The smell of fresh bread, exquisite and unique, loaded the air with value, and the two men instinctively looked up. ‘Our fault for dawdling,’ said the prefect. ‘And I refuse to be seen trotting through the streets like a runaway donkey. We’ll just have to accept that we’ve missed the best of the day.’
They quickened their pace; but by the time they reached the bakers’ arcade, the pyramids of warm, pristine loaves were already looking battered and worn, like the walls of a city bombarded by heavy engines. ‘When we rebuild Perimadeia,’ muttered the administrator, scowling, ‘we’ll have at least five bakers’ arcades, all baking at different times. That way, we won’t have to be so very critical in our timing.’
The prefect grinned. ‘But if you do that,’ he said, ‘you’ll spoil the whole experience. If you guarantee satisfaction, you deprive yourself of the joy of uncertain attainment.’
‘If you say so,’ the administrator said, sounding less than convinced. ‘Personally, all I want is to be sure of getting really fresh bread.’
‘Of course. What on earth could be more important than that?’
The post-coach was running late; an extraordinary thing, only partly accounted for by the increased volume of traffic on the road caused by the war. In the back among the luggage, and feeling remarkably like a sack of turnips, Niessa Loredan nursed a bad headache.
She neither knew nor cared where she was. It was far too hot, the coach had managed to find every last pothole and rut with a diligence that would have been admirable in some other context, and her bladder was making her feel distinctly uncomfortable. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she was cursed with a travelling companion who simply wouldn’t stop talking, or rather shouting. It was enough to make her wish she’d stayed in Scona and taken her chances with the halberdiers.
The annoying woman had managed to get the impression, gods know where from, that Niessa wanted to know her name. ‘You may find this rather complicated, ’ she was saying, ‘being an outlander. Let me see, now. If I was a man I’d be Iasbar Hulyan Ap’ Daic – Iasbar for me, Hulyan for my father, Ap’ Daic for where my mother was born. Because I’m a woman, I’m plain Iasbar Ap’ Cander; the same idea, but Ap’ Cander because that’s where my husband was born. If I’d never been married, I’d still be Hulyan Iasbar Ap’ Escatoy, which was where I was born. Don’t worry if it sounds confusing,’ she added, ‘it takes foreigners a lifetime to get used to the nuances.’
Niessa grunted and turned her head, trying to give the impression that she found the view (sandhills topped wth scruffy tussocks of dry white grass) unbearably fascinating. The annoying woman didn’t seem to have noticed.
‘Now I expect you’re wondering,’ she went on, ‘what I’m doing hitching a ride on the post-coach; well, it’s the last thing I ever imagined I’d do, but ever since my son – that’s my middle son; my eldest is at home, of course, he inherited the estate when my husband died and he’s a musician, people are beginning to think quite highly of him, and my youngest son’s in the army, still quite junior, of course, he’s aide de camp to this Colonel Ispel everybody’s talking about as the new commander-in-chief in the west; but my middle son, Poriset, he’s the chief administrator of the arms factory at Ap’ Calick – not a particularly interesting job, as he’s the first to admit, but he’s the youngest man ever to be appointed to a position of such seniority so I suppose it’s quite a feather in his cap, and if he does well there, increases output or cuts costs or whatever you’re supposed to do if you run a factory, he did explain it to me once but I’m such a scatterbrain – and so of course he can arrange for me to ride on the post-coach whenever I go to visit him and his wife – did I mention he’s only just got married? Quite a nice girl, though I don’t really think he’s ideally suited to someone that quiet; still, it was his choice and he’s such a serious young man, I’m sure he gave it an awful lot of thought and weighed up the pros and cons-’
Niessa closed her eyes and tried to block out the noise. It was all wasted on her, of course; she’d been in the banking business long enough to recognise a spy when she saw one. The duty spy, presumably; doomed to bounce up and down this hateful road day after day, year after year, as a matter of standard operating procedure. She really wasn’t very good at it; somebody’s aunt, at a guess, for whom a job had to be found. For want of anything better to do, Niessa spent a few minutes assessing the feasibility of pushing her off the coach under the wheels – she ought to have enough physical strength to manage it, but making it look like an accident was problematical, at best. Telling her to shut up would be more straightforward, but she’d learned enough recently about the Sons of Heaven to know that offending any of them was a bad idea. When I was afraid they’d torture me, I had no idea they could be so insidious. Or so damned thorough.
‘I need a piss,’ she growled. ‘Do you know how to make them stop the coach? Otherwise I’m just going to have to pee all over the floor.’
That shut her up, the miserable bitch. Niessa felt better already. If only they could have discussed things openly at the start, she could have pointed out that the homely woman-to-woman-chat approach was going to be counterproductive in her case; they could have chosen something far less tiresome from the woman’s repertoire of personas, and it might even have been mildly entertaining.
‘I’m afraid not,’ the spy replied in a little muted voice that barely rose above a shriek. ‘It’s dreadful, the way they just don’t think about such things. I mean, it wouldn’t kill them to have a jerry or even just an old jar or something. I think I’ll get my son to do something about it.’
In spite of herself, Niessa couldn’t help admiring the fluency of her recovery. Maybe they did have something in common, professional to professional. Now if only they could talk on that level, one woman of the world to another, it might be quite interesting.
‘So tell me,’ Niessa said. ‘How long have you been a spy?’
The woman stared at her, then shook her head. ‘What an extraordinary thing to say-’ she began, but Niessa was gazing straight into her eyes. ‘You must be Niessa Loredan,’ she said. ‘I was told you’d be coming through at some stage.’
‘You know about me, then.’
The woman laughed. ‘The notorious witch of the outlands? I should say so. Not that I believe in all that stuff myself, but there are plenty who do. Outlanders, of course,’ she added quickly. ‘You’re much older than I’d expected; I suppose that’s what put me off.’
‘Thank you very much,’ Niessa replied. ‘And for the record, I’m not a witch, I’m a banker. There’s no such thing as witchcraft, as you well know.’
The coach went over a particularly deep pothole, and Niessa felt her teeth crash together. ‘You must have offended somebody, to be given this job,’ she said. ‘Getting shaken to bits like this has got to be some kind of punishment.’
The woman shrugged. ‘You’re not that far off the mark, actually,’ she said. ‘Promoted sideways, at any rate. And to answer your question, five years. Before that I was an office manager in the prefecture at Ap’ Escatoy. That was a good job, I didn’t mind it at all, but I’d been in it too long; wouldn’t do for a Daughter of Heaven with my seniority to be in a job where I might have an outlander for a superior. So here I am.’