Yet throughout Broken’s history it has been the tower that has remained the most unnerving part of the Kastelgerd. If the Sacristy of the High Temple is Broken’s greatest wonder, and the royal palace the kingdom’s most beauteous enigma, then the tower is the clearest and plainest statement of raw power within the city’s walls. The Merchant Lord may have no religious title, as such, but his might is in no way diminished by the suggestion that it is not governed by sacred codes: quite the contrary. Thus, while most citizens would rather forgo a command to appear in either the Sacristy of the Temple or Baster-kin’s tower, they would far rather receive a summons to the holier of the two chambers—a fact from which Rendulic Baster-kin cannot help but derive a deeply personal satisfaction. A location that inspires so much fear in others is the only sort of place where this man, whose deepest soul is a strange blend of worldly severity and almost boyish enthusiasms and fears, can feel truly safe.
With his own security, as well as his family’s, nearly as well protected as the God-King’s, then, it seems odd indeed that Baster-kin—even and perhaps especially as he stands upon the parapet of his tower, this night—cannot allow himself to take any solace in the voluptuous brush of Kafra’s Breath. Indeed, the warm air only seems to make the uneasiness that is plain in his features more apparent.
His concern has been caused, first, by the latest in a series of reports that began to arrive during the winter, detailing the particulars of northern raiders bringing cheap grain up the Meloderna and the Cat’s Paw to trade illegally with undiscovered partners. Such a story would not, ordinarily, cause Rendulic Baster-kin undue anxiety: disgruntled farmers and traders in some quarter or another of the kingdom are a constant, given the sacred laws and secular codes that govern such activities in Broken. But dispatches over the last several days from Sentek Arnem have reported that more than one trading village has crossed over from unhappiness into open rebellion; and their violence has been unknowingly fueled, Arnem’s reports say, by spoilt grain, several kernels of which he has included for Baster-kin’s perusal, along with a warning that the Merchant Lord wash his hands carefully after inspecting them. Yet even this combination of provincial reports and those of the new commander of Broken’s army would not be enough to alarm Baster-kin, at any other time. But there is a final thread that does stitch these seemingly manageable problems into what may become a tapestry of serious worry: the samples of dangerous grain that Arnem has sent to the Merchant Lord resemble all too closely kernels that the ever-watchful master of Broken’s mightiest Kastelgerd has, within the last day and night, found in one of the hidden stores beneath the city.
Rendulic Baster-kin’s commitment and sacrifices to his kingdom and his office have always been great: far greater, he would rightly contend, than those of not only the other members of the Merchants’ Council and previous Merchant Lords, but even of his own father, the most infamously ruthless Baster-kin of all. Certainly, Rendulic believes that he has little in common with the earliest man in his family to be declared Merchant Lord, who had been the most cunning of the mercenary adventurers who accompanied Oxmontrot on his travels about the world in the service of the Western and Eastern halves of the vast yet strangely fragile empire of Lumun-jan, and who had brought the creed of Kafra back to Broken. Yet despite these shared adventures, according to rumors too well founded to die, it was not loyalty to Oxmontrot that secured the first Lord Baster-kin a place of prominence in Broken politics and society, but treachery. For his elevation in rank, along with the gift of resources sufficient to build the first wings of the Kastelgerd around the family’s original tower, had come not from the Mad King, but from Oxmontrot’s son, Thedric; and it had been said then, and has been said ever since, that the origins of both the Baster-kins’ renown and their wealth could be traced to complicity in the murder of the Mad King. Not many who had known Thedric, after all, had credited him with enough intelligence (or his mother, Justanza, with enough sanity) to have planned and carried out the scheme on their own; and construction of the Kastelgerd Baster-kin had indeed begun on the very day that Thedric had been crowned and declared semi-divine. Since then, additions to both the Kastelgerd and the elaborate, terraced gardens that wind about it have been almost constant—constant, that is, until the ascension of Rendulic Baster-kin, who has been determined to wipe away all smears upon his family’s name through his devotion, faith, and hard work.
In addition, if there have been more than a few unworthy men among his ancestors, Rendulic knows, there have also been several wise enough to merit respect. First among these were the Lords Baster-kin who—indignant at frequent abuses of power by the Merchants’ Council, which periodically sought to take advantage of the royal family’s isolation from secular affairs—created and strengthened an instrument of force with which to serve Thedric’s heirs: the Personal Guard of the Lord of the Merchants’ Council (or, more commonly, Lord Baster-kin’s Guard, as no other clan chief, after one or two early and disastrous challenges, has ever held the office). For many generations, the strict mandate of these not-quite-military units was simply to maintain the quiet, secure, and legal conduct of trade within the city. But eventually, being an instrument of secular power, the Guard had been corrupted, not only by rivals to the Baster-kins, but even (or so some voices said) by certain royal representatives, who wished their peculiar yet sacred activities to remain discreet. The Guard also widened its activities to include keeping the peace, a task that became ever more violent and even lethal, as the prevention of thievery and plots within the city expanded to include the authority to arrest, beat, torture, and even execute whatever persons, within or without the walls, the linnets of the Guard found objectionable. True, the head of the Baster-kin clan always retained command of the increasingly unpopular Guard; but command and control have ever been very different qualities. Then, too, while the clan Baster-kin may have been losing its effective grip on the Guard, the fact that its “soldiers” continued to keep careful watch over the great Kastelgerd lent to that residence and to its lords something like a regal air, one sufficient to allow the Lords Baster-kin to deny even well-founded charges of degeneracy, corruption, and effective tyranny: abuses, all three of which Rendulic’s father had managed to practice within one lifetime.
And so it would be for the man who now paces the terrace of his tower to reassert both his family’s honor and its devotion to Kafran ideals, a task that Rendulic has undertaken not only through public pronouncements and rulings, but by way of private methods more extreme than any citizen has ever known of or appreciated. Yet these steps have not brought him peace of mind: no, for one as alert to danger as is Rendulic Baster-kin, even those threats that come in so seemingly inconsequential a form as a few misshapen and discolored kernels of grain must push the pleasure of a mild spring evening from his mind—particularly now. Now, at the outset of what will be the most fateful period in Broken’s history: a time when the kingdom’s ongoing pursuit of the sacred Kafran goals of perfecting all aspects of individual and collective strength must, of necessity, regain primacy. Any lingering doubts or hesitancy among the leaders of Broken concerning both the annexation of the daunting wilderness of Davon Wood and the destruction of the tribe of outcasts who inhabit that cursed but treasure-laden forest should have been put to rest, Basterkin believes, first by the attempt on the life of the God-King, and then by the mutilation and death of Herwald Korsar. And yet, despite the city’s proud, joyous dispatch of the Talons upon their twin missions of conquest, only three people truly know, with any kind of certainty, what actually determined the momentous decision to move against the Wood and the Bane now. The first two of these—the God-King and the Grand Layzin—remain, tonight as all nights, inaccessible to the people of the city and the kingdom, and free to enjoy their particular pleasures. The third, Baster-kin himself, is the only man who is not only aware of but entirely consumed by every consideration that has gone into the decision to dispatch the kingdom’s most elite soldiers against the Bane; and
so the Merchant Lord stands alone, peerless and friendless, upon his parapet, tonight, brooding over a single kernel of spoilt grain that lies hidden in one of his hands.
Damn Arnem, Baster-kin muses; a soldier should be concerned solely with unrest in the kingdom, rather than confirming my fears about this strange grain. Yet the Merchant Lord knows that the problem represented by what he holds in his hand is not so easily dismissed as he would like; Sentek Arnem, in fact, has only done his true duty by making his report. A pity he will have to pay such a high price for it, Baster-kin concludes. And yet, is it not Kafran doctrine that one man’s loss is another’s gain? And, thinking of this possibility—that Arnem’s loss might be his own gain—Basterkin becomes aware, for the first time, of the gentle caress of Kafra’s Breath. But he cannot indulge the instant of pleasure; for he must be certain of his next moves, as certain as he has been of all arrangements that have been made this week. Such attention to detail quickly drives him out of the comfort of a spring night’s warm breeze and back inside his tower, there to attend himself to the details of his plans: plans that, to the untrained mind, might all too closely resemble scheming …
Baster-kin reenters the octagonal tower without ever taking notice that the room’s gaping stone fireplace—which is set into its southern wall, with a massive mantel supported by granite sculptures of two rampant Broken brown bears who have been frozen in eternal submission and service—is empty of flame, due to the warmth of the evening. His attention is immediately and wholly fixed upon a large, heavy table at the room’s center, its shape the same as the tower itself, and its size large enough to permit meetings of the most important members of the Merchants’ Council. Tonight, however, it is covered by maps of the kingdom, over which lie the dispatches of Sentek Arnem, detailing the state of the towns and villages between Broken and Daurawah—as well as the conditions of their grain stores.
But most importantly, atop all these sheets of parchment lies a note from Isadora Arnem, which she left with the second-most-powerful man in the Kastelgerd, the Baster-kin family’s greying yet remarkably vigorous seneschal, Radelfer. A veteran of the Talons, and possessed of all the highest traits of loyalty, courage, and honor associated with that khotor, Radelfer was once the guardian of the youthful Rendulic Baster-kin: plucked from the ranks of the kingdom’s finest legion by Rendulic’s father, he had spent almost twenty years playing a role that the elder Baster-kin ought by rights to have filled himself. Now, the aging but still powerful Radelfer oversees affairs in his former charge’s home; and when Lady Arnem first appeared at the Kastelgerd’s entrance just two evenings after her husband’s departure from the city, only to find Lord Baster-kin himself not at home, she had asked to see Radelfer, with whom she apparently had past acquaintance. Happy to see the seneschal, and hinting at some urgent business with the Merchant Lord, Isadora had announced her intention to return the following evening, leaving behind a note that said as much. And it is this note that, to judge from its position atop the great table in Rendulic Baster-kin’s most private retreat, the Merchant Lord considers more important than all the maps of the Cat’s Paw crossings and the dispatches concerning unrest in the kingdom that lie beneath it. As he leans upon the table, he studies the note; not for its few and inconsequential words, but rather for the hand that wrote them, the hand that is so like it was, many years ago …
His distraction is interrupted when he suddenly hears a shriek, the human cry that he most dreads—a desperate, pained sound that might once have belonged to a woman, but surely cannot be made by any mortal throat now. It comes from one of the largest bedchambers in the northernmost corner of the Kastelgerd, opposite the northwestern face of the Merchant Lord’s octagonal tower. Listening to the sound with no more than a passive, even a downcast, reaction, Baster-kin comes to a conclusion: The heralds of death and rebirth ought to have a voice, he tells himself, and no one could deny that such a cry would more than suit their purpose … His own behavior certainly gives little evidence of such momentous change: as the voice shrieks on, only the fingers of his right hand move, slowly and forcefully grinding the fragile seed of grain held within them against his palm, until it has become but dusty bits.
There is little about this scene that can be called new, a fact that does not stop Baster-kin’s patience and temper from wearing away, as if the voice were in fact some sort of demon’s lash striping his very soul: for it is, in truth, the sound of his own wife’s voice, and it continues on and on, echoing through the halls of the Kastelgerd like a loosed fury. Assuming an accusatory tone, it screeches just one word over and over—and that one word is his name:
“Rendulic!”
But Baster-kin only moves to a basin in the tower room’s corner, remembering Sentek Arnem’s urgent warning that he wash his hands after handling the tainted grain.
{ii:}
HOPING THAT ONE of Lady Baster-kin’s ladies or her healer will soon control her screaming, his lordship paces about his high retreat, studying the only ornamentation in the room: four enormous tapestry panels that cover the walls between the eastern and western doorways, all depicting an earlier time in Rendulic’s life, the celebrated moment when he had completed his transformation from a slight, sickly youth into the strong, manly figure that he is today: the time when, though only eighteen years old, he had embarked upon a panther hunt. This had been the kind of hunt about which the scions of Broken’s merchant families dreamt, in the days before the city’s Stadium became their haunt: before, that is, less hazardous sport replaced the dangers of battling wild beasts and pursuing Bane criminals and Outragers into Davon Wood.
During his hunt—which was led by that same tireless guardian, Radelfer, who had ever been the boy’s only true friend and counselor—Rendulic, riding ahead of his men, had encountered a group of four adolescent panthers, offspring of no less than the fabled white panther of Davon Wood. Although seemingly doomed to a most savage death, Rendulic had nonetheless demanded, when two of the animals were already dead and their mother disabled by a deep wound to one thigh, that he be allowed to engage the final brace of beasts.
The youth who braved death in what seemed so reckless a fashion that day had long been treated as a disappointment by his exacting father, then lord of the Kastelgerd. Rendulic had dared to believe, with a passion that made him so bold as to be utterly unconcerned with his own safety, that the outcome of the hunt would change his father’s low opinion of him; and, fueled by such thoughts, the brave young man and ever-faithful Radelfer succeeded in tricking and caging the young female panther, after which Rendulic flatly insisted that he be allowed to battle the last male alone. And alone, with arrows, pike, and finally a long, elegant dagger, Rendulic had indeed fought that animal, in the same clearing beyond the Cat’s Paw where the rest of the battle had taken place. Having mortally wounded the young panther with his pike, Rendulic gripped his dagger tight and used it to administer the dauthu-bleith to the still-defiant beast—all within clear sight of the animal’s living but helpless mother.
Doing thus, Rendulic had made this hunt, the last of its kind, a legend among the people of Broken. Even so, his father had not proved as readily persuaded of his son’s worthiness as Rendulic had hoped: a result, the youth chose to believe, of a bout of the pox that was returning to torment the aging lord with ever greater frequency. Then, too, the Stadium’s athletics were fast on their way to eclipsing woodland blood sports, and young men and women would, from that time on, turn almost exclusively to such activities for excitement, and as a way to prove themselves to the citizenry. True, their exhausting amusements still included contests against the great beasts of the Wood: but now those animals were captured and safely chained upon the sands of the Stadium, so that death was never a real danger for any young Broken athlete who entered the lists.
But it should not be thought that the tale of Rendulic Baster-kin’s panther hunt was forgotten: indeed, its memory would later form the basis of much of his unquestioned personal authority in
the city. And most of all, he broods as he stares at the tapestries, it had virtually eliminated talk of an earlier incident in his life, an incident that was rumored to have involved a romantic quest after a young beauty from the Fifth District who was but two or three years older than he, the assistant to a renowned healer who had been summoned to help when, as the first signs of manhood matured in his young body, a terrible malady from which Rendulic had always suffered, that of the megrem, had worsened cruelly. This crippling pain in the head and illness of the gut had proved beyond the skills of all Kafran doctors, just as it had, since ancient times, outwitted so many such feckless healers around the world, who knew it by different names. Any such men or women worth their fees, however, could recognize its symptoms instantly: the healer Gisa, for example, had been able not only to name it, but to ease it, with treatments that secretly took place at one of the Baster-kin family’s lodges on the lower slopes of Broken, whence one of the Merchant Lord’s younger brothers, an uncle who was near alone in having sympathy for the boy, tended to the herds of cattle upon the Plain that bore the family’s name. To such a place, Radelfer knew, the lord himself was unlikely to venture; and in this safe and shielded place, the ancient healer who was a legend to most of Broken, but a boon to many others in her native Fifth District, had set Rendulic Baster-kin on the road to a healthy manhood. But while Gisa prepared the tinctures and infusions herself, keeping the ingredients jealously secret, the actual doses were administered by the soothing hands of the crone’s lovely apprentice, the orphaned girl called Isadora. Golden-haired and tall, Isadora possessed a comforting touch that had burrowed its way deep into young Rendulic’s heart and mind, and had been the source of his scandalously desperate efforts to find her in the weeks that followed her departure from his bedside. The boy’s father, meanwhile, either ignored or threatened to remove all such wagging tongues: and once his latest bout of the pox had passed, the sight of a son growing healthy had made the relentless Lord Baster-kin take horse, and begin the search for a politically advantageous wife for his heir …