Li had stalked out with laughter ringing in his ears once more.
That wasn't going to happen again. As Mard Dan-takain's startled doorman recovered himself and more servants began to appear, Li stepped into the entrance hall and stood tall, trying to imagine that the filthy clothes he wore were actually a formal maitung robe embroidered with the symbols of his ministry and rank. "I am Kuang Li Chien of the city of Keelung in the Hai Yuan province of the Great Empire of Shou Lung," he thundered, "and I serve the Son of Heaven in the Department of Lost Treasures! " He glared down at the servants and anger lent him exaggeration. "I represent Shou Lung in this place and I demand to speak with Mard Dantakain!"
"I'm Mard Dantakain."
The voice that filled the hall was confident, commanding, and very clearly irritated. The gathered servants fell quiet. Li looked up. At the head of a flight of stairs ascending to the second floor of the house stood a tall man with a strong build. His face was hard and sour. He wore an open vest and held papers in both hands, as if he had just risen from work at a desk. Li immediately bent in a formal bow. "Honored sir, I-"
He hadn't gotten more than a few words out before the servants swarmed him, seizing him by the arms and shoulders. Li roared again and tried to shake them off, but they had a solid grip. The best he could manage was to heave himself upright again-only to find Mard Dantakain right in front of him. "Well," he said in a low tone, "you're speaking to me. Now tell me why I shouldn't have you thrown in jail for invading my home."
Li struggled for dignity. "Honored sir," he said with all the grace he could muster, "I was told you are captain of the city guard. I need your help-I was robbed not long after arriving in your city last night and-"
"Robbed? Robbed where?"
"By the docks."
Mard frowned and his face creased into deep lines as if well-used to the expression. "What in Helm's name were you doing down there?"
"I… " Words failed him. He held his head high and bluffed. "I am a representative of Shou Lung. What I was doing there is the business of me and my emperor."
The lines on Mard's face only grew deeper. "So you're some kind of ambassador?"
Li hesitated for a heartbeat and then nodded. Impersonating an imperial ambassador. He would have been executed if he tried this in Shou Lung! So far away, though, there was no one to know any different. At his nod, though, Mard's eyes flicked up and down and settled on Li's face once more. "Where's your staff?" he asked. "I never met an ambassador without a retinue that could fill a room." His nose wrinkled in disgust. "And what happened to your clothes?"
"I was robbed," Li said again. He clenched his teeth and hissed his words between them. "My clothes were stolen. I need your help. I have been to two guard stations this morning and was thrown out of both."
"You're close to being thrown out of here as well!" Mard snarled. "If I take you up to the citadel, will Kargil Ninton recognize you?"
Li blinked and hesitated again. This time, though, he must have hesitated too long because Mard crushed the papers in his hand and spat, "Lord Kargil Ninton, First Consul of Spandeliyon! The man any ambassador to Spandeliyon would go to see!" He spun around sharply and nodded to the servant who had opened the door. "Get him out of here!" He marched back down the hall toward the stairs. Li stared after him, open-mouthed-and for the first time registered the black-haired man who stood to one side of the hall, watching and listening. Tychoben Arisaenn!
"Wait!" Li called. "Wait!" He pulled against the servants who were trying to haul him back toward the door and managed to get one arm free. He pointed desperately toward Tycho. "He knows me! He knows I was robbed last night. He dug me out of the snow!"
Mard stopped. The servants stopped. All eyes turned to Tycho.
The singer gave Li a single cold glance, his mouth set hard and tight. He turned to Mard Dantakain and raised his eyebrows innocently. "He's mad," Tycho said. "I've never seen him before in my life."
Rage fell on Li like a toppling wall of red-hot iron bricks. He was vaguely conscious of screaming something incoherent at Tycho, of snapping the elbow of his free arm into the face of one servant trying to grab him and stomping down sharply on the shin of the man who was still holding him. Then suddenly he was free as servants shouted and scrambled away. "Mad? Mad? " Li howled and hurled himself at Tycho.
The singer flinched back, raising his hands and opening his mouth. Li had fought spellcasters before, though. He dropped fast and swept out with a leg to knock Tycho's feet out from under him, but Tycho yelped and managed to hop and dance over the sweep. Li bounced up instantly and grabbed a fistful of Tycho's shirt before he could recover his balance. He hauled him in close and smacked him hard across the face. "You lying dog!" he spat in Shou. "You hairy, lying-"
Hands and arms grabbed him from behind. Li lashed out with his arm to the back and right and a lean man with a resemblance to Mard Dantakain went staggering back, one hand clutching his nose. A swift kick straight back should have caught another attacker, but didn't. This time Li caught a glimpse of the Captain of the Guard himself. Mard's face was dark red and angry as he dodged back expertly and closed again with his arms held wide. The Shou shot down, pulling a dazed Tycho over his head to receive Mard's grapple in his place. The impact slammed them all into a pair of doors that gave way under their combined weight and tumbled them into the room beyond.
They found themselves face to face with a beautiful young woman posed seductively on a broad table, a harp in her arms, her dress pulled down to show her shoulders and tucked up to expose her knees.
Li simply stopped, still crouched low, startled more than stunned. Tycho, down beside him, froze and made a strangled noise. Behind them both, Mard froze as well. For a heartbeat, they all just stared at the young woman. She stared back in shock.
Mard Dantakain let out a window-rattling roar, grabbed Li's head with his left hand, Tycho's with his right, and cracked them hard together.
CHAPTER 4
Tycho had been thrown in jail-briefly-many times during his life. He had seen the inside of Spandeli-yon's dockside guard station fairly frequently during his later childhood. After Veseene had taken him as her apprentice, he had seen the inside of many similar jails, from east to west around the Sea of Fallen Stars. It was something of a hazard of the itinerant lifestyle. He had seen jails that were kept fastidiously clean. He had seen jails that made stables look pleasant. He had seen jails that were run with efficient cruelty and those run with casual disorder. In Tantras, he had passed a night in a jail that put each prisoner into their own bare little cell, almost like monks in a monastery. In Raven's Bluff, just down the coast, he had been flung into a prison that was little more than a vast building with one lock on the outer door and prisoners swarming loose within; he had been forgotten there for almost a tenday before Veseene managed to find him.
He had never before, however, been thrown into a jail cell normally reserved for traitors, assassins, and other dangerous, desperate types. Spandeliyon's middle town guard station had precisely one very highly secured cell. Among the folk of dockside-and even the middle town-it was a thing of rumor and speculation, mockingly referred to as "the King's Chamber." If Tycho had been in a better mood, he might have taken greater note of the place, maybe with an eye to embellishing on its rather ordinary appearance and using the experience to earn himself a few extra pennies at the Wench's Ease.