Jeff Salyards - Scourge of the Betrayer

I tried to remove that image from my mind as quickly as possible as I said to Braylar, “But I’m still confused as to how she came to be in your company.”

He replied, “After I learned of her interview with the underpriest, I wanted to speak with her myself. The whoremaster wasn’t keen on this idea, but-” He patted Bloodsounder, “I can be quite persuasive.”

Mulldoos said, “Coin only goes so far.”

“So, having gained an audience with said stumpy, nubby whore, I began to press for her for more details about her conversation with the underpriest.”

I asked, “Why?” Braylar raised an eyebrow at the interruption and threw a scowl my way. “That is, why were you interested, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I do,” Braylar replied as we rolled past the Plum Temple. “I will tell you only this-the debaucherous High Priest was someone we were already interested in, for reasons that need not concern you just now. So, I spoke with her, and learned that she’d been close to another whore who’d recently been procured from the silk station by the underpriest. According to Lloi, the prostitutes Henlester took an interest in didn’t meet a happy end. Satisfied with the information I had, I rose to leave. But I didn’t make it to the door.”

I asked the obvious question. “Why not?”

Mulldoos interjected before Braylar could respond. “Cap forgot to mention something on the important side. He was light in the company just then. And he’d done some bloody persuading a few days prior.”

It took me a moment before piecing it together. “So, you used Bloodsounder and had no one who could… tend to you?”

Mulldoos whistled, “Came by that all on your lonesome, did you?”

“That’s correct,” Braylar said. “The effects were becoming worse. I stumbled and barely made it to the bed, my head bursting with bright lights, my stomach tearing in two. Lloi knelt next to me. I ordered her to fetch the whoremaster, but she ignored me. She looked me up and down, in that very disconcerting way she has. I’d had minor episodes before, but this was something far worse. I was paralyzed with pain, and blacked out. I don’t know how long I was out, but when I was fully aware again, the pain was gone, and Lloi was slumped in the corner, vomit on her chin. I wasn’t sure what she’d done, or how she’d done it, but I knew she had to come with me.”

“So,” I said, “You bought her. Freed her from the station.”

“I did. Immediately.”

Mulldoos must have seen the disappointment on my face. “You thinking he did it out of the sunny goodness in his heart, were you?” He laughed, shaking his head. “No whetstone in the world’ll fix that for you.” He flicked his reins and rode further ahead. Traveling with the Syldoon would surely scour away any naive or romantic notions I might have once possessed.

As we approached the first gate tower, we slowed down, and then stopped repeatedly, as all of the traffic on our side of the river funneled through two entryways, one narrow to accommodate those on foot, horse, or donkey, and another wide, for those with carts and wagons. It was midday, so there appeared to be an equal number of people leaving and entering the city, shouldering past each other, swearing about being swindled, chattering with excitement about seeing things and people from far-flung lands.

A group of musicians passed us on foot heading away from Alespell, one with two small drums on a belt at his waist, another bearing a lute on his back, one with a fiddle, and another with a long bone pipe. One member didn’t have any instruments, but the arms of Baron Brune were embroidered on his tabard, three white swans on a purple field.

I’d seen a fair crier before, but never a whole musical ensemble. I said as much, and Glesswik echoed the sentiment, though more crudely. “Scribe’s got it right there. Dirty rustics don’t give a rat’s shithole about a bunch of pretty troubadours. They come to the fair on account of three things: cheap wine, cheaper whores, and the chance to be layabouts instead of tilling some field. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Vendurro replied, “You forgot dice, weird beasts in cages, and maybe a hung thief or three, for entertainment.”

“Still don’t need songs for any of that. That’s all I’m getting at. Baron would’ve been better served with some signs tacked up with a picture of a whore’s cunt and an arrow pointing this way.”

Perhaps being raised by a loose mother with a mercenary bent made me more sensitive to the topic than most. Or it could be that soldiers were so fixated on the subject and discussed it with such vulgarity that anyone not of their ilk was offended. Either way, I wished I’d held my tongue.

We entered the first gate and crossed a wooden bridge that led over the slow-moving water. A drawbridge was down on the other side, and we entered a larger barbican in the middle of the canal. Across an open enclosure in the barbican, and onto a covered stone bridge, horseshoes and iron-rimmed wagon wheels rang loudly. While there are some small square windows in the walls, it might as well have been a cave for all the light it really afforded, and traffic nearly stopped as everyone’s eyes adjusted and people bumped and jostled.

Finally, after another gatehouse, we emerged into the western suburb of Alespell, which was itself bigger than most cities. The majority of the buildings were timber or wattle and daub, but there were a fair number constructed of snowstone as well, and these were almost universally roofed in tiles a dusky wine color. I assumed those were the homes of the wealthier burghers in the city. Mosaics appeared on the walls of wood or stone, some depicting animals, people, or recognizable objects, others more abstract patterns. But on practically every surface, there was either a single bar made of enameled squares, or two running parallel. When one bar, it was a color that seemed to alternate depending on what sector of the city you were in, and where there were two, the higher one was always purple.

Braylar said, “The single or lower bar designates districts. As to the other, you’ll quickly notice that some wild drunkard designed the layout of Alespell, which might account for the name. Streets run in every direction, crisscrossing at strange angles at every pass. The purple bar, if you happen to luck into finding it, tells you that you’re headed towards either the castle or a gate.”

Hewspear and Mulldoos had fallen back alongside us and Hewspear said, “And if you look up, you’ll note another clue that you’re on your way to meet the good baron.”

I glanced up and saw that on this street, in addition to the parallel enamel bars, there were also chains strung between the buildings on either side, and hanging from these, large copper pots filled with broad-petaled purple flowers.

Mulldoos said, “Got a real stiffprick for the purples, don’t he?”

“Bet it comes in handy though,” Vendurro added, “when you’re stumbling around drunk-blind, trying to find something to guide you.”

“That’s what we got you for.”

The western suburb seemed to be mostly residential buildings, with the occasional small temple breaking them up. Like any city, some of the construction was more in need of repair, but I noticed a walled section off another street heading south that seemed particularly blighted and crumbling. It hadn’t been whitewashed in ages, maybe ever; the snowstone had turned an ugly yellow.

I asked Braylar, “Who lives in that quarter?”

“Grass Dogs who have been… domesticated. Those are the kennels. You’ll find them in some cities on the shore of the Green Sea, but especially the larger ones like Alespell. Home to a mixture, really. Refugees from clan warfare. Families of the Dogs who smelled a finer life outside of the Sea, and entered the kingdom’s service as auxiliary soldiers.”