Sarazin thought this nonsense, but had already learnt not to expect logic from Lod.
'Are there laws against trees, too? And outdoor cafes? I see none such, though this is surely the weather for dining alfresco.'
Trees?' said Lod, highly amused. Trees would go for firewood. As for tables and chairs! Outside? In daylight? They'd not last a morning. Taverns and theatres alike have bouncers at the door, not just to keep people out but to keep their furniture in. Come, friend Sarazin. Onward!'
Soon they shouldered into the intolerable crush at Kesh, a gate-tower chokepoint at the junction of the Four Worlds of Selzirk. Here people poured into a courtyard from gates opening to the quarters of Jone, Santrim, Unkrana and Wake. Locked in by sweat and shoulders, Sarazin felt his feet leave the ground. 'Lod?' he said. Then shouted: Lod? Lod, where are you?'
The crowd convulsed, squeezing his ribs. He was being choked. Crushed. Cracked like a dove's egg in a black- smith's vice. Jarl had warned him of a thousand things. But never of this. He was going to die, strength helpless, weapons useless. He tried to scream, but could not. And he would not have been heard in the uproar.
Then the crunch-crush crowd collapsed, broke up, eased out. He gained, gasping, the freedom to breathe. His feet touched the ground, he saw daylight, he blundered towards it. Then was pushed, shouldered, buffeted, sent staggering by the on-bustling crowd. Stepped in something soft which sklished beneath his boot. His dung-greased boots slipped, slid, almost sent him sprawling.
He won his balance. And gained, at last, the freedom of a quiet sidestreet where he could breathe in peace. There was bright blood splashed on his swordhand's thumb- knuckle where skin had been backpeeled by collision. He put it to his lips. Kissed the red stuff. Sucked, and was comforted.
'Sarazin!' said Lod, slapping him on the back. 'I thought I'd lost you. Welcome to Santrim. You know the city's layout? Your mother's palace is-'
'I know all about that,' said Sarazin, cutting him off. 'Give me credit for something, at least.'
'I do, I do,' said Lod, with a careless wave of his hand. 'For being the consort of clouds, the friend of dragons, the-'
'Give it a rest!' said Sarazin, who was tired, disorien- tated, and fed up with the low-grade verbal pyrotechnics which Lod thought of as wit. Lod took no offence. He had already spotted his next source of excitement. 'Look,' he said. There's a dung cart.'
'We do have dung carts in Voice, you know,' said Sarazin. 'Even though dogs, pigs, sheep and oxen are banned from the streets of that city.'
Nevertheless, Lod danced up alongside the horse-drawn dung cart to chat to the fellow who followed it, pitchfork in hand. 'Sarazin!' cried Lod. 'Come here!' -Why?' 'I want you to meet someone,' said Lod, grinning.
Sarazin feared this must be his half-brother Ben thorn. Very shortly, as they were introduced, Sarazin realised he was right.
'Pleased to meet you' said Sarazin, clenching his right fist: not to kill but to greet.
This ancient rite, though still practised in Voice, had near fallen out of memory in Selzirk. But Benthorn had studied both past and present upper-class mores in detail, for he had an intense interest in power. So the brothers, to Lod's evident amusement, touched fists in the old manner. As skin grazed skin, Sarazin visioned his father Fox sweating over the woman Bizzie, shaft sunk to the hilt in her gash, his breathing harsh, summer's sweat beaded on his brow. The reek of an overloaded chamber pot hot around them. – That happened.
When Sarazin had been eight months in the womb, something like that had definitely happened, causing the first rupture between Farfalla and Fox. While those two had gone on to produce another three sons, the breach between them had never been entirely mended: and they were now estranged.
How had Bizzie gained her hold over Fox? Sarazin had no idea. But here was evidence of their liaison: passion's most unromantic child, the dung-smelling Benthorn with his fat, sweaty face. Sarazin tried to get his measure, but found himself struggling just to understand his Churl. Realising this, Benthorn took the lead and switched to Galish. It made no difference. Sarazin – tired, dizzy, faint – was incapable of character analysis.
While Lod had rightly guessed that Sarazin was shamed by Benthorn's very existence, Sarazin was too well-bred to display his distaste for his half-brother and his work, the pestering flies, the heavy smell of high-heaped dung. He even commiserated with Benthorn when he learnt of the heavy taxes levied upon dung carts.
'A foolish policy,' said Sarazin, 'when the city streets are knee-deep in excrement. I will talk to my mother about it.'
'Farfalla would doubtless order change if she could,' said Benthorn, 'even though all levies on dung carts are hers by law. But change in this case is impossible.' 'Why so?' said Sarazin.
And was taken aback when Benthorn responded by shouting: 'Get away, you!'
But Sarazin's half-brother was merely scaring off some street urchins who were raiding his dung cart for ammuni- tion for gang warfare. Benthorn went on to explain:
'Brother mine, the dung cart tax is enshrined in the Constitution. Before then, anyone with a mule and a pair of wheels could afford to enter the manure business. Carts in hundreds crowded the city. Their owners formed factions which warred with each other. The Framers thought high taxes might diminish a menace which threatened the very foundation of law and order.'
'But the Constitution was written thousands of years ago,' protested Sarazin. Times have changed.'
Yet the Constitution itself can never change,' said Benthorn, 'for it is the foundation of our world. To talk otherwise is treason.' 'And to think otherwise?' said Sarazin. 'Is that treason?' That,' said Benthorn, 'is a subject worthy of discussion.'
'But not now,' said Lod, who had lost interest in the conversation since the half-brothers had failed to amuse him by baiting each other. 'Come, let's be going. Sarazin has urgent business at the palace.'
'I'll see you around, then,' said Benthorn, lapsing into Churl. 'What?' said Sarazin. 'He means,' said Lod, in Galish, 'that you'll meet again.' I'm sure we will,' said Sarazin.
At least Benthorn was not – contrary to rumour! – a kyphotic imbecile. Maybe he was even innocent of child molesting. Still, Sarazin never wanted to see him again. Right now, he wanted to meet the mother he had not seen since the age of four. The kingmaker. A Power in the land: consecrated in sacred ceremony as one of the Favoured Blood, and therefore fit to rule.
As Argan's peoples knew well, Argan's nations must forever be ruled by nobles of aristocratic lineage. Only those of the Favoured Blood could preserve the world from revolution, anarchy, war absolute, or, worse still, democracy (a bizarre political perversion practised by the Orfus pirates of the Greater Teeth). Sarazin, as the son of such a noble, thought power should come to him as of right.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kingmaker: one selected for life by Regency bureaucrats to appoint regional governors ('kings'). The kingmaker derives great power from the Constitution – power only the Regency's unanimous vote can restrict. Such a vote came early in Farfalla's reign, leaving her as little more than a figurehead.
Sarazin's letters had oft betrayed aristocratic pretensions suggestive of treasonable political ambition. Farfalla, shud- dering to imagine her first-begotten's fate if the Regency learnt of this, was dismayed to hear that Sarazin, inter- cepted at her palace gates by Plovey of the Regency, was coming to their reunion accompanied by that formidable bureaucrat. Tell Plovey I wish to see my son alone,' said Farfalla.
Her servants went. Told. And returned to say Plovey would have none of it. T)elay them, then!' said Farfalla. 'On any excuse, delay!'
A delay was contrived until Jarl, Elkin and Sarazin's brothers had arrived. By then, Farfalla had packed her throne room with guards and servants, hoping this crowd of strangers would inhibit Sarazin, making him wary of speaking his mind. -Gods! If he says too much to Plovey, he's dead.