by Tony Roberts
“Of course, ma’am,” Vosgaris said in a neutral tone and sat down opposite her. The chairs, like the rest of the furnishings, spoke of opulence and quality. They looked as if they were Makenian in origin but made in Kastan City where the best woodworkers were. The legs were slender and long and the backs high. The wood was hard, probably ganoma wood by their colour and grain, Vosgaris surmised. His family were traditionally timber merchants, having originally come from Tobralus, hence the surname, where lots of timber grew. Ganoma wood wasn’t cheap. It grew in a few places and was very slow to mature, hence the dense grain. It made fabulous furniture but was very hard to work, and so it took time and therefore cost a lot.
“Captain, don’t be so formal,” Sela purred, crossing her long legs and allowing some of them to show. “I’m sure you and I could become – friends, if we stopped this silly family antagonism. Koros against Fokis, you know what I mean.” She spoke in a deep, throaty voice which he found enticing.
“What of your husband, ma’am?”
“Dead,” she waved a dismissive hand, “Ten years ago. Epros. They revolted there and put the governor and his administration to death, you surely remember?”
“Of course ma’am. My condolences.” The Epros uprising had been another revolt against the corrupt emperors immediately prior to the revolt of Astiras. The Fokis had been in charge of that region and had all been massacred. The feeling at the time had been that the uprising had been engineered by either Zilcia or Venn, and that one of those two kingdoms would then step in and annexe that region, but so far neither had made a move. Epros was still in the hands of the Kastanian rebels and they showed little sign of wishing to rejoin the empire. They were quite happily ruling themselves.
Sela sighed dramatically and gave Vosgaris a cool stare. “So I was left this house by my late husband and here I am, lonely and without the comfort of a man to share it with. Can you understand how beastly that is?”
“You have your father and the rest of your family, ma’am. I understand they have many business activities, properties, estates and land.”
“Not as many as before, thanks to the emperor!” she snapped, a flash of anger briefly coming to her eyes, then she relaxed and smiled again. “As you say, I have my House to fall back on and they have been very understanding through my long period of grief.”
The door opened and in came Gerak with a tray, upon which were a couple of cups and a steaming pot. He placed it on a side table and was waved away by Sela, who then picked up the pot. It was a tall, metallic object with a lid and a spout. There was a large long wooden handle opposite the spout and Sela lifted it up and poured a light brownish-yellow liquid into the two cups.
Vosgaris hadn’t tasted an infusion for some time. When he had been growing up at his family’s estate close to Kastan City, he’d drank some, but it wasn’t Ziprian. That had been too expensive for his modest family, and they had used instead Amrian which was a poor substitute but drinkable nonetheless. Since Amria had fallen away from imperial control Zipria had more or less gained a monopoly and the price of their infusion had gone up as a result. Therefore it was now regarded as a real luxury. He lifted his cup and inhaled the steaming brew. It smelt fragrant and spicy, as a decent infusion should. The infusion plant was a ground hugging small-leafed plant that produced small pinkish flowers. The leaves were used to make the infusion after being dried for a year. He sipped a small amount and raised his eyebrows. “Very nice ma’am.”
“Ziprian is so superior to any other,” Sela said languidly. “We are fortunate in having a good merchant who ensures we get a yearly supply, but those beastly pirates are making it very difficult to get hold of new infusions. I would be very grateful, Captain, if you could – ah – persuade the palace to do something about that. Very grateful, Captain, do you understand?” she pushed herself forward slightly, smiling , looking at him from under her eyelashes.
Vosgaris had a fair idea. It seemed being captain of the palace guard brought some interesting benefits. How he would fare once he left Kastan to being a mere captain of the Zofelan guard was another thing altogether. Lalaas would have to cope with the attention thereafter. “I understand, Lady Fokis. It would be a pleasurable reward.”
Sela smiled and leaned back in her chair. “Good; we have an agreement, in that case. Now, to the reason you’ve called here today. I think there’s no further point in you continuing your – ah – investigations into this man, Philas, or whatever his name is, don’t you agree?”
“That depends on whether my men find him here or not, ma’am. It shouldn’t take much longer.”
“Men? I saw only one with you.”
“Ah, well you see ma’am, there are others out the rear of the house.”
Sela scowled and looked concerned. “Captain, that is not worthy of…”
What she was going to say was lost as the door opened and shouts came to them from the hallway. Vosgaris’ soldier stood there smiling. “Got ‘im, sir. Tried to sneak out the back through the kitchen. The others caught ‘im. ‘E’s swearing like a trooper, sir.”
“I bet he is,” Vosgaris stood up. Sela’s face was thunderous. He bowed to her ironically. “Wonderful infusion, ma’am. I’ve appreciated your hospitality. I must go now as you no doubt will appreciate, regretfully,” he added almost as an afterthought.
Sela mouthed an un-lady-like response.
____
In Niake events were moving, too. Both Demtro and Evas were present with the militia squad who had closed in on a warehouse in the Southern Quarter, well away from the main roads. It was in a block of buildings separated from the rest by a low boundary fence of wood, and Renet had passed on the details after hearing of talk about strange goings on over the past couple of days.
The governor was taking no chances and had thirty men, all armed to the teeth, posted at each possible route that led to the warehouse. It was dusk. “Very well,” Evas sighed, “let’s get it over with.”
His captains waved to their squads and the men walked to the doors, both at front and back. At a signal both were kicked in and men flooded in, spears and swords at the ready. Inside, lit by a few flickering candles, was a large open space filled with open packages, tables, a couple of cauldrons and lots of small bronze pots. The cauldrons were on fires, blazing away in the middle of the warehouse, and people were standing over them, their faces covered in cloth, stirring the mixture that was in the huge vessels with long wooden ladles.
Other men stood around, wearing swords. Clearly they were the hired muscle. They were overpowered and arrested almost before they realised what was going on. “Stand fast all of you!” Evas barked, pointing at the stirrers who were throwing aside their ladles and looking for an escape route. “We’ve got all the exits covered!”
Demtro stepped into the warehouse and looked at the collection of vessels and containers. “Yes, this is where they were going to put the finished product and pass it into the city for distribution.” He looked into them and in two, found a mass of dried small crumbled leaves. He lifted them up and looked at them critically. “We’re just in time, Governor. The finished article. Here.” He passed Evas one of the pots.
Evas looked at it in fascination. “This? Is this really it?”
Demtro nodded. “Yes. Innocuous, isn’t it? One inhalation of that and you forget about anything other than getting more of it. You won’t care about anything else in your life, just the next ecstatic smoke. Then eventually your mind goes and you’re nothing other than a drooling wreck. Death comes quickly after that since you can’t think, speak or move. The mind is totally destroyed.”
“And this is what would have happened to everyone here?”
The merchant shrugged. “I don’t know if it would have been that quick. It looks like they would have passed it round all of Niake, either persuading people to have a free smoke, or forcing people into taking it, and by the looks of the amounts here there would be enough for, oh, five or six sessions per citizen. It’s an e
normous amount; the Duras must have sold their first-born to the suppliers of all this. After five takes, the users would have been climbing the city walls to get their next smoke.” He looked at the men under arrest. “So what was the plan?”
There was silence, except for a nervous shuffling of feet. Demtro sighed and put the pot he was holding down. “Governor, I think we should get some kind of confession from these people. Most of them are hired hands and probably know nothing, but someone here would know.”
Evas scratched his moustache. “They should all be taken to the city jail.”
“And then what? You can’t hold twenty people indefinitely in that small space, you haven’t got enough room to hold them all. Some of these are merely hired grunts, look, that lot there. They don’t look as if they could organise a drinking party at a tavern between them! However,” he turned to the other group that had been stirring the potions. “Now, over here, that’s a different story.” He paced along the line of silent people, all being held by armed militiamen.
Evas came hurrying over anxiously. “Now, now, Demtro, I’m in charge here!”
Demtro waited until Evas had passed him before idly following him along the line of people. “One of these must be running the entire business.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Evas said. He frowned. “I wonder which one?”
“Let’s find out,” Demtro said and grabbed the nearest one to him, a thin man with a shock of black hair. He dragged him away from the militiaman holding him and over to the nearest boiling cauldron. The man struggled but Demtro sent a knuckled blow into his neck and the man sagged. He was then pushed up to the lip and his head forced over.
Evas looked horrified and called out for Demtro to stop, but the merchant was not listening. The governor waved to two of his men to stop Demtro.
“Don’t you want to find out, Governor?” Demtro asked, his face twisted with the effort of holding his struggling captive down. “Or shall we just forget everything and return to our homes? These people are evil; they are prepared to destroy the people in this city. As far as I’m concerned they have waived all rights as citizens of this city and deserve to die.” He looked at the two guards who had come over to him. “Hold him fast.”
They complied and looked round, waiting for a command. Demtro wiped his hands and stepped back to where Evas was standing, his face mirroring the distaste he clearly felt.
“What did you think you were going to do with him?”
Demtro eyed the governor full in the face. “Dunk him into that foul concoction.”
“But-but that would kill him!”
“No it wouldn’t. Might burn him quite a bit, and fuddle the mind. I suspect he’d get a head full of the liquid form of the leaf. I’ve no idea what that would do to him.”
Evas shook his head. “Bring him to the jail, along with all of them! We’re not barbarians here, Demtro! As long as I’m governor here we will follow my rules, not yours!”
Demtro shrugged and looked around at the stack of vessels and containers. One was closed and so he ambled over to it as the captives were dragged off out into the night. Inside the long container were hundreds of newly fired clay pipes. He grimaced. Three guards remained with him. “Here, help me with this. Throw it into the mix.”
Together they lifted the container and hurled it with some effort into the nearest cauldron. The mixture hissed and the liquid spilled over the top, extinguishing the flames beneath it. The second was put out with water they found and the two completed containers of the leaf were thrown into the second cauldron to ruin.
“Secure this building. We’re going to need to dispose of all this waste,” Demtro said. “Nobody enters it, clear?”
“Sir,” one guard slapped his chest in salute.
Demtro grunted and left. At least they had stopped the immediate danger to the city, but what Evas was going to do with the prisoners was something else. He could keep them captive for a short time but there simply was not enough space for them to remain there. Demtro decided to send a letter to the palace and leave it for the Koros to decide. He doubted Evas would ask because he was too afraid of what the reply would be. The man was simply too soft. It demonstrated the old saying; to excuse one crime was to encourage the creating of many.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The day was overcast which was a shame, as the ceremony would have been best in bright sunlight, but not even entreaties to the gods were heeded if the gods decided otherwise.
Brightly coloured pennants decorated the houses along the route of the procession from the palace to the Temple, and the square was bedecked with bunting and flags of all kinds. People thronged the route and cheered as Amne slowly made her way along the cleared path towards the centre of religious belief in the city. She was clearly the centre of attention; her brightly coloured dress and train drew the eye at once, and her hair had been styled high with blonde curls and kept in place with a golden band and hair pins. Ribbons hung from her hair down her back.
She held a posy of flowers, coloured blue and white, and behind her four maids held up her train to prevent it from dragging on the ground and getting dirty and torn. Alongside walked six members of the palace guard, dressed in their finest ceremonial dress, each metallic object polished to a point where it screamed for mercy. Feathers had been affixed to their helms and more hung from the top of the shafts of their volgars just where the blades began.
Alongside her walked the emperor, her father. He was smiling proudly. His daughter was simply stunning, and her face concealed, as was the custom, by a light gauze veil, but he had seen her face prior to leaving the palace and it had been enhanced with light makeup. Her lips reddened, her skin whitened, her cheeks blushed, her eyelids coloured and her lashes coated with a dark plant pigment.
Vosgaris, too, had seen her and his breath had been taken away. He had leaned close to her as she had passed. “You look gorgeous, ma’am,” he had whispered to her. She had glanced at him and smiled nervously before continuing on her way. To be truthful, she was scared witless. It was all she could do to put one foot ahead of the other, to concentrate on moving. She’d wanted to relieve herself continuously, and her stomach was crawling all over the place. She had hardly eaten at breakfast and felt sick.
Everyone was encouraging her. Isbel was waiting at the temple, a sleeve cloth dabbing her eyes. Jorqel was walking behind her, his sword drawn, brightly gleaming in the daylight. His function was that of Protector, guarding her as she made her way to her husband to be. Astiras felt the trembling along her arm as he walked with her through the square. He squeezed her arm gently and she looked at him. He smiled and bent to whisper in her ear. “You look absolutely wonderful, Amne. I’m very proud of you.”
Amne gulped and smiled hesitantly, then returned her concentration on keeping in step with the rest of the entourage. The Temple loomed ahead, a hexagonal building, with a steeply rising roof that ended at a peak twice the height of the walls, atop of which stood a bright golden sun. Other symbols stood on top of stone corbels where the walls changed direction as part of the hexagon. The Temple was in fact known colloquially as The Hexagon, but the authorities tried to discourage that as they felt it smacked of disrespect. It didn’t stop it though.
In the crowd, keeping pace with the emperor and Amne, was Lalaas, dressed in a plain citizen-type jacket and striped leggings, the latest fashion from the east. He pushed past people craning their necks, all wishing to catch a glimpse of the imperial party, cheering in joy. Lalaas showed no emotion, though. His mind was full of purpose, and he had an appointment at the Temple. Striding on ahead, leaving a trail of annoyed people in his wake, he reached the Temple ahead of the procession and went round the rear, away from the square. Here nobody stood, as it was out of sight and anyone here would not see what was going on.
He came to a small dark door and twisted the handle. It was unlocked, as he had expected. Passing swiftly inside he moved along a cold, gloomy passageway full of dust and cobwebs an
d came to a cross passage. To the left a small stone staircase wound its way up, narrow and bordered with a thin iron rail. He went up quickly and came to a door. It, too, was unlocked and he passed inside.
The room was fairly dark but light filtered in through a small glassed slot in the wall to the left which gave him enough light to see that a canvas bag was propped up against the far wall, next to yet another door. He pulled the canvas lip open and withdrew his bow and a small sheaf of arrows. He quickly tested the string and nodded in satisfaction. All was in order.
The small door opened slowly and he slipped out as quietly as he could, for the sound of the people in the main chamber came to him quite clearly. Below the main ceremony was about to begin, and he was out on a small landing that ran all the way round the outer edge. It was a service landing, but today it would serve as a position from which he could use his bow. He knelt and got one arrow ready. One should be enough.
Below, the priests waited. Three of them stood solemnly together as the procession reached the door outside. The sound of the crowd rose as the emperor and princess walked up the five steps to the entrance and were now in plain view of everyone. Jorqel brought up the rear, as close as he could without treading on the train, which had now been placed on the ground.
Inside the dignitaries stood. Here were those privileged by the regime, trusted people allowed to witness the event. To the right stood Elas Pelgion, smartly attired in a white tunic, sleeveless, with a sash of purple running from his left shoulder down to his right hip. He wore his sword on his left hip and his leggings were of black wormspun. His head was bare and he watched as his wife-to-be was escorted in by Astiras.
Amne saw Elas and smiled behind her veil. His expression was briefly of surprise which pleased her, then he resumed his usual stoic attitude. She was released by Astiras who stopped three paces back as tradition demanded and Elas came to stand alongside her, next to the three priests who were stood around a font of bronze. It was the height of a man’s stomach, raised on a single tapering stand and comprised of a bowl-like shape with a fluted design, and within the bowl it sloped gently. There was not a deep interior. Each of the priests carried an object in their hands. The first had a small bowl of bread. The second had a jar of a liquid that was full of tiny golden flakes, while the chief priest carried a thin strip of gold and white coloured cloth.