Soul of the City Part 6

She was the only woman who knew him the way Crit had known him; knew what he did, knew he was the Stepsons' interrogator, unraveled his own pretense that cruelty gave him no s.e.xual thrill at all: took the body-knowledge which was his skill at interrogation and at lovcmaking and bent him round again till he could see the torment he inflicted on himself, inner war against his own sensibilities. She took all these things and knit them up and let him turn gentle and sentimental with her, which was his deepest, darkest secret- it was this fragile, inner self she got to, which Crit rarely had. That he could deliver himself to her inside and out, and sleep in her arms in a way he never slept with his lovers-not without an eye and an ear alert, somehow-alert in the way a cynic never sleeps, never trusts, never hopes. Ischade's embrace was a drug, the gaze of her eyes a well in which Straton the Stepson became Strat the man, the young man, Strat the wise and the brave- Strat the fool to Crit. Strat the traitor to Tempus. Strat the butcher to everyone else he knew.

He flung the saddle up and the bay which was her gift stood quietly while Crit's d.a.m.n sorrel kicked a stall to ruin and Crit did not come to see to the animal.

He checked the bridle and turned the bay and led it out into the stable aisle, from there to the door.

Perhaps Crit would be waiting there, having known his chances slipping up on him. Perhaps it would be one fast bolt through the ribs and never a chance at all to tell Crit he was a fool and a blackguard.

Strat leapt up to the bay's back and ducked his head, sending the bay flying out that door with a powerful drive of its hindquarters. If a bolt flew past he never saw it. The bay scrabbled for a tight turn on the dirt of the little yard and lit out down the cobbles of the alley, never pausing until he reined it to a walk a block away.

Where he was going he had no idea. Stay away, Ischade had said. He had believed her then, the way he believed implicitly when she spoke in that tone to him, that it was something she understood and he did not. It was something to do with Roxane. It was something that brought a wildness to her eyes and meant hazard to her; but it was a witch-matter, not his kind of dealing. Nothing he could help her with. And he and Ischade had the kind of understanding he had once with Crit, an understanding he had never looked to have with any woman: an unspoken agreement of personal competencies. Witchery was hers. The command of the city was his. And he would not go there tonight, though that was where every bone in him ached to go, to rea.s.sure himself that she was well, and that it was not some misapprehension between them that had driven her away. Things had changed. Crit being back, and Tempus-G.o.ds knew what was in her mind.

If this visitor makes an end to what is-was-between us- It's yours to say- His to say. His to say, by accepting her command to stay away tonight? or by defying it?-He suspected one and then the other with equal force; he agonized over it and called up every nuance of her voice and body and behavior over weeks and months, trying to know what she had meant, whether it was keeping that unspoken pact with her inviolate or defying it and risking (he sensed) his life to pa.s.s those wards tonight- that would cancel that doubt he had felt in her. Or confirm it.

d.a.m.n Crit. d.a.m.n Tempus's coming now, late, when he had everything virtually in hand. d.a.m.n their arrival that suddenly undermined everything he had built and poisoned the air between himself and Ischade, the only (he suddenly conceived of it as such), the only unselfish pa.s.sion he had ever owned, the only peace he had ever conceived of having in the world.

The bay horse picked up its pace again, moved with astonishing quiet over the cobbles and down the long street where the scars of factional violence still lingered.

Factions and powers. He waked suddenly, as if he had been numb since Ischade flung him at Crit and Crit flung him away again. He heard Ischade's voice whispering in his brain: The only man-the only one who understands how fragile things are- The only one who stands a chance of holding this city- The only one who might make something of it yet-truer than the weakling prince, truer than priests and commanders who serve other powers- You're the only hope I have, the only hope this city has of being more than the end of empire- You might not have their love, Strat, but you have their respect. They know you're an honest man. They know you've always fought for this town. Even llsigis know that. And they respect you if nothing else of Ranke- -llsigis! he had laughed.

You are the city's champion. The city's savior. Believe me, Straton, there is no other man could walk the line you've walked, and no other Rankan they know fights for this town.

... They respect you if nothing else ofRanke.

Tempus counted him a failure. Tempus arrived in the midst of Roxane's death throes and laid that chaos to his account.

Let Tempus see the truth, let Tempus see that he could pull strings in this web, let him hand peace with the factions to Tempus and let Tempus deal with G.o.ds: Tempus was not inclined to tie himself down to one town, one place; Crit loathed the place-but one of Tempus's men next in line, one of Tem-pus's trusted men could find that answer to everything he wanted.

Ischade and Sanctuary.

There had been disturbance downstairs, a door had opened, and Moria hugged the quilts to her in her lonely bed, lay hardly daring to lift her head. The whole night was terrifying with thunders, with the fitful, fretful character of a sky which promised no rain and perhaps the renewed warfare of witches. Her with the Nisi witch. The full scope of disasters possible in that eluded gutter-bom Moria; Moria the elegant, the beautiful, curled into a fetal ball in the soft down comforters and the satin and the lace of the mansion Ischade provided Her most pampered (and hitherto least used) servant. But the depth ofMoria's imagination was better than most-who had seen the dead raised, the fires blaze about Ischade and pa.s.s harmless to her- but not to others. And she had every Ilsigi's reason for terror- a dead man had turned up one morning, outside her very door: the skies arced lightnings overhead, terrible storms haunted Sanctuary nights, and there were wails and scratchings round about the house and the shutters, thumps in the pantry and the bas.e.m.e.nt which sent even the hardened staff shrieking down the halls in terror of ghosts and haunts-a murdered man had lived here; he manifested in the bas.e.m.e.nt all wrapped in his shroud, to Cook's abject terror and the ruin of a whole jug of summer pickles.

A ghostly child sported in the hall of nights and once Moria had wakened to the distinct and most horrible feeling that something had depressed a body-shaped nest on the feather-mattress beside her. (For that, she had sent a terrified message to Ischade, and the manifestations abruptly stopped.) If that were not enough, there were pitched battles in the streets downhill, fires, maimed men carried past in blood-soaked litters-a fiend had rampaged through the house of the very Beysib lady Moria had visited on Ischade's orders, and Moria knew all too much about the Harka Bey and their dreadful snakes and their way of dealing with people who brought harm to one of their own. She feared jars, jugs, and closets of late; she feared packages and baskets brought in from market (on those days market functioned): she was sure that some viper might lurk there, some Beysib horror come to find Ischade's helpless agent in some moment that Ischade was elsewhere occupied-the Mistress would take a terrible vengeance for such an attack: Moria believed that implicitly; but it was also possible that Moria would be dead and unable to appreciate it.

And, o Shipri and Lord Shalpa, patron of a one-time thief and Hawkmask, even the dead were not safe from Ischade, who might well raise her up to let her go on like poor Stilcho, like the Stepson-slave Ischade took to her bed and performed G.o.ds-knew-what with because he was dead and could not succ.u.mb to Ischade's curse-could not die as every man died who had s.e.x with Ischade-or Stilcho died nightly and Ischade raised him up from h.e.l.l (though how her living and latest lover, the Stepson Straton, had survived beyond one night she could not guess; or did guess, in lurid imaginings of exotic practices and things that she dared not ask Haught-does he, does Haught, with Her? Would he, could he, has he ever-?

with direst jealousy and helpless rage; for Haught was hers). It was all too confusing for Moria, once-thief turned lady.

And now the Emperor was dead in Ranke, the world was in upheaval, and back from the Wizard Wars the Stepsons came scouring through the streets, all grim in their armor and on their tall horses; back in Sanctuary again and determined to set things into their own concept of order.

Make the house presentable, Ischade had sent word through Haught; and told her the house had to host the chiefest of these devils, including Tempus, who was an Ilsigi's direst enemy: an Ilsigi hostess had to entertain these awful men, with what end to the business Moria could not foresee.

A door had opened downstairs. It closed again. She lay between terror and another thought-for Haught came to her now and again. Haught came wherever he liked and sometimes that was to her bed. It was Haught who had made her beautiful, it was Haught who cared for her and made her imprisoned life worth living.

It was Haught who had prised a knife from her fingers and prevented her from suicide a half a year ago, then kissed those fingers and made gentle love to her. It was Haught who stole a little of the Mistress's magic for her and cast a glamor on her that had never yet gone away. Perhaps the Mistress tacitly approved. But the Mistress had never laid eyes on her new self; and that might happen tomorrow night- That would happen. Oh, if there were a way to make herself invisible she would do it. If that were Haught-it must be Haught, coming up the stairs so quietly.

A shiver came over her. She remembered the thing which had been in bed with her.

She remembered the cold in the air and the steps which used to come and go in the bas.e.m.e.nt, which might pa.s.s a door in the middle of the night and come padding up the stairs- The latch of her room gave gently. The hinge creaked softly. She lay with her back to these sounds in that paralysis that a bad dream brings, in which a thing will not be real until one looks and sees it standing by one's bed- The step came close and lingered there. There was a water-smell, a river-smell, a beer-smell unlike Haught's perfumed, wine-favoring self. It was wrong, wrong- She spun over the edge of the bed and came up with the knife she kept there on the floor, as someone dived across the bed at her. She leaped back with that knife held with no uptown delicacy: she was a knife-fighter, and she crouched in her be-ribboned lace and satin whipping the tail of her gown up and aside to clear her legs. A ragged shape hulked on its knees amid her bed, silhouette in light from the hall. It held up its hands, choked for air.

"M-mo-ri-a," it said, wept, bubbled. "Mo-ri-a-"

"0 G.o.ds!"

She knew the voice, knew the smell of Downwind, knew the shape and the hands suddenly, and fled for the door and the lamp to borrow light in the hall, her hands atremble and the straw missing the wick a half a dozen times before she lit the lamp and brought it back again in both hands, the knife tucked beneath her arm.

Mor-am her brother huddled like a lump of brown rag amid her satin sheets. Mor am stinking of the gutters, Mor-am twisted and scarred by fire and the beggar king's torture, as he was when She withdrew her favor.

"M-moria-M-m-moria?"

He had never seen her like this, never seen the glamor on her. She was an uptown lady. And he- "0 G.o.ds, Mor-am."

He rubbed his eyes with a grimy fist. She-found the lamp burning her hands and set it on a bureau, taking the knife from beneath her arm. "G.o.ds, what happened?

Where have you been?" But she needn't ask: there was the reek of Downwind and liquor and the bitter smell of krrf.

"I-been-lost," he said. "I w-went-H-Her business." He waved a hand vaguely away, riverward, toward Downwind or nowhere at all, and squinted at her. The tic that twisted his face did so with a vengeance. "I c-c-come back. What h-ha-hap-pened t' you, M-m-mo-ria? Y-y-you don't look-"

"Makeup," she said, "it's makeup, uptown ladies have tricks-" She stood and stared in horror at the kind of dirt and the kind of sight she had grown up with, at the way Downwind twisted a man and bowed the shoulders and put hopelessness in the eyes. "Lost. Where, lost? You could've sent word- you could have sent something-" She watched the tic by Mor-am's mouth grow violent: it was never that way when Ischade prevented it. Ischade was not preventing it. For some reason Ischade had stopped preventing it. "You're in trouble with Her, aren't you?"

"I-t-tr-tried. I tried to do what she w-wanted. Then I-1-lost the m-m-money."

"You mean you drank it! You gambled it, you spent it on drugs, you fool! Oh, d.a.m.n you, d.a.m.n you!"

He cringed. Her tall, her once-handsome brother-he cringed down and his shoulderblades were sharp against the rags, his dirty hands were like claws clutching his knees as he crouched rocking in the cream-and-lace of her bed. "I got to have m-m-money, Mo-ri-a. I got to go to Her, I got to make it g-g-good-"

"d.a.m.n, all I've got is Her money, you fool! You're going to take Her money and pay Her back with it?"

"You g-g-got to, you g-g-got to, the p-pain, Moria, the pain-"

"Stay here!"

She set the knife down and fled, a flurry of satin and ribbons and bare feet down the polished, carpeted stairs, down into the hall and back where even in this night Cook's minions labored over the dinner-the infamous Shiey had acquired a partner with a monumental girth and a real skill, who co-ruled the kitchen: one-handed Shiey managed the beggar-servants and Kotilis stirred and mixed and sliced with a deft fury that put an awe into the slovens and dullards that were the rule in this house. They thought She had witched this cook, and that the hands that made a knife fly over a radish and carve it into a flower could do equally well with ears and noses: that was what Shiey told them. And work went on this night. Work went on in mad terror; and if anyone thought it was strange that one more beggar went padding in the front door at night (with a key) and Little Mistress came flying downstairs in her night-gown to rummage the desk in the hall for the money not one thief in the house dared steal- No one said a thing. Shiey only stood in the door in her floured ap.r.o.n, and Kotilis went on butchering his radishes, while Moria ignored them both, flying up the stairs again with the copper taste of a bitten lip and stark fear in her mouth.

She loved her brother, G.o.ds help a fool. She was bound to him in ways that she could not untangle; and she stole from Her to pay Her, which was the only thing she could do. It was d.a.m.nation she courted. It was the most terrible ruin in the world.

It was for the arch-fool Mor-am, who was the only blood kin she had, and who had bled for her and she for him since they were urchins in Jubal's employ. It was not Mor-am's fault that he drank too much, that he smoked krrf when the pain and the despair got to be too much; he had hit her and she forgave him in a broken hearted torment-all the men she loved had done as much, excepting only Haught, whose blows were never physical but more devastating. It was her lot in life.

Even when Ischade clothed her in satin and Haught touched her with stolen glamor. It was her lot that a drunkard brother had to show up wanting money; and adding to the sins that she would carry into Ischade's sight tomorrow. It was men's way to be selfish fools, and women's to be faithful fools, and to love them too much and too long.

"Here," she said, when she had come panting up the stairs, when she had found Mor-am huddled still amid her bed, weeping into his thin, dirty hands. "Here-"

She came and sat down and put her hand on his shoulders and gave the gold to him. He wiped his eyes and s.n.a.t.c.hed it so hard it hurt her hand; and got up and shambled out again.

He would not go to Ischade. He would go to the nearest dope-den; he would give it all to some tavemkeeper who would give him krrf and whatever else the place offered to the limit of that gold; and maybe think to force food down him; then throw him out on the street when he had run through his account.

And when Ischade knew where he was-if Ischade got on his track and remembered him among her other, higher business- Moria sank down on her soiled bed and hugged her arms about herself, the satin not enough against the chill.

She saw the bureau surface. The ivory-and-silver knife was gone. He had stolen it.

The starlit face of Tasfalen's mansion was buff stone; was grillwork over the windows, and a huge pair of bronze doors great as those which adorned many a temple. The detail of them was obscured in the dark and the windows were shuttered and barred against the insanity of uptown.

But Haught had no trepidation. "Stay here," he told Stilcho, and Stilcho turned a worried one-eyed stare his way and wrapped his black cloak tighter about him, melting into the ornamental bushes with which (unwisely) Lord Tasfalen's gardener decorated the street side.

Haught simply walked up to the door and took the pull-ring of the bell-chain, tugged it twice and waited, arms folded, face composed in that bland grace which he practiced so carefully. A dog barked in some echoing place far inside; was hushed; there was some long delay and he rang again to confirm it for them-no, it was no drunken prankster.

And now inside there had to be a consultation with the major domo and perhaps even with the master himself, for it was not every door in Sanctuary that dared open at night.

Eventually, in due course, there came a step to the door, an unbarring of the small barred peephole in the embrace of two bronze G.o.dlets. "Who is it?"

"A messenger." Haught put on his most cultivated voice. "My mistress sends to your master with an invitation."

Silence from the other side. It was a message fraught with ambiguities that might well make a n.o.bleman's nightwarder think twice about asking what invitation and what lady. The little door snapped shut and off went the porter to more consultation.

"What are they doing?" Stilcho asked-not a frequenter of uptown houses, or one who had dealt with n.o.bility in life or death. "Haught, if they-"

"Hush," said Haught, once and sharply, because more steps were coming back.

The peephole opened again. "It's an odd hour for invitations."

"My mistress prefers it."

A pause. "Is there a token?"

"My mistress' word is her token. She asks your master to attend tomorrow night at eight, at a formal dinner in the former Peles house; dinner at sundown. Tell Lord Tasfalen that my lady will make herself known there. And he will want to see her, by a token he will know." He reached up and handed a black feather toward the entry, a flight-feather of one of Sanctuary's greater birds. "Tell him wear this. Tell him my lady will be greatly pleased with him."

"Her name?"

"She is someone he will know. I will not compromise her. But this for taking my message-" He handed up a gold coin. "You see my lady is not ungenerous."

A profound pause. "I'll tell my lord in the morning."

"Tell him then. You needn't mention the gold, of course. Good rest to you, porter."

"Good night and good sleep, young sir."

Young sir. The peephole closed and a tight small smile came to the ex-slave's face; a fox's smile. He stepped briskly off the porch with a light swirl of his russet cloak and a wink of his sword-hilt in the starlight.

"G.o.ds," Stilcho said, "the ring- the ring, man-"

"Ah," Haught said, pressing a hand to his breast. "d.a.m.n. I forgot it." He looked back at the door. "I can't call them back-that wouldn't impress them at all."

"Dammit, what are you up to?"

Haught turned and extended a forefinger, ran it gently up the seam of Stilcho's cloak, and dragged him a safe distance from the door. "You forget yourself, dead man. Do you need a lesson here and now? Cry put and I'll teach you something you haven't felt yet."

"For the G.o.ds' sake-"

"You can be with me," Haught said, "or you can resign this business here and now. Do you want to feel it, Stilcho? Do you want to know what dying can be like?"

Stilcho stepped away from him, his eye-patched face a stark pale mask under black hood and black fall of hair. He shook his head. "No. I don't want to know." There was a flash of panicked white in the living eye. "I don't want to know what you're doing either."

Haught smiled, not the fox's smile now, but something darker as he closed the distance between them a second time. He caught Stilcho's cloak between thumb and forefinger. "Do me a favor. Go to Moria's place. Tell her expect one more for dinner tomorrow; and wait for me there."

"She'll kill you."

Moria was not the She Stilcho meant. There was terror in the single eye.

Stilcho's scarred mouth trembled.

"Kill you," Haught said. "That's what you're afraid of. But what's one more trip down there, for you? Is h.e.l.l that bad?"

"G.o.ds, let me alone-"

"Maybe it is. You ought to know. Tell the Mistress, dead man, and you lose your chance with me." Haught inhaled, one great lungful of Sanctuary's dust-ridden air. "There's power to be had. I can see it, I breathe it-you like what I can do, don't deny it."

"I-".

"Or do you want to run to Her, do you really want to run to Her tonight? She told us to leave Her alone-But you've dealt with Her when the killing-mood is on Her, you know what it's like. You heard the fires tonight; have you ever heard them b.u.m like that? She's taken Roxane, she's drunk on that power, the gates of h.e.l.l reel under her-do you want that to take you by the hand tonight and do you want that to take you to Her bed and do what She's done before? You'll run to h.e.l.l for refuge, man, you'll go out like a candle and you'll rot in h.e.l.l whatever there is left of you when She's done."

"No-"

"No, She wouldn't, or No, you won't go there, or Yes, you're going to do exactly what I asked you to do?"

"I'll take your message." Stilcho's voice came hoa.r.s.e and whispered. And in a rush: "If you get caught it's your doing, I won't know anything, I'll swear I had no part in it!"

"Of course. So would I." He tugged gently at Stilcho's cloak. "I don't ask loyalty of you. I have ways to ensure it. Think about that, Stilcho. She's going to kill you. Again. And again. How long will your sanity take it, Stilcho? Shut your eyes. Shut them. And remember everything. And do it."

Stilcho made a strangled sound. Flinched from him.

Stilcho remembered. Haught took that for granted; and smiled in Stilcho's distraught face.

Before he swept the russet cloak back, set a fine hand on the elegant sword, and walked on down the street like a lord of Sanctuary.

Straton stood still and blindfolded as the door closed behind, as the little charade played itself out. He heard the tread of men on board and the sc.r.a.pe of a chair and smelled the remnant of dinner and onions in this small, musty room.

"Do I take this d.a.m.n thing off?" he asked, after too much of this shifting about had gone on.

"He can take it off," a deep voice said. "Get him a chair."

So he knew even then that his contact had not played him false; and that it was Jubal. He reached up and pulled off the tight blindfold and ran a hand through his hair as he stood and blinked at the black man who faced him across a table and a single candle-a black man thinner and older than he ought to be, but pain aged a man. White touched the ex-slaver's temples, amid the crisp black: lines were graven deep beside the mouth, out from the flaring nostrils, deep between dark, wrinkle-set eyes. Jubal's hands rested both visible on the scarred tabletop; those of the hawknosed man in the chair beside him were not visible at all. And Mradhon Vis, who lately sported a drooping black mustache to add to his dusky sullenness, sat in the comer with one booted foot on the rung of the next chair and elbow on knee, a broad-bladed knife catching the candlelight with theatrical display.

A man shoved a chair up at Straton's back; he turned a slow glance that way, took the measure of that man the same as he had of the two more in the comer.

Thieves. Brigands. Ilsigis. A Nisi renegade. Jubal from G.o.ds knew where. And himself, Rankan; the natural enemy of all of them.

"Sit down," Jubal said, a voice that made the air quiver. Straton did that, slowly, without any haste at all. Leaned back and put his hands in his belt and crossed his ankles in front of him.

"I said I had a proposal," Straton said.