Friendly Fire

by Dale Lucas

  The ethnarch snorted derisively. “The prefect mocks our misery by sending two of his densest louts—”

  Rem shrugged. “We beg your forgiveness, milord—”

  “Shut your mouth, lad,” Torval snapped. “Don’t waste any more words on this preening badger.”

  Eldgrim frowned upon hearing that. “Say that again, sweppsa.”

  Rem looked to the Lady Leffi. It seemed that everyone else in the chamber did the same. As if beseeching her, silently, to put an end to the contest that threatened to unfold. After a long, awkward silence, she managed to speak.

  “Perhaps some wine?” she offered. “Or beer? We’re well stocked with both, good watchwardens. And by your looks, you’re both horribly parched.”

  “They’ll not enjoy a single drop from my bottles or barrels,” the ethnarch said, turning and stomping away.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Torval answered.

  Rem shook his head deferentially. “We could not so abuse your hospitality, milady. Perhaps we came too early, after all—”

  “Or too late,” Eldgrim said, dropping onto his throne again.

  “Let me be sure I have this in order,” Torval said finally. “In answer to our inquiry, you all agree that speaking with that Stonemason’s Guild would be pertinent?”

  Leffi leaned forward, eager to be the voice of reason. “We would all pray it not prove true, of course, but at this stage, it seems a most likely explanation.”

  “We are not welcome here,” Eldgrim said, pouting almost to himself. “We will never be welcome here.”

  Torval looked to the ethnarch. Rem waited for his partner to say something, to provoke the angry dwarf … but Torval remained silent.

  Despite Torval’s silence, Eldgrim raised his eyes to meet Torval’s own. The last words between them were his.

  “None of us will ever be welcome here,” he said, staring at Torval.

  Torval sighed. He drew his gaze from the ethnarch and addressed all present. “You can find us at the Fifth Ward watchkeep. If you should have any more thoughts or questions, send them there. Good day to you all.”

  For once Rem did not wait for Torval to lead the way. Upon the last word of Torval’s parting message, Rem gave a curt bow, turned, and headed straight for the door. He heard his partner’s heavy footfalls on the flagstones behind him.

  The ethnarch decided, at that moment, to fire a parting shot.

  “Tell your prefect,” he shouted, “that I will protect my people, first and foremost. If the city’s watchwardens cannot keep them from harm, the Swords of Eld will!”

  Rem did not look back. He could not see if Torval had turned to look back. He knew only that he wanted to be through that door, just a few paces away, and out of this room.

  They did not speak again until they were outside, well away from the ethnarch’s manse, far across the street by the great fountain that stood in the center of the adjacent square. All of the dwarven quarter bustled around them now, and little by little, the feelings of distrust, suspicion, and overt disdain that Rem had known in that house began to melt away.

  Torval sat on the fountain’s stone lip. The masonry that ringed the big fountain was shiny with a pebbled skin of water droplets, but the wet surface seemed to make no difference to Torval, who just sat, sighed, and clasped his thick-fingered hands in a loose fist between his legs.

  “Well,” Rem ventured, “I suppose that could have gone far worse.”

  “Hang his pride,” Torval said, then spat into the mud. “We got what we needed.”

  “Did we?” Rem asked. “Who are these Swords of Eld the ethnarch spoke of?”

  Torval made a gesture toward the front gate of the citadel and the two guards who stood there.

  “They are,” he said. “The house guard. A full company, trained hard and armed to the teeth.”

  Rem felt a chill move through him. “So … Eldgrim just threatened to put his house guard on the street, in the dwarven quarter, as armed police?”

  Torval stared grimly at Rem and nodded.

  Rem whistled. “Aemon’s bones … Sounds like a recipe for trouble.”

  “And no mistake,” Torval agreed. “Eldgrim and his court may just be suspicious, and those suspicions wholly unfounded, but their surety that it was the Stonemasons’ Guild is telling. Clearly they regard them as enemies.”

  “Seems too neat, though,” Rem said. He sat on the lip of the fountain beside Torval, wet trousers be damned. “If the stonemasons are, in fact, so dead set against these dwarves stealing their building contracts, wouldn’t something so blatant and dangerous make targets of them? It seems to me they’d be smarter than that—less direct.” He yawned. All of a sudden, the night’s strain was catching up to him. He felt drowsy and breathless, as though he could curl up right there and go to sleep.

  Torval shrugged, still staring across the square at the citadel. “Who’s to say? I know this job sometimes forces us to think like thieves, to peer round corners in our minds and chisel tiny cracks in the stone face of logic. But sometimes, the explanation for a crime really is the simplest one imaginable, undertaken in the boldest and most direct terms.”

  “So you think the stonemasons fired the temple?” Rem asked.

  Torval shot him an impatient look. “I didn’t say that. Just that it was possible. Maybe even likely.”

  At that moment a great commotion rose above the gentle murmur of nondescript streetsong. It was a band of dwarven workers emerging from a nearby stone house with a high-peaked roof with slate shingles, one of several such, huddled together just outside the citadel walls. Rem studied them as they trudged across the square toward where he and Torval sat, a loose column, almost every one of them sporting a leather apron laden with tools round his middle, stout hammers cocked on their broad shoulders. No doubt they were off to the now-ruined temple site to begin the labor of cleaning up and rebuilding.

  “What did it mean?” Rem asked idly. “That name the guards called you? Sweppsa?”

  Torval didn’t look up, content to stare at the ground beneath his dangling feet. “There’s no real word for it in your tongue. It’s sort of like a burden that one can’t be rid of. A mongrel dog that keeps licking at your bootheels—but bearing some close, undeniable association. A notorious parent. A reprobate child. Shit on your shoe, I suppose.”

  Rem was horrified. He stared at his partner, trying to discern if that horrible appellation hurt him at all. Torval, eyes down, remained unreadable. Finally Rem sighed and shook off his desire to somehow fix the situation, since he knew that he could not.

  “Should we go see the others now?” he asked. “Our human suspects?”

  Torval slid off the lip of the fountain and landed on his feet. “To the sundry hells with that,” he growled. “I’m wrought like iron. It’s time we both went home.”

  Rem noted that Torval was suddenly agitated—as though he could not be away from where they sat quickly enough.

  “Let’s plan to meet them before we start our shifts this evening,” he said, already walking away. “How’s the sound of eighteen bells strike you?”

  Rem rose and nodded. Gods, but his body was stiff and achy! “Eight and ten will do. I like the way you think.”

  Torval nodded and quickly set off across the square, away from the fountain and the passing column of dwarven artisans. Rem lingered for a moment, watching the marching line of young dwarven apprentices as they filed by, and a familiar face in the approaching line caught his eye.

  It was Tavarix. He marched among other young apprentices about his age, a few even younger. When the young dwarf saw Rem staring at him, he smiled, a wholly delighted, unbidden gesture. The smile was followed by a hand raised in greeting.

  Rem waved back. That’s when he saw realization settle on Tavarix. If Rem was here, that meant his father must be, too. As the boy marched on in his line, inching ever closer, he began to study the square, seeking his father. When he could not find him, he spoke hastily to one of the
boys beside him, then broke from the line and hurried to where Rem stood.

  “Is my father here?” he asked.

  Rem suggested the far side of the square. “Took off when your column advanced. It’s good to see you safe, Tav.”

  Tav nodded. “Thank you, Rem. It’s good to be safe. We’d already been brought back to the guildhall when the fire started. The proctors wouldn’t let us out to help fight it.”

  “Your father will be glad to hear it,” Rem said. “He nearly killed himself looking for you in the flames last night.”

  Tav’s face fell, his normally rosy cheeks suddenly paling. “Is he all right?”

  “Hale and hearty,” Rem said. “Just worried.”

  A long silence fell between them. Tav looked as if he wanted to speak, but was too ashamed to. Rem tried to work out just what he could say without overstepping his bounds as a friend of the family. One of the older dwarves marching past suddenly barked at the boy.

  “Back in line, youngster!” he said. “No time for chitchat!”

  “I have to go,” Tav said.

  “Talk to him,” Rem said hastily. “At the first opportunity. Take it from one who knows, when a rift opens between a father and son, you have to work to shore it up. Left alone, it only gets wider.”

  Tav nodded, seeming to understand, but just as sad for the depth of that understanding. Without another word the boy turned and broke into a run to catch up with the line. Once he’d resumed his place in it, Rem turned toward the square at his back. He searched, hoping to find Torval waiting for him.

  There. Standing on the far side of the square, skulking at a corner, barely discernible at this distance. Torval looked as if he were trying to hide from someone, but he was looking back, eyes locked right on Rem.

  Rem almost started across the square to meet his partner, but thought better of it. Torval had watched. Torval had seen. He knew Tav was safe, and he could go home secure in that knowledge. Maybe all he needed now was solitude and rest.

  So, to release him, Rem simply raised a hand in farewell. A moment later Torval offered the same gesture, then disappeared around the corner.

  With a sigh Rem set off. He could already imagine how good it would feel when he reached the public bathhouse and washed the grime from his flesh, how welcoming his bed would be when he knew that he could fall into it clean.

  When a rift opens between a father and son, you have to work to shore it up. Left alone, it only gets wider.

  Wider than Great Lake, Rem thought solemnly as he walked. Wider than Hatarau Bay. Wider, even, than the four hundred miles separating Lycos Vale and Yenara …

  CHAPTER TEN

  Rem was dreaming of fire and crumbling stone when he felt warm, gentle hands on his shoulders. He was shaken, firmly and insistently. Something brushed his ears and cheeks: a pair of soft lips. Slowly the crust of sleep began to crack and slough off him. The flames roiling in his mind’s eye dissipated, like smoke before a blast of wind.

  “Wakey wakey,” a lovely voice purred in his ear.

  Rem opened one eye. Indilen knelt beside his bed, hands folded beneath her chin. He thought lazily in that moment that there was nothing better in his life than awakening to that smiling face, those deep-brown eyes. She smiled at him, then reached out a single finger to idly stroke his bare forearm.

  “There’s my sleepy lad,” she said, and leaned in to lay another kiss on his forehead.

  “Have you been here all day?” Rem asked. His voice sounded like a hinge in need of oiling.

  “I have, in fact,” Indilen said, drawing up a little step stool and sitting on it. “All day, when I could have been scouring the city for vice or earning my keep, I’ve just been sitting here by this bed, watching you slumber, ruminating on your quiet vulnerability.”

  Rem smiled. No, then. It had probably been a silly question, now that he thought about it. “So you’ve crept in just now?”

  “I thought I’d come to see you before your shift. Your landlady said you’d left word to be awakened at the sixteenth bell. I said I’d be happy to oblige.”

  Rem threw off his blankets and forced himself to sit up. His head instantly swam, but he embraced the momentary disorientation and gave his face and scalp a vigorous rubbing in an effort to banish the sluggishness of sleep. Though he could already see that the sun was falling outside and knew that he’d slept the day away, he still felt as if his head had barely hit the pillow. Out in the streets, he heard peddlers trying to sell their dregs before slumping homeward, handcarts being broken down and prepared for travel and storage, bootheels marching in mud after a long, laborious day.

  Indilen rose and moved to a small table on the wall opposite his bed. A pitcher of fresh water and a pair of cups waited there. She poured him a cup and handed it over. Rem gulped the cool, clear water down thirstily, then held out his cup for an immediate refill.

  “Long night?” Indilen asked, and nodded toward a pile in the corner: Rem’s soot-covered clothes from the night before.

  “Horrid,” he said between sips. “There was a fire—”

  “Oh, I know,” Indilen cut in. “I heard the news on my way to the university this morning. And once I’d heard it, I ran all the way here to make sure you’d made it home safely. Wouldn’t leave your landlady alone until she let me peek in and see you sleeping.”

  “You could’ve woken me,” Rem said.

  “No,” Indilen said with a curt shake of her head. “Clearly you’d had a long night and deserved the rest. I just needed to make sure you were safe, that’s all.”

  Rem smiled. “Sorry to frighten you—but thank you for letting me sleep. After our shift, we had to stop in the dwarven quarter—”

  Indilen poured herself some water now. “You had so much fun yesterday you just had to return?”

  “Official business,” Rem said.

  “Related?” Indilen asked, now thoroughly engaged. Sometimes Rem thought Indilen found his job more fascinating than he himself did. “Some link between the riot and the fire?”

  “Ondego sent Torval and me to treat with the ethnarch. Didn’t go so well. There’s bad blood between them. Torval and the ethnarch, that is.” He rose from the bed on stiff legs and moved toward his second set of clothes, draped over a chair near the far wall. At present he wore only a simple sleeping tunic. Without hesitation or reservation, he threw off the tunic and began dressing as he spoke. He explained it all to Indilen in the simplest, least exciting terms: the suspicions of the prefects, Torval’s unease, the less than warm welcome they’d received in the court of the dwarven ethnarch.

  Indilen interrupted his tale. “Slowly,” she said, as Rem drew on his breeks and began to lace them up. “I like a show, you know.”

  Rem threw her a villainous glance over his shoulder. “Temptress. You’re lucky I’ve got places I need to be.”

  “I wouldn’t call that lucky,” Indilen said, and then her arms were around him. She had him from behind, her soft hair against his bare back, her arms wrapped around his lower torso, just below his ribs. For a moment Rem stood, enjoying the feeling of being enfolded by her, held by her. After a moment he pried her hands loose, spun in her arms, and swept her into an embrace of his own. They stood like that for a long time, holding one another, his chin resting in her gently waving auburn hair.

  “I love this feeling,” she said against him. “Here. With you. I know it’s just for a moment, before you run off to work and I hurry home, but that’s why it’s all the more precious. I wish it could be this way all the time.”

  Rem considered that. “Why can’t it be?”

  Indilen raised her eyes.

  “Honestly,” Rem carried on, “why can’t it be? It’s foolish, maintaining two residences. Why don’t we pool our resources?”

  Indilen pulled away. Her expression was a puzzled one, part bemused delight, part shocked disbelief. “What are you asking me?”

  Rem shrugged. In truth, he’d been considering it for some time—raising the i
ssue, at least. He just hadn’t been sure how to do it. Indilen’s offhand comment had opened the door.

  “I’m asking you to get rooms with me. To build a home with me.”

  Indilen waited. “And is that all?”

  Rem suddenly realized what she was suggesting. Oh dear. He hadn’t anticipated the conversation going in that direction. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he said, eyes widening.

  “That’s all right,” Indilen said, and pulled away from him. “I’d not dream of forcing your hand or making demands—”

  Before she could move more than a step or two away from him, Rem reached out, took her hands, and pulled her close again. He met her gaze and hoped that his own was sure, steady. “Listen,” he said, feeling a hitch in his voice, “where I’m from, we don’t get to choose our partners. Not so often, anyway. Someone’s always making that decision for us, for the good of this or the strength of that. And I know it’s just been a few months, Indilen, and that maybe asking you this is rude or daft or just plain pointless, but you raised the question and I think that’s the answer: let’s stop existing separately. Let’s stop throwing our money away on these cramped little rooms of ours, and let’s stop just seeing each other in passing. I’ll still work through the night, and you’ll still work through the day, but at least we can each know we’re coming home to someone. To something.”

  “You don’t get to choose your partners,” Indilen said slowly. “Where you’re from.”

  Rem cocked his head. What was she getting at?

  Indilen smiled, but there was some sadness in it. “I did not know that the sons of horse grooms and their wives were subject to the rigors of arranged marriages and alliances.”

  “Well,” Rem said, suddenly realizing what he’d revealed without even trying. Oh bollocks … he was botching this. And here he thought he’d been taking a step in the right direction. “It’s just, sometimes … That is—”

  Indilen laid a finger on his lips. She met his gaze levelly. “I would love to make a home with you,” she said. “I won’t even ask that you marry me yet, if that’s not where your heart is. We’re not in the royal courts or the marches. There are no local priests to shame us, no village gossips to sully our names. Questions of propriety aren’t so vital here as they might be were either of us in our homelands, among our families.”