Malekrin looked at me with disgust. “I’ve seen more than enough of this loathsome place,” he said.
With little personal affection for Altapasaeda, I merely grinned at him. “It’s a little better by daylight, but not much. I’ll leave you to your woeful thoughts then.”
I stood up and started back towards the door, drawing a hostile glance from the two Shoanish there.
Then, just I was about to leave, Malekrin called after me. “Damasco…”
I paused.
“Another time, maybe?”
It was the first occasion I could remember that he’d sounded at all contrite. “Why not?” I said. “It isn’t as if either of us has anything better to do.”
I didn’t see Malekrin again that day, however, or anyone else I was familiar with for that matter. There was a part of me that was eager for company, or at least a little conversation, and at one point I even found my feet drawing me towards Franco’s deceptively tumbledown home. But that was a level of desperation too far; if I was even considering passing my time with that antique swindler then I was better off on my own.
Instead, I wandered to a small inn near the Temple District that I had fond memories of from my time in the city. The place had apparently changed hands since then, for I didn’t recognise the woman unhurriedly cleaning tables with a rag, but the smell of food from the back rooms was enticing and there were tables out front where I could enjoy the day’s warmth.
Moreover, I practically had the place to myself. I’d have imagined that taverns would do good business in times of war, but it seemed the opposite was true. Could it be that all the able-bodied drinking men were atop the walls instead, pulling faces and rattling sabres at Panchessa’s army? Knowing Altapasaedans, they were more likely to be hiding in their cellars. I ordered my lunch, a well-spiced dish of rice and vegetables with a few thin slices of sausage mixed in, and it turned out to taste every bit as good as it smelled. I ordered a glass of wine to go with it, and immediately corrected myself; a bottle would be more suited to my plans for the day.
As it transpired, however, one bottle turned into two, and by then it was late afternoon and a few other patrons had arrived, and the second bottle didn’t last very long at all; fortunately a third soon materialised in its place, and at around the same time I found myself singing an old village tune regarding the many and varied loves of a certain wheelwright’s daughter, which others were eager enough to join in with, and from there we somehow managed to begin a round of Lost Chicken with a pack of greasy and well-thumbed cards…
After that, unfortunately, my perceptions grew unreliable. I only knew that it was dark when I staggered back towards the Dancing Cat and tumbled into my bed in the stables.
I was pleased in the morning to discover that I’d ended the previous day slightly richer than I’d begun it, a tremendous feat considering how drunk I’d been and that I’d hardly even been cheating; the gain was more than balanced out, though, by the pain steadily erupting throughout my head.
When the discomfort of lying in agony and scrunching my eyes against the light from the part-open doorway became too much, I hauled myself to me feet and staggered through to the kitchens, where I explained more through gestures than words that I’d need breakfast and a great quantity of water. The cook, having presumably grown used to unreasonable demands under Mounteban’s patronage, managed to slop a dish of stewed apples before me, along with a cup and a pitcher of water. I did my best to grin at him in thanks, and he hurried away, looking disgusted.
Breakfast and three brimming cups of water having gone some way to relieving my head, I wandered on through to the taproom. Just as yesterday, there was no one of any importance around; Malekrin, however, was back in his corner, or perhaps had never left. This time he’d found a small flute from somewhere, and was playing a doleful tune to himself.
“Stop that,” I said, “I won’t be hung over and miserable as well. I need to clear my head and you need to get out of this place for a couple of hours. I won’t take no for an answer.”
The look on Malekrin’s face told me that no was precisely the answer I should expect, regardless of my feelings on the matter, yet at the last moment, he stood up and said, “Maybe you’re right.”
“I’m always right,” I said. Then a particularly violent pang threatened to split my head in two, and I amended, “Well, mostly I am. But this time, definitely…”
I came up with a route that took in the dockside, the Temple District and the mansions of the South Bank, but which carefully avoided the palace; I doubted it would do anything for Malekrin’s mood to see what luxury his uncle Panchetto had grown up in while he was languishing in the wastelands of Shoan.
All told, however, Malekrin proved to be more tolerable company than I’d come to expect. As our walk wore on and as my aching head began to clear, I pointed out particular buildings and shared what anecdotes I could remember: “that’s the home of Lord Alfunsco who married both of his own sisters”, “that’s where Lord Eldunzi lives, I hear he was recently flogged in the streets by the good people of Muena Delorca”, and so on.
I could tell Malekrin was more impressed than he was willing to admit. It was there in his eyes as he stared up at the magnificent buildings that housed the Altapasaedan rich and their innumerable deities. More and more as the day wore on, he inserted his own observations, drawing comparisons — mostly negative — with his life in Shoan and even beginning to share his own tales. I was astonished to discover that when he wasn’t sulking, Malekrin could be both amicable and moderately interesting.
Finally, as we started back in the direction of the Dancing Cat, I felt the time was right to ask a question that had been nagging at me all through the last few hours. “So… you gave the crown back to Kalyxis then, I imagine?”
Malekrin looked at me, surprised. “No. I told her I lost it.”
“That you lost it? I can’t imagine that went down well.”
“I told her I dropped my pack when I was climbing out from the tunnel,” he said.
“And you’re still alive? You’re even still walking straight. Surely she must have done something to you?”
“She shouted. Then, when she’d calmed down, she told me, ‘It won’t matter in the end. A crown’s just a crown.’”
That didn’t sound anything like the Kalyxis I knew. What could she be up to that she would dismiss the most valuable object in the land so casually? “Do you know what she meant?” I asked.
“No,” replied Malekrin — and yet something in the way he pronounced that one syllable, some subtle hint, made me suspect he knew full well. But I could also tell that he had no intention of sharing his knowledge with me, and I was still far too hungover to press him. “So that was the end of it?” I asked instead.
“Oh, she sent men to search,” he said.
“I’m guessing they won’t find anything.”
“No,” agreed Malekrin, sounding both proud and a touch bashful. “They’ll never find it. She’ll never give it to that fat jackal of a man Mounteban. There won’t ever be another prince crowned in Altapasaeda. It seemed the least I could do.”
Only then did I realise why I’d been wondering so much about the crown, and why I’d raised the question of its whereabouts. “What if it could be put to a good purpose, though?” I asked. “What if it could help someone who really needed it? Who would never misuse it?”
Malekrin eyed me quizzically. “I hope you’re not talking about yourself,” he said.
“Hardly!” I scoffed. “I had the thing once and I gave it away.”
“Then, if there really was such a person… I think I’d be glad to be rid of it.”
I presented Malekrin with my finest and most carefully composed grin. “In that case, Mal, I have a proposition for you…”