Sworn in Steel (26 page)

We had clearly gone from the Old City to the “Ancient City,” and it was here, among the twisting, crowded streets of what was clearly the foreign district, that the Imperial Quarter
had grown up.

Long ago, the Quarter had been a simple trading district, with all of the important diplomatic functionaries taking residence in the second ring of the city. Most of them were still there, but
as the relationship between the Empire and the Despotate had evolved over the centuries, so had the quarter. Now it stood as the main symbol of all things imperial within el-Qaddice, housing not
only merchants, but craftsmen, lesser diplomats, artists, bankers, trading houses, laborers, expatriates—as well as half a cohort of legionnaires.

Heron met us in the shadow of the Quarter’s gate, dressed in white and gray like some great crane. A pair of lesser clerks stood behind him. Both were Djanese. Just like back in the room
where I’d woken up, he had a book open in his hands, reading. This time, though, it was a thin quarto.

He lowered the book as I approached up and indicated the walls with a nod. “They’re the third set, you know.”

I followed his gesture. They were high, solid things covered with bas-relief figures. Most of those figures were Imperials, and most were in the process of dying, either via sickness or at spear
point. Considering the reason the walls had been torn down and rebuilt, that made sense.

“I know,” I said. “The last ones were torn down during the Siege of the Paragons.”

Heron raised an appreciative eyebrow. “You know of that? Most of our people have tried to forget it.”

“Most have,” I said, keeping my eyes on the wall. “I just got lucky and came across a copy of Petrosius’s
Regimes
.”

He turned to face me full-on. “
You
have a copy of Petrosius? That book was banned and burned in the empire almost a century ago. How—?”

“Who said
I
had a copy?” I said. “I know someone with an extensive collection, is all.” Someone who happened to be both a master scribe and a forger, as well as
in my debt.

Heron cleared his throat. I watched as his fingers played over the cover of the quarto, hungry for that which he’d never thought to even taste. “Do you think he might be willing to .
. . perhaps . . . ?”

“Loan it out?” Loaning out rare books, even across countries, wasn’t an unknown thing, especially among bibliophiles. The opportunity to exchange tomes could often outweigh the
risk of loss or damage represented by transit in many minds—one of which seemed to be Heron’s.

“That, or allow me to pay for a copy to be made,” said Heron. “If, that is, he can find someone he trusts to copy it.”

I laughed despite myself. Asking Baldezar to copy something like
Regimes
, especially if there was a chance to show off his scholarly and scribal skills, let alone make a profit, was
like asking a bee to make honey. “I think he can probably find someone,” I said. “I’ll even make sure he doesn’t cheat you too badly.”

“For a copy of that book?” said Heron. “Don’t concern yourself about the price.”

I turned my attention back to the wall. I could understand Heron’s interest, being in the middle of Djan, even as I could understand why the empire had decided long ago to sweep the
incident under the rug. It had been an ignominious action on the part of the emperor at the time, and any acknowledgment by the empire, even through a banned historian, would likely play well at
the despotic court.

A little over one and a quarter centuries ago, Theodoi, in his fifth incarnation as emperor, had decided that it was time to go to war with the Despotate again. This time, though, he wanted to
strike at the head first, rather than work his way in from the edges, as had been the tradition for ages. To that end, he ordered almost four hundred legionnaires to be smuggled into el-Qaddice
over the course of six months, the troops disguised variously as traders, servants, teamsters, and whatever else would raise the least suspicion. Alone, that was bad enough, but Theodoi had sent
along three Imperial Paragons as well.

Traditionally, the emperor’s private mages had been held in reserve for the defense of the empire, or, on rare occasions, sent to accompany a full Dorminikan army on the march. Paragons
were simply too valuable—and too dangerous, if you thought about what one could spill if he was captured—to risk on their own. To send three into el-Qaddice with only half a cohort for
protection spoke to just how seriously Theodoi had taken this war, and how badly he’d wanted to strike a crippling blow to the Djanese.

And he did. The plague started a full two weeks before war was declared. Disease swept through el-Qaddice, starting in the lower city and running all the way up to the gates of the
despot’s inner ring. According to Petrosius, prayers, magic, and physicians filled the streets, barely stemming the tide. When the bodies of the corpses began bursting into flames three days
later, though, it quickly became obvious that this was more than a simple plague. The exodus from the city was almost immediate.

Theodoi’s declaration of war had arrived four days after that, accompanied by an ultimatum that all but took direct responsibility for the plague. The despot at the time—one Mehmer
Ajan III—hadn’t hesitated. Marshaling his personal forces and summoning the power not only of the Fifteen High Magi, but also the magi of the disparate tribes and clans under his
control, the despot had returned to el-Qaddice and laid siege to the Imperial Quarter.

Petrosius numbers the dead in the thousands outside the walls of the Imperial enclave. Once the magi learned how to turn the plague back on the Imperials, though, he speaks of tens of
thousands—all within the Quarter. The walls of the Quarter were torn down, and the heads of the three Paragons were sent back to Theodoi, along with the despot’s own ultimatum.

The Dorminikan Empire surrendered two provinces to the Despotate of Djan that autumn, and has only ever recovered half of one in the intervening one hundred and thirty-four years. For the
Djanese, that time is referred to as the Burning Days, and they’ve carved depictions of them into the Quarter’s walls, lest they, or we, forget.

As if reading my mood, Heron cleared his throat beside me. “Dark days, long passed,” he said. He shuddered for a moment in sympathy with the past, then gestured for Tobin and Ezak to
join us.

“What I have to say concerns all of you,” said Heron as the mismatched pair of cousins walked up. “Accommodations have been arranged for you. Even though you aren’t
allowed to stay in the Sanctuary of the Muse, the wazir and, through him, the padishah are still responsible for your well-being and sustenance.”

“Meaning you’re covering out expenses?” said Tobin, smiling for the first time since we’d left the padishah’s enclave.

“Meaning you have an allowance,” said Heron. “A
strict
allowance.” He turned his eyes to me. “That you, as the imperial patron, must come to me to receive
every other day.”

“In person?” I said. Having to walk back and forth across the Old City every other day could put a crimp in my other work.

“In person,” said Heron. “At which point you will report on your troupe’s progress in their preparations, as well as answer for any complaints lodged against you—of
which I expect to hear none, of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

“When do we appear before His Eminence, the padishah?” said Ezak.

“Whenever you are ready to perform,” said Heron. “Which,” he added as the two men began to grin, anticipating weeks, or more, of living on the padishah’s coin,
“the wazir has decided will be on the twenty-fourth day of Fallwah.”

The grins faltered.

“What date is today again?” said Tobin.

“The seventeenth day of Fallwah,” said Heron.

Tobin and Ezak exchanged looks. “Well,” began Ezak, “it’s still a week. We could always—”

“And,” continued Heron, as if the men hadn’t spoken, “the wazir would like you to perform something different from your original audition. Something more like . .
.” Heron extended his hand out behind him, had it filled by one of the clerks. “This,” he said, bringing forward a trimmed and bound folio.

The grins vanished.

“What?” cried Tobin, even as Ezak reached out and accepted the thin book. “You want us to read, prepare, and perform a play in seven—”

“Less,” said Ezak, looking up at the sun, which was already past noon.

“In less than seven days?” finished Tobin.

My stomach clenched, and not in sympathy for the troupe. A week was barely enough time to get my feet wet in the Old City, let alone stand a chance of finding Degan. I needed longer, which meant
the troupe needed longer—ideally, as long as an extended engagement as the padishah’s players would allow. Seven days wasn’t going to get us that—not by a long shot.

“We need more time,” I said.

Heron arched an eyebrow. “Don’t we all?”

“Seven days for a new play?” I said, attempting to take up my role as patron. “Is the wazir setting us up to fail?”

Heron’s resulting silence was eloquence itself.

“Fuck!” I said, stepping away lest I make our situation even worse by strangling the wazir’s secretary.

“Four acts,” muttered Ezak, paging through the script. “At least three scene changes—one at sea. No, sorry, on a lake. Six key parts, maybe another seven minor . .
.” He stopped and looked up. “Is this a translation?”

Heron gave a small bow. “From one of the padishah’s current favorites. A high honor for you.”

“Impossible!” said Tobin. “The sensibilities will be all wrong.” He stepped forward, his hands out, placating. “We have a piece ready—a wonderful piece.
Heroic, passionate: It’s brilliance on the boards. We’ve been preparing the entire journey. If the padishah wants to see what we’re made of, then he needs to see us at our best.
He has to let us—”

Heron took a quick step forward—so quick that, were it not for the shifting of his robes around him, I would have missed the movement entirely. “The padishah has to
do
nothing!” snapped the secretary. “And that includes let you live. You stand in el-Qaddice at the pleasure of His Highness Yavir; you can just as easily sleep in its streets, or lie
under its earth, by that same pleasure. If it
pleases
him, or his wazir, to tell you to howl like gibbons and swing from the rafters of the grand reception hall, I expect the first words
out of your mouth to be ‘In or out of costume, if it may please His Excellence?’Am I understood?”

Tobin opened his mouth, thought better of it, and nodded once instead. When he turned away, he made no effort to hide his disgust.

“We’ll need an original copy of the text in Djanese,” said Ezak, his voice carefully neutral. “In case there are questions or errors.” Heron held out his hand, had
it filled with another book.

“And a translator,” said Ezak.

Heron looked at me.

“Oh, no,” I said, holding up my hands. “I speak Djanese, I don’t read it.” A lie, I admit, but a convenient one nonetheless. If the padishah—or rather, the
wazir—wanted to be an asshole, I wasn’t about to make it easier on his purse.

Ezak weighed the two books, then looked up at me. His expression said it all.

I touched Heron lightly on the sleeve and gestured off to one side. He followed me over, the scowl on his face showing me he was getting tired of the subject. One apparently didn’t
question the wazir—or his secretary—when a decision had been made.

Too fucking bad.

“What happened to helping out fellow Imperials?” I said, my voice low.

“There’s a difference between a crate of
ahrami
and debating a decision with the wazir.”

A crate?

“Besides,” said Heron, “you’ll notice that I don’t live in the empire anymore; that I, in fact, serve the Despotate.”

“And rushing an imperial acting troupe’s performance so they can fail—is that serving the Despotate, or the wazir?” I said. “Or is it merely serving your own
skin?”

Heron stiffened, his eyes growing hard. I found myself taking an involuntary step back.

“You dare accuse me of . . . ?” he began. His right hand twitched toward his belt, then stopped. Heron took a short, sharp breath. “It’s serving whom I must,” he
snapped. He gestured at the wall. “You, of all people, should know the burden we carry by our blood in this city. Be happy you were allowed in at all.” Then he turned and started to
walk away.

I glanced over at the wall, at the depiction of a burning corpse done in bas-relief. A thought occurred.

“Who would you want besides Petrosius?” I said to Heron’s retreating back.

He stopped.

“Thycles?” I said, tossing out historians. “Verin the Younger?” I took a slow step after him. “Maybe Kessalon?”

Heron looked over his shoulder. “You can get Kessalon?”

“Both volumes of his
Commentaries
—
if
you can get us more time.”

Heron’s eyes narrowed. “Originals?”

“Copies.” Baldezar would have a fit about me promising copies of two of his most precious texts as it was; trying to get an original out of his hands would require someone to die,
and he was too valuable to go dustmans.

“Get Thycles, too,” said Heron, “and you have a deal.”

I pretended to think, then gave a reluctant nod. Thycles would be easy—Baldezar had three copies; that’s why I’d mentioned him.

“Very well,” said Heron, his voice still tight. He gestured at the younger of the two clerks. “Shaheer will show you to your accommodations in the Quarter. I will speak to the
wazir. Report to me at the padishah’s palace tomorrow at dusk. I’ll have your answer then. Oh, and before I forget . . .”

Heron held out his hand again. Shaheer put a bag in it. The bag clinked.

“You’ll need these,” he said, handing the bag to me. I reached inside and pulled out an oval brass lozenge the length of my thumb, on a matching brass chain. A long flute,
called a
nay
, and a rolled-up scroll were depicted on the face of the lozenge; Djanese script was etched into the back.

“Those are your tokens of patronage from the wazir,” said Heron. “Wear them openly, and always. If you are seen outside the Imperial Quarter without your token, any citizen of
Djan may report you, or try to detain you. There is a reward for anyone who helps capture Imperials without a mark of patronage.” He looked me squarely in the eye. “A large
reward.”