Glorious Angels

by Justina Robson

  There was a blur. He had got up, she realised, as she was focused close-in. She quickly reoriented just in time to see him turn the corner of the yard and vanish into the dark streets beyond. She picked him up again at the gate, clad in an oversized shirt that covered him enough to make him pass for a big man, and a farmer’s field hat that hid his ears. He loped with an impossibly long, relaxed stride, and took off across the scrubby ground towards the farms. A few calculations and she figured he was going about twenty kay an hour. Faster than any Imperial citizen could run, for sure.

  Those long, powerful legs, the foot lifting into an interestingly long lever, striding on the toes, the whole bouncy, taut power of the limb springing almost effortlessly as each step launched him forward and then recoiled… She must look up the kinesiology of that… But then other and more pressing questions pushed this aside.

  What was he doing here? Why was he there, unannounced but nearly visible? If she had seen him then others would too. The army must know or they’d have shot him. They seemed to have employed him instead. So he was clearly here at the general’s and the Empress’s command. But why was such a valuable and interesting, not to say paradigm-shattering specimen, not with the Magisterium, as an honoured guest, a miraculous visitor, instead of being used like a common soldier? She didn’t understand it. What was going on? Some play of the military against the Magisterium? It made no sense.

  She determined to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible and that meant only one thing. It was time to pay a visit to Shrazade. Tralane folded up the goggles and looked at them with sadness. Shrazade would talk for a suitable payment. Tralane didn’t need to search house or bank to know that the only item worth the information was already in her hands. But she badly didn’t want to lose the goggles. They were one of the few things, the few keys, to the whole lost artefacture of her line. If she gave them away who knew if she would ever get another? There must be something else.

  As soon as she thought this to herself she saw it. A crystal, one of the perfectly cut lozenges from the array, filled with the cacophony of the storms. She had kept one, claiming it broke.

  She’d kept it for research because damned if she’d be a part of something she didn’t understand, especially under duress, especially in the war. It lay in an upper attic inside one of the abandoned research benches, the relic of yet one more fruitless project she couldn’t give up and couldn’t progress. Regardless of whether or not Shrazade had the knowledge to understand what it was the fact that it was a military-grade weapon component would be more than enough to make it attractive to her magpie intelligence. And Tralane betted that for every thing in existence Shrazade would always know a woman-who-knew. It was because of Shrazade’s unique connections, her personal and interpersonal web, that Tralane knew her.

  It was always a dodgy business though, netting up with unknowns, even via a trusted proxy. Shrazade’s reputation was that of the absolutely confidential proxy. Her wealth and power rested on that. Tralane would have to trust her

  Without a second’s hesitation she collected the crystal and her satchel and exited the house at a run, shoving her worn leather hat down over her hair as she closed the door after her.

  ISABEAU

  Isabeau watched her mother leave and wondered where she was off to that could be so important. From her bedroom windows the upper city was easy to see but the lower city was shrouded and she finally felt the surprise stab of envy at the viewing goggles she hadn’t felt before as she looked down now and saw nothing but the cloudy blur. One up to Tralane, she’d finally made something work that was actually useful. Isabeau considered this as she bathed and set her hair in elaborate braids.

  She dressed in her scholar’s robes that marked her out as a first-class student of a restrictive, monastic college; fine, pale grey fitted even around her face, and dark slate blue on the top in a heavy but graceful habit. A starched wimple and hood completed the outfit, rendering her absolutely covered. A thin lawn veil draped across her nose, weighted to hang straight so that she could breathe but her nose and mouth were concealed. Only her large grey eyes were visible and the hood shadow hid them from most angles.

  Since she was fourteen Isabeau had taken to wearing the full adornment with great satisfaction in its anonymity and absolute, immaculate charter. She was treated with respect and deference, even by older women, and permitted to pass unnoticed socially, which was the real benefit. Nobody paid attention to scholars’ wanderings or pursuits. Eccentricity or devotion to knowledge were presumed as standard and thousands of girls preceding Isabeau had guaranteed her status by their unswerving adherence to their vows. You could say anything to a scholar without fear of it getting around. You could safely ignore them. You would be beaten senseless by the College Guard if you tried to interfere with them and could be executed for impeding them by the Empress’ standing edict.

  At school, in her adoptive home and on official business Isabeau also maintained her Sorority’s particular devotion to serenity and purity of all kinds but she had a few hours free of all that, as always on a Setday at this time, and after gathering her scroll satchel and her writing kit she headed out on foot, as she had promised, for the Library.

  On the broad street between the family mansions rising up in terraced strata to the heights of the palace at the peak there was the usual daily traffic of servants, tradesmen and freewomen flowing steadily upspiral and downspiral in the late afternoon warmth. A narrow passage opened up for Isabeau, thanks to her robes, allowing her an easy way downspiral to the large open squares where the mansions gave way to institutes, clubs, galleries and meeting houses.

  Isabeau left the main spiral and crossed the Sun Plaza, enjoying the light between the stalls selling drinks and cakes, the tables of gamesplayers and the quiet buzz of conversations under the awnings where the more openly social Sororities gathered in fine weather. She hurried across into the dark shadow cast by the huge, temple-like structure of the Library itself but turned at the last moment into the colonnades along its flanks, walking quickly in near darkness and shade that was so deep it was almost cold.

  A lone drunken soldier, resting after a night out in the unfamiliar heights of the upper city, was the only witness to her passing down from the Library’s rear gates, across the Sainted Yards and into the alleys that serviced the twin streets of Rose and Gathering. Cleaners, cooks and wait staff rested under white shades, warming themselves at small braziers as they ate, chewed cola and smoked or talked between shifts. Isabeau passed along to the frontages and entered the end shop – a fabric emporium. Inside she made no pretence of browsing but walked straight through, between vast arcades of towering, vivid bolts of all colours, shot with gold, silver and copper. She paid a silent tip to the owner and passed through the curtain at the back, along the narrow passage and into the storage room – a path she would never have come across were it not for a happy bookish accident in which the route and the manner were written down in the code of a Sorority she wasn’t supposed to know about but had discovered shortly after donning the habits and inspecting the darker recesses of the Library proper.

  The storage room had several doors leading to the alley and one behind five never-to-be-sold bolts of unfashionable flowered calico: quite invisible to any who did not know it was there.

  Isabeu slid carefully, silently, demurely under the flowery, pink and white angle of the calico bolts and undid the door latch with the prescribed code. She stepped through into darkness and closed it behind her. In the confines of the tiny room her breath and movements became loud, massive. The pitch dark and closeness was absolute – nobody knew who or where she was at this moment. She lingered, absorbing the feeling along with the cedar smell of the wood. This was hers, all hers. She was hers, all hers.

  Then she undid the exit door and walked through into a slender and dim corridor, unused save for those who came and went as she did. The wood here that lined everything was smooth, dry and delicious with varnish. Thick carpet r
endered her slippers absolutely noiseless. A dim, single light gleamed from a crimson nook at the end, revealing that the way was clear beyond it. Just before the sliding door that would lead out a recess provided a bench, a chair and a wardrobe, all empty. There was a small table with a central well containing dry biscuits and fortified wine. Towels were racked on the wall in neat rows. A basket stood at the side, empty and waiting for laundry. A few damp footprints on the cotton floor rug were the only evidence that anyone had been here lately. Isabeau measured her own bare foot against them as she removed her shoes and stockings – someone taller and larger than she. It pleased her to see the prints. She sent a blessing of fortune in prayer to whoever had left them.

  With the same precision she had used to dress she shed her outer robe and hung it up. It was cool in the hidden room but as she removed the headdress and placed it on the bench she felt only how delicious it was to have walked and been warm and then to remove the heavy clothing and be cool. She didn’t think overly much about what she was about to do. There was no need to.

  The tightly fitted facemask – silvery grey – she left in place beneath the veil, attached to the braids of her hair. Since she carried nothing worthwhile except her scroll cases and it was inconceivable anyone who came here would interfere with those she placed her underthings neatly on the bench. Just before she left she selected a white ribbon from a hanging rack and tied it about her waist loosely, then keyed the sequence into the brass panel beside the sliding door.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BORZE

  Fadurant Borze found reclining difficult to master. It was all wrong. Not relaxed enough for lying down and not alert enough for sitting, it left him at a loss as to know whether he ought to be ready to get up or too uncomfortable to go to sleep. However, the steam room had nothing but recliners and so he was forced to perch edgily there, up on one elbow, pretending to be at his ease enough to chat with other men. Fortunately, several other high-ranking officers were there all struggling equally with the trials of being off duty and in the bath house, a civilised and civilian pastime if ever there was one. Without appearing to cluster they leaned around together and discussed the ever-important war, the state of the army and the difficulties of managing mercenaries in the rank and file. After about twenty minutes of this each of them was sufficiently soothed to retreat into their own contemplation, oiling and scraping. Fadurant, as always at this moment, was reminded inescapably of baboons.

  The room saw a steady passage of naked men of every kind making their way on the slow pilgrimage. It began with tea and the washing of feet, then progressed through the tiled scrub room with its steady scent of herbal soap and the low grunts of those being washed by professional hands; salt and sponges, brushes and lots of elbow grease, the splatter of vast mounds of white suds on to the tile in regular gouts, the swish of the sweeper, the spray of water in jets across the floor a rushing cascade, gutters swilling over with the excess of cleanliness, the walls dripping with lengths of flowering vines that shimmered in the mist, their leaves bursting with freshening airs. After this pummelling came the steam rooms, immaculate white tile. Here the men lay about pinkened, glowing, breathing the thick vapours heavy with healthgiving essential oils. Beyond that the lesser steam vaults offered places to pause and linger, talk business, catch up on the news and enjoy the womanless peace. Here they oiled their smoothed hides, had their nails attended to and took the spa waters in long iced sips or slept wrapped like mummies in acres of towelling until attendants woke them and ushered them onwards to the cold plunge, yet more towels and then the upper floors for dining or onward to the labyrinthine interior for sex, or further grooming, plucking, sugaring, haircuts.

  It was a tradition to attend the baths at least once a week and Fadurant kept to this minimum on principle. More would signal a taste for luxury and less would render him socially unapproachable, not to say a poor role model for the men. As the hour for steam slowly passed, he played the usual game of pretending that this time he would simply have a haircut and go, knowing all the while that he was instead going to walk the circle.

  Meanwhile, he noted the comings and goings in an idle way until he saw a tall, dark-skinned figure step out of the soap room and almost instantly fix upon him with a knowing, amused glance.

  Zharazin Mazhd wore the red wristband of the bath house’s highest cadre of clientele and his hair in a bound queue of black cloth to protect it as it soaked in some fancy liquor. Fadurant, with the receding hairline and close-cropped grizzle he preferred, thought it looked like way too much effort but then Mazhd worked all of his erotic capital and Fadurant needed none. Judging by the colour of him and the run of water he had just been waxed from the neck down, but his face went unshaven. The stubble on his jaw was finely trimmed, its semblance of carelessness only improving the overall look. Mazhd had eyes that appeared as blue-black as his hair unless seen in direct light for the dark chocolate they really were. Calculating eyes made for scanning vast horizons in brilliant sunlight but just as good at scanning ballrooms and midnight alleys. He was a civilian but to Fadurant nonetheless both ally and liability as part of the Infomancy – their loyalties lay with the Empire, rather than Glimshard in particular, and right now that was a conflicted loyalty, Fadurant guessed. For Fadurant it was city first, everything else second. Whoever Mazhd rubbed along with he would first rub along with the Empress Torada and her interests or Borze would have his head.

  They greeted each other with the careless familiarity of deadly enemies and Mazhd took the recliner opposite Fadurant which had just been vacated. Mazhd was fitter and leaner looking than any of Fadurant’s men, his out-Empire Plains ancestry obvious in his girlishly small waist and surprisingly broad shoulders. His muscles were defined, cut and wrapped around his bones like taut ropes – they made Fadurant weary and impatient; he would never look like that again, even if he did have the daily hours to spare on flinging himself through the necessary training. As if all that were not enough, few in the city were as well-favoured of face as Mazhd either, thanks to some happy accident of crossbreeding plains business. All that high cheek, prominent forehead, square-jawed bone and then that sculpted mouth that would make a woman look hard but made a man look powerful. A charming camouflage for a mind he knew to be quite peculiar.

  Fadurant didn’t care about these things – had learned not to as it would never pay – but he knew how much it was all worth in the world, and in the palace, and he was used to accounting for everything and knowing who stood where. He and Mazhd took in each other’s relative values, decided upon their equal merits and nodded graciously to each other.

  ‘Strange times,’ Mazhd offered, swinging his long legs up on to the bench and leaning back. He was shorter than Fadurant and his feet didn’t hang off the edge, the bastard.

  Fadurant grunted assent, knowing he wasn’t going to get a free tip but detecting the suggestion that there may be things worth knowing which his official channels did not provide. What else was Mazhd for?

  He glanced around the room, more a signal than a real check – he knew there were no reformists around at this hour of the day. Their knees were on their prayerstools at home or in the temple as twilight descended. This was why he chose to bathe now.

  ‘You must have some knowledge of the north,’ Fadurant said, knowing many ears were turned their way. ‘Is it worth my engaging your archivists?’

  ‘On any subject, of course,’ Mazhd said easily, leaning back on the rest and closing his eyes. Steam collected in a sheen of perfect droplets all over him as it ran in hairy, irregular rivulets over Fadurant’s unkempt limbs.

  Fadurant brushed a trickle from his nose and sniffed. ‘Send me a boy with the details. My office will arrange payments at the usual rates.’

  Mazhd turned his head, dark eyes, dark lashes – that combination the ticket to so many secrets, so many beds. Fadurant felt that he was looking at an exotic creature at the zoo but this time not a baboon; he wasn’t sure what Mazhd reminded him
of. If it weren’t for the fact that Mazhd was well known as a swordsman and a barehand fighter the gulf between them would have been impassable. The bath house was full of ladies’ men that Borze couldn’t and didn’t want to understand. They were like overgrown boys with soft figures, studied manners and lots of talk. Women liked them for some reason and that was that.

  ‘Someone is making forbidden things. Someone is hiding in the city.’

  The words were so unexpected Borze took a moment to process them. Mazhd had spoken so softly he might as well have been whispering in Borze’s ear. At the same instant the floor boy came through and flung a bucket of cleaner beneath the benches with a watery rush that drowned most of the line out. Perfect timing.

  ‘Here?’

  Mazhd made an almost undetectable shaking motion of his head. No. He mouthed a word then in silence, drowned again by the cleaner’s second sluicing. ‘Protection.’

  Fadurant put his head back on the recliner and stared into the swirling steam. If Mazhd would not speak without guarantees of safety then it was something he had to know, but he had no power to save Mazhd from anybody capable of threatening him. Sufficient money usually did the trick, but Mazhd did not play cat and mouse so he was not holding out for a better deal by asking for the impossible. Mazhd’s information must include people in high places. Probably higher than Borze. But also within reach, or else the suggestion would have been pointless. He thought of the mercenaries so swiftly employed, without references beyond basic tests.

  They did not speak again. Borze would have to plan on how he could repay this service. He could not end up on the wrong end of a kindness from the Infomancy.

  With any last shred of hope for rest extinguished Fadurant got off the cursed recliner, gathered his towel up and left. He turned into the circle’s dim corridor without a hesitation or a second thought.