“I would split up the Hall, Andarack,” Garet said.
He was pleased with the effect. Trax’s mouth actually dropped open before he remembered himself and tried to regain his façade of genial superiority.
“Break up the Hall?” Andarack said, looking at Garet as if he had spouted steam.
“Yes,” said Garet, ploughing ahead. “The patrols are hit and miss. Why not have small Banehalls at the outer and inner ends of each Ward, like the guardhouses? Keep the main building for training and records, but rotate Reds and their teams through the smaller Halls. Let them live there, for days or seasons if you wish. They can patrol in their Ward and the near Plazas, but always be within their Ward when they sense a demon approaching, rather than a Ward away, as we were two nights ago.”
He stood up and started to pace in an unconscious imitation of Andarack.
“And if we could devise a system of quick communication, something I think you should turn your mind to, Andarack, then we could call up more Banes as needed, swarm the beast and cut down on our own injuries and deaths.”
He stopped pacing to look at his audience. Andarack was smiling, and Trax was shaking his head.
“I take it back,” he said. “I think you will be Hallmaster one day, if there’s any sense in that pile of bricks and moldy traditions!”
Garet bristled again. “Moldy traditions? Like the Calling of the Places, and all the other ceremonies of the Palace, you mean?”
“Point taken!” Trax said, holding up one hand. With the other he tossed his Prey piece to the Bane. “And the game to you. Come, Lord Andarack, I believe we stumbled into the wrong room. The Chief Steward’s office is not even on this floor. Goodbye, Bane. Good to see you so soon after our last meeting.”
“Your Majesty, My Lord,” Garet said, making the necessary bows. He looked at the sketch of the mask he still held in his hand. Wrapping the Prey in the drawing, he shoved both in his vest pocket.
There was a knock on the inner door, and Barick stuck his head in.
“If you’re done, there’s a great mess to sort out,” he said, sounding rather aggrieved.
“Yes,” Garet said. “So it seems.”
IT WAS LATE
in the evening when Garet returned to the Hall. He knew he had missed dinner, so he walked through the Palace Market, looking at the stalls and trying to convince himself to ask for something to eat. His conscience argued with his stomach as he walked past the last displays of steamed buns, skewered bits of meat, and cooked vegetables. His conscience may have won, but his stomach still gurgled in complaint.
Marick would not have hesitated, and he had seen even Salick ask for food when on extended patrol and unable to return to the Hall to eat. No Bane went without a meal in Shirath. Those of the Hall worked hard, but they never knew hunger.
Garet shook his head at the thought. He had grown up on a farm, a poor ramshackle place that always seemed one bad patch of weather away from failure. That memory seemed closer at this time of year. Spring was when hunger always pinched the worst, for the stores of grain and salt meat would be gone by now, and the fresh vegetables and new-born animals were not yet ready to harvest.
That his mother and baby sister were gone from that poor place and safe in Bangt was a great relief to him, for they were the only good memories of his childhood. His mother had taught him to read, to track animals, and to wait patiently, hungrily, for his share, as she must for hers. He remembered many days when she went hungry so that he and his sister could eat.
Such waiting had bred a certain stubbornness in her son. It shamed him to ask for another’s food, because to take it for yourself meant that someone else must go hungry.
“Hey, Bane!” a voice called behind him.
He turned and saw an older man waving at him from the last row of stalls. Garet went over to see what he wanted and was presented with a piece of cloth tied into a bag. Within was a collection of buns: sweet ones, savory ones filled with meat, even plain steamed buns. There had to be at least half a dozen.
“Saw you looking them over, but too shy to ask, eh?” the man said, and laughed when Garet protested and tried to hand back the food.
“Eat! Keep your strength up, and Heaven protect us all! You’re the Bane from the Midlands, aren’t you? Well, lad, if you’re ever hungry, you come and see old Torfor. Best buns in the market, you’ll see!”
With that he turned to pack up his stall, and Garet took his treasure away to the Banehall, reducing it by two buns as he walked. A gift given freely, rather than demanded as a right, didn’t seem to offend his conscience, which stayed silent while his stomach rejoiced. The buns were delicious, and soon the air seemed fresher and the light reflecting off the city Walls brighter. The Hall felt like home again when he came through the east wing doors and took the remaining buns up to his room, reduced once more by Vinir, whom he met on the stairs. In return for a sweet pastry, she promised to tell Salick he needed to see her.
Dorict was grunting through a movement exercise Forlinect had set him some weeks ago to improve his strength and agility. He bore no weapon, but had iron weights strapped to his wrists and ankles. Even with that burden, arms and legs moved like the snapping of a pennant in the wind, and Garet waited until the exercise was over before he felt it was safe to enter the room.
“You are getting better,” he told the Blue. “I bet you could beat a Basher to death!”
“If I were wearing these weights, I’d give it a try,” Dorict said, untying them and dropping them to the floor, “but claws, that’s hungry work!”
Garet showed him the bag and smiled. So did Dorict when he saw what was inside. They sat on their respective beds and ate.
“I’m sorry that Barick turned you away today,” Garet said. He limited himself to just one more bun then took his new rope-hammer down off the wall hook. He ran his hands over its length, checking for flaws in the leather strapping.
Dorict shrugged. “After such a wonderful meal, I’m not sure I could criticize you for anything, but it’s not me who was angry.”
“Salick?”
“Like a Shrieker in a fish pond! She stomped off to see her uncle rather than return to the Hall and tell Bandat she was turned away.”
“Did she tell you that?” Garet asked. He began to regret sending Salick a message to meet if she was so put out.
“No,” Dorict said. He got off the bed and began the movement exercise again, slower and without the weights. “You could see it though. What happened with Barick, anyway?”
“I’d rather tell it when Salick and Marick are here. Where is he? Don’t tell me someone let him go on patrol?”
After last winter, when in the depths of the crisis even Blues had been pressed into patrol duties, Marick had whined about being left out of all the fun. The Masters, even Tarix, had so far ignored his pleas to join a team, though Garet guessed that would change if the increase in demon attacks continued.
“No, or not that I know of, but he’s been out of the Hall all day. He didn’t show up for training, so Forlinect’s got claws out for him.”
Garet felt very little sympathy for Marick. He liked the boy and considered him a good friend, but he knew the little Bane worked only as hard as he was forced, relying instead on his skills of trickery and charm to get through each day in the Hall.
There was a sharp knock on the door, and Dorict gave Garet a meaningful look before opening it and inviting Salick in. She walked over to the desk, sat in the one chair, and regarded Garet.
“First,” he said before she could speak, “I want to apologize for how you were treated. It wasn’t my idea, and I should have argued for you to stay, though I think Barick had orders to let only me in.”
There was an easing in the tension of her shoulders. She lifted an eyebrow and said, “Fine, but I expect you to knock him out with your hammer next time he treats me like your servant. Or any other Bane for that matter . . . what’s this?”
“A bun I was saving for Marick, but he’s still out,” Dorict said. “And you deserve it more.”
“Apologies and presents,” Salick said and bit into the bun. “Mmmm, I should get angry more often.”
“Please don’t,” Garet said, “and especially when you hear who was waiting to meet me.”
He told them of the meeting with the King and Andarack. Salick and Dorict listened, at first in surprise, but increasingly thereafter in confusion and shock.
“Why weren’t they saying all this to the Hallmaster?” Salick demanded. Half the bun lay uneaten in the palm of one hand. The sketch of the mask was crumpled in the other.
Dorict nodded agreement. He turned the game piece in his hand and looked to Garet for an answer.
“I got the impression they had tried and been turned away, perhaps for ‘interfering’ in Banehall business.”
“Would the Hallmaster deny Master Mandarack’s brother?” Dorict asked.
“Garet,” Salick said. She came over to the bed and sat beside him, taking his hands in hers. The remnant of the bun lay between them.
“Garet, you can’t keep this to yourself. None of us can.”
He gingerly removed the bun and put it in her mouth. Dorict was kind enough to control his reaction, though his nose wrinkled.
“Salick, I know that. You talk to Master Bandat, and I’ll talk to Tarix. They can bring all this to Branet—Hallmaster Branet—themselves. All I ask is that you tell your Master that the meeting with the King and Andarack took place by chance, or else Branet will chain me to a pillar in the training room until I’m old enough to be a Red.”
After much chewing and swallowing, Salick nodded and kissed him. This was too much for Dorict, and he retreated to his bed and made a great business of opening his book and reading.
“I miss this,” Garet said, when air became necessary. “It seems we have no time for each other these days.”
He could not keep regret from entering his voice.
“I told you this months ago,” Salick said. She rested her cheek against his. “Remember, while we travelled across the Midlands, and you wanted to learn everything about Shirath and being a Bane in a single day? I told you that one cannot be a Bane and any other thing at the same time. Not a baker, a farmer, or in love; at least, not easily.”
“I miss it.”
Salick drew back. “What, things going easily?”
Garet laughed. “No, I’ve never known that, not as a Bane or before! But I miss believing that things
could
go easily, that all the world would change for the better because I was in love.”
“My world changed, and so did yours, I think,” she said.
He pulled her closer again and touched his forehead to hers before answering, “But two people make a very small world.”
“And a very annoying one,” Dorict said. He turned to the wall and put the open book over his head. He was forced to stay that way until Salick left for patrol. She promised to talk to Bandat sometime during the night. Garet told her he would do the same with Tarix tomorrow, for the Red had promised to drop by the training hall to check on the Black Sashes Forlinect was instructing.
When she was gone, Garet went over to tell Dorict he could stop pretending to sleep, but found the Blue had stopped pretending some time ago and was gently snoring under the open book. Garet took it off and placed it on the thin matress beside Dorict, then lay down on his own bed to find his rest. He fell to dreaming of a giant playing board and pieces that moved of their own accord. Across from him towered some shadowed opponent, countering his every move. The sun woke him just before his Prey piece was captured by Huntsmen and Hounds that shrieked like demons. He lay for a while, watching the square of light creeping into the room and thinking that if dreams were Heaven’s messages, they should speak more clearly.
That morning, Garet was pleased to see Dasanat accompany Tarix into the training room. The Red was moving easily now, her repaired and improved brace letting her work through several exercises with Garet using both the trident and the sharpened shield. Dasanat glared at the offending leg the entire time and stopped its owner once to adjust the tension on the brace with a tool pulled from one of the many pockets of her tunic.
The Black Sashes had all stopped to watch Tarix practice, and Allifur had pressed forward for a better view when the Red picked up the shield again and flashed it through several deadly thrusts. Garet took the opportunity to pull the girl forward and introduce her to the Mechanical.
“This is Allifur. Dasanat, I thought you might come up with a weapon for her that favours one hand.”
Dasanat looked down at the child and abruptly squatted so that their eyes were on a level.
“You have only one hand?” she asked. There was no mockery or judgement in her voice.
Corfin came up behind his friend and stuck out his chin, ready to defend or attack, if need be.
“Yes,” whispered Allifur, and then she stuck out both arms.
If there was a trembling in her little voice, Dasanat paid it no mind. She examined both arms the way Garet had, testing their strength and flexibility until she was satisfied. Then she took out a small roll of paper and a stick of charcoal. With a marked string, she measured the one hand, the length of both arms, and noted down all. Garet was careful to suppress a smile as he remembered Trax’s story of measuring the vegetable seller.