Page 20

Chapter 20

For the next four days, I bounced across the Bay of Yarrow like a cricket fleeing a vole. I rode mules, horses, carriages; I floated about in canal barges and little sloops and rowboats and carracks; but, most of all, I walked, so much so that I wore a hole in my right boot and had to purchase new ones from an Apoth shop. “New material!” the man confided in me. “Mushroom leather blended with algaeoil. Very resilient!” The boots felt unnervingly soft and pliant, but they held, and I continued on in my drudgery.

Yet I found nothing. I spoke to over thirty Apoth officers of many senior ranks—captain, immunis, immunis-prificto, commander—yet all I interviewed not only gave verifiable alibis for their movements during the tenth of Hajnal, but most of them claimed they hadn’t been in the bank vault in months, if not years. The more I searched, the less I seemed to find.

As I did my drudgery, Ana’s chambers came to resemble a rat’s nest, with pages of parchments stuck to the walls, ceiling, and floor. Soon she was quite literally cocooned by records of thefts, living in a swirling world of pilfered reagents and precursors. If she made any progress, she did not say so; she simply sat in the storm of it all, plucking at her lyres. Most unsettlingly, she had pinned the note from the skull’s lips on the highest point of one wall, and worked day and night under the small, strange banner of Te siz imperiya.

On the third day I visited Madam Poskit at the Usini Lending Group offices. There I heaved over an enormous sack of talints, the first of many payments I’d have to make to her. She made a show of counting each coin, and when she finished she gave me her wide, treacly grin and said, “I shall look forward to seeing you again soon!” I trudged away, muttering and miserable.

On the fourth day I could bear it no longer and sought out the Yarrow girl from my first night. I could not find her, so I settled for an older Kurmini man, a Treasury officer, who had a weary charm to him. He insisted on making me a full dinner and serving me wine. I sensed immediately he was trying to replace someone lost, and consented to play his game. He wept in his sleep in the middle of the night. I didn’t have the heart to tell him in the morning.

Meanwhile, the rest of Yarrowdale stayed quietly busy, moving on from the theft and murder as if it had been a fight among friends. Ships trundled up and down the canals; merchants came and went from the Treasury bank; the Shroud billowed and rippled in the bay; and I walked the many muddy roads, wondering if this might be the first investigation Ana and I might never close.

—

On the morning of the fifth drudgery day I discovered that the officer I had planned to interview—my fortieth of the lot—had recently been seconded to Prificto Kardas’s Treasury delegation to replace the dead Sujedo. This meant, I was told, that if I wished to speak to this officer, I would have to track down Kardas and his little band of muttering number-readers.

“But they are in the west today,” said the Treasury clerk guardedly. “Speaking to officials from the king’s court.”

“What do you mean, the west?” I asked. “Can you give me anything more specific than a direction?”

She pulled out a map and pointed to a building well west of Old Town, set high in the hills above the city. With a sigh, I started off.

I paid a handful of talints to hire a horse for this trip, and this proved a wise choice: a soft drizzle came pattering down as midmorning wore on, rendering the paths slick and unreliable, yet my mount’s footing was sure and steady. The landscape unfolded about me as we traveled: behind every hill there seemed to be another, each higher than the first, and as the rain swept over us the landscape came alive with trickling creeks and chuckling waterfalls.

Then the rain broke, and a tuft of low cloud rose like a veil, revealing a structure nestled in the western peaks: a white stone citadel, shining in an errant beam of sunlight. The High City of Yarrow, I gauged. It was an almost celestial sight in this strange, wild place. Then another tussock of cloud came rolling in, and the vision was lost.

Finally I arrived at my destination, which did not appear to be anything so pleasant as a home or mansion, but rather a crude woodland fort, with parapets made from the trunks of trees, and a high stone bastion set behind the walls. Soldiers milled about on the wall-walks, tall and attired in iron mail with glittering epaulets and high, embossed helmets. Not imperial soldiers, then, but Yarrow.

I glanced back down at the path behind me. Exactly whose authority was I now traveling in? I wondered. Was I truly in the Empire at all?

I rode to the fort cautiously, relaxing only when I spied the Imperial Treasury carriages stationed before its rickety wooden gates. There were three other carriages alongside them, huge and wrought of dark wood and elaborately painted in greens and golds. These belonged to the court of the king of Yarrow, I presumed, though they were not quite as fine as I’d imagined a royal carriage might be.

It didn’t seem wise to simply walk up and knock on the gates and demand entry, for this might not only bother the guards at the walls but also interrupt any negotiations Kardas was conducting within. Instead, I tethered my horse alongside the steeds of a Treasury carriage, dismounted, and leaned against the vehicle to wait.

For a moment it seemed a blessed thing, to be still in this quiet, dripping forest. Then I heard a noise, soft and shuddering.

I cocked my head, listening, then heard it again.

It was weeping. Someone was weeping nearby.

No, that was not so: it was not one person, but many.

I stood, my eyes fixed on the huge Yarrow carriages. I glanced at the fort walls and saw no soldiers watching in my direction. I quietly approached the closest Yarrow carriage.

The vehicle had two large, swinging doors in the back, but these were securely chained shut; yet there was a wide slit of a window along the top. After another cautious glance at the parapets, I grasped the corner of the carriage, vaulted up, and peered inside.

Nearly a dozen people were within, seated on the floor and bound in chains of iron. Their skin was pale and filthy, their wrists thin in their manacles, their cheeks sunken. They were a sorry sight, and they stared up at me warily.

Every set of eyes was deeply green: Yarrow folk, all of them. A few men, but mostly women and girls, and very young, too.

I asked, “Who are you?”

They said nothing. They didn’t understand imperial standard, then.

My eyes fluttered as I tried to recall what snatches of Pithian I’d heard in the streets of Yarrowdale. A few whispered in alarm at the sight.

“ Tu kauna hai? ” I asked.

They exchanged glances. Then one girl whispered, “ Asim gi’aca gae ham. ”

I frowned. I knew no Pithian myself, of course, so this was of little help to me.

Then a voice called out: “ Tusim ho! Stop, you! What do you do there?”

I looked to my right, along the wooden wall of the parapet, and saw a man striding toward me. He was a short, broad, powerfully built creature with green Pithian eyes and a prodigious beard that was green at the roots. He wore a plain leather jerkin, a fur cape, high riding boots, and a black, cylindrical cap. Most curious, though, was his face, for the whole of his brow had been stained a dark, thunderous indigo, which made his heavy, leaden stare all the more intimidating.

“Who are you?” the man demanded imperiously. “What are you doing here?”

I stepped off the carriage and studied him as he advanced. There was a swagger to him that suggested a familiarity with battle: something in the pivoting of his hips, the easy movement of his arms. Though he bore no weapon, he approached me with all the bravery of a man fully prepared to join combat.

I glanced again at the wall-walks and saw some of the gathering soldiers sporting bows. This purple-faced man likely did not need a sword to feel the confidence of arms, then.

“I am Signum Dinios Kol of the Iudex,” I said to him. “I’m here to see Prificto Kardas.”

“Are you?” snapped the purple-faced man, stepping close. “You’ll not find him in there. Get some distance from that carriage, now. Back away.”

I did not move.

“I heard weeping, sir,” I said coolly. “I thought it wise to look.”

He raised his head and looked down his nose at me. “That is not your affair. Back away.”

I hesitated just long enough to bother him, then took a small step back. “Why do you have those people chained in there, sir?”

“You ask impertinent questions.”

“I ask obvious questions, sir. Who are they?”

He narrowed his indigo-painted eyes at me. “Hm. A blue one. I’ve never seen a blue one.”

“What?”

“I have seen red imperials,” he continued. “And a few black. And white, far too often. But never blue. You are Iudex, you say? Is that a…an imperial phansi vala ? Executioner?”

“I am not an executioner,” I said stiffly. “I deal in matters of justice.”

“Ah. As do I. These are fugitives. They have broken their oaths to their lords and fled their sworn vows. I return them to their rightful places now.”

“This is approved by the imperial powers, sir? They know of what you do here?”

He let a tiny, icy silence slide by. “I do not need their approval. For we are not in the Empire. You stand on Yarrow soil. You have for many leagues. Did you not know?”

I looked him over, liking what I saw less and less. “May I have your name, sir?”

He thought about it. “No.”

“You won’t give me your name?”

“I do not give imperials anything I do not need to. And I need give you nothing, boy.”

Another tense moment. His eyes danced down to my sword at my side, then back up to my eyes. There was a greediness in his gaze, as if he wished me to draw, eager for the conflict, even though he himself was unarmed. A strange thing, I thought.

Then there was a creak and a crack to my left, and the rickety gates of the fortress opened. We both looked, and Prificto Kardas came striding out, biting his thumb as he so often did when worried. He was flanked by his many Treasury officers, their faces all flustered and downcast. Only Signum Gorthaus kept her face stoic and still, yet this was a common thing in engravers.

Kardas stopped when he saw me. A strange, shameful expression stole over him, as if he felt I’d caught him in some compromising act. “Kol?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

I bowed. “I had come to ask questions of a member of your delegation, sir,” I said.

The purple-faced man spoke up: “He seemed more interested in my carriages, Kardas. Too much so.”

“Ahh,” said Kardas slowly. “I see. Have you two come to know each other, then?”

I shot a glare at the purple-faced man. “No, sir.”

“Well. This is Thale Pavitar, Kol. He is the jari of the court of Yarrow—a role akin to a priest. He is often part of my negotiations.”

“You are a man of faith, sir?” I said tartly to this Pavitar.

“I keep many ancestral oaths,” the broad man said. “Without those, all is lost. True?” He grinned, his teeth flashing in his beard. I almost winced, for his teeth were misshapen and discolored: a sight quite unusual to me, for in the Empire we possessed calcious grafts that could easily amend any tooth or bone.

“Yes…” said Kardas uncertainly. “Well, Kol, I am sorry that you have made the trip here, for we cannot accommodate any interview at the moment.” He stepped between Pavitar and me in a transparent effort to defuse our conflict. “I’m afraid we must relocate to the High City to continue our discussions, and we must be quick about it, for we feel we make some progress now.”

A twitch to Pavitar’s beard, as if he thought this very unlikely.

“I shall be happy to contact you when we return to Yarrowdale, though,” said Kardas. “And we can conduct all interviews there.”

I bowed in return, my anger simmering under Pavitar’s smirk. Yet as I bade them goodbye and moved to mount my horse, more people exited the gates, and one figure in particular drew my gaze.

He was a short, pale man, thin and reedy and arrayed in fine silk clothes of a bright yellow-green color, with long locks of hair that hung well-coiffed about his neck. He was surrounded by soldiers clad in green and armored like the ones on the wall, but their helms and epaulets were of finer make, as if escorting this man was a special duty. Like Pavitar, this new man’s face was painted, yet his paints were not purple, but green: a flowery, curling design that coiled about the edges of his cheeks and gathered at his mouth.

Yet it was his eyes that struck me most. They locked on me immediately and glittered with intelligence, yet it was a very cold sort: he studied me as if he were a butcher and I a sow, and he was imagining how he’d part my joints to yield the best cuts.

“Kardas,” said the green-faced man, his voice soft and wary. “Who is that?”

“Ah—this is an imperial officer, sir,” said Kardas, sounding uncharacteristically anxious, “sent here to look into the death of my delegation member. He shall be going shortly.”

“The death of your delegation member?” echoed the green-faced man. “You mean the one so brutalized in the canals?”

“Yes, sir.”

The green-faced man took a step forward, studying me. “You came all this way alone?”

“I did, sir,” I said.

“With no guard, nor any escort?”

“No, sir,” I said, puzzled.

The green-faced man’s eyes stayed fixed upon me. He did not speak for a long time. I began to feel somewhat discomfited.

“And who might you be, sir?” I asked finally.

Kardas cleared his throat. “This is Satrap Danduo Darhi, Kol,” he said. “The administrator of the court of Yarrow, and foremost adviser to the king.”

I glanced back at the green-faced man, whose face remained inscrutable. That explained Kardas’s anxiety, then: he likely did not wish this man to return to the king of Yarrow with news that Imperial Iudex officers wandered about picking fights with their priests. Perhaps that was why he’d tried to send me off so quickly.

I bowed yet again—this time a full bow, my brow nearly touching the tips of my boots—and said, “It is a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

The green-faced Darhi attempted something resembling a smile, yet it was as warm as a stone in a mountain stream; but I noted that despite all his poise, his teeth, too, were misshapen and rotted. “It seems a pity for someone with so valiant a task to have come so far, and alone, only to be sent away with nothing! For we wish the Treasury delegation all the safety we can offer—yes? Especially after such a tragedy. I assume you have given him kind greetings, Pavitar?”

“The kindest,” grunted Pavitar.

“I’ve no doubt. But, still…I am moved to grant him a token of my favor. Not all can navigate the slopes of our realm so easily.” Darhi reached into his pocket and slipped out something shining and silver.

Pavitar shook his head, disgusted. “Why must you always make such a show?”

“I do it for I am a decent man, and reward decent work,” said Darhi. “And it is a hard thing for an imperial to travel so far, alone.” He handed the silver thing to one of his soldiers, who took it and began to trot toward me.

“Oh, no, sir,” I said. “There’s no need to offer me any gi—”

“Signum Kol would be most happy to take your gift, sir,” said Kardas, and shot me a look.

I took the silver thing from the Yarrow soldier. It was a coin, wide and flat and bright. I hastily put it away, sensing that now was not the time to scrutinize it.

“If you are ever in the High City,” said the green-faced Darhi, “show that to any Yarrow fellow you meet, and he will call you a friend. If he is of noble make, he is oathbound to grant you a service.”

“A high gift,” said Pavitar sourly. “One that requires great works to be deserving of it.”

I took the comment to mean I had accomplished no such thing, but I bowed and said my thanks.

“Very good. On your way now, Kol,” said Kardas nervously to me. “On your way, please.”

I mounted my horse and rode back down the muddy path. After I had turned once or twice, I slid the coin from the pocket to study it.

The coin held the crude visage of a man, grim-faced and with a beard in braids, and a narrow circlet set upon his brow. Not the face of the emperor, then, as I was accustomed to seeing on talint coins; perhaps the king of Yarrow, whose face I did not know.

I glanced back up the path and saw a figure standing at the edge of the bluff, watching me: the purple-faced Pavitar, his fur cape rippling in the breeze. He gazed at me, then turned and walked away.

—

I was a league away from Old Town when I heard a rustling from the foliage at the edge of the path, and then a voice: “There you are. Finally.” Malo emerged from the leaves, her crimson hood spattered with mud and her longbow slung across her back. “I have sought you all day, sniffing your trail, Kol. Why do I find you here? Nothing good lies at the end of this road.”

“So I saw,” I said. “I went to try to speak to one of Kardas’s people. Instead I spied something very strange.”

She stopped. “Did you,” she said carefully. “What was it?”

“A fortress, or perhaps a prison. And several painted men, who apparently serve the court of Yarrow.”

Malo went very still. “I see…Come. Walk with me and tell me what you saw.”

I dismounted and led my horse as I walked with her, describing the chained people I’d found in the carriage, and my confrontation with the purple-faced Pavitar.

“Ah,” said Malo bitterly at the end of it. “ Naukari. ”

“What’s that?”

“Those folk were naukari. Ancestral servants. The Yarrow of old still thrives in the west of here, living under the rule of the king. There the nobles and chief men have inherited many elder things. They have inherited lands from their fathers, and the oaths of loyalty that their fathers made to the king…and they have inherited people. Naukari. The ones bound to serve.”

“The realm of Yarrow practices slavery?” I asked, surprised.

“No, for slavery means markets, and prices and such. The folk in the west do not deal in such abstract things. They keep to the old ways—one who is born to the servant of the land is also bound to serve that land for all their lives.”

“There’s no way out of it?”

“Only if the king or a lord or a landowner decides you are no longer naukari. Yet that is a rare thing. Many run away. Some, as you saw, are captured and returned.” She spat rather viciously into the trees. “The purple-faced man, Pavitar, is the jari of the court. A priest, like Kardas said, but one that enforces oaths and ancestral fealty—including those governing naukari. That fortress you saw indeed serves as a prison, where they keep the servants who tried to flee to the Empire, before returning them to their lands.”

I reflected on this dismal thought for a moment. “They were from the court of the king, you say…but their teeth were rotted and had to be quite painful. Why do they tolerate such a thing?”

She cawed with laughter. “The Yarrow court disdains all things imperial, Kol! They would not accept the Empire’s gifts to save their own lives.”

“I see. And their painted faces?”

“A sign of prestige. Certain roles at court are color-coded. Just as the Iyalets themselves bear a color. Though I do not know this Darhi. He must be new. Let me see the coin he gave you.”

I gave it to her, and she studied it with her augmented eyes.

“An oathcoin,” she said. “Granted by a Yarrow noble. Quite the boon!” She let out a laugh again, but the sound was black and cruel. “Imagine, an oathcoin in the hands of an imperial! Perhaps the Elder West truly has changed, for it seems this Darhi is willing to owe you a favor.”

“But why? All I did to earn this was ride a horse up a damned hill.”

“My guess? I think while Pavitar wishes to intimidate you, Darhi attempts to buy you.” She smirked and flipped it back to me. “I did say you looked expensive, Kol.”

I snatched the coin out of the air and glared at her. “What of Kardas? Does he happily tolerate this abuse of the Yarrow people?”

“Happily? No. But you want the world run your way, walk a few weeks in that direction.” She gestured southwest. “You will find the Empire soon enough.”

“It all sounds…” I said, but then held my tongue.

“Barbaric?” she ventured.

“It is not my place to criticize another culture, I suppose,” I said stiffly.

This drew a morose chuckle. “Truly? I myself think the practice abominable. I am glad it shall die in a matter of years, when this realm is adopted by the Empire. But until then, there are many servants who flee, and risk their lives doing so.” She peered up into the hills. “The ones you saw today…their mistake was they didn’t run far enough.”

I glanced at Malo and saw the disdain in her face. Suddenly it was very easy to think of her as one such child, slipping away from the demands of the soil to become a warden of the Empire.

“Did you?” I asked.

“Did I what?”

“Run far enough.”

She turned her gaze on me, eyes sharp. “I sought you today to talk business. You want to do that, or you want to keep pissing the day away on things we cannot change?”

“All right. Have you found someone resembling your sketch of the impostor?”

“That? No. That was all shit and got us nothing. But I have found something very valuable indeed. We talked to everyone who worked the canals, everyone we could find. We heard nothing—until we came upon an old fisherman, who told us a story. One day, just before the tenth of Hajnal, this fisherman is down in the reeds with his nets, seeking a juicy prize, when he looks up…and he sees a boat coming down the stream.”

“All right…?”

“In that boat is five men. Four of them are very dirty and dressed like the jungle folk—armed, carrying bows. But the fifth man…he is very strange. For he is dressed all in Treasury white. And he has a cloth bag over his head, as if he does not wish for anyone to see his face.”

I frowned, pondering this. “The impostor, wearing Sujedo’s uniform, before he robbed the bank?”

“We thought the same.”

“Why hide his face?”

“I do not know. It all seems mad. The fisherman was deep in the reeds, so they did not see him. He watched as they took their boat northeast, to here, to the city. We found him, asked him to show us on a map where this was, and he did so. And can you believe it? This spot is just north of an old smuggler’s camp, one we ourselves have raided many times. Comes alive every few months. We are thinking—what if it is alive again?”

My mind began racing like I’d taken a suck from the Apoths’ percolator.

“And what if that’s where Sujedo was taken and killed,” I said quietly, “and what if the impostor is still there?”

“Exactly. So I have a question for you, Kol.” Malo’s smile grew wide. “You ever been on a warden raid before?”

—

“What!” squawked Ana. “You want to go on some kind of goddamned boat ride down some god-awful river?”

I shook water off my straw cone hat as I leaned against her bedroom door. “I think it’ll be decidedly less pleasant than you make it sound, ma’am, but that’s the spill of it.”

Ana grumbled for a moment, then glared around at the collage of theft reports she’d stuck to nearly every surface in her room. “How many people have you checked on from the list of people with access to that safe?”

“Thirty-nine.”

“Thirty-nine of forty-three?”

I spied a little black beetle crawling up my hat’s brim and flicked it off. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And they all had verifiable alibis?”

“They did. I’ve found not a hint of anything useful.”

She screwed up her face and grumbled some more. “We’re looking in the wrong damned place. But I can’t for the life of me discern what the right place is yet. I feel it’s close, like a bubble in my brain…something Thelenai said, but I can’t recall what.” She grabbed her lyres—she had rather cunningly attached the two together with a set of wires and screws—and began to pluck a moody melody. “The hell with it. Perhaps a muddy stretch of swamp is a better place to go snooping than about here. How long will you be gone?”

“Two to three days, ma’am.”

“Then you may go. Have the Apoth quartermaster send me food, three chamber pots, and enough quiridine pellets to soak up the stench.” Another melancholic chord. “I’ll let you empty them when you return. I’d normally try to do it myself blindfolded, but after I dumped one out on that woman’s pet bird, I’ve made a rule to avoid it. But, Din…when you go out there, be careful, please.”

“Why the concern? I won’t be alone.”

“Yes, yes. Just remember—this is a man so cautious that he does not leave a single hair behind. I cannot yet guess at his nature, but he may be capable of far worse things than we can yet imagine.” She plucked one last mournful chord. “So move slow, and carefully. And bring your sword. You may make use of it.”