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

by Joel Rosenberg - [D'Shai 01]

  Throw and catch, throw and catch. It isn’t the most important thing in the world; it has to be the only thing in the world.

  Throw, and catch. Not quite. Oh, it was close enough for catching, and easy enough to make part of a juggle, but the ball hadn’t fallen onto exactly the spot on my left palm that it was supposed to.

  It has to be perfect, the form is everything, because you can’t raise kazuh without the proper form, and once you raise kazuh, everything will be correct, in proportion.

  Again.

  Not quite. But closer. Again.

  A flash of lightning and crash of thunder overhead rocked me, but I didn’t drop it, by the Powers I didn’t let the ball fall.

  Feel the ball, Kami Khuzud, you must feel the ball, you must find your balance, find your center, and throw and catch it from the center.

  Again.

  That felt better. No—it felt right, there was even a distant tingling, a far-off spark of something. I added the second ball, and then the third, and kept them going in an even flow of catch-left throw-left catch-right throw-right, each ball falling perfectly into place, despite the rain battering at me, despite the thunder, despite the lightning, and I held that moment of time for as long as I could.

  And, once again, it wasn’t enough. There was a distant spark somewhere, perhaps, but it wasn’t the kazuh of the acrobat.

  I don’t know what I am. But whatever that is, it isn’t a kazuh acrobat.

  * * *

  INTERLUDE:

  Way of the Servitor

  HE HAD BEEN the last noble in the castle to sleep, but Crosta Natthan was the first to awaken.

  That was part of the secret of his success: even before his joints had started to ache with advancing age, he had never needed more than two hours of sleep a night, and always woke toward the end of the hour of the dragon, the hour before dawn, and was well in possession of his faculties and his day before the hour of the cock.

  Now, he couldn’t sleep through the night. But that was acceptable; sleep had never been as satisfying as his work.

  His hair still damp from his ablutions, he stalked the dim halls in the predawn light, a harsh eye alighting on an ill-dusted nook here, a stained spot on a rug there.

  Being servitor, even chief servitor, is not one of the fifty-two kazuhin, but Lord Crosta Natthan, great-grandson of peasants, didn’t mind.

  His grandfathers had been the first of their families ever to rise to the middle class: his maternal grandfather had been a tradesman; his paternal, a pewtersmith. Crosta Natthan was a noble, and while his shrewish wife had long been banished from both his life and Den Oroshtai as an unpleasant distraction from his work, his sons were both nobles, and his daughter was married to Lezear Ahulf, a favored retainer of Lord Nerona of Oled.

  It was worth some effort to be worthy of this, he reminded himself, then chuckled, quite silently, at his own D’Shaian hypocrisy.

  Being worthy of it had nothing to do with his passion for his work. He enjoyed all of it, even this, the first pass through the castle.

  The guards at the door of Lord Toshtai’s morning room were alert but appeared tired as Crosta Natthan opened the door and passed through, shutting it silently behind him. Of all those in the castle, there were only three who could pass through any door, at any time, without let or hindrance: Lord Toshtai himself, old Dun Lidjun, and Crosta Natthan.

  Not too bad for the grandson of a pewtersmith, the great-grandson of a dungfooted peasant.

  The morning room was dark and cramped in the dull light, but it would brighten in but a few moments, as the dawn came on. A pitcher of ice-water, the proportions of ice and water correct, waited next to Lord Toshtai’s chair, and a yellow silk robe was neatly folded over the back of the chair. Ignoring the pain in his right hip as he moved, Crosta Natthan bent and sniffed—yes, it was freshly washed, and lightly scented with rose and lemon.

  Crosta Natthan examined the straight razor, the shaving bowl, and the soaps over by the washbasin. Yes, all were ready, although he would want to strop the razor a few times before running it over Lord Toshtai’s countenance. Nobody else, not even Dun Lidjun, was permitted to hold a razor near the lord’s throat, and Crosta Natthan took that responsibility, as he did all of his responsibilities, with the utmost seriousness.

  There was really one too many apples in the porcelain bowl; it looked overstocked. As a matter of policy, Crosta Natthan didn’t formally break his fast until after he had finished his morning rounds, but what is not seen is not, after all. He selected one with a slight green tinge, and tucked it into his pocket as he left the room; when he rounded the corner and passed out of the view of the guards, he took the apple out and bit into its tart sharpness as he slowly, painfully made his way up the steps to the second floor, pride preventing him from leaning on the wall. Stairs were the hardest, and it was best to walk them when nobody else could see his weakness.

  He liked the apple. It tasted like retribution.

  When he was but a boy, careful matchmaking had matched his elder sister, Ilda Verken, to a true bourgeois, an orchardman. Ilda Verken and Trevan Idn Abeta had looked down on the little middle-class boy, and had shunned him when he had entered Lord Eveshtai’s service.

  But that was long ago, and now the best of Trevan Idn Abeta’s son’s apples graced his table, and—every once in a while, when his duties allowed—Trevan Idn Abeta’s young niece, one of the bourgeois attendants to Lady Walasey, warmed his bed. Altogether a perfectly pleasant arrangement, he decided, slightly disappointed that there was nothing requiring his attention on the second floor.

  He took a last bite of the apple and set the core in the salver on a hallstand. It would be gone within the hour. It had best be gone within the hour.

  He made his way to the third floor, and stopped outside one of the rooms assigned to the acrobatic troupe.

  The guard was sitting in the chair across from the strange contraption of plaster and wires that the wizard had put up. That was acceptable; there was no need for him to stand when he could do his job sitting.

  But the carpet!

  Crosta Natthan shook his head. It wasn’t that Lord Toshtai would ever see the dirt on the carpet; the lord of Den Oroshtai hadn’t been above the first floor of any wing of either donjon in Crosta Natthan’s memory, and Crosta Natthan’s memory was perfect.

  But it was a wrongness, and would have to be corrected. Even though the acrobat-peasants would dirty the carpet again that night, it would have to be rolled up and taken out back to the laundry to be gently beaten, cautiously washed, carefully shade-dried, and then replaced.

  Still, as his father used to say, in every bruise there was a lesson to be learned: Crosta Natthan would wait until midmorning and see if old Varta Kedin noticed by, say, the hour of the hare.

  She was getting old; it might be time to retire her, send her back down to the village to live with her children and grandchildren, have her drive her daughters and daughters-in-law mad with her insistence on polishing already well-polished woodwork.

  He completed his rounds of the donjon and staggered down the stairs to the foyer, kicking off his sandals and tying up the ends of his pantaloons before he headed out into the quadrangle, toward the old donjon.

  The ground between the flagstones was muddy and squishy between his toes. He liked the feel of it; it almost made his old bones feel young again, he decided as he washed his feet in the foyer of the old donjon, dried them with a clean towel, and donned the sandals hanging from a peg on the wall.

  His tour through the old donjon always took less time than the rest of his rounds did, but that was just because it was smaller; it was not indifference. The old donjon was where the first rulers of Den Oroshtai had lived, back when the whole domain was only a summer residence of Oroshtai himself, and it deserved the respect due to an aged and trustworthy servant of the family.

  Today his rounds were even shorter than usual: the entire top floor was occupied by Lord Orazhi, his guards and personal
attendants, and was to be considered part of Glen Derenai, not Den Oroshtai, while Lord Orazhi was in residence.

  Downstairs, the guard had changed at the beginning of the hour of the dragon, a doubled shift out of tradition, not necessity. The hour of the dragon was the traditional time for a surprise attack, and while it would be ridiculous for Orazhi to be here in some complicated political maneuver culminating in a surprise attack, others had done ridiculous things in the past.

  He passed quietly through the barracks on the first floor. Most of the soldiers slept on their pads undisturbed by his passage, a few waking momentarily to turn a bleary eye on him before rolling over and going back to sleep. Over in the corner, a foursome was quietly working a harmony, their voices low, almost singing in whisper, the tenor emphasizing the high notes with sharp, chopping motions of his hand. Two others, apparently having come off shift insufficiently sleepy, quietly played a game of single-bone draughts, a third watching the board with hawklike intensity, like a referee at a sparring match.

  Walking past the guards on duty at the other end of the barracks hall, Crosta Natthan made his way up the stairs to the second floor, and took a quick look down the hall.

  Something wasn’t right.

  His steps picked up as he walked down the carpet toward where a dark stain spread from underneath the closed door to the armory.

  He knelt and dipped his fingers into the carpet. His fingers came up red and sticky with blood.

  Crosta Natthan rose quickly, ignoring the pain in his joints, and knocked on the door, at first calmly, then in a rapid tattoo.

  No answer.

  There were two master keys in all of Den Oroshtai, only two that fitted every door within the walls. One, made of fine silver, its bow covered in enameled bone, hung from a slim golden chain around Lord Toshtai’s neck; the other, of simple burnished brass, hung from a plain leather thong around Crosta Natthan’s.

  Crosta Natthan had used his master key twice to test it, after it had been presented to him by his predecessor. He had never used it since; there had been no need.

  He didn’t hesitate for a moment: he slipped the thong over his head, inserted the key in the lock, and turned it firmly. The bolt snicked aside.

  He pushed the door open, but it only gave a little. Something was blocking it. Crosta Natthan could have slid inside, but there was no need. The door was open wide enough for him to see that Lord Refle, Den Oroshtai’s armorer, lay dead on the floor, quite thoroughly hacked to pieces.

  He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, but he hoped it wasn’t long.

  “Guard,” he called out, hoping that his voice wouldn’t carry far enough for Orazhi’s soldiers to hear him. And then, “Guard.”

  Feet thundered on the stairway: the troika of draughts-players, each with a naked sword in hand.

  One started to speak, but Crosta Natthan held up a peremptory finger. “One of you—you, go and wake the rest of the castle guard. You, keep guard here; I don’t want anything disturbed. And you,” he said to the third, “go get Kami Khuzud and throw him into a cell in the dungeon.”

  The guards were all well-trained. The first guard, after a quick, “Yes, Lord,” had run off already. The second, his face grim as death, assumed a watchmanlike position in front of the door, and the third was disappearing down the stairwell.

  The boy should have waited. He should have found the evidence to show that Refle was guilty; he shouldn’t have simply killed him.

  Crosta Natthan spun on the ball of his foot and walked off. It would be necessary to wake the lord of Den Oroshtai and tell him that his armorer had been murdered.

  How to do it, though? Crosta Natthan would certainly stand outside the Lord Toshtai’s sleeping room, and invade it only with his voice, not with his person. But how would he begin? What would he say?

  Lord Toshtai, I hope you will think me right to wake you—No. That wouldn’t do at all; it was not Crosta Natthan’s job to predict Lord Toshtai’s thoughts, but to obey his orders, to anticipate and divine his needs.

  Lord Toshtai, it is with sadness that—no, that was just as bad. Not only had Crosta Natthan never cared for the armorer—and lying to Lord Toshtai was absolutely forbidden—but Crosta Natthan’s sadness was properly none of Lord Toshtai’s concern, and it would be wrong to wake the lord with the suggestion that it was otherwise.

  Lord Toshtai, it is necessary that I wake you, perhaps?

  Better.

  Yes. That would be it: Lord Toshtai, it is necessary that I wake you.

  Crosta Natthan had never woken Lord Toshtai before; but not having done it before would in no way excuse doing it other than promptly, or properly.

  * * *

  13

  Apprehension

  IT’S SOMETHING I think about, every now and then:

  I’ve decided that my favorite way of being woken from sleep is for a lovely black-haired woman, fresh but dry from a hot bath and heated towels, her skin scented with soap and lemon and roses, to slip under the blankets with me, and gently, carefully, lay her head on my shoulder. Her breath smells of firemint and tea; her long, glossy hair floats around me in a warm, silken cloud.

  At least, I think that would be my favorite way. I can’t recall as it’s ever happened, and I suspect I’d remember it.

  Being kicked out of a sound sleep by one of Lord Toshtai’s guards wasn’t nearly as nice.

  Half awake, I thought I had been jumped by Refle again, and I flailed away at him. That turned out to be a mistake; I got my arms caught somewhere in the blankets, and slammed my forehead into the side of his foot, or vice versa.

  I didn’t try to muffle a scream as I was lifted up by the hair, slammed up against the door, then turned about, grabbed by the short hairs at the back of my neck, and frogmarched, stark naked, down the hall to the stairs, down several flights of stairs to the dungeon, and then kicked into a cell, and the cell locked.

  The guard pulled up a stool across from me, and sat down.

  “Please. At least, tell me what I did, what they think that I did. I mean, I—”

  “No talking. Just sit there, stand there.” There was a bucket near his feet, filled with what I hoped was only scummy water; he gestured at it. “Or I douse you.”

  I wasn’t disposed to argue.

  Two old woolen blankets lay folded neatly in the corner, neither particularly clean. I wrapped one around my waist and sat down on the other, and leaned back against the wall.

  I hurt. My head was pounding, both from the pain of being yanked around by the hair and from being kicked in the head. I thought I’d cracked a rib or two. I was in better shape than the guard—he was slack-bellied, probably from too much time in Den Oroshtai guarding what was safe, and I was an acrobat—but he had handled me with contemptuous ease.

  There was a commotion over by the door leading down into the dungeon, and I could barely make out Sala’s voice. “... must tell me what they think he did? Please ... important ... tell his father.”

  I wanted to know what I’d done—well, I knew what I had done, but not what they thought I’d done. There is a difference.

  Still, I didn’t think that Lord Toshtai really would have me thrown in the dungeon for trying to put pressure on Refle with a bluffed magical spell.

  That couldn’t be it.

  On the other hand, could I have been seen leaving Refle’s workshop? Was it possible that Lord Toshtai had let me go long enough to be in last night’s performance, and then have me hauled away?

  No. That didn’t make sense. Even if I had been seen, and even if he had decided to wait out the performance, why let me have most of a night’s sleep?

  It was hard to think, with my head pounding, and I couldn’t seem to concentrate; I didn’t even see Narantir walk in until the wizard was standing in front of the bars, his belly almost pressed against the metal.

  “Young idiot,” he said. “Why did you have to kill him?”

  I didn’t ask who.

  “No, no,”
I said. “I didn’t do it. But the false magical spell we were preparing—maybe he killed himself.”

  That could be it! Rumors always spread quickly, and perhaps Refle was more nervous than he had appeared; he might have committed suicide rather than face exposure as a murderer.

  “Oh, really.” Narantir’s eyes rolled up. “You’d better find a better defense than that. You’d best have something much better than that to say to Lord Toshtai in a while. I doubt even Arefai would believe that Refle hacked himself to death with one sword while trying to defend himself with the other.”

  He pursed his mouth. “Lord Toshtai will see you at the hour of the horse. Think of something, or be prepared to be about this much shorter,” he said, holding his hands about a headslength apart.

  I heard more commotion at the door to the dungeon a few times over the next hour, and vague traces of voices I could follow.

  Sala came back again, and Fhilt, and I could every once in a while hear Gray Khuzud’s quiet, patient rasp, but that was all. Nobody was allowed in for the longest time, until the door swung open.

  It was Gray Khuzud. The dark shadows under his eyes proclaimed that he had been crying instead of sleeping, but even in his grief, he held himself like an acrobat, always in balance.

  He looked at the guard, his eyes pleading.

  The guard stood silently for a long moment. “Very well, Gray Khuzud. You can speak to him. But don’t come close enough to him to pass anything to him. You keep your hands on the wall at all times, and you leave when I tell you to. Understood?”

  “Yes.” My father was never one for wasted words.

  The guard walked down the corridor, perhaps just out of earshot, definitely not out of view.

  “Tell me about it,” Gray Khuzud said. “And quickly.”

  “What is the—”

  “Don’t argue with me, not now!” He lowered his voice. “I will tell them that I did it. But Lord Toshtai is very clever; he will want to know what I did, how I did it, and nobody is saying anything more than that somebody killed Refle in his armory, with a sword. How did you get into the armory?”