The Traitor’s Sword: The Sangreal Trilogy Two. Jan Siegel
his head in his hands. When he looked up, the practor was standing over him. ‘What troubles you?’ he said. ‘What do you know?’ His hood fell back, showing hair to match the beard, long and white. Then – perhaps to observe Nathan more closely – he took off his mask. His face, like that of all Eosians, was disproportionately long, at least to Nathan’s eye, a structure all lean curving bones with a skin the colour of tarnished brass, contrasting sharply with the hair and beard. Thick white brows swept low over his eyes, which shone with a glint of pure amethyst. The same shade as Kwanji’s, Nathan remembered. There might be many people on Eos called Osskva, but he knew his dream had not deceived him. This was the one he sought.
Only he hadn’t been seeking him. He’d been looking for someone quite different. But the dreams, he now realized, couldn’t be controlled – or not by him …
‘I once … met someone called Kwanji Ley,’ he said.
‘I see.’ The man’s face changed, his eyes hooding, as if he did see.
‘She asked me to find you.’
‘Kwanjira. My daughter. Kwanjira the rebel.’ Suddenly, he looked up. ‘Did you know she was my daughter?’
Nathan nodded, feeling uncomfortable, even though this was a dream – or at least, a dream of sorts – waiting for the question he knew would come.
‘Is she dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve known it, I suppose – I’ve felt it – for months past. We didn’t keep in touch, but this time there was a differentness to her silence. There is a point when you sense no word will come again. But … you are the word. A word that has come to me. Can you tell me how she died?’
‘She was in Deep Confinement,’ Nathan said, remembering the pale emptiness of the prison pits. ‘She begged me to help her, to dream her out, and I tried, but you can’t really manipulate the dreams. I messed it up. I left her in the desert – in the sun. She made it to the cave, but not in time. When I got back – when I found her – it was too late.’ He didn’t tell Kwanji’s father what the sundeath had done to her. The guilt returned, like a sickness in his stomach, but Osskva made no move to apportion blame.
‘She always wanted to change things,’ he said with a curious smile. ‘The government – the magics – the fate of the world. In the cave … what was she looking for?’
‘The Sangreal,’ Nathan said, picturing the greenstone cup, held in Kwanji’s ruined hand. ‘She asked me to bring it to you. She thought you could perform the Great Spell.’
‘Did she find it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then she died happy. I couldn’t do a Great Spell; I haven’t the power. Even the Grandir may not have the strength for it, or our world would have been saved long since. Besides, the Cup alone is no use. It needs also the Sword, and the Crown. Once they were said to be in the cave, guarded by a monster of ancient days, but there are other rumours. I’d heard they were scattered throughout the worlds for safe-keeping, so they could not be brought together too soon, or by the wrong agency, lest the Spell of Spells should go awry … Yet you say the Sangreal was in the cave.’
‘It was a mistake,’ Nathan explained. ‘It had been kept in my world, but someone stole it. After … after Kwanji died, I wasn’t sure what to do, but I thought it was best to take it back.’
‘You did right,’ Osskva said, ‘I expect. Time will tell. If we have enough of it left. What about the sword? Was that stolen too?’
The sword. In Nathan’s head, something else clicked into place. The princess had mentioned a sword, the Traitor’s Sword …
With that question, that connection, the dream jolted. Tell me about the sword, Nathan wanted to ask, but the words wouldn’t come out. It was like in an ordinary dream, when you try to speak but your vocal chords don’t work, and everything slows down, and the person you want to speak to is receding, fading inexorably from your thought. He had felt insubstantial, a pyjama-clad teenage ghost, but now he was growing solid, and the world around him thinned, the world of Arkatron on Eos, becoming ghost-like while he alone was real. He heard the voice of Osskva, insect-small and faint with distance: ‘Don’t go. We have things … to discuss … Questions … answers …’
But he couldn’t respond, and sleep swallowed him, plunging him back into the dark.
A few weeks after the attempted burglary, Chief Inspector Pobjoy called at Thornyhill again. ‘Of course, they won’t get custodial sentences,’ he said, referring to Ram and Ginger. ‘They’re underage. Ginger has a record already, petty theft, petty assault, petty everything. Ram’s been smarter: no previous, just a government health warning. The really interesting thing is their lawyer.’
‘Dear me,’ Bartlemy said, replenishing his guest’s tea mug. ‘I had no idea lawyers were interesting.’
Pobjoy didn’t grin – he wasn’t a natural grinner – but a sharp-edged smile flicked in and out, quick as a knife-blade. ‘Boys like that – backstreet kids, no dosh – they usually get whoever’s on call that day. Legal aid, no frills. That’s what they had in the past. But this time they get a Bentley among lawyers, top-of-the-range with power-steering and champagne-cooler. Hugh Purlieu-Smythe, legal adviser to the very, very rich. It would be a giveaway – if we knew who was footing the bill. Still, it is interesting, isn’t it?’
‘Indeed. Do we know who else this Purlieu-Smythe has represented in the recent past?’
‘I’ve been finding out.’ Pobjoy sipped his tea, nibbling the inevitable seductive biscuit. Sometimes he fantasized about what lunch or dinner might be like at Thornyhill. He was a single man living alone on a diet of ready meals, takeaways, and the occasional omelette, and the mere thought of such home-cooking must be put behind him, or it would seriously disrupt his professional detachment. ‘He’s done a few white-collar fraudsters – big city types who’ve brought their cash and their bad habits into the area in search of rural peace and quiet. Then there was that local authority corruption case – he was for the developer, got him off too. Grayling made donations to police charities – all the right people wined and dined – lent his Spanish villa to a lucky few. You get the picture.’
‘Are you suggesting some of your colleagues could be … swayed by such things?’ Bartlemy inquired gently.
‘It wouldn’t be anything overt,’ Pobjoy explained. ‘Just a general feeling that Grayling was a good bloke, one of the lads. One of the chaps, I should say. Wouldn’t have thought he’d be interested in this place, though. Or that cup of yours.’
‘It isn’t actually mine,’ Bartlemy murmured, but the inspector held to his train of thought.
‘Grayling isn’t much of a one for history and culture,’ he said. ‘We’re looking for the classic movie villain, right? Sinister type with very big bucks and an art collection no one ever gets to see. I have to say, most of the super-rich around here like to show off their paintings, at least to their chums; no point in having them otherwise. They collect for status, not pleasure. The Grail’s a little obscure for them.’
Bartlemy made an affirmative noise.
‘Myself, I’ve only come up against Purlieu-Smythe once before,’ Pobjoy resumed after a pause. ‘Another kid. Not quite like our Ram and Ginger, though. Poor little rich boy wanted for stealing a car, even though Daddy has four and Mummy two. Beat up a girl about a year ago, but someone talked her out of going to court. The boy’s a nasty little psycho in the making. Not yet eighteen.’
‘And the father?’ Bartlemy queried. ‘I assume it was he who employed the lawyer.’
‘Respectable,’ said Pobjoy. ‘Squeaky-clean businessman, plenty of good works, pillar-of-the-community image.’
‘Highly suspicious, in fact,’ said Bartlemy