Richard Morgan: The Steel Remains

“You could still appeal it. There’s provision in the charter. Get Bilgrest to go on his knees to the Chancellery, offer public apology and restitution, you act as guarantor if Dersin can’t come up with the cash and Father doesn’t want to get his hands dirty.”

“Don’t you think we tried that?”

“So what happened?”

Sudden, imperious flare of anger, a side of Ishil he’d nearly forgotten. “What happened, Ringil, is that Bilgrest hanged himself rather than apologize. That’s what happened.”

“Ooops.”

“It isn’t funny.”

“No, I suppose not.” He swallowed some more tea. “Very noble, though. Death before dishonor and all that. And from a finished-goods merchant, too. Remarkable. Father must have been impressed despite himself.”

“This is not about you and your father, Ringil.”

The ladies-in-waiting froze. Ishil’s shout bounced off the low roof of the dining chamber, brought curious faces gawping at the doorway to the kitchen and the window out into the yard. The men-at-arms exchanged glances, wondering almost visibly if they were expected to throw some weight around and drive these peasants back to minding their own business. Ringil caught the eye of one of them, shook his head slightly. Ishil compressed her lips, drew a long deep breath.

“This doesn’t concern your father,” she said quietly. “I know better than to rely on him. It’s a favor I’m asking of you.”

“My days of fighting for the cause of justice, truth, and light are done, Mother.”

She drew herself up on her seat. “I’m not interested in justice or truth. This is family.”

Ringil closed his eyes again, massaged them with finger and thumb at the bridge of his nose. “Why me?”

“Because you know these people, Gil.” She reached across the table and touched his free hand with the back of hers. His eyes jerked open at the contact. “You used to rub our faces in the fact enough when you lived at home. You can go places in Trelayne that I can’t, that your father won’t go. You can—”

She bit her lip.

“Break the edicts,” he finished for her drearily.

“I promised Dersin.”

“Mother.” Abruptly, something seemed to dislodge a chunk of his hangover. Anger and a tight sense of the unfairness of it all came welling up and fed him an obscure strength. “Do you know what you’re asking me to do? You know what the profit margins are on slaving. Have you got any idea what kind of incentives that generates, what kind of behavior? These people don’t fuck about, you know.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t fucking know. You said yourself, it’s weeks since this went down. If Sherin’s certifiably barren—and these people have warlocks who can find that out in pretty short order—then she’s a sure shot for the professional concubine end of the market, which means she’s probably already been shipped out of Trelayne to a Parashal training stable. It could take me weeks to find out where that is, and by then she’ll more than likely be on her way to the auction block again, anywhere in the League or maybe even south to the Empire. I’m not a one-man army.”

“At Gallows Gap, they say you were.”

“Oh, please .”

He stared morosely into the depths of his tea. You know these people, Ringil. With less of a headache, he might have laughed. Yes, he knew these people. He’d known them when slavery was still technically illegal in the city-states and they made an easier living from other illicit trades. In fact, known didn’t really cut it—like a lot of Trelayne’s moneyed youth, he’d been an avid customer of these people . Proscribed substances, prohibited sexual practices, the things that would always generate a market with ludicrous profit margins and shadowy social leverage. Oh, he knew these people. Slab Findrich, for example, the drilled-hole eyes and the spit he always left on the pipes they shared. Grace-of-Heaven Milacar, murdering turncoat minions with excessive chemical kindness—seen through the neurasthenic fog of a flandrijn hit, it hadn’t seemed so bad, had in fact quite appealed to a louche adolescent irony Ringil was cultivating at the time. Poppy Snarl, harsh painted beauty and weary, look-you-can’t-seriously-expect-me-to-put-up-with-this counterfeit patience before she inflicted one of the brutal punishments for which she was famed, and which invariably crippled for life. He’d gone down on her once, Hoiran alone knew why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, and he went home after with the unaccustomed scent of woman on his mouth and fingers, and a satisfyingly complete sense of self-soiling. Snarl and Findrich had both dabbled in the slave trade even when it was frowned upon, and both had rhapsodized about what could be achieved in that sector if the lawmakers would just loosen up a little and open the debt market once and for all.

By now they’d be up to their eyes in it.

Suddenly he was wondering how Grace-of-Heaven looked these days. If he still had the goatee, if he’d shaved his skull ahead of incipient baldness, the way he always said he would.

Uh-oh.

With a mother’s eye, Ishil saw the moment pivot in him. Perhaps she knew it before he did himself. Something changed in her face, a barely perceptible softening of the kohl-defined features, like an artist’s thumb rubbing along sketch lines he’d drawn too harshly. Ringil glanced up and caught it happening. He rolled his eyes, made a long-suffering face. Ishil’s lips parted.

“No, don’t.” He held up an advisory hand. “Just. Don’t.”

His mother said nothing, but she smiled.

IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG TO PACK. HE WENT UP TO HIS ROOM, TORE through it like an irritable whirlwind, and flung a dozen items into a knapsack. Mostly, it was books.

Back down in the residents’ bar, he retrieved the Ravensfriend and the Kiriath scabbard from their place above the fireplace. By now there were people about, tavern staff and guests both, and the ones who knew him gaped as he took the sword down. The scabbard felt strange as he hefted it; it was the first occasion in a long time that he’d unpinned it from the mountings. He’d forgotten how light it was. He pulled about a handbreadth of blade free, held it up to the light, and squinted along the edge for a moment before he realized there was no real purpose to the action and he was just posturing. His mood shifted minutely. A tiny smile leaked from the corner of his mouth, and with it came a gathering sense of motion he hadn’t expected to feel.

He parked scabbard and sword over one shoulder, held his knapsack dangling in the other hand, and wandered back to the dining chamber, where they were clearing away the remains of Ishil’s entourage’s food. The landlord stopped with a tray in each meaty hand and added his gape to the collection.

“What are you doing?” he asked plaintively.

“Change of scenery, Jhesh.” Ringil shifted the knapsack up onto his other shoulder and clapped the man briskly on one apron-swathed flank. It was like patting a side of ham. “I’m taking a couple of months off. Going to winter in Trelayne. Should be back well before the spring.”

“But, but, but . . .” Jhesh scrabbled for purchase and a measure of politeness. “I mean, what about your room?”

“Oh. Rent it. If you can.”

The politeness started to evaporate. “And your tab?”

“Ah yes.” Ringil lifted a finger for a moment’s indulgence and went to the door into the courtyard. “Mother?”

They left Jhesh at the door, counting the money with less enthusiasm than the amount involved should have warranted. Ringil followed Ishil’s regal trail to the carriage and swung himself up into the unaccustomed luxury of the interior. Woven silk paneling on the inside of walls and door, glass in the windows, a small ornate lantern slung from the roof. A profusion of cushions scattered across two facing bench seats broad and long enough to serve as beds, padded footrests tucked underneath. A hamper on the floor in one corner along with flasks and goblets. Ishil leaned herself into one corner and sighed with relief as the last lady-in-waiting scrambled aboard.