by Chris Bunch
“No.”
Lynton lay there for a few moments.
“Whatever happened to that girl?”
“She ran away with a soldier,” I said. “When I was only ten.”
“Are you married?”
“Yes,” I said. “With three children, and a fourth coming.”
“But you still like …”
“Yes. With your eyes closed.”
She was silent. I stayed motionless. Her eyes opened twice, looked at me, then closed once more. Her breathing grew regular, and still I waited. She began snoring. I covered her with a blanket, found what looked like a favorite doll, put it beside her.
I drank my water, curled on the floor, and, after a time of itemizing how many kinds of fools I was, slept.
I woke, as I’d always been able to, when I wished, about an hour before dawn. Lynton slept on, quite soundly, the doll now cuddled under the blanket.
I made myself one more sort of fool, and left all the gold from Salop’s purse on the bed next to her, silently left the room, and went out into the slow drizzle of morning.
• • •
“And what’s your business, might I ask?” the slender, almost emaciated man wearing a pair of seeing-glasses perched precariously on his nose asked.
“You buy gems?”
“So my sign indicates.”
“I’ve got some to sell,” I said. “From my uncle, who used to be a soldier, who died last week.”
I took out the stub of Herne’s sword and his bejeweled dagger. It was a rotten story, but the best I’d been able to devise.
The man looked at them carefully, then at me, then back at the weapons.
“An officer, I take it?” he said dryly.
“No, sir. But he fought against Kallio, and he told me this used to be some lord’s or other that he killed in a battle.”
The man nodded, considered the weapons.
“If,” he said carefully, “you are telling the truth, and of course I have no reason to doubt you, then these would be no doubt worth a great deal as collector’s items. More if you’d happen to remember the name of the nobleman your uncle took them from.”
I shook my head. “Been years since I heard the stories. My uncle died a month ago, and I thought I’d make the best price bringing them to the city to sell.”
“That’s correct, you’ll find more buyers in the city than in the country,” the man said. “The problem with selling them intact is that it will take longer to find the perfect customer, although there are three men I have in mind. There is a second option, which would be to remove the stones from their settings and melt down the gold and silver, which I would buy for its intrinsic value, no more.”
“That’s what I want.”
“It’s somewhat a pity to destroy works like these, even though they’re somewhat gaudy for my tastes,” the man went on, “but it also makes the gems exceedingly hard to identify.”
I pretended puzzlement. “I don’t follow you.”
“Of course you don’t. Now, if you’ll excuse me for a minute, I’d like to summon my partner.”
He smiled faintly, started for the back of the store.
“If your partner wears a gray uniform or looks like a warder,” I said, “you’ll not have the time to reap any reward.”
The man smiled once more.
“I have even less use for the agents of the law than you, if that’s imaginable,” and he disappeared behind the curtain.
He was gone almost ten minutes, and I nearly bolted. I opened the door and leaned in the entryway, pretending casualness, scanning the street in both directions for alarums.
The man came back with a woman who was simply huge, not just fat, but enormous in every dimension.
“Interesting items you offer us,” she said, and her voice matched her bulk. “Why’d you choose our shop?”
I told the truth: “It was the second one I came across. The first didn’t have anything expensive in the window, so I didn’t think it could afford my price.”
“Do you have any of the Talent?” the woman asked.
I felt a chill. “I know nothing about magic.”
The woman stroked her chins. “These gems are quite valuable,” she said. “We’ll be giving you a considerable amount of money, should we purchase them. How would you wish the transaction?”
“Gold, fairly small in denomination. Where I live, it’s hard to change big coins,” I said.
“Easy to carry, easy to dispose of,” she went on. “Are you planning on spending them here in Nicias?”
“That’s not a question I’ll answer.”
“You plan on traveling, then,” she said, as if I had satisfied her curiosity. “But you won’t tell me where.”
I shook my head, and my hand touched the grip of the sword in my sack.
“We mean no harm,” she said. “Unlike others in Nicias, who seek hard a man with long, blond hair, a man with a handsome face and a strong build.”
“Not me,” I said, trying to sound careless, “for I’ve wronged no one.”
“In these times,” the woman said, “wrong is an extremely variable judgment.”
“So I’ve seen.”
“If I said there’s a drawn bath upstairs, in our apartments, a bath intended for my own use, would you be interested?” the woman asked. “In a cabinet near it is a vial of dye, so a blond man might suddenly become black-haired. And a man with long hair might have a close-crop when he emerged from that chamber.”
I eyed her carefully. “And what is your interest in my affairs?”
She shrugged. “We like to see our customers happy.”
I found the situation suddenly amusing and laughed. “How much would this deduct from my price?”
“Nothing at all,” she said. “I would propose to give you two hundred and seventy-five …” she picked up the dagger, looked at it more closely, “… no, three hundred and seven pieces of gold.
“That’s somewhere between a quarter and a half what these jewels would fetch in the jeweler’s market. I might add that if I were dishonest, which I’m not, and a fence, which I’m not, the going rate is ten percent of value.”
“So I’d heard. I’ll take your price.”
“You haven’t heard all of it,” she went on. “Do you fear snakes?”
I looked at her in astonishment. “No more than the next sensible man, I suppose,” I answered. “I’ll slay a poisonous reptile, but the others I’ve found friend to man, those who feed on noxious insects and other reptiles.”
“That’s good,” she said. “Now, I do need to know at least in which direction you plan to travel.”
I was dizzied by this eerieness but obeyed her request, and then realized I’d not considered where I would flee to. North? I knew no one in the Delta, nor east toward the deserts. South, up the Latane, I might find some old comrades who’d shelter me. There really was but one choice for me.
“I travel to the west,” I said.
“I thought so,” she said. “The very far west, into the jungles.”
I kept my expression blank.
“Very good indeed,” she said. “Upstairs with you, and get rid of those disgusting garments. Wash yourself, and I’ll be up directly to deal with your hair.”
She saw my expression. “Don’t worry. I doubt if you can show me anything my husband here, or my six sons, haven’t already.
“I said go!” and her voice was as commanding as any drill warrant, and I obeyed.
Half an hour later, I was clean. Half an hour after that, I was shorn and black-haired. I stood, naked, and she handed me clothes. They were clean, often-mended, and the pants were those of an infantryman, the shirt homespun, the cowled cloak also that of a soldier.
“Put them on,” she ordered. I did as she told me, and she turned to her husband. “Well?”
“Released after the peace,” he said. “Wandered for a time, taking whatever job came along. Since he still has his sword and dangerous-looking kn
ife, he’s obviously a man who’s willing to deal in death.”
“Good,” she approved. “That’s a good thing for him to appear as. Such men are left alone on the roads, for they never carry silver, and taking whatever coppers they have isn’t worth the bloodshed. He’ll not be bothered much, if he keeps to himself, on his journey to Cimabue.”
I jolted.
“How did you know that?” I blurted, not the most subtle admission I’d ever made.
She looked mysterious and changed the subject. “One more thing,” she said, opening a small pouch, and taking something out. “Hold still now,” and she pressed something against my left cheekbone, ran it down to my jawline, and she muttered as she did. It felt slimy, cold, then warmed against my skin.
“What — ”
“A good soldier,” her husband said, “generally has a scar or two. Interesting thing about people,” he went on. “They’ll note something about your features and forget the rest of your face. So you’ll be seen as Scarface, and no one’ll be able to tell the shape of your nose or color of your eyes.”
“The device is one used by mummers,” the woman went on. “It’s slightly ensorcelled, so you can wash, eat, swim with it on, and not worry. The words to take it off, and remember them well, for I doubt you’ll be able to come back here for a trot to the memory, are ‘enem, enem, letek nisrap,’ said twice.” I repeated them several times in my mind.
“You have them right?”
I nodded.
“There’s bread, cheese, water downstairs, since you drink no wine,” she said. “Eat quickly, for your new employer will be here shortly.”
The thin man held out a heavy bag of coins, with a drawstring about it, which I just stared at, still shaken by the woman’s knowledge.
“Here. Hang this around your neck. Your chest is big enough to conceal your wealth. Now hurry!”
• • •
The man smelled of sweat, even though his clothes and face were clean. He was scrabbily bearded and wore heavy boots, pants, and shirt, hardly ideal for Nicias’s tropic climate.
“I’m Yakub,” he said, grinning happily. “Come meet my children out back.”
There were a dozen cages stacked on a handcart, each holding a large snake. Some coiled watchfully, some appeared to sleep, others slid from corner to corner of their cage, endlessly seeking freedom.
“Yakub,” the woman explained, “offered you six, no, eight coppers, plus your passage, if you’d help him with his wares across the Latane. The ferry’s ramps and such are treacherous, and Yakub needs a good strong man who fears nothing. I doubt if any warders will be too interested in closely examining such a cargo … or its owners.
“And it’s best you be gone, for the next ferry that crosses the whole of the Delta will leave in two hours.”
Yakub laughed, jumped up and down.
“Yes, yes, out of the city, and going once more, where we’re free, away from everything stone and dirty.” He giggled again, and I wondered if he was entirely right in the head. But no matter.
I bowed to the woman, then to her husband.
“Thank you,” I said. “I don’t know why you’ve helped me.”
“It was not choice,” she said, “but a command, but from whom you need not know. Although I would’ve given you aid regardless, with what the future will … must bring. Remember this, Damastes á Cimabue, and also remember that everything changes, and nothing is ever the same.
“There is no Wheel, contrary to what you believe, but only a Path that goes on and on, without turning back, and what we do on that Path determines its ending.”
I gaped, and she held out her hand. I took it, and her blouse came open a bit at the neck, and I saw the deadly yellow strangling cord of the Tovieti!
FOUR
THE WORN LAND
Pushing the snake cart through Nicias, I was an ideal laborer — a very strong back, and utterly no mind. I was dimly aware of the thronged streets, pushing through muttering priests, worried merchants, idling wastrels, but my brain was spinning, trying to figure out why the Tovieti had helped me. From the woman’s words, it clearly wasn’t an individual act of mercy, but a decision by someone of authority in the cult.
I didn’t understand at all. First the Tovieti had been an anarchic sect, worshiping the crystal demon Thak, strangling anyone more fortunate than they with their yellow cords and stealing their goods. They’d been bloodily suppressed, I then thought destroyed, in the riots, before Tenedos took the throne, and the Seer had personally destroyed Thak.
Ten years later, they’d reemerged, but this time without a deity or leaders, or so the emperor’s spymaster, Kutulu, had told me. They’d still promised to destroy all countries and bring down the rich and mighty, for only then could freedom and justice prevail. But this time, they worked without leaders, in small cells, saying perhaps one day a true leader would arise, but they did not need one until that day and that person came.
They’d tried to murder me twice, first at my Water Palace; the second time at my former wife’s estates at Irrigon, killing Marán’s brother, Countess Amiel Kalvedon, and our unborn child — and ending my marriage to Marán.
During the war with Maisir, I’d seen their signs occasionally — either a simple representation of their strangling cord, an upside-down U or, more often, a red circle that represented their martyrs with a nest of serpents rising from the pool of blood.
After Numantia fell to Maisir, and the emperor and I were sent to prison, I’d heard nothing more about them, nor had my warders heard of their continued existence. But clearly they were still active, and widespread as well, for how else could that huge woman have known who I was, my personal habits, and then a way to help me?
Wasn’t I their greatest enemy, after Tenedos?
In the retreat from Maisir, high in the mountains of the Disputed Lands, a bearded old man had reminded me of the prophecy at my birth, that I was the boy who rode the tiger, and the tiger would turn on me, but my life would go on, longer than I would think. But the color of my life-thread would become bright yellow and be made of silk, like the Tovieti strangling cords.
The man had finished in mystery, saying, “Why shouldn’t evil become good, if perceived good is evil?” That had been all he would say, other than his cynicism had satisfied both his duty and his sense of humor.
None of this made the slightest sense.
As the Tovieti woman had foreseen, the ferry docks at the Latane River were thronged with warders, and there were three of them stationed at the head of the gangway to our boat. The closer we got, the more Yakub muttered, cackled, laughed to himself, and, with a long feather, caressed his snakes through the cages. I began to have my suspicions about just how mad he was.
We reached the head of the line, and a warder snarled brusquely, “Names, place of landing, home?” glanced up from his tablet, saw a particularly curious cobra’s head moving sinuously back and forth, about a foot from his, screeched like a eunuch, leapt back, and almost fell overboard. Quite satisfactory.
Enraged by his show of weakness, but still terrified, he snarled incoherently, and his fellow snapped, “Get these bastards aboard, and it’ll be yer head if the cages come open,” and didn’t even glance at the tickets Yakub tried to give him.
Yakub tucked them into a pocket, murmured, “They’ll do for next time,” and told me to follow him with the cart. The ferry was crowded, but everyone made ample room for us.
“M’ beauties’ll like the center, the center,” Yakub sang happily, “no movin’, no swayin’ to upset their little hearts, don’t make ‘em angry, make ‘em want to sink their little bitey fangs into someone, don’t want that, no indeed, don’t want that ‘tall,” and we found a place for the cart tucked under the deckhouse’s overhang on the main deck, looking aft at the paddles and the empty treadmills that ran them. The belts of the mill were cut from the hides of elephants, buffaloes, oxen, then sorcerously endowed with their strength, many times magnified, so no �
��real” power was needed.
The cart’s wheels were on castors and came off easily. I lashed the cart securely to a stanchion. “Mild river, quiet river,” he chattered, “but we’ll take no chances, no, no, not and have the beauties slip out and play their games.”
He tugged at my handiwork, nodded satisfaction. “We’ll go inside and break our fasts, eh, soldier?”
I felt hunger, then saw four hard-faced Peace Guardians stalk into the mess.
“Uh … no,” I said. “I did eat. Earlier. Not very hungry.” Yakub looked at me skeptically. “A soldier, not hungry? When the fodder’s free?” Then he giggled. “Ah, ah, ah. You get sick, eh? From th’ water?” I tried to look embarrassed.
“Best thing,” he went on, “a sailor taught me, is t’ take a piece of raw pork, nice an’ greasy, an’ tie a string to it. Swaller it, run it up and down, then pull it back up, an’ y’ll heave ever’thing heavable an’ be splendid. But when y’ feel something round an’ hairy, swaller fast, for it’s yer arsehole.” He almost fell over, he was laughing so hard.
“But never you mind,” he said, “I’ll see y’ have some porridge or some. An’ you can guard th’ beauties, then.”
He scurried away. I wasn’t about to eat in front of the Guardians, not sure how good my disguise or the spell was, and didn’t fancy the possibility of being caught munching on my own scar.
I put on the air of a “don’t fool with me” near-outlaw, wrapped my sword belt first around the cage, then one leg, set my naked blade across my knees, and pulled up the cowl of my hood, pretending sleep but with my eyes open a crack.
Not far from the docks were steps down into the river, thronged with bathers in the midday sun. There was a rather pretty, naked woman, a few years younger than I, shepherding her flock of one little boy and his five equally nude sisters, none more than ten years old, around the shallows as they soaped and splashed. The woman had a golden chain about her waist, and I remembered years and years before, when I’d ridden the Tauter south to my first assignment, with the Seventeenth Lancers, when there’d been a young girl with such a chain bathing, who’d smiled invitingly. I wondered if this could be the same woman, grinned at my foolish romanticism, but wished it to be so, and that her brood marked her happiness and the more expensive chain her freedom from want.
