He copied the poem out fair, on a scrap of vellum he cut to size with his eating knife. Then he put the poem in her finished belt-purse and dropped it at her rooms. Again, he felt pleased with himself.
‘I may yet make a daesia,’ he said to the air, and sketched a bow to nothing. ‘I write poetry, and I fight duels. All I need to learn to do is sleep late.’
His last call was on Drako, who lived in a veritable palace, a house five storeys tall that towered over the Great Canal, with coats of arms set in the marble facade under dozens of arches supported by twining pillars of coloured stone. Over the loggia was a mosaic of the Lady, set in tiny tiles of gold-infused stone, and the place was called ‘Casa d’Oro,’ the house of gold.
Aranthur had never visited before, and in the end he climbed the slick steps of the loggia with the same feeling he might have had throwing himself into battle, but Drako was not at home. The steward, when summoned, consulted a list, smiled, and bowed.
‘You are on milord’s list,’ he said. ‘Syr Drako is at this location.’
He copied out directions, and Aranthur found his friend sitting behind a writing table in a building very like a fortified keep at the end of the canal.
‘Port master’s office,’ Drako said after an exchange of bows. ‘I rent a table here.’ He smiled. ‘You ain’t dead.’
‘No,’ Aranthur said.
Drako leant back and put his expensively booted feet up on his writing table.
‘Good for you. Stop duelling, Timos. You’ll get killed. You were lucky – your friend Kallinikos was sleeping with someone’s wife. Someone powerful. None of my business, except that his bravos would have killed you both. The man’s an advocato. A man of law. He has power and money, and his House is old, rich, and touchy.’ Drako shrugged. ‘And people say he’s a fucking warlock, an old-style magiker. All I’m saying is, know what the fuck you get into. You make me feel old.’
Aranthur winced. ‘I … Listen. The Master of Arts wants the man’s name. He was using … an Eastern occulta.’
Drako steepled his fingers. ‘So? He’s married to an Armean. She’s a Magas.’
‘Not any more. Kallinikos says he killed her.’
Drako looked at him for twenty heartbeats.
‘Which Kallinikos?’ he asked in his smooth, mountebank voice.
‘Mikal. My friend.’ Aranthur leant forward.
‘How do you even know Mikal …’ Drako shook his head. ‘Uthmanos …’ he said aloud and wrote the name down on a wax tablet. Then he tossed a tiny bag on the writing table. ‘Change of subject. Going home for ploughing?’
Aranthur nodded.
‘I admit, I already knew.’ Drako was looking out to sea. He had a magnificent window, and it was a brilliant early spring day. ‘Keep your eyes open. That’s all I ask. There’s something happening which I do not understand. No, that’s a foolish statement. I don’t really understand much of anything, and included in my shopping list of lack of understanding is this: a lot of armour has recently been purchased, and it isn’t going east, as we thought it would, to face the Disciples and the Pure in Safi and Armea and Atti. In fact, we allowed the contract to go through City armourers because we thought that the armour was going to our friends in Armea.’
Aranthur summoned up his mental map. Armea was on the same island as Atti, but farther east. With Safi to the north and Masr to the south.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I get that.’
‘Then it disappeared. And now it’s in Lonika, or even further west. You understand, this is Cold Iron business. The armour is not ours – there’s no law allowing us to seize it. Makes no sense to send armour west when Volta makes the best armour in the world. So we’re watching it. Something has been rotten in Lonika all year.’ He shrugged. ‘Never mind. It’s probably nothing, so in the meantime I get to pay you to go home for ploughing, which is a very gentle form of corruption. I hear you met the Emperor.’
‘Yes,’ Aranthur agreed.
‘What did you think?’
‘I liked him. He’s with Iralia!’ Aranthur said. ‘He’s so old!’
‘You are a dear. He’s just fifty. She’s not yet thirty. Both at the height of their powers.’
‘Iralia should have someone younger.’
‘Iralia is a courtesan, and if she plays her beads right, she’ll be the grey empress. Sunlight, he may even marry her – he’s besotted enough. But it’s all political. The Duke of Volta hates her, and the Emperor has had enough of the duke, and so …’ Drako spread his hands. ‘Go home, keep your eyes open, and give me a written report about the roads on your return.’
Aranthur rose, took the little suede bag, and bowed.
‘Your servant, syr,’ he said.
Drako smiled. ‘I wish I was going to that inn … Where is it?’
‘Fosse?’ Aranthur asked.
Drako smiled. ‘Pretty girls, good stock, good wine.’ He uncrossed his legs. ‘Damme, why am I sending you? I could go myself.’ He sighed.
Aranthur waited, because Drako was clearly not done.
‘Yes?’
Drako looked at him. ‘I hate telling people things. Knowledge is power. But you keep being a nexus.’ He scratched at his short, fashionable beard. ‘How’s Dahlia?’
‘I don’t know. I wrote her a poem.’ Aranthur smiled self-consciously.
‘Good. She loves a good poem.’ Drako’s sarcasm was thick enough to spread on toast.
‘Her room-mate told me not to come back.’
Aranthur hated the whine in his voice, but he was hurt.
Drako looked away. ‘Like that, is it. Sorry, then. If she’s moved on.’ He shook his head. ‘But now that she’s left you, I want you to be even more careful.’
Aranthur wondered what he meant.
‘And where is Sasan?’
‘Safe, and drying out,’ Drako said.
‘I’d like to see him.’
‘Listen, Timos. I hate coincidences.’ He paused. ‘Dahlia left you and then you met this Sasan … You know Mikal Kallinikos … No, never mind. Not today. Go home.’
Aranthur thought of asking questions, but Drako was too enigmatic and it would all take too long. He determined to try Dahlia again when he returned.
Aranthur was still pondering the complexities of Dahlia and Drako and Sasan and Iralia when he packed. He interrupted his reverie on the people he knew to hang his City sword on the wall and take the old blade. He’d built a new scabbard for it, and he wore it differently now. It was meant to be worn by a man on a horse, and he wore it that way.
The sword felt good tapping against his shins. It seemed to comfort him as he moved Ariadne to the military stables and mounted Rasce for the long ride home. It was almost like a companion as he rode along, watching the woods, and more than once he was tempted to talk to it, which seemed fairly odd. After a long, damp, cold day he met other travellers and he rode for two days with some religious players, all the way to the gate at Lonika. They performed the standard religious plays, and not the modern versions with dance and special effects that the opera did. He saw them perform their Niobe and he thought of Dahlia. But their Niobe was the traditional one, with Niobe herself as a scheming villainess and the gods regretful, careful of human dignity.
He stayed the night with them and drank too much wine. Then he rode on into the west, passing a long convoy of heavy wagons that surprised him, and noting, as the sun dried the ground, that there were military road crews almost everywhere. At Lonika, there were armed soldiers at the gates. Aranthur was unsurprised to see the tall woman in armour, although she was mounted on a superb black horse this time. She was chatting with the same short man; the two seemed inseparable.
On second glance he realised she was Alis – the General, the majesty – and that her mount sported an ebony horn two feet long and fluted like the best Iron Circle armours: a black unicorn. The magikal beast gave off an aura of power that he could feel like the heat of the sun on a warm day. Aranthur had never seen a magikal b
east before, except the green drake on the docks. He couldn’t help but stare.
Aranthur wondered if a bout of swordplay in a tavern counted as an introduction. Since meeting her, he had learned that she was an Imperial general, or vanax. Her name was Alis Tribane. She was part of the Emperor’s family.
He looked at her for long enough that she felt his regard and turned her head. She smiled, touched her monster’s sides with her heels and trotted to Aranthur, who was waiting to pass the gate.
‘You have come up in the world,’ she said.
Rasce was flinching away from the dark unicorn.
‘My lady.’ He grinned to show he meant no offence. ‘But you might say the same. Last time you were a gate guard.’
She threw back her head and laughed. ‘Damme, the biter is bit!’ She leant forward. ‘You’re friends with Syr Drako.’
He nodded. ‘Yes, milady.’
She nodded ‘Another time, Syr Timos, it would be my delight to have you to dinner.’ She smiled a businesslike smile. ‘But at the moment I am very much engaged.’
‘I didn’t mean to intrude!’ Aranthur said. ‘My apologies …’
She laughed. ‘You’re not intruding, young man. I’m just busy. Have a good trip home. Eagle Valley?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Alis,’ she said. ‘Or General Tribane.’
Mounted and on dry roads, it only took another day to reach the Inn at Fosse. Aranthur was sure of his welcome, and he rode into the yard and was almost instantly in Lecne’s arms. Within an hour he was giving a sword lesson; that night he was invited to dine in the kitchen with the family. Hasti flirted with him, somewhat automatically, and Nenia was herself, with a cautious smile. Don Cucino had regained control of his hand; Donna Cucina was delighted by her spices. It was a triumphant dinner.
‘You have become quite the gentleman,’ Nenia said to him as they cleared the table.
Aranthur didn’t think of a reply until he was lying in bed that night in Lecne’s room.
He was still thinking of her words, with their implied compliment and unstated concern, when he was walking along in the deep loam behind Rasce. His gelding looked back from time to time, over the plough handles, as if to say I’m a warhorse, not a plough horse.
Home was different. Everything was different, and it was difficult to describe just how. The house seemed smaller, although suddenly it had a fine porch of new wood with lovely curling dragons’ heads at the eaves, an Arnaut custom. Inside it seemed stuffy and close, despite a new oak chair with a padded back and arms, bought off the back of a wagon. It was obviously loot from some rich house in Volta during the Stasis or civil strife wherein the duke was overthrown.
There were new workers on his father’s farm, white-skinned men from the east whose families now had shacks along the western edge of town. Hagor had three families, and there were dozens more on the other Arnaut farms in the valley. Mira had a Armean servant girl.
Aranthur ploughed all day for three days, sometimes with his father taking a turn. The wiry foreign men helped, but they didn’t have the size to handle the deep plough. Aranthur did, and he enjoyed the work. It was simple, and it tired him. He learned the Armean names – Sali, and Souti, and Dras. Dras was silent and Souli had a bad scar on his face that wept pus, and which he didn’t bother to keep clean.
Sali was the only one with a sense of humour, although all three men would smile if they thought he wanted them to. They would also flinch if he moved quickly. Their women were never to be seen, and their children were dirty, even by liberal Arnaut standards.
They were all Sun worshippers, and they prayed, loudly, to the rising sun and again to the setting. Aranthur scandalised Hagor by kneeling and joining them.
‘Is the Eagle too simple for you, lad?’ his father asked.
Aranthur shrugged. He was avoiding having a fight with Hagor. There was nothing particular about which he felt the need to fight.
‘Is that another sword?’ Hagor asked later.
‘Yes.’ Aranthur didn’t mean to be sullen, but it certainly sounded sullen.
‘You own two swords now.’
‘Patur, I own two horses, I’m in the militia, and I’m an Imperial Student.’
Aranthur was trying to tell his father that he had status, but it sounded petulant.
‘Far too good to be a farmer,’ Hagor said wearily.
‘I love ploughing,’ Aranthur said, looking for some middle ground.
His father looked him in the eye.
‘Eagle grant you always love ploughing,’ he said. ‘You cut a straight furrow.’
‘I’m an apprentice in the Leather-workers’ Guild,’ he said at dinner, and showed his craft ring.
Hagor nodded. ‘Will you keep at it?’
Aranthur nodded. ‘I expect I’ll be a journeyman by First Sun. I was an incense bearer for the Iron Day festival.’
He smiled around at his family, who fairly glowed with pride now he was telling them about things they could understand. Studying Safiri with the Master of Arts and working an ancient and complex and possibly lost occulta – such a thing would only frighten his mother. Fighting a duel for a friend over his affair with a married woman … not so good. But leather-working was good. Their town had a leather-worker.
‘I was never an incense bearer,’ Hagor said, approvingly. ‘How were you chosen?’
Aranthur told the story of the quaveh bean.
‘Pure luck,’ Marta laughed.
‘Will of the gods,’ Aranthur countered.
Then they were poking each other, and the room didn’t seem so small or close.
The next day, they went to the Topazoi farm to share dinner. Alfia had grown, and Aranthur had to consider her in a different light. Her severity was still there, but she was taller, her shoulders broader, her breasts fuller. When she stood on her tiptoes to fetch a crock of marmalade for her mother, Aranthur was shocked at her beauty.
He was also a little shocked at how differently he saw her. She was working to attract him, and she was worried, a little unsure of her powers. When, while clearing pewter plates, they were together in the winter kitchen, he smiled down at her.
‘You are suddenly very beautiful, Alfia,’ he said, and she flushed.
‘I …’ she said. ‘I don’t compare to city girls, I’m sure.’
She stood still and licked her lips, and Aranthur thought that if he was in the City, he would probably kiss her. Here, if he did, he’d be married to her in a matter of days. It was still tempting.
It was like fighting. He put his mouth over hers without further hesitation. He never made a decision, and she responded after a long second.
As they parted she licked his lips with her tongue.
And stepped back as her mother came into the kitchen suddenly and laughed.
‘What on earth are you two doing alone in the kitchen?’ she said. ‘When I was a girl …’
She winked at Aranthur, and fetched the pudding in its cloth, leaving her thought unspoken and ambiguous.
But when the pudding was done and some tarragon brandy drunk, the women cleared the pudding plates and put out the little glasses men used for raki. Then they vanished, leaving Aranthur and his father, and old Hari – Topazo Primo – and his two sons Marco and Stepan, Aranthur’s boyhood friend.
The raki went around.
‘Alfia says Aranthur here was an incense bearer in the City,’ Marco said. Aranthur nodded. ‘Do you intend to be a priest, then, Arry?’
Aranthur fingered his beard. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘How’d you come to be the incense bearer, then?’ Stepan asked.
What he really meant was Are you coming back? Aranthur could almost hear him ask the question. He wondered if Hari already knew that he’d kissed Alfia.
To amuse them he told the story again, leaving out Dahlia. But when he was done, all of them wanted to know how Iron Day was different in the City and he told them, with a little embellishment, because he was
a good storyteller. And he described Master Palko’s house and yard, and the festivities, and the Emperor.
‘You met the Emperor?’ Hagor asked.
There was a hush.
‘You’re a liar,’ Stepan said, in just the tone he’d used at the age of ten.
‘No, it’s true,’ Aranthur said with a laugh. ‘And what is rarer, he knew me. Knew of me. Knew I was Arnaut, and knew what book I was studying at the Studion.’
He smiled at his father, expecting praise, and instead Hagor looked worried.
Aranthur was keeping a lot from them: Dahlia, Iralia, the roles of women in the city. He was pretending to speak with their accent, and he was annoyed when they doubted him.
‘Were you wearing your sword?’ Stepan asked.
‘No.’
‘Did you bow?’ Hagor asked.
‘Yes, Patur,’ Aranthur said. ‘My best bow.’
His father shrugged. ‘I’m not much for bowing.’ He made a face. ‘Did you ever find out what happened to the poor man from Volta? I mean, who he was? The one whose horse you have?’
Aranthur nodded. ‘Yes. A friend of mine knew something about him. He had no family.’
‘A man with all that wealth had no family?’ Hagor exclaimed.
Aranthur was rankled, but he let it pass. ‘You can spend the money now.’
‘Already have,’ his father said. ‘On the house, and on our new hands.’
‘Easterners.’ Old Hari shrugged. ‘Not much as workers. And they steal anything you leave out.’
‘And godless,’ Marco chimed in. ‘All that fool pagan caterwauling at the sun, and not a prayer for the real gods.’
‘Armeans,’ Aranthur said quietly.
‘What’s that?’ asked Hari.
‘They are not Easterners,’ Aranthur said. ‘They are Armeans, from the old kingdoms just east of Atti. Bordered on their east side by Safi and on the south by Masr.’
‘Pah, they’re all Easterners to me,’ Marco said. ‘Work ’em hard and watch ’em like the Eagle, right, lads?’ He raised an eyebrow at Aranthur’s father. ‘Your brother’s got one to kindle, eh? But then, he’s always been … odd.’
Cold Iron (Masters & Mages) Page 31