Episode Eleven

"You know," Yaxi began. She then paused to take a mouthful of rice and beans. Her status in the improvised family known as the Tansons was such that the other two were prepared to wait and see what she believed they knew. "You know," she began again after swallowing, "I thought we'd pretty much agreed on this."
Zokou, disconsolately pushing her own dinner around her bowl, mumbled, "Yeah, but-"
"Before we came to the Cities we decided – well, not actually what to do. 'Cause something that ambitious would be laughable. But what we weren't going to do and this kind of came top of the list. You, missy, weren't going to go out alone and get spotted till we'd got you sorted out. That was, like, pretty unambiguous wasn't it? I understood it, didn't you, hon?"
The last remark was addressed to Radav. From his nominal place at the head of the family table he was observing the scene in a detached manner. He nodded. "Aye. Not much else, but I got that one."
"And one semi-millisecond after we go out and leave you alone, what happens? Whoosh. Heels lost in a cloud of dust, out you speed-"
"But no-one did see me," Zokou interrupted. "I checked no-one was about."
"You kind of sure bout that? 'Cause they say each street's got a thousand eyes and, boy, you'd better believe this one's got a thousand and one mouths."
"OK, they could've seen me coming out of the building. Not out of this flat though. I checked the corridor was empty this time. They wouldn't connect me to you and I don't see…" Zokou trailed away. Just say you're sorry, an inner voice was telling her, and move on. Neither Yaxi nor Radav would hold a grudge. They weren't even angry with her now. They were just mimicking the forms. In all the months since they had careered into her life and adopted a stance sometimes as her bodyguards, sometimes her tutors and sometimes her foster parents, she had never witnessed that emotion. She had watched them fighting for their lives, and her life. She had seen them cut creatures in half with one swing of a sword and slay monsters with a single, precisely aimed arrow through an eye and starving and wounded, close to desperation and close to death. But never angry. Certainly not with her, and for such a trivial cause as her disobeying an instruction. Which wasn't the only reason why she loved them so much but remained a compelling one. So she said, "Sorry." And when Yaxi then continued the argument, Zokou knew that was simply because she was enjoying it.
"Why did you have to sneak out and see the marvels of the Cities anyway? We showed you the marvels of the Cities when we got here. You know, that's them. Like 'em or lump 'em."
"You whisked me round at top speed in the carriage. Half the time you had a blanket over my head."
We cut eyeholes in it, didn't we? And drew a little smiley face on it."
"Aye, we never told you 'bout that last bit," Radav said.
"Why's it so important I stay hidden anyway?" Zokou demanded.
Yaxi sighed. "Don’t' wind me up while I'm eating, Zok. If I get pissed while I'm swallowing something, I tend to choke on it. And that's so not a sight you want to see while you're eating."
"OK, I know about keeping it secret about what… what I can do. But why can't anyone know I'm living with you?"
"Well, there's a few reasons," Yaxi said. "But the main one, which, you know, I have explained before is that as a couple, me and fatso here fit. Guys take one look at us and think, OK, got 'em sorted out. We're, well, we're thugs. We're the dudes who hang round the taverns and join the mercenary gangs and sometimes get hired to do the tasks you so wish governments wouldn't keep doing. even us renting a swish pad like this, people can sort of understand that. They'll be guessing we've just done a big job, probably the sort where the wages are kind of locked inside a bank vault. So we fit. But you so, so don't, sweetie. They take one gawp at you and they'll start thinking, what the hell's going on? And then they might, you know, start asking questions."
"I can do all that stuff too," Zokou said a little sullenly. "You've been showing me how."
"Yeah, we all know that but no-one else does and they wouldn’t' guess it if they tried for a year. I mean, look at you."
Look at her. Zokou's features were pretty and slightly unusual. She had long, fine hair, very high cheekbones and eyes which were very round in the middle and tapered at the outer edges. She had the same weather-beaten cast to her skin and hard-wearing comfort to her drab clothes as Yaxi and Radav. She was built far smaller, however, having clearly spent most of her sixteen years scrabbling for food. Nor did she seem a natural member of a street gang or even a brothel. She was somehow too asexual for the latter and too timid, even inside the flat, for the former. She looked like a young apprentice to a seamstress; that is, a genuine seamstress.
"Well, if you look so tough and I look so puny, you could say you've kidnapped me," she ventured.
"That one'd kind of get a hole punched in it if they saw you, you know, coming and going as you pleased," Yaxi countered. "I don't want to be a hard-on about this but we've got to manage appearances here. And until we figure out what the hell to do about yours, you'll sort of have to keep yourself under wraps for a while. Otherwise this thing we laughably call 'a plan' might get one of its legs knocked out and just tumbling right down-"
"You ever gonna eat that or just wave it around?" Radav interrupted. He indicated Yaxi's food, piled onto her spoon but neglected for some time now.
"Excuse me. In the middle of an oratory here."
"You're never owt else. Amount you talk during dinner, it's no wonder you never get fat. Burn off more calories than you swallow."
In reply, Yaxi brought her spoon back and catapulted the rice at Radav's face with pleasing accuracy. "Don't taunt an archer, hon. Everything's a potential missile to us."
Zokou smiled, sitting back and letting the memories of the day pour through her. She was, she realised, still slightly dazed. She wasn't a country girl seeing a city for the first time. She had been born in Port Blacksheln, a vast sprawl which clung to a lot of the coast of another continent like a malignant tumour. But Port Blacksheln was far different to the Triple Cities. It had no industry, no parks, no avenues, no spectacles. It had no real law and barely a government, simply one man whose gang was slightly bigger than anyone else's. The only thin astounding about Port Blacksheln was its squalor and its capacity for violence.
The Cities were more than a hamlet writ large, however. They ran the greatest and richest country in the world. And they were not shy about advertising this fact. Still unsure of herself, unwilling to explore strange byways, Zokou had mostly revisited sites she had already seen. All were worth another viewing. Huwdone House, base of the federal government, a vast and unearthly cube of white marble and black windows. Parliament Square which stood in front of it, with its sombre mansions and dizzying chequerboard paving stones. Vellers Square close by, where two great trading routes collided in a deafening band which splashed every colour, most of them lurid, across the buildings. The Lewis Avenue sector in the north-west, hosting the shrill, brash townhouses of the wealthiest people on earth. The astonishing markets of the Milliks Triangle sector, where every item ever made, hunted, fished or grown could seemingly be purchased.
That was merely in Jalkin. Zokou had gone to the city of Yaleth too as well, to walk between the 'giant's handrails' of the Reckstag Bridge which crossed the River Brail. To see the Tukas Halls of Justice, once a king's palace, now wrestled into the services of a democratic government by an armlock which still didn't hide its menace. To gape at the Church of Garrath on top of Royal Hill, the gigantic logical conclusion of a religion obsessed by spectacle inside a land with the same tastes. Finally to Forgar to see one of the dynamos of each edifice. The creatures by the river generally called workshops but which looked like fortresses. Sardacs the tailors, the Ocheverry Printing Works, the Zierlona carpenters, Charlac Carriage Makers; each one accumulating more fame and profit through the scale of their production than the most skilled craftsman ever could.
Yes, they had shown her all this when they first arrived. They hurried from one sight to another, however; and if they didn't actually put a sack over her head then the shutters on the carriage were always half-drawn. Zokou was left with a montage of amazing images which didn't make sense, didn't fit together and didn't seem real. By exploring on her own she hoped to start the first steps towards comprehension.
She failed in that respect. Standing at the foot of each vertiginous structure, it was even harder to believe that mankind alone could ever build anything so great, so beautiful or so dreadful. But she was able to learn a little more about the Cities. Her walk had reminded her that it wasn't simply about the architecture. The people were different too. And they were almost amazing. What struck her most of all was their freedom. She noticed the most vivid examples, the ones whose notoriety had spread. The demagogues bawling slanderous obscenities outside each Town Hall. The vendors almost on the doorstep of Huwdone House selling newsheets containing detailed criticisms of the actions of Huwdone House. The street performers often enacting what was basically unapologetic pornography. Yet Zokou sensed the liberty everywhere. In the way men and even women moved and talked, in their stride and their demeanour. There was a certain amount of belligerence there, an awareness that their freedom had to be defended constantly. But their confidence didn't come from their weapons – to her amazement, Zokou saw that almost nobody was armed. It flowed from a sense of what they belonged to.
Yaxi and Radav possessed it too. They were Christotans and the Cities, after all, was simply the epitome of Christoté. Strip away their bows and swords and they would still be free. And they offered Zokou the same rights. Just as she had been preparing to shatter her childhood liberty with a life of drudgery, they had shown her the road out. Under their protection, to some extent, and under their tutelage. However, every time they chastised her she sensed them waiting and hoping for her to defend her independence.
"You know," she began cautiously, "I saw a lot of wizards around today. Or at least, men-"
"Yeah, I'm gonna stop you there," Yaxi said. "And ask if these 'wizards' were sort of guys in fairground tents with a hell of a lot of sequins and signs saying 'The Amazing Montou: Gods Are Astounded By His Powers.'"
"Well, OK, mostly. But they can't all be frauds, can they?"
"Er, just one question in return here. Why not."
"We could try talking to one or two at least. If your friend… If you can't find him or something. It can't do any harm."
"Hmm. People messing about with magic without really knowing what they're doing. I wonder, can that possibly, possibly do any harm?"
"Remember that damn great desert we crossed?" Radav said. "They reckon that were made by folks messing with magic."
"So it wasn't the sun then?" Zokou returned.
"A pretty neat zing there," Yaxi smiled. "But that aside I think we'll stick with the 'our guy or broke' plan for now. And if we really can't find where he's skulking, well…"
"We're buggered," Radav suggested.
"So I've got to hide in here till you find him?" Zokou demanded.
Yaxi glanced at her husband. "No, I suppose not. I guess we went a little bit, you know, insane on that diktat. If you really want to make a grand coming out, blowing kisses at the neighbours and the alley cats, the street's yours."
"I never wanted-"
"Yeah, I know. But if you want, you can come with us to dinner at the family who live downstairs the night after next."
"Some nosy woman, her husband and three screaming brats," Radav said. "Should be a real treat."
Zokou glared at them. "You were gonna sneak off to a party and not even tell me?"
"I think the plan was to kind of camouflage it as another trip to the Last Drop Inn, wasn't it?" Yaxi asked Radav, who nodded.
"For the love of… How many times have you done that before?""Well, this would've been our first," Yaxi grinned. "And hey, given that, we're pretty good at it aren't we?"

Episode Ten

Jakks Way – the district rather than the street – was a creature of indeterminate size. Only in two directions were its borders conclusively fixed. To the west it abruptly ended at The Tonelays, that grim and hermetically sealed enclave whose denizens worshipped a strange, savage god and tried to only ever speak to each other. Eastwards an equally vivid marker was provided by Dorlaf Avenue, the chaotic paradise for shopkeepers which sliced Jalkin neatly in half. Up and down though, matters were more ambiguous. Was one still in Jakks Way as far north as Yashin Close? If one ventured southwards to Kakran Crescent? Some would claim so. Others preferred to squash the neighbourhood into a tight rectangle, with Clock Street forming the southern frontier and the eponymous road the north. Jakks Way had an official existence, of course, the fiefdom of the local praetor, but over time that had proved no more solid. The boundaries squirmed from election to election, depending on who was deciding them and how it would benefit them.
If there were no definite edges then there was no centre either. Although Jakks Way did, in most people's perception, have a cultural heart at least. Mistletoe Square, where the markets were held, where the fairs sprung up, where folks gathered on every fine day to gossip and argue. Ses Netrasso was one of the few who held an alternate view. In certain ways, for certain people, the real heart of the district lay further west, on the corner of Jakks Way and Fountain Avenue. Where stood the Last Drop Inn, the pub which he owned.
Since inheriting the Last Drop five years ago he had been tempted to remove the ambiguity by relocating to Mistletoe Square itself. It would have been feasible. Property everywhere in Jakks Way was cheap but especially on that notoriously odiferous, rowdy square. After making a few tentative enquiries, however, he realised he wouldn't be allowed to get away with this. The Last Drop Inn was a neighbourhood pub and so was tightly encased with custom. It stood on the corner of Fountain Avenue. It always had, it always would. Likewise, young Ses was only allowed to own it in the moral as well as legal sense because the Netrasso family always had. Not always, he discovered, but for six generations and that was enough. Sufficient, certainly, for Ses to be accepted despite the consensus that he was a quarter the man his late father had been.
Part of this low-key but constant hostility came because of his regular attempts to make improvements. The feelings were reciprocated because of his customers' inability to accept that improvements did, in fact, improve things. Ses Netrasso tried introducing more entertainments on evenings. The regulars complained that all these bards singing lies at them interfered with them speaking lies to one another. He tried invigorating the drinks range. They stuck to their appalling local brews which either tasted of treacle or nothing at all. He made the interior a little more hygienic. They moaned that they had no rushes or sawdust to spit on anymore. So the Last Drop remained humble and mundane, totally overshadowed by the Black Dog, the Calderdale, the garish taverns of Cuelon Road, a hundred other establishments on the Cities' legendary pub scene. And Netrasso had spent five years almost but not quite selling up and going somewhere his talents might be appreciated.
Several factors had prevented him so far. One of the few which he would admit to was that the Last Drop was a fine building. It looked exactly right for a Cities tavern. Externally it was half timbered, with two great bay windows thrusting out impertinently. There was a single great lounge at the front, its gloom providing shade in the summer and its hearts heat in the cooler months. Behind this were a few private drinking rooms for business deals or certain entertainments which Netrasso might allow initially and then deliberately know nothing about. Netrasso and his burgeoning family had ample, comfortable quarters upstairs. They shared them with their servants but not any overnight guests, because the Last Drop was a tavern rather an inn. The pun had just proved too tempting. It looked the archetypal pub from its foundations to its chimney and even the fact that it wasn't built as a pub increased its perfection. No true establishment in the Cities carries out the function for which they were originally intended.
Another source of compensation for Ses Netrasso was a diluted version of one of his father's maxims: "Every man in here a friend." Mr Netrasso senior had in turn been an archetypal innkeeper, a Jakks Way man from birth to death, and almost meant what he said. He may not have actually liked all his customers but did love them with the possessive familiarity of family. Ses didn't yet have his father's ruddy complexion or barrel stomach, though both were arriving. He had a more cynical view of the world, which was expanding as quickly as his body. But he partly agreed with his father in this instance. Most nights everyone in the Last Drop was at least known. Sometimes that thought brought pleasure. At worst it was a comfort. He didn't have to cope with the transient scum who drank at the Cuelon Road pubs, the migrants and adventurers and refugees and out-and-out criminals. The Last Drop did attract scum, and at the end of a Saturday night they could cause trouble. But Netrasso knew most of their threats and brawling were just postures, and predictable ones at that. It helped.
Netrasso gazed around the saloon now, halfway through a Saturday evening, and felt the reassurance again. The nosiest group was probably composed of Stefan Amecco and his cronies, all let off the leash once a week by their wives on the understanding that it would be clipped back on just as tight the next morning. Roaring at each other, taunting each other, pretending that the last twenty years hadn't occurred and brought its distressing changes. Their role models, in a reversal of what was supposed to happen, were the gaggle of genuinely young men. Including Stefan's son Jerich, they were almost as loud and turned their semi-serious hostility outwards not inwards; notably in catcalls towards anyone of vaguely feminine appearance. The one woman spared was old Kalinka, supping port after port by the bar. Because Kalinka was old and because she was again enacting her inexplicable but convincing impersonation of a lunatic. The bar stools seemed to attract the old timers. Half a dozen veterans slumped on them, as they did almost every night, with the unapologetic airs of people who had survived a great deal and now deserved some sort of reward. The corners of the room, meanwhile, collected the dregs. Cepu Boldan, his cronies and their tarts were filling one with the aura of men who owned the place. Boldan sometimes gazed around with the expression of one who wished he did. Another of Netrasso's reasons for not abandoning the Last Drop – he would almost certainly be forced to sell it to Cepu Boldan.
The gang were the only ones who could not be comfortably handled by Hielach, the 'Noriscan' bouncer leaning beside the door with his cudgel. And they would not turn violent. Not Saturday night violent, aggression caused solely by drink and egotism. Boldan was a psychopath but despite – or maybe because of – that quality, he practised and enforced discipline. His men struck after careful planning and struck in dark alleys. And that was a good example of knowledge bringing comfort. Netrasso could survey a room containing some fairly menacing characters and be assured that none would threaten –
Then two people entered who shattered that protection. Strangers in every sense. Though one was a woman, both looked like they belonged in the Cuelon Road taverns. Guards for the big merchant caravans; or perhaps part of the reason why guards were employed. The din in the saloon only dipped for a second but the newcomers were being studied, assessed. Something about the way they moved, the manner in which they carried themselves, conveyed a warning. The woman was quite stunning, Netrasso noticed as she approached, in a masculine way. Yet not even the most inebriated of the young men called out an invitation as she limped past.
"Hey," she grinned at Netrasso as she sat on a stool. "I've heard that there's a beer in the Cities so watered down and foul that you're guaranteed to barf up before you can get drunk on it."
"Clarwater." The man rolled his eyes at the landlord. "She knows it's called clarwater an' all. She just likes doing the line."
"Whatever. Anyway, I fancy trying it again. Do you kind of do it here."
Netrasso nodded. "Finest clarwater in the Cities."
The woman raised her eyebrows. "A-a-a-and is that, you know, saying much?"
"Not really," he admitted, smiling. "Pint and a half then?"
"Let's go with two pints. I want to try the vomiting experience side by side with the husband. Though I've a bit of a bad leg so I might not make it to your toilets in time. Will it be a problem if I heave up all over your floor?"
"Won't be the first, won't be the last."
"Cool. And, you know, kind of gross too. I'm Yaxi Tanson, by the way, this is my husband Radav. We moved in a couple of weeks ago. We've been quiet as – what are guys as quiet as around here?" she asked Radav.
"Otters."
"Oh, yeah. Still not sure about that one but let it go. So we've been quiet as otters up till now. But we couldn't resist checking out the folk singing stroke multiple stabbing experience here at the Last Drop Inn. Hey, do both of those really go on?"
Netrasso shrugged. "This is a quiet enough place."
"Yeah?" Radav said. "Have to see what we can do about that."
"Now, hon," Yaxi chided playfully. "What was our first rule when we moved here?"
Radav sighed. "Don't wind up the locals."
"And what was our second rule?"
"Don't wind up the locals."
"And what was our third rule…"
Netrasso relaxed, though only slightly. The Tansons. He had heard of them, of course. All Jakks Way seemed to have been talking about them the last fortnight. All he actually knew, however, was the tiny amount of information gleaned by Mr Delpess and the other morsel extracted by Morran Heppac. The rest came from widening circles of guesswork and rumour which grew more unfeasible as the drifted away from their origin. One account did seem accurate. The discrepancy between the Tansons' fearsome appearance and their amiable conversation. But Netrasso knew that both could be façades concealing characters entirely different again.
His eyes wandered around the saloon again. Calli Horstice had stolen in at some point, he noticed. She was sat in her usual posture, hunched on a bench with a martyred expression while some tiresome drunk lectured her on politics. Calli never used to come within twenty yards of the Last Drop. She was one of the few Jakks Way residents to make real money – doing what, Netrasso had no idea – and not flee the neighbourhood immediately after making it. Instead she affected the manners of a local queen, the epitome of respectability and good manners. A year ago, though, she had used her riches to become the local praetor, a minor official who runs the day-to-day affairs of a district. Now she had to prove herself to be one of her people. To win their vote again she had to copy their customs and ways; and that included entering taverns to be lectured by tiresome drunks. Observing the same process engulfing a praetor of the previous generation, Netrasso's father once remarked, "Politics. Drives any man to drink."
The landlord's smile dissolved as his eyes turned back to Cepu Boldan's table. The gang leader had seen Yaxi and Radav too. He was studying them. He was muttering to his men and they joined the examination too. Not a hostile assessment, but one blatantly open and almost pleading for a challenge. The Tansons didn't notice at first. Finally Radav spotted Boldan. He said something to his wife and they both turned towards the table in the corner. They returned the gazes for perhaps ten seconds, no more; and Netrasso had never seen anybody so apparently unaffected by Boldan's attention. Then the couple swivelled back again.
"Yeah, that's kind of disgusting," Yaxi announced, pushing away her third-drunk pint of clarwater beer. "I think I'll just take it as read that I'd barf up on that pretty soon and switch. You got anything which is very strong, sold in teeny-weeny glasses and is pretty much transparent?"
"We sell Dragon's Breath," Netrasso said, hoping to shift one of the new drinks which his regulars refused to touch. "A rum distilled up in the Brown Hills, admired by many connoisseurs-"
"OK, sounds good. Dragon me. Hey," Yaxi added after taking her first sip and making an appreciative noise, "Who are those guys sat in the corner? You know, the ones who seem to be trying to work out what size clothes we take?"
Netrasso leant closer, a slight but significant movement which he had copied from his father. "Right, you see the middle aged woman on the bench at the far side of the room. Calli Horstice. Our local praetor. She thinks she runs Jakks Way. She doesn't. Sat in the corner are Cepu Boldan and his gang. They do."
Again the pair did a simultaneous swirl towards the corner. Boldan was still looking at them. The Tansons turned back even sooner, however, and their apparent lack of interest was just as absolute. Netrasso studied them himself for as long as he dared. He had seen false bravado before, false nonchalance, false almost everything. He didn't believe that the couple were faking anything. They just weren't frightened of Cepu Boldan. Netrasso could guess how much this would frustrate the gang leader.
"One of those deals, huh?" Yaxi said. "You know, I heard no single gang kind of ruled these streets with sword and mayhem."
"They don't have overall control, true," Netrasso replied, wishing that Yaxi would keep her voice down. "There's still some jostling for position. But Boldan's the strongest and he's getting stronger." He paused, then added, "What I'm saying is, don't be antagonising him and expect another gang to pull you out of trouble."
"Hey now, do we look like we want to antagonise anyone?"
"That'd break the first, second and third bloody rules of our bloody code of conduct," Radav said heavily.
Netrasso was glad that a customer pulled him away then. He felt he had risked quite enough trying to aid people who clearly wanted no assistance. His relief turned to pleasure upon seeing that the visitor to the bar was Calli Horstice. She was looking harassed. Netrasso had been trying to monitor the conversation at her bench amidst the cascade of voices in the saloon. It wasn't too difficult. The voice of Armace in particular, an opinionated boor among opinionated boor, kept clapping down as regularly and repetitively as a printing press.
"…now, no-one's blaming you, lass," he would say. "You needed yoursen a patron. Fair dos. One of the proper politicians. You're just an arse-feeder right now, ain't you? But now your bloke's been caught with his trousers down an' you're buggered. Might as well admit it."
The praetor would make some inaudible protest and Armace always answered with, "Now, you know it's true. He were caught with them fat fingers o his right in the till an' he can't say otherwise. So you're buggered 'less you can find another patron. Just admit it, lass."
Now Calli was saying, in a rather bemused tone, "This round seems to be on me." She rolled off an extensive list of drinks and added to Netrasso, "And one for yourself too."
"I'll get the girl to carry it across." He looked at her, took pity and said, "Stay here till it's ready if you want though."
Calli smiled. She glanced nervously at the Tansons, decided to ignore them as completely as they were her and told Netrasso, "I'm sure it's really not as bad as it looks. What we were talking about over there, the business with the Councillor."
Councillors are one step up from praetors, officials elected to collectively run Christoté's towns. Any praetors with ambitions, which Calli Horstice probably did have, attaches themselves to Councillors or to Emissaries, their rural equivalent. Any Councillor looking to build a power base welcomes them. Any especially corrupt Councillor accepts bribes from praetors to hurry through legislation relating to particular neighbourhoods – the crime which Calli's patron had just been accused of regarding the Westgate district. And any cynical electorate then starts wondering if the rest of the Councillor's clientele, even if apparently innocent so far, has been offering their own little presents. Netrasso had to remark, "It looks bad though."
"Well, of course at this stage it does. But nobody really knows anything yet. There will be an inquiry and I'm glad of that. Because I'm sure all it will show is that the Councillor made a few silly mistakes of presentation."
"That's not too good either, is it?" Netrasso replied, leisurely pulling tap handles and letting the beer surge into pint mugs.
"Oh well, if you're another one who thinks he should be strung up from a tree because he doesn't come across well, so be it," Calli snapped. "I don't think it will turn out half as bad as it seems now, that's all. And I can appreciate the Councillor's point of view as well."
Netrasso relented. "Always two sides to every story, ain't there?"
"And he's been in a difficult position for some time now. It's a terrible job, for one. He was only given it because he's the most junior member of Jalkin Council. Highways & Amenities… It's a dreadful department to run."
"One street cistern gets blocked, one drain backs up, and it's your head they want," Netrasso murmured with a smile.
He had relented, he was even sympathising now, because he had started musing about power. And he realised that he and Calli Horstice were in a similar position. In one sense, they were the most powerful people in the Jakks Way neighbourhood. The only residents to run successful businesses, after all – or legal successful business – and both occupying roles of considerable influence. They had sensed this and often competed for sole dominance. Especially before Calli's election, in the period when she shunned the Last Drop and tried presenting herself as the only legitimate pole which respectable people should cluster around. A claim he tried negating by wondering loudly just what her secret investments were funding.
Only from one angle, though, did they stand so high. Because there were different forms of power. Netrasso knew the greatest of all. The anonymous, secretive medium where words alone could wreak vast changes. Calli had acquired a tiny slice of it now. And if she gathered more and more she would leave him far behind. She wouldn't just control the neighbourhood. She could sit in a meeting, another meeting and another and finally transform Jakks Way utterly. Enrich it immensely or, conceivably, destroy it.
But another method of power couldn't be disregarded. If only because it made a landlord tell newcomers, "She doesn't rule this district. He does." The ability to impose your will directly on a situation. Calli had to endure being hectored by men whom she despised, had to listen to ill-disguised slanders directed against herself. She always would, in one forum or another, however high she scrambled. And so would Netrasso. He must endure the same bores and the same fatuous opinions night after night. In an inn which he supposedly owned yet couldn't change the way he wished.
Nobody told Cepu Boldan how to run his business, however. Nobody told him anything he didn't wish to hear. Netrasso glanced at the gang leader again, sat at the far side of his table. In the corner which he effectively owned for as long as he was there. He couldn't be approached without his permission. His sentinels would spring up if anyone came near; and unless they brought an apology and a reason which he cared for, they would be evicted rapidly. Netrasso noticed Calli looking towards the corner too. She knew who Boldan was. She knew a great deal about him. Everyone in Jakks Way did. Naïve and rarefied though she was, she knew and she wanted him destroyed. But until she achieved that, he held dominance whenever they met. If he ordered it, she would probably drop onto all fours and bark like a dog. There might be consequences eventually; she might one day acquire sufficient amounts of the greatest type of force. In this situation, though, Boldan controlled her. Netrasso knew that he himself would be on his hands and knees with one command; and so would everyone else in the pub.
Or perhaps not quite everyone. Perhaps not Yaxi and Radav Tanson. That was why Boldan seemed obsessed with them. They hadn't reacted in the right way. They hadn't shown fear or respect or, really, much interest. Stupidity maybe, or misguided arrogance. But also perhaps because they had power of their own, the same direct form which Boldan wielded. As much? Boldan didn't know yet and there was uncertainty, anger of course but also just a little fear emanating from the corner. He liked to be sure about everything, Boldan. He would always twist an arm to see how badly it was broken.
"I notice, Mr Netrasso, that the door to your back room is bolted again," Calli Horstice remarked abruptly. "I trust the reason isn't what I fear it is?"
"'Fraid so, Praetor Horstice," Netrasso smiled. "Drains backing up again something rotten. Whole room smells like a sewer pit. Thought of complaining about it to your Councillor friend as a matter of fact. If he's got any free time right now."
"So there are not, in fact, any people in there tonight?"
"Can't imagine who'd want to be in there with that stink."
"Perhaps men who enjoy partaking in games of chance?"
"Well now, I don't have a gambling licence, do I? So that would be illegal." Netrasso's smile broadened as he thought: don't try over-compensating on me. That won't work. Not until you come here with a lot of warrants, a lot of Guardsmen and a kick that break a bolted door down.
Calli had none. Neither did she have any excuses left to loiter by the bar. The barmaid was taking the last of her drinks back to the bench. So the praetor had to follow, her poise that of a noblewoman walking to the gallows. Back to the men who had just had five minutes to compose fresh hectoring and fresh slanders. Netrasso watched her wearily retake her place, turned and found himself staring into the face of Menoney. His smile crumbled instantly.
Menoney – perhaps the only one close to Boldan who seemed to have any sort of intelligence. Which didn't make him any less vicious and didn't really mean he was, in fact, intelligent. A lance of fear stabbed through Netrasso as the man glared back. Then it turned into confusion as Menoney started rapping out a drinks order. None of Boldan's men ever came to the bar. They bawled out on the frequent occasions they were thirsty and Netrasso sent a barmaid over. And the girl, after delivering the drinks, would have to endure her bottom being groped, her breasts being fondled, sometimes worst if the night was growing old. And she had to go back every time the gang called out again and never protest. That was the law and one major reason why the Last Drop Inn struggled to keep staff for long.
Here, though, was Menoney collecting the glasses himself. As Netrasso dexterously poured the ales and rakis, he realised why. Menoney was looking straight at Yaxi and Radav. Of course – if a puzzling new element appeared then a scout, one with a certain amount of acumen, would be sent to study it closer. That was the first step. Boldan wouldn't come personally, not yet. That belonged to a later stage, one of many in the surprisingly complex dance which Boldan could dictate. Netrasso assumed Menoney was simply there for reconnaissance. However, the man then nodded at the Tansons and said,
"Get them what they're having an' all."
Yaxi gave him her brilliant smile. "Hey, no shit? Thanks."
"Courtesy of Mr Boldan," Menoney told her gruffly.
"Mr..?"
"Boldan. Mr Cepu Boldan. He's over in the corner."
Again the slow, simultaneous swivel on their stools. They actually acknowledged Boldan this time. But the raising of the glasses and the cries of thanks seemed pure courtesies; and perhaps delivered a little facetiously. Boldan responded with a regal wave. Netrasso thought he detected the same uncertainty in it.
"See what I'm on about?" Radav said to his wife when they had turned back again. Then to Menoney: "She keeps reckoning we're all a bunch of tightwads up here."
"Yeah, yeah," Yaxi responded. "Look, the facts are in general terms-"
"You're wrong, woman. Just admit it."
"All I'm saying is, you know, a few ripe bananas don't make the whole crate sweet."
"A few…" Again Radav addressed Menoney. "I've been with this lass ten years. I still can't make hide nor hair of her bloody similes."
"That was actually a metaphor, hon. You so shouldn't throw in the big words if you don't know what they mean."
"Balls. You can use them two syn… syno-"
"Oh, please don't try and say 'synonymous' after three pints again. We'll kind of be sat here all night. Besides, you're talking right out of your ass. It's only a simile if you say something's 'like' something else."
"Well, that's what you were doing. Like a crate of bloody bananas or whatever."
"Ah, but I didn't, you know, actually say it was 'like' them."
"What, so just because you say 'like,' a metaphor becomes a simile."
"It's the magic word. Turns one thing into another like it was a sorcerer. See? Now that was a simile for you, right smack between your eyes."
"That's bloody stupid."
"I don't write the rules, hon. I'm just the gatekeeper." She turned to Menoney. The gangster was waiting for his order to be finished and listening to their babble with clear exasperation. "Back me up here, big guy," Yaxi smiled. "Can't go running around calling a simile a metaphor unless you put a 'like' in there, can you?"
The intellectual of Boldan's gang glared at her for a moment. Then he growled, "Fucking well call it whatever the fucking hell you fucking want." He grabbed the tray of drinks, sloshing them in the process – which would probably cost him when he got back to the table – and stalked away. Netrasso had to turn his back until he had conquered his urge to laugh.
"You know what we kind of just did, hon?" he heard Yaxi say in hushed tones.
"Aye. Pretty much knackered our first, second and third rules.""Seems that way. Ah well. When we get onto grammatical terms, strong men so have to hide beneath the tables till we're done."

Episode Nine

"This room is not sufficient," Lady Sosia Kemble said abruptly as they lay side by side on the bed. They had only finished making love thirty seconds ago and already she was complaining, "This room does not meet my requirements."
Dryden Heppac, still panting after his exertions, let his breaths merge together into a sigh. No, of course the room wasn't sufficient. The room was dreadful. It was a tiny square box. It had bare stone walls, a bare stone ceiling and a bare stone floor. The lack of decoration allowed one to fully appreciate the extensive and doubtless widening cracks in all the surfaces. There was a single tiny window, heavily grilled as if there was actually anything inside the room to protect. And if a view outside was possible, it would only be of Kieley Alley; a putrid narrow link between Fountain Square and Federation Row. Despite the almost total exclusion of sunshine, the heat of the afternoon had cascaded into the room. Dryden was lying still and naked and he still felt the sweat rising and trickling across his skin.
The bed was the only object stored in the room. And the bed was barely that. It was a single mattress; not even raised on bricks, the usual defence against marauding insects. Dryden watched a fat woodlouse crest the hill and begin waddling across the summit towards his legs. Just as cockroaches were basking on the walls and squadrons of ants were marching single file across the floor. And even the mattress was scarcely a mattress. It was a collection of sharp iron springs joined by a flimsy stretch of cloth. Dryden could feel at least three digging into him. He had seen the marks on Lady Sosia's back before, caused by his weight on top of hers pushing her body onto the vicious coils. Sometimes they broke the skin. Yet she never complained. Dryden suspected that she enjoyed the feeling.
She was still grumbling now, however. Gazing at the disintegrating ceiling, her fingers lost in her shaken mass of auburn hair, she repeated, "It is not at all sufficient. I told you what I required, Heppac."
He knew her requirements, true. And he knew that the room was the best he could do. She insisted that he pay for it. Lady Sosia Kemble, Mistress of the Tremmest Estates, would not pay for anything during their weekly liaisons. So he had to find somewhere inexpensive. So cheap that it would make such a tiny hole in his tiny wage that not even his perceptive wife Morran would spot the gap. Lady Sosia also demanded that they meet in his own neighbourhood. He therefore had to find somewhere in the back streets; and not use the usual landlords. Not somebody local like that damn Delpess, who would doubtless hang around the markets telling everybody about the mysterious piece of business he had just conducted. Renting a room to Dryden Heppac, no less, who already rented a sizeable apartment from Mr Delpess, who had only stipulated that the room contain a bed, who couldn't be using it for travel purposes because it was just around the corner from the home he shared with his wife and children. So what, Delpess would wonder very loudly, did Dryden Heppac need that bed for?
It had taken Dryden months to arrange. Months during which his only meetings with Sosia were public ones, fully clothed and lasting no more than five minutes. While she teased him and tempted him and made parts of him insane with anticipation. Finally he had found this room. He believed it to be safe. And she had decided,
"It simply will not do. You must find somewhere else."
He sat up. "Look, Sosia-"
"Do not call me that," she said sharply. "You may only call me that while you are inside me. At all other times, address me as Lady Sosia or My Lady."
Dryden sighed again. He didn't even call her Sosia when he was inside her. He called her slut or bitch or whatever demeaning name he could think of; and that was at her instruction as well. He glanced down at her, wondering again at her self-proclaimed status. Mistress of the Tremmest Estates, wife of a very rich, very old nobleman, childless and so heir to all his riches… Yet Dryden had never heard of a place called Tremmest. Sosia claimed it was somewhere in the north, but she had the features of a local and never seemed to leave the Triple Cities. On the other hand, she had clearly acquired money from somewhere. Her dress were always exquisite, her fingers sparkled with silver, the skin on her face had the preserved cast of expensive cosmetics. When he was entering her she squealed like a rodent. A second after leaving her, however, her voice instantly regained its sharp, cultured clarity. If she was simply an actress then she was obviously a very successful one. And she shared the popular believe that greater wealth equalled superiority in every aspect of a relationship.
"Look, this were the best I could find," Dryden argued, opting to call her nothing at all. "If you want summit better-"
"I wish for something worst. I thought I made myself clear on this matter." Sosia propped herself up on her elbows. "I mean, take a look around this place. It is almost habitable. I imagine that a family of eight could exist quite comfortably in here. And when I shake out my dress-" she nodded at the strip of finery lying crumpled on the floor – "I cannot imagine that a single cockroach will fall out. Where is the squalor, Heppac? I made my requirements quite clear. Where are the odours? The noises? The blood stains on the wall?"
"Keep banging on like this, there might be a few," he muttered.
Sosia laughed. She had an aristocrat's laugh too, a piercing giggle like fingernails scraping across slate. "Oh, do carry on threatening me, Heppac. You are so sweet when you do."
She started to run her foot idly across his thigh. Irritated with her and disgusted with himself, he wanted to move away but couldn't. He always wanted to move away from Sosia and never could. "This place'll have to do for now," he insisted stubbornly.
"Oh, please do not try to tell me you really cannot find anywhere worst. In Jakks Way? I imagine your own flat is barely more salubrious than here."
"Yeah it bloody well is. An' Jakks Way ain't the slums. We-"
It was Sosia's turn to sigh. "Please, Heppac, do not sing me that song. 'This is a respectable district, there's plenty worst than us'. I am so terribly weary of that tune. I believe that the poor of the Cities are even more obsessed with status and wealth than the rich. Which is pitiable because you have no cause to be. The truth remains, Heppac, that this most definitely is a slum neighbourhood. And I want to be in the absolute depths of it and I ordered you to take me there."
"You so keen on squalor, why don't you just shag a beggar in an alley?"
"Oh, but a beggar would just demand money. And then keep on demanding money. It would be too tiring. If that was all I wished for, I would simply hire a gigolo." She was suddenly sat up beside him, running fingertips over his thinning hair. "But the idea of you taking me in an alleyway," she murmured in his ear, "Now that is intriguing."
"Aye, an' it ain't gonna happen."
"Oh, and why not, pray? Because we might be observed yes? You could be found out. Then, of course, the news would wriggle its way back to your sweet little wife Morran."
"I told you not to talk about her."
"Oh yes, of course. Because that causes the guilt, does it not? Because Morran is not so sweet any more, is she, and not so little. Not now. Neither is her husband, of course, and so he should make do with her. But he cannot, can he? He still wishes for something younger, something more succulent. And he knows that is wrong and I do not believe he can ever quite banish the guilt. So we can never mention Morran-"
Dryden shook her off. Sosia fell back onto the bed as if he had struck her. Perhaps she wanted him to. He looked down at her in disgust. She wasn't really that 'young' or 'succulent'. She was his age, he guessed, in her early forties. Cosmetics had only preserved her face. The rest of her was gaunt, wrinkled, withering. He thought about his own body, his round belly and fat limbs and decaying skin. It was fortunate that the light in the room was so bad.
"I ought to start asking for money an' all," he muttered. "Least I'd get summit out of this."
Sosia laughed again. "Oh, but you do, Heppac. You get me."
"Aye, great."
"Is that not enough anymore? You get to nail an aristocrat. You get to fuck an aristocrat as if she were a dirty whore. I know the though excites you, Heppac. It is the dream of every common man, is it not? To have us underneath you, in your power. And perhaps next time…" She rolled over, spread her legs, spread her buttocks. "Perhaps you can enter me this way. Down the passage which every man fantasises about. Think, Heppac, think how that will demean me." Sosia rolled onto her back again, face contorted into a contented smile. She placed her foot gently on his chest. "You are imagining it already, are you not?"
"You're bloody sick."
"And you are growing hard again, I notice. Continue to picture it. Dream what it will feel like to enter me that way." Suddenly she straightened her leg, almost kicking him off the bed. "And all you will able to do is imagine," she added sharply, "Until you find me a satisfactory room."
"For fuck's sake-"
"Now get out, Heppac. I am done with you."

Episode Eight

Myran Smithson prodded Yaxi's left shinbone very gently. He moved his fingertips, insulated from her skin by velvet gloves, over her shattered and only partly repaired knee. He prodded that too, equally softly. He crouched down a little further and his faint frown grew slightly deeper. Finally he looked up at his patient.
"Well," he said with finality, "Your leg's shot."
Yaxi grinned at him. She was sat on one stool, her damaged leg bared and stretched out with the heel resting on another. "Hey, they told me there was a real kick-ass herbalist here in Ashel Street. They sure hit the nail on the head."
Smithson bowed his head in mock-gratitude. "The damage to the kneecap, to the cartilage around the kneecap… I don't know if anything could have been done about that. It's basically only half-functioning as a joint now. The shinbone… It's had a bad break and it wasn’t set properly. It might be too late to do the job now."
"Hey, don't pull a disapproving doctor number on me. I was kind of concentrating on other things just after it happened."
"Like what?"
"Not dying."
After pausing, though making no other reaction, Smithson said, "Normally I'd recommend coscock and brabbes leaves."
"So I guess I'm a normal gal 'cause coscock and brabbes leaves have both been wolfed down like they're blackberries."
"No good?"
"Well, coscock's mainly supposed to reduce the pain isn't it? I don't feel much pain so I guess that's done some good."
"Erish crowns are sometimes used on the more serious breaks."
"Yeah, I've tried erish crowns before. Not on this injury, on an earlier one. It's supposed to vary from guy to guy, isn't it? Well, with me it hurt like hell and so, so wasn't any use whatsoever."
"It's not my favourite herb either. You can cover yourself up again, by the way."
Yaxi did so, though indolently. She was showing her leg, and so modesty demanded that she have a private examination by the herbalist. Smithson's establishment only seemed to have two rooms. The back one was his bedroom, and he gave the impression that nobody save himself ever went inside. Accordingly, he had agreed to see Yaxi outside normal shop hours. Which meant the evening, which meant that the shop was only lit by two grimy lanterns and his gently crackling fire. There had never been any tension, however. Smithson dissipated the chance of any at the outset by remarking, "I probably don't have to tell you not to worry. We both know you can take me without even trying."
That was true; but Yaxi also found it easy to relax around Myran Smithson. He was a trim, slight, middle-aged man who radiated an aura of blandness. His hair was grey, his clothes drab, his face still free of defining wrinkles. His shop was similarly mundane. Many herbalists, even the poorer ones, tended to try and create an air of mystique. They burnt incense and had mysteriously bubbling cauldrons and painted cabalistic writing everywhere. Smithson's had bare stone walls, rushes on the floor, an improvised counter and not much else. Only the liquid herbs simmering above the fire and the solids stored in a vast cabinet behind the counter revealed his actual trade.
It was spartan but not slipshod, Yaxi knew. Everyone in Jakks Way spoke with admiration of Smithson's in Ashel Street. She had even heard him recommended outside the Triple Cities. He was said to know his art in a field excessively full of charlatans. Likewise, Smithson himself seemed calm but not ordinary. His speech and movements were measured and restrained; he always seemed to be holding something back. He was the first person Yaxi had met since moving to Jakks Way neither brazen nor ostentatiously cryptic. She suspected he was concealing a great deal and would continue to conceal it, and she was already warming to him.
"I'll have a look through my grimouries," he said, sitting down himself. "Off the top of my head, all I can recommend for the knee is fairy dew."
"Yeah, I tried that when my elbow got mangled up a few years ago. And I was, you know, leaping behind the bushes every half hour for the next week. I so don't want to hear about fairy dew."
Smithson smiled slightly. "Exactly how many old injuries are you carrying?"
"Well, sort of enough to groan every time the weather changes."
"And this particular one was caused by a castle falling on you?"
Yaxi gave him a sideways look. "Hey, just the gateway. Let's not exaggerate."
"No, let's not. And are we telling the truth at all?"
Another paused, then she asked, "Well, what do you think?"
"You sustained the injury about ten months ago, you said. Well, the only castle I heard about collapsing then was across the ocean in Ellniss. A fortress, really. The Dol Zigul fortress. And you couldn't have been there when that happened, could you?"
"Hey, these old castles are coming down all the time. They put the babies up with all their ginormous barbicans and portcullises and ramparts and the rest of the package. But do they ever give a thought to, you know, basic maintenance? I think not. Most of them are queuing up to topple over."
"Especially if you remove something like the cement."
Yaxi laughed. "Oh great Narlan. Morran Heppac sure whizzed that one around the neighbourhood in double-quick time."
"I think you probably meant her to, didn't you?"
"But you don't think it could have been the dread collapse of good ol' Dol Zigul that knocked my knee all to hell?"
They were staring at each other now, sensing that a contest of some sort was underway. Yaxi found Smithson's gaze rather difficult to meet. He didn't blink often enough and the composure in his pale irises was slightly too strong. She had, however, looked into far more unsettling eyes. "It couldn't really have been, could it?" the herbalist answered.
"And why's that?"
"Because the ballads tell us that Dol Zigul only collapsed when three heroic adventures slew the sorcerer king who dwelled inside. Thus stopping his army of lizardmen marching out of the desert, as they were poised to do, and sweeping across the land of Ellniss leaving carnage in their wake."
"And you don’t believe it's sort of possible two of those adventurers have hired a flat just round the corner from you?"
"It's possible. I don't believe it's likely. Just as I don't believe a mighty fortress was ever built in the desert because what would they build it out of. I don't believe a wizard powerful beyond all reckoning could find nothing better to do with his life than shack up with a bunch of lizardmen. I don't believe lizardmen could get organised into the proverbial shagging team in the proverbial brothel, let alone a mighty army. Frankly, I'm not even sure about the lizardmen themselves. All I've ever seen are skeletons in carnivals. Each one looked rather like a big iguana that's been messed about with."
"You sure don't have much time for the bards, do you?"
"Some of their songs make a pleasant sound," Smithson said politely.
"And the continent of Ellniss itself?" Yaxi smile. "Really there or, you know, just another big hoax?"
"A lot of sources indicate its existence. No-one whose word I trust has actually been there."
"And this chosen group of trustworthy guys. Including yourself, do they kind of number between one and zero? Hey, I've heard a tale about your own leg injury," Yaxi added. "I heard you picked it up when a rogue Guardsman shot you with a crossbow."
"I've heard that one as well."
"Would the first time have been, you know, from your own mouth when you were making it up?"
"It's a perfectly feasible account," Smithson said. "A projectile missile could tear the tendons and cause permanent damage."
"Yeah, yeah. And I guess it's perfectly feasible that a bear chewed your leg up in the wilds by the Sunken Sea? You told Morran that one to her face without cracking a muscle, she says."
"I believe bears are still found in those parts."
"But you're still holding that you're a guy whose word can be trusted?"
"I only said that I rely on it. I wouldn't recommend anyone else do the same. Not unless I'm telling them what herbs to use." He shuffled to his counter. "I see if I can find any I've overlooked, like I said. But I'm afraid you shouldn't get your hopes up."
"Hey, I've gotten used to sitting on the little devils whenever they show their faces."
"I normally have a glass of revolting wine at the end of my shift," Smithson said, reaching under the counter. "Care to join me?"
"Sure," Yaxi smiled, hiding her surprise. She hid her reaction too when she took a beaker and the wine was as bad as described. Smithson didn't drink his own at first. He simply sat holding the glass, not moving at all. Yaxi studied him surreptitiously. He was as good at stillness as anyone she had met. And the other masters of that art had been hunters of one kind or another. They were waiting for their kill. Smithson was simply letting himself be absorbed into the atmosphere of the dim room, turning himself into a still life.
"It's difficult," he said eventually in the same flat tone. "I see a lot of injuries that I can't cure. The body just breaking down. It's difficult when it happens to people who rely on strength or mobility for their living. You need both, I imagine."
"Well, sort of more a steady hand and good depth vision. If I lost a thumb or an eye, I'd be royally screwed. But, yeah, that loss of mobility is so a might pain."
"I imagine. I never know what to tell them though. Change your goals, change your whole outlook. Because that's what they have to do, whether they like it or not. Some realise that. They manage it. Some don't. They're the ones who've really let their injury destroy their lives. It comes to own them."
"And how have you coped yourself?"
"I've been lame for as long as I can remember. I've never had to realign. This has always shaped my plans."
Yaxi smiled. "Hey, so is this finally putting to bed the story about being mauled by the wild boar with the rogue Guardsman on his back?"
"Not necessarily," Smithson said instantly. "Wild bears could maul a baby. It's happened."
"Whatever. And, advice appreciated and I know what you're saying But I'm realigning, believe me. I'm realigning like hell. I've just taken a flat in the Triple Cities and, boy, was that not on my map a year ago. I can't say it's easy or that my new plans are, you know, at all sane, but I'm trying. My husband's been a massive help, though I'm only saying that 'cause you don't know him. It'd be obvious if you'd ever met him. Hey, he used to be in the Guards. Kind of years ago, before I met him. You're sort of an ex-Guardsman yourself, aren't you? Or is that just another gammy leg story you've put around?"
Smithson almost smiled again. "No, that one's solid. In the force for over a decade."
"Yeah? Radav barely lasted a year He sort of disses the whole experience now. Says he only enlisted to get weapons training and all they taught him was where he wasn't legally entitled to kick people. Once he left, he just went back to kicking them there anyway. Course, that's his story. I think he signed up 'cause he had a quick burst of that good ol' patriotism. Is that the same in your case."
"I've never really had bursts of patriotism. It's always been a constant. I joined up because they give herbalists a steady living."
"So why did you bail out."
"It was never anything other than steady." When Yaxi gazed rather ostentatiously at the lack of riches held by his current enterprise, he explained, "I expect to be turning a corner any day now."
"Uh huh. Well, if you ever want to swap old army tales with Radav, feel free to drop round."
"Thanks. But I'm still in touch with a few ex-Guardsmen. Sometimes I get dragged round to their taverns where they sing 'Great Hammer of Harkanas' and talk about their old glory days all evening. I really do have my fill of that." He studied her for a moment and added," If the offer's still open if your husband doesn't want to talk about his army days…"
"That will not be a problem, actually. Getting Radav to talk about his past usually requires, you know, pliers. Not just your itsy-bitsy dentist pliers either. The great big ones. Yeah, sure, we keep, well, sort of anything but open house, but feel free to drop round."
"Thanks. I might do that."
Yaxi felt the tiny thrill experienced by everyone to whom Smithson gave a nod of genuine friendship. The favour was so rare, so infrequently granted, that it meant something. So did Smithson himself. He ran a tiny herbalists with an impoverished clientele. He was a man of consequence, though, even if the reason why wasn't obvious. Yaxi also felt stirrings of professional interest. Smithson's poise and opaqueness hinted that he knew about her world. He could have lived there once; he could even still be partly inside it. She had an insight which she didn't think would be applied to anybody in prosaic Jakks Way. He could, she mused, be one of us.

Episode Seven

"What did your Stonnie expect?" Mrs Cobson demanded. "Talking to you like that. You think he should get away with it?"
"I ain't saying that-" Morran began.
"Just not a slap, eh? Didn't think you were one of those, Morran."
"I ain't, an' I ain't saying-"
"Sometimes it's the only language kids understand. 'Specially the lads. Too many parents nowadays not raising their hand to their kids. Ain't modern enough for them. An' look what we end up with. Kids everywhere running riot, not listening to a word anyone says."
"I ain't saying Dryden were wrong to hit Stonnie," Morran protested, trying to keep her temper in check. "But there's ways of doing it an' he chose the wrong one."
"How can there be-" Mrs Amecco began and was glared at ferociously by Morran.
"You give your kids a slap or two when needs be," she was informed. "You don't belt 'em in the face like you're some drunk in a pub fight."
There were five women sat in Morran's flat that morning. From the outside they looked like that middle class cliché, the sewing circle. Neighbouring wives clustered together to gossip, busy themselves, fill an otherwise vacant morning. And the quintet did gather regularly to keep each other company and exchange news mostly about families and neighbours. They worked feverishly as they talked, however, and on items much less refined than a wealthy lady would touch. This was their livelihood; Mrs Cobson self-employed, the others thrown commissions by contractors. Mrs Cobson was mending holes in grimy socks, fastening buttons back to tattered shirts. Mrs Amecco and Mrs Chorley, two battered and rangy women who looked like sisters and may indeed have been related given the tangled thickets of Jakks Way's older families, both knitted relentlessly. Zesheyek was stitching sequins into lengths of cloth to form rather unenthusiastic brocade. Morran, meanwhile, was trying to liven up drab dresses by fastening aged strips of lace to hems and necklines.. She had first formed the circle. She also encouraged the women to offer up any problems they were having regarding pay or supplies. These were usually solved communally, albeit also surreptitiously. The tactic would not have pleased their contractors, who used domestic labour primarily to avoid the problems of a unionised workforce.
"Don't see how the method matters," Mrs Cobson declared. "So long as the message gets hammered in. My dad used to take his belt to me, I recall, an' a damn heavy one it was too. Twenty strokes of that we got sometimes, right on the bare. An' it did me no harm in the long run."
"You reckon?" Morran muttered.
"What do you think, young Zesh?" Mrs Cobson asked. "Kids are still brought up the old style in Notruf, I hear."
Zesheyek hesitated. She was conscious that Morran had introduced her to the group, that Morran had first found her the sewing commission. And that on this occasion she didn't precisely agree with Morran. "I guess you've got to be careful of, of really hurting the child…" she began diplomatically.
"That ain't the point," Morran snapped. "You've got to stay in control. Dryden ain't. He loses it every time. Stonnie's old enough to spot that now. Every time he gets hit, he loses a bit more respect for his dad. An' that ain't the worst. Stonnie's getting bigger an' stronger. Soon he's gonna be bigger than Dryden. An one day soon he's gonna get right up, hit his dad back an' put him down. You can see it coming. An' then where the hell are we gonna be? How are we gonna keep him under control then?"
There was a silence, filled by the clatter of colliding knitting needles. "Well," Mrs Cobson said eventually, "Guess that'll be the time for your Stonnie to leave, won't it? He'll be out of school soon, getting a proper job. Can't keep him at home forever."
"That shouldn't be the reason why he leaves. Just 'cause his dad can't control him anymore."
"Got to go sometime," Mrs Cobson said phlegmatically.
"Why don't you sort out your Stonnie?" Mrs Chorley ventured. "If his dad-"
"'Cause it's the dad's job," Morran said. Her annoyance grew when she noticed Mrs Cobson nodding agreement but she continued anyway. "That's the way it works. The dad takes care of the sons, the mum of the daughters. Dryden's got nowt to complain about. I've got twice the work he has."
"Aye, but I reckon Stonnie's twice as much work as your two girls together," Mrs Cobson said, almost smiling.
"Now, maybe," Morran replied darkly. "We'll see when they get to his age. An' when they start keeping the company he does."
"You think that's the problem?" Mrs Amecco asked. "The company-"
"Course it is," Morran interrupted. She rarely let either of the identical knitters finish their sentences. Few people did. Both quiet and self-effacing, Mrs Chorley and Mrs Amecco tended to get casually bullied by stronger personalities. "Plain as your boots. Look at that little Marksen thug. Stonnie's gotten twice as bad since he started hanging around him. You know that Marksen, don't you?" she asked Mrs Cobson. "Bloody hooligan."
"I know him. Know his whole family. They've all gone to bad."
"Aye. Dad's up at the New Reystone Prison an' here's hoping they never let him out. An' the son's following right in his footsteps. That Cepu Boldan's been sniffing around him, I hear. Reckons he could be a fine new member of his gang, no doubt. So a great example he'll be setting for our Stonnie. You know," Morran added, feeling she and Mrs Cobson had been in agreement for slightly too long, "You're always banging on about folks moving here an' causing trouble. But some of the ones already here, the Markens an' the Boldans, they ain't no angels either."
"Ain't saying they are," the older woman sniffed. "Just that we don't need any more devils. You prefer your Stonnie to be hanging round the East Zabric?"
"Why not? Least they might teach him how to cook."
Zesheyek laughed. She had sensed Morran's unhappiness at having her own son's problems analysed by Mrs Cobson. That little victory, however trivial, had been important to her. Seeking a question which was relevant but not too upsetting to her friend, Zesheyek eventually asked, "Is Stonnie leaving school next year then?"
"Looks that way. Even if we had the money to keep him on, he ain't interested. He's got the brains but if he don't use 'em, what can you do?"
"More and more kids are staying on till seventeen," Mrs Amecco said incautiously.
"An' the bulk of 'em still ain't," was Morran's angry reply. "Anyway, it's not your education that counts, it's the job you get at the end of it. Our Saska might stay on," she continued more evenly. "She's keen on the idea. If we pinch a few coppers an' this keeps bringing in the money-" she nodded at her stitching – "I reckon it's possible. I ain't worried about Stonnie leaving though. That place he's working weekends now, he says they'll take him on full time."
"A warehouse on Leighman Way," Mrs Cobson said with disapproval. "Asking for trouble."
"Aye, well, the twenty thousand pubs next door might be a bit of a temptation for some. But one thing Stonnie ain't shown signs of becoming so far, that's a pisshead. I checked this place out before I let him set foot in it. It's OK."
"Deal in funny goods, some of them warehouses."
"An' this one don't," Morran said firmly. "'Cause it's OK. Stonnie's a good lad at heart. He just needs to keep his head together. An' stay away from thugs like that bloody Marksen."
"And Cepu Boldan," Zesheyek said.
"Aye, well. He knows about Boldan. An' he knows that if he goes anywhere near him, he won't just have to leave home. He'll have to leave bloody town. 'Cause I will take care of him myself that time an' I'll give him the biggest bloody thrashing he's ever had."
"And once thrashed, he'll stay thrashed?" Zesheyek asked. She was mimicking one of Morran's phrases but doing so supportively. Her reward was a grateful nod.
"Damn right."
Zesheyek smiled. She was glad to see Morran's usual aura of combative self-assurance fully restored. At the same time, the conversation depressed her a little. They had so many of these in the sewing group. Mrs Chorley and Mrs Amecco brought similar tidings of their children, Mrs Cobson of her grandchildren. They had such limited dreams for their sons and daughters. They just accepted it. That their offspring would be tossed from the fabled Triple Cities education system at the earliest possible opportunity onto whatever menial tasks they could land upon. Which seemed to Zesheyek far beneath the rural labours which her own family carried out. They weren't helping things grow, helping animals breed or die, producing anything truly of value. They were stacking and polishing. Carrying out tasks which somebody had decided, probably arbitrarily, ought to be done. It was an existence, not a living.
And even these menial hopes were always threatened. The fears of the women were the same too. Of the darkness which not just surrounded Jakks Way but had penetrated it. Boys like Marksen, men like Boldan. Zesheyek had met Marksen a few times and he did unsettle her. Only twelve years old, he had already learnt the traits of cunning and false courtesy. He was always polite to her. He was polite to everyone. And she knew that the moment he passed from her hearing he would start spraying insults about her. He would be encouraging boys like Stonnie, who were far too impressed by his sly intelligence, to do likewise. She thought she also knew that his pockets, where his hands were permanently buried, always held a weapon; and he would produce it given any encouragement.
As for Cepu Boldan… Zesheyek had only heard of his reputation. She thought some of it must be exaggerated. The numbers of men he had killed or banks he had robbed. Not so the accounts which really frightened her friends, however. Of how he seduced promising neighbourhood boys, whispering of the money they could earn in his gang, the power they would accrue, the revenges they could enact. Dragging them in further and further until they were too far from the light to ever escape. Boldan was getting very good at that, the women said. He practised at it.
Only Zesheyek was different to them. Her son would have a chance of escaping. To rise above the meaningless drudgery of Jakks Way and the servile status of her own family. It was small, it carried a risk of making his life far worst. But while the chance existed, she had to pursue it for him. She sensed a trace of jealousy in Morran that her friend's son alone had this opportunity. The envy had erupted as a tiny geyser when Zesheyek first told her and still emanated a few tiny dribbles occasionally. The fountain was almost dry, however. Morran was too strong to heed it. Instead she had put almost as much faith as Zesheyek into the chance which the tiny, unborn boy had. She would, if necessary, fight just as hard to preserve it. Because it had somehow become hers as well as Zesheyek's as well as her husband's. The baby was the best hope they all had.

Episode Six

Dryden Heppac seat. The afternoon sun saturated the terrace. Above, below and beside him other families were taking their leisure on their own terraces; including, had he known it, the controversial new arrivals the Tansons. Behind him his wife Morran and his three children were commencing the uproar which generally followed their communal Sunday lunches. Dryden ignored all peripheral details, however. He had closed the curtains to the terrace and locked the doors. Every week he was alone to remain undisturbed for this hour. And he had been transported off the terrace. Away from Jakks Way, across Jalkin to a site separated by both a few streets and an unimaginable gulf. Huwdone House, the home of the Christotan federal government.
The magic which had teleported him there was actually fairly mundane. The great presses of the Ocheverry Printing Works in Forgar. A lot of under-employed writers with university degrees but poor connections, who had therefore developed grudges either specific or general. And a population like that of the Triple Cities, with basic literary skills, a few spare coppers each week and a desire to see politics reduced to a pantomime. The result was the newsheets. A perennial and distinctive feature of the Cities, forever corralled with the words 'irreverent', 'satirical' and sometimes 'grotesque.'
There were a great many different newsheets, fresh titles appearing each week and others vaporising just as regularly. And a wide range of styles were bundled into that single lazy category. Some did in fact give weighty, intelligent analysis of current affairs. Some were earnest calls for revolution; some preferred to ignore what the ruling classes did in assembly chambers and focus on what they – allegedly – did in their beds. Others were devoted to religions, sports or the arts. Dryden's choice of reading each week was The Messenger. A long-established title, it was a standard example of a classic newsheet. And that suited Dryden because he considered himself to be a standard example of a classic Cities resident. The Messenger gave a mixture of serious news and unfounded gossip. The tone throughout could best be described as snide. It considered Christoté's leaders to be greedy, bigoted and incompetent and rarely made exceptions. Yet it did not really question the structures which they stood upon, nor the assumption that Christoté was still the greatest nation on earth. A man like Dryden could emerge from The Messenger with his sense of superiority renewed, towards both the men who ruled him and the world which his country ruled.
It was also the right length for his weekly period of solitude. Eight pages and large print – that filled an hour nicely. But as he read now, tracing the words with a finger as he did, one phrase continued to trouble him. Not because it contained a difficult words. The Messenger knew its readers and did not use difficult words. Perhaps its writers, sometimes appearing only semi-literate themselves, did not know any.
Nor was he puzzled by the nicknames which dominated some of the stories. Many newsheets used them for news which wasn't exactly based on empirical facts; which were therefore not precisely news. The accounts of whose wife who was sleeping with, or which poverty relief fund had just been plundered by whom. Nicknames were very useful in these cases. While censorship barely existed in the Cities, libel laws certainly did. A great many newsheets had been obliterated by damages awarded after incautious accusations. But if a story said Jack-In-The-Box was copulating with Hangdog's mistress, the editor could claim with a straight face that he was talking about somebody entirely different to the man accusing him in the courtroom. The Messenger knew this because it had used the defence successfully more than once in the past. It employed its aliases consistently, however, and with clues as to their real identity. So their established readers could know precisely whom was being accused of what.
Dryden knew most of their lurid cast of characters. Some were easy to decipher and featured regularly. The Spider, for example, was patently Holan Brightson, Principal Secretary of Huwdone House and the éminence grise's éminence grise. Fat-arse would be Holstace Fortraine, Baron of the Province of Dorlaf; again, not hard to guess as Fortraine couldn't make a public appearance without somebody commenting on the size of his posterior. Not all were understood by Dryden. He was a little puzzled about the identity of Knock-Knees, a new arrival to the low farce which was Christotan public life. But the cast of characters was so great that it was hard to keep up. The Messenger gossiped about almost everyone. From the meanest Guards sergeant or magistrate right up to the Chancellor herself…
Yes. That was the phrase which was making Dryden frown. The Chancellor her self. Four years after the election of Chela Tatel as Chancellor, the leader of the federal government and effectively the most powerful person alive, it still didn't seem right. It was like a comforting old cliché which had a strange new word inserted in the middle. Only monarchies were supposed to end up with female rulers, sometimes acquiring them by default. The countries which chose their rulers almost always selected men. Even Christoté, for all its boasts to be embracing gender equality. Dryden knew why Chela Tatel had been elected. The Spider – though we may as well use his real name, for this account cannot really be contested. Holan Brightson wanted to continue running the country behind a curtain. He had accrued immense power under the previous Chancellor ('The Walking Corpse') and wished for a new mannequin. So he selected Tatel, a protégé of his with very little personal influence, and systematically destroyed all other candidates. That was understandable to Dryden. Shocking, of course, but at the same time not remotely surprising. And it wasn't that Dryden disapproved of a female Chancellor. He was a just man. He tried hard to support equality and quite often succeeded. But still, the Chancellor her self…. The notion was somehow puzzling, somehow not right. Dryden also realised he had entered an age when all new developments belonged to this category.
Chela Tatel's nickname was The Office Girl. She justified it, however, and rarely featured in The Messenger's racier stories. As far as anyone had discovered, she worked every hour she was awake and usually stayed awake until she was almost fainting from exhaustion. And when she featured in The Messenger's political polemics, she was almost always treated with approval. Tatel hadn't become just another victim trapped in The Spider's web. At first, perhaps, but she was becoming increasingly independent, decisive and sensible. Under her, a government sunk deep in corruption and malaise was being hauled to firm ground. There were signs that Tatel would not just be the best Chancellor for fifty years – after all, the competition was scarcely strong – but actually a good ruler.
This notion troubled Dryden far less. Women being granted the trappings of power was something alien. Strong female governance in practice, though, was ingrained in his life. When he was growing up his mother was the dictatorial governor of a chaotic kingdom. His dim memories of his grandparents featured an obese old woman ruthlessly bullying a timid old man. His family now… Well, he liked to say that he and Morran were basically equal though his word ultimately settled all disputes. He suspected the truth was different, however. Especially since his back collapsed and his wages toppled with it while her own earnings grew. In those last few years he had never dared test who was truly the master of the household. This was his only authoritarian command left. That he could have one undisturbed hour a week to read. Even then he had to flee the apartment to get his peace and rely on Morran guarding the door.
And where did the power reside in his other relationship? The one he plunged into six months ago when rebelling against being sucked into the role of solid citizen, dependable father, obedient husband? That question barely needed asking. She had total command, of course. She controlled him utterly. When they fought it was only so he could emerge from their liaisons with the smallest fleck of dignity left.
What else could he do though? What could he create which allowed him any real freedom or power? Dryden sat back and stared into the blue sky, the comforting sarcasm of the newsheet forgotten for the moment. He wondered how many thousands of identical men in the Cities were doing exactly the same as he was that second. Fleeing their families for an afternoon, gulping down sunshine in their mean little terraces or putrid little back yards. Many no doubt also shifting position on their seats, trying to ease the aches from their damaged bodies. Looking forward to a future in which absolutely nothing would improve.
Dryden tried remembering the moment when he realised: this is it. This is the best I can get. He used to have the usual childhood dreams. To grow up into a great warrior, a great ruler, a great writer; anything, really, to set him above everyone else. And at some point the ambitions shrivelled and he knew greatness would always elude him. And he accepted this. The epiphany should have come when his parents took him out of school at thirteen, unable to educate him past the minimum legal age. That should have been the moment because it was when his future was effectively denied. When his development ended with him still partially literate, partially numerate, partially complete. It meant he would never find work which carried a proper salary or any sight of a ladder heading further upwards. Which was a career rather than just a means of survival. So he would never leave Jakks Way except to go somewhere just like it, or ever find a wife other than someone just like Morran. But he didn't think he truly realised this at the time. He vaguely recalled some sort of hope surviving for a while. Even a tremor of excitement, just for a short time, at becoming an adult. It happened gradually, he supposed. Awareness rising while determination was pressed down, until they met to form a perfectly flat horizon.
Besides, his future was being shaped even before he was thrown out of school with half an education. He might have inherited his father's business or learnt an uncle's trade. None of his family, though, owned even the humblest enterprise. They were employed by the Forgar workshops. That was the single gift they could give Dryden: an opening at the workshops. And that was all he could pass down to his own children. They still saw their futures as infinite and glowing. Even Stonnie, the eldest, who was starting to learn a few truths about the world and was almost permanently angry as a result. All three still had the vivaciousness which accompanied hope. When each one turned thirteen, Dryden knew he would have to cripple their lives and offer the same measly little gift as compensation. Together with the excuse his father had given him, doubtless learnt from his own father. I had it no better.
Dryden could, however, remember the exact moment when his dismal replica of a career had been capped permanently. Five years ago he was working at the Zierlona carpentry workshop. He was still only a tooth on a cogwheel, one small part of a long assembly line. But he had been at the Zierlona for nearly two decades and had progressed from entirely unskilled tasks to ones requiring a reasonable amount of concentration. Promotion to foreman, the standard reward for capable and loyal workers, was a reasonable aspiration. If granted another year or two, he might have achieved that. One morning, however, he bent down to pick up a chisel. A torrent of agony suddenly flowed down his back. He couldn't straighten up. He was imprisoned in his bed for weeks, unable to walk or stand properly. Even after a partial recovery he was unable to stand bending over all day – the precise position he needed to work on the assembly line.
Zierlona treated him remarkably well, he was told. Most workshops would have fired him immediately. Instead Dryden was allowed to work half-shifts, finding that he could manage about four hours at a time before the pain grew unmanageable. His wages were slashed in twain, of course, and his more routine duties taken over by an apprentice who was paid half that amount. And that was indeed extremely generous by the standards of the Forgar workshops. His bosses could have given him a foreman's job anyway, or any other post which didn't require him to be stood stooping all day. However, that was a little too subtle for men who really were unable to distinguish their workers from saws or hammers. Nor would they ever promote Dryden now. He was still loyal and capable. But he had given them a small problem, a tiny amount of extra work, and they would always resent him for that. Dryden's herbalist told him that two of his vertebrae had somehow fused together. Dryden didn't understand that but it sounded right, for his career had been fixed just as permanently.
He was, of course, unable to stop himself reliving the fateful morning over and over. What if he had never dropped that chisel, he kept wondering. What if he had bent down more carefully to retrieve it. What if… His priestess finally managed to end these hypotheses. The Goddess Ella, she told him, places everyone in their positions. She had meant him to be half-crippled as well as half-educated. What matters is not what one's role is but how one plays it. This also seemed logical to Dryden. He wondered, though, if the priestess thought the theory was any sort of a comfort. Because if true, it meant that absolutely every hope he had ever had was an illusion. The Goddess had marked him out at birth for mediocrity.
The voices in the apartment were growing louder. As often happened nowadays, what had begun as a good natured free-for-all was focussing into a real contest between Morran and Stonnie. He was starting to realise. Stonnie, twelve years old now, was becoming increasingly aware that his parents were not unique and not special. The usual categories could be applied to them, and the usual insults. And Stonnie was sensing that the only ways in which his father differed were failings. Some days Dryden did not leave for work until noon, others he came home for the afternoon. He could not work like other boy's fathers. Because he was weaker than other boy's fathers. He was barely a man and what work he did was really only for pin money. It was Morran who kept the family fed and clothed, Morran with her endless rolls of lace and cloth and her perpetually dancing needle. She was the strong one. Stonnie seemed to appreciate this more with each passing week and his respect for his father shrunk in proportion.
The two voices, one a mannish female one, the other still slightly uneasy with its newly gained masculinity, grew even louder. Dryden detected swear words coming from each. He tensed in irritation. Morran ran the household quite blatantly. She did whatsoever she pleased whereas his own actions – the ones she knew about at least – were expected to be presented for her approval. Yet she still didn't try to control their children properly. She was forever criticising Stonnie, castigating his poor school grades, his eating habits, his foul language and, most especially, his friends. There were no real commands handed out, however. She always let her son answer her back. And when he tested her discipline, as he was doing more and more, she just let it crumble away and finally there always came the shrill cry of:
"Dryden!"
He hauled himself to his feet, grumbling under his breath. Always that cry for the stern father. The appeal to a higher authority which didn't even exist anymore. Perhaps it was her way of indulging him, assuring him that he still had a morsel of power. But he thought it was just the familiar woman's trick to retain her children's love. Father would discipline them; then mother moves in afterwards to dry their tears.
Their two daughters had vanished, doubtless fleeing to their bedroom as usual. Morran and Stonnie were on the other side of the room, their postures betraying the cause of the argument. Morran was barring the doorway, all but clinging to the frame for support. Her son was trying to get past. He looked close to pushing her aside, even striking her down. Dryden thought that one day soon he would. Morran was furious rather than frightened, however, and turned her outraged face to Dryden.
"Did you hear what he just said to me? Did you hear what the little get called me?"
Dryden walked across the room, feeling the peace of the terrace drain away. "What did you call your mum?" he demanded, as sternly as he could.
Stonnie stepped away from the door. Perhaps unconsciously, he kept retreating until his back was against a wall. "Nowt," he mumbled, his head down.
"Don't bloody deny it now," Morran said triumphantly. "You try an' have the guts to admit it."
"I just wanted to go out," Stonnie said, his voice defeated.
"Aye, an' I said you couldn't. Not while you're hanging round that little Marksen thug. An' not till you do your homework for once."
"Don't see what's wrong with Marksen."
"You bloody well know what's wrong with him. Whole neighbourhood does."
"You don't even know him-"
"What did you call your mum?" Dryden repeated.
Stonnie looked up suddenly. His eyes were on a level with his father's, partly because Dryden now had a permanent stoop. He was still thin but muscles were building on his forearms and shoulders. He worked part time stacking crates at a warehouse; and quite a lot of his school hours were spent fighting. And he was still growing. "I called her a fucking bitch!" he shouted. "An' she fucking is for-"
Dryden's arm sprang out. Sometimes he struck his daughters too. Only on the back of their legs, though, only with an open hand. And he held back so much that he was sure they barely felt a thing and only cried because it was expected.
He used to punish Stonnie that way too. Now he balled his fist. Now he struck the boy on the jaw or, in this case, the cheekbone. And he let all his frustration, all his outrage at the injustices, explode through him and power his arm forward.Stonnie's head snapped back. His whole body shuddered back. His shoulders hit the wall and he slid down it to land in an untidy, beaten lump. His eyes were glazed for a moment. Tears then filled them as he gazed up at his father. Dryden looked down at him dispassionately for a second. Then, before the boy could get up or Morran could remonstrate with him, he turned. Before any consequences could reach him, he fled back to the haven of the terrace.

Episode Five

Cepu Boldan was, Mr Delpess considered, very conservative in certain respects. In particular, he liked a scene to look right. After each job, he and his gang, together with any associates contracted for the work, would meet in the back room of a warehouse. Mr Delpess owned the warehouse himself. To satisfy Boldan's sense of drama he always ensured that it was deserted the evening they gathered and all the windows of the room itself were boarded up. A single table stood in the centre of the room and two candles rested on that. Boldan himself always sat around the table together with those associates not permanently in his gang. Those who he did not trust, in other words. Behind them, a little too near for comfort, were members of Boldan's gang. Another pair waited either side of the room's single door.
For a long time almost all men in the room were statues. They waited mute, eyes transfixed on the one person granted movement. The gang's treasurer, a Kratzan called Menoney who was rumoured to have actually finished school. He too obeyed the conventions for the scene. First he took the great mass of coins from the sacks and bags and arranged them into little piles. Now he was placing the stacks one by one onto a pair of scales, their mass balanced by a weight of ten gold. One pile went on, a mark was made by Menoney's quill onto the balance sheet, off with it and on with another; a series of tiny chinks of metal which echoed through the silent chamber.
Only Menoney was moving yet the others were gradually transforming as they did. As the strokes of ink crawled down the paper, peace spread slowly through the room. The henchmen were becoming more relaxed. Mr Delpess felt his fear change into simple nervousness. He glanced at Boldan as often as he dared and watched amiability creep across even that visage. Boldan had begun to watch the tallying up armed with his usual scowl. When a particular number of strokes were recorded – the break-even point, Mr Delpess guessed – he let the crevices on his skin disappear. As they continued mounting up, he looked as if he might actually smile. And when Menoney finally ended his count, checked and double-checked his figures, Boldan did permit that rare movement to contort his face.
"Nine thousand, two hundred and fifty gold plus change," Boldan repeated. "Not bad, not bad. Thanks Menoney. Thanks everyone. A nice, straightforward job."
He paraded his smile around the room. Aside from Mr Delpess, he himself was the only man whose appearance did not match the scene. Even Menoney tended towards the burley, the unshaven, the lank-haired. Boldan, though, was a squat but tidy man in his early forties with a reassuring air. His clothes were unremarkable but well-cut and he appeared to visit both barber and bathhouse once a day. Cepu 'Blood-Eyes' Boldan looked like a mildly prosperous craftsmen and actually owned eyes which were a pleasant chestnut colour. The picture never reassured Mr Delpess. He had known Boldan for too long. He could remember when the man had been a straightforward thug, before he grabbed control of his gang and refined his image. And he knew Boldan got his nickname by bloodying other people's eyes, usually by inserting a dagger through them; and knew he still had this habit.
"Right," the gang leader continued. "Divvying up. First, Mr Delpess' five per cent as normal."
The man sat opposite Mr Delpess snorted. The landlord hadn't met him before the start of the job and would be happy never meeting him ever again. He was built too solidly, wore too few clothes and smelt a little too strongly. He was only ever referred to as Tatts, presumably because almost every inch of his putrid skin was covered with blue and green decorations. Mr Delpess would also be content if he never learnt the man's true identity.
"Don't see why," Tatts growled. "Fucker weren't even on the fucking job,"
"Mr Delpess gave the info which made the job so nice and straightforward," Boldan said calmly. "He supplied equipment and premises, including the room we're sat in now. He gets five per cent for that. He always does. It's the arrangement."
"Your arrangement. Take it out of your fucking cut, not mine."
"No. He gets five per cent of the total cut. Those are the rules. You were told the rules at the start, Tatts. You want to challenge them now?"
And it was understandable that Boldan was remaining so calm. The rules also said: Tatts was on his own. All the men who mattered in the room worked for Boldan. They mattered because they were now stood even closer behind Tatts, opening their cloaks, resting their hands on their swords and crossbows, awaiting the next instructions from their boss. Tatts only turned his head half an inch but must have seen enough.
"Guess it's OK," he said reluctantly.
"Good." Boldan smiled again. "I wouldn't like any of that 'thieves fall out' crap kicking in. Makes me tired that. Bad for business. So," he continued, slamming a bottle of wine onto the table, "Let's all have a drink. Celebrate together. Show that we're all still mates."
Tatts continued looking unhappy. No doubt he had heard the stories. Of Boldan's fondness for having a drink with his associates during the tallying up after a job. And of Boldan's habit of putting something into the wine of any associates he thought might become problematic. Mr Delpess had heard the tales too. He also knew they were true because once a man sitting right next to him had keeled over suddenly, purple face gasping for a breath which wouldn't come. Nonetheless, he drank from his own beaker without hesitation. Boldan was, amongst other things, frugal. He wouldn't waste poison. And if he decided to just cut Mr Delpess in half then there wouldn't be much he, Mr Delpess, could do to pause the event.
"There you go, sir." Boldan slid a very full bag of gold across the table towards him. "Thanks again for your help."
"And thank you, Mr Boldan." The landlord clutched the bag, feeling the hard, jagged coins. He reminded himself that this was worth the terrors, the dangers, the revulsion.
"Do Tatts' next, Menoney. He looks like he's eager for it. How's the reco going for the next job?" Boldan asked Mr Delpess.
"Proceeding very well, Mr Boldan. I'll have my recommendation and a nice full file to you by the end of the week, just as you asked."
"Which one is it likely to be?"
"Down to a short list of two now, the wagon train and the jewellers. And I imagine it will be the jewellers because while the security looks tighter there, I know of our fondness for targets which stay in one place."
"So let's hit the fucking jewellers," Tatts snapped. "Let's hit it tomorrow. Why all this pissing about?"
"That would be preparation and reconnaissance," Boldan replied, his tone growing dangerously courteous again. "All that 'pissing about.' That's what made this last job so easy."
"Dunno what were so fucking easy about it."
"Yeah?" Boldan looked around. "Lads? You said there weren't any problems."
"Floor got a bit slippy," a man standing directly behind Tatts smirked, "When Tatts here crapped himself."
Tatts spun round and leapt up with remarkable speed to confront the man. Not fast enough, however. And the hands which had rested casually on hilts and bows were now gripping them, pulling them free of belts. Tatts froze. Mr Delpess did as well. He was not really worried, though, not even for Tatts' safety. Because Boldan was still controlling the scene; and Boldan bellowed instantly,
"For fucks sake, you lot. What did I say one bloody minute ago about thieves bloody falling out? Quit it. You want to carry on like this, piss off and join the bloody apes over in Southmarket. Tatts, sit down. And Rollo," he snapped at the man who had allegedly slipped on faeces, "Wipe that off and shut it. You're not funny."
Tatts subsided. Rollo muttered a "Sorry, boss," but continued to smirk, knowing he had not really been chastised. Boldan pretended they were a professional unit but they were still only really a street gang writ large. Quick to squabble amongst themselves but always closing ranks against outsiders. Thinking how Boldan had taken his side against Tatts, Mr Delpess supposed that he was more or less considered one of them now. The notion left an ambiguous taste.
"And here's your cut, Tatts. Nice doing business with you. Let's stay in touch."
"Yeah. Right." Still apparently no happier, Tatts grabbed the money bag, made another abrupt rise and strode away. Mr Delpess watched the man guarding the door glance at his leader. Then he turned back to Boldan who, after a moment, nodded. Mr Delpess released a breath he hadn't been aware of holding. Yes, the nod proclaimed, Tatts is allowed to leave the room alive. The door was held open for him with mock-courtesy and slammed shut.
"So you'll get us the file by the end of the week, Mr Delpess," Boldan said.
Realising that he was being dismissed too, the landlord began a more circumspect departure. "Of course, Mr Boldan, of course. No hitches whatsoever anticipated, oh no."
"You had any other problems? No more fucking chancers knocking on your door asking for protection money?"
"Oh no. Your visit to those two scamps the other week has spread the word that I've all the protection I could ever need."
"Should fucking well think so. Little shitehawks. There's rules in Jakks Way, isn't that right."
"And where would any of us be without rules, Mr Boldan?"
"How's things in general? You taken on any interesting new tenants lately."
Mr Delpess sighed inwardly. He wouldn't have mentioned them otherwise, he told his conscience. Or: he probably wouldn't have. Boldan had asked him, however. If he stayed silent now, if Boldan found out anyway – which he almost certainly would – then he would be committing a deception. There were many actions which one didn't attempt around Boldan and one was to try and lie to him.
"One very interesting couple, yes, just took up a lease at No 5 Jakks Way. They call themselves Radav and Yaxi Tanson." And Mr Delpess imparted the very few things which he knew about them, and the rather larger number he had guessed. Boldan sat back frowning.
"The names ring a bell somewhere. Anyone know anything?" he asked the room in general. Silence answered him. "No fucking surprises there. They asked about the scene here?"
"Showed a remarkable lack of curiosity about their new home, Mr Boldan."
"Well, that doesn't mean anything. Could be that they already know. They're definitely players, you'd say."
"I imagine they have played with the highest stakes available, Mr Boldan."
"OK," Boldan nodded. "Get back to your homework now. And when you've finished that, I might want a new file. One on these new tenants of yours."