I wandered out of the far door, squinting in the bright sunlight. A few lads sat in the dust, playing a game of runes with a battered wooden set discarded by some man at arms. White Raven’s more my game; I never have that much luck with runes, unlike Livak. But then, she makes her own luck if needs be. I wandered past the long, low-roofed barracks where narrow windows shed scant light on the cramped bunks inside. The shrine was at the far end of the sword school compound, a small round building in the same pale sandy stone, ochre tiles spotted with lichen on an old-fashioned conical roof.
I went inside and sneezed, old incense hanging in the air having its usual effect. The ancient icon of Ostrin had a fresh Festival garland around its neck and the bowl in front of the plinth was filled with the ash of more than one incense stick recently burned in supplication. Fyle took his duties as nominal priest of the place more seriously than Serial, sword provost through my early training. He’d left the place to dust and cobwebs that made a greybeard out of the youthful Ostrin, holly staff in one hand and jug in the other.
I looked up at the statue, carved in some smooth soft grey stone I’d never been able to identify, much to my father’s amusement. Ostrin has many aspects endearing him to fighting men: god of hospitality, legends tell of him rewarding faithful servants and even taking up arms to defend dutiful folk being abused by the unworthy. When taking up arms leads to bloodshed, then we can beseech the god’s healing grace. These days I’d be more likely to see what Artifice could do for me, I thought irreverently.
Taking incense, steel and flint from the drawer in the plinth, I lit a casual offering in remembrance of Aiten. I’d failed to bring his body back, to be burned on the pyre ground behind this little shrine. I hadn’t even returned with his ashes, purified in some distant fire and safe in an urn to join in the serried ranks lining the curved walls, mute remembrance of all those men who’d died in D’Olbriot service and now took their ease in the Otherworld. I hadn’t even brought back his sword or his dagger, to lay in one of the dusty chests tucked behind the altar. But I had his amulet, sewn in my sword-belt, the token in earnest of our oaths. I’d lay that to rest here, I decided, when I’d taken suitable revenge, some day, somehow, when I’d won a price in blood with all the interest accrued out of some worthless Elietimm hide. Ostrin, Dastennin and any other god who cared to listen could be my witness, the Elietimm wouldn’t lay hands on Kellarin, not while I was still breathing.
Would Ostrin care for Laio Shek, the warlord’s wife? I smiled. What did the gods think of those who never even acknowledged them? But Laio had looked after me, according to her peculiar customs. No, Fyle hadn’t heard the half of life in the Archipelago. I couldn’t speak for every warlord, but Shek Kul wasn’t merely a barbarian. An astute man, he walked a difficult path in a dangerous world of shifting alliances and armed truce. He was capable of unholy cruelty; I’d seen that when he’d executed his errant wife, but by the stars of the Archipelago that had been justice. His other wives were no mere ornaments subject to his lusts and abuse either, but intelligent women who managed more commerce and underlings than the Sieurs of many a minor House.
But trying to convince the assembled swordsmen of Tormalin that everything they’d always believed was false would be as pointless as shouting defiance to Dastennin in the teeth of a gale. Fyle and some of the others might listen if I told them a few new truths along with a circumscribed tale confirming the Archipelagan reputation for erotic expertise was no exaggeration. Aldabreshin women certainly took many men besides their husbands to their beds, but that was their choice, not some dictate of brutal masters. Not that I’d sully the memory of my intimate dealings with Laio by laying every detail bare to salacious view.
I smiled. Next time I accompanied my mother to Halcarion’s shrine, on her market day visits to polish up my sister Kitria’s urn, I’d light another scrap of incense in hopes that the Moon Maiden would look favourably on little Laio.
I frowned. I’d have to watch my tongue if Fyle did ply me with white brandy. Laio had sent me on my way with enough gold to buy a sizeable tract of the upper city. Truth be told, I still wasn’t certain if she’d meant that as payment for services rendered.
Enough of this self-indulgence; I had more important things to occupy me without wasting time in idle reverie. I turned my back on the feathery wisps of blue smoke and walked briskly back to the sword school, remembering I’d left my jerkin by the door.
When I entered the echoing building I saw someone going through my pockets. I caught him by surprise and had him face down on the ground before he could draw breath. “Turned thief, have you?”
“Get off, Rysh!” My brother Mistal spat out a mouthful of dust.
“Not earning a living at the law, so you come picking my pocket?” I had his arms behind him and a knee in the small of his back. “Come on, get up. A soft lot, you lawyers.”
He struggled ineffectually. “Let me up and say that, you bastard.”
“Now that’s really worth a slapping, sullying our mother’s honour.” I let him go and stood, ready for his move.
He didn’t make one, brushing pale sand from the dull grey of his law court robes with one hand and waving two crumpled notes at me. “Is there any pissing point sending you letters?”
I was surprised at his anger. “I’ve been busy, Mist. You know what Festival’s like. I’ve no time to go admiring masquerade dancers with you.”
“This isn’t about god-cursed dancers!” Mistal thrust a letter at me. “Nor’s this one. I needed to see you!”
“Chain up your dog.” My pleasure at seeing my brother was fading fast. “I’ll write a reply while the wax is still warm on your letter next time, good enough? Dastennin help you if all you want is to show me is some curly lass who’s been flirting her skirts at you.”
Mistal opened his mouth then shut it with a sheepish grin. “Fair enough. But this is serious, Rysh.”
I was starting to realise it must be for him to leave the court precincts during daylight. If Mistal just wanted to enjoy the Festival’s entertainments with me, he’d have waited until the tenth chime of day ended all business with sunset.
“Not here.” A sword school is no place for a confidential discussion.
“Let’s take some air on the rope walk.” Mistal reached into his pocket for chewing leaf. I waved away his offer.
The sword school’s not far from the docks and we took a short cut through an alley lined with brothels doing good business with both seafarers and men-at-arms. Not that combining such trades was without its hazards; Stolley had lost those teeth of his somewhere hereabouts.
“What are you doing down here?” Mistal asked. “Shouldn’t you be dancing attendance on your Sieur instead of sparring with your friends?”
I smiled without humour. “Someone thought it a good joke to post a challenge in my name. Given young D’Alsennin nearly had his skull cracked like an egg yesterday, we think someone’s out for D’Olbriot heads to hang from their walls.”
Mistal looked sharply at me before scowling blackly in thought.
We came out on to a broad quayside, a few galleys tied up but quiet decks empty of all but a solitary watch. All their goods had been unloaded days earlier in good time for Festival buying sprees. This stretch of the sea front was owned by D’Olbriot, bollards and warehouse doors marked with the lynx for a good distance in either direction. Some whores were enjoying a brief respite on the paved walkways, plenty of room for them to stroll while the ropemakers were away enjoying their Festival along with everyone else. They’d be back on the first of Aft-Summer, stringing hemp between frames and posts, walking up and down as they turned handles twisting yarn into cables strong enough to hold the broad galleys secure in this wide anchorage and ropes for every lesser task. But for now we had space to walk and talk and not be overheard.
Mistal was looking with interest at a fetching little slattern with improbably auburn plaits. She was glancing back from beneath her painted eyelashes. He’s a ha
ndsome man, much my height and colouring but with the finer features our mother has given him, whereas I have inherited our father’s forthright jaw. But his looks would be of less interest to the whore than his dress; advocates are noted for their heavy purses. I nudged Mistal. “You had something important to say? Or do you want to try a rush up her frills?”
“She can wait.” He gripped the fronts of his robe in a pose lawyers seem to learn in their first season around the courts. “It’s this colony of yours, the one D’Olbriot’s mixed up in. Some people are looking very greedily out over the ocean.”
“Lescari mercenaries.” I nodded. “I’ve heard those rumours.”
“Lescari mercenaries?” Mistal looked incredulous. “They don’t know sheep shit from dried grapes. Rysh, your Sieur is going to walk into a hailstorm of law suits tomorrow and I don’t think he knows a thing about it.”
I stopped in my tracks. “Who’s bringing suit?”
“Tor Priminale for one.” Mistal raised one finger then a second. “Den Rannion for another. They’re claiming rights in this Kellarin colony on account of ancestral due.”
“How so?” We started walking again.
“As the Houses who originally backed the colony. They claim a share of the land, the minerals, timber, animals. Whatever’s been turned into coin already, they want a penny in the Mark paid up prompt.”
“Can they do that?” I wondered.
“They can make an argument for it,” Mistal said grimly. “I don’t know how strong, but regardless, it’ll tie your Sieur up in parchment tapes until Winter Solstice.”
“How do you know all this?” Lawyers are bound by oaths they hold no less dear than we swordsmen, oaths of confidentiality and good faith, sworn to Raeponin and enforced with crippling penalties if respect for the God of Justice doesn’t keep them honest.
“I was asked to submit a reading on the question,” replied Mistal scornfully. “Along with every other advocate who’s ever argued a case on rights in property. Not because they wanted my opinion but to make sure that if D’Olbriot came looking for my services I’d have to cry off on account of prior interest.” He laughed without humour. “Not that a Name like D’Olbriot is ever going to come looking for representation in the stalls where lowly advocates like me ply our trade.”
“But whoever’s behind this didn’t want to leave any rabbit hole unnetted before he sent in his ferrets.” I was getting the measure of this now. “Tor Priminale is bringing suit? But the Demoiselle Guinalle is still alive, over in Kellarin. If the Name has any rights over there, she’d be their holder. Den Fellaemion was her uncle, and I’m sure he’d have willed his portion to her.” I’d have to ask Temar about that.
“Who’s to say it’s really her?” Mistal demanded. “Who’s to say she’s still in her right mind after Saedrin knows how long under some cursed enchantment? I’ll bet my robes against Mother’s ragbag that someone’s drawing up arguments like that to set aside her claims.”
“D’Olbriot can bring any number of witnesses to vouch for her wits,” I said scornfully.
“D’Olbriot witnesses?” queried Mistal. “Anyone impartial? Wizards, perhaps? Mercenaries?”
“She’d have to present herself, wouldn’t she?” I said slowly. “Stand up in a court she’s never seen, subject to laws she knows nothing of, harried with questions she’ll struggle to understand. If she does answer, that ancient accent’ll make her sound half-witted regardless.”
“She might well prove herself competent,” Mistal allowed, “but she’ll be spending Aft-Summer and both halves of Autumn in court to do it.”
“When she’s one of the only two people with any real authority in Kellarin. How are they supposed to manage without her? I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “I should have come to see you.”
“I could have made myself clearer,” said Mistal in some regret. “But I didn’t dare put this down on paper.” He looked round but there was no one within earshot. Even the pretty little whore had found some other amusement.
“I’ll keep your name out of it when I tell the Sieur,” I promised soberly. If word of this got out no one would ever trust Mistal again and that would be the end of the legal career he’s spent so many years pursuing.
“There’s more.” Mistal sighed. “Even allowing for Justiciary oaths, there are whispers in the wind. If Tor Priminale or Den Rannion get so much as a hearing, Den Muret will bring suit at Autumn Equinox and probably Den Domesin as well.”
I gaped at him. “Both of them?”
He nodded firmly. “And you were saying your Demoiselle Tor Priminale’s so important to Kellarin? I take it Esquire D’Alsennin’s just as significant?”
“Temar?” I stopped again, boot heels rapping on the stone.
“Tor Alder are bringing suit to have the D’Alsennin Name declared extinct,” said Mistal flatly. “Apparently your Temar’s mother married some Tor Alder back in the last days of the Old Empire. She bore him two sons and when the old Sieur ’Alsennin died he left what remained of his holdings to that Tor Alder line, in trust against Temar or his sons ever coming back.”
“All signed and sealed and locked in a deed box for generations?” I almost laughed at the irony.
“You know what those ancient Houses are like,” Mistal nodded. “They save every inky scribble down from the days of Correl the Potent. It’s been Tor Alder’s title to some of the best lands around Ast and a tidy stretch of property on the south side yonder.”
I looked out over the wide bay of Toremal, iridescent sea sparkling in the sunlight, ruffed here and there with white foam. The shore came sweeping round from distant northern headlands to the far-flung sandy stretches of the southern reaches, arms spread wide to welcome ships into a safe embrace. I’d no idea what land over there had been worth in Temar’s era but nowadays the rents would likely pay for a fleet of ships to serve Kellarin and all the supplies he could load on them.
“How can they declare the Name extinct?” I demanded. “Temar’s still alive.”
“Only just, from what I heard yesterday in the tisane houses,” Mistal pointed out. “And even if some dark sorcery brought him back from the brink of death—”
“Sadrin’s stones!” I objected.
“That’s what they’re saying,” insisted Mistal. “Anyway, even if he is alive with all his wits under his hat, there’s only the one of him, an Esquire, no Sieur, no badge, no nothing as far as law codes written after the Chaos are concerned.”
“Anything else?” I hoped for a shake of Mistal’s head.
He smiled. “Just Den Thasnet arguing that D’Olbriot Land Tax should be assessed against the entire extent of Kellarin henceforth, given that House is the only beneficiary of all those resources.”
“They can go piss up a rope,” I said before I could stop myself.
“Quite possibly a case to argue.” Mistal struck a lawyerly pose on the clean-swept cobbles. “The sons of that House have been splashing their inheritance all over their boots since they could stand straight enough to hold out their pizzles, my lord Justiciar.”
I laughed briefly. “Shit, Mist, this is serious.”
“It is,” he agreed, letting his grey robe fall back on his shoulders. “And clever, because if Den Thasnet’s argument is dismissed, that just strengthens Tor Priminale and the rest.”
“If Den Thasnet’s upheld?” Was there some legal point to counter the obvious conclusion?
“Then D’Olbriot has the choice of bankrupting the House to pay the taxes or acknowledging Tor Priminale and all the others in a counter suit.” Mistal confirmed my worst suspicions.
We’d reached the far end of the quay by now, where a collection of little boats had been left high and dry by the tide. We turned back, both walking in silence, arms folded and brows knotted in thought, strides matching pace for pace.
“ ‘Clever’ and ‘Den Thasnet’ aren’t words you often use in the same breath,” I said after a long pause.
“Indeed not.” Mis
tal looked down at his hands, twisting the ring that signified his pledge to the Emperor’s justice. “They’re puppets in this, I’ll lay my oath on that.”
“So who’s pulling their strings?” I demanded angrily. “This stinks worse than cracked shellfish.”
“Which is why I wanted to warn you,” said Mistal grimly. “My oath’s supposed to protect those dealing with good faith, not shield someone using the law as a stalking horse for their own malice.”
“How long have you known about this?” I asked.
“I was asked to draw up an opinion on Festival Eve,” Mistal answered. “Which is what made me suspicious. There’s no way anyone could come up with a winning argument in that time. It had to be a tactic to spoil the spoor for anyone else.”
“But someone’s willing to pay sound coin to do that,” I pointed out. “If you’re saying every clerk and advocate got the same retainer, that’s a fair sack of gold someone’s spending.”
“And they don’t mind risking word leaking out, not at this stage,” Mistal commented. “They’re sure of themselves, which means someone’s had archivists and advocates working on this for some while.”
“Lawyers won’t break a confidence, but where do archivists and clerks go to wash library dust out of their throats?” I wondered.
“Who put the notion of a legal challenge in the Sieur Tor Priminale’s head?” queried Mistal. “And Den Rannion, Den Domesin and Den Muret, all at one and the same time? One bright clerk coming up with the idea, I could believe. Two? Perhaps in closely allied Houses, but the last time Tor Priminale and Den Rannion worked together on anything must have been your cursed colony. Four Names all going to law at the same time, every clerk in the town sent scurrying round the archives and every advocate retained? You’d need that gambler girl of yours to work out the odds against that being happenstance.”
I felt a pang at Mistal’s dismissive reference to Livak. I’d expected our older brothers Hansey and Ridner to take against her, but I’d hoped Mist would like her. I looked at him. “You say word of this will be getting out?”
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