Dark of the Sun (47 page)
Authors: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Tags: #Fantasy, #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Horror, #Vampires, #Transylvania (Romania), #Krakatoa (Indonesia), #Volcanic Eruptions
“So far as I know,” Dasur said stringently.
“Sinu is making a new talaris for me,” said Pentefilia, unable to contain herself in silence any longer. “My old one is too worn, and Ragoczy Franciscus provided beautiful cloth—”
Hrisoula began to wail, her face screwed into a grimace. “I want a new talaris,” she complained, and began to weep noisily, glaring at her older sister as her sense of injustice increased.
“Stop it,” Thetis said. “At once. This isn’t the time.”
The two girls glowered, Pentefilia smugly, Hrisoula pouting; Aristion seemed to want to be invisible, staring down at his feet and refusing to meet the eyes of any of his relatives.
“And Herakles?” Rojeh asked as if he was not aware of the disruption.
“He is at my husband’s house, trying to find anything that may be useful: cloth, utensils, food, anything.” Thetis cleared her throat. “So that we may, at least in some small part, repay the generosity of your master, while we may.”
“I will inform him, but he does not expect such considerations.” Rojeh then addressed Dasur. “The duck is in the side-passage, you said?”
“Sitting on an old reed mat when I left her,” Dasur said, and returned his full attention to his cooking. “I gave her a handful of grubs from the edge of the stable sweepings, and she ate them greedily.”
“I will claim her shortly,” said Rojeh. “For now I must go to my master.” He left the kitchen accompanied by the quarrelsome sounds of Hrisoula and Pentefilia talking about their clothes, with occasional admonitions to stop from Thetis, and punctuated by Dasur’s efforts to restore peace. The dispute was so wonderfully ordinary that he found himself relishing its commonplaceness as he climbed upward.
Ragoczy Franciscus sat at his small writing table, his long, black-silk kaftan flowing around him, swathing him in a scrap of night. He had a broad, dark-red scarf of Chinese silk wrapped around his throat, which was held in place by a silver fibula embellished with his eclipse sigil. His dark hair was neat, his face unusually pale, and although he needed a shave, he presented a good appearance. As Rojeh entered the room, he looked up from the map spread before him, moving with deliberate care, and gave a slight nod of greeting.
“Are you sure you’re ready to be up?” Rojeh asked, making no mention of his surprise at seeing Ragoczy Franciscus off his bed. “Your sinews are just beginning to knit again.”
Ragoczy Franciscus put his hand to the scarf and reached for his improvised wax tablet and stylus, writing in Latin in his small, precise hand,
I need to be doing something.
I need to be doing something.
“More than you know,” said Rojeh darkly. He went to the fireplace and shoved a negligent small branch back into the flames with his toe. “There are two guards posted to this house, ostensibly to protect you.”
From what, or whom?
Ragoczy Franciscus held up the wax tablet.
Ragoczy Franciscus held up the wax tablet.
“They say, from Dukkai, or perhaps one of her clan. Emrach seems to think that a single act of leniency will bring every rogue on the trade-routes that converge here down on Sarai in an unruly pack.”
Ragoczy Franciscus made a palms-up gesture of incomprehension.
“It is the excuse he is using to send guards here.”
But they are spies
, Ragoczy Franciscus wrote.
, Ragoczy Franciscus wrote.
“I think so,” said Rojeh, and described the trick Emrach had played upon him. “I think he used the time to dispatch the guards. I thought at first it was only meant to irk me, but once Dasur told me about the guards, I knew I had been subjected to a diversion. He wanted no opposition to his posting.”
What did Emrach say?
Ragoczy Franciscus wrote in the wax.
Ragoczy Franciscus wrote in the wax.
“I doubt he is going to permit Dukkai into the town. He told me that Sarai is a funnel and implied that every traveler must eventually come here. If he knows Sarai survives on trade, he managed to give no indication of it,” said Rojeh, pursing his lips in disgust; Ragoczy Franciscus got up from the desk and went to the fireplace to take the smoothing iron from the hob, placed it on the wax to make an unused surface, then set the tablet on the mantel so that the wax could cool enough to use again. He tapped his stylus on the stone ledge of the mantel and shook his head in futility. “It is inconvenient, your not talking,” Rojeh agreed. “But you will heal and your voice will be as it was.” He took a turn about the room and came back to the hearth. “I believe you may have more to fear from the guards than Dukkai when it comes to possible attack. For that reason, you are safer with her outside the walls than in.”
Ragoczy Franciscus nodded emphatically twice and gave a quick frown of pain.
“But questioning the guards’ purpose may be more dangerous still,” said Rojeh.
Again Ragoczy Franciscus nodded his agreement and reached for the wax tablet.
We have to leave,
he wrote in the wax. Soon.
We have to leave,
he wrote in the wax. Soon.
“At this time of year it isn’t safe to travel, not with the storms and the cold, to say nothing of the hunger and want everywhere.” Rojeh guessed that what he said was useless, but he continued on, determined to make all his reservations known. “There are hazards on the road that—”
Writing quickly, Ragoczy held up the tablet.
There are greater hazards here.
There are greater hazards here.
Rojeh said carefully, “I think that going out into the winter might entail too much risk. We can watch the guards, and—”
But we cannot feed,
Ragoczy Franciscus wrote.
Neither of us can.
Ragoczy Franciscus wrote.
Neither of us can.
Attempting to make light of this caution, Rojeh said, “With your throat cut, you cannot feed in any case.”
Ragoczy Franciscus pointed with his stylus to where he had written,
We have to leave
. Soon.
We have to leave
. Soon.
“As soon as the ice begins to withdraw, we should be away.” He saw Ragoczy Franciscus point to Soon one more time. “Is that why you had the map out?”
The answer was a single nod.
“If you think we should leave while it is still winter, you must be more worried than I am about the guards,” said Rojeh, his faded-blue eyes somber. “Why are you so troubled?”
After wiping a bead of accumulated wax from the tip of the stylus, Ragoczy Franciscus wrote,
Emrach is greedy and he is a martinet. It would be useful to him to make himself appear a hero in the town’s eyes, and what better way to do that than to have his men strive to thwart a murder?—not just a murder, but one of a foreigner that can be blamed on a foreigner. It would assure him an impregnable position and it would warn all foreigners to hold Emrach in properly high regard.
Emrach is greedy and he is a martinet. It would be useful to him to make himself appear a hero in the town’s eyes, and what better way to do that than to have his men strive to thwart a murder?—not just a murder, but one of a foreigner that can be blamed on a foreigner. It would assure him an impregnable position and it would warn all foreigners to hold Emrach in properly high regard.
Rojeh read this twice. “Are you certain he is so dangerous that he would do this?”
I think he knows an advantage when one presents itself,
Ragoczy Franciscus wrote, and added, in very small letters in the little room that was left,
We must establish signs. This is too cumbersome.
Then he reached for the smoothing iron and put it on the tablet.
Ragoczy Franciscus wrote, and added, in very small letters in the little room that was left,
We must establish signs. This is too cumbersome.
Then he reached for the smoothing iron and put it on the tablet.
“You’re right. We need a better means of communication than this.” Rojeh glanced toward the door. “Has anyone been up here since I left?”
With exaggerated care, Ragoczy Franciscus mouthed Aristion
and Sinu.
and Sinu.
“That must have been awkward,” said Rojeh, curious about the two visitors. As Ragoczy Franciscus nodded, moving his head gingerly, Rojeh pondered briefly, then said, “In terms of how I intend to deal with obtaining this information, I will handle the questions adroitly, as a general inquiry into how the house has been run on the first sunny day in five. I will ask each in turn, starting with your household servants, then going on to the widow, her children, and her servants. I have made similar inquiries before. I will ask Dasur about the markets he visited and what he found. I’ll ask Chtavo about the health of the mules and the horses. I’ll ask the widow if she has anything that needs household attention, and how the progress on her own dwelling is progressing. Who knows—I may even come upon something useful beyond what I ask during this delving. If the guards should hear any of this, or all of it, they will have nothing to notice in it, for it will be what anyone might expect. Is there anything in what I have said that distresses you?”
Yes and no,
Ragoczy Franciscus mouthed.
Ragoczy Franciscus mouthed.
Rojeh looked across the room to Ragoczy Franciscus’ bed. “It might be as well for you to rest until I come back from the kitchen.”
Ragoczy Franciscus reached for one of the six books he had carried from China; he opened it with care, holding it up for Rojeh to see.
Rojeh accepted this. “If you become tired, or your head or neck aches—”
Ragoczy Franciscus pointed toward the bed.
“Exactly,” said Rojeh.
Taking hold of the wax tablet, Ragoczy Franciscus wrote again.
Do not let the guards know how I am doing.
Do not let the guards know how I am doing.
“I’ll be careful,” said Rojeh, and went out of the room. Descending the stairs to the kitchen again, he found Chtavo, Herakles, and Aethalric there with the others. All three of them were drinking hot wine, and Chtavo was still in his bearskin cloak; he hunkered down before the fire, his cup held in both his hands for warmth. Herakles had taken a seat on the bench next to the hearth and was rubbing his swollen knees as he downed his wine. Aethalric had seated himself across the main table from Dasur, at the opposite end of the table from Thetis and her children. “Where’s Sinu, and the guards?”
“Sinu’s working on my talaris,” said Pentefilia with a wicked, covert glance at her sister. “My mother says it will look well when I die. They can dress me in it.”
“Pentefilia,” Thetis cautioned, blanching.
“Well, you
said,
” Hrisoula reminded her mother.
said,
” Hrisoula reminded her mother.
“The guards are still in the slaves’ room, making up their pallets, I think,” said Aethalric.
“We are all going to eat together,” Dasur announced, putting a stop to any wrangling and successfully shifting the subject. “It makes little sense to do two tables in the dining room, one for the widow alone, and another for her children.”
“I would have to build a fire and sweep the floor,” said Aethalric. “Here, the room is warm, and all of us may have the food we want.”
“As much as is available,” Pentefilia sniffed.
Rojeh said, “Remember that the widow and her family are our guests and must be treated as such.”
Thetis shot him a look of earnest gratitude. “You are always courteous, Rojeh. You remind me of the majordomi in Constantinople: gracious and calm. I never supposed I would die here.”
“Why should you die here?” Rojeh asked as the rest pretended not to have heard her.
“If Ragoczy Franciscus is going to die, then who of us is safe?” she whispered.
“He is not going to die,” Rojeh said. “His wound will heal.”
“Will it?” She daubed the cuff of her tablion at her eyes. “It’s hopeless.”
“Mama,” said Hrisoula, panic in her young eyes.
Immediately Thetis made a reassuring gesture. “You mustn’t mind what I say. I am … worried. Ragoczy Franciscus is in grave danger, and what is to become of us?”
“You will not be cast on the world, whatever happens,” Rojeh said, looking at the girl, not her mother.
Thetis choked back a sob and put her hand on his. “I thank you for saying that.”
Aristion ground his fists together. “Why do those guards have to be here?”
“Because the Master of Foreigners wishes it,” said Rojeh in his calmest voice.
“I don’t like it,” said the boy.
“Neither do I,” Rojeh agreed, and would have said more, but the inside door opened and the two guards stepped into the kitchen. Both of them had daggers in their belts; their stance was inhospitable. Rojeh reverenced them and pointed to the unoccupied benches next to the main table. “We are preparing for our evening meal. I hope you will share our fare,” he invited cordially.
One of the guards grunted an acceptance for them both; they sat down.
“Would you like some hot wine?” Dasur asked with a quick glance at Rojeh. “I think we can provide cups for you.”
“It would be nice,” said one of the guards.
“I’ll fill the cups,” Aethalric volunteered, and rose before anyone could object.
“I fear we have only a simple meal, but you may find it adequate,” said Dasur nervously.
“Probably better than what we get usually,” said the second guard, whose teeth were either missing or nearly black.
Rojeh stepped away from the table. “Then may you have good appetite.”
“Do you not eat with us?” The first guard was instantly suspicious.
“No, he does not,” said Dasur, intervening. “He follows the customs of our master, he says.”
The second guard glared. “Strange custom, to eat apart. It is not what happens in this town.”
“Nevertheless,” said Thetis suddenly, “that is what happens in this house.”
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