“Seems the plaintiffs are disinclined to press the matter,” he said easily. “So what do you say, shall we show this old soldier here a little civil leniency? Turn him loose with a warning?”
A scattering of murmurs through the crowd. It sounded like agreement.
“Here fucking here,” croaked Darby, trying to get up. He didn’t make a very good job of it; he slipped and fell on his backside, stayed there, bleeding from a bad cut above the eye. The spectators laughed.
Ringil felt a hot stab of anger. Held it down.
“Honor the unpaid debt,” Darby mumbled, blinking around at the laughter from his seat on the ground. The air was redolent with his stench now; it wafted with his every move. “The life and limb in honor given.”
The young watchmen snorted. “Fucking old soldier, my arsehole. He’s quoting that shit off the Grel Memorial. Any beggar with half his wits can do it. And this one’s a drunk fucking pervert to boot. Ask anybody around here. Always causing trouble. Exposing himself to the good women of the neighborhood, abusing the citizenry day and night. And as for that coat, the fucker probably stole it off a corpse down at Pauper’s Landing.”
“Yeah.” One of his fellows jeered. “Hasn’t washed it since, what my nose is telling me. Some skirmish ranger.”
Ringil nodded at the two members of the Watch who were still out cold on the cobbles. “He fought remarkably well, don’t you think, for a drunk pervert beggar?”
“He jumped us,” said the young one. “He got lucky.”
Ringil met the young watchman’s eye and held it. “If he’d had a bladed weapon, you’d all be dead men now. You’re the ones who got lucky today.”
The watchman looked away.
“Just doing our jobs,” he muttered.
Ringil spotted the opening. Moved smoothly into it. “Yes, and I’m sure it’s thirsty work. Look, I have an idea. I’m a man of some means, and a soldier myself, and I suppose this old warhorse has captured my sympathy. But that’s no reason to expect honest men like yourselves to put aside your bound duties in keeping the peace. Perhaps, in view of the trouble you’ve had, I could stand you all a flagon or two at that tavern I see across the street there.”
A hesitant look chased its way around the four watchmen. One of the older ones nodded at their two comrades stretched out on the cobbles.
“What about them?”
“Yes, I imagine they’ll need some small medical attention.” Ringil spurred the shifting mood on, tossed his commandeered day-club onto the cobbles, and reached for his purse instead. “And I’d be more than happy to foot the bill for that as well. It’s only right.”
And it’s only Ishil’s money. Which is only Gingren’s money in turn.
Someone in the crowd cheered, and it spread. Ringil forced a smile against the applause until it felt real. He opened the purse and held out a loose palmful of coin.
“Who’s in charge here?” he asked.
CHAPTER 10
Robed and hooded astride an undistinguished horse, Poltar the shaman reached the gates of Ishlin-ichan as night was falling. A pair of burly Ishlinak sentries ambled up to meet him, amiably enough but at lance-point nonetheless. Their captain came out of the flicker-lit brazier warmth of the guard hut, grinning and blowing on his hands.
“Twelve,” he said, yawning.
“The levy is seven,” Poltar said stiffly.
“Well, nighttime rates.” The captain stamped his feet, coughed and spat. “Gets cold at night, you know. It’s twelve. You coming in or not?”
Ordinarily, the shaman would have used his status to demand free entry, or failing that at least beat the price back down with some arcane threats. But right now he preferred to give up the handful of coins, stomach the extortion, and stay anonymous. He had business in the town not normally approved of in holy men, and besides, with the stories of his shaming at the Dragonbane’s hands spreading far and wide, he wasn’t sure exactly what status he now had, even this far from the Skaranak tents.
He would not be laughed at, whatever the cost.
The levy paid, he passed under the wooden wall and clopped slowly through the narrow streets of the settlement, cursing Egar ceaselessly under his breath and ducking to avoid the low-level washing lines strung from house to house. Ishlin-ichan, though the name might rather grandiosely mean “city of the Ishlinak,” could only by a generous stretch of the imagination lay claim to the title. It was less a town than a sprawling winter camp with walls, a bright idea based on milder climate and a couple of advantageous meanders in the River Janarat. About a century ago, encouraged by these factors and the burgeoning possibilities of trade with the south, a hard core of Ishlinak ancestors started replacing their tents with more static constructions. In time they gave up the nomad life altogether. Why chase your livelihood across the freezing steppe, they must have reasoned, when it may quite possibly come directly to your campfires and offer itself for slaughter.
In time, they were proved right. The focal point offered by Ishlin-ichan brought merchants out from both the Trelayne League and the Empire, eager for trade and delighted not to have to live under canvas while they were about it. Mirroring the attraction from the other side of the market, the herdsmen from the other Majak clans started bringing their produce to Ishlin-ichan in preference to other, closer but less lucrative temporary venues across the steppe. Secondary industries sprang up, catering to the influx. The essentials at first: bakeries, butchers, whorehouses, and taverns. Then stables, established horse traders, and fixed smithies with decent-sized furnaces, finally supplying high-quality steel. The young men of the Majak came to Ishlin-ichan to outfit themselves and to swagger in the streets. Recruiting officers from the south, once forced to ride the steppes from band to nomadic band and track down promising fighters by word of mouth, now found it infinitely easier to maintain an office in the fledgling town and wait for the recruits to come to them. So the cabins of Ishlin-ichan became stone and mud-brick houses, sometimes even rising more than a single story high. The streets began to be cobbled—a technique taught to the Ishlinak by unemployed Trelayne architects seeking refuge from another economic downturn in the League—and as neighboring clans began to show an unhealthy interest in the rapidly accumulating wealth, the whole settlement was hastily walled and fortified. Finally, the diplomats arrived from the League and the Empire, setting a seal upon the place. They tended to regard Ishlin-ichan as a hardship posting, to be endured in the climb toward more rewarding appointments elsewhere, but while they were there they pushed for anything that might ease their discomfort a little. Plumbing improved; public order patrols were instituted. The more important thoroughfares were torchlit by night, often for their entire length.
The house Poltar wanted was not on one of these streets. It stood in the seclusion and gloom of a darkened side alley by design rather than economic necessity. The alley ran alongside a section of the city wall and Madame Ajana’s rose two stories above the parapet, leaning there as if tired by the effort of hoisting itself up to see out across the plain. The height and position were also deliberate—from a mile out on the steppe, you could make out the red glowing lanterns of the whorehouse, beckoning.
In the alley, the brothel was no more subtly appointed. The windows were brightly lit within, and those of Ajana’s girls not working were paid to sit in plain view displaying their wares. Incense and softly thudding music smoked out into the street, catching at the throats and ears of those whose eyes were not already captivated by the spread-legged, arch-backed postures of the girls in the windows. A luxurious velour drape curtained the open doors, meant to imitate the drop flap of a yurt, and above hung a wooden sign announcing it as AJANA’S PLACE, a name that in the Majak tongue had a crude and fairly obvious double meaning.