In the dimmer corner at the east end of the common room, an older man sat by himself, almost unmoving, a pitcher of what had to be cider untouched at his elbow.
‘I saw too many soldiers on the road,’ Aranthur admitted.
He walked to the counter, careful to keep his long sword from catching his cloak. He was still so cold and so wet that he hadn’t stripped off his clothes, even though he was old enough to know better.
‘Any trouble?’ the young man asked. ‘I’m Lecne, though almost everyone calls me Lec.’
‘What would you like to be called?’ asked Aranthur.
The young man smirked. ‘Lecne.’ He laughed. ‘Lec seems so in-decent.’
Aranthur paused, searching for the pun, and found it in Liote, the language of this village. But he was too slow.
‘Hah, had you there. But you smoked it in time. You must be a Student.’ Lecne had an easy smile.
Aranthur held out the hand that had been on his sword hilt and offered it to Lecne, who clasped it. Both men touched their foreheads and made the sun-sign.
Aranthur pointed mutely at the pitcher of wine on the bar.
Lecne shook his head and poured him a cup from a small barrel behind the counter.
‘Try this.’
Aranthur hesitated. ‘I can’t afford it,’ he admitted.
Lecne looked out of the great window that filled the front of the inn – an advertisement of its own, clear glass lavished on the building. Outside, snow fell like rain, and already the bottom row of panes of the magnificent window were covered by the stuff. Lecne held out the cup.
‘Let me try my wit on you, friend,’ he said. ‘You are a student coming home from the City for High Holidays.’
Aranthur nodded.
‘And then you will turn about and return to the City,’ Lecne continued.
‘Too true.’
‘And like most students, while home, you will get money from your parents.’ He smiled, lest his words be taken as an insult.
Aranthur smiled back to show he was not offended.
‘You might easily be a student yourself.’
Lecne smiled crookedly. ‘I would have liked to be one. But my father owns this fine pile of stones, and I expect, as he has no other male child, that I had best learn to run it. That said, I’m guessing that you are poor, but when you come back this way, you will be … less poor.’
Aranthur nodded. ‘You are the very prince of philosophers, sir, and if you were not so soon to come into the possession of a fortune and a great responsibility, I’d suggest I might come and study with you.’
Lecne bowed slightly, to say that he appreciated the compliment and the way in which it was phrased, but his slight smile denounced any vanity.
‘Pay me when you come back. I see you as a good investment, and to be honest, I haven’t spoken to a boy – that is, a man – my own age since winter started.’ He paused. ‘And then there is your sword.’
Aranthur accepted the better wine.
‘Indeed? My sword?’
‘You have one,’ Lecne asserted.
‘I do,’ Aranthur allowed.
‘And you said you saw soldiers on the road,’ Lecne reminded the student.
‘They say there’s been a stasis in Volta. A civil conflict.’ He looked around, caught the odd gaze of the man in brown, and looked at Lecne. ‘I was warned at Lonika, but I made it here. Alive, if a little cold.’
Lecne nodded. ‘I have heard the same. The Tyrant murdered in front of the Temple. Fighting in the streets.’ He leant close. ‘A great fire. They say it was three days ago, and there was a curse, and …’
‘A farmer said as much to me this morning, when he found me asleep in his haystack.’
He shrugged to indicate that anyone might have been in a haystack.
Lecne clearly felt the same. He grinned and waved a hand.
‘And the soldiers?’
Aranthur had now been in the warmth of the inn’s main room long enough to thaw a little. He let his wet cloak come off his shoulders and caught it on his arm, so that the other man could see that he was soaked to the waist.
‘I hid in the woods. I had to cross a rivulet to lose them.’
The loss of the cloak also revealed the complex hilt of his sword: a cross guard embellished with two plain steel finger rings either side of the cutting edges, and a complex ring that linked them.
The innkeeper’s son nodded, eyes on the sword.
‘After your purse,’ he agreed.
‘And my sword.’ Aranthur shrugged.
It had been the wrong thing to say – if he had a good sword, why hadn’t he fought the soldiers? The question was on the other man’s lips, and yet he was too polite to ask it.
A middle-aged woman in a fine wool gown appeared from the stairs at the rear of the main room and smiled at Lecne, who, from their shared ruddy brown hair and elegant, slim noses, had to be her son.
She bowed her head in Aranthur’s direction.
‘Mater, could you take this man’s cloak and dry it?’ Lecne said ‘He’s soaked. Had an encounter with soldiers. Syr Timos, this is my lady mother, Thania Cucina.’
Aranthur bowed again. ‘I can take my wet things to the back. Although if I might be allowed to hang the cloak in the kitchen …’
‘Will you stay the night?’ the woman asked.
Behind her, Lecne gave a minute head nod. Aranthur surrendered to the luxury of a night in a warm bed, even if there were lice or bugs. He’d had two days’ walking, and he’d slept hard, and his fingers ached all the time. It meant walking twelve hours tomorrow, though; he couldn’t be caught in the open by Darknight.
‘Yes, Despoina,’ he said.
She grinned. ‘Don’t “despoina” me, young sir. I’m old enough to be your mother.’
Aranthur considered a touch of flirtation and decided she, or her son, might take offence. He was just getting the hang of flirtation – more humour than compliment, always a light touch. His room-mates had mocked his seriousness about everything, but then, how had they learned?
She flashed him a fine, if matronly, smile and took his cloak.
‘I’ll see it’s properly baked. I assume you’ve been too cold to have bugs. I hate bugs.’ She frowned. ‘Where are you from?’
He bowed again – respect for elders was an essential part of the life of the student and the farmer.
‘Wilios,’ he said. ‘A village on the Amynas river. Not so far from here.’
‘Amynas,’ she said. ‘Does your family have vineyards?’
‘Vineyards and four hundred olive trees. And we grow stock around the house.’
She made a face and moved her nose. Not everyone approved of stock – a cultivated weed that some people smoked and some chewed.
‘Well – to each his own, I’m sure,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been as far as the Amynas, but we have the wine.’
‘My father never sells our wine. Well, never out of town, anyway. But he’s had his olive oil here. I came down once when I was young.’
‘Child, you are still young to me. I must know your father, though I can’t think of a man from Amynas with olive oil.’
A voice – a man’s voice – came from the kitchen like a great argosy under full sail.
‘Timos! Hagor Timos!’
The owner of the voice squeezed himself out of the kitchen and into the main room. He was tall enough to have to mind his head on the beams and wide enough to struggle with the door, and his face was almost perfectly round, despite which he clearly resembled the young man at the counter.
He had garlic in one hand and a very sharp knife in the other hand.
‘Which makes you Mikal,’ he said.
‘Aranthur,’ he said in near-perfect unison with Lecne.
The man shook his head. ‘Don’t know you,’ he said equitably.
Aranthur raised his eyebrows. ‘But I promise you, sir, that I am Aranthur, son of Hagor.’
Lecne’s father nodded. ‘I won??
?t shake, given the garlic.’
He vanished as quickly as he’d appeared.
‘And he’s my pater,’ Lecne said. ‘Latif by name. Cucino, of course.’
Aranthur’s magpie mind immediately delved into the complexity of Liote gender typing. The Academy had ruined him – he could now think about anything. But the new wine was good, and he raised his cup in appreciation.
‘My thanks, Lecne.’
‘I’ll find you a room,’ Lecne said.
‘I can’t afford aught beyond the common room floor,’ Aranthur said quickly.
Lecne made a face and rubbed his nose.
‘Bundle of clean straw, then?’
The floor temperature was more like that of ice than would promote sleep, and Aranthur nodded again.
‘I would be your debtor.’
Lecne laughed. ‘You will be, too! Pater’s making a fine meal – almost High Holy Day. Dumplings with meat in butter. With grated cheese.’
Aranthur smiled. ‘Knocci,’ he said.
A dish of home. The wine of home – the Liote accents and gentle manners of home. And eating a little meat wouldn’t kill him.
Donna Cucina summoned her son to point at something in the yard, and Aranthur felt the weight of his sodden hose. He wanted out of them. He crossed the common room to where he’d placed his pack carefully by the open hearth – a hearth that vented not into a modern chimney like all but the very oldest houses in the City, but into an opening in the roof high above. Hams and cheeses hung in the smoke near the vent, at the end of the second floor balcony, and up there was a whole deer, gutted, hanging like some rotting criminal, and a whole pig carcass as well.
Aranthur took his buckler – a small round shield not much bigger than his hand – off the top of his pack. He’d tied it there because, being wood and metal, it was waterproof. He’d hoped it would keep the snow out of the simple tube of his soft pig’s hide knapsack.
Perhaps it had, but the time Aranthur had spent lying in snowdrifts and crossing streams had negated its effectiveness. All the clothes in the tightly rolled bundle were wet through. The ache in his right shoulder was explained – the pack weighed far more than it ought due to all the water.
He steadied himself before he could curse. Cursing was weak.
‘Avoid all mention of Darkness,’ one teacher had said.
So be it.
‘You are a swordsman?’ asked a gentle voice behind him.
Aranthur rose from his crouch by the pack. The older man who had occupied the niche in the east wall was standing at the counter while Lecne cut him bread and ham. The older man was also wearing a sword. It had a broad blade and a simple cross-hilt. The grip had seen a fair amount of use.
Aranthur smiled carefully. Wearing a sword in public had certain consequences.
‘I would not venture so far as swordsman,’ he said. ‘I am a Student in the City.’
The older man’s clothes were very plain but very good. He wore plain brown, but it all matched and the cloth was expensive, and there were touches of elegance – brown ribbon at the cuffs, a fine standing collar that made the man’s doublet look like an arming coat that a soldier might wear. But he had no jewels and a plain purse, and Aranthur was unsure of the man’s status.
He bowed, nonetheless.
The older man narrowed his eyes.
‘That was well said. Few men who wear swords are swordsmen, and, as the seer said, “humility is often the best scabbard”.’ He paused. ‘I do not usually intrude on others, but I overheard you to say – my pardon – that you had trouble on the road.’
‘Yes, syr. Soldiers, or bandits.’
‘Often the same, in my experience.’ The man in brown frowned. ‘I am sorry to insist, Syr Student, but I am waiting for … guests of mine. From the west. They are late.’
Aranthur was fascinated by the man’s careful manners.
‘I wish I could be more helpful, syr, but I came from Lonika, from the east.’
‘My thanks, nonetheless.’ The man in brown looked for a moment at Aranthur’s sword. ‘That is quite old, isn’t it?’
‘I think so, syr. To be honest, I know little about it.’
The man in brown smiled slightly. ‘A javana, or a bastard javana. Is it actually First Empire?’ He looked carefully. ‘Almost a montante.’
He reached out, as if such a motion was natural, and put his hand on the hilt.
Aranthur had the oddest feeling that the man could have killed him with his own sword. But he paused.
‘My pardon, young syr. But I love swords. May I?’
‘Of course, syr.’
The man in brown stepped back, and Aranthur drew the sword.
The man took it with a slight bow and walked to the great window, where the Lightbringer and the acolyte were reading together. He made a cut with it, and it hissed through the air.
One cut, and Aranthur knew him for a master. It was not a complicated movement; it was simple, and perfect.
He walked back. ‘Remarkable. The blade is very old. This hilt, which is also old, is not its first hilt. You inherited it?’
‘I purchased it,’ Aranthur shrugged. ‘In the night market.’
The man in brown laughed mirthlessly.
‘I should spend more time in the night market, then,’ he said. ‘Perhaps, if there is time, you might let me draw the hilt and the pattern on the blade. You see the dragon’s breath?’
He pointed at a series of formless patterns that ran down the central fuller and flowed like ripples of oil over the fuller almost to the cutting edges.
Aranthur smiled. ‘I think it was the pattern that made me buy it.’
‘Remarkable,’ the man in brown said. ‘Well. At least you are not a fool. Until later.’
He nodded, walked back to the bar and took his bread, cheese and ham, and sketched a bow without introducing himself – a trifle uncivil, but not so uncivil as to warrant offence.
Lecne’s eyes followed the man for a moment and then met Aranthur’s – and he grinned.
‘What a rod,’ he said.
Aranthur tried not to smile. But it was good to have an ally.
‘Are you any good? With your sword?’ Lecne asked. ‘I mean – I don’t mean …’ He paused. ‘Now I’m the rod. I’ve always wanted to take lessons.’ He flushed when he spoke.
Aranthur laughed. ‘As did I,’ he allowed. ‘It was the first thing I did when I reached the City.’
He could feel the older man’s attention, but the niche was behind him and he knew that if he turned, someone would have to react. Two fist fights in the City and a warning from the Rector had convinced him to be careful in his interactions. But he was saved from further interaction by the sound of bells – dozens, if not hundreds of them, out in the snow.
‘Company!’ Donna Cucina called.
Beyond the window, they could see a coach, or a heavy travel wagon, indistinct in the snow.
Lecne made a face and started to pull on a heavy overshirt of new wool that hung behind the bar.
‘We don’t have an ostler just now,’ he said.
Aranthur was already soaked to the waist.
‘I’ll go.’
He knew animals, and he could unharness a team, especially if the coachman helped.
Lecne looked at his mother, who, in one glance, told Aranthur that his place in her pecking order had just risen, and then smiled broadly.
‘You’re on, and thanks.’
He pulled the heavy wool shirt back off his head and tossed it to the student. Aranthur unbuckled his sword belt and handed it over the bar to Lecne, caught the shirt and pulled it on – and was instantly warmer.
Aranthur passed the table of farmers and the priest, who looked up. His acolyte was more senior than he had appeared – his own age or even older – and was shockingly handsome, with an aquiline nose, chiselled dark features and a shock of white-blond hair under his cowl.
Then Aranthur was out into the snow, and his first step into the
deep stuff robbed his feet of all the warmth they’d accumulated in the last half an hour.
It was a heavy travel wagon, a wain with eight horses before it and four more in reserve behind – a monster rig. Aranthur went forward with all the courage of the volunteer. No one could possibly blame him if he made a mistake with the complex tack, and the thought bolstered him. He noted, too, that there were men out there in the snow – a surprising number, all mounted on big military horses and wearing armour. Behind, in the darkness, loomed another shape – another wain.
One of the high-sided wagon’s side doors – it had four – opened suddenly. The inside seemed to be lined in fur, and it looked warm and incredibly rich, and the smell of incense wafted out on the cold air.
‘Content yourself that I have not slit your throat, you whore,’ said a voice that cut as sharply through the snow as the scent of incense. ‘Perhaps you can ply your original trade here, my dear. At any rate, I won’t have to listen to any more of your foolishness.’
A woman – Aranthur knew it immediately – fell to one knee in the snow. She was wearing a gown of silk, edged in fur, that showed more of her shoulders than was usual in the City and which was utterly impractical for the weather, despite the fur. She had short red-brown hair and a straight back and her voice dripped with contempt.
‘You might pass me my cloak and my hat, my lord,’ she said. ‘Is my travelling case too much to ask for?’
He laughed nastily. Aranthur had an impression of bright white-gold hair, a long pale nose and a grating voice.
‘Drive on!’ he shouted, and slammed a stick of some sort against the roof of the wain.
His blow only served to dislodge some snow, which fell on his head. He cursed, using Darkness imagery that shocked even Aranthur, a student of the City. Still muttering blasphemous oaths, he pulled his door shut.
Aranthur could see that power was in use. The woman reeked of it.
She stood alone in the snow. Closer now, Aranthur could see that there were indeed armoured men on horseback all around the great travel wagon. Only a man of paramount importance – the Emperor, perhaps – had a wagon-carriage that big, and twenty knights to guard him on the road, with spare horses and a wagonload of supplies in the dark midwinter.