Exiled: Keeper of the City Page 3

  “This city lives by trade, Commander Reswen. If it is seen as a perpetually armed camp, then the traders and their caravans will take their business elsewhere; to Ar, or to Cragsclaw, and judge the excess journey worthwhile for the sake of their peace of mind. The Arpekh will withhold judgment on this matter until it can be seen what advantage if any has resulted from your hasty actions.”

  Reswen appeared unfazed by the tacit threat, and Mraal hazarded a guess that the Chief of Constables had already balanced cause and effect before committing himself to so irrevocable a course of action. Besides which, his police spies could provide him with more than enough juicy details to disarm even the most wrathful mrem on the council. Mraal wondered about a few small indiscretions of his own, realizing just how lucky he was to have nothing serious to be left panting and bloody on the rug, then caught the way that Reswen was looking at him and realized though the policemrem might not be able to read minds, he could certainly make an uncomfortable amount of sense from expression alone.

  “I,” said Reswen, rising from the small seat where he had been placed at the beginning of the interview, “have work to do. If there is nothing further then, my lords Arpekh, I’d best go do it. Now. Good day to one and all.”

  Mraal watched him go, and made a mental note that some day not too far from now, he would have to talk with Reswen in private. About various matters pertaining to the safer running of Niau city, and the mrem within its walls. But that would come later. Right now Mraal was more intrigued than he allowed himself to show over whether there were indeed Easterners in the approaching caravan, and most important of all, how they would react to their first sight of a city where normal life seemed to include an armed, defensive stance. Reswen had been right: “I don’t know what they told the caravan-master, but these Easterners aren’t merchants. They’re spies. I’ve given them something to report, and though I know they’ll suspect some of it was for their benefit, they won’t be sure how much. I want them to believe that Niau’s soldiery reacts like this for every caravan; because I want them to really worry about how we’d react to an invading army. Let them tell their master that!”

  •

  Reswen’s excuse for going up on the walls was, naturally, to inspect the guard positions and make sure they were properly manned—“properly,” in this case, meaning “too heavily for anything but a full-scale invasion.” He was delighted to find that old Sachath, the City Commandant, had taken the challenge quite seriously. The walls could barely hold all the soldiery massed along them; spears and arrows bristled everywhere, and guardsmrem peered out through the crenellations as if they could hardly wait for the invaders to get within bowshot. This, Reswen suspected, was the truth. The snatches of conversation he caught here and there before being recognized gave him to understand that the guardsmen were wildly curious about the Easterners. That the curiosity would look, from a distance, like alertness, and maybe even hostility, bothered Reswen not at all.

  He found Sachath right where he expected to, in the most dramatic possible spot, on the walk above the Great Gate, where a commander would deliver ultimata or ritually taunt the enemy before releasing a sally. It’s where I would stand myself, after all, Reswen thought, and his whiskers curled forward again. There Sachath stood, a brawny brindled shape all plate mail and tanned leather, his helm tucked under one arm, gazing out at the approaching caravan, with the look of a mrem who wished they were an army, and wished they would start something, anything. Sachath’s tail thumped hard and thoughtfully against one hind leg, under the lorica. It was a stump tail, half lopped off in some border skirmish back in the mists of time. Sachath had told Reswen the story a hundred times, at one official function or another, and mercifully Reswen always managed to forget the details before the next policemen’s feast or army dinner.

  Sachath was growling in his throat, as usual; the joke around the barracks was that he had growled at his dam when she first licked him off. He turned to see Reswen, and the growl if anything got louder, but this was nothing more than recognition and pleasure. “Not enough of ’em.” he said as Reswen came up.

  “Pardon?”

  “Not enough of ‘em, my young friend. Where’s the army we expected? Not enough fight here to keep us busy more than half an hour. Less than that, perhaps.”

  Reswen leaned between two crenellations and peered out. There was nothing more on the horizon yet than a yellow dust cloud, rising. “Probably not,” he said.

  “As you well know. Certainly not. Then again, maybe best they think that, eh?”

  Reswen looked sidewise at Sachath. Old and torn-eared to the point of cliché he might be, but he was not stupid; the Niauhu Army had politics of its own that made some of the city’s infighting look like littermates’ squabbles, and Sachath had survived it all for three-quarters of a lifetime, losing nothing more than half a tail and his good temper. “Maybe so,” Reswen said, and shifted his eyes to the horizon again. More was showing now than dust: a glint here and there, a pair of moving specks ahead.

  “Scouts,” Sachath said, squinting past him. “Spears there, too. No more than there should be, for the distance they’ve come. Maybe a few more carry-boxes, though.” He pointed with his flail of office. Reswen could just make out the outlines of the first few slave-carried travel boxes. It was a large embassy, surely. “That’s trouble for you,” Sachath said, growling low.

  Reswen shrugged his tail. “No worse than expected.”

  “Let us save you trouble and make short work of ‘em now,” Sachath said. “A mistake, you’ll say later. Could have happened to anyone. Blame it on the army. Always spoiling for a fight, those types.”

  Reswen’s whiskers went forward almost against his will.

  This was one of Sachath’s specialties, this outrageous black humor that he would turn against himself and whoever happened to be standing nearest, both at once. Usually it had a purpose: to get you to talk Sachath into something he wanted to do anyway (or out of something he didn’t). There was only one weapon against it. “Rrrh,” Reswen said, purring. “Go ahead. Who first, then? Bowmrem? Feather ‘em at a distance? Or wait and let the foot soldiery out? Swords’ edges on all that silly giltwork?” For the gleam of gold and the shimmer of silk were beginning to be visible on the nearest of the boxes, and on the armor of the walking guards, and even the harness of the slaves.

  “Fleas and mange on it, wait indeed,” Sachath growled. “Who taught you tactics, kit-brain? Waiting is weakness, attacking is strength. Get the infantry out, let’ em run for it, do ‘em good in this heat, they’re too fat as it is, most of ‘em. City life, it spoils a mrem. Get to be like that before too long.” Sachath jerked the less scarred of his ears at the approaching caravan.

  “Let’s get to it, then,” Reswen said, and made as if to call a trumpeter over.

  “Hnnr,” Sachath said, and this time the growl was half laugh; he slapped Reswen’s raised paw down against the stone with his own, but his claws were in. “You’d drag string in front of a lame kitten. Not matter, let ‘em be. They’re dragging the string for the moment. Look at ‘em.”

  Reswen did, and had to laugh himself. The intelligence report he had received earlier made it plain that most of the carry-boxes had been slung across the pack animals, and mrem had been handling the baggage, except for a few very large crates or boxes being dragged travois-style by teams of beasts. Now the beasts were carrying nothing but luggage, and all the carry-boxes were being handled, in some cases with great difficulty, by mrem; there was much staggering and breaking stride among several of the teams in the rear. Slightly less important officials, Reswen thought, doing the best they can to make a big entrance. And having second thoughts about it in some cases, as he watched one of the box teams stumble forward, ram into another, and both go down in a gilt-edged heap. The rest of the caravan continued its approach. Faintly, over the sweet chime of bells on harness, came the sound of swearing in Eastern dia
lects.

  “Enough,” said Sachath, “Let ‘em play their play. Us to our own. All right, you flea-ridden ratspawn!” he shouted to the immediate wall as he strode off among his people. “What’re you staring at, hast never seen a caravan before? Straighten up, the lot of you, wouldn’t think you knew which end to hold a sword by, don’t pout your ears down at me, my son—” Reswen heard the sound of Sachath’s officer’s flail being put to some use as he went roaring off into the distance, down the length of the wall. The soldiery stood straight and looked to a mrem as if they would much rather attack something than endure the assault being committed on them by their own side. The faces turned down to the caravan as it approached the gates were uniformly hostile indeed; the assembled guard considered all this upset to be their fault.

  Time to play the play indeed, Reswen thought, and stalked along the wall to where the stairs to the Great Gate swept down. He brushed at himself as he padded down. He had dressed not so much for effect this morning as for lack of it. First impressions were important, and he wanted no one noticing him as anything but chief of police, a flunky rather than a functionary. He wore his plain leather everyday harness, somewhat worn, rather than the ceremonial set, along with the shortsword/knife of his (apparent) station—everything polished and tidy, but nothing rich. Even his family’s old dewclaw signet he had left at home, not wanting the gold of it to distract from the unrelieved black leather and steel fittings. This, perhaps, bothered him most of all; his thumb-claw itched where the ring was not. It made him nervous. Of all the things he habitually kept about him—swords, purses, paperwork—the ring was the one thing he never took off except on undercover work. Just as well I should be nervous, he thought. First impressions come through clearer. But it was poor comfort to the itchy place. He kept feeling that his father, who had given him the ring, would cuff him on seeing it off. The feeling was not even slightly dispelled by the knowledge that his father was many years in the ground and gone Elsewhere.

  No time for that now. Here they came, and to do them justice, they did it splendidly. The glitter of gold that had looked funny, off in the dust, now glanced almost too bright to look at; the dim sound of bells that had sounded ridiculous mixed with curses now came all in sweet chords; and the uplifted spears of the embassy’s guards lanced light back at the sun, and gems caught the light and kept it and were little suns themselves. Impressive, Reswen thought dryly, because he really was impressed, and was slightly disturbed by the fact. What kind of people would carry such riches across the desert, careless of wind and sand and bandits? This wants some looking into, he thought, and stepped out from beside the gate into the hot sun.

  The Lords Arpekh were gathering there. They at least had been able to dress for effect, and there was as much glitter of gold and ripple of velvet and satin as there was outside. Reswen felt the urge to snicker at the sight of them, but restrained himself. The guards at the gates hauled on the counterpoises, and the gates swung slowly open. The herald of the Easterners stalked in, a bizarre brown curly-coated tom all gems and moiré silk, and a cloak of black sendal spangled with diamonds like a desert night. His robes had the kind of excessive dagging, purfling, and superfluous tucks about them that cause sumptuary laws to be passed by cranky kings. His ears were each pierced three times and each ring had a different stone hung in it, and in one hand he held an ebony rod with a balas at the end—a round clear stone with a red agate embedded in it. Reswen found himself doing tallies in his head at the sight of the showy mrem, and he struggled briefly with exchange rates—and then had to break off suddenly on noticing that the creature’s tail was hairless in a great patch near the end, as if he had been snatched bald, or had been swinging in trees like the little green primates of the wild forests. If this is the herald, Reswen thought, choking down his laughter, heaven save us from the rest of the embassy!

  The curly-coated mrem bowed low, waving his rod of office with exaggerated grace. “In the name of the Lords of the East, great and terrible to their enemies, yet mild to their subjects and their friends,” he said, “and in the names of the gods of the Lords of the East, who are secret but from whom no secrets are kept, well we greet the mrem of this city Niau and its mighty Elders, who are known from the sea to the sky in all of the world where mrem tell tales of their wisdom and power—”

  Oh no, Reswen thought. One of these. He set himself in the balanced stance that would enable him to be a long time in one position without moving, and grew very resigned about what this morning promised. Why couldn’t more cities be like the Northern ones, where people talked in sentences short enough to let a mrem breathe properly, and even diplomats tended to occasionally say “yes” or “no” outright? But he had half expected that this was going to happen. Damned flowery Eastern dialects—though he was slightly relieved to find that the herald’s accent and way with Niauhu were more than passable. At least there would be no need for extra translators; his usual staff would be adequate to handle the business of spying on these people. A good thing. He hated to have to subcontract work out ... it was expensive, and there were too many other people eager to talk to the subcontractors afterwards, about police procedures ... or other, more private matters involving the H’satei. Well, no matter. I wonder if the house in Dancer’s Street is ready ... it had better be....

  The herald was going on, fulsomely and in mouthcrippling periods, about the wondrous stature and wisdom and wealth and whatever of the Elders of Niau. Reswen glanced sideways and found to his annoyance that the Elders were eating it up. Something missing in their diet, perhaps, he thought. Maybe if we flattered them ourselves, on occasion, they’d be less susceptible to it from outsiders. Though why anyone would want to flatter these somnolent, crapulent, obsolescent—

  “—whose fame and glory shames the Moon and outblazes the Day—”

  Reswen wondered if the herald would get around to mentioning Why they had come before dinnertime, or perhaps sunset. Maybe I’m being too paranoid, he thought, and the plot is something simple. To kill us by sunstroke ... But at that moment the city herald, Tehenn, stepped out in his own finery and outbowed the Easterners’ herald, who came to an abrupt stop at the gesture, or perhaps at the appearance of his opposite number. Reswen had to admit that Tehenn deserved the astonishment; few outsiders were prepared for the sheer size of him. He was perhaps the biggest mrem Reswen had ever seen, with a build that seemed more appropriate for an uxan than anything else, and black, all black, not a white hair on him. From the shining blackness perfect golden eyes stared, molten and dangerous-looking. Tehenn was one of those heralds who looked fully inclined—and able—to take care of himself whether or not the people to whom he was sent treated him with the traditional courtesy. Too, for all the Eastern herald’s finery, it looked slightly cheap and pale next to what Tehenn wore: a simple black leather strap-harness, and a supple loincloth. But it was hard to see that the leather was black, since every bit of it on the outside was encrusted with diamonds. Tehenn straightened, and the diamonds on the ancient Niahu heralds’ livery flashed, blinding everybody nearby, most specifically the Eastern herald.

  “In the name of the Elders of Niau, we give you greeting and bid you be very welcome,” Tehenn said, and the other herald and the Easterners behind him reacted, as Reswen had suspected they would, to that astonishing voice, all honey and gold, slow and warm. “But the day is hot, and you have come a long way, and the Elders fear for your health and fear to fail in their hospitality to you. So say, I beg, what brings you unlooked-for but most welcomely to our gates, so that we may bring you in and give you refreshment—or do whatever else is necessary.”

  Reswen smiled as the Easterner looked momentarily out of his depth at the elegant hurry-up. He could see the other herald thinking: Could that have possibly been an undertone of threat to that last phrase?—but of course not— The Eastern herald bowed low again. “We come with gifts,” he said, “for the Elders and the people of Niau, and with things of
mart, things to trade and to sell; for we have made great wealth in trading north and south, and why not now west? We come with rare stuffs, and curious works, clothes and leathers and precious woods, rare beasts and jewels—”

  “We sometimes have use for jewels,” said Tehenn, offhanded and gracious, and bowed a little, blinding everyone again. “But such other things as you mention are pleasant to us, and the Elders and the people will be pleased to look upon them while you sojourn here. Enter, then, and be welcome, and the Elders and merchants will meet with you and speak with you personally, as they speak through me to you now. Be welcome once more, and may your stay be propitious!”

  There was more bowing, and the Eastern herald finally turned and gestured his people in. In they came, piling into the courtyard, amid clouds of dust and the noise and lowing of beasts, the squeals of caged things, the chiming of bells, the smells of perfume and sweat and ordure. Tehenn had stepped over to the Elders and stood with bent head, conferring with them for a moment, then crossed over to Reswen.

  “The house in Dancer’s Street?” he said, in an undertone.

  “That’s right,” Reswen said. Wryly he added, “Rare beasts, hmm?” For one of the gilded litters was being borne past them, and a curtain parted, and blue, blue eyes in a narrow, delicate gray face peered out, eyeing Tehenn with great interest. Then the curtains swung shut again.