The sun banked higher in the sky and my father could no longer be seen. Later his ashes would be gathered into an urn, which the pontiff would then secure in the family mausoleum outside Tryum, his final resting place. Though that would not happen until the priests had conducted further rituals.
The blue-faced pontiff slowly gathered up the remains, and his priestesses came forth with brushes to cleanse the courtyard of evil spirits. People began to drift away, a few old friends lingering till the very end. One or two of them nodded to me, though I could not recall their faces – evidently, they knew who I was. Everything seemed strangely quiet, now, but that was how funerals were done in Tryum. No celebrations of life like the Atrewens; just a simple acknowledgement of death and a show of respect to the gods.
And that was that. Well, apart from the fact that Leana was right about the fact that we were being watched.
‘Where next?’ Leana asked. ‘Are you to continue to contemplate your father’s passing at a temple?’
‘No, we’ve not got the time,’ I said. ‘We should head down into Plutum, but before that I want to find out why there was an attempt on our lives last night.’
We headed to Constable Farrum’s house.
Cutting through a small plaza, we passed where vendors in wine-coloured tunics were selling cinnamon sticks and hot chickpeas. Either side of them, two stores specialized in theatre equipment, masks and the like. A wood yard stood at the far end, its operations spread over three precarious floors, and next to it was a large stonemason’s building, with various examples of craftsmanship on display out the front. Several stone busts glowed in the morning sunlight.
‘Let us not be slow,’ Leana said. ‘I cannot see who it is, but we are now being followed.’
We continued towards the stonemason’s, slipping down an adjacent alleyway.
I heard their steps closing in behind us while, up ahead, two men jumped down from an open window, blocking our path.
We were surrounded by six individuals. Each of them wore a mud-coloured tunic, and only one was rich enough to sport boots. At least one face had been at the funeral. Judging by the curved blade in his left hand, he wasn’t about to pay his respects.
‘Lucan Drakenfeld, son of Calludian, officer of the Sun Chamber.’ One lanky man spoke slowly and stepped towards us with an arrogant swagger. With more than thirty summers behind him, his beard still appeared like that of an adolescent. ‘You owe us money.’
I withdrew my short sword a moment after Leana had drawn hers. ‘If you feel you’re owed something, why not come closer to collect it?’ I called back. For good measure, I let him know what I thought of his beard.
‘Let’s not spill blood,’ he spat, having momentarily lost his calm. ‘Hand over what we’re owed and we’ll leave you in peace.’
They weren’t going to kill us: it would be tough getting money out of a corpse. ‘How about this for a deaclass="underline" leave now and still keep your life. Or stay and be butchered.’ Sweat trickled down my back and I longed to ditch my cloak.
The man shook his head. ‘See, this is no way to talk. You’re from a family of good standing. Should be showing us an example of pretty manners, right?’
‘Who’s your employer?’ I asked. ‘If I have debts, tell me who they’re owed to – otherwise I remain ignorant of what you claim.’
‘You don’t know about your debts?’ The man laughed, as did the others. ‘What family is this that don’t talk?’
They came closer still, two in front, four at the back.
‘I’ve only been in the city for a few days,’ I called out. ‘I know nothing of a family debt.’
‘The money is owed by a Drakenfeld,’ the lead figure said. ‘We do not care who pays it, only that the account is settled. Or we spill blood, which I don’t wanna do.’
‘You’re not going to kill me,’ I replied.
‘Who said anything about killing? You can still pay with only one hand.’
Leana threw a dagger into one man’s neck; he dropped his sword and collapsed, but by the time he’d hit the ground she’d already sliced the arm of the ringleader and then opened his throat before any of us knew what was going on.
On seeing this display, the four men behind us ran back into the plaza.
I stared at Leana, who set about retrieving her dagger.
‘What?’ She freed it from the body and wiped off the blood on his clothing. ‘You spend so much time talking. At least this business is over with now.’
‘We’ll have to report this,’ I replied. ‘We can’t just go about killing people and walking away without letting the authorities know.’
‘They are scum. No one cares.’
‘I care.’
‘Why are you so annoyed?’ she asked, sheathing her blades.
‘I was hoping to get answers.’
‘You got a few. Your father owed money. These people were not going to tell you who the money was owed to, they just wanted you to hand over coin. With only one hand, if they had it their way.’
‘I do not pay you to kill people needlessly. A life is not ours to take away unless absolutely necessary.’
She regarded me with an anger that made me question if I’d gone too far. Our understanding of the topic differed greatly – I had not seen the atrocities she had witnessed growing up. I had not seen all my friends and relatives butchered, my entire community left to rot in blood.
‘OK,’ she said, seemingly more relaxed. ‘But you should know that people from your culture do exactly the same when they go abroad. It is only you who thinks in such a soft way.’
I couldn’t fault her on that.
Sometimes it felt as though I was the only person in the whole of Vispasia, irrespective of culture, to abhor killing. Perhaps my seizures, too, made me sensitive to the well-being of others, though truthfully anyone who took to heart Polla’s teachings would also share the view that life is precious, not something to be taken away so easily. Other cultures long before our time had given edicts on the fair treatment of others, and sought to preserve life wherever possible, so to the discriminating it seemed we now lived in more barbarous times, where a man casually being hacked down in the street had become the way of things. I even struggled in my work for the Sun Chamber, when skilled torturers would walk someone close to the Underworld before bringing them back to consciousness. How could we defend civilization without dignity?
No, removing a life is the business of the gods only, and I could live by no other code on the subject.
The visit to Constable Farrum’s house was humbling. It was situated in the relatively safe region of Tradum, a zone of Tryum that had been commandeered by the merchant guilds and their thousands of members. Over the years Tradum had swelled into tenement blocks extending upwards from some of the more industrious smiths and grain merchants. There was little art or finesse to be found in the architecture, only simple columns and bland facades, little in the way of colours, and the suggestion that two or three streets away a stranger might find themselves in a very rough part of the city.
Along the fringes of the district, facing Plutum and Barrantum, more esoteric cliques and entrepreneurs could be found. There were soothsayers, curse-dealers and moneylenders; a few prostitutes, male and female, paced under the arch of an aqueduct. Grubby, vacant faces regarded me from the cool shade of doorways.
From my youth I remembered the practice of illegal and – so my friends always claimed – ancient magic carried on in some of these back alleys. Curses were traded on tablets, and dubious, non-approved gods were worshipped by those seeking to profit over the vulnerable. It was a dirty trade but one that Tryum seemed to thrive on.