words a cracked whisper, no more.
“That’s your share you’re giving her, boy,” Bosca said loudly. “You want to waste it on the little rat-cunt, it’s your affair, but don’t expect no more.”
“Fair enough,” Philemos said without turning around. His dark curls hung in mud-fastened strings either side of his face. He looked at Aise, at Ona, swallowing the wine and whimpering, and lastly at Rian, who returned his gaze squarely, her eyes grey as the shank of a spearhead.
His mouth worked, but he took the skin back from Aise without saying anything.
The day died about them, the fire brightening against the blue darkness of the world.
“There’s farmers here have places for pigs to have a roof over their heads, and yet here we are sleeping on dirt for I don’t know how many nights,” Bosca said. “I don’t see the wisdom of it, is all – we’re not up in the fucking mountains anymore.”
“We don’t know what’s been going on since we were up in the hills,” Phaestus said. “Or how far Corvus’s army has come.” He wheezed wetly as he breathed, and when Philemos set a hand on his arm he managed a laugh.
“I’ve been hunting in the highlands these twenty years, and now a two week jaunt has me like this. Phobos must have a sense of humour.”
“Phobos hates all men,” Sertorius said, chewing reflectively on a strip of roast mule meat. “Not just you. You’re old, Phaestus – that’s all there is to it. You were a right hard bastard when you were younger, but I think Antimone’s wings beat over you now.”
“My father will outlive you all,” Philemos said fiercely, the fire glinting out of his eyes.
“Maybe he will, but I doubt it,” Sertorius said, tilting his head to one side. “Phaestus, we’re back down in civilized lands now – how far do you make it to Machran?”
Phaestus pushed his son away, sat up before the fire, drew his knife, and began pushing the unburnt butts of the sticks into the bright core of flame.
“Two days. Maybe less, if we make good time.”
“Well, Antimone’s tits! That’s some news to savour at least. I take it back, Phaestus – you have years of life in your bones yet. Two days! It’s enough to warm a man’s heart.” Sertorius grinned. He leaned over and clapped Phaestus on the shoulder.
“What way lies Machran?”
Phaestus’s jaw worked. The air sawed in and out of his mouth. “You see the tree to my right, Sertorius? That way is north, by Gaenion’s Pointer.”
Sertorius kept looking at him.
“You can make your way in the world by that star. For us it means that west is to my left. Where Rictus’s wife sits – that is the way to Machran.”
Sertorius’s head jabbed from one side to another, like that of a blackbird eyeing up a worm. He winked at Phaestus.
“And it’s just like that.”
Phaestus nodded. “Just like that.” He seemed like a man too tired to care.
“Old friend, this calls for something beyond the ordinary.” Sertorius stood up, strolled to the edge of the firelight and took the mule by the halter. The animal blew through its nose and he stroked it. “My little secret-keeper. Give us a kiss.” He nuzzled the mule’s nose.
“You are one funny bastard, boss,” Adurnos said.
Sertorius ran his hands over the mule, his eyes dark as sloes in the firelight. Then he stood leaning against it with an arm across its withers. The emaciated animal stood patiently, ears down.
“I trust this poor beast more than any of you – you know why? The fucker doesn’t talk.”
He whipped around, reached into a pack on the ground, and began rummaging through it.
“That’s the last of the food, chief,” Bosca said, uncertain, frowning.
“That’s why I said no-one should touch it but me,” Sertorius retorted. He straightened, grinning. “Look what I brought from the great Rictus’s country retreat, boys. Been saving it until we were well out of all that fucking snow.”
It was a full skin of wine.
Sertorius tossed it towards the fire. “Go on, lads -I’d say we’ve earned it.”
Bosca and Adurnos cackled like huge girls, scrabbled over the wineskin for a few moments until Bosca gave in to Adurnos’s snarling bulk. The big man’s broken nose made him snuffle and snort as he squeezed the skin into his mouth, eyes closed.
“Go easy on that friend,” Phaestus rasped. “There’s enough for all.”
Adurnos paused for breath, the wine dribbling red across his teeth.
“Fuck you, old man,” he said.
Aise sat with her back to the tree. The firelight still touched her feet, but the rest of her was in darkness. Ona slept, snuffling and whimpering, against her, while on her other side Rian was as taut as a strung bow.