"… and you'll feel how lovely and cool the bedroom is too, even on a day like today," the landlord continued in his cracked but relentless voice. "Windows a bit small there, many sorrows for that, but in a climate like we have you want shade more than you want sunshine indoors, isn't that so? But for the winter months, you've doubtless noted the size of the range out here in the living room. Get a fire burning here and it heat the whole apartment up something lovely. It's not more than ten years old, this place, barely a draft or a leak anywhere. Only one previous set of occupants and, as you'll be seeing, they've left the place looking lovely."
"Yeah, you mentioned that," Yaxi Tanson remarked. She and her husband Radav were gazing around the apartment with the same expression. The main room was low but generous in floor space. The range was as large as the landlord remarked and looked impressively functional. At the end of the room was a wall cut into by an impressive arch, behind which was a nook which appeared to have no purpose other than to be something behind the impressive arch. All the walls had basic but vivid murals of lilac and scarlet flowers. Even the condition of the room, the whole apartment, justified the boasts. There were a few chips, a few stains but very few; and the bare boards of the living room even looked as if they had been recently polished. The expression of both Tansons was: impressed, covetous, but determined not to let this show. "You never quite told us what happened to those guys," Yaxi said.
"Onwards and upwards, good lady, onwards and upwards," the landlord replied triumphantly. "Moved to a lovely little house in Yaleth, I'm led to believe. She was blessed with her third child, he gifted with another promotion and they told me, Mr Delpess, we couldn't be happier here but it's time to move on."
Radav, meanwhile, had opened another door from the living room and was staring inside dubiously. "Not the largest of rooms, I know," Mr Delpess said as he scuttled up. "But ideal quarters for a child or perhaps a servant. Do you have either?"
"A definite no to the first," Yaxi said, limping across to join them. "We've not really decided on the second yet."
"Thought we had," Radav told her.
"No, hon, if you remember that's sort of one of the many things still on the debating table."
"Oh aye, that's right. Keep losing track of 'em all."
"And if you decide to take the lease," Mr Delpess ventured, "For how long might you be… that is, what is your intended length of occupancy?"
"Well, you work on six month contracts and we'll be happy to sign one of those," Yaxi told him calmly. "Beyond that, the seers are kind of silent."
"Of course, of course. Flexibility, so important in today's day and age." He studied Yaxi; tried studying both of them but Radav was already moving across to the front windows. "And you, if I may say, seem the sort of folk a bit more flexible than most. You young lady, are not from the Triple Cities, are you?" His eyes were on Yaxi's skin. Both his and Radav's were the colour of oak bark but Yaxi was even darker, a brown which almost shaded into black. Her sable hair was done in a foreign style too, thick strings knotted together and tied halfway down her back by bright beads.
"Well, the husband isn't either, actually," she smiled. "He just pretends he is, to cover up coming from a wheat silo in the middle of the Central Plains."
"Hey," Radav called out. "Stop knocking the home."
"Your home's lovely, hon, just that if you park a cart on the outskirts, you've pretty much doubled the size of it. We're from all over the place really," Yaxi told Mr Delpess. "But I was born in East Zabrial."
"Ah. Of course. The City of Mermaids."
"Yeah, that's one of our nicknames. Though we've kind of picked up a lot of not so nice ones lately. I'm not limping because I'm slowly growing a tail, by the way." She tapped her crooked left leg with her walking stick. "I've just, you know, mashed up my leg a fair bit."
"Ah. A wound picked up on your…. heh, travels, Mrs Tanson?"
"We-e-e-e-ell. You might say that. Specifically, the bit where I tried to travel through a gateway before it fell on me."
"Indeed? Most upsetting, most upsetting. And what happened, may I ask?
"I didn't travel fast enough."
Yaxi limped back across the room to her husband. Radav was surveying the view from the front of the second storey flat. A typical Triple Cities street ostensibly, a dirty, noisy melange of bright clothes and billowing dust. Handcarts stacked high with gyrating piles of produce were being dragged across the cobbles, weaving around donkey wagons and single-horse gigs. Noisy gangs of children played in the gutters, their high voices competing with the low bellows of the traders. Some of the buildings were like the one Radav was stood in, modern, pale and functional tenement blocks some five stories high. Some were older and taller, unstable looking minarets corkscrewing into the sky. Some were squat white towers, some modest cottages, some customised, dilapidated old mansion houses. They all crowded together with no discrimination and no sense of a plan.
"Don't know Jakks Way," Radav commented on the scene. "Don't know the neighbourhood too well either."
"Which is also called Jakks Way, right?" his wife asked.
"Jakks Way, Jakks Way, so nice they say it twice," Mr Delpess sang happily. "Oh, it's a lively district, always plenty to see and do. See Mistletoe Square there, at the far eastern end? A permanent market there, buy any sort of goods you want. Get your wrestling booths setting up there near the carnivals, your fortune tellers and some such, and always plenty of liveliness at all times of the year. And at the other end-" he pointed down the road, where a large half-timbered house was just visible- "The Last Drop Inn, brews up the finest quart of ale you ever will taste. A nice little gambling table in the back room too, and always a few nice stabbings going on every Saturday night."
"Uh huh," Yaxi grunted.
"Oh, there's plenty of action around here. Don't like the ale at the Last Drop? There's five backroom stills on this street alone and that's just the official count. We've got fences and forgers and lots of others to supply whatever you might require. Got the street gangs of kiddie hoodlums always scrapping with each other. Got the serious gangs too – Jakks Way is on the boundary of some five different ones, no-one can ever get complete control but does that ever stop them trying? Hear a crunch when you walk down an alley, sir and madam, just carry on by and don't look what you've just trodden on. We've got a lovely mix of folks here too. There's the old timers like myself, the real Cities folk you might say, no offence, always free with our opinions and our opportunities. Got the big, scary Torgun worshippers just across the western border. Got your settlers coming in from Erenland, often as not bring their feuds with them and fighting them out right here on our streets. Got your arrivals from Zabrial, no offence meant either, ma'am, but slitting your throat if you look at them crooked. Got your-"
"OK, OK, we get the picture," Yaxi laughed. "You know, I like the honesty around here. We were looking at a flat in Brekklinside earlier and asked about the district's bad reputation, the landlord said that was all in the past. And we could, you know, see at least two pools of blood from the window. We never even knew Jakks Way had a reputation until you just told us it."
Mr Delpess gave the couple another careful assessment. They weren't excessively large but still emanated an aura of great power. Yaxi was built like a strong youth; small breasts, wide shoulders, thin hips and remarkably thick forearms. All of Radav was broad, but the contours of his tight tunic and trousers revealed this to be caused by muscle, not fat. They were both handsome in their own way, the landlord conceded, and seemed amiable enough. But the skin of each face alone carried half a dozen scars and had been hardened by a demanding life. Whether moving or standing, there was an alert tension inside their bodies. Neither was carrying a weapon and they seemed almost naked, if no less dangerous, without one. "Well, I'm reckoning, sir and madam, you won't be put off by any such perils. Think they might be an attraction, hm?"
"Not put off, as such. But we've come to the Cities to relax for a while. Get kind of soft and corrupt in the fleshpots. That's the plan, isn't it?" she asked Radav.
"Aye. Fleshpots. Definite."
"Of course, of course. And if you don't look for trouble here, chances are it'll never find you. Take myself. Lived in Jakks Way for near twenty five years now, hardly any bother at all. Course," he added with a grin, "The folks around here know what sort of folks I know. And they know it won't benefit them to upset some of Mr Delpess' friends."
After a few seconds Yaxi said, "You mentioned there was a sort of balcony."
"Oh yes, at the back. I'll show you now. Nice place to sit, it is, nice and peaceful. Catches a lovely bit of sun on a summer evening."
The balcony only overlooked a lot of small, ugly back yards. It was in shade and looked like it always would be, the sky swallowed by the tall buildings around. The peace was real, however, the street noises still audible but seemingly trapped behind a sheet of thick glass. Radav leant over the side, looking with approval at the weeds trying to push through the paving stones.
"Heard a lot of these balconies come detached," he said neutrally.
"Only, I assure you-"
"I ain't having the wife falling off an' doing her other leg in. She whinges enough as it is."
Yaxi laughed. "Oh, the priceless comfort that is a supportive husband."
"The problem, I assure you, is confined to the older buildings," Mr Delpess said smoothly. "The structures is perfectly sound on this property – on all my properties."
"Aye, well, we'll have a check. A bit of a jump up an' down. An' a chat."
"That's your cue to sort of fade into the background, Mr Delpess," Yaxi said. After shutting the door to the balcony she joined her husband at the rail. They glanced around thoughtfully for a few minutes. Eventually she said, "Well, I want it."
"Aye. Me too." His face creased in contempt. "'Don't mess with Mr Delpess and his friends?'"
"I know, I know. Oh, was it ever an effort keeping a straight face just then."
"What did he think he was bloody… We agree not to do business with blokes who're either crooks or outright loonies?"
"Thing is, hon, if we made that pact we wouldn't find a great many people to do business with."
"True. Still, with him as a landlord, I ain't ever keeping more than ten gold in the flat."
"Oh, please tell me you weren't thinking of doing that anyway."
Another short silence. Then Yaxi said, "You know, I'd kind of feel better if we let Zokou look at it first. 'Cause she's going to end up in that wardrobe laughably called a second bedroom and then, boy, is she going to moan."
"You know her. She ain't a moaner."
"She ought to moan about that. I'm still trying to remember why we're hiding her away right now and smuggling her in with the swords and the bows."
"We agreed to that," Radav said uncomfortably. "She agreed to it an' all."
"Er, yeah, but were any of us, you know, right? It's not like we can keep her locked away in the flat the whole time."
"We're breaking her in slowly."
"Breaking her in to what, exactly? Oh yeah, I've remembered. We've not worked that bit out yet. That's why it's got to happen slowly." Yaxi sighed and glanced over her shoulder towards the patiently waiting Mr Delpess. "And we've got the nerve, we've got the cheek to think he's ludicrous."
"Let's just sign the contract or whatever to get this bloody circus started."
"Yeah, you mentioned that," Yaxi Tanson remarked. She and her husband Radav were gazing around the apartment with the same expression. The main room was low but generous in floor space. The range was as large as the landlord remarked and looked impressively functional. At the end of the room was a wall cut into by an impressive arch, behind which was a nook which appeared to have no purpose other than to be something behind the impressive arch. All the walls had basic but vivid murals of lilac and scarlet flowers. Even the condition of the room, the whole apartment, justified the boasts. There were a few chips, a few stains but very few; and the bare boards of the living room even looked as if they had been recently polished. The expression of both Tansons was: impressed, covetous, but determined not to let this show. "You never quite told us what happened to those guys," Yaxi said.
"Onwards and upwards, good lady, onwards and upwards," the landlord replied triumphantly. "Moved to a lovely little house in Yaleth, I'm led to believe. She was blessed with her third child, he gifted with another promotion and they told me, Mr Delpess, we couldn't be happier here but it's time to move on."
Radav, meanwhile, had opened another door from the living room and was staring inside dubiously. "Not the largest of rooms, I know," Mr Delpess said as he scuttled up. "But ideal quarters for a child or perhaps a servant. Do you have either?"
"A definite no to the first," Yaxi said, limping across to join them. "We've not really decided on the second yet."
"Thought we had," Radav told her.
"No, hon, if you remember that's sort of one of the many things still on the debating table."
"Oh aye, that's right. Keep losing track of 'em all."
"And if you decide to take the lease," Mr Delpess ventured, "For how long might you be… that is, what is your intended length of occupancy?"
"Well, you work on six month contracts and we'll be happy to sign one of those," Yaxi told him calmly. "Beyond that, the seers are kind of silent."
"Of course, of course. Flexibility, so important in today's day and age." He studied Yaxi; tried studying both of them but Radav was already moving across to the front windows. "And you, if I may say, seem the sort of folk a bit more flexible than most. You young lady, are not from the Triple Cities, are you?" His eyes were on Yaxi's skin. Both his and Radav's were the colour of oak bark but Yaxi was even darker, a brown which almost shaded into black. Her sable hair was done in a foreign style too, thick strings knotted together and tied halfway down her back by bright beads.
"Well, the husband isn't either, actually," she smiled. "He just pretends he is, to cover up coming from a wheat silo in the middle of the Central Plains."
"Hey," Radav called out. "Stop knocking the home."
"Your home's lovely, hon, just that if you park a cart on the outskirts, you've pretty much doubled the size of it. We're from all over the place really," Yaxi told Mr Delpess. "But I was born in East Zabrial."
"Ah. Of course. The City of Mermaids."
"Yeah, that's one of our nicknames. Though we've kind of picked up a lot of not so nice ones lately. I'm not limping because I'm slowly growing a tail, by the way." She tapped her crooked left leg with her walking stick. "I've just, you know, mashed up my leg a fair bit."
"Ah. A wound picked up on your…. heh, travels, Mrs Tanson?"
"We-e-e-e-ell. You might say that. Specifically, the bit where I tried to travel through a gateway before it fell on me."
"Indeed? Most upsetting, most upsetting. And what happened, may I ask?
"I didn't travel fast enough."
Yaxi limped back across the room to her husband. Radav was surveying the view from the front of the second storey flat. A typical Triple Cities street ostensibly, a dirty, noisy melange of bright clothes and billowing dust. Handcarts stacked high with gyrating piles of produce were being dragged across the cobbles, weaving around donkey wagons and single-horse gigs. Noisy gangs of children played in the gutters, their high voices competing with the low bellows of the traders. Some of the buildings were like the one Radav was stood in, modern, pale and functional tenement blocks some five stories high. Some were older and taller, unstable looking minarets corkscrewing into the sky. Some were squat white towers, some modest cottages, some customised, dilapidated old mansion houses. They all crowded together with no discrimination and no sense of a plan.
"Don't know Jakks Way," Radav commented on the scene. "Don't know the neighbourhood too well either."
"Which is also called Jakks Way, right?" his wife asked.
"Jakks Way, Jakks Way, so nice they say it twice," Mr Delpess sang happily. "Oh, it's a lively district, always plenty to see and do. See Mistletoe Square there, at the far eastern end? A permanent market there, buy any sort of goods you want. Get your wrestling booths setting up there near the carnivals, your fortune tellers and some such, and always plenty of liveliness at all times of the year. And at the other end-" he pointed down the road, where a large half-timbered house was just visible- "The Last Drop Inn, brews up the finest quart of ale you ever will taste. A nice little gambling table in the back room too, and always a few nice stabbings going on every Saturday night."
"Uh huh," Yaxi grunted.
"Oh, there's plenty of action around here. Don't like the ale at the Last Drop? There's five backroom stills on this street alone and that's just the official count. We've got fences and forgers and lots of others to supply whatever you might require. Got the street gangs of kiddie hoodlums always scrapping with each other. Got the serious gangs too – Jakks Way is on the boundary of some five different ones, no-one can ever get complete control but does that ever stop them trying? Hear a crunch when you walk down an alley, sir and madam, just carry on by and don't look what you've just trodden on. We've got a lovely mix of folks here too. There's the old timers like myself, the real Cities folk you might say, no offence, always free with our opinions and our opportunities. Got the big, scary Torgun worshippers just across the western border. Got your settlers coming in from Erenland, often as not bring their feuds with them and fighting them out right here on our streets. Got your arrivals from Zabrial, no offence meant either, ma'am, but slitting your throat if you look at them crooked. Got your-"
"OK, OK, we get the picture," Yaxi laughed. "You know, I like the honesty around here. We were looking at a flat in Brekklinside earlier and asked about the district's bad reputation, the landlord said that was all in the past. And we could, you know, see at least two pools of blood from the window. We never even knew Jakks Way had a reputation until you just told us it."
Mr Delpess gave the couple another careful assessment. They weren't excessively large but still emanated an aura of great power. Yaxi was built like a strong youth; small breasts, wide shoulders, thin hips and remarkably thick forearms. All of Radav was broad, but the contours of his tight tunic and trousers revealed this to be caused by muscle, not fat. They were both handsome in their own way, the landlord conceded, and seemed amiable enough. But the skin of each face alone carried half a dozen scars and had been hardened by a demanding life. Whether moving or standing, there was an alert tension inside their bodies. Neither was carrying a weapon and they seemed almost naked, if no less dangerous, without one. "Well, I'm reckoning, sir and madam, you won't be put off by any such perils. Think they might be an attraction, hm?"
"Not put off, as such. But we've come to the Cities to relax for a while. Get kind of soft and corrupt in the fleshpots. That's the plan, isn't it?" she asked Radav.
"Aye. Fleshpots. Definite."
"Of course, of course. And if you don't look for trouble here, chances are it'll never find you. Take myself. Lived in Jakks Way for near twenty five years now, hardly any bother at all. Course," he added with a grin, "The folks around here know what sort of folks I know. And they know it won't benefit them to upset some of Mr Delpess' friends."
After a few seconds Yaxi said, "You mentioned there was a sort of balcony."
"Oh yes, at the back. I'll show you now. Nice place to sit, it is, nice and peaceful. Catches a lovely bit of sun on a summer evening."
The balcony only overlooked a lot of small, ugly back yards. It was in shade and looked like it always would be, the sky swallowed by the tall buildings around. The peace was real, however, the street noises still audible but seemingly trapped behind a sheet of thick glass. Radav leant over the side, looking with approval at the weeds trying to push through the paving stones.
"Heard a lot of these balconies come detached," he said neutrally.
"Only, I assure you-"
"I ain't having the wife falling off an' doing her other leg in. She whinges enough as it is."
Yaxi laughed. "Oh, the priceless comfort that is a supportive husband."
"The problem, I assure you, is confined to the older buildings," Mr Delpess said smoothly. "The structures is perfectly sound on this property – on all my properties."
"Aye, well, we'll have a check. A bit of a jump up an' down. An' a chat."
"That's your cue to sort of fade into the background, Mr Delpess," Yaxi said. After shutting the door to the balcony she joined her husband at the rail. They glanced around thoughtfully for a few minutes. Eventually she said, "Well, I want it."
"Aye. Me too." His face creased in contempt. "'Don't mess with Mr Delpess and his friends?'"
"I know, I know. Oh, was it ever an effort keeping a straight face just then."
"What did he think he was bloody… We agree not to do business with blokes who're either crooks or outright loonies?"
"Thing is, hon, if we made that pact we wouldn't find a great many people to do business with."
"True. Still, with him as a landlord, I ain't ever keeping more than ten gold in the flat."
"Oh, please tell me you weren't thinking of doing that anyway."
Another short silence. Then Yaxi said, "You know, I'd kind of feel better if we let Zokou look at it first. 'Cause she's going to end up in that wardrobe laughably called a second bedroom and then, boy, is she going to moan."
"You know her. She ain't a moaner."
"She ought to moan about that. I'm still trying to remember why we're hiding her away right now and smuggling her in with the swords and the bows."
"We agreed to that," Radav said uncomfortably. "She agreed to it an' all."
"Er, yeah, but were any of us, you know, right? It's not like we can keep her locked away in the flat the whole time."
"We're breaking her in slowly."
"Breaking her in to what, exactly? Oh yeah, I've remembered. We've not worked that bit out yet. That's why it's got to happen slowly." Yaxi sighed and glanced over her shoulder towards the patiently waiting Mr Delpess. "And we've got the nerve, we've got the cheek to think he's ludicrous."
"Let's just sign the contract or whatever to get this bloody circus started."
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