Саймон Хоук - The Broken Blade

“Not to detract from your abilities,” said Sorak, “but why would anyone pay such a sum?”

“That is the same question I asked myself,” said Kieran. “Why? I have a well-known reputation, true, but only part of it is due to skill. Much of it was due to nothing more than luck. Even the best swordsman can fall in battle. I was merely fortunate enough to have survived more than my share. Ironic, when one considers that at that time in my life, I would have liked nothing better than to get myself killed. However, that is another story. I had retired to an estate outside the village of Salt View, and I had wealth enough to see me through the remainder of my days in reasonable comfort. I had no wish to return to the profession of arms.”

“So what changed your mind? The temptation of the salary when they agreed to it?”

“No,” said Kieran. “Once I had named the figure and they agreed to meet my price, it would have been bad form to turn them down. There was nothing to prevent me, of course, but my reputation was at stake. And then I was very curious. I felt certain that the House of Jhamri’s agents were not empowered to agree to so outrageous a demand, even had they been inclined to do so, but when they agreed I realized that they had been instructed to secure my services regardless of the price. Oh, they tried to bargain, mind you, but when I stood firm, they finally agreed.

“Now, I may have won considerable fame in my profession, but no man is worth that kind of money. They knew it and I knew it. So, I had to ask myself what possible reason they would have for doing such a thing?” He glanced at Sorak. “What would you think if you were in my place?”

Sorak thought it over for a few moments as they walked past the cargo area and approached the tents. “The sum itself would have to be the reason,” he said, finally. “The House of Jhamri must want it known that they will stop at nothing to hire the very best, and that they can afford to pay so high a sum. But then you said the terms of the contract were supposed to be kept secret.” He shook his head. “It makes no sense.

“It does if they never intended it to be a secret,” Kieran said. “Obviously, they plan to leak the information. That way, it will not be seen as ostentatious posturing on their part. But there is surely more to it than that. There has to be. Only for the life of me, I could not imagine what.”

“And so you took the job to find out.”

Kieran nodded. “I could not resist the mystery. And then, of course, there is the money.”

“Yes, there is that,” said Sorak with a grin. “You will be known as the highest paid mercenary in history.”

“I have just enough vanity to like the sound of that,” said Kieran, with a smile. “But something is surely afoot in Altaruk, an intrigue of some sort in which I am meant to play a key role. And it shall not take long to develop, because not even the House of Jhamri would pay me such a salary for a second year. Yes, something interesting is going on there, and I have to find out what it is.”

“They say curiosity killed the kirre.”

Kieran glanced down at his kirreskin breeches. “Yes, well, I plan to keep my own skin intact. It’s possible that someone may want me for a trophy for some reason. I have made my share of enemies. But they will find this cat difficult to skin.” He clapped Sorak on the shoulder. “Especially with a good fighter at my back.”

“Ah, so now it becomes clear,” said Sorak. “I am an insurance policy.”

“Paid for by the House of Thamri,” Kieran said.

“But with the money they are paying me, I can easily afford to add a bonus. You keep your eyes and ears open, my friend, and watch my back, will make it worth your while.”

“Well, now you have me curious,” said Sorak.

Kieran smiled. “I told you that we think alike.”

It was almost midnight, and outside the mansion headquarters of the House of Ankhor, most of the town slept. There were a few gaming and pleasure houses that stayed open all night, mostly catering to mercenaries and travelers passing through on their way to one of the seven city-states of the Tablelands. But for the most part, the residents of Altaruk went to bed early and rose early. The desert nights were cold at this time of the year, and there were few people on the streets. The night seemed quiet and peaceful.

Ankhor stood out on the open, moonlit veranda outside his private quarters on the fourth floor, in the west wing of the mansion. As he gazed over the town, it struck him once again just how much it had grown the last few years. Without turning, he spoke to the dark-robed guest standing behind him, in the shadows.

“You know, as a boy, I hated growing up here,” he said. “I dreamt of running away to one of the large cities, such as Tyr or Nibenay or Balic. Back then, Altaruk was little more than a fortress outpost in the middle of nowhere, at the tip of the estuary, a tiny, rough-hewn settlement sheltered by the mountains.

“But it was a choke point for caravans,” Ankhor continued. “South from Urik, southeast from Tyr, toward Balic, Gulg, Nibenay, from Raam and Draj—all these caravans had to pass this outpost.”

“It has grown quickly,” said the dark-robed figure in a deep and throaty voice hoarse with age.

“And is growing still,” said Ankhor, looking out over the town. “It went from being a miserable outpost fried by the sun and buffeted by windstorms to being a thriving village.

“My father—Lord Ankhor the Elder—saw the opportunities in Altaruk. His gaming house in Tyr bought him a merchant empire here—the House of Ankhor. He accomplished with grit and luck what young aristocrats did with blue blood. Aristocrats like the Jhamris.”

“And so began the famous rivalry,” the dark-robed figure said.

“Yes,” said Ankhor, turning to face his guest. “It grew as Altaruk grew, a rivalry between a commoner and an aristocrat. And that rivalry drove all other merchant houses in Altaruk into penury. My father had won himself a peerage, but the Jhamris never allowed him to forget his humble beginnings.

“By the time I was born, Lord Jhamri had also sired a son. They had competed even in that, striving to bear the first heir. But fate mocked them, for both Father and Jhamri repeatedly fathered daughters. The Elder Jhamri had eight, by three different wives, and I have seven older sisters. My father’s first wife gave him four daughters and died in childbirth with the last, and my mother gave him two more daughters before finally giving birth to me. I was given my father’s name as a sign of pride in the achievement, but by then, Jhamri’s third wife had already given birth to a son, a year earlier. And the two us were raised from childhood to loathe each other.”

Ankhor turned to look out over the town once more, with a proprietary air. “Both founders are old and frail now, unable even to get around without assistance, but the old hatred still burns between them. It is all my father ever talks about. The old rivalry.”

“You seem fond of it, too.”

“Yes,” said Ankhor, “we heirs both have taken over the management of our respective houses. But while the elder Jhamri was a shrewd and calculating trader, young Jhamri is merely arrogant and smug, confident in his superior wealth and position. He has never regarded the House of Ankhor as a serious threat.

“In part, that is because I have publicly played the part of the dissipated sensualist,” Ankhor said, turning back to face his guest. “I am seen in gaming and pleasure houses, drinking excessively and spending lots of money. I sport with women of low class while young Jhamri has married well, taking to wife the daughter of Viscount Tomblador, cementing a firm alliance with that house. And while Jhamri immediately set about getting his young wife pregnant, to insure an heir, I have remained single and childless, apparently more interested in spending my father’s wealth than building on it.