by Kirby Crow
The graycloak moved close to Jean and reached over the bar for a bottle and cup, finding them effortlessly.
Jean's body tensed with danger. All he could make out in the depths of the cowl was a trimmed black beard and a pair of narrow eyes the color of clouded glass. Jean guessed the man was about forty, perhaps older, but hale and vital. He moved with the deadly grace of a practiced fighter, confident and loose.
The graycloak poured him a clay cup of amber liquor, the aroma of it so strong that it cut through the noisome fumes of the tavern. It smelled of charred oak and cherry.
“What is your business in the Lowgate, southwarden?” The graycloak’s accent did not have the abrupt Zanzare burr, or even the proper Citta Alta silkiness. It had a lilt to it, with broad vowels and an almost painful sluggishness, as if every word had to be fine enough to be delivered on a plate.
Jean had heard a shadow of this accent before from Tris, and in stronger measure from Kon, but this man spoke it like music.
He pushed the cup away. He wasn't stupid enough to drink anything poured for him by a graycloak. “I don't drink with nameless men.”
“Aye, izzat aright?” The fine accent vanished, replaced by tones rough and foreign. Even his face seemed to change, jaw slackened, eyes dulled. “But ye’ll fuck ‘em quick enow.”
Jean felt ice creep up his spine. “Careful, ganger.”
The man smiled and his mask slid back into place. “I'm not a ganger. And if you must have my name before you drink, then call me Archer.”
A spot between Jean’s shoulder blades tingled and he wished fiercely that had armed himself better. One knife wasn’t going to be enough for this crew. “Is that your real name?”
“No, but it is the name I've chosen. Perhaps you'd feel more comfortable addressing me as L'arciere.” Archer poured a second drink.
Jean had nothing to add to the conversation. It was arrest the man, kill him, or listen to him.
“You don’t patrol the Zanzare as often as you used to, warden. And never alone. The Citta Alta is your home now. You've forgotten your origins.”
“That's a damn lie.”
“Which part? Most of your days are spent in the Black Keep, and your nights in the Colibri, where I’m told you take on all comers. No doubt while mourning the loss of your bell’uomo, that beautiful highwarden you used to sleep with. He's getting married, one hears, to a pretty prince who is everything you are not.”
“Where I spend my nights is my business.” Jean took the cup and brought it under his nose for a moment before deliberately pouring it out on the floorboards. “And I don't drink with gangers anymore.”
Archer sighed. “A pity. I would have been honored to say I once shared a drink with il principe dei gatti.”
Jean smiled unpleasantly. “I thought I was the prince of mud.”
Archer gestured elegantly and his eyes in the shadows of the cowl glinted silver. “A mud-cat then.” His bearded lips moved in a faint smile. “It's a hardy fish, able to survive in the meanest conditions. It suits you, Jean.”
“Oh, stop. All this flattery will have me blushing and powdering my curls.”
Archer laughed in real humor and leaned closer. Jean's skin felt like it was trying to crawl off his bones with the sense of peril.
“Come back to where you belong, sweet prince,” Archer murmured. “We could accomplish great things together, you and I. Kon Sessane rules the city today, but his Peace with the Cwen cannot last. Eventually, the mainland will want more from Malachite than a place to dump their exiles. Your city was safer when it was too brutal for the Cwen to consider taking it.”
“It was also too brutal for us.”
Archer stabbed his fingers on the bar. “The more he civilizes you, the more he puts you at risk. There are still the Starless Men, the Gathi, and the Solari to consider.”
Solari again. Too many of the new exiles were azure. None were Gathian. Something was amiss there. “The Solari are our allies.”
“So are the Gathi, but you’ve not seen a single Gathi exile this year, have you?”
Not true, Marion had said there was one. But only one. Jean shook his head.
“Nor will you,” the Archer said. “Queen Cathal is your ally, but the old girl will be dead before spring and the crown princess Lesa hates the sight of men. She hungers as much for blood as she does for gold. What's Kon Sessane going to do about her? Draft a new trade agreement? The man is a dreamer.”
Jean snorted. “Kon is not a dreamer.”
Archer shrugged. “Delusional, then. Men were made to conquer. What kind of life is this for men? Our purpose is to triumph, not grub for crabs to stay alive one more day.”
“Kon plans to begin rebuilding the Zanzare next year. He’s already taken surveys of the ground here, the sinkage and foundations. He wants to—”
“That's not what they need,” Archer broke in. “They're men. They're not sheep or chattel or children. They have a right to be in control of their own lives, not to be lorded over by Kon and his fat Consolari leeches.”
Jean was silent for a moment. He’d had this conversation before, with Marion. It disturbed him that the Archer echoed his own arguments. “In order for a society to survive, some must be appointed to rule. A city has to be more than a mob.”
“Some must rule,” the Archer repeated. “Meaning the rich, who believe that men can be leashed like lapdogs, labeled, harnessed, their natural aggression pitted toward singing and reading and painting tiles. That's the dream, friend.”
“I'm not your fucking friend.”
“All things change, if a man is patient. I am a very, very patient man, Jean Rivard. The population of Malachite dwindles, and soon it won't be just old age and sickness robbing you of numbers.” Archer pushed his cup in a slow circle on the bar. “Not all of your exile ships make it across the sea.”
Jean’s hand twitched with the urge to strike. Only now did he realize who this man was, what he represented. An image of black sails illuminated by an arc of lightning bloomed in his mind. Marion had almost died that night.
“You must be proud of yourself, pirate,” Jean grated out. “It takes a real killer to drown children.”
“Our methods are extreme, I admit. As were yours, when you were a Teschio. I’ve heard of the burning huts at the Reed Gate.” Archer waved his hand. “Let us not trade insults over who is the fouler man. Think on this: Kon Sessane will only allow you to take in exiles from Cwen. Why not from Solari directly, or even further beyond the sea? Because of his edicts, the city loses two hundred and fifty men a year.”
“So in about a hundred and fifty years, it all comes crashing down?” Jean mocked. “I'll mark that on my calendar.”
“I perceive it's useless to argue with you.” Archer's back straightened. “You deserve better than to be the dog of the Consiglio forever.”
“Most men get exactly what they deserve.”
“You are sick from feeding from the table scraps of the Citta Alta, but you refuse to admit it to me. If you won't be persuaded by reason, I'll have to resort to threats.”
“I've been threatened by experts, bastardo.” Jean kept a watchful eye on the gangers. “And I've heard this song before. How do you think the crossbones recruited me?”
Archer had a melodious laugh, controlled and deep. “Well, the old songs are best, but I do like the way you sing it. You have a honeyed tongue, Jean Rivard.”
Jean knew when he was being flirted with. “I'd sooner let a snake at my balls than you.”
“Interesting.” Archer tapped the cup on the bar. “Please tell me; how fond are you of young Taliesin Sessane?”
No answer was the best one. He fought to keep his expression unchanged and hoped the tapping wasn't a signal. It didn't seem to be. None of the gangers moved. “I don't really know him.”
“Then it wouldn't pain you to learn that he is dead?”
Paladin save us. “If he is, you're not leaving this room alive.”
“No?
”
Jean poured every ounce of menace in his voice. “Believe it.”
“Calm yourself. He's alive. Perfectly healthy. For now.”
“What grudge could you have against that infant?”
“Maybe I just resent perfect things. Ah!” Archer tsked between his teeth and wagged his chin. “I apologize. It is poor taste to lie to those whom you hope to make your allies. The truth is that I've had a dozen opportunities already to do away with young maestro Sessane. I've refrained because killing him would gain me a much more dangerous enemy than his father. The lord warden commands respect in the city, does he not? I'd hoped to find him a petty tyrant, a thief or lecher. Even a glutton.”
“That’s not him.”
“No. Marion Casterline is that most deadly of adversaries: a good man. This is no game of cards, southwarden. It's chess, and I need a pawn to hold our good man in check. I thought first of using you, but you're not Marion's weak spot.”
Jean’s face stung. “Only cowards use boys as weapons.”
“Is that what the Teschio taught you?”
“The Teschio died whimpering like dogs.” Jean smiled. “I was there, holding the knife.”
“I heard it was a rope.”
The room wavered for a second, red fury clouding his vision. “You want to leave me now, bastard. Quickly.”
Archer took him at his word. He stood and backed away. “Addio, prince.”
“Keep walking,” Jean warned. “Unless you want to see if those stories about me are true.” He would have liked nothing more than to bang Archer's head against the wall, but the man bowed again like a courtier and returned to the shadows. The back door opened, spilling orange sunlight in. A shadow cut through the light as Archer rejoined the slums. The gangers muttered and moved their drinks to further tables and left him entirely alone.
Starless Men. If they thought they were going to bring the gangs back or take the city, they were wrong. The Consiglio wouldn’t give up their rich harbor and fat profits so easily. They’d march an army down here.
Even as Jean thought it, he knew he was miscalculating. Nothing so simple as greed for gold drove Archer, and he was not the reason that Malachite kept repeating the same cycles of destruction and resurrection. It was simpler than that, closer, a seed inside all men, dark and selfish and blind to what it does. Maybe the Cwen were right. One didn't see their culture cannibalizing itself every hundred years. The Cwen endured while Malachite shattered. What was wrong with them? Why couldn't men be content with what they had?
Jean looked at the bartender. The boy was pale and terrified. Jean put two coins down, one for the drink he’d poured on the floor, one for the boy's fear, and returned to the alleys.
MARION
Aequora, Quindici
(Day 15)
Yvon Moro's wrinkled, liver-spotted head was bald as an egg save for a snow-white tuft stuck to his pate like a ball of frizzy cotton. He moved like a crippled boat and the kindest thing that that had ever been said about his appearance was that he resembled a turtle waddling on stilts. He was also no man to trifle with.
All the usual excuses—the lowcoach battery died, the sandolo sank, the bridge was out—didn't apply, because Yvon didn't give a damn why Marion was late. He toyed with telling Yvon he'd hijacked a Cwen boat, saved a pod of exiles, and gotten concussed for his trouble, but decided he really didn't want to see Consulente Moro drop dead. At least not until he'd stamped those documents.
“I said on the hour of ten, Highwarden,” Yvon scolded in a quavering voice as the crowd moved around them, parting for Yvon's crimson robes like he was an immovable island. The paving stones were still drying from the storm, steam wafting up in misty ropes all around them. “Not at half past, not at eleven, and most certainly not at noon.”
The arcade of the Gran Consiglio was a succession of elegant, swan-like arches supported by carved columns, providing spacious, covered walkways for the thousand men employed in the city government. It was a massive courtyard almost entirely ringed by ornate castles of white limestone. Narrow alleyways from the Canal Averla and Canal Falco provided exit and entrance from Paladin Square, and the Gran Consiglio fondamenta itself was a looming, many-domed palace decorated with marble statues, friezes, pilasters, clocks, and jutting spires.
“I apologize,” Marion repeated for the third time.
Tris stood beside the old man under the shade of the arcade, arms folded in a quiet way that portended trouble. In the sunshine of Paladin's Square beyond the arcade, fading leaves skittered over the pavement. A strong breeze whistled through the many crevices of stonework.
Yvon tucked his robe more tightly about his rotund frame, juggling a bulging, leather-bound folder from hand to hand. “You're too late, and I have a prior engagement. Now, if you'll excuse me.”
“Ho! There you are, Yvon.” Kon slipped up to Tris's side, all in black and silent as a wraith.
Marion had never been so happy to see him.
Kon formed a casual smile. He clapped Yvon on his humped shoulder. “Done already, old friend? How did it go?”
Marion wondered why Yvon didn't topple over from the impact. The man was ninety years old, at least.
“We never began.” Yvon pointed a claw-like finger at Marion. “Warden Casterline had other priorities.”
Kon glanced at Tris. “Indeed? Astonishing.”
Tris gave his father a hard stare. “In case no one has taken notice,” he stated loudly, “it is Aequora. That takes precedence over any meeting, no matter who was kept waiting.” Tris narrowed his eyes at Moro. “And the highwarden has recently been wounded in service to the city. No doubt his sacred duties prevented him from being punctual.”
Sacred duties, Marion thought sourly. Putting my neck in a noose, you mean.
“Well said,” Kon put in.
Tris looked from Yvon to his father, obviously expecting Kon to step in and handle this. When Kon didn't, Tris sighed. “Consulente Moro, please forgive our tardiness, and thank you rearranging your important schedule to meet with us.”
“Ah-ah!” Yvon held up a crooked finger. “I haven't met with you yet.”
“A detail,” Tris continued smoothly. “Let's stop wasting each other's time. You know very well you're not going to deny our application.”
“Warden Casterline was raised in the Zanzare, and—”
“So were you, and if that doesn't prevent you from putting your arse on a silk cushion in the Gran Consiglio, I think Marion can handle wiping noses and changing diapers. My father agrees, or he would not have given his support to our application.” Tris tapped the leather folder secured under Yvon's arm. “Feel free to voice your reservations in the documents, but I expect the patents of adoption to arrive at the Villa Luna by morning.”
Yvon had the look of a man caught in a sudden, aggressive storm. He turned to Kon uncertainly, but found no help or hints in Kon's stern composure. If Tris were any other young man, Marion was sure Yvon would have called for the guardiers by now, but a Sessane could not be dealt with like any other man.
“Well, I...yes...well,” Yvon stuttered. “I think I might be able to manage that, messere. Yes. Considering your father has lent his great name to the process, I'm sure all will be approved.” He tucked his head down like an angry goose and turned to go.
“One other matter, messere,” Tris said. “If you please.”
Yvon looked like he was dreading the next few moments, perhaps beginning to realize what manner of opponent he had. “Yes?”
The wind gusted and Tris tucked the flyaway strands of his hair behind his ear. “It's been brought to my attention that the terrace of the Gran Consiglio needs new tiling. The surface is quite hazardous for men of honorable age to navigate with safety; loose pavers and stumbling places and such. I’d hate for you to fall and crack that turtle-head of yours. Please allow House Sessane to have a care for this small matter. We will do it gratis, of course, considering your great name.” Tris smiled sweetly.
Yvon looked at Kon again imploringly. “That is a most generous offer, messere.”
Tris waved his hand. “Civic duty, no more.”
Yvon waddled off, glancing back twice, perhaps to make sure that Tris wasn't following him.
Tris cocked his head at Marion. “Impressed?”
“I'm downright frightened.”
Kon chuckled. “I'm impressed.”
Tris gave his father a quick smile. “Were you?”
Kon patted Tris's shoulder briskly. “Of course. And now Yvon owes you a favor and everything is in place, the house settled and the wedding plans progressing.” He glanced at Marion. “And I assume you'll want to visit the Villa Merlo to have a look at the boys. One would think you were in a hurry.”
“I'm not getting any younger,” Marion said. “I'm nearly a decade older than you were when you adopted Tris.”
“Are you thinking of adopting an older boy?” Kon asked.
Tris looked to Marion for an answer.
Marion shook his head. “I haven't any certain age in mind. I thought we'd see what happened. I'm not ancient yet.”
“I would like to be consulted before you make a final decision,” Kon said.
Tris blinked. “Excuse me?”
Marion took Tris's hand. “Whoever we adopt will also be his heir, and heir to your name and all that goes with it; the castello, the ships, the gold. Of course he'd want to be informed of our choice.”
“Informed. Interesting choice of words.” Tris's dark eyebrows knitted together, making a deep groove in his smooth forehead. “I don't like it.”
“Tris, mi carino—”
“I said I didn't like it, not that I don't comprehend.” Tris’s words were silken. “Don't try to manage me, sir. Naturally, my father shall have his way. He always does.”
Kon looked troubled for a fleeting moment. “I meant no disrespect, lamb.”
Tris's smile was brittle. “No, father. You'd never be so rude as to imply that I'm incapable of judging the character of a child.”
