The river twisted around the base of the hill, a monstrous, sluggish, lethal snake of brown water, straining its banks with runoff from the Wet. Spanning it was a bridge, wooden and as wide as the limestone road. It wasn’t strung high between the trees like at home, only to be used as a last resort. Instead, it sat solid and stable and only an arm’s length above the water.
Betsu was shouting curses, wrenching at the grips of the men holding her, her muscles bulging. Beyt sent a third warrior back to help and he pulled her into a headlock while the other two dragged her arms up behind her back. She let out a strangled screech of pain. Beyt and the pair of warriors flanking her walked onto the bridge without hesitation.
‘Holy Setatmeh, gods of rivers and lakes, of the rain and the crops, revered spirits, we worship at your feet,’ Beyt said. ‘Know that you live within the song with us, that you live in our hearts with the song, and that the song lives within us all. If it be your will, let us pass.’
Sweat blinded Tayan but he blinked desperately as he was dragged onto the bridge, the planks loud under his scuffling sandals. He squinted right and then left, looking for the mottled skin, the dead black eyes, the reaching hands. He’d only ever seen one up close, and he had the scars from mid-thigh to ankle and a dead eja on his conscience to prove it. His heart was pounding hard enough to burst.
And then they were over, thumping down into waterlogged soil, the river behind them. They were dragged a little further and then released, and Tayan slumped to his knees, barely resisting the urge to embrace the ground and kiss it.
When he looked up, Beyt had her hands on her hips. ‘You’re learning many lessons of the Empire’s greatness on this journey, aren’t you?’ she asked, the mocking edge to her voice sharper than obsidian. ‘You see how proper reverence, proper understanding, shows your childish fears for what they are?’
Humiliation flashed through Tayan, followed by the first unwilling stirrings of awe. The song was right: the Pechaqueh were truly blessed, truly special. They had even tamed the Drowned. But then he saw it, a lucky break in the clouds casting just enough brightness onto the woman’s face. Sweat at her hairline and glistening in the lines on her palm as she wiped casually at her upper lip. She’d been afraid. Terrified. Only bravado was giving strength to her voice now, when in truth crossing that bridge had been as hard for her as it had for them. Tayan deliberately crushed his awe and replaced it with contempt.
‘Admitting fear makes a person stronger than pretending they don’t feel it at all,’ he said and forced himself to his feet. ‘The Drowned are an abomination sent by the lords of the Underworld. They—’
‘You should stop talking before we take you back and throw you in,’ Beyt said, and the edge in her voice had hardened. She jerked her head and the seven warriors spread out around them again. The woman took the lead, striding along the road towards the city.
‘That was well said,’ Betsu murmured as they followed her. The nod of respect was unexpected, but it poured strength and courage into Tayan. He nodded back and set his sights on the Singing City, straining to make out the details and wondering what other tests and horrors lay in wait.
There were horrors, but they were far more mundane – and so all the worse for it. The peace-weavers had become uneasily used to the presence of slaves. On the occasions they’d stopped in a city or village during the trek, slaves had been everywhere, obvious in their undyed maguey and bare of jewellery, charms and feathers. Many still bore tattoos, but without the honour that would have once accompanied them.
Here, too, around the scattered dwellings and in the vast fields lining either side of the road, were slaves. And worse. Tayan hadn’t thought there could be anything below the class of slave. He had been wrong. As they walked towards the most opulent, populous city he had ever seen, the shaman had to force himself not to stare. Starving, filthy, naked beggars, calling out in a dozen accents, the tattoos of their tribes barely visible beneath the grime. Men and women, even children, offering their flesh in return for food. Some had made badly woven baskets or crude pots that hadn’t even been fired, their eyes dull with hopelessness.
‘Why?’ Tayan asked, but his voice broke and he had to repeat it. ‘Why are they here?’
Beyt glanced around as if only just noticing them. ‘The Singing City is the centre of the world and the source of the song. It attracts both the highest and the lowest of society. These have probably displeased their owners and been cast out, or didn’t sell in the flesh markets. Ignore them; the Choosers chip away at their number each new moon.’ She paused in thought. ‘And let me know if one of them touches you,’ she added eventually. ‘It is death for them to touch a free, and while I don’t quite understand your status here in the Empire, I won’t be responsible for your honour being fouled by them.’
‘There would be no dishonour,’ Tayan said quietly, but Beyt had already turned her back and increased her pace. She was as eager to reach the Singing City as Tayan was suddenly reluctant.
‘No wall,’ Betsu murmured. ‘Your Sky City has a wall to protect it from Drowned and to deter cats. This place has no wall. They don’t count either of those as a threat.’
She was right. More and more buildings began springing up to either side of the road, like mushrooms growing in cool shade. There was no clear entrance into the city; rather, it grew around the road – and grew big. Each building was easily the size of the council house back home, surrounded by high stone walls and tree-filled gardens.
‘These have walls,’ Tayan pointed out.
Betsu snorted. ‘That’s because rich Pechaqueh live here and they don’t want their fine senses ruined by having to see or smell these poor broken creatures.’ She gestured at the beggars. ‘Still, it would make taking this city more difficult. Every single estate becomes its own defensive position, and while that means those inside are isolated, it also means scaling walls and knocking down gates every single time. It would slow down any offensive, break it up into hundreds of individual skirmishes. Each estate would fall, but it would take time, and those surrounding it could launch attacks of their own, with multiple places to retreat to.’ Her footsteps slowed. ‘If they have a network of tunnels running between these estates, they could reinforce when necessary, move non-fighters, replenish supplies …’
Tayan let her mutter away to herself. Her warrior instincts had changed from dismissive to intrigued. It would be vital information to take back to the tribes, and he didn’t want to interrupt her as she analysed their surroundings. They might not get another chance to see the city from this angle.
Not that we’re going to need to know the defensive capabilities of the Singing City anyway, he reminded himself, but the words were weak. He shook himself; they were here to negotiate a lasting peace. He brushed at the turkey feathers again, the action instinctive after so many weeks’ travel.
Beyt and the warriors in front turned off the road and padded along a packed dirt track between two tall stone walls. They stopped in front of a thick gate set into the stone and Beyt knocked the butt of her spear against it.
‘Wait, where are we?’ Tayan asked in some alarm. He had expected to stay in the traders’ quarter, if there was such a thing, where rooms could be hired by the night or the week.
‘Spear of the City Enet lives here,’ Beyt said impatiently. ‘I’d brush some of the mud off your sandals if I were you.’
Twelve days they had travelled together, and not once had Beyt alluded to the fact she would bring them directly to someone of power. The idea was so absurd it hadn’t even occurred to them to ask. Tayan exchanged a horrified look with Betsu; they were filthy and he wore no paint. The gate swung open.
ENET
Great Octave’s estate, Singing City,
Pechacan, Empire of Songs
152nd day of the Great Star at morning
The holy lord has my complete devotion. The holy Setatmeh have my worship. And the world spirit holds my hope of rebirth.
Enet centred herself with the prayer, clearing her mind and inhaling the song into the very depths of her body. Only when she was sure that she held the Singer foremost in her thoughts, wrapped with the pure love of devotion, did she return to the old, painted fig-bark book one of the traders in her employ had uncovered. A book of prophecies made by the 142nd Singer forty cycles of the Great Star before. Three hundred and twenty sun-years. An eternity and yet the blink of an eye in the grand round of histories and prophecies, ancestors and futures. The space of a single dream during the world spirit’s slumber.
Many of the pages were illegible now, the glyphs faded or stained, and the last fourth of the book itself was missing. Still, Singer Tecotl had lived closer to the time of those first Singers who were said to not have ascended upon death – the stories that had been the cause of her humiliation in front of the Singer a month before. Though he appeared to have forgotten it, even confirming her in the position of Great Octave in the intervening days, Enet hadn’t forgotten it. Enet would never forget it.
But the legends Singer Tecotl knew and had written down in these pages might, to him, have been histories rather than stories. Might have been fact. Enet sat in the small, concealed room within her estate palace. Only two other people knew of the room’s existence. Both were slaves. Both were sworn to her. One still had a tongue and could speak what he knew, but he’d been with her since he was a child. Enet trusted few, but she trusted them.
The room was cramped with shelves of books and loose pages and artefacts and transcribed tales from every land the Empire had brought under the song. Relics from those lands: sacred objects, charms, idols of false gods. Anything that might bring her closer to the truth that even here, in her most secret heart, she could barely bring herself to contemplate. The truth of the Singers who did not die, but nor did they ascend; the Singers who remained themselves and yet undying, and who still walked, she knew, she knew, somewhere in this world.
This truth that was Enet’s path to immortality. For the good of the Empire of Songs. For the waking of the world spirit. For peace.
Her ancestry and wealth guaranteed her a place on the Singer’s council, but it was her mind that had seen her elevated to Spear of the City and then Great Octave. And still there was so much more that she could do for the Empire. This was but a means to achieve stability for Ixachipan and beyond.
Enet wasn’t like the Singer’s other courtesans. She didn’t just rely on the delights of her body to charm him. Instead, she studied the histories and the prophecies, the old tales and those yet to come. She cast fortunes with dice and bones until she was the most sought-after diviner in the source. She learnt, she thought, she spoke, until Singer Xac was as enamoured of her mind as he was of the warm hollow between her thighs. Enet intended to keep it that way until she had all the pieces and had cast all the possible futures and was ready to act.
There was a knock at the door. Enet flinched, the book dropping from her hands. No one knocked at this door; no one would dare. Heart lurching, she darted a glance at the massive chunk of rock, flecked with tiny crystal until it almost seemed to glow, that dominated the centre of the room. The other item that made this place both secret and sacred. She stood, brushing off her kilt. ‘What?’ Her voice was harsh.
‘High one, there are … there are peace-weavers at the gate,’ her estate slave murmured. ‘From Tokoban and Yalotlan.’
‘Peace-weavers?’
‘Yes, high one. They say they are here to negotiate a truce and a lasting peace between their peoples and the Empire.’
A high, disbelieving laugh broke from Enet’s lips. She put the book back on the shelf and then faced the stone and touched her belly and throat in salute, before licking her finger and running it across the section she’d been working on with the chisel. Her fingertip gathered a fine white coating and Enet sucked it clean, relishing the way the dust had the slightest roughness against her gums and tongue. Then she crossed to the door and pulled it open. The slave stood back against the tall painted screen that normally concealed the entrance.
‘They’ve travelled all the way from Tokoban?’
The slave nodded. ‘Yes, high one. They wear … full heads of turkey feathers.’ Enet’s eyebrows rose. ‘I have sent a boy to fetch what he can, should you wish to see them and be likewise attired. Eight Melody macaws led by Second Flight Beyt brought them. They await your pleasure at the door. The peace-weavers’ – he stumbled over the unfamiliar phrase – ‘I have shown to the small room.’
Irritation took over from amusement. ‘I will see this half-blood macaw and learn their intent in disturbing me. Make sure Pikte is kept away from the northerners.’
‘As the high one commands,’ the slave said. He stood aside and then wrestled the screen back into place so the door was invisible. Enet didn’t wait for him, striding along the brightly painted corridor towards the main door.
The Second Flight stood just inside the entrance, her mouth slightly open as she gazed at the murals and woven hangings adorning the walls and corridors leading to the public and private parts of the palace. Four of Enet’s slave warriors surrounded the woman, while the other macaws waited out in the gardens.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ Enet demanded and the macaw shut her mouth and dropped to her knees.
‘We found them in Xentiban two weeks ago, Spear,’ the woman said. ‘A Tokob shaman and a Yaloh warrior. Peace-weavers. They wanted to come to the Singing City and negotiate. I thought it was best to escort them so they couldn’t get up to any mischief. I … thought you might be prepared to speak with them.’
‘You should have killed them.’
The macaw flinched. ‘High one,’ she said, adding the honorific though her half-Pecha blood didn’t strictly require her to, ‘they wear a multitude of peace feathers. My place is not to determine whether such as they might be harmed.’
‘So you brought them all the way here, into our very heart, instead of to the nearest eagle who could make that decision for you?’ Enet’s voice dripped with scorn, but they were here and, worse, they’d been invited in. The Great Octave’s own honour and status demanded she at least see them.
‘Forgive me, high one,’ the macaw said.
‘No,’ Enet snapped. ‘You will leave your name with my estate slave and you will get out of my house. Now.’ She already knew the warrior’s name, and there was only one macaw Talon in the whole Melody, but the woman needed to understand the consequences of what she’d done.
The warrior pressed her blushing face to the floor and then rose and fled, pausing to whisper to the estate slave who waited at the door. Enet watched her go, sorely tempted to give her guard the nod, but didn’t. She’d have to end all eight of them, and it would be loud and messy before it was done. A boy came in with a basket of turkey feathers soon after, while she was putting on a fresh tunic and kilt and reapplying her cosmetics. She allowed him to bind one into her hair, over her right ear, as the warriors wore it. She would be interested to see what these peace-weavers made of that. She found she was interested to see what they made of everything – and what she made of them.
Peace-weavers. What a novel concept. She smiled to herself as she patted the feather again and then made her way to the small room with the view of the gardens. She paused in the doorway for just the briefest moment, seeking to gain whatever advantage she could. Her mouth thinned and then she smiled to herself. They were filthy. They were exhausted. They’d been brought straight here, judging by the packs her slaves had taken from them and the dampness of their clothes and hair. That, at least, the macaw had done well.
The man was slender and fidgety, hastily rubbing blue paint onto his brow from a small pot, while the woman stood with her arms folded across her chest and looking like she’d just bitten into rotten meat. She was older than Enet, heavyset, shoulders thick with muscle and hands and wrists hatched with scars. There were bands of grey in her hair and lines around her eyes and mouth, but violence sat lightly within her, ever ready to be tapped. The Great Octave didn’t let it bother her.
‘Welcome to the Singing City and the deep magic of the song, honoured guests. I am Spear of the City Enet. I am also Great Octave, though you need not concern yourself with that. Under the song.’
They’d whirled at her first words and Enet recognised the wide-eyed blink from the man as he got his first look at her. She took it as her due. ‘Thank you, Spear, I mean Great Octave. I am Tayan, called the stargazer, shaman of the Tokob and peace-weaver. This is my friend and colleague, the warrior Betsu of Yalotlan. We are honoured that you have agreed to speak with us. And … under the song. Or as we would say, may the ancestors guide your steps.’
He rubbed the last of the paint in a hasty, slightly crooked line from the middle of his lower lip to the point of his chin.
‘Betsu,’ the woman said, as if she needed to imprint her authority on the meeting. Or as if she didn’t like this Tayan speaking for her.
‘And do you offer me the grace of your ancestors, Betsu of Yalotlan?’ Enet asked, her head on one side and her hands clasped before her. The woman grunted. ‘Ah, well. I am sure the Tokob ancestors will watch over me, even if yours do not.’
‘Hundreds more of my people are now ancestors because of you, because of Pechacan and the Empire and your—’
‘Peace, Betsu,’ Tayan barked and then, astoundingly, blushed. ‘Forgive me, Great Octave, I should not have raised my voice in your house. It was impolite and goes against the protocol of the peace-weaving. May we begin?’
Enet suppressed a sigh and sat; then she gestured for them to do the same. She clapped once. ‘Refreshments for my guests, and arrange clean clothes for them. And some cloths so that they may remove the worst of the mud,’ she added. They’d removed their sandals in the entrance, but their feet appeared just as filthy and there were already marks on her mats.
Tayan grimaced and looked down. ‘The Wet is heavy already, is it not?’ he asked. ‘I apologise for the mess we have made. We were, ah, unaware we would be meeting you immediately upon our arrival or we would have ensured we were more presentable. Thank you,’ he added to the slave handing him the square of cotton. He scrubbed at the mud coating his feet and legs, then used a clean corner to squeeze the water from his hair. It was long, coming halfway down his back, threaded with strings of dyed-blue bird bones and painted clay beads. His kilt was patterned with blue squares, as was his sleeveless tunic. Four long, pale scars marred the side of his left leg; that would have been a nasty injury.
‘Would you like to bathe?’ she asked before they were settled and was gratified to see them both recoil.
‘Thank you, no. Unless that is a requirement of your society? We do not wish to cause offence and this is only our first meeting.’
Enet met Betsu’s eyes and an understanding as to the nature of these meetings passed between them.
‘You cause no offence,’ the Great Octave said softly.
The shaman retrieved his bag and knelt opposite Enet. Betsu joined them, impassive, as he began to lay out items on the low table between them. One of Enet’s guards shifted away from the wall and she raised her hand to still them, curious. There was a small clay jar, tightly stoppered, a series of well-carved statues, and a soft deerskin pouch. ‘Do you have a bowl and grinding stone for us to prepare the magic?’ he asked.
‘The … magic?’ Enet asked. The man indicated the vial and the pouch. ‘Oh yes, your frog-magic. It is true you lick them? Is there one in there?’ She leant forward and prodded the pouch with a long fingernail; it was disappointingly soft.
The shaman coughed. ‘See how we already learn about each other?’ he said with forced cheer. ‘When we journey to the realm of the ancestors, or to speak with Malel, our goddess, or those spirits not yet reborn, the path is arduous, and to speak with the dead is a difficult task. Our magic eases that passage. Does your song-magic require the same?’
‘It does not.’
The Toko waited for more, but Enet was silent. Her estate slave knelt behind the peace-weavers, alert to her smallest gesture or requirement. It clearly made the pair nervous to have his silent presence behind them.
‘I hope that over the coming days we will continue to learn about each other, the better to reach an agreement that pleases all parties. For now, shall we begin? The grinding bowl?’
‘Begin what?’ Enet was losing patience. She had been called from her books and her research for this, these childish overtures of friendship, this babbling nonsense of ancestors and herb-magic.
‘At the commencement of a peace-weaving, it is customary to visit the ancestors, so that all know we hold the same purpose and that our hearts are pure. It creates trust. The ancestors will know if anyone has evil intent.’ He picked up the pouch and gave her a bright smile.
Enet ran a considering finger across her lower lip. Betsu rolled her eyes, but Enet’s performance wasn’t for the Yalotl. ‘Forgive me, Tayan – or should I call you Peace-weaver? – but our dead rest within the world spirit, and we access that through the song. The song is the voice of the world, you see. Do you see? We are constantly, endlessly connected with our dead. We need no frog-juice to show us our past. Or our future.’
Tayan lowered his head. All Enet could see was the tension in his shoulders and the rather tatty crown of turkey feathers. Betsu was blank-faced next to him, as if she didn’t even speak the same language. Enet waited, the patient, smiling host, until Tayan’s shoulders dropped and he raised his head. He smiled again.
‘You are right, of course. We have come to your land to request a peace-weaving. It is your traditions we should honour here, not ours.’ He packed away his instruments and tucked the bag behind him. ‘Tell me then, Great Octave, how should we begin the peace-weaving?’
‘Ah, my honoured guests, that is where there is a small problem,’ Enet said, holding up her palms. ‘We have no such thing.’
The silence was dumbfounded – until it was broken by ugly, wheezing laughter. Betsu’s face was red and tears filled her eyes as she laughed, her face twisted into a horrible grimace that was part humour, part despair.
‘Betsu? Betsu, peace,’ Tayan hissed. ‘Great Octave, you have no protocol for establishing peace with others?’
‘We already have peace,’ Enet said, pointedly not looking at the Yalotl as she struggled to contain herself. ‘All the Empire is at peace. When you are brought under the song you, too, will know it.’
‘Then the peace-weaving can proceed,’ Tayan said with clear relief. Enet arched an eyebrow. ‘Your position is that we will only know peace if we join your Empire. Our position is that we wish to retain our autonomy and end the war. The negotiation now will lead to a compromise satisfactory to all parties.’
‘Yes, indeed you can end the war here and now,’ Enet said and she let irritation trickle into her voice. ‘Join the Empire and not one more of your people will be lost to our weapons. Look around you, look at our wealth, feel the song’s might in your hearts. You walked through hundreds of sticks of farmland: imagine the amount of crops they grow. Your warriors can join our Melody and serve with honour. Your artists will find new subjects and new markets. Your shamans can learn about the song and our magic, our ways. The whole world will open up to you.’
