A Conflict of Orders (An Age of Discord Novel Book 2) (61 page)

“There’s it settled, then,” she said with evident relief. “We can get you all sorted out tomorrow. You stay here tonight and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

As soon as Ormuz put the first spoonful of pie into his mouth, he discovered how hungry he was. He crammed in more, chewed and swallowed. The pie contained meat and vegetables in some lightly-spiced gravy. It was delicious. He felt a touch to his wrist and looked up.

“Slow down,” Azeel said, pulling back her hand and smiling. “You’ll choke on it.”

Ormuz nodded like an idiot.

Ormuz shovelled up the free dinner, while Azeel sat across from him, chin cupped in hand, and watched. He knew that had he been a yeoman and wandered into a yeoman district, he would not have found such kindness.

All too soon, the pie had gone. Ormuz sat back, his stomach aching. He reached out an arm for his pint and wondered if he had room for a mouthful of liquid. He would try anyway. As he brought his glass towards his mouth, he felt a sharp pain from his side and let out a groan. He put the beer back on the table, lowered his arm, and tried to ignore the pain.

“What’s the matter?” Azeel asked, plainly upset by his expression.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” He put his hand inside his jacket over the bandaged area of his torso and felt a dampness. Pulling open his jacket, he looked down and saw red beginning to seep through the pale grey cloth of his shirt. He swore.

Azeel rose up from her chair, and peered across the table and down at his lap. “Hells,” she said. “You’re injured! What have you done?”

His wound was bleeding freely now. He must have ripped the stitches the surgeon’s mate had put in after the battle.

“Come here.” Azeel tutted. “We’ve got medicines upstairs.”

She led him through a door beside the bar and up a dark flight of steep stairs. At the top of this, another door led onto a landing, from which a series of open doors allowed glimpses of a sitting-room, three bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining-room and a bathroom. Azeel led him into the bathroom. A bright light filled the room, bouncing off the tiled walls and floor, as she stepped through the door.

“Take your shirt off,” she commanded.

He slipped off his jacket, struggled to undo the shirt’s fastenings, and found her helping him. She pulled the garment from his shoulders, stopped, fingered the material and frowned. “This is…” She looked up, saw the bandage wrapped about Ormuz’s ribs and the patch of red blossoming on the right of his ribcage. She drew in a hissed breath.

“Do you know what to do?” Ormuz asked. The pain was getting to him now. That pleasant light-headedness he had been feeling all afternoon had been pain-killers, he realised. And now they had worn off.

“Of course not!” Azeel snapped. “I work with data-pools.”

“I shouldn’t have eaten so much pie,” Ormuz said regretfully.

Azeel barked a laugh. “That wasn’t caused by one of my dad’s pies.” She unpinned the bandage and unwrapped it from about his middle. The wound, when it was finally revealed, did not appear to be very life-threatening. It was a small hole, a quarter of an inch diameter, somewhat lens-shaped, and with a series of rough stitches holding its lips together.

“That,” said Azeel with a frown, “looks like a knife wound.”

“Sword.”

She lifted her head and stared at him. “‘Sword’?” she repeated.

“It’s a long story.”

“At least, it’s been looked at. So the Oppies must know about it.” She turned away. “Let me see: I’ve got some disinfectant somewhere…”

“Oppies?” Why should the Office of the Procurator Imperial know about it?

“Playing with swords is a felony, you know,” she explained.

He knew.

“Clinicians have to report injuries like this to the Oppies.”

That he hadn’t known.

She took a bottle of something from a cabinet beside the sink and a swab of cotton wool. Upending the bottle on the swab, she allowed liquid to wet the material. This she then dabbed onto Ormuz’s wound.

It hurt. He yelped.

“Shush. I’ve got a fresh bandage to put on afterwards.” She threw the swab, now bloody, into the toilet and put the disinfectant away. “There: it’s cleaner.”

She hurried from the room and returned with a folded swathe of white cloth. It did not much resemble a dressing. As she pressed it against Ormuz’s wound, he spotted what looked like a small embroidered flower, and immediately guessed the cloth’s actual purpose.

Azeel saw his expression. She shrugged. “It’s all I’ve got.”

Keeping the cloth pressed against him, she reached for a roll of bandage from the cabinet and then wrapped it tightly about him. She secured it with pins and sat on the side of the bath. She gazed up at Ormuz, who stood bare-chested and cold before the sink. “So,” she said, “how did you get a sword wound? Are you hiding from someone? Is that why you’ve got no crowns and nowhere to stay? Is your name really Cas?” She had her hands on her knees and he could see her fingers digging into the material clinging to the skin of her legs.

She continued, “That shirt’s fine enough for a noble and you talk a bit posh too. Are you really a prole? I mean, with a wound from a sword. Like in a duel.”

Ormuz
was
a prole, and he should talk like one. But it had been so long, so perhaps slips were likely. The blue figure in the nomosphere had changed him, made him talk and act like a noble. He focused on his language: “I’m no lord, Inni. Honest. Yes, my name is really Casimir Ormuz. I’ve not lied to you.”

“But you’ve not told me the truth, either.”

“I’ve not told you
everything
.” He winced at a fresh stab of pain. “There’s a difference.”

“You’re hiding from someone?”

“No!” He shook his head. “Not hiding. I walked away. She saw me go.”

“‘She’,” said Azeel. “That explains the clothes.”

There was a long moment of silence. The young woman looked down at her lap, seemed to see her hands and lifted them from her thighs. “Should I ask?”

Ormuz wanted to laugh, but he knew it would hurt. He’d known this young woman only an hour or so. And she had known him for the same length of time.

Slowly, and trying hard not to affect his wound, Ormuz lowered himself to his knees. From his new vantage point, he gazed up at Azeel. “Inni,” he said gently, “It’s not what you think. I didn’t need to get away for a while, I
left
. If you put me up for a night, I’ll go tomorrow. I’ll find somewhere else. There’re people I can ask.”

Azeel gave a wan smile. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Get up off the floor, you bloody idiot. I don’t know what came over me—thinking you were some lord or something. As if some high noble would come into the pub. They have their own places, and they don’t mix with the likes of us.”

Ormuz suspected they did on occasion. But they would not pretend to be proletarian; they would not know how to pass as proles.

She helped him to his feet. With an arm around his chest, she guided him out onto the landing and across to one of the bedrooms. “You can stay as long as you like. I mean, it’d be good if you get some crowns and pay us rent—our liege won’t get too upset then. But there’s no rush. Have you really got no clothes or anything? Just what you’re wearing? Well, that shirt is ruined and those trousers are filthy. And they smell a bit too. I’ll give you one of my dad’s nightshirts for you to use tonight. He’s bigger than you, but it’ll be all right to sleep in.”

She lowered him to sit on the bed, although he did not really need her help. He felt a little foolish, sitting there naked from the waist up, while she bustled about the room, drawing the curtains and switching on the light-panel.

“It’s about eleven now, so there’s a couple of hours ‘til the pub closes. You’d best get some rest. If you leave the rest of your clothes out, I’ll have them washed and cleaned for you ready for tomorrow morning.” She crossed to the door, but paused before stepping out onto the landing. She turned about slowly.

“Oh,” she said, “your escutcheon. You need to get yourself a new one. You’ll be all right if you stay in the pub, but if you want to go out you can’t go with a bare collar.”

“I’ll get one,” Ormuz promised her.

“Good.”

She left the room and pulled the door to behind her, leaving it slightly ajar. He heard her open a door and clatter down the stairs. For a long moment, he stared at the wall before him. It was in need of redecorating. The plaster was was not smooth and the paint had been burnished to a matt sheen. But the wooden floor beneath his feet was scrubbed clean and the bed linens beneath his hands felt soft and fresh. He bent carefully forwards, wincing as he aggravated his wound, and very slowly pulled off his boots. He swung his stockinged feet up onto the bed and lay back, his arms by his side.

He had been lucky. To wander out of the night into this pub and be taken up almost immediately by Azeel. Her generosity had been unexpected and welcome; although her motives were not entirely opaque. Ormuz’s future was uncertain, but here in the Empress Glorina he had found some small refuge.

P
erhaps house arrest had been too much to expect, but Ahasz had to admit the House of Rectitude was no hardship. They had given him a suite of rooms decorated in ducal style. Perhaps the décor was somewhat out of fashion, but the furnishings were mostly antiques. Quite valuable ones, if Ahasz were any judge.

He stood at the window of his withdrawing room, a cup of coffee in one hand, and gazed out at the landscaped gardens stretching from the rear of the House. He could not even see its end. A series of lawns, in geometrical shapes limned by low hedges, led down to a fairway lined with pollarded trees. He estimated it at a mile long, at the very least. At the end of this a shining lake spread across the horizon. In the centre of the lake, a landscaped island seemed to hover above its mirror image. It was in turn dominated by a large hunting lodge, which more resembled a fairytale castle in small scale.

Ahasz was free to wander the grounds, should he so wish. Today, the sun shone invitingly but he was not in the mood for the open air. He wanted to remain indoors in this room, to learn again what it was like to be surrounded by comforts. The feel of new expensive fabric against his skin; the softness of the upholstery on sofas and armchairs; the pleasant and familiar smell in the air of scented cleaning materials, of bouquets of flowers, of the coffee he held, of long history and rich heritage…

He felt an intruder. The adjustment was difficult. Those weeks in the trenches, suffering deprivation alongside his troopers… He had lost the knack of taking this ducal splendour for granted. He reached up with his free hand and fingered the fine cloth of his shirt’s collar. Once, his surroundings had never caused wonder. He had railed against the poor lives of the proles, yet never seen the hypocrisy in his own palaces and treasures and luxurious garments.

Justice and dignity and basic rights—access to those he had donated freely to proletarians. They were not cheap, perhaps even more expensive than fine clothes or precious gewgaws. They were certainly worth more than such fripperies. They had, in fact, cost him everything. He had, after all, reached for the Imperial Throne. And now look at him.

Powerless.

All those betrayals to reach here, to arrive at this suite in the House of Rectitude. He’d known he would end up here. Yes, the attack on the Imperial Palace had been a gamble, but he’d hoped fortune would favour his boldness.

Behind him, he heard the door open and turned about to see an empty doorway. Before he could say anything, a figure appeared and stepped into the withdrawing room.

Mayna.

From her dress, he knew immediately what to expect. His sister was a woman of many moods, but over the years he had learned to recognise them. Today she was elegantly dressed in a suit of sea-green, tailored to display her figure. Her face was hidden behind a veil, also sea-green, which hung from a pillbox hat of the same colour. She wore a rope of gold about her slim neck, and a brooch of precious stones in the shape of the Vonshuan winged-snake on her breast.

She crossed the room with a long stride, her high heels loud on the polished wood of the floor. “Ariman,” she said archly, “you are a bigger fool than I had guessed.”

He reached to one side and placed his coffee on the occasional table beside him. “And a good morning to you too, Mayna.”

“This is no time for pleasantries,” she snapped. Her tone was severe but not cruel. She put her hands on her hips and turned slowly about to regard the room in which they stood. “I see they are keeping you in the style to which you are accustomed—for that, I am glad.”

“I grew accustomed to a somewhat different style over the last half year.”

“And for no good reason.” She strode across to the fireplace, peered up at the seascape painting above the mantel, uttered a deprecating sniff, and then returned to him. “You’ve ill-served us, Ariman. With Flavia on the Throne, our task becomes so much harder. She’s not weak, as her father was.”

“I know.”

“We
will
have our revenge, Ariman. We have waited a millennia for it. When Dis arrives, we will strike and we will prevail.” She raised a hand—clad in a glove of soft leather from some green-skinned creature—and made a fist. “Shuto will fall, Ariman. Have no doubt of that. Flavia will make it harder but she will not prevent us.”

Ahasz knew the rhetoric; it had been his childhood catechism. He crossed to the pair of sofas placed before the hearth. Low, of aged leather buffed to a rich sheen, they faced each other across a low coffee table dating from the Eighth Century. He lowered himself wearily onto a sofa and gestured for Mayna to take the one opposite. She did so, crossing her legs with a whisper of cloth and placing her gloved hands on her knee.

“Tell me, Ariman: why? Do you not want justice for the wrong done to us so long ago?”

He sighed. “I’m not like you, Mayna. It’s ancient history to me. I don’t care about it any more. I care about now, about people living now. I wanted to make their lives better.”

“So you cooked up this little rebellion with Flavia?”