Fanuilh

by Daniel Hood

  A long lunch was a poor second, he decided, but it was all he had. Over the course of the morning, he and Coeccias had been into every tavern in the Point but one, and he chose this last one to eat in, solely because it was the farthest from the Necquers' and would take the longest time to reach.

  It did not take as long as he wished to get there, but the service made up for it by being extraordinarily slow. He could almost feel the minutes creeping away.

  In a way, his impatience for the afternoon to be over amused him. It had been quite a while since he had anything to wait for, and he had watched so much time slip profitlessly away that it was strange to begrudge the hours.

  He was anxious, he saw, for the whole business to be over. For Tarquin's murderer to hang, for Fanuilh to be shut out of his mind, to resume his quiet life. The activity that had brought him bouncing out of bed only a few days before was now tiresome. It had brought him the contact with other people that he belatedly realized he needed, but the investigation had begun to color the contact.

  Lady Necquer had sent him packing, after all, and he had grown used to their daily conversations.

  So much so that now my afternoon seems empty as a keg after a feast, he reflected ruefully. Heartily sick of the search for Tarquin's killer, and even sicker of his own maudlin thoughts, he gratefully turned his attention to the lunch he had ordered.

  The meal was huge, and the cost equally large. Just past the soup, a thick broth delicately spiced, and into the fish, sole with a fiery-hot sauce, he managed to put his concerns away and keep them at bay for the rest of the meal. The afternoon light crawled slowly across the front of the nearly empty tavern, and when he was done, over an hour had passed.

  "Not late enough," he cursed. Hours still lay in wait before him, and like stubborn crows, his thoughts swung back to pick at what he had learned from Donoé. By her report, Tarquin had sworn an oath of chastity which, if true, effectively destroyed any theories about the wizard having gotten the hooded woman pregnant.

  Or did it?

  He had a happy inspiration concerning the rest of his afternoon, settled his score quickly, and set out for Northfield. His stomach groaned for time to deal with the heavy meal he had put down, but he gave it as little thought as possible.

  Viyescu was in his shop, and clearly wished he hadn't been. He twitched when the door opened and Liam walked in, and set down the mortar and pestle he had been using with a heavy thud.

  "Hierarch Cance," he grated unhappily.

  "Master Viyescu. I'm sorry to bother you again."

  The druggist shrugged to indicate that it did not matter, but there was no fluidity in the gesture: his shoulders were a single block of tension.

  "I wanted to ask you some more questions about the wizard, and the pregnant woman who mentioned him."

  "I'm afraid I can't spare the time, Hierarch," the druggist said, in a strange tone that bordered on pleading. "I must prepare for the procession."

  "Ah, the procession," Liam answered airily. "Of course. You'll be marching?"

  "I always do, Hierarch." Viyescu sounded almost miserable, and Liam fixed his gaze squarely on the man's eyes.

  "Of course. I only wish more followed your example. But I must detain you for only a few moments, and as you know, the business with the wizard is quite important to the temple in Torquay."

  "As you wish," Viyescu acceded nervously. Liam noted with mild astonishment that the druggist had actually begun to sweat.

  "It has to do with the woman who mentioned Tarquin to you. I think I misunderstood you when last we spoke. I thought you implied that the wizard had gotten her pregnant, but I have it on the best of information that he had sworn an oath of celibacy."

  The words seemed to strike Viyescu with physical force. He stammered for a moment, and then controlled himself with visible effort. "I apologize, Hierarch, I did not mean to imply that. He did not get the girl pregnant; he did not sleep with her."

  "I see. So some other man was the father, then? Not Tarquin?"

  "No, Hierarch. Not Tarquin."

  "You see, I've been trying to figure out what has happened to him, because he was important to us, if you take my meaning. Tell me, did this woman ask you for any virgin's blood?"

  The question drew a complete blank from Viyescu, who shook his head as if he might have misheard. "Virgin's blood, Hierarch?"

  "Never mind. She only asked for santhract?"

  Viyescu nodded eagerly. He was being more cooperative than he had been before, and Liam wondered why.

  "How does one take santhract?"

  "Powdered, Hierarch," the druggist said instantly, "in wine or cider to cut the taste. But I never sold her any," he added quickly. Indecision suddenly flickered behind his eyes, and he began to add something before cutting himself short. Liam waited for a moment and then went on, disappointed.

  "And she wanted it to terminate her pregnancy?" Viyescu nodded again. "She must be very deep in sin, Master Apothecary. Very deep." He intoned the words deeply, with as much of the piousness of a Torquay priest as he could remember. It sounded silly to him, like a poor imitation from his student days, but the sound clearly hit Viyescu another way.

  He began to speak, faltered, and gazed deeply into Liam's face, searching for something. Liam willed himself to remain impassive, hoping that whatever was sought would be found, but apparently he disappointed the apothecary because he only said, "Yes, Hierarch, very deep," before snapping his mouth shut.

  "Did you know the woman when she came to you?"

  "No, Hierarch," Viyescu said, firm once again, but Liam knew he was lying. "I had never seen her before."

  The sound of a horn echoed out over the city, and Viyescu looked up in alarm.

  "The procession! I must go now, Hierarch, if I'm to be on time. You'll excuse me?"

  Liam gestured graciously, though inwardly he was angry and frustrated. The druggist had been on the verge of telling him something of importance, something about the woman. Watching him pull off his stained apron, Liam cursed himself mentally. It had been very close. What was Viyescu hiding?

  "I must go upstairs to change," the druggist said when he had hung his apron on a peg, pointing vaguely towards the rear of his shop. "Don't you have to prepare for the procession, Hierarch?"

  "I have a dispensation for this Uris-tide," Liam said smoothly, and allowed himself brief mental congratulations for having thought it out earlier. "I will be watching, of course, but the business Torquay has sent me on is terribly important."

  "No doubt. I, on the other hand, must prepare myself." Liam understood the dismissal. "Certainly, certainly. Perhaps we can talk again?"

  "I do not know what else I can tell you, Hierarch."

  "Of course. Well, then, I'll be on my way." He turned and started for the door, and then stopped, his hand on the latch. "Master Viyescu," he said, smiling pleasantly, though he wanted to shake the man until he spoke. "My prayers will go with you in the procession today."

  If it was not what the druggist had been looking for in his face a few moments before, it was certainly very good. Viyescu's expression softened, and he nodded once.

  "Thank you, Hierarch" he said, his voice suddenly thick. "Perhaps you would do me two small favors, Master Viyescu," Liam risked. "Perhaps if you see this woman again, you would not mention my interest in her? And perhaps you would pray for me as you go in the procession?" "I am not worthy," Viyescu said, his eyes dropping to the floor.

  What does that mean? Liam wondered.

  "Who is? Nonetheless, I would appreciate both."

  "As you wish," Viyescu mumbled, and then quickly left the room.

  Liam paused for a moment in the empty shop, wondering about the man's strange behavior. The sound of the horn being winded again called him back to himself, and he went out into the street.

  The horn sounded twice more, and he noticed a few people hurrying towards the center of the city. Towards the forming pr
ocession, he guessed, and set his steps to follow. He had, after all, told Viyescu that he would watch.

  Ordinarily the square at the heart of Southwark bustled with people, selling goods or buying, gawking at jugglers or clowns or musicians. Rival birdsellers sent their disciplined flocks charging into each other from either side of the square, the object to confuse the other birds into joining the strongest flock. It was a game Liam had never tired of watching, and he had never passed through without stopping for a moment.

  There were no flocks that day, however, and no men with elbow-length gauntlets urging on their feathered soldiers with whistles and high-pitched cries.

  The squat stone bulk of the jail and the imposing, columned facade of the Duke's court on the western side of the square did not usually deter the chattering crowds, and on most days the wineshops, cafes and stores scattered around the other sides did a brisk business.

  The square seemed less active today though it was thronged with people who spilled into the sidestreets and approaching lanes. Hundreds obscured the pavement, most dressed in their brightly colored holiday finest, but they were hushed, expectant.

  By discreet pushing and taking advantage of his thinness, Liam managed to edge his way into the square proper, but the crowd was so thick that he found it uncomfortable, and shoved his way along the fringes of the square until he came to a two-storied wineshop. It was empty, and his footsteps echoed loudly as he entered.

  All of the staff of the wineshop were at the galleries on the second floor, gazing in reverence out over the square. Liam coughed politely, and the barkeep whirled in fury at the interruption, then stopped himself when he saw Liam's expensive clothes.

  "Ah, my lord," he fawned, "you'd grace us to share the process with us. If it please you, sit here." He shooed a crowd of serving girls and tapboys from the table in front of the central gallery and installed Liam there, cheerfully ignoring his employees' sullen looks.

  "Something to go with, my lord?"

  "Just wine," Liam said.

  The barkeep brought it quickly, smiled obsequiously, and dashed to another gallery, forcing a spot for himself between two angry serving girls.

  Liam sipped at his wine, turning his attention to the square below.

  A platform had been erected at shoulder height against the grim stone steps of the jail, and Liam noted with a wry smile that there were fixtures that would allow it to be changed to a gallows. Around the platform, a small space had been cleared by members of the Guard, resplendent in black surcoats emblazoned with the Duke's three foxes and polished, ornately useless ceremonial armor. Inside the circle of armored men several people had gathered. A small knot of shaven-headed acolytes of Uris talked quietly amongst themselves; Ancus Marcius held silent court over three other prominent merchants; and Ton Viyescu stood alone in a blindingly white full-length robe, his face screwed up in a sour expression beneath its encroaching beard. Coeccias, his shaggy hair painstakingly combed, his own surcoat and armor crumb-free, scowled at a man dressed in the everyday uniform of the Guard. The man was speaking at length about something, and in the middle of his speech, Coeccias began scanning the crowd impatiently. As Liam watched from the gallery, the man finished his report and the Aedile dismissed him offhandedly, his eyes still searching the crowd. Then he looked directly at the second floor of the wineshop, started, and grabbed the departing man, pointing in Liam's direction.

  The man nodded and pushed his way into the crowd, crossing the packed square towards the shop. The gathered worshippers parted silently for him, their attention still held by the empty platform. Liam, however, watched him with interest until he disappeared below. Then he turned his gaze to the stairs, expecting the messenger to appear at any moment.

  When he finally heard footsteps on the stairs, he rose himself and walked towards them, meeting the man at the top.

  "Are you looking for me?"

  The messenger stared at him, obviously not having expected to be met at the head of the stairs.

  "Y'are Liam Rhenford?" he asked suspiciously.

  "Yes. Coeccias sent you?"

  "Aye, to carry you these news. The rent's paid on the lodgings, sir, and so not by the wizard. Someone else keeps the hooded woman."

  "That's all?" Liam said after a moment. It did not surprise him—Viyescu had just told him that Tarquin had not kept the woman.

  "Well, sir, just that the owner said the coins used were the most fantastic he'd seen, though neither clipped nor light. Good gold, but strange."

  Liam raised an eyebrow in politeness, but was not interested. He was more concerned with figuring out Viyescu's strange behavior. What had the druggist been about to tell him? More importantly, was it connected with Tarquin's death?

  The sound of the horn called him to his surroundings, and he turned back to the gallery, the messenger following behind wordlessly.

  The horn was winded only once this time, and Liam saw that one of the shaven-headed acolytes was standing on the platform, raising a silver-chased ram's horn to the sky. He sounded it twice more, and a clash of cymbals answered the third, at which he hurriedly left the platform to join his fellows below. All eyes in the crowd turned to the north, where the main point of the procession was approaching.

  Two young boys led the way, crowned with wreaths of laurel and dressed in short white tunics despite the cold. They spread rushes in the path the crowd cleared for them, walking solemnly. Behind them followed a single man in complicated flowing vestments of white sewn with pearls and gold and silver threads. He wore a tall scarlet mitre and carried a golden lantern and an oversized book bound in tooled, painted leather. His massive belly bobbled beneath the vestments, and his beard straggled over three extra chins, giving rise to Liam's blasphemous thought that Uris's second-highest priest would not enjoy the next day's fast.

  The priest did manage to look grand, however, pacing measuredly on the carpet of rushes strewn by the pageboys, aloof and proud under the silent scrutiny of the crowd.

  Behind him, borne in a litter carried on the muscular shoulders of eight bald acolytes, came Uris's image, shrouded in a snowy tarp. Last in line was a group of musicians, piper and drummer and the man with the cymbals, marching unobserved in grave lockstep. The attention of the crowd was divided equally between the fat priest in his magnificent clothes and the covered statue.

  Only the rustle of sandals on rushes and the sigh of the wind could be heard as the procession moved into the circle of Guardsmen. The pageboys went up the narrow steps to

  the platform, leaving rushes behind, and the priest folloed them, moving to the edge to face the crowd. The litter bearers brought their load to rest in front of the platform, neatly turning around so that Uris, when uncovered, would face her worshippers like the priest. Coeccias, Viyescu and the merchants stood in ranks to the left of the litter, looking up at the priest; the other acolytes knelt to the right. Finally the musicians took up their position at the bottom of the steps leading to the platform.

  When they were ready, the piper nodded to the priest, who handed the lantern to one boy and the book to the other. Liam was struck by the awe with which they received their burdens, and the way they held them firmly in their hands but away from their bodies, as if afraid to soil them.

  Just a book and a lantern, Liam thought. He had never had much use for organized religions, though he knew the gods were there. Meet the Storm King face to face, he thought somewhat scornfully, and see how much you care for a book and a lantern.

  The ceremony was interesting, he had to admit, if only for its aesthetic and historical value. Once rid of his book and lantern, the priest raised his hands and began a chant in a high-pitched voice that swept over the silent square. Rising and falling in a stately, cadenced rhythm, the chant described the wondrous gifts Uris had bestowed on the world in an obscure, highly refined dialect of High Church Taralonian. Liam vaguely recognized it from his student days in Torquay, and was able to follow haltingly along
, despite the complex syntax and the strange, inverted poetry. He wondered if anyone there besides the priest, the acolytes and himself understood a single word of it.

  After several verses lauding Uris in general and her two major gifts—medicine and writing—the chant broke into song. The shaven acolytes raised their voices with the priest's, ranging around his high tenor in a complex and surprisingly merry harmony. At first the drummer was the only musician playing, giving the singers a simple beat, but then the piper began, and the man with the cymbals joined in as well with carefully muted crashes. They were, however, only the framework of the music, a steady undercurrent for the voices of the celebrants.

  The singing went through two repeated verses, and then subsided into just the priest's chant, though the drummer continued to beat out a more subdued rhythm for the chanter to follow.

  It went on for almost an hour, breaking from chant to song back to chant, going into detail about Uris's contributions to almost every civilized craft, illustrating the gifts with old myths and legends. First the piper wove into the chant and then the cymbalist as well, until the only way to tell chant from song was by the participation or silence of the shaven chorus. The crowd of worshippers remained silent, and Liam gave a moment's admiration to their stoicism, packed closely into a cold square listening to a long service in a language they could not understand. For his own part, he was too absorbed in translating it to himself to notice the length, and he grudgingly admitted to himself that it was beautiful in a strange way.

  Finally, with the sun little more than an hour above the western horizon, the singers and musicians brought their last burst of song to a halt, and an imposing silence descended on the square. Flushed with his exertions, the priest on the platform retrieved his book and his lantern from the pageboys and raised them high for the adoration of the common worshippers. He let a suitably dramatic pause go by, and then pronounced a blessing they could understand.