Forgotten Stairs

by Hausladen, Blake;

  “Well,” he said while cradling a wine decanter painted with crushed pearl. “A meeting meant to impress and intimidate, and a leader known for devastating tactics. I’ll be short, if that is your preference.”

  I nodded, and the man said, “My name is Errati Saristrava, a man with no title, though some accuse me of being Alsonvale’s uncle. It was my money that the prince borrowed last year. I assume the chest you have set aside is the amount he still owes me. So leaving off the formalities of the payment, it would seem that we are at equity and unhindered. I, therefore, feel obliged to tell you that you have come to the city at perhaps the worst possible time to make the kinds of purchases you intend.”

  The crowd beyond the tent was thinning, but I could not pay it any attention. “How so? You refer to the goings-on in Bessradi. We are only just hearing about them.”

  He laughed at this and said, “That is one of the reasons, yes.”

  The crowd had vanished. All that remained was Errati’s men. I folded my arms. “And what remedy do you offer that requires wine to toast with?”

  “This?” Errati asked with an easy smile. He set the decanter on the table in front of me. “A gift from Chancellor Parsatayn. He bid me to wish you much health in your future endeavors. Your services as Prince Barok’s alsman will no longer be required.”

  A new crowd began to form outside. Bailiffs.

  Errati’s smiled flattened. “Your arrival here was as predictable as the rising sun. You must understand that Alsonvale is quite done with you and Enhedu’s dribble of northern goods. No one from Enhedu is welcome here.”

  I glanced down at the list of goods that Enhedu needed. Some of it we could not do without—the copper and the rope in particular. Perhaps we could find what we needed in Thanin or farther east in Abodeen.

  “You may go,” I said to him.

  “Go? I do not think you heard me,” he said and began to speak to me with his hands as though I were a child. “You have been discharged. I am Prince Barok’s alsman now. I go where I wish, which is here. You will bring to me—right now—all of his possessions. This tent suits me, so bring it all to me here. A carriage awaits you outside. The Chancellor wishes to review your service to the prince personally. You may take the wine.”

  I sat back—stunned. I’d walked straight into Parsatayn’s trap.

  The greencoats in the room bristled as if ready to murder the man. Errati seemed ready for this change in attitude. “Do you defy me, Leger Mertone?”

  I groped for a reply, but found none. I was utterly outmaneuvered.

  Avin’s sharp voice startled me. “Do these bailiffs you brought with you bear a warrant?”

  “And you are?” Errati asked with a voice that promised to make us slaves.

  “Nolumari Avinda Dooma,” he replied, and as if he’d conjured it from thin air, he produced the unmistakable white vest of a cannon lawyer and buttoned it on with a dazzling flurry of his fingers.

  Nolumari? Since—when?

  Errati’s anger did not show at first. He just stood there staring at the man who’d somehow gotten in his way. He outranked Avin, but a nolumari was not an easy thing to move.

  “No warrant. But I do not need one, do I? It is within my power to void the pledge of every man here … Including yours.” He said the last with a slow-smear of a smile, and my stomach sank onto my boots. The rest of what he said was known by everyone in Zoviya. “Being without a pledge of service would make you guilty of churlishness. The bailiffs would have no choice but to escort you to the Tanayon court for judgment. Twenty years of municipal service would be hard on a man of your years.”

  Errati wanted bloodshed. He had us by the throat and needed only the slightest provocation. I did not fear the thin collection of bailiffs, but defying them would summon Alsonvale’s Hemari. Bloodshed of any kind within the Kaaryon could be judged as an act of war.

  Avin could say nothing, and not a man of us moved or spoke. I opened my mouth to argue that we were landowners who did not need to carry pledges, but could neither prove it nor wanted it known. We were trapped.

  “Very well,” Errati said. “You are all dismissed from the prince’s service. If you could all please exit the tent and present yourselves to the bailiffs.”

  Regent Oklas stood up.

  A whistle appeared in Errati’s hand, and he got ready to blow it and flee.

  Erd said, “Am I correct that these men are not bound into service?”

  Errati relaxed. “Yes, Regent. My apologies. You have fallen into the company of churlish men. I beg you to withdraw so that I may conclude Prince Barok’s dealings with them. Chancellor Parsatayn would be grateful.”

  “Oh, very good,” General Oklas said with a big happy voice and turned to me. “Leger, Avinda, would you and your subordinates care to enter my service?”

  “Accepted,” Avin and I said at the same instant.

  “What a happy turn,” Erd said over Errati’s protests. “Please make yourselves ready to ride to Almidi at once.” He then turned toward Errati as though nothing at all had happened. “Alsman, you will excuse us, please?”

  “What? No, I will not! These men are going to Bessradi in chains, and I am taking possession of their goods and train in the name of Prince Barok.”

  “No … no chains for them. They are pledged to me now. If you have issues with them, please address them to me. And regarding the prince’s possessions, could you present to me the prince’s seal, please?”

  “What business could that possibly be of yours?”

  “Well, I am a servant of Prince Barok, ultimately—subject to the terms of Trace’s surrender to him. I have 600 men under my command. You have none that I see, and the amount of coin in question requires more of a guard than an alsman and a few bailiffs. I am taking charge of everything here.”

  Avin laughed and clapped his hands. There is something terrifying about the laugh of a lawyer. I’d never had one on my side before. It felt good.

  Errati balked and then shrank.

  “I’ll get the men ready to move,” I said and turned to leave.

  “You’ll take nothing of your former office with you!” Errati shouted.

  I gave this some thought, moved around the table, and handed to Errati the heavy chest of coins that the prince owed him, and set my heavy alsman’s case on top of it. The tight bundles of vellum inside detailed all of what we had come to purchase. The rest was the documentation that proved my men and I had been in the prince’s service. I needed none of it.

  “That is everything,” I said to him.

  Errati struggled with the chest while he searched through the case.

  General Oklas pointed me out of the tent, “I’m in no mood for all this chatting. Get your men moving. I mean to depart Alsonvale at once.”

  I stood and led them out. An amount of yelling filled the space we left behind. After I ordered the men to muster, Erd’s voice carried out like the growl of a bear. “You dog!”

  Errati flew through the back wall of the tent, followed by the decanter of wine. It narrowly missed his head and smashed upon the plaza’s tan bricks. Errati scrambled up and fled around the tent blowing his little whistle.

  “What happened?” I asked while the bailiffs crowded around the tent. My ready company eyed them, and they came to an uncertain halt. They were ready to storm a tent, not fight 300 professional soldiers.

  Erd said, “He offered me 5,000 weights for your head.”

  Geart said to me, “You’re not that pretty.”

  “Apparently not,” Erd said with a laugh.

  “General, you just assaulted an alsman,” I said.

  “Unless he has a friendly witness to back up his claim, I most certainly did not. All the same, let’s be out of the Kaaryon before he figures out a way to block us. Bastard Bessradi mongrel fuck of a toad piss in a puddle.”

  Avin laughed the loudest at this but shook it off quickly to say, “He’ll head straight to Urnedi to present himself and make his many
powers official. We have to beat him there.”

  Geart, Erd, and I all began to bark orders, and the camp came down with practiced speed. We formed up with the ready Tracians and started to move. The bailiffs were animated enough to insult our mothers and sisters as we rode out, but they could not summon the courage to block our combined 600. We hit the northern tithe road and did not slow until the sun was setting and our horses were dry and coughing.

  Training made the rest of the hard ride north possible. We demanded a cruel pace of them, but they kept to it. We crossed the border two days later, and on the third, we reached the end of the tithe road and started into Trace’s rough hills.

  It was only then, with the road behind us clear, that I let the men sleep a full watch. We continued on in the morning at a more tempered pace.

  The road through those hills was in worse shape than I remembered. It was barely serviceable. The only traffic upon it was goatherds moving from place to place across the over-farmed and over-logged foothills in search of less scrubby patches of earth. I’d never seen so many goat piles in my life.

  “What happened to your road?” I asked Erd.

  “Trace’s contribution to last year’s tithe was deemed insufficient by the prelature. The church withdrew support for maintenance early last year. They dug furrows in it as a parting gift. A year last and this is what’s left. It was poorly made to begin with—same goes for our bridges, sewer, harbor, and every other rotting thing.”

  “Were you able to draw upon any of the funds the Pormes had on account in Bessradi?”

  “There are none. Chancellor Parsatayn had been extending them credit. The only coins the Pormes have are what they have hidden in their vaults.”

  “Will the Pormes be able to pay the interest?” I asked and tried to recall if their failure would require Barok to take on their debt.

  “Royals have large vaults. I wish I’d found a way to pry it out of them, but I have more pressing matters to deal with in Almidi, as you know.”

  I didn’t know. I’d not paid much attention to events in Trace’s capital. I tried to cover my ignorance by coughing and looking at him attentively.

  Erd saw straight through this and sniffed angrily at me. “I have half a mind to discharge you,” he said with honest anger, but the ridiculousness of the statement cut his mood in half. We were both chuckling the next moment, and by the time we’d stopped, all seemed forgiven.

  “What else plagues you?” I asked.

  “Refugees and worse flocked to Almidi all winter looking for a route to Enhedu. It’s the reason I went south with so few men. I had to leave the rest behind to keep the peace.”

  “Can’t you put the refugees to work? You must have industries in need of unskilled hands. You mentioned your roads and bridges. Could you not use them to rebuild?”

  “Hire the churlish?” he asked and looked at me as though I’d invited him to eat a pie made of flies.

  “Yes,” I replied. “And you must also, I think, begin to take credit for Enhedu’s success. Let the story of us spread to a story of you—a new and resurgent Almidi. Speak of grand works with lust and passion—tell of how you mean to rebuild the road to Bessradi. Speak of irrigating orchards of almond trees and fields of flax. Speak of the rebirth of your spent salt mines by way of new mining methods and hard work. Make men dream, and they will come to you with more ideas than can be heard in a season.”

  “You’ll pardon my bluntness, Leger, but you are being terribly naive. Prince Barok’s success has far less to do with any grand notions or feelings of prosperity. He has succeeded because he is giving away land.”

  “General Oklas, that is not—”

  “Owning land is the only way for a man to rid himself of the worries of the Churlish Law.”

  “Fair enough,” I replied, surrendering the small point before charging on like Barok at a consortium meeting. “Couldn’t you do the same with some of the Pormes’ lands?”

  “General Mertone, Enhedu has made you simple. The rumor of Barok giving away land was considered too farfetched to be believed in Bessradi. If the Council had understood the truth of it, I am certain Prince Barok would have been severely sanctioned. He is making noblemen of slaves.”

  “That is not a fair description.”

  “Fair? You served Lord Vall. How would he describe the giving of land from the Yentif to men with no names whatsoever?”

  I sat back in the saddle. “Rot.”

  “Exactly. I am startled that none of you considered the ramifications of his pledge.”

  “As you say,” I said, trying to return to my point. “But there must be some way you could get Almidi better employed.”

  “Gold or land, Leger. That’s what it will take—and not whatever trifling sum Barok scraped together for you to take to Alsonvale. Gold by the thousand weight is what I need.”

  I looked back at my company and the vast wealth they bore.

  I nearly brought General Oklas into our confidence that moment, but that was for Barok to do. The gold and tin was Barok’s—every weight of it. The silver that belonged to the Chaukai crossed my mind as well, but the fortunes of a thousand families waited on those coins.

  The topic fell there, and we continued on toward Almidi. It was the first time during the journey that I’d been free enough for my thoughts to wander. I smiled then, dreaming of my reunion with Darmia—the warmth of her touch, her body upon mine, her smile, and her laughter in my ears. My quiet mind walked through the long list of all the reasons that I loved my wife. Her shared passion for the businesses I was building. The way she spoke my thoughts before I could. The tears we cried when Avin bound our hands and declared us man and wife. The child she bore.

  I’d be with her so soon—just a quick stay in Almidi and then home.

  The dawn saw us descending into the Kogan Valley. It was a dry place despite the river. Its tributaries were many but thin, some disappearing for parts of the year. Very little rain fell on the inland side of the Daavum Mountain. Trace lived in the mountain’s shadow.

  “Worse and worse,” Erd said and began to curse when Almidi came into view. I was not sure why but started doing the same when I spotted men and horses moving up the mountain road toward Enhedu.

  I was heartened when a troop of greencoats started out toward us from Almidi. Furstundish the Senior and Haton led them. I rode forward with Geart and Avin, and we met them in a wide, scrubby pasture. The ashen looks upon their faces erased my feelings of ease. I began to worry that Enhedu was being invaded.

  “Who is that moving up the road?” I asked.

  The question flummoxed Haton. I pointed at the mass of men and horses, but he could not summon a reply.

  I looked to Furstundish the Senior. He said, “They started up before we got here. We just arrived this morning by ship, but it is quite an assortment, as I understand. Lord Vall’s messenger, royal envoys, and representatives of the Sten and Minister. Barok’s stipend carrier, the tax collector, and as many as a thousand seeking work follow on. There is another 4,000 to 5,000 in Almidi who are working up the courage to make the attempt.”

  I did not mind this news. The only thing unexpected about it was their collective urgency. The mountain road was not something to trifle with. A late snow could lock them in for days. People would die.

  But I set thoughts of them aside. “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “Heneur has called on Enhedu for aid, and Prince Barok has pledged it. We are now at war with Aderan and the men of the Oreol. We move to relieve Heneur’s flank.”

  I clapped my hands and rubbed them together happily. This was fine news. But their expressions remained dark. “Whatever you have to tell me, it will not get any easier to say. Out with it.”

  Haton could not do it. His mouth hung open as though he was no longer capable of speech.

  “Darmia betrayed us,” Furstundish the Senior said. “She was an agent of the Hessier, and she is dead.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” I
said back. “Darmia’s not dead.”

  “Leger, I was there when it happened. She summoned the Shadow, and a great many people were nearly killed. Soma had to put a knife through her heart.”

  “No,” I said. I drew my sword and started toward him. “You are lying.”

  “Leger, stop,” he said and backed away from me.

  “Come here, you lying coward. Darmia is alive. Tell me she is alive!”

  He and his men crowded close around me with wet eyes. “You watery-eyed women. No! No!” I screamed and charged Furstundish the Senior.

  They collapsed upon me as I brought up my sword. Avin and Geart were in the mix, and I hated them for it. Geart got hold of my wrist and twisted my sword from my hand. I was about to plant a high cross on his chin when Avin began to sing. The blue light of his magic startled my eyes and my thoughts.

  The Spirit of the Earth had me suddenly in Her hands. I could not hide. I could not shrink away. My skin was washed clean, and beneath the grime I was raw. Pain poured from my heart. The blue light did not heal this hurt. It made it worse.

  “Great Spirit, why? My wife and child … my child is gone. Why?”

  The light and touch left me. The men stood close-packed around me. Their heads were bowed, and a hundred hands reached in toward me.

  My legs would not work.

  “Got you, General,” Geart said as he took hold of me.

  “I’ve got you, sir,” said another.

  “Let me fall,” I told them.

  “Got you, sir,” said a third and then the rest. They hefted me up. “We’ve got you, General.”

  Rot you all. Let me fall!

  But they would not. I thought to flee them—thought to throw myself into the sea or upon a sword. The ending of the world and the blackness of despair choked me. There was nothing left of life. I wished again and again for them to let me die.

  “Riders!” called the familiar voice of my sergeant over the rest. “Chancellery men, sir. 200 men on Akal-Tak. I think it is Errati.”

  “Orders, General?”

  Someone else answer.