Darius’ heart sat heavy in his chest as he watched the boat bucking in the foam, moving slowly away from the dock and back toward Velutio. Sabian stood at the stern rail in his full regalia, impressive and powerful, with the men of his veteran units standing behind him in formation on the deck. Sergeant Cialo stood to one side, a hand on the rail and close to his commander; his face was bleak and unhappy. He’d become quite close to a number of the folk on the island and had as good as made a home there in the short time of his assignment. He was not happy to be leaving, and had confided as much to Darius during their last conversation not long after dawn this morning. He didn’t trust Velutio’s guard and, although he’d been informed of the plans for the island, was still sceptical about the decisions his commander had made.
With a quick glance over his shoulder, Darius could see Velutio’s guard lined up in their ranks of black and white, with a frowning sergeant standing to one side. He knew what was coming. The sergeant was only waiting for Sabian to be out of earshot before he launched into everyone. The lad turned again to face the departing boat. If Sabian was taking the army out on campaign for months and everything was about to come to a head here on the island, it was very possibly the last time Darius would ever see either him or the grizzled Cialo and the degree to which that made him unhappy was a touch disturbing. He’d never really had family, at least for his thinking life, but the commander, the sergeant and their men had become as close to him in the last few weeks as anyone on the island had ever been. He sighed as the boat gradually moved further away until the commander was a red smudge in the general brown and grey of the boat. Only a moment later, a voice behind them all called out in a rasping, deep tone.
“I am Sergeant Caris of the army of Velutio and from this moment on I am taking command of the island of Isera. I intend to enforce the standard rules of prison control, along with a number of other strictures that will apply due to the nature of the prison and its occupants. There will be no more of this open control and free access that was permitted under ‘sergeant’ Cialo.”
With a crack, the sergeant brought down the cane he was holding against the metal greave on his leg, then lifted it and pointed at the group near the dock.
“There will be a complete search of the island as soon as my men have organised the watches and duties. Any contraband or illegal objects found will be confiscated and locked away until the next boat from the city, when they will be taken from the island. After that there will be random searches carried out on a daily basis by different patrols each day. Anyone found with contraband today with be given a number of lashes proportionate to the offence. As of tomorrow, if any search turns up any contraband at all, I will consider the severing of a hand in the Pelasian style. The same sentence will apply for theft or malicious damage.”
The man stopped for a moment and cleared his gravelly throat. Darius couldn’t help noting the nasty glint in the man’s eye and the smug but hungry faces of the guardsmen behind him.
“Furthermore, there will be a roll call every morning, with today’s at lunchtime due to the lateness of the hour now. Anyone missing from the call will be punished. At the first such meeting, each prisoner will detail his duties to be noted down. Once these are dealt with, all prisoners will be confined to the places where they eat, sleep and work. Anyone found where they are not supposed to be will be punished. The walls of the palace are your absolute boundary. Anyone found outside them will be…?”
“Punished!” chorused the guards behind him. A vicious grin had now split the sergeant’s face.
“The guard will be you wardens and your superiors and will not be working to the benefit of the prisoners. As such you will put aside a proportion of all food and drink that is grown or created on the island for your wardens. Other rules will be applied as they become necessary, but for now you need to relay all of this to any other prisoners who are not here and prepare for the first complete search and roll call.”
A low growl issued from the sergeant’s throat as he straightened again. “One last thing: I am unconvinced as yet that my captain’s unfortunate demise was an accident. I understand that the bath house has been in a bad way for some time and that work had been done on it recently, but my suspicions are still there. I will be having my engineers investigate the building and my medic examine the body. After that we will be interviewing a number of you about the circumstances surrounding the ‘accident’. If there is anything to find out, be sure that I will find it out.”
“That’s it” he said, folding the can beneath his armpit, “go about your business.”
The islanders looked at each other, sharing a great deal of unhappiness and ill-feeling until Minister Sarios cleared his throat. “Very well… back to the palace everyone.”
The group shuffled off dejectedly toward the Gorgon Gate, with Darius and the minister at the rear. The young man looked across at the elder and sighed heavily.
“What are we going to do now?”
The minister raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
With a quick glance over his shoulder to check the guard were distant, the lad spoke in a low voice. “There must be almost twenty people missing by now. What’s going to happen when they do the lunchtime roll call? How are we going to move anyone to the departure point when we’re restricted to certain places? And what if they search too early and catch everything and everyone out?”
Sarios smiled knowingly.
“You must have faith, Darius. How well do you know me? Or Caerdin? Or Sabian?”
The lad shrugged, his face blank. “Fairly well I’d say.”
“Then you know that all three of us are the sort of men who plan things in advance. Don’t worry. Sabian gave the sergeant the list of prisoners. There may be one or two unaccounted for, but between us we cut the missing people from the list last night. We left a couple because it would look suspicious if everyone turned up the first time. As for a search turning up anything, it won’t produce any people unexpected. The Wolves and their allies are already in a hidden place and as soon as the guard leave us alone to set up their watch system and guard posts, we’ll take advantage of their busyness to move them the rest of the way to the north shore. Then if they do search the island after that, they’ll find nothing.”
Darius grinned and the minister drew breath to continue.
“Also, as for the finding of contraband, almost everything we want to save was shipped out of the buildings during the night to the olive-grower’s shed by the north shore. We’ve had to leave the occasional suspicious item, of course, or again it would look too suspicious. We need to give them something to pull us up on; to give them something to do. Don’t worry. Everything will go according to plan. We’re very thorough men you know?”
The minister chuckled and Darius continued to smile as they passed beneath the Gorgon Gate and into the Ibis Courtyard. Again, Darius was struck by the strangeness of it all. He’d spent his entire life on this one small island and, if the minister was right and today went as planned, this would be the last time he would ever walk through the gate. Odd after all this time.
Everything was changing around him, but he had a great deal of confidence in the people who planned all this and though the outside world was an unknown quantity for him, still he was confident that with the minister, Caerdin and the others everything would be for the best. Casting his mind back over the meeting last night, he was still astounded at the way these people thought. Darius had always known he was a fast thinker and had always considered himself the only person on the island who could keep up with the way the minister’s mind worked. And yet last night there had been a crowd of people with that kind of complex, insightful mind. He’d always assumed that the minister was in a class of his own, but Caerdin, the Pelasian Prince, the grumbling medic from the Wolves and others had all talked each other in circles to the point where Darius had given up trying to put his ideas across and just sat back and watched the whirl and spiral of conversation and planning.
The only drawback of the whole meeting had been the mutual presence of Sabian and Caerdin. Though the two spoke of each other in nothing but respectful tones it was quite clear at the meeting that neither felt comfortable in the presence of the other and the reasons were obvious. They tried to avoid eye contact and rarely spoke to each other except when there was no choice, and yet both came up with ideas that were bandied around among the group and agreed to all the plans in the end. When the conspirators had all split up and headed back to their various places, it was equally interesting to note the parting glance the two officers shared; a look that combined respect and intrigue with discomfort and uncertainty.
Darius was brought rudely back to the present as the minister’s restraining hand arrested his movement. Looking up, he realised that they had already passed into the Great Courtyard and most of the group had disappeared by now. Scanning quickly around to identify the reason for Sarios’ grip of restraint, he noticed two guardsmen marching purposefully across the courtyard toward a young girl. He recognised the girl of course, the daughter of one of the drama tutors, perhaps six years old and innocent as they come. She was holding a small wooden toy that had been crudely carved by one of the island’s artisans and smiling broadly at the two men bearing down on her. Darius had a dreadful feeling of foreboding and made to step forward, though the minister’s grip on his shoulder tightened in an instant, holding him in place. Sarios shook his head barely perceptibly.
As Darius watched in anger, the men reached the girl and the shorter of the two reached down and wrenched the toy from her hand. The lad’s blood boiled as he watched the man snap the toy into two broken shards and drop it to the floor.
“What are you doing out here, girl?” demanded the other guard, brusquely.
The girl stared at him, her eyes brimming, but her jaw clamped firmly shut.
“You should be with your parents wherever they are. If we catch you out here again, you’ll get a beating. You hear me?”
The girl’s mouth stayed shut as she looked up at the other man, down at her broken toy, and then stamped as hard as she could on the guard’s foot. Rather than the heavy marching boots, the man was wearing dress shoes of soft leather and he let out a grunt of pain as the small boot crunched down on his toes. The guard reached down and grasped her wrist, hauling her up into the air by it with the audible click of a dislocating shoulder and slung her like a rag doll over his back.
Again Darius started forward and again the minister’s grip tightened. He glanced up at the old man, but as he did so the grip was released and Sarios strode out across the courtyard.
“Put my granddaughter down you evil brute!” he barked. Darius was surprised at the vicious quality of his voice and the power which such an old and frail man mustered as he marched forward. The guards both turned in surprise and one said something to the other that went unheard due to the screaming and wailing emanating from the young girl. The other lowered the girl to the floor again and turned to face the approaching minister.
“This is yours?” he asked, his jaw set and teeth gritted. As the minister drew up to his full height in front of the guard he nodded. The man growled. “Then you’d do well to keep her where she belongs. We’re not going to stand for that kind of thing. Give her a good beating and be grateful we’re not doing the same for you.”
As Sarios glowered at them and reached out to take the distraught girl’s elbow, the two guards marched off toward the Ibis Courtyard, muttering to each other.
Darius wandered over to where the minister was crouched with the girl and talking to her. “That was very brave of you, but don’t do it again. Now run along and find doctor Favio. Your shoulder will need dealing with.”
The girl sniffed and smiled weakly at the island’s leader before nodding and tottering off toward the nearest door, holding her arm. Darius sighed.
“Today is not going to be an easy day, minister.”
The old man nodded sadly and led them across the Great Courtyard and through a side door into the Peacock Palace. The place was generally considered off-limits now to the islanders, being the place the guard had chosen for their quarters. Following on the heels of the departing veterans, they had selected rooms solely on the top two floors. Down in the servants’ level things remained untouched and would do until the full search was made. Moreover, Darius thought, as they turned a corner and unlocked a door, it was the perfect place at the moment to hide anything, where the guards lived and the islanders were not allowed.
The door opened with only a faint creak and the two of them stepped back as Athas stepped forward into the light with his blade poised. As he recognised them, he smiled and sheathed the weapon.
“We thought you weren’t coming. It’s been hours.”
Sarios nodded. “The commander’s only just left and the guard felt the need to exercise their cruelty muscle a couple of times before we were left alone.” He cleared his throat and stepped back out of the way. “And now we have to get moving. They’ll be searching the island before lunchtime and I’m sure they’ll be very thorough.”
Athas nodded and stepped out into the corridor. Behind him, Brendan and Marco helped general Caerdin out of the cramped dark corridor, followed by the rest of the rebels. The minister smiled and walked back to the corner of the corridor. “Follow me; quietly and quickly.”
With Athas and the rebels behind, Darius followed the minister through a number of corridors that he half recognised from childhood exploration of the palaces’ more obscure regions. Part way along, as they descended into areas where the light wells no longer shone, the minister stopped and collected four small terracotta oil lamps from a shelf, lighting one and giving the others to Athas. Finally they arrived in an old chapel that had serviced the slave community that once worked in the kitchens and washrooms of the building. The place had remained largely untouched for decades and cobwebs and dust filled the place, giving it an ancient, undisturbed feel. Images of the divine triad decked a small stone altar at the far end and the two statues of the temple guardians flanked the entrance. In the centre of the room were a number of low wooden benches, some of which were rotten beyond help and all covered with years of grime. Along the walls on either side stood tall wooden screens bearing images of divine tales, most of which were cracked, peeled and faded beyond recognition.
It is to one such screen that Sarios turned. With a gesture to Athas, he stepped to one side of it and began to heave the heavy oak screen away from the wall. The burly black warrior stepped up to the other side and easily edged the thing away from the stonework. Twice the wooden edifice almost fell over or broke where the woodworm had been at work, but with half a minute’s work, the heavy item stood two feet out from the wall. Behind, a door stood, dusty and rusted and very much hidden. Reaching into a pocket, the minister withdrew a small ring of keys and selected one.
The door creaked open and an eye-watering smell of musty air and ammonia washed out into the chapel. With a nod toward the minister, Athas removed a small oil lamp from his pack and lit it. The flickering light joined the minister’s in illuminating the room before he turned and held the light in the entrance to the passageway. The flame of the lamp took on a sickly yellow-green colour and gave the passage an eerie aspect.
“You’re staying here?” the big man enquired.
The minister nodded. “With Darius’ help I’ll get the screen back and cover the tracks. You know where you’re going, yes?”
“To the end and turn right” the sergeant repeated from memory, counting off on his fingers. “Follow the main sewer tunnel downhill all the way except where there’s a small collecting tank, where we take a left-hand fork slightly uphill and then back down. When we reach the small round room that’s a dead end, look for iron rungs in the wall around five feet up. Climb them and move the wooden cover and we’ll be out near the shore.”
“And then?”
Brendan leaned over from where he supported Kiva and grinned. “I’ll take ‘em from there ter where we sat yesterday. We’ll meet yer there.”
The minister nodded. “Once things are in place and we’re ready to make a move, I’ll send Darius here to find you. You have the rest planned?”
This time Kiva hauled himself with a grunt and a great deal of pain from Brendan’s shoulder and growled. “I’ve planned it all for them. Who goes where and when. Just wish I could be involved, but I’m not even any use with a bow. Guess I’ll just be sitting by the shore waiting for everyone.”
Marco patted the general on the back gently. “You need to rest sir. You’re going to need to be on fighting form soon enough.”
Caerdin nodded impatiently and sighed as Athas took a last deep breath of good, clean air and stepped into the passageway. Darius and the minister watched nervously as Athas lit the other two lamps and handed them out and then disappeared down the tunnel. Behind him, Brendan and Marco helped Kiva into the reeking passage, followed by Prince Ashar and his six men and finally Tythias, his arm around the young lady Sathina, tied a scarf around her lower face and entered with Jorun bringing up the rear. As the group gradually faded from sight, only the echoes of their footsteps coming back up to the chapel, Darius frowned.
“There don’t seem to be as many as I remember.”
The minister smiled. “We do have the two doctors still in the palace, masquerading as two of the missing islanders, remember.”
“Yes,” Darius nodded, “I know, but I’m sure there were more Pelasians.”
“Prince Ashar assured me he would deal with his men, so I assume they are secured away somewhere. Whatever the case, we’ve done what we can now. Help me get this screen back, then we must fan the dust around so that it settles again.”
The sun burned down from on high in the Great Courtyard. The entire population of the island stood in ordered rows, lined up for inspection by the uncaring guards who surrounded the entire square. There were forty or so guards here, the rest preparing their quarters or in position on the walls or various vantage points.
“Cristus?” yelled out a guard and, as a hand shot up among the crowd, he ticked the name dutifully of the list.
“Savic?”
Another hand raised and another name ticked off. With a squaring of his shoulders, the guard slapped the list down on the table beside him and the sergeant leaned over to examine it.
“Four!” he growled and then, turning to the gathered islanders, he raised his voice.
“Four prisoners unaccounted for. That’s not good enough.”
He strode forward with two of the guard at his shoulders and pointed at a random man in the front row. The guards dragged him out of the line into the open space and then dropped him to the floor. He was not a young man but far from feeble, a farmer with some muscle. He floundered on the floor for only a moment before he made to stand. The guard kicked him heavily in the gut and he fell back to the grass with a groan. The sergeant leaned over him.
“Where are these four prisoners?” he asked quietly.
The farmer shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Straightening, the sergeant nodded once at the two guards, who proceeded to pulverise the poor man with repeated kicks to the head and torso. After a solid minute they stopped. Darius strained from his position in the fourth row to see, but the man was still breathing, though unconscious. He was battered beyond recognition and Darius found his hate for the sergeant growing ever stronger, aware that this ‘lesson’ was having the same effect on everyone else. The sergeant was trying to make them fear the guard, but his actions were merely fostering hate and desire for vengeance.
The two guardsmen stepped away from their prone victim and the sergeant moved forward again.
“Where are the missing four?”
Silence greeted him and he glowered at the crowd.
“Very well, I will assume that these four islanders are hiding of their own accord. They will present themselves at the roll-call in the morning and will be duly punished. If they do not present themselves tomorrow I, personally, will break all their knees to make sure they cannot hide again. You would do well to pass this on to them when you see them and to remember it yourselves.”
He stepped back behind the table and cleared his throat.
“Very well, one by one approach the table from your lines and give your details for duties to the guard. Anyone under the age of ten need not approach; nor should anyone over the age of sixty. Those of you who fall into these categories will be restricted to the Ibis Courtyard, the Great Courtyard and the various buildings directly surrounding them. In due course, a perimeter will be set up around the set areas to prevent straying, but I’ll have to rely on everyone’s good sense in the meantime.”
As the lines filed slowly past the table, with the old and the young being directed to one side under the watchful eyes of the guard, Darius sighed. It was a damned good job they were going tonight. If he’d had to go through another day of this, either he or the sergeant would be dead. Perhaps the brute was trying to find fault wherever he could because he’d failed to find the quantity of contraband that he’d expected. If he’d seen the contents of the olive grower’s shed, he would have had apoplexy. For a moment a smile crept across Darius’ face, but he quickly forced it back down. To be seen smiling at a time like this would be to attract unwanted attention. Ahead of him in the queue he watched Mercurias, the Wolves’ medic giving a false name and his career as cook. The guard didn’t even blink at him and the grizzled soldier went on in the line to stand where he was told. Five minutes later, as he himself was closing on the desk, Darius watched the Pelasian doctor, whose name escaped him, giving another false name and the title of kitchen skivvy. Again they barely noticed the unusually dark man. A prisoner who worked in the lowly places was all but invisible to these people but then that was exactly what they’d wanted. Finally Darius himself stepped up. He’d no job but a short conversation with both Sarios and Athas last night had left him classified as a smith. Athas had told him a few of the most basic principals in case he was quizzed but, watching the way the guards were dealing with people, he doubted they would care enough to enquire. Sure enough, as his name was ticked off once more, and ‘smith’ written beside it, he was shuffled off to join the others. He couldn’t help feeling this was all too easy.
“The secret,” the Pelasian doctor murmured, “is to get the proportions exactly correct. Too little and we merely spice their meal. Too much and they will all be dead within two hours.”
Mercurias, busy taking the kernels out of a large basket of peaches, looked up speculatively at minister Sarios, standing at the other side of the table. “I presume you still want us to merely drug them?”
Sarios nodded. “I do not like poison on principle, but if it can be used correctly to merely incapacitate, then we must do it.”
Favio, the third doctor in the room, leaned over from his place with a heavy-headed mallet where he was crushing the kernels into rubble. “Minister, there are any number of fascinating drugs we could use that would work with a great deal more control than cyanide, but we don’t have an awful lot of time and there are not many sources on the island. Cyanide is the only really feasible option. After all, there are orchards all over the island and so many peaches in storage we could probably poison the entire population of the city if we so wished.”
He scooped up the latest pile of peach rubble and, dropping it in a bowl, passed it to the Pelasian, who Darius had since discovered was named Ahmesh. Ahmesh dropped the contents into a large bowl of strong shrimp and onion broth the cooks had been making for an hour, and stirred it thoroughly.
“I would say another ten kernels and ten more minutes of warming through and then we can strain the pieces out along with the remains of the onions.” He looked up at the minister. “I am hoping we’ve judged this correctly, minister, but even in my deepest, darkest days of creating cyanide compounds for my Prince, I have never tried to create a cyanide-based sleeping draught for over a hundred men. The quantities to be used are simply too unpredictable. No-one has ever tried such a thing, you understand.”
The minister once more looked sceptical and unhappy, but Darius leaned across from his position near the door and said quietly “if the quantities are wrong we can pay for it in the next life, minister. These men don’t deserve your sympathy or care and you know it.”
Sarios glanced back at his young friend. Since the attack on the girl this morning, Darius had become gradually bleaker and darker throughout the day and right at this moment, the minister had never seen him display more of a similarity to his father. Darius, for all his upbringing here, was a Caerdin through and through and the way he’d just spoken had clinched it. The young man had never spoken to Sarios like that. Never on a level like that. The minister began to wonder if involving Darius in today’s events would perhaps irreparably damage the young man’s soul.
“Just do your best gentlemen. When will it be ready?”
Favio looked across at the head cook, who nodded.
“Twenty minutes should be enough. Dinner will be ready right on time and should be nice and spicy.”
The minister turned again to Darius. “You’d best go and get the Wolves into position now.”
The young man nodded and turned to pull on the door handle just as it opened and he was almost crushed up against the wall by the heavy oak of the door. A guardsman in full kit with his helm under his arm burst in onto the raised platform around the edge of the kitchens. He glared down at the various people working and recognised the minister.
“You! You’re not busy and I’m just going on duty so I won’t get dinner. Make me something quick!”
The minister looked up at the guard in confusion and then his eyes widened as Darius pushed hard and sharp against the door. The heavy oak swung back on its hinge and this time slammed hard into the angry guardsman’s shoulder, hurling him from the raised platform and down onto a table covered in condiments. The guard floundered around in shock but before he could pull himself together, Darius was on him, jumping from the higher level and landing on top of the guard with his knees. There was an audible crunch as at least one rib broke and Darius rolled off with the momentum and onto the floor before springing lightly back to his feet.
The guard groaned in pain but was tougher than Darius had given him credit for. He hauled himself off the table and reached down, twitching at the pain in his ribs, to draw his sword from the sheath. A low growl escaped from the young man’s throat as he reached across to another table and withdrew a serrated knife from a block of wood.
“You can’t treat people like this you piece of shit!” he snapped as he stepped forward. He was vaguely aware of cooks rushing to either help or hinder him and the minister shouting at him to stop but, ignoring all the other commotion, he reached out and grasped the guard’s wrist, jamming the blade back into its scabbard. The guard’s eyes widened as the tip of the serrated knife brushed his broken ribs. He was a guard, not a combat veteran and here was a young boy with exceptional strength threatening his life. He fought his incredulity and tried to free his hand and sword.
“You people are like parasites” Darius continued, firmly holding the sword down. “You just take and don’t care. Sabian was right about you. Not one of you is fit to clean out his piss pot!”
The guardsman struggled again and opened his mouth to speak but, as he did, Darius drove the blade deep between his ribs and into his organs. The man was dead before the second blow. By the fifth and sixth he flopped around against the table, fountaining blood from the many wounds as Darius took out his hatred of the guards on one unlucky man. He was still carving the man when Mercurias and Favio pulled him off and the knife dropped.
The grizzled medic looked at the minister as he picked up the viscera-covered knife and Favio supported the now-glazed Darius. “Better tend to dinner. It looks like we’ve begun.”