his own. It held a vague tint of blueness to it, as did her lips. The dressings on her neck were stained with patches of yellow.
The doctor busied himself around her. With gloved hands he checked her pulse and inspected the lesions on her body. When he lifted the bedsheets fully back, Sparus could see the blackness of her feet.
Dearest Passion, he thought in surprise, realizing then how far gone she really was.
‘What have you to report, General?’
He cleared his throat from behind the mask. ‘We’re still encountering some pockets of resistance in the south-west of the city. We should have them cleared out presently.’
‘And Romano?’
‘He complains he has not been allowed to enter the city yet with his men.’
‘Does he now?’ she breathed, and even in her condition he could see the rise of her anger. She gasped a few times, drawing the breath she needed to fuel it. ‘Let him complain. I will not risk allowing him into Tume with his men. He knows I am vulnerable. I would only be inviting a coup.’
Sparus bowed his head, keeping his thoughts to himself. He found it difficult to look at her. Already, his head was playing out the possible outcomes of his position now. Romano, with the backing of his family, was the strongest contender to be the next Patriarch of Mann. If Sasheen failed to recover, if she died here in Tume, Romano would declare himself Patriarch, never mind any successor she might name. He would demand to lead the Expeditionary Force himself, for the glory of taking Bar-Khos.
He could have it, he decided, if it meant Sparus could return to Q’os with his reputation intact. But he wasn’t certain even that was possible now. Romano would call for another purge, and Sparus could very well be at the top of the list.
I could approach him with an offer of loyalty now, he thought, and wondered who he could entrust with such an errand.
Sasheen was studying him closely, her gaze darting about his face.
‘I’m dying, Sparus, aren’t I?’
She sounded like a young girl, her voice frail and breaking.
Look at me. I plot my own survival even as she lies here fighting for breath.
‘There’s hope,’ Sparus tried. ‘We’re sending for a fresh supply of Milk.’
Her head settled back on the pillows. ‘Then make it fast. I can feel it worsening with every breath I take.’ She tilted her head to one side, watched the physician Klint unscrew the jar containing Lucian’s head. Within it, Sparus could see the man’s preserved scalp, the level of milk having been reduced that far.
‘Be sparing with it,’ said Sasheen as the physician lowered a small ladle into the jar.
Klint came to her and poured some of it into her open mouth. At once, her lips grew less pale, and colour returned to her face.
‘Let him stay out,’ she instructed him. ‘Next to me.’
Klint looked to Sparus as though he had any say in it. The physician removed the head from the jar and settled it on the bedside table next to her. His eyes were closed, and they flickered behind their eyelids as though he was dreaming.
‘Let us talk later,’ Sasheen said gently as her own eyes closed too.
‘Yes Matriarch,’ he replied, then turned and left the room with the physician following him.
Sparus felt relieved to be gone from there. ‘Keep her condition to yourself,’ he instructed Klint as they removed their masks and gloves. ‘And no mention of poison either.’
He strode for the stairwell that would take him up to daylight, his thoughts in disarray.
‘She’s dying. She has a matter of days at most.’
‘You’d certain of it?’ Romano demanded.
The physician Klint tried to hide his annoyance. ‘Of course. They have sent for more Royal Milk, though I doubt it will arrive in time to do much good.’
General Romano digested the news with a thrill of excitement. His uncle had been right all along. Give it enough time, enough patience, and all things came to those who desired them.
He looked down at the red-faced physician before him. ‘Your assistance shall be remembered.’
‘Thank you,’ replied Klint with a bow of his head. ‘I must return now, before I am missed.’
‘Then go,’ drawled Romano.
He watched the man climb onto his zel, and kick the flanks of the animal harshly until it was cantering back towards the Tume bridge.
Beside Romano, his second-in-command’s expression was as sombre as it always was. ‘It’s time, then,’ Scalp said in his rough voice.