“True. It takes a good man to win the drinking contest in Abelasi. But Lisutaris is powerful too.”
“Maybe. But everyone in the Guild knows she’s not always in a fit state to take care of business. Or even put on her own shoes.”
He looks at me knowingly.
“Are the authorities sending you to fix the election?”
“Absolutely not. Just to see it’s fair.”
“The Sorcerers have plenty of ways of their own to make things fair. Lasat, Axe of Gold, and Charius the Wise are running things till the new chief is elected, and no one’s going to slip anything by that pair.”
“Then I’ll have an easy time of it.”
Astrath lets it go. Like all Sorcerers, he’s a man of powerful intuition and he guesses there is probably more to my mission than I’m admitting, but he doesn’t press the point.
“So you’re reckoning on Sunstorm Ramius, Rokim the Bright and Darius Cloud Walker as the main rivals? Abelasi is small and far away, so Darius wouldn’t affect Turai much one way or another. Rokim the Bright wouldn’t be too bad, but Samsarina is a long way off. No chance of help arriving quickly if Turai is in trouble. The worst choice would be Sunstorm Ramius. It’s a long time since Turai has been friends with Simnia.”
Astrath brings me more beer. After discussing the convention for a while, we get to reminiscing about old times, and eventually I doze off on the couch. Astrath shakes me awake and points me towards the guest room. I sleep well under the Sorcerer’s roof and leave next day without waking him. My cloak has been fully recharged and keeps me warm as I tread carefully over the icy streets back to Twelve Seas.
There are few people around, though I notice several youths that I know to be dwa dealers scurrying along about their business. Nothing interferes with the dwa trade. I’m planning to stop at Minarixa’s bakery to buy some pastries for breakfast, but I’m surprised to find a small crowd outside her shop, standing and staring in spite of the cold.
A few Civil Guards are holding back the onlookers. This is worrying. I depend on Minarixa’s bakery almost as much as Tanrose’s pies. If they’ve been robbed and the ovens aren’t fired up yet it’s really going to spoil my day. I arrive just as Captain Rallee, wrapped in a black government cloak, emerges from the premises. He’s scowling.
“Trouble?”
“Trouble. Minarixa’s dead.”
I gasp. Not my favourite baker.
The crowd moan as the body is brought out wrapped in a shroud. The baker is one of Twelve Seas’ most popular characters.
“What happened?”
“Overdose,” says the Captain.
I stare at him like he’s crazy.
“An overdose? Minarixa?”
He nods.
“It can’t be. Not Minarixa. She didn’t take dwa.”
“Well, she certainly took enough last night,” says Captain Rallee.
It’s some time since I’ve seen him looking so depressed. The Civil Guards loved that baker’s shop.
I stare dumbly as Minarixa’s body is loaded on to a wagon and driven away through the falling snow, then I walk home, cursing. Word has already reached the Avenging Axe. Gurd, Tanrose and Makri are as miserable as three Niojan whores. No one can believe that our cherished baker has gone and died of an overdose.
“Such a respectable woman,” says Gurd, shaking his head. Gurd, sturdy Barbarian that he is, finds it impossible to understand why the city has been gripped by the plague of dwa.
“Why did she do it? Surely she was a happy woman?”
“She kept that bakery going through the worst times,” says Tanrose, sadly. “Orc wars, riots, even the famine. She kept it going when the True Church tried to have it made illegal for women to own businesses. I can’t believe she’s finally gone because of this.”
The event casts further gloom over Twelve Seas. Citizens already struggling with the weather, beset by poverty and surrounded by corruption curse the powdered plant that has brought so much misery in the past few years.
Makri is madder than a mad dragon at Minarixa’s death. Not because of the bakery—Makri has little enthusiasm for food—but because Minarixa was the local organiser for the Association of Gentlewomen. The Association dedicates itself to raising the status of women in Turai, and Makri supports it to the extent of helping to collect money, a thankless task in Twelve Seas. She spends a long time expressing her outrage that such a fine woman as Minarixa should succumb to a drug overdose.
“Are you going to investigate?” she demands.
I shrug.
“What’s to investigate? She took too much dwa. So did about thirty other people in Twelve Seas this week. You’ve seen the bodies.”
Makri is furious. When Captain Rallee calls in late in the evening for a beer to unwind after a hard day, she demands to know what he’s going to do about the death.
“Nothing,” replies the Captain, gloomily.
“Why not? Shouldn’t you be arresting whoever sold her the dwa?”
“How? You think we could find a witness? Or make anything stick in court? No chance. All the dwa trade is controlled by the Brotherhood and no one’s going to give evidence against them. Anyway, you arrest one dwa dealer and another appears on the street before the day is out.”
“I’ve never seen you arresting even one,” says Makri.
Captain Rallee shifts uncomfortably. Makri’s right, but it’s not the Captain’s fault. He’s as honest as they come but his superiors aren’t. The Brotherhood have far too much influence for a captain of the Civil Guards to tangle with them.
“I’m as outraged as you about Minarixa. But no one is going to pay for her death. That’s just the way it is.”
“If I meet her dealer I’m going to gut him,” says Makri.
“Fine with me,” says Captain Rallee. “I’ll be happy to look the other way.”
“I hate this place,” says Makri, and goes upstairs to read some mathematics treatise and curse the weather, the Brotherhood and everything else in Turai. Makri escaped from the Orcish gladiator slave pits a couple of years ago, an event involving such incredible carnage that the Orcs still talk of it with awe. She made her way over to Turai on hearing tales of its fine cultural tradition, but while she admits that Turai does contain a great amount of art and learning, she refuses to admit that our level of civilisation is much better than the Orcs. Sometimes I’m inclined to agree with her, though in the Orc-hating city of Turai, it’s not an opinion I’d voice in public.
Dwa is now plaguing all the Human lands. A few months ago on Avula I discovered that it was starting to make inroads into Elvish society. It’s said the Orcs encourage the trade, to weaken us. If that’s true, it’s a good plan. It’s working.
Captain Rallee buys me a beer, not a common event, though the Captain and I go back a long way. We don’t get on as well as we used to but we’ve still got some kind of connection. We drink to the baker.
“Congratulations on finding the dragon-scale thief,” says Rallee.
He must be emotional. The last time the Captain complimented me on anything, I’d just killed an Orc and tossed him from the city walls, which was sixteen years ago at least.
“What’s this I hear about you being some sort of government official?”
I explain to him that Cicerius is making me a Tribune of the People.
“What the hell is that?”
“Some old post that used to exist a hundred and fifty years ago.”