by Steven Brust
"Exclusively?"
"I think so. I'm pretty certain. Should I check?"
"Yes."
He simply nodded, rather than making a comment about being overworked. I think Kragar picks up on more than he admits. After he had slithered out of the room, Cawti and I sat in silence for a moment. Then she said, "I love you, too."
Cawti went home, and I spent part of the day getting in the way of people who worked for me and trying to act as if I ran my business. The third time Melestav, my secretary, mentioned what a nice day it was I took the hint as well as the rest of the day off.
I wandered through the streets, feeling powerful, as a force behind so much of what happened in the area, and insignificant, because it mattered so little. But I did get my thoughts in order, and made some decisions about what I would do. Loiosh asked me if I knew why I was doing it and I admitted that I didn't.
The breeze came from the north for a change, instead of in from the sea. Sometimes the north wind can be brisk and refreshing. I don't know, maybe it was my state of mind, but then it just felt chilly.
It was a lousy day. I resolved not to listen to Melestav's opinion on the weather anymore.
By the next morning Kragar had confirmed that, yes, Yerekim worked only for Herth. Okay. So Herth wanted this Easterner dead. That meant that it was either something personal about this Easterner—and I couldn't conceive of a Jhereg having a personal grudge against an Easterner—or this group was, in some way, a threat or an annoyance.
That was most likely, and certainly a puzzle.
"Ideas, Loiosh?"
"Just questions, boss. Like, who would you say is leader of that group?"
"Kelly. Why?"
"The Easterner they shined—Franz—why him instead of Kelly?"
In the next room, Meiestav was riffling through a stack of papers. Above me, someone was tapping his foot. Sounds of a muted conversation came through the fireplace from somewhere unknown. The building was still, yet seemed to breathe.
"Right," I said.
It was around the middle of the afternoon when Loiosh and I found ourselves back in the Easterners' quarter. I couldn't have found the place no matter how hard I looked, but Loiosh was able to pick it out at once. In the daylight, it was another low, squat, brown building, with a pair of tiny windows flanking the door. Both windows were covered by boards, which went a long way toward explaining how stuffy it had been.
I stood outside the curtained doorway, started to clap, stopped, and banged on the wall. After a moment the Teckla, Paresh, appeared. He positioned himself in the middle of the doorway, as if to block it, and said, "Yes?"
"I'd like to see Kelly."
"He is not here." His voice was low, and he spoke slowly, pausing before each sentence as if he were organizing it in his head before committing it to the air. He had the rustic accent of the duchies to the immediate north of Adrilankha, but his phrasings were more those of a Chreotha or Vallista craftsman, or perhaps a Jhegaala merchant. Odd.
"Do you believe him, Loiosh?"
"I'm not sure."
So I said, "Are you quite certain?"
Something flickered then—a twitching at the corners of his eyes—but he only said, "Yes."
"There's something weird about this guy, boss."
"I noticed."
"There's something weird about you," I told him.
"Why? Because I'm not trembling in fear at the mere sight of your colors?"
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you."
"Oh, I'm not disappointed," I said. "Intrigued, maybe."
He studied me for a moment, then stepped back from the doorway. "Come in, if you want," he said.
I didn't have anything better to do just then, so I followed him in. The room didn't smell much better during the day, with its windows boarded shut. It was lit by two small oil lamps. He indicated a cushion on the floor. I sat down. He brought in an Eastern wine that was mostly water and slopped some into chipped porcelain cups, then sat facing me. He said, "I intrigue you, you say. Because I don't seem to fear you."
"You have an unusual disposition."
"For a Teckla."
I nodded.
We sipped our wine for a while, the Teckla looking off into space while I studied him. Then he started talking. I listened to what he said, becoming more and more intrigued as he spoke. I don't know that I understand all of it, but I'll give it to you as I remember it and you can decide for yourself.
You're titled, aren't you? Baron, isn't it? Baronet, then. All right. It doesn't really matter to you, I know. We both know what Jhereg titles are worth; I daresay you know to the nearest copper penny. The Orca do care; they make certain that orders of nobility are given or withdrawn whenever it's proper, so the quartermaster is of a higher rank than the bosun, yet lower than the mate. You didn't know that, did you? But I've heard of a case where an Orca was stripped of her county, granted a barony, stripped of that, given a duchy, then another county, then stripped of both and given her original county back, all within the same forenoon. A bookkeeping error, I was told.
But, do you know, none of those counties or duchies really existed. There are other Houses like that, too.
In the House of the Chreotha, titles are strictly hereditary, and lifelong unless something unusual happens, but there, too, they are not associated with any land.
But you have a baronetcy, and it is real. Have you ever been there? I can see by the look on your face that it never occurred to you to visit it. How many families live in your dominion, Baronet Taltos? That's all? Four? Yet it has never occurred to you to visit them.
I'm not surprised. Jhereg think that way. Your domain is within some nameless barony, possibly empty, and that within a county, maybe also empty, and that within a duchy. Of what House is your Duke, Baronet? Is he a Jhereg, also? You don't know? That doesn't surprise me, either.
What am I getting at? Just this: Of all the "Noble Houses"—which means every House except my own—there are only a few which contain any of the aristocracy, and then only a few of that House. Most of those in the House of the Lyorn are Knights, because only the Lyorns continue to treat titles as they were when first created, and Knight is a title that has no land associated with it. Have you thought of that, most noble Jhereg? These titles were associated with holdings. Military holdings, at first, which is why most of the domains around here are those of Dragonlords; this was once the Eastern edge of the Empire, and Dragons have always been the best military leaders.
My master was a Dzurlord. Her great-grandfather had earned the title of Baron during the EldeIsland wars. My master had distinguished herself before the Interregnum during some war with the East. She was old, but still healthy enough to go charging off to do one thing or another. She was rarely at home, yet she was not unkind. She did not forbid her Teckla to read, as many do, and I was fortunate enough to be taught at an early age, though there was little enough reading matter to be found.
I had an older sister and two younger brothers. Our fee, for our thirty acres, was one hundred bushels of wheat or sixty bushels of corn, our choice. It was steep, but rarely above our means, and our master was understanding during lean years. Our closest neighbor to the west paid one hundred and fifty bushels of wheat for twenty-eight acres, so we counted ourselves lucky and helped him when he needed it. Our neighbor to the north had thirty-five acres, and he owed two gold Imperials, but we saw little of him so I don't know how hard or easy his lot was.
When I reached my sixtieth year I was granted twenty acres a few miles south of where my family lived. All of the neighbors came and helped me clear the land and put up my home, which I made large enough for the family I hoped to have someday. In exchange, I had to send to my master four young kethna every year, so by necessity I raised corn to feed them.
After twenty years I had paid back, in kind, the loans of kethna and seedlings that had gotten me started, and I thought myself well off—especially as I'd gotten used to the stench of a kethna farm.
More, there was a woman I'd met in Blackwater who still lived at home, and there was, I think, something between us.
It was on an evening late in the spring of my twenty-first year on my own that I heard sounds far to the south. Cracking sounds, as a tree will make when it begins to topple, but far, far louder. That night, I saw red flames to the south. I stood outside of my house to watch, and I wondered.
After an hour, the flames filled the sky, and the sounds were louder. Then came the greatest yet. I was, for a moment, blinded by a sudden glare. When the spots cleared from my eyes I saw what seemed to be a sheet of red and yellow fire hanging over my head, as if it were about to descend on me. I think I screamed in terror and ran for my house. By the time I was inside the sheet had descended, and all of my lands were burning, and my house as well, and that was when I looked fully upon death. It seemed to me then, Lord Taltos, that I had not had enough of a life for it to end that way. I called upon Barlan, he of the Green Scales, but he had, I guess, other calls to make. I called upon Trout, but he brought me no water to dampen the flames. I even asked Kelchor, Goddess of the cat-centaurs, to carry me from that place, and my answer was smoke that choked me and sparks that singed my hair and eyebrows and a creaking, splintering groan as part of the house fell in.
Then I thought of my springhouse. I made it out the door and somehow lived through the flames that, my memory tells me, reached taller than I, and made it there. It was built of stone, of course, for the dampness would have rotted timber, so it still stood. I was badly burned, but I made it into the stream.
I lay there trembling for what must have been the whole night and into the day. The water was warm, even hot, but still cooler than the air around it. I fell asleep in that stream, and when I awoke—well, I will not try to describe the desolation around me. It was only then, I am ashamed to say, that I thought of my livestock, who had died during the night as I nearly had. But there was nothing to be done for them now.
And what did I do then, Baronet? Laugh if you will, but my first thought was that I could not pay my master for the year, and must go throw myself on her mercy. Surely, I thought, she would understand. So I began to walk toward her keep—southward.
Ah! I see that you have thought it out. So did I, as I began to take my first steps. Southward was where her castle stood, and southward was the origin of the flames. I stopped and considered for some time, but eventually I continued, for I had nowhere else to go.
It was many miles, and all I saw around me as I walked were burnt-out homes and charred ground, and blackened woods that had never been cleared, until now. Not another soul did I see during the entire journey. I came to the place where I had been born and had lived most of my life, and I saw what was left.
I performed the rites as best I could for them, and I think I was too numb to realize what it meant. When I had finished I continued my journey, sleeping in an empty field, warmed by the ground itself, which still felt the heat from the scorching it had endured.
I came to the keep and, to my surprise, it seemed unharmed. Yet the gate was closed, and no one answered my calls. I waited outside for minutes, hours, finally the whole day and that night. I was ravenously hungry and called out from time to time, but no one answered.
At last it was, I think, hunger more than anything else that led me to climb over the walls. It wasn't difficult, since none opposed me. I found a burnt log that was long enough, dragged it to the wall, and used it as a ladder.
There was no living being in the courtyard. I saw half a dozen bodies dressed in Dzur livery. I stood there and trembled, cursing my stupidity for not having brought food from the springhouse.
I think I stood there for an hour before I dared to enter, but eventually I did. I found the larder and ate. Slowly, over the course of weeks, I gathered the courage to search the keep. During this time I slept in the stables, not daring to make use of even the servant's quarters. I found a few more bodies in my search, and burned them as best I could, though, as I said, I knew few of the rites. Most of them were Teckla—some I recognized, a few I had once called friends—gone to serve the master, and now gone forever. What became of my master I never found out, for I think none of the bodies was hers.
I ruled that castle then, Baronet. I fed the livestock with the grain that had been hoarded there, and butchered them as I needed. I slept in the lord's bedchamber, ate her food, and, most of all, I read her books. She had tomes on sorcery, Baronet. A library full of them. And history, and geography, and stories. I learned much. I practiced sorcery, which opened before me a whole world, and the spells I'd known before seemed only games.
Most of a year passed in this way. It was late in the winter when I heard the sounds of someone pulling on the bell rope. The old fear that is my heritage as a Teckla, and at which you, my Lord Jhereg, must take such delight in sneering, came back then. I trembled and looked for a place to hide.
But then something came over me. Perhaps it was the magic I had learned; perhaps it was that all I had read had made me feel insignificant, and fear therefore seemed foolish; perhaps it was simply that, having survived the fire, I had learned the full measure of terror. But I didn't hide. Instead I went down the great winding stairway of what I now thought of as my home and threw open the doors.
Before me stood a noble of the House of the Lyorn. He was very tall and about my age, and wore a golden-brown, ankle-length skirt, a bright red shirt and a short fur cape. He wore a sword at his belt and a pair of vambraces. He didn't wait for me to speak, simply saying, "Inform your master that the Duke of Arylle will see him."
What I felt then is, I suppose, something you have felt often, but I never had before. That amazing, delicious rush of anger that a boar must feel when it charges the hunter, not really aware that it is overmatched in every way except ferocity, and is why the boar sometimes wins, and the hunter is always afraid. But there he stood, in my castle, and asked to see my master.
I stepped back a pace, drew myself up, and said, "I am master here."
He barely glanced at me. "Don't be absurd," he said. "Fetch your master at once or I'll have you beaten."
I had read quite a bit by then, and what I had read put the words into mouth that my heart wanted to speak. "My Lord," I said, "I have told you that I am master here. You are in my home, and you are lacking in courtesy. I must ask you to leave."
Then he did look at me, with such contempt that, had I been in any other frame of mind, it alone would have crushed me. He reached for his sword, I think now only to beat me with the flat, but he never drew it. I called upon my new skills and threw a blast at him that, I thought, would have burnt him down on the spot.
He gestured with his hands, and looked startled, but he seemed to take me seriously for the first time. That, my good Baronet, was a victory that I shall always treasure. The look of respect that came over him was as delicious to me as a cool drink to a man dying of thirst.
He hurled a spell at me. I knew I could not stop it, but I ducked out of the way. It exploded against the far wall behind me in a mass of flame and smoke. I threw something at him, then ran back up the stairs.
For the next hour I led him on a merry chase throughout the keep, stinging him with my spells and hiding before he could destroy me with his. I think that I laughed and mocked him, too, although I cannot say for certain.
At length, though, as I stopped to rest, I realized that he would surely kill me eventually. I managed to teleport myself back to the springhouse I knew so well.
I never saw him again. Perhaps he had come to ask about tribute he was due, I don't know. But I was changed. I made my way to Adrilankha using my new sorcerous skills for money among the Teckla households I passed. A skilled sorcerer willing to work for the pittance a Teckla can pay is rare, so, with time, I accumulated a goodly sum. When I came to the city, I found a poor, drunken Issola who was willing to teach Court manners and speech for what I could afford to pay. No doubt he taught me poorly by Court standards, yet I learned enoug
h so that I could work with my equals in the city and compete fairly, I thought, as a sorcerer.
I was wrong, of course. I was still a Teckla. A Teckla who fancied himself a sorcerer was, perhaps, amusing, but those who need spells to prevent burglary, or to cure addictions, or secure the foundations of buildings, will not take a Teckla seriously.
I was destitute when I found my way to the Easterners' quarter. I will not pretend that life has been easy here, for Easterners have no more love for humans than most humans do for Easterners, yet my skills were, at least sometimes, useful.
As for the rest, Lord Taltos, suffice it to say that I chanced to meet Jranz, and I spoke of life as a Teckla, and he spoke of the common thread that connects the Teckla and the Easterner, and of bare survival for our peoples, and of hope that it needn't always be this way.
He introduced me to Kelly, who taught me to see the world around me as something I could change—something I had to change.
Then I began to work with Franz. Together we found more Teckla, both here and those who slaved under masters far more vicious than my own. And when I would speak of the terror of the Empire under which we all suffered, Franz would speak of hope that, together, we could make a world free from terror, Hope was always half of his message, Baronet Taltos. And action was the other half-building hope through our own actions. And if, from time to time, we didn't know how, Kelly would lead us to discover it ourselves.
They were a team, my good Jhereg. Kelly and Franz. When someone fails at a task, Kelly can verbally tear him to pieces; but Franz was always there to help him try again, in the streets. Nothing frightened him. Threats pleased him, because they showed he was scaring someone, and proved we were on a good path. That was Franz, Lord Taltos. That was why they killed him.
I hadn't asked why they had killed him.
But all right. I chewed over his story for a few minutes. "Paresh," I said, "what was that about threats?"
He stared at me for a moment, as if I'd just seen a mountain collapse and asked of what kind of stone it was made. Then he turned his face away. I sighed. "All right," I said. "When will Kelly be back?"