The City

by Stella Gemmell

  Outside he was rewarded with the sight of his quarry disappearing into a side street across the square. Bartellus hurried, almost ran, across the busy square to catch up.

  In the shadowy side streets he found it easier to follow, for his prey clearly had no thought he was being pursued. The man stopped and dawdled at a street stall, choosing something to eat. Bartellus closed the distance between them cautiously, ducking behind a wall as the man turned and casually glanced behind him. He was chewing on a piece of fruit, tasting it. Through a broken piece of brickwork, Bart could see him clearly. He was tall and lean, with tow-coloured hair, and he was older than he had first appeared. The man bought a handful of fruit, then carried rapidly onwards.

  Before long it became clear that he was heading for Lindo. He was taking the route Bartellus himself took most days: through the north of Burman, across the river at the Serpentine Bridge, then following the winding length of Parting Street and approaching the Armoury from the north-east. It was the quickest way. Perhaps the stranger knew the City as well as he did. Perhaps he had followed Bart before.

  Striding along, a little out of breath, he racked his brain to work out who this man was, or whom he acted for. Bartellus’ heart laboured. They would have to leave sooner rather than later. The next day, if possible. He would lose a lot of money selling the house quickly. There was little demand for property in the Armoury. And Emly would be distraught to have to walk away from the House of Glass.

  They had reached Blue Duck Alley, and Bart allowed the man to move ahead of him, confident he knew where he was going. Em and Frayling would let no one in. The house would appear empty. But the man paused and looked around, then suddenly turned into a twitten. Bart turned off too, following a dank narrow way between two houses. Peering round the corner, he saw the man reemerge in a small lane running parallel to Blue Duck Alley. There was no one else in sight, and Bart stood in the shadows, craning his neck to see the man. The soldier looked round again, then stepped into a dark doorway opposite a pile of empty crates. Bart knew it well. It was the rear of Meggy’s lodging house.

  Hours after Bartellus left the House of Glass, Frayling went out too. He waited until he heard Emly lock the door behind him, and set off on the long walk to Otaro.

  When he had got up that morning, rising from his cot bed after a rare night of deep slumber, he had felt all was well in his world. The previous day he had seen his work praised by important men. Even though his name was never mentioned he knew, and Emly and Old Bart knew, how much he contributed to the marine window. His chest had swelled with pride as both of them turned to him and smiled. Emly looked pale, but after the merchant’s speech she came over to him and took his arm, leaning into him and whispering, “Thank you.” She had thanked him before, often enough, when he handed her a prepared calm, or opened a door for her. But this was heartfelt, and he found he had no voice himself as his throat closed up with emotion. What a pair we are, he thought.

  The very thought of them as a pair made him tremble and sweat. He adored Emly. His days were only complete when she was within his sight. Mostly he was content, though, working in his ground-floor room, to know she was several floors above him in the attic workroom. If she was not in the house, he could feel its emptiness.

  That morning he knew Bartellus would be out. The old man had told him, before he went to his rest, that he would be away all day, from sunrise to sunset. He told them not to open the door to anyone. Frayling respected and liked the old man, who had been kind to him, and he was concerned that Bart was deeply worried. He knew nothing about the man’s past, except that he had one. He wished he could help. He daydreamed as he worked on his glass that one day Bart and Emly would need him, that he would help them in some way and they would thank him as they had both thanked him the previous day. “Frayling, I owe you my life!” Emly would say, throwing herself at his chest, and he would stroke her hair and tell her he loved her.

  But he was surprised to see, when he came out of his chamber, that Emly was also dressed to go out, and she was waiting for him impatiently, a pretty frown on her face.

  “Where are you going?” Frayling blurted. It was not his place to ask, but she rarely went out, certainly not on two days running.

  “The merchant,” she told him firmly, though her eyes were downcast and she bit her lip with anxiety.

  He asked her why and, reluctantly, in her abbreviated way, she told him she had left her veil there, that the merchant’s son had it. She did not want Bartellus to know, for he had worries enough already, and he would insist on going. Frayling knew how she valued her old veil; he had helped her create its tiny ornaments. He did not understand why the merchant’s son should have it, but he did not hesitate.

  “I will go,” he said, the metal in his voice startling him. It surprised Emly too, for she looked up at him, her dark eyes searching his face in a way that made him blush.

  “With me,” she whispered.

  Frayling shook his head. “I will go,” he said again. “You cannot go on that long walk. Not after yesterday. And,” he realised, “you do not know the way on your own.”

  He thought he saw relief on her face, but she said, “Your leg?”

  “My leg needs a good walk sometimes,” he lied. “Stretch it out.”

  Frayling had never seen service in the armies. He was a small child, living with his mother and sisters in Gervain, when a badly laden cart had shed its load of building stone, crushing the little boy’s leg as he played in the street. His life was saved, and his leg knitted together, but it was a wadded mass of shattered bone and muscle. It pained him constantly, and was of little use. He limped around the House of Glass as best he could, and dreaded the steep steps up to the attic room. He often thought he would be better off without the leg, and he wished he had the courage to have it chopped off. When he went out he took a sturdy wooden crutch with him. Its padded leather cushion nestled comfortably under his right arm, and he could swing speedily through the streets.

  It was a long walk, although much shorter than their ride the previous day, for Frayling had lived in the City all his life and knew its alleys and twittens. Nevertheless, before he was halfway his injured leg pained him more than it had in weeks. And he was hungry. Yet he was buoyed by the thought of Emly’s gratitude when he returned bearing her veil in triumph.

  As he stalked the streets he rehearsed his words to the merchant over and over. “Good sir, I am the servant to Bartellus, the glassmaker’s father. He has commanded me to come to you to ask for the veil which his daughter, Miss Emly, left here yesterday by mistake.” It was polite and to the point. The fat merchant could hardly refuse.

  When he arrived at his destination the sun was past its peak and the heat at its worst. The stone house looked closed, shuttered against the noon heat. There was no one in the square, and the streets around it seemed deserted. Muttering his speech to himself, Frayling limped up the steps to the front door and rapped on it.

  There was a long wait, but eventually the door groaned open and a servant stepped out. He was thin and old and dressed in black. He looked the visitor up and down. Frayling nervously made his speech, stumbling a little over “glassmaker’s.” The servant stared at him moments longer, then went back in and shut the door in his face.

  Frayling did not know what to do. He stood there, wondering if the man would come back, or if he had been dismissed. At last he steeled himself and rapped on the door again. He waited but the door remained shut. Desolate, he sat down on the steps, relieving his right shoulder, which also ached from the long walk. He waited a while, looking up at the door from time to time.

  Finally thirst overcame him and he levered himself up and limped towards the fountain in the square. He was halfway there when he heard the door open again behind him. He turned and hurried back to where the old servant stood impassively.

  “Yes?” Frayling asked nervously. “Yes?”

  “The master of the house tells me you are mistaken,” the man tol
d him in cold tones. “There is no lady’s veil here.”

  The door swung shut again. Despairing, wondering what else he could do, Frayling stepped back and stared up at the house. From a first-floor window, unshuttered, a young man was watching him, young, ruddy faced. Frayling remembered seeing him the previous day. The man gazed at him until Frayling turned away.

  Bartellus was angry with himself. It seemed he had been living in a fog for the last few years. He had worried about the library custodian who had shown interest in him, whereas the man was probably harmless. After all, it was his business to show interest in the library users’ work. Yet Bart had allowed himself to fall into carelessness, regularly visiting the Shining Stars, an inn patronised by veterans. He had allowed himself to believe none would recognise him because that was what he wanted, for he enjoyed his games of urquat. And, more seriously, he had chosen the company of clandestine plotters, however inept.

  He had taken his coat off and poured himself a glass of wine when he heard a knock at the side door. He froze. What now? He went downstairs, wine cup in hand, and heard Emly clattering down from the workroom.

  Once again he cursed his idleness, for not having a spyhole in the door. He stared at it undecidedly, then went into the kitchen and came back with a knife. He placed one foot close to the door so it would not open far, then unlocked it and peered round.

  A hooded figure stood there.

  “Identify yourself,” he barked.

  “Do you still not know me, Bartellus?” a woman’s voice asked. She pushed her hood back. In the unforgiving light of late afternoon she looked older, though softer, her bundle of white hair pinned randomly on her head. Silver shone on her breast.

  Bartellus stood there in shock, letting the knife fall to his side.

  “Would you leave me standing in the filthy streets of Lindo?” Archange asked.

  He stood aside and she swept in, pushing the door shut behind her, as he seemed unable to. She glanced at Emly and nodded.

  “Well, general,” she barked, “do you usually lock that door? You should, you know.”

  Bartellus pulled himself together and turned the key, then he said, “Forgive me, Archange. I am surprised to see you. How did you find me?”

  “It was not difficult. You are leaving great bootprints all over the City. Now, do you have somewhere I can sit?”

  Bart took her up to the parlour and settled her in his own chair, while he perched on a wooden stool. Emly followed and lingered in the doorway.

  Archange looked at her. “Fetch me some watered wine, child.”

  Bart added, “And some lights. It will be dark soon.

  “You were lucky to find me here,” he told Archange. “I only came back early because I was being watched.”

  “Luck had nothing to do with it. You were following my man. He was charged with leading you home so I could speak with you at my convenience.”

  Bart sat open-mouthed. “I was lured here? Lured to my own home?”

  Archange shrugged. “I have no wish to linger in the streets of Lindo in the dark.”

  “Lindo is not so bad,” he told her mildly. “When we last spoke you were living in a sewer.”

  “I was not living there,” she told him briskly. “I was merely visiting.”

  She smiled then and he smiled back and remembered how much he liked her.

  “I see you have recovered your memory,” Archange commented, arranging her skirts around her and settling into the upholstered chair as if for the night.

  Bartellus shook his head. “There is a miasma in the Halls that dulls thought. I think the mind tries to block out the stench of the sewers, but it also blocks out normal reasoning.”

  “Nonsense,” she answered impatiently. “You had suffered many shocks. Your best friend betrayed you, you were tried, punished and tortured, and then, when you escaped, you discovered your family had been butchered. You were forced to survive in the sewers of a City you had served with courage and grace for all your life. That is what your mind was trying to block, general.”

  Bartellus could only nod. He felt foolish, as he always seemed to in her presence.

  Emly came into the room with wine for Archange, then lit the lanterns. Smoky fumes filled the room and she cracked a window open. Faint voices and a cool breeze filtered in from the alley below.

  The woman gazed up at the girl and asked, “Do you remember me, child?”

  Em glanced at her father, then said, “Yes, my lady.” She bobbed a little in a curtsey.

  “How old are you now?”

  “Fifteen,” Em whispered. It was what her father had told her to say.

  “And for how many years have you been fifteen?”

  Em looked to Bartellus again, for she did not know what to say.

  “Leave us for a while, please,” Bart asked his daughter gently.

  But she did not move and stood blushing furiously at her own defiance. Inwardly he sighed. He knew this time had to come eventually, when she found out about his past and the uncertainty of any future security. He nodded and Em sat on the floor.

  “This has been a strange day,” Bartellus said to the old woman. “I was thinking about you earlier, about the trial and Arish.”

  “That was why you chose the book on military tattoos, rather than your usual choice of history and architecture.”

  “Do you know everything about me?”

  “I know about the library, of course, and the inn you go to. The Shining Stars. And the house in the Street of Bright Dancers. It is foolish for a man on the run to get into fixed routines, although difficult for an old man not to.”

  He spread his hands. “We have been in this house for four years now. We have always felt secure. I have become complacent,” he confessed.

  “Yes, complacency can easily be mistaken for safety.” She leaned forward and said urgently, “You must leave here, Shuskara. You have attracted unwanted attention.”

  “Attention from whom? Your brother?” he replied sharply.

  “Marcellus?” She shook her head. “I have no idea what Marcellus knows. He does not confide in me. Your name has not passed between us in twenty years. But I know there are rumours that Shuskara is alive and living in the Armoury. It did not take me long to find you, and it will not take others long. You must leave here as soon as you can, general. Take your daughter and flee, tonight if possible.”

  He felt the wisdom of her words deep in his bones and it was all he could do not to take Em’s hand and walk straight out the door into the night. He forced himself to stay calm and try to think. “Where did your information come from?”

  “Here and there. Rumours and gossip and speculation. I have met many people in my long life and many of them still owe me favours.”

  Frustrated, he asked, “Who are you warning me against, specifically?”

  “Specifically?” she mimicked. “You will know that better than I. Who still wants you dead? You are an old man now. Tell me who you are a threat to, and I will tell you who your enemy is.”

  She paused, then asked, “Do you know what your crime was? Why the emperor turned on you?”

  Bartellus had had a great deal of time to think on it, and he had come to many different conclusions over the years, but he said, “I don’t know. He spoke of disloyalty, betrayal, the usual words. I should have seen the signs. I had seen it so often before, with other men. First he would stop calling them ‘my old friend.’ Then there were cool looks where there had once been warm embraces. Before my friends came for me I heard there was a meeting of the generals I was not told about. Astinor said it was nothing, a supply problem. I chose to believe him.”

  “We all choose what to believe,” she commented. “When I returned to the City I was told you had been executed. It was said you were plotting with the Gaeta pretender. I forget his name now. He had a brief run of glory before being caught and butchered. Others said the Immortal was taking his revenge on you for the trial of the hostages.”

  B
art frowned. That had not occurred to him. “But that was so long ago. More than twenty years.”

  “Twenty-seven,” she corrected him briskly. “Who knows what goes on in his mind? We know he has a long memory for slights.”

  “Then he would have more likely blamed you.”

  She said haughtily, “He does not dare. Marcellus is perhaps the only one he still fears.” She shook her head. “He would not dare move against me.”

  “Marcellus is loyal?”

  “Scrupulously.”

  Bart sat back and sipped his wine. He glanced out the small window and saw the sun had set and night was gathering round the house.

  “It is getting dark,” he said.

  “Then I will have to rely on my warriors to get me safely home.”

  He remembered the long-ago day in the sewers, and the obnoxious red-haired woman in the Hall of Watchers. “Is Indaro still one of those warriors?”

  Irritably, Archange replied, “No, thanks to you, I lost Indaro shortly after our last meeting. You shamed her into returning to the army. She rejoined the Maritime. She is almost certainly dead now.”

  The total obliteration of the Third Maritime the previous summer was something Bartellus still found hard to comprehend. “What happened?” he asked, “How did the Blues destroy an entire army?”

  She shook her head. “I know nothing of military matters.”

  “And…” For a moment he could not remember the name. Yes, of course. Astinor. “Astinor Redfall? What became of him?”

  “The man who betrayed you. Astinor died five years ago. Of a cancer of the belly. It was a long, hard death. He had little time to enjoy the fruits of his treachery.” She gazed at Bartellus. “Does that give you satisfaction?”

  He shook his head. It didn’t. They sat in silence for a while. Then he asked, “Why did you come here, Archange? You could have easily sent me a message, considering how little information you have given me.”

  “I did not come here to give you information,” she said tartly. “A scrap of paper crosses the City much more easily than I do.”