by Emerson, Ru
They’d been too tight the afternoon Choran had accosted him in that alley. Enardi swallowed, licked his lips, and shook his head a little. An older woman passing in the other direction, her hands full of melons, gave him a startled look, and edged as far from him as she could. The guard touched his shoulder and he jumped.
“Be easy, sir,” the man murmured. Enardi nodded, swallowed dread, and tried to remember how to walk normally.
Afronsan had initially suggested he go back to Bezjeriad, when the Emperor was still so angry; maybe he should have. But Casimaffi’s vast house wasn’t that far from Fedthyr’s; the man and his sons knew the city as well as Ernie did. I’d be a prisoner in my father’s walls—and likely not safe there. Choran wouldn’t care who he hurt, getting to anyone he thought an enemy. If anything happened to my family because of me—
But the Emperor had relented somewhat after those first few awful days; the wire stayed up, and Chris had gone south, taking the others with him. Things were coming back to normal, though that whole mess had cost him sleep for certain; to get word this afternoon that Chris and Ariadne were free and more or less of one piece was a serious weight from his shoulders.
The rest of Afronsan’s news hadn’t been so good: No sign of Choran anywhere, but word everywhere in the lower city had it that the man was still in Podhru and staying low, looking for someone….
And so, the brute with a broadsword, as Chris would (laughingly) call him—one of Afronsan’s off-duty guardsmen, with two more to watch the new house which was CEE-Tech’s quarters, front and back, in shifts, until the Heir decided everything was safe. Until someone drowns Choran in the harbor, Enardi thought gloomily. His mother’s midwife should have done us all the favor.
But that was a “Chris” thought, or an “Eddie” thought. Ariadne would make violence and never worry it, or so Chris said. Well—good for her. It made Enardi feel a little sick. It was said midwives did aid new mothers sometimes, if the child was misshapen or ill, or born blue and the midwife compassionate—or if the child were a girl or boy and the father desirous of the other sex, and the midwife unscrupulous. That anyone could… He couldn’t even consider doing harm, even to someone like Choran, without wishing the thought hadn’t happened.
Eddie pushing him to use that bo, or even a knife. But I know how it feels to be hit by that stick; how could I hurt someone that way? Or—or worse!
He blinked, came to an abrupt halt; the foot traffic around them was suddenly very heavy, going nowhere. The guard touched his shoulder, said, “Wait,” and craned to see over heads. “Disturbance up there,” he said finally, and took Enardi’s elbow. “We’ll go the other way instead.” He gasped and fell, vanishing suddenly into the milling crowd. Enardi stared wildly, then turned to run. Choran had both his arms just above the elbow. Enardi opened his mouth to yell; the larger man exerted pressure, and shook his head.
“Don’t shout. Say nothing.” And as Enardi drew another deep breath, Choran squeezed the nerve at both elbows. It brought tears to his eyes. “Shout and you die here and now,” Choran added, his voice deceptively soft. “Come with me. Listen—you might live.” He kept his grip tight; barely loosened the murderous pressure on nerves. Enardi staggered, held up only by the other’s hold on him. “I am waiting.”
“Yes.” Choran probably didn’t hear him; he could surely tell the slight, soft merchant wouldn’t give him away. Turning, he draped an arm over Enardi’s shoulders and led him north, away from the center of Podhru and toward the old walls.
They walked in silence for some minutes. The foot traffic became sparse; Choran turned into one of the many dead ends created by centuries of building and rebuilding around the old outer walls, and there was all at once no other traffic at all. He turned into a narrow alley, began to climb a flight of cracked steps, bringing his trembling companion with him. “You never sent word to my father,” Choran began. He kept his voice low but it still echoed in the high, enclosed space. “He is—disappointed, Enardi.” Silence. Enardi swallowed; he couldn’t get any words out. “All he has done, all he’s offered you—” They came out onto a broad walkway; unused for years. Grass greened the cracks between stones and bricks, the protective wall had crumbled away in places.
“No.” It didn’t sound like his voice. Choran halted, dragging him around so his back was to that awful drop, stared at him blackly.
“He offered you more than your friends can offer you, just now. He offered you your life.”
Chris was right, Enardi realized suddenly. Get angry enough, and things began to work again. Like his voice, which rang off the surrounding walls. “I didn’t need that offered to me, until you and your father wanted to kill me! And what about Chris and his lady? Edrith down on the docks? That was your father’s ship, Choran!”
Choran’s black eyebrows went up. “So? Of course it was his ship. And I’ll tell you, if it had been my decision, all five of you would have gone into that harbor right then, properly weighted first. It’s what Vuhlem—”
“Vuhlem?” Enardi demanded sharply. Choran went very still; he closed his mouth with an audible snap. “So which of them bought your father this time: Vuhlem or the man Dupret? Or both at once?” he added, his voice going up as Choran stared blankly. “He’s good at taking money that way, isn’t he? Your father! When Afronsan hears this—”
“Oh?” Choran laughed flatly and leaped: Enardi found himself spun halfway around, arms pinned painfully high behind his back. “Well, he may hear something eventually, if he lives that long, but it won’t be from you! Not on this plane!”
A red haze filmed his eyes, but he could clearly see the gap in the protective wall Choran steered him to; he dug in his heels but the larger man simply laughed and hauled him off his feet. “Help—please, help me!” Enardi’s voice spiraled across deserted walls and roofs, echoing from the higher wall behind them. Choran laughed again.
“Not likely,” he said, and shoved. Enardi flailed wildly, completely off balance, and fell. Lights exploded in his head as his cheekbone slammed into old, rough stone; his hands clawed frantically for hold. Somehow, he found one. His feet scrabbled against the ancient wall, but found only the faintest bit of outcropping, barely enough for one boot. Enough, maybe… He glanced down, shuddered, and looked away immediately. The wall sloped slightly here, a man might have enough good fortune to slide all the way down, or he might hit a projection, perhaps catch his foot in a niche formed by cracked and aged stone, then he’d fall all the way to… No!
Up: The view that way was worse. Choran loomed above him, not far enough away by half. Enardi set his hands one over the other, managed to clasp his fingers together over the projection, and began edging his free foot along the outwardly sloping wall in search of another hold. That guard: He must know I was taken, and by whom! But if the guardsman were dead, if he’d fallen because Choran killed him… What easier than to shove a knife between a man’s ribs in such a crowd?
Choran’s brows were drawn together, his face dark with fury, teeth bared. He clutched at the remnants of stone retaining wall and tried to reach Enardi’s fingers with first one foot, then the other. He grinned, evilly, as one toe grazed the outcropping and then pressed hard on soft flesh. “Say hello to your outland friend, Chris, for me,” Choran said. “The Frenchman’s caught him and his woman, and killed them both. We just heard.” The grin widened; his boot exerted pressure on Enardi’s knuckles. “I thought you would want to know.”
“Liar,” Enardi gasped. “I heard, too; they escaped.” He hissed with pain as Choran’s boot pressed down on his left hand; the left fingers tore free of his right and rough stone; his free foot slipped.
A loud, sharp voice came from along the wall. “What chances here? You, seaman!” The pressure on Enardi’s other hand eased as Choran spun around to stare back the way they’d just come. Enardi scrabbled madly for a new hold; his free hand caught hold of the loop of chain on Choran’s boot. Choran flailed wildly for balance—no use. He went over backward
; his head hit the projection Enardi had clung to, breaking his hold. He gasped, clawed for a new one as Casimaffi’s black son slammed suddenly and painfully against him and was suddenly gone. Found nothing. Enardi slid down rough rock and mortar, stone tearing at his skin; his feet slammed hard into another projection, throwing him off balance and out. He found himself simply, sickeningly, falling.
Dear gods, your protection… There wasn’t time for anything else. He blacked out, his last vision the rapidly approaching alleyway, and Choran’s sprawled, lifeless body directly below him.
A familiar drone of voice greeted him; his own, he realized after a long, black moment. He couldn’t see. “I hate falling, I hate it. Hate to fall. Hate heights.”
Another voice, from somewhere just above his head, a hand on his shoulder. He hissed with pain; the hand was withdrawn at once. “Sir—Enardi. Don’t move, sir.” The guard who’d left the civil service building with him—he thought. Hard to think anything, just now. The guardsman sounded worried. I must look awful. “The—the merchant’s son’s dead, sir; he broke your fall, but you have injuries, we’ll get a healer for you at once. Just—don’t move, sir, please.”
Enardi nearly nodded; decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to move anything. His neck ached, all of him ached where it wasn’t actually sharp pains. “Won’t move,” he assured the other man. His voice wasn’t much above a whisper. Stone under his cheek; his legs were cushioned by something—by dead Choran, he realized bleakly. I grabbed hold of his foot and pulled him down, and he’s dead. Fedthyr’s family and Casimaffi’s went back generations, into Zelharri, back to the first days out of the east, after the black men won and everyone else died or fled. “Ruined—oh, gods,” he whispered.
“Sir?” Another man’s voice.
“Killed—killed Choran. Father—never forgive.”
The voice said something; he couldn’t make out what, but it sounded angry. “Sir, he tried to kill you. We saw him, heard him! But everyone in Podhru knew about Choran and his father! They meant to turn things back—”
“Yes.”
“It was an accident, what you did, anyone could see that! And you did the Emperor and his Heir a service, surely you know that?”
“Service.” Enardi laughed breathily. It sent sharp pain through his ribs. Me and Chris, broken ribs and who has the most? Gods of easy profit. None of it was worth laughing about: Choran was dead, but Enardi was alive for the moment. Whatever else came of it, he’d killed a man. A dreadful man—that didn’t matter. Someone who had been alive, and now was no longer alive. However long he lived, he’d regret it.
10
The main street of Mondego was packed: carts headed to and from the portside fish market, men and women afoot everywhere, children carrying messages or simply running, all in a hurry. Half a dozen mounted Portuguese soldiers in their distinctive purple and gold, trying to direct traffic, so a compact square of pike-armed footmen could pass, only added to the confusion. The day was cool, fortunately, and a strong, dry wind from the low southern hills blew the usually thick harbor smells away from the narrow, smoothly cobbled way.
Ariadne’s face showed nothing but mild interest in her surroundings, but she clung hard to Chris’s arm and her fingers latched sharply onto his sleeve when a woman carrying three squawking, live chickens by the feet shoved past them, slamming into the slighter woman’s shoulder and nearly taking Ariadne seaward with her. Chris drew her smoothly back, then set his hand over hers, securing her a little better to his arm. He was taller than most of the locals but even he couldn’t see over horsemen, or purple-and-gold flags—or canvas or thatch-covered produce carts. Ariadne, most of the time, was completely unable to make out anything beyond the immediate ring of people around her.
Which spooks her. Fair enough: I don’t like it, either, Chris thought. Hard enough to sense that anyone—any man or woman of Dupret’s—could be in the crowd, blending in so they’d never be aware of enemy sneaking up on him and Ari. Worse still, just now—for him, anyway—breathing. He ached all over, and the ribs weren’t healing very rapidly, for all the local healer’d promised. Better than just letting them mend, on their own—but not by much.
The healer had shrugged aside his sunburn, clearly considering it nothing but a very minor discomfort. Pressed, she had given him ointment he suspected was the this-world equivalent of cocoa butter, and said the red and pain would go away in time—and then gone away herself. Wonder how she’ll be, healing skin cancer, if I have to look her up in a few years? Well—no use borrowing more trouble than necessary.
Having to dress like an honest-to-goodness gentleman never helped in the best of times, and just now it was nearly physically beyond him: The vest and shirt together, when properly buttoned, put uncomfortable pressure on his lower chest; what he referred to as Eddie’s Rich-Pig jacket was just a bit too small, and lined besides. Extra layer of cloth, over too many layers already. He couldn’t button it.
But the look was what counted at the moment. Eddie’s jacket took him out of the Errol Flynn class, put him into the gentleman category—by look, at least. Well, maybe Rhett Butler. Quasi-hombre.
All the same: The physical effect was very unpleasant, like being swaddled in mounds of cloth. A straw hat and a brand-new pair of gloves completed the sensation. I don’t think I ever in my life wore gloves before this. Mittens, once, when I was a little kid and Mom took me out to play in the snow—swear that was Arizona, when she was still in the commune near Flagstaff.
All these clothes, clean and pressed, the whole bit, just to create an impression on the Mer Khani—on the Alliance of New States—ambassador. So the man would even bother to see them—and listen to them. And, most important, believe them, because they appeared to be solid citizens, not mere troublemakers. Not bleeding-heart liberals or counterculture types, creating hassle for the Establishment. Thanks, Mom; I needed that. A faint grin pulled at Chris’s mouth; he tugged at his moustaches and put the smile aside. Still—Robyn must be feeling some odd twinges at the moment, and wondering why.
Only just something to do with her only son Going Straight: doing the equivalent of wrapping a power tie—burgundy and navy, if he recalled correctly, and diagonally striped—around his neck and going to dinner at the White House, making nice with good old Milhous or Ronnie. Heh, heh, Chris thought irreverently. Some people like Mom are out front with the bloated-thumbs-to-the-lantern bit; others of us, like me and Eddie, are a little more sneaky about it.
Don’t laugh, he hastily admonished himself. Hurts the ribs when you do.
At least it wasn’t midsummer hot, though it was, to his mind, disgustingly warm for the season. And too humid.
Ariadne was used to the fancy-clothes thing and, fortunately, the behavior attached: He was counting on her to help him over the rough spots. She wore the whole kit, including white gloves, and even carried a frilly parasol to match her emerald green skirts and jacket—the brolly closed because of the crowd, pinned firmly between upper arm and her ribs at the moment.
Edrith had been a pace or so in front of them, in and out of sight as he tried to watch everyone around them; he momentarily vanished, came edging back through the crowd as Chris whistled sharply. Two old women on his right side broke off a high-pitched, furious-sounding conversation to stare at him; one of the horse soldiers swore and worked his mount around them. Eddie looked entirely too comfortable at the moment, Chris decided sourly as he contemplated the picture his companion presented: sleeves rolled to his elbows, the shirt itself open at the neck, tails hanging over his britches. Old boots, and that disreputable hat that changed his appearance so much, depending on how he bent the brim. Edrith must have been able to read his mind; he grinned cheerfully from under a deeply creased brim and waved them on.
“Don’t get so far ahead, you!” Chris had to raise his voice to be heard. Edrith merely nodded, turned to lead the way once more, indicating direction now and again by lofting one arm or the other and pointing. Two side streets f
urther on, away from the ocean and toward the center of town, the street opened into a square; the crowd thinned out and there were suddenly fewer people, and most of these mounted on fine horses. Locals. Rich ones; look at all the silver on the tack. Chris glanced at Ariadne, smiled, and nodded; she smiled back, though her eyes remained anxious, and eased her grip on Chris’s sleeve. Edrith slowed down so they could catch up, then pointed past the enormous stone fountain that took up the center of the square; the boulevard beyond was tree lined and nearly as broad as the square; a raised stone curb separated carriage and horse traffic from a narrow white, shell-covered walkway.
“Two doors down,” Edrith said cheerfully. Chris scowled at him sidelong. How the man could stay so cool!
Well, obviously, he could. Of course, he wasn’t about to walk into the Alliance embassy and check out how good his credentials were. Chris nodded. “See it.” The embassy was a three-story slender house, much like its close neighbors, save for the Alliance of States—surprisingly nothing like his American—flag hanging above the door. He ran a nervous finger over his moustache, glanced down at Ariadne. Repressed an urge to laugh aloud that was probably half nerves but the rest a sudden image: “Jeez. We look like a remake of Gone with the Wind.”
Ariadne scowled up at him. “This is—? What?”
He did laugh this time. “Hey. Past-life experience, maybe.” Edrith laughed with him, and in chorus, the two men said, “Tell—you—later.” Ariadne muttered something under her breath and caught hold of the bell pull; it jangled harshly inside somewhere. Moments later, the door opened and a tall, extremely pale man in red-and-gray livery bowed them into a cool, long hall.
Half an hour later, Chris wondered why he’d been so nervous. Charles Barton had them shown into his study—a spacious, high-ceilinged room with little furnishing save a low table and several comfortable chairs, and three walls lined with bookshelves—and immediately offered tea. Chris let Ariadne graciously accept for both of them, and allowed her to make most of the small conversation with the ambassador while they waited for what turned out to be tea and a tray of small cakes and fruit.