“We’ve all done it, Vry,” Dol commented. “It’s just that you’re a bit late, so it hurts you worse.”
“We haven’t all done it enough,” Oyre said quietly. “I have no desires now. They’ve gone from me… What I desire is desire. It may return if only Laintal Ay returns.” She gazed out of the window at the blue sky.
“But I’m so torn,” Vry said, unwilling to be distracted from her own troubles. “I’m never calm, as once I was. I don’t know myself any longer.”
In her outburst, Vry said nothing of Dathka, and the other women evaded that issue. Her love might have brought her more ease if she did not worry about Dathka; not only was he on her conscience, but he had taken to following her obsessively. She feared for what might happen, and had easily persuaded the nervous Raynil Layan that they meet in a secret room, rather than in their own places. In this secret room, she and her fork-bearded lover had daily tryst, while the city waited on the disease and the sound of saddle animals drifted through their open window.
Raynil Layan wished the window closed, but she would not have it.
“The animals may convey the illness,” he protested. “Let’s leave here, my doe, leave the city—away from the pest and everything else that worries us.”
“How would we survive? This is our place. Here in this city, and in each other’s arms.”
He gave her an uneasy grin. “And suppose we infect each other with the pest?”
She flung herself back on the bed, her breasts bouncing in his sight. “Then we die close, we die in the act, knotted! Maintain your spirit, Raynil Layan, feed on mine. Spill yourself over—over and over!” She rubbed her hand along his hairy loin and hooked a leg about the small of his back.
“You greedy sow,” he said admiringly, and he rolled beside her, pressing his body to hers.
Dathka sat on the edge of his bed, resting his head in his hands. As he said nothing, so the girl on the bed did not speak; she turned her face from him and brought her knees up to her chest.
Only when he rose and began to dress, with the abruptness of one who has suddenly made up his mind, did she say in a stifled voice, “I’m not carrying the plague, you know.”
He cast her back a bitter look, but said nothing, continuing hastily to dress.
She turned her head round, brushing long hair from her face. “What’s the matter with you, then, Dathka?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re not much of a man.”
He pulled on his boots, seemingly more concerned with them than with her.
“Rot you, woman, I don’t want you—you’re not the one I want. Get that into your skull and shift yourself out of here.”
From a cupboard fitted into the wall he took a curved dagger of fine workmanship. Its brightness contrasted with the worm-scored panels of the cupboard door. He stuck it in his belt. She called to ask where he was going. He paid her no further attention, slamming the door behind him and clattering down the stairs.
He had not wasted the last few bitter weeks since Laintal Ay left and since he had discovered what he regarded as Vry’s betrayal of him. Much of his time had been spent building up support among the youth of Oldorando, securing his position, making alliances with foreign elements who chafed at the restrictions Oldorando imposed on them, sympathising with those—and there were many—whose way of life had been disrupted by arduous work patterns imposed by the introduction of a native coinage. The master of the mint, Raynil Layan, was a frequent butt of his criticism.
As he strode into the alley, all was quiet and the side street deserted except for a man he paid to guard his door. In the market, people were about of necessity, attending to their day’s requirements. The little apothecary’s stall, with its pots ranked imposingly, was doing good business. There were still merchants with bright stalls and bright robes on their backs. Equally, there were also people moving by with loads on their backs, leaving the threatened city before things got worse.
Dathka saw nothing of it. He moved like an automaton, eyes fixed ahead. The tension in the city was one with his personal tension. He had reached a point where he could tolerate it no longer. He would kill Raynil Layan, and Vry too if need be, and have done with it. His lips curled back from his teeth as he rehearsed the fatal blow over and over in his mind. Men started away from him, fearing his fixed look presaged the onset of fever.
He knew where Vry had her secret room; his spies kept him informed. He thought to himself, If I ruled here, I would close down the academy for good. Nobody ever had the courage to make that decision final. I would. Now’s the time to strike, using the excuse that classes at the academy spread the pest. That would really hurt her.
“Take thought, brother, take thought! Pray with the Takers to be spared, hear the word of great Naba’s Akha…”
He brushed by the street preacher. He would have those fools off the street, too, if he ruled.
Near the Yuli Lane hoxney stables, he was approached by a man he knew, a mercenary and animal trader.
“Well?”
“He’s up there how, sir.” The man signalled with his eyebrows towards the garret window of one of the wooden buildings facing the stables. These were mainly hostels, rooming houses or drink shops, which acted as a quasi-respectable front to the music rooms and bawdy houses ranged behind them.
Dathka nodded curtly.
He pushed through a bead curtain, to which fresh orling and scantiom had been tied, and entered one of the drink shops. The cramped dark room was empty of customers. On the walls, animal skulls gave dry, serrated smiles. The owner stood against his counter, arms folded, gazing into space. Already primed, he merely lowered his head so that his double chins spread on his chest, a signal to Dathka to do whatever he wished to do. Dathka passed him by and climbed the stairs.
Stale smells greeted him, of cabbage and worse things. He walked by the wall, but the boards still creaked. He listened at the end door, heard voices. Being of nervous disposition, Raynil Layan would be sure to have barred his door. Dathka knocked on the cracked panels.
“Message for you, sir,” he said in a muffled voice “Urgent, from the mint.”
Smiling a ghastly smile, he stood close, listening as the bolts were drawn inside the room. As soon as the door opened a crack, he burst in, flinging the door wide. Raynil Layan fell back, crying in terror. At the sight of the dagger, he ran to the window and called once for help. Dathka grasped him by the neck and flung him against the bed.
“Dathka!” Vry sat in the bed, pulling a sheet over her nudity. “Get out of here, you rat’s eddre!”
For answer, he kicked the door shut without looking round. He went over to Raynil Layan, who was picking himself up and groaning.
“I know you’re going to kill me, I can see it, I can tell,” the master of the mint said, putting out a tremblingly protective hand. “Spare me, please, I’m not your enemy. I can help you.”
“I’m going to kill you with as much compassion as you killed old Master Datnil.”
Raynil Layan rose slowly, hiding his nudity, keeping a wary eye on his attacker.
“I didn’t do that. Not myself. Aoz Roon ordered his death. It was legal, really. The law was broken. Killing me isn’t legal. Tell him, Vry. Listen, Dathka—Master Datnil gave corps secrets away, he showed the secret book of the corps to Shay Tal. Not all of it. Not the worst thing. You ought to know about that.”