Cold Iron

by Miles Cameron

  There were even more refugees than before, and they were living worse than ever. Aranthur tried to pass through unmolested by beggars, but his sword didn’t dissuade anyone, and the younger children were like leeches. The area under the Aqueduct was worse then the slum tenements north of the Academy, now. The tents crowded on each other trying to stay out of the rain, and the smell of urine was everywhere, and the people …

  There were girls offering him sex, and they were younger than his sister. There were men crouching against the stone supports, their faces averted, their hands out. Their abjectness warred with their pride, and somehow he felt for them more than any of the others. There were older women washing, a long line of them at a leak in the Aqueduct. There was an infinity of dogs – wild dogs, angry dogs, and the worst of all, sad dogs who only wanted a human friend.

  He hated it. He hated that he wanted to run away and pretend it all didn’t exist.

  He wasn’t brave enough to give money to a girl and tell her not to prostitute herself – what did he know? He wanted to take a dog home. To save … something.

  He thought of the Easterners on the roads and in the woods by his father’s farm.

  ‘Don’t tell me you are lost,’ said a soft voice.

  Aranthur opened his eyes and saw the Brown Robe, Ulgul, standing with his hands in the sleeves of his robe. He had two very black eyes, as if he’d been on the losing side of a fight.

  Ulgul stepped up close, the reek of his unwashed hair and body stronger than the smell of urine and smoke.

  ‘I see your horror,’ he said.

  ‘This …’ Aranthur waved a hand weakly at the two child prostitutes standing against one of the pillars, smoking stock. ‘It’s not this,’ he corrected. ‘It’s all of them. They deserve … better.’

  Ulgul made a face. ‘They are dying out west. One of our sisters is working there, in the mountains.’

  ‘Sisters?’ Aranthur asked.

  ‘Our order. The Order of Aploun. We were founded to bring music and dance to the poor, but we are being tested with armies of poor; multitudes. We are not prepared.’

  ‘And yet you do something,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘And you care for these Easterners,’ Ulgul said, as if that was remarkable.

  Aranthur shrugged. But conscience got the better of him.

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted.

  ‘You are a scholar, are you not?’ Ulgul was tired; his northern accent was heavier than usual.

  ‘I am,’ Aranthur agreed.

  The Brown Robe nodded. And smiled enigmatically.

  ‘I can take you where you could help, maybe.’

  Aranthur wanted to say ‘no’. But rather like the duel at the tavern, before he could find the ‘no’ inside him, he had agreed.

  Ulgul took him by the hand as if he was a child and walked across the opposite buttress. The two young girls frowned and moved away, raising their hands as if to prevent the priest of Aploun from speaking. Before they made it to the next pillar of the Aqueduct, they were intercepted by a man with a scimitar. The three gesticulated. The girls pointed at Ulgul.

  ‘Do you speak any Safiri?’ Ulgul asked.

  Aranthur became suddenly conscious that the Brown Robe seemed to know a lot about him.

  ‘See that man?’ Ulgul pointed at a huddle of rags. ‘A famous musician. A powerful swordsman. A warrior. Now he is an addict. He won’t talk to me. Perhaps—’

  ‘Didn’t we already have a conversation?’

  The newcomer’s accent was lighter than the Northerner’s, but there nonetheless, and he wore a scimitar and the flowing trousers and tight doublet of Atti. He had on a fine felt fez, and his hands were on his hips, and his face wore a broad smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  ‘Ah, Famuz.’ Ulgul nodded as if he’d forgotten to introduce an old friend.

  ‘I thought that you understood me, priest. We don’t want you here. None of my people worship your Twelve.’ He stood very close to Ulgul.

  ‘You mean, I make your child prostitutes remember that they once had lives?’

  ‘You think that my people gave you a beating, priest? Listen – those were kisses. Who is this?’ he asked, pointing at Aranthur.

  ‘A man – he’s lost. No better than you.’

  Famuz turned. ‘You are lost, young sir? For a small fee, one of my boys will take you home safely. If you have one of my boys with you, no one will accost you, I promise.’

  Aranthur was trying to work it out. A crime boss … certainly. But beating a priest of Aploun was not a good practice for a City criminal. On the other hand, Ulgul was distancing himself – he’d already taken two steps away.

  Aranthur was a big man with a sword at his side.

  ‘I don’t think I need an escort,’ he said, as pleasantly as he could manage.

  Famuz shook his head. ‘That’s where you are wrong, sir. These streets can be very dangerous, and it is bad for my people if anything happens to a foreigner.’

  Aranthur smiled. ‘Foreigner?’

  ‘I don’t think you understand,’ Famuz said, the smile vanishing. ‘Pay me a couple of silver crosses, and you will be perfectly safe.’

  ‘Or?’

  Aranthur was looking at the Easterners, trying to see if any of them was one of the criminal’s thugs or bodyguards.

  ‘Or something unpleasant might happen,’ Famuz said.

  ‘Like …’ Aranthur smiled his uncle’s smile. ‘Like I put my sword in your guts and make you dance?’

  He was pretending to be something he wasn’t, but he knew the language from his uncle.

  Ulgul was gone, vanished like a man with magikal powers.

  Famuz glanced behind him.

  ‘No one here to help you,’ Aranthur said. ‘For a couple of silver crosses, I’d protect you from me,’ he added.

  It was enjoyable. He understood the lure of the tough talk and the bravado. It was entertaining to watch the bastard flinch.

  ‘You’re fucked,’ Famuz snapped, and walked away.

  Aranthur stood his ground for a moment longer, and then walked a little too briskly around the Aqueduct’s supporting tier towards the safety of the steps and the City.

  But just around the next pillar, at the entrance of the narrow alley that led down to his home, as he walked quickly, he passed a man crouched against the huge stone buttress. His long sword, which he wasn’t used to wearing, slapped the man as he turned.

  ‘Whoa!’ the man spat. ‘Eat my dirt, citizen.’ The beggar sounded almost casual.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Sure.’ The man’s words were very slightly accented, and slurred. He smiled – a genuine smile. ‘Nice sword. You a sword guy? I was a sword guy, once.’

  Aranthur understood then that the man was a thuryx addict. He could see it in the man’s eyes – the slightly red centres – and the hands …

  But what stopped Aranthur dead was that the man had said the last sentence in Safiri.

  He turned. He’d actually walked on three rapid steps before the words penetrated. He wasn’t used to spoken Safiri.

  ‘How’s your Liote?’ he said.

  ‘Fine,’ the man said. ‘Amazing. I’m sure I can get a job as an ambassador, or maybe someone’s secretary.’

  Aranthur walked back. He was instantly surrounded by beggars and dogs. But the crouching man pushed himself to his feet. He stank – urine and other smells: an unwashed body; a lot of mud with its own cargo of smells.

  One of the beggars threw a stone. The unwashed addict caught the stone, mimed throwing it, and the whole pack of children screamed and ran. A young girl was knocked flat, and she screamed. Dogs barked.

  Aranthur knew he’d already decided. He was getting more used to these moments, when his inner mind made decisions that he hadn’t examined at all.

  ‘Let me buy you a meal,’ he said.

  ‘You could just give me a couple of coins and I’d buy my own,’ the unwashed man said. ‘You can feel all holy and
you don’t have to smell me.’

  ‘I need someone to practise Safiri with. I’m willing to save your life in exchange.’

  ‘Madar ghahbe! مادر قهبه,’ the man said, in Safiri. Aranthur assumed he was swearing. Then in fluent, accented Liote, ‘I don’t want to be saved, you pompous fuck. Bugger off. Buy one of the girls and pretend you make her feel good, you pervert. May your beard fall out and your balls wither.’

  Aranthur backed away from the flow of invective and the dirty man burst into tears.

  Aranthur shrugged at his own lack of indecision. He knew exactly what he was going to do.

  ‘Let’s start with a fish pie,’ he said.

  ‘If you’re serious,’ the dirty man said, ‘I hate fish. I’d take labou. I never feel hungry, but I wanted labou yesterday.’

  ‘What’s labou?’

  The man’s face seemed to shrink. ‘Don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Don’t know the word.’

  He stumbled to his feet and lurched. Aranthur took his arm and got a face full of his breath and his odour. He steeled himself and supported the man’s weight.

  ‘Fuck, I don’t want labou.’ The man frowned. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Let’s find some labou,’ Aranthur said in very stilted and probably incorrect Safiri.

  The addict laughed. ‘Who’s teaching you, boy? You sound like a fucking priest.’ He laughed. ‘An Armean priest speaking Safiri?’

  But despite his foul smell and his swearing, Aranthur got him along the line of the Aqueduct as far as the Pinnacle, the second highest point in the city. The highest point was the Academy and its central fortress; the other high points were the Temple of Wisdom and the Palace. But the Pinnacle was the high point of the Aqueduct, and from there, water could run down into every home. There was a broad reservoir high in the air, supported on glorious stone arches with hundreds of flying buttresses and abutments, and under the elevated reservoir was the agora, a marketplace of everything. Stolen goods went there, and thieves and prostitutes and tax collectors and soldiers, but also refugees and the poor. And everyone else. A local proverb said that a person could go a month without sex, but no one could go a day without visiting the Pinnacle.

  Aranthur, in fact, seldom went. But tonight, he had a mission. He half-dragged, half-carried his new Safiri teacher along, alert for Famuz or another thug as he walked across the mud and gravel under the Aqueduct until he entered the torchlit agora. There were scantily clad women, tougher than iron nails, doing acrobatics on stilts, with swords. There was a troop of Keltain mercenaries, with iron ring shirts and gold foil braided in their hair – no one of them less then six feet tall, and every one of them in a coat of maille that swept to the ground. They were armed, and watching the crowd warily. One looked at Aranthur, looked at his companion, and then at his sword.

  Then he walked on, uninterested.

  Aranthur asked the first soup seller if she knew what labou was. She didn’t. Nor did the next soup seller, nor a wine seller. The dirty man had lost interest.

  ‘I’ll never get my fucking corner back,’ he whined.

  Aranthur grew bolder. ‘Labou?’ he asked four or five times.

  Finally, a chai-girl frowned.

  ‘I’ll take you,’ she said, hoisting her little chai set in its basket and putting the sash around her waist. ‘For a silver cross.’

  ‘She’d fuck you for a silver cross,’ Dirty Man said. ‘Does my beard look so short, honey? She doesn’t know where to find labou.’

  She spat on the ground. ‘Is there a beard under all that dirt?’ she shot back. But she didn’t walk away.

  ‘Two bronze obols,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Nah, she won’t fuck for that,’ Dirty Man said. ‘And it’s too much for directions.’

  ‘Pay first,’ she said. ‘You should make better friends.’

  ‘He should, right enough,’ Dirty Man said.

  Aranthur was a country boy, but he’d been almost a year in the City. He took one obol from his waist sash without showing his purse.

  She shrugged, almost as if she was pleased by his caution, and walked off. She took them all the way across the agora, to the north side, closest to the Academy.

  ‘There,’ she said, pointing as if she was wisdom personified in the statue. ‘Labou. It’s a Safiri thing.’

  The labou seller was an old man with a cart. On the cart was a small brazier that burned charcoal, and on the grill sat a lidded copper pot.

  Aranthur was in a daring mood.

  ‘Two, please,’ he said. He turned to their guide. ‘Want some?’

  She laughed. ‘You’re not so bad. Yes. Anyone want to buy some chai?’

  ‘Three,’ Aranthur showed his fingers to the old labou seller. ‘And we’ll all have chai.’

  The old man had a magnificent beard and a gold earring and was otherwise dressed in the traditional clothes of the East, with a long robe over sandalled feet. He smiled.

  ‘Beets.’ Aranthur laughed. ‘Labou must mean beet.’

  The chai seller wolfed hers down.

  ‘Damn,’ she said in Liote.

  Then she rattled off what was clearly a blessing, making with her fingers the sign of Themis the Huntress, one of the Twelve – deer antlers.

  The labou seller bowed to her, and she nodded to Aranthur.

  ‘You owe me an obol,’ she said. ‘And three more for the chai.’

  ‘Now you say that sheep are goats, and black is white,’ Dirty Man said. ‘His purse is not as deep as yours.’

  The young woman turned as red as the beet she’d just eaten. She launched at Dirty Man, a stream of rapid Armean that Aranthur, who had just one year of that language, couldn’t follow.

  Dirty Man smiled.

  Aranthur stepped between them and opened his purse, only to find that he had no obols, only silver.

  She dropped a deep curtsey. ‘Now all the blessings of the Twelve and all their saints be on your head, prince of chai-drinkers,’ she said. ‘And if your beneficence extends so far, my lord, please pay three obols for the old man.’ She smiled – a very pretty smile. ‘He only speaks Safiri and Rafiq. And no, he can’t make change.’

  There followed an annoying time while a street seller was found to break a silver cross. He took an obol for his trouble, and Aranthur paid his debts – six silver obols to get an addict a beet and some over-boiled chai.

  But the man had eaten the whole thing.

  ‘Want another?’ he asked.

  ‘I want to die,’ the man said. ‘Fuck.’

  The beet seller spoke in Safiri, very fast. Suddenly Dirty Man shot to his full height. He spoke in Safiri, very clearly.

  He said, ‘Father, I do not steal. I swear on my father’s head.’

  Aranthur patterned his pronunciation of Safiri on that one sentence for weeks thereafter.

  The old man handed Dirty Man another beet, and he ate it slowly, as if savouring it.

  The chai seller had a small crowd by that time, and she served them all until she was out of water to make chai.

  ‘You brought me luck,’ she said. ‘And you’re clean and pretty enough. If you have another silver cross, I’ll go home with you.’

  Aranthur made himself smile. ‘I’m taking the dirty one home.’

  She laughed. ‘Oh, my mistake.’ She walked off, giggling.

  Aranthur was sorry, in a way. He wondered if the girl spoke enough Safiri … At another remove, he wondered later how she managed to be so cheerful with her lot in life, which looked cruel and hard to him.

  But he’d survived the Pinnacle, and the addict was all his.

  Aranthur woke in the morning to find his guest, filthy, and naked, standing in front of the glass window, holding Aranthur’s precious razor. He didn’t take in what he was seeing, and then he did – the man was getting up the courage to cut his throat. Aranthur thought so, at least; he had spread an old coverlet on the floor, and he had neither hot water nor soap nor a strop.

  ‘Please do not,’ Aranthur sa
id, in Safiri.

  ‘Oh, fuck!’ The man threw the razor at the wall. ‘I was close. Go back to sleep. I’ll get this done …’

  ‘I’ll have to clean it up,’ Aranthur said. ‘And my friend Arnaud died right about there, a month or two ago. The blood gets into the floorboards. It dries on the wall. It stinks, and the flies come. And by the way, that’s my razor, and I don’t have another.’

  He got up and fetched the razor, which he wiped on Arnaud’s spare coverlet and placed on the window sill.

  ‘Did you sleep?’

  ‘No!’ the man shouted.

  The new tenants downstairs began to slam sticks into the floor. The sun was just rising.

  Aranthur was just considering his incaution in bringing this man home. He stank, and he needed to wash, and Aranthur had to go to school and to work and Dahlia …

  Dahlia was more of an ache than a reality.

  He thought of the man before him and what he’d said to the beet seller.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked. In Safiri.

  ‘Sasan,’ the man answered. ‘See? Wasn’t that easy?’ He nodded. ‘Why do you speak Safiri at all? You’re Arnaut.’

  Aranthur raised an eyebrow. ‘Even a Safian refugee can speak ill of the Arnauts.’

  The Safian shrugged. ‘Whatever. Why Safiri?’

  ‘I study it in school.’

  ‘Huh,’ the man said.

  ‘Sasan, I want you to give me your word, as a man who does not steal, that you will not kill yourself and will not wreck my rooms or steal while I am gone.’ He nodded.

  Sasan laughed. ‘Once, that oath would mean something to me. Now?’ He shrugged. ‘The only god I worship is thuryx. Got any?’

  ‘No,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Then I won’t be here when you come back.’

  Aranthur thought for a moment. It was time, as his people liked to say, to trust the Eagle.

  ‘That’s as may be,’ he said. ‘Promise you will not steal, or wreck my room. Or kill yourself.’

  ‘Because that would make a mess,’ the refugee said.