None did. Instead, a new poem appeared on walls all over the city two mornings later. It was about Tomasso bar Sandre. A lament about his death, and claiming—unbelievably—that his perverse sexuality had been a deliberately chosen path, a living metaphor for his conquered, subjugated land, for the perverse situation of Astibar under tyranny.
He’d had no choice after that, once he’d understood what the poet was saying. Not bothering with inquiries again, he’d had a dozen writers pulled at random out of the khav rooms that same afternoon, and then broken wristed, and sky-wheeled among the still-crowded bodies of the families of the conspirators before sundown. He closed all khav rooms for a month. No more verses appeared.
In Astibar. But the same evening his new taxes were proclaimed in the Market Square in Tregea, a black-haired woman elected to leap to her death from one of the seven bridges in protest against the measures. She made a speech before she jumped, and she left behind—the gods alone knew how she’d come into possession of them—a complete sheaf of the ‘Sandreni Elegies’ from Astibar. No one knew who she was. They dragged the icy river for her body but it was never found. Rivers ran swiftly in Tregea, out of the mountains to the eastern sea.
The verses were all over that province within a fortnight, and had crossed to Certando and southern Ferraut before the first heavy snows of the winter began to fall.
Brandin of Ygrath sent an elegantly fur-clad courier to Astibar with an elegantly phrased note lauding the Elegies as the first decent creative work he’d seen emanating from Barbadian territory. He offered Alberico his sincerest congratulations.
Alberico sent a polite acknowledgement of the sentiments and offered to commission one of his newly competent verse-makers to do a work on the glorious life and deeds in battle of Prince Valentin di Tigana.
Because of the Ygrathen’s spell, he knew, only Brandin himself would be able to read that last word, but only Brandin mattered.
He thought he’d won that one, but for some reason the woman’s suicide in Tregea left him feeling too edgy to be pleased. It was too intense an action, harking back to the violence of the first year after he’d landed here. Things had been quiet for so long, and this level of intensity—of very public intensity—never boded well. Briefly he even considered rolling back the new taxes, but that would look too much like a giving in rather than a gesture of benevolence. Besides, he still needed the money for the army. Back home the word was that the Emperor was sinking more rapidly now, that he was seen in public less and less often. Alberico knew he had to keep his mercenaries happy.
In the dead of winter he made the decision to reward Karalius with fully half of the former Nievolene lands.
The night after the announcement was made public—among the troops first, then cried in the Grand Square of Astibar—the horse barn and several of the outbuildings of the Nievolene family estate were burned to the ground.
He ordered an immediate investigation by Karalius, then wished, a day later, that he hadn’t. It seemed that they had found two bodies in the smouldering ruins, trapped by a fallen beam that had barred a door. One was that of an informer linked to Grancial and the Second Company. The other was a Barbadian soldier: from the Second Company.
Karalius promptly challenged Grancial to a duel at any time and place of the latter’s choosing. Grancial immediately named a date and place. Alberico quickly made it clear that the survivor of any such combat would be death-wheeled. He succeeded in halting the fight, but the two commanders stopped speaking to each other from that point on. There were a number of small skirmishes among men of the two companies, and one, in Tregea, that was not so small, leaving fifteen soldiers slain and twice as many wounded.
Three local informers were found dead in Ferraut’s distrada, stretched on farmers’ wagon-wheels in a savage parody of the Tyrant’s justice. They couldn’t even retaliate—that would involve an admission that the men had been informers.
In Certando, two of Siferval’s Third Company went absent from duty, disappearing into the snow-white countryside, the first time that had ever happened. Siferval reported that local women did not appear to be involved. The men had been extremely close friends. The Third Company commander offered the obvious, disagreeable hypothesis.
Late in the winter Brandin of Ygrath sent another suave envoy with another letter. In it he profusely thanked Alberico for his offer of verses, and said he’d be delighted to read them. He also formally requested six Certandan women, as young and comely as the one Alberico had so kindly allowed him to take from the Eastern Palm some years ago, to be added to his saishan. Unforgivably the letter somehow became public information.
Laughter was deadly.
To quell it, Alberico had six old women seized by Siferval in southwestern Certando. He ordered them blinded and hamstrung and set down under a courier’s flag on the snow-clad border of Lower Corte between the forts at Sinave and Forese. He had Siferval attach a letter to one of them asking Brandin to acknowledge receipt of his new mistresses.
Let them hate him. So long as they feared.
On the way back east from the border, Siferval said in his report, he had followed an informer’s tip and found the two runaway soldiers living together at an abandoned farm. They had been executed on the site, with one of them—the appropriate one, Siferval had reported—castrated first, so that he could die as he’d lived. Alberico sent his commendations.
It was an unsettling winter though. Things seemed to be happening to him instead of moving to a measure he dictated. Late at night, and then at other times as well, more and more as the Palm gradually turned towards a distant rumour of spring, Alberico found himself thinking about the ninth province that no one yet controlled, the one just across the bay. Senzio.
The grey-eyed merchant was making a great deal of sense. Even as he found himself reluctantly agreeing with the man, Ettocio wished the fellow had chosen someone else’s roadside tavern for his midday repast. The talk in the room was veering in dangerous directions and, Triad knew, enough Barbadian mercenaries used the main highway between Astibar and Ferraut towns. If one of them stopped in here now, he would be unlikely in the extreme to indulge the current tenor of the conversation as merely an excess of springtime energy. Ettocio’s licence would probably be gone for a month. He kept glancing nervously towards the door.
‘Double taxation now!’ the lean man was saying bitterly as he pushed a hand through his hair. ‘After the kind of winter we’ve just had? After what he did to the price of grain? So we pay at the border, and now we pay at the gates of a town, and where in the name of Morian is profit?’
There were truculent murmurs of agreement all around the room. In a tavern full of merchants on the road, agreement was predictable. It was also dangerous. Ettocio, pouring drinks, was not the only man keeping an eye on the door. The young fellow leaning on the bar looked up from his crusty roll and wedge of country cheese to give him an unexpectedly sympathetic look.
‘Profit?’ a wool-merchant from northern Ferraut said sarcastically. ‘Why should Barbadior care if we make a profit?’
‘Exactly!’ The grey eyes flashed in vigorous agreement. ‘The way I hear it, all he wants to do is soak the Palm for everything he can, in preparation for a grab at the Emperor’s Tiara back in Barbadior!’
‘Shush!’ Ettocio muttered under his breath, unable to stop himself. He took a quick, rare pull at a mug of his own beer and moved along the bar to close the window. It was a shame, because the spring day was glorious outside, but this was getting out of hand.
‘Next thing you know,’ the lean trader was saying now, ‘he’ll just go right ahead and seize the rest of our land like he’s already started to do in Astibar. Any wagers we’re servants or slaves within five years?’
One man’s contemptuous laughter rode over the snarling chorus of response triggered by that. The room fell abruptly silent as everyone turned to confront the person who appeared to find this observation diverting. Expressions were grim. Ettocio nerv
ously wiped down the already clean bar-top in front of him.
The warrior from Khardhun continued laughing for a long time, seemingly oblivious to the stares he was receiving. His sculpted, black features registered genuine amusement.
‘What,’ said the grey-eyed one coldly, ‘is so very funny, old man?’
‘You are,’ said the old Khardhu cheerfully. He grinned like a death’s head. ‘All of you. Never seen so many blind men in one room before.’
‘You care to explain exactly what that means?’ the Ferraut wool-merchant rasped.
‘You need it explained?’ the Khardhu murmured, his eyes wide in mock surprise. ‘Well, now. Why in the name of your gods or mine or his should Alberico bother trying to enslave you?’ He jabbed a bony finger towards the trader who’d started all this. ‘If he tried that, my guess is there’s still enough manhood in the Eastern Palm—barely—that you might take offence. Might even … rise up!’ He said that last in an exaggerated parody of a secretive whisper.
He leaned back, laughing again at his own wit. No one else did. Ettocio looked nervously at the door.
‘On the other side of the coin,’ the Khardhu went on, still chuckling, ‘if he just slowly squeezes you dry with taxes and duties and confiscations he can get to exactly the same place without making anyone mad enough to do anything about it. I tell you, gentlemen’—he took a long pull at his beer—‘Alberico of Barbadior’s a smart man.’
‘And you,’ said the grey-eyed man leaning across his own table, bristling with anger, ‘are an arrogant, insolent foreigner!’
The Khardhu’s smile faded. His eyes locked on those of the other man and Ettocio was suddenly very glad the warrior’s curved sword was checked with all the other weapons behind the bar.
‘I’ve been here some thirty years,’ the black man said softly. ‘About as long as you’ve been alive, I’d wager. I was guarding merchant trains on this road when you were wetting your bed at night. And if I am a foreigner, well … last time I inquired, Khardhun was a free country. We beat back our invader, which is more than anyone here in the Palm can say!’
‘You had magic!’ the young fellow at the bar suddenly burst out, over the outraged din that ensued. ‘We didn’t! That’s the only reason! The only reason!’
The Khardhu turned to face the boy, his lip curling in contempt. ‘You want to rock yourself to sleep at night thinking that’s the only reason, you go right ahead, little man. Maybe it’ll make you feel better about paying your taxes this spring, or about going hungry because there’s no grain here in the fall. But if you want to know the truth I’ll give it to you free of charge.’
The noise level had abated as he spoke, but a number of men were on their feet, glaring at the Khardhu.
Looking around the room, as if dismissing the boy at the bar as unworthy of his attention, he said very clearly, ‘We beat back Brandin of Ygrath when he invaded us because Khardhun fought as a country. As a whole. You people got whipped by Alberico and Brandin both because you were too busy worrying about your border spats with each other, or which Duke or Prince would lead your army, or which priest or priestess would bless it, or who would fight on the centre and who on the right, and where the battlefield would be, and who the gods loved best. Your nine provinces ended up going at the sorcerers one by one, finger by finger. And they got snapped to pieces like chicken-bones. I always used to think,’ he drawled into what had become a quiet room, ‘that a hand fought best when it made a fist.’
He lazily signalled Ettocio for another drink.
‘Damn your insolent Khardhu hide,’ the grey-eyed man said in a strangled voice. Ettocio turned from the bar to look at him. ‘Damn you forever to Morian’s darkness for being right!’
Ettocio hadn’t expected that, and neither had the others in the room. The mood grew grimly introspective. And, Ettocio realized, more dangerous as well, entirely at odds with the brightness of the spring outside, the cheerful warmth of the returned sun.
‘But what can we do?’ the young fellow at the bar said plaintively, to no one in particular.
‘Curse and drink and pay our taxes,’ said the wool-merchant bitterly.
‘I must say, I do sympathize with the rest of you,’ said the lone trader from Senzio smugly.
It was an ill-advised remark. Even Ettocio, notoriously slow to rouse, was irritated.
The young man at the bar was positively enraged.
‘Why you, you … I don’t believe it! What right do you have—’ He hammered the bar in incoherent fury. The plump Senzian smiled in the superior manner all of them seemed to have.
‘What right indeed!’ The grey eyes were icy as they returned to the fray. ‘Last time I looked, Senzio traders all had their hands jammed so deep in their pockets paying tribute money east and west that they couldn’t even get their equipment out to please their wives!’
A raucous, bawdy shout of laughter greeted that. Even the old Khardhu smiled thinly.
‘Last I looked,’ said the Senzian, red-faced, ‘the Governor of Senzio was one of our own, not someone shipped in from Ygrath or Barbadior!’
‘What happened to the Duke?’ the Ferraut merchant snapped. ‘Senzio was so cowardly your Duke demoted himself to Governor so as not to upset the Tyrants. Are you proud of that?’
‘Proud?’ the lean merchant mocked. ‘He’s got no time to be proud of anything. He’s too busy looking both ways to see which emissary from which Tyrant he should offer his wife to!’
Again, coarse, bitter laughter.
‘You’ve a mean tongue for a conquered man,’ the Senzian said coldly. The laughter stopped. ‘Where are you from that you’re so quick to cut at other men’s courage?’
‘Tregea,’ said the other quietly.
‘Occupied Tregea,’ the Senzian corrected viciously. ‘Conquered Tregea. With its Barbadian Governor.’
‘We were the last to fall,’ the Tregean said a little too defiantly. ‘Borifort held out longer than anywhere else.’
‘But it fell,’ the Senzian said bluntly, sure of his advantage now. ‘I wouldn’t be so quick to talk about other men’s wives. Not after the stories we all heard about what the Barbadians did there. And I also heard that most of your women weren’t that unwilling to be—’
‘Shut your filthy mouth!’ the Tregean snarled, leaping to his feet. ‘Shut it, or I’ll close it for you permanently, you lying Senzian scum!’
A babble of noise erupted, louder than any before. Furiously clanging the bell over the bar, Ettocio fought to restore order.
‘Enough!’ he roared. ‘Enough of this, or you’re all out of here right now!’ A dire threat, and it quelled them.
Enough for the Khardhu warrior’s sardonic laughter to be audible again. The man was on his feet. He dropped coins on the table to pay his account, and surveyed the room, still chuckling, from his great height.
‘See what I mean?’ he murmured. ‘All these stick-like little fingers jabbing and poking away at each other. You’ve always done that, haven’t you? Guess you always will. Until there’s nothing left here but Barbadior and Ygrath.’
He swaggered to the bar to claim his sword.
‘You,’ said the grey-eyed Tregean suddenly, as Ettocio handed over the curved, sheathed blade. The Khardhu turned slowly.
‘You know how to use that thing as well as you use your mouth?’ the Tregean asked.
The Khardhu’s lips parted in a mirthless smile. ‘It’s been reddened once or twice.’
‘Are you working for anyone right now?’
Insolently, appraisingly, the Khardhu looked down on the other man. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ve just changed my plans,’ the other replied. ‘There’s no money to be made up in Ferraut town. Not with double duties to be paid. I reckon I’ll have to go farther afield. I’ll give you going rates to guard me south to the Certandan highlands.’
‘Rough country there,’ the Khardhu murmured reflectively. The Tregean’s face twitched with amusement. ‘Why d
o you think I want you?’ he asked.
After a moment the smile was returned. ‘When do we go?’ the warrior said.
‘We’re gone,’ the Tregean replied, rising and paying his own account. He claimed his own short sword and the two of them walked out together. When the door opened there was a brief, dazzling flash of sunlight.
Ettocio had hoped the talk would settle down after that. It didn’t. The youngster at the bar mumbled something about uniting in a common front—a remark that would have been merely insane if it wasn’t so dangerous. Unfortunately—from Ettocio’s point of view, at any rate—the comment was overheard by the Ferraut wool-trader, and the mood of the room was so aroused by then that the subject wouldn’t die.
It went on all afternoon, even after the boy left as well. And that night, with an entirely different crowd, Ettocio shocked himself by speaking up during an argument about ancestral primacy between an Astibarian wine-dealer and another Senzian. He made the same point the tall Khardhu had made—about nine spindly fingers that had been broken one by one because they never formed a fist. The argument made sense to him; it sounded intelligent in his own mouth. He noticed men nodding slowly even as he spoke. It was an unusual, flattering response—men had seldom paid any attention to Ettocio except when he called time in the tavern.
He rather liked the new sensation. In the days that followed he found himself raising the point whenever the opportunity arose. For the first time in his life Ettocio began to get a reputation as a thoughtful man.
Unfortunately, one evening in summer he was overheard by a Barbadian mercenary standing outside the open window. They didn’t take away his licence. There was a very high level of tension across the whole of the Palm by then. They arrested Ettocio and executed him on a wheel outside his own tavern, with his severed hands stuffed in his mouth.