Capítulo 21: Neville – We Here Sometimes Die
The walls of Fabec were yellow, the color of disease. Years earlier, Neville’s mother had said that the Mouth of War was a mass grave for the soldiers of all of Franária; that the people there were dead, only the skin lived, and the mouth moved only out of habit. Neville had imagined people with fish eyes, their mouths open, shouting for life while life ignored them; the eyes, pure horror.
That was not how he found the people of Fabec. A mouth that begs for life is still alive. Eyes that fear still want to live. In Fabec, people were faded, moving blurs, ghosts in sacs of human skin. The city looked more like a memory than a fort. The ancient houses had grown fat from digesting too many centuries, and they pushed their dark beams over the pavements. The streets’ pavement had disappeared in parts, and the grey, sandy dirt was exposed to the sun, like open wounds.
Neville had sent a messenger to warn Fabec’s captain of his arrival, but nobody expected him. Fabec’s headquarters was a square building, raised over a marble tableau, surrounded by columns, which supported an anadorned marble ceiling, whose only purpose was to shelter the tiled floor. The mosaics were nearly gone, after centuries of merciless heel blows. You could barely see three wolves, one black, one grey, and one yellow under a golden tree. What captured Neville’s attention, though, were the two shapes hidden in a corner: a frog and a fox. Weird, but those two mosaic animals seemed to be the only creatures in Fabec that expected him.
Neville told his forlorn soldiers to wait for him there, and he went in. The Square House of Fabec was a building around a large courtyard, which was empty when Neville stepped in. He found a soldier lingering in the open corridor and asked for the captain. The soldier pointed upstairs. He didn’t ask who Neville was. Did he already know or didn’t he care?
Neville could see part of the city wall from the second floor. He saw the sentinels: vultures perched along the wall, leaning on spears, waiting for death. The enemy’s death or their own? Neville listened, but there was no sound of warriors training. Fabec had a weak smell, like smoke that had been blown away.
The Square House was in ruins. Many doors were gone and had been replaced by cardboard. A man came out from one of the cardboard doors and Neville went to him. The man didn’t notice Neville until the archer stepped on his shadow. He took a fright, or at least Neville thought he did, for there was a light stretching of the shadows around his eyes and a brief raising of hands, but it was a grey movement. His skin seemed to weigh him down. The man had wrinkles, but they were weird, of strain rather than age. Even his bald head had wrinkles, reminding Neville of old leather.
‘I’m Captain Neville of Baynard. Where is the captain of Fabec?’
The man pointed to the room he had just come out from. Neville went in. The window was closed and it took Neville a few seconds to understand there was nobody in there.
‘Where is he?’
The bald man pointed to the bed. There lay a man’s body, covered from head to toes with a yellow sheet, the color of disease.
‘Did he die in battle?’ Neville asked.
‘We here sometimes die,’ said the leather-headed man.
Neville raised the sheet to see the dead captain’s face. His eyes were open. Neville tried to close them, but they opened again.
‘It’s no use,’ said the bald man. ‘He is afraid of closing his eyes. We here sometimes fear the dar.’
Neville covered the dead man’s face.
‘I guess that makes me your new captain,’ said Neville.
‘Congratulations,’ said Leather Head. ‘You’re dead.’
