Markan Empire

  "If we can prove that he wants to use the army to drive a wedge between Marka and its allies?" Verdin sounded eager.

  Steppan laughed and inspected the bowl of his pipe. "To the dottle already," he muttered before looking up again. "Most Taurans would support that. You might not like it, but they don't want a powerful Marka knocking at their gates any time soon."

  "We think that army is going to be used."

  "So do we." Steppan smiled.

  Verdin hid his shock. "Nijen is helping another claimant move onto the Markan Throne. He will divert attention away from the Eldovans. If somebody like Dervra takes the Throne, an evil Marka might then come knocking at the gates."

  "Maybe." Steppan sounded far from convinced. "People only see what Nijen wants them to. How else can they know of such things? But the people know Re Taura is ready and able to defend herself. And, if necessary, project her power overseas to protect herself. What free people and what free country could possibly be unhappy about that?"

  Verdin's mouth moved soundlessly.

  "Now you see why my days are spent skulking here and not regaining my Throne." Steppan smiled again, but his eyes were solemn. "Balnus must find gainful employment within the city; I can arrange that for you. Lurking out there, he will be discovered sooner or later, so safer for all concerned if he moves within the walls." Genuine remorse entered Steppan's eyes. "As for your man in the castle, you must prepare to mourn him."

  ***

  Neptarik's morale had plummeted. After almost enjoying the past few days of relatively cushy work, he knew today would be hard and dirty.

  He and Mya – with two infertiles – were to work in the stables. There were eight stableboys, whose duties included currying horses and repairing tack, but mucking out fell to the sylphs. They forked old straw into handcarts before emptying it through the hole Mya had so proudly pointed out to him on his tour.

  It certainly made life easier.

  Neptarik glanced out of the stable and saw the haycart immediately outside. No shortcuts for laying fresh straw.

  It was not the only cart in the bailey. The one that had brought him to Castle Beren also waited there, with a cargo of twelve sylphs wanting to leave the Mametain's service. When he had learned of the high turnover of sylphs, he hadn't realized just how high.

  "Where will they go?" he muttered to himself.

  "They will get dirty work. Mucking out cesspits probably. Or cleaning the sewers." Mya shuddered. "If not that, then they will become beggars."

  Neptarik shook his head. There was certainly a feeling about Castle Beren, but he did not think he would leave employment here because of it.

  When the cart returned, there would be new slaves on it. Indeed, he watched Siaba scramble into place beside the scribe. He doubted if he would be asked to be a guide as he still had not received the red crown on the breast of his tunic. A moment later, Tektu appeared and spoke with Siaba.

  She glanced across at the stable and saw Neptarik leaning on his fork.

  "You should be working," she growled.

  Neptarik shrugged and returned to his cart.

  "Do not get us into trouble!" hissed Mya.

  Neptarik returned to his work and showed a bit of enthusiasm. The other sylphs avoided the horses, much to the stableboys' amusement. After a recent adventure, Neptarik's wariness of horses had lessened, but these animals might not be as tolerant. He looked along the double row of stalls, thirty in total, with a tackroom at the far end. The leather and brass of the tack had to be polished, and inspected to ensure it was still serviceable.

  After mucking out and cleaning the tack, there would be a small mountain of saddle pads and blankets to be sent to the laundry for cleaning. Neptarik wondered if the humans knew the horse-soiled things would be cleaned in the same laundry as their clothes and bedding.

  He would be here for the day, with little respite.

  He already looked forward to an evening bath and change of clothes. He glanced at the stableboys, who split their time between repairing some tack, checking the horses for problems, and watching the sylphs work. He probably bathed and changed his clothes more often than they did. Not that they seemed to care; perhaps they rarely left the stables and didn't share sleeping accommodation with sensitive-nosed sylphs.

  He hummed several lines from 'Barefoot in Dung Alley'.

  Once they mucked out the main part of the stable, it would be time to start on the stalls. Neptarik wrinkled his nose and wished that the air could be better circulated in here. The low roof did not help. He turned to the nearest boy.

  "Which one first?" he asked.

  "Start at one end and do the empty ones first," answered the boy. "Much easier that way."

  The time passed pleasantly enough. Between the four sylphs, all the empty stalls and half of the occupied ones soon had fresh straw. They now waited for the straw cart to return and a gurgle from Neptarik's digestion reminded him the time had come for the midday meal.

  "We eat in here," explained Mya. "We will not be welcome in the main refectory today."

  "In here?" Neptarik's earpoints wilted and he wrinkled his nose in disgust. He eyed one of the boys, who entered the stable with a large and a small can. His stomach grumbled again, so perhaps not all of him was disgusted enough to refuse.

  He accepted his plate of slop eagerly enough. As he began to eat, a soldier with red flashes on his cloak rode into the stable and called for somebody to take his horse.

  One of the boys stood and winked at Neptarik. "They always come when we're eating," he remarked. Moments later, he led the horse into one of the empty stalls. The soldier almost stood on the boy's heels, giving instructions. The boy was properly deferential, yet the man grabbed him by an ear.

  "Make sure you've got it right," said the soldier.

  Neptarik set his plate aside. "Hey!" He noted the stricken look on the boy's face and rose to his feet. "No need for that."

  Stableboys and sylphs stared at him in consternation.

  The soldier turned slowly. "What did you say?" Anger twisted his face.

  "I said," began Neptarik, speaking louder and more slowly, as if to a particularly dense child, "no need for that."

  "Leave it!" hissed another stableboy.

  "Sit! Sit!" urged Mya, tugging furiously at Neptarik's tunic. She managed an ingratiating smile for the soldier. "He is new, sir; he does not mean to –"

  "Silence."

  Mya subsided.

  "What is your name, boy?"

  "Neptarik."

  The soldier with the red flashes eyed him up and down. Whenever sylph and human eyes met, Neptarik made sure his gaze remained firm and level, despite his feelings inside. He thought about winning when gambling, so his earpoints would not betray him.

  The soldier eventually released the boy. "I will tell Tektu about you." A smile flashed briefly across his face. "She will teach you manners." He turned on his heel and left.

  Stableboys and sylphs stared at him with a strange mix of respect and pity. Mya stared as if he had two heads.

  "That was unwise," said the boy whose ear still glowed after its twisting. "But, thank you."

  "That was not wise." Mya shook her head. "Brave, but stupid. When Tektu finds out..."

  Neptarik shrugged. "Let Tektu do her worst," he said softly. "What is she anyway? More than an ordinary infertile sylph."

  Mya threw up her hands. "I have been paired with a mad sylph."

  Everybody else laughed, but Neptarik earned considering looks as they began their afternoon's work. The soldier with the red flashes did not return, neither did anybody come to take Neptarik away.

  Tektu made a brief appearance. She looked at Mya and pointed at Neptarik.

  "Make sure he keeps busy," she said. "I had better not catch him leaning on that fork again."

  "Yes, Tektu." Mya looked to be groveling in Neptarik's opinion, but nobody mentioned the incident with the soldier.

  Tektu waited in the bailey until the cart reappe
ared with a cargo of new arrivals at Castle Beren, who stared open-mouthed at everything.

  Neptarik ignored Tektu's welcome – an identical copy of what she had said to him when he arrived – and hurried the cart inside. That was about all the work left to be done.

  When they finished the last stall, the sylphs relaxed. The stables had been given their daily clean and it would be someone else's turn tomorrow.

  The sylphs and stableboys now took their ease, waiting for the time when they could return to their quarters and, in the sylphs' case, wash the dirt of the day away.

  "Why not go now?" asked Neptarik. "Chores are done, so time's our own."

  One of the boys nodded. "True. But then you might find that you get the stalls to paint as well, or some other pointless task. The Mametain might decide he only needs six boys instead of eight, so two get thrown out to starve. You want that?"

  "All right, we'll wait," grinned Neptarik.

  From the chit-chat, Neptarik realized he had won the stableboys' respect. The sylph smiled at Mya's puzzled stare.

  Though sylphs regarded drawing attention to one's self as foolishness, sometimes the risk justified the end. If nothing else, he would come to Tektu's attention the moment that soldier complained about him.

  To complete his task, he must access the Mametain's living areas. He needed Tektu's attention and an invite to work with her. Otherwise, he might have to wait months before progressing.

  Of course, Tektu might decide he was a troublemaker and put him on the next cart out of Castle Beren, but he didn't have a reputation as a gambler for no reason.

  He wished Mya's stare could be a little less admiring. Nothing like flattery to win a boy's attention, he knew. Glancing at her, he wondered if he felt something more than ordinary, healthy lust.

  If he discovered the Mametain's plans and escaped, would Mya be sufficiently interested to throw over her life here and leave with him? He glanced sideways at her and his earpoints twitched forwards in interest. Had she noticed? Probably, though female sylphs sometimes hid their feelings as well as humans – as he had discovered the previous evening.

  After loafing in the straw, the time eventually came for the sylphs to return to their quarters. There, Neptarik gratefully stepped into the hot baths after washing his old clothes. After drying and dressing in fresh tunic and breeches, he and Mya, followed by the two infertiles, went to the refectory.

  Neptarik hoped he could not see worship shining in the infertiles' eyes whenever they looked his way.

  Although the evening meal period had almost ended, plenty of food remained. Whatever faults this Mametain may have, starving his sylphs did not number among them. Both quantity and quality were excellent. Sylphs were allowed fish or fowl once a week and sylph cooks worked alongside humans in the kitchens.

  Every serving sylph eventually spent time in the kitchens, either working in the bakery, or ensuring that ovens were fueled. There were spits to turn (apparently the last Mametain had decided spit sylphs were more hygienic than dogs), pots and cauldrons to clean, fireplaces to be prepared. All hot work.

  He sat beside Mya to eat. The two infertiles who had worked with them gravitated towards a table with more of their own sex. All the infertiles' heads came together and a whispered conversation ensued. From the glances, turned heads and erect earpoints, Neptarik guessed they were talking about him and his confrontation in the stables.

  On the next table, a young human male and a sylph male squabbled amiably. Orrin and Pedden, if his memory hadn't confused the names. More interesting than anything the infertiles had to say.

  "You can't use something over your head to slow down if you're falling," protested the human. "You're falling through nothing. Look, nothing there." Orrin waved his hands.

  "The wind is something," protested Pedden. "If strong it will lift sylphs off their feet."

  "And not too strong at that," added Orrin, with a grin. "But still nothing there."

  Intrigued, Neptarik and Mya exchanged a glance.

  "Must be something there," said Pedden. "Else the birds would fall out of the sky."

  "Prove it then." Orrin sat back.

  Pedden gave a triumphant smile and Neptarik suspected that the other sylph had had this argument before.

  "Very well." Pedden clambered onto the table and balanced himself at the end. He launched himself into the air and landed gracefully. "Did you count?"

  "Less than one, but I don't see what that proves." Orrin shrugged.

  Pedden's earpoints twitched as he flourished his cloak. His smile showed a hint of smugness. "Now watch again."

  Neptarik had a feeling the words were meant for all of them. He watched.

  Pedden clambered back onto the table and wrapped cloak ends around his hands. As he jumped, the cloth ballooned over his head.

  Neptarik's eyes widened and his earpoints twitched upright. A definite difference in the time taken to land.

  "No difference," insisted Orrin.

  "Of course there was," snorted Pedden.

  Neptarik agreed with the sylph, but said nothing. Landing took longer with the cloak.

  Orrin settled further back, until he was in danger of falling off the bench. "Show me again."

  Pedden leapt back onto the table. "Without cloak." Thud. He jumped up again and prepared to wrap the cloak around his hands. "I could jump off the walls like this and land safely. I –"

  The room went silent.

  "Nobody will be jumping off the walls," interrupted Tektu, her voice quiet. "Though someone might get thrown over if he is careless. And you should not stand on a table meant for meals. Your feet are probably filthy."

  Pedden squeaked and scrambled down. Blushing a brighter blue, his earpoints sagged submissively, but he made no move to defend himself. He remained silent.

  Pedden was forgotten as Tektu's attention switched to Neptarik.

  "I understand you had a disagreement in the stables." Though still light, a warning note had crept into her voice.

  Neptarik nodded, but said nothing.

  Everybody, infertiles included, stared at him now.

  "Whatever the rights or wrongs of it, you do not interfere in anything the free do. None of your business. Egran is free, you are not."

  Neptarik almost told this strange creature – despite appearances, she could not be a sylph, though he had no idea how he knew – that bullying could not be allowed, but instead kept silent. His earpoints showed disagreement, slanted forwards and still. The boy had not deserved to have his ear almost twisted off.

  "So you can hold your tongue when you try." Tektu nodded. She leaned forward abruptly. "You are the first for some time who is not afraid of me. Siaba is the only other here." Her silver eyes looked curiously into his own. "You are different, Neptarik." She wagged a finger under his nose. "Do not run around upsetting too many more soldiers, or I might have to do something about it. That, I assure you, is not something you would enjoy."

  Neptarik's eyes narrowed and he glared at the smaller sylph.

  As Tektu turned to leave the refectory, she pulled her gaze away. "I will call for you, Neptarik. Soon."

  Every sylph stared wide-eyed at him, earpoints bolt upright in shock. Even Orrin's mouth hung open.

  "You stood up to... her," breathed Pedden, cloak forgotten in his hands.

  Mya recovered first. "You are going to get us all punished," she whispered. Her earpoints lashed in agitation. "Neptarik, you are mad."

  Neptarik looked around at the sylphs in the hall – and at Orrin. All silver and silvery gray eyes stared back at him, many with respect. Probably all except the human had been bred into slavery, but that was no excuse for cowering away from bullies. Though he suspected Tektu might not actually be a bully, just dominant. He shook his head and blinked.

  "All I want to know," he said, "is what she is."

  The infertiles put their heads together again and began a new whispered conversation. The other sylphs just stared at him.

  Or
rin banged his hand on the table to get attention. "Trust me," he told the sylph, "you do not want to know."

  "Do you know?" pressed Neptarik.

  "No. And I want to keep it that way." The human boy stood and left.

  "We had better go," urged Mya. "We can enjoy some free time before you get us all killed. She might come back."

  There was no need to say who "she" was.

  Neptarik allowed himself to be pulled away. He grabbed one last morsel from his plate before leaving it for the refectory sylphs to clear away.

  The infertiles stopped whispering and watched him go.

  ***

  Balnus was not too happy when he learned he must enter the city. Concerning the Mametain's army, he gave a full report to Verdin with regards to size and effectiveness, even as they traveled.

  When they reached the city, Verdin introduced Balnus to Steppan da Kanpura as the leader of the resistance and deposed ruler of Re Taura. For his part, the true Mametain twisted his mouth at the introduction, but made no protest.

  "Why must I enter the city?" asked Balnus.

  "For your own safety," replied Steppan. "You will be discovered out there eventually, assumed to be an outlaw and killed. The soldiers are sometimes a little too eager to see malefactors dealt with."

  "So what am I to do?"

  "I can get you a position as a cart driver," replied Steppan. "There are merchants sympathetic to me and our cause."

  "A cart driver." Balnus looked and sounded unimpressed.

  "Carters enjoy considerable freedom. Goods are always carried between Taura and Sentena, or Codden, or Safeford. You can move in and out of Taura at will, delivering luxuries and returning with produce. And nobody will question you."

  "And Castle Beren?"

  "You're unlikely to be sent there," replied Steppan. "If Nijen wants something, he usually sends someone out to get it."

  For one night, Balnus was given an attic room in the same inn as Verdin. Discreetly tucked off the main streets, The Raven always had plenty of guests, its reputation for warmth and comfort well earned. And as Balnus pointed out, the ale and food were pretty good too.

  Verdin had forgotten that Balnus liked a smoke. As they relaxed that evening in Verdin's private retiring room, Balnus stuffed bacca into his pipe, lit it using a taper and sat back.

  "I must find proper lodgings tomorrow," he said.

  Verdin looked at the pipesmoke with distaste. "Yes," he said, "you must."