Lorin shook his head. “You were right, Reswen-vassheh. It’s a spell. I managed to find another one with almost the same wording. But that one uses fur as the ingredient.”
“What for?”
“Curing the mange.”
Reswen made a wry face. “And you don’t know what this one’s for?”
“No. And it’s going to be hard to find out. It’s not as if there are source works on magic lying all over town.”
“Well, bribe who you have to. I’ll see what I can do to help you.” Reswen looked down at the end of the market; the crowd was getting thicker still, and the noise louder. “I’ll see you later.” And he slipped out of the niche and into the crowd.
The stench of the market seemed worse than usual this morning, and perhaps not just because there was no wind. The people crammed together, talking, shouting, may have had something to do with it, adding the stink of fear to the close, hot morning. They were crammed tightest at the end of the butchers’ row, as Reswen had thought. Someone was standing on something, a box or chair, haranguing them. An old scarred, striped creature. There was something familiar about him, but Reswen could not place the face. Every now and then the crowd noise would sink away, and he would catch a few words.
“—selling us out, they’re lettin’ ... here and soon we’ll be ...”
Another swell of angry sound drowned out the end of a sentence. Reswen wanted very much to hear just what was being said, but it would be a mistake to work his way any deeper into that crowd; if they went off suddenly, there would be no way for him to get out and direct his people. If they show up before it happens! There are surely no more than three constables in this place this morning. And gods only know where they are—
He worked back out of the fringes of the crowd and went around the back of the butchers’ stalls, holding his breath as he passed the pails of offal reeking in the sun. Sanitation is a mess here, city ought to do something, he thought for about the hundredth time as he came out the far side, and found another fringe of the crowd. But the press of people was not as deep here, and he was closer to the mrem standing on the bench—it was one of the benches from the hot-meat stall at the end of the butchers’ row.
“—and they’re lettin’ in Easterners now, our high-and-mighty masters, think they can give the city away to those fine city folk, all silk and gold, when we fought for it and bled twenty years back, and now they’re gonna sell us to them, sell them our meat and meal when there’s little enough of it for us—”
The crowd growled. Reswen’s fur stood up in earnest.
He had heard that sound before, once, the time he got the rip in his ear. He wanted nothing to do with it now, but he could hardly just turn around and march back to his desk. On the other hand, there was not much he could do here, either, until his people arrived. He had heard legends about mrem with such innate authority that they could stop a crowd dead with just their voices ... but Reswen unashamedly considered himself to belong to a less unusual but more dependable school, whose power was based on superior forces and coordination. If that runner would just show up, and take the message Lorin had for him, something could still be done about this. The crowd was angry, but not that angry, not yet—
“Lloahairi!” someone shouted from the gate by the Shambles, and Reswen moaned softly in his throat. And me armed with nothing but my office, he thought. He had nothing to hand but his baton, and that was just about useless in a situation like this. “There’s Lloahairi come, Lloahairi soldiers, a couple hundred of them—”
That was all it needed. “Soldiers!” “An army!” “An invasion!” “They’re gonna—” “Foreignersl—” “Kill ‘em, kill ‘em all!” “Let’s burn the Councillory, they’re—” “No, the foreigners! Let’s—”
The crowd dissolved in the growl, stopped being peopie, became a mob. The roar went up and shook the walls.
It was right then that Reswen heard the one sound that could have cut through the noise: the high clear jingle of small bells. The sound spread right through the crowd, for where it began, the people fell suddenly silent. Every head turned to see what the noise was.
The fat priest Hiriv and his two assistants, having come through the Nigh Gate to visit the famous Niau market, were standing there in their belled robes, looking around them with utter astonishment. And just in front of them, looking just as amazed, were Laas and Deshahl.
The roar built back up again, turned to a scream, and the crowd surged forward at them and surrounded them.
Reswen looked abstractedly to one side and realized that there was a perfectly good-looking curved sword hanging in the belt of a mrem standing next to him. “Sorry, police business,” he said, and pulled the sword out of the scabbard, and when the mrem turned, outraged, and tried to stop him, Reswen cuffed the poor creature right to the ground and went over him toward the Nigh Gate. Various other mrem got in Reswen’s way as he headed in that direction; some of them did not get up again, though he was using the flat of the blade. The cry went up behind him, “A spy, a traitor—” but whoever started it apparently wasn’t willing to close with Reswen himself. Mrem fell away from him in all directions as he swatted his way toward the screams and the jingling. They had managed to get too far for his liking from the gate before being noticed; the pushing and shoving of the confused, angry, frightened crowd was in fact pushing them toward him.
Someone rose up in front of Reswen and tried to take the sword away from him. Other hands came in, claws bared, to help. Reswen clawed with his free paw. It ran into something, a feeling like dead flesh, then he realized it was dead flesh. Without thinking he pulled the thing down off the hook it was hanging on, hefted it, and threw it full in the face of the mrem trying to take his sword. The mrem screamed and went down, understandable when one has just had half a prime loin of uxan lobbed at him. Reswen blessed the unfortunate beast and plunged on over the felled mrem, hit two or three more grabbing, screaming mrem out of his way with the flat of the sword, and there was Laas, right in front of him. In passing he kicked a tent pole and jumped toward her; the pole and the canopy it was supporting came down on top of those people in the’ crowd closest behind him. To one side, Hiriv and his fellow priests were cowering. Reswen jumped at Hiriv and pushed him with bruising force right through about two-thirds of the crowd that stood between him and the Nigh Gate. Reswen found this intensely satisfying, and also rather enjoyed the screams of the people that Hiriv fell down on. The priest scrambled to his feet somehow, and made it out the gate, followed by his two assistants.
Reswen shoved Deshahl in his wake, grabbed Laas by the wrist, and started backing toward the Nigh Gate. The mob was pressing in hard now, enraged; the screams were deafening. Reswen made a pass at someone’s eyes who got too close, and several pairs of paws actually came in and grasped the sword blade and ripped the sword out of his fist, oblivious to their own blood being shed. He clawed, Laas clawed someone, another couple of screams rang right in their ears. Reswen pulled out his baton and cracked one last mrem across the face with it as the hands reached for them—
—And then gray, gray everywhere, a bluster of gray cloaks hit them from behind and rushed past them, pulled them out backwards through the gate and off to one side. Reswen sagged against the wall, panting and trembling, as at least fifty constables stormed past him and into the market through the Nigh Gate. Hiriv the priest was sitting on the ground, gasping. One of his two acolytes had fainted and the other was fanning his master desperately with his robes. Deshahl was leaning round-eyed against the wall.
Reswen looked over at Laas.
“Do you stage this kind of performance for all your ladies,” Laas said, breathing fast, “or am I a special case?”
Reswen rolled his eyes. “Someone’s been telling you my secrets,” he said, smiling at her wryly. “Shocking.” He beckoned over several of his staff.
It took an hour or so to sort everythin
g out—to drive the crowd out of the market and pacify the parts of the Shambles and the neighboring Brick Quarter to which the rioters fled. There were various arrests, including the scarred striped mrem who had been agitating from the bench. Him in particular Reswen wanted to interrogate later on. Then Reswen saw to it that the criers were sent out to let people know the real reasons why the Easterners and Lloahairi were here ... this being something that the Arpekh had seen fit to put off for a day or so. Reswen was already thinking of things he could say to the assembled lords when he saw them later, and they would be choice.
It took slightly less time to get the priest Hiriv and the rest of the Eastern party back on their feet and away. “You have saved my life,” Hiriv said, repeatedly and with rather pitiful gratitude; for all that it was true, this got fairly boring for Reswen after what promised to be innumerable repetitions. He was glad to give the gross creature and the younger priests an escort out of there. To Deshahl and Laas, he detailed another escort, suggesting that they might like to see some more of the city, in a quieter mood. Deshahl agreed effusively, turning those startling blue eyes on Reswen full force. He braced himself for the clutch at the heart that he had felt the last time. But again, to his bemusement, there was nothing, though his younger officers were vying for the chance to be in the escort, and sucking up to Reswen in a most alarming manner. He glanced at Laas. She returned the gaze, but there was nothing in her eyes but golden fire and amusement.
“Ladies,” he said at last, and they strolled off with their mooning escort. Reswen looked after them thoughtfully, determined to send word to Lorin to make sure he stayed in Haven until Deshahl returned.
The afternoon was a long and angry one. Reswen spent it in the Arpekh, and the only thing that could be said about the session afterwards was that he gave at least as good as he got. Their shock on discovering how the Lloahairi had arrived, their consternation at the news the entourage had brought, and their horror at what might have happened to relations with the East if any harm had come to the Easterners’ party in the marketplace, were all overwhelming. When Reswen left for his meeting with Shalav, he left behind him a very chastened group of Councillors. Kanesh and Aiewa in particular looked very troubled, and Reswen derived some satisfaction from that; they would neither of them have inclination for Deshahl or Laas tonight, even if they had the time. The Arpekh would be in session till late, trying to work out what the sudden change in the Lloahairi situation would mean to their trade and their security.
Evening fell at last, and though Reswen stayed later than usual in his offices at the constabulary, no summons came to him from Shalav, It’s probably been put off till tomorrow, he thought, and picked up his cloak to head downstairs and homeward. Just as well. I’m a tired mrem.
As he passed the guard’s desk downstairs, Chejiv, one of the evening-shift oct leaders, called to him, “Sir? Someone’s left a package for you.”
“Oh?” He turned away from the doorway, went back to the desk, and took the parcel from Chejiv. “Who left it?”
“One of the Easterners’ servants, sir. Said to say it was a thank-you gift.”
“Huh,” Reswen said, and put his cloak down over the desk. With one claw he slit the wrappings open. Inside was a hinged box of lasswood, very finely polished and shining with red-gold highlights.
And inside the box, on a black felt pad, lay the knife, the knife of rose and gold, that he had admired at the cutler’s on the way back from Haven. It gleamed at him softly in the sunset light that came in the constabulary door.
Reswen shut the box carefully, tucked it under his arm, said good night to Chejiv, and walked down the steps to the street, carefully, like a mrem who expects the steady world to suddenly give way under his paws, like a mrem who smells magic....
SO HE sent for Laas.
Reswen was several days about it, for he was waiting for matters to quiet down somewhat. He had rarely had quite so busy a time in his career. The Arpekh was in disarray, the city was rumbling along the edge of further riots, the city cohorts were beginning to react unhappily to the unrest and the presence of what they considered too many foreigners.... None of these latter concerns were Reswen’s fault, of course, but his now-daily meetings with the Arpekh gave him to understand that various of the less senior Councillors would have liked to blame him for, the situation. Reswen kept his counsel and let them storm. They’ll quiet down soon enough, he thought to himself again and again, that eightday, as he went home later and later from work or the Council chambers. I have other fish to fry.
He spent most of his evenings, as late as he dared, in the cellar underneath Haven, listening to matters going on upstairs. They were becoming a matter for some amusement among the H’satei staff, and there was some jockeying for the night shift. Krruth had become bored with it, but Reswen spent three nights listening to the goings-on in Deshahl’s room and becoming increasingly impressed. He had found his magician ... or rather, one of them.
“That’s the one,” Lorin had said to him, quite late on the first evening after the riot. It was another party—various of the city’s merchants were feting the Easterners as a lubrication to trade. When first “eavesdropping” on the meeting at the Councillory, and then walking by the rooms in Haven, had both proven insufficient to give Lorin a clear enough feel for where the magician among the group was hiding, Reswen had availed himself of other options. He had stuffed Lorin into constable’s formal kit (much to the wizard’s annoyance) and had brought him along to the next reception as a young adjutant being shown the ropes. Reswen made a careful point of introducing Lorin one by one to everyone, and when they came to Deshahl, Reswen actually had to brace Lorin from behind to keep him from falling over.
“Charmed,” Deshahl had said. It was usually all she had to say. Since the night of the formal reception, Deshahl had been working her way through the Arpekh with the kind of steady determination that one usually attributed to bricklayers. She had only to look at a mrem, and for hours afterward he would dote on her, follow her everywhere, do anything she said. What she usually said was, “Will you walk me back to the guest house?”—and afterwards, walking was the least of what happened. It was all mildly amusing, except when Reswen considered that he had no idea why she was doing it, and possibly might not till the damage was done.
This time, Reswen had let Lorin goggle at Deshahl a little, then marched him away on a pretext. On the way out, they passed Laas, who was chatting amiably with a Niauhu merchant’s wife. Laas flicked a friendly ear at him and said, “Business taking you away again, Reswen-vassheh?” .
“Afraid so,” Reswen said, smiling back, and pushed Lorin ahead of him into the kitchen. There he gave him first a few friendly cuffs, then a cup of wine to steady his brains down. This process took a while, but finally Lorin shook his head and said softly, “Oh, you have a problem. A charismatic.”
“Speak Niauhu, for pity’s sake, not wizard-talk. I don’t want to hear it.”
Lorin glowered at him, then rubbed one ear. “She can make anyone who sees her, uh, want her. That way.”
“I know. I wanted her too ... but it seems to have worn off me. And you don’t seem particularly affected at the moment.”
“Don’t be too sure.” Lorin sighed, then fished around under the collar of the constable’s breastplate and came up with something that looked like a piece of dried fish on a string, and smelt vaguely like it. “After I did my ‘eavesdropping,’ ” he said, “I began to wonder whether something of her sort was going on—so I took the liberty of preparing myself a nonspecific. It counteracts some of the attractive kinds of magic. This one isn’t specifically for the sexual kind, but it works somewhat....”
“It wouldn’t have worked at all if I hadn’t gotten you out of there,” Reswen said, mildly annoyed, “and I can’t go pulling the Lords Arpakh one by one out of her bed. Neither can I give them one of these, however specific you can make it, because they’
re going to want to know what I’m doing fooling around with magic, and then they’re going to want to know my source, and shortly both of us are going to have a view of the city gate that we won’t like much. What am I supposed to do about this?”
Lorin said nothing for a moment, only rubbed the cuffed ear thoughtfully. “And I’m still not sure why she’s not affecting me any longer,” Reswen said.
Lorin shook his head. “It could simply be that she’s not interested in you.”
“That won’t help me if she becomes interested,” Reswen said. “Can you make me one of these charms or whatever they are?”
“Of course,” Lorin said.
“Then you’d better do it, right away.”
Lorin nodded, then said, “With two of them, you’re going to need it.”
“Two of what?”
“Who was that we passed on the way out? The brown one with the gold eyes?”
Reswen stared at him. “Laas?”
Lorin nodded. “She’s one too. Less powerful than the other one, I think. Or maybe just less obvious. I caught a clear whiff of it as we went by.”
Reswen stood very still, caught somewhere between horror and embarrassment. “But why doesn’t she—” He stopped himself. Why doesn’t she affect me the way Deshahl did? Suddenly there was the memory of Laas leaning against the pillar, her arms folded, as they both gazed over at Deshahl, and her soft remark, “No, subtlety was never one of her talents....” And the easy way they had fallen into conversation that evening. The way she had seemed almost able, sometimes, to hear him thinking. And the way when he saw her, in the marketplace, with the mob rushing at her, he went briefly out of his mind—
How do you know she hasn’t affected you the way Deshahl did? “Less obvious,” he said—
But ... no. It can’t be. She’s charming, yes; I like her, yes; she has wit, and even though she’s honest about working for some Eastern cause, she’s cheerful about it, she—
Exiled: Keeper of the City Page 13
