by Dale Lucas
Rem made a quick survey of their surroundings. To their left was an offset space of sorts, dominated by a great oaken table littered with the remnants of a working breakfast—boiled eggs of various sizes and varieties; fresh brown bread, torn and half-eaten; some wedges of strong, ripe cheese; and an assortment of fruit preserves and sausages—all interspersed with untied scrolls, quills, ink pots, and scraps of parchment. Two or three wine goblets and cups holding varying amounts of wine or beer suggested that the meal recently under way had been interrupted by the watchwardens’ arrival.
The lord and lady of the house, along with their privy advisers, waited at the far end of the chamber, off to Rem’s right, past a broad, open expanse flanked by rows of columns and arches along the outer walls. The ethnarch and his wife were seated on finely wrought thrones of iron metalwork, those thrones standing side by side on a raised stone dais. As he and Torval moved into the center of the great room and approached, Rem tried to study the ethnarch and his court without appearing to stare.
Eldgrim cut a rather impressive figure—of typical dwarven size and shape, but somehow exuding largeness simply by virtue of his rich, heaped-up raiment, all of soft velvet, fine furs, and silks, his long, tightly wound braids, and his elaborately plaited beard. Rem had to admit, that beard was impressive—long, lustrous, well oiled, and finely knit in a complex array of tight silver-gray braids—the sort of facial weave-work that Rem had always taken for granted as inherently dwarven—before he’d met Torval, anyway. It was Torval who’d explained to Rem that, despite folklore and appearances to the contrary, not all dwarves wore beards, and not all beardless dwarves were criminals or outcasts—like Torval himself. But Rem was still amazed when he saw the time and effort that most bearded dwarves expended upon their facial hair. According to Torval, it was not mere vanity, but a sort of personal narrative. Dwarven beards literally told a story and announced their owner, after a fashion, if one knew the signs and how to read them, as surely as the colors and sigils emblazoned on a lord’s battle banners. But even knowing that, Rem still found himself immediately awed by what a beautiful work of art the ethnarch’s copious whiskers formed. Were they in a friendlier space, on less purposeful business, Rem might have quietly asked Torval to give him a rundown of just what Eldgrim’s beard might “say” to one initiated in the arena of dwarven hair design.
Beside the ethnarch was his bride, Leffi, a stout woman with lively hazel eyes, rosy cheeks strewn with a few light freckles, and a soft mouth that seemed at rest in a slight, welcoming smile. Her hair was truly a wonder to behold—piled atop her head in a dizzying, architecturally breathtaking arrangement that defied gravity before spilling down around her in a storm of tight curls and thick, shining braids. She had no whiskers that Rem could see, and he wondered if that meant that she simply had not grown any, or that she went out of her way to shave them.
There were six others crowded onto a lower tier of the dais off to Eldgrim’s left. One of them, a youngish fellow with an aquiline nose and a short blond beard, spent most of his time with eyes downcast on parchment covering a lap desk before him, scratching away with quill and ink—a secretary, no doubt. Beside him was a much older dwarf—face lined, cheeks full and streaked with beer blossoms, nose bulbous with rosacea. Rem had no idea what function he might perform, but his simple, elegant dress suggested some sort of secular minister or adviser.
The other four, however, were clearly priests, for each wore an identical dark-gray robe of heavy cloth and sported some sort of ceremonial headdress. Their priestly duties and offices seemed to be denoted by those headdresses, as well as by the stoles or mantles they wore draped around their shoulders and the embellished trim their otherwise-matching vestments sported. One old, grizzled fellow’s robe was edged in a geometric pattern of gold, green, and crimson. Another elder’s robes boasted interlaced loops and fringes. The mantle of the one female among them was covered by a pattern of silver, copper, and bright-blue thread that looked alternately like leaves and dragon scales. The priest seated farthest from Eldgrim—much younger than his fellows, looking between thirty and forty in human terms—wore a simple stole of light gray with dwarven runes arranged thereon.
They reached the foot of the dais then, and stopped three or four long strides from it. Torval, to Rem’s great surprise, suddenly gave a deep, slow bow from his waist—a deferential gesture that Rem had never seen his partner give before to anyone, man, dwarf, or otherwise. Rem quickly followed suit.
“Good tidings, Lord Eldgrim,” Torval said, spitting the words out as if they tasted bitter in his mouth.
Eldgrim studied Torval slowly, carefully. Rem knew that practiced affectation well—that sneering, arrogant pause and perusal. His father had been a champion employer of it, as had a number of the lords he’d known during the course of his youth. Almost without fail, Rem had ended up hating men who looked on others with that particular brand of disdain and dismissal.
“Good tidings, Watchwarden,” the ethnarch finally said, though there seemed to be very little that was good in those tidings, offered as they were with a derisive smirk. “Why do you call upon us at such an early hour … and in such a disheveled and disrespectful state?”
Rem and Torval shared the briefest of sideward glances.
“Sincerest apologies,” Torval said. “Our prefect sent us, with all haste, to treat with you regarding the upsets in the quarter and last night’s fire. Humbly we beg you to hear our petitions and support our endeavors.”
Aemon’s balls, Rem almost longed to be before Gorn Bonebreaker, the orcish ethnarch. Would all their commerce with this bearded rooster really have to proceed with such officiousness?
“And why were you chosen?” Eldgrim asked suddenly. “Why, Torval, Son of Jarvi, should you be the messenger for your prefect? Do you hold some position of special privilege? Some rank of import?”
Torval’s lips pressed together as though he fought the urge to answer with a barb. “I am, in my chosen line of work, nothing special,” Torval finally said. “Perhaps it is the fact of my kinship, as a member of the Hallirwelk, that led my prefect to choose me to treat with you. I can only guess he assumes we share something, and can speak with candor and forthrightness.”
Eldgrim seemed to chew on that statement, his lined, leonine face moving through a series of strange, unreadable expressions as he shifted his bulk on his throne. A quick study of all those assembled—from Leffi to the lowly secretary sitting at the farthest corner of the dais, scribbling in a court log—showed that even they—so familiar with Eldgrim’s quirks and affectations—seemed impatient with his long pauses and pregnant silences.
“State your business, then,” Eldgrim finally said.
Torval nodded curtly. “The violence in the streets yesterday. The fire last night. Have you any ideas about how either began?”
“Out-of-work agitators,” the ruddy-faced adviser on the dais said. “They envy us. They envy our industry and our wealth, and they came here to humiliate us.”
“Minister Broon, you were not addressed!” the ethnarch snapped.
Rem’s eyes slid sideward. His partner’s eyes smiled, only the slightest bit. “In truth, good ethnarch, my question was for any and all present.”
Eldgrim turned a baleful gaze on Torval. “If you speak, Watchwarden, you speak to me.”
“Very well, then,” Torval countered. “Speak, Lord Eldgrim. I await your reply to my inquiry.”
Eldgrim glared at Torval for a long moment. He seemed to be carefully weighing a response, yet unable to find one that would vindicate him. Finally he sighed and reclined on his throne. “I shall let my court offer their own responses,” Eldgrim said. “Weigh them as you will.”
Without thinking, Rem happened to lock eyes with Leffi, the ethnarch’s wife, at the very moment that Eldgrim replied. Unconsciously, Rem felt his own face betray his incredulity.
A moment later, when he realized the terrible mistake he’d made, he was surprised by the Lady Le
ffi’s silent response: a single raised eyebrow, a quick glance at her husband, and a subtle, devilish curling at the corner of her lip.
How do you think I feel? that look seemed to say. I have to live with him.
It took every ounce of Rem’s strength to keep from laughing. He counted himself lucky. Who knew what the ethnarch might have done if he’d caught that furtive glance between a human watchwarden and his wife? A look shared that testified to Eldgrim’s own haughty ridiculousness?
“I was not present,” one of the priests on the dais now said. “But I’ve heard much talk in the last day and night from our people.” As Rem watched, the dwarf leaned forward in his seat, addressing all present. He was the last in the line of four, the young one. His furtive eyes and halting speech suggested that, priestly office or no, he was not at ease among his peers.
“Our people say it started as a speech, of sorts. The men said they were angry because our folk had stolen their work and their wages. When no one listened, or they told them to be quiet or go home, they carried on, working themselves into a fervor.”
“The bitter will always talk, Bjalki,” said the oldest priest, face a craggy mask of crow’s feet and liver spots, beard the color of snow fox fur. “They spew their bile in hopes of planting it, like seeds, so that the world may be overgrown with their enmity.”
Broon—the rosy-faced fellow who’d spoken at the outset—chimed in again from his seat on the far side of the royal couple. “They want our gold and our homes, it’s that simple!” he said. “They want us out of their city and out of their lives! We have ever been unwanted here! Why should it change now?”
“But clearly,” the junior priest, Bjalki, countered, “they have grievances. They tried to articulate them. Even though the violence they incited was unjustified, perhaps some peace could be made—”
“What peace?” a third priest broke in. His beard was rust red, his voice high and piping. “What peace can there be where there is no justice? No honor?”
“Are we impugning the honor of Yenaran justice now?” Leffi said, clearly trying to remind her countrymen that there were watchwardens—outsiders—among them, and that their careless words could have consequences.
“Silence!” Eldgrim suddenly roared, and his council obeyed. They all fell back in their seats and closed their mouths.
Rem threw a worried glance at his partner. Torval’s frowning response gave him no confidence.
“It is clear,” the ethnarch said, not without venom, “that my council is blind. They have seen nothing, know nothing. Would they were struck dumb as well, so I would not have to hear their braying.”
“And that,” the last, long-silent member of the clerical quartet broke in, “is why we are in this predicament.” It was the priestess, the one whose mantle reminded Rem of dragon scales. Now that she had spoken, something curious happened.
The others—even Eldgrim—all leaned forward the slightest bit. They listened. This dwarf woman’s words carried some weight among them.
She continued. “Auspice Bjalki reports, correctly, that our people have spoken to us since the violence yesterday. They have reported what they saw, what they heard, what they suffered. Elder Hrothwar, our chief sage”—she suggested the old priest with the snow-white beard—“points out that these men were more than likely driven by some bitterness—some wrong they sought redress for. Trade Minister Broon knows well what drives the hearts of men and dwarves—gold—and that it was the gain for one and the loss for the other that may have sown the seeds of this discord. And, sad as I am to agree”—she gestured toward the priest with the red beard and the voice like a flute—“Arbiter Haefred speaks to you, good watchwardens, and gives voice to our greatest fear: that whatever the cause of all this unrest, whoever is wrong, in the end, Yenaran justice cannot be trusted to take our side.”
She let her words sink in before continuing. Rem half expected someone to interrupt, but they all remained silent.
“You’re all speaking, but none of you are listening,” the dwarven priestess said. “Each of you has a piece of it, but none of you know how to put it together. You can only wind the springs and thread the gears if you first listen to one another, then seek common ground from which to proceed.”
“Do you hear her?” Eldgrim asked, looking right at Rem and Torval. “The Docent Therba speaks to you. I suggest you listen!”
“I speak to all of you,” Docent Therba said gently. “For all of you. Everyone would do well to listen, for that’s what we’ve all failed to do hitherto.”
The influence the priestess had among the group was unmistakable. Even Eldgrim, whose downcast eyes and deep frown suggested a great distaste for being corrected by the old woman, could not seem to openly find it in him to dismiss or countermand her.
“Well,” Torval said, trying to break the tension in the room by shattering the silence, “that clears things right up.”
“I wonder,” Eldgrim began, and his bushy gray brows came together over the bridge of his beakish nose, his slate-dark, flint-sharp eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Son of Jarvi, why should your own kind be so clearly wronged, and yet you would make sport of them?”
Torval stared down the scowling ethnarch. “I make no sport, milord.”
Eldgrim shot to his feet. “You lie!” he shouted, and his voice filled the hall like the thunder of a falling boulder. “You know well who set that fire, you cur! If you do not, you’re even more foolish than I first took you to be.”
Torval stiffened beside Rem. Rem took a step closer to his partner. Pity it should come to this, so early and after such a long night.
Leffi rose and moved to Eldgrim’s side. “Good watchwardens,” she said, “my lord means no offense—”
“I mean what I say!” Eldgrim snapped. The fury in his voice made Leffi retreat from him. She did not look frightened, precisely—more like a kennel keeper giving a slavering hound a wide berth. Eldgrim barreled on. “We are the ones wronged, and yet we are also the first suspected of wrongdoing. And when we try to answer your ridiculous questions, you mock us.”
“I suspect you of nothing,” Torval said, and Rem tried to control the expression that he knew was now forming on his face: slack-jawed amazement mixed with stunned worry. Simply by using I instead of we, Torval had just single-handedly made this bizarre little standoff a personal matter, not simply part of an official inquiry. “I was sent by my prefect,” Torval continued, “to ask all of you if you had any pertinent facts regarding who might have set that fire, or who might want to harm your subjects—your people.”
“Our people,” Eldgrim said slowly, “are your people, Son of Jarvi.”
Torval took a single step forward. Rem laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Business, Torval. Stick to business.”
Rem felt the restless energy—the anger, the anxiety, the bottled rage—pulsing beneath Torval’s muscular frame. The dwarf drew a deep breath, a clear effort to calm himself. When he spoke again, the chained fury was still evident in his voice. “We are but humble servants of the law, milord … We may suspect things, but at this early stage we know nothing. We came here for your assistance, and to pledge our own—”
“Your assistance,” Eldgrim sneered, as though it were the deepest insult.
“Aye,” Torval countered, not backing down. “Our assistance. Now I ask again: Have you any enemies?”
Eldgrim snorted derisively. “Who could it be?” he said, now slowly descending the dais. “Who would be so hateful, so spiteful, so envious of our abilities and position that they might slight their own gods in order to humble us?”
As the ethnarch approached, Rem had a terrible premonition of their audience with Eldgrim devolving into open violence.
“That’s enough, Husband,” Leffi said. “There is no need for this.”
“Silence, woman!” he shouted back. “I rule here!”
“Milord,” the priestess Therba said, “I would urge you to calm yourself.”
; Eldgrim did not. He kept advancing toward where Torval and Rem stood.
“Who could it be?” Eldgrim continued. “Who suffered when we gained advantage in contract negotiations? Who brought a riot to our very doorsteps not two days ago? Who calls us unwanted aliens, half men—pickmonkeys, tonkers—when we pass in the streets?”
“I’m sure I would not know,” Torval said slowly. “Perhaps you could enlighten us all, milord, and be done with all your aspersions—”
“You are a shameful creature,” the ethnarch muttered. It was said low, under his breath, but Rem heard it clearly.
“What Lord Eldgrim suggests,” Leffi suddenly broke in, clearly trying to ameliorate her husband’s rage with diplomacy, “is that the most likely perpetrators are those who might benefit from our calamity. Or, at the very least, assuage their own frustrations by it.”
Torval did not acknowledge her statement. Nor did Eldgrim. The two dwarves—watchwarden and ethnarch—stood just three strides from one another, each determined to stare the other down.
Rem could stand the silence no longer. “That is one theory, milady,” he interjected hastily. “We were informed of the Panoply building contract and of the, uh, bad blood between your own stoneworkers and the human guild that preceded them.”
Eldgrim swiveled his head and its mane of iron-gray hair toward Rem. “You mean those of your kind?” he asked, and just for a moment, Rem thought he saw his own imperious father standing before him.
In an effort to draw some heat from Torval, Rem played the fool. “Not my kind,” Rem said. “I’ve never worked stone a day in my life.”
“He meant your kind,” Torval said, not even looking at Rem. “Humans.”