by Juliet Kemp
“We do not have time for this,” Beckett said, coming to stand behind Reb.
“I can stand out here making a racket for a really long time, you know, if you don’t tell me,” the messenger said, their chin going up as they glanced over Reb’s shoulder at Beckett. “Jonas is my friend. And every minute you put me off is a minute I get more convinced that there’s something badly wrong here.”
Another few curious looks from passers by. Reb weighed up the options. They didn’t have time to argue this out right now. And they certainly didn’t have time to deal with a ruckus in the street. They could show this person the message and then shoo them out again.
“Fine,” she said, grudgingly, and stood back to let the messenger in, nearly bumping into Beckett before they took a step back as well. “Who are you, anyway?”
“Asa. I’m a friend of Jonas’. I’ve run messages for you, come to that, remember? And I met you,” they nodded at Beckett, then looked embarrassed. ““But I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”
Couldn’t have known it, in fact, Reb realised, given that Asa must have met Beckett before Jonas brought them here, to Reb’s own door. And hadn’t that worked out well for her? She clenched her teeth.
“Beckett. And that is Reb, and Marcia.”
Reb unfolded the message. There were only a few words. “He’s at the Salinas embassy. With Daril, and Cato, and Urso. They’re –” she stopped. How much of this did she want to say in front of this Asa? How soon could she get rid of them?
Asa was looking between them. “What’s going on?
If they wanted to know about Jonas, what would satisfy them?
“I was Marek’s cityangel,” Beckett said, and Reb looked over at them in horror. Beckett was pacing again, energy almost crackling off them. “Reb, there is no time to step around this matter. It is not important who knows anything, especially a friend of Jonas. Asa. Jonas is with the people who deposed me, and who are trying to make use of the new cityangel. Now we know where they are, we can stop them.”
“Hang on,” Asa said. “You’re going to need to slow that down a bit.”
Reb rubbed at her forehead. It was too late now, for sure, but she wasn’t entirely convinced either that this was speeding anything up, or that Beckett was thinking clearly about risk any more. On the other hand – at this point, hopefully if Asa understood, they were less likely to try to interfere.
Beckett had already started a longer version of the story. Reb expected denial or shock or some other reaction, at least somewhere in there; but Asa just listened, and at the end, nodded.
“So Jonas is stuck with these Marekhill folks who screwed you over, for some political Marekhill aim of their own. Right. What are you going to do about it?”
“I want to know what Salina are doing involved in this.” Reb said. “What could make Salina want to be involved with a coup in Marek? Especially with magic involved.”
“Urso,” Marcia said, in tones of enlightenment. “I met with Urso, the other day. He talked Gavin Leandra and my mother into agreeing to confiscate Salinas ships. I told them it was a bad idea, but they – well. They wouldn’t listen to me. If he’s with Daril, that all starts to make sense. Kia would support their takeover, magic or not, if he told her about that and promised to stop it.”
“The Salinas embassy fronts onto Marek Square,” Reb said.
“That’s where Jonas was!” Asa said. “I’m pretty sure. It was the back street, and it was at the far corner from the door I know, but it fits.”
“Marek Square,” Beckett said. “The centre of power. Let us go.”
“It’s a good idea. I mean, technically speaking.” Reb scowled. “I can’t see how I missed this Urso.”
“It is not important now,” Beckett said. They were already at the door. “We must go.”
“But – Beckett, wait. I can’t use sorcery. You can’t use sorcery.” Reb said. “I don’t know what we can do when we get there.”
“Clock them all over the head hard enough and it won’t matter,” Asa suggested. Their grin showed their teeth.
“More to the point,” Marcia said, “if we don’t get there soon, it won’t matter. Time’s passing. This power that Beckett keeps talking about is going to be peaking. Think of something on the way. Beckett’s right. We have to go.”
k k
Cato wandered back through the corridors of the embassy, towards the main ballroom, feeling faintly pleased with himself. A feeling underlaid by a somewhat unfamiliar nervousness. He did not, as a rule, cheat on people who were paying him money. On the other hand, he had never previously been involved in attempting to replace the underpinnings of Marek’s magic.
He scowled. He really should have thought all of this through more carefully in the first place. If they’d come to him before getting rid of the old one… In all honesty, he was slightly impressed by Urso pulling that part off. He wouldn’t have thought Urso would have had the ability. But if they’d come to him first, Cato could have suggested a number of other ways, rather better thought-out, for achieving a similar end result. If what they wanted was a coup, then this was, even if it had gone wholly smoothly, somewhat overkill as an approach.
But he hadn’t been there at that point. He’d been brought in to repair the damage, and at the time it had seemed like an easy enough way to resolve what was, undeniably, otherwise going to be a problem. As long as the magic worked, it hadn’t seemed, while he was discussing the situation with a very impatient Daril, as though the detail of how they would manage it mattered. Nor yet what Daril wanted to do with it. Marekhill politics were no longer Cato’s business; he’d made that decision ten years ago, and he had never yet regretted it.
But this time, he should have thought about it more carefully. Given that he knew fine well that the cityangel was real enough, he should have realised that the stories of the deal between Beckett, Marek, and the cityangel were also more than just stories. He should have thought harder about what the bond between city and cityangel actually meant. He scowled again. Power without responsibility, that was what they were in the process of setting up now; and with the sort of power that the cityangel was about to have access to, that couldn’t possibly end well.
Of course, that was basically what Daril was after, on his own level. So perhaps no wonder that Daril himself hadn’t thought that it might be a problem. Daril never had been all that good at thinking things through. Urso was the smart one; but Urso quite clearly didn’t give a rat’s arse as long as he was getting something out of it. Cato was pretty sure that Urso was set up to get more than one thing out of this. Chaos could, contrary to popular opinion, be quite good for business if you’d made the right preparations in advance.
Which left Cato himself to sort this shit out, now that he’d been foolish enough to enable it thus far. Jonas’ arrival was a stroke of real luck. Cato would have backed himself, if going toe to toe with Urso, but having a little extra on hand would most certainly be an advantage, whatever Jonas might think of his own abilities (and that was something to sort out properly after the cityangel thing was dealt with). The news that the old cityangel was still around was even better; that would save Cato quite a bit of work. And finally, Jonas could now back up Cato’s claim that he was doing his best to fix this, if Reb showed up at some point being all opinionated and worthy.
He scowled. Hard though it was to admit, at this point he would be quite grateful if Reb showed up being all opinionated and worthy. Jonas might have a bit of power, but Reb was a trained sorcerer, and strong with it. In her absence, he was going to have to talk Urso into including Jonas in this little ritual they had upcoming. Tempting though it was to just knock him over the back of the head, that wouldn’t get rid of the new cityangel. If they ran the ritual, there would be a moment of vulnerability, and if Cato could break things down then, he could take advantage of it.
Hopefully. He thought.
He’d reached the first floor ballroom doors. He took a breath, paste
d on his best careless smile, and walked in.
Urso was drawing a complicated chalk sigil in the middle of the room. More overkill, in Cato’s professional opinion. Too many squiggles when a plain design did the job well enough. Clearly Urso found it reassuring, but that was because Urso was at best a mediocre talent, even if stronger than he ought by rights to be.
Daril stood at the window, looking out over the growing crowd in Marek Square. He was wearing his formal House jacket, over loose trousers. Cato found it faintly amusing that Daril had taken the trouble to put on Marekhill formal wear in order to go up and knock them all down. One might wonder whether his heart was really in the whole thing.
“Where did you find the Salinas kid?” Cato asked. “Good to have a little extra talent to draw on. Three’s a much nicer number for a circle than two.”
Urso carefully finished all but the final join of his circle, then looked up with a frown.
“Talent? The boy hasn’t any talent. He’s Salinas, Cato. They don’t have magic. Some kind of fits he seems to have, seems to think they’re prophetic, but it’s hardly magic.”
“I beg to differ,” Cato said. He felt more cheerful now he was arguing with someone. “It’s a bit out of the trad Marek line, but I assure you, he’s talented, and the fits, as you call them, are related. Isn’t that why you brought him?”
“I brought him as an extra handle on the ambassador,” Urso said. “There’s a family link of some sort. Same surname.”
Cato knew how Salinas surnames worked, and it didn’t make them family in the way Urso meant. But it was a bond, right enough, and probably a reasonable enough idea. The ambassador was clearly not entirely happy with this whole setup. Urso was lying, though. He might not have spotted Jonas’ full ability, or have intended to include him in the ritual, but Cato was moderately certain that Urso was very interested in what Jonas called his ‘flickers’.
“Well, he’s here and he’s got ability,” Cato said. “Let’s use him.”
“No,” Urso said flatly. “I’m not bringing some random Salinas kid into this.”
Cato showed his teeth. “On your own head be it if it’s all a bit much and you pass out again, then.”
“I won’t…” Urso began hotly.
“Stop it, both of you,” Daril said, turning around.
He looked somewhere between tired and wired, his eyes a little too bright. And – for the love of all – he was wearing formal face paint. Cato bit the inside of his cheek, trying not to laugh. Did Daril even realise how much he already had invested in this stupid system?
“Urso, you’ve told this boy already what we’re about, so it’s not like we’re breaking secrecy,” Daril said.
“Doesn’t mean he’s reliable,” Urso said.
“I can keep a hold on him,” Cato said confidently. It was even true. If he’d wanted to do it. “He doesn’t need to be reliable. It just gives me a bit more backup. I did say, already. Before. Two is not ideal, it’s unstable, Daril has to be elsewhere,” and was talent-free anyway, but that was a bit of a sore point and there was no advantage to poking at it right now, “and the ambassador is one hundred percent talent-free.”
“You did say,” Daril agreed. “And it’s not like we haven’t had that problem before.”
“We can manage,” Urso said.
“You thought that before,” Daril said, lifting an eyebrow. “We brought Cato in for expertise, remember? If he thinks it’ll work, let’s do it.”
Cato should probably have felt more guilt about that.
“Thank you,” he said aloud. “It’s nice to be appreciated.”
Daril scowled at him. “Don’t get carried away.”
“You should be gone, Daril,” Urso said. “We need you there in the next twenty minutes or so. Do you have the link?”
Daril raised his wrist, shaking the sleeve of his jacket down. A twisted wire gold bracelet shone on his wrist. Urso wore a similar one. The two of them would link to transfer the power that the cityangel would generate in this ritual up to Daril, in the Chamber, enabling him to conduct his takeover. It was an interesting technique, and not one Cato would have thought of. It was also slightly annoying that Urso had insisted that he would be the only one to link from down here. Anyone would think that Urso didn’t wholly trust Cato.
Daril took in a long breath, then let it out in a sigh. His eyes glittered.
“Well then. Good luck, both of you. I look forward to seeing you afterwards.”
He walked briskly out of the ballroom, and the door swung shut behind him. Urso and Cato looked at one another. The noise outside the window was getting louder.
“Twenty minutes,” Cato said. “Right. You finish up with your candles and what-all. I’ll fetch the kid.”
Showtime.
k k
Beckett led Reb, Marcia, and Asa through the streets around the old market. The shops were all shut for the festival, the afternoon sun bouncing off shuttered windows. People sat on doorsteps, passing bottles around and chatting cheerfully; kids ran around playing complicated games of tag. There were a couple of street stalls out in the market itself, doing reasonably brisk business, and there were knots of people standing around in the centre of the piazza or perched on the edge of the fountain. More people were moving slowly in the same direction they were, towards Old Bridge and Marek Square, the centre of the city’s festivities.
Beckett’s face was set, and they walked like someone with a goal. They shouldered through the slow-moving crowds, and anyone who looked round, ready to get angry, blinked and got out of their way instead. Reb, Marcia, and Asa trailed in Beckett’s wake.
The streets grew steadily more crowded as they crossed Old Bridge towards Marek Square. The bridge gave out onto the square on its north side, and the Salinas embassy was on the south side. The square was full of people, with street barrows selling food parked around the edges, and jugglers and fire-breathers and other entertainers performing in spaces carved out of the crowd. In the centre of the square there was a fountain, with a sculpture which was supposed to be an allegory for Marek’s relationship with Teren and the countries and states around the Oval Sea. Reb had never been able to make head nor tail of it. Maybe she should ask Marcia. Today, its surrounding ledge was already crowded with people perching on it.
People were still coming off Old Bridge and making their way into the crowd, swelling it by the minute. The main event would begin in an hour or so, when the heads of the various Guilds appeared on the Guildhall balcony, followed by the Council procession down the hill from the Chamber, and then the fireworks as the sun went down. But Reb could already feel the power coiling in the crowd. It was the people who would make this powerful, not the official rituals, and they were here already, making the most of the day.
The buildings around the square were all three or four storeys tall, and their fronts varied between austere restraint and exuberant stone carving. Reb knew the history of it, like any other Mareker: the square had been planned out at some point in the initial settlement of Marek, at about the same time as the Thirteen Houses were establishing themselves at the top of the Hill, but initially it had been a market, with merchants and traders selling their goods around the square. Over time the Guilds had established themselves, and claimed areas of the square for their own goods, which in turn meant that the Salinas had decided to occupy a building on the square to make it easier to negotiate directly with the Guilds (something which had never been popular with the Thirteen Houses, and which contributed to the sometimes-strained three-way relationship between Guilds, Houses, and the Salinas). From there it was a short step to the Guildhalls, built by the Guilds to demonstrate their success and importance. To one side of the embassy was the Glassblowers Guild, and to the other, the Jewellers’ Guild. The Spicers, the Cordwainers, the Broderers, the Haberdashers, the Vintners, the Smiths and Cutlers, and the Fishmongers, being the oldest of the Guilds, all had premises on the square as well; the other Guilds had their halls in the
surrounding streets, either a little further up Marekhill, or on Guildstreet, which ran along the south side of the river.
Their destination, the Salinas embassy, was directly opposite Old Bridge across the square. It was the least architecturally enthusiastic of the buildings around the square; the Salinas weren’t all that interested in competing for Marek eyeballs, given that anyone wanting to do any trading around the Oval Sea had to come to them anyway. Evidently however they hadn’t quite been able to ignore the competition; the embassy was a three-storey stone building very much in Marek architectural tradition; on Salina houses were wooden, and in any case the Salinas set far more store by their ships. The architect or the builder had set a carved stone ship above the main portico as an indication, and the Salinas flag flew over it.
Reb glanced over at Marcia.
“You should be at the Chamber, shouldn’t you?” she asked. Doing whatever it was the Council did up there before coming down here.
“Yes,” Marcia said, without looking round at her. “I thought this was more important.”
“I didn’t…” Reb paused. “Thank you. I’m glad you’re with us.”
Marcia looked round and met Reb’s eyes. She smiled, a little tentatively, and Reb smiled back. Even here, wound up as she was, something warm curled in her stomach. Marcia blinked, opened her mouth as if she might be going to say something, then looked away again.
They were a little way into the square, now, and it looked like Beckett was going to plough straight through the crowd and up to the Marek Square entrance to the embassy, in full view of the thousands of people here celebrating. They would probably have made it, too, but just as Reb began to wonder about the wisdom of this – after all, it wasn’t like they would be able simply to knock and be let in – Asa darted past her and tapped Beckett on the shoulder.
“Round the back,” they said. “It’ll be quicker. Follow me.”
Asa led them to the west side of the square, and then through a warren of passages and alleyways that tangled out from the square and around it. This was where the work of the Guilds was largely done, and where the bulk of Guild members and shopkeepers lived and worked. There were still plenty of people here, but there was room to move, as there had not been in the square. They fetched up at the corner of the embassy.
