“You know,” Sasha said to Daish above the roar and wheeze of a backyard bellows, “when I first heard about the wealth of Tracato, I had an image of everyone lazing around sunning themselves, as wealthy people might. Now that I get here, I find that Tracato is wealthy because everyone’s so busy!”
“I think it’s a little sad,” Daish replied, edging past four men hauling a huge pig carcass. “Everyone is obsessed with money, they rush and rush and think of little else.”
“If Rhodaan weren’t wealthy, it couldn’t have survived two centuries of being attacked by its neighbours,” Sasha reasoned. “Taxes from all this pay for the Steel.”
“True. But I’d love to travel to Lenayin. As you describe it, life seems simpler there.” Sasha thought about that, and gazed around at every new thing.
They all paused at another courtyard, to peer at the furnace beyond some guarded gates. Within, shirtless men in leather smocks fed wood and coal into a narrow mouth of flames, and the heat was so intense, Sasha could nearly feel her eyebrows singe from twenty paces away. About the other side of the furnace, men would be pouring steel, but she’d never seen it before. Very few had, for these were the great furnaces of serrin steel, or “the folding,” as the serrin called it. Serrin had perfected the art in Saalshen hundreds of years before, and now guarded their secret carefully.
The Mahl’rhen, when they came to it, was a surprise. A lane ran to a courtyard, where arts were displayed at a huge market, and the laneways were alive to the chip and clang of sculptors and metal workers.
The lads finally dragged her onward, where an arch at the courtyard’s far side announced in typically understated serrin style the entrance to the Mahl’rhen. Four serrin stood guard there, and gave the Nasi-Keth lads and Sasha curious looks, but made no move to stop them entering.
They entered a courtyard garden that Sasha thought looked something like a Torovan noble garden. But the square angles of human inspiration were infused with a serrin randomness, little tangles of natural greenery, and the sinewy twist of an artificial stream tumbling over small, smoothed stones.
About the garden walked mostly serrin, some in the flowing robes that they preferred in their own quarters, others in the more practical garb of city folk. Some nodded and smiled at the Nasi-Keth in passing, and the lads quietened their exuberance a little, showing respect in the house of the serrin.
Paths led past more courtyards, amidst which rose stone buildings that an eye trained in human structures could not precisely place. These were residences, and often kitchens, with underground storages-Errollyn had already given her the tour, though he still knew barely a fraction of the Mahl’rhen’s intricacies. Tracato’s ever-present water courses ran through the complex, taking advantage of the gradual slope to fashion little streams. They passed a grand pool in which naked serrin children splashed and yelled, supervised by several adults with one eye on a board game, the other on the children. Sasha had never seen serrin children before. Amusingly, they were just as noisy and troublesome as human children, proving, perhaps, that serrin sophistication was more a question of nurture than nature.
Sasha recalled her way from her two previous visits, yet at an intersection where she knew to turn right, several serrin came past running the other way. Sasha heard a distant commotion, other nearby serrin stopping to look. She headed that way herself, the lads following.
Soon they came to another entrance to the Mahl’rhen, but this one filled with armed figures, mostly serrin. From outside came a lot of shouting. Daish approached an older serrin lady, and asked what was happening.
“There’s been trouble at this gate for months,” she told them. “The Civid Sein have been camping here, displacing the farmers’ stalls and causing quarrels. I hear some have complained to the Blackboots, requesting the squatters be removed.”
Sasha and the Nasi-Keth lads edged through the wall of cautious serrin at the gate, to observe the scene beyond. It was a courtyard like the one they’d entered through, yet this was a market of farmers selling produce. Amidst the stalls, makeshift tents had been erected, tanned hides over poles and rickety wooden frames. Defending the tents from perhaps thirty armed Blackboots was a mob of raggedly dressed rural folk, armed with hoes, scythes and other tools. So far it was merely pushing and shouting, as the Blackboots appeared to demand the makeshift settlements be taken down.
“Perhaps we should try to intervene?” one of the lads suggested.
“With this lot?” Daish said dubiously.
“We are the Nasi-Keth,” said another, stubbornly. “It is our duty to maintain the peace.”
Sasha shook her head. “Svaalverd is a sharp tool, only good for offence. We can kill whomever we choose, but we can’t keep two sides apart who’d rather fight.”
The Nasi-Keth boy ignored her and strode forward. Sasha watched, as he and two others joined the shouting. The Blackboots did not seem pleased to see them. Soon the three Nasi-Keth lads were arguing firmly in favour of the squatters, as stall owners guarded their produce and looked displeased with everyone.
Sasha was displeased too. “We’re supposed to be impartial,” she said crossly to Daish, who gave her a wary look.
At the courtyard’s edge, Sasha saw a Blackboot lieutenant astride a horse, watching proceedings with a small personal guard. He looked angry.
She strode to him. His personal guard moved forward, hands on hilts, but Sasha simply extended her hand to them. Their distrust faded a little, and one accepted her handshake, then another. Sasha beckoned to the lieutenant on his horse. The lieutenant thought about it, then dismounted. Sasha shook his hand too.
“Sashandra Lenayin,” she introduced herself in Torovan, hoping he spoke the same. “Uma to Kessligh Cronenverdt.”
“Lieutenant Muline,” said the Blackboot. He stood a great deal taller than her in his high leather boots, yet his eyes flicked warily to the sword hilt at Sasha’s shoulder. Sasha had met men who disbelieved her martial prowess until it was demonstrated to them. Clearly this man had seen enough serrin women use the svaalverd that he was not one of those. “What brings the Nasi-Keth to this gate in force?”
Sasha repressed a smile. She could hear Kessligh’s voice in her ear, chiding her to be polite. “It’s my fault,” she admitted. “I came to visit, and some new friends accompanied me. Purely a coincidence. What brings the Blackboots here?”
“Complaints from the farmers,” said Lieutenant Muline, with irritation. He meant the stall owners, Sasha realised, not the Civid Sein. “This courtyard is for the selling of goods, yet the Civid Sein think they have a perfect right to camp here and disrupt the livelihood of hard-working country folk.”
“The Civid Sein argue they are hard-working country folk,” Sasha replied.
“I was raised in Varne,” Muline said. “It’s a little town in the east, not far from the Saalshen border. My father is a miller, my uncles farmers and tradesmen, and none of them loves the Civid Sein.” Sasha was coming to suspect as much. “They are from the countryside, yet they take advantage of that status, as though it gives them special rights. They claim support of the farmers in this courtyard, and probably they did have some support a month or two ago when they first arrived. But now that support runs short, and the farmers ask us to come and clean up the mess…only for the Nasi-Keth to intervene on the Civid Sein’s side, without asking questions.”
He glowered at her. Sasha sighed. “I apologise for my friends,” she said. “I’m new to Tracato. I’d like the Nasi-Keth to be more thoughtful about this than I’ve seen. But they dislike the nobility, and so assume the Civid Sein are their friends.”