The God Tattoo: Untold Tales from the Twilight Reign (13 page)

‘Calath, is this not a wonderful morning?’ Derran bellowed with infuriating cheer.

Calath winced as he glanced out the window on his right, which afforded him a fine view of the magistrate’s neat gardens. The terrace and lawn were both covered in a generous sprinkling of
snow, while the outspread yew glinted and sparkled in the morning sunshine. Faint tracks left by some small bird led across the ground away from an iced birdbath that stood proudly atop the terrace
wall.

Calath could see the impressions of his friend’s broad boots leading down the snow-concealed stone path. Derran’s trail skirted the bushes on the left-hand side and led to a
wrought-iron gate at the far end which opened onto the orchard. Alongside those prints were the tracks of his wolfhound, spread impossibly long from the dog’s great stride.

‘It looks cold,’ Calath replied after taking in the winter scene.

‘Ah, foolishness! I tell you there’s nothing quite so wonderful as the scent of fresh snow on the air. It’s not even cold once you’re wearing a jacket; no wind to speak
of, just glorious sun.’

‘Surely the hunt will be cancelled now?’ asked Calath as he took his place at the table.

He had dressed in the stiff, heavy woollens preferred for country walking in such weather, though he doubted he’d be venturing much beyond a cultivated garden. It was the uniform for
social events of this kind and the expense was certainly preferable to standing out among the boisterous, bluff noblemen he’d meet.

‘Cancelled? But of course not.’ Derran chuckled, freshly shaved cheeks rosy with humour and the chill of without. ‘They’ve been praying for weeks that the snow will come
in time. It’s a poor winter hunt without it and more dangerous, unless the ground freezes of course. The wolves get a fighting chance since their coats will have turned weeks back, and riders
will be more able to see brichen boars before one’s upon them. Caught unawares, they could be unseated and killed by the fearsome brutes.’

‘It sounds an awful way to spend the morning,’ muttered Calath.

Though he was approaching thirty-five winters, the marshal felt unaccountably nervous at the coming day. He picked idly at the food placed before him, but could stomach nothing more that some
honeyed porridge and weak tea. A sudden shiver passed through his body, as if an ominous cloud had unexpectedly covered the sun, and his skin prickled up into an army of goosebumps.

‘My dear man, are you quite well?’ Derran asked with concern. ‘You look as though someone has walked over your grave.’

‘I rather think they have,’ answered Calath without thinking, then shook his head at his own words. ‘Forgive me, I’m talking nonsense now. I do feel rather curious, but
no doubt it was the wine from last night.’

‘Is that all? You look like you’ve had a fright. Unpleasant dreams?’

‘I, I don’t believe so. I just have the sense today will not be entirely agreeable, that there is some turn for the worst in the air.’

‘Ah,’ exclaimed the magistrate, ‘you’re beginning to sound like the old men from the village! Never happier than when they’re predicting disaster, those old boys,
but I’d always imagined it to be a country trait. Still, I suppose your work must bring you into contact with such superstitions all the time, it was bound to rub off sooner or
later.’

His words had the desired reaction. Calath’s colour returned somewhat and he spluttered his indignation at Derran’s suggestion.

‘How can you compare my research to the chatterings of the ignorant? And as for dismissing it as superstition, that’s an impious insinuation as well as insulting. Much of my work
concerns . . .’

Derran held up a hand, holding back the laughter at his friend’s sudden passion. ‘I apologise, Calath! I know perfectly well the validity of your work. Was it not you who introduced
me to the king when I last visited Narkang? If that great man endorses and supports your research then I hold it as true as commandments from the Gods themselves. I merely intended to demonstrate
to you that the best method to shake an ill feeling is to stir the blood – and don’t you feel the better for it?’

Calath opened his mouth to speak, then thought for a moment. He smiled, embarrassment lurking at the corners of his mouth.

‘I suppose so,’ he mumbled.

‘Exactly,’ declared the magistrate in a satisfied tone. ‘I’m a fat fool only when it suits me, remember?’

With a snap of the fingers, Derran attracted the attention of his wolfhound. By the time he’d picked up a thick bacon rind from his plate the dog was sat at his side, expectantly licking
its lips. The rind went down in one snap, but Derran ignored the hound’s hopeful stare as it licked its chops.

‘Right, I think we should be off.’

The magistrate stood and rapped the table with a professional assurance to draw breakfast to a close. Calath dabbed a napkin to his lips and rose to follow. At the door he hesitated for a
second, glancing back out through the window nervously as if expecting some wild boar to be waiting for him out there. Nothing returned his gaze, only the idyllic scene of before, but still he
couldn’t fully erase the apprehension crawling over his skin. He jumped as the wolfhound scrambled down the wooden passageway after its master, the clatter of its claws echoing loudly in the
enclosed space.

Only once the dog was out of view could he bring himself to follow, pushing heavily down on his stick as his leg felt heavier and more unwieldy as ever. The smell of beeswax polish accompanied
him as Calath headed to the front porch, carefully stepping around the ageing bearskin rug in the centre of the hall. Its snarling, open maw seemed to follow him as he struggled down the stone
steps; Calath could feel the smooth press of teeth upon his neck even as he walked away. Only the slam of the coach door relieved the pressure, and then at last he could see the morning for the
beautiful day it was.

A sentinel line of straight-backed ash trees stood on each side of the driveway, kissed by the low, crisp golden light. The fields were fragments of a childhood memory; too perfect for the here
and now and yet they endured for the entire journey. By the time their driver announced sight of their destination, Calath was as cheery as his hearty friend. Through the coach window he watched
the country house grow large against the horizon and, as they drew nearer, was struck by the sprawling bulk of the hall.

Alscap Hall was a house far larger than his own; a mansion without fortification and cultivated grounds stretching far off in all directions. Despite its traditional architecture, Calath
realised it had to be a recent construction. Only with the peace and prosperity of King Emin’s reign could someone build in these parts with so little regard for defensive measures.

Made of reddish sandstone that seemed to glow in the sunlight and laced with snow, Alscap Hall was built in a square with thin towers reaching up from each corner. High arched windows were
spaced down each flank, the near-side looking over frosted flowerbeds and statues to a large yew maze that stood in the midst of cropped lawns.

‘An attractive pile, isn’t it?’ Derran commented. ‘The count is new money so a little ostentatious – those towers for example, my goodness – but an excellent
sort all the same.’

‘Where did his money come from? It must have cost a fortune to build,’ breathed Calath, mentally estimating the number of rooms the hall must contain.

‘And it did by all accounts, but Alscap worked hard for the money. He started as a merchant’s apprentice so he claims, but by the age of forty held a near monopoly on the coastal
trade route. It’s said he was instrumental in the submission of Denei to the king.’

‘And was rewarded accordingly?’ mused Calath, tearing his eyes away from the building. The magistrate nodded.

‘And the rest; trade routes, preferential taxation, royal commissions, even swifter justice if you believe rumour. But perhaps you’d know more about that than I, being a confidant of
the king.’ Derran was mocking him now, but the serious look on Calath’s face stopped Derran’s amusement short.

‘Hardly a confidant, but the king is a master when it comes to recognising ability and using it to his own gain. The man would be a tyrant of the most monstrous order if his goals were
meaner.’

‘How do you mean?’

Derran’s questioning face reminded Calath that few men were blessed with their king’s luminous presence. Few outside his enclosed circle knew much at all about the man who wore the
crown. King Emin, for all his political genius, was a secretive individual who disdained the social scene his queen deftly ruled.

‘Well now, I suppose the best way to describe it is that though I feel I know King Emin only slightly, he remembers everything he’s ever been told about me. The man is so intelligent
he can quite capably debate with me on my own field of study – though he holds no particular interest in the subject. As men become your firm friends after five minutes of conversation, so
they become Emin’s awe-struck acolytes. But as much as I respect him, I fear him more so. There is nothing beyond him if he feels it necessary.’

‘But still you align yourself to him?’ asked Derran, his voice tinged with ghastly wonder.

Calath looked deep into his friend’s large, red-veined eyes and nodded sadly. ‘Oh yes, though sometimes I wonder. But if you spoke to him about such matters – with a spirit
bolder than mine – I have no doubt you would fail to dispute a word he says. What sets him aside from a despot is that this nation is his life, his reputation and his legacy. No, perhaps that
does not set him sufficiently apart – in addition, the strength of the nation at every level of society is his concern and the man assesses his work with an unbiased eye.’

‘So you would not be surprised by the rewards he bestowed upon Alscap?’

‘Not at all, Emin is a man you can trust. His enemies can trust that he will destroy them entirely, whether through ingenuity or force. His friends can trust that he will not forget a
bargain, however unforgiving he may be to those who fail him.’

Derran stared at his friend for a moment before he shivered at the bleak world of politics. ‘Then I’m glad that’s isn’t my life. The law may have its faults, but at least
it follows rules I can fathom. The boundaries are set and written down for men to read and conform to. In your world it seems a man can die without even knowing what he did was wrong.’

‘My world?’ exclaimed Calath suddenly, as if waking from dream. ‘Please don’t think that I have any interest in that life at all. You’ve seen how I live; I’m
hardly Count Antern. The king only maintains a relationship with me because there are few academics within the civil service. He seems to enjoy exercising his brain more than he has need of my
knowledge.’

‘How very modest of you,’ beamed Derran unexpectedly, ‘I shall introduce you to Alscap as special intellectual to the king!’

‘If you do so I shall get right back in this coach and you can walk yourself home. I’m sure that bag of fur there will enjoy it more than you,’ Calath snapped back, waving a
hand at the wolfhound curled peacefully under the seat.

Derran barked a laugh, at which the dog pricked up its ears but made no effort to move.

‘I’m serious, Derran. I despise the men that any association to the king tends to attract. Please don’t mention I know him, even as modestly as I do.’

The magistrate’s merriment was hushed immediately by the earnest, near desperate expression on Calath’s face and he nodded in acquiescence. Calath’s mood softened at his
friend’s immediate acceptance, but before any more could be said the coach came to a halt.

Calath stepped down to see a fair range of coaches standing idle in the wide driveway, a handful of footmen gathered around the gaudiest, hunched into greatcoats against the chilly air and
puffing away on thin clay pipes with their peers. An immaculately liveried footman opened the door and stepped back to reveal the mansion in all its glory. Only the skeletons of creeper around its
wide domed porch seemed the slightest shade out of place and in the low winter sun even those sparkled magnificently with frost.

On the first step of the porch was a second servant, a silver tray of steaming goblets perched on the fingers of his right hand. As Calath approached, the man noted his struggle on the gravel
and gave a click of his free fingers. The footman smoothly slid around Derran’s portly form to arrive with an assisting arm, one that was gratefully accepted by Calath as he contended with
the high steps.

He reached the top, noting with pleasure that they held no treacherous sheen of frost, took a goblet of the spiced wine and turned with his spirits restored to the great double doors before him.
At that moment they opened and a tall, burly man marched through, stopping short when he saw Calath standing there. Noticing Derran following, the man’s face split into a huge grin and he
strode forward to grasp the magistrate’s hand.

‘Magistrate Derran! How good of you to come,’ he exclaimed loudly. A slight coarseness to his accent affirmed Calath’s assumption that this was Count Alscap. A working man come
good in both voice and appearance; possessing the sort of hearty assurance and purpose that Calath, with his deformed leg and bookish mind, had never managed to cultivate as much as he admired
it.

‘My dear Alscap, you have the finest wine cellar in the county. More than enough reason to endure the strain of your company,’ replied Derran, laughing and pumping hard on the
Count’s hand. ‘May I present the most magnificent of my friends? Count Alscap, this is the Marshal Calath of Narkang.’

Calath found his slender hand engulfed to the wrist in a muscular grip.

‘A pleasure, Marshal Calath,’ Count Alscap declared. ‘I’ve heard Derran speak of you often; he tells me you’re the foremost scholar of our age.’

‘Derran flatters me,’ replied Calath, well aware how timid his soft voice must sound in such hale company. ‘Such a claim I might only assert in my tiny field of study, and
mostly because my contemporaries are of a rather less scientific nature. Also, I do not herald from such noble lands as Narkang; that is simply where I prefer to live and work. My family is from
the rather more modest parts – Inchets, to the south-east of Narkang.’