by Gaie Sebold
“Why, how splendid you all look!” Enthemmerlee said. “I am very fortunate to have such fine soldiers to accompany me.”
“Present arms!” Tantris shouted, and with only a little fumbling, they did.
I WATCHED THE two great heavy coaches with the lizard symbol on the roof leave, past the Ikinchli waiting outside the gate, drawn back either side of the roadway: a crush of dun and green and brilliantly embroidered waistcoats sewn with fragments of shell and bone and glass, some in the livery of the great houses. I even saw some of the Palace purple. They held little ones up on their shoulders, straining for a glimpse.
Itnunnacklish, Itnunnacklish.
Guard uniforms around the coaches.
“Right,” I said. “Everyone ready?”
An old trick. The fancy coaches sent off empty, escorted by a few of the guard, and some house servants in guard uniforms. The actual party going out the back way, in plain old coaches.
Mokraine opened the door of the coach and settled himself next to Enthemmerlee. “Mokraine? You’re joining us?” I said.
He gave a weary smile. “The young lady was kind enough to invite me.” Someone had lent him a clean robe. It was Gudain design, though perhaps an old-fashioned one, since the ruff beneath the cloth was only a few inches wide. Oddly, it gave Mokraine an impressive look, like an ancient king.
Selinecree opened the door of the coach. “Oh, you’re here. Good,” she said, and hurried off to one of the others.
Bergast, a moment later, opened the door, took one look, and said, “Ah, well, since you’re here, Madam Steel, I’d better be in the other coach.”
“What?” I said. But he had scuttled away. Mokraine opened one eye, sniffed, and closed it again.
“I do not like this,” Enthemmerlee said, as we rolled away. “I hate to deceive them.”
“I know they want to see you. I know you want to show them that you’re here, that you exist. But they’re not all your friends. You know this.” I turned my shield so she could see the dent, where the stone had hit. “Remember him?”
She sighed. “Kankish. Yes.”
“And we still have to get there, so please, stay inside the coach. It can protect you from an arrow better than I can.”
AS WE HEADED up the hill to the Palace, the air thickened. That strange alchemical tang became stronger, tainted with rotten eggs. In the grounds themselves was a thing I’d never seen before: a lake of mud, steaming and bubbling like a giant stew, the bubbles as big around as plates. They struggled up slowly, expanded, and broke with pops and gloops. I could feel the heat coming off it.
The Palace’s garish patchwork of marble jarred even more in the sunlight, but quickly became background. I was watching for shapes, for movement, out of place. The swarms of people were only that: swarms, vague undifferentiated shapes, unless one of them moved contrary to the flow.
Ikinchli waited patiently in the courtyard; the Palace guard lined up by the inner gates. They looked impressive, certainly. Their uniforms were so black they seemed to cut a hole in the colours that surrounded them. Enthemmerlee stepped out of the carriage, and a whisper shifted across the crowd. Her father stepped down, an order was shouted, and the Palace guard snapped their spears to the salute, slamming the butts as one against the marble floor.
Other carriages drew up. That slamming salute was repeated as each of the members of the Ten Families appeared. The disti didn’t like the salutes, tossing their heads and whipping their great muscular tails every time those spearbutts hit the floor.
Every window looking down on the court was crammed with faces, both Ikinchli and Gudain, though seldom at the same window.
Enthemmerlee took her father’s arm. His face was held in a kind of frozen haughtiness; hers was calm, though pale.
More whispering. I caught a few words of spiteful nastiness from some pudding-faced Gudain. I thought Enthemmerlee heard; I know one of the guard did, I saw him smirk.
I watched for the quick or unforeseen move, the flicker of metal, a hand raised.
Into the main doorway. Heavy perfumes and lamp-oil, and the pounding of booted feet in the low flat rooms. And warm; steamy-warm. The citrus tang of Ikinchli sweat, the heavier, more metallic smell of Gudain. Scented braziers and crisply-dressed servants, a high archway carved with lilies.
Plenty of space, for all that it was a major social occasion. These rooms, too, were built for more people than now filled them. People chattering in little groups. As we entered the conversation faltered; then it rose again, mixed with a deal of whispering and sidelong glances.
A servant walked up with a tray of savouries, made to look like tiny birds and frogs and flowers. Enthemmerlee smiled and took one. A flicker of blue at her cuff. Good girl, she remembered the jug.
A cluster of foreign dignitaries; most of the crowd Gudain. Lobik stood alone, until Malleay went up to him and started talking, ignoring the cupped hands, the looks and whispers. I clung to Enthemmerlee’s side, as did the core. Bergast stayed close. Good.
“I heard it was some sickness that deformed her.” A voice, not low enough. Enthemmerlee must have heard, but she didn’t show any sign. “Terribly sad, really. But why such a charade?”
“A charade? You don’t think there’s any truth in the idea, then?” A new voice.
“Oh, don’t be absurd. It’s a disgusting idea.”
“Not everyone thinks so.”
“Oh, well, if you will side with these revolutionaries. You know half of them don’t even attend privaiya?”
“It’s a big world out there, my dear. We’re in danger of looking like throwbacks.”
“And since when did you care about the opinions of the outside world?”
“As an outsider, I would say, it is always worth being careful of the opinions of others. One never knows when they may be of use.” Fain. Playing the charming merchant for all he’s worth.
“Well I think it’s unnatural.”
I let the words flow around me.
A few of the curious strolled up, watching Enthemmerlee with bright, avid eyes. Others did their best to pretend she didn’t exist, that there was a sort of smudge in the air where she was standing.
The crowd made me uneasy. The Gudain carried themselves so rigidly, it was like being surrounded by crudely animated chess-pieces. And I kept seeing the same sets of features repeated, with slight variations, on different faces, male and female. As though someone had made four or five woodcuts, and used them hurriedly, over and over, but the wood was soft, and with each stamp grew blurrier. Odd projections, a lump where an ear should be, slurred speech. A grown man who giggled then suddenly flung a cake away from him and bawled like a furious child, a watchful Ikinchli male always at his side, occasionally wiping his chin. There were no actual children at all.
“Babylon?” Fain said. “Over there. And yes, I will stay with Enthemmerlee, I can hardly do otherwise, remember?”
I could see the little cluster of foreigners. I motioned to Rikkinnet. She nodded.
I slipped away, found a room where I could take off the helmet and attempt to smooth my hair. I slipped on a plain tabard of blue silk, which I’d brought with me, over my armour. I frowned at the colour, something tickling my memory, but it wouldn’t come. I went back out, to mingle and listen, still keeping one eye on Enthemmerlee.
I moved around, edging my way towards the foreigners. Picking up fragments like a magpie.
“...hear she had to hire a foreign bodyguard because her own guard wouldn’t take the job.”
“They’re here, aren’t they?”
“I wonder what they bribed them with...”
“...that the foreigner? Funny, if it wasn’t for the colour, she could almost be one of us...”
Presumably they thought I should be flattered. Or was deaf.
“...my own daughter. It’s impossible to talk to her. She’s fallen under the influence of these agitators. She won’t come to privaiya...”
“...lose all sense of
proper behaviour...”
“But surely the Moral Statutes...”
“Well of course, if they were ever caught at it. But I heard only the other day...”
“I heard it’s something the scalys are putting in the water.”
“Oh, what nonsense you talk, Mansenay. Putting something in the water indeed! If people are behaving differently, maybe it’s because they’ve had the sense to stop doping themselves with privaiya smoke.”
“That’s disgusting talk. I suppose you think being an agitator is fashionable. Just because the young people are doing it.”
“First I’m an agitator for wanting justice and now I’m only doing it because it’s fashionable?”
“Well if you’re happy with people inciting riots, just don’t expect me to pick up your corpse.”
“Indeed, the Fenac seem to be far better at inciting a riot than stopping one.”
“The Fenac protect the public!”
“Protect that bit of the public who happen to be the right shape, you mean.”
“...calling a dressed-up Ikinchli ‘Ambassador.’ Whatever do the Scalentines take us for?”
“Oh, of course it will never hold. That can never be considered one of the Advisors to the Crown.”
“Enboryay has obviously decided the opposite.”
“Well, what choice has he, unless he wants to be exiled to one of the family farms?”
“Really, they can’t...”
“Oh, they can. There is nothing in the Statutes that says otherwise. She is of age and in her right mind.”
“If what I hear is true... and after all, she has officially wed them both... she is most certainly not. She couldn’tbe.”
A brief, appalled silence, and a sudden frantic chatter of irrelevancies.
I was glad to reach the other end of the room, and the silence surrounding the three foreigners.
There was an Empire delegate – you could tell by the brilliant scarlet and purple sash they wore over the elaborate layered robe that was the current fashion in the Empire court. I didn’t know the species, or the gender; only a nose and mouth and a few inches of skin, patterned with rich brown whorls (tattoos or natural, I couldn’t tell) were visible between the collar and the elaborate headdress. I wondered what the delegate was doing there; judging by what Malleay had said, the Empire didn’t want to get involved in this particular local difficulty, but presumably they thought the situation worth keeping an eye on.
There was also a Monishish and a tall Dithanion.
“May a favourable wind fill your sails,” I said, bowing. “Babylon Steel.”
The Empire delegate nodded. “And may all your ships come safe to harbour. Kinesitra dahana Oristin.”
The Monishish interrupted his conversation to wave at me. “Bententen Ententen Enthasa Enthasik.” Which might have been his name, with luck. His long, fragile-looking fingers glimmered with rings.
The Dithanion tipped her long bony head. I knew the Dithanion had some exquisitely complex greeting rituals, none of which I could remember, but as a trader among barbarians, she had presumably got used to such ignorance; she fluttered her mouth-fringes at me, and said, “Greetings, Babylon Steel.” Her voice was flutelike in the upswing, with a sort of moan in the lower register, like a mournful fiddle. She told me her name, a short but complex piece of music, and completely beyond my ability to pronounce. “You are here to see the Patinarai ceremonies?”
“I’m providing security,” I said. I didn’t say who I was providing it for.
“Ah. A much-needed service, at this time, I think,” the Monishish said.
“Indeed. Did you bring your own security?”
“Always,” they said together, and looked at each other with amusement.
“One was not expecting,” the Dithanion said, “to require such a degree of it. Next time I think I shall take a different route.”
“I must admit, I was surprised to see any foreign visitors still here,” I said. “Under the circumstances...”
The Dithanion pursed her fringed lips, her version of a shrug. “My business brought me in this direction, and I admit I was curious; I wanted to see the Itnunnacklish everyone speaks of. But as to actual trade, no, I think not, not now. I shall regard this as a brief and interesting diversion.”
The Monishish folded his long fingers in on themselves. “A pity. They have some superb hardwoods here, and the marble, of course, but everyone is waiting on the outcome of this current situation.” He swung his long-necked, warty-skinned head towards the Empire delegate. “Are they not?”
The delegate managed, elegantly, to be at that very moment looking elsewhere – at some long-lost acquaintance, perhaps – and thus able to ignore the question without appearing rude. The Monishish turned back to me. “Should things resolve themselves, so that supplies and labour can be relied upon, we may be looking at potential trade.”
“Are there other traders still here?” I said.
“Not that I have met. Had we not been somewhat delayed, we would not be either.” He opened his fingers, fanlike. “There is another foreigner, though. From Scalentine, I believe.”
I tried not to let anything show on my face. “Oh, really? But not here to trade?”
“He seems to be here mostly in order to talk,” the Dithanion fluted. “Of which he does a great deal, to little point.”
The delegate excused him – or her – self and moved away. The Monishish made a gesture at their departing back. “In disgrace, I think,” he said. “I wonder why?”
“Who knows?” the Dithanion said. “The Empire being what it is, the delegate could simply have displayed the wrong décor at a reception.”
“In disgrace? What do you mean?” I said.
“A civilian delegate in high regard would not be found in a country of little power, on the verge of civil war, in which the Empire has shown absolutely no interest of late,” said the Monishish.
“Unless the Empire is playing a double game,” said the Dithanion. “Or did not realise that the situation was, in fact, as unstable as it appears.”
The two of them began an extended examination of current Empire politics; a subject about which I knew little and cared less. I extracted myself politely and moved off.
Scalentine? Someone here from Scalentine? They couldn’t mean Fain – he’d not been out, except to the Palace. Who the hells could it be? Maybe this was the clue Fain had been waiting for. I had to find out.
I didn’t have to wait long. “Well, of course, this sort of situation is inevitable when too much power gets into the wrong hands.”
I knew that voice. I turned.
Black hair, chunky build, several chins.
Oh, dragonfarts.
Angrifon Filchis. Angrifon bloody Filchis. What in the name of everything sane was he doing here?
Fain was deep in conversation with a group of Gudain; I moved over to him and waited. He caught my eye, eventually.
“What is it?” he said.
“Don’t look round. There’s someone here from Scalentine. You might want to keep your head down.”
“Who?”
Filchis was standing with his hands clasped behind him, his chest (or rather, the upper part of his not inconsiderable stomach) thrust out, and an air of trying to look down his nose at everything.
“Oh, yes,” I heard him say to the Gudain male standing at his side. “Of course, you know, humans and Gudain must be of the same line, one can always tell a superior species.”
“Angrifon Filchis. Leader of the Builders.”
“Here?”
“Yeah. As if things weren’t bad enough...”
“Go talk to him.”
“He might recognise me,” I said.
“A client?”
“Oh, please. I’d sooner bed a maggot.”
“We need to know why he’s here.”
“Fain...”
“It is what I hired you for, Madam Steel.”
“I don’t want to talk t
o him,” I said. “If I talk to him I may not be able to stop myself breaking his neck.”
“Ah. The threat to the Chief?”
“Among other things, yes.”
“If you were to break his neck, apart from causing a diplomatic incident, it might make it much more difficult to find out who is involved in the were murders.”
“If you already know he’s involved, why the hells isn’t he under arrest?”
“Because we don’t, for sure. And can you imagine the Chief arresting anyone without evidence?”
“No. The Section, on the other hand...” I said.
“You make assumptions.”
“Yes.”
“Madam Steel, if we have left him running around loose, perhaps we have our reasons. Now, if you please...”
“Oh, all right. I’ll try.”
“Find out anything you can.”
Find out anything... I looked around.
Mokraine, oblivious to the concerns of foolish mortals as always, was talking with one of the Ikinchli servants. The servant scurried off as I approached.
“Ah, Babylon.”Mokraine looked ghastly; not so much an ancient king as the revenant of one. And he was shivering, slightly but constantly.
“Oh, Mokraine.”
“So much emotion, so tangled. So... close. I am a starving man at a banquet.” He laughed, a sound so cracked and horrible that several people looked around.
“Would you rather leave? I can get someone to escort you...”
“No. You want something.”
“No. No, Mokraine. You should go, you look dreadful.”
“There is nowhere to go. Who do you want me to listen to?”
“The... You called it ‘leakage.’ It doesn’t satisfy, does it?”
“No. It makes the hunger worse. It is the scent of a meal, it is not the meal. But I will not eat. I will not lose the last of myself.”
If he was getting bombarded by emotions from others without even trying, I wondered just how long he could hold on to the last of himself in any case. “Mokraine, I won’t ask you. Please, get out of here. Go somewhere quiet.”
