Well Met in Molos

by J. Hepburn

  Kalle's gaze becomes slyly inquisitive as he tilts his head to one side to stare at Zerris. "Can I assume that because of me, she was unable to procure her goal? Such a plan as she executed surely had a specific goal in mind and was not merely an opportunity to see how much cash that merchant had in his safe, but she was wearing the wrong clothes to escape carrying anything large. So I can only assume she was being perfectly honest with me, concealing nothing, when she asked if I had found a large and complicated key."

  It takes all Zerris's powers of self-control and discipline to prevent himself launching across the table with hands reaching for Kalle's throat.

  His struggle with himself, however, says everything words do not.

  "Aha!" Kalle says, sitting back. "Then I am afraid that not only did I interrupt the beautiful Orianna's evening, but I was so rude as to steal her prize from under her very outstretched fingers, as well. And yet it was entirely by accident, I swear to you, my dear Zerris! Entirely by accident, for I was merely interested to see what I could find, and took what was in the safe to study later. In truth, I had no idea I even had the key until I examined my haul at my leisure, far from that venue. It was kept in a bag of gold, you see."

  "You said as much—Tiglis told me you had said as much. Therefore, you would have no objection to returning it to its rightful thief?" Zerris asks sharply.

  Kalle beams at him. "I should say not!"

  Zerris's spare hand, the one not holding his tankard, rises from underneath the table. "Then..."

  "But only to Orianna," Kalle continues, firmly.

  "You can be assured that I speak for Orianna." Zerris struggles mightily to keep his anger in check, but keep it in check he does.

  "I only have your word for that, friend Zerris, even though circumstances support your claim." Kalle seems on the surface to be just as cheerful, but there is steel in his voice that makes a shiver run down Zerris's spine.

  "No," Kalle continues, his blue eyes hard as sapphires, "I will only return it to Orianna, and not merely to ensure it goes to its rightful illegitimate home. No, I must also make a personal apology. That is all I wish: To make amends and to apologise. My honour demands it. I will go my own way after that, but I will speak to her in person."

  There are few things that Zerris wishes less than to have Kalle meet Orianna—for the waste of time, as much as for the great risk of Kalle seeing more than is safe—but he can see his options blowing away like sand. He needs time. Time to think, time to plan, time to clear his head away from Kalle's disorienting presence.

  "You may also be assured," Kalle says, "that I do not have the key upon my person. I will make another appointment to see Orianna, but that is all. You can accompany her, if you like, I have no objection to meeting you again. I like you, and I feel certain that in other circumstances we would already be fast friends, but as it happens there is this between us, and I will have it concluded first."

  Zerris fumes, but can see himself with few other options. "Orianna manages her own affairs," he says stiffly. "I facilitate. We have a relationship of great mutual benefit, but I have no right to command her." Always thus has Zerris arranged his affairs, keeping each face at arm's length from every other, and he has no intention of breaking habits here. He may inadvertently make a mistake, or Kalle may by happenstance speak with someone more familiar with Zerris and his way of doing business and thus arouse suspicions. But, right now, it is a damned nuisance.

  "Gods above, you keep each other at arm's length in Molos, don't you! You will ask, though? One meeting, that is all I ask, at a time and place of her choosing—within reason, of course."

  Underneath the table, Zerris's left hand grips his leg above the knee and squeezes until both hand and knee feel pain, sharpening his focus. "Very well," he says. "I will relay your message. She, however, must make her own decision. Be assured, friend Kalle, I will speak on your behalf, as it is of benefit to us all. But be prepared to meet someone of fierce temper." He cannot resist adding that.

  "How important is this key?" Kalle asks. "She went to a lot of effort to gain it."

  "The party was convenient, for several reasons, not all of which she confided to me," Zerris snaps. "The key is central to a contract, and therefore it is as important as anything can be."

  "You take contracts seriously, then."

  Zerris allows the full extent of his fury to display itself upon his face. "In Molos," he snarls, "do not question anyone's word, not man nor woman nor child."

  "I see, and I apologise for any imputation I may have made," Kalle says, apparently unperturbed by Zerris's anger, but managing to convey, in all his lightness of voice, absolute sincerity in his apology. "Tonight has been far more informative than I could ever have hoped for. Will Orianna meet me anywhere, at any time? Should we arrange that now, or later? Will I be able to find you...?"

  "Do you make yourself easy to find?" Zerris retorts. His mind is racing to more constructive ends, now, necessity and the brink of despair finally conspiring to sharpen his intellect wonderfully. "Do you know the square in the Artisans' Quarter where the jewellers have their workshops? It is in the form of a triangle, with a water pump at the long point."

  "I know it rather well," Kalle says.

  "Then either I or Orianna will meet you near the water pump, tomorrow night, as the bells ring dusk. Should I have to meet you, I will endeavour to be on time; I am sure she will do the same if she is able—or willing—to be there at all."

  Kalle rises to sweep Zerris an elaborate bow. "I thank you from the bottom of my heart," he says. "Should I see you tomorrow, I will maintain hope of meeting Orianna elsewhere. Should I see her, I will tell her where you and I may next meet, for I feel there should be a bond as of brothers between us. If I see you both, it will be a doubly joyous occasion."

  Then he is gone, moving more like smoke than a man with a crowd in his way.

  Zerris watches him go, feeling bitterly as though all the control he maintains through such delicate balancing and assiduous manipulation is teetering on the brink of collapsing about him.

  As Kalle reaches the door, Zerris begins cursing Kalle, himself, and Molos itself, with all the fluency in expletives that his short but crowded years have given him.

  And what had Kalle meant by saying that he knows the square of the jewellers "rather well"? If he has only been a week in Molos…

  Zerris may have been troubled and, should he admit it to himself, slightly cowed by Kalle's skill at moving through the crowd, but such is often the case with those who possess such great skill: They rarely meet an equal.

  He himself is out the door so quickly that it is shutting behind him before oaths prompted by his passage can pass through startled lips.

  He is not at all surprised to find no trace of Kalle in any direction.

  How Kalle Gets in Trouble

  Zerris awakes, as is his custom, with dawn gone from the sky but the sun still stretching long shadows across Molos.

  He is in an evil temper, his quest to follow Kalle from the Twin Oxen having ended in futility at the very first step. He had gone to bed as Zerris, a mindset in which plans of the necessary care and duplicity are more productively made, but the anger and plans seething with equal futility kept him awake.

  Common sense tells him that Orianna must put on concealing dress and meet with Kalle in the square of the jewellers, but he has not yet managed to convince himself that even he can do so safely. Kalle's eyes were unsettlingly sharp, and Zerris is very much afraid that those eyes see far more than even the sharpest of men Zerris is used to. He would send Orianna with face entirely covered, but doubts Kalle would so easily accept that, and besides has no notion how to arrange such a thing for a wetlander woman.

  Zerris, who plans meticulously and practices every action and every personality until he has supreme confidence in his ability to succeed, is finding confidence deserting him.

  And so for the first time in weeks, he leaves his bed with no clear idea how the bus
iness of the day needs to begin. His next step towards completion of his contract is clear one moment, obscured the next. He has nearly the entire daylight hours ahead of him to plan, but all he can do is think in circles. Desert blood teaches patient thought, Molos refines it, and Zerris has more than most, yet today, it seems, he has none at all.

  To top it off, thanks to his own short-sightedness and delay he has no better idea where Kalle might be hiding.

  His mood is not improved when he remembers that thanks to Kalle's appearance at the markets, Tiglis had not restocked the larder, and consequently Zerris must break his fast with a meagre meal of stale bread softened in water and honey, and tea with sage.

  It is this final frustration that convinces Zerris to put aside his failures and do something mundane, domestic, and successful. Becoming Tiglis soothes and settles her mind as well as taking up a handy amount of time, and taking off Zerris feels more and more like a relief with every passing season. Besides, it is best to give the skin of his face a rest every day, and wearing the beard to bed had not been entirely wise.

  When Tiglis sees herself in the mirror, she realises just how fractured she had allowed her mind to become as Zerris. The thought does not give her comfort, but studying her reflection does. She begins to feel grounded once more, sure of herself and of her skills of disguise and transformation both. As she catalogues the various subtle differences between her face and Zerris's, she pictures Orianna next to her in the mirror, and almost laughs at the doubts she'd felt while in Zerris's mindset. Certainly there are similarities, but the transformation to Orianna had been great, blue eyes are not so uncommon among visitors to Molos, and if Orianna is much of a height with Tiglis and Zerris both, what of it? Her every movement is unlike either, and her voice unrecognisable. Yes, she can fool Kalle, no matter how sharp his eyes. She will merely have to keep a knife close to hand, in case his talk of honour is ill matched by his actions.

  Thus buoyed does Tiglis dress to leave her house.

  *~*~*

  The great market square has only a few vendors huddling around its edges as the day begins, and will not fill until close to dusk, but there are many street markets throughout Molos, not least in Saradakh's warrens.

  Tiglis visits one regularly, when she does not visit the great market itself, and many hail her with boisterous offers, entreaties, and demands she not pass up their superior prices.

  But as happy as Tiglis is to be bartering and laughing with old, familiar faces, she is not so distracted that she does not notice the whispered conversations around her, the veiled looks as people keep a constant eye on who may be listening before opening their mouths for more than mere commerce. The market is alive with rumour, and Tiglis, who normally knows everything that happens in her corner of Saradakh, is today in complete ignorance. She is almost afraid, wondering what could have happened to upset the beehive. More to the point, what could have happened with Gabrio, or with anyone at all who crossed paths with Kalle?

  But Tiglis is known to those in this quarter of Saradakh as a quiet desert woman who had been a shy girl—a woman who will defend her honour against any slight but give none to others, whose interest is in looking after her brother, who is head of the house. A woman, as the saying goes, of sharp blade but gentle tongue. It is a relief, sometimes, to walk among friends and acquaintances who do not know her as a thief, a procurer, a comrade-in-arms or a messenger. Very rarely is it ever a frustration, but it is a frustration now, as every face that greets her does so with an innocent smile and meaningless banter.

  By the time she has half-filled her basket, Tiglis is seething inside with frustrated curiosity and a growing sense of fear that, if she is not careful, could turn into panic. Zerris built his self-proclaimed empire on knowledge and wit and, as Tiglis, built a complementary empire with the same techniques but more subtlety. Ignorance is a weakness that risks becoming death.

  Where, in all the Hells above, is someone who knows the other side of Tiglis and might be prepared to speak? Has Amnon no shopping to do? She would even take a barefooted, dirty-faced member of Rasil's band of urchins, threatening them with Zerris's anger if they do not talk.

  She has nearly filled her basket when she is accosted, politely, by a man wearing city clothes complete with a wide hat—not uncommon in this portion of Saradakh.

  "Good morning, Tiglis. May I have a word?"

  Were Tiglis not already exerting iron-bound control over her every action, she might have reacted poorly to an introduction so rude. She darts a quick glance at him from inside her mantle. "Torres," she greets him. "May the wind be at your back."

  Torres stolidly ignores the desert greeting. "I had been hoping to see your brother. Do you know where he is?"

  Tiglis gives a faint motion of her head reminiscent of a contemptuous toss of hair. "Zerris is his own man. He does not involve me in his business."

  "Then could you deliver a message," Torres says, with no question at all in his voice. "If he has not yet seen Melech today, he needs to."

  "Needs to?" Tiglis asks, as sharply as any woman of the desert would speak to someone so rudely abrupt. Inside, she is nearly screaming.

  Torres smiles at her with absolutely no humour at all. "Melech wishes to see Zerris," he says, before turning on his heel.

  Tiglis stays very still as she watches him until he is out of sight, one hand inside her robes curled around the handle of a knife and her arm straining to keep the blade sheathed.

  *~*~*

  Old discipline makes Tiglis complete her shopping, return home without hurrying, then prepare a substantial second breakfast to eclipse the memory of the poor first one.

  Old practice lets her eat it, when inside her stomach, there is a lump as hard as granite and as cold as the desert at night.

  Then she kneels before her mirror to wipe clean the slate of her face. She's been consoling herself with the thought she would not need to become Zerris again that day, could transform into Orianna instead and venture forth to face Kalle and test his honour. The necessity to become Zerris again ruined her second breakfast almost as much as her fear of Melech's summons.

  And so it is the hottest portion of the day when Zerris, a desert robe over city shirt and pants, a knife from each culture thrust through his belt, saunters through the door of Melech's teahouse with a bravura he does not feel.

  He almost freezes in his tracks when he sees the gaze Melech levels at him, but forces himself to continue walking, although he allows himself to slow and show puzzled wariness upon his features. Inside, he repeats to himself like a mantra that he is innocent, he is ignorant, he has no part to play...

  Melech heaves his bulk off his stool, moving with what might be mistaken for ponderous difficulty if one did not have an eye for controlled strength, then passes through a beaded curtain into the back room of the teahouse.

  Zerris, keeping a hand off a dagger's hilt only with great difficulty, follows him through but stops as soon as the curtain falls closed behind him.

  There are too many men in the storeroom, all of them angry. A table against a side wall, well out of view of anyone in the teahouse, has two wrapped bodies lying upon it. Zerris wastes no time wondering whether they are alive or dead. He knows the look of dead bodies.

  Melech is standing by the table, face both bleak and wrathful.

  Zerris takes a step into the room, but moves no farther into such a mood.

  "I sent Samih and Rimon to see if they could find this Kalle," Melech says, every word falling with leaden finality from his lips. "I thought if he had come to little Zerris's attention, it might be time I had a word with him about his place in Molos."

  Zerris raises his hands, palms outwards. "I swear to all the Gods, I did not know he is dangerous," he says rapidly. "I had heard of him. That is all."

  "What did you say to Sarvin," Melech says, his tone not changing and not lifting even to be interrogative.

  "Sarvin? He came to you?"

  "Sarvin sent a runner to me
, yes, Zerris, not half a bell after I saw you. He wanted a conference. I accepted, of course, and he came to see me at the point of dusk. Sarvin said that this Kalle might be creating an upset, and I should be on the alert. Yet that is all he said. What did you say to him, Zerris?"

  Zerris relaxes slightly, but does not let it show on his face or in any line of his body. "One of my associates was working on a contract from Sarvin. She was interrupted by this Kalle. That is all I know, on my mother's grave, Melech."

  Melech's eyebrows draw down. "You were not honest with me, Zerris." His voice, already deep, rumbles. Around them, men's fists clench around knife handles.

  "I knew no more than that! My associate could not tell me any more!" Zerris says, with rigid control over his voice to avoid sounding terrified.

  "You met with him last night, Zerris," Melech says.

  Around the walls of the storeroom, men already clutching knives shift their balances on their feet.

  "He spoke to Tiglis at the markets. My sister! I made it my duty to find him and determine his intentions. He knows nothing about Molos. He asked me how to be sure he was not stepping on toes!"

  "And yet," Melech says, with a ponderous sweep of his arm towards the two bodies.

  "He is a viper, Melech. As dangerous as any man I've met, yes. Faster and quicker to draw, I have no doubt. But he shared ale with me because he saw in me no threat. He did not know to respect your authority, and Rimon? Rimon would not have known how to ask."

  The atmosphere in the room grows perceptibly more violent, and light glints off half-drawn blades as men mutter and press towards Zerris, who holds himself bowstring-taut and with breath frozen in his throat. But Melech waves his men down.

  "That is true. Rimon may have provoked him."

  The mood subsides, though sullenly.

  Melech turns to the table, staring down at the bodies of his men. "You owe me a favour now, Zerris," he says. "Perhaps finding out for me where we might find this Kalle at our leisure would clear it."

  Zerris runs before Melech can say anything else.