Babylon Steel (6 page)

“Vaguely.”

“There are posts, things which support the cloth. These are like knowledge, yes? And must be strong and firmly planted, otherwise, all the pretty silk will rip and fly away in the wind.”

“Your son is not the only poet in the family, my lord.”

“Hah.” He gazed into his glass. “But knowledge is like these posts in another way, Babylon – it is meant to be covered. If a man cannot afford to be held up by bureaucracy at every border, it is useful to know who is susceptible, say, to a little present. If, perhaps, one has a valued and honest steward, who is detained because of politics, but a bribe in the right place will release him, should one refuse to pay it? If one knows of a swift passage that will improve one’s profit, and will not cause harm, but requires that certain... deals be struck, that are less than strictly above board, should one refuse to make them? I like to believe myself an honourable man, yet this is the sort of truth I deal in.

“And this is the sort of truth that my son prefers to ignore. He does not want to see that the fish swims
in
water, not above it; that truth is complex. My son wishes to hit people with simple truths as though they were hammers, and mainly he wishes to hit those who have no desire to hear any truth at all. The rich will hire poets who flatter them, and they, at least, get paid. Poets who care only for simple truths will be less likely to keep a whole skin.”

He glanced at me over the rim of his glass, his eyes glittering. “You are a dangerous woman, Babylon. Much too easy to talk to.”

“You are a pleasure to listen to, my lord.”

“Well, I know I can rely on your discretion.”

“Of course.”

After washing, we went downstairs.

“Ah, here he is,” Antheran said. “Well, my boy?”

The lad was definitely looking happier. The sulky pout had disappeared, and a dreamy, slightly glazed smile had replaced it. “
Dvit.
I mean, yes, thank you, Papa.”

“Good, good!”

The boy turned the smile in my direction and said, “Do you have, please, a...” he scribbled on air.

“Quill?”

“Please, yes. And perhaps paper?”

Oh, dear. I glanced at his father.

“Paper?” he said. “You have used it all already? Always more paper! It is expensive, you know.”

I didn’t want to deprive the poor boy, but I didn’t want to annoy his father, either.

“Oh, if you have some,” Antheran said, “give it to him, please, and add it to my bill. There is no harm, after all, in a little hobby.” He clapped his son on the shoulder.

Personally, I couldn’t help feeling that if his first taste of the fleshly delights immediately made the boy want to
write
about it, he might be doomed to poetry whether his father liked it or not.

I glanced up the stairs and saw Essie looking down and grinning. She winked at me and disappeared.

The boy left the poem for her, of course, but he did it very gracefully. He took off one of his own rings – no gaudy trinket, either, but a delicate band of plaited gold – folded it into the paper, and wrote her name on the outside.

There are worse things than a boy having his first taste of puppy love. I would have to remind Essie to be kind, though, and help her think of some tactful things to say about the poem. It was almost certain to be terrible. Especially as he was writing in Lithan, rather than his own tongue. Lithan is the main language of the Perindi Empire, which controls large portions of a couple of our neighbouring planes. It’s also the language of the majority of passing traders, and is what we mostly speak at home; though Scalentine has its own pidgin. We have people from so many places, some with languages that bear little resemblance to either Lithan or anything else. Scalentine pidgin is a mishmash of many of them. It’s easy enough once you get the hang of it, and surprisingly flexible.

Antheran left a more than generous tip and a promise to drop in before he returned home.

It turned out to be a busy night. We had a slight misunderstanding with a large furry gentleman from Nederan (a country through Throat portal, all ice and sagas) who, due to language difficulties, thought he was getting a girl, got a boy, and believed for a few interesting and quite loud moments that we’d impugned his manhood. We bundled the helplessly giggling young man in question (Jivrais, of course) out of sight, and managed to calm the client down before anything very expensive got broken. Laney, wearing a fragile concoction of sea-foam green and looking far too tiny for such a bulky client, pounced on him like a kitten discovering the best ball of wool
ever,
and whisked him away into her room in a whirlwind of chatter and adept little hands.

I was passing back through the hall when I caught a glimpse of someone and stopped. It was a lad of about ten, strolling through with his eyes wide, looking as if he owned the place. “Oi!” I said. “What are you doing in here?”

“Delivery?” he said, brazen, but he’d already glanced behind him.

“Of what? And from who?”

“Er... buns. Fresh... buns.”

“Come here.”

But he had already turned and scooted for the front door. Previous, taken by surprise, made a grab, but he evaded her.

“You want me to chase him?” she said, strapping on her dented helmet as we watched the skinny little devil disappear down the street.

“Nah. Didn’t seem like a thief, just curious. Hoping to see something naughty. How the hells they get in, though...”

“I’ll have a look round later,” Previous said. “There’s got to be a loose window or something somewhere.”

The Twins were very busy, too; I had to go down there and tell them to keep the noise down.

The Basement... the Basement makes me uncomfortable. The Twins specialise in pain, and don’t get me wrong, they’re an asset to the business. But all those chains and straps give me the grue. I’m always glad to get out of there.

Their current client looked up from where he was tied and got a hopeful look in his eyes when he saw me, but it isn’t my style. If I feel like causing someone pain it usually isn’t because they
want
me to. “The yells are getting through upstairs,” I said.

Cruel put down the thing she was holding (it looked as though it was made of three parts leather to one of steel, but I didn’t examine it too closely) and wiped her forehead. “Sorry, Babylon.” She gave the client one of her more disturbing smiles. “We’re just going to have to make sure someone can’t make any more noise...”

He whimpered happily. I left them to it.

Dawn was streaking the sky with chilly orange as the last client left, the ghosts of both moons hanging low and plump over the rooftops. The nights were getting colder. Bad weather for the street whores. Glinchen’s probably large enough to stay warm, but not everyone’s built to their generous dimensions.

I finally stripped off, bathed and fell into bed, alone, in that state of weariness that feels as though you’re wearing armour after you lie down.

But every time I thought I might be drifting off, Enthemmerlee crept into my head, with her wide, solemn yellow eyes. There was something about those eyes; not just the colour. A look. Something fated.

Fain really hadn’t told me much. Maybe if I could find out more about the people she came from, I could pick up more of a clue. And I knew where to ask.

TIRESANA

A
PROVINCIAL TOWN;
the ceremony of the Choosing. A temple to Hap-Canae, the sun god. The yellow stone, chosen for its colour, bleached to the shade of dead lemons. The great bronze masks with their flame-carved hair glaring from the walls, the sun clashing off their burnished brows. The hiss of cymbals like water on hot stones. The scent of the ghost-lilies down by the great Rohin river, so heavy-sweet they were nearly rotten, mixed with the insistent reek of sewage and the ancient smell of river mud.

Sweating in our best clothes, hoping the ceremony would be over before the worst of the heat. Watching the priests and priestesses walk among the crowd; distant-gazed and dreamy, waiting for the gods to speak to them – or for the crowd to be impressed enough so that they could pick out the Chosen and get out of the sun. A small child, bored, fussing thinly and being hushed.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, there was the Avatar of Hap-Canae; magnificent in gold and tawny silks, at least a head taller than anyone around him, and handsome as the dawn.

There were gasps and screams and a tumbling collapse as people fell on their faces.

He always did love to be theatrical.

I’d never seen an Avatar before. He outshone the bronze masks; he was like an alabaster lamp with the sun trapped inside it. His skin glowed, his smile lifted your heart. He was as beautiful as a jaguar.

Once everyone was over the shock, the priests scrambled up, brushing off their robes, and started a praise chant. He gave a little bow, smiling.

He looked around, slowly, but with great focus, like a hunter seeking a target.

His eyes locked on me and I was caught. I couldn’t move as he walked towards me. I couldn’t move as all around me the crowd drew back to let him through. I just stared at him, with my mouth open.

He stopped in front of me and looked down; I was already tall for my age, but he towered over me. He smiled and put one finger under my chin and closed my mouth. He smelled of cardamom and myrrh.

He said, “You will be an acolyte at the great temple. In time, if you prove worthy, you will become a High Priestess of Babaska.”

It was utterly quiet. You could feel the shockwave roll out from us, as though someone had dropped a stone in a pool.

It was just like the stories. An unknown servant-girl had been Chosen.

You could hear the crowd breathing, and a bird down by the river, singing an endless falling trill. Then the priests, who were as flummoxed as anyone, remembered how it was supposed to work, and started the celebration chant and drowned the silence.

He hadn’t even asked my name. He took my hand, and led me away from my life. I looked back, and there were the family and all the other servants, agape. The Mistress looked as though someone had doused her with cold water. But it was the guards I looked to: Radan, looking worried; Kyrl, grinning, giving me the thumbs up before she realised someone might think it disrespectful and dropped her hand; and Sesh, frowning, then giving me a tentative smile. I was so dazed, it was all I could do to raise my hand in a half-wave. Then I followed the Avatar.

I don’t know, even now, how the Avatar Hap-Canae found me. How he knew I was suitable. Had he planned to turn up for a normal Choosing, just to keep everyone sufficiently impressed with the glory of the Avatars? Had he turned up on the off chance?

Either way, it was typical of him not to have warned the priests what he was planning; it made it all so very dramatic.

And there was probably some girl or boy who was supposed to have been Chosen, standing there in the crowd, surrounded by a family now wondering what the hells had happened. The priests no doubt had to exercise a lot of diplomacy in the next few days – but of course it worked to their advantage, in the end. After all, the legend had been proved, the gods had been shown to be capable of just choices.

Not that the Chosen in question had any say in the matter. And it didn’t occur to me then, or until some time later, that it was perhaps a little odd that one Avatar should pick out a priestess for another; that Babaska did not choose her own acolytes. I was an ignorant child, what did I know of the ways of Avatars and Gods?

CHAPTER FIVE

Day 2

5 days to Twomoon

I
WAS IN
the blue room when Flower came in with dishes and a scowl on, his apron askew.

“No sausages,” he said, dumping bowls of hot rolls and plates fluffily piled with eggs onto a table already loaded with fresh fruit, cream, butter, pastries and all the other things he considers essential to a good start to the day. “I don’t call that breakfast,” he said, regarding the laden table.

“It looks like breakfast to me.” I said, loading a plate. “What’s the matter?”

“The butcher hasn’t delivered
.
I had everything planned and now I’ve got to reorganise three days’ worth of menus before I go and shout at her.”

I patted his arm. “I’ll go have a word.” Flower wouldn’t shout at the butcher, but I would if I needed to. “I have to go out anyway, see if I can find
anything
on that girl.”

He handed me a list. “This is what I ordered. Mirril’s good, usually; used her for years. And if she hasn’t any black-backed hog, tell her I’ll take a haunch of red hopper instead.”

Previous was on the door again, arms folded, wearing a battered breastplate, ancient leather trousers and helmet, looking stolid and tough.

“Hey. Everything smooth?” I said.

“Yeah. Babylon? Can I take some time tonight? I know we’re close to Twomoon, but...”

“Sure, I’ll find someone for the door. Doing something nice?”

“Just meeting a friend,” she said, staring into the distance.

The blush crept up her neck like sunrise. That’s the trouble with being a redhead.

“Previous...” I said, grinning.

“What?”

“So? When are we going to get to meet him?”

“Dunno what you mean,” she said, scowling into the distance.

She’s a funny lass. She doesn’t do the upstairs work, that’s never been her style. Her having a hanger-on was new, and we were all wild to get a look at him.

“Ah, come on,” I said. “We won’t scare him off, promise. Bring him to dinner.”

“Maybe.”

“Please? Or Jivrais will end up following you, just so he can get a glimpse of your mystery man. You know what he’s like.”

“Like you aren’t as bad.”

“Just concerned for you, Previous. You know. Want to make sure he’s not taking advantage, you being such an innocent little thing...”