A Dragon In the Palace

by William King

  “No,” I said.

  “In Northlands giant like that destroy whole villages, kick over walls, splatter all people with club. Not feel sorry for it.”

  “But cutting off its nadgers,” I said. “How can that change things so much?”

  “There’s some magic in them apparently,” Jay said. “You can get a fair sum of money in the thieves' market for a set of giant testicles.”

  I laughed out loud. “Now you really are just kidding me.”

  “No he not,” Ghoran said. “You can. Alchemists use for all sorts of things. Wizards too. I no be surprised if Grinner had bag of them.”

  Both of them looked at me as if they expected me to say something.

  “No,” I said. “She doesn’t.”

  I wondered at their stories. I had never seen Mistress Iliana do anything more to enhance her abilities than drink elixir and read books. I knew where she got her power from but then I thought about what I’d seen down in the laboratory that Master Lucas kept in the dungeons. He might have a use for such an obscene thing. It was easy to imagine him analysing the properties of giant testicles. He probably would keep them in a jar.

  “You thoughtful again,” Ghoran said.

  “It’s not a good look on you,” Jay added. I faked a punch at him and he laughed.

  We elbowed our way through the crowd, stopping to watch the snake charmers and to stare at the foreigners. There were tall black men from Skorpea. There were squat tattooed warriors from somewhere over the Great Ocean. There were men in the blue silk robes of the Courts of the Moon.

  Jay whispered that some of them were Old Ones in disguise but I seriously doubted it. None of the eldrim would want to be out with the Holy Sun in the sky. None of them would want to be anywhere near the lighthouse or the elder signs surrounding the Palace. I thought myself something of an expert given what Mistress Iliana had told me.

  I did not know which way to look. Here there was a mangy dog. Over there might be a giant or a wizard or a man claiming to be one gesturing and sending streaks of fire into the sky. I wondered how he did that. I assumed it must be magic and I was confused because I did not sense any power being used. At the time I did not know the sort of alchemy that was used to produce such effects.

  I did sense power another time and I deviated from our path, forcing Jay and Ghoran to follow me. I stopped in front of the small man amusing a group of children by making tiny figures dance within a crystal sphere. A faint flicker of power shimmered around him, so small as to be almost unnoticeable.

  Nonetheless I could tell that he was working a spell. I sensed that somehow it was connected with the glyph of light. I paused to watch and saw he was showing the kids a dragon inside a crystal ball. It looked realistic. At least it did to me, who had not then seen a full-size dragon.

  Ghoran paused and watched fascinated, as did Jay. A number of adults loafed in the afternoon light. The mage paused and said, “and that is but a sample of the wonders you will see should you visit the tent of Babaer this evening. Come one, come all. Come and witness marvels made incarnate in light.”

  I stared at him. He quite clearly possessed the power and he had a gift for showmanship but was this really a wizard? Would a mage really be reduced to being a wandering entertainer?

  At the time I did not know how many magicians of marginal talent there were in the world, far more than most people imagine. One or two of them wield only a single meagre spell. Some curdle milk. Some make figures of light appear. Others can cure warts or summon a frog. Had I known that then I would have felt sorrier for the man.

  He saw us watching him and said, “all are welcome, in the tent of Babaer. Come witness potent sorcery and mighty magic. See the enactment of tales of legend. All are welcome.”

  “Come on, let’s go,” Jay said. “We’ll be late.”

  Perhaps he feared we were going to be drawn in by the mage’s spiel. I was tempted. I wanted to see more of this magic. I wondered if I could understand it and work it myself. I was curious about everything attached to the art. Jay tugged on my arm until I moved on.

  We walked out on the southern exit of the market and found another wide sweeping road. This one was not as well-maintained as the one from the market to the Palace. The paving stones were cracked and lichen grew between them. Tall tenement blocks leaned over the street looking the worse for wear.

  If I had not been living in the Palace I would have been astounded by their sheer scale. They were at least six stories high. In places some were propped up with huge wooden posts. Similar braces kept them apart where they threatened to lean together. There were no glass windows, only shutters.

  The streets seethed with people. Stairways ran from the pavement to their main doors, crowded with men lounging and drinking and women chatting to each other. Washing dangled from lines running from building to building. Children played all around and I heard shouts even from the roofs above us.

  Many of the buildings had rickety-looking balconies. People sat on those enjoying the sun. Here and there gargoyles and animals carved into water spouts clung to the stonework. Clearly these tenements had seen better days.

  We pushed on down the street. More carts drawn by camels and horses took all manner of goods towards the market. There were flowers. There were carcasses of beef. A woman went past with two containers of milk dangling from a pole strapped across her shoulders.

  Children played kickball around her. Vendors sold sweetmeats and cooked meat and slices of sausage on buns. We passed bakeries in the cellars of the tenements. Everywhere there was the almost overwhelming scent of people living too close together.

  “Ah,” Jay said. “Home! Welcome to East Tower. The district takes its name from that old round tower up against the Far East wall there.”

  He indicated the direction with a nod of his head as if somehow, he could see the ruin through the buildings in our way. “It’s the most populous part of the city.”

  “And poorest,” Ghoran said. He walked along jauntily but his head scanned from side to side. He seemed more wary than he had been in the marketplace.

  I saw why too. In the alleys between buildings, in the doorways, young men stared at us. Many were tattooed. Many wore scarves of differing, bright colours. All of them looked at us the way a wolf looks at a sheep.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Jay said. He seemed to be speaking to convince himself. “Nothing to be worried about at all.”

  “Except robbers.” Ghoran said. “And murderers and rapists and thieves.”

  “They won’t bother us,” said Jay unconvincingly.

  “You right about that,” Ghoran said. “If they do, they sorry.”

  He sounded insanely confident.

  “You didn’t bring your axe,” Jay said.

  “No need axe,” Ghoran said. “Have dagger. Worst comes to worst, can kill with bare hands.”

  “Really?” Jay said.

  “And teeth,” Ghoran said. “I bit man’s ear off once.”

  “I didn’t need to know that,” Jay said.

  “Taste like pork,” Ghoran said. “A pig’s ear. Of course, it no cooked.”

  “You’re not going to stop, are you?” Jay said.

  “What you think?”

  One individual in particular paid a lot of attention to us. He was tall and lean and on his bare arm were multiple tattoos showing a black skull. He did not look like a Sunlander. His skin was almost as dark as mine. In particular, he seemed to be staring at Jay. In a way I was almost relieved. I was so used to people paying attention to me. “Do you know that boy?” I asked Jay, nodding in the direction I had been looking.

  “Yes, no,” Jay said. He was almost stuttering now he was so nervous.

  “Which be it?” Ghoran asked.

  “He’s a local gangster,” Jay said. “He’s with the Black Skulls.”

  “I assume that’s what the tattoos indicate,” I said.

  “Clever, dragon boy,” Ghoran said. He did not sound li
ke he was being satirical.

  “Why is he staring at you?” I asked.

  “Maybe he likes my tunic,” Jay said.

  “Is only one in city who does,” Ghoran said. “Black Skulls are ones your father owes money to?”

  “Yes,” Jay said, sounding defensive. “What of it?”

  “Nothing,” Ghoran said. “Except maybe he off to get them.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The boy raced down an alley, it was almost as if he was going to tell someone that he had seen Jay.

  “Or maybe he want beer very bad,” Ghoran said. “Maybe.”

  We pushed on down the street and the buildings became more crumbled looking and more crowded. I began to wonder how even structures so large could contain so many people. I asked Jay.

  “They sleep ten to a room,” he said. “In the corridors or on the roofs or the balconies or wherever they can find space.”

  Why would anybody would live like this? I remembered my father’s house. I had thought that we were poor. No, I knew we were poor. But we had not lived like this. So many people, so much squalor.

  “Not like this in north,” Ghoran said. “Space there.”

  “There’s work here,” Jay said. “And money and food.”

  “So?” I asked.

  “So,” Jay said, “not everybody owns their own farm. Not everybody is free. There are lots of thralls who make their way to the city. They know that if they can stay here for a year and a day, they will be free of their feudal oaths.”

  That got my attention. I was indentured to Mistress Iliana. “How does that work?” I asked.

  “It’s an old law,” Jay said. “If a man can escape from his feudal overlord or does not live on his land for more than a year and a day the connection between them is held to be broken. The city has its own laws. At least it once did and the Duke still sees fit to uphold them, despite the pressure from the noble houses.”

  “Why would he do that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jay said. “Why don’t you ask him? You’re much closer to him than I am.”

  He was obviously on edge. He studied the alley mouths with even more wariness than Ghoran. He had the look of a hunted man. I wondered if the real reason Ghoran and I had been invited to dinner was that he wanted an escort. I could understand asking Ghoran for that purpose but I was less use in a fight then Jay was.

  “I’m sorry,” Jay said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I think the Duke likes to have a bargaining chip in his negotiations with the nobles. And I think he fears riots if he changed the law. Lots of people here have nothing to lose. They might burn the city down if provoked.”

  “Would not blame them,” Ghoran said.

  Jay led us off the main street into an alley. It crossed another alley. Very soon we were lost in a labyrinth of narrow lanes and tiny streets. The buildings loomed higher overhead. There was more shadow than sunlight. Rubbish piled everywhere. People sprawled among them. One very pale beggar lay amid a dung heap. He might well have been dead. None of us dared go close enough to find out.

  Some tumbled down buildings were blackened ruins. “Fires,” Jay said. “They can burn through building in minutes. Kill hundreds sometimes. All it takes is a cooking fire to go out of control.”

  “Or someone take torch to it,” Ghoran suggested unhelpfully.

  “What sort of madman would do that?” Jay asked.

  “Plenty madmen in city. Terrible place for siege too. One catapult firing alchemistical fire,” Ghoran said, he made a gesture of a huge explosion with his hands. “Boom. That all.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Jay said. “Why don’t you?”

  “I just saying,” Ghoran said.

  We paused in front of one large, dark building. “Here we are,” Jay said. He scampered up the steps and through the cavernous doorway, disappearing into the shadows.

  Ghoran and I looked at each other.

  “In we go,” Ghoran said. We followed into the cool interior.

  “This way.” We heard Jay’s feet on the stairs above us. The wood felt springy and rotten. I feared that it might give way and send me tumbling.

  Ghoran obviously shared my suspicions but he went up the steps like a mountain goat, “Come on,” he said.

  “I’m following you,” I said. Up I went, first one floor then another and another. It felt like climbing a mountain.

  People lay in the shadowy corridors and on the stairs, keeping out of the heat. They inspected us curiously as we walked past. Sometimes, hearing our footsteps, folk stuck their heads out of doors to see who we were.

  Jay nodded to one or two of the people. They clearly recognised him. Maybe some recognised Ghoran as well because they ducked their heads back out of sight as quickly as possible. Or maybe they did it because he was a huge Northman — who knows?

  We reached the top floor and paused in front of a battered looking door. Jay knocked on it.

  “Who is it?” A woman’s voice, at once nervous and hopeful.

  “It’s me, Ma,” Jay said.

  There was the sound of locks being turned. Several of them. I wondered at that. There did not seem to have been many functioning locks on the doors as we came up but then again, Jay’s father had been a locksmith, and Jay had once been apprenticed to him.

  Once the keys stopped turning, I heard a bolt being slid. The door opened and a weary-looking middle-aged woman, features resembling Jay’s, stood in front of us. She reached out and hugged him immediately.

  “Come in, son!” She almost dragged Jay inside and as she was doing so she beckoned to Ghoran and myself, at once welcoming and fearful. I followed Ghoran in. No sooner were we inside then Jay’s mother slid the bolts into place again.

  I glanced around the tiny room. There was one window, that led out onto a none too safe looking balcony. A bed filled one corner. Bedrolls lay in other corners. There was a chamber pot.

  On the bed lay an older man. He waved at Jay. Standing in their Sunsday best dresses were two girls. One looked about my age. She had Jay’s blonde hair and rosy cheeked features and was pretty in a Sunlander way. The other girl was smaller and even thinner and she looked about three years younger than her sister. She stared at me with wide, fascinated, fearful eyes.

  “Come in, come in,” said the man on the bed. He sounded as if he had once had a booming confident voice but illness had robbed him of it. He still had the mannerisms of an extrovert but his voice sounded reedy. “It’s good to see you, son, and your friends. Come in, and be welcome.”

  We came in to the centre of the room and the girls bowed to us. The older man looked as if he wanted to rise from the bed but couldn’t. He looked as if he had been sick. I could not tell whether he would recover.

  He reminded me of my own father. I thought about the healing spell I had learned. It was meant to knit wounds and stimulate the body. I wondered if it could do anything for him. I hoped that someday I would learn sufficient magic to be able to perform such wonders.

  Jay’s mother said, “This is Donna,” she gestured to the older girl. Then she gestured to the younger one, “and this is Rachel. This is my husband, Donal. And you can call me Raina or just Ma.”

  It was heartbreaking how polite she was trying to be. She was talking for my benefit. Ghoran knew who all these people were. He had been here before.

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said. I bowed.

  “I like your friend,” Jay’s mother said. “He’s very polite.”

  “Yes, he is.” Jay said

  “What do you do, son?” Jay’s father asked. I had to consider that for a moment. These did not seem like the sort of people to be telling I was a wizard’s apprentice.

  “I’m a servant, up in the Palace.” I glanced at the other two to let them know they should not contradict me. A smile of devilment crossed Ghoran’s face but he did not say anything. Jay looked a bit disappointed that but clearly was going to go along.

  “It’s a good position, being a ser
vant in the Palace,” Donal said. “I imagine you always have plenty to eat.”

  “It does not look that way,” said Donna. “He could do with putting on a few pounds.”

  “Donna!” Jay’s mother said. Clearly, she did not like to be impolite.

  “Your skin is very dark,” Rachel said.

  “I’m from the Bleak Lands originally,” I said. “Everybody’s skin is like that there.”

  “Do they all have noses like yours too?” Rachel asked.

  “Rachel!” Jay’s mother said.

  “No,” I said. “That was given to me by someone I offended.”

  “You were in a fight?” Donna asked. She sounded interested.

  “My nose got into a fight with a nobleman’s fist.”

  I regretted saying it immediately. I saw Jay’s father shaking his head. “Bad business that. It never does to get on the wrong side of the quality.”

  “He didn’t have much choice,” Jay said. “Sir Vorster likes to pick on people and he was the chosen victim for that day. He was not being cheeky. Vorster just likes to bully folk.”

  I was touched that Jay defended me. His statement was not entirely accurate but I was not going to contradict him under the circumstances.

  “Still, best to keep a low profile,” Jay’s father said. “Never does to draw the wrong sort of attention. Believe me, I have had some experience of that.”

  He stared directly at Jay when he said it. I sensed tension there. There was bitterness in his voice. Jay’s mother immediately got between them. She put a hand on Jay’s chest imploringly. She didn’t want any arguments. “Let’s just eat,” she said. “Then we can talk.”

  Jay was silent for a moment and then nodded. Ghoran said, “Eating always good.”

  He was staring at Donna with obvious interest. She looked away, her face flushed slightly. Jay’s father gave Ghoran a hard look. Ghoran smiled back at him innocently. Perhaps he honestly thought he was not doing anything wrong.

  Jay’s mother went out onto the balcony and came in bearing a tray with roasted chicken with vegetables. There was bread and butter too.

  “That looks good, Ma,” Jay said. “Did you get a new dish?”