Yama had used the telescope to spy on the Aedile and Dr. Dismas that afternoon, when they had met and talked on the dusty hillside at the edge of the City of the Dead. He was convinced that Dr. Dismas, had been to Ys to arrange an apprenticeship in some dusty corner of the Aedile’s department.
And so, although he set off toward the armory, Yama quickly doubled back and crept into the gallery just beneath the Great Hall’s high ceiling, where, on feast days, musicians hidden from view serenaded the Aedile’s guests. Yama thrust his head between the stays of two dusty banners and found that he was looking straight down at the Aedile and Dr. Dismas.
The two men were drinking port wine so dark that it was almost black, and Dr. Dismas had lit one of his cigarettes.
Yama could smell its clove-scented smoke. Dr. Dismas sat stiffly in a carved chair, his white hands moving over the polished surface of the table like independently questing animals. Papers were scattered in front of him, and patterns of blue dots and dashes glowed in the air. Yama would have dearly loved to have had a spyglass just then, to find out what was written on the papers, and what the patterns meant.
Yama had expected to hear Dr. Dismas and the Aedile discuss his apprenticeship, but instead the Aedile was making a speech about trust. “When I took Yama into my household, I also took upon myself the responsibility of a parent. I have brought him up as best I could, and I have tried to make a decision about his future with his best interests in my heart. You ask me to overthrow that in an instant, to gamble my duty to the boy against some vague promise.”
“It is more than that,” Dr. Dismas said. “The boy’s bloodline—”
Yama’s heart beat more quickly, but the Aedile angrily interrupted Dr. Dismas. “That is of no consequence. I know what you told me. It only convinces me that I must see to the boy’s future.”
“I understand. But, with respect, you may not be able to protect him from those who might be interested to learn of him, who might believe that they have a use for him. I speak of higher affairs than those of the Department of Indigenous Affairs. I speak of great forces, forces which your few decads of soldiers could not withstand for an instant. You should not put yourself between those powers and that which they may desire.”
The Aedile stood so suddenly that he knocked over his glass of port. High above, Yama thought that for a moment his guardian might strike Dr. Dismas, but then the Aedile turned his back on the table and closed his fist under his chin. He said, “Who did you tell, doctor?”
“As yet, only you.”
Yama knew that Dr. Dismas was lying, because the answer sprang so readily to his lips. He, wondered if the Aedile knew, too.
“I notice that the pinnace which brought you back from Ys is still anchored off the point of the bay. I wonder why that might be.”
“I suppose I could ask its commander. He is an acquaintance of mine.”
The Aedile turned around. “I see,” he said coldly. “Then you threaten—”
“My dear Aedile, I do not come to your house to threaten you. I have better manners than that, I would hope. I make no threats, only predictions. You have heard my thoughts about the boy’s bloodline. There is only one explanation. I believe any other man, with the same evidence, would come to the same conclusion as I, but it does not matter if I am right. One need only raise the possibility to understand what danger the boy might be in. We are at war, and you have been concealing him from your own department. You would not wish to have your loyalty put to the question. Not again.”
“Be careful, doctor. I could have you arrested. You are said to be a necromancer, and it is well-known that you indulge in drugs.”
Dr. Dismas said calmly, “The first is only a rumor, and while the second may be true, you have recently demonstrated your faith in me, and your letter is lodged with my department. As, I might add, is a copy of my findings. You could arrest me, but you could not keep me imprisoned for long without appearing foolish or corrupt. But why do we argue? We both have the same interest. We both wish no harm to come to the boy. We merely disagree on how to protect him.”
The Aedile sat down and ran his fingers through the gray pelt which covered his face. He said, “How much money do you want?”
Dr. Dismas laughed. It was like the creaking of old wood giving beneath a weight. “In one pan of the scales is the golden ingot of the boy; in the other the feather of your worth. I will not even pretend to be insulted.” He stood and plucked his cigarette from the holder and extinguished it in the pool of port spilled from the Aedile’s glass, then reached into the glowing patterns. There was a click: the patterns vanished. Dr. Dismas tossed the projector cube into the air and made it vanish into one of the pockets of his long black coat. He said, “If you do not make arrangements, then I must. And believe me, you’ll get the poorer part of the bargain if you do.”
When Dr. Dismas had gone, the Aedile raked up the papers and clutched them to his chest. His shoulders shook. High above, Yama thought that his guardian might be crying, but surely he was mistaken, for never before, even at the news of Telmon’s death, had the Aedile shown any sign of grief.
Chapter Five
The Siege
Yama lay awake long into the night, his mind racing with speculations about what Dr. Dismas might have discovered.
Something about his bloodline, he was sure of that at least, and he slowly convinced himself it was something with which Dr. Dismas could blackmail the Aedile. Perhaps his real parents were heretics or murderers or pirates . . . but who then would have a use for him—and what powers would take an interest? He was well aware that like all orphans he had filled the void of his parents’ absence with extreme caricatures.
They could be war heroes or colorful villains or dynasts wealthy beyond measure; what they could not be was ordinary, for that would mean that he too was ordinary, abandoned not because of some desperate adventure or deep scandal, but because of the usual small tragedies of the human condition. In his heart he knew these dreams for what they were, but although he had put them away, as he had put aside his childish toys, Dr. Dismas’s return had awakened them, and all the stories he had elaborated as a child tumbled through his mind in a vivid pageant that raveled away into confused dreams filled with unspecific longing.
As the sun crept above the ragged blue line of the Rim Mountains, Yama was woken by a commotion below his window. He threw open the shutters and saw that three pentads of the garrison, in black-resin armor ridged like the carapaces of sexton beetles and kilts of red leather strips, and with burnished metal caps on their heads, were climbing onto their horses. Squat, shaven-headed Sergeant Rhodean leaned on the pommel of his gelding’s saddle as he watched his men settle themselves and their restless mounts. Puffs of vapor rose from the horses’ nostrils; harness jingled and hooves clattered on concrete as they stepped about. Other soldiers were stacking ladders, grappling irons, siege rockets and coils of rope on the loadbed of the grimy black steam wagon. Two house servants maneuvered the Aedile’s palanquin, which floated a handspan above the ground, into the center of the courtyard and then the Aedile himself appeared, clad in his robe of office, black sable trimmed with a collar of white feathers that ruffled in the cold dawn breeze.
The servants helped the Aedile over the flare of the palanquin’s skirt and settled him in the backless chair beneath its red-and-gold canopy. Sergeant Rhodean raised a hand above his head and the procession, two files of mounted soldiers on either side of the palanquin, moved out of the courtyard.
Black smoke and sparks shot up from the steam wagon’s tall chimney; white vapor jetted from leaking piston sleeves. As the wagon ground forward, its iron-rimmed wheels striking sparks from concrete, Yama threw on his clothes; before it had passed through the arch of the gate in the old wall he was in the armory, quizzing the stable hands.