David Drake: Reformer

"I keep expecting to see the city over the next rise," Esmond said, on the fifth week of their journey.

Adrian grinned. "We're in the city," he said. "Have been for hours."

Esmond gaped, then looked around. The truck-gardens of yesterday had given way to elegant suburban estates; most of the road was lined with high walls of brick and concrete, usually whitewashed, broken here and there by an elaborate gate of wrought iron and brass. Each gate had at least two direbeasts on chains guarding it, their heads all mouth and the great overlapping pairs of canines often tipped with bronze or steel. The human guardians in the gatehouses were sometimes chained to the walls by their ankles as well; it made the slogans set in tiles by the entrances — Welcome or Hail Hospitality — seem a little hollow.

Of course, that means hospitality for their own kind, Adrian thought.

"What can you expect," he said, "from a people who have a word in their language that means 'kill every tenth person'? And who think their first ancestors were nursed by a direbeast."

There was no edge to Vanbert of the type they were familiar with, no wall marking the place where city gave way to country. Not even the fringe of grave-memorials that ringed an Emerald city, since Confederates burned their dead and kept the ashes with the living in little pots under their wax masks — something he'd always considered rather gruesome, but then as Bestmun said, "Custom was king in every land." The suburbs grew thicker, the traffic denser, and above them rose the famous eight hills; and those were only higher places among the buildings that carpeted the land for more than a day's journey in every direction. Virtually the only breaks in the spread of buildings were the small groves that surrounded temples — usually round with pointed roofs here, or domes on some of the more recent — or the courtyards of the very wealthy; even the drained swamplands that had once helped feed an earlier Vanbert were built over.

"Dull, though," Esmond said critically, as they led their velipads aside to let a wagon loaded with column drums pass. "Brick, little shops — nothing really magnificent."

"We just haven't seen that part yet," Adrian said.

The street they were on didn't look like much in truth. It was five-story, brick-and-concrete apartments, remarkable only for their size; between the arches on their ground floors were shops. Bakers' shops, or so he thought until he saw the lead chits the ragged-looking patrons exchanged for big round loaves. Bread dole, he thought sourly. Our taxes at work. Others were taverns, or little restaurants with soup kettles sunk into the stone of the counters, or tailors' shops, or cubicles where shoemakers fitted their customers and then worked with awl and waxed thread and tapping hammer while they waited. Or others selling sharp-smelling cheese, or hanging birds and rabbits, or anonymous lumps of flesh. The crowds might just as well have been from an Emerald city, save that their tunics covered both shoulders and that women wore less and walked more boldly.

And the size of the crowds. "A million people in Vanbert, they say," Adrian muttered. A thought struck him. "How in the name of the Lame Craftsman are we going to find this Redvers fellow?"

Esmond's face paled as he looked around. That wasn't a problem in Solinga — even if you didn't know the city, you could just take your bearings from the High City temple roofs or the docks. Nowhere was more than a half-hour walk from anywhere else within the walls, after all. Vanbert didn't even have the right-angled network of streets of the newer Confed towns, it was too ancient, and its roadways had been laid out as greatbeast tracks.

here is a map,Center said helpfully. take the following turnings.

"How did you suddenly become an expert on the streets of Vanbert?" Esmond asked an hour later.

Adrian grinned. "The Gods of Wisdom whisper in my ear," he said, looking up at the high blank wall of the mansion; only slits on the upper stories and an iron-strapped borkwood door faced the street, with a surly-looking ex-games fighter lounging by it, tapping his brass-bound club against the pavement to discourage loiterers.

They dismounted and walked towards the gate. "Let's go find our fortunes," Esmond said.

And change the world, Raj whispered.

* * *

"Yer'll hafta keep that higher, m'lady," the trainer said, the point of his spear touching lightly at the base of his pupil's throat.

Helga Demansk nodded curtly and raised the small round shield as they backed and circled. The sword in her hand was an old Emerald model, forged for her of Solinga steel, single-edged except for a handspan on the reverse back from the point, and about as long as her leg from mid-thigh to toes. The hilt was sawfish hide, good for a grip, even with the fingerless chamois leather gloves her father insisted she wear — if she was to have a personal trainer at all. A bell-shaped guard of pierced bronze protected her hand; that and the shield were her only burden save for a short tunic. The trainer wore a leather corselet and brass helmet with a faceguard; his spear was tipped with a mock head of hide, but Helga's sword was sharpened to a knife edge.

That didn't worry him. He'd been a games fighter for fifteen years, and lived to see retirement before he slowed down too much. The full-busted, auburn-haired good looks of the young woman across from him were more of a distraction than her sword, although she really wasn't bad. The looks could kill him just as dead as a blade, if he forgot himself — she was Justiciar Demansk's daughter, after all. You didn't survive the games that long without learning self-control, though, and he had a couple of very nice little servant girls attending to his needs. This post was a retired fighter's dream, and he wasn't about to risk it for a pair of titties, no matter how nice they looked heaving away there with the thin cotton sticking to them.

Both fighters moved, bare feet scuffing the packed sandy dirt of the training shed. The sun was hot outside, coming in shafts of white-gold light through the gaps between the timbers that upheld the roof. He feinted with a one-two, felt the shiver as the spear shaft was turned aside, beat the point of the sword out of line with his own weapon.

"That's right, missie!" he cried. "Keep 'em moving together ."

Really not bad at all. If she weren't a nobleman's daughter, she might actually do for the games — matching female pairs against each other was a staple sidelight of the more elaborate games these days, despite how some of the magistrates huffed and puffed about it. And she kept at it, too, the better part of a year now, back in Vanbert and on this country estate in the westlands.

"Faster — keep it smooth. Push at me, get inside the spear's point!"

It was the screams that alerted him. Far too many of them, long and high; and underneath, something else, a harsh guttural shouting. He froze, and if Helga hadn't pulled the blow the sword might have laid open his right arm. "What is it?" she said, stepping back and breathing hard.

"Pirates," he said shortly, tossing aside the practice weapon. There were real spears racked by the door; he took one in his shield hand, and a couple of javelins.

"How—"

"I know Islander." He'd known men who spoke it, in the games — slaves, mostly, and freedmen who'd done well. That was an Islander war cry, and they were within a day's march of the coast — closer, if you counted rivers, and an Islander galley could run far up into the shallows. "Let's go , woman!"

She quieted; he opened the door a crack and peered out. They were a couple of hundred yards or so from the main building, a big open house with tall windows sparkling with an extravagance of glass, colonnades that looked out to the gardens rather than inward to a courtyard like a townhouse. He could hear more screams now, and men's laughter, and see figures moving about. . sparkles in the sun. Light from blade edges, and from the metal studs of light Islander-style armor, much like what he was wearing himself. A man with a tall fountain of plumes on his helmet seemed to be directing things as they dragged out armloads of loot from the house. Others were shepherding the house slaves into a clump, and some raiders were bringing out animals and carts from the business part of the plantation, down past a clump of cypress trees.