While many of us would prefer to see a complete change of dynasty, we might settle for a change of Imperial incumbent, since that would at least enable those newly ennobled Houses so dependent on Tor Decabral patronage to cover their treachery with a modest veil of continued loyalty to the Name. The year that opens with the dawn so rapidly approaching promises to be an interesting one.
The D’Olbriot Residence Gatehouse,
Summer Solstice Festival, Fourth Day, Morning
Shapeless horrors crushed me, faceless and formless, weaving a nightmare of inexorable, suffocating foulness out of my inarticulate terror.
“Chosen Tathel?” The soft but insistent knock at the door was repeated. “Ryshad?”
I woke with a start, and for one choking moment it seemed the torment had come too, breaking out of my dreams to smother me. Then I realised someone had come in during the night and drawn the bed curtains closed around me, doubtless meaning to be kind. My heart slowed from its chest-bursting race.
“Yes?” I wished a silent pox on the uninvited curtain puller and for whoever was waking me up.
“There’s a note.” The door muffled the voice.
Ripping back the curtains, I went to untie the latchstring. One of Stolley’s newer lads held out a neatly sealed letter addressed in sloping Lescari script. He hovered hopefully, waiting for me to open the subtly fragrant folds.
“That’ll be all, thanks.” I took the note with a grin and shut the door on his disappointed face. Leaning against it, I closed my eyes. Just at that moment, all I really wanted was one morning when I could sleep myself out, when I didn’t have to get up for anything, not fire, flood or Poldrion’s demons raising havoc round the residence.
Snapping the wax seal, I read the few terse lines from Charoleia. She’d be taking the air on the old ramparts between the second and third chimes of the day, would she? I’d better get up there. I threw the window open, welcoming fresh air in to drive out the last remnants of nightmare and made myself presentable, hampered by a hand stiffened to near immobility. Unstrapping it showed me puffy knuckles dark with deep bruises. The cursed thing had kept me awake even after all my exertions, even after that highly uncomfortable interview with the Sieur well past midnight. I’d finally given in and taken a cup of tahn tea from Naer and I was paying for that now with a foul mouth and woolly wits, not to mention the horrors that had got through my sleeping guard.
This was no time for me to be less than fighting fit, I concluded reluctantly, rebandaging it as best I could one handed and resisting the temptation to scratch the stitches that were itching as the cursed things always do. I’d have to ask Demoiselle Avila for some healing. Temar was right, loath as I was to admit it. I couldn’t turn down help I needed just because it came from Artifice. I only hoped the lady would be in a better mood this morning. She and the Sieur had arrived at nearly the same moment the night before, and the last I’d seen of Temar, Avila had been scolding him back to the residence, her consternation at the loss of the artefacts blistering his ears.
But the housemaids wouldn’t even have unshuttered Avila’s windows yet, so that would have to wait. I walked out of the gatehouse, sorely tempted to send round to the stables for a coach. No, the fewer people who knew what I was about the better. At least it was all downhill to the Spring Gate, and once I’d climbed the steps to the walls of the old city I had a cool salt-tinted breeze to clear my head.
As with most things, the old walls of Toremal hold up an example many lesser cities would have been wise to follow. Cities like Solland and Moretayne are both protected by a ring of masonry topped with a parapet three men wide, watch turrets set at every angle. But Solland fell to Lescari raids three times in the days of Aleonne the Resolute, and Aldabreshin pirates sailed forty leagues up river to raze Moretayne to the ground. It took Decabral the Pitiless to burn the isles of the eastern coast to barren ashes and finally drive the Archipelagans out.
The walls of Toremal have never been breached, not even in the worst excesses of the Chaos. On the outer face an immense wall of massive stones carries towers at regular intervals, each big enough to hold a fighting troop and close enough to reinforce its neighbours. They’re backed with a colossal rampart of raised earth, levelled and reinforced in turn by an inner wall, the finest work any mason will see inside a season’s travel. Three men can walk abreast round the walls of Solland or Moretayne; three coaches can drive abreast round Toremal’s rampart.
But I was too early for the elegant gigs and smartly groomed horses that carry the wealthy and fashionable around the walls in these peaceable times. The nobility don’t lead their cohorts in defence of the walls these days, they come to see and be seen, to flaunt their status and compete with their rivals far above the heads of the common folk. The serious business of socialising would start when the heat of the day had passed, so this early in the morning the rampart was deserted but for a few individuals taking a walk. I followed the neatly swept earthen path, grass on either side clipped short around fragrant trees planted to shade benches for discreet conversation or safe flirtation. Passing the sharply pitched roofs of the old city on the one hand and the sprawling mass of newer building on the other, I looked briefly inside the Flemmane tower. Along with several others, it had been transformed into an elegant summerhouse where a lady might take a tisane or perhaps a little chilled wine carried up by dutiful servants.
There was no one inside. Where was Charoleia? I finally found her as the ramparts approached the Handsel Gate, where the Prime way leaves the city for the road to the north. Her elegance was unmistakable even draped in a sedate dun cloak. She was talking to some maidservant clutching a creamy shawl over a brown gown smudged with ash. I walked past, pausing some way beyond to examine a statue. It turned out to be Tyrial, Sieur D’Estabel, Adjurist to the Convocation of Princes under Bezaemar the Canny. I’d never heard of him.
“Good morning.” Charoleia appeared at my side. “I’m sorry I wasn’t at home when your message came.”
I smiled at her. “This morning’s soon enough.”
“Shall we walk?” She looked for me to offer a gentlemanly arm.
I did so with some reluctance. “Please mind my hand.”
She tucked her hand lightly through my elbow. “I heard about your exploits in the practice ground. Most impressive.”
I wondered if she were teasing me. “Have you heard anything? Who put out the challenge in my name?”
“I’ve heard nothing beyond discreet satisfaction that you put Den Thasnet’s man down. That’s not a popular Name at present.” Charoleia shook dark hair dressed loose in glossy ringlets and I caught the same alluring, elusive scent that had perfumed her letter. She wore a light, rose-coloured gown beneath her cloak and a single ruby ring graced her delicate hand. “So what did you want? Your boy told Arashil it was urgent.”
A Relshazri name; that must be the maid. “Thieves broke into the residence last night. We snagged one, the other got away and, Dast drown it, he was the one with the loot.”
“Naturally.” Charoleia’s fingers tightened. “What do you want of me?” She was looking apparently idly from side to side, her shrewd violet eyes marking every individual taking the morning air up here.
“We had valuable artefacts stolen, Old Empire work.” I hesitated. “They’re bound to the colony and its enchantments. We have to find them if we’re to restore those still sunk in sleep.”
“So when you say valuable, you actually mean priceless?” Charoleia turned guileless eyes to me, framed in the flawless beauty of her face.