by Lori Martin
A little boy collided with his knees, blinked up, gaped at his scar for a few moments, and was gone. He believed he was used to such looks, and the small pain in him went unacknowledged. A stray thought, seemingly unrelated, passed through his mind: will she still look as beautiful to me, now that she has become my enemy?
But no, the Mendales were their enemies, their common enemy. It was absurd that the Defiers had taken his father, absurd that they attacked where they had been offered friendship, and it was absurd for him to have to fight against Lindahnes. His anger flared.
He turned a corner. The Guild was closing to customers; of course, in the bread bakers’ trade high-sun was the end of the selling day. The faded stone building, the side walls worn and rounded at the top, the jagged pieces sticking out of the middle sections, the sprawling entranceway set with a sloping arch, seemed to stand window-high in people. The white-robed bread bakers mingled along the walls, wiping sweat and coagulated sugar from their foreheads, gesturing with flour-coated fingers. Servants and buyers were loading their carts with provisions; the lesser folk of MenDas set off for their homes on foot, loaves stuck under each arm.
He put his head through the entrance and scanned the room. Most of the bakers, stripping their shelves, ignored him, but one called, “We’re closing now, master! Come back at the sun-rising!”
“Yes,” Paither answered vaguely. He doubted himself. It was hard to imagine Defiers – hard to imagine Mejalna – here.
But he returned the next day, and the day after. He left his bed while it was still dark and walked swiftly through the chill streets, muffled in his cloak and wearing his sword. He learned the general comings-and-goings of the customers, learned to know the apprentices and their children, even heard the exact baking time of the famed MenDas cider bread – information likely to be of little help to his father. On the third morning he watched the arrival of a supply runner from the Assembly, a young bread baker addressed as Extos.
“News of the day! News of the day!” a voice bawled. Paither glanced away from the Guild and saw a news crier advancing, walking with stiff importance in a blazing red tunic and red-dyed boots. “News of the day!” he shouted again. The sounds of business died out all around him.
“Tell us, my friend,” called Extos, the arrival from the Assemblage House. “Any news of the missing Tribune?”
Paither paid no heed to this show of interest; it was natural for an Assembly servant to be interested. One of the Oldmarket bakers, more concerned with business, asked, “Any new appointments?”
The crier planted himself in the center of the street and waited for the crowd to form around him. Paither remained where he was, slouched up against the Oldmarket’s east wall, a vantage that drew little notice and gave him a good view of the entranceway. The Assemblage bread baker also stayed at his place, beside his cart.
“New app-oint-ments!” the crier began. “At Dallin-town: the noble estate of Gue and Hallae have a position for cook open. In Celli-town: the Smithmakers’ Guild can take two to three new apprentices – with references and appropriate skill levels. In Fannae-town –”
Paither kicked his boot against the wall in impatience. Weren’t the fools interested in anything of importance? The crier shifted to new topics. “From the foothills: two Archery Bands, Eighteenth and Twenty-Third, are assigned to Oversettle duty in Lindahne. From the south –”
“Friend,” someone interrupted. The man Extos was also anxious. “The sun will be leaving us before you’ve told the real news. What of the abduction? What of the Assembly? What of the Third Tribune?” The crier took this as a call for an encore, and redoubled his efforts. “News from The crowd cheered and whistled. Hatred for them burned in Paither’s throat. Extos said, “What of the Lindahne Queen?”
“The Assembly voting: in three days time: The Assembly decides. Tribune Rhonna: calling for execution!”
Three days? And then his father...
“And the Third Tribune?” The Assembly baker had come down from his cart and was standing a few feet from him.
Three days?
“Assembly demands: safe return: of the Tribune!”
“He’s a lin-lover,” someone in the crowd snorted. “Shouldn’t have been Third Tribune in the first place. Who cares if we get him back or not?”
Paither broke from the wall, unthinking in his anger, but the baker had turned back. They collided.
“I beg your pardon,” the baker mumbled, without looking at him. Paither had a moment to catch his breath and his temper. Brawling in the street wouldn’t help.
Nor does standing here, he thought. She’s never coming here, I’m fooling myself, Defiers as bread bakers, in the name of Nialia!
“... a little late,” Extos was saying to someone, but he was no longer interested in the conversation of bakers and servants. He’d have to get back, his mother must be frantic, and Calli was probably screaming.
“I’m going over to the other Guildhouse. No, no, just an errand. An errand,” Extos repeated. His companion, another Assembly servant, shrugged, as if he’d have nothing more to do with such business. “I’ll be just a little late, the head cook won’t notice. No, I just need to pick up something there, that’s all.”
Paither was astounded. He didn’t know MenDas well, and had never thought – estate child that he was – that the capital might be big enough to accommodate more than one Guildhouse for any given trade. Half-wit, he berated himself. Never even asked about it.
He sized up the cart, heavily loaded, the one listless horse, and the crowded streets. It wouldn’t move fast; he’d be able to walk behind.
He followed Extos’s cart down twisting backstreets, as the sun began its downward curve. The man seemed to be taking an indirect way – what was wrong with one of the main avenues? And why did he roll his head like that, back and forth, slowly, as if he suspected someone was watching? He never turned fully behind, intent as he was on maneuvering the horse, and Paither had no fear of discovery. At first he had thought of him only as a quick guide to the other Guildhouse. Now he began to consider the man himself. An Assemblage House servant. An insider. There were rumors the Defiers had had help.
When the cart made a final turn, he felt a sudden surge of excitement. This Guildhouse was rundown, inferior; there could be nothing here to suit the Assembly. The man was on other business.
The neighboring tradehouses – an ancient Woodcarvers hovel and a determinedly cheerful Seamsewers building – were still busy. Customers in the latter, being fitted with new cloaks, were laughing and, from the sound of it, tossing fabrics about the shop. The Bread Bakers had closed, though Extos seemed not to care. He climbed down and tied his horse. Paither paused before the Woodcarvers and leisurely examined an example of the craft, a doorknocker in the shape of a lasbird.
“We’re closed,” a white-robed woman at the Bread Bakers began. “Oh, good day, Extos. How are things at the Oldmarket?”
“Good day, Pojji. Busy there, as usual.” He added, “I have some news.”
“Of the Guild?”
Paither turned the lasbird head over in his head and glanced sideways. Extos’s voice was level, but he thought (or was he imagining?) that strong emotion was behind it.
“And of other things,” Extos said.
“Come in then,” the woman said brightly, “and entertain us. We’re just stripping the shelves.”
“Fine work, eh, master?”
Paither started. A small, wizened man had appeared at his elbow – the master woodcarver, to judge by his clothing. He persisted, “We’ve even better in the shop, you must come in and see. Looking for detail work like this, young master?”
“No.” He looked back, but Extos and the woman had vanished into the Guildhouse.
“Bannister work, now, or paneling? I’m quite a hand with paneling, master.”
“Thank you, no. No.” He extricated his sleeve from the carver’s grasp. “I was only – wait. You have a show area, do you? I mean for you
r larger pieces?”
“Yes, yes, fine work, fine work.”
“Behind the trade house?”
“Yes, young mas –”
“Fine, I’ll go back there and look around. No, no, you needn’t join me, thank you. No, I prefer to look things over by myself. No.”
The old man whined behind him. Still holding the forgotten lasbird head, he slipped down the narrow space between the two buildings. As he had hoped, the woodcarver showplace was open on all sides, with just a sagging canvas cover overhead to protect the merchandise from the weather. One rickety gate marked the boundary from the area the bread bakers used for outside tasks. One young man on the other side was busy churning butter while two others struggled to haul sacks of meal in through the backway.
He was hard put to loiter away the afternoon. As rude as he became, the apprentice who oversaw the show area was as persistent as her master, and dogged his every move. He handled oak and pine, lekah and blackwood, and admired a succession of table legs, with one eye on the bread bakers’ yard and one ear on the apprentice’s babble. He grew more and more irritated. Perhaps he was making a mistake. The Assemblage House baker could leave from the front, might already have done so, and he wouldn’t hear. And would it matter? He couldn’t remember why he had been excited, why he had thought it important. He was on an idiot’s chase.
“Consider this hearthscreen, sir.” The stubborn apprentice held it under Paither’s chin. “Nonfiring, of course, and such a –”
He turned on his heel and stalked away, seething. A town of pushy, fast-talking, slow-thinking arrogant Mendales: that’s all the famous capital was. And where in all this surging population was his father?
The baker’s cart was gone; he had missed him. He reached the cross to the next avenue and started to the right, turning for home. A sudden tingle ran down his arm. He paused, and gave one more glance back.
A rider, who perhaps had turned left off the same street, was moving steadily away from him. The bread baker’s apron she wore had no hood or back collar.
A cascade of red-gold hair nestled on her neck.
Chapter 11
He woke the next morning in a hovel in the Lindahne quarter of the city, with a head heavy from wine and a fair-haired girl lying curled into his side. A harsh wool blanket scratched at
his naked skin. He turned his head. In the far corner on the floor there was a grubby roll of bedclothes, from which issued the sound of deep breathing. Her two little brothers, he remembered, and flushed with shame: surely they hadn’t been there all night? He couldn’t recall where the parents were, or even if she had any.
She moaned and gave a little stir, so that her hair slid off her face. Gingerly he propped on one elbow. He saw with some relief that she wasn’t as young as he had thought; in fact she might have half a dozen years over him.
Pursuit of the Defier without a horse had been impossible. Instead he had found himself wandering towards the Lindahne quarter. Mejalna wouldn’t have been headed there; the Mendales always suspected the quarter of harboring Defiers and periodically conducted searches, so of course no Defier ever set foot there. He himself had visited the area a few times since arriving in MenDas, drawn by the chance to be with Lindahnes through repelled by their general wretchedness. They had recognized the significance of his family colors; if he was patient and friendly he might be invited, finally, to sit by a fire and listen to the singing. (O not in my days, my son, but in yours; O not in my days, my daughter.)
Last night the quarter had been uneasy, full of rumors about the Defiers and the Tribune’s abduction. Strangers were not welcomed. He should have expected it; he shouldn’t have been surprised at the sullen stares and closed mouths, but it had wounded him all the same.
The girl had approached him when he was nearly beyond the street back into MenDas proper. She hailed him over to a noisy group of friends, who were sharing a last flask of brandy against the cold. The air grew piercing; the friends dispersed; she produced a wine of sickening sweetness and the two of them went on drinking. It had been a long time since he had gotten so drunk.
He slid his arm gently out from under her. He’d broken his own rule not to lay with a commoner: if she truly cared for you, you were doing her nothing but harm; and if she did not she would hang on, hoping for gifts, or perhaps a chance to bear a nobleborn child. There were Lindahne nobleborn in the quarter, fallen on hard days, of course, and as destitute as the rest, but still carrying their family pride. This poor creature, however, was clearly a peasant’s daughter. Why had she called to him?
Well, loneliness was not the property solely of the nobleborn. The floorboards were slabs of ice. The grate fire was out. His breath frosted on the air, and he looked in vain for a chamber pot. She woke, missing the warmth of his body, and blinked up in confusion. He smiled, gave her a nearly convincing kiss, and searched among the blankets for his tossed-off clothes.
“You don’t have to go.”
“I’m sorry, Rhosia. I’m needed at home.I should have been back long ago.” He’d remembered her name, but he couldn’t recollect what he’d told her his own was. He had a feeling he had lied about it.
“You’re going back to the Assembly?”
Had he been that indiscreet? “Yes,” he said shortly.
She clambered to the foot of the bed and grasped his arm. The blankets bunched around her waist and her tangled hair fell to her heavy breasts. “You’ll do something for them?” He stared, blank. Her ragged fingernails scratched at him. “My parents,” she said insistently. “I told you, they were turned away from the Hall of Merits. They’re still in the holding-house.”
“Oh.” Now it was vaguely familiar. He eased his arm away, found his under-tunic and pulled it over his head. “There isn’t anything I can do. You’ll have to ask for a review of the case, that’s all, that’s the only way.”
“You have power.”
“Power?” He nearly laughed, but her eyes were too eager. “How would I have any power in the Hall of Merits?”
“You swore you would help.”
“No, I did not.” He was certain of that, at least. His sword was under the bed. He shook out his robe, pulled it on, and tied the sash firmly.
“But you’re in the Assembly!”
He froze. His hand, reaching for the sword belt, hung suspended. She seized a great handful of his robe and pleaded up into his face. “Please, sir, you’re in the Assembly! My parents have done nothing. Please help us!”
How could she have been so blind? he wondered, and then remembered. In order to hang about the Bread Bakers Guild unnoticed day after day he had had to abandon his Lindahne clothes. The robe she was clutching belonged to his father. She had seen only that he was nobleborn; she had thought (no doubt amazed at her good fortune) that he was a member of the government.
She had thought he was a Mendale.
He broke out of her hands, grabbed for his sword and boots, tossed her what money he had, and stumbled to the door. Fierce cold air blasted in. From the corner two pairs of round eyes stared out of the bedclothes in accusation. “I’m sorry,” he cried over his shoulder, and crashed out into the snow.
It was Baili, so long acquainted with Assembly ways, who found the way to outwit Tribune Haol. When the third and final vote was called on the question of the Lindahne queen’s execution, he submitted (“with all respect and reverence”) a mora in Nichos’s name.
Moras were written orders or messages from the Tribunes to the Assembly, and when the befuddled secretary saw he held one with the missing Third Tribune’s seal, he read it aloud to the members. The mora pointed out that, for a question such as the one currently under review, the participation of the entire Trio was required by Mendale law in order to proceed. (Exceptions were permitted only when a Tribune office was temporarily vacant – which was not the case here.) Three Tribunes were in office. Three Tribunes, therefore, would have to be included in the voting.
“In other words,” Baili’s care
ful script said, “this matter cannot be decided or acted upon until the return of Tribune Nichos.”
Haol protested, but found the Assembly unmoved. To his chagrin Second Tribune Rhonna suddenly abandoned her hard views, coming out in agreement with the mora. “In difficult times more than at ease, we must hold fast to our laws,” she said, and went on from there with great eloquence. Haol puzzled over this until he saw her motivation: so long as the situation remained at crisis point, he himself would be subject to criticism and embarrassment, discredited by his championship of Nichos (who was now firmly associated, in the minds of many, with the rebel lins). Rhonna would profit by his discomfiture, and she was herself secure; she had made her stern views on the queen and the Defiers publicly known. She could afford to be temperate now.
Others in the Assembly were glad to have a legal reason to postpone an action that would condemn Tribune Nichos as surely as the lin queen. Though Haol had been Nichos’s first sponsor, no one became a Tribune without making allies and friends, and there were still those who were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Get him back alive, they said to each other, and then we’ll learn the truth of this abduction.
In the meantime, down the hall, with his feet up on the desk, Baili listened to the muffled voices. They’d debate a little longer. Someone was protesting the mora as a surrender to the Defiers, but the speaker sounded weak and querulous. He knew he’d won. He’d used the Mendales’ own laws against them; there was a smug satisfaction in that.
But what would the next step be? The queen would be allowed to live, but they’d certainly never free her, and Nichos would not be returned. The Assembly and the Defiers were at a stalemate. A dangerous one, one that could not last. He’d seen enough of confrontation to know that the more desperate side would try to break through at any cost. Desperate, he thought, and remembered how young the Defiers were all said to be, living and hiding on enemy earth. No doubt they were arguing among themselves now; who knew what discipline could be counted on in such a group? It would take only one rash man or one angry woman, one impatient slash of a dagger, to end Nichos’s life.
