Kage Baker: The Anvil of the World

“Does he have anything catching?” he demanded.

“No! No! Delicate lungs, that’s all,” chattered his cousin. “I believe his lord father’s apt phrase was—” From the depths of his brocade he drew out a heavy, folded parchment to which was affixed a ponderous seal of black wax. “Here we are. ‘ Hothouse lily.’ In any case the young lord will be traveling with a private nurse and ample store of physic, so your sole concern will be conveying him in one piece to Salesh-by-the-Sea.”

“And what if he dies?” asked Smith.

His cousin shivered and, looking quickly at the letter as though it might overhear him, folded it again and thrust it out of sight. “That would be very unfortunate indeed. His lord father is a powerful man, cousin. He’s paid a great deal for this passage.”

Smith sighed.

“The lad’ll be in a palanquin the whole way,” added his cousin, as though that answered everything. “You’ll have him there in no time. A routine trip. Your first of many, I’m certain, to the continued honor and glory of our house. Ah! You’ll excuse me—I must go speak to…” He turned and fled into the crowd, in pursuit of some other bedizened customer.

Smith sat down, and took another sip of his beer before he remembered the mud at the bottom of the glass.

The gonging of the cistern clock in Smith’s apartment warren woke him, and he was up and pulling on his coat in very little time. He paused before arming himself, considering his stock of hand weapons. He settled for a pair of boot knives and a machete; nothing more would be needed, surely, for a routine trip to the coast.

He was, accordingly, surprised when his cousin met him at the West Gate in the predawn gloom with a pair of pistol-bows and a bolt bandoleer.

“You’ve used these before?” his cousin asked, draping the bandoleer over Smith’s shoulder and buckling it in place.

“Yes, but—you said—”

“Yes, I know, it’s all routine, easiest road there is, but just consider this as insurance. Eh? And it makes a man look dangerous and competent, and that’s what the passengers want to see in a caravan master,” explained his cousin. “There you are! The picture of menace. Now, here’s the cargo and passenger manifest.” He thrust an open scroll at Smith. Smith took it and read, as his cousin ran off to shriek orders at the porters, who were loading what looked like immense violet eggs into one of the transport carts.

There was, indeed, a gross of glass butterflies, being shipped from Seven Butterflies studio to the Lady Katmile of Silver Anvil House in Port Ward’b. To Be Handled With Exquisite Care.

There were twenty sacks of superfine cake flour from Old Troon Mills, destined for a bakery in Lesser Salesh. There were thirty boxes of mineral pigments from the strip mines in Outer Troon, to be delivered to Starfire Studio in Salesh Hills. No eggs, though, violet or otherwise.

The passengers were listed as Lytan and Demara Smith and Family, custom jewelry designers, of Salesh Hills; Parradan Smith, courier, of Mount Flame City; Lord Ermenwyr of the House Kingfisher, and Servant. All Children of the Sun.

Also listed was one Ronrishim Flowering Reed, herbalist, of Salesh-by-the-Sea. From his name he was probably a Yendri, one of the forest people who occasionally fought guerrilla wars with the Children of the Sun over what they felt was excessive logging.

Smith looked out at the boarding area and spotted the Yendri, taller than the other passengers, wearing fewer clothes, and standing a little apart with an aloof expression. The Yendri people had skin that ranged in color from a gently olive complexion to outright damn green, and were willowy and graceful and everything you’d expect in a forest-dwelling race. They were thought by the Children of the Sun to be arrogant, uncivilized, untrustworthy, and sexually insatiable (when not perversely effeminate). They said exactly the same things about the Children of the Sun.

The other passengers were equally easy to identify. The Smiths were clearly the young couple huddled with a screaming baby, waving a sugar stick and stuffed toy at him while their other little ones ran back and forth merrily and got in the way of the sweating porters. Parradan Smith must be the well-dressed man leaning against a news kiosk, reading a broadside sheet. Lord Ermenwyr, who had evidently not died in the night, sat a little apart from the others on one of many expensive-looking trunks piled beside a curtained palanquin.

He had changed his unicorn costume for a black tailcoat and top boots, and combed the spangles out of his beard and mustache. It failed to make him look less like the pasty-faced boy he was, though his features were even and handsome. His eyes were unnervingly sharp, fixed on the screaming infant with perfectly astonishing malevolence. He glanced up, spotted Smith, and leaped to his feet.

“You! Caravan Master. Is that damned brat going to squall the whole trip? Is it?” he demanded, folding his arms as Smith approached him.

“I don’t think so,” said Smith, staring down at Lord Ermenwyr’s eyes. His pupils were like pinpoints, perhaps because of whatever drug the lordling was smoking in the long jade tube he presently had clenched between his teeth. It produced trailing purple clouds, vaguely sweet-scented. “Should you really be—”

“Smoking? It’s my medication, damn you! If that child isn’t silenced at once, I’ll not be answerable for the consequences. I’m a sick man—”

“Master, you’re raving again,” said a silken voice from behind the curtains of the palanquin. “Stop that at once.”

“—And if I’m harried to an early grave, or should I say an earlier grave, well then, Caravan Master, you’ll pay for it in ways you can’t even begin to—”

“Nursie warned you,” said the voice, and an arm flashed between the curtains and caught Lord Ermenwyr around the knees. He vanished backward into the depths of the palanquin with a yelp, and there were sounds of a violent struggle as the palanquin rocked on its base. Smith stepped quickly away.

“Er—Smith!” cried his cousin. “I’d like you to meet your subordinates.”

Smith turned to see a crowd of caravaneers who clearly disliked being described as his subordinates. They gave him a unanimous resentful stare as he approached.

“May I present the esteemed keymen? Keyman Crucible, Keyman Smith, Keyman Bellows, Keyman Pinion, Keyman Smith.”

They were, as all keymen, compact fellows with tremendously developed arms and muscle-bulging legs, and so alike they might have been quintuplets.

“Nice meeting you,” said Smith. They grunted at him.

“This is your runner.” His cousin placed his hands on the shoulders of a very young, very skinny girl. She wore the red uniform and carried the brass trumpet of her profession, but she was far from the curvaceous gymnast Smith fantasized about when he fantasized about runners. She glowered up at Smith’s cousin.

“Take your hands off me or you’ll hear from my mother house,” she said. Smith’s cousin withdrew his hands as though she were a live coal.

“Young Burnbright hasn’t earned her full certification, yet, but she’s hoping to do so in our service,” he said delicately. “If all goes well, that is. And here, Smith, is our culinary artist! May I present the two-time winner of the Troon Municipal Bakeoff? Mrs. Smith.”

Mrs. Smith was large and not particularly young, though she had a certain majesty of bearing. She looked sourly on Smith.

“Do you do fried eel?” Smith asked hopefully.

“Perhaps,” she said. “If I’m properly motivated. If I have the proper pans.” She spat out the last word with bewildering venom, turning her glare on Smith’s cousin.