The Messenger

by Mark Charan Newton

  Into the hall entered eight men and women, each robed in green or grey silks. They walked with measured steps and formed a line before us, whereupon one of the more senior, a squat man twice my age, began to speak.

  ‘We received notification of a potential disturbance to his holiness. Explain yourselves.’

  Jaleh glanced over before taking the matter in hand. She explained in hushed tones what had been sent to me. I got the impression from his posture that this man did not think much of the Sun Chamber, or at least appeared little interested in the matter.

  ‘We have our own guard. Elite and well-trained soldiers, well beyond the powers of the City Watch. They will see no harm comes to him.’

  Jaleh sighed and ran a hand through her dark hair. ‘Tell me,’ she said, holding out the ring that had accompanied the letter. ‘Do those of you who protect the young prince wear such a ring?’

  He plucked it from her hand and inspected it closely.

  ‘Because,’ she continued, ‘this was sent with one of the letters. We have good reason to believe someone close to the prince, someone who works here, may be planning something.’

  ‘And why should we listen to the opinion of the Sun Chamber?’ he snapped.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Jaleh replied. For a moment she whispered to him, obviously soothing diplomatic words because his expression changed. She gestured to Marcius and myself, and the old man stared at us with less aggression than before.

  ‘So.’ He stiffened and conferred with the others. I occupied myself with looking around the resplendent room, staggered by the wealth on show.

  A few moments later and he turned to address us once again. ‘We will take your advice. If there is someone among us who seeks to harm his holiness, it is in our interests to prevent him from doing so.’

  ‘Very wise,’ Jaleh agreed.

  We talked more that night and I grew used to their company. They were interesting people. Jaleh I found fascinating: there was a sense of determination about her that I admired. She spoke on diverse subjects, from the latest developments in astrological thinking, to the importance of monotheism in Venyn and the movements of nomadic tribes in the deserts. Marcius, however, seemed to enjoy simpler, and somewhat baser pleasures, and his comments were brief. He said that, in a way, it was a shame there weren’t more skirmishes and military tensions between nations, because that was what made life interesting for him. He had drunk a little too much wine and made a lewd suggestion to Jaleh about sharing her bedding. I felt disgusted with him at that point, though was that perhaps because I felt vaguely attracted to her? I had to admit, she had impressed me greatly. It was rare to find such intelligent company.

  Marcius went around to the communal outhouse behind our apartment to relieve himself and I caught myself looking at Jaleh as she inspected a piece of sculpture, noting her white shirt pressing against her tanned skin, her handsome profile.

  With a thunderous belch Marcius entered again. ‘The place stinks,’ he grunted. ‘You were right about living in a shithole. Even the rats ran away from that latrine.’

  ‘You must have been living in some fine places before you came here.’

  ‘No, not really,’ Jaleh replied. ‘I’ve been shadowing nomadic peoples for the past month. This is a luxury to me.’

  ‘No luxury out there, I can tell you,’ Marcius added.

  It was getting late. Although I had offered the two of them my spare bedding, they told me they had taken lodgings above the Al Nuyam tavern, just behind our apartment. In fact, I could see its front door from my bedroom. Marcius was happy to have a sea view, he said, and the two of them presently left us in peace.

  The next morning saw a brief meeting with more of Bassim’s military protection, and Marcius and Jaleh took full control of the situation. Using a skill in diplomacy I could only marvel at, they negotiated to increase security for the prince around the forthcoming festival – which was less than a week away.

  However, we were warned off speaking to him personally.

  ‘He speaks to no one outside his inner circle,’ a senior priest cautioned.

  ‘He should, perhaps, trust his inner circle less,’ I replied, noting that the ring on the priest’s finger matched the one sent to me.

  While my two senior colleagues set about planning, I was tasked with the potentially impossible job of investigating and interviewing those associated with Prince Bassim.

  He was not yet a full king, but he would be within a year, when he came of age. However, he was already a powerful individual and the transition was in name only. He was a small young man, with a shaven head, a broad face, and wide-set eyes – that’s all I knew of him. He was credited with a great many deeds, but I was sceptical about how talented he could be.

  The higher echelons of the civil service in Venyn were impenetrable to ordinary citizens, but as an Officer of the Sun Chamber I was permitted more liberal access. I spoke to several clerics, priests, censors, accountants, and eventually senior officers in the military, but they were all immensely cagey.

  A day of brief, fleeting interviews passed. No one had seen or heard anything of a remotely suspicious nature. I was wasting my time.

  Exercises

  She came at me with her sword, forcing me back against the wall, and I was too slow to block her blow at first, tripping on a cobble.

  My neighbours laughed, enjoying the spectacle as they’d always done. Leana and I had fought in the courtyard for a good five minutes and already I was breathless. People shouted a mixture of encouragement and abuse, and I noted that Leana was enjoying herself at my expense. As always. After pushing me through half-a-dozen more moves, we eventually stopped. I wasn’t going to win – I never did – but she was satisfied that I met whatever criteria she had in mind.

  ‘Better,’ she said.

  I panted something vaguely positive back before looking around, thinking I had seen a group of men who were not locals, but they had already vanished. I moved inside, where Marcius and Jaleh were working.

  ‘You’re far too active for this hour,’ Marcius said. ‘Besides, you look as if you lost.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘It’s good to start the day as a loser. It means one starts the day with an appetite to be better.’

  ‘Why do you do it?’

  ‘Partly to keep fit. Partly to let the neighbours know that they shouldn’t come here looking for trouble. It’s worked so far.’

  ‘She’s a good warrior,’ Jaleh said, then turned to speak for a moment with Leana. While they talked, I wiped away my sweat with a rag, and looked at what Marcius was doing.

  He had spread out plans and maps of the city on the table.

  ‘I’m looking at three potential routes that Prince Bassim is going to be making around the city for the festival. We’ve been asked to decide upon the safest option.’

  ‘If he’s with his own guard then does it matter which route you take?’

  ‘We don’t know if he is going to be protected for certain,’ Marcius replied. ‘So we must see which routes have the least options for an attack – taking into account the heights of rooftops and open plazas that crowds can fill. Those kinds of facts.’

  Leana and Jaleh wandered back into the room. Jaleh was admiring one of Leana’s swords. ‘This Atrewen weaponry is marvellous – match that with those skills . . . Well, no wonder you chose her to work with you.’

  Leana never really showed pride, and she didn’t now. She acknowledged the compliment and said, ‘Atrewen warriors are better than most of what I have seen in Vispasia. Our problem is that we spend more time killing ourselves than other people.’

  ‘Well at least it’s practice, either way,’ Marcius replied dryly.

  The four of us set about discussing the options before us, assessing the geography of the city, the buildings that would provide a good opportunity for archers and so on. We continued a rowdy debate for some time until we were interrupted by a clunk at the door.

  Lean
a went to open it and found a tube lying on the doorstep. It was identical to the others.

  We immediately ran outside, sprinting in different directions, Jaleh and Marcius going to the left, Leana and I headed towards two potential suspects walking quickly ahead. Leana promptly overtook me. The colours and tones of the city flashed by, but soon there were simply too many people around, too many bodies in the way, halting any progress. I scanned left and right, scrutinizing all the faces.

  We found no one.

  We jogged back together, past the apartment. A little way further on we found Jaleh standing by a body. A knife extended up from its back. Marcius had crouched down to examine the figure, a lean man a few years younger than myself, with cropped black hair. The quality of his clothing suggested that he wasn’t all that poor, but not exactly wealthy – baggy black trousers and a loose, grey cotton shirt.

  ‘I didn’t intend to kill him,’ Jaleh said. ‘He was getting away. I threw my blade at him, hoping to catch his shoulder while he ran. Unfortunately it hit his heart.’

  ‘It was a fine shot,’ Marcius added. ‘These things happen. Pity we couldn’t get anything out of him before he died.’

  ‘Is this the man who dropped off the tube?’ Leana asked.

  Marcius shrugged. ‘Maybe. Guess we’ll never know for sure. He might have been delivering it on behalf of someone else.’

  Jaleh looked as disappointed as I felt. I could tell she was annoyed with herself. I loathed having people die at our hands – that was not our choice to make, but a matter for the gods. If this was a case of an innocent man being killed, there was a family somewhere who had lost someone. Children who might have lost their father’s income – which only went on to create more problems further down the line.

  I rummaged in his pockets for anything that might suggest his identity, or which part of the city he had come from – even visited – but found only two small silver coins. Perhaps they were a payment for delivering the messenger tube? I gave a sigh and made a mental prayer to my goddess, Polla, that she might help us out.

  I arranged with the community wardens for the body to be taken to a nearby temple, before we headed back inside the apartment. There, we opened the tube that had arrived, and unrolled the letter. This time, it said only

  A gift for Lucan Drakenfeld and his friends. The more, the merrier.

  ‘Anything else?’ I asked.

  Jaleh turned it upside down and a shrivelled-up finger rolled onto the table. She creased her face in disgust, as did I. I examined it and noticed the marks that denoted where a ring had once been.

  ‘We should report this immediately,’ she said.

  ‘Whoever is doing this is mocking us,’ I replied. ‘They’re watching this place. They know that you’re here to help me. They don’t even care.’

  In the morning, a messenger arrived at my door in a blue silk outfit and ornate, plumed hat. Her brown skin glistened in the morning sunlight. She was clearly unused to such austere surroundings, and declined my offer of something to drink, but merely handed over a scroll. She waited for me to read it.

  ‘It’s from Prince Bassim,’ I breathed, noting the waxed seal containing the royal religious seal.

  Jaleh and Marcius stood over me as I unravelled it.

  ‘Oh, I can’t read this bloody dialect,’ Marcius said. ‘What’s it say?’

  ‘It’s Ornate Venyn,’ Jaleh said. ‘Can you read it?’

  ‘Badly, but the rough translation is . . .’

  Officer Lucan Drakenfeld and Honoured Comrades. I thank you for taking an interest in the preservation of my lineage. I have had dreams of late. Bad omens. Astrologers tell me things that worry me. If it is true I cannot trust those closest to me, who shall I turn to? The Sun Chamber exists to help Royals, so it is said. I accept your help. You are welcome to advise my subordinates. I apologize if they have been difficult to work with. I apologize, also, if I am unable to show myself to you, for my priests and priestesses advise otherwise. The divine light that I possess may not often mix with the light of the sun itself.

  ‘Pretentious cock,’ Marcius muttered. ‘Royals are the same wherever you go.’

  Jaleh glared at him. ‘Show some respect.’

  ‘We don’t exist solely to protect royals,’ Marcius muttered, a sentiment I agreed with, despite his rudeness.

  I thanked the messenger and asked her to return our gracious thanks to his holiness, and saying that we would do our utmost to protect him.

  I glanced left and right as the line of soldiers moved along the wide street. Walking along, I scrutinized the faces of everyone. Men with thick beards, women dressed in loose brown gowns, children scratching names on the walls, those watching the world go by. People peered down from rooftops, confused as to why five hundred elite personnel were marching in unison. I could understand their astonishment, though creating something of a show was part of the reason we were doing this. As well as rehearsing for the festival and preparing for the protection of Prince Bassim, we were making a defiant statement to the individual who was mocking us. We were presenting an impenetrable military barrier.

  Behind, sitting in an enormous palanquin amid the military splendour, were Jaleh and Marcius. Both of them were making notes about the route, gauging what the weak points of the procession might be. They were serene up there, whereas down here, with the soldiers, the air was thick with tension. Many of them wore a ceremonial black uniform and carried large, hand-held darts as opposed to spears or swords.

  A group of red-robed youths suddenly exited a side street and barged into one side of the regiment of soldiers. No one but myself, Jaleh and Marcius expected it – we had arranged a series of such staged attacks for today’s practice. I watched as the line immediately lost cohesion and noted how slack the rest of them became. These were meant to be some of the finest soldiers in the nation, yet within a few moments they had left the palanquin vulnerable to attack as they concentrated on the perceived threat. They were all too easily distracted.

  The next staged attack came from archers on a nearby rooftop, though this was dealt with more effectively. Two guards immediately held up their huge, rectangular shields to the blunt-tipped arrows, while I spotted some spectacularly rapid infantry dashing about the rooftops. That was more promising.

  Of the person who might be responsible for the letters, there was no sign.

  Jaleh put down her reed pen. ‘Ultimately I am impressed. Over the past few days we have recreated all the festival security routines we know of, and on the whole Bassim’s soldiers have been swift in dealing with the fifty-four tests. No matter who attacks that procession, we will have prepared for it. We’ve issued instructions to the guards, we’ve briefed senior officials, and they are all keen to prevent any attacks. We’ve done what we can – I’m satisfied.’

  It was late, and Marcius had gone out to find some more wine. Leana went with him to show him where there would be a merchant at this hour. Jaleh and I were alone – and I was glad of it.

  ‘What would you advise next?’ I asked.

  ‘Given that the festival is tomorrow, there isn’t much we can do.’

  ‘Have you heard from your agent?’

  ‘In what way?’ she replied.

  ‘You mentioned that your agent had information about plots within the city.’

  She looked at me softly, waiting for me to continue.

  ‘I simply thought they might have been able to point us in the direction of where to look. Perhaps our letter-writer will be hiding somewhere, in the basement of a tavern with a crew ready to attack.’

  Jaleh took a moment to contemplate the point before nodding. ‘There is, unfortunately, no more time. I tried to find him before I came to the city, but he lives outside and can be difficult to trace at times – as is the way with agents.’

  ‘Where was he?’

  ‘In a village up north along the coast – close enough to Venyn to be able to glean information, far enough to be able to avoid awkward questio
ns. He was a useful man, with informants in every caste.’

  North, I thought to myself. North up along the coast. When we first met, Marcius and Jaleh had made it clear that they came from the south, from Gippoli.

  Marcius and Leana returned. We drank wine together for the next hour, while Marcius did most of the talking. Eventually we agreed to sleep, and our guests returned to the Al Nuyam tavern for the night.

  I took the quiet moment with Leana to ask her for her thoughts on our friends.

  ‘They seem normal,’ she whispered. ‘Like others from your Sun Chamber, though I have met too few to judge. They seem sincere. Why do you ask now?’

  I revealed Jaleh’s slip.

  ‘Is it possible she came from the south and then went to visit her agent?’

  I shook my head. ‘It doesn’t feel right. She’s lying.’

  ‘Have you asked her?’

  ‘No. That would draw attention to the fact that I know something is amiss.’

  ‘So what will you do?’

  I sighed, laid back and whispered, ‘In about an hour, we’ll need to create a distraction.’

  Three floors high, with a whitewashed facade that never seemed to collect grime, Al Nuyam tavern was a light in the darkness of this quarter of Venyn City. With several gaudy rooms, one of which I had stayed in myself when I first came to the city, it had somehow attracted slightly wealthier clientele, and became a hub of activity for businessmen.

  Leana lifted up a ground floor window without making a sound, and slid her taut body through the narrow frame. A moment later the front door opened, and Leana stood in the slither of darkness beyond.

  I had remained outside, but I was not alone. In the adjacent alleyway stood several youths I knew. They were good lads, even if they did interpret the law rather wildly at times. One of them had taken a shine to Leana, and I promised him that the next time he attempted to flirt with her she would not punch him in the stomach, as she had done twice before. Besides, I had promised the youths good coin to enter the tavern and to make as much noise and fuss as they wanted. As soon as Leana signalled it was clear, I waved for them to head inside.