The Throne of Amenkor

by Joshua Palmatier

  I glanced up from the apples, from the apple that had rolled slightly to one side, near the edge of the cart, and watched the man who knelt in the back of the cart behind his wares. He was arguing with a woman over the price of some carrots, but his eyes flicked toward everyone that came within two paces of his cart.

  I frowned . . . and my stomach growled. I looked at the apple again, thought for a moment I could actually taste it.

  The sunlight brightened, the narrow field of focus widening. More people slid out of the gray, and everything took on a sharper edge.

  I pushed deeper, until the world in focus had sharpened so far it felt brittle.

  Then I relaxed . . . and waited.

  The crowds of dockworkers and fishermen, of fishwives and seamen, ebbed and flowed around the cart. The fruit seller eventually threw up his heavyset arms in disgust with the woman, tossing the carrots back onto the cart. The woman spat on the wharf, flung a rude gesture at him with one hand, and huffed off.

  More customers came, and still the fruit seller eyed everyone who approached.

  And then a woman towing three young children bled out of the gray.

  I straightened, and with single-minded intent pushed at the river, forced it forward . . . and saw what would happen, saw how I could get the apple . . . how I could get more than just the apple.

  I licked my lips as my eyes darted to the fruit seller, to the sour-faced man he was currently haggling with, to the woman who had just seen the cart, to the three children. The oldest boy reached out for no apparent reason and shoved the middle girl to the ground. Without turning, the mother cuffed him on the back of the head and said, “Leave your sister alone.” Her voice sounded tired and bitter. The youngest boy hung back, out of the reach of both mother and older brother.

  The mother swerved toward the cart and the three followed.

  I pushed away from the support and began moving forward.

  The fruit seller glanced from the man to the mother, then down toward the three trailing children, and frowned.

  “How much for the turnips?” the mother asked. The daughter squeezed in front of her, her chin coming up to the lip of the cart. She reached for a turnip, but couldn’t quite make it.

  The fruit seller opened his mouth to answer. At the same time, the older boy reached around his mother and hit his sister. Her arm, straining for the turnips, jerked and sent the entire pile tumbling.

  I heard the fruit seller shout, heard the mother spit out a curse, heard the daughter scream and begin to wail. The fruit seller lurched to save the turnips, the daughter spun, eyes flaring with anger. Everyone was turning toward the boy, toward the rolling turnips, toward the noise.

  I was two steps away from the apple—from an armful of apples—with no one watching, when a hand closed about my upper arm.

  I jerked and spun, dagger out before I thought. I would have killed him, thinking This is who I am, but just before the dagger drove forward, toward the midsection just beneath the armpit, I smelled oranges. Not from the fruit seller’s cart. He had no oranges. I smelled oranges in the gray world of the river.

  I pulled my thrust. The dagger sliced through the man’s shirt, beneath his arm and across his chest.

  The man gasped and lurched back, releasing my arm. He stared at me in shock, the hand he had used to grip me held out to stop me from a second attack. The other hand clutched his chest over the rent in his shirt.

  I glared at him, saw that he was gray, harmless, and turned to leave.

  “Don’t!” he choked, stepping forward. “Just wait!”

  I hesitated. Because even after I’d almost killed him, he’d stepped forward to halt me, not away. And because of the smell of oranges.

  Behind me, I heard the mother bark at her oldest son, heard them drawing away. My chance for an apple was gone.

  “What do you want?” I asked, shifting my focus completely toward the man. I suddenly realized I recognized him, recognized the finely-made breeches, the white shirt with ruffles at the throat.

  It was the man who had accompanied the red-coated merchant I’d seen on the dock.

  “I—or rather, someone else—wishes to speak to you.” He straightened, his outstretched hand dropping, then winced. When he drew his other hand away from his chest, I could see a few rounded stains of blood against the white of his shirt.

  I crushed a pang of guilt. “What for?”

  The man hesitated, then said stiffly, “I don’t know. You’d have to ask him yourself.”

  I frowned.

  He had black hair, shorn short, wild and untamed, but not dirty or matted. His face was rounded, the skin a little pale. His eyes were green, shadowed with fear, still a little too wide from shock. They kept darting toward the dagger. But there was nothing else beneath the fear: no hatred, no contempt, no danger. And no pity.

  I slid the dagger back beneath my shirt. “Where?”

  He heaved a sigh of relief, tension draining from his shoulders. “Not far. My name is William.” He held out a hand, as if expecting something, like a beggar on the Dredge.

  I stared at it in confusion and said, “Varis.”

  After a moment, he withdrew the hand, coughed slightly into it. “Ah, yes. Varis. If you’d follow me?”

  He began to move away, off the docks, along the wharf toward the real Amenkor.

  I waited a moment, thinking I should slip away.

  But in the end I followed him. Because of the smell of oranges.

  * * *

  We moved through the back streets of the wharf, William ten paces ahead of me. I followed warily, my eyes darting toward every blur of red. I felt unsettled, and moved slowly. William turned back once, his eyes catching mine, and he smiled encouragingly. The scent of oranges drifted over the sharper smells of sea and salt, like a breath of wind.

  I halted uncertainly, struggling with a new sensation, something deep in my gut that trembled.

  William’s smile faded and he moved back toward me. “It’s not much farther,” he said.

  He reached out as if to take my arm again, but I drew back, my eyes hardening.

  “Go on,” I said, and nodded down the street.

  He continued, but not before giving me a confused frown.

  He halted a few streets farther on at a door beneath a sign with a ship carved into the wood, its sails torn and ragged, the central mast broken. When he opened the door and gestured me inside, laughter and the sounds of a dozen voices rolled out into the street.

  I stepped back, glanced toward William. I knew it was a tavern, had heard the raucous noises through opened doors before, knew the smells. But always from the street, from the Dredge. I’d never actually been inside one.

  William’s brow furrowed as he waited. He didn’t understand my hesitation.

  Before he could say anything, before the frown began to touch his eyes with real concern, I straightened and stepped past him into the inner room.

  The sudden influx of sensation was overwhelming, the sound and motion and scents too intense. A dozen conversations, twenty voices or more, rushed out of the background noise, roaring forward like a gale, somehow trapped inside the little room, confined. A thousand scents struck like a blow—fire, ale, sweat, tallow, rot, cooked meat, bread, heat—all mixed and compacted, enough to gag. And through the sound, through the smells, in the dulled transition from sunlight to candlelight, people were moving: clapping each other on the back, stumbling up from tables, wandering toward the fire, reaching for food, coughing, carrying mugs of ale, drinking, eating, choking.

  It was too much. The river began to close in, the water closing up and over my head, smothering me. My breath caught in my chest with a sharp pain and held there. My shoulders tensed. My hand closed in a death grip on my dagger. The room rushed in to crush me.

  Then, with effort, I forced the darkening gray
of the world to focus. I felt the river push back, resist, struggle—

  Then the noise bled into the background. The scents slid away. And the giddy rush of motion pulled back, stabilized.

  I gasped as the river gave way and began to balance, coughed as if water were caught in my throat, in my lungs—like when I’d surfaced from the water of Cobbler’s Fountain at age six.

  William stepped up behind me and I felt the light fade as the door closed. His hand moved as if to touch me, his eyes concerned, but he stopped himself at something he saw in my face.

  “Over here,” he said, and led me through the mass of people toward a table in the corner, where the man in the red coat sat. I felt confined by the low roof, the people, but when I saw the red-coated man, all of that sensation fled.

  The scent of oranges grew so strong it dampened out everything in the room, so sharp my eyes began to water.

  I slid from the river, and the noise of the tavern rushed back, the scents. But in the real world they were not as overwhelming. In the real world, they were no worse than the crowds on the Dredge.

  William moved behind the table, to where the red-coated man sat. He leaned down to murmur something in the red-coated man’s ear, but the red-coated man’s eyes never left mine. He watched me intently from behind the wires on his face. When William finished, he only nodded, and William stepped back to stand behind his shoulder, arms behind his back.

  The red-coated man motioned to the only other chair at the table. “Would you like to sit?” he asked. His voice was soft and hard at the same time, careful and wary.

  I glanced toward the chair, felt the motion of the room at my back, the steady stream of people, and shook my head.

  He nodded, as if he’d expected that response. Then, in a deeper voice, one much more dangerous than before, he asked, “And do you know who I am?”

  I shook my head again.

  He watched me for the space of two breaths . . . and then his gaze shifted out into the crowd behind me. “Moll, could you bring a plate of the pork and some ale. And bread with butter, of course. Enough for three.”

  I turned and watched a woman nod in our direction and hustle off toward a door.

  When I turned back, the red-coated man was watching me again, this time with a frown.

  “We saw you kill that boy the other night.”

  It was a statement, and when he reached beneath the table I tensed, a cold sensation rushing up from my stomach. But not the warning Fire. This was simple panic. My hand went for my dagger—

  But then the red-coated man drew forth a section of black cloth, finely made—too fine for what I’d seen on the common people of the wharf. It was stained with mud, with blood.

  It was the cloak Cristoph had dropped, the one he’d left behind.

  The red-coated man pushed the cloak back down beneath the table.

  “I sent William back for the body. He tossed it into the harbor, but he brought the cloak and the book to me. If the body is found, the boy’s family will think he was roughing it in the wharf region for fun, that he got involved in something he shouldn’t have—dice, too much drink, the wrong crowd—and that he was killed for his money.”

  “What about the other one, the one who ran away?” I asked.

  Borund grimaced. “I don’t think he’ll cause a problem. He’d have to admit he was on the wharf in the first place, attempting . . . whatever he was attempting. I find that unlikely.”

  I shifted uneasily. “Who were they?”

  “Does it matter?” When I didn’t answer, he shook his head. “Merchants’ sons. They shouldn’t have been messing around on the wharf. They certainly shouldn’t have been down here preying on the likes of you. Don’t you agree?”

  William snorted. The red-coated man frowned but didn’t turn around.

  “In any case,” the red-coated man continued, “William has convinced me that you could be . . . useful.”

  I glanced toward William, but his face was blank, his eyes focused inward.

  “How?”

  The red-coated man drew breath, but suddenly Moll appeared with a tray heavy with shredded pork smothered in some kind of sauce. The meat steamed, the scent of heat and smoke and juice powerful, drawing a rumble from my stomach. She set the tray down with a grunt as a second, younger woman arrived with a huge pitcher of ale and three wooden cups—except they were larger than any cups I’d ever seen; deeper and with large handles. Yet another woman arrived with a flat board with bread already sliced and a bowl with butter in it. A small knife, as long as my finger and strangely flattened, was half-buried in the butter.

  My stomach clenched.

  “Will that be all, Merchant Borund?”

  “For now, yes, Moll.”

  The three women nodded and wove back into the crowd behind me, but not before considering me with curious frowns. Moll nodded to me as she passed, with a tentative smile.

  After they left, Borund sighed and relaxed back into his chair. Motioning toward the food, he said, “Please, have something to eat. You as well, William.”

  I hesitated, too shocked to move. There was more meat on the tray than I’d eat in a week, and the bread. . . .

  William shifted forward, used the small knife to spread the butter over a slice of bread, then used something else with three small prongs to stab a chunk of the meat. He placed the meat on the bread and then stepped back to eat.

  I watched a moment, still stunned, then stepped forward. I resisted the urge to grab the entire loaf of bread and run. Instead, I picked up a single slice and when no one reacted, stepped back. I half expected Borund or William to shout, or reach out and grab my arm as the hawker had done when he’d caught me trying to steal from his stall.

  Instead, Borund leaned forward and said, “Here. Try some butter on that.”

  I held out the slice of bread I’d taken. Borund took it and slathered it liberally, then handed it back.

  The bread was warm, and the butter had already begun to soak into the slice. It smelled sweet, tasted sweeter, soft and warm and smooth against my tongue. The flavor flooded my mouth, and a trail of it trickled down my chin like drool.

  It was the best thing I’d ever tasted, sent tremors through my arms.

  I stuffed the rest of the bread in my mouth, wiped the trail of butter away with the back of my hand while still chewing the last of it.

  Borund leaned forward with a smile. “Now have some with the meat.”

  He waited until I’d gotten another slice, with plenty of butter, more than Borund had used, and some meat, then sat back while William poured three cups of ale.

  “Amenkor is dangerous, Varis,” he began, then hesitated. “May I call you Varis?”

  I nodded around my third helping of butter, bread, and meat.

  “Not just here on the wharf. It’s dangerous in the upper city as well. Perhaps more so. Especially since the White Fire.” He paused, grimaced to himself, then focused again on me. “I did not think it was that serious—not as serious as William claimed—until . . . until we saw you being attacked in that alley by those boys. I was willing to dismiss how bad things had become in Amenkor until then. But now. . . .” He shook his head, shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his gaze moving toward the crowd behind me.

  I stopped for a moment, suddenly uneasy. Inside, I felt a tendril of the Fire flicker upward, there and then gone. But the motions of the room behind me began to filter into my awareness, no longer part of the background.

  Borund’s gaze moved from person to person.

  “Now,” he said, “I no longer feel safe. Even here, where I’ve come since my father first brought me to the wharf.” He smiled, the gesture bittersweet and brief, and returned his attention to me. “And that’s where you come in, Varis. I need someone to guard over me, protect me.”

  I stopped chewing. Through a mout
hful of bread and gravy, I sputtered, “What?”

  Borund leaned forward. “I want you to accompany me to the wharf, to the city or palace, wherever I go, and make certain no one harms me. I know you can handle a weapon. I’ve seen it. I know you can defend yourself. That boy you killed . . . he was trained, Varis. He knew how to use a knife. And yet you bested him without any effort at all.”

  I swallowed painfully, the lump of bread too large and tasteless. “He was stupid.”

  “Perhaps. But in the end you walked away, not him. I’m willing to bet you can best almost anyone. Especially anyone that may be hired to kill me.”

  “Who would want you dead?”

  William snorted again and took a long pull on his ale. William had drunk plenty of ale. I hadn’t touched mine. Neither had Borund.

  “Other merchants. Perhaps others from the upper city with power. People here on the wharf who have become . . . desperate.” Now Borund reached for his ale. “There are plenty who might try.” He drank, watching me carefully over the top of the cup, then set the cup aside. “See this jacket? The red signifies my merchant house, the color chosen typically as an indicator of the product I traded in when my house was first certified as a member of the guild. Mine is red because at the time I dealt mainly in imported wines.

  “But my house has grown since then,” he said. “I deal in many commodities now—spices, grain, cloth. The gold embroidery on the sleeves of the jacket and around the neck indicate all of the wares that my house has dealt in before.” He pointed to his cuff. “These three lines cinched tight in the middle mean that I’ve traded in flax, that perhaps I have a source if someone is interested. This elongated circle indicates I’ve dealt in silks from the eastern city of Korvallo, across the mountains. The more embroidery, the more powerful the house. The jacket and the embroidery are a necessary part of the work of the guild, are in fact essential if my house is to remain influential in the guild and in the palace. But it has a drawback. It announces to the world exactly how powerful I am. And it attracts . . . undue attention.”