The Scarab Path Read Online Free PDF Page B

finally believed only after his death. He
had been a magician, truly, and now he had become something else. She had been
far away when he died, having left him to the failed mercies of his own people.
Now, posthumously, he was close to her, and she could not bear it.
    She
stood up, feeling the non-presence recede away instantly, knowing that it was
still there somewhere, beyond her notice. At the same time she heard the front
door, the hurried feet of Stenwold’s servant running to greet his master. She
drifted out on to the landing in time to see her uncle down below, divesting
himself of his cloak. He complained so often of being old and tired, and yet
seemed to her to be possessed of boundless reserves of energy. He complained of
being mired in politics and intrigue, yet he fed on it with a starving man’s
appetite.
    He still
wore his sword, one of the few Assemblers who did. Stenwold was still at war,
they would joke, but their laughter had a nervous quality.
    She drew
back into her room, knowing he would come to speak with her soon enough. He did
not understand, could not fathom, what she was going through, but he did his
best, so she could not complain. He was perpetually a busy man.
    Downstairs, Stenwold stopped himself from turning his head as he heard
the landing creak. Either she was still there or she had retreated and he did
not know whether her absence or her presence was more disturbing: this ghostly,
red-clad apparition that his niece had become.
    I need help. But there was nobody to help him. The war had
stripped him of both allies and friends. Above the fireplace, he had finally
had framed and hung the old picture that Nero had done of Stenwold and the
others when they had just been setting out. Dead faces now, only Stenwold Maker
living on out of all of them.
    How is it that I am still here, after all of this? He had
a sudden sense, almost like vertigo, of all the people he had sent out to die
or get hurt: Salma, Totho, Tynisa, Achaeos, Sperra, Scuto, Tisamon, Nero – even
the madwoman Felise Mienn. There was no justice in a world that preserved
Stenwold Maker after all that loss.
    But it
was worse when he considered the survivors. The Assembly was crawling now with
men boasting of their exploits in the war, but Stenwold could not remember
seeing any of them defending the walls at the time.
    He
glanced up, at last, to find no scarlet watcher above. The war had left so many
casualties, with so many different wounds that he was powerless to cure.
    ‘Lady
Arianna sent word that she would be expecting you at her residence, sir,’ his
servant informed him. The thought stirred an ember of a smile, but he was so
tired that it could be no more than that.
    He began
the slow clump up the staircase.
    There
were books all over Cheerwell’s room, open, bookmarked or stacked, lying on the
bed and at her desk. They looked old and valuable, and he knew she was trading
on her family name to extract favours from the librarians. On the other hand,
it was not as though the topics she was researching were required reading for
College scholars. Most of these tomes had not been opened before during her
lifetime, perhaps not even in Stenwold’s. The sight of them reinforced his
disquiet, reminded him of the scale of the plight they faced.
    ‘How was
the Assembly?’ she asked him. She sat demurely on her bed but there was a
brittle aura about her, as of some fragile thing delicately balanced.
    ‘Tedious
as usual.’ He racked his mind for something amusing he could recount to her,
was forced to accept that nothing amusing had occurred. ‘I did my normal job of
making friends, so I’m surprised they’re not burning my effigy in the square
before the Amphiophos.’
    He saw
her smirk at the quip, a reaction more than the words warranted. ‘You have no
idea,’ Cheerwell told him. ‘You should get her … get Arianna to go to the play
with you.’ She stumbled a little over the woman’s name, but only a little. She
was at