Bloodline Rising Read online

  Behind me, I hear the soft squeak of creaking hinges.

  Someone comes! It must be one of the boat-keepers, or a slave come to sweep the quay. I jump to my feet, turning. But it’s not a boat-keeper, or any sort of palace servant.

  It is my father.

  Jesu. How did he find me?

  How did he persuade the guard to let him through? Mind, if I were a guard, I would not argue. His face is bright with anger and his eyes are fierce and shiny like a hawk’s. There’s nowhere to run. It’s not that much of a jump down into the sea, though, and there can’t be rocks here, otherwise how would they—

  He moves faster than a hunting dog and he’s got me now, gripping the top of my arm. “You had much better not,” he says, nodding at the water. “You’ve already led me a dance through the streets: you’ll be sorry if I must swim after you as well.”

  I’d forgot this – it freezes my blood, the way he’s clear ready to rip off my head and spit down my neck but does not even raise his voice.

  He lifts one eyebrow – a trick I’ve never been able to master. “Nothing to say?” he asks, with horrible calm. “Will you tell me the aim of this game of thieves you play? I fear it defeats me.”

  I stare down at the ground, my heart thundering. Game of thieves? How much does he know? And how? I can’t believe he’s here, that he caught up with me. How in God’s name did he do it?

  “No?” he goes on. “Very well – it’s done with now.” And then, as if he knows how much it means, he tears off my headscarf and my hair comes tumbling free, hanging in my eyes. Bright white it is, marking out my northern blood, branding me his: the son of God’s Fire.

  I feel naked. My scarf lands in the harbour and I watch the water draw it under till it’s nothing but a faint dark red stain, growing smaller as it sinks. I am filled with anger; it burns my throat as though I have just vomited. That scarf’s part of me, part of the Ghost, and he knows it.

  My father sighs. He looks more tired than angry now. His face is burnt all coppery, and the lines around his eyes are deeper, grained with dirt. “Sit down,” he says. “I want to talk to you.”

  Maybe I should run again now, while he is distracted. But instead I sit next to him on the edge of the quay. We stare down at the water. After all this time you’d think we should have a lot to say to each other, but I know not where to begin. There are scores and scores of tiny fish nibbling at the fronds of green weed growing out of the quayside.

  I pray he does not talk of Tecca. I will not be able to hold on to myself.

  “So,” my father says at last, picking up a pebble and throwing it far out into the harbour, where it kicks up a small white splash, “aren’t you a mite young to be making such powerful enemies?” He throws another pebble.

  I just sit, staring down at my dusty feet. What does he know?

  “A letter was stolen from the home of the Prefect two nights since,” he says. “The talk is there’s only one thief in Constantinople with the skill to have taken it.” Another pebble. Splash.

  I think I want to be sick.

  “I was not pleased to learn after hardly a moment on dry land that this thief was my son.”

  It’s out, then – they all know who I am, who the Ghost really is: not just another of the Emperor of Thieves’ orphaned street rats after all. What’s worse, Achaicus Dassalena knows who delivered him into the hands of the Emperor of Thieves. This is vexing, but I see my path now. I turn, meeting my father’s dark eyes with my identical pair.

  My father speaks many tongues, but he brought two with him from that cold, wet island of his childhood: Anglish from the tribe of his mother, and a strange, silvery manner of speech from his Briton father. Words of love he always speaks in British.

  “Oh Tasik,” I say – Papa – and the British words fall clumsily from my lips. “Help me.”

  It is as if he’s been bound in ice, and now all has melted. He puts his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. He smells the same as ever: hot somehow, and salty. “You need not ask, my honey,” he says. I’ve got him now, he’s drawn in up to the hilt; I am a poor victim, tricked into life beyond the law.

  “I want to get away from them,” I whisper, burying my face in the front of his tunic. My voice is muffled. “But they’ll kill me if I try. They do that: a girl tried to leave the Guild to marry a soldier and they found her body in the harbour.” I carry on talking, the words rushing out, not daring to stop lest the spell’s broken, “It started out just for fun, stealing things from the market. I know it’s wrong. And then this older boy, this boy called Elias: he said I’d joined the Guild just by thieving, and that I could never leave. He said…” I draw back, allowing my eyes to brim with tears.

  He’s got that mazy look that comes over people when I talk like this. I could persuade the sun to roll backwards across the sky if I could get close enough to it. I’ll talk him into a daze and then I’ll slip away so fast he won’t ever be able to catch me.

  But then something changes. Tasik shakes his head slightly as if he’s got water in one of his ears, and his face clears. His eyes are narrowed into black slits and I feel a sudden jolt of fear.

  “Cai,” he says – and it’s a shock to hear my given name after so long – “I may have called you after my father, but by Christ I wish you had not his talent for deception. Come, you and I are going home.”

  I will never forget the look on his face: it’s as if he has just seen someone he hates with all his soul.

  Tasik never speaks of his life in the north and neither does Ma; I know nothing about my grandfather, but I am cursing his memory now: he has just cost me my freedom.

  Home

  I’M RUNNING to keep up by the time we reach the courtyard gate. Tasik has not said a word all the way back, just dragged me along as if I’m a cur on a string – an ill portent, if ever there was one.

  Asha and Elflight leap up from the table and stand there beneath the vines like a pair of stuffed cinnamon puddings. Oho, there’s a storm coming, all right.

  “Tas,” Elflight says, a touch shaky, “will you have some—”

  He ignores her, slamming home the gate-bolt, and rounds on me like a wolf. “Where is it?” he shouts, his calm burnt away.

  I know what he means. I reach into my tunic and pull out the leather thong that hangs around my neck. He snatches it, holding up the ring so the gold loop glitters before my eyes.

  “What did I tell you about this?” he demands. “I ought never to have trusted you with it.”

  The words fly out of my mouth. “What good was that when Tecca died? It’s nothing.”

  He lets fall the ring so it dangles against my chest once more. “It’s but cold metal.” His voice glitters with anger. “It was the trueness of your heart that failed. You swore to look after your mother and your sisters, and you did not.”

  How could I have helped it? How could I have saved her? Does he believe I can forget Tecca lying in this very courtyard saying, Where will I go when I die? Will I be all by myself?

  I hate him.

  I lower my head. “I am sorry,” I whisper, and he steps away, sighing, his anger and his wits blunted by those little, shining words.

  Fool of a man: I’m ashamed my father’s so easily scrobbled.

  I spring for the wall, dodging him so fast he’s not got a chance; I grab the vine – one of the girls is screaming, Elflight most likely – and I push up, up, I’m within grasp of the top, but then I’m hauled sharp backwards. I fall to my knees and scramble up again, breathless and afraid now, and red-hot with rage.

  No one stops the Ghost.

  Faster than a striking snake, Tasik reaches out and fetches me such a clout I’m knocked back against the fountain. “Never do that again,” he hisses. “Not if you value your skin.”

  I’m filled with a curdled mess of anger and savage joy that I’ve managed to rile him so much. My whole body is fiery with pain and a fierce ache. I feel like Greek fire, that slop of pitch and trickery sailors sh
oot at the Arab warships – a shuddering flame that will not go out.

  “You should have come home!” I shout, trying to catch my breath. “All she wanted was to see you! We sent word but you didn’t come!”

  “Dear heart, be calm.”

  A thick quiet falls on the courtyard. Elflight and Asha cling to each other as though they’re acting in a tragedy. I have not heard that voice in more than a year; cracked and faint it is, but I know it straight away. A rail-thin figure stands in the open doorway, shadowed by the lampight behind her.

  “Ma—” Elflight begins, but no one is listening. Poor Elflight – it’s a sad reward for being the good and dutiful child.

  The Angel of Constantinople, they used to call my mother, so fair was she. But Ma’s so frail now, so wasted. She moves slow across the courtyard, letting the door swing shut behind her.

  Tasik is just standing there, looking at her as if he’s forgot I’m even here, which I for one am not sorry about. My face stings and aches where he hit me, and he’d do it again, I know.

  “Lark,” He speaks her name so dearly.

  “Essa,” Ma says to him, “be a little kinder. The fault was mine.” She folds her arms around me. She is so frail I’m afraid I might break her if I move.

  Ma never used to be like this. She used to be strong, and quick, and merry. She was the first to put a bow in my hands, long ago. I can’t have been more than four summers old, out among the grapevines at Hieron. We shot wooden cups off the rim of the fountain. When I hit my first cup Tasik lifted me in his arms and threw me high into the air, so I felt as if I were flying. You’ll soon be a better shot than your mother! he said, laughing. Which means you’ll be better than your tasik, as well. Ma laughed too, and said, Dear heart, I know.

  The Angel of Constantinople, dotted with jewels, adorned with silk scarves, shooting cups in the courtyard at Heiron. Of a sudden I want to cry, but I cannot. I feel hollow, like a dry bone. “I am sorry, my honey,” Ma says to me. “So bound up was I in my own grief that I forgot yours.”

  Well, fair game to her for saying so, but it comes a year too late. I do not need her any more.

  “Grief does not make a liar,” Tasik says, “or a thief, and it does not make a coward, either. He’s all three. Now do you come.” He takes my arm and hauls me inside, leaving Ma in the courtyard, standing there in the fading light.

  Upstairs, he shoves me into the first chamber we come to and bangs the shutters closed, barring them. I’ve a bad feeling – he’s not going to lock me in here, is he? He can’t do that. He won’t. He knows how much I hate being closed in.

  I watch, alive with fear, as Tasik tears a linen coverlet from the bed and rips off a great long strip. What in hell’s name is he doing? He’s not watching me, though. I step softly, softly towards the door, but he whirls around and snatches me by the arm, twisting it behind my back. He pushes me hard into the corner. My elbow strikes the wall, sending a jolt of fiery pain up my arm, and I cry out. He says nothing; he doesn’t even look at me, but just leans over the bed, binding the bar across the shutters so I can’t lift it, pulling the linen strip into hard, tight knots.

  I sit there watching him in the gloom. Everything hurts – I’m going to have a bad bruise on my knee from where I fell, I’ve skinned the palms of my hands, my face is still burning where he struck me, and now my arm is throbbing, too. I don’t cry, though. I never do. But I’m scared. “Tas!” I fight to keep my voice steady. “Don’t. Don’t shut me in here.”

  He turns on me. “Do you think I’ve lost my senses? I’ve had my fill of your coaxing and lying, so be quiet. Give me all you have – everything.”

  Wordless, panicky, I hand him my knife. What will I do if he locks me up? I can’t stand it, I can’t.

  Tasik laughs harshly. “And the rest.”

  I crouch down and pull out the dagger that’s bound to my leg, and he takes my belt-bag, which has my lock-picker in it. I am the Ghost, but I cannot do magic, and without that and my knives I’m trapped.

  He raises an eyebrow at the dagger, unsheathing it. The blade glints. Sharper than the devil’s tooth, she is. “Do you take care, carrying such blades,” he says. “She’ll get you into trouble but she won’t get you out.”

  For a moment he sounds like his old self again. If he’d not seen through my lie, we’d be sitting down to our meat in the courtyard with the girls, and maybe even Ma, too. Tasik is not like other people’s fathers: he would have forgiven me all had I not lied. But then he goes out and closes the door behind him, leaving me in darkness. I hear the key scrape in the lock and have to clench my fists hard to fight this awful sense the walls do close in on me. I scramble to my knees and run my hands over the barred shutters, but the knots Tasik tied are fiendish tight, and I know I’ll never get them undone without a knife. I can’t lift the bar: I’m trapped. I sit on the bed, breathing deep.

  Just how in the name of Christ am I to break into the Great Palace when I cannot even get out of my own house?

  Tomorrow, Achaicus Dassalena meets with his fellow traitors, and if I do not bring word of their plot to the Emperor of Thieves, I may as well slit my own throat and save him the bother.

  The Great Palace

  I CANNOT breathe. I am in a dark place and there is no way out. I shout to be let free, but no one comes. I will lie beneath the earth, alone in darkness for ever. I am crushed by the weight of the black earth, and the knowledge I have lost something, done a deep, dreadful wrong that cannot be repaired.

  Tecca.

  I must find her—

  At last I hear voices, coming from a long way off, it seems, and I’ve the sense of a dim light somewhere, the hot smell of an oil lamp.

  “What in God’s name is this riot?”

  “He shouts like this every night, or at least he used to before he left.”

  Someone sighs. “Well enough, dear heart, do you get to your bed.”

  I’m panicking now. “I can’t breathe, I can’t—”

  “Na, be easy.” He speaks in British: soft, as though stilling a scared horse. “Go back to sleep.” He leans across, pushing the door open wider. A thin stream of cool night air slips in through the window from the corridor outside.

  Am I awake or still sleeping? “Tas?” He has been gone so long.

  “Yes, it’s me.” Even in the shadows, I can tell from his voice that he is smiling. I sit up and he holds me tight, rubbing my back, knotting his fingers in my hair. I clutch on to him, my heart racing.

  He has come back, but there’s no use in it.

  Tecca is dead: she’s gone.

  And I remember now: Tasik thinks I’m a coward; he said so. It’s my fault she’s dead and he hates me. I pull away and lie face down. I can’t stand this. I can’t stand being locked up with my misery, and he’s not going to let me out.

  Tasik rests his hand on my shoulder.

  “It will be all right,” he says, quietly. And now I know he’s a liar, for even he can do nothing to fix this: even God’s Fire the hero cannot bring Tecca back now she is gone.

  It’s morning now. Nothing’s changed. Whenever I wake in this cursed house, there’s the light moment when I think it was just a dream. And then I remember. I will never see Tecca again; she’s beneath the earth, trapped. I sit in the dark, waiting. The shutters are barred, bound tight, keeping out the sun; the door’s shut and I know without even checking that it’s still locked. A dull ache throbs across my left cheekbone where Tasik hit me last night, stinging where his ring drew blood, and my knees and palms are scraped raw from my fall. I still cannot believe that. I cannot believe he caught me – twice. I cannot believe I fell: me, the Ghost. I pick a speck of dirt from my hand, wincing.

  What am I going to do? Achaicus could be meeting with his traitors in the Palace this very moment, and I’m locked up here.

  I kneel on the bed, running one hand over the shutters, trying to find a weak spot. There’s a rotten old chair in the corner – it’s the one that was left out in the
rain too many times. It shan’t be hard to snap off one of the legs. I can use it to lever the bar away from the shutters. It’ll make the devil of a lot of noise, but what choice have I? I must be fast, though. If I don’t get out of here soon, I’m finished—

  Suddenly the door opens behind me and light gushes in.

  “Lost something?” Tasik leans in the doorway.

  I’m still half-blinded by the flood of sunshine. Jesu, how did he come so close and I didn’t hear? Is the Ghost losing his touch? I could get past him now, if I were quick enough—

  He steps forward into the room, blocking the way out. “Any of your tricks and I’ll make you sorry. Here, eat this.” Tasik hands me a lump of bread smeared with lemon preserve. I can smell its sharp sweetness and my belly lurches. I’m so hungry. “Be quick,” he says. “You’re going to your lessons.”

  I laugh at that; I can’t help it. The Ghost, studying ancient verbs and counting on an abacus? Come on, dear Father. It’s been more than a year since I went to my tutor; old Yannis will probably not even know my face.

  But Tasik just smiles. “I’m glad you think it funny. Hear this, Cai, for I’ll only say it once: your life is about to change. The Ghost is gone – do you understand? You no longer have the freedom of the streets. You leave this room only to attend your lessons, and you will go nowhere alone.”

  I swallow a gush of panic. I must get to the Palace. “You can’t keep me locked up for ever.”

  “Na, perhaps only till you are about twenty.”

  “No!” I know half of him is just joking. But the other half is not, and the fix I’m in, a day locked in this room is as good as years.

  He laughs, shaking his head. “What choice do you give me, you foolish brat? I know very well you’d be gone the moment I turned my back given half the chance. If you want my trust, you must earn it. Now come, I’ve enough to do this day without acting as prison guard to you.”

  Tasik drags me through the streets as though I am a sack of rags. People stop and stare; I see them marvelling at his great height, at the bright hair hanging down his back all woven with plaits and glass beads and silver charms. He pays no heed but I feel as though I am naked; I am used to moving through this city unseen, silently – the Ghost. They stare at me, too, at the whiteness of my wet hair. With my headscarf on I looked just like anyone else, but now my northern blood is plain for all to see. I wish he would leave go of my arm: it is so undignified being hauled along like this. I will die if Iskendar or any of the boys lays eyes on me.