‘I’m the Plague,’ he returned. But he grinned as he said it.
They all giggled.
I may yet come to be good at this, he realised.
They had two hours between rhetoric and memory, and they were walking across the square to an open-air taverna that only existed to serve the students when the Imperial gates opened and two men rode out – both wearing red.
Sister Anna watched the man ride by. ‘Handsome – just as Giorgos said. That’s the new mercenary. He calls himself the Duke of Thrake, but of course he’s not really.’
Baldesce raised an eyebrow. ‘I think he really is. He beat the former Duke pretty thoroughly last week. And my father hates him with a perfect, pure hate.’
Sister Katerina leaned out over their table in a very undignified way. ‘He’s going to the University!’ she proclaimed.
‘Why does your father hate him?’ asked Mortirmir.
‘My father is Podesta of the Etruscan merchants here,’ he said. ‘He was summoned to the palace and threatened. Or that’s how he tells it.’ Baldesce spoke with the amused tolerance of sons for fathers.
‘I’m sure that the Patriarch will put him in his place,’ Baldesce said. ‘But he cuts a fine figure. He’s Alban, like you, Mortirmir.’
Mortirmir resolved to like him.
Memory was a torture. In the first five minutes he learned that the master had ignored him because he had no access to Power. Now that that had changed, he was expected to catch up. Preferably by the end of the class.
That didn’t happen.
He was called on more in two hours than he had been since his studies began, given odd geometric shapes and other memory objects to store in his palace, and then asked to reproduce them. He failed – sometimes he barely failed and then, as he got increasingly flustered and frustrated, he failed more and more spectacularly.
The memory master was remorseless and, at the end of class, he took Mortirmir aside. ‘Your failure to memorise even the simplest form is shocking,’ he said.
Mortirmir wondered, in the safety of his head, if he could turn the man to ash. He certainly had enough rage and frustration to fuel a really powerful working.
‘I’ll – work – on – my – memory palace,’ he said through clenched teeth.
The memory master shrugged. ‘Oh, do as you please,’ he said. He swept out of the hall.
‘He likes to do that,’ Baldesce said.
‘He’s never picked on me before,’ said Mortirmir, who was very close to crying and didn’t want to give way in public. Sweet Jesu, I can kill a man with fire, but I can’t face a mocking maestro.
‘You weren’t worth his time, before.’ Baldesce shook his head. ‘I’d invite you for wine, but I really think you’d best go work on your memory. I’ve been the target of his attentions myself and I really owe you – that’s the easiest I’ve had it in that class this year. Now that he has his teeth in you, he won’t let go.’ The Etruscan smiled. ‘It’s your own fault. When you had no Power, none of them cared.’
Mortirmir decided after a moment that the Etruscan didn’t mean his raillery to be offensive. The social acceptance from his classmates came at a price – now he had to pay attention to what they said. He’d been distancing himself from them for so long . . .
‘After a little consideration, I’ll keep my access to Power and go work on my memory,’ he said, as if he’d really considered ridding himself of Power.
Baldesce slapped him on the back and laughed.
I really can do this, Mortirmir thought.
‘Going to the palace today?’ Baldesce asked. It was clumsily asked, and his face told them both he knew it.
But Mortirmir was starting to like the other boy, so he shrugged. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
Mortirmir stopped and picked up Anna’s things, and carried them to the palace, where he wasted an hour waiting because the watchword had been changed. An enormous Galle stood by the gate, watching with his hands on his hips, and Mortirmir, feeling hurt and angry, locked eyes with the man.
‘Who is this little lordling?’ growled the giant to the gate guards. But he spoke in Alban, and the guards spoke only Archaic. Mortirmir thought it might be too foolish to translate.
So he bowed. ‘I’m Alban,’ he said to the giant.
‘Hah!’ said the giant. He had black hair and a nose as big as a horse. ‘I’m not, little man.’ He looked down. ‘What’s your business here? Pimp?’ He eyed the armful of woman’s clothing.
Mortirmir considered a range of responses. ‘No,’ he said sullenly. ‘I brought these for a friend.’
‘Why are you standing here, then?’ asked the giant.
‘I had the password but it has been changed, and now I’m waiting for my friend to come to the gate.’ Mortirmir looked around.
‘Who gave you the password, then?’ asked the giant with a wicked smile.
‘I did,’ said Harald Derkensun. He was obviously off-duty, and wore plain clothing, a long tunic with a fancy soldier’s belt, and a short sword. ‘He brought us food – before you came and defeated the Duke.’ Harald grinned. ‘Before the new Duke defeated the traitors,’ he corrected himself.
The black-haired giant shook his head. ‘You’re the loon who killed all the assassins and cleared the throne,’ he said. ‘And found the doctor who helped the Captain. Which is to say the Duke.’
Harald spread his hands. ‘I had help.’ He smiled. ‘And this young man fetched the doctor.’
The other man bowed. ‘I’m Ser Thomas. You are in my “above suspicion” pile, and so is your friend. Now.’ He took a playing card out of his purse. ‘Name?’
‘Morgan Mortirmir, of Harndon.’
‘Well, Master Harndon, the password is Parthenos and the countersign is Athena. Your name will be on the guardroom list.’ He nodded to both men and walked rapidly away to look into a wagon led by a pair of palace Ordinaries, fresh from the butcher’s market.
‘What an arsehole,’ Mortirmir said.
Harald shook his head. ‘I disagree. He was as courteous as he needed to be. He made no threats. And these mercenaries have made the gate much safer. Twice now they have taken spies. I think you were close to being taken yourself.’
Behind Mortirmir a vicious-looking Alban with red hair said, ‘Let’s just see your bill of lading, then, laddy,’ and a young Imperial messenger translated for him. Four men began to take the wagon apart.
‘I brought Anna’s clothes,’ Mortirmir said. In fact, he realised, anyone who looked at his bundle of faded silk would know his errand.
Harald led him into the warm darkness of the Nordikan barracks, where he was jostled repeatedly by much larger men who seemed to converse by shouting at the top of their lungs. He looked into the mess hall, where two men were rolling on the floor, locked in what appeared to be mortal combat, and he looked in wonder at the magnificent carvings – knights, dragons, wolves, irks – that festooned every beam and every wooden surface.
Anna was sitting on a bed reading by the light of a pair of glassed windows set high on the wall. As soon as she saw Mortirmir, she bounced to her feet. ‘Clothes!’ she said. She came and kissed the young man, who felt himself blushing to the tips of his fingers. Anna didn’t give a chaste kiss. Even her kiss on the cheek carried a world of meaning.
When he had told them all the news he knew – the new Duke of Thrake had moved a permanent garrison into the old naval yard and the word on the street was that he intended to build ships there – he’d gone in person to visit the University . . .
‘He’s just a barbarian,’ said Anna. ‘He won’t change anything.’
He had no classes on Friday, so he went out to the ruins of the Temple of Athena and worked on his memory palace. He walked the ruins and then he began to sketch, drawing each pillar from different angles. He worked all day, filling sixty sheets of heavy papyrus with charcoal sketches that weren’t very good – but would serve as aide-memoires, and the very act of drawing them seemed to improve his mental image of the place.