K. Parker - The Proof House

‘Even though Bardas killed his son?’

Iseutz shrugged. ‘Uncle Gorgas has an infinite capacity for forgiveness. Which argues against the evil-man hypothesis, just as the killing-and-betraying-cities thing argues against the basically-good theory. We’re a complicated lot, us Loredans. Almost but not quite more trouble than we’re worth.’

The Son of Heaven stood up, slowly because of his bad leg. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You’ve been most helpful.’

‘Oh, that’s all right.’ Iseutz stayed where she was. ‘But do me a favour, if you would. See if you can’t find some way of making life difficult for my mother – currency regulations, customs, import licences, something along those lines. She hates things like that.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the colonel said austerely. ‘The provincial office doesn’t work like that.’

‘Really? Forget it, then. Goodbye.’

When he’d gone, Iseutz sat on the floor, her back against the wall, her arms tight around her knees, thinking about the recurring dream she had in which the Patriarch Alexius told her that, if she wanted, he could take a sharp knife and cut off the Loredan half of her, leaving only the Hedin half behind. Invariably she woke up just before he started to cut. She’d never been able to work out whether it was a nightmare or not.

‘Who was that?’

She looked up. ‘The rat-catcher,’ she said. ‘I sent for him. Place is swarming with rats.’

Her mother sighed impatiently. ‘He was from the provincial office,’ she said. ‘What did he want?’

‘If you’re going to answer your own questions, what do you need me for?’

Niessa Loredan walked over to where her daughter was sitting and kicked her hard in the ribs, enough to wind her. ‘Who was he,’ she asked again, ‘and what did he want?’

Iseutz looked up. ‘He wanted to know if you like mushrooms,’ she said. ‘I said yes.’

Niessa kicked her again, rather harder, and pulled her foot away before Iseutz could grab hold of it. ‘I haven’t got time to bother with you now,’ she said. ‘I’ll send Morz up to take away your books and your lamp, and don’t think you’ll get anything to eat.’

‘Good. I’m sick of soup.’

Niessa bent down. ‘Iseutz,’ she said, ‘don’t be tiresome. What did he want?’

Iseutz sighed. ‘He wanted to know about Uncle Bardas and Uncle Gorgas. I told him – well, all the stuff I knew he knew already. That’s all I could tell him. I don’t know any more.’

‘Well.’ Niessa straightened up. ‘You told him what he wanted, then? We have to co-operate with these people; we depend on their goodwill.’

‘I told him everything I know.’

Niessa nodded. ‘And you weren’t rude or difficult? Well, of course you were. But you didn’t attack him or anything?’

‘Mother!’ Iseutz said angrily. ‘For pity’s sake. You make me sound like I’m mad or something. What do you think I did, chase him round the room on all fours trying to bite his ankles?’

Niessa walked to the door and opened it. ‘We have to co-operate,’ she said. ‘It hasn’t been easy since we moved here; I’ve had to work very hard. I won’t have you spoiling it for me. Understood?’

‘Perfectly.’

That sideways look again – fear, she’s worried. I love it when she’s worried. ‘Iseutz,’ Niessa said, ‘one day, everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve built, will come to you. You’re my daughter, the only family I’ve got left. Why must you always be trying to spoil things for me?’

Iseutz laughed. ‘You’re going to die and leave me all your money? Fat chance. If I thought you were mortal, I’d have bitten your throat out in the night.’

Niessa closed her eyes, then opened them again. ‘You come out with things like that, and then you wonder why I keep you here. I know you don’t mean it, you’re just trying to shock me. You should have grown out of that when you were ten.’

There wasn’t much wrong with Sammyra that an earthquake wouldn’t fix, except for the smell. The post coach had broken a wheel on its way down the mountains, which meant it was late getting in; the connecting coach to Ap’ Calick was long gone. There would be another one through in the late afternoon. Until then, Bardas was at liberty to wander about the town and absorb its unique ambience.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Can’t I just sit here and wait?’

The posthouse keeper looked at him. ‘No,’ she said.

‘Oh.’ He looked up the street and down again. ‘Can I have a drink of water, please?’

‘There’s a well just down the road,’ the keeper replied. ‘There, on the left, by the burned-out mill.’

Bardas frowned. ‘No offence,’ he said, ‘but is the water here all right to drink?’

‘Well, we drink it.’

‘Thanks,’ Bardas said, ‘but I’ll see if I can find some milk or something.’

There were plenty of inns and taverns in Sammyra. There were the uptown inns, cut into the rock of Citadel Hill or amplified out of natural caves; most of them had signs by the door saying ‘No Drovers, Pedlars or Soldiers’, with a couple of large men leaning in the doorway to explain the message to any drovers, pedlars or soldiers who weren’t able to read. There were the middle-town taverns, an awning giving shade to a scattering of old men sitting on cushions on the ground, with a dark doorway behind. There were the downtown booze-wagons, drawn up in a circle on the edge of the horse-fair, with a hatch in the side into which money went and from which small earthenware jugs emerged. Bardas chose one of the middle-town awnings at random; it doubled as a knife-grinder’s booth and doctor’s surgery, and there was an old woman sitting at the back singing with her eyes shut, though Bardas didn’t know enough about Sammyran poetry and music to tell whether she was an attraction or a pest. The song was something to do with eagles, vultures and the return of spring, and a lot of it appeared to be mumbling. Bardas didn’t care for it very much. He sat down in the opposite corner; the old men stopped what they were doing, looked round to stare at him, then turned away. A very short, bald man with a long beard suddenly appeared behind his left shoulder and asked him what he wanted to drink.

‘I don’t know,’ Bardas replied. ‘What’ve you got?’

The old man frowned. ‘ Echin ,’ he said, as if answering a question about the colour of the sky. ‘Do you want some or not?’

Bardas nodded. ‘Go on, then,’ he said. ‘How much?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ the man said. ‘You can have a cup, a flask or a jug. You choose.’

‘Sorry,’ Bardas said. ‘I meant, how much money?’

‘What? Oh. Half-quarter a jug.’

‘I’ll have a jug, then.’

The old man went away and came back a moment later, sidestepping the shower of sparks from the grinder’s wheel and the patch of blood left behind by the doctor’s last patient. ‘Here,’ he said, presenting Bardas with the jug and a tiny wooden cup. Bardas gave him his money, half-filled the cup and sniffed it. By now he was too thirsty to care.

Echin turned out to be hot, thin, sweet and black; an infusion of herbs in boiling water, flavoured with honey, cinnamon and a little nutmeg and used to dilute a heavy raw spirit that’d undoubtedly be fatal if drunk on its own. It was dangerously good for the thirst. Bardas nibbled down a cupful of the stuff and settled down to wait till his head stopped spinning. The old woman stopped singing. Nobody moved or said anything. She started again. It sounded like the same song, but Bardas couldn’t be sure about that.

Some time later a large party of men appeared and sat down in a big circle in the middle of the tent. They were noisy and cheerful, ranging in age from seventeen to about sixty; not Sons of Heaven but not dissimilar either; clean-shaven, with very long hair plaited into elaborate pigtails. They wore very thin white shirts that reached down to their knees, and their feet were bare. Presumably, Bardas guessed, they were drovers; almost as bad as pedlars and soldiers, to judge by the notices uptown, though none of them appeared to be carrying any sort of weapon. They drank their echin sparingly from a huge brass cauldron in the middle of the circle, paid no attention to the old woman’s singing and struck Bardas as reasonably harmless.