Endurance (9 page)

To face the Bittern Court woman?
Always. And never. How ready could one be? “Let us go. Where is the embassy housed?”

“They have taken a mansion in the Velviere District.”

That was second only to the Ivory Quarter as a fine address within the city of Copper Downs. Oddly, though perhaps not a coincidence, the Temple of Endurance was in the Velviere District, being built on the site of one of Copper Downs' ancient mineheads that long predated the houses of the wealthy. While I knew much concerning the great families and remnant aristocracy of Copper Downs from my days in the Factor's house, I didn't have enough information to associate them with their particular properties on a street-by-street basis.

“I trust you will lead us there.”

“Of course.” Kohlmann nodded to the guards; then we set out together.

*   *   *

The councilor was precisely my sort of conversationalist. That is to say, taciturn. Nonetheless, as we walked along Lyme Street, I indulged my curiosity in one matter on which he might usefully enlighten me.

“I did not recognize the uniforms of your guards back there. I don't recall the Textile Bourse being secured under arms last summer.”

“Councilor Lampet has taken it upon himself to organize a Conciliar Guard.” The distaste in Kohlmann's voice was unmistakable.

“The old Ducal Guard wasn't bad enough?”

“They have been reconstituted.” He snorted. “The city guard was never more than a jest under the Duke; news criers and lamplighters without any authority. Federo always argued against forming them into something greater. Over the past months we've seen more private guards, and subscription militias. There needs to be some authority.”

“The Harbormaster has troops,” I said, dredging up an odd fact from the days of my education.

Another snort. “Absent the Duke, do you imagine Paulus Jessup recognizes anyone's authority but his own? The Interim Council is fortunate that he continues to remit the customs revenue and put down dock riots. A less scrupulous man in the Harbormaster's position would be running his own waterfront kingdom by now.” He paused, then slowly finished what had obviously begun as a private thought. “No, Lampet has the right of it. Shame it had to be Lampet, though.”

My memory of the old days was that the Ducal Guard enforced the general peace, as well as governmental and judicial edicts. The city guard lit the lamps, cried the hours, and hurried the drunks home. The regiments, which mostly consisted of old banners in dusty halls filled with rusted blades, were the defense of a city that hadn't seen or needed an army in four centuries. The wealthy, as always, had private guards, but not rising to the level of street militias.

Now the situation was apparently much more like that in Kalimpura. Except without the interlocking apparatus of the Guilds, the Lily Blades, and the Death Right to keep violence contained to what was needful, or at least could be bought off.

In the course of the conversation and my subsequent thoughts, we'd passed down Montane Street and into the Velviere District. Where much of the city, at least its relatively monied portions, ran toward two- and three-storey buildings standing wall-to-wall, the Velviere District consisted of widely separated structures set back on their own lots. Many of the residences were truly mansions. Some businesses were located in the area, of the quiet, tasteful variety that displayed no signs and quoted no prices. If you needed to ask, you were in the wrong place.

The streets were wider, too, paved with fine gravel that was regularly oiled and rolled to keep it smooth and quiet. Nothing like the varied cobbles, bricks, ruts, and mud of much of the rest of Copper Downs. The blocks here were for the most part lined with broad elms, oaks, and other deeply shaded trees. No roof-running in this neighborhood, nor any lurking in alleys. Even the walled compounds—perhaps half the properties here were such, as opposed to the Ivory District, where virtually every home was walled—had setbacks with wide lines of sight. It was as if the architects had planned for war and assassination, even during the centuries-long stagnation of the reign of the late, unlamented Duke.

Not a place for sneaking. So we walked as if we owned the street. Kohlmann did, at any rate. I strode alongside him, trying to look dangerous in my robe and realizing that in its way, this was almost as silly as my leathers. When had I become so conscious of my appearance? I felt as foolish as poor Samma, the weakest of my fellow Blades back at the Temple of the Silver Lily. Besides, no one who looked like me lived in a neighborhood such as this. The dark color of my skin cried “thief” to these people, not “servant.” Never “one of us.”

Kohlmann paused at an intersection. I thought we might be at Ríchard Avenue, but wasn't sure. The streets were shady and quiet as some Arnaud painting from the last century;
Idylls of the City
perhaps. The whitewashed walls to left and right, the branches overhanging from behind, the smells of fruit trees and kitchen fires. All it lacked was a small dog and pair of washing girls in wimples and kirts.

“Around this corner we will see their gate.” His voice was even more quiet and serious than usual. “Whatever guards they have are sure to recognize you. Are you ready for this meeting?”

I was surprised at such concern. “I am always as ready as I need to be.” Which was another way of saying I was ever unready, but Kohlmann let the statement pass with a nod.

In truth I felt a bit of a fool with my bundle underneath my arm, but I just couldn't face donning the leathers again. I did not imagine needing my knives here, not in the presence of a formal embassy, and my body continued to rejoice in the comfort of the loose robe.

We walked around the corner to spot one of the Prince's men outside a gate halfway down the block. His guards were peacocks, snickered at by the Lily Blades for their pink and blue silks and sweeping, showy swords that anyone could block with a stick and a moment's thought.

Of far more concern was the woman next to him on guard. A Lily Blade. As we approached, I recognized Mother Argai. A sometime lover of mine, and longtime sparring partner. I fancied she'd always liked me, even when the tides of rumor and gossip had run strong against me among the Blades.

The Prince's man stared straight ahead, facing a whitewashed stucco wall across the street from him, but Mother Argai looked me over quite frankly. As Kohlmann and I approached, she spoke. “I see you've become a ragman's apprentice, Green.”

Seliu, of course. Kohlmann could have no idea what she'd just said.

“I pass about in the manner of this city,” I replied, another cheerful lie. “How is it with you?”

“You know. Always pulling girls out of deeper trouble.”

Something played in her eyes. Not a lie. More of an urgency. As we closed on her, I answered with: “I try to find trouble before it finds me. And today I bring a powerful friend as witness.”
What is she not telling me?

Mother Argai nodded once. “This is a damp, miserable place. Mind you don't make your grave here, or your shade will be chilled down all the years to come.”

“And the same to you,” I replied in my brightest voice. If she was trying to help, this woman had a strange way about her.

The peacock man decided to recognize me. He slipped a sidelong glance at Mother Argai, then turned to strike a bell before opening the carved blackwood gate that admitted into the grounds of the mansion. Bas-relief scenes of a sylvan paradise swung away from me, until the leaping pardines in their glens stood at an odd angle.

“Now I will ask if
you
are ready,” I told Kohlmann in Petraean.

“It is not my friends who guard the gate,” he answered mildly. I could see the muscles bunching beneath his suit, and realized I wasn't the only one spreading lies this morning.

*   *   *

A trio of Selistani servants saw us from the porch, and turned to hurry into the main house. It was large, positioned back among the trees, in the Haito style. White walls with great reddish-brown cross beams, tall doors and windows, little external ornamentation. Almost a child's cartoon of a home, though five centuries past this had been the very pinnacle of architectural taste in Copper Downs.

A good education never went to waste. If I did die here, at least I would have the comfort of knowing I'd passed on amid high style.

By the time we'd walked up the granite flags to the large but simple porch, a protocol master from the Prince's court had bustled out the front door. I did not recognize the man, but in his flowing orange silks and rounded red velvet hat, he made the peacock at the gate look a drab hen. Despite my deep mistrust, it still warmed my heart to see in this place a man of my people in the trappings of wealth.

Wealth or not, they had started their day early. Back in Kalimpura, the court would not even accept a letter much before the noon hour. Let alone admit callers. Either the Prince disliked this northern clime overmuch and wished to hurry through his business, or they were poised for action.

“Green,” the protocol master said warmly in accented Petraean, though I knew we'd never met. “And Councilor Kohlmann.” Credit to him for recognizing the local powers-that-were on sight. “Greetings from our humble house. With the Prince of the City in residence, you have here returned to the grace of Kalimpura. May you be welcomed home again.”

Those words stopped me. Kohlmann pulled up short alongside at the foot of the steps, so we were both looking up into the protocol master's nostrils. I had studied much of diplomatic niceties and court practices in the Factor's house, and knew well enough what the protocol master was telling me.

“I was banished from Kalimpura under pain of death,” I said, also in Petraean for Kohlmann's benefit. “By order of the Temple of the Silver Lily, for whom
you
do not speak. If I am indeed back within the city's purview, Mother Argai at the gate behind us would be protected by the Death Right should she strike me down from behind in this moment. I will not be welcomed within at the cost of my life.”

Kohlmann stirred, but I touched his arm. He knew well enough we were on my ground now. Literally so, as this place was for the nonce by twist of law part of Kalimpura.

“I do not speak for the Temple of the Silver Lily, as you say.” The protocol master took trouble to appear pained, a deliberate rebuke to my gracelessness. “But I do speak for the Prince of the City. You are under his protection in this place.”

My next words were chosen very deliberately. “Do not bandy foolishness with me. The Prince of the City is a fop with no real powers save a title to impress the foreigners. Someone else is behind this embassy, and I believe I have already seen her face here in Copper Downs. Should the Bittern Court seek my life, I do not know what the Prince's protection might be worth, beyond a pretty speech at my funeral. I prefer to remain under my own protection, and that of the city of Copper Downs.” I turned to face Kohlmann, giving the councilor his cue.

The big man's expression promised more questions of me later, but he played into his part like a temple catamite on feast day. “As a representative of this city's duly constituted government, I assure Lady Green our full protection.” He divided his attention between me and the protocol master.

Whatever “full protection” meant. No good ever came of trusting the Interim Council, but the statement ought to give the protocol master and his superiors pause. If nothing else, at some point these people needed to be able to make their way safely back to the docks and take ship. Precisely the sort of thing that even this Interim Council could manage to prevent, however hapless they might be in the face of larger pressures.

“Then we shall consider your exile in abeyance,” the protocol master said smoothly, as though he had not moments before claimed quite correctly not to speak for the Temple of the Silver Lily. Ah, the forms of protocol. Like combat, without the pleasantries.

We stepped within.

*   *   *

The front hall boasted that same high-ceilinged architecture so beloved of the important and the self-important everywhere in Copper Downs. The house smelled musty, as if it had been long closed, though an overlay of Selistani spice was working to combat that scent of neglect with the warm, familiar sting of curry and red pepper. I blinked away the particolored sunlight streaming in the stained-glass windows above and looked to see who awaited me here.

All of them
, I realized in rapidly dawning horror.

The Prince of the City was poised on a throne in the center of the hall, where by the usual traditions of Haito architecture there ought to be an ornamental pool. Behind him were arrayed a selection of the men and women of his court standing tall, their bird-bright silks gleaming oddly in the streaming morning light. To his right stood the Bittern Court woman with a glare of triumph on her face. To his left was poised Mother Vajpai—senior trainer of the Lily Blades and my longtime mentor, before I was ejected from Kalimpura by her order. Though not, I later came to understand, by her will.

As I understood matters then, these two women were the agents of my banishment. My free hand brushed the hilt of my long knife where it protruded from the bundle of my leathers. On my best day I could barely score a touch on Mother Vajpai. Pregnant, tired after a drunken night's half-sleep, and dressed in these ridiculous robes, I could scarcely claim even that much skill this morning.

“The girl Green,” said the protocol master loudly in Seliu. “With a councilor of this city, Loren Kohlmann.”

Kohlmann bowed at the sound of his name filtered into our tongue, with its differing inflections of case. I remained alert, tightly drawn for a battle I could not hope to win.

The Prince of the City rose to his feet. “Welcome,” he said warmly in Petraean, focusing his attention on Kohlmann. “We have been awaiting your presence. Would you take some fine southern wine with us?”