The bistro was fairly quiet. Across the stone-flagged room sat an old couple dressed in matching smart brown tunics, like they used to make down Foulta Gata when the cotton boom was in full swing, a classic Villjamur stitch. They were sitting drinking tea, each reading a book, perfectly comfortable in each other’s silent presence, and every time the man finished a chapter he would look up and smile at his partner. A few weeks back, Jeryd would have found the pair simply depressing, but now he warmed to such a display of affection.
This was a time of day when the city would pause. The morning throng had had its moment, the bustle had gone, and in the bistros you mostly found only those who chose to drink alone to ruminate. Even the serving girl looked a little distant, either anxious to go home or taking a moment to relax before it became busy again.
Jeryd contemplated his next move on the Council, how he would spy on them, digging deep in order to find out who was working on what. He would send a message, to each councillor in private, warning how their lives might be at risk unless they opened up. He folded up his notes, threw some coins on the table and turned to leave, eyeing the old couple as the man brought his loved one’s hand to his lips.
What a city, Jeryd thought. What a place to live, despite the extremes of existence here. The epic and the everyday, they’re just two aspects of city life.
All in Villjamur.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Night-time, and none of the city bridges were visible, let alone the spires they led to. Thick, immovable, a fog had rolled in from the coast, and Aide Tryst walked cautiously along the snowy cobbled streets, one hand shoved deep in his robe pocket, the other clutching half a roll-up of arum weed, his feet tingling with the cold. The snow had been relentless the last few evenings. Where it had been cleared by seawater, you had to pick your route with caution. Each day there were stories of people breaking arms and legs. Despite the threat, children walked along the same streets waiting to meet their snowball destiny.
Lamps offered faint orbs of light at regular intervals, which prevented him from getting completely lost.
And it certainly makes trailing someone fucking difficult, he thought ruefully.
Few people about, though he could hear the keening of a banshee, somewhere in the distance. It sounded as if it originated from somewhere further down in the levels of the city, maybe in one of the many underground passageways or derelict buildings – at least he hoped it was nowhere close by. He swore he heard a sword being drawn from its scabbard, and Tryst cursed that he was having to be out so late. He took a final drag on the arum weed before dropping it into the slush.
So, Jeryd isn’t only content with confining me to the lowest ranks of the Inquisition, he also sends me out in the freezing fucking cold, so that I can watch a whore.
At least he now knew more about his superior’s vulnerabilities. Tryst was intrigued by something that Chancellor Urtica had said in one of the Ovinist meetings: that no matter how stalwart a man pretended to be, it was usually his heart that let him down – and, more importantly, let him be brought down. Many a great man was destroyed in some way by the affections of a lover. On hearing this, Tryst decided Urtica was one of the wisest men that ever lived.
To rattle his boss, Tryst could simply kill Marysa. But that seemed too brutal and, besides, he didn’t really wish something so catastrophic on the rumel. A degree of respect was something that remained between the two of them: their relationship was complex and adversarial, but couldn’t be severed entirely. There were no black and whites here, where the textures of their lives crossed, linking positively whenever they shared a joke or discussed a certain case they were working on, and it wasn’t a simple matter of hurting him too badly, but just enough, just a little lesson, a firm mental slap. No, he wanted to disturb Jeryd rather than destroy him, and then still have him solve the murder of the councillors. That was something dear to Urtica’s heart, and therefore dear to his own.
Tryst stepped into a wide piazza, near where the prostitute lived by Cartanu Gata and the Gata Sentimental. The sound of laughter from a doorway, the clink-clink of glasses, shoes sliding on stone. Where he now stood you could hear a symphony of these subtle sounds of the night, seemingly coming from everywhere. Someone coughed behind him, but there was no one solid there, only a long shadow darting across the stone. There was no wind here, the buildings being high and crammed together, so the smells of incense and fried food reached him invitingly, with little obstruction. Ahead of him through the fog was the bold glow of one of the bistros. He remembered the prostitute saying how she hung around these places a lot. Perhaps she was there now. As good a place to start looking as any. Tryst walked towards the light, heard the soft rhythm of lute and drum.
The bistro was filled, mainly with hooded customers who preferred their own company by the looks of them, and Tryst thought he’d blend in nicely. He took a seat near the edge of the room, far away from the stage at the end of the long stone chamber. Through the heady smoke, serving girls sashayed to and fro between tables, in the dim light of candles and the torchlight that lit up the stage.
Up there, on the stage itself, a cultist was making several golems dance to the music provided by a drummer and a lute player. The cultist, clasping a relic in his hands, commanded the statues, one by one, to make their way to the centre of the stage, where they would gyrate fluidly, while the audience gasped and applauded in between flashes of purple light. To finish the set, he then made one of the statues spread out its wings and fly in a circle over the heads of the crowd, before it once again transformed into stone.
A girl came to Tryst’s table to take his order of Black Heart rum and shark’s liver paste on coarse bread. When she fetched the bottle he asked her to leave it. If he had to spy on a prostitute during an ice age, he might as well stay warm while he was doing so.
A fat woman came on stage next to read some bad poetry about the dying earth, and though she had no decent cadence to her delivery, no one there seemed to care. The lute player came on again after, and remained for some time, preoccupying himself with minor chords and relaxing sevenths.
Tryst kept an eye on all the customers that came and went from the bistro, deciding eventually that indeed most of the clientele were men. The females were largely staff, and Tryst pitied them for the looks they were getting. Some of these men were old enough to be their grandfathers, but their frail hands grabbed whatever flesh they could reach, as if these youthful bodies would be the last thing they would ever hold. Everywhere in this city now it seemed such desperation was manifest.
His thoughts inevitably drifted from Inquisition business to his commitment to the Ovinists, and to Chancellor Urtica in particular. His mentor was an inspiring man: charming, bright, his dedication to Villjamur unquestionable. It was hard not to want to get involved with anything he was linked to. Like so many young men, Tryst was infused with a burning desire to succeed, to achieve. Life was stretched out ahead of him, a freshly ploughed field waiting only for his potential, and Chancellor Urtica could help him harvest it.
As the lute player paused for a sip of lager, the sound of murmurs and whispers drew Tryst’s attention to the door. The prostitute, Tuya, was walking in from the fog, a silky grace to her stride, a look of deep remoteness in her eyes.
Tryst took another sip of rum as he watched her glide between the tables. She was wearing a carmine cloak, not unlike the colour distinguishing the city guard, but carefully tailored to cling to her voluptuous curves. A lock of red hair curled down across her stubbornly beautiful face, whose other half – the half with the scar – was covered by a headscarf. She approached a table near the front of the stage, typical of someone wanting all the attention she could get. As she took off her cloak, revealing a green dress that seemed to contradict most of the city’s current fashions, more than a little of the conversation in the room fell silent. Her skin shimmered in the dull lighting, and smoke drifted away from her somehow, as if allowing everyone there to get a better look.