Joel Rosenberg - [D'Shai 01] - D'Shai (7 page)

He completed his rounds of the donjon and staggered down the stairs to the foyer, kicking off his sandals and tying up the ends of his pantaloons before he headed out into the quadrangle, toward the old donjon.

The ground between the flagstones was muddy and squishy between his toes. He liked the feel of it; it almost made his old bones feel young again, he decided as he washed his feet in the foyer of the old donjon, dried them with a clean towel, and donned the sandals hanging from a peg on the wall.

His tour through the old donjon always took less time than the rest of his rounds did, but that was just because it was smaller; it was not indifference. The old donjon was where the first rulers of Den Oroshtai had lived, back when the whole domain was only a summer residence of Oroshtai himself, and it deserved the respect due to an aged and trustworthy servant of the family.

Today his rounds were even shorter than usual: the entire top floor was occupied by Lord Orazhi, his guards and personal attendants, and was to be considered part of Glen Derenai, not Den Oroshtai, while Lord Orazhi was in residence.

Downstairs, the guard had changed at the beginning of the hour of the dragon, a doubled shift out of tradition, not necessity. The hour of the dragon was the traditional time for a surprise attack, and while it would be ridiculous for Orazhi to be here in some complicated political maneuver culminating in a surprise attack, others had done ridiculous things in the past.

He passed quietly through the barracks on the first floor. Most of the soldiers slept on their pads undisturbed by his passage, a few waking momentarily to turn a bleary eye on him before rolling over and going back to sleep. Over in the corner, a foursome was quietly working a harmony, their voices low, almost singing in whisper, the tenor emphasizing the high notes with sharp, chopping motions of his hand. Two others, apparently having come off shift insufficiently sleepy, quietly played a game of single-bone draughts, a third watching the board with hawklike intensity, like a referee at a sparring match.

Walking past the guards on duty at the other end of the barracks hall, Crosta Natthan made his way up the stairs to the second floor, and took a quick look down the hall.

Something wasn’t right.

His steps picked up as he walked down the carpet toward where a dark stain spread from underneath the closed door to the armory.

He knelt and dipped his fingers into the carpet. His fingers came up red and sticky with blood.

Crosta Natthan rose quickly, ignoring the pain in his joints, and knocked on the door, at first calmly, then in a rapid tattoo.

No answer.

There were two master keys in all of Den Oroshtai, only two that fitted every door within the walls. One, made of fine silver, its bow covered in enameled bone, hung from a slim golden chain around Lord Toshtai’s neck; the other, of simple burnished brass, hung from a plain leather thong around Crosta Natthan’s.

Crosta Natthan had used his master key twice to test it, after it had been presented to him by his predecessor. He had never used it since; there had been no need.

He didn’t hesitate for a moment: he slipped the thong over his head, inserted the key in the lock, and turned it firmly. The bolt snicked aside.

He pushed the door open, but it only gave a little. Something was blocking it. Crosta Natthan could have slid inside, but there was no need. The door was open wide enough for him to see that Lord Refle, Den Oroshtai’s armorer, lay dead on the floor, quite thoroughly hacked to pieces.

 

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, but he hoped it wasn’t long.

“Guard,â€

 

I
T’S SOMETHING
I think about, every now and then:

I’ve decided that my favorite way of being woken from sleep is for a lovely black-haired woman, fresh but dry from a hot bath and heated towels, her skin scented with soap and lemon and roses, to slip under the blankets with me, and gently, carefully, lay her head on my shoulder. Her breath smells of firemint and tea; her long, glossy hair floats around me in a warm, silken cloud.

At least, I
think
that would be my favorite way. I can’t recall as it’s ever happened, and I suspect I’d remember it.

Being kicked out of a sound sleep by one of Lord Toshtai’s guards wasn’t nearly as nice.

Half awake, I thought I had been jumped by Refle again, and I flailed away at him. That turned out to be a mistake; I got my arms caught somewhere in the blankets, and slammed my forehead into the side of his foot, or vice versa.

I didn’t try to muffle a scream as I was lifted up by the hair, slammed up against the door, then turned about, grabbed by the short hairs at the back of my neck, and frogmarched, stark naked, down the hall to the stairs, down several flights of stairs to the dungeon, and then kicked into a cell, and the cell locked.

The guard pulled up a stool across from me, and sat down.

“Please. At least, tell me what I did, what they think that I did. I mean, I—â€

 

T
HE NICE THING
about being brought in front of Lord Toshtai was that they let me—made me, actually—wash and get dressed.

You learn something new every day: that day I learned that fear isn’t any antidote for boredom and irritation. I had been getting both more bored and more irritated as the morning dragged on.

He was waiting for me in the hall, the great hall in which we had been received at our arrival in Den Oroshtai, just a few days, a few ages before. I had been so much younger then.

Lord Toshtai didn’t look any different than usual.

Today, the fat man was arrayed in many-folded robes of a lustrous yellow silk, his hair combed back flat against his skull. The folds of his neck had been freshly powdered; his hands, scrubbed to that pink, almost a glow, that’s a proud possession of members of our beloved ruling class, lay folded neatly on his lap.

At my approach, he sat back on his throne, watching my entrance with eyes that were neither cruel nor kind.

The musicians played, and the guards sang as we walked:

“The acrobat, Kami Khuzud, is brought be-fore Lord Toshtai;

“Our Lord to dispense jus-tice and truth.

“Fearless is the innocent,â€