The Barrow (16 page)

His haste to find Gilgwyr's brothel was entirely a matter of safety. But instead of making directly for the address he had been given, he found himself wandering the streets, drawn down once-familiar routes now made imperceptibly strange. A new storefront here, a different sign there, new paint on a building, sometimes a new building altogether; while the fundamental structure of the city and its streets remained the same, the small details had often altered enough to make him marvel at the speed of change. He supposed it had been silly to think that the city would be exactly the same as he remembered it, as though trapped in amber the moment he had left, only to reawaken as if from magical enchantment the moment he returned; but this was also a crushing blow to his ego, a disheartening disappointment to see the city changing and growing and even thriving without him, as though his absence had hardly been worth noting. This made him very angry, and very, very sad, and he wandered as if half in a dream, half in a stupor.

He found himself on Baker Street, the smells of bread and pastries and pies wafting through the air.
At least some things haven't changed
, he thought wistfully. He wandered past the open storefronts and raised wooden and linen awnings of bakery after bakery, looking over their offered wares, smelling the delights of their repast. For bread he'd usually gone to the Date & Plum, like so many others, but his special favorite had always been the
pastelle de nata
, a kind of puff pastry filled with an ever-so-slightly-burnt cream custard filling, a Palatian delicacy that had made its way into the city and was best made at the House of Gailbas. And soon he found himself in front of the great windows of the pastry shop, the quality and clarity of the glass in their timber frames a testament to the success and popularity of the shop's wares. There, laid out in neat rows and glistening in the morning sun behind the glass, were dozens of his favorite pastries, the long suppressed memory of their smell and taste suddenly hitting him with a force to make his belly moan and grumble as he stood in front of the window and stared and stared.

He didn't realize he was talking, even shouting, out loud until he was interrupted. He paused in mid-sentence, turning to peer at the old man who had dared to distract him from the objects of his affection. “. . . but if you don't leave we'll have to summon the City Watch,” the man was saying to him. He was short and slightly round and ruddy-cheeked and white of hair and beard, the very picture of a successful baker. Leigh thought he looked vaguely familiar.

“What?” asked Leigh. “Are you speaking to me?” He looked around, and there didn't seem to be anyone else nearby.

“You're frightening our customers away, sir, with your speechifying, sir,” the old man said firmly but with a hint of nervousness. Leigh could see several clerks, all women of varying ages, hiding within the shop, watching to see the outcome of the confrontation. “I do not know what language you are speaking, sir, so I gather you are a stranger here, but public speeches and proselytizing are only permitted in the public plazas of the city. I have no wish to make a scene, sir, but if you continue then I will have no choice but to summon the City Watch. Indeed they may already be on their way, as others on the street have noticed your behavior.” Leigh looked around more closely, and he saw that the other people on the street were giving them a wide berth, staring and in some cases pointing and whispering as they hurried past.
Ah, that feels familiar
, he thought. He frowned, remembering his desire to be unnoticed in the city.
That is bad. I do not want people doing that.
He tried to remember how long he'd been in front of the shop, and couldn't recall. “. . . I really must insist, sir.”

“Oh, you must, must you?” Leigh asked icily. He drew himself up to his full height, which was not very high, but nonetheless was taller than the shorter older man. “
Do you have any idea who I am?
” Leigh practically screamed.

The old man looked at him puzzled and a bit frightened. “No, sir, I do not,” he said faintly.

Leigh was about to scream at him again, when he suddenly realized that this was a good thing. So he barked a laugh instead. “Of course you don't!” he said with a giggle. “No reason at all you would know me. I don't even look like me. In fact I'm not me at all.” The old baker seemed to just get more confused. “Not to worry, however. I am in fact a customer, and I wish to buy some of your most excellent pastries. Two dozen, in fact!”

At first Leigh thought the old man might refuse him entry into the shop, but apparently the prospect of a fast sale of two dozen pastries was enough to sway him. Leigh followed him inside, and he
ooh'd
and
aah'd
as they picked out the best looking of the glistening
pastelles de nata
from the displays, and carefully wrapped them up in a small cloth-lined woven basket. For the whole presentation it cost five shillings, more than most people spent on food for an entire week, but to Leigh it was well worth it, particularly as the silver coins he paid them with had once been basest lead; the ritual application of a single dose of the
Alkahest
from the
Opus Magus
and a simple Incantation of Making to shape the once-lead in the imitation of coins had been enough to fill his coffers with a year's wages. He smiled and chatted politely and inconsequently with the shopkeepers as they worked, their relief palpable as they counted up their sale.

“I'm terribly sorry about earlier, what with the mention of the Watch and all, sir,” the old man said apologetically as he placed the once-lead coins into his strong box. “You did give us a bit of a fright, I'm sorry to say.”

“No need to apologize,” Leigh said with a wave of his hand. “The fault is entirely mine. I've only just arrived in the city after a long journey from far away, and I am not myself this morn. Fatigued from all my travels. The pastries are for a party I am having to celebrate my return!”

As he left the shop, he smiled politely at the old man and his assistants, before reaching deep inside himself to pull up the hate, the bile, the anger that seethed within him and wrapping it up into a hex. “
May your bowels run free until you die
,” he said to the old man with a sudden snarl. He slammed the door shut as he left, barely bothering to take satisfaction at the startled look on the face of the old man as the binding seized him, making him wince and double over in sudden cramps.

He sat on a low carved stone bench in a corner of White Horse Square, savoring the bites of his beloved
pastelles de nata
, and smiled in contentment at the world. The small, quiet plaza was tucked just off of Baker Street right where the street passed under the aqueduct arches that brought clean upland water all the way to the Old Baths. Several dogwoods planted in the plaza had begun their spring flowering; bees hummed in the air, and white petals skittered softly in the wind over the cobblestones and collected in the corners of the square. A small stone fountain with the bronze statue of a rearing horse adorned the square's center. It was a lovely part of the city.

As he savored each bite of flaky pastry and caramelized custard, he looked out over the pedestrians and other plaza-goers that shared the square with him. He chuckled and giggled in delight, his mind filled with the visions of the fates that awaited them in his plans of triumphant return. A pretty young Aurian couple, seated nearby on another stone bench, gazed chastely into each other's eyes, dressed in merchant class finery:
he shall be cut open and his intestines fed to ravenous dogs; she shall watch his disembowelment while being raped and disfigured by a line of vicious brutes.
An Aurian woman of middle years walked past him, flanked by two plump children and trailed by a servant girl, a serf who was a slave in all but name;
the matron shall be flogged to death by her slave, while her children shall be impaled on stakes, their blood and bile draining into a vat; and when the slave is done, her head shall be held down in that same vat until she has drowned.
A Danian man walking briskly across the plaza, a long loaf of bread sticking out of a leather bag slung over his shoulder;
he shall be hung upside down from meat hooks driven through his heels, and be beaten until all of his bones are broken.
Leigh could see these visions playing out in his mind's eye as though they were happening right in front of him, and he rejoiced in this glorious glimpse of his grand revenge upon the city completed.

He watched as City Watchmen hurried past the plaza, their whistles shrill in the air, undoubtedly summoned to the House of Gailbas to investigate a case of suspected witchcraft.
Let them come for me
, he thought.
They know not where even to look
. He caught himself in his hubris and chided himself.
No, no; careful, careful; there's too much at stake, far, far, far too much at stake
. He slapped himself in the face and laughed.

He looked out over the square, humming and chortling to himself as he ate every last pastry in the basket, licking his fingers until they were clean.

The city of Therapoli had two bathhouses, the older and first being the Great Baths in the main part of the old city, right off the Grand Promenade. The newer and smaller could be found in the Foreign Quarter, also off the Grand Promenade but outside the Inner Walls in the new parts of the city, which had been built as an expansion of the original walls to accommodate the growing population of the most important urban metropolis in the Middle Kingdoms. The Great Baths were certainly historic, having been built soon after the city's founding, but that also meant they were in need of repair, and a bit dingy, and as the Aurian overlords of the capital did not much care for the baths, there was no serious effort in maintaining them.

Even though he usually stayed near the University Quarter in the old city, Stjepan much preferred the New Baths in the Foreign Quarter. Palatian engineers had built them, shipped in just for the purpose, and so the heat and steam in the building were much better handled than in the Great Baths, and the Bath Association, made up of local merchants from the Foreign Quarter, paid for its upkeep and maintenance. The Great Baths were usually filled with the Danian men of the old city, along with a few Aurians willing to brave the waters. A problem with prostitution and complaints about the improprieties of the sexes mingling together when naked had led to the banning of women from the Great Baths, except for one day a week when women were allowed and not men. At the New Baths women at least had their own section for daily use, though the sexes were separated in deference to the Divine King's modesty. Being an Athairi and of the Old Religion, Stjepan found such customs odd, but he at least found the New Baths close enough in culture and comfort to his own to enjoy their use. A wider variety of clientele used the New Baths, and Stjepan felt more at ease rubbing shoulders with the more worldly men and women of different nations from across the Known World that lived in the Foreign Quarter, listening to the babble of their different tongues and voices. It was almost enough to make him forget that he was in Therapoli, and not some other distant city.

After stabling his horse—a Danian half-bred courser named Cúlain-mal that was the brother to Erim's horse—he had left his weapons and clothes in the changing rooms under the watchful eyes of the Bath Association's attendants, who were well known for their honesty and vigilance and thus were yet another reason to patronize the New Baths, and not the Great Baths, where theft could occasionally be a problem. After washing the road dirt and sweat from his body in the main men's baths, and performing a discreet ritual of purification, whispering the words under his breath, he had slipped a long towel low slung around his hips and walked toward the rear steam rooms. Like many Athairi men, his lean, muscular chest was smooth and hairless, and his nipples were pierced with small silver rings, and he caught the eye of some of the other men that he passed, particularly when they saw where he was headed. But there was something in his gaze that stopped them from following him.