The Warrior's Bond (Einarinn 4) (26 page)

“Endowing schools has always been the honour and duty of the nobility,” the young man said politely. I managed to place the badge; a cadet line of Den Hefeken.

“But we have more sons wanting places than the established colleges can supply,” commented a third man, accents of the merchant class ringing in his voice. “Learning letters and reckoning in a dame-school may have been enough for our fathers and forefathers, but times have changed.”

“If we endow a school, we have a say in what they teach.” Sistrin jabbed an emphatic finger at Den Hefeken. “Rhetoric and precedence in Convocation and what House holds which priesthood aren’t much use to my boy. He needs mathematics, geography, drawing up a contract and knowing which law codes back it up. Come to that, we’ve daughters who’d do well to learn more than sewing a seam or playing a pretty spinet.”

“With all D’Olbriot’s mining interests, you could do worse than teach your Esquires some natural science,” sniffed the third man.

“I quite agree, Palbere,” Camarl nodded. “Our tutors having been doing just that since the turn of the year, assisted by some newcomers from Hadrumal.”

“Wizards?” Sistrin laughed heartily. “That’d be unnatural science, then would it?”

Did I feel an unusual disapproval chill the air at the mention of wizards? Den Hefeken’s face was a well-bred blank but Palbere was scowling

Camarl continued, unconcerned. “I’d prefer my cousins learned their lessons alongside your nephews, Sistrin, rather than see schools divided by rank or trade. They’ll pick up some understanding of your glass trade, and shared knowledge is always a road to common prosperity.”

Palbere sipped at a steaming tisane. “Talking of roads, is it true D’Olbriot plans on digging a canal to cut the loop of the Nyme around Feverad? Will you be bringing wizards in to do the work of honest labourers there?”

“Feverad merchants first mooted the plan,” said Camarl cautiously. “They’ve suggested D’Olbriot might care to back the project and magical assistance makes such tasks considerably faster and safer.”

“So you’ll be taking the revenues off the rest of us when it’s built?” Den Hefeken asked with careful neutrality.

“If it’s built, and surely we’d be entitled to recoup our outlay?” Camarl looked at each man in turn. “Of course, those costs would be considerably reduced by employing wizards’ skills.”

Sistrin drew breath on some further argument but Camarl raised an apologetic hand. “Forgive me gentlemen, I have a guest with me today. May I make known Ryshad Tathel, stone mason of Zyoutessela.”

Several nearby heads turned away from their conversations to note my name and I smiled as benignly as I could.

“Are you sponsoring him to the society?” Sistrin asked belligerently.

“If he decides it’s for him,” smiled Camarl before drawing me politely away.

“That’s one man won’t leave you wondering about his opinions,” I commented in a low voice.

“Which makes him very useful, because what he says ten men more discreet are thinking,” agreed Camarl. “And he’s usually first with any hint of scandal, while Palbere has a nose for business second to none.”

“Do you do anything even vaguely connected to art here?” I grinned.

“Over here.” Camarl kept pausing to greet people but we finally edged our way through to the far end of the room, where tables in the better light under the windows were covered with books of engravings and single sheets of inked and coloured paper. “Boudoir art is over there,” indicated Camarl with a smile, “next to the satires and lampoons. We pride ourselves on being an open-minded society.”

Both artwork and model would doubtless be a considerable improvement on the grubby woodcuts that circulated round the barracks but neither interested me when all I had to do was shut my eyes and think of Livak. I picked up a small portfolio. “
Plants of the Dalasor Grasslands
?” I opened it on a beautifully detailed painting of a yellow heather.

“Several of our members are natural philosophers,” nodded Camarl. “And as a mason, you might be interested in the architectural drawings over there.”

“Esquire, might I have a word?” A long-faced elder with depressed dewlaps framing a downturned mouth appeared at Camarl’s shoulder. “Master Ganalt, of course.”

I noted the old man wore the silver-leaf collar of a shrine fraternity, something you don’t see so often these days.

“It’s the shrine to Talagrin on the Solland road,” Ganalt began after a hesitant glance at me. “It’s on Den Bradile land and the priesthood’s in their family, naturally, but the local people have always been faithful to the Hunter—” The old man fell silent.

“Is there some problem?” prompted Camarl.

“There’s rumour Den Bradile intend making it a private cinerarium, even planning to removing urns already consecrated there unless they’re linked to the Name in some way.” He lifted an unconscious hand to his silver rowan leaves, emblem of the Lord of the Forest. “We might use our funds to build another shrine, but we’re pledged to helping the poor…” He broke off with another dubious look at me.

“Excuse me, Esquire, I’d like to look at some of those plans you mentioned.” I nodded as much of a bow as I could in the confined space and slid past two men chuckling over a vivid satire. The architectural drawings included a series of maze designs, something increasingly fashionable in recent years, and I studied them with interest.

“The trick is matching suitable mathematical complexity with the tenets of Rationalism,” commented a man coming to stand next to me.

“And finding shrubs that grow fast enough to make a maze worth having before the whole thing goes out of fashion?” I suggested.

“There’s that,” he agreed. “Which is why this year’s innovation is patterns laid out in bricks between little raised banks. I believe a Den Haurient gardener suggested it but the Rationalists will tell you it’s so the logic of the whole can be better appreciated by seeing the whole design.”

I laughed, picking up an interesting perspective on new alterations to an old frontage.

“I hear you’re a mason?” remarked my new companion. “From the south?”

“Zyoutessela,” I kept my tone as casual as his.

“Is there plenty of work?” he asked with interest.

“The city’s thrice the size it was in my grandsire’s day,” I nodded. “He hired himself from site to site with little more than a bag of tools and rock-hard determination to better himself. When he died, he left my father a sizeable yard and me and now my brothers work three sites.”

“They say a good block of stone rings like a bell,” remarked my would-be acquaintance with studied idleness.

“If you strike it right, and there’s a tang to fine stone, like rotten eggs.” Hansey and Ridner were welcome to all the smells, the dust, the noise and headaches that went with the trade.

“Redvar Harl, Master Carpenter.” He bowed and I returned the courtesy. “I saw you arrive with Esquire Camarl? Are you D’Olbriot tenants?”

He was very interested in me for a complete stranger but I didn’t think he was about to stab me in an entire room of witnesses. “We are.”

“There must be all manner of opportunities in the south, what with D’Olbriot sponsoring this colony overseas,” my new friend mused.

“It offers some intriguing possibilities,” I said in neutral tones.

My companion stared out of the window. “D’Olbriot will want to do the best for their tenants, but if this land’s as big as rumour has it Esquire Camarl might do well to think in rather broader terms.”

I nodded silent encouragement.

“I’m from Solland. I take it you’ve heard about the fighting in Parnilesse, after the old Duke’s death?”

It wasn’t hard to see my next step in this dance. “Down in the south, we don’t hear that much about border matters.”

“D’Olbriot has holdings around Solland, so the Sieur will be fully aware of the Lescari land question.” Master Harl turned to look intently at me. “The Lescari still cling to their foolish system of all land going to the eldest born. Then they breed like the rabbits that infest their hills, whelping useless younger sons left landless and looking for a quarrel. Poldrion knows how much grief could be saved if those surplus spawn could be shipped across the ocean, to make their way in a new land by their own efforts.”

“That’s an interesting notion,” I said slowly. “I’d be interested to know what Esquire Camarl might make of it.” I could guess Temar’s reaction.

Master Harl’s eyes shifted to a point behind my shoulder.

“Excuse me, there’s someone I must wish a Fair Festival.”

I turned to see whom he meant but Camarl stepped into my line of sight, a carefully constructed expression of amusement on his face. “Now, Ryshad, what do you make of this?”

He handed me a crisp sheet of paper printed with a hand-coloured satire. A wedding carriage was being drawn through the streets of Toremal by the D’Olbriot lynx on the one hand and the Tor Tadriol bull on the other. This wasn’t the robust “ animal of the Emperor’s badge but a sickly calf with a foolish expression and comical spotted hide. The high-stepping lynx topped it by a head, looking down with avid eyes and sharp teeth exposed in a hungry smile. The Emperor himself was in the carriage, an unexceptional portrait but plainly recognisable. I tapped the face of the girl beside him, a vapid beauty with an unfeasibly large bosom. “Is this anyone I should know?”

“No one in particular.” Camarl shook his head, fixed smile still not reaching his eyes. “But I’ve a full handful of cousins of an age and breeding to make a good match for Tadriol. Most are here for Festival, naturally enough.”

I studied a capering fool in the foreground throwing handfuls of fire and lightning up into the air, stunning a few thatch birds in the process. The onlookers were barely sketched in but a few eloquent lines deftly conveyed expressions of contempt, ridicule and dissatisfaction. “Do you reckon that’s Casuel?”

The Esquire’s smile widened and did reach his eyes. “He’d hardly be flattered to think so. But few people know him and those that do find him inoffensive to the point of tedium. That’s one of the reasons we agreed to him being Planir’s liaison; no one could possibly see him as a threat.”

“Whoever drew this certainly doesn’t like the idea of magic’ I pointed to a hooded figure in sooty robes stalking behind the carriage, people drawing back from his ominous shadow. “Would that be Planir the Black, do you suppose?”

“The name’s a gift to satirists, isn’t it?” muttered Camarl with irritation.

“An apprentice joke, as I understand it,” I explained, “on account of him being a coal miner’s son.”

“We all have to take jokes in good part, don’t we?” Camarl’s eyes were cold and calculating once again. “Why don’t you see what other people here make of the jest?”

I weighed the paper in my hand and studied the detail of the picture. Engraving a plate to that standard was no overnight task. “There’s coin backing this artist.” I looked for a signature but couldn’t find one.

“An unusually retiring satirist, now there’s a novelty.” Camarl was clearly on the same scent as me. “Why don’t I see if someone can point me in his direction? After all, a talent like that deserves encouragement.”

“I’d say he’s already got some noble patron,” I observed.

“Quite likely,” agreed Camarl. “And perhaps he’ll be prepared to say who, in return for a commission to create as handsome a joke at their expense, along with some D’Olbriot gold.”

Several heads close by turned at the Esquire’s words, expressions eager. Genteel dispute between two great Houses would certainly liven up Festival, with scurrilous pictures to snigger over for a few coppers and discreet hints of scandal spicing up the usually stodgy fare of the broadsheets.

I’d track down the printer, I decided. There was no hope of stopping such things circulating: with books so costly, printers with mouths to feed need every copper they can tempt folk to spare on a sheet of gossip or a lewdly entertaining picture. But a few crowns might buy me some clue as to this tidbit’s origin.

“Let’s see what we can find out,” I said softly. I wasn’t about to forget the Elietimm but I reckoned we had more serious concerns now, enemies closer at hand, enemies who knew how to use oath-bound ritual, the law courts and the thriving social networks of the city against us. And they weren’t above knives in the back either, I reminded myself.

“Have you seen this?” I tapped a stranger on the arm in friendly fashion, introduced myself and we shared a chuckle over the satire. He offered an unsubtle depiction of some recent excesses by the younger Esquires Den Thasnet, which prompted his companion, a linen draper, to warn me against working for that House, claiming they were notorious bad debtors.

By the time I’d worked my way round the gathering and drunk more tisane than I usually do in a season, I was well up to date with the latest scandals, intrigues, births, deaths and marriages of Houses from the highest to the most lowly. I also shared in plenty of conversations where the nobility barely warranted a mention, an unaccustomed reminder of the life I’d known before I’d sworn myself to D’Olbriot, when the Name was merely a faceless rent office and a vague promise of help should some crisis strike our family. It was an interesting way of spending an afternoon but what I didn’t hear was any particular malice directed at D’Olbriot, D’Alsennin or Kellarin. There was plenty of speculation, but most of these solid men of business were more interested in debating the potential opportunities and hazards of a new trading partner on the far side of the ocean.

Esquire Camarl signalled to me from the far side of the room and I made my excuses to an apothecary who’d been displaying considerable if completely ill-informed interest in Artifice.

“I have to go, I’m expected at Den Haurient for some discussions and then dinner.” Camarl was looking just a trifle exasperated. “I have to go back to dress.”

“I’ve not heard anything significant,” I told him with regret.

He let out a slow breath. “Stay for a while longer. People may let some indiscretion slip if I’m not here.”

“I’ll keep my ears pricked,” I promised.

But the Esquire wasn’t the only one engaged to dine elsewhere and his departure prompted a growing number to make their excuses. The determined core who remained began pulling chairs into comradely circles and called for wine rather than tisanes from Master Lediard’s obliging maidservants.