The Anvil of the World (26 page)

"What are the Wardens doing here?" demanded one of the students, shooting from Bliss to Righteous Indignation like a pistol bolt.

"You can't harass our
trevani!"
cried another student, grabbing up a gardening tool, and Willowspear grimaced and held out his hands to them in a placatory gesture.

"Please! Consider the First Principle of Patience in the Face of Aggression!" he cried. Somebody muttered something about a Trowel in the Face of Oppression, but in the trembling moment of peace that followed Smith said quickly, "It's just a new oath you have to take, saying you won't commit any acts of vandalism. All right?"

"I'll be glad to swear the oath," said Willowspear at once.

"What in the Nine Hells is a
trevani?"
demanded one of the Wardens, scowling.

"Shut up," Crossbrace told him.

"He's teaching 'em to worship the Green Witch," said the other Warden.

"The Green
Saint!
He's teaching us the Way of the Unwearied Mother, you unenlightened dog!" shouted another student.

"Not very successfully, either!" Willowspear cried, turning to face his students. "Put the shovel down, Mr. Carbon. Don't shame me, please. Go to your homes and meditate on the First Principle."

His students filed from the garden, glaring at the Wardens, who glared back, and Willowspear sighed and pressed his slender hands to his temples.

"Forgive them," he said. "May I take the oath here, Mr. Crossbrace?"

"We have to escort you to the Temple of Law for it," said Crossbrace, shifting from foot to foot. "Because of the trouble, see?"

"All right."

"And a couple of mine will go with you, how about that?" said Smith. The porters Crucible and Pinion, who had been watching in silence from the lobby doorway, stepped forward and flexed their big arms.

"That'd be capital!" said Crossbrace, with a ghastly attempt at heartiness. "Let's all go now and get it over with, eh?"

"Right," growled Pinion.

Smith saw them off, then went into the restaurant's kitchen. Mrs. Smith was pounding spices in a mortar, and Burnbright was peeling apples. She was perched on a tall stool, rather precariously given her present condition, and there were shadows of exhaustion under her eyes.

"So I said to him, 'Eight crowns for that puny thing? At that price it had bloody well better to be able to jump up and grant three wishes--' " Mrs. Smith paused to tip ash from her smoking tube into the sink, and saw Smith. In the moment of silence that followed, Burnbright looked up, looked from one to the other of them, and began to cry.

"Oh, oh, what's happened now?" she wailed.

"He's had to go down to the Temple of Law again," Smith told her. "He won't be long, though."

"But he hasn't
done
anything!" Burnbright wept. "Why can't they leave us alone?"

"It's just the way life is sometimes, child," said Mrs. Smith, mechanically going to a cabinet and fetching out a bottle of Calming Syrup. She poured a spoonful, slipped it into Burnbright's mouth between sobs, and had a gulp straight from the bottle herself. Having done that, she renewed her efforts with the mortar so forcefully that a bit of clove went shooting up and killed a fly on the ceiling.

"One goes through these dismal patches, now and again," she continued grimly. "War. Economic disaster. Bestial stupidity on the part of one's fellow creatures. Impertinent little men charging eight crowns for a week-old sardine. One learns to endure with grace." Another particularly violent whack with the mortar sent a peppercorn flying. It hit the bottle of Calming Syrup with a
ping,
ricocheted off and narrowly missed Smith's nose before vanishing out the doorway into the darkness of the hotel bar.

"He'll be all right," said Smith, patting Burnbright's shoulder. "You'll see. Everyone in this street will vouch for him--and after all, he's married to you! So it's not as though he could be ordered to leave the city or anything."

Burnbright thought about that a moment before her lip began to tremble afresh.

"You mean they could do that?" she said. "With our baby coming and all?"

"Of course they couldn't, child," said Mrs. Smith, looking daggers at Smith and reaching for the Calming Syrup again. "We just told you so. Besides, he's my son, isn't he? And it's my little grandbaby's future at stake, isn't it? And I'd like to see the City Factor foolhardy enough to throw miscegenation in
my
face."

I wouldn't,
thought Smith, and exited quietly.

He heard the bell in the lobby summoning him. Someone was hammering away at it imperiously. He swore under his breath, wondering what else could go wrong with his day, or his week, or his life...

"Here he is! Oh, dear, doesn't he look cross?" said Lord Ermenwyr brightly. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Because you're an unsympathetic little beast, Master," Balnshik told him, and held out her hand. "Smith, darling! How have you been these last few months?"

Smith gulped. His brain ground to a halt, his senses shifted gears.

He knew she was an ageless, deathless, deadly thing; but there she stood in a white beaded gown that glittered like frost, with a stole of white fox furs, and she was elegant and desirable beyond reason.

Beside her stood Lord Ermenwyr, looking sleek and healthy for a change, loudly dressed in the latest fashion. How anyone could wear black and still be loudly dressed was a mystery to Smith. The lordling's hat bore some of the responsibility: it was a high sugar-loaf copatain, cockaded with a plume that swept the lobby's chandelier. Beyond him were Cutt, Crish, Stabb, and Strangel, heavily laden with luggage.

"Uh--I've been fine," Smith replied.

"Well, you look like you've been through a wringer," Lord Ermenwyr said. "Never mind! Now
I'm
here, all will be joy and merriment. Boys, take the trunks up to my customary suite and unpack."

They instantly obeyed, shuffling up the stairs like a city block on the move. Lord Ermenwyr looked Smith up and down.

"Business has been off a bit, has it? I shouldn't be at all surprised. But you needn't worry about me, at least! I'm simply here to relax and have a lovely time in dear old Salesh-by-the-Sea. Go to the theaters with Nursie dearest, visit the baths, sample the latest prostitutes--"

There was a rending crash from somewhere upstairs.

"Oh, bugger," said Lord Ermenwyr, glancing upward. "We forgot to give them a room key, didn't we?"

"I think poor Smith needs a cool drink on the terrace," said Balnshik, running one hand through his hair. "Let's all go. Fetch a bottle from the bar, Master."

He had to admit he felt better, sitting out at one of the tables while Balnshik poured the wine. All his other problems shrank in comparison to the prospect of a few weeks' visit by demons, even if they were pleasantly civilized ones. And Balnshik's physical attentions were pleasant indeed, though they stopped abruptly when Burnbright and Mrs. Smith joined them on the terrace. Instantly, the ladies formed a tight huddle and locked into a private conversation whose subject was exclusively pregnancy.

Lord Ermenwyr regarded them narrowly, shrugged, and lit his smoking tube with a fireball.

"Tsk; they won't even notice us for the next three hours, now, Smith. I suppose we'll have to sit here and find manly things to talk about. I detest sports of any kind, and your politics don't even remotely interest me, and the weather isn't really a gender-specific topic, is it? How about business? Yes, do tell me how your business is going."

Smith told him. He listened thoughtfully, exhaling smoke from time to time.

"...And then there's the trouble in, in the quarter where the Yendri businesses are," Smith continued. "I can't understand it; everyone's always gotten along here, but now...
they're
all resentful and we're all on edge. The bathhouse keepers are up in arms, by all the gods! Rioting herbalists! I don't know where it will end, but it certainly isn't good for keeping hotel rooms occupied."

"Oh, I'll book the whole damn place for the summer, if that'll help," said Lord Ermenwyr. "That's the least of your worries. You know what's behind all this, of course."

"No," said Smith, with a familiar sense of impending doom. "What's behind it?"

"This stupid man Smallbrass and his Planned Community, naturally," Lord Ermenwyr replied. "Don't tell me you haven't seen the signs! Or perhaps you haven't. They're being defaced as soon as they go up."

"Oh. That place being built down the coast?" Smith blinked. "What about it? The Yendri always complain when we build another city, but it's not as though we were hurting anybody. We've got to have someplace to live, haven't we?"

"I don't know that the other races sharing the world with you would necessarily agree," said Lord Ermenwyr delicately.

"Well, all right. But why should they be so
especially
bothered now?"

Lord Ermenwyr looked at Smith from a certain distance, all the clever nastiness gone from his face. It was far more disconcerting than his usual repertory of unpleasant expressions.

"Perhaps I ought to explain something--" he began, and then both he and Smith were on their feet and staring across the garden at the hotel. There was shouting coming from the lobby, followed by the shatter of glass. Burnbright gave a little shriek that dopplered away from them as they ran, along with Mrs. Smith's cry of, "Stay here and keep down, for gods' sake!"

Smith, though older and heavier, got there first, for halfway through the garden Balnshik materialized in front of Lord Ermenwyr and arrested his progress with her formidable bosom. He hit it and bounced back, slightly stunned, and so Smith was the one to catch Willowspear as he staggered out into the garden. The Yendri was bleeding from a cut above one eye.

"It's all right," he gasped. "They ran away. But the front window is smashed--"

They haven't been here two hours, and I'm already down a door and a window,
said an exasperated little voice in the back of Smith's head. Out loud he said, "Damn 'em anyway. Look, I'm sorry--"

"Oh, they weren't your people," Willowspear told him, pressing his palm to the cut to stop the bleeding. "They were Yendri, I'm afraid."

"What in the Nine Hells did you do that for?" Lord Ermenwyr demanded of Balnshik. "I think I've got a rhinestone in my eye!"

"I'm under geas to protect you, Master," she reminded him.

"Well, I'm supposed to protect anyone ever sworn to my service, and an oath is just as good as a geas any day--"

"Bloody greenies!" snarled Crucible, emerging from the lobby. "Are you all right, son?"

"Don't call him a greenie!" cried Burnbright, who had finally struggled across the yard. "Oh, oh, he's hurt!"

"Well, but he's
our
greenie, and anyway it was the other damn greenies--"

"I'm fine," Willowspear assured her, attempting to bow to Lord Ermenwyr. "It's a scratch. My gracious lord, I trust you're well? We were coming back up Front Street and we were accosted by three, er--"

"Members of the Yendri race," supplied Smith helpfully.

"--who demanded to know what I was doing in the company of two, er--Children of the Sun, and wanted me to go with them to--I think it was to attend a protest meeting or something, and when I tried to explain--"

"They started chucking rocks at our heads," said Pinion, dusting his hands as he stepped out to join them. "But halfway down the block the City Wardens caught sight of them and they took off, and the Wardens went after 'em like a gree--like something really fast. You want us to board up the window, boss?"

Fifteen minutes later they were back at their places on the terrace, somewhat shaken but not much the worse for wear. Balnshik had deftly salved and bandaged Willowspear's cut, and he sat with a drink in one hand. Burnbright perched in his lap, clinging to him. Mrs. Smith had been puffing so furiously on her jade tube that she was veiled in smoke, like a mountain obscured by mist.

"But you'd be safe up there, you young fool," she was telling Willowspear. She turned in appeal to Lord Ermenwyr. "You're his liege lord or something, aren't you? Can't
you
tell him to go, for his own good?"

"Alas, I released him from his vows," said Lord Ermenwyr solemnly. "Far be it from me to tell him that considerations of duty outweighed the vague promptings of a vision quest. Bet you're sorry now, eh? Ow," he added, almost absentmindedly, as Balnshik boxed his ear. "Besides, if a boy won't listen to his own dear mother, whomever else will he heed?"

"I can't go back to the Greenlands," said Willowspear. "I've planted a garden here. I have students. I have patients. My child will be born a citizen of this city. I'm doing no one any harm; why shouldn't I be safe?"

Mrs. Smith groaned and vanished in a fogbank of fume.

"And how would my love travel, so heavy laden?" Willowspear continued, looking down at Burnbright. "You can't have our baby in the wilderness; not a little city girl like you. You'd be so frightened, my heart."

"I'd go anywhere you wanted, if we had to," she said, knuckling away her tears. "I was born in the wilderness, wasn't I? And I wouldn't be scared of the Master of the Mountain or anybody."

"He doesn't really eat babies," Lord Ermenwyr told her. "Very often, anyway. Ow."

"And maybe everyone will come to their senses, and this whole thing will blow over when the weather turns cooler," said Smith.

"Ah--not likely," said Lord Ermenwyr. "Things are going to get rather nasty, I'm afraid."

"That's right; you were saying that when all hell broke loose." Smith got up and opened another bottle. "If my business is going to be wrecked, I'd at least like to know why."

Lord Ermenwyr shook his head. He tugged at his beard a moment, and said finally, "How much do you know about the Yendri faith?"

"I know they worship your mother," said Smith.

"Not exactly," said Lord Ermenwyr.

"Yes, we do," said Willowspear.

Lord Ermenwyr squirmed slightly in his chair. "Well, you don't think she's a--a goddess or anything like that. She's just a prophetess. Sort of."