Martin Scott - Thraxas and the Sorcerers

The young messenger who climbs the stairs to my outside door looks as though he’s had a difficult journey. His cloak is caked with snow and his face is blue with the cold. I rip open the scroll and read the message. It’s from Cicerius, Turai’s Deputy Consul. That’s a bad start. Cicerius wants me to visit him immediately. That’s worse.

I can’t work up any enthusiasm for visiting Cicerius. I’ve had a lot of dealings with the Deputy Consul recently. On the whole these have worked out well enough, but he’s never an easy man to work for. He’s Turai’s most honest politician—possibly Turai’s only honest politician—and the city’s most brilliant lawyer, but he’s also cold, austere and utterly unsympathetic to any Private Investigator who feels the need to interrupt his work to take in the occasional beer. On more than one occasion Cicerius, on finding me drunk in pursuit of a criminal, has delivered the sort of stinging reprimand that makes him such a feared opponent in the law courts or the Senate. I can only take so much of this. Furthermore, while there’s no denying he is a fair man, he’s never found it necessary to bump up my fee, even when I’ve done him sterling service. He comes from the traditional line of aristocrats who think that the lower classes should be satisfied with a reasonable rate of pay for a fair day’s work. In view of some of the dangers I’ve faced on his behalf, I’d be inclined to interpret ‘reasonable’ a good deal more generously than Cicerius.

I can’t ignore the summons. I’m desperate to make it out of Twelve Seas and back into the wealthier parts of town. I’m never going to do that unless I make some inroads into Turai’s aristocracy. Since I was thrown out of my job at the Palace I’ve hardly had a client who wasn’t a lowlife. It’s never going to earn me enough to pay the rent in Thamlin, home of the upper classes. And home of a few rather select and expensive Investigators, I reflect, as I make ready to leave. You wouldn’t catch anyone from the Venarius Investigation Agency freezing to death on the docks in mid-winter.

I suddenly remember that Makri has borrowed my magic warm cloak.

“Damn the woman!” I roar. I can’t believe I have to venture out in these freezing temperatures without the warm cloak. How could I be so foolish? Now Makri gets to stay nice and comfy while listening to that fraud of a philosopher Samanatius. Meanwhile Thraxas, on his way to do a proper man’s job, has to freeze to death. Damn it.

I rummage around in the chest in the corner of my bedroom and drag out a couple of old cloaks and tunics. I try putting on an extra layer of clothes but it’s difficult, because my waistline has expanded dramatically in the past few years and nothing seems to fit. Finally I just have to wrap an ancient cloak over my normal attire, cram on a fur hat I once took from a deceased Orc and venture out. The wind goes straight through me. By the time I’m halfway along Quintessence Street I’m as cold as the ice queen’s grave, and getting colder.

The city’s Prefects have been doing their best to keep the main roads passable. If I can make it to Moon and Stars Boulevard I should be able to catch a landus up town, but getting there through the side roads is almost impossible. The streets are already treacherous with ice, and fresh snow is falling all the time. I haven’t been out in weather like this since my regiment fought in the far north, and that was a long time ago, when I was a lot lighter and nimbler of foot. By the time I make it to the Boulevard I’m wet, shivering and cursing Makri for tricking me into giving her the warm cloak.

I have a stroke of good fortune when a one-horse cab drops a merchant off right in front of me. I climb in and tell the driver to take me to the Thamlin. The landus crawls up the Boulevard, through Pashish and over the river. Here the streets are a little clearer, but the large gardens are all snow-bound and the fountains are frozen over. The summons was to Cicerius’s home rather than the Imperial Palace, and the driver, on hearing the address, gives me his opinions on Cicerius, which aren’t very high.

“Okay, the guy is famous for his honesty,” says the driver. “But so what? He commissions a new statue of himself every year. That’s vanity on a big scale. Anyway, he’s a Traditional and they’re as corrupt as they come. I tell you, the way the rich are bleeding this city I’ll be pleased if Lodius and the Populares party throw them all out. How’s a landus driver meant to make a living the way they keep piling on the taxes? You know how much horse feed has gone up in the last year?”

The King and his administration are not universally popular. Plenty of people would like to see some changes. I sympathise, more or less, but I prefer to stay out of politics.

The landus deposits me outside Cicerius’s large town house. There’s a Securitus Guildsman huddled over a small fire in a hut at the gate who checks my invitation before ushering me in. I hurry up the path past the frozen bushes and beat on the door, meanwhile thinking that this job had better be worth the journey.

A servant answers the door. I show her my invitation. She looks at me like I’m probably a man who forges invitations, then withdraws to consult with someone inside. I’m left freezing on the step. I struggle to keep my temper under control. It takes a long time for the door to open again. This time the servant motions me inside.

“What took you so long? A man could die out there. You looking to have your nice garden cluttered up with dead Investigators?”

I’m ushered into a guest room. I remove my outer cloak and start to thaw myself out in front of the fire. Whilst I’m in the process of this, a young girl, nine or ten, arrives and stares at me. The daughter of one of the servants, I presume, from her rather unkempt appearance.

“You’re fat,” she says.

“And you’re ugly,” I reply, seeing no reason to be insulted by the children of the domestic help.

The kid immediately bursts into tears and retreats from the room, which cheers me a little. She should have known better than to cross swords with Thraxas. Thirty seconds later Cicerius appears. Clutching the hem of his toga is the same young girl, sobbing hysterically and denouncing me as the man who insulted her.

“What have you been saying to my daughter?” demands Cicerius, fixing me with his piercing eyes.

“Your daughter? I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

“Do you normally insult the children you encounter in your clients’ houses?”

“Hey, she started it,” I protest.

Cicerius does his best to calm his daughter before sending her off to find her mother. The little brat is still in tears and Cicerius is pained. This has got our interview off to a bad start. With Cicerius, that usually seems to happen.

“Have you been drinking?”

“I’ve always been drinking. But don’t let it stop you from offering me some wine. You know the landus drivers in Turai are turning against the Traditionals?”

“For what reason?”

“Too many taxes.”

Cicerius dismisses this with the slightest movement of his head. He’s not about to discuss government policy with the likes of me. On the wall of the guest room is a large painting of Cicerius addressing the Senate, and there’s a bust of him in a niche in the corner. The landus driver was right about his vanity.

“I need your help,” he says. “Though, as always when we meet, I wonder why.”

“Presumably you’ve got a job which is unsuitable for the better class of Investigator.”

“Not exactly. I hired the better class of Investigator but he fell sick. As did the second.”

“Okay, so I’m third choice.”

“Fourth.”

“You’re really selling me the job, Cicerius. Maybe you’d better just describe it.”