Thraxas - The Complete Series

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Thraxas - The Complete Series Page 52

by Martin Scott


  “What would its effect be if used on a horse?”

  “A sedative, maybe, if it’s the same sort of plant.”

  I work my way back to Makri and Kemlath. I clap Makri a little too enthusiastically on the shoulder.

  “What you trying to do, break my arm?”

  “Sorry.”

  I brandish the plant. “You know what this is for?”

  “No.”

  “Doping horses, that’s what it’s for. That’s why Mursius was so optimistic about his chances in the race. He was planning to dope the other horses.”

  Sarija, Mursius’s wife, is slumped beside us. I ask her about the plants, but she’s too drunk to make any sort of sensible reply. I shake her shoulder. Suddenly Kemlath grabs my arm.

  “Don’t do that,” he says.

  They’ve been drinking together. Obviously the Sorcerer’s manners are better than mine.

  He apologises to me for speaking sharply, but points out that Sarija has been having a hard time and is entitled to some stress-free relaxation. I’m sure he’s developed a passion for her.

  I trust my intuition. Senator Mursius, war hero of Turai, was about to engage in some very dubious business at the races. I wonder if Sarija knew about it. She’s planning to enter Mursius’s chariot in the race. Is she still planning to cheat? Right now she is incapable of administering sweets to a child, let alone carrying out a large-scale doping operation, but who knows, the Senator might have engaged others to do the work for him. He might have been working with the Society of Friends, for instance.

  I’m too full of beer to think it through. Tomorrow I’ll come up with something.

  Palax and Kaby work up a furious rhythm loud enough to wake Old King Kiben and the place starts swaying as the drinkers bang their tankards on the tables. I join in heartily and stamp my staff on the floor in time to the music, sending rainbows out in all directions. Tomorrow the rain will end. Everyone is happy.

  The last thing I remember is berating the Sorcerers Guild for being too snobbish to let an honest workman like myself be a member, and then criticising the King, the Consul and the Deputy Consul for being too useless to run the city properly. After that it’s all a bit of a blur and I fall asleep in my chair with a flagon of ale in one hand and a thazis stick in the other.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I wake up in the chair. My back hurts and my neck is stiff. I’m too old to be falling asleep in chairs. Sarija is sleeping on the floor. She’s wrapped up in Kemlath’s rainbow cloak and the Sorcerer slumbers alongside, his arm draped protectively over her. Various other people are slumped all around. Gurd is usually careful to clear the Avenging Axe at night, but as he himself is unconscious at the bar I guess he didn’t have the energy.

  I check my bag for the small statue Kerk brought me last night. It’s gone.

  Dim light filters through the windows. I can hear the rain battering down outside. That’s strange. The Hot Rainy Season ended last night.

  I struggle to the door. Sure enough, the rain is still pouring down out of a grey sky. In all my years in Turai I can’t ever remember this happening before. The seasons might be grim, but they’re regular. The effort of moving has made my head hurt. I’m feeling rough. What I need is a lesada leaf. I trudge upstairs to find one.

  Makri is creeping along the upstairs landing looking one step ahead of death. She groans as I appear.

  “I should never have come to this city. You’re all decadent. My head hurts. Got any leaves left?”

  I nod. She follows me into my room and I remove a small pouch from my desk. Inside are my twenty or so remaining lesada leaves. I took them from a dead Elf a few months ago. He was killed after trying to cross Hanama. Before making the mistake of thinking he could outwit the Assassins he had been a healer and used the lesada leaves for treating all sorts of maladies. I’ve found them highly effective against hangovers. Best thing I ever got from an Elf in fact.

  Makri struggles to swallow her leaf then sits silently beside me while we wait for them to take effect.

  “Have you noticed there’s a threat painted on your wall?” she says, after a while.

  I hadn’t.

  Stay away from the Mursius investigation, it says. The message is written in blood. Or a magical imitation of it. I hope it washes off.

  Underneath is a letter G. Glixius Dragon Killer, presumably. I wonder why he doesn’t just attack, instead of leaving these stupid messages. I tell Makri that the bust of the Elf has disappeared during the night.

  “It’s my own fault. Never fall asleep from too much beer when you’re carrying vital evidence. First thing I learned as an Investigator.”

  “You think Glixius sneaked in during the night and stole it?”

  “Maybe. He’s just the sort of evil character who wouldn’t be celebrating like everyone else.”

  We lapse back into silence. “Thank God for these leaves,” says Makri some time later, as the colour returns to her face. “But you ought to go easy. They’re running out.”

  “I know. I’ll have to mount an expedition to the Southern Islands to get some more.”

  The fabulous Southern Islands, home to the Elves, are far, far away, and difficult to reach. You need a well-equipped ship to cross the ocean and the Elves are extremely wary of who they let visit. I went there a long time ago, but very few others in Turai have. The idea of actually going back there just to pick up a hangover cure makes us smile.

  “Did you notice it’s still raining?”

  “Oh no!” wails Makri and hurries to the door. She stares in fury at the rain and starts complaining as if it’s my fault.

  “You promised it would stop. I can’t stand any more rain. What’s wrong with this place?”

  I’m stuck for an answer. It’s never happened before.

  The celebratory joy evaporates immediately and the entire city plunges back into depression and anxiety. The continuing rainfall is regarded as the gravest of omens. No one has to look far for the cause.

  “It’s the Orcs!” thunders Bishop Gzekius.

  Bishop Gzekius is standing in for his subordinate, Derlex, who’ll be absent from the pulpit for a while.

  “The rains shall wash us away!”

  It’s a powerful sermon from the Bishop, much more passionate than you’d normally hear in Saint Volinius’s Church, I imagine, though I’m not really one to judge. I never attend church and have only come today to ask Bishop Gzekius what exactly he thinks he’s doing, organising the theft of the Orcish charioteer’s prayer mat.

  It’s an unsatisfactory interview. The Bishop refuses to acknowledge any part in the theft of the prayer mat.

  “It is ridiculous to think that Pontifex Derlex could have spirited away the prayer mat from a villa which was heavily guarded.”

  “You have influence all over the city, Bishop. Enough to make a few Guards turn a blind eye if necessary.”

  Gzekius denies it. He claims to have no knowledge of Orcish religion and when I tell him that Pontifex Derlex has been reading up on it in the Imperial Library he says it is none of his business what his young Pontifexes get up to in their spare time.

  I ask Gzekius who slugged Derlex and made off with the mat, but again the Bishop is saying nothing. I can’t tell if he organised the sabotage of the Orcs as part of some wider politicking or simply for reasons of faith. Sometimes members of the True Church have surprised me by acting from the sincerity of their beliefs. Not often though.

  Either way, the Bishop doesn’t know where the prayer mat is now. He says that if I pursue the matter he will see that charges are brought against me for burgling Derlex’s house. I tell him that if he wants to start threatening me he’ll have to wait his place in the queue.

  “You do seem to be in considerable trouble these days,” agrees the Bishop, maliciously. He hands me a copy of The Renowned and Truthful Chronicle of All the World’s Events. It devotes one full side of its single sheet to the shocking continuation of the rain, joining in with the ge
neral cry that the arrival of Lord Rezaz and his cursed chariot is to blame. Only the True Church speaks up for the people, it says, and compliments the staunchness of our local Bishop. Nice publicity for Gzekius. I flip it over. The other side is devoted entirely to me, unfortunately.

  How can it happen, thunders the Chronicle, that the number one suspect for the murder of the Turanian hero, Senator Mursius, has been employed by the government to protect an official Orcish chariot? Is there no end to the corruption in this city? Surely in any honest civilisation Investigator Thraxas would at this moment be climbing the steps to the gallows to receive due payment for his crimes, rather than receiving payment from the King for protecting these foul enemies of humanity. It is bad enough that the Civil Guard, with all the resources of the state behind it, has not yet secured a conviction. Surely it is intolerable in a civilised society that the chief suspect, Thraxas, a man, it must be said, with the most dubious of characters…

  And so it goes on. It’s a thorough piece. Even I had forgotten about the time I was hauled up in court for stealing a loaf of bread while everyone was engaged in morning prayers. I was very young when it happened and got off with a warning.

  “I’d say you were in enough trouble without bothering a Bishop of the True Church,” says Gzekius, summoning a servant to show me out.

  Everywhere I go I meet with sullen anger. Even Minarixa seems annoyed when I call in for some provisions, though it could just be the result of the effects of last night’s revels. Guardsman Jevox is surprised to see me.

  “I was wondering why they let you out of jail. You’ve been working for Cicerius.”

  “That’s right. Did you find out anything about the warehouse?”

  Jevox hasn’t. If he does he’ll send me a message.

  “You have any idea who broke in to the Pontifex’s house last night?”

  No crime was reported at the Pontifex’s. I suppose that was to be expected. It’s baffling though. It was hard enough finding one person who’d know enough to steal that prayer mat. How come someone else suddenly knows enough to steal it from Derlex? The entire city can’t have been studying Orcish religion. The library only has one scroll.

  I walk down to the Mermaid and there Casax the Boss is almost pleased to see me.

  “You were right, Investigator. The Society of Friends had infiltrated Twelve Seas. Four of their men were in that warehouse for a week, posing as common labourers.”

  Casax isn’t sure what they were doing there, though he presumes it was connected with the arrival of the Elvish and Orcish chariots, both of which were stabled temporarily in that very warehouse.

  “I figured that myself. And I think I know what they were planning. A doping operation.”

  Casax looks sceptical. “Doping? For the Turas Memorial? No chance, Investigator. The King’s Master of Horse inspects every entrant and Melus the Fair checks for doping as well as sorcery. You couldn’t get a doped horse past them.”

  “Usually you couldn’t. But I think the Society came up with something special this time. Namely the coix plant.”

  I take out a small fragment of the plant that Makri brought back from Mursius’s villa and hand it to him.

  “Comes from the far west. Doesn’t look anything special, I know. But I’ve a strong hunch it’ll act as a powerful sedative on horses, and it’s completely unknown here in Turai. I reckon there’s every chance that if the Society managed to feed the correct dose of this to the Orcish and Elvish teams they’d both crawl round the track on the day and neither Melus the Fair nor the Master of Horse would be able to detect a thing.”

  Casax stares at the green leaf. “I’ll have it checked out,” he says.

  The Brotherhood prefer muscle to magic but they have Sorcerers on call if they need them.

  “So, who was behind it?”

  I admit I’m not certain but I imagine it must have been Senator Mursius. After all, the plant came from his house.

  “And it makes sense. If the Society were planning something like this, who better to work it for them than the man who was entering the strongest Human chariot team? Mursius was very confident about his chances, far too confident for a man who’s up against an Elf. I know that Glixius Dragon Killer is involved. He might be the murderer. Maybe they argued over the cut. People like that always do.”

  Casax shakes his head sadly. Not even a gangster likes to see a Turanian war hero exposed as a cheat at the races.

  “Perhaps he wasn’t thinking straight,” I say. “He had problems with his wife.”

  “I hear his wife is entering the chariot anyway. I also hear she likes to soak up dwa. You think she’s carrying on the doping operation?”

  “I don’t know. I doubt it. Anyway, I’ll pass some of the leaf on to Melus the Fair. Once she’s studied it, it won’t get past her.”

  Casax smiles. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do that before. “Congratulations, Investigator. You seem to have thwarted a Society operation. I like that. I’ll tell my men to keep a lookout for Glixius. We’ll make sure he doesn’t venture down this way again.”

  When I leave the Mermaid I reflect that I’ve never had such a productive meeting with the Brotherhood. Casax might even feel he owes me a favour.

  I head off up to the Palace to find Cicerius. The streets down here are impassable for wheeled vehicles and I have to walk a long way up Moon and Stars Boulevard till I find a landus to take me to the Palace. It still looks splendid, despite the deluge, but even here the gardeners are losing the battle with the volume of rain and huge swaths of land lie under water. The numerous officials scurrying around these parts do so with their cloaks pulled tightly round them and their faces downcast, looking no happier than the denizens of Twelve Seas. Cicerius greets me briskly. The Deputy Consul may be the only person in the entire city unaffected by the weather. He gets down to business right away.

  “I’m due in the law courts in an hour. I’m defending a Senator on a corruption charge, so I can’t spare you much time I’m afraid. Have you found the prayer mat?”

  “Almost.”

  “Almost is not good enough.”

  I relate the full story of Derlex and Gzekius.

  Cicerius nods.

  “The True Church will have to learn not to meddle in state affairs. Who do you think took the mat from Derlex?”

  “I don’t have any suspects. It’s very strange, Deputy Consul. Not that people are trying to sabotage the Orcs, we were expecting that. But who else could possibly know of the importance of that mat?”

  Cicerius and the Consul are coming under increasing pressure from the King. Cicerius is fair-minded enough to realise that I’ve been doing my best, but he needs more than that.

  “You have to find the mat by tomorrow. If you don’t, we lose the copper mines.”

  Before I go I tell him a few details of the Mursius case. He takes the news about the Senator and the doping attempt calmly.

  “Once I would have been shocked. Not any longer. Nothing surprises me in Turai any more.”

  Last summer I helped Cicerius when his son had been supplying dwa to Prince Frisen-Akan, the heir to our throne. Cicerius can have no illusions about the state of our nation. Rotten, in a word.

  At my request the Deputy Consul asked a clerk to examine the state of Mursius’s finances. He was in grave financial trouble. He’d lost a great deal of money speculating and he was hit badly when several ships to which he had joined with others to offer insurance sank last year in a storm. Much of his land was mortgaged and he had more debts than he could hope to meet.

  Poor Senator Mursius. The man fights off the Orcs from our city and becomes a hero. Fifteen years on and he’s broke and his wife’s addicted to dwa. No wonder he tried to cheat at the races.

  Cicerius summons his official carriage and we ride down to Truth is Beauty Lane, where the Sorcerers live. Melus has a large villa here, luxurious enough though not too ostentatious.

  Melus is a powerful Sorcerer from a long line
of Sorcerers. She came to public prominence when she was appointed to the job at the Stadium, since when she’s become a national favourite. Everyone trusts Melus. She’s around the same age as me and fought in the last war. All our Sorcerers did, and their Apprentices. She stood beside her father as he was killed by dragon flame, so I don’t imagine she’s too happy about having to help the Orc Lord either. I tell Melus the Fair about Senator Mursius’s plans for cheating in the races and hand her a leaf from the coix plant. She’s grateful though she doesn’t admit that it would have fooled her.

  “I’d have picked up that something was wrong. Easy as bribing a Senator.”

  Sorcerers always have a very high opinion of their own sorcery.

  “Who do you fancy for the big race?” I ask her.

  She laughs. “I’m not allowed to speculate.”

  I inform her of developments, and admit that I don’t know where to look next for the prayer mat.

  “I take it Rezaz the Butcher isn’t pleased?” I say.

  “No he is not,” says Lord Rezaz Caseg, stepping into the room.

  I look at Melus reproachfully. She might have told me there was an Orc Lord next door. If I’d known he could hear me I’d have used his proper title.

  “So, Investigator, you have failed to locate my charioteer’s prayer mat?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then we shall leave the city tomorrow.”

  “There is no need to leave,” says Cicerius, calmly. “You may have complete confidence in Thraxas. He will locate the missing item.”

  Cicerius proclaims this with complete conviction, though I know he doesn’t believe it. Lord Rezaz looks thoughtful. With everyone on their best behaviour you might think this was a gathering of old friends. Deputy Consul Cicerius, Melus the Fair and Lord Rezaz Caseg, in white toga, rainbow cloak and black cloak respectively, maintain a high level of dignity. It’s left to me to spoil it all. I’ve been having a hard time keeping calm. I manage until Rezaz’s attendant, a short, muscular Orc with a sword at each hip, makes a comment to his Lord in Common Orcish.

 

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