“But a shovel ain’t never too far away,” Glesswik added, grunting as he worked a chunk of sod out as well, making the hole larger.
“True enough,” Braylar said, needle moving again. “But several years later, after they’ve been exposed to every field of study, their teachers and instructors evaluate them and decide the direction their lives will take for the remainder of their days as Syldoon slaves. Those who show promise with mathematics will be trained as military engineers, and tacticians. Those who display a knack for riding and an affinity for horses will train as cavalry. Those with languages and a good memory for nomenclature, to diplomacy. And so on, each slave being tracked into those avenues they show the most aptitude for. Regardless of what track they take, all of them will continue with their military drilling, as all of them are ultimately soldiers, serving the soldiering class.
“Still no choices. They are well-trained and well-groomed slaves, to be sure, but slaves nonetheless. It’s only at the end of their training, a decade later, that they’ll have their first moment of autonomy. They’re freed in a grand ceremony, and upon the day of their manumission, also free to decide whether they wish to stay or go. It’s a choice that can never be undone. Whether they walk or stay, they pledge their lives to that movement forever.
“If the newly freed Syldoon stay, they’re a part of their household until they die, and swear loyalty to it above all other things. They’re bound to their household, and will serve it and no other until the end of their days. If that household flourishes, they flourish with it. Should it wilt, or be destroyed by another, their fate will be the same.”
“So,” Hewspear said, his small knife working again on the flute, “the tribes give up some of their children, because if they’re chosen by a powerful Syldoon Tower, they might very well grow to be rich and powerful. And while the Syldoon are forbidden from returning to their homelands, their generosity isn’t. Very often, some of that good fortune finds its way back to the tribe.”
Vendurro was breathing heavier as jabbed his blade into the ground. “You didn’t mention the Memoridon, Cap. Kind of important, that. That ceremony—”
Braylar said, “I believe we’ve regaled our archivist with enough of our history for now.
“Are you fine diggers nearly through? Our archivist has been pining for a fire for many days.”
Glesswik pulled up another large swath of earth. While the grass was shorter than in the Green Sea, the roots seemed just as dense; the chunks of sod were coming up in large squares and rectangles. He upended the sack he’d taken from the wagon, and dumped a number of roughly oval-shaped things onto the grass next to the hole. “Wasn’t much in the way of wood around these parts, Cap, but Lloi thought these might come in handy. Left them before riding out. You’ll have to pardon the stink though.” He began breaking open the ovals and stuffing them with tufts of dry grass.
It took me a minute to recognize Lloi’s gift for what it was. Rooter dung.
Mulldoos must have reached that conclusion at the same time and finally stopped sharpening. “By the gods, she’s an awful whore, she is. Plagues me even when she’s not plaguing here.”
Ven was taking the strips of earth they’d dug up and lining them around the perimeter of the hole, with the dirt and roots facing where the fire would be. He said, “Told you there’s worse things than working some leather over.” Then he laughed and tipped his head in Glesswik’s direction.
Gless was bent over, stuffing more of the rooter dung with grass, but he caught the gesture. “Don’t think I’m doing this alone, you skinny whoreson. Plenty of shit to go around.”
Braylar turned to me. “You shall have a bit of warmth at last, Arki. Though it’s actually a blessing no one’s had time to hunt anything. Cooking over a shitfire is several kinds of unpleasant.”
I sighed and kept after the harness, supposing that shitfire was better than no fire at all. As it turned out, that might have been a specious proposition.
⊕
We continued the last leg to Alespell in the morning, and the remainder of the journey passed without incident. We overtook a pair of men on foot that moved far off the road and into the grass to get out of our path and avoid our dust as much as possible. A short time later, we encountered a deserted village, separated from the road by some fields that once had presumably been tilled but now had grown practically wild again. Only a mossy stone wall gave some indication of its boundary. There were a few beaten and ramshackle windmills along the perimeter, one that couldn’t possibly lean any further without falling over completely. While several communities have recovered from the last plague, this obviously wasn’t one of them.
But after that, the villages were prosperous, and busy, and the closer we got to Alespell, the more crowded the road got, with traffic increasing every time we passed another small community.
Besides being more populated, I noticed the countryside was changing in other ways as well. Shorter, scrubby blades replaced the tall, thin grass, and there were more clusters of trees, too, and not all of them short and squat. The land began to roll, gently at first, and with every mile closer to Alespell, becoming hillier and hillier. Nothing too rugged, but compared to the flat vastness of the steppe, it felt like we rolled over mountains.
As we crested such a hill, I suddenly saw Alespell laid out before me, and it was surely something to widen the eyes. Rivermost was fairly large—a walled city with a teeming population, a castle, a university—and originally hailing from a hamlet, and bouncing between small cities after university, I experienced some amazement when I first arrived there. But Alespell made Rivermost seem like a tiny, provincial trading outpost by comparison.
The bulk of the city was situated along the eastern bank of the broad River Debt, with a wet moat or canal around the entire perimeter, but there was another section I assumed was added later as the city prospered, on its western bank, and again a canal had been dug around the circumference and served as a very wide moat.
Both sections had crenellated curtain walls built out of snowstone that were the hugest I’d ever seen, at least forty feet tall, and strengthened by too many semi-circular bastions and flanking towers to count. On the far eastern side of the city, an impressive castle rose up above everything else on a massive granite outcrop.
We headed towards the western gate. Before we reached it, we passed buildings on both sides of the road. To the right, a small walled compound. Braylar anticipated my inquiry. “A Hornmen stronghold. And a hospital.”
Vendurro said, “You want to stop and hoist a mug or three there, Cap? Seems you and them get on real well.”
Braylar ignored him and snapped the reins. On our left, on a small hill above the river, there was another large walled enclosure, with several copper domes visible above. Braylar said, “The Plum Temple.” I expected more, but he left it at that.
I said, “That seems to be impressive fortification for a temple.”
He raised one eyebrow as he appraised the temple and then me. “Some priests need more protection than others. If Lloi were here riding alongside, I’m sure she would be spitting in its general direction just now.”
Glesswik added, “Or barking curses in Dog.”
I looked up at the domes again, the metal a mottled green, then back to Braylar. “Why would—?”
But he’d anticipated my question. “I believe Lloi informed you that she and I met in a whorehouse, yes?”
I nodded and he said, “Well, she belonged to a silk station. One we frequented regularly, as it was en route to another barony we were operating in. While they had whores for a variety of tastes, and mine ran to the refined—”
“Leastwise, not the disfigured,” Mulldoos offered.
“You couldn’t help but notice everyone in the silk station, one time or another. Coarse or smooth, fingered or fingerless. So I’d seen Lloi, and between her demeanor, her mouth, and her other oddities, she certainly stood out. One particular occasion, I noticed an underpriest of Truth leaving her quarters. This struck me as odd.”
“That a priest would have… appetites?”
“No, priests are only men, no matter what they say. But this one was well dressed and composed, and could’ve afforded any girl there. I was curious why he chose Lloi. After he departed, I asked the whoremaster. He was reluctant at first, but plied with coin, he admitted that the underpriest had interviewed her, nothing more. I asked for more details, which called for more coin. As it turned out, the underpriest wasn’t there for himself at all.”
Hewspear had ridden close enough to hear the conversation and said, “It seemed High Priest Henlester had been acting most unpriestly.”
Braylar tilted his head. “Or exceedingly priestly, depending on what sort of clerics you consort with. The underpriest was there to broker broken flesh for his master, Henlester. Though Lloi wasn’t quite down to his standards.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant and asked for clarification, which Mulldoos provided, unfortunately. “Missing fingers only got him salivating. Seems Henlester liked his whores good and mutilated. One eye plucked out, good; both, better. Lopped off limbs, burnt faces, those got him really stiffpricked. Lloi just wasn’t damaged enough. Good thing, for him anyway. She probably would’ve bit his prick clean off.”
I tried to remove that image from my mind as quickly as possible as I said to Braylar, “But I’m still confused as to how she came to be in your company.”
He replied, “After I learned of her interview with the underpriest, I wanted to speak with her myself. The whoremaster wasn’t keen on this idea, but—” He patted Bloodsounder, “I can be quite persuasive.”
Mulldoos said, “Coin only goes so far.”
“So, having gained an audience with said stumpy, nubby whore, I began to press for her for more details about her conversation with the underpriest.”
I asked, “Why?” Braylar raised an eyebrow at the interruption and threw a scowl my way. “That is, why were you interested, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I do,” Braylar replied as we rolled past the Plum Temple. “I will tell you only this—the debaucherous High Priest was someone we were already interested in, for reasons that need not concern you just now. So, I spoke with her, and learned that she’d been close to another whore who’d recently been procured from the silk station by the underpriest. According to Lloi, the prostitutes Henlester took an interest in didn’t meet a happy end. Satisfied with the information I had, I rose to leave. But I didn’t make it to the door.”
I asked the obvious question. “Why not?”
Mulldoos interjected before Braylar could respond. “Cap forgot to mention something on the important side. He was light in the company just then. And he’d done some bloody persuading a few days prior.”
It took me a moment before piecing it together. “So, you used Bloodsounder and had no one who could… tend to you?”
Mulldoos whistled, “Came by that all on your lonesome, did you?”
“That’s correct,” Braylar said. “The effects were becoming worse. I stumbled and barely made it to the bed, my head bursting with bright lights, my stomach tearing in two. Lloi knelt next to me. I ordered her to fetch the whoremaster, but she ignored me. She looked me up and down, in that very disconcerting way she has. I’d had minor episodes before, but this was something far worse. I was paralyzed with pain, and blacked out. I don’t know how long I was out, but when I was fully aware again, the pain was gone, and Lloi was slumped in the corner, vomit on her chin. I wasn’t sure what she’d done, or how she’d done it, but I knew she had to come with me.”
“So,” I said, “You bought her. Freed her from the station.”
“I did. Immediately.”
Mulldoos must have seen the disappointment on my face. “You thinking he did it out of the sunny goodness in his heart, were you?” He laughed, shaking his head. “No whetstone in the world’ll fix that for you.” He flicked his reins and rode further ahead. Traveling with the Syldoon would surely scour away any naïve or romantic notions I might have once possessed.
As we approached the first gate tower, we slowed down, and then stopped repeatedly, as all of the traffic on our side of the river funneled through two entryways, one narrow to accommodate those on foot, horse, or donkey, and another wide, for those with carts and wagons. It was midday, so there appeared to be an equal number of people leaving and entering the city, shouldering past each other, swearing about being swindled, chattering with excitement about seeing things and people from far-flung lands.
A group of musicians passed us on foot heading away from Alespell, one with two small drums on a belt at his waist, another bearing a lute on his back, one with a fiddle, and another with a long bone pipe. One member didn’t have any instruments, but the arms of Baron Brune were embroidered on his tabard, three white swans on a purple field.
I’d seen a fair crier before, but never a whole musical ensemble. I said as much, and Glesswik echoed the sentiment, though more crudely. “Scribe’s got it right there. Dirty rustics don’t give a rat’s shithole about a bunch of pretty troubadours. They come to the fair on account of three things: cheap wine, cheaper whores, and the chance to be layabouts instead of tilling some field. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Vendurro replied, “You forgot dice, weird beasts in cages, and maybe a hung thief or three, for entertainment.”
“Still don’t need songs for any of that. That’s all I’m getting at. Baron would’ve been better served with some signs tacked up with a picture of a whore’s cunt and an arrow pointing this way.”
Perhaps being raised by a loose mother with a mercenary bent made me more sensitive to the topic than most. Or it could be that soldiers were so fixated on the subject and discussed it with such vulgarity that anyone not of their ilk was offended. Either way, I wished I’d held my tongue.
We entered the first gate and crossed a wooden bridge that led over the slow-moving water. A drawbridge was down on the other side, and we entered a larger barbican in the middle of the canal. Across an open enclosure in the barbican, and onto a covered stone bridge, horseshoes and iron-rimmed wagon wheels rang loudly. While there are some small square windows in the walls, it might as well have been a cave for all the light it really afforded, and traffic nearly stopped as everyone’s eyes adjusted and people bumped and jostled.