The Warlord's Domain (23 page)

“What’s wrong?” Kyrin was making a very good attempt at keeping her face straight, but it wasn’t really working. “Did you
know
this Urick person?”

“Hardly; it’s not even an Alban name—though I’ll concede it’s close, very close. The enticement, I’m afraid, continues at some length. ” ‘A Play play’d in the True and Actual Costumes of that Land with Swords, Harness and etcetera all recreat’d in the Barbaric Splendour of the People. Together with such Musick, Songs and Dancing as are us’d commonly in that Land, played by Proper skill’d musicians, brought Here with their very Instruments at Much Cost and No Small Peril to the Company.

” ‘There will be in this Drama three strong Castles besieg’d with Real Siege-Engines, to be seen upon the Stage shooting Fire as in Life; a Battle of Two Hosts; a great Sea-Storm, with Thunder-and-Lightning made by Herran d’Win, Thundermaker to the Lord Constable’s Men; Lord Urick’s Concubines, seen clad in the Flimsy Garments of such Lewd Females and play’d by Real Women; and many other Delights.’ ”

“Is that what they really think of you… ?”

“It’s the popular image, which counts for the same thing in the long run.” Aldric looked once more at the pamphlet and its gaudy woodcuts, then folded it up and creased the folds down to a razor edge with nails that were far more ready to tear the offensive thing to rags and tatters. “Never mind. We’re not going to see that, regardless of the ‘Real Women in Flimsy Garments.’ At least Osmar uses words instead of—he spat the word like an insult—”spectacle.”

“The Playhouse, sir, milady,” said the coachman. “Play’s not started yet, so no need to rush.”

Translated as, no need to hurry off without giving me a few coins extra
, thought Aldric without malice as he helped Kyrin back into her furred overrobe.
And why not
?

“Well driven, man,” he said aloud, dropping an extra couple of coins into the coachman’s hand. “Now get yourself into a tavern and have some ale to keep out the cold, then collect us here after the play.”

“Sir, yes sir,” said the coachman, saluting with the butt-end of his whip but quite unable to take his eyes from the soft golden glint of the two quarter-crowns resting in the palm of his glove. Whoever or whatever his passenger might be, he had just been tipped maybe half the value of the whole carriage for one short ride. The coachman fought a brief and silent battle between avarice and conscience, before conscience—reluctantly— won. “Sir, you’ve given me—”

“What I meant to give you. Just don’t talk about it, in case the lady’s…” Aldric gave him a conspiratorial wink. “Ahem. Never mind that. Go get your drink, and be here later.”

“Yes
sir
!”

“Why?” asked Kyrin. She had seen the gold change hands where silver would have sufficed and was understandably curious.

“Because,” he said. “That’s all.”

Kyrin smiled. “That’s enough—for me at least.”

Aldric glanced sidelong at the departing coach, not smiling. “And for him, I hope. Shall we go in?”

The good citizens of Drakkesborg had long been used to soldiers on their streets. The city was not only the capital of the Warlord’s Domain but had for a long time been a garrison town in its own right, so that the sounds of drum and trumpet and the business of military routine went almost unnoticed… until the routine changed. As it was changing now.

Because of the many barracks within the walls and the consequent need for a degree of both security and military discipline, Drakkesborg’s gates had always been shut at night from the striking of the hour Fox at ten o’clock to the hour Horse at six the next morning, but those with the proper papers could still enter and leave without restriction through the smaller posterns. Except that this night, the great iron siege-screens were in place and locked before the halfway strike of Dog at seven, sealing the entire city like a corked bottle. Neither papers nor bluster nor bribes were enough to obtain entrance for those outside; and use of the same methods by those trying to get out resulted only in quick, quiet arrest.

After the rioting earlier in the week, followed only this morning by a vigorous restoration of order, no one was concerned by the presence of the constables or the urban militia, even though both now wore light armor beneath their uniform tunics and carried hardwood truncheons in full view as a deterrent to anyone thinking of resuming such nonsense. If anything they were a comfort to the law-abiding majority, a reminder that their right to walk the city streets without harm was being protected, but the men who joined them as the evening drew on were not a sight that held the least reassurance.

Some were in the full battle harness, and bore gisarms instead of staves. They had shortswords, still sheathed but with the red tapes of their peace-bindings unsealed, and their armor bore the mailed-fist insignia of the Bodyguard, down from the citadel itself. Elite troops to be sure, but still only soldiers. It was the others who sent people hurrying to clear the streets: those whose rank-robes showed no rank at all, only the jagged black and silver thunderbolts that marked them as
Kagh’ Ernvakh
.

Getting behind a door and locking it was of little use, for as the formation of armed men moved forward in an iron ring that encircled the city perimeter, every building that they passed was searched. The regular law enforcement officers had all their entry warrants ready, and somehow contrived to leave the places that they had examined as neat if not neater than when they came in; but the Bodyguard and the Secret Police went in where they pleased, whether that was through a door or through a window—or even through a wall if the notion struck them as amusing—and left devastation in their wake.

Privilege was no protection. The most privileged person in Drakkesborg was the Grand Warlord who had commanded this operation, and neither rank, money nor the names of friends in high places were of any use. Occasionally such attempts were made to sway the intrusive troopers, but as at the gate those making the attempt were either ignored or put under close arrest on any one of half-a-dozen charges.

No matter how ruthless they were, it was a slow business. Drakkesborg’s position as first- or second-wealthiest city in the Empire might have been subject to question, but that it was by far the largest both in buildings and in population had never been in doubt. Slow or not, progress was made and small successes scored; the suddenness of the security raids caught several criminals red-handed in the middle of their preferred crimes, and with no need for a court to judge a guilt which was apparent to all, justice was swift and bloody.

It was, as young
Tau-kortagor
Hakarl of the Secret Police observed to his men, a bit like lifting up a rock and finding something nasty underneath that needed to be squashed. His squad did its own fair share of squashing before they reached the Merchants’ Quarter and Hakarl thought to find out what the Guilds themselves might know…

Oren Osmar’s
Tiluan the Prince His Life and Triumph
was recognized as a classic throughout the Drusalan Empire, and was perhaps the most enduringly popular of the Vreijek playwright’s works. Because most of its action took place during the Feast of the Fires of Winter when the days reached their shortest and began to lengthen again, it had been performed at the Winter Solstice since its writing almost three centuries before, in guises varying from masques to musicals.

According to the pamphlet in Aldric’s hand, this present revival was based not on Drusalan translations but on the Jouvaine-language original. Having read that same original some two years earlier, and knowing the current state of political turmoil within the Empire, Aldric doubted this production’s vaunted “accuracy” at once. In the present climate an Imperial audience would hardly appreciate either the plot or the sentiments it expressed—all about fealty to a lord rather than to his chiefmost lieutenant—and especially not this audience.

Their entry vouchers had been assured by a runner sent from the Towers, and as they were shown to their seats another sheet of paper was pressed into Aldric’s hand to keep all the rest company. This, on a superior quality heavy paper, carried the usual things that wealthy theater-goers might want to know: the names of the Lord Constable’s Men and of their characters, a useful if over-lengthy synopsis of the plot, a briefer and more restrained description of the effects that had been levered in between Osmar’s words—though the program didn’t express it in quite that way—and where, from whom and for how much food and drink could be acquired.

There was an unsettling number of soldiers in the audience, wearing either undress uniform or their best civilian clothes, but all labeled clearly by their neatly—if excessively—close-cropped heads. Aldric’s own hair was not long recovered from just such a military crop, and though Kyrin either didn’t notice them or made a point of not registering their existence, he felt uneasy until it was clear that both their seats—while commanding an excellent view of the stage—were shadowed by a pillar and by the balcony above it. The nasty sensation of being watched was probably a result of nothing more than hindsight-aided wariness; but this was augmented by the idle glances turned towards him by so many of the Empire’s military, any of whom might through the workings of an unkind fate have recognized him from past events. He didn’t feel truly comfortable until the house-lights were hoisted into their dark-shades and the play began.

Events on stage were more than enough to distract anyone’s attention, with plenty to entertain the senses as well as—Aldric sniffed, exchanged a pointed glance with Kyrin in the gloom and smiled thinly—
ymeth
and other substances in use to dull them.

The audience’s own small entertainments aside,
Tiluan the Prince
had been brought up to date with a vengeance. There was one scene, the Betrayal, which should have been restrained and intimate, as terrifying as a whisper in a darkened room. Instead it took place during the gold and scarlet glitter (the Emperor’s colors, a fact not lost on any of the audience still in possession of their senses) of a court ceremony, contrasting outward splendor against inner corruption. The overt political comment did not go unnoticed, drawing whistles and jeering laughter as the scene reached its conclusion— which, to Aldric’s mind, suggested it had worked quite well enough.

Trumpets in the wings and among the musicians blared an elaborate fanfare as first the lamps and then the curtain opened up again. Figures in armor fantastical as that of insects strutted to and fro beneath their gilded banners, declaiming the famous well-known speeches that each drew their own separate applause:

It pleases me to see the joyful season that is Autumn.
The actor playing Overlord Broknar was saying,
for it swells the fruit upon the trees Arid makes the harvest rich and tall. And it pleases me to hear
...

Gibart d’Reth had been a Guildsman for forty of his fifty-seven years. He enjoyed it; there was a certain sense of satisfaction in watching, helping and, as time passed, controlling the extraordinary sums of other people’s money that gave a merchant guild its power. The power rubbed off. Few men were as respected as those of Guild Freyjan’s House in Drakkesborg. There was a degree of amiable rivalry between his House and its opposite number in Kalitzim, but on the whole Gibart felt that he was the senior Master in the Empire. Certainly he saw more money in the form of cold, hard cash than Ascel in Kalitzim could ever hope to do. If he wasn’t bound by the near-religious secrecy of the Guild, he could tell such tales…

Drakkesborg was like that. There was enough luxury for any man to enjoy, especially if like Gibart d’Reth he was a bachelor as well as wealthy, but beneath the surface the city was simmering with plots and intrigue. Senior officers in all the arms of service had far more gold to hand than on their rank insignia, and were working busily to have it moved away from any area of trouble— which in the present climate meant right out of the Empire. And then there were the ordinary matters of business, which were sometimes far from what a layman merchant would regard as normal practice. Gibart smiled at the thought and closed his last ledger of the night. He put it, with all the others, into an iron safe with powdered clay packed tightly between its double skin as a protection against fire, and turned the first of the three keys. This was a ritual performed every night, more important by far than simply locking away the Guild’s gold. There was not sufficient gold in all the Empire to buy those ranks of dull blue covers—or more precisely, the transactions recorded between them. He put the second key to its lock—

—Then dropped it at the sound of a crashing in the corridor outside. The key made a sound like a tiny metallic laugh as it bounced under the immovable mass of the safe, something that would normally have made Gibart swear at the prospect of the grubbing about with a bent piece of wire which usually followed such a fumble, but he was past worrying about such petty everyday annoyances. Sounds of violence in a Guild House after dark meant one thing only.

The door of his office was kicked open, so hard that it was vibrating like a drum as it shuddered to a halt, and three men stepped inside. Or rather two men, dragging what looked like a side of raw beef between them. Gibart came surging to his feet, mouth open to yell something about the outrageous liberty of entering a Guildsman’s presence in this fashion; but he froze halfway as he recognized the side of beef.

It—
he
—was Kian, Guild House Drakkesborg’s chief guard; and the horrified Gibart could identify him only by his size and by the Freyjan crests marked on his tattered gear. Not even the man’s mother would have known him. Gibart could only stare wide-eyed and realize for the first time what that saying really meant.

“He didn’t want to let us in,” said one of the two men bracing Kian by the elbows, and as he spoke both of them removed their support. The guard swayed forward and his head struck squarely in the center of Gibart’s desk before he rolled limply to the floor. “Even though we told him that this was official business.”