[AN: NOW POSTING ON THE NEW SITE]

The Philosopher in Arms is now being posted on my new site at www.chevenga.com . Click on "latest" or go down the Table of Contents of The Philosopher in Arms for the current post.


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214 - The fox chasing for his dinner

That night as we celebrated I would gaze now and then at each person, and they would each gaze now and then at me, assessing the changes. “They hurt you so,” they kept saying. I am alive, I kept thinking, remembering Jinai’s reading. At least some of the changes were good, such as Shaina’s breasts now having the shape of a mother’s. She was nursing not only Kima Imaye, but Etana’s new baby, Kilalere.

Kima’s face was more Shaina’s, but her hair was mine, as were her tiny hands and feet. She was very shy at first, turning away from me; my face had become a more harsh sight for a child, with the old scar, and the new ones I’d taken today, still fiery red. But I fed her and changed her diaper and played faces with her and carried her around on my arm the whole evening, when she let me, and she began saying “Daddy” with meaning. So soon, I would be gone again, for who knew how long.

The next morning I kissed them all goodbye and set off the courier’s way back to Ossotyeya.

To speak to the army, I wore just my wristlets and Chirel over my formal political clothes, in part because the good set of armour I should have I didn’t yet, having just been measured before I’d gone to Kefara. As the sun was setting, I found a place in the river that was deep enough. The firedish would have to be makeshift, but spears and torches were, of course, in good supply. I called the army to assembly around that spot.

It was a beautiful evening, the purpling sky shot through with long clouds like flame in the setting sun, everything clearer and brighter than usual, as if All-Spirit were more visible than usual in everything.

As with the command council, I recounted all I had done on the way home. From the battle of Haiu Menshir, they were in my hands; it was a crescendo as I told them how many warriors were coming from each place. “It is your names that will be graven in history,” I told them, “since all the world remembers those who refused to give ground, who were present at the turning-point of defeat into victory.” The singing wind was in my ears throughout, and my tongue didn’t come even near to locking up. At the end, as they let out a steady deafening roar, I tapped Esora-e to be my ritual monk, and did the Kiss of the Lake. Here, it was relatively easy. It was a year and some before I was actually due to do it, but now was a good time to show them I could still die for them if I must, whatever Kurkas had done to me, and Renewal was a good thought to have in their minds, too. We feasted and celebrated that night. Next morning, I started work, calling together the command council. There was an Ikal person waiting with a sickeningly-familiar-looking box under her arm; of course, they wanted to do the full debriefing. I told her to wait.

“First priority,” I said to the council. “Triadas Teleken, personally. It’s the best single thing we can do to raise our morale, and lay waste to theirs. Here, he stands for Arkan victory in both their minds and ours; if I’m going to stand for Yeoli victory, I have to kill him. Not only that, but he’s almost certain to be replaced by someone inferior, by the way they promote in Arko.”

I had not forgotten his kindness to me, but nor had I forgotten his loyalty to Kurkas, despite having enough sense to see the futility of it, and that remaining loyal would destroy him. I expect to die there, he’d said, meaning Yeola-e. Yes, you will, I thought. I wondered if he’d been expecting to die by my hand but hadn’t wanted to reassure me quite that much. With Triadas, you couldn’t know.

They smacked hands to foreheads. I was hardly the first to think of this, and all sorts of attempts had been made, so that Triadas had himself extremely well-guarded at night, and no one had been able to solve it. “You’re not going to do another lone assassination of an enemy general, are you, Chevenga?” Hurai asked me, worriedly. “You’ve become more important since then, and their spies will know from last night that you’re back, and he must know you have weapon-sense.”

“No,” I said. “That was by night. I want to do this in broad daylight, and in such a way that his whole army is watching. That would have the best effect.” Of course they all looked at me as if I should be shipped back to the House of Integrity. “I will try to think of a way, and I ask all of you to as well.” In the meantime I asked them to brief me on everything, and took the best look I could at the Arkan camp. What leapt out at me, when they gave me accounts of the times the Arkans had tried to take the pass, was that Triadas had placed his command post in the same place each time, well back from the pass, where the valley lies between two cliffs.

“I can tell you why!” I said, laughing. “He thinks the cliffs are unclimbable. He is a city Arkan; it’s in their bones to think of cliffs as unclimbable, because they are there. But this is Yeola-e! You just know the hotheads among the local kids make a game of climbing them, and know them like the backs of their hands.”

“They do,” said Emao-e. “We don’t. You can hardly take enough local kids on such a raid; he leaves a good thirty or forty guards in their camp.” But it was too late; the whole plan had flashed into my mind.

I sent out word in Ossotyeya and the other villages around, asking for twenty hotheads, and picked out the fifteen of my elite and fifty regulars who were the best on cliffs. I stood on rank to go myself. Jinai was unable to foresee the result, but my own feeling was very good. I first held council with the raid unit and the hotheads that night, a good cure to spending half the day on truth-drug being debriefed, and told them we’d be back together the next night, to start the mission. The Arkan camp had a clear view of the cliff, during the day. With our armour well soot-darkened, we climbed down about the time they’d be bedding down, and slept ourselves in the trees at the cliff’s foot, a long arrow’s flight from where Triadas’s command-post had been last time.

At dawn, Emao-e did as I commanded, began a charge down from the pass, seven thousand on fifteen. Triadas must know how my speech had fired up my people; let him think I, and they, were being rash. I’d said enough times how the wasp can sting the bear to death if it has enough spirit, and how every battle would be all or nothing.

The Arkans set ranks and charged in themselves, letting me see something that gave me a turn: he had stiffened the camp guard to what looked like eighty or ninety for some reason. Sachara, who I had here as my second, hissed through his teeth. “Cheng, what do you think?”

They were in the insignia of regulars, but I thought, he’s caught wind of my plan somehow, and they are elite disguised as regulars. Getting away safe depended entirely on running back to the edge of the valley far enough in advance of any chase to stay ahead despite the talus at the foot of the cliff, and the cliff itself, slowing us down. But with more they might be able to hold us long enough for enough of the main force to join them, we were done for, myself included.

My warriors all saw what I saw. Keeping fear hidden behind an impassive face as they waited for my decision, I considered calling it off, or sending them without me and perhaps sacrificing them, a worthwhile exchange for Triadas if it did not include me; but, even as one or two of them suggested it, my heart rebelled. I should follow my mind, not my heart, but knowing I could never be entirely detached about myself, I felt the doubt eat at me. I’m counting my own importance too great, to hide from myself my own cowardice, I thought. It’s a hazard of fighting command.

Meanwhile, up in the pass, the army was doing perfectly what I had ordered, and Triadas doing perfectly what I’d planned. When Emao-e called a fall-back, as if I had lost my nerve—we had a pretend Chevenga, built like me and with a cobbled-together shoulder scabbard, fighting under the national banner—Triadas saw it as a chance to crush us entirely and ordered up his full army after, trying to flank. Even the greatest general will sometimes forget the things he learned first; habit or complacency or stiff-minded or over-confidence creep in unseen like ghosts. He was doing what he had not planned, at a time chosen not by him but by us, and he’d set his command-post in the same place.

My body tingled all over with the imperative, Now! I drove away my doubts and called back logic by will. If Triadas had learned my strike force number, he would have more than seventy here, for, elite or not, you never want to be outnumbered. Nor could he be concealing strength, because in that case he’d keep their apparent number the same as before, fifty, hiding the others. If he really knew my plan, this was half-action, and Triadas wasn’t prone to that. So he must not be. “We do as planned,” I ordered. “Wedge-form, to me, charge!”

All-Spirit, I thought as I ran out like the tip of an arrow aimed at the canopy under which he sat, at a desk with a number of red-tunic-wearing aides, this is the moment I have been waiting for for two years, the time I could take the fight to them on my own soil with a good chance of a devastating victory. Drawing Chirel, feeling my footfalls, bellowing out the war-cry, feeling the wind in my face; I can’t begin to describe how good it felt; if I hadn’t been too busy I might have wept.

Of course the guards rallied to form a line to hold us, yelling and leveling spears. I picked a man, faked him one way and cut back the other with a half-leap to get past his spear, and took him down without much slowing down. The rest of the wedge followed until the ten of us who would go after Triadas were all through; I’d assigned the rest to finish the guards so as to cover our retreat.

No fool to pride, he didn’t try to play hero, but ran for the nearest safety, his army’s rear, in the hopeless hope that his guard could hold us off long enough. His mantle, which was the brilliant red of the most expensive Arkan dye, flowed out behind him; two aides ran flanking him and the rest scattered, arms full of rolled-up maps. “Triadas, my old friend!” I hailed him in Arkan as I dashed after him. “Bit different circumstances, we meet this time, eh?”

So, as in the old story, he was the rabbit fleeing for his life while I was the fox chasing merely for my dinner, but he was middle-aged, out of training, breathing thin mountain air, and running uphill. As well the fox knew he could become dinner if he were too slow; already some in the Arkan host ahead were seeing, and peeling away to come to their general’s rescue. Clever to the end, he pulled his mantle in around him so I couldn’t grab it as I drew close. I caught him by his long streaming Aitzas hair.

Give him credit: he turned and drew a dagger, and almost gave me a wound; I twisted to make my breastplate deflect it. There was that square stern face again, but now flushed with exertion, and angry: with himself, I realized. I would love to have taken him alive, and have another conversation with him in bonds and me free, this time, but it was impossible. I struck off his head.

Such sweetness, to taunt the Arkans running towards me, far too late, by holding up his head to them, and smacking his cheek with the flat of Chirel. I hoped Kallijas Itrean was getting a good look. “You are having too much kyashin fun!” Sach hissed at me, as they came closer, and yanked me half off my feet to make me flee as appropriate. The hotheads performed their assignment perfectly, just climbing the cliff fast so we could follow, placing our hands and feet exactly as they placed theirs, and from the top we heaved rocks and dead trees and whatever else we could find down on the Arkans until they gave up and turned back, dispirited. They soon fell back from the pass as well.

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This incident from the point of Kalalao Shae-Fara, one of the hotheads, at Gabriel Gadfly's site here.

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213 - The pain that eases conscience

You can be away from home, and hear that it has all been changed, and brace yourself to see it, but still the idea remains inside that it is somehow just as it was, since that is the memory you have of it. I knew I would be shocked, but I still was.

Of course my first sight of Yeola-e wasn’t much, a deserted rocky beach south of Selina, in the dead of night. We would not risk going through the harbour; it seemed too likely that the Arkans knew I was on a cormarenc, and so they might well be turning every one that came into every Yeoli port town inside out. It wasn’t as if we needed an inn when the door of virtually any house we found would be thrown open to us ecstatically; there is the advantage in sneaking overland in your own country.

We were cautious though, travelling by night always, staying out of big cities, scouting local people who could steer us away from those who might be compromised; I had to accept that even among Yeolis there were those whom terror could make into traitors. Even by starlight I could see the road-signs with Arkan lettering, the walls where there should be none, the gibbets with hanging corpses in village squares. What was perhaps most awful was that my own who were with me didn’t seem even to notice these things.

The army was camped high on the pass near Ossotyeya, as I’d heard, pinned there by a greater Arkan one, which forced us to go around the back way to it, taking several climbs through passes almost too high for trees, so that the forest was up to our waists. Here we could travel by day, but on the last night we were close enough that I ordered push through, and we came in in the death-hour. Feeling we were cause enough to wake up Emao-e, I talked her guards into letting me in, knelt beside her bedroll and barked, as I had once before, “Fourth Chevenga reporting for duty, General First!” Just as before, she bounced about a foot up off the ground, roaring “Shit-britches, boy, I never know when you’re going to oh my All-Spirit, Chevenga!” and seized me in a furious hug.

The command council was only seven people, and I saw some missing who should be here, which told me the worst. In those who were left, I saw a deeper fatigue than from having been awakened too early, and new scars here and there. We’d all aged ten years in two, losing despite giving our utmost.

The smiles at me were desperate, the eyes naked with the thought, You are our last hope. I saw in Hurai’s the thought, I hope I taught him well enough. Jinai Oru, who looked the same—nothing could age or tire him—gave me a rib-cracking hug and said, “I told them you’d be back.”

So I sat them all down and said, “Let me tell you what I’ve been doing, between Haiu Menshir and here.” They hadn’t even heard of the battle of Haiu Menshir, I saw by the first shock, and the subsequent delight. As I listed everything off, totaling the numbers we would have, weight seemed to lift off their shoulders. We were so far gone that I don’t think shame for needing allies even occurred to them.

The rest of my family was in Kefara, about two days north; Assembly stayed and met where it could, in tents and on pastures. Renaina Chaer was still keeping the New Mountains to the south free, with her usual ghost and lightning tactics. This army was, as Krero had told me, seven thousand. It made me feel weak and sick to think of it: of all the warriors of Yeola-e who’d faced Arko on land, each the fruit of ten years of toil and sweat in training, only about ten thousand remained.

“Well, yes and no,” Emao-e pointed out to me, when I said this. “It’s been close to two years; everyone who was fourteen at the start is sixteen now, and there’s been a lot of secret training. Besides, there are those who lay low after they scattered, or recovered from wounds; if we start winning back, we’ll gather joiners.”

“If?” I said. “I know it’s been hard for you, all of you. But there’s no if here.”

I’d wondered if Emao-e might question my taking over the high generalship, either because of my age or that I’d been in the House of Integrity. That had been part of why I’d made my entrance for her the way I had. Now she just said, “A-e kras.”

It was close to dawn. “Tell them only that I am close,” I said. “I have a little business in Kefara, first, then I’ll be back to speak to them. Pick me out ten people who are good runners.” Going as couriers do, we could make two days one. I didn’t say what business; they needed nothing even slightly demoralizing now.

It was hard; I found out how unused to high air I’d got, breathing the thick heavy stuff of Arko and Haiu Menshir, except for when Niku had taken me up high. The secretary of the Arch-Arbitrate was sitting in the temple of Kefara. I knelt before her, took off my Brahvnikian-made signet and said “I have done what warrants impeachment without vote, as well as charges, but I plead extenuating circumstances. I submit myself to the Arch-Arbitrate’s judgment.” He was surprised enough just to see my face; now his jaw dropped open, the look of joy vanishing.

“I have Yeoli blood on my hands,” I told the head judge. “This is a story you should only have to tell once,” she said, and moved to assemble the court. I waited in a monk’s cell, with the bailiff keeping me company. Even chatting with him, I felt fears settle on my heart like mosquitoes on skin. I should have kept quiet, let them stay missing in action forever, as they themselves intended, I thought, sweating. If I were impeached, I could still serve as chakrachaseye if Artira appointed me, but how much would this touch morale? And what if they decided to charge me with murder?

But, in truth, I didn’t have it in me to do differently. Keeping it secret would have haunted me, ruining my own morale, weakening my spirit, hindering my fighting, muddling my plans. The God-in-Me would not send me the flash of inspiration, and without that, we were lost.

A voice came faint through the heavy door of the cell. “Chevenga?” It was Artira. We threw ourselves into each other’s arms, laughing like fifteen years ago, before we’d known what pain was, and crying too. I told her why I was here. She knew I had done it, of course.

We caught up. She’d sent a last letter to me in Arko, that I hadn’t received. I told her I’d accept whatever position was given me. And I said, “I’m sorry I left you with all this mess on your shoulders, Ardi.”

She knew I was the only one she could let show the strain. “Everyone’s been saying, ‘Will Chevenga come back, we’ll be all right with Chevenga back,’ and so on and on,” she said. Everyone loves you and no one loves me. “You can save us, and I can’t, and everyone knows it; how can I not feel I’ve failed?”

“Ardi… you were flung into the avalanche, you didn’t invite it, or even fail to prepare for it. Take two steps back and ask, did I do any more to prevent it than you did, really? We’re all equal in the face of Arkan power.” That helped a little; what helped more was taking her in my arms and letting her cry on my shoulder.

The case required Assembly as well as the Arch-Arbitrate. They set up on a field under the mountain Merahin, and I stood on grass while the charges were read. I was the only witness, but there were Enchian issues of the Pages and the Watcher of the Ring, too. I told the whole story as impassively as I could, which was not very.

Legally, it was all shaky. I should have been charged with eight counts of murder, but was not; the signet I had taken off today was not the official one, as Artira was wearing the one that had been ratified as official, and I had done something that warranted impeachment the moment I did it, so from the Yeoli standpoint, none of my alliances or loans were precisely legal; to reinstate me after this should require a national vote, not just one of Assembly, as those who argued for me asked. In times like these, even the most stiff-mindedly proper look the other way. It could be argued that there was no chance my trial would be fair, when everyone felt so dependent on me. We were so far gone no one argued that. Perhaps it would come back to bite me, some day; now was not the time to worry about it.

When the judges went off to a copse of trees to confer, I heard my name called over the buzz of the crowd. I hadn’t noticed: at its edge were Veraha, my sibs too young to fight, my grandmother, my aunts and uncles, my spouses and assorted other kin, all waving and blowing me kisses. Shaina lifted over her head a toddler with a thick thatch of black hair: Kima Imaye. I went blind with tears. Fifth wasn’t there, though, and I saw why when I thought about it. He was old enough to understand what I had done, but not why.

I didn’t expect no punishment at all. We might as well be slaves of the Arkans, if we are ever that far gone. They required me to inform the families of the eight myself, and get their wisdom teeth to them when I could; they sentenced me to take eight brand-marks on the face, since that was the Yeoli Mezem custom. But they also recommended Assembly reinstate me as semanakraseye, which they did, almost unanimously. The branding was much lighter than I’d inflicted on other Yeolis in the Mezem, done with wire rather than a rod; the eight lines fit in a space on my left cheek two finger-widths side, as anyone who has met me since knows. Being the pain that eases conscience, it hurt pleasantly.

I slept there the night, spending the evening with family. Now I saw Fifth, so big and with his face so lengthened at the age of six that he looked, to my eyes, like a little man. His dark ringlets hung past his shoulders. He’d proven himself very bright, learning to read and write not long after I’d left, and speaking like a ten-year-old. He’d gripped the sword of Saint Mother, which was held in hiding now, but not lifted it. Still, he told me, “Daddy, I’m going to be as good a warrior as you.”

Azaila had spoken to me about this shortly after I’d brought Fifth home. “You know the odds,” he said. “It’s almost certain your child won’t be as good as you. To expect it of him is to do him wrong.” I already knew that, of course. I’d just said I’d expect his best, no more and no less, and always said the same to Fifth himself. But now here he had this ambition, formed in my absence. I couldn’t single out Esora-e; people always look for missing parents in children.

“Will you train with me tomorrow, Daddy, pleeeeease?” he was saying.

“I have to run back to the army, so I won’t have time, love,” I said. “I have a little time now, though.” There was still a little orange and blue daylight, as we went out on the mountain. I challenged him to a little blind-man’s-bluff, to warm up, I told him. When he was fully blindfolded, I drew Chirel and did a down-cut at his head, a stroke that would have made me leap a pace sideways at his age. There wasn’t even a break in his chatter.

My child, I thought, as he stumbled over the meadow giggling, “I’ll get you, Daddy!”, I took you from your mother, then abandoned you, will abandon you again tomorrow, and then again the final time, before you’re even in your teens. Why did I take you? How could I do you such wrong? I looked ahead in his life, saw him chase the futile goal he’d set his heart on, all or nothing as children do, defeated from the start, with even his name begging comparison. His highest lesson of warcraft would be to abandon it. He was intelligent, too, and therefore sensitive, and when he felt it worst, at sixteen, I wouldn’t even be there. If anything, I would become a curse to him, the summit he failed to reach.

When we were done playing and practicing, I sat down with him under my arm on a rock. “I want to tell you a story, Chevenga—I know, people tell you that can’t be your name, but from me it can, because I alone am not mixing you up with some other Chevenga—about why you are anaraseye. Has anyone told you about that?”

He signed chalk with his smooth little hand, and said “It’s because I’m your eldest child, and you chose for me to.”

“Why do you think I thought you’d make a good semanakraseye? Why do you think that might be?”

“Because you thought I’d be a great warrior, and defeat the savage foreigners?” Definitely, Esora-e had been speaking with him. Already, in that little face so like mine, was tension and doubt I cannot recall feeling, that young. It had been peacetime.

“No,” I said. “That wasn’t it at all. I didn’t choose you for anything I thought you might be someday. I wouldn’t do that. It was for what you were. You think you were too young to prove yourself in anyway, don’t you, love?” He signed chalk, mystified. “But you did. Very well.” And I told him about the toad, on Leyere mountain.

An amazed dawning came into his eyes. He remembered it. Sounding not five years older than he was, but ten, he said, “That’s why you did that.”

“Yes. I’m sorry I frightened you. But if ever in your life anyone says you aren’t good enough, or as good as me, or strong enough, remember this always. You won my approval for being kind-hearted and just-minded. Nothing else, because you need nothing else to be a good semanakraseye. And if, when I’m not here, anyone says I wouldn’t think you are good enough in one thing or another, tell them this: from the day I met you, you were good enough for me, and you always will be.”

He sat gazing at me for a bit, then said, in an eerily-adult manner, “Thank you,” and gave me a neck-crushing hug. All the way back down the mountain, he who was usually so chatter-filled—I don’t know where he got it—was silent in thought.

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212 - I feel much more confident

Offered the choice of waiting until I came off the drug or the meeting he and I were to have that night anyway, Mikhail chose the former, but left to do some business of his in some other part of the Benai. Ivahn lifted the blanket off me, a blessed relief. I was still wearing two shirts, having planned to whip off the outer one in the alley, and was sweating like a pig. He asked me if I was comfortable where I lay, which my drug-palsied mind interpreted as meaning comfortable bodily, making my mouth answer “Yes.” Aside from wishing I were dead.

“Good,” he said. “I had Stevahn tell your people that you’re with me, in conference. Are you thirsty?” I was, desperately, having had not a drop from when I’d headed out to kill Edremmas. He lifted my head on his arm and gave me two cups full, then headed back to his desk to do paperwork, and say his afternoon prayer on the chiming of the bell. Though I found myself almost hoping the drug would never wear off, since then I’d have to speak on my own initiative, it did.

When I could, I turned away from him on the couch and put my arm over my head. I kept my tears silent. He would find them contemptible too, I was sure. When my eyes dried and enough time had gone by that they might not be too red, I sat up, and pulled off the second shirt. I decided to let him speak first, though. Of course he thought my silence was still from the drug, until he asked, and I told him it was gone enough that I could speak of my own will.

I thought he would tear into me, even if in a calm, monkish sort of way, but he settled just for asking me why I had erred, a hard question to answer. Why do we make mistakes? Inexperience? Carelessness? Overconfidence? Was I still a touch out of my head as Mikhail had suggested? I didn’t feel a clear answer in myself, so I said, “Rank stupidity.” After all that, he wouldn’t let me castigate myself. “My anger is only fear,” he said.

I got up, carefully, stretching out the stiffnesses, and trying to will away the last of the truth-drug feeling in my limbs. I went onto my knees and held my forelock to apologize, the strongest way we Yeolis do it, for causing him that fear. “Same as Mikhail,” I said as well, “whatever I can do to help with the Arkans, I will.” The wig, whiskers and hat might be useful in that, I was thinking.

“Accepted,” he said, then took my chin to turn my face up and look into my eyes, which must have been redder than I hoped. “Ah, Vik.” He pulled me up into his arms.

Curse you for making me lose it, I thought, as my eyes filled with tears again. “Truth be told, Brahvniki needs you too, lad. You’ll be all right, and do well.” I couldn’t keep from sobbing then, and burying my head in his shoulder. My Yeoli heart, I guess, has no use for zight. He held me hard, patting my shoulder, the old fox gone, the compassionate priest entirely with me.

Chirel was still lying on his desk. When I was done, he unwound the broken bits of peace-bonding wire from the hilt, and handed it to me. Then he sent a Vra to invite in Mikhail.

“You are up and about again, semanakraseye,” the clawprince said, when he and I were alone. “I am assuming salt is thoroughly shared between us.”

“Yes, very,” I said. More than you know. Unless Ivahn had told him I’d been under the blanket; I had no way of knowing. His face was stern, but closed, so that it was hard to know what he thought of me. As if I don’t, I thought.

“Teik Mikhail...” It was a loss of zight, which is everything to a Zak, but I’d lost it already. I got on my knees to him, too, which put my face at about his shoulder. “I apologize, with all my heart.”

By his face, he had not expected this, but the surprise soon disappeared into the sternness. “For what, precisely?” he said. He was testing me.

“For giving you cause to lose trust in me, when you have entrusted me with so much.”

“Hmmm.” He ran one small finger over his lips. He didn’t accept, so I stayed where I was. “So... semanakraseye... are you all right? Should I worry? Ivahn reassures me I needn’t.” So he doesn’t know I was under the blanket. I wasn’t sure who I would embarrass worse by revealing it, him or me.

No reason to beat around the bush. “You mean, am I sane enough to do what is asked of me?” And where is my confidence, I thought. He’s asking that, too. I took a deep breath, willing it not to be ragged. “Mikhail... I will do with this the same as one should do with any mistake. Learn from it, and never repeat it. I didn’t think I had a tendency to insufficient reconnaissance; maybe I do. I plan to keep that in mind. If I’m still insane, the healers would be the first to tell you that my claim to sanity is not to be believed. For what it’s worth, I think I’m sane.” I drove away the thought, which poked like the black paw of a monster out of its cage, that was a lie. I was sane if I could keep the cage locked.

“I see. I accept your apology, semanakraseye. Your zight is safe with me.” I got up. “And though I am tempted to make my worry manifest by demanding monetary recompense... a deal is a deal. Call it my mistake for not getting that in our agreement.”

Here it was. I must do what I must do, I intoned to myself, and said, “If you wish to change the terms—raise the interest, or make the portion we designated a fee into a loan—I will accept that.”

He stood considering for a while, whether truly considering, or making me sweat, I naturally couldn’t tell. “I am going to heed that which is in part the source of my success though the mind cannot follow it and it is no manrauq that I know,” he said finally. “I’m going to obey my guts. Edremmas is dead by your hand, and a deal is a deal.” He handed me a paper. It was the scrip for the full amount.

Curse my tear-up-at-a-dustspeck eyes, I thought, as they filled yet again. “Yeolis,” he said, but with enough of a smile that I knew it was not contemptuous, and offered a linen handkerchief, so elaborately embroidered I felt embarrassed to let my tears land on it.

Outside Ivahn’s door, Sachara and Krero were waiting in ambush. They seized me in their arms, one from each side. Krero said, “Oh my kyashin left hemorrhoid, are you all right?” and Sach said, “Cheng, what happened? Stevahn came and told us to stop acting like our tails were on fire, the Benaiat Ivahn was handing it,” both at once.

“It’ll be all right, I’m fine, they’re going to fake the assassin’s death,” I said quietly but fast, throwing an arm around each of their necks. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, a thousand times over. Does everyone know I’m here?”

“Yes, we told them,” said Krero. “Everyone’s shitting bricks but your shadow-father, who’s spitting nails. Let’s get you downstairs so Kaninjer can check you over.”

In our cellar-once-tannery, everyone else fell on me in a thick knot of hugs as well, except for Esora-e. His face was white with rage, making me wonder if it had been so the whole time. The silence grew deeper, and those who held me let go and backed away, as he spoke. I braced myself.

“Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e.” His voice was deadly quiet, at least at the start. “What in the garden orbicular is wrong with you? How irresponsible, how reckless, could you be, trying to pull something like that? Have you forgotten everything Azaila or I or anyone taught you? Sachara said you bowed for the crowd, like the kevyalin circus clown you once were—it’s the kevyalin Mezem, you were in it too long! Or your kyashin mind is still soft and we should truss you up and haul you back to the kevyalin healers—how is Yeola-e going to win with you doing kyash like—”

“Esora-e Mangu.” The voice that cut in was even more deadly. My mother stepped between him and me, so I didn’t see her look, but I saw him freeze. I hope I am never in the path of it. He opened his mouth, closed it again.

I couldn’t move, as if my feet had grown roots, or speak, as if I were gagged again. The world was spinning; the crowded faces that stared at me, smiles gone, swam in my sight. All I could think was, I am not who I think I am, or claim to be.

My mother turned, and caught me in her arms as if I were falling. “Kaninjer... he needs you.” Not unless he has the secret elixir of competence in his bag, I thought. I wanted to die again. She and the Haian sat me on a bed, and he felt my wrists.

I said what was in my heart. “If you no longer trust me, say so, and I will do what is right.” Leap off a cliff, I meant, though I did not say it.

They closed in around me again, their voices jumbling together. “Of course we trust you, you just made one lousy mistake, if we didn’t we’d be counting votes, we trust you and we love you, Chevenga, our lives are in your hands and we want it no other way!” Of course I lost it again.

In the end, Esora-e embraced me too, and apologized. I learned later that Denaina and Sachara had pulled him aside and said, “You saw how pale he went. Kill his faith in himself and you kill all Yeola-e, too. Just keep right on if you want that on your shoulders.”

†

3 Jil 4975 : Brahvniki

Dear Mamin:

I did something I did not think was possible last night.

After he asked if they still trusted him, and they were all in tears and all over him, it turned more into a celebration when he told them how much he had earned by doing it, and they went over the numbers of mercenary warriors who’ve signed on.

But there was no alcohol-drinking, fortunately, and they all went to bed at a reasonable time. But I had a feeling I should stay up for a while to make sure he got to sleep.

Chevenga and sleep are not friends. He’ll be dog-tired and not want to go to bed anyway, as if sleep somehow steals time away from him that he needs for all the things he has to do. Then it doesn’t take him enough; he sleeps lightly so that a little noise can wake him. When I asked him about sleep in the patient intake, he told me he sometimes can’t get to sleep for worrying about something until he’s come up with a plan for it, and that he also often wakes up too early and lies thinking. I know I am going to have to watch him for the signs of insufficient sleep.

So I crept into his room, perhaps half an aer after he retired. He used to sleep in darkness, he told me, but wants a candle by the bed since he was in Arko, for reasons he’s never told me but which are, no doubt, in Alchaen’s file. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling.

“Do you want something to help you sleep?” I asked him. “If you stay awake long enough, I will prescribe it.”

“If it gets to that,” he said. We stayed in silence for a bit, and then he said, “High stakes, no mistakes. That’s how it goes. I can’t stop thinking it.”

He’s never shared something like that with me before, Mamin, something of his concerns. I wasn’t sure how to deal with it, because, what do I know of war or assassination or planning that sort of thing? But just listening to patients can make them feel better, so I said, “If you want to talk, I am here.”

“So terrible, the consequences could have been, but so easily avoidable,” he said. “All I had to do was stroll along my getaway route beforehand, and then I’d have set a different one. How can I call myself competent if I didn’t think of that?”

It was so odd, Mamin. He is usually so confident, it defies belief. Now he sounded… well, Spirit of Life, he sounded like me. Maybe I could talk to him the way you, and other people, talk to me, when I get filled with self-doubt after I’ve erred. “One mistake is not a terrible thing,” I said. “And anyone can make one.”

“No!” Or maybe I couldn’t. Was that the wrong thing to say. He sat up fast in the bed. “Maybe anyone else can. I can’t! Not one, not one more, or else everyone and everything I love and live for is—” He drew his finger across his throat, meaning, you know. “I’ve sworn that I won’t make another; but how many people in history have said that, have sworn ‘never again, after this one,’ each time? I can make sure all my reconnaissance is three times what it needs to be from now on, and I will, but what if some other kind of mind-lapse creeps up on me? And I don’t know whether it’s because I’m out of practice or complacent from victories or just young and stupid or that maybe… my mind hasn’t healed as much as I’m pretending it has… All-Spirit…” He buried his face in his hands. “I’ve cried so many tears of shame today, I would have thought I’d run dry.”

You try to make a patient like that lie back and then you’re fighting him, of course, so I just put my hands on his head, frontal-occipital. He closed his eyes and let out a long quivering sigh. “I know. I should lie back.” He didn’t, though. “I… want so much to sleep with a pair of arms around me. I miss Niku… I wonder how she is… I’ve been here long enough, I should have sent a letter, maybe I’ll write it right now… no, no, I know, I know, Kanincha, I should lie back and sleep.” He sighed again, still quivering.

“Lie back and I’ll keep holding your head like this,” I said. He did, and wept a little, but his eyes stayed open and anguished and full of thoughts, that he stopped sharing with me. I told myself, just be patient and keep holding. After a while he wrapped one hand around his Yeoli crystal, and closed his eyes, but in an intentional way that showed it was to pray, not to sleep. He stayed like that for a while, and then he was in tears again, but by the way his face smoothed out, the crease between his brows disappearing, I knew they were tears of relief, that he’d found spiritually, somehow. “Thanks Kanincha,” he whispered. “I’m all right, thank you. I know what to do.” He fell asleep barely a moment later.

So, yes, I did something I didn’t think I could do, ease his distress on a matter of his calling, which is so diametrically opposed to mine. I feel much more confident about being a good healer to him.

All my love from your self-assured son,

Kaninjer.

†

On retrospect, the shaking I got in Brahvniki was a good thing, to steady me down for undertaking the war.

We were in Bravhniki for five more days, for a total of thirty-one-thousand and five-hundred gold at various rates, none of them bad, as well as four thousand mercenaries and a feeling they were far from tapped out by the time I was leaving. Esora-e would stay behind until he either had seven thousand or made a good hire of a mercenary recruiter to run it all herself, which he eventually did.

We set sail out of Brahvniki harbour as soon as the sky was fully dark that night. “Steer by Vara-imayen,” I told the cormarenc captain, meaning the star whose Yeoli name means Exile’s Hope. “Take me home.”

--

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211 - Further Brahvnikian justice in action

I was genuinely hoping, and even thought it was plausible, that the last time would be the last time in my life, I thought.

I made the sounds I could, as well as a frantic double-charcoal with my shackled hands. I’m sure the look in my eyes was very sincere. “Oh?” the watch-official said. “Don’t want to be truth-drugged? Imagine.” I did it again, for all I was worth. I’d had some notion of keeping not only my silence, but my disguise, while I was here; I gave that up now. But how to tell her I’m the semanakraseye of Yeola-e, I’m an ally, it’s political, without words? “It amuses me how every single one I arrest seems to think he is somehow a special case, or has circumstances that are particularly extenuating,” she said.

The man assisting her pressed a few drops of the drug out of the needle to clear it of air. “Maybe we should scrape you,” she said, almost absently. “You aren’t what you seem. You look like a Arkan crossbreed of some sort, with all your hair blond except your eyebrows, but you gesture, and move, like a Yeoli.” I signed double-chalk, with as much of a look of “Let me explain!” in my eyes as I could manage. “Ah,” she said. “Bringing your war here.” I guess you prefer the Arkans? “Our city isn’t your battlefield, you know. There are laws here.”

The needle felt as if it was going into my heart again. It took everything in me to master tears; I could tell by her hardwood face that she’d see that with nothing but contempt. “Tell you what,” she said, once it was done. “Sometimes people say interesting things before, or as, it’s taking effect.” She unfastened the gag.

I’ll try not to say anything boring, I thought acidly, as I licked my lips and worked my tongue as you do to reclaim ownership of your mouth after having been gagged. “Emm... Teik of the Watch, you’ve heard the semanakraseye of Yeola-e is in town, yes? Hiring mercenaries?”

“Dah, I have. I think you’ve probably kissed off your chance of employment with him.”

“I… I am him. The semanakraseye of Yeola-e. Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e. I’m in disguise. My eyebrows are real; the blond is all false. Open my shirt and you can see the brandmark. Or, of course, you can just ask me again in a tenth.”

She looked at me half-stunned, and half as though she’d found me clinging to the bottom of a dock pylon at low tide, with the slime and barnacles. “The semana...” She lifted the edge of the wig up just a hair, pulled the moustache off a touch, and yanked gently on the hairs of the end of my eyebrow, which, of course, clung.

After standing over me for a time, deliberating inwardly, she said, “No. This is something I do not wish to know.” I didn’t want to wear the gag again, but if you’ve read this far you’ve gathered that I can be relied upon to open my mouth, and she was well-practiced at quickly seizing the opportunity. She got me at about “No, no, wai—” and re-sealed it with a deft twist of her wrist. “Vyasiv, this goes over to the highest Vra. This man was never here. Understood?” He acknowledged with what must be her title in Zak, very sincerely.

But you just truth-drugged me, I wanted to scream. The highest Vra... Ivahn. If they took me to him now, I’d be under the full effect while we spoke, assuming he was kind enough to ungag me.

She patted my shoulder, proprietarily. “If what you’re claiming is true—and it’s a very wild story to not be true when you’re about to be truth-drugged—the Benaiat can ask you what he needs to know while you’re still on it. If you’re lying, we’ll bring you back here, and I’ll teach you to regret it, self-styled Fourth Shchevenga.” She erased her waxboard with firm swipes. That’s ‘self-styled semanakraseye’ to you, I hissed inwardly.

I’d never had truth-drug take effect while I was walking. It took a little longer, and was discernable to them by my staggering into things rather than turning truthful on testing questions, so they took a firm grip on my arms and then under my elbows. We crossed the harbour to Benai island on a rowboat that belonged to the watch.

I didn’t know it then, but my back-up, who’d followed me to the Kreml but not into it, of course, had split up: Sach and Alaecha had taken the public ferry to the Benai to tell my parents, and Krero and Kunarda had waited for me, then surreptitiously followed me and the guards taking me to the docks. Deciding against trying to spring me by force when I was held by friends and in such a state, they’d been unable to get onto the official boat with me, of course, and so had had to wait, cursing and spitting, for the next public ferry.

The sparkle of sun on water, the rocking of the boat, the onion-domed corridors with their scented mortar, was all like a vivid yet distant dream. The watch official went into Ivahn’s office first to report, taking Chirel, while passing red-robed monks stared at the glassy-eyed slouching lump that was me. Then they half-carried me in and sat me in a chair, and I lay my head back, without willing to. She ungagged me again.

“Unshackle him too, and everyone go,” Ivahn commanded. “He can do me no harm.” They did, and he looked me in the eyes, then gently unpinned the wig and unstuck the whiskers. It was a relief; they were starting to itch.

“Are you injured, Schchevenga?”

“No.” Only my pride, maybe mortally.

“And you did kill Edremmas?”

“Yes.” I hope it pleases you.

“Why?”

He’d never learned how to truth-drug someone, then; that was too big a question. It was somehow reassuring that he hadn’t, as if that somehow made the world back to the innocent place it had been when I’d visited here as a youth, before I knew anything of Arko. “I was hired,” I said. He’d have it all out of me, it seemed, but in one or two-word dribbles, not the eloquent flow I could have delivered undrugged.

He heaved out a long sigh. Of course he knew Annike was a friend of Mikhail; probably he’d guessed who’d hired me. “If I helped you, could you get up and over to my couch?”

“Yes.” I wasn’t sure he had the strength to catch me if I fell, but the drug took away my will to say that. Just as he was doing it, steadily enough, there was a tap on the door, and someone said something in Zak that sounded urgent. He said what sounded like ‘wait,’ and in what the person outside said, I caught the word ‘Mikhail.’ Was he here? Ivahn laid me straight on the couch, and then threw a blanket over me, covering me entire, including my face. Why did you do that? I was already too hot, and this made it worse, but there was nothing I could do about it.

“Teik Farsight, please come in.” The voices were muffled through the wool, but not enough to be unclear. I had thought Ivahn would switch to Zak, but he said this in Enchian.

“Thank you, thank you, Vra Ivahn.” Mikhail didn’t sound panicked, but then he wasn’t the kind to show it if he were.

“Have a seat. May I offer you some refreshment?”

“Why, certainly, Vra Ivahn. That would be delightful.”

“Oh, Vra Fassily, please fetch some tea for us, would you?” I heard the monk’s feet on the stones of the floor, and the brushing of his robe. “Amazing weather we’ve been having, Teik? So much rain. I am certain I would not wish to be out in it.”

They went on with these pleasantries for what seemed like a century. Was this just the usual Zak formal informality, or meant to torture me? Not by Mikhail, obviously, as he couldn’t know I was here.

I decided, though at heart I knew it was futile, to put every cell of my will into attempting to move, even just a twitch, so that one or both of them would notice. But I couldn’t find even one cell of my will, and so stayed still as the dead.

“Vra Ivahn, I did come with a matter urgent in terms of time,” Mikhail said. “Forgive me, but, I share the salt. It concerns a certain person who has been apprehended by the city watch.”

“Yes, Teik? Not that I should know about such things, but if I should happen to?”

“You have received no special notification, then? In the last very short while?”

“I may have,” Ivahn said evenly. “But I am certain that everyone within these sacred walls is no criminal.”

“Of course, but… you may have? You are not certain whether you received a specific notification or not?” Mikhail’s voice took on an edge. I could imagine those piercing black eyes.

“Mikhail, forgive my reticence and my familiarity. It may be a matter of some, em… deniability.”

“Well... I am not the person you need deny it to. Is Shchevenga here?”

I gave it all I had to move again, and again failed. Was he here to stand by me, or throw me to the wolves by somehow disavowing me? I reminded myself that truth-drugging was now the usual way here, and he must know that, and so realize he couldn’t deny any aspect of the deal.

“He is,” said Ivahn.

“And so, safe?”

“He is as safe as you and I are, as safe as in the Great Bear’s protecting arms.”

“But not safe from your wrath, I imagine. I come to tell you that at least half of that wrath should be directed toward me.” Stand by me. I remembered, he was strong on the merchant’s honour, that holds agreements as sacred. Had I been able, I’d have heaved out a huge breath.

“I am less wrathful, Mik, than you think. I will feel better without Edremmas and his ideas on the Praetanu. And yet, he was a citizen, and a crime was committed. Shchevenga’s been truth-drugged—luckily it was one of our good watch troops that nabbed him, rather than those who’d have sold him to the Arkans—and I am now in the enviable position of facing an Arkan embassy who do not recognize any citizenry other than Arkan. Thank you very much.”

“My Benaiat,” said Mikhail, with Zak-style formality, “I apologize most abjectly, for letting the big wool-haired oaf seduce me with such golden words into thinking he was above getting caught. Curse him... there’s nothing in the agreement letting me out of part of the payment if that happened.”

A third time I tried to wriggle even a toe, and a third time I failed. I should discount it anyway, I thought, in apology and to show him goodwill. How much money would that require? Those ankaryel were probably already all spoken for, in mercenary contracts. I felt sick.

“Mikhail... have a taste of this Saekrberk, it is the latest distillate—just yesterday.” I heard the gentle trickling of the liquor being poured, and both of them say the ritual word, “Korukai.”

“Ahhhh, indeed.” The clawprince smacked his lips. “That has… a streak of bitter fire that contrasts with the sweetness quite beautifully; and yet the suspicions of pine and cloudberry complement, and complicate, that fire-and-sweetness melange in a profound way.”

“Well, the secret is in the proportions…” They went on for a while about Saekrberk-making methods, while I lay drugged frozen and wanting to rip out my hair. Ivahn, you are most definitely tormenting me, I thought.

“You may have a cask, as a guest-gift,” he said. “Did you see him do it?”

“My Bear-Beloved Benaiat, I cannot begin to thank you for your munificence. I did. As did the girls.”

“How did he do it?”

“A two-hand sword-stroke so fast you could not see the blade until it was buried in Arkan fat. Then he fought down six Arkan guards easily as falling out of bed. It’s the fleeing part he didn’t do so well. Honey-Giving One... he is so impressive to speak to, seems to know so well what he’s doing... but he was out of his head so recently, I wonder if he’s entirely back in it.”

I have been sentenced, I thought, to lie here still and hear this. I didn’t try to move again.

“But that’s a good thing for his war, that he does not know how to flee well, don’t you think?”

“Ahh, Ivahn, I was speaking rhetorically when I said the fleeing part. What I truly meant was the planning part. He’s going to take over as their supreme general, Honey-Giving One help us, and yet made such a stupid mistake. I just bet a very great deal of money on his not making stupid mistakes, as did you on behalf of this whole city.”

I no longer wanted to move; just die so that my liquefied corpse flowed off the couch and oozed through cracks in the floor. “Oh, everyone makes mistakes, Mik,” Ivahn said, lightly. “He did succeed in the deed, and now he has me and the whole weight of the Benai to cover for him.”

“What, you think that was his plan?” Mikhail spat. “ ‘I won’t worry about getting caught since my old friend Ivahn and my dear backer Mikhail can figure out how to pull my fat out of the fire somehow and clean it all up with the Arkans?’ You have him lying truth-drugged somewhere? Maybe we should ask the oversized tyke.”

“Well, you witnessed; what was his mistake?” Ivahn had stepped closer to me; was that purposeful, to get Mikhail facing me so his voice would be clearest?

“He wasn’t properly prepared for effective pursuit from the watch. The route he took to escape, he must not have walked beforehand. There was sewer-work. Is that the quality of reconnaissance he’s going to do in his war, which is now ours?”

No! No no no no no no! Second Fire come, I’ll do it better! I’ll never do insufficient reconnaissance again! I would be in tears, I knew, if not for the drug.

“Our city does have a reputation for a very lax watch and very loose laws, Mik; perhaps that threw him.”

“Pfah,” Mikhail spat. I flinched all over, inwardly, as if he’d spat lava and it had landed on me. “A good strategist counts on no such thing. I should remember: he’s been a friend of yours from his youth. Charmed you blind, by the looks of it. Well... what are we going to do? The Arkans must know the miscreant was arrested; they’ll want his head, and maybe a few other parts of him taken off first, and slowly.”

“Mikhail, don’t worry, it will be nothing at all. We’ll have him kill himself.”

Truth-drug makes all words you hear much more huge than they truly are, and those who uttered them God-like; I went very still inside, too much so even to think, and the next words were almost too distant to understand. “We are so lax, and he so slippery, he will get away from us. I’m sure we have an unclaimed body in the hospital morgue, or someone awaiting execution, whose looks are close enough to his get-up. I will order prayers for the soul of the man who will save our firebrand. Let the Arkans sneer at me; you know I live for that.” They both laughed a dry laugh.

“Any help I can provide in making this convincing, you may rely on,” said Mikhail. “All I ask is—well, I was going to have one more meeting with said firebrand, to complete everything, so I will have my chance. I owe him a thorough tongue-lashing.”

“Agreed, agreed, dear friend. You will most certainly have your chance.”

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210 - Brahvnikian justice in action

“So I heard this right, Cheng? You want to kill this Arkan mucky-muck right in their council chamber, while they’re in session, because that would be most fitting, even though it’s probably the best-guarded place in this whole city, other than the treasury.” I signed chalk. “Hmm… you know... I don’t think we should back you up so much as haul you back to the House of Integrity.”

“Krero, it’s three thousand gold ankaryel. Think of how many mercenaries you can sign on with that.”

“Maybe the client wants to get you killed too; he’s no less a foreigner; did you think of that?”

“He didn’t specify the place, except somewhere where he can watch. Doing it in the Praetanu is my idea.”

“Right, so you just want to kill yourself before you can get home to save Yeola-e. I understand.” I had not yet entirely learned that, with some stratagems, the best way to get them past your advisors is not to mention them until you’re in the midst, or just before. It had been inadvertent with the battle of Niah-lur-ana and my mrik game with Astalaz, but, on retrospect, worked well. Remember this, I told myself.

One should especially not mention them before one has done the needed reconnaissance, I realized, as I now had to tell him, “Krero, don’t worry; I will learn all I must know—how the place is laid out, where the guards are, and so on—before I decide for certain whether I’ll do it.” Alas, that opened the way for him to have much more influence on my decision.

One person whose influence I did seek was Mikhail; he’d know the ins and outs of the building as well as whether, for instance, the guards might be less than vigilant in catching me because my victim was an Arkan, and what the political implications would be if it came to light that the assassin was me. Knowing him, he’d have another dossier. I had a feeling he’d love the idea, but I trusted him in his careful shrewdness not to childishly shade his view of my odds because of that.

“Right in the Praetanu?” he said, when I visited him again that night. His salt-and-pepper brows disappeared under his thin fore-curls, the most expression I’d seen from him. But though he said “The thought delights me,” he didn’t smile, and went right on to say, “but it would be so much less dangerous almost anywhere else, except perhaps his house. Are you thinking just to please me by this, young Shchevenga, or to prove your own gallantry?”

“I am thinking to please you, and all Brahvniki,” I said. “And the challenge of it tempts me… maybe there’s some wish to prove my own gallantry in that. But I must know much more before I decide for certain, and I ask for your help in learning that.”

We went over what he knew right there in his office. I knew the room a little from when I’d watched them in session on my month away, but he could tell me where the guards were placed, how they were armed and so forth.

I didn’t think it would hurt to admit this in writing, but it does more than I expected: what he told me made me decide against, even though I saw a way that might work. I’d fallen in love with the idea, so I had to tell myself firmly, I am being prudent, not a coward.

The thing that persuaded me more than anything else, in truth, was that those guards were of a friendly people, not enemies, so I would be constrained against harming them; they, however, would not know who I was and so would feel no such constraint, putting me at a disadvantage against them. And if we did end up in a full fight, the ending would be disastrous either way.

At least it meant Krero would be relieved that I would do it on the street instead, instead of being horrified and worried as he would have been if I’d presented it to him that way from the start.

To this day I wonder how it would have gone differently if I had chosen the other way.

Mikhail wouldn’t let his Edremmas dossier out of his house, so he loaned me a little office in which to sit to read it. Next day I got false whiskers and a wig, straight blond solas-cut, as well as a low-brimmed hat that I showed to Mikhail so he’d know me.

Out of respect for my position and consideration for my self-defense, Ivahn had personally exempted me and my guards from the usual Brahvnikian peace-bond requirement, but I went to the peace-bonding office and had it done anyway, so as not to draw suspicion carrying Chirel. Out of sight, I weakened the wires so it would slightly slow my draw at the most.

The slave-market is a subject of debate in Brahvniki, as many people oppose slavery on principle while others make money at it; there is a slave-market whose size goes up and down depending on which side is prevailing in the debate. It was a pastime of Edremmas to go there every day, since, as there are dog and horse-fanciers, he was a person-fancier, and dreaded missing choice items. He travelled in a hammock-chair borne by four, with a guard of eight, all Arkans. He took the same route back to his house each day, and there were plenty of alleyways near into which one could go in a hat-wearing Arkan and come out a hooded Yeoli. I learned the routes from the place I picked on a city map, and assigned Krero, Sachara, Kunarda and Alaecha to wander near me, pretending not to know each other, in case the guards proved more than was likely.

The day was hot and dusty, sun-swirls rising from the buildings, the people in a mood to push and curse. I ambled to the designated fountain; there was Mikhail, paused as if to enjoy the water, his entourage all liveried in silver and black. Four dark-haired young women, including the one who’d led me into the place by the hand, stood close around him. It seemed they all wanted to watch, too.

I had a sudden bitter thought: I was killing for his enjoyment, just like in the Mezem. It was overwhelming for a moment; it was almost as if I could hear the oddsmakers and the hawkers yelling. I seized myself, and drove the feeling away. I was killing for his enjoyment, yes, but in this my people would benefit, and greatly. The semanakraseye of a country all but conquered must do what he must do.

The crowd ahead parted; Brahvnikians liked to steer well clear of Edremmas, it seemed, as if he stank. As I’d hoped, two of his guards had their hands full, leading a spectacular slave: she was a full head taller than me, coloured and muscled like a bronze statue but with flame-red hair, and still fighting despite their whipping her. He meant to enjoy breaking her, it seemed. I forgot that I had nothing against him other than where his loyalty lay, and the contract.

The slave was pulling the pair back and apart from his fluttering retinue of servants and hangers-on, those flea-like people who surround anyone who is both powerful and of bad character. Edremmas, who was as soft under his jewels as Mikhail had said, swung slightly in his hammock, his flank wide open. He saw Mikhail, and gave a smug smile. Mikhail gave an even more smug one back, as did all the daughters.

I took two running steps and a long leap in between two of the fleas, letting out a war-cry to freeze everyone. I drew as I leapt, into a two-hand down-stroke that went half-through him.

He couldn’t scream—I’d cut just below his ribs—but everyone else did. Six of the guards drew on me, but they were standard stock, and three backed off after seeing what happened to the first three when they came after me. The two with the slave stood still, torn between coming too late to defend their master, and holding the slave, who saw this as an opportunity and struggled with new strength. The servants and fleas all shrank away from the fight screaming and wailing in mourning, real or pretend; the bearers just stood with the hammock chair still slightly swinging, not knowing what else to do.

All around, Brahvnikians looked from Edremmas’s corpse to me, smiling, and then began snapping their fingers, which is how Brahvnikians applaud. Mikhail and his daughters did it loudest.

So I took a bow, like a dancer—Mikhail threw back his head and guffawed, which was most unlike him—and then ran like a rabbit, as I heard the shrilling whistles of the city watch.

The gathering crowd let me through out of sympathy, and them out of duty. I dashed around the first corner of my route, sheathing Chirel; two more twisting alleys and I’d throw off the hat, cloak, whiskers and wig and casually walk back out, curious as to what all the commotion was about. But across my path I found—and it would have gone perfectly if not for this—a caution-fence, beyond which the alleyway was dug out too wide to leap over and too deep for me to see the bottom. Brahvniki has sewers, at least in the rich quarters; where they were being repaired today had not been on my map.

Kyash on me for not walking it first, I cursed myself, and almost fell coming to a stop, my boot-heels scraping on the cobbles. Despair-inducingly fast and well-trained, the watch were at the corner. I dashed down a side alley, leaping over a heap of garbage and two five-year-olds playing with stone knives. More watch ahead of me; I couldn’t shed the disguise; I heard whistles all around, the tweets rhythmic, a code. Soon I was in an alley with them at both ends. I sprang for the rougher wall, but it was too smooth to climb fast enough, and as my fingers were finding an edge two man-heights up, something hooked around my foot and yanked it off the wall. I fell sliding, clawing for holds, and a dozen hands pinned me against the wall. A bill-hook half-circled my throat and a voice barked in Enchian, “We have you, assassin.” There was nothing to do but say, “I surrender,” and stop trying to move.

They shackled my wrists and ankles with ironwood rings and unslung Chirel from my shoulder, but it felt very different from being in the hands of Arkans, or Lakans for that matter. They were friends, and were doing no wrong; I’d murdered and they’d arrested me; it was justice in action, with which I couldn’t disagree.

Justice in Bravhniki is understaffed for the size of the city, but it has strict rules to incur fair trials, including a very simple and effective measure to keep the suspect from uttering words that can be used against him in court. Just as I was wondering whether it was a Praetanu or Benai jurisdiction, and what words, said without a Yeoli accent, might persuade the watch people to take me to the Benai, their commander unfastened some device from his belt and seized me by the ear. All I could get out was “No, wait, you don’t have to—” before he jammed the gag in, fastened it and sealed its clasp with something like a peace-bond, the court’s assurance that no false confession would be forced out of me.

It was the Praetanu, it turned out, for they led me to the Kreml, the building I’d decided not to kill Edremmas in. I took the less risky choice and got caught anyway, I thought, cursing myself again. I looked for Mikhail in the crowd, thinking maybe he might talk or bribe my way out, but did not see him. I was supposed to meet him tonight to take the second half of payment; his first news I’d been caught would be if I didn’t show, unless I could somehow get out before that. I couldn’t see Krero and my others as well; my orders, if I could have given any, would have been for them to stand down anyway.

They took me downstairs to a stone-lined cell, and left me bound to a bed. I tried not to be reminded of the Ministry of Internal Serenity. Two people came in, in a very short while; a woman who, by her insignia, was important, and a man assisting her.

“You’ll be pleased to know that our torturing, or torture-threatening, days are over, assassin,” she said to me in Brahvniki-accented Enchian. “There are some benefits to Arkan ways, at least when it comes to dealing with your kind.” The man laid the box that had been under his arm on the table beside the bed, and opened it, revealing the vein-needle.

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