“The Watch!”
Garth turned and saw a legless beggar come in through the door, hopping on the stumps of his legs. The excuse for a guard that Garth had cut under the chin bounded to the door and slipped a beam across it and the room fell silent. In the alleyway all could hear heavy footsteps approaching. After a moment’s pause they moved on.
“We pay the bastards enough to leave us alone,” the raggedy man chuckled, “but you never know who might have paid them more.”
He looked back at Garth.
“I daresay that you are the object of their concern. You’re a criminal, No House. Orange might even have kicked in some money to have your throat cut without any fanfare and the spells they lost returned. If you’re some village idiot who came here thinking about honor and rules, forget about it.”
Garth shook his head disdainfully.
“Typical.”
He looked back around the room.
“Which corner has the fewest fleas and lice?”
Varnel Buckara, Master of the House of Fentesk, set down his inlaid cup of gold and looked over coldly at his host.
“I really don’t like the implication of what you’ve just said.”
“It was your man who started the incident by dueling illegally, first with Webin of Kestha. Distasteful, my good man, distasteful for two fighters to brawl in the gutter for the amusement of the mob.”
“My fighters have high spirits; otherwise, they wouldn’t be fighters. You know that doesn’t bother you in and of itself. It’s the fact that they did it as a public display and your agents could not control the betting that bothers you.”
Grand Master Zarel Ewine laughed, his bulging stomach shaking like jelly. He set his own goblet back down, motioning for the servant to refill it and that of his guest and then to leave.
“As if I need to be concerned about a bit of silver,” Zarel finally replied, leaning forward and fixing Varnel with his gaze. “I got past such concerns a long time ago.”
Varnel said nothing, looking around at the room, the imported tapestries from Kish, the fine wood carvings of the legendary La, the gems that were ringed to Zarel’s beefy hands.
“I serve the Walker in administering the Western Lands, and with it the games,” Zarel continued. “That is honor enough.”
Varnel wanted to burst out laughing with the hypocrisy of that line. But fear stayed him, not of Zarel but of what might be standing behind him now, invisible in the shadows, lurking, waiting.
He looked around anxiously and then realized that Zarel had undoubtedly sensed the moment of fear.
“No, he is not here. Not until the last day of Festival will he come for the winner and for the yearly report.”
“And will this incident be part of the report?” Varnel asked, finally getting to the heart of the matter.
“Ah, old friend, you’ve been generous in the past. There is no need tonight for the distasteful ritual of a bribe to have this forgotten. Consider it a gift. If I tried to stop every fight outside the arena, I would have gone mad long ago. During the rest of the year, what you and the other House Masters do in your own territories is your concern, not mine. During the rest of the year you can kill each other in your own lands as you please, and hire out to whomever you wish. But now you and the other three Houses are gathered in my city for the testing of skills and that is indeed my concern. I can expect an occasional wager fight, but to the death in front of the mobs is for the arena only. Otherwise, there’d be chaos, and that I will not tolerate. I fully expect you and the other Houses to go around brawling, but please do it inside your own compounds. It’s tradition. But public displays are out-that is for the Arena-and if the peasants and finer folk want to watch, they can pay. That’s tradition too.”
And besides, the mob pays to see the fights in the arena but they won’t pay if they can see all they want on the streets for free, Varnel wanted to reply.
“Do we understand each other?” Zarel finally asked.
“We understand each other,” Varnel replied softly.
“Now, on to the other concern. This fighter of no House, this hanin, do you have a description?”
“None of my people were there.”
“Come now, what about your fighter’s gaming master?”
Varnel shifted uncomfortably.
Zarel laughed and took another drink.
“Either your man was an idiot fighting for no reason other than to gain a spell or he had a gaming master there to fleece the crowd. I’d hate to think that all your fighters are idiots.”
“The gaming master was thrown into the fissure by the mob when he ran out of money to pay them back when my man lost.”
“A logical response. And speaking of that, I now have a crack in the middle of one of my main streets that’s a good twenty fathoms deep. Do you know how much that will cost to fix? Also, half a block of slums burned to the ground and nearly fifty people dead.”
“Well, they are only peasants.”
“My peasants; that’s fifty fewer peasants to pay taxes. That’s fifty fewer peasants who, through their mere existence, contribute to the pool of mana. My, my, Varnel, the bill just keeps adding up. I’m not talking bribes here; I’m talking damages. I don’t know how many cartloads of dirt it’s going to take to fill that hole your man created. The funeral costs, rebuilding the block of slums, it’ll be quite a bill.”
“As if you’re going to pay it yourself,” Varnel shot back.
“Damn it, no. You’re going to pay it,” Zarel roared, “and that’s not a bribe. That’s coming out of the bond you and the other Houses set against damages to my city during festival.”
“What about the House of Kestha? He’s the one who started the fight,” Varnel snapped.
“Oh, Tulan and his House will pay too,” Zarel said smoothly.
I bet they will, Varnel thought angrily as he snatched the decanter of wine and poured himself another drink, figuring that at least Zarel was footing the bill for the refreshments and he might as well get the most out of it.
“You should take it out of the hide of this no House warrior.”
“Oh, I will. He’ll help pay for the damages before I have him quartered for fighting in my city without sanction of House. The problem is no one knows who he is or where he went.”
Varnel smiled at that one.
“Surely your loyal subjects should be eager to help the law.”
“Scum. They think the whole thing was vastly amusing. He’s quite their hero, now, for winning them money. Lousy scum. They’re out there laughing in the streets and your House helped start this. Oh, I got the usual descriptions. He was black, he was white, he was yellow. He was tall, short, fat, skinny, pox-marked, fair-skinned, two eyes, one eye. The only thing they agreed upon was that he had no House.”
Varnel sat back and looked away.
“What is it?”
Startled, Varnel looked back.
“Nothing. No, it’s nothing.”
Zarel stared closely at his guest.
“Something I said bothered you.”
“No, just wondering, that’s all.”
“About what?”
“Who is this man? He killed a third-rank fighter. That’s a bit unusual for a hanin. Usually they manage to gain a House or are dead by the time they reach such a level of skill. That means he’s good, as good as a master of the third-rank. And yet he has no color, no House. It’s strange.”
Zarel looked away for a moment.
Varnel was right, it was unusual. Not only that but the fact that the man had vanished without a trace. There was something else as well. A sensing more than a knowing, an innate feeling that something was not quite right, that this was not just another incident, a stupid brawl, that would be forgotten by tomorrow. He couldn’t quite touch what it was, but the uneasiness was a warning that had to be heeded.
“We’ll find him,” Zarel finally said coldly.
Varnel looked up over the edge of his goblet and smiled in reply.