Mark Lawrence - The Liar's key

“Hello?” Nobody stood in attendance and the door lay half-open.

No answer.

“Hello?” I leaned in. “It’s me. Jalan.”

The lump on the bed turned ponderously. With a sigh and an effort that set him trembling Garyus raised his head, as ugly and misshapen as I recalled, but older and more tired.

“Young Jalan.”

“I’m back.” I took the chair by the bed and sat down uninvited. With the curtain drawn I could make out little save for the furniture.

“I’m glad of it.” He smiled, his lips wet, a trail of drool drying on his chin, but a genuine smile.

“You’re the only one.” I bent to rub my toes, still smarting from kicking the wall. “Grandmother just roared me out of the throne room over some key. .”

“Loki’s key.” It didn’t seem to be a question. Garyus watched me with mild eyes.

“Probably going to be Kelem’s key soon enough.” A silence stretched. “Kelem is-”

“I know who he is,” Garyus said. “Anyone with business interests knows old Kelem. Not so many years ago it might just as well have been his face on every coin of Empire.”

“And now? I thought he owned every bank in Florence.” What was it Snorri had said? Something about the beating heart of commerce.

“They call him the father of the banking clans, but if a father lives too long his children are apt to turn on him.” With effort Garyus waved his arm at correspondence piled on the desk behind his bed. “There’s trouble brewing in Umbertide. Finance houses seeking new partners. Some have even looked as far as the Drowned Isles. These are interesting times, Jalan, interesting times.”

“The Drowned Isles? The Dead King is interested in gold as well as corpses?”

Garyus shrugged. “One often follows the other.” He lay back, rasping in a breath, apparently exhausted.

“Are you. .” I hunted for the right word, obviously he wasn’t “well.” “Can I get someone for you?”

“Tired, Jalan. Old and tired and broken. I. . should sleep.” He closed his eyes. There were a thousand questions I’d wanted to ask him on my journey. But now, seeing him frail and ancient none of them seemed so pressing. Quite how we ended up talking about banks I wasn’t entirely sure but I hadn’t the heart to challenge him over any of my suspicions-they seemed silly now I sat here before him.

“Sleep then, Uncle.” Almost a whisper. I turned to go.

He spoke once more as I stepped through the door, voice thick with dreams. “I am glad. . to see you, Jalan. . knew you had it in you, boy.”

• • •

“Just you and me for the now, boys.”

Ronar and Todd waited for me, lounging in the shade, at ease in the way only old soldiers can manage. They seemed neither excited nor disappointed by the news, simply straightening themselves up and preparing to move out. They didn’t look much, both grey, grizzled and carrying pot bellies, and I didn’t expect much of them either, remembering how quickly they faded away that last time in the Blood Holes when Maeres Allus came over for a word.

Off we set, through the Surgeons Gate out into the sullen heat of late afternoon, a dirty haze above the city’s roofs and a threat of distant thunderheads clustering above the Gonella Hills to the south. I felt somewhat deflated, but there’s nothing like a skin-full of wine to reflate a man’s ego, so I led my guards out along the Corelli Line which mirrors the curves of the Seleen, set back on a ridge from where the waters can be glimpsed between the houses. Merchant dwellings and the town houses of minor aristocracy give way in time to the squares and plazas of Little Venice, divided and bracketed by innumerable canals. We crossed a few of the many humped bridges and came to the Grapes of Roth, a wine-house I knew well. Old Roth had died years ago but his sons inherited his flair for selecting good vintages and keeping the hoi polloi out.

“Prince Jalan!” The elder son danced between the tables, graceful despite the swing and sway of his belly. “We thought you had abandoned us!”

“Never!” I let him guide me in and draw out a chair for me at one of the reserved tables near the centre beneath high awnings. “Not even death could keep me from your hospitality, Marco!”

“What can I bring you, my prince?” A genial smile on fat and pockmarked cheeks. The man generated a miasma of good humour, his ugliness somehow charming, and if the fact that I owed him the best part of fifty crowns in gold bothered him. . well none of it showed on the surface.

“A good Rhonish red,” I said.

“Ah, your tastes have broadened, Prince Jalan! But all Rhonish reds are good. Which to choose? Bayern? Ilar Valley? Chamy-Nix? Don P-”

“Chamy-Nix.”

“As you say.” And with a bow he was off. Soon a boy would be scurrying to the cellars in search of my wine.

I leaned back. Todd and Ronar had taken themselves to the shade of a large maple not far outside the part of the plaza roped off for Roth’s customers. The slow ebb and flow of the world passed by as shadows lengthened. My wine came and I sipped it, washing the flavour over my tongue. Relaxed, warm, safe, respected. It should have felt better than it did. After a while the wine began to erode my sense of discontent but from time to time I would see some or other long and rolling horizon from my travels, stretching away, full of secrets waiting to unfold. I tried to shake off the sensation and remind myself how awful it had been from beginning to end.

“Prince Jalan! How are you? You must tell us about your adventures.” A man, catching my eye from a neighbouring table. I frowned a moment taking him in, thin, weasel-like, balding, a port-wine stain beneath his eye as if he’d been crying blood. . Bonarti Poe! A dreadful social climber and a fellow I would normally cut dead, but lacking company, and remembering how pretty his sister was, I gave him the slightest nod and with a twitch of my finger beckoned him and his cronies over.

Before Roth’s sons had the lamps lit I was in my cups, a bottle and a half to the good, and lying my way through the first leg of my trek north. I steered clear of unsettling detail and made no mention of the Dead King, but even so surprised myself by discovering that for once the lies were merely window-dressing and the truth provided a decent backbone to the tale.

“Two dozen of the brigands, pursuing us up into mountains as steep as any you’ll find around the Aral Pass!” I drained my goblet, shaping the mountains in question with my spare hand. “Edris Dean at their head-as foul a murderer as ever-”

The conversation waned around me, not dying as if a man had walked in carrying a severed head, but fading as if every person there suddenly didn’t want to be noticed. From the looks on the faces around me, all aimed my way, I thought for a moment that perhaps Edris Dean was standing behind me exactly as I had described him.

“Prince Jalan, how good to see you.” A soft voice, slightly nasal, one might almost call it boring.

I turned, having to crane my neck awkwardly. “Maeres Allus.” I managed not to stammer, though immediately I felt as though I were tied to that table of his, waiting for Cutter John to redesign my face with a sharp little knife.

“Don’t let me disturb you, my prince.” Maeres laid one of his small and neatly manicured hands upon my shoulder. “I just wanted to welcome you back from your travels. I believe that Count Isen is to pay a call to the Roma Hall tomorrow, but if you are available after that then it would be a pleasure to see you at the Blood Holes again and discuss matters of business.”

The gentle pressure lifted and Maeres moved away without waiting for a reply. He left me feeling uncomfortably sober and all of a sudden wishing for the security of the palace walls.