Joel Rosenberg - [D'Shai 01] - D'Shai

by Joel Rosenberg - [D'Shai 01]

  Two warriors preceding us, two following, we made our way down the path. I tried to follow Arefai, as both courtesy and my safety demanded—members of our beloved ruling class tend to punish discourtesy promptly—but he tugged at my sleeve and indicated that I should walk at his side.

  “How, Kami Khuzud,” Arefai said, “does your ... solution to the puzzle go?”

  The puzzle. Have you, he was asking, either found or created sufficient evidence to prove that Refle is your sister’s murderer?

  Again, a storm was moving in; gray, threatening clouds gathered to sunwise.

  “Possibly quite well, Lord Arefai,” I said. I had a feeling for it all, that maybe if I just asked around enough, just walked around and looked certain enough, Refle would panic and make a mistake. It would have to be a serious mistake, if it was to be him that ended up dead instead of me.

  But it was worth a try.

  “I’ll need Narantir’s help, though. And his cooperation.”

  The wizard snorted. “I am at your service, Lord Kami,” he said.

  We walked in silence for a while. Arefai bit his lip for a moment. “If I ordered you to leave this matter be for the next five days, what would you do, Kami Khuzud?”

  “I am obedient to orders, as always, Lord. But the troupe is supposed to leave Den Oroshtai in four days, and I expect that Lord Toshtai will want to hear my guess as to the ... solution to his puzzle before then.”

  “Ah. His puzzle, indeed.” He smiled at that, and for a moment he looked almost like a person. But then the mask of dignity that members of our beloved ruling class wear like a suit of armor slipped back down. “Lord Orazhi himself is coming here; he arrives this evening. It would be ... convenient if no trouble were to mar his visit.”

  Glen Derenai and Den Oroshtai had always been loosely associated, if not allied, in the wars that wash up and down our narrow island like a brush painting a fenceboard. But that’s none of the business or concern of peasants or of troupers; we are subject to all, supportive of none. It’s better that way.

  But for Orazhi to be on the road here spoke of at least a potential close alliance, or something more complicated; I’ve often wondered if members of our beloved ruling class would have as much time for intrigue if they had to work for the food they eat. In no case was it any concern of mine, and I didn’t understand why Arefai was bringing it up.

  “It’s both political and personal, Kami Khuzud,” Arefai said, looking away. “I understand that you’re rather fond of NaRee, the ironmonger’s daughter. Lovely girl.”

  Was he threatening to take NaRee as a concubine?

  “Yes, Lord, I am,” I said carefully.

  “Those sorts of feelings aren’t restricted to acrobats, acrobat.”

  I didn’t like the tone in his voice, but I couldn’t say anything about it. Not and expect to live.

  Narantir snickered. “Lord, you’re acting more stupid than usual.”

  Instead of lopping his head off, Arefai grinned at the wizard. “I didn’t think that would be possible.”

  “Neither did I. You just threatened Kami Khuzud.”

  “I did not.” Arefai drew himself up straight. “I did nothing of the sort.”

  The proper form to disagree with a member of our beloved ruling class—to the extent that there is a proper form—is to use words to the effect of “I am sure that that is so.” The words should be pronounced carefully, softly; you must let the lord or lady hear the sarcasm only in the context, not in the tone.

  “Wrong again.” Narantir snickered. “You just implied that if Kami Khuzud doesn’t do as you request, you’d either harm his beloved, or perhaps take her as one of your women.”

  “Are you certain?” Arefai looked at me, and then back at Narantir. “I did?”

  “You did.” Narantir nodded. “Subtlety is not your strong point, Lord. Leave it to your father. Try telling Kami Khuzud what you want to tell him.”

  Exasperated, Arefai threw up his hands. “What I thought I was telling you was that I am as fond of Lady ViKay, Orazhi’s daughter, as you are of the ironmonger’s daughter, and that any disturbance during his visit might create problems for me.” He spread his hands. “Wasn’t that obviously what I meant?”

  “Of course, Lord,” I said.

  Absolutely obvious, as soon as it was explained in complete detail.

  “I thought so.” Arefai smiled, favoring Narantir with a quickfrown. “See, Narantir? You don’t know as much as you think you do.” He stopped, suddenly. “I’ll leave you two; I have preparations to make,” he said, turning about and jogging away.

  All four of his guards, never missing a step, simultaneously broke into a trot to keep up.

  Narantir waited until he was gone. “Your blood boils, doesn’t it?”

  I shrugged.

  The wizard reached up and snapped a dead twig off a gesmyn tree, quickly stripping the bark with surprisingly deft fingers, and inserted the naked twig between his lips.

  “Well, try to keep it at a simple simmer for the next few days.” He chewed on the twig, and then sniffed the air. “Both Orazhi and a storm are coming in, and I’ll have enough problems to deal with. You told that sour-faced Crosta Natthan that you wanted to see me?”

  I nodded. “Yes. I want you to prepare a spell that will find the hand that held the knife that cut through the cable, notching the doorframe.”

  He snorted, irritated. “Idiot. What law am I supposed to apply? And how? Do you know what it takes to make a blade relevant to the hand that wields it? Sunder himself could barely make a Relevant blade, and I know of only three of those. And a blade relevant to a notch in the doorframe? I might be able to make a relevant notch with a gap-toothed saw, if it were bent enough. But not a smooth knife.”

  I shrugged. “Perhaps you could apply the Law of Pathos?”

  “Pathos will never do anything for you that Relevance can’t.” He snorted. “You’ve fallen for the pathetic fallacy. Personify a doorframe as much as you want, it simply doesn’t care what notched it so smoothly. But do it as much as you want; I don’t care to waste my abilities on something that simply won’t work.”

  “This sort of thing is well known?”

  “Nobody listens to magicians. Those of you who can’t work magic think magic can do any—” His eyes widened. “Oh.”

  I smiled. “Finish the thought, good Narantir. Finish the thought.”

  He looked me straight in the eye. “Those of you who can’t work magic think that magic can do anything. Refle can’t do magic.”

  “Precisely.” I cocked my head to one side. “This spell should take several days to prepare.” We were due to leave in four days; if I turned up the pressure sufficiently, the accusation itself might be enough, enough to break Refle.

  Now it was Narantir’s turn to smile. “Very nice.”

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  INTERLUDE:

  Way of the Cook

  “NO, NO, NO. You get the skin off the duck this way, not that way, not another way. When you’re a master cook, then you can do it your way. Not that you’ll want to; you will have learned to do it correctly by then.

  “If you’ve survived.

  “In the meantime, this is my kitchen, and we will do it correctly.

  “ ‘Which it?’ Every it, you fool.

  “No, no, it doesn’t matter a fig that the dinner is for both our lord and Lord Orazhi. Concentrate on the thing itself, not on who is going to eat it. Pay careful attention to what you are doing, and let it carry you along. Feel it all. If you do, you will know what to do, most of the time. Yes, yes, timing is everything.

  “For example, I can tell you that the stockpot has been over the charcoal long enough now, and it’s near the boil. Yes, yes, you had better slide it to the side and watch it carefully—if it boils, we’ll never be able to make the broth clear again.

  “Oh. Idiot. Yes, yes, yes, you know so much, so very much, that I shouldn’t waste your time with your Master�
��s instructions. Yes, yes, you can clear a broth with egg whites, but that takes the flavor out of it, too. If you want a perfectly clear broth with no flavor, boy, then why bother adding the vegetables and spices and the chicken? Why bruise the peppercorns and toss them in—it would be so very much easier your way.

  “No, no, you go ahead, you make a tasteless broth—set a bowl of hot water down in front of Lord Toshtai, sprinkle some thyme leaves on its surface, hand him a spoon and tell him it’s soup. I don’t think he’ll be impressed.

  “So; you want to do it my way? Very well.

  “Good, good, stir the broth, but don’t get your thumb in it. Not so vigorously—let the spirits of the fire do most of the work. Taste it, and try to taste what it will be like when it’s done, not just what it is now. Will it need more salt? No? Correct. Pepper? No? It should need more pepper. Hmmm ... let me taste. Yes, yes, bruise another five of the green peppercorns, I think, and two of the black ones. Add another few thyme leaves, and maybe a carrot. Definitely no more onion.

  “Now, where were we?

  “Ah. Of course: we were getting the skin off the duck. Just insinuate that tube into the slit, yes, yes, you’ve seen me do it a hundred times before, and now puff in, and watch it pull away from the flesh. Yes, you have to hold the tube in, and if you keep hacking away at the poor dead bird you’re going to have to do more than sew up the rents in order to keep the air in.

  “Good. Very nice—the skin is separating, so we sew the hole shut, put the duck in a pan, and pop the pan in a medium oven. Oh, good boy—you think that’s a medium oven? You don’t think that’s a medium-hot oven?

  “Well, bank the fire a bit, anyways. Good.

  “Next, the fish. Simplicity, simplicity is everything, boy. Yes, yes, you’ve cleaned the trout adequately, but you’ve handled it far too much—all of the slime is gone from the skin. Let’s try it again. Get one from the tank, and set it on the board. Yes, yes, I know it flops around rather a lot, but you gauge it by eye as you pin down the tail and with one whack of the cleaver—there. Without the head, he flops much less, eh?

  “Very well. Now, again—notice that I’m just holding it by the tail—with one cut, we open Lord Trout’s belly, and pour out all those nasty viscera. You run the pump for a moment, and we’ll clean out the insides. Good.

  “See? Now, into the pan we put the peppercorns, and the juniper berries, and the salt, and cover it with the boiling water, and then add the vinegar. Oh, fundleberry wine vinegar, you think? Perhaps—let’s try it.

  “In goes the trout—and see? See how the skin is turning that beautiful blue? Another few moments of this—you can chop some onions while we wait; much of what happens in my kitchen starts with a chopped onion—and Lord Trout is fully poached; we slide him onto a warm plate, garnish with a few carved radishes, and that lemon-butter sauce you worked so hard on. And then, we taste. Mmm ... nice choice of the vinegar, young one. There may be some hope for you, appearances to the contrary. I think a bit more dill and a few mussels as a garnish would make it better, don’t you? Now, the trout doesn’t need to rest—you there: quickly, quickly, bring it out to Lord Toshtai. And you there: start another one for Lord Orazhi.

  “Now, we are going to work on the beef strips. Do you think the loin is cold enough? Well, you’re wrong, it is—if we leave it on the ice any longer, the ice will steal some of the flavor. No, we don’t want any flavor stolen. It’s different with those ham-and-roe balls—they have to be absolutely icy for their flavors to balance out right, when we wrap them in the hot duck skin.

  “So. I’ll have to do the beef myself. Be quiet now. Yes ...

  “I’ve been thinking about getting the potter to glaze a plate with writing on it. You should be able to read through the beef, it should be so thin. Ah. So good you are with the knife, you think you can slice the beef so thin, so thin—look at this: as it sits in my hand, you can see the lines of my palm through the redness. Mmm ... dodn’t tasht bed—lemme swillow. There. I was saying that it doesn’t taste bad either.

  “So. We slice the beef thinly, and carefully deposit it on the plate, fanning out from the center. The first ring will take about twelve slices—yes, I’m leaving a space in the center. While I do this, you will start the sauce.

  “Beat the egg and the sunflower oil together. A pretty oil, isn’t it? Vigorously, now, put your back into it. Good. Add a squeeze of lemon, and beat some more—you forgot to taste it, see if the balance is right. Let me taste. Mmmm ... no, that egg had started to turn. Throw it out, and do it again ...

  “Better. A bit more lemon, and then the ground mustard, and the mustard seeds. Very good, and very well. Now you do the last ring of beef slices, and I’ll get the basil leaves out.

  “Sloppy cutting, but I’ve seen worse. We’ll try a couple of rolls now, and see if it’s right. Do it in this fashion: take a basil leaf in one hand, and set a beef slice on top of it. Good. Sprinkle with a bit of pepper, and roll it up. I’ll dip it in the mustard sauce, and then, we taste.

  “I’d say that everything’s in balance, wouldn’t you?

  “Oh, you would, would you? You think everything is in balance, you young fool? What, tell me, what is so balanced about that duck that’s about to burn in your so-called medium oven?”

  * * *

  12

  Courting Disaster

  WE WERE OUT to steal what time we could; I met NaRee in her father’s garden.

  The storm was moving in, the setting sun obscured by dark, oily clouds. From our usual place by the south wall, we probably could have seen the far-off lightnings, instead of merely being disturbed by the distant roars of their thunder cousins as the cold wind breathed against our faces.

  For a long time, we sat on a bench quietly, and I just held her. That was enough, for a while.

  “Tell me,” she said, finally, “tell me about the mountains of Helgramyth.”

  She was always wanting to talk about distant counties and distant lands. Sometimes it was irritating, sometimes it was arousing, but now it was comforting, NaRee’s way of consoling me, distracting me.

  So I told her about climbing through the mountains of Helgramyth; about how when you’re negotiating the high passes, you camp on the narrow roads themselves, because night falls quickly that high, and you’re never more than a few steps away from a long fall.

  And I told her about the nights high in the mountains, about how it feels to be camped out on the side of the world, on the edge of the world where the stars shine more brightly, more steadily, more bravely than they can on the plains; and I told her about how sweet the wind blowing up the mountain passes is, filled as it is with mint and the remnants of the warm tang of sun-baked grasses, and the far distant foresty smell that never goes away, and about how distances in the mountains stretch and shrink, about how you can sometimes see a light in a window that feels so close that you think you could reach out and touch it, only to find that it’s four days away.

  And I told her about the mornings in the mountains, about the dim, chilly mornings when the clouds have blown off from the mountain-locked lakes in the night, and how when you wake and can barely see your feet on the road next to you—and you never leave the road, you never leave the road—you’re not sure sometimes whether it is fog or cloud that parts every now and then; and I told her about how you can see vague, hulking shapes off in the mist, sometimes, and then how the fog or cloud thins even more with the oncoming day, and how you can see sometimes dark things, you’re never quite sure what, moving across the surface of the lake, and how all is mist and shadow until the sun, not caring whether it is fog or cloud, simply burns it away and leaves behind the bluest water, the greenest grass, the clearest air that there ever has been in the world, and you feel you can see from one end of D’Shai to the other, and how sometimes maybe you really can see from Wyness Tongue in the north to Everai in the south, from Bitter Bay in the east of the Ven, to Wisterly, where the Tetnit stands watching the Sleeve.

  I d
idn’t tell her everything, of course.

  I didn’t talk about how the pack’s straps cut into your shoulders with a pain that doesn’t become one whit less intense with great familiarity, or about how, late in the day, when you finally take too long a rest—only a few moments, it’s supposed to be; you must rest, but you mustn’t let your muscles cool, or your feet will realize how very much they hurt—you let yourself remember how each step is agony when you resume.

  And I didn’t talk about the days of eating cold food, the beef and chicken salted too heavily, the onions too pungent, the waybread always stale and sometimes wormy, and how you have little enough of that, or about sleeping on cold ground that will suck the life and heat from your core, or about how, if you’ve found a soft patch of grass on which to stretch your blankets, more insects than you’ve ever believed existed will choose to share them with you, or about how you can never quite get the damp and dank out of the blankets, because it will take at least an hour of sun and wind to fully air them, and you can’t wait in the morning, and you can’t stop until the sun is down. And I didn’t tell her about how, sometimes, when the road slows you down too much, and two villages that were three days apart become four days apart, you arrive in the next one too beaten down with hunger to even be able to sleep properly, because you never carry more on the road than you have to, and you already have to carry a lot.

  And then she leaned her head against me, and sighed, and said, “Today, my father has given Refle permission to marry me.”

  I thought about how I felt up near the top of Aragimlyth, the mountains of Helgramyth, where I could see it all, and how clear it all was, and how good that felt, how it made me feel a part of everything.

  And I thought of the supposed spell Narantir was preparing, and about how quickly gossip travels, and then I thought about Refle sitting up in his workshop looking across the courtyard at the donjon, and at the room where, for all he knew, the spell that would reveal him for what he was was being prepared.