Thraxas - The Complete Series (54 page)

“So it would seem.”

I lean back in my chair and take a thazis stick from my drawer. I offer one to the Senator, but he declines. It’s still technically illegal but since the arrival of dwa swept the city no one much cares about that. I light it up and inhale the smoke.

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Find my belongings. Particularly the painting. Without involving the Guard or the scandal sheets.”

The Senator tells me in a frank, man-to-man sort of way that he’s being pressed by the Traditionals to stand for the post of Prefect next year. He’s fifty years old so it’s about time for his political career to get started. As a war hero and a popular man with both the mob and the King, he’s almost certain to get elected. Unless, of course, his name is blackened by scandal. The Populares, the powerful opposition party led by Senator Lodius, never hesitate to use any available dirt against their opponents.

I mull it over. It means travelling out of the city in the rain, which is a fairly unpleasant prospect with the country turning into swampland, but apart from that it sounds straightforward enough. No powerful criminal gangs involved. No mad Sorcerers out to get me. Just find out what she did with the goods and get them back. I can do that. I need the money. I take the case.

The Senator fills me in on the rest of the details and rises from his chair. He pauses at the door and glances round the room. “I hear you lost a great deal of money at the out-of-town chariot meeting.”

I frown. I knew the Senator would have checked me out but a man never likes his gambling losses being made too public.

“I’ll give you a good tip for the Turas Memorial Race.”

I lean forward, suddenly eager.

“I’m entering a chariot in the Turas Memorial,” says the Senator. “It’s called Storm the Citadel. Back it. It’s going to win.”

I sit back, disappointed. I’m not too keen on this tip.

“Your chariot is going to win the Turas Memorial Race? Excuse me, Senator, you’ve had some good horse teams in the past, but there’s an Elvish entrant in the Turas this year. Everyone knows Moonlit River is going to win. You can’t even get a bet down on it any more.”

The Senator treads softly back to my desk. “Storm the Citadel will win,” he says, quite emphatically. “If you want to make up your losses, back it with everything you have.”

With that he departs. I pick up a guran from the retainer he left me and head downstairs to the bar where I buy a flagon of Gurd’s finest ale and muse about Senators’ wives and the powerful addictive qualities of dwa. I tried it when I was younger, but it didn’t do much for me. I guess I’m just not that sort of character. I finish my beer quickly, drink down another, and take a third flagon back up to my office.

There’s a message on my desk. Odd. I break the seal and open it. It reads:
Thraxas, your death is near.

I stare at it. I’m used to death threats but that doesn’t mean I enjoy them. I check the outside door. It’s locked. I’m sure no one came up the connecting stairs while I was at the bar. I put the letter under my nose, sensing around for any signs of sorcery. Is there a faint trace? Possibly.

My hand goes automatically to the spell protection charm at my throat. It’s new. I hope it works.

I’m wary as I travel out to Mox’s, but when I find that my chariot won and I pick up my twenty gurans winnings, I forget about the death threat. Afterwards I gloat to Makri.

“Yes, a man may have a few losses every now and then, but class will tell in the end. When it comes to picking winners I’m number one chariot around here. And I’ve a hot tip for tomorrow. You ought to join in and win a little money, Makri. Easier than working as a waitress.”

“W
hat do you think of Storm the Citadel’s chances in the Turas Memorial Race?” I ask Gurd as he hands me another beer. His biceps bulge as he passes it over the bar. His long hair is almost completely grey now but he’s still as strong as a team of oxen.

“No chance,” he says. “The Elves don’t send a chariot all the way up from the Southern Islands unless they know it’ll win.”

I nod. That’s what everyone in Turai thinks. Senator Mursius has produced some fine chariots in his time, but he’s never going to beat the Elves.

Everyone is looking forward to the chariot races in the dry week after the rains stop, when the Turas Festival is held. Turas was the legendary founder of Turai, building a city after defeating several savage tribes and performing various heroic acts. It’s always a good time for Turai. It cheers up the citizens before the onset of the bitter winter. This year the festivities will take on a larger scale than usual because they come at the time of the Triple-Moon conjunction festival, which only happens every fifteen years or so.

I’ll be betting at the meeting, naturally, but I hadn’t planned putting anything on the last and most prestigious event, the Turas Memorial Race. Not with the Elves entering Moonlit River. It’s practically a shoo-in. The chariot belongs to Lisith-ar-Moh, a great Elvish Lord and a particular friend of Turai. Fifteen years ago Lisith-ar-Moh led a regiment of Elvish warriors through the Orc lines to the relief of Turai, arriving just as the Orcs breached our walls and various desperate Turanian soldiers, including myself, were trying to hold them back. He saved the city that day and we have never forgotten it. He’s visited several times since, as guest of honour to our King, and it’s because of his ties with the city that he’s entered a chariot in the Turas Memorial Race.

Everyone is pleased about that. We all like Elves here. The only thing wrong is that the Elvish chariot has more or less finished the Turas Memorial as a serious competition. We don’t breed horses up here the way the Elves do in the Southern Islands.

And yet … like any gambler I’m always interested when someone gives me a tip. I stood beside Senator Mursius when the east wall of the city was breached and watched him fight hand to hand with the savage Orcish force swarming over the debris and into the city. If Mursius hadn’t been there to lead us we’d never have held out till the Elves arrived.

“He’s not the sort of man to place his faith in a no-hoper,” I point out to Gurd, who was there that day as well.

“True. But chariot-owners always think they’re going to win,” replies Gurd. “You’ve lost plenty at the races already. No point throwing more away.”

Gurd and I reminisce about the war. We’ve done that often recently. The imminent arrival of Lord Lisith has certainly stirred up the memories. Orcs, dragons, walls tumbling to the ground under sorcerous attack, buildings on fire, the desperate battle, the sound of trumpets and the sudden unexpected arrival of the Elves. Even when they arrived it was no easy matter to defeat the Orcs. The fight continued all day and all night and all of the next day as well. It was quite an experience. So I figure Gurd and I are fully justified in bragging about our part in it, no matter what anyone might say when we wheel out our war stories for another airing.

Gurd is right about the race of course. And yet… Mursius is sharp as an Elf’s ear when it comes to chariot racing. He’s had a lot of success. I can feel myself being tempted. I banish it from my mind and get back to the task in hand, namely recovering Senator Mursius’s lost works of art. Gurd has a couple of good horses out the back and I ask the stable lad to saddle one of them up for me while Tanrose, the tavern cook and object of Gurd’s Barbarian affections, fills me a basket of provisions for the journey. I tie back my long hair and tuck it inside my tunic, then wrap myself in my cloak.

Just as I’m leaving Makri enters the tavern.

“I’m wet as a Mermaid’s blanket,” she states. “What a stupid climate this city has. If it isn’t too hot, it’s too wet. Now it’s both.”

I have to agree. The weather in Turai is often unpleasant. We have four months of blazing sun, one month of hot rain, about one month of a fairly temperate autumn, then four months of extreme, biting cold. After that there’s another rainy season, cold this time, lasting a month, before the month-long spring, which is pleasant.

“Which makes only two reasonable months a year,” growls Makri.

“At least it’s regular.”

“Why the hell did anyone ever build a city here?”

“Good harbour. And we’re on the main trade routes.”

Makri curses in archaic Elvish. She’s been learning the Royal Elvish language at her Guild classes and wants to practise.

“Not that the Elves ever curse the rain, or so I’m told,” continues Makri. Apparently they all sit around in their trees thinking it’s yet another fine part of nature. Stupid Elves.”

Makri was already fluent in Common Elvish when she arrived in Turai. Presumably that was from her Elvish grandparent, but who that was I’ve never asked, and Makri has never exactly explained. Nor has she talked about her Orcish grandparent. I wouldn’t dare ask. Anyway, both my Elvish and Orcish have improved a lot since she’s been around.

I ask her what she was doing wandering around in the rain. She tells me she was looking for plants.

“What for?”

“Natural history class at the Guild College. The Professor wants us all to study some interesting local plants.”

“That might be difficult in Twelve Seas. There aren’t any.”

“I know. I went to look in that small park behind Saint Rominius’s Lane. Unfortunately the park’s disappeared. Someone built a block of tenements right over it.”

King Reeth-Akan lays down strict regulations concerning the number of parks for his subjects. Even the poorest of areas should have open spaces for the citizenry to take their exercise and forget their cares for a while. Unfortunately the Prefects who control planning in each district are very amenable to looking the other way if bribed by property developers. It’s reached the stage now where there’s hardly an open space left in Twelve Seas. The last Prefect, Tholius, was as corrupt as they come. He was recently forced to flee the city after being caught out trying to divert some of the King’s gold into his own coffers. Obviously Drinius, his replacement, hasn’t wasted any time in lining his own pockets. You can tell a man of aristocratic birth because his name ends in “ius.” But you could work it out anyway by his amazing willingness to take money for favours. “Easy as bribing a Senator,” as they say. Not like the solid working-class citizens, who tend to have “ox” or “ax” in their names. Like Thraxas, for instance. They’re as honest as they come.

“I’m just heading off into the country,” I tell Makri. “Come along and study the plant life.”

Makri considers it. She has got the rest of the day free and she thinks she could use some exercise.

“Okay, I’ll come along if I can share the magic dry cloak,” she says, cunningly. “I need some interesting kind of plant. If I fail on this assignment Professor Toarius will be down on me like a bad spell.”

Makri scowls. From her frequent complaints I know that Professor Toarius is high on the long list of people associated with the Guild College who think it would be a far better place if it didn’t include Makri. It was him who forbade her to attend classes in her chainmail bikini because of the disturbance she was creating. Even the man’s tunic she put over it didn’t satisfy him.

“He said it showed too much of my thighs. Is that taboo in Turai?”

“No. Just distracting for young men trying to study philosophy.”

As a result of which she now has to wrap herself up in a voluminous cloak before going to college, even when the sun is beating down and it’s hot as Orcish hell, which it was all summer.

“Professor Toarius is as cold as an Orc’s heart,” grumbles Makri, and goes upstairs to get her axe.

Makri sticks at it though. She works hard, at the tavern and at the Guild College for the Education of the Sons of the Lower Classes. It’s her ambition to go to the Imperial University. This, as I have frequently pointed out, is impossible. The University doesn’t accept female students, especially ones with Orc blood in their veins. The Imperial University is such an exclusive institution, catering only for the offspring of aristocrats, that even our richest merchants have trouble getting their children in. It is a symbol of the complete control exercised by the ruling elite, which makes it even more impossible for Makri ever to attend. She refuses to be put off. “The Guild College didn’t take female students either before I insisted,” she points out. You have to admire her persistence.

She arrives back with her axe, two swords, a knife in her boot and a bag of throwing stars, an Assassins Guild weapon she’s been experimenting with recently.

“Makri, you’re only looking for a few plants. What the hell are you expecting to meet out there?”

“You never know. Any time I’m helping you on a case it always turns out worse than we expect. I still haven’t forgotten the time we went looking for that missing dog and ended up fighting pirates. And look what happened the last time you made me go out without my axe. I ended up with a crossbow bolt in the chest and nearly died.”

“And we’d have missed you terribly. Let’s go.”

“I found this envelope addressed to you on the stairs.”

I rip it open.