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Chapter VI
High Bashti

High Bashti: Summer 99–100

I

“I don’t know why you’re here,” said Harn Grip-hard, fidgeting with a boot as if unsure how to put it on. “Everything is just fine.”

Jame regarded him skeptically, then turned her attention to his lodgings, always a good measure of his true state of mind. While the room in which they stood was spacious and elegantly appointed, most of its sparse furniture was festooned with Harn’s clothing and other possessions—pants in need of darning here, a dirty undershirt there; a pile of dismembered armor in one corner, the remains of supper on a tray in another. Harn’s disorder had always kept a step ahead of him. Now it seemed to have progressed two or three paces beyond that. Without thinking, she picked up a crumpled jerkin and began to smooth it.

“Huh,” said a disapproving voice.

There behind the door stood a sour looking individual whom Jame recognized as Harn’s servant Secur, a former randon excused from active service after an axe had taken off his right foot in a training exercise. Now he walked on a solid wooden shoe that clacked in counterpoint to the squeak of its leather ankle hinge.

That is my job, his expression said.

Feeling self-conscious, Jame dropped the jacket back into the general mess.

Light flooded into the room through its arcade of western-facing windows. The sun had nearly set behind the nearest hill, glaring through the white columns that crowned it. Jame’s small command had taken hours to find its way here, across a broad, empty forum, through twisting roads, up and down slopes, between hovels and markets and the walled gardens of mansions. They might not have found it at all without the help of a gap-toothed urchin who, strangely, claimed to live here.

“Call me Snaggles,” he had said, with a wide grin. “I watch out for the likes of you Kennies, I do.”

Campus Kencyrath itself had also come as a surprise. It stood in a vale between hills near the center of town, a two-story ovoid of barracks surrounding a long, broad training field. During the Kencyrath’s absence, a four-story wall had been built around it with stepped benches perched on top of the original structure. Games had been waged below, Snaggles claimed, and religious rites that had outgrown their local temples. There were also sometimes inventive public executions, of which he spoke with great enthusiasm.

The field faced north and south along its long axis. On it, sargents could be heard shouting orders. A formation of Kendar charged up the green sward.

“Right face!”

As one, the column pivoted eastward as if about to storm their commander’s quarters. Sunlight caught the tips of their raised spears.

“Right again. Wait for it, wait for it . . . hut!”

Step, turn, and back they went southward, keeping cadence. Thud, thud, thud went feet. Clash, clash went armor. Someone nearby burst out clapping.

“Battlefield maneuvers,” said Harn, absent-mindedly noting them. “There wasn’t room for that at Tentir except in miniature around the keep. King Mordaunt is still negotiating a contest between our troops and those of the Brandan in Transweald. Duke Pugnanos keeps pushing for more autonomy from High Bashti. In particular, he wants the freedom to invade the Weald.”

“Where the wolvers live.”

“Yes. They aren’t a country according to Bashti, nor in turn do they recognize Bashti as an overlord. They’ve always been free, and hold their borders accordingly. This irks Transweald. Well, you can tell that by its name.”

“So that’s what we would fight against, the Transweald’s right to attack.”

“And for their conquest to be acknowledged by Mordaunt.”

“Who doesn’t want to. Given that, why would he permit a contest at all?”

“Well, there’s the prestige of the thing. Games are popular. Then too, the rumor is that Pugnanos is bribing him. Mordaunt wants money to build that fancy temple of his. If we win, he gets to keep the bribe and lose nothing.”

“Oh, that’s a pretty mess to step into.”

Harn grunted. “Tell me about it. It will be around the Autumn Equinox, what the Central Lands call Wolf’s Day. We need to be ready.”

“Have you been in touch with the Brandan host? How do they feel about a clash between our houses, now that the contracts allow for bloodshed?”

“They always did, within reason.”

“This time it could be beyond that.”

“We’ll have to see. Secur! Where’s my other boot?”

“On the table, Commander.”

There indeed was the boot, filled with over-blown roses, leaking water at the seams. Harn dumped it out on the marble floor with a snarl. “Has that damned woman finally wrangled her way in here?”

“Lady Anthea would not be so presumptuous.”

They stared at each other, mirrors of male outrage undercut by uncertainty.

“You don’t think . . . ” said one.

“Not the Queen, surely,” said the other. “The roses, yes, but in something as uncouth as a boot?”

“Maybe, if she wanted to get your attention,” said Secur. “That damned urchin Snaggles was in here the other day, messing around. I chased him out.”

Jame remembered Harn’s cryptic references to Queen Vestula in his letters to Tori. Who, though, was Lady Anthea?

Both Harn and his servant looked unnerved. Neither, however, evidently was prepared to tell her what was going on. She would have to find that out for herself, or admit that she and Tori had been wrong to sense danger here. It wouldn’t be the first time she had been made to look foolish.

“Have you arranged for our lodging?” she asked Harn.

He stared at her. “Why?”

“Never mind.”

Saluting both randon, she withdrew.

She had barely gone a dozen paces down the hall when a neighboring door was flung open at her elbow. Framed in the entrance was a thin, elderly woman in a purple robe. Skin hung in crepe folds from her bare arms and wattles from her skinny neck. Her eyes, however, were sharp.

“Well?” she demanded. “Have you brought my boys back?”

“Err . . . ” said Jame.

“The city leagues, of course. That darling Prince Jurik and his dear friends. Commander Harn said they would return when they were ready, whatever that means. It seems an age since they last competed here.”

The room behind her had the same dimensions as Harn’s, which it must abut; however, it was much more richly furnished. Moreover, it opened onto a luxurious balcony overlooking the field, where grapes and a pitcher of iced white wine waited beside a couch. The lady, it seemed, had been reclining at her leisure to view the troops as they practiced below, and applauding them.

Voices piped down the hall to the slap of bare feet.

“Auntie! Auntie!”

The lady jammed fists on bony hips. “Well, what now?”

A flock of scruffy children skidded to a stop before her, elbowing Jame out of the way. Among them she recognized their previous guide Snaggles, his ill-spaced teeth in wide display. Perhaps he really did live here.

“Treats, treats!” they clamored.

“You little wretches. Does not Mordaunt feed you rations of grain every day? Porridge and bread fill your little bellies, do they not? What else does the king owe you? Where are your parents, to do better by you?”

“Gone,” said a little girl, with a dolorous frown.

“Drunk,” said another child.

“Dead,” said a third.

“T’cha. Here, then.”

She drew candied orange slices out of a pouch suspended from her belt and disbursed them. The throng fled, crowing. The door slammed in Jame’s face.

Damson approached down the hall. “There you are.”

Jame indicated the closed door. “Who was that?”

“The widow Anthea. Snaggles told me about her. She and her husband loved the games so much that they bought an apartment here and augmented the stadium for the enjoyment of others. He died. She remains.”

“And these children?”

“Thirty years ago, we Kencyr left and the street orphans moved in. These are their great-grand-children. Trespassers, the lot of them. Commander Harn didn’t think to provide rooms for us. Surely he knew that we were coming.”

“My brother wrote to him. Harn seems . . . distracted, though.”

“Huh. I was about to drive out a shoal of squatters, but Quill said you wouldn’t approve. Why?”

Damson was a dangerous Shanir not least because she had only a rudimentary sense of right and wrong. She was well aware of this, however, as if it were a form of moral tone-deafness, and had turned grudgingly to Jame for advice. After years of looking to Kendar such as Marc for just such guidance against her own Shanir nature, Jame was bemused by the situation.

“What accommodations are there?” she now asked.

“There used to be a lot more of us here before the White Hills, when the Knorth was a bigger house. Now, maybe two-thirds of the apartments are empty.”

“So there’s room for both us and them.”

“Yes. I suppose.”

“Then let them stay. First rule: don’t hurt if you can help.”

Damson nodded, not really understanding this, much less agreeing, but dutifully taking it in.

The sun set. Jame’s stomach grumbled.

“They will at least feed us, won’t they?”

“Oh,” said Damson, showing her teeth, “I made sure of that.”

II

The rooms that Damson had found for her ten-command lay between the Kencyr and (as Damson would say) the squatters, halfway down the western side of the barracks. When Jame emerged the next morning, she nearly trod on a tangle of leggy wildflowers. Doors stealthily closed down the hall. Children behind them giggled.

“We seem to have inherited a family,” Jame said to Damson.

The Kendar snorted.

As they had learned the previous night, the mess-hall was close to the barracks’ southern end, near Harn’s apartment. The garrison looked up from their breakfast as the newcomers entered, some who knew Jame from Tentir waving to her.

Jame’s former cadet Mint rose to greet them. At supper, it had been Dar. Jointly, they were in charge of King Mordaunt’s personal guard, she by day, he by night.

“Our schedule doesn’t give us much time together,” Dar had commented ruefully the evening before, “and it involves a lot of standing around. Still, it’s an honor. I suppose.”

“You can always transfer back to Tagmeth,” Quill had said wistfully. Everyone knew that he fancied Mint, just as they did that he had no chance of winning her away from Dar. Quill knew as much himself, but was of an optimistic disposition.

“Oh, we still enjoy it here too much,” Dar had said, cheering up. “Later, maybe.”

Now it was morning, and breakfast finished.

“As the Highlord’s emissary, I should pay my respects to the king,” said Jame, rising. “Do I need to make an appointment or, worse, dress up?”

Mint cast a critical eye over her lady, who in honor of the occasion was wearing a clean jacket and polished boots but, to Rue’s chagrin, pants with patched knees due to the mishap with Death’s-head on the way south.

“Citizens tend to wear the finest clothes they have,” said Mint judiciously. “They can look pretty pretentious, not to say silly. Patricians make less of an effort as a matter of pride. Regals—that is, members of Mordaunt’s own family—dress however they choose. You may be the Highlord’s sister, but you’re also a randon officer. What you have on suits you, knees and all. As for an appointment, I think I can slip you in.”

Jame paused on the way out to check on Death’s-head. The northern end of the training field had been set aside as pasture for the garrison’s horses. These currently stood in a wary clump as far from the ivory-clad newcomer as possible while the rathorn glumly grazed apart. He could, of course, eat anything up to and including small rocks, but preferred roast chicken. She would have to arrange that with the kitchen, Jame thought. How long, though, would he put up with such cramped quarters? If they were here long, she would have to think of something else.

Snaggles waited outside a side door. “Heard you were going to the palace,” he said, jumping off the back of one of the two stone lions that bracketed the stairs leading down to the street. “Come to show you the way, didn’t I?”

Mint smiled at him. “You take good care of us, don’t you, Snaggles?”

“Awww . . . ”

South of the barracks, still in the valley between hills, was a large, covered market. Arcades lined its walls, two levels high, with the more elegant shops above. A double row of columns marched down its interior, supporting a vaulted roof under which pigeons fluttered and shat indiscriminatingly. Beneath, between the arches, between the columns, was a wilderness of booths selling everything from silver thimbles to silk tents, from spiced fish to cursing parrots. People wandered from stall to stall, pointing, exclaiming, bargaining. Many appeared to be common citizens shopping for mere necessities. Others were elegantly garbed patricians, men and women, out for a morning’s indolent stroll among the lower classes. One group dressed in white robes, wearing featureless wax masks, paced among the throng.

“Renounce death!” their leader cried, echoed in chorus by his followers. “Join the Deathless!”

Some shoppers bowed to them as they passed. Most turned away.

Colors, smells, humanity. The noise was tremendous. Jame was glad that she had left Jorin back exploring the barracks; he hated such uproars, much more so people stepping on his toes, which always seemed to happen.

“Can I have this?” Snaggles kept asking. “Can I have that?” And each time Mint rapped him on the head to shut him up.

Jame fingered the coins in her pocket and wondered about Graykin who had taken a bag of them south with him. If he was in High Bashti, it would be a test of his skills how soon he learned of her presence here and sought her out. The city was obviously a complex place. She already felt atwitch for more intimate news of it. She and Graykin, perhaps, had more in common than she liked to admit.

In the meantime, thanks to her allowance from Aerulan’s dowry, she still had funds. Here, indeed, was an arax from Kothifir, ollins from Karkinaroth, and bools from Hurlen. How was she to learn what each was really worth? As for Bashti currency . . . ah, some copper pence, a clutch of silver fungit, and even a golden regal imprinted on one side with a narrow face not unlike that of a ferret, on the other with another visage, whose smiling, handsome features were vaguely familiar.

Jame stopped short. As she fumbled the coin, shoppers ran into her, cursing, hardly noticed. This was the face she had seen in the White Hills, if not quite that from Kithorn, but who was it?

Composing herself, she stepped out of traffic, returned the gold coin to her pocket, drew out a copper pence, and presented it to Snaggles.

“What will this buy?”

He took it, grinning hugely. “Food!”

“You’ll spoil him,” said Mint as the urchin scampered off. “Then again, we all do.”

Several times, they had passed booths decked with white bunting, sporting row upon row of miniature plaster busts. A card hung around each neck with numbers scrawled on it. Attendants changed these incessantly while their masters argued with clients. Around some booths angry crowds had gathered.

“What’s going on?” Jame asked Mint.

“Oh,” said the Kendar, “they bet on the strangest things here. Those busts may represent politicians, sports figures, or their illustrious ancestors who have become their gods, if you will.”

Snaggles wriggled through the on-lookers, munching on a roast dormouse on a stick.

“’Course they’re our gods,” he said indistinctly, and spat out a wad of tiny bones. “Deified Suwaeton, Sanctified Herbata, Honored Timbuk . . . I’m a descendant of old Timmy m’self, or so my mother told me, and Lady Anthea agrees. Proud of it, I am.”

Jame reflected that she had spent most of her life trying to figure out what constituted a god. For most Kencyr like Mint, that question never arose. The Three-Faced God had chosen them to fight Perimal Darkling. What could be more straightforward than that? Well, yes, he (or she, or it) had then abandoned them, which in turn had led to a millennia long retreat down the Chain of Creation with the Shadows and that arch-traitor Gerridon snapping at their heels.

Here on Rathillien, things had gotten even more complicated.

All along, it seemed, each world had had native forces upon which the Kencyr temples had preyed, fatally weakening them against the Shadows’ onslaught. Not so here where, by some glitch, the Kencyrath had fed the local powers, thereby creating the New Pantheon and the Four. Jame had seen other strange twists as well. Was High Bashti about to provide yet another that would finally make sense of everything? Or was she foolish to hope that all answers would suddenly be laid bare to her? Enough, she wanted to say. How much could one person comprehend? But then she had nearly given up the problem as solved after Tai-tastigon. What a mistake that would have been.

“Tell me about your gods,” she said to Snaggles.

The boy puffed out his chest, proud of his heritage. “First, there were the ten founders of the city. Their wooden images still sit in their halls on top of the ten main hills. We haul ’em out for the occasional parade. At some point, though—oh, long ago, now—we started to worship more recent ancestors until we had a whole pantheon of ’em. King, queen, warrior, artist, and so on, one for each of the founding families. Some have been around for ages. Well, I mean to say all of them have been, of course, but sometimes they change.”

Mint looked confused. “What do you mean, ‘they change’?”

The boy fidgeted. He wanted to sound knowledgeable, but this was a complicated subject. “I mean, for example, there’s always a king, like in the old plays, the ones that run forever during the festivals, but the actor who plays him changes over time. I know what I’m talking about! Go to the theater whenever I can sneak in, don’t I? A religious duty, isn’t it? Didn’t believe it at first, but either they changed actors or one king shrank half a foot between shows. Fact! What’s more—and, mind you, this hasn’t happened in my lifetime—they say that the images of the gods outside their temples in the forum have replaceable heads. Sometimes, those change too.”

“I think you mean that the role is permanent, but just as the actors sometimes change, so do the gods,” said Jame. “Perhaps you should start over.”

He gave an exasperated sigh at her dimness. “See, when a regal or a patrician dies, the Council decides if it wants to put him or her up for godhood. Roles usually run in families—the king in the Floten, the queen in the Tigganis, the judge in the Lexion, and so on. Then, if their house can get enough people to worship them, they ascend and the old god falls. The king is dead. Long live the king. Or queen. Or whatever.”

Jame began to see a familiar pattern. “Faith creates reality. The candidate with the most followers wins, and takes over the role.”

“Mind you, some have lasted just about forever. General Suwaeton has been king for thirty years, ever since he died. That’s Mordaunt’s dear old granddad, of course.”

“‘Of course,’” Mint echoed him, rolling her eyes.

They passed another white booth full of little busts, some presumably of the late general, just as a fight broke out.

“Passionate about it, aren’t they?” remarked Mint, raising a hand to hold Jame back as two combatants lurched past them into the opposite booth, which collapsed. City guards came running to separate the disputants. “What’s set them off this time?”

“Desecration,” said Snaggles darkly. “See, Lord Prestic of the Tigganis just died. Each member of the Council—that is, the current lords or ladies of the ten patrician families—claims that his (or her) own ancestor and not Mordaunt’s founded this city, which means that they should be the true regals. Been going on forever, hasn’t it? Old Prestic, he wanted to be king. Now. To replace Mordaunt. Who is not popular. But Prestic died first. Poisoned, they say. Funny, how often that happens. So m’lord’s family wanted something even better for him, namely that he should have a chance to replace Mordaunt’s grandpa Suwaeton as king of the gods.”

“You said that the Tigganis usually provide the queen.”

“Now, be reasonable. How could anyone worship Prestic as a woman? The fact is, most members of any given house aren’t a good fit for godhood. Have to choose them carefully, don’t they?”

“Still, you seem to be talking about an entire house choosing a particular role. King, queen, judge, and so on. Does everyone fit?”

“Of course not! See, young nobles decide in which house they want to be—judge, artist, merchant, whatever—and then they petition for adoption there. It’s up to the Council and the families who goes where.”

“All right,” said Jame. “That makes a certain amount of sense. We Kencyr sometimes change houses too, but not that often, and usually with bad results.”

“Sometime,” said Snaggles, with the air of regaining control of the conversation, “houses may try to skip a rank like with Prestic from queen to king. It could have worked, too. Suwaeton is popular, but so was Prestic. Very. And if the divine king changes, then so might the mortal one. Then too, Mordaunt is down to one legitimate heir. A failing house, that. But he bullied the Council into putting Prestic up for sainthood instead of for deification.”

Eek, thought Jame. Too many levels of power. And she had thought that the Kencyrath was complicated.

They emerged from the market. Beyond, multileveled dwellings reared up on either side of the road, creating a canyon leaning inward toward to top, full of voices as children chased each other though the shadows. A grated drain ran down the middle of the street, gurgling, stinking. Less discreet gutters trickled slyly down side alleys to join the general effluvium. Despite that, there was the fragrant smell of cooking and a certain cool, green scent from terraced gardens and willows leaning out from breached walls.

“D’you understand all of this god talk?” Mint asked Jame under her breath, over the boy’s head.

Jame stepped around a particularly fetid puddle. “Not entirely. I’ll sort it out sooner or later, though, if we’re here long enough. Er, Snaggles . . . to sanctify rather than to deify . . . what’s the difference?”

“Listen! You Kennies are supposed to be smart, aren’t you? To be a saint isn’t as important as to be a god, is it? True, you get to stay with your family as long as they remember you, but you’re a servant to the gods forever, or at least until your family forgets you and your body begins to rot.”

Another link. Kencyr death banners only survived as long as their names were remembered, hence their recitation on Autumn’s Eve. Then too, the blood that bound souls to warp and weft only lasted as long as memory, if that.

“The thing here,” said Snaggles, “is that would-be gods and saints have a trial period—you know, to see if they stay fresh or start to stink. Gods spend it in a temple, in a rock crystal coffin, guarded by priests. The bodies of potential saints get sent out of the city into the Necropolis, to their families’ crypts. No corpses within the city, thank you very much, unless they’re either gods or would-be. Common citizens get burned in common pits. Oh yes, there are guards in the gentries’ Necropolis too, but they might be bribed to run away. Two nights ago, the Tigganis guards did. When they’re caught,” he added with relish, “they’ll be impaled alive, maybe on our own campus.”

“Not if I can help it,” said Jame. “What then?”

“They destroyed Prestic’s corpse, didn’t they? Hacked it apart, I hear tell.”

Here, perhaps, was another common thread linked to the Kencyrath. “If the body is destroyed, so is the soul, although that usually involves complete destruction, as with cremation.”

“That’s right! So, no godhood for old Prestic, nor even sainthood. No kingship divine or mortal, either. No nothing, except as an abomination. That’s what no house will accept, if they can prove who did it. The bookmakers claim Prestic’s fate was a divine act. All bets off. The gamblers cry foul. You tell me.”

“I think we saw that tomb yesterday, on the way into the city,” Jame said, and shivered at the memory despite herself. “It was a savage act.”

At the mouth of the next road was a simple shrine.

“These, for the cults of the Honored,” said Snaggles, dropping a pebble on it as he passed. “Just citizens, most of them. They only get to keep their ashes, no souls attached, but we don’t let their memories die.” For a moment, he looked almost fierce. “Not Regal, not Patrician, not Ennobled. They belong to us.”

“Like your ancestor Timbuk.”

“Yes. Like him. Mind you,” he added, as if wishing to be fair, “there are other cults as well. The Founders, now. That was over three thousand years ago. What’s left of them now? Wooden statues, if that.”

That was when the Kencyr temples had come to life and the Four awoke, thought Jame. The Four, once mere humans, emerged as forces of nature, of Rathillien itself. The gods of this land rose from mortal to immortal status, at least until their influence waned. Certain divine rules came into play at that point: the faith of worshippers created reality; bodies were linked to souls; wooden effigies gave way to new, more popular gods.

“What of Princess Amalfia?” she asked.

“Oh,” said Snaggles, “she died ages ago, but her images are still plastered all over the city, so you tell me how to judge immortality. Then,” he added, “there’s the Deathless. They’re different, much more recent, but still a cult. We passed a cohort of them in the market.”

“They reminded me of Karnid street prophets,” said Jame. “‘Death itself will die,’ they claimed.”

Snaggles glowered. “Don’t know about that. The Deathless, though, they speak about immortality for all classes, even street rats like me. Wish my mum had known about them.”

The road cut between buildings and tilted upward, climbing the shoulder of a hill. Now they were passing high walls, some with gates standing open to the street. Within were flowers and walks and trees. Among groves of the latter in some gardens stood small marble houses.

“Cenotaphs, most of them,” said Snaggles, his pride in knowing such a big word overcoming his scowl, although that crept back. “These folk are the Ennobled. They were just citizens, but wealth raised them, especially those connected to the Floten. They think that they’re better than us, their dead worthier than ours. If their families choose them and the Council agrees, their bodies lie in mausoleums outside the city awaiting sanctification.”

“Psht,” said a voice beside one gate, out of the shrubbery. “Help Mother come home? A pinch of incense? A prayer? She may even talk to you. That would count as a miracle.”

They walked on, urged by Snaggles.

“For a gift?” the voice keened after them. “For a bribe?”

“They get desperate,” said Snaggles. “Twice a year, on her death-day and during the Festival of the Dead, papa will check. If she’s still fresh, the prayers worked and momma can come home to be with her family forever. That’s sanctification. It doesn’t work that way for the rest of us, though. Gone is gone, unless the high and mighty say that you’re honored.”

“Did you lose your mother, Snaggles?” asked Mint.

The boy wiped his nose on his sleeve, then scowled. “Went away, didn’t she, and she’s not coming back. I reckon that she lost me.”

The Builder Chirpentundrum had chided the Kencyrath for cremating their dead and scattering their ashes on the wind.

“To destroy the soul forever,” he had said. “What an abomination.”

What a waste, Jame had since thought, if souls were what held the Chain of Creation together. The Bashtiri, it seemed, valued at least some souls, and connected their continued existence to the preservation of their bodies. What the Kencyrath considered a curse, these people blessed.

They rounded the hill top. From here, the city spread out before them on all sides, dotted with more hills and valleys, the former crowned with gleaming marble, the latter holding more apartment buildings and occasional green spaces. Deeper still were foundries, factories, and abattoirs, their low-hanging murk dotted with the flicker of a million candles even this early in the day. A muted clamor arose from them, and a great stink. How big High Bashti was, how ancient, how packed with life. By comparison, Tai-tastigon seemed almost quaint.

The highest prominence of all rose to the south, its foot connected to the height on which they now stood by a saddle of land. Its sides were nearly perpendicular, clothed in trees below, topped by a high wall. Tiled roofs showed over the latter. A stepped ramp led up to a colonnaded portico on the east side that contained its front gate. This loomed as one approached, cast bronze with figures in high relief, row upon row of naked horsemen with the spoils of war strewn under their feet.

The gate was shut.

The Kencyr guarding it came to attention as Mint approached.

“Captain,” said one, saluting her. “My lady. Password?”

“Sweet Trinity,” muttered Mint. “I haven’t seen Dar yet, have I? How would I know?”

A smaller door opened within the larger frame and Dar emerged, yawning. “There you are,” he said to Mint with a smile, adding to the guards, “The watch word is ‘Vigilance.’ He’s really on edge today, Mint, and insisting on all of the forms. Be careful.”

Mint made a face. “If not us, whom can he trust?”

Dar shrugged. “How should I know? He still hasn’t paid our wages. Perhaps that makes him feel nervous, or guilty.”

Leaving Dar to seek breakfast and bed, they entered the hilltop compound, Snaggles left to fret outside. The ground within had been leveled off, allowing for a complex of buildings. A grassy square fronted the gate, surrounded by more colonnades. At its heart was an elaborate fountain of river nymphs spouting water from every orifice. The basin, Jame noted, was green with algae.

“No pay?” she asked Mint.

“So far, not a pence. Mordaunt spends everything on that precious temple of his or on that mob of thugs he subsidizes with a private dole. And he taxes both the patricians and the citizens for all they’re worth. You heard that he sent us out to parade around the countryside? That turned out to be an attempt to make the provinces pay a higher tax. We were supposed to enforce that—what, us?”

“What did you do?”

“Mostly, stood aside and looked impressive. Sometimes, we stepped in when his collectors got too enthusiastic. King Mordaunt was not pleased with us. We were supposed to support his interests above all else, he said. Well! Meanwhile, merchants here have extended us credit in gratitude, but that can’t go on forever. Some of us are already badly in debt. It’s a city rotten with diversions. Even Dar . . . well, never mind.”

Jame thought back to the terms of the contract. It seemed to her that Mordaunt was walking a fine line. He didn’t want to pay his troops, but he wanted as much service out of them as he could get. That might prevent him from making outrageous demands at least for a while. As it was, they were putting up with slow attrition.

They passed through lofty buildings with leaves scuttling in the corners. A few minor patricians and servants passed, looking preoccupied. Guards paced here and there, some Kencyr from the city, others in straggling, strutting bands that suggested Mint’s “mob of thugs.” These latter wore scraps of silk, bullion fringe, and tatters of lace, held together with strips of gaudy cotton, gilt thread and panels of cheap sequins. The largest of them led, wearing the most glitter, taking up the most space with great, waddling self-importance. He could easily have made three of his followers. Scruffy citizens trotted along after him and his cohorts. These latter wore yellow scarves that might have been intended to signify gold. It occurred to Jame that if Mordaunt paid the ruffians, they might in turn let the stray coin trickle down to buy the loyalty of lesser citizens. Mordaunt had to get his “popular” support from somewhere.

“Huh,” said Mint, looking around. “No soldiers. High Bashti has a sort of standing army made up of troops drawn from all of the western bank lands. It’s unclear, though, if the king or the Council commands them. The latter pays, so usually they obey it unless Mordaunt can make a case for an emergency. The same holds true with the city guard.”

“What about wars?” asked Jame.

Mint grinned. “Over the millennia, Bashti got used to settling those with Kencyr, one country’s mercenaries against another’s. The army and patricians usually went along as support, but mostly to see the fun. We haven’t had much action since we got here. There are stirrings, though. On the east bank Hathir and the Midlands have been testing each other, gingerly. The Ardeth versus the Randir, you know. More seriously, the Midlands and Karkinor are scrabbling over the gold-rich Forks, which has no Kencyr troops and no desire to belong to either neighbor. That’s the Randir and the Caineron, but we hear rumors that Lord Caldane and Lady Rawneth are courting each other, politically, so things have gone easy. Then too, the Forks have probably been bribing both of their neighbors forever. Here in Bashti, Mordaunt isn’t eager—wars cost money—but our precious Prince Jurik would dearly love to command a battle.”

More courtyards. More buildings faced with marble, elaborately decorated, empty.

“In Suwaeton’s day, his people inhabited this entire complex,” said Mint, “or so I’ve heard, they and his patron kin. Now most of the latter live on nearby estates, Mordaunt not trusting any of them and vice versa. Here, there’s just the king, his son Jurik, and his wife Vestula. Also servants. Also Mordaunt’s concubines, his illegitimate children, and Jurik’s friends. Those last two categories tend to overlap. No one asks any of them for passwords.”

“Complicated,” Jame remarked. “Is Mordaunt really so short on money?”

“Yes. Now see why.”

They had left a banqueting hall and passed into yet another courtyard. To the right was a three-story building covered with low relief depictions of warriors and maidens swooning in each other’s arms. Below that was a religious procession. Below that were rank upon rank of wild animals in sedate procession. Paws draped over doorways. Hands twined around windows. Feet padded on lintels.

Beside this, to the left, was the beating heart of the compound. While the rest had been nearly deserted, here workmen swarmed. The base of a building had already been laid out, some three hundred feet long by maybe half that wide. Ponderous cranes swung six-foot-wide cross-sections of columns into place. Rows of them already towered, complete, in colonnades down three sides of the foundation. Nearby, masons were unloading marble blocks from wagons to construct the architrave and the inner walls.

In a wooden structure to one side serving as a workshop, Jame glimpsed relief panels being carved, full of cavorting horses and leering monsters. In pride of place, at the center of the room, loomed a huge statue, nearly finished. It sat on a marble throne, impressive in its muscular legs, torso, and arms but, so far, without a head.

What had Snaggles said? “Sometimes, those change too.”

“When the temple is done,” said Mint, “it will be the largest in private hands in the city, just for the king of the gods and the regals, his mortal family. All of the other major temples are public, clustered around the Grand Forum.”

“So that’s Mordaunt’s grandfather, Suwaeton,” said Jame, staring at the truncated statue.

“The Thunderer, they call him, for the staff he carries and smashes on the ground whenever he’s angry, which is often. There are a lot of lightning strikes in High Bashti. Also earthquakes. Also fires. Those apartment buildings are mostly wood and can go up like tinder. Meanwhile, Mordaunt keeps raising taxes to pay for this pet project of his, which is odd because otherwise he doesn’t seem to have liked his grandpa much. Next, they say, he may end the dole. That will be asking for trouble, but he doesn’t seem to care.”

A Kencyr guard hurried up to her.

“Trouble at the gate, Captain. There’s a new shipment of stone and the driver is drunk. He insists on yesterday’s password.”

Mint t’sked. “I need to see to this, lady. Please wait.”

She and the guard left. Jame regarded the busy scene before her until a workman shouted at her to get out of the way. She stepped aside as people rushed past to steady one of the cranes whose load had shifted, threatening to crash into the nearest column. Would they all fall down, one after the other? It seemed not, but the workers gave her dirty looks as if the near catastrophe had been her fault.

“No women on site,” a man snarled at her in passing, and spat at her feet.

They hadn’t done so to Mint. Mint, however, was uncommonly pretty. Oh well.

Where to go, though? There stood what she assumed to be the royal residence, her destination in any event. Two Kendar guarded the door, both male. They looked at her askance, but stood aside as she approached.

Inside was a vaulted passageway, then an atrium. Light lanced down from a hole in the ceiling onto a shallow basin of rain water beneath. Pigeons whirred up toward the roof, white wings flashing, as Jame entered. The floor was a mosaic of tiles, presumably depicting figures of mythology, given their exaggerated features. Around them rose three stories of open hallways. In front of them ran a balustrade; behind, a row of closed doors. This must be where Mordaunt’s family lived. However, the space was dim and echoed hollowly. Somewhere, someone laughed. Other muted voices sounded, but no one appeared.

Across the atrium was another passage, leading to another courtyard. Here too was a pond, in the midst of which sat the stiff wooden statue of a man. Moss grew on his bearded cheeks and on the flat slabs of his chest. He looked, however, immemorial, impervious to rot. It was hard to imagine any other than that rough head on those square shoulders, staring out of those sunken eyes. Could this be an image of Floten, the ruling family’s cult figure? How much more real he seemed than the headless statue waiting outside in the workshop.

Beyond, yet again, was a third passageway. From this a voice reached Jame as she approached, strident, high pitched, like a small dog yelping:

“You didn’t . . . you did . . . where . . . why . . . how . . .”

Jame approached. The yapping went on.

A scrawny figure paced back and forth across the third courtyard, gesticulating wildly. He wore what appeared to be a tattered dressing gown. His slipper-clad feet slapped the tiled floor.

“I tell you,” he cried, brandishing knobby fists, “the gods are against me! What? No, of course I don’t deserve it!”

He seemed to be speaking to someone. The atrium, however, appeared to be empty except for him. A voice murmured. Was that here or elsewhere?

“You say you destroyed his body, but where are the limbs, the gods-be-damned head? Not burned. Just gone. Who took them, eh?”

Something caught the corner of Jame’s eye, there, up on the third floor leaning against the balustrade. It was gone when she stepped forward for a better look, but the impression remained of a white figure with a gently smiling waxen visage.

Her movement caught the pacer’s attention and he whirled, glaring, to face her.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“I came to see King Mordaunt. Please, don’t be alarmed.”

“Why shouldn’t I be? Everyone is against me. Guards, guards!”

His shrill voice set up echoes. Someone shouted in answer and feet ran down stairs. First, however, the Kencyr guards from the outer door arrived, swift and deadly, swords drawn. Then they drew up short, looked at Jame, and hesitated.

A tall young man burst onto the room on their heels. He wore a purple, fur-trimmed jerkin, also a golden band around his brow.

The guards sheathed their blades.

“Your Highness . . .” said one.

“Ha!” said the newcomer, and attacked them.

More young men spilled across the threshold, far outnumbering those already there, and threw themselves into the brawl. The Kencyr retreated, using defensive water-flowing moves. Meanwhile the thin man, whom Jame now supposed must be the king, flailed at anyone who came within reach with his slipper.

“This is ridiculous,” she said, and attempted to step between the combatants.

The tall man turned on her with a grin. He was older than she had thought, at least in his late twenties, but the eager gleam in his eyes made him look like a boy. She jumped back barely in time to avoid a fire-leaping kick. He went after her, towering, pressing the attack. That he should be using the Senethar momentarily threw her off-balance, so that he managed to catch her a glancing blow on the cheekbone. Then they were at it in earnest, lunge and counter, fire against wind, earth against water.

But Jame kept tripping. This puzzled and annoyed her, besides bringing her closer than was comfortable to the other’s big hands. Besides, there was nothing to trip over except the low rim of this atrium’s pond, the third she had encountered here so far.

“Stop ducking!” complained the man as she stumbled yet again, nearly into his grasp.

“It isn’t deliberate!”

Something, someone, breathed in her ear.

“Ahhh . . . ”

Exasperated, she unleashed a blow at what appeared to be empty air. Her fist connected. The unseen stumbled back, gasped as it caught a foot in the pond’s rim, and tumbled into the water. Dimples appeared in its surface, some reaching down to the bottom. Then they lifted.

“What . . . ?” said her opponent, staring.

Something floundered out, spraying water that partially defined its outline. So, not mere tattooed skin but dyed cloth, with a sleeve torn to reveal a pale left shoulder. However, no arm hung from it. Wet footprints appeared on the floor and ran to the door, just as Harn Grip-hard stepped in through it. There was a collision. The big Kendar swatted by reflex, whereupon something yelped and rebounded against the doorframe, leaving a wet mark. Then it scuttled away.

Ignoring it, Harn glowered at the chaos within. The look he darted at Jame’s opponent, however, verged first on panic, then on apoplexy. Afraid that he was about to suffer a berserker flare, Jame stepped up to him and put her hands on his chest, as if to soothe an overwrought stallion. His massive hands flexed over her head. He was breathing hard.

This is dangerous, she thought, trying not to flinch.

Harn looked down at her, gulped, and, with an effort, regained control of himself.

“Stop it!” he bellowed at the room in general.

The attackers withdrew, looking sheepish, but their leader stepped forward, still with a grin.

“You said we had to prove ourselves, commander, to continue our training.” He grabbed Jame and presented her for inspection. Her cheek throbbed. Already it must be swelling. “See? I landed a blow!”

“Well, good for you, boy,” the big randon said gruffly. “May I present the sister and lordan of the Kencyr Highlord, your father’s ally? This, my lady, is King Mordaunt’s son and heir, Prince Jurik. Now both of you, behave.”


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Framed