Cold Iron

by Miles Cameron

  ‘Barbaric?’ Aranthur asked.

  Ansu raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps a little. Don’t hate me for my superior civilisation.’

  Aranthur smiled. ‘I’m an Arnaut. Everyone thinks they are more civilised than me.’

  They walked a few more steps, and Aranthur waved at a leather-worker he knew; they were only a few blocks up from the Square of the Mulberry Trees.

  ‘So … if I may be so bold, what would you like me to call you?’

  ‘If I do not seem overweeningly arrogant,’ Ansu said, ‘I’d like you to call me “Ansu” or “Prince Ansu” in public. But as we have lived together and shared a fight, I think I will allow you to call me “Zhu Jingfu” in private.’

  Aranthur turned and bowed, exactly as the prince had done at their first meeting.

  ‘You honour me,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ the prince replied. ‘Don’t let it go to your head. Now let’s go and face the General.’

  Even an hour after the duel, and with his belly full, Aranthur was not paying the attention he might have as they moved down the thumb of the city towards the palace. As they drew closer, his breath was taken.

  The Crystal Palace was the dominant structure in the Imperial Precinct, which itself had a wall and seven gates. The wall was entirely white marble; it had forty towers, each of white marble, roofed in tall copper spires that had been carefully gilded, so that they appeared as spikes of gold in the sunlight. Inside the wall were a dozen temples, four formal gardens, a sports field, a magnificent amphitheatre said to date from before the First Empire, a red marble barracks block for the Guard, and another of green and pink marble for the palace servants and officers. But at the very tip of the peninsula stood the palace itself: a behemoth of glass and gold and veins of white stone to support the structure, and a waterfall of white stone buttresses and arches outside; a garden of curving stone shapes supporting eight naves; and a central cupola that soared twenty storeys above the highest building in the city and appeared as if ready to take flight – a vast dome of glass, and atop it a needle of gold and glass, itself the size of a yacht.

  The light inside the naves was a haze of gold – the light in the dome was unearthly. The whole was the work of Renardas, the greatest of the Flamabard architects and stonemasons; it was less than two hundred years old. One of Aranthur’s professors referred to it as the ‘pinnacle of Byzas culture’ and another called it a ‘remarkable piece of vulgarity’.

  Ansu stopped at the Barracks Gate to the Imperial Precinct and pointed.

  ‘I admire it every time I see it,’ he said. ‘It is not quite my style – I could show you things in my home that please me more … but it is … breathtaking, nonetheless.’

  Aranthur, who saw it every day, looked at it for the first time. That is, really looked.

  ‘It is …’ He shook his head.

  ‘Yes,’ Ansu agreed. ‘Come. The General doesn’t choose to live in the palace. She’s in the military hall, and it is being rebuilt. You Byzas are always tinkering … In Zhou, when we build well, then we leave it alone.’

  Indeed, the pink and red marble structure was covered in scaffolding. Two man-powered cranes were lifting the weather-worn statues that crowned the roofline and placing them, face down, one at a time, the operators calling out a rhythm as sweating soldiers pushed at the capstan bars. In the courtyard there was a line of covered statues, as well as a dozen small trees, their root balls wrapped in burlap, waiting to be planted. Two imperial guardsmen stood at the main door.

  ‘They’re going to drop it,’ one said.

  ‘Kerkos’ swelling member,’ said the other. ‘Five crosses that they get it to the ground.’

  ‘Done,’ said the first. ‘Halt. Whoever you are.’

  Aranthur halted.

  Ansu just pushed past. ‘I’m Prince Ansu!’

  ‘I don’t care if you are the fucking Emperor,’ one of the gamblers snapped.

  Aranthur stood there.

  The statue swayed and then righted and the base touched the ground.

  ‘Dammit!’ one gambler complained. ‘State your business.’

  ‘You know who I am,’ Ansu said.

  Aranthur could see that the Prince of Zhou was not used to obeying like an Arnaut.

  I’d just be killed, he thought, with his hand well away from his sword hilt.

  ‘I have a message for the General,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Let’s see it,’ the loser of the wager said.

  ‘It’s a personal message,’ Aranthur answered. ‘Verbal. I was with her in the west.’

  ‘Of course you were,’ Winner replied. He rolled his eyes. ‘Prince An—’ He began.

  ‘He’s with me,’ Ansu snapped.

  The guards didn’t move. They hadn’t drawn their weapons, but they had blocked Ansu from passing the inner door.

  ‘Rules are rules,’ Loser said.

  ‘You know me!’ Ansu said again, frustrated.

  Winner shrugged. ‘No offence to either of you gentles, but there’s shit happening out there in the city, and we’ve orders to take care, so some care we are a-taking.’

  Ansu let out a long sigh.

  Loser tapped a bell with a wand of ebony that Aranthur could see was potent. There was no sound, but there was a distinct emanation of power.

  Ansu was restless. ‘This is a waste of time,’ he said, and he began to walk back and forth. ‘I feel humiliated.’

  Aranthur had a lifetime of toll checks and anti-Arnaut suspicions and this seemed perfectly normal to him.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll be fine,’ he said, with a reassuring look at the guards.

  ‘Why do these men not trust me? They have seen me for months. It is absurd.’ Ansu pulled at his moustache.

  Drek Coryn Ringkoat appeared from the closed door.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’

  ‘What is that to mean?’ demanded Prince Ansu.

  The Jhugj laughed. ‘Whatever I want it to mean. Only the General was just speaking of this young scapegrace.’

  ‘I have a message for the General,’ Aranthur asserted.

  ‘The Arnaut is on the green list,’ Ringkoat said casually.

  ‘Damn,’ said the guardsman who had lost the wager. ‘Damn. By the sword of Enyalios.’ He took out a tablet and read down the marks in the wax. ‘Timos?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Aranthur said.

  The guardsman bowed. ‘My apologies, Syr Timos. If you’d ha’ said you were on the list …’

  ‘And me?’ Ansu asked.

  ‘I don’t think the General wants to see you just now,’ Ringkoat said.

  The Jhugj and the Zhouian glared at each other.

  ‘I’ll be quick,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘I just want to see you get out alive,’ Ansu said. ‘Since we’re to be room-mates.’

  Aranthur followed Ringkoat down a long hall and then up two flights of marble stairs. The sound of the cranes outside provided a counterpoint to the rhythmic sound of stone hammers shaping stone in the courtyard.

  They climbed to the topmost level and walked across a beautiful garden laid out on the roof, surrounded by stone patios. At the east end of the building was a two-storey tower.

  ‘The General likes her privacy and she isn’t much for court,’ Ringkoat said.

  Two palace servants opened the magnificent bronze doors to the tower. One took Aranthur’s sword.

  ‘There have been threats since the confrontation with a certain duke,’ the Jhugj said. ‘We’re taking precautions. Wait here. She’ll see you, I expect.’

  Aranthur was handed a glass of excellent white wine, which he drank too fast.

  ‘Aranthur Timos,’ General Tribane said. ‘The man who just keeps turning up.’ Despite her words, she smiled. ‘May I help you?’

  ‘Majesty, I didn’t see you when the Pennon Malconti was ordered north.’ He bowed, a little nervously. ‘Malconti assumed I would see you and left me with a verbal message, which I
…’ He couldn’t see how to lie about it. ‘Which I forgot.’

  ‘Old messages are worse than old eggs,’ Ringkoat said sourly.

  ‘Tell me anyway,’ said the General. She was dressed in a long blue gown and pearls; there was something disconcerting about seeing her dressed as a woman.

  ‘Malconti said he thought that the Duke of Volta had wanted the confrontation, and he accused the duke of trying a compulsion to make the pennon attack.’

  ‘Wine,’ the General said. ‘When did he tell you this?’

  The night I was too tired to make love to Nenia.

  ‘The last night I was encamped with the pennon.’

  Aranthur found that he had more wine. He drank it. The General’s scent reached him – it was sharp, and had a little lemon in it, and it was like a drug. As soon as he smelled it, he inhaled more.

  Lust went through him like a sword blade through a pumpkin.

  The General watched him with concern.

  ‘Damn,’ she muttered. ‘Timos, that scent is not for you – I have other plans for the evening.’

  Aranthur was not sure he had ever seen a woman as attractive as the General; her authority was dizzying and her poise and athleticism stirring. He moved a little closer to her without conscious thought, and inhaled again.

  She rose with a sigh. ‘Thanks for coming here. Damned perfume. Who needs it, anyway? Ringkoat, take him out and give him something nice …’

  She slipped through a curtain, leaving Aranthur in a state of ecstatic arousal.

  Ringkoat looked at him with something like pity.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  Prince Ansu had either not waited for him, or not been allowed to linger. Aranthur hoped the latter was true, but he walked home alone, and carefully. He went home to an empty room that seemed full of ghosts. His belly was full of wine, and he didn’t want to be alone, and he was there with the dead, like Arnaud and the creature that had attacked him, and the ghosts of the living, like Dahlia and the increasingly difficult image of Nenia, who was entangled with the rebellion and the woods … and Alfia …

  Finally he sat at the window and read Consolations for quite some time. It helped.

  He needed food, and he considered buying an Easterner girl, because … Because he didn’t want to be alone, and it was too crowded in the room. He wanted to talk to someone. Reading didn’t shut off his mind, although it helped. He put on a good doublet and went to visit Kallinikos, but the man’s rooms were locked, and no one was there, not even a servant. He did note that his friend’s window was ajar, and he called out. There was no answer except from the pretty Western Isles woman in the next house, who looked out. She was in his Arcana class; he waved.

  ‘I haven’t seen him,’ she called.

  ‘I am an idiot,’ he said aloud.

  He felt vaguely guilty just for his various imaginings.

  He went out, bought a fish pie, and went home without buying either a body, a measure of stock or a flagon of wine. He lay in bed, thinking of the dead Easterners. His dark thoughts were interspersed with flashes of erotic imagination; Tribane’s perfume was still with him. And then he surprised himself by going to sleep.

  The next morning he awoke on time to his summoning spell, and his head was clear. He dressed carelessly, in robes and old breeches, and he didn’t put his hair in a queue as Dahlia had taught him, and he didn’t wear a doublet or his sword. He was the first customer for a new quaveh seller in the Founder’s Square and he had, for once, brought his own cups on his own tray. He arrived triumphantly to present Edvin with quaveh while the notary was still sharpening quills.

  ‘My, you are early,’ Edvin said. ‘Let’s work on our Safiri calligraphy, shall we?’

  They spent two hours, writing until Aranthur’s wrist and fingers were cramped and aching in a way that swordsmanship never tired him, and until Aranthur had said everything he remembered about Malconti, who was clearly Edvin’s hero.

  ‘The pen is more tiring than the sword,’ he said.

  ‘Make that up yourself, did you?’ Edvin asked. He reeked of a scent – something exotic: patchouli or spikenard. Nothing as eloquent as the General’s scent, though.

  Aranthur was trying to breathe through his mouth. But he laughed.

  The Master of Arts came in, her elegant scholar’s gown floating behind her. Her face was more severe than usual.

  ‘Your quaveh is hot,’ Aranthur said, proudly.

  He’d kept it hot with a Safiri incantation, a far more efficient working than the one he’d used to dry the alders for Nenia, powered from his own essence in the Safiri way.

  ‘You fought a licensed duel last night after I specifically asked you not to risk yourself,’ she snapped. ‘You are dismissed.’

  She turned on Edvin. ‘You stink. Wash.’

  She swept into her office.

  Aranthur sat in the ashes of his future.

  ‘Ignore her,’ Edvin said. ‘I mean, you’re an idiot if you actually disobeyed her, but she’ll forgive you. I need to wash. Is it bad?’

  Aranthur’s heart began to beat again. ‘Yes,’ he said weakly.

  ‘I had the most delightful evening.’ Edvin got up from behind his desk. ‘Not a Malconti, but very … exciting.’ He raised both eyebrows expressively and grinned.

  ‘Where is this hot quaveh?’ demanded the Master from inside her office.

  Edvin winked.

  Aranthur took two deep breaths, summoned his courage, and walked in carrying his covered cup. He placed it by her.

  She looked at him over steepled hands. ‘You anger me.’

  ‘Magistera.’

  ‘Explain yourself.’

  He was smart enough not to shrug. ‘I …’ he began. ‘He challenged me. He was one of the rebels and he claimed I was a spy. I gave him the lie.’

  ‘It is all over the Precinct. He’s a Da Rosa,’ she added. ‘So close to the gods? Yes?’

  Aranthur had never heard the joke, so he shook his head.

  ‘The Da Rosas, so close to the gods, so far from the Imperial throne … No, eh?’ She shrugged. ‘Never mind. I believe I ordered you not to fight any more duels,’ she continued with more asperity.

  Aranthur met her eyes. She was angry. ‘I did not understand it was an order. And I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘You could have been killed. Are you an idiot?’ She shook her head. ‘I want you to talk to Tiy Drako. Very well, you are not dismissed. I was angry with you and everyone else in this bureaucratic hell of a city.’ She looked out the window. ‘Listen, Timos. I may lose my position here. There is a great deal of nasty politics going around right now, and you have managed, in four weeks, to fall afoul of the Uthmanoi and now the Da Rosas, both prominent Lion families. Out in the streets, we’re edging towards a House war. There have been at least two further sorcerous attempts on the Precinct wards while the Duke of Volta is trying to bring me down and change the government. Someone tried to kill the General. Please, do not make my life any more complicated. Let’s work.’

  Kill the General. Hence all the unexpected security.

  He worked. He worked on the grimoire for hours, and then he went out of the Precinct and cut straps – mindless work that he did well – with Manacher. Manacher was in a very good mood indeed, as the business was thriving. He was full of the gossip of the court and the Temple and the various legal battles of the city.

  At some point, Aranthur had a chance to interject.

  ‘Isn’t Manacher a Safiri name?’

  Manacher nodded, clearly pleased. ‘My grandfather was a Safian. My mother still knows a few words, I think.’

  ‘I am studying Safiri at the Academy,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Why?’ Manacher asked, without much interest. ‘I mean, I assume everyone there speaks it quite well.’ He laughed and laughed, convinced he was a wit.

  Aranthur was too tired to go to the salle. He was poor, and the next day was a militia drill day, and he would be paid. He went home, passing a surpr
ising number of young women and young men wearing daggers and House colours. He wondered if it was a festival he’d forgotten. His hands were still stained red and green from the leather dyes he’d used at the end of the day. He was so tired that he had to rest before climbing all six flights of stairs, where he found Tiy Drako sitting in the window.

  ‘You again,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘I sent you on a mission and you didn’t report back at the end,’ Drako said.

  Aranthur felt like a fool, a feeling that was becoming quite common for him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I—’

  ‘You saved me and the General a great deal of work, discovered hundreds of Easterners living in the woods, revealed what may have been a nasty plot preying on the Empire, and then went back to class. Then you skewered a very powerful man’s son in a duel. Have I missed anything?’

  Aranthur sighed and settled into the second-best chair, which creaked.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Drako said. ‘I have never explained anything to you because for the longest time you were a suspect in my mystery of mysteries. Even now …’ He shrugged. ‘Never mind. I need your help, immediately, and then we’ll talk. I’ve lost your Safian. He wandered off. Where did you find him?’

  ‘In the agora next to the Night Market,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Help me find him again. He’s a gold mine of useful information, when he’s sober.’ Drako made a face. ‘Through him I have been able to question other Safian refugees. I need him. By the way, wear a good doublet to your drill day tomorrow.’

  ‘You are as enigmatic as the Master of Arts.’ Aranthur pulled his student gown over his head without touching the buttons and then threw on his mud-stained doublet and his sword belt. ‘Ready.’

  ‘The duel with Djinar Da Rosa was foolish,’ Drako said on the stairs.

  ‘So everyone tells me. You know he was one of the rebels.’

  Drako paused. ‘Was he? You’re sure?’ He glanced at Aranthur. ‘And your friend Kallinikos? Was he one of the rebels?’

  Arantur stopped. ‘No,’ he snapped.

  Drako shrugged. ‘A year ago he might have been.’

  Aranthur kept going down the stairs. As they climbed the stone steps above the canal, he said, ‘The duel was because of the rebellion.’