I present a desperate figure as I march into Quintessence Street. The stink from my disgusting sewage-encrusted clothes is unbearable and I'm obsessed with the desire to be clean and to wash the terrible experience out of my system. Down a small alleyway is the public baths. I know the manager well but that doesn't mean she's pleased to see me striding in looking like an apparition from hell.
"Need a wash," I say as I march past her, ignoring her protests and admonitions for me not to go anywhere near her pool in my condition. Bathers scatter like the rats in the sewer as I make my appearance. Mothers grab their small children out of the water in panic as I walk fully clothed into the water. People scream abuse. There are calls for someone to fetch the Civil Guard to protect them from the plague carrier who's just poisoned their bath.
Ignoring them all, I sink under the warm water and roll around, rubbing the filth from my skin and my clothes. As I let the heat take away some of the tension, I feel some gratitude towards the King. He doesn't do much for the miserable poor of Twelve Seas, but at least he built us a good bathing house. Some time later I emerge clean, my clothes in my hands. I wrap my now sadly bedraggled cloak around my frame and march out, still ignoring the abuse poured on me from all directions.
"Thanks. Pay you tomorrow," I grunt at the manager, Ginixa, who is loudly promising a law suit against me for ruining her business.
Makri gapes as I appear at the Avenging Axe. "What happened to you?"
"Bad day in the sewers," I reply, grabbing a thazis stick on the way up to my rooms. I'm still high on shock and fear, and the effects of my using the sleep spell are starting to show. Spell casting is a tiring business. Even without the subsequent pursuit, putting those Society men to sleep in the alleyway would have taken it out of me. The episode in the sewers has completely worn me out. I need to lie down and sleep, but I'm too worked up to relax. I smoke the thazis in three long draws. Makri arrives with a beer, and in between gulps I finish off the last of my klee. The strong spirit burns my throat as it goes down. Probably there are healthier methods of calming down than thazis, beer and klee, but none so quickly effective. By the time I've gone next door and dressed myself in some dry clothes I'm starting to return to my normal jovial self.
"Who was it?" enquires Makri.
"The Society of Friends. With a Sorcerer."
"They still think you've got the magic Cloth?"
I nod. There's a knock on the outside door. I answer it with a sword in one hand and a knife in the other. Outside is Karlox, the enforcer from the Brotherhood.
"What the hell do you want?"
"We hear you found the Cloth. Go a long way towards paying off your debts—" he begins.
"I don't have the damned Elvish Cloth!" I yell, slamming the door in his face.
"This is preposterous, Makri. Two Elves are paying me to find the stuff, and everyone else thinks I have it already. It's getting confusing. When I smoked that thazis I swear for a moment I started believing it myself. I'll kill that damned Kerk, it's all his fault. He spread the rumour that I stole it from Attilan."
I notice that Makri is no longer listening. The mention of the Elves has put her in a bad mood. I'm not certain why it's bothering her so much. Makri has experienced plenty of prejudice against her in the city, with customers downstairs always commenting on her Orcish blood. She doesn't like it but it doesn't usually make her unhappy for long. Often forgets it almost right after hitting the customer. What seems to make matters worse is the fact that it involves Elves. I guess Makri, being one third Elvish, and speaking their language, and detesting Orcs quite as much as they do, finds rejection by them particularly galling. I don't bother trying to cheer her up. Karlox's visit has put me in a pretty bad mood myself.
We light up some more thazis. Our mood improves a little.
"I think the Cloth is still in the city."
Makri points out that only yesterday I said this was impossible.
"I changed my mind. I don't know how, but that Cloth is in Turai. I can sense it."
"Very astute, Thraxas. Though I suspected as much myself when all these people started trying to kill you."
I tell Makri about the alligator.
"You're joking. There aren't really alligators in the sewers?"
I assure her there are. A wave of fatigue rolls over my body.
"I'm going to rest. The Society of Friends probably won't risk another open attack on me down here in Brotherhood territory, but if a Sorcerer with a sore leg comes looking for me, tell him I'm not in."
It's dark when I wake. A few thoughts of sewers and alligators come to mind but I banish them. More important business calls, namely I'm hungry. Really, really hungry. I launch myself downstairs to investigate Tanrose's cooking. It's now late evening, and drinking at the Avenging Axe is in full swing. Gurd is regaling some off-duty Civil Guardsmen with tales of the time he and a group of fellow mercenaries were trapped south of Mattesh and had to fight their way back to Turai through hundreds of miles of unknown terrain and whole armies of ferocious enemies. It's a true story actually, though I have noticed it does tend to grow in the telling.
Makri, chainmail bikini more or less in place, is gathering tankards and scooping up what looks like a fairly handsome tip from a group of sailors just back from the Southern Islands and full of the wonders they saw among the Elves. I head straight for the side of the bar where Tanrose sits selling her wares and cast a greedy eye over her food.
"Evening, Tanrose. I'll have a whole venison pie, a large portion of each vegetable and three slices of your apple pie with cream. No, better make that four slices. Tell you what, just give me the whole pie. And you'd better give me a bowl of beef stew as well. Stick a few yams on the side will you? What's in the pastry? Pork and apple? Give me two of them, and I'll take six pancakes to mop up the sauce. No, make that eight pancakes and four pastries. Any cake? Pomegranate? Good, I'll have a slice to finish with. A large slice. No, larger. Okay, I'll take the whole cake."
"Had a busy day?" grins Tanrose, piling up a tray.
"Terrible. Couldn't stop for a bite to eat anywhere. Better make that two venison pies. If I don't eat them Gurd'll only finish them off."
Vast tray of food in hand, I pick up a special "Happy Guildsman" jumbo-sized tankard of ale at the bar and retreat to a corner to eat. I have a powerful appetite. Satisfying it gives me intense pleasure.
"One whole venison pie feeds a family of four," comments Makri, passing with a tray.
"Not if I get there first," I reply, moving on to the pork and apple pastries, one of Tanrose's specialities. By now the beef stew has cooled sufficiently to let me mop it up with my pancakes, and I wash it all down with the rest of my ale, calling Makri over to bring me a second giant "Happy Guildsman" tankard to accompany my apple pie.
Some time later, pomegranate cake finished to the last crumb, third "Happy Guildsman" resting invitingly in front of me, I reflect that life is not so bad. Okay, you might get chased around sewers by the Society of Friends, but there's always Tanrose's cooking and Gurd's ale. Make a man glad to be alive. Makri appears beside me during her break. She makes a few snide comments about my appetite, but I wave them away benevolently.
"You have to stay slim, Makri. You need a good shape under that bikini to earn tips from sailors. Me, I need something more substantial. You can't solve crimes and face dangerous criminals with only a few morsels inside you. When people see me coming they know they've got a problem on their hands."
Makri grins. As usual she's carrying a purse on a long string over her shoulder for holding her tips, though I notice that today she has a new one, slightly larger than normal.
"Tips increasing?"
Makri shakes her head. "Same as ever. I'm using this to carry round some other money I've been collecting. Don't want to risk leaving it in my room."
"What money?"
"Contributions to the fund."
"Pardon?"
"You know. The fund for raising money to buy a Royal Charter for the Association of Gentlewomen."
This is the first I've heard of any fund, although I did know that the Association of Gentlewomen was applying for a Royal Charter, without which they cannot be recognised as an accredited Turanian guild, and take their place on the Council as a member of the Revered Federation of Guilds, and send an observer to the Senate.
"I didn't know you were that involved, Makri. How much have you raised?"
She snorts. "Only a few gurans. When it comes to the Association of Gentlewomen people round here are meaner than a Pontifex. Gurd won't let me collect in here but I've been going round the local shops. I wouldn't say your average Twelve Seas shopkeeper was keen to contribute. I have a few donations from local women though. Ginixa at the public baths gave me five gurans."
"If she sues me for ruining her business she might be able to afford a lot more. How much does the A.G. need for the Charter?"
"Twenty thousand."
"How much have they got?"
Makri doesn't really know. She's only collecting money, and is not involved in the organisation in any major way. She thinks they still have a long way to go.
"And paying for the Charter is only one part of what we need. Before you even make the application, there's the large fee to the Revered Federation of Guilds to process the papers. And all the way along the line there's people to be paid and palms to be greased—the Praetor for Guild Affairs, the Deputy Consul, Palace officials and who knows who else. Apparently it's standard practice for the Consul's Secretary to demand a ten-thousand-guran bribe before he lets an application go through."
"That's going to add up to a lot of money."
"It does. And we're going to need twice as much in bribe money because of the opposition from the True Church and all the other people who don't want to see the Association of Gentlewomen make any advance. I heard the figure of fifty thousand mentioned. There aren't many wealthy women in Turai. Even the ones that do run their own businesses have a hard time surviving because the guilds won't admit them. Well, if they won't let us in to the Bakers, Innkeepers, Transport or other Guilds, they're going to have to face us on the Revered Federation Council when the Association of Gentlewomen gets its Charter."
"Who do you give the money to?"
"Minarixa the Baker. She's the local organiser. Care to make a contribution?"
"What will the Association of Gentlewomen do for me?"
"Get me off your back."
"Yes, well, maybe later, Makri."
"Why not now?"
I look around anxiously. "The place is full of Barbarians and dock workers. If they see me giving money to the Association of Gentlewomen they'll ridicule me half to death."
Makri sneers. I will give her some money later. Not right now though, not in public. I have an image to maintain.
"You should have asked the Princess, Makri. She must have a lot of money."
"She hasn't."
"How do you know?"
"Because I heard at last night's meeting that Lisutaris, Mistress of the Sky, already asked Du-Akai for some help."
"Lisutaris, Mistress of the Sky? She's pretty senior in the Sorcerers Guild. Works at the Palace too. Is she involved in your group?"
Makri nods. "All sorts of women are. But the Princess couldn't make a donation. The King controls her money. And they don't get on very well."
"I'm not surprised, if she lies to the King the same way she lied to me. I still wish I knew why she sent me to find that spell. Why would a Princess want to put a dragon to sleep? It's not like it's guarding anything. No reason to bother with it that I can see. Unless . . ."
I break off, and stare into space.
"Sudden Investigator's intuition?" says Makri, slightly sarcastically.
"That's right. You might want to put a dragon to sleep to make it easier to kill."
"Why would Princess Du-Akai want to do that? It's a present to her father. They don't get on that badly."
"I've been wondering how all this fits together, Makri. In my experience, when various troubles descend on me, they generally turn out to be connected in some way or other. No one knows how the Red Elvish Cloth was brought into the city. No one knows where it is now. And if the rumours of the Orcs buying it are right, no one knows how it's going to be transported to them. Well, what if it was put inside something that was very secure, which was going back to them eventually?"
"You mean inside the dragon?"
"Why not?"
"How the hell would you stuff a roll of Red Elvish Cloth inside a dragon?"
"I don't know. But that Sorcerer who chased me through the sewers is powerful. He might have done it after he hijacked the shipment."
Makri scoffs. "Dumbest idea you've ever had, Thraxas."
"Oh yeah? Well, I trust my intuition. And my intuition tells me that the Red Elvish Cloth is right this minute inside the new dragon at the King's zoo. It's the perfect place—in fact it's the only place, because dragons are well known for disrupting sorcery. If the Cloth was inside that beast, our Palace Sorcerers wouldn't be able to detect it, Elvish marks or not. A very clever notion, Makri, very clever indeed. Hide the Cloth in the dragon, wait till it mates with the King's, then off it goes back to Gzak, taking the Cloth with it."
Makri considers this. Two Barbarians shout for beer but Makri gestures for them to be quiet. "So what did Attilan have to do with all this?"
"I think he learned of it somehow and decided he'd intervene. Steal the Cloth for his own country. King Lamachus of Nioj would be very pleased with him if he did. Which would explain what Attilan was doing with a spell for putting a dragon to sleep. A Niojan diplomat might be able to gain access to the zoo when it was closed to the public."
"Where did he get the spell?"
I admit I don't know. But I'm pretty sure he was killed before he used it. Which means the Cloth should still be inside the dragon, right under the noses of the Palace Sorcerers. Just waiting for me to recover it.
I notice Makri seems even more exposed than usual, and is bulging out of her bikini in a manner guaranteed to make even the most experienced sailor's jaw drop.
"Makri, how old are you?"
"Twenty-one."
"In which case, unless your unique parentage has produced some very strange effects, your breasts should have stopped growing."
Makri glances at her chest.
"They have. I took a couple of links out of my bikini to make it a bit smaller. I need to earn more tips, Samanatius the Philosopher is starting a new class and I have to raise the fee."
If Makri ever does make it to the Imperial University no one will be able to say she doesn't deserve it.