Authors: Scott Lynch
“Good evening, good evening, good evening!” yelled Epitalus. “Good evening!” And then,
as though anyone in the audience might conceivably remain unenlightened as to the
quality or time of day: “Good
evening
!”
The string quintet ceased its humming and twanging, and the general acclamation sank
to a tipsy murmur.
“Welcome, dear hearts and cavaliers, devoted friends, to the seventy-ninth season
of elections in our Republic of Karthain! Take a
moment, I pray, to reflect with pity on how few of us remain who can remember the
first.…”
Good-natured laughter rippled across the crowd.
“Even those of you still moist behind the ears should be able to recall our heroic
efforts of five years past, which, despite furious opposition, preserved our strong
minority of nine seats on the Konseil!”
Curiously raucous cheers echoed across the hall for some time. Locke winced. Strong
minority? Was he missing out on some bit of Karthani drollery, or were they really
that incapable of admitting they’d lost?
“And so, surely, the burden of defending their old gains rests heavily on our foes,
and must render them eminently vulnerable to what’s coming their way this time!”
This was answered with full-throated yells, the clinking of glasses, applause, and
the sound of at least one thin-blooded reveler succumbing to the influence of complimentary
liquor. Fortunately, his tumble from a balcony was interrupted by a crowd of soft-bodied
folks, who were deep enough in their cups to take no offense at his sudden arrival.
Waiters discreetly removed the poor fellow while Epitalus went on.
“Might I beg you, therefore, to raise a glass in toast to our dear opposition, the
overconfident lads and lasses across the city? What shall we wish them, eh? Confusion?
Frustration?”
“They’re already confused,” yelled Damned Superstition Dexa from somewhere near the
front of the crowd, “so let it be frustration!”
“
Frustration to the Black Iris
,” boomed Epitalus, raising his glass. The cry was echoed from every corner of the
crowd, and then with one vast gulp several hundred people were in pressing need of
a refill. Waiters wielding bottles in both hands waded into the fray. When Epitalus
had received a fresh supply of wine, he raised his glass again.
“Karthain! Gods bless our great jewel of the west!”
This toast, too, was echoed enthusiastically, but in its wake Locke witnessed something
curious. A fair number of the people around him touched their left hands to their
eyes, bowed their heads, and whispered, “
Bless the Presence
.”
“Gods grant us all the blessing of a long-awaited victory,” said Epitalus,
“as they have granted me the honor of your very kind attention. I’ll not detain you
a moment longer! We have plenty of work to do in the coming six weeks, but tonight
is for pleasure, and I must insist that you all pursue it vigorously!”
Epitalus descended from the elevated gallery to a round of applause that shook the
rafters. The musicians started up again.
“What do you think of the old boy?” said Jean.
“He’s got a strangely sunny view of ten years of defeat,” said Locke, “but if I get
killed in the next six weeks, I want him to speak at my funeral.”
“Not to piss on the good cheer,” said Jean in a much lower voice, “but did you notice
that our friend Nikoros—”
“Yeah,” sighed Locke. “We’ll straighten him out later.”
The mass of well-dressed Firstsons, Secondsons, Thirddaughters, and the like returned
to its previous knots of conversation and besieged the silver platters of food which
were now being uncovered at the back of the hall. Performance alchemists in bright
silk costumes emerged from the kitchens, some to mix drinks, others already juggling
heatless fire or conjuring glowing steam in rainbows of color.
“My compliments, Nikoros,” said Locke. “Your party seems to be a smashing success.
Something tells me we’re not going to be getting any bloody work done before noon
tomorrow, though.”
“Oh, Josten’s your man for that,” said Nikoros. “He, ah, he mixes a hangover remedy
that’ll knock the f-fumes right out of your brain! Alchemy ain’t in it. So I think
we can help ourselves to another glass or two with a clear—”
It was then that Locke noticed a new murmur from the crowd near the main doors, not
the low purr of drunken contentment, but a spreading signal of unease. Men and women
with green ribbons parted like clouds before a rising sun, and out of the gap came
a stout, curly-haired man in a pale blue coat and matching four-cornered hat. He carried
a polished wooden staff about three feet long, topped with a silver figurine of a
rampant lion. A tipstaff if Locke had ever seen one.
“Herald Vidalos,” said Nikoros warmly. “D-dear fellow, have you come at a fine time!
You must, must take a little something against the chill! Help yourself.”
“Deepest regrets, Nikoros.” The man called Vidalos had a curiously
gentle voice, and it was obvious that he was in some discomfort. “I’m afraid I’ve
come on the business of the Magistrates’ Court.”
“Oh?” Nikoros stiffened. “Well, ah, perhaps I can, I can help you keep it discreet.
Who do you need to see?”
“Diligence Josten.”
By now a wide circle of the floor had cleared around Vidalos. Josten pushed his way
through the crowd and stepped into the open.
“What news, Vidalos?”
“Nothing that gives me any pleasure.” Vidalos touched his staff gently to Josten’s
left shoulder. “Diligence Josten, I serve you before witnesses with a warrant from
the Magistrates’ Court of Karthain.”
He withdrew the staff and handed the innkeeper a scroll sealed inside a case. While
Josten broke the seal and unrolled the contents, Locke casually moved to stand beside
him.
“What’s the trouble?” he whispered.
“By the Ten fucking Holy Names,” said Josten, running his eyes down the neat, numerous
paragraphs on the scroll. “This can’t be right. All of my fees are properly paid—”
“Your license for the dispensation of ardent spirits is in arrears,” said Vidalos.
“There’s no record at the Magistrates’ Court of the fee having been received for this
year.”
“But … but I did pay it. I certainly did!”
“Josten, sir, I desire to believe you with all my soul, but it’s my charge to execute
this warrant, and execute it I must, or it’s my hide they’ll have off on Penance Day.”
“Well, we can settle the business about the records later,” said Josten. “Just tell
me what I owe and I’ll pay it right now.”
“I’m
forbidden
to take fees or penalties in hand, sir,” said Vidalos. “As you well know. You’ll
have to go to the next Public Proceedings at the Magistrates’ Court.”
“But … that’s three days from now. Until then—”
“Until then,” said Vidalos quietly, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to disperse this
party. After that it’s your choice, whether we seal your doors or remove your liquor.
It’s only a few days, sir.”
“Only a few days?” hissed Josten, incredulous.
“Oh, Sabetha,” Locke muttered to himself. “You gods-damned artist. Hello to you, too.”
THEY WERE FORTY
miles beyond the border of greater Camorr, on the third morning of their journey,
when they passed the first corpse swaying beneath the arching branch of a roadside
tree.
“Oh, look,” said Calo, who sat beside Jean at the front of the wagon. “All the comforts
of home.”
“It’s what we do with bandits when there’s a spare noose about,” said Anatoly Vireska,
who was walking beside them munching on a late breakfast of dried figs. Their wagon
led the caravan. “There’s one every mile or two. If the noose is occupied, or it ain’t
convenient, we just open their throats and shove ’em off the road.”
“Are there really that many bandits?” said Sabetha. She sat atop the wagon with her
feet propped on the snoring form of Galdo, who’d kept the predawn watch. “Beg pardon.
It’s just that there doesn’t seem to be anyone actually lurking about.” She sounded
bored.
“Well, there’s good and bad times,” said the caravan master. “Summer like this we
might see one once a month. Our friend here, we strung him up about that long ago.
Been quiet since.
“But when a harvest goes bad, gods help us, they’re in the woods thick as bird shit.
And after a war, it’s mercenaries and deserters raising hell. I double the guard.
And I double my fees, heh.”
Locke wasn’t sure he agreed that there was nothing lurking. The countryside had the
haunted quality he remembered from the months he’d once spent learning the rudiments
of farm life. All those nights he’d lain awake listening to the alien sound of rustling
leaves, yearning for the familiar clamor of carriage wheels, footsteps on stone, boats
on water.
The old imperial road had been built well, but it was starting to crumble now in these
remote places between the major powers. The empty garrison forts, silent as mausoleums,
were vanishing behind misty groves of cypress and witchwood, and the little towns
that had grown around them were reduced to moss-covered ruins and lines in the dirt.
Locke walked along beside the wagon on the side opposite Vireska, trying to keep his
eyes on their surroundings and away from Sabetha. She’d discarded her rather matronly
hood, and her hair fluttered in the warm breeze.
She hadn’t kept their “appointment” the second evening. In fact, she’d barely spoken
to him at all, remaining absorbed in the plays she’d packed and deflecting all attempts
at conversation as adroitly as she’d parried his baton strokes.
The caravan, six wagons total, trundled along in the rising morning heat. At noon
they passed through a thicket like a dark tunnel. A temporarily empty noose swung
from one of the high dark branches, a forlorn pendulum.
“You know, it was novel at first,” said Calo, “but I’m starting to think the place
could use a more cheerful sort of distance marker.”
“Bandits would tear down proper signposts,” said Vireska, “but they’re all afraid
to touch the nooses. They say that when you don’t hang someone over running water,
the rope holds the unquiet soul. Awful bad luck to touch it unless you’re giving it
a new victim.”
“Hmm,” said Calo. “If I was stuck out here jumping wagon trains in the middle of shit-sucking
nowhere, I’d assume my luck was already as bad as it gets.”
THEY HALTED
for the night in the village of Tresanconne, a hamlet of about two hundred souls
built on three marsh-moated hills, protected by stockades of sharpened logs. It was
the only kind of settlement that could flourish out here, according to Vireska—too
big for bandits to overrun, but too remote to make it worthwhile for parties of soldiers
from Camorr to pay it a visit for “road upkeep taxes.”
No rural idyll, this. The villagers were sullen and suspicious, more appreciative
of outside goods than the outsiders who brought them. Still, the rough hilltop lot
they provided for caravans was preferable to any bed awaiting them out in the lightless
damps of the wilderness.
Locke took his turn sweeping beneath the wagon while Jean saw to the horses. The Sanza
twins, grudgingly accepting one another’s proximity, wandered off to survey the village.
Sabetha remained atop the wagon, guarding their possessions. Locke needed just a few
minutes to ensure that the space in which they would set their bedrolls was no embarrassment
to civilization, and then it occurred to him that they were more or less alone.
“I, ah, I regret not having a chance to speak to you last night,” he said.
“Oh? Was it any real loss to either of us?”
“You had— Well, I don’t suppose you did promise. You’d said you’d consider it, at
least.”
“That’s right, I didn’t promise.”
“Well … damn. You’re obviously in a mood.”
“Am I?” There was danger in her tone. “Am I really? Why should that be exceptional?
A boy may be as disagreeable as he pleases, but when a girl refuses to crap sunshine
on command the world mutters darkly about her
moods
.”
“I only meant it by way of, uh, well, nothing, really. It was just a conversational
note. Look, it’s really damned … odd … having to look for ploys to speak with you,
as though we were complete strangers!”
“If I’m in a mood,” said Sabetha after a moment of reflective silence,
“it’s because this journey is unfolding more or less as I had foreseen. Tedium, bumpy
roads, and biting insects.”
“Ah,” said Locke. “Do I count as part of the tedium or one of the biting insects?”
“If I didn’t know any better,” she said softly, “I’d swear the horseshit-sweeper was
attempting to be charming.”
“You might as well assume,” said Locke, not sure whether he was feeling bold or merely
willing himself to feel bold, “that I’m always attempting to be charming where you’re
concerned.”
“Now, that’s risky.” Sabetha rolled sideways and jumped down beside him. “That sort
of directness compels a response, but what’s it to be? Do I encourage you in this
sort of talk or do I stop you cold?”
She took a step forward, hands on hips, and despite himself Locke leaned backward,
bracing against the wagon at the last second to avoid a fall that would have been,
perhaps, the most graceless thing ever accomplished in the history of Therin civilization.
“I get a vote?” he said meekly.
“If it’s not to be encouragement, can you accept being stopped cold?” She raised one
finger and touched his chin. It was neither invitation nor chastisement. “The Sanzas
might be driving us all crazy at the moment, but I will say this on their behalf …
when their advances were made and refused, they never brought the subject up again.”
“Calo and Galdo made a
pass
at you?”
“Certainly not at the same time,” she said. “Why so surprised? Surely you’ve noticed
that you’re not the only hot-blooded young idiot with fully functional bits and pieces
in our little gang.”