Dhulyn eyed the man in the room with the kind of interest she would normally have given only to his books. She had never met Alkoryn Pantherclaw, but she had heard him described by Dorian the Black. Alkoryn had seen his birth moon some fifty times, she estimated, and had been a Mercenary longer than she herself had been alive. It had never been Alkoryn’s ambition to Command a House, but that was before he had taken the blow to the throat that had robbed him of his voice. A man whose orders cannot be heard loses his value as a field officer. Thwarted in his first ambition, Alkoryn had turned his attention to developing quieter skills. Though he was still considered a formidable warrior and tactician, even among a Brotherhood of warriors, Alkoryn Pantherclaw was now more often called the Charter, and, among other things, he was the chief mapmaker for the Brotherhood.
Alkoryn waited to speak until Dhulyn and Parno had drawn up chairs, and they had all been served with sweet cakes and hot cider mixed with a little ganje.
“Your arrival is timely, very timely.” The old man’s voice was rough and barely louder than a whisper. “How was Navra when you left it? What of the Pass?”
As Senior Brother of Imrion, Alkoryn Pantherclaw was, in effect, the Senior Mercenary for the whole Peninsula-should his authority ever be required by one of his Brothers. As such, he had a responsibility to collect any information that might touch upon his charge. He listened patiently while his junior Brothers told him of the dredging being planned in Navra’s harbor, the new salt mine, and the expansion of the evaporation ponds. He heard with some amusement their story of what had happened to them in Clan Trevel.
“So Yaro Hawkwing prospers,” the old man croaked. “I rejoice to hear it. Do we now have allies among Clan Trevel?”
“We might,” Dhulyn said. She glanced at Parno in time to see him nodding. “Perhaps if we sent them some acknowledgment…”
“I’ll think what form it could take. I have my contacts with Clan Pompano, but we may have need of all the Clouds if what I think is coming comes,” Alkoryn said dryly. He took up the ceramic jug of cooling cider and refilled the cups. Dhulyn saw that two knuckles of his left hand were swollen, but whether from old breaking or from arthritis she could not tell. “You came as bodyguards?” he continued as he set down the jug.
Parno exchanged glances with Dhulyn. She gave him a slight nod. “Not merely bodyguards, Alkoryn my Brother,” he began. He paused and took a sip from his cup. Dhulyn suppressed a smile. The way he was drawing out the moment, Parno should have been an actor, she thought, as her Partner blotted his lips carefully with the square of linen provided. “We have come to Gotterang as the guides and bodyguards of a Lady orphan of House Tenebro, no less. Any reason for such an exalted House to be gathering up their lesser kin?”
Alkoryn’s lips formed a silent whistle and his eyes narrowed. “She’s not the first, and that’s a fact,” he said. “My bones tell me this may be part of what I see coming,” he said. “Though I don’t know how.” He sat back, leaning his right elbow on the arm of his chair. “The Tenebroso is an old woman and gossip says she’s failing. The Kir, Lok-iKol, is a forward-looking man, and may very well be thinking to reestablish the Tenebro claim on lost lands. But that in itself is no reason to bring the girl here.”
“Mar-eMar feels there’s a wedding in the wind, and it’s true she has letters she hasn’t shown us,” Dhulyn said.
“She’s not advantageous enough a match for the Kir himself,” Alkoryn said, taking a sip of his cider and returning the glass to the table. “Though there’s a cousin in the House, Dal-eDal, from an Imrion Household, not a Holding as is this Mar-eMar. A marriage there would be a way to increase the young man’s property without losing anything of value to the main branch. House Tenebro has had bad luck enough in the last twenty years or so; Lok-iKol has no cousins of his own generation left, they say, though there are some few of their children about, like this Mar of yours, and Dal-eDal himself, for that matter.” He glanced at his younger Brothers. “With things the way they are at present, it’s no bad idea for those in the Houses to put their hands on all their kin.”
“The way things are at present?” said Parno. “Like these new regulations governing who may ride? This has some connection with the doings of House Tenebro?” Something in his voice made Dhulyn glance at him. Was he a little paler than before? What had there been in Alkoryn’s remarks to give Parno that stricken look?
“Perhaps only in the mind of an old Brother, but I’ve seen too much to be easy with the changes of the last few years-still less with those of the last few months.” Alkoryn took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The riding law is just the latest, and unpopular as it is, it helps more than it hinders. There’s always trouble in a city,” he said. “The bigger the city, the more trouble. You’d think that people weren’t meant to live together in such quantities, but there, that’s a subject for another time.”
Dhulyn exchanged a look with Parno as the older man pushed his white hair back from his face with both hands.
“It would be hard to pinpoint exactly when things began to go badly, or why it began, for that matter, but the normal incidents one expects in city life have grown more frequent, and more disturbing. More knifings and fewer fistfights, if you follow me. Associations and clubs are becoming gangs, and it’s not unusual now for a quarrel between two merchants to turn into a full-blown riot in a matter of minutes, or for groups to be set upon in the streets.”
Parno searched the tabletop for a moment before finding a relatively empty spot to set his glass down.
“You could see something was off-center,” he said, “Even walking here.” He glanced at Dhulyn. “It’s been a few years since either of us were in Gotterang-before we Partnered-but there’s a bad feeling in the streets. I can’t put my finger on it-”
“Not enough children,” Dhulyn said, and lifted her blood-red brows as both men looked at her. “None playing games in the streets, anyway, and the people who were out, looking at each other sideways.”
Alkoryn nodded again. “You can see the tension now, those of us who know what to look for. The City Guards are always on the alert, and they’ve taken to traveling in groups of five, instead of the usual pairs. The order restricting riding gives the Watch greater mobility, and lessens the chances of troublemakers getting away, but honest people feel it’s too severe.”
“Can’t make the nobles walk, I suppose,” Parno said.
“That would make them more trouble, not less,” Dhulyn said, her eyes round and innocent in her scarred face. Both men smiled.
“There was a riot in the Calzos district two months ago, and the City Guards were overwhelmed. The Tarkin sent the Guard from the Carnelian Dome and the crowd dispersed. There were delegations to the Tarkin after that and things looked to be getting better, but every time the violence dies down for a few days, something happens that starts it up again. Things are now at the point that only the presence of the Carnelian Guard will convince people to disperse.”
“Let me guess,” Parno said. “Something to do with the Marked or with these New Believers we’ve heard about.”
“What haven’t you told me?”
Parno looked at Dhulyn, and she nodded. “There was a fire in Navra,” she said. Alkoryn Pantherclaw’s face grew grimmer and grimmer as she told the story, and he was silent a long while when she finished.
“I did not realize it had spread so far. There have been fires here as well and, I think, worse things. Nor is there doubt in anyone’s mind that the new sect of the Jaldeans are behind it,” Alkoryn said. “But proving it’s a different matter. Even those who don’t follow the Sleeping God are being turned against the Marked, being told that they profit from the misfortunes of others.”