Sworn in Steel (25 page)

“I’ll just bet they do. How’s your head?”

“I get headaches.”

I waited for more, but didn’t get any. The look Fowler gave me made it clear the situation wouldn’t be changing soon. I considered pushing the matter, decided I didn’t have the
energy just now. Instead, I looked around the room again.

“This won’t do,” I said, my voice still low. “We need to be able to come and go as we please if we’re going to find Degan.” Not to mention deal with
Jelem’s package. Staying in the padishah’s poet reserve would let us do neither.

“I’ve looked into that,” said Fowler.

“And?”

“We’re Imperials. We can stay in the Imperial Quarter if we want. In fact, I think they kind of prefer it that way.”

And the Imperial Quarter was in the Old City, which meant we’d have access to el-Qaddice without having to worry about answering to Heron.

“Well, then—” I began.

“But,” said Fowler, “we can’t leave until we’ve been given the padishah’s patronage.”

“Wait, I thought that’s how we got in here in the first place?”

“No. We’re under the wazir’s eye right now. Turns out the first audition just gets you in the door. We need to perform in front of Padishah Yazir to get his royal
favor.”

I turned to Heron and pitched my voice to carry. “So we can’t leave? We’re on probation until the padishah sees us perform?”

“Not probation, no.” He closed the book—no finger to mark the page this time—and came forward. Fowler’s and my private time, it seemed, was at an end. “But
His Highness feels, in his wisdom, that it’s best to keep his new prospects as close together as possible, especially when they’re new to el-Qaddice, let alone Djan.” He indicated
the city outside the screened window. “There are many temptations in the Old City, and not all visitors are as . . . eh . . .”

“Experienced?”

“Well schooled as yourself and Mistre—as Fowler Jess here. Until you’re fully accepted by the padishah as one of his dependents, the actions of one will be seen to reflect on
all, and be judged by the wazir accordingly.”

“Judged how, exactly?”

“Sternly. The wazir has little use for thespians.”

“And Imperials?”

“Actors are descendants of the gods by comparison.”

I gave Heron a skeptical look.

“I’m the exception,” he added.

“I’ll bet. What if I said I wanted to relocate to the Imperial Quarter?”

“I say you’re welcome to do so, as long as your entire troupe goes with you.”

“Tobin isn’t going to want to leave,” observed Fowler.

“You mentioned that,” I said. I shifted in bed and pulled my legs underneath me. They felt good. I reached out, put a hand on Fowler’s shoulder. She helped me stand.

“How do you feel?” she said, her arm lingering at my elbow.

“A little light-headed,” I said, “but otherwise ready to leave.” I tilted my head, trying to stretch my neck. I felt a familiar ache at the base. “I don’t
suppose you have my
ahrami
bag anywhere around here, do you?” I asked Fowler.

“Allow me,” said Heron. He tucked the book under his arm and reached into a pocket, pulling out an ivory case the size of his palm. He thumbed open a panel on one end. Inside were
four distinct compartments, each holding a collection of
ahrami
seeds. He poured some into his hand. “Do you prefer the
yarenn, oto, barbaratti
, or
cho-lan
regions?”

I stared at the bounty in his palm and felt my mouth begin to water. I think my eye even twitched.

Heron smiled and counted out a dozen seeds. “A sampling, then,” he said. “I suggest the
oto
to start, since you’ve been traveling and not had freshly roasted for
a while. Then probably the
cho-lan
after that. Let me know what you prefer and I’ll arrange for more.” He put the twelve seeds in my palm and smiled. “A gift, for a
fellow Imperial.”

I took one of the
oto
—a lightly roasted, dryer-looking seed—and slipped it into my mouth and then beneath my tongue. I felt my heart quicken in anticipation, and had a hard
time preventing myself from simply biting down on the seed immediately.

Heron, I decided, was all right.

“Tell me,” I said as the clerk slipped the case back into his pocket, my eyes tracking its every movement. “How bad do you have to be to get your entire group thrown out of the
Old City?”

Heron stared down at the floor, looking thoughtful. “It’s a fine edge,” he said. “Especially for Imperials. What might get a Djanese poet censure could get an Imperial
cast out—or cast into prison. Social norms and customs, not to mention affairs of honor, can get confusing fast. Caste rivalries get ugly, too.” He looked back up at me. “If I
were you, I’d stick to what you know. Imperial—
foreign
—matters, if you understand what I mean. Better for everyone that way.”

“All right,” I said. “And what if it was discovered that some members of a troupe were involved with, say, the
Zakur
? Or other criminals?”

“Such as Imperial Kin, perhaps?” said Heron.

“Sure, why not?”

Fowler knitted her brow. I shifted my chin slightly, signally her to bide.

Heron gave me an appraising look. “I’d say,” he said slowly, “that while it wasn’t enough to get that troupe’s audition canceled, I’d certainly feel
better if they weren’t in contact with any of the padishah’s other dependents, if only for moral reasons. After all, we can’t have them trafficking with undesirables—at
least, not openly.”

“In that case,” I said, a smile tugging at my lips, “I’m afraid I have some terrible news to relay to you. . . .”

“Y
ou mean he didn’t give you any explanation at all?” said Tobin as he trudged beside me on the street.

“Nothing,” I said. I threw my hands wide. “All the wazir’s secretary told me was that, now that I was well enough to walk, we needed to get off the padishah’s
grounds and into the Imperial Quarter.”

Tobin shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. There are other prospects waiting to audition still living on the grounds. Why would they single us out?”

I placed a hand on the troupe leader’s shoulder and leaned in a bit. “Just a guess, but were any of those other acts Imperial?”

Tobin’s eyes shifted to me. “No.”

“Well, then,” I said, and let the point hang between us.

Tobin cast his eyes about—at the street and the traffic and the troop of guards escorting us through both—and made a thoughtful sound. Less than two hours ago, he and his troupe had
been basking in the glory that was the padishah’s grounds: groomed lawns, stocked lakes, trees heavy with fruit and foliage, not to mention the paved courtyards and shade-rich verandas of the
artists’ sanctuary. Then I’d turned up with a troop of hard-faced guards at my back and news that we had to leave. To say it hadn’t gone over well would be an understatement.
Still, after the initial outburst, Tobin and the rest had been smart enough to read the guards’ expressions and gather their things without any undue complaints. I’d managed to avoid
the troupe leader as we’d been quick-marched away from the sanctum and across the grounds, but now that we were through the royal gates and in to the city the pace had slackened enough for
him to catch both his breath and me.

“And you’re sure he said nothing about why?” said Tobin.

“Not a word,” I lied.

“And you? Could you have . . . ?”

“Me?” I snorted. “I’ve been out and on my back for two days. When would I have had the chance?”

“Yes, well. You’re our patron, so I thought I should at least ask.” Tobin ran a hand across his cheek and down his neck, leaving a wet sheen of sweat in its wake. “Thank
you for your . . . insights. Good day, Master Drothe.”

I chose to ignore the tone behind his words as he lengthened his stride and stepped away.

“Thieves,” muttered Muiress as she trundled along on the other side of me, sweat rolling freely down her face in the late-morning heat.

I looked up at the broad, unbroken expanse of sky that spread out above us. Not even the hint of a cloud in sight. No relief until we got where we were going, then.

I glanced over at Muiress again, then let my knife slip into the palm of my left hand. I wandered over to one of our escorts.

“How much farther?” I asked in Djanese as I sidled up next to him, matching his pace.

He gave me a glare and shoved at me with his elbow. I stumbled into him, apologized, and faded back into the troupe.

“Here,” I said, handing the matron the swatch of linen I’d cut from the guard’s layered fighting skirt. “You looked like you could use a handkerchief.”

“Thieves,” she muttered again, but this time with less vitriol. Muiress wiped her face with the fabric and then secreted it among the folds of her gown.

I gave her a wink and let myself drift back a bit toward the rear of our procession, behind the rest of the actors, but ahead of the final rank of guards. Fowler, who was walking and laughing
and chatting with the female contingent of the troupe, glanced back and raised an eyebrow. She’d managed to gain a gauzy green shawl somewhere, and the fabric, along with her expression, made
her look winsome. I shook my head in response to her query: I wanted to be alone just now.

Thanks to the
neyajin
’s poison, I’d missed our entry into the Old City, not to mention the last two days overall: I wanted to eye the place and take its measure. And while
our current route might not have been leading us through the districts and neighborhoods I expected to be frequenting, the main thoroughfares of a city can still tell you a lot.

Despite what the storytellers in the Raffa Na’Ir cordon back home liked to say, the streets and gutters of el-Qaddice didn’t look to be lined with gold and silver. Then again,
I’ve never found the jeweled roofs and silk-clad beggars Ildrecca was supposedly famous for, either, so I wasn’t exactly disappointed by the reality.

What I did see were buildings rising four and five stories on either side of us. Some towered over the gardens and orchards and courtyards that lay before them, while others stood shoulder to
shoulder along the street, their whitewashed and tiled facades gleaming in the sunlight. Every now and then the line was broken, the buildings being replaced by the elaborately carved walls that
set off one of the private compounds of the nobles and merchant sheikhs. Palm fronds and tree branches peeked over these walls, hinting at the lush gardens that lay beyond the solid wood and iron
gates.

Farther back, along the western horizon, I could make out the domes of the greater temples, their bulbous sides shining from the silver-gilt prayers that covered their surfaces. I wondered
whether the local thieves were ever tempted to pry the precious man-high letters off the temple roofs, and if not, what the Despotate had done to discourage them from lifting the gleaming
words.

Down closer to the street, color was everywhere. Caravans brought dyes to el-Qaddice from the south and west, silks from the east, resulting in the people here draping themselves with the
brilliant reds and yellows and greens that would normally be reserved for only the richest in Ildrecca. Gleaming tiles covered the roofs and walls of buildings, their deep blues and greens
providing at least the cooling illusion of water. And everywhere were flowers and trees and bushes, from simple planters set at the entry to a courtyard, to the sweeping irrigated public gardens we
passed with surprising frequency. El-Qaddice relied on both springs that bubbled up along the escarpment and wells that extended deep below, but even with this, I was surprised at how many more
public gardens this city had compared to Ildrecca, which sat on the sea.

Djanese predominated on the street, of course, both in language and numbers, but there were enough skin tones and clothing styles, enough foreign syllables and throaty clicks in the air, to
speak to the cosmopolitan nature of el-Qaddice, even in the guarded Old City. Silk-robed and -capped Ulaan’ng bureaucrats, their elaborate queues draped over their shoulders and looped in
their belts, shuffled past brocade-wrapped Parvans, the latter’s heavy beards split and plaited, rings thick in their hair and ears. A group of midnight-skinned Rathin passed us in gray
wayfarers’ robes—the only color allowed their people outside their own borders—their laughter a sharp contrast to their dour clothes. Farther along, a Betten mercenary, his linen
shirt open to his waist to show off his scars of merit, barely gave our procession a passing glance, although I noticed his hands kept close to the half dozen daggers he wore at his waist.

And on every corner, it seemed, stood street magicians: juggling balls of light, drawing down dragons made of vapor and dust, casting fortunes with carved ivory rods, or simply chanting out
their services to passersby. Where magicians and Mouths in Ildrecca kept their magics close and their spells soft, here the casters all but shouted their power from the rooftops. I’d seen my
fair share of petty glimmer hawkers and con men in the Lower City when we’d arrived, but here, seeing dust dance and steam pull itself from the dry air at a mere gesture or word, made me
wonder if the old tales about the origins of the Djanese were true; made me wonder whether the men and women around me had just a hint of the same blood as the djinn that wandered the desert.

We passed through a great arched gate, fanked on either side by stone elephants extending out from the walls, and entered the third ring of the city. Whereas before we’d been passing
through the realm of the nobility and the well connected, now we walked the streets of the more established common classes. The main thoroughfare still ran straight and the trash was mostly cleared
away, but paint had replaced tiles as decorations on many of the buildings around us, and the domes of the temple we passed were decorated with beaten copper and glazed ceramic instead of polished
silver.

We were nearly at the wall that separated the third ring from the fourth when the guard captain turned down a curving lane. A short distance later, we passed through what looked to have once
been a fortified gate, but was now merely an archway between two tall tenement buildings. Beyond, the streets narrowed considerably, with weathered buildings made from beaten earth and clay bricks
crowding in on either side. The paving beneath our feet changed from shaped cobbles to well-worn stone, laid ages ago and worn smooth by centuries of traffic. Roofs were lower, the windows narrower
and higher, and most doors—all brightly painted—stood a step or more below street level.