by Roland Green
“There’s a meat pie and some apples for now, and hard bread and cheese for an extra meal a day until they run out. Better find some place to hide the bread and cheese—”
The kender was already snatching the meat pie out of Pirvan’s hands and falling on it like a wolf on a lamb. The only sound in the attic for quite a while was the champing of the kender’s jaws, followed by the crunching as the apples vanished nearly as fast as the pie.
The kender looked ready to weep when he was done, and Pirvan hoped this was not because he was going to be sick from eating too much too fast. Instead the kender brushed crumbs off his ragged clothing and managed a shaky grin.
“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a full stomach except in a dream?”
“No, but I do know about being that hungry. Honest thieves have to miss a meal every now and then.”
“You were a thief? I thought you said you were a Knight of—”
“I was one, and now I am the other, and how I changed is too long a story to tell. I’m going to leave before anyone wonders where I am and starts asking in a way to make the innkeeper suspicious. I may not see you again, but I swear by Paladine and Kiri-Jolith that I will see justice for you set afoot.”
The kender’s grin was not so shaky now. “Just as long as it doesn’t stumble on the way. That can happen, you know.”
Pirvan had no reply to that, so he left in silence.
* * * * *
The rain continued all night and much of the next day. The day after that, it began to clear as they breasted the last hill before Istar.
The white towers of the mighty city leaped above the walls, which themselves loomed like young hills marching across the flatland like a column of soldiers. The air smelled clean and fresh, if a trifle damp, like new laundry hanging in the courtyard.
Birds twittered in the bushes along the road, tarberry, verfruit, wild strawberry, and a dozen others. It was too early for even green fruit, but blossoms filled the eye with color and the nose with sweet scents. More birds hopped about in the fields, eyes fixed on the sodden earth for worms and ground-dwelling insects flooded by the rain.
Haimya drew level with her husband. “I hope the tower knows of our coming. It gripes my bowels to stay any longer in this place than necessary.”
“If all else fails, we can claim a little of what House Encuintras still owes us, or so they said in their last letter.”
House Encuintras had begun Pirvan’s road to the Solamnic Knights, when he broke in to steal the Lady Eskaia’s dowry jewels. Due to various circumstances, he’d found himself obliged to return them immediately, which ended in his being captured by Haimya and drawn into a quest that, to begin with, had no higher aim than ransoming Haimya’s betrothed from the pirates of Crater Gulf.
“They will pay on their debt only as long as the old man lives.”
“I have not heard that his health departs,” Pirvan said. “Indeed, he may live to bury us all.”
“If your tongue wags like this,” Grimsoar put in, “that may well be a true prophecy.”
Pirvan heard a harshness and a melancholy in the big sailor’s voice that had not often been there before. “We will certainly not talk of the business of the knights. What else can bring harm?”
“I’m a sailor, not a soothsayer,” Grimsoar replied. “But if tales of you and that kender have grown wings and flown to Istar ahead of us—”
Pirvan reined in and glared. “Now who is letting a tongue wag?”
“Our company is alone on the road, with no others in hearing,” Haimya said, putting a hand on her husband’s arm. “Let us hear Grimsoar out.”
“It’s a brief tale. I met a serving maid, for business that concerned us both, sometime before dawn. She spoke of how someone had been slipping up to the attic where they kept the kender. She hoped the man would soon be on the road, before the innkeeper found a way to make trouble for him.”
Pirvan had no doubt as to the “business” between Grimsoar and the maid. What bemused him was the innkeeper’s vigilance.
“Oh, by itself that’s less sinister than you might think,” Grimsoar replied. “Any innkeeper with a place that size and customers of the sort who often come there has enough spies to penetrate the inner circle of the kingpriest if he wants to. He may not wish to trade in his guests’ secrets, but he doesn’t dare let them keep too many.”
Pirvan nodded. It would be well to learn if the innkeeper was, in fact, trading in his guest’s secrets. Threatening to reveal that might allow settling the matter of the captive kender without a public scandal—always assuming, of course, that Grimsoar was wrong and that rumors were not already creating one!
They rode on, with more rain clouds beginning to build to the south. Pirvan did not care; the lowering sky well suited his mood.
* * * * *
They approached the city along what had been known for centuries as the Great White Road. The tale ran that originally it had been paved with chalk and crushed seashells, so that it blazed white in the sun. Now it had stone slabs like any other road, and after centuries of weather, earthquakes, hooves, and animal droppings it was the same color as any other high road.
It seemed to Pirvan that the villas and even palaces of the rich spread farther beyond the ancient walls of Istar each time he came to the city. In the last few years, he had noticed veritable villages growing up in the open spaces left among the more imposing homes, for those who served the rich.
Altogether, it made one wonder how Istar would defend itself from a foe advancing overland. Pirvan thought it would not be impossible if one fortified an outer ring of the villas and tore down an inner ring of them to leave five hundred paces of open ground beyond the walls. He also did not envy anyone who had to suggest this and listen to the screams of those whose emblems of wealth were to become fortresses or rubble.
Perhaps Istar did not intend to flaunt its wealth and power in the face of the gods. But even merchants, let alone priests, should remember that the gods saw everything, so they would see this piling of luxury on wealth on pride whether men wished them to or not.
The Great White Road divided inside the last of the villas, to lead to both the Water Gate and the Minotaur Gate. The first had its name from once being on a long-since-diverted stream, the second from being where a storming party of minotaurs had been fought to an honorable draw by picked Istarian warriors, including a few Knights of Solamnia.
When they rode up to the Minotaur Gate, they saw that it had been renamed. Now it was the Warrior’s Gate, and at the crown of the archway a minotaur’s skull carved in the finest Ergothian marble jutted out over the roadway. At least Pirvan hoped the skull was marble—he did not care to think what live minotaurs would say to the display of the skull of a dead one in such a public place.
Even less did he care to think what they would do; the next storming party would not be fighting for honor, but for blood, probably not caring much whose, either.
The gate was as well guarded as ever, though the guards seemed to serve three different masters. There were the men of the watch, the soldiers of the army, and the guards of the kingpriest, still in the white tunics that had raised so many protests from the White Robe wizards, and even some from the red and black.
At least the tunics were now cut so that it was harder to mistake a temple guard for any sort of White Robe, even without the short swords hung on belts and the thrusting spears slung across their backs. The leader of the priests might call himself the kingpriest, and that louder each passing year, but the name of “king” did not yet carry with it the power—and Pirvan prayed, to any gods he thought would listen as well as those of Good, that matters would never come to that.
What came to Pirvan’s party was a pair of men of the watch, both captains by the embroidery on their tunics and cloaks, and one fairly senior, judging from the gilded hilt of his sword. They approached Pirvan, made all the gestures of honor, then said:
“Sir Pirvan of Tiradot?”
“The same, and his party. To what do I owe the honor of this greeting?” Pirvan looked pointedly back at the line of travelers beginning to accumulate behind him.
“To matters contained in this letter.” The junior captain handed a folded, sealed square of the best parchment to Pirvan. The knight looked at the seal. It was red, stamped with the open book of Gilean, chief god of Neutrality.
“He who sent this has dealt with all matters concerning your admission to the city as well,” the captain went on. “You will find him, I am told, at the Inn of the Four Courts.”
Pirvan’s eyebrows rose. He suspected who they were going to meet, but at one of the largest hostelries in all of Istar—and also one far from both the Tower of High Sorcery and the waterfront?
Holding up other travelers on lawful business, however, solved no riddles. Pirvan took the parchment and thrust it inside his tunic, then made the formal salute to both captains.
“You stand in favor with the knights for your honor, service, and courtesy.” At least until we find out what is going on here, he thought.
* * * * *
As Pirvan expected, it was Tarothin who met them in the sunny antechamber of a suite on the uppermost floor of the Inn of the Four Courts.
The courts were now, in fact, five, the owners having bought the whole street next door, closing it off and turning the houses into chambers that they rented to long-staying customers. Where the people in the houses had gone, Pirvan did not know, but this was not a cheap quarter of the city; he doubted that they were begging their bread in the streets.
“You are welcome, for all that you may think otherwise,” the wizard said. His beard showed more gray than the last time Pirvan had seen him, but he still stepped as lightly, and his staff looked as ready as ever to swing into use as a weapon against foes too petty to require a spell.
They did not need Tarothin’s pointing at his ear and then at the walls to be silent while they followed him to the innermost chamber of the four in the suite. It was also the smallest, and Pirvan noticed that the walls glittered slightly and the dinner of cold meat and pickles appeared to have been gnawed by rats. Wizard-sized rats, Pirvan suspected.
Tarothin shrugged at the question in Pirvan’s eyes. “I warded this chamber against all listening, magical or otherwise. The spell should last as long as you need to stay here, unless Jemar takes more persuading than I expect, to take you aboard his ships—”
The travelers stood gape-jawed. Pirvan hastily signaled the men-at-arms and servants to repair to an outer room. When the door was closed behind them, with Grimsoar standing before it, Pirvan fixed Tarothin with a look as friendly as a couched lance.
“We are staying here? Not in the guesthouse of the tower?”
“No. I mean, yes—this is where you stay, until Jemar—”
“Tarothin. This doubtlessly excellent inn is far from the harbor. It is far from the tower. It is close to several temples, including one that houses the barracks for half the kingpriests’ guards. We are here on business that the kingpriest and his minions may think dangerous to them. Does this suggest a logical course of action for you?”
Tarothin sighed. “Yes, and the same one I laid out for the hospitaler at the tower. He said that there was little danger to you, and more danger of giving offense to the priests by sheltering you. He has, however, sent silver to pay for all your wants here, up to five hundred towers—and you can buy most inns for not much more than—”
“What I want to know,” Grimsoar One-eye put in, “is why you didn’t come to me with some warning of all this, so that I could carry it to Pirvan.”
Tarothin’s face twisted in a the-gods-give-me-patience look. “Because before I knew any of what I have just told you, you had already departed. Nor would anyone tell me whither, so that I could send a messenger after you.”
“A messenger who might have sent a copy of your letter to the kingpriest,” Grimsoar snapped. “For the same reason, I did not wish anyone to know where I had gone.”
Tarothin sighed. “And I did not wish it known all over Istar that Tarothin of the Red Robes sought Grimsoar One-Eye, mate aboard a ship of Jemar the Fair. That also might have reached ears better left unsullied by the news.”
“By all means, let the priests keep their ears clean, to better listen to the voice of the gods,” Haimya said. Her tone would have eaten holes in the floor. “All of which, however, does precious little toward bringing us to Jemar the Fair.”
“It need not do so,” Tarothin said, “because he already knows of your coming. He and no one else among his men. He has promised to see you this very night, if it is your wish.”
“You may tell him that it is our wish indeed,” Pirvan said. Then he stepped forward and embraced Tarothin. “Pardon, old friend, but it seemed that you had made a bad matter worse.”
“Yes, and if you ever again give us such a fright, I will knock you down,” Haimya said.
“And I will dance in my climbing boots on you,” Pirvan added.
“And I will hang what is left from the maintop of Sea Leopard until the gales have stripped your flesh from your bones and your spirit from both,” Grimsoar concluded. “Meanwhile, I’m returning to Sea Leopard tond see about bringing a few trusted men here. I may even be able to speak to Jemar himself.”
“Is Eskaia sailing with him?” Haimya put in. “I have yet to hear her named, but it would be a pleasure to see her again.” Haimya had been Eskaia’s bodyguard and confidante when the lady was heiress to House Encuintras, and, though far apart most of the time, they found they had more in common after ten years of marriage and motherhood.
“No, and it’s pleasure that’s the cause,” Grimsoar said. “Or rather, the fruit of pleasure.”
Haimya laughed. “Is this their fourth or fifth?”
“Only four,” Grimsoar replied. “There is work to be done sometimes, after all.”
Haimya slipped an arm through her husband’s and briefly rested her chin on his shoulder. “You need not tell us about that.”
“No,” Pirvan said. “But if this wine is fit and safe—”
Tarothin muttered something rude.
“—then let us drink to Jemar and Eskaia. May their line be long and stout, and hold fast through all the storms of life.”
They drank, but Pirvan and Haimya were looking at one another as they put their cups to their lips, with the same sobering thought.
Jemar and Eskaia live far from Istar when they are ashore, and have ships that can take them to sea if storms blow from the temples. We and our line are bound by duty to stand in the path of the storm and try to turn it aside from the innocent.
Yet Pirvan also saw in Haimya’s eyes another thought that matched his own.
We would not love as we do, if either of us thought to do otherwise.
Chapter 7
They did not meet Jemar aboard his bannership Windsword, but in a chamber in the fortress-thick walls of a waterfront warehouse he owned through a discreet Istarian agent. Windsword was in the outer harbor, and Jemar would not have allowed a meeting that needed magical warding against unwanted listeners aboard the ship anyway.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, friend Tarothin,” the sea barbarian chief said. “The same for those who sailed with us to Crater Gulf. But there are plenty of new hands. They won’t be easy, trusting a wizard, and I wouldn’t be easy, trusting all of them to keep their mouths shut.
“Besides, I’ve grown a bit wary of spells taken to sea myself. There’s more magic wandering about the water than before, and if a ship bound by one spell hits a storm bound by another—well, I can think of two ships like that who sailed into such storms and never sailed out again.”
“I understand,” Tarothin said. “It’s the problem that some wizards have with their staff, when they want to use it for both magic and fighting. I remember once a Black Robe who tried to knock a sword out of someone’s hand with the end of his staff, and the sword had a spell bound into it t
hat the staff released.”
“Then what happened?” Pirvan said, trying not to let his impatience show.
Sea barbarian manners required some time spent discussing family, crops, successful voyages (or other kinds), and so on. Jemar was a friend, to whom Pirvan would not wittingly be rude, but he was also a friend to whom they had come in dire need and with the hot breath of enemies all but searing the backs of their necks.
“Released slowly, nothing might have happened,” Tarothin said. “Released all at once—well, they never found either body, and the hole in the road was twenty paces wide and ten deep. A vallenwood a hundred paces away went over, too, but it might have been rotten—”
“As the gods send,” Jemar said. A servant came in with salt fish, pickled vegetables, hard cakes with hot fruit sauce, and tarberry tea, wine, and brandy. When all had served themselves, Jemar seemed to consider the demands of manners met.
“Now, it seems to me that all the uproar Istar is making concerns this mysterious minotaur. So if we find a way to end his career, we will also end Istar’s excuse for embattling the north shore.
“It won’t be only Karthay that sighs as happily as a well-loved woman when that happens. A good few honest merchants with business in Solamnia and Thorbardin will be happy not to have Istarian captains looking over their shoulders.
“It’s not so bad now, with Aurhinius commanding. He has the name of an honest man. But he also likes to lead from in front, which is another good thing about him but one likely to get him killed. An arrow or a rabbit hole, and he’d be in the family vault and in his place one of those sticky-handed merchant’s boys who know how to make war pay for everyone except the men who actually shed their blood.”
Jemar sighed and rinsed his throat with a hefty gulp of brandy. “Sorry to go on like that. Let me be silent and drink, while you speak. Lady Haimya, beauty should have first place, so if it will not offend Sir Pirvan—”
