Mark Lawrence - The Liar's key

“Fascinating.” Or at least marginally less dull than watching the back of the neck of the Nuban in front of me, a fat fellow smelling of unfamiliar spices. “Still, I’d prefer a man of flesh and blood as my bodyguard.”

“A sword-son, Prince Jalan. Buy the contract of a sword-son. You’ll find no finer protector. At least not one that bleeds.”

I made a note to invest in the services of a sword-son. Given that my profits all depended upon a “system” for delaying the payment of taxes and transaction charges via a complex network of traders and sub-traders, all of whom existed only on the forms necessary for their part in my scheme, it seemed likely that I would soon need to turn my paper money into gold and leave the city unobserved. If my timing proved to be off then I might very well need someone to bleed for me-because I was damned sure I didn’t want to do the bleeding myself.

Summer rests upon Umbertide’s rooftops, sizzling on the terracotta, dazzling across whitewashed walls where lizards cling, motionless, waiting as all of the city waits, for the sun to fall.

• • •

For three nights the same dream haunted me, making those that had recurred during the three weeks before seem mild in comparison. By day I felt a modicum of distress about Hennan-I’d liked the boy and hadn’t wished any harm to him, but I hadn’t signed on as his guardian or adopted him into the Kendeth family. The child had run off, as many children do, and it was hardly my duty to hunt him down amid the vastness of the Broken Empire.

Apparently my conscience disagreed-though only past midnight. Three mornings in a row I woke exhausted and harrowed by endless visions of Hennan in torment. Most often I saw him captured, many hands seizing him and dragging him screaming into the dark. I saw him curled about his misery on a filthy floor, ragged, little more than bones wrapped tight in a pale skin, the fire gone from his hair, eyes dull and seeing nothing.

On the first morning I hired an investigator to hunt for the boy. I had the money for it, money by the bucket-load.

On the second morning I paid a priest to say prayers and light candles for Hennan, though I was far from sure whether a few candles would induce God to watch out for a heathen.

On the third morning I decided that having a conscience was definitely over-rated and resolved to see a doctor in order to obtain some form of medication for my ailment. Worrying about other people, especially some peasant boy from the wilds, wasn’t me at all.

• • •

Umbertide is a city of narrow alleys, whose cobbles are lit but briefly when at the zenith of each day the sun dips its fingers deep into each crevice and cranny. Along these shadowed ways men come and go about their business-their business being other people’s business. These messengers bound on errands, bearing credit notes, invoices, transactions recorded and notarized, bring with them droplets of information, rumour, scandal and intrigue, and draw together to form a river, flowing from one archive to the next, filling and emptying vaults. You would think the blood of Umbertide gold but it runs ink-black: information holds more value and is easier to carry.

And today one among those many men was bound upon my business, carrying, I hoped, some small fact valuable to me.

The restaurant door opened and after some negotiations amid a huddle of waiters the maître d’ led a tall thin man, still wrapped in the blackness of his street-cloak, to my table.

“Sit.” I waved a hand at the chair opposite. He smelled of sweat and spice. “Try the quails’ eggs, they’re wonderfully. . expensive.” I’d been pushing an exquisite meal around three highly decorated Ling plates for some while now. Caviar from Steppes sturgeons, tiny anchovies in plum sauce, artistically spattered across the porcelain, mushrooms stuffed with garlic and chives, thin strips of cured ham. . none of it appealed, though it would require a full piece of crown gold to pay the bill.

The man took his seat and turned a face, as long and angular as his body toward me, ignoring the eggs.

“I found him. Debtors’ cells for Central, over on Piatzo.”

“Excellent.” Irritation wrestled relief. Damned if I knew why I’d wasted good money on an investigator-I could have guessed he’d end up behind bars somewhere. But a debtors’ prison? “You’re sure it’s him?”

“We don’t get many northerners in Umbertide-well, not pale-as-milk, godless heathen northerners anyway, and not like him.” He pushed a small roll of parchment across the table. “The address and his case number. Let me know if I can be of further service.” And with that he stood, a waiter swooping to escort him from the premises.

I uncoiled the parchment and stared at the number as if it might unravel the path that led a penniless child to a debtors’ cell, or perhaps even answer the more vexing question-why I had wasted both time and money hunting him down? At least it had turned out to be surprisingly quick and easy to find him. The next thing to do was to set him up safe and secure somewhere he wouldn’t run away from. Then perhaps I could recover from my inconvenient and thankfully rare attack of conscience.

The year I spent at the Mathema had armed me with the expectation that numbers held secrets, but had failed to give me the tools to reveal them. I’d been a poor student and the minor mathmagicians tasked with my training soon despaired of me. The only corner of numbers that I had any purchase on were odds-born from my love of gambling. Probability theory, the Libans called it, and managed to suck most of the joy out of that too.

“98-3-8-3-6-6-81632.”

Just numbers. The Central Bank? I’d thought to find Hennan dead in a ditch or chained to a bench in some workshed. . but not a guest of the Firenze Central Bank.

I stayed a while longer, watching the diners devour a small fortune, unable to tell how many of them were truly enjoying the over-salted delectables arranged in sparse displays across their platters.

I turned to signal for another glass of Ancrath red. There’s a noise that coins make when they move across each other, not quite a chinking, not quite a rustle. Gold coins make a softer sound than copper or silver. In Florence they mint florins, heavier than the ducat or the crown gold of Red March, and in Umbertide they also mint the double florin, stamped not with the head of any king, not with Adam, third of his name and last of the emperors, nor yet with any symbol of Empire-just the cipher of the Central Bank. That soft chink of gold on gold, double florins sliding over double florins, accompanied my motion when signing for more wine, and, though it made no more than a whisper beneath the currents of conversation, several pairs of eyes turned my way. Gold always speaks loudly and nowhere are ears more tuned to its voice than in Umbertide.

Most of the people at their lunch were moderns, driven like all of Umbertide by the ebb and flow of fashions that changed with bewildering speed. Where fashion pertained to garments the only constants in Umbertide style were that it would be uncomfortable, expensive, and not resemble clothing.

I looked down at the number again. I should let him stew while I finished my meal. Under ideal circumstances I should let the ungrateful urchin spend another month on stale water and scraps. I munched a quail’s egg, gazing out over the small sea of multi-tiered hats angled over plates. Apparently it was the fashion not to remove them to dine-at least for this week. I didn’t have a month though. The time had come to leave town and delaying even a day could prove risky.

With a sigh I pushed myself away from the table, placed a cut florin beside the main plate, and left. The gold secreted all about my person chinked quietly to itself and the excess, stowed in the case in my hand, did its best to pull my arm off.