by Jaine Fenn
“Yes, Manek’s hoping he might.” Manek was her older brother; her family had paid for the privilege of having a third child, and being that child had done Akbet no good.
“And he’s a scribe?”
“Fully qualified. But he’s also apprenticed to an older gentleman and this gentleman is a natural enquirer.” Akbet narrowed her eyes. “You know about the natural enquirers, yes?”
Sadakh had heard tantalising rumours of a worldwide network of scholars, not entirely dissimilar to skykin seers. If he could gain access to that level of knowledge he might yet achieve his goal, hopefully without taking another life. But rumours were all he had. Until now. “I know a little.”
Akbet looked smug, no doubt pleased to find something she knew more about than he did. “They’re very secretive. And to become one you have to be a genius. Manek’s always been so clever. The gentleman has others he is tutoring too, but I’m sure when the time comes, Manek will take on the role.”
“And do you know this gentleman’s name?”
“Manek did tell me.” She grimaced. “But I’m not meant to pass it on. Like I say, very secret.”
“Of course. But perhaps it is information an eparch might be entitled to know.”
“Holiness.” She did that dimple thing with her cheeks.
“Everything you tell me is in confidence, child. It would be our little secret.”
He had noticed that Akbet loved secrets.
Chapter 29
“She doesn’t even have a household shrine.”
Rhia looked up from her breakfast of sweetened rice at Corporal Lekem’s comment. They sat around a low table in the guesthouse’s combined dining room and parlour, which Mam Jekrey referred to as “the commons” as though she ran an inn. Other tables were occupied by a pair of merchants from Faro, a Xuin nobleman and a Zekti family from the provinces. People sat or knelt on rush mats on the floor; Rhia had not seen any stools or benches since arriving in the city. Not that she had seen much of the city so far.
“Perhaps it’s somewhere you haven’t been yet,” whispered Breen. “Like her bedroom.”
Lekem took no notice of his comrade’s innuendo. “If it’s not in the hallway, it’s not a household shrine.”
Rhia pictured the shrine at her townhouse. Around age ten she had taken an interest in Saint Ti. He was said to have brought fire down from heaven after the First cut His Children off from his grace, though to young Rhia, drawing people’s attention to a natural phenomenon hardly warranted sainthood. This led her to wonder if there was more to fire than met the eye. This in turn led to a series of experiments, encouraged by Father until they resulted in a burnt thumb and singed hair. Rhia had returned to her initial conclusion: Ti was overrated and fire was dangerous. Remembering this now brought a bittersweet warmth.
“So I guess you’re not going to their big restday service?” Breen nodded towards the centre of the city.
“No, I am not.” Lekem did not think much of the local Church’s practices.
Rhia took a spoonful of rice. In the three days they had been here she had modified her initial impression of the grain: it was soft enough if cooked properly, and it could be interesting if well seasoned. However, it had featured in every meal so far, and she foresaw herself getting bored of it.
She was already bored of the guesthouse, now she had finished writing up her notes from the journey. She had also enjoyed a much-needed bath in water drawn from the lake which, Mam Jekrey assured her, was clean enough to drink, adding rather chillingly, “Anyone caught dumping nightsoil into the lake gets two years indenture.” Rhia had not drunk the water but she had tasted it, curious to discover if it was bitter like the world-sea was said to be; it was not.
Now, with her observations from the skyland down on paper, she wanted to see the city. However, when they first arrived at the guesthouse Sorne had “suggested” that she did not go out alone. Remembering the inn in Shen, she had agreed. Given the soldiers left after breakfast and rarely returned before dinner, that meant not going out at all, so far.
Sorne said, “I think I’ll go to the service.”
Everyone looked at him in surprise. But Rhia saw her chance.
“And I shall come with you,” she said.
Sorne was not overjoyed to have Rhia’s company. But he could hardly refuse it. Who could object to something as harmless and respectable as attending the restday devotions?
Their hostess had explained that visitors could worship at the Priory of the Order of the First Light itself “along with the nobility”, her tone implying that they should be grateful for this concession. The narrow streets outside the guesthouse were crowded, presumably with people going to local services, and the constant odour of damp reeds was overlaid by incense. Overhead, gaps showed in the clouds. Perhaps the sky might finally clear tonight.
“How are you getting on with Mam Jekrey?” asked Sorne, as they entered an airy square. People were congregating under a red and yellow awning strung across its centre. Odd spots of rain still fell, and some worshippers carried waxed parasols, gaily painted with naturalistic patterns like those adorning the city’s eaves and shutters.
“Well enough.” Rhia could not resist adding, “Given the limited conversational topics.” Sorne had asked Rhia not to mention her brother to their hostess, but then again, they had not spoken much beyond functional pleasantries.
“I’m sorry if you find it stressful to maintain the illusion of being what you are not, m’lady, but we must be careful.”
“Careful of what? What are you afraid of?” Rhia bit back her words as a woman carrying a parasol painted with fishes chasing their tails slipped between them on her way to the service in the square.
“I should have said cautious, not careful. There is no specific threat.”
“I suppose there cannot be, given how little progress you and your men have made so far.”
If Sorne took offence, he gave no sign. “We must maintain our cover, and work from under it.”
She had asked both Breen and Lekem privately what they got up to during their days out in the city. Their answers were straightforward, if unhelpful: “looking over premises suitable for baking”; “speaking to a sugar merchant” and – this with a wink, from Breen – “making enquiries”.
They left the square, Sorne leading her into another alleyway. Flute music drifted down from above, a mournful air.
“So when will you act?” she asked.
“When we’re prepared. If we have to leave suddenly we won’t want to wait around between caravans.”
That did not sound reassuring. “So you expect a wait of,” she did the maths: the caravan would still be on its way back to Shen, where it had to turn round before returning, “over a week, followed by a hasty exit?”
“A potentially hasty exit, m’lady.”
They entered another square, larger and with no awning, where a man was decrying to the crowd. Rhia assumed he was preaching but he appeared to be complaining about taxes and trade restrictions. “An interesting sermon,” she muttered to Sorne as they passed.
“There is someone in this square every day, airing their grievances.”
“Really?” Rhia thought of the riot, and the now-dead priest, “Is that wise?”
“It’s not for me to judge but if you look to the left of his podium you may notice the guards, and other interested parties.”
Rhia looked. Two men in uniform stood there, looking impassive as only guards could, though a well-dressed man not quite standing with them was giving the speaker his full attention. “The guards are here to stop him speaking sedition?”
“More likely to stop the crowd attacking him if they don’t like what he’s saying. As for the other chap, he’ll make sure anything of interest gets reported back.”
“To the caliarch?”
“More likely to his eunuchs, given what I’ve been told about how things work here.”
Rhia wondered if Francin would find such a system
useful; it provided a safety valve for the disaffected and a way of monitoring potential subversion. But geography, if nothing else, would defeat such a scheme in Shen, there being no outdoor space large enough to congregate like this in the middle or lower city.
Sorne cut across the square and led her into a gap between houses, where the ground sloped down to a stubby jetty at which two flat-bottomed boats were moored. Sorne haggled with the boatmen, playing them off against each other for the best price.
The boat – a punt, these craft were called – rocked when she stepped into it. Sorne caught her arm and helped her sit, then settled next to her. The boatman stood at the back and propelled the boat with a long pole.
The next islet, Lowck, was no more than twenty yards away. The smell of the lake reasserted itself. Looking down, Rhia saw the silver turn of fish, though the water itself was dark as tea. She wondered how deep it was and then decided she would rather not know. Uncle Petren was the only member of her family who had ever learnt to swim.
They passed four more islets.
The last of the rain cleared, and the clouds thinned.
They came out facing a long, unbroken wall, two storeys high in places; the side of the priory isle. Their boatman poled them round to the front, where a dozen long jetties bustled with recent arrivals. Most appeared of high status, with excessively styled hair, fine linen clothes, green or blue painted eyelids and the flash of metal at throats and ears. She wondered if one of them was Prince Mekteph himself. There was also a sprinkling of outsiders and a few ordinary citizens.
They disembarked and followed the crowd into a huge square compound. They were near the back, and Rhia’s main view was of people’s heads. However, the acoustics were excellent. After some chanting, accompanied by reed flutes – instruments of the lower classes in Shen, but ubiquitous here – the eparch took to the stage, speaking with a slow, calm authority.
Back home, she attended services only when etiquette demanded it. Father used to say, “Most people who go to Church think they can buy a place in heaven just by standing still and getting preached at.” But the eparch’s sermon, which took the story of the Separation as its starting point, had a very different flavour. A Shenese priest might stress how the transgressions of those Children who rebelled against the First were a lesson we must never forget, lest we too be punished. The eparch’s perspective was different: if even the most blessed can fail and fall if they become arrogant and uncaring, we must always look to our own hearts and moral centre. Despite herself, Rhia was impressed.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sorne looking around, subtly checking out the layout of the compound. She had wondered why he wanted to attend the service. Afterwards, as they queued for a boat, she hissed, “He’s here, isn’t he? In the priory.”
Sorne did not have to ask who she meant. After a moment’s hesitation, he nodded.
“When were you going to admit you know where my brother is?” Rhia kept her voice low.
“Once I had confirmed it.”
“And have you?” It made sense: if Etyan had arrived destitute, the First Light might have taken him in.
“No. But we will.”
“And then?”
“Then we’ll get him out.”
Captain Sorne made it sound so simple. In his world, the soldier’s world, it probably was.
That assumed he was telling the full truth; perhaps he just said what was needed to keep her safe and content. Did the soldiers expect Etyan to resist? What were their orders if he did?
Rhia knew more about the world than Etyan ever would, not to mention having recently discovered the true nature of a heavenly body, yet she did not know the truth about her own brother. Surely Etyan could never have committed the unspeakable deed whose result she had witnessed? But what mattered here was whether the duke thought he had. That poor girl had been a respected merchant’s daughter, and her death had roused the middle and lower city. The militia’s inability to find the culprit had increased tensions. She had seen where that could lead… seen too, how once the priest blamed for the riot had met his end, those tensions ebbed, for a while at least. Bringing someone to justice for a shameful and unsolved crime would increase the duke’s popularity, help him keep order. And she would not put it past Francin to put the stability of his kingdom above family ties.
She had to be there, when they found Etyan. She had to speak to her brother before the soldiers did. She had to uncover the truth.
Chapter 30
Apparently the clanless did observe restday. Not that Dej was sure how it would differ from any other day. Their default activity appeared to be loafing in doorways and griping.
Restday didn’t get her off morning chores. But when they were done she went to sit outside the hut, enjoying some rare free time, though dark clouds threatened rain. It had already rained twice since she’d arrived.
She sniffed. Something smelled good. Her stomach gurgled. The size and quality of the nightly stews she shared with her hut-mates had reduced over the last few days.
Clanless began emerging from their huts and drifting towards the big hut. Dej waited until Lih and Vay came out, then tagged along behind. Vay gave Dej the bowl they’d grudgingly allowed as her own.
The fire in the big hut burned a type of sweet earth called peat, and it was always lit. Today it was squashed under a massive smoke-stained clay pot. People sat on the floor, avoiding the curtained-off alcoves round the edges where Mar and her attendants slept. The clanless elder sat in her chair, presiding over her people. Cal stood at her shoulder. Once everyone was settled Mar stood up. Her two attendants came forward. The men ladled out a bowl of stew from the pot, then gave it to Mar. People filed up to the cauldron to get served. Cal was second in line, confirming Dej’s suspicion that the clanless had as much of a pecking order as any bunch of squabbling dorm-mates. Cal had watched her practice a couple of times, standing to one side, arms crossed. Unlike some of the clanless, he never commented or laughed. Now, seeing her staring, he smiled. Dej smiled back then looked away, to find she was being watched herself, by Lih. The other girl wore her default half smile, half sneer.
“What?” snapped Dej, before she could catch herself.
Lih narrowed her eyes, and Dej wondered if she was about to get hit. It had to happen sooner or later. But not, apparently, in public. “Oh,” crowed Lih, “she’s got designs on our seer.” She elbowed Vay, who also smiled.
“Ah, so we have a seer; good.” Dej put gratitude in her voice, like the girls had done her a favour.
“Well,” said Vay, “he’s the closest we’ve got to a seer.”
“Not that close,” sneered Lih, and laughed.
The stew, when she finally got some, was more tubers than meat, but was hot and tasty. As she was finishing, Mar stood and announced, “The new one there is Dej,” Dej spluttered at hearing her name, looking up from her bowl as Mar continued, “though I’m sure you all know that by now. She’s another pathfinder.”
Dej straightened, but that was all the introduction she got. Looking around the assembled clanless it occurred to her that one of the women here might be her mother. If so it made no difference; skykin didn’t bother with such relationships, and the clanless seemed to have all the worst attributes of the skykin, with few of the good ones the crèche had talked about.
Once bowls had been put aside Mar opened her arms and smiled. “Treats, then.” The “treats”, handed out by her attendants, turned out to be pale starchy cakes and slivers of dried fruit. Dej had been wondering when they’d get shadowkin food. She made sure she savoured her cake and ring of dried apple.
The hunt left the next morning, led by Cal. Two dozen clanless, about a third of the total settlement, went, including Lih; she was a tracker. Vay, a healer, stayed. Kir travelled at the head of the hunt, on foot, Dej by her side. It was the first chance they’d had to speak all week, and Dej welcomed it, even if Kir didn’t appear interested in conversation.
They started do
wn the defile she’d arrived along, then cut up a side valley heading southwest, deeper into the mountains. After an initial scrabble the land opened up enough for Cal to ride the rhinobeast they’d brought to carry the spoils.
After a while Kir halted. Everyone else straggled to a stop behind them. Kir turned to Dej and said, “We turn southwards here. Which way is that?”
Dej concentrated. They were in bogland with no obvious path and the Sun was hidden behind high cloud. After a while she pointed. Kir nodded, and the group adjusted their course.
Later that morning they reached a gentle slope covered in rocks. Trackers and hunters swarmed across it and flushed out the occasional rockslither; these were larger than the one Kir had caught, with four or five segments.
In the afternoon they climbed to high pasture, and the trackers fanned out, circling a herd of grazing creatures like large hairless rabbits with hardened backplates and heavy clawed feet. Those clanless not hunting moved upslope. When Dej opened her mouth to ask Kir why everyone hung so far back, the other skykin said, “Pichons are true herd beasts. Scare one and they all know. They’ve also a good sense of smell – so stay downwind.”
Sure enough, when one pichon raised its head, the others tensed and fled. But the hunters were ready and rushed forward, bringing the animals down with bolas, like the weapon the skykin woman had used on Dej when she ran from her bonding. The pichons died with indignant squeals that set Dej’s teeth on edge.
Kir asked Dej to pathfind several more times; mostly she got it right, although on the last occasion, when they were faced with two similar routes over the shoulder of a hill, Kir shook her head at Dej’s choice. “The leftmost one,” she said shortly, and set off that way.
That night they camped on a hummocky slope, lighting a fire using peat carried by the rhinobeast. Though some of the day’s haul had gone into its panniers, there was plenty to roast and it tasted good. People chatted and laughed, even including Dej in some of their banter. When Kir went to relieve herself, Dej followed.
