Errollyn took a deep breath, wincing as the bruises from his fall began to hurt.
“Everything okay there, sir?” a local man asked him.
Errollyn shook his head. “A murder in the Fletcher Street brothel,” he said loudly enough for others to hear. “The captain of the Duchess Teresa, a man of a noble family.” He pointed after the escaped runner. “That man cut his throat. Pass the word and have him caught, I can’t do it myself. Reninesen shendevan soni Reninesen shendevan. Renine’s Town business is Renine’s Town business,” that was, in Rhodaani.
The local nodded warily, and rushed to tell others. Soon, the Blackboots would be summoned. Errollyn turned and walked down to the docks, figuring he could do little more here, and satisfied that whatever Family Renine thought to gain by killing the captain, they could lose in having killed one of their own.
Soon he found one of the few people in Renine’s Town he could trust to give him a straight answer.
“Captain Aimer was a renowned drunk and gambler,” a red-coat drily informed him, sipping tea outside his customs house. “Frankly I’m not surprised he’s dead. In a brothel, did you say?”
Errollyn nodded.
The red-coat shrugged. “I’ve heard he was in debt, then out of debt, then in debt again. Possibly someone got tired of constantly bailing him out. Then again, he also had a very big mouth, which is never a good thing.”
Errollyn recalled his conversation with the quartermaster at the inn, and the sailor who had risen from the table to go and talk to a “friend.” Had that been the same man as had been hiding under the bed? He hadn’t got a close enough look. Either way, he thought it reasonably clear what was going on.
“Thank you, sir,” he told the red-coat. “I have to head back to the Mahl’rhen.”
“What do you think is going on?” the red-coat asked him.
“Noble games, my friend,” said Errollyn.
“Those are the least entertaining kind,” the red-coat said, and sipped his tea.
When Errollyn returned to the Tol’rhen, he found Civid Sein rallies being held upon the square. Leading them were Tol’rhen Ulenshaals, black robed and shouting, to massed cries from the thousands-strong crowd. If the philosophies of his people spoke of anything, it was the supremacy of one person’s rightness to think alone. Here on the square, before the walls of the institution dedicated to the teaching of serrin thought, thousands of individual minds concentrated as one, and yelled in unison. They yelled for justice, yet it was emotion that spoke, not reason.
He left the square before some well-meaning fool spotted him and tried to make him a part of their dangerous game. Tracato was supposed to be above such human nonsense, yet here he could feel it slipping toward a precipice. His own people were supposed to embody the final word in enlightened thought yet, too often, in their own gentle way, behaved just like the mobs outside.
He found Sasha in the training courtyard, blade in hand and covered in sweat. Spirits, she was beautiful. He watched her for a moment, the shapes her body and blade made in the air. To watch Sasha train was to observe the primal and the civilised, the thinking and the unthought, the beautiful and the ugly, all in one.
She was so human, and in her humanity, described a world he recognised far more intimately than his own people had ever managed.
He saw something else, too.
“Sasha!” he called at a pause in her strokes. She turned to him, and her eyes lit up. Even now, his heart leapt. “Something’s bothering you?”
“How can you tell?” she asked. She was sensitive about her moods.
“You always train when you’re angry.”
“You’ve seen the mob outside?” Errollyn nodded. “Kessligh’s trying to talk to them. I told him he should just tell them to fuck off, but he refuses.”
Errollyn sighed, flexing his sore leg. “Kessligh has great hopes for this civilisation, Sasha. He’s been in the wilds in Lenayin for a long time.”
“What’s wrong with the wilds of Lenayin?” Sasha said indignantly.
“I’m not certain he’s sure what he’s achieved. He comes to a place like this, and he wonders if he could have done more.” Sasha stared at the pavings. Errollyn put his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve offended you.”
“No. No, you’re right. But damn it, he should be able to see where this is going! These people are lunatics, haven’t we all had enough of lunatics after Petrodor?”
Errollyn searched her face. “That’s not all that’s bothering you.”
Sasha’s eyes didn’t quite meet his own. That was very unusual. “I’d rather not say.”
Errollyn frowned. He thought about it. Sasha was prickly over her Lenay honour, but could typically deal with such things, sometimes in ways he truly wished she hadn’t. She was embarrassed by little-in that, they were alike. But here, she almost seemed…
He raised his eyebrows. “Some man asked to fuck you?” Sasha aimed a kick at him, and missed on purpose, scowling. Worse than that, then. “Some man tried to fuck you.” She looked elsewhere, exasperated. Damn. “Does he live?”
“Yes!” Sasha retorted, angrily.
“Do you still have one of his ears?”
“Errollyn, this isn’t funny!” Errollyn couldn’t help smiling, against his better judgement. The look she gave him nearly made him fear for his safety. “It was Reynold Hein!”
“Oh,” said Errollyn, not especially surprised.
“What do you mean ‘Oh’?” Sasha fumed. “That’s the one form of attack I can’t raise a blade against! And if I can’t raise a blade, I’m left with fists, and I can’t beat up a man his size! Or your size!” She knocked his hands from her shoulders. Errollyn folded his arms.
“Sasha,” he said calmly, “you know as well as I do that if he’d tried to rape you, you’d have stuck a knife in his throat.”
“It’s not honourable!” Sasha snapped. “He never raised a blade against me!”
Oh, thought Errollyn, realising. That was it. “Well, you can hardly just let him overpower you and take you, can you?”
“Rather than stick a blade in a man not wielding one?” Sasha retorted. “I can’t cut a bare-handed man!”
Errollyn rolled his eyes. “It’s hard living to a code of honour, yes?
“You wouldn’t know, you could have beaten him up.”
“I’m quite sure Reynold Hein would not have been trying to rape me.”
“Good spirits,” Sasha muttered, striding back toward the Tol’rhen. “Men!”
Errollyn grabbed her arm. “Don’t use that on me. Of all the men in your life, exactly how many times has this happened?” Sasha stared at him. Then her gaze fell.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Suddenly the anger was gone and she was sombre. Vulnerable, even. “I was scared for a moment, I couldn’t think. That almost never happens. I…I couldn’t think of how I’d explain it to you, or…”
Errollyn shook his head in exasperation. “Sasha, if you know anything about serrin, you know that we don’t place any credence in this human notion of female sexual virtue. If he had succeeded, it would make absolutely no-”
“I know, I know.” Sasha held up her hands. “It would make a difference to me, though.”
Errollyn put a hand to her face. “And to him. I’d have killed him. And still may.”
“Don’t,” Sasha said sombrely. “We can’t afford it. Kessligh can’t, Reynold’s too important.”
Errollyn smiled. “When did you get so mature? Not long ago you’d have been demanding the right to split him from nose to groin and devils take the consequences.”