The Seventh Friend (Book 1)

by Tim Stead

  He credited his success to three people, and he himself was not among them.

  Bargil had found the place. Without the former guardsman’s steer he might have still been searching among the hundreds of Inns that salted the low city, or he might have settled on a lesser property.

  The brewer was another. There was no question but that he produced the most delightfully drinkable ales. Arbak had never tasted the like in all his wandering years. He truly owned the inn with the best ale in the city.

  And then there was Sheyani. Each night her music lifted the customers, brought them to a place where everything was good and friends surrounded them. There had not been a fight since he had opened his doors; there had not even been a theft. Once a man crossed the threshold of The Seventh Friend he forgot his troubles, he left his enmity and prejudice at the door. Without Sheyani it would have been a good inn. With her it was the stuff of legends.

  He had allowed Bargil to hire two men to help him keep order, and at first they had been bored. Now they were keeping the peace outside on the street. So many wanted to enter the Inn that they were limiting numbers. About two hundred and fifty was all that he allowed, and that meant queues.

  It was six days before Kelso Jerran turned up.

  An hour after the doors had opened the inn was already crowded. Three men were working flat out behind the bar and Bargil was beginning to herd latecomers into some sort of order in the street beyond the doors. Sheyani was playing on the dais, the pipe music binding the noise of the tavern into a steady, cheerful rhythm. Arbak knew that most people didn’t even hear the music, but he could. The copper disk around his neck grew cold when she played, and he could hear the cleverness, the unbelievable skill of her lips and breath, teasing happiness out of a din.

  Bargil appeared before him.

  “You’ve got a visitor, Captain,” he said.

  “I have many visitors,” Arbak replied, gesturing expansively to the merry crowds around him. In spite of the copper disk the mood of the place could still infect him.

  “You’ll want to see to this one yourself,” Bargil said. “It’s Jerran, the merchant.”

  “Kelso Jerran? Here?”

  “He’s waiting outside. I said something about a private room. Which one do you want to put him in?”

  With so much money to burn Arbak had decided to keep the lamps and fires in the private rooms lit and burning. It was wasteful, but he thanked his luck for it now. He could take Jerran straight through to a room without waiting.

  “I’ll take him through myself. How many does he have with him?”

  “Three or four men who look like merchants, a couple of guards.”

  He had been tempted to number the rooms, but it had seemed a dull thing to do, and so, in keeping with the name of his tavern, he had named them after three of the Karimic virtues: Honour, Honesty, and Charity. Charity was the largest, but Honour was the best appointed, and there were less than half a dozen in Jerran’s party, so Honour it would be. He told Bargil to have them bring Telan wine and glasses, and stepped quickly through the packed Inn, exchanging only the occasional word with those that recognised him. At the door he found Kelso Jerran deep in conversation with his friends.

  “Kelso, I am honoured that you should visit my place of business,” he said.

  “I could not stay away,” Jerran said with a smile. “Tales of what you have done here spread through the city like plague, and I see that the numbers at least are not fever born. How many do you pack in here?”

  “Why don’t you see for yourself,” Arbak replied. “I have set aside a private room for you, and my finest wine awaits.”

  They entered and crossed the crowded public room with little trouble. One of the men that Bargil had hired eased their way through the press of humanity. Arbak saw the smiles settle on the faces of the merchants as Sheyani’s music took hold, and by the time they entered the private room they all seemed quite mellow.

  The room was a delight. Arbak had bought good quality furniture, decorated the walls with Afaeli tapestries and the floors with rugs from the mountain regions of Berash. The room was a riot of warm colour and opulence, lit by twenty oil lamps, and warmed by a modest fire that welcomed them from the grate. Three bottles of Telan wine stood on the table with a small forest of glasses. A man from the bar waited to one side, ready to serve.

  ‘This is very fine,” Jerran said. “Very fine indeed.”

  “The wine is a gift to you, Kelso,” Arbak said. He could afford it, and he wanted this influential man to speak well of the Inn. “A small token of my esteem.”

  The men sat around the table, making themselves comfortable in the very comfortable chairs. Wine was poured. Faint chords of music and noise drifted through from the public room.

  “Well, gentlemen,” Arbak said. “I shall leave you to enjoy yourselves.” In truth he would have liked to have stayed. Listening to the casual conversation of these men would be money in the bank, but more than that, it might be valuable to the Wolf. He had not forgotten his obligation, though in the powerful current of war and through all the changes in his life it had sometimes been difficult to remember.

  “Not so hasty, Captain,” Jerran said. “Sit with us a while.”

  “I’d be glad to.” Make a wish and it comes true. He almost credited Sheyani’s magic pipes, but this was something else. Arbak sat, and his glass was filled with his own wine.

  “Are you from the city?” It was one of Jerran’s friends who asked.

  So they want to know more about me. That is what this is.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Born and bred. I spent an unhappy childhood in the low city, on the north side, but I always liked the place, always meant to come back one day.”

  “But you served elsewhere?” It was the same man.

  “Fought elsewhere, yes. I spent six years the other side of the Dragon’s Back, some of it guarding, some of it in border skirmishes. Then in Berash, and for the last year in the north of Avilian.”

  “You’ve been in battles, killed people?”

  Arbak was slow to answer this one. He was not sure what they meant by it. He looked at the men, but saw nothing in their eyes but eager expectation. Perhaps they had never met a soldier before.

  “When it was necessary, yes,” he replied. “A soldier’s job is not to kill the enemy, but to win the fight. That was one of the first things I learned.”

  “You see!” Jerran turned to the others. “There is nothing false about Captain Cain Arbak.”

  Except the rank, of course.

  “You are right, Jerran,” the interrogator said. “And you were right to bring us here. The quality of the business shows the quality of the man. You may put the proposition.”

  Arbak turned to Jerran. Proposition? Did these men want to put some business his way?

  “Well, Cain,” Jerran said. “You know that the low city is managed by a council of merchants?”

  “Of course, and I know that you are a distinguished member of that body.”

  “We all are, Cain. The men in this room make up a third of the council, and we carry their full authority.”

  He looked around at the men, their faces, again. There was real power here. These people employed the watch, they had the right to try and punish men who committed crimes in the low city. Gods, they even hung people.

  “What is it that I can do for you?” he asked.

  “We are at war,” Jerran said. “We are all men of business, merchants, traders. We are successful and wealthy, but we know nothing of war. It has always been a small thing, confined to the borders, and no more than an inconvenience on trade routes. Now there is an enemy that may bring the war to Bas Erinor itself.”

  “So I believe,” Arbak said.

  “So do we all, but we cannot sit idly by and wait for our destiny to be decided elsewhere. We must do something.”

  “You want to fight?”

  “Gods, no. We could raise a few men ourselves, but we want to do somethi
ng bigger. If our army fails to defeat these Seth Yarra then we must have another army. Do you think there will be a levy?”

  “Certainly there will, but the cost to the city will be great. If the duke calls a levy then shops will close, businesses will shut down and taxes will rise. It will be years before things return to normal, perhaps never.”

  “We have money,” Arbak’s inquisitor said. “We have a lot of money.”

  “Being chosen to sit on the council is a great honour,” Jerran said. “Usually it takes years of sound business, of building friendships, demonstrating good sense, but these are extraordinary circumstances, unsettled times.”

  Gods, they want me on the council. They want me to tell them how to fight a war.

  “You are one of us, Captain Arbak, albeit for a brief time. Kelso tells us that you understand business, and that you think as we do. We want you to accept the position of Honorary Councillor, to help us to help Avilian.”

  There was a moment of panic. Arbak had seen it coming, but he still froze, still stared slack-jawed at Jerran and the other councillors. He was a sergeant, a squad leader, not a general. And he was an innkeeper with little experience and a lot of luck.

  “My friends, I am honoured,” he said eventually. “But you need a general…”

  “We could buy ten generals,” Jerran said. “But they would not understand us. We don’t expect you to lead the men, Cain, just organise them, stop us from making fools of ourselves. You can hire your own general if you want.”

  “And you wouldn’t have to pay,” the inquisitor said. “We all pay two guineas a day for the honour of serving on the council, but your business is barely off the ground, so we’ve made provision. And you need not attend all the sessions, just those that concern the war.”

  They were desperate. They wanted someone to tell them how war worked, how soldiers thought; someone to speak with hired blades in their own language. Well, that was something he could do. He’d always told himself that he could be a better officer than most of his officers, and now was his chance to prove it. He allowed his pride to talk him into it. If he devoted some of his mornings to the task it would have little impact on the inn, and if the levy was called off to war he would still be here with his tavern. Besides all that, this might be something that Narak would want.

  “Very well,” he said. “I accept. But do not expect too much of me.”

  He saw them smile. They had what they wanted, and they exchanged congratulatory glances, smiled at each other, and sipped at their wine.

  “Congratulations, Councillor Arbak,” Jerran said. “We have a meeting at my home on Thursday morning. If you could attend, we can get started on it then.”

  “I will be there, Kelso, and I am deeply honoured by your trust.”

  After finishing his drink he left the councillors to their wine and conversation. Whatever they thought he was not yet one of them. Everything about him was a fiction. He went back into the public room and looked at the happy crowds. For a moment he took the copper disk from around his neck and put it in his pocket, allowing the power of Sheyani’s music to lift him.

  Two months ago he had been sergeant Arbak, a beaten soldier on the point of death, and even before that he had been slowing down, growing old with no prospect of ease in his life, and now he was here, rich, respected; Councillor Captain Cain Arbak. And he was going to have his own army. Who could guess the ways of destiny?

  * * * *

  The watch bell had sounded, and they had finally closed the doors after the last few men. The public room seemed cavernous without its crowds. Bargil and his men sat by the doors. The big guardsman had taken to pouring four pints of ale after they closed and drinking them with his underlings. It was a statement that they had finished for the night. The men behind the bar worked steadily cleaning glasses, polishing the bar, sweeping up.

  Arbak was still somewhere between panic and euphoria. He had been thinking about the war and the merchant’s council for most of the evening, but he had come to a halt, and could think no further. A night’s sleep would breed a few ideas. It was the way that his mind worked.

  But in spite of a busy day, or perhaps because of it, he did not feel like sleep. He wanted to share his mood. Looking around the bar he saw that Bargil was with his men, and he did not want to intrude on that private bond. He had been a squad leader often enough to know that Bargil would not welcome him now. But Sheyani was alone, sitting on her chair up on the dais, still wearing the shawl that covered her head and polishing her pipes with a scrap of the green cloth that he’d first seen them wrapped in.

  He walked across the room to where she sat. It was about time he started paying her more. If anyone worked out what she was worth he would have a hard time keeping her. She didn’t notice him approach, so as he stepped up onto the dais he put a hand on her shoulder.

  Sheyani jumped up as though she’d been slapped, the high backed wooden chair she’d been sitting on clattered away across the dais, and for a moment he saw a look of such fear on her face that he drew back, afraid that he had somehow injured her, or caused her unimaginable offence. He saw the expression on her face change to something he couldn’t recognise. Horror? Despair? Shame? Then she turned and ran from the room, leaving him standing on the dais, immobilised with shock.

  He looked around and found that everyone in the inn was looking at him.

  “What…?”

  Bargil shrugged. “Speak to her,” he said.

  It was the rational thing, the sensible thing to do. He followed her at a more sedate pace, walking slowly up the stairs that led to her room, all the time trying to think what he would say. He had startled her. He knew that, but her reaction had been far beyond anything he could have expected. It was exactly as though he had slapped her. He had no idea what he had done wrong.

  He stopped outside her door and listened for a moment. He knocked gently. There was no answer. He waited. He knocked again, a little louder.

  “Sheyani, we must talk,” he said, trying to put friendship and sympathy into his voice.

  He waited again, an in a little he heard the latch, and the door opened a crack, but no more. He pushed it open gently with a finger. Sheyani was sitting on her bed, her arms wrapped tightly around her, the pipes discarded on the bed. She would not meet his eyes.

  “Sheyani, what is the matter?”

  “I have offended you,” she said. “I will leave tomorrow.”

  “No,” he said. The word was more than a simple negative. It carried with it all his knowledge that Sheyani was important to the success of his inn, and, he realised for the first time, important to him in another way. He did not want the inn to be without her, and he did not want to be without her.

  “You want me to leave now?”

  He took a step into the room, crouched down to bring his eyes down to the level of her face.

  “No, I don’t want you to leave at all. I startled you, that is all. You have done nothing wrong.”

  “I have,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “No, you have not. If you had, I would have noticed.”

  “I offended you. I saw it in your eyes.”

  “No, Sheyani. I startled you, but you looked so afraid. I was surprised. There is no offence in that.”

  He could see that she was weeping. Not sobbing, but the silent, expressionless, flight of water from her eyes, down her cheeks, and she still would not meet his eyes. He reached out and took her hand in his own, and was surprised that she immediately gripped it fiercely.

  “I have no more honour,” she said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  She bowed her head and did not speak, but she continued to clutch at his hand, a lifeline in a stormy sea, a last hope in a shipwreck of a life. He wondered what it could be that had brought her so low. Not just one thing, he guessed, but many. He had seen the fire in her, the pride, and she was certainly talented, and, he thought, quite striking to look at.

  “Do not fear, Sheyani,�
�� he said. “You do not need to speak of it if you do not wish to. The past is the past, and cannot be changed. You are important here. You are needed. This inn is something good in the city of Bas Erinor, and it would not be that if you were not a part of it.”

  She remained still, and her grip on his hand remained firm, but he thought that he detected a change in the way that she was sitting, a small relaxation.

  “There were three men,” she said. “They were soldiers, I think. They followed me. I cut one of them, but they held me down…”

  “You don’t have to tell me, Sheyani.”

  Gods, the woman had been raped. Here in the city. His mind flew back to all those campaigns, all those battles. Bad things had happened afterwards, sometimes, and though he had never been part of them he had sometimes turned a blind eye, walked away. Now what had seemed uncomfortable at the time came back to crush him like a hammer. He felt his face flush with shame and anger. All those times he had walked away from someone like Sheyani when he could have helped, each one burned in him like a wound. He had always thought of himself as a good man, or at least better than average.