Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  What all children in pain desired most: comfort.

  He smelled of sweat. He was the wrong shape—too tall now, and too broad—and she the wrong height. But she was 'Lena, he was Nicu.

  Don't you do it, don't do it, Nicu, she thought, the words like a prayer she didn't dare give voice to because the wind was capricious and might take the words to ears not meant to hear them. Don't make her kill you.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  17th of Scaral, 427 AA

  Tor Leonne

  Finding the Lyserran Matriarch proved challenging. Had it not been so close to the Festival of the Moon, Kallandras would have assumed that she had wisely chosen to forsake the city by which the Dominion would be defined for generations to come. But it was the Festival, and the Matriarchs, who avoided the cities of the clansmen at any other time of the year, made the trek to the Tor Leonne.

  It was the Lord's City, for the man who held the City was the ruler of the Dominion. But it was the Lady's City, for it held the Lake that had been Her gift and their salvation. It drew them all: the people who claimed power by His law, and the people who claimed power by Her mystery.

  He found her, not in the poorest sections of the clansmen's city, but in one of the wealthiest; found her, not as an obvious ruler within her own caravan, but as a guest, of sorts, within another's, and at that, a clansman's. A merchant clansman.

  "Aiya," a man said, his voice a voice that, while soft in seeming, had been trained to carry the distance. Kallandras did not immediately look up, but he stopped a moment to admire the pale silks that had been painted for the moon's season. The work was very fine. Edged in gold—as most silks were that made it this far into the heart of the Dominion, it was adorned by no central work. Instead, the delicate impression of lilies had been created by minimal strokes of white and pink and a green the shade of muted jade.

  "You seem to be a discerning man," the merchant said.

  "I am," he replied, and this time he let his gaze move across the panoply of bolts and up.

  The man he faced was large. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-skinned; in all things, Annagarian. He spoke Torra as if he were a clansman, a sure indication that he was used to trading with moneyed men. He wore desert clothing, the heavy robes of the sandtraders, but his hands were ringed in fine gold. Heavy gold; his fingers were not small.

  "The bolt you were looking at," the merchant said with a practiced smile, "was made as a special gift for a young Serra. But she passed away not two weeks ago and as the family is one of my best customers, I did not choose to press the issue of payment or delivery. If you desire it—"

  "It is very fine," Kallandras said, with a smile that was far more natural—and far more practiced—than the merchant's. "But it is too pale and too youthful a pattern for my taste. I have no young daughters."

  "No, indeed. Nor have I. Sons," he added. "But they are strong and useful. You have no wife?"

  "I had one." His tone made clear that the subject was not open to discussion. "I seek a silk," he said, in case the merchant was not skilled at reading such a tone, "for a woman who will reach her prime during the Festival season. Something darker or cooler than these, less fancy, more elegant."

  "Elegance such as that will be seen as poverty."

  "I am not a man who lives by the opinion of other men. Those who know will know; those who do not will not. Neither concern me."

  "Ah." The merchant nodded sagely. "As long as you understand that the price for such silk will not be much less than the price I must charge for these."

  "I understand it might be more. But I am weary of searching. I have seen the very finest that three merchants have to offer already, and I am determined to seek the fourth. I will, I hope, end my quest here." He frowned. "These silks, these are all you possess?"

  The man spit to the side in derision. He clapped his hands and two young men appeared from the flaps of the tenting at his back. They had much of his look about them, but they were as grim-faced as guards.

  "My sons," he said. "You, Jonni, you sell these while I'm gone. This customer is looking for something special."

  The son so addressed nodded.

  "Mika, go to your mother and tell her, be ready."

  The second son nodded.

  The merchant turned to Kallandras. "Follow me." "Your sons," Kallandras- said, "will make fine warriors." The merchant looked pained. "They require some experience at the more gentle art of selling, yes. But they can be brought to smile."

  "I'm not certain I'd like to see that."

  The man shrugged. "All right, you're right. But at least they're marriageable, and they'll bring me daughters who might teach them some of the social graces." He grimaced. "If, that is, I can afford them."

  He led them through a market that was thin with people. It was, indeed, the market at which the clansmen stooped to barter, and as men did not demean themselves by open discussion of something as vulgar as money, it was perfectly natural for the merchant to lead Kallandras to some private dwelling where arrangements might be made.

  Equally natural was the presence of the Serras with their cerdan, Toran, or even Tyran. Wives were allowed by custom to trade with merchants—so long as they had the appropriate clan presence to preserve the aura of propriety. Even so, merchant wives often dealt with the Serras of the high clans. Or daughters.

  The merchant, however, who claimed no daughters obviously intended to deal with Kallandras himself.

  There was no merchant authority in the Tor Leonne; no laws that governed the merchants in the way the Imperial laws governed the various merchant guilds. But there was an old dwelling, the finest of the buildings in the city that existed beneath the plateau. Here, the ruling Tyr of the Terrean had once made his home, and he had made it out of the bones of the earth: stone and clay and wood.

  No Tyr claimed it now; the stone and wood had protected the Tyr from all enemies save time and a weak heir. The man who had succeeded the weak son had in his turn been betrayed—by blood.

  Songs had been written and sung about the fate of the men who had chosen to value their dwellings over their prowess and in the end—through some path that was not clear to Kallandras or most of the bards who carried this Southern tale—the building had come into the hands of merchants who managed, barely, to work in concert. They were, after all, men who valued money over the warrior ethic; a breed necessary but in the end as valued as women.

  Seeing the merchant Court—unofficially called the whorehouse by many of the Southern clansmen, all of whom notably did not have the right to cross its threshold—he could well believe it was money that was the worshiped god within the building's confines.

  The high clansmen had, about their lives, a starkness, a simplicity that was at once elegant and profound. The difference between the Tor Leonne, situated upon the plateau, and the merchant Court was the difference between an unbroken oath ring and the gaudy, jeweled creations so valued by the newly rich; the one was a statement of quiet power and endurance, the other a statement of riches. And power, of course; even in the Dominion, money and power were not easily separable.

  The stairs, as wide across as three lesser buildings, forced those who would enter to acknowledge the lofty heights of the men who were privileged to call the Court their home. At the height of the stairs, stone leveled out, giving way to a mass of flower beds on either side. These flowers, watered and tended as the men in the streets below were not, were the merchant symbol: they thrived, no matter what the season, or the condition, of the world that lived at the foot of the stairs.

  "Ah," the man said. "Here we are."

  Kallandras stopped, his hand hovering an inch above the wide, gold-laced rails that punctuated the stairs in three places.

  The merchant smiled, clearly pleased with himself. "I am," he said, "Tallos of the clan Jedera."

  Tallos. A shadow passed over the sun.

  "Have I said something to offend?" the merchant asked, looking somewhat annoye
d by the lack of expected reaction.

  "No, Ser Tallos. I—had a compatriot in my youth who perished in the war. He bore that name."

  "Tallos is an overused name," the merchant replied, somewhat mollified.

  "I think it, rather, well used. You are of the clan Jedera."

  "Yes."

  Tallos. Tallos di'Jedera. The name was vaguely familiar. The clan itself was not one of the warrior clans; it lacked the antiquity of Leone, Callesta, Lamberto, or even Marente, and the sons of Jedera blood would therefore never rule.

  But it had money, and the prestige that money could buy.

  Among the merchants, that prestige was a seat in the hall of the merchant Court, and a right to use the halls and courts, the baths and parlors, at the height of those grand stairs.

  "Come," the merchant said. "When the business at hand is a matter of significance, or the client a client I feel will be of import in the future of the clan, I prefer to retreat to the Court. There are very, very few who would question the authority of the merchants within their own halls."

  "Indeed," Kallandras said softly. "And the clan Larantos perished because they likewise understood that custom had the force of law, and they sought to force that issue with the ruling Tyr."

  "An interesting phrase. The force of law."

  Kallandras paused an instant, gold warmed by sun beneath his palm. Misstep.

  Without pausing, the merchant who called himself Tallos took the steps, leaving Kallandras with a simple choice. He could follow, or he could leave. He followed.

  "You will find," the merchant said, his voice thick with accent as he slid from Torra to Weston, "that the word law in Torra is very rarely used."

  "It is often used," Kallandras countered, still speaking the Torra that had been his birth tongue. "But it goes by the guise of power."

  "And in the North," the merchant said, abandoning the obviously foreign tongue, "the guise of power is indeed baffling. But it is there, if one knows how to look."

  Kallandras smiled. "Money, Ser Tallos, is more valued in the North than in the South."

  "Less valued," Tallos replied. "But more openly."

  "You have traveled."

  "The clan Jedera deals heavily in the goods that come through the Terrean of Averda. We had hoped to… take more active control of those interests." He shrugged. "The clan Callesta is more interested in things monetary than we would like. But who knows? The winds of war are coming, and may sweep them entirely from the plains and valleys."

  "Many of their allies will be caught in that gale."

  "Indeed, it is so." The merchant shrugged. "But men of money make poor allies, or so it is said."

  "It is, indeed, said."

  The flower beds passed beneath three large arches, the facades of which were gilded and painted in deep blues. Bright light and dark intertwined in swirling patterns that, only when viewed at a distance coalesced into a meaning that was not merely a visual delight: Those who are willing to pay the price, enter.

  Seeing where his guest's gaze dwelled, the merchant said softly, "I think you have already paid."

  Kallandras raised a brow. Games were a part of his art, but he was suddenly weary of them. The day was wearing thin; he would not be at Yollana's side again until dusk, and then only if he moved quickly.

  "I have," he replied in Weston.

  The merchant's raised brow mirrored his own.

  "Take me to her. We have very, very little time."

  There were four Halls of Gold: the Lord's Hall of Gold, the Lady's Hall of Gold, the Golden Hall of Dawn and the Golden Hall of Dusk. They formed a quartered circle in the center of the circular grounds beyond the impressive, arched walls: the symbol, in the South, of an oath made between equals.

  There was something appropriate in that; the men who had made both building and oath had perished, but what they had wrought remained. Legacy. He was not certain where the merchant led him, but his path crossed the Lord's Hall, where those merchants of power who wished to make a statement by presence alone might choose to spend a portion of their day.

  The Hall had been built by a warrior; it was built for warriors. Commerce, like one of the forgotten arts, had devolved onto the shoulders of lesser men, made Tors for the most part in an effort to insure that such devolution did not engender dangerous disloyalty.

  Titles seldom produced that effect among men of ambition; Kallandras wondered idly why the gambit was so often tried.

  Or perhaps the sense of the attempt was too Northern in origin; perhaps the titles were an attempt to dignify the import of duties that might otherwise remain hazardously untended. Men of worth, after all, hungered for many things, but tending money, much like tilling fields, was not one of them. Perhaps the only incentive that could motivate a free man was the title itself. He could not be certain.

  What he could be certain of was this: The Hall was vast, and half of its visible surfaces were covered in gold. The arches, fanciful and fancy, through which the flower beds had passed were forsaken here for the absolute lines of a rectangle that stood the height of the ceiling on either end of the hall. Smaller doors punctuated the massive stretch of walls to either side, but they had been designed to blend in with the grim and exotic face of the walls themselves: In cold, golden relief, the battles of Tyrs were played out for the Lord's pleasure.

  "Do you recognize that?"

  He looked back at the hooded expression of his companion. "The battle? No. I confess that my studies were less military in nature."

  "Ah. Well."

  "You are familiar with it?"

  "I? I am merely a merchant," Tallos di'Jedera said.

  His answer was carefully neutral.

  Too careful.

  "Are those doors ever closed?"

  The merchant frowned. "Doors? You mean the arch?"

  "It is not an arch—or rather, it serves that function but it has hinges built into the stone."

  "An interesting question."

  "And one to which you don't have the answer."

  "I would have to say no," Tallos continued, as if Kallandras had not spoken aloud. "In my tenure, they have never been' closed. It is an odd question."

  "Odd?"

  "I have brought many guests through the triad and into the Halls of Gold—although I have left many more in desire of such entry at the stairs—and most of them fall silent when they enter the Hall." He shrugged, turning toward the rectangular doorway that had been the target of such idle curiosity. He began to walk again. "Those who do not fall silent fall into their own categories. There are men whose need to impress is so great they trivialize the wonder they see. There are those who simply cannot be silent—and among merchants, that number is legion. And there are those who cannot contain the sudden awe they feel; it strikes, and they respond before they can stop themselves.

  "But I babble. Come. We must pass through the center, and from there, the Lady's Hall. We have little time."

  The center was, itself, a hall of a type. Four large arches, each in a different style, entered it, and for that reason it had a chaotic, an uneven look to it—one that no detail in the Lord's Hall would have hinted at. Of the four entrances, the Lord's was the boldest, the simplest, the tallest, its line unbroken from floor to height by so much as a bend.

  Opposite the Lord's arch was the Lady's. It was tall, of course, but not so tall as the Lord's; wide, but not so wide. It was, however, splendid. One could see where the architect had started with the simple shape of a door, but no mandate had confined him to its line. From the floor to two thirds of the full arch's height, it rose unimpeded. But from there, it traveled up in a trefoil whose peak was adorned with opal and diamond. Gold lined the wall in profusion—to be expected of something subtitled Hall of Gold—but overlapping the gold, a colder metal, like new silver. Or platinum.

  Engraved in the width of the stone wall that supported the arch were words in old Torra. He could not pronounce them, not cleanly, but he knew what their symbols meant.
Birth. Joy. Sorrow. Love. Hatred. Loss. Death. Dominion.

  The Lady's domain. He paused before he passed beneath the arch. Bowed once, although the day without was bright and the sun high. Windows, glassed and leaded and supported by the work of architects the like of which the Dominion had not seen in decades, let that daylight in, where it spilled across expanses of gold and stone as if daring mere men to rise to the challenge of poets in an attempt to describe it.

  Tallos passed beneath the arch and paused there, waiting.

  Kallandras nodded slightly. Followed.

  And then, before his foot touched the tiles beyond the arch, he leaped forward in a sudden surge of movement that ended with the merchant.

  Tallos di'Jedera swung 'round; Kallandras held him firmly by shoulder and throat, using him as a shield.

  It happened in an eye blink; the merchant grunted as a crossbow bolt hit him in the fleshy upper arm. He spun again, but the merchant shouted an order in sharp, harsh Torra, his voice a bark.

  Kallandras did not speak.

  "Very well," the merchant said softly. "My apologies, but I had to be certain."

  "And now?"

  "I am certain. Mika."

  The second son appeared from behind one of the glorious columns of light the windows above made of stone. His crossbow was unfired. "Father—"

  "It is enough."

  "But he—"

  "Will you shame me further by arguing in front of a stranger?" He made no attempt to shrug himself free of the hand that held him.

  Which was just as well.

  "Jonni!"

  A second man appeared. The merchant relaxed.

  "There are three," Kallandras said.

  "Mika—"

  "He's lying. There were only Jonni and I." Truth, in that voice. And not a little fear, although the surface of the words was unbroken by it, and a man with little talent might have missed it altogether. He was certain, then, that Mika actually was Tallos' son.

  Ser Tallos was silent a moment. Then he said quietly, "The third is not mine."