One evening he was strolling through the narrow crowded streets near the Palace debating where he might best eat that night, when the sound of raised angry voices reached him, one, a woman’s. Curious, he ran towards a small crowd that appeared to be the source of the noise.
A girl, a street trader, was arguing with a Mathidrin trooper. She spoke rapidly and with a strong Vakloss accent, and Etron had some difficulty in understanding her, but it seemed the Mathidrin was accusing her of selling bad fruit and was refusing to pay. Etron saw the Mathidrin was of an age similar to himself, as were his two companions who were laughing nearby.
For a moment he was inclined to intervene, but then thought better of it. Standing orders were to avoid the Mathidrin where possible, and this young man seemed to represent the Mathidrin at their worst: loutish, arrogant and sneering. Etron was about to turn away when the Mathidrin’s expression changed at some remark and he knocked the girl to the ground with a savage punch in the face. The watching crowd widened suddenly. One man protested, but the Mathidrin turned on him fiercely and held his clenched fist under the man’s nose.
‘I know you,’ he said menacingly. ‘You shouldn’t go around speaking up for liars and cheats like this.’
The girl was clambering to her feet, sobbing and bleeding profusely from her nose and mouth. She staggered against the Mathidrin and coughed up a gout of blood and saliva. It splattered on to the trooper’s chest and Etron winced as he noticed a white tooth sliding down the black tunic. The man swore and pushed her away violently, sending her sprawling again. Then he turned his attention back to the protester.
‘You’d better look to your own affairs. Especially with that nice little shop of yours only just around the corner. I’ve seen some very suspicious people going in and out of there. Very suspicious.’ He looked signifi-cantly at his friends who nodded in confirmation.
The man paled a little and his jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
The Mathidrin, however, was not inclined to let the matter drop. Bending down, he took hold of the girl’s hair and, staring into the man’s face, said, ‘This is a liar and a cheat. Shall I show you what we do to liars and cheats?’
The shopkeeper stared at him icily, frightened to do anything that might bring retribution on himself or make things worse for the girl.
‘We do this,’ continued the Mathidrin. And, drag-ging the girl by her hair, he pushed her face brutally into a box of soft fruits standing in front of her stall, much to the amusement of his two friends.
Almost in spite of himself, Etron pushed through the crowd and seized the Mathidrin’s arm.
‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s enough. That’s no way to be-have. If she’s cheated you there’s… ’ He stopped in mid-sentence as the Mathidrin turned slowly to look first at his gripped arm and then at him. Etron released the arm nervously. An unpleasant smile appeared on the Mathidrin’s face as he looked up and down Etron’s uniform, vivid and ornate compared with his own black tunic.
‘There’s what, flower?’ he said coaxingly.
Etron cleared his throat. He wanted to be some-where else at that moment, but could not walk away. He wished an officer would appear round the corner. ‘Let the girl go,’ he said. ‘There’s the Law or the Chief of Markets if you’ve a complaint.’ The Mathidrin looked at him in disbelief, and then at his friends, who were smirking. ‘Petal here wants us to run and tell tales,’ he said. ‘Petal doesn’t think we can handle our own problems, does it?’ And he pinched Etron’s cheek between his thumb and forefinger. Angry at the humiliation, Etron struck the hand away. The Mathidrin sneered, showing his teeth, and with a great push sent Etron staggering into the remains of the girl’s fruit stall. ‘Down where you belong, flower,’ he jeered. ‘With the rest of the fruit.’
Though a High Guard, Etron was not really a fight-ing man, and certainly not a street brawler, but the tone of the insult and the damage to his uniform was too much. Scrambling to his feet, he flew furiously at the taunting black figure.
For a while, the two wrestled incongruously until they skidded on the slippery ground and crashed to the floor. Somewhat to his surprise, Etron recovered himself first and, standing up, seized his opponent by the scruff of the neck and thrust his face into the same box that the girl had been pushed into. ‘See what it feels like, you cockroach,’ he said through clenched teeth.
There was some applause and cheering from the crowd.
The Mathidrin got slowly to his feet, his face fruit-splattered and ridiculous. He put his hand on Etron’s shoulder, as if for balance, and then hit him in the stomach. It was a stunning and unexpected blow-and worse. Etron realized that more than the wind had gone out of him. Everywhere suddenly felt strange and distant, and his legs wouldn’t respond properly. They wouldn’t even hold him up. There was a roaring in his ears and, as he slithered to the ground and rolled on to his back, his eye lighted on a brightly painted carved eagle looking down at him from the pinnacle of a nearby building. It was framed in a ring of concerned faces.
Daddy used to carve ridge birds, he thought, and then the roaring overwhelmed him in blackness.
The Mathidrin, pale and nervously defiant, leaned forward and taking hold of Etron’s tunic wiped the blood from his dagger. It was an act more repellent in its callousness than the stabbing itself. The crowd seemed to be paralysed. He looked coldly at each one of them in turn as if memorizing their faces. ‘Go home all of you,’ he said. ‘This man attacked me and I had to defend myself. Don’t forget that.’
Etron’s Lord, a simple unaffected man, was beside himself with rage and grief and a shocked Dan-Tor promised him a full investigation. But no reliable witnesses could be found, and the Mathidrin, self-assured and smug, left the Inquiry to the congratula-tions of his companions. The older officers of Etron’s troop looked at their Lord and saw him impotent and livid. They took the wish in his eyes for their orders.
There was a great deal of rivalry between the High Guards of the different Lords, but not sufficient to divide them against a common foe, and the next few days saw several discreet and cautious meetings in the deep shadows provided by the bright glare of Dan-Tor’s globes hovering over the City.
A week after the incident, the Mathidrin trooper was found dead in a park some way away from the Palace. He had a sword in his hand, a wreath of flowers around his neck and a rotting fruit in his gaping mouth. From the footprints in the grass it seemed that the young man had been fighting a duel. Dan-Tor noted that aspect of the incident and smiled to himself. So you’re not quite up to cold-blooded murder yet, are you, you precious guardians of the Lords? But it’s a good start. Then, turning to a servant, he said, ‘Have Commander Urssain come to me immediately.’
Chapter 30
Sylvriss had made her main concern the locating of the four imprisoned Lords. Contact with them would, she believed, form an important strand in the rope she was weaving to trip, if not to strangle, Dan-Tor.
The Palace had cells suitable only for the temporary detention of offenders, and she found very quickly that they were not being kept in any of these. Dilrap was not able to help a great deal.
‘They’re being kept exclusively by the Mathidrin, Majesty,’ he told her. ‘Probably somewhere over in the Westerclave, but nobody seems to know where. And I have to be diffident in my inquiries.’
‘I understand, Dilrap,’ said Sylvriss. ‘Don’t jeopard-ize yourself for this. Your other tasks are more important. However, I can’t see our precious Mathidrin cooking and washing for the Lords. Can you find out which servants are working over there? And can we put our own in?’