Martin Scott - Thraxas at the races

There’s a knock on the outside door.

“To hell with you all,” I shout.

The knock comes again. I’m in no mood for company. I shout out another curse, finish my beer and prepare to toss the bottle at the doorframe. The door opens and in walks Senator Mursius, one of Turai’s greatest war heroes and my old commander from the Army. He’s tall, erect, silver-haired and extremely vigorous-looking for a man of fifty. Pretty angry-looking as well.

“What is the meaning of this?” he demands in a voice that takes me straight back to the parade ground. “I am not accustomed to former soldiers treating me with disrespect.”

I scramble to my feet. Senator Mursius was the last person I expected to walk into my office. Great heroes of Turai tend not to visit. It must be fifteen years since we last spoke, probably around the time when the platoon commanded by Mursius was holding out at a breach in our walls made by the besieging Orc Army, and I was one of the unfortunate soldiers forming a human shield to keep them at bay. I’ve seen him since of course, in one of the galleries reserved for Senators at the theatre or the Stadium Superbius, but I doubt if he ever noticed me.

Now he’s noticed, he’s not looking too impressed.

“You always were a disgusting apology for a soldier,” he barks. “I see that time hasn’t improved you.”

Mursius is still a big man and he wears his white senatorial toga with a majestic air. I’m only in my underwear, which probably isn’t helping things. I struggle back into my tunic and clear some junk from a chair.

“Won’t you sit down, Senator Mursius?”

“You’ve put on a lot of weight,” he says, eyeing my girth with the sort of disapproving gaze he used to reserve for ill-attired recruits. “And you’ve come down in the world.”

He knows all about my fall from grace. He’s not unsympathetic. As a soldier he has little time for Palace politics.

“A vipers’ nest, the Palace. You should never have taken a job there in the first place. Why did you do it?”

“The pay was good.”

“Look where it got you.”

He looks around my shabby room. “Did Rittius clean you out in court?”

I nod.

“Rittius is a snake. Never did a day’s fighting in his life. That’s the sort of person who’s running Turai these days. I take it you are looking for work?”

I nod again.

“I need the services of an Investigator. Nothing too complicated, or so I believe. I’d normally have hired a man closer to home, but I thought you might be in need of employment.”

I ask him why exactly he thought that and he replies that he keeps an eye on most of the men who fought under him.

“You weren’t too bad that day at the walls, Thraxas. I’d be sorry to see you starve. Though I see that would take a while. I hear you have a reputation as a good Investigator. When you can stay sober. How often can you stay sober?”

“Practically all the time if the case really calls for it.”

A knock comes on the inner door that leads downstairs into the tavern. It opens before I get the chance to answer it. Makri has little concept of personal privacy. You have to make allowances for her. She grew up in a slave pit, after all.

For the first time Mursius shows some surprise. Makri can be a surprising sight if you’re not prepared for it. Though only slightly taller than your average Turanian woman, she carries herself erect like a warrior, lithe and strong like a fierce chagra cat from the Simnian jungle. She has large dark eyes, almost black, a huge mane of dark hair and strikingly attractive features, but what usually impresses anyone visiting the Avenging Axe for the first time is Makri’s shape. Makri has plenty of shape—and her shape is difficult to miss given the tiny chainmail bikini she wears while working as a barmaid. The purpose of this of course is to earn tips from the dockers, sailors and mercenaries who make up most of Gurd’s clientele.

The next thing people generally notice about Makri is the reddish, slightly dark hue of her skin. Makri is one quarter Orc, and that means trouble. She’s quarter Elf as well, which is fine in Turai, where everyone likes Elves, but the Orc blood leads to all sorts of difficulties. Everyone in Turai hates the Orcs. Though we are technically at peace with them now and have even signed a treaty and swapped Ambassadors, you don’t need too long a memory to recall the days when they were besieging the city.

All of which means that Makri’s Orc blood is bad news in Turai. The drinkers in the tavern are fairly used to it but Makri still wouldn’t be allowed into a high-class tavern uptown, or various official buildings. She is often insulted in the street. I’d worry about her more if it wasn’t for the fact that she’s probably the most lethal fighter in Turai, if not the entire west. I’ve spent most of my life fighting, and I can’t recall ever meeting anyone more deadly with a sword, an axe, or anything that comes to hand.

Senator Mursius stares at her in surprise. There is an awkward silence.

“I’ve got pointed ears as well,” says Makri, which is true, though they’re usually hidden beneath her huge mass of hair.

“Excuse me,” says the Senator apologetically. He glances at the sword at her hip. “An Orc blade?”

Makri nods. “I brought it with me.”

Mursius looks at it with interest. As a professional soldier he always was interested in weaponry.

“Fine work,” he says with approval. “The Orcs are excellent armourers, whatever people say. Quite as good as the best Human smiths. You say you brought it with you?”

“From the Orc gladiator pits. I used to fight there. Before I killed the Orc Lord who owned me, slaughtered his entourage, escaped down a sheer cliff face and took a job as a barmaid instead.”

“Interesting. Your attire seems hardly suitable for fighting, however.”

“You’re right,” agrees Makri. “Only a fool would go fighting in a bikini. But it gets me tips. When I’m on duty I hide the sword behind the bar.” She departs downstairs.

“A very interesting woman,” says Mursius. “Half Orc?”

“A quarter. Quarter Elf as well. And half Human, though that doesn’t make her act like one.”

The Senator studies me with interest. He’s wondering if he wants to hire an Investigator who’s having a relationship with a quarter Orc. He needn’t worry. I’m not having a relationship with Makri, or anyone else for that matter. Haven’t had one for a long time. I went off women when my wife left me for a young Sorcerer’s Apprentice some years ago. I took to drink instead. Actually I had taken to drink some time before she left, but afterwards I had much more time for it.

“So, how can I help you?”

The Senator tells me that he has suffered from a theft at his country house further down the coast, near to Ferai. Like any wealthy citizen, the Senator keeps a house in town and another in the country for retiring to when the weather gets too intense.

“My losses are not great. There wasn’t much money at the villa, but various works of art have gone missing and I’d like them recovered. In particular I’d like you to find a painting which I hold very dear.”

Remembering Mursius in his younger days, storming the Orc lines with a bloody sword in his hand, I never figured him as an art lover. You can never tell with these aristocrats, though. Men of Mursius’s generation went naturally into war and fought bravely, but they learned their share of social graces as well. There used to be a theory among the aristocratic class that it was important to enrich every aspect of one’s personality. But Turai was different in those days. Since the gold mines in the north started producing wealth and the drug trade brought dwa in from the south, the city is both much richer and much more corrupt. Today’s young aristocrats spend their time in debauchery and bribe their way out of military service.