Paul Kearney - The Mark of Ran

One night, some two and a half months after he had joined the household, he sat up with Gibble as the stout cook cracked open his nightly bottle of aguarputa -the cheap but potent spirit of Ascari’s slums-and listened patiently to his well-worn and oft-heard complaints about the poor quality of his underlings, the rapacity of the merchants in the upper city, the declining quality of imported nutmeg. Rol was only half listening. It was a spring night outside, under the open sky. Even here in the dungeonlike confines of the kitchens it was possible to sense the turning of the year. Rol was thinking of Gannet, wondering if she floated yet, and if her new owner had repainted her sea-eyes and anointed her bows as Grandfather had once done every year with the first primroses. And he was absentmindedly poking at the red hell of the fire in the immense black iron range which extended clear across one wall of the kitchen, keeping the coals bright to heat Rowen’s water. As the hours passed Gibble grew drunker, and his rambling talk turned to subjects other than the matters of the kitchen. He described with great relish just what he had been doing to Mina, the oldest of the serving-maids, the night before in return for the princely bribe of one roast game hen. Generally a good-natured man, Gibble nonetheless felt the need every now and again to fathom the limits of his authority. The reluctant (but hungry) girl had succumbed, and that was that-his faith in his own place in the world was vindicated, and he would molest nothing more animate than a bottle for weeks to come. In truth, the maids did not much mind Gibble’s advances, at least compared to Quare’s. The bodyservant’s attentions would leave them bruised and weeping for days, unable to speak of what had been done to them, unable to forget it either. Gibble at least tried not to hurt them.

Rol they had all swooned over from the beginning, and he had had his pick of the litter. He had lost his virginity in the first week, pumping the insistent girl hard up against a dark wall in the cellars, surprised by how little it meant to him. From time to time he had been importuned again, and had obliged. But every time he thrust into some squealing girl he was seeing Rowen in the kitchen that night, before the fire, and was imagining her dark lips pressed hungrily against his own.

Gibble moved on from his lecherous reminiscing. As he became drunker he grew more morose. He checked the dripping water-clock and seemed troubled. Rol dozed for a while-it was several hours past the middle of the night and his day had started before dawn. When he nodded out of sleep he found Gibble still talking, half to himself.

“It’s not right what he makes her do-it’s not as if the Master needs the money. No, he does it to shame her, to keep her in her place. And those creatures he makes her-” He stopped, stared down at a yawning Rol. “And you too. It’s plain as a pikestaff all over your face, but he thinks he’s the only one who notices. He’s getting careless, is what.” Gibble swallowed hard from the neck of his denuded bottle and wiped his mouth with one meaty forearm.

“What’s plain on my face?” Rol asked softly.

“I’ve been here longer than anyone-eighteen years. I’ve seen it all. Two more and my time is done-he told me so. Two more and I’m free again. Not that it wasn’t worth it, to see those whoresons choke on their own offal.” Here Gibble grew maudlin, and began to weep. “So beautiful, she was. That was why. It’s said they can’t suffer after death. Gods above us, I hope it’s true. True for her. But the Master put it to rights. He always keeps his word. He promised they would die slow, and they did. Twenty years. Half a life. She was nineteen when she died.” Gibble began to sob quietly.

The door to the kitchens slammed back against the wall. Gibble and Rol both jumped. The bottle slipped through the cook’s thick fingers to smash on the slick flags of the floor.

It was the Master himself, with Quare at his side. Psellos looked about the room, his gaze lingering on Rol with a frown, as though the boy’s presence reminded him of something he would have sooner forgotten.

“Where is Rowen?” Psellos demanded. “Not back yet?”

Gibble was trying to stand up and failing. Psellos never came down here. “No, my lord. No sign of her-and she’s hours late. I have her water ready here. I sat up waiting-”

“I can see that. Quare, go fetch Skewer, and a lantern. Be quick.”

The bodyservant took off in silent haste.

Psellos stood looking into the flame-light of the range’s open door. Taking a pair of gloves from his belt he drew them on thoughtfully, tugging the calfskin snugly over each knuckle. There was a dangerous light in his shifting eyes. Rol sat silent and still with the reek of spilled aguarputa all about him, watching.

“My beautiful young apprentice has grease in his hair. How does he find life in Psellos’s Tower?” The Master did not look away from the fire as he spoke.

“No worse and no better than in other places,” Rol said, and he received a thump on the shoulder from Gibble.

Psellos smiled, and turned to regard him. “I have had men flayed for turning the word on me, boy.”

“Why ask a question if you do not want to hear an honest answer?”

“Men rarely ask questions out of genuine curiosity. They want what they already know to be confirmed. Or they want the answer to the question they have not asked. It is good that you have spirit, boy, but be careful to whom you reveal it. Not all men of my station are as indulgent with their inferiors.”

Rol was about to retort, but Psellos’s eyes stopped him. The dark man smiled again, silver glimmering in the corners of his mouth. “That’s better.”

Quare returned, high forehead shining. “My lord.”

Psellos took from him a long, slim sword with a guarded hilt. The scabbard was worked with silver and obsidian. He buckled it to his belt unhurriedly.

“Come with me,” he said to Rol.

Psellos, Quare, and Rol took to the winding stairs that led up to ground level. They came out in the wide circular atrium which took up almost an entire floor of the Tower. Here Quare lit the lantern from a candle-sconce in the wall. Psellos spoke to Rol. His voice was cold and grim.

“You will stay here by the door and watch for our return. If any others seek to enter you must bar the door in their faces. Open for no one except me-not even Quare here. Do you understand?” Rol nodded dumbly, wondering what had happened.

The Master and his bodyservant slipped out of the postern Rowen had once opened to Rol, and quickly made their way down the winding street toward the lower city, the lantern throwing bars and wands of light about their feet.

Just before they disappeared, Rol stepped out of the postern himself. Motivated by he knew not what, he pulled the door to behind him, but did not let the big latched lock snick shut. Then he set off at a run in the wake of Psellos and Quare.

Five

It was exhilarating to be out of the tower, to be running under the bright stars on a warm spring night, and Rol’s feet fairly sped over the cobbles. He followed the fitful flash that was Quare’s lantern, dodging behind corners and rain barrels when he thought that they were looking back. As they traveled further down into the city, the streets began to fill up with people, and he had to draw closer to Psellos so as not to lose sight of him in the nighttime throng.

Ascari, with spring unfolding about it, was like some noisome and garish flower. Every house in the city, it seemed, had disgorged some capering form of sprightly life upon the streets. The night seemed like exercise hour in some gray prison, when the inmates grasped the free air and bit off chunks of it with laughing mouths. A milling chaos, good-humored and dangerous, fascinating and repulsive. But after a time Rol wearied of the stopping and starting, the breathless push through the milling streetwalkers and beggars and drunks and peddlers. The streets stank of spilled wine, of spiced cooking and ordure and pulsing, crowded humanity. He began to wonder what mad notion had brought him here. Psellos and Quare showed no signs of halting, until at last Rol could see ahead of him the masts and yards of ships tied up to the wharves. They had come clear down to the seafront, a good half league from the Tower as a bird would fly, though their feet had walked twice that.