Hour of the Octopus

by Joel Rosenberg

  I pulled a half dozen juggling sticks from my sack, hand-carved from a few scraps of oak that I’d been able to trade with Denred Woodcarver in exchange for a thorough description of the Mesthai woodwork on the third floor of the new donjon. Denred had been allowed in the keep only once, when he became an adult, to swear fealty to Lord Toshtai; he had little to no chance of ever being in even the residence wing of the donjon.

  I fingered their smooth sides, then set the sticks aside. Tempting, but no. Too complex; best to start with the basics.

  Take some scraps of leather that the tanner didn’t mind parting with, and add a few handfuls of dried barley filched from the kitchen, stir in a dozen evening hours with a needle and some sinew thread, and behold: a dozen juggling bags.

  I took one in my hand. It felt good; just the right heft. Not so light that it would be distracted by a breeze, not heavy enough that the weight would ever be an issue.

  I dropped three of them to the ground—another advantage of juggling bags instead of balls: bags stay where they fall—and kicked off my shoes as I put the other three into a simple shower. It’s not just that I had use for my toes. Maybe it’s my training, maybe it’s that I’m really a peasant at heart, but it feels wrong to be shod while juggling.

  Really only four moves create the simple shower: you throw a bag with your left hand and then catch a bag with your left hand; then you throw a bag with your right hand and then catch a bag with your right hand.

  Never mind that there’s a bag looping through the air toward one or another hand; it simply doesn’t matter, it’s not there yet, understand? Let the next day come when it will; let the next bag come when it will, and catch it when it comes, not before, yes?

  Catch-left throw-left catch-right throw-right. That’s all there is to it.

  When you’re showering three, don’t let your mind worry about the other bag. You just hold a bag in your right hand while you throw and catch one with your left, then you just hold a bag in your left hand while you throw and catch one in your right.

  It’s that simple. The other bag, the one in the air, doesn’t matter. When you’re showering more than three, it’s still the same—just catch-left throw-left catch-right throw-right, only quicker.

  Keep up the rhythm, and as you add bags, pick up the pace.

  That’s all there is to the simple shower. You don’t even have to put your mind on it; in fact, it’s better if you don’t think about the bag descending toward your—

  I missed; I’d lost my timing, and had hurried to get rid of the bag in my left hand, throwing it too hard and high. It happens, particularly if you don’t practice every day, or if you try and shortcut and start more than one bag.

  No: begin at the beginning.

  I toe-tossed one bag into the air and tried again. Catch-left throw-left, catch-right throw-right. Catch-left throw-left, catch-right throw-right. Better.

  I worked a second and then third bag into the juggle, and then a fourth. Just the same thing only faster, just the same thing only faster, you don’t have to keep track of the flying bags because they don’t matter; you just concentrate on the numbers that do matter, because all that matters is…

  I don’t know whether it was the juggling or not, but I could feel my kazuh flare. This time it was like a stream of water, cold and clear as a mountain creek just melting in spring, powerful and robust as a full deep river.

  It washed the mud from my mind, clarifying it all.

  One by one, I tossed three of the juggling bags toward my sack—just because you’re hurrying doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it well—and then dropped the last one over my shoulder, catching it on the back of my heel, then kicking it up, looping it high over my head, giving me barely enough time to swoop up the sack and catch it.

  I would have bowed to the phantom crowd, but that was part of the way of the Acrobat, and I wasn’t an acrobat anymore.

  I smiled. Time to see my employer, on a matter of what didn’t matter.

  And maybe—just maybe—to figure out what was going on with dinner tonight.

  Chapter 4

  Toshtai, Edelfaule, arithmetic, and other dangers.

  After a life spent on the road, sleeping under a canvas tent between towns, sharing a room with at least one member of the troupe in boarding houses in towns and villages all across True Shai, Otland, and the Ven, having my own rooms was a new experience, and one that still hadn’t palled, despite the ancestry of my room.

  Rooms, actually; my corner suite on the third floor of the service wing of the donjon consisted of two rooms, both of which seemed bare in comparison with most of the rooms in the donjon, and neither of which I had to share with anyone.

  The windows of my larger room, easily ten paces by six, faced morningwise. The new workbench that Erol Woodman had built me stood under the window; a fresh sleeping pallet to be used for social purposes, the corner of one blanket folded back, lay on the floor against the opposite, a spray of yellow flowers at the head and foot. The floor was of simply polished planks of wood, unlacquered and smooth to the foot.

  The smaller room, perhaps five paces by six, I used as a sleeping room. It was crowded with my sleeping pallet, a dressing table, washstand, and mirror, a laundry bin, plus a new addition: the huge wooden wardrobe that used to belong to the man who murdered my sister. But all I did in that room was sleep and change, and I’ve never needed much space for either.

  I tossed my morning’s clothes into the laundry bin in the corner. Not having to wash my own clothes was something it had taken me about half a heartbeat to become accustomed to.

  I ran my thumb down the side of the huge wardrobe. Beautiful Agami woodwork, larken-built, like all the best of the Agami: each panel was made of thousands of pieces of wood, some as large as a thumbnail, some as small as a splinter, each one invisibly glued into place, fitted together like the pieces of a puzzle.

  In a sense, it was a puzzle; the door was secured by a hidden catch.

  I carefully depressed a piece of wood that the tip of my little finger could barely cover; there was a slight click, and the spring-loaded door swung open. I pulled out my best semiformal tunic and leggings and set them on the dressing stand, then quickly washed myself in the washbasin before changing.

  I slipped into my new boots: dark brown cowhide, hand-burnished to a deep ruby luster, the toebox square and bourgeois, buckling tightly at the ankle. Bundi Cobbler had done well by me, even though he had charged me a good half of my first month’s salary as a down payment, and I would be paying these off well through the rains.

  Worth it, though. They felt bourgeois.

  I was ready.

  Gaining an audience with Lord Toshtai is something that’s easy only if you’re one of his two most senior and trusted retainers. In all of Den Oroshtai, only Crosta Natthan and Dun Lidjun had been given the right to walk uninvited into the presence, although both of them were far too sensible to do it often. A noble would request an appointment, either matter-of-factly, in the case of, say, Edelfaule or Lady Estrer, or with some trepidation, in the case of a junior warrior requesting a brideprice. As a rule, members of the lesser classes of the castle simply didn’t ask for appointments. It might be seen as taking on airs; and, as a rule, avoiding the lord of Den Oroshtai was just plain sensible.

  On the other hand, it’s a matter of record that Lord Toshtai once ordered the headman of Swanse village killed for being too slow in reporting how badly the rice crop had been mauled by dusty blight. I didn’t know what the punishment was for a dan’shir who delayed reporting the solution of a puzzle, even though it was an unassigned puzzle, and decided that I didn’t want to find out.

  For another thing, the Rupon execution might already have been scheduled; it would be best if the cancellation were to have a timely arrival.

  I headed out the door.

  The walls in the hall outside my room were paneled with Mesthai woodwork. Faces only, of course; the Mesthai woodcarvers are interested in no lesser su
bject matter.

  I was in a hurry, but the woodwork held me for a few moments; it was too lovely to neglect.

  Some years ago, perhaps back when Lord Toshtai was actively fathering children, my rooms had been a birthing suite, so I’d been told. (By Arefai, in fact, who found himself amused that a newly made bourgeois had been assigned the birthing suite. Arefai may have been something of a fool, but he was not a humorless one, even though his sense of humor was somewhat crude. As for me, I find the notion of a birthing suite on the third floor to be silly, not funny.)

  The Mesthai artists had carved a cycle of conception and birth, from the passion of a man and woman at the moment of a mutual climax, through the fear and excitement and nausea of pregnancy, ending with the expression of mixed pain and joy and delight on the sweaty, slick-hair-plastered face of a woman who has just given birth, the broad smile on the face of the father, and the visage of a newborn baby grasping for breath in between lusty screams. While I liked the expression on the new father’s face—his smile seemed to lay claim to the invention of fatherhood—I thought the new mother’s face was the best; I reached out a finger to touch the sweat on her cheek, but drew my hand back.

  If everyone who was affected by it touched it, within but a few decades it would be worn smooth, and that would be a shame, and a crime.

  Life contains sufficient crimes.

  “Kami Dan’Shir?” TaNai, the servitor on duty at the entrance to the residence wing of the donjon, looked up in surprise. I hadn’t known she was on duty; we were at the isn’t-it-an-amazing-coincidence-we-both-like-sitting-under-a-bolab-tree stage. I was slowly working around toward the mention of the fascinating flask of essence waiting in my outer room, enjoying the luxury of time and of privacy. When you’re an itinerant acrobat, connections must be made either quickly, during a short stay, or disjointedly, often over several years.

  This was new, and I was enjoying the process, so far.

  Surprise looked good on her; the arch of her finely shaped eyebrows complemented her deep brown eyes. If I’d had the time, I’d likely have mentioned it. She had a lovely natural creamy complexion, whitened only slightly at the edge of the forehead and along her long, gracious nose. Her striped robes—made of finely woven cotton, not of cheap silk—were cut just loose of fashionable at the swell of her breast, but tight at the slim waist.

  Best of all, lovely as she was, she looked nothing like NaRee.

  Patience, Kami Khuzud, I thought. There will be plenty of time over the weeks that our beloved lord is gone. While Toshtai was not particularly generous, it would be beneath him to notice that his bourgeois attendants would have little to do in his absence. It would not be beneath Crosta Natthan, but the chief servitor’s interest was solely in the smooth running of the castle, not in keeping busy those who ran it.

  Her long fingers reached up and tugged at the bell rope once, twice, three times. “Please go right in.”

  “Excuse me?” If I’d suddenly been promoted to the status of the most senior and trusted of retainers, somebody surely would have mentioned it, at least in passing.

  “He waits, he waits,” she said, irritated. “With Lords Minch, Edelfaule, and Arefai.”

  I smiled an apology, which she returned.

  Beyond the end of the carpet, across the tiled floor, one of the two guards at the huge double door pulled his door open and held it for me, while the other guard stepped through. I’m not generally told where in the residence Lord Toshtai is; I’m generally shown it.

  They were waiting for me in what I thought of as the morning room; it was where Lord Toshtai had invariably been having his breakfast, the few times I’d been called in to see him early, although I understood him to use it for most semiformal visiting; its small size made it more intimate than the great hall.

  The morningwise wall was openable, and in fact open, to a small private courtyard. A pretty place, filled with flowering plants, soft grasses, and fruit trees that were manicured during the night by lamplight by a team of silent gardeners.

  The outer doors, when closed and locked, were as solid and sturdy as any wall in Den Oroshtai; the inner set, of light ursawood and appliqued paper, were so translucent that in the morning they seemed to glow, and even well through the hour of the ox they were still bright enough to fill the room with creamy light.

  A throne had been brought in for Lord Minch; he sat next to Toshtai, a table at each of their elbows holding a flask and a tray of sweetmeats, a servitor behind each table waiting to refill the flask or replenish the tasties. I would have looked him over—I’ve always tried to size up strangers—but Toshtai always gets as much attention as he desires, and he wanted mine. It was all I could do to notice that Edelfaule and Arefai sat crosslegged on cushions beyond Toshtai, while Deren der Drumud, now in a soft green tunic, sat near his own lord. Each had a scabbarded sword across his lap, but that didn’t mean anything, except that the two lords were not such intimates as to neglect formality in private.

  Toshtai sat easily in his oversized throne, one flipperlike hand resting on the carefully carved curves of the arm, the other lowering a flask of essence to the warming stand on the table at his elbow.

  He was, as always, perfectly caparisoned, today in a yellow silken tunic large enough to pitch as a tent, belted neither loosely nor tightly with a broad crimson sash.

  As the ancient Scion of the Sky decreed, a member of our beloved ruling class is a ruler, a ruler is a warrior, and a warrior is never without his sword. The ancient Scion never, however, ruled as to what constituted a sword. Toshtai’s usual sword was a small dagger the size of a paring knife, its scabbard stuck through his sash in front of the massive belly that was more than simply large, but somehow majestic. His face, broad and fleshy, was freshly shaved and lightly powdered; his black hair, pulled back by clever fingers into a fine-braided warrior’s queue, had been oiled to a high gloss.

  Somebody had placed a strip of thick red rug at the proper distance from the thrones; I stopped there and dropped to my knees.

  “I understand you sent for me, Lord,” I said.

  His deepset eyes narrowed marginally. They didn’t belong in that face. They showed no hint of nobility or fierceness, no trace of compassion or forbearance, none of the calm and joviality I’ve always associated with corpulence. All they held was intelligence, and that in abundance.

  His eyebrow lifted about the width of a fingernail: for him, extreme skepticism. His hand flopped once on the arm of the chair, a fish giving its last flib: I was to rise.

  “You understand!” Edelfaule half-rose, then sat back.

  I never much cared for Lord Toshtai’s eldest son and heir. He was too much a conscious, albeit thin, imitation of his father, from the over-oiled hair down to the undersized sword. He looked like a deflated version of Toshtai; his nose was narrow, his cheeks flat, his mouth almost lipless, the skin tight across his sharp jaw. He had none of the genial naivete of his younger brother, none of the easy smile or quiet laugh, and his eyes seemed to shine with intelligence that held no wisdom.

  Or maybe not. Maybe I just didn’t like Edelfaule, and could only see in him what I wanted to.

  “You doubt Ernal Kiunote’s word on the matter?” Lord Minch put in. He sat back in his throne, crossing one crimson-clad leg over the other as his slim head cocked to one side. His tunic, cut tightly at the shoulders and hips, was of some gray textured fabric that seemed to writhe in the sunlight. A sword in a remarkably plain scabbard rested on a swordstand next to his throne; his fingers idly stroked at its hilt, as though caressing it.

  Lord Toshtai’s livery lips twitched.

  “Not for a moment, Lord,” I said, rising. “But I haven’t seen Lord Ernal Kiunote today; I was on my way to the residence to ask for an appointment when the servitor at the entry told me that Lord Toshtai had already sent for me.” I bowed my head, once. “I am at your service, Lord.”

  Edelfaule was preparing himself to take umbrage at the implicit suggestion that som
ebody might not be at the service of any member of our beloved ruling class, but Lord Toshtai nodded somberly.

  “Yes, Kami Dan’Shir. I’ve told Lord Minch about your skill with puzzles and puzzlements, and I thought you might care to demonstrate them for him.” There was a wooden box on the table next to him.

  “I’m sure that would be a good choice, Lord,” I said, hoping the barely implied impertinence would amuse him and not anger him. It was a good bet.

  Which I won. His thick lips went up a fraction at the edges; a broad smile. “It is not the only choice, eh? You think you have a puzzle more interesting than this? Is that why you wanted an audience?”

  “Partly, Lord. I also wanted to thank you for the gift of the wardrobe; it’s lovely.”

  He didn’t answer for a moment, perhaps reflecting on the meaning of me, brother to Enki Duzun, now owning a prized possession of Refle, the man who had murdered her by stealth and sabotage.

  I would have preferred to have had juggling bags made from his skin, but it was too late for that. After his murderer had finished chopping Refle up, there hadn’t been enough left for any such thing, and I had been in no position to be asking such boons, what with being endungeoned for the murder.

  “But I do have a puzzle. Well, a puzzle’s solution, Lord.” I spread my hands. “I’ve just been talking to Narantir. He tells me that he’s busy preparing a truth spell to find if Madame Rupon and her daughter stole money from Lord Toshtai and a deilist traveling through Den Oroshtai. An unnecessary truth spell, as it turns out.”

  Again, Minch cocked his head to one side. “May one ask what this is all about?” he asked, one finger toying with his split beard. His face was all bone, flesh stretched over it like a thin pastry wrapping a skull. A long white scar snaked around his ear and into his beard, but the rest of his skin was smooth and seemingly poreless.

  Toshtai lifted his index finger slightly off the horizontal. “Permit me. I have issued a new schedule of rates and taxes for taverners and the like, and in the wake of the change, it appears some money has been peculated. Using the old schedule, the widow Rupon charged a deilist fifteen coppers, three fille, six shards for room and board for the week, putting one, two, and four away for her taxes, so she said.