by David Hair
Kip laughed. ‘You are smart for a rat-faced Silacian sneak-thief.’
That evening the camp emptied out. Ramon could see queues of men twenty-deep outside some tents, the three Andressan magi among them. Coulder and Fenn had found fellow gamblers among the Argundians and were off carousing. He wasn’t tempted by either, though he found himself amused at how base the motivations of most men were. For himself, he had higher things on this mind. But only slightly higher. He pulled on civilian clothes and headed for the windship yards.
A trader had touched down an hour before and was unloading under the close watch of an imperial inspector. Ramon watched proceedings until the inspector left, then approached the captain, who was drinking from a flask while his men lounged on deck, looking longingly towards the whore-tents.
Ramon sauntered up. ‘Evening, Shipmaster,’ he called. He extended a hand. ‘Ramon Sensini of Retia.’
The captain paused in his drinking and grudgingly accepted a handshake. ‘Faubert, of the Fleur-Rouge. What do you want, Silacian?’
‘Oh, just seeing if you had anything for sale.’
‘Not me, lad.’
Ramon raised an eyebrow, ‘Really? No sculf-hold?’ He cocked his head knowingly.
Faubert frowned. ‘No sculf-hold here, lad.’ A sculf-hold was a hidden compartment used for smuggling. ‘I’m an honest trader.’
‘This windship is what, Andressan?’ Ramon asked. ‘There’s usually a crawl-space behind the bow-sprit, a false-bottomed hold and a shallow space the size of a mattress in the ceiling of the captain’s cabin.’
Faubert’s eyes narrowed. ‘The inspector’s been through us, lad. We’re clean.’
Ramon shook his head. ‘The inspectors don’t know shit.’
Faubert flicked his hand to his neck and tugged on a leather cord, revealing a glittering periapt. ‘You want to make a thing of this, boy?’
Ramon shrugged and revealed his own periapt. ‘No, but I could.’
Faubert looked taken aback. ‘Not many of your people have those,’ he noted carefully. ‘What do you want?’
‘Not much,’ Ramon smiled. ‘Just give me a good reason not to go and have a chat with that inspector and I’ll be on my way. He’ll confiscate all you have and clap you in irons. I’m much cheaper to get rid of.’ He pulled out his legion identity medallion. ‘Pallacios Thirteen, Tenth Maniple. I’m interested in trading.’
Faubert frowned. ‘Perhaps. How come you know Andressan ships?’
‘My familioso have dealings with Andressan smugglers.’
‘Huh, figures. All right, what do you want?’
‘What have you got?’
Faubert pursed his lips. ‘Brevian whiskey. Very strong.’
The whiskey he’d got from Giordano was long gone. Ramon grinned. ‘Sounds good. I’ll take a keg. And some of whatever it is you’re shipping back.’
Faubert shook his head. ‘Going home empty, lad.’
‘Hogswill. With respect, no trader flies empty. What is it: poppy?’
Faubert clenched his jaw. ‘Look, I like you, boy, Silacian scum or not. Let’s just acknowledge that if you dob me in to the inspectors I’ll smash your legs so badly the healers will amputate out of pity.’
Ramon grinned. ‘Would still be hassle for you, Captain Faubert. Whereas if you give me a few ounces of ground poppy and that keg of whiskey, you won’t see me again.’ He offered a hand. ‘Deal?’
Faubert scowled, then spat on his hand and they shook.
Ramon was waiting when Kip returned from the tents, an awestruck look on his face. ‘These women … unbelievable, meyn freund. The way they move their hips …’
Ramon snorted, and slipped him a thimble of amber liquid. Kip sniffed it curiously and his eyes lit up. ‘This is … what I think it is, yar?’
‘It certainly is.’ He showed the Schlessen the keg. ‘You can have one more thimble tonight, no more,’ he warned. ‘This might have to last us the entire Crusade.’ He patted Kip’s shoulder. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘Where are you going now?’ Kip frowned.
Ramon winked. ‘Can’t tell you. But stand by for some entertainment.’
*
‘I AM AN ANGEL OF KORE!’ bellowed Renn Bondeau, his voice filling the camp.
‘I AM CORINEUS ALMIGHTY!’ Seth Korion cried.
They roused the camp with their clamour. Ramon, who was awake anyway, grabbed Kip and they hurried to the scene. They were amongst the first group of legionaries and officers, who were all staring up at the roof of a tall building, looking at Bondeau and Korion, who were perched there unsteadily.
Both of the young magi were naked. In their hands were bottles of red wine, and between them was a terrified-looking Keshi girl, wrapped in a sheet and wailing. An angry Dhassan man on the ground was shouting up at the two magi. Gold stars and flashes of blue light were pulsing from Bondeau’s fingers and out of his mouth, and he was swaying impossibly at the apex of the roof. He had no balance, but somehow his gnosis was keeping him upright. ‘I AM THE EMPEROR OF ALL THINGS!’
‘I AM KORE HIMSELF,’ Seth slurred in reply.
More and more of the Thirteenth appeared, and their shock began to turn to amusement, especially when Bondeau leant over the edge and vomited, then swilled more wine.
‘Renn? Seth?’ A shocked female voice rang out over the scene as Severine Tiseme stormed into the midst of the men. ‘Get down from there!’
The soldiers burst out laughing, then backed away as the female mage whirled on them.
‘Sevvie!’ Renn called, stumbling sideways, clinging to the arm of the Keshi girl. ‘Sevvie! I wanted you to be first to know! This is …’ He looked at the girl in puzzlement. ‘This is … who are you again?’
The girl wailed and pulled herself free. They could all see her trying to get off the roof, but she was barefoot, and as naked beneath the sheet as Bondeau and Korion. ‘Help!’ she called to the men below in heavily accented Rondian.
Baltus Prenton hurried forward and held out his arms to her. ‘Jump, girl. I’ll catch you, eh.’
‘Be gentle with her,’ Bondeau slurred. ‘She’s my wife!’
‘What?’ Severine shrieked.
‘It’s okay, Sevvie,’ Bondeau called. ‘Amteh girls can marry as many times as they like!’ He staggered towards the Keshi girl. ‘I’m in love!’
The Keshi girl screamed and jumped, and Prenton deftly caught her with Air-gnosis and lowered her to the ground amidst applause from the troops. As soon as she was on her feet she fled as if every demon in Hel was after her. Her Dhassan man pelted after her.
The legionaries immediately backed away as Rufus Marle stormed onto the scene. The Secundus glared upward, his brittle façade of calm exploding. ‘Bondeau, Korion! You pair of drunken shits, get down here now!’
Seth Korion looked suddenly afraid and began stumbling about the roof as if his legs no longer worked properly. Bondeau looked at Marle belligerently. ‘Hey, you can’t talk to me like that! I’m a …’ His voice trailed off, then he noticed the bottle in his hand again. ‘Hey Secundus, you want a drink?’ He waggled the bottle. ‘It’s fuckin’ good stuff.’
Marle slammed a telekinetic punch into Bondeau’s belly and the Rondian folded in half and slid from the roof. He hit the ground, barely saved from serious injury by Prenton’s air-gnosis, but the bottle shattered, spraying porcelain fragments and red fluid everywhere. Marle hit him again, and he flew backwards, struck the wall and slumped against it. Seth Korion stared down at them, then fainted. Prenton caught him too, then slumped to the ground, panting.
Marle roared at the watching rankers, ‘Get out of here, you slugs, or you’ll be digging latrines for the rest of the fucking Moontide.’ The soldiers scattered as if from a cavalry charge. Ramon pulled Kip into the lee of a tent and stayed watching.
Severine Tiseme strode to stand over the fallen Bondeau. ‘Renn, you bastard, where have you been?’
Marle bent over him, and sniffed. He wrinkled his n
ose. ‘Opium,’ he spat. ‘There was poppy-juice in the wine. The fool.’
Severine looked aghast. ‘He wouldn’t.’
‘He did,’ Marle grunted. ‘Or someone did it to him.’ His eyes swept about.
Ramon ducked out of sight, pulling Kip with him. ‘Time to go.’
Kip looked sideways. ‘But it’s just starting to get good.’
‘No, it’s over.’ He chuckled. ‘Damned potent stuff, that poppy-juice, eh?’
Kip’s eyes widened. ‘Hey, did you—?’
Ramon winked. ‘Let’s go.’ Consider that pay-back, lads …
*
The next four days crawled by. While Duprey went to a meeting of the legion commanders and generals in the Governor’s Palace, Marle made the battle-magi drill and drill again, blasting away at targets at full gallop and sparring with each other. Prenton took Severine and Ramon, the only other magi in the Thirteenth with significant Air-gnosis, to requisition their skiffs from the main army equipment dump. They were well-used craft, battered from repeated sea-journeys and by no mean the pick of what was there, but Prenton was pleased enough. ‘I’d rather a skiff that has proved herself than one some apprentice mage in Andressea has just chipped from a log,’ he observed wryly. He’d had Severine and Ramon doing solo drills since. Ramon had to admit Severine was much better at it than he was. But she was still a bitch.
Renn tried to pin the wine-and-poppy incident on everyone in camp before being forced to forget it, while everyone laughed at him behind his back. He dumped Severine.
Result, Ramon thought.
There was more important and less pleasing business to transact. Ramon took Kip with him into the city to find the men who supplied Giordano with poppy, and other goods. They were local traders, though their sources were not; the poppy grew plentifully in Lokistan, and the harvest found its way first to Falukhabad, then to Bassaz and into the Hebb Valley. The other crops they purveyed were more innocent – pepper, cinnamon, ginger and turmeric. Pater-Retiari had no interest in spices, but Ramon had been pricing them anyway: they might be less profitable by weight, but they were entirely legal. Giordano’s passwords eventually resulted in them being taken into a secret web of passages beneath a Dom-Al’Ahm, where, after a lengthy wait presumably designed to unnerve them, they were taken before a small circle of shadowy men.
‘You currently sell a pound of poppy for one Rondian gilden and ten florin,’ Ramon stated, after curt greetings had been exchanged. He looked at the six in the circle, trying to pretend he had not spotted the others, watching from the shadows. He could almost feel the crossbows aimed at his back.
The spokesman spoke good Rondian. ‘You are well-informed, Magister.’
‘But my friend Giordano must pay one and fifty,’ Ramon noted.
The trader shrugged. ‘He is a small buyer. It is less convenient for us to break down a shipment. A bulk buyer gets a better price.’
‘And he is Rimoni,’ another man noted, with a thicker accent. ‘We have less trust of your people.’
‘I’m Silacian, not Rimoni,’ Ramon replied, wondering if they even knew there was a difference. ‘Do Rimoni cheat you?’
‘The Rondians claim that that Rimoni are untrustworthy,’ the spokesman replied.
‘I would say the same of them,’ Ramon replied. He cocked his head. ‘You undersell your product. Giordano can take bulk, and will pay one and twenty.’
‘Signor Giordano cannot afford that,’ the spokesman stated.
‘He can now.’ Ramon tapped his own chest. ‘Because of me.’
‘We do not know you,’ one of the other traders replied dismissively. ‘Do magi now create gold from thin air?’
‘In a way,’ Ramon replied. ‘I have come to an arrangement with the Tribune of the Tenth Maniple of my legion. For the next three months he is hauling the legion’s pay around with him. I have a promissory note against the full value – fifteen hundred gilden. That’s only the beginning. I’d take your entire crop if I could.’
He smiled as surprise rippled about the circle.
The spokesman snorted. ‘And what will you do when you cannot pay your soldiers?’
‘They will be,’ Ramon replied calmly.
‘You cannot come up with such money,’ the spokesman maintained.
‘I already have,’ Ramon replied. He pulled out a sheet of paper, a promissory note for the full sum, bearing the seal of the Pallas Treasury. He passed it to the spokesman, who studied it sceptically.
‘What is this phrase, “Upon Mine”?’ he frowned. ‘What does it mean?’
Ramon spread his hands. ‘It means that the liability falls upon the issuer of the note: Upon Mine. Such a clause is standard in Rimoni contracts. It tells us who we have to come after if there is a default.’
‘On this piece of paper the name is blank,’ the man noted diffidently. ‘And we only deal in cash.’
‘I will sign on behalf of backer,’ Ramon responded. ‘In Yuros, a man must by law provide for his sons. I am the illegitimate but acknowledged child of a very wealthy man.’ He pulled out a pouch from his waist and extracted a folded piece of paper with a broken seal still affixed. Only four other people had ever seen this particular piece of paper: Principal Gavius of Turm Zauberin, his mother, who could not read, his paterfamilias, and his father, who had signed it. ‘It is legally attested.’ By Pater-Retiari’s tame lawyers, on pain of losing their eyes. He handed it over.
The man reading the paper looked at it doubtfully, then his eyes bulged. He looked up at Ramon with saucer-like eyes. ‘This is true? You are—’
Ramon put a finger to his lips. ‘I like to keep it quiet.’
The man exhaled, and passed the paper around his circle of associates. ‘He will back you?’
He has no idea what sort of shit I’m about to land him in. Ramon smiled. ‘As a last resort – but he should not need to. Already my tribune is talking to the other tribunes who will be involved in transporting your produce into Yuros. He has promised them they will double their money. We have most of the funds for your first consignment raised already – in gold. All we need is for you to cancel all your other contracts—’ He stopped and thought for a second. ‘No, on second thoughts, don’t cancel them – just whittle them back by two-thirds. That way we won’t drive Giordano’s enemies to desperation.’
The Hebb traders looked at each other. ‘Do you mind if we confer?’ the spokesman asked. ‘We will need a little time, I think, for this is a big decision for us to make.’
‘Not at all, gentlemen. Take all the time you need.’
They were ushered imto a waiting room a short distance away, but the stout door had barely closed on them when Kip spun around and slammed him backwards into the wall, leaving him winded, his head reeling. A massive hand grabbed a fistful of his tunic and he was lifted bodily, his feet dangling, and pressed against the wall. The giant Schlessen’s face pressed to within an inch of his own. ‘What are you doing, Silacian?’ he growled.
‘Umphh—’ he gasped, struggling for breath, then wheezed, ‘Put me down …’
‘Not until I hear why meyn freund is importing that filthy poppy-scum.’ He loosened his hand a little so Ramon could draw breath properly.
After filling his lungs properly, he frowned. ‘I thought you knew. You were with me at Giordano’s.’
‘You spoke Rimoni there.’ Kip tightened his grip again. ‘Have you ever seen what this shit does to people? There are whole towns on the fringes of the Rondian border where my people live like animals because of it.’ He raised a fist. ‘I’m not letting you get into this.’
‘Listen – it’s not what you think, I swear,’ Ramon managed to get out. ‘I can explain – just put me down so I can breathe.’
‘Then explain,’ Kip growled, ignoring Ramon’s pleas.
‘Pater-Retiari has my mother – it’s how he controls me. I can buy her freedom, but I have to do this.’
Kip’s lip curled. ‘Your mother’s life – one woman’s lif
e – is worth all the death this slime will cause? Neyn, Ramon, not even Saint Lucia’s life is worth that.’ He shook Ramon like a doll. ‘Not good enough.’
‘Kip, I’m going to bring down Pater-Retiari with this deal. And my father, for what he did to my mother – she was fourteen when he raped her.’
‘How does trading opium achieve this?’ The big Schlessen shoved two fingers up against Ramon’s eyeballs. ‘Make me believe.’
‘Please, Kip, put me down first. I can’t explain anything like this.’
Kip glared at him, then opened his fist without warning and Ramon slid down the wall and landed on his tailbone. He spent the next few seconds writhing in pain and gasping for breath, unable to say a word.
Kip looked down at him without sympathy. ‘Talk.’
Ramon pulled himself up until he was sitting against the wall, trying to ignore his pain and concentrate. He looked around – he was fairly sure they were alone, no one who might be listening in, but he wove an illusion about them to distort sound and sight, just in case they were being spied on.
‘Allora!’ he started. ‘Listen, if they accept those promissory notes, they start to circulate and become a legitimate item of exchange. Everyone sees the Treasury Seal, and they don’t question who the backer is. They will multiply until they swallow up all the gold in Kesh.’
Kip looked sceptically at him. ‘How did you get the seal?’
‘It’s a forgery, from Pater-Retiari. But it is entirely plausible when it’s combined with this.’
He handed Kip his letter of acknowledgment.
Kip grunted. ‘I can’t read.’
‘Really? Oh …’ Ramon paused. ‘Okay.’ He told the Schlessen his father’s name, and at Kip’s raised eyebrows, he held up his hands and said fervently, ‘It’s true, I swear.’
‘Then you’re not even—’ Kip scowled. ‘You’re one of them.’
‘I’ll never be one of them,’ Ramon replied forcefully, ‘not in this life. But I’m going to shake their towers until they fall. I’m going to hit them where it really hurts – in their vaults. I’m going to destroy him, and Pater-Retiari, and those men in there too. But first I have to gain their trust, and that means I have to appear to play their game.’
