The Legend of Broken (63 page)

“Apologies, my lady,” Berthe whispers. “I had intended to try to order affairs here at least somewhat less offensively—”

“Lady Arnem—what is it that you have brought me here to see?” Baster-kin asks imperiously. “For I am acquainted with failure and disgrace, in nearly all their forms.”

Isadora gives Berthe a sympathetic smile and clutch of one arm, then urges her back to her husband’s side. As the woman goes, Isadora turns a gaze to match Rendulic Baster-kin’s own on him. “Such harshness is hardly necessary, my lord, given the circumstances that are plain enough, here.”

Berthe has returned to the duty of wiping her husband Emalrec’s feverish brow. He gives off the powerful stenches of rotted teeth and food, human waste, and sweat; but none of this slows Isadora, who urges the Merchant Lord on. “Come then, in the interest of the kingdom, if no other,” she says, at which Baster-kin covers the lower portion of his face once more with the edge of his cloak, and watches as Isadora pulls away the light, filthy shirt that covers the groaning Emalrec’s neck and trunk, just enough to reveal his chest. “It is all right, Berthe,” Isadora says, seeing that the woman’s terror has only grown. “These men will do him no harm, I promise you …” Picking up the barest end of a candle that is seated in a shard of pottery nearby, Isadora indicates the patient’s exposed skin to Lord Baster-kin—

And he need see no more. Not wishing to spread his concern about the house or the neighborhood, he urges Isadora toward the back of the next room, and even manages a smile for the huddled, filthy children, as he passes them by to a rear entryway. Further along, there is a small square outside, a long-lifeless patch of Earth shared by three houses. A latrine—its walls long since fallen away, and its four-holed granite bench concealed, now, only by near-useless curtains suspended from similarly degraded ropes and poles—stands in the center of this yard, the holes in the bench leading directly down to the city’s sewer system.

Dismal as this picture is, however, Lord Baster-kin’s mind is still fixed on what he saw in the room. “I do not pretend to be an expert such as yourself, Lady Arnem,” he says quietly, not even wishing his household guards to hear the words. “But, unless I am a badly mistaken, that man is stricken with the rose fever.”

“You are remarkably well informed,” Isadora answers. “Not many could detect its markings so accurately—or so quickly.”

“Thank you; but returning to the illness—” Baster-kin’s face is now a mask of pure responsibility. “It spreads among people, particularly in areas lived in by such large numbers of people, as fast as the Death, even if more survive it than do that worst of all illnesses.”

“Quite true,” Isadora answers, now becoming a little coy: a dangerous game to play, at a moment such as this.

“And am I right in suspecting that you have some insight into the method of its spread, on this occasion, my lady?” Baster-kin asks.

Isadora continues her bit of playacting, praying that her fear does not bleed through it: “There are theories, of course, but there are always theories, from healers. All we can be certain of is, if that man is stricken by it, it will soon appear in many, perhaps most, houses in this neighborhood: quite possibly in this district. And from there …”

“But what of
your
theory?” Baster-kin asks, in considerably less pleasant or patient a tone.

Isadora urges Baster-kin farther back, into the small, dusty yard. “My lord,” she begins, “you knew my mistress Gisa and, unless I am very much mistaken, you knew her to be, whatever her private beliefs on the subjects of the spirit and religion, a healer without equal in this city.”

“You are not wrong,” Baster-kin answers. “Gisa knew her place in this kingdom, and never sought to advance herself past it, nor to betray its fundamental laws.”

“So, then,” Isadora continues, drawing a deep breath. “You would be inclined to believe suggestions that originated with her?”

“You were a wise and kind minister of her cures,” Rendulic Baster-kin says. “But I was ever aware that the cures were hers. And so, yes, I would be inclined to believe her, and now,
you,
above nearly every other pretender to the office of ‘healer.’ But what has any of this to do with matters in
this
house, and this district?”

“First”—Isadora works hard to still the tremor in her voice—“allow me to show you an extraordinary display of patriotism further from this house and these
Plumpskeles
 …”
†

“Lady Arnem!” Rendulic Baster-kin calls, as she begins to walk even further from the house, down a narrow pathway that his lordship, his eyes having grown accustomed to the darkness, can now see leads to an only slightly wider alleyway beyond. “I would rather you remember yourself, as I am sure your husband would, than to revert to the behavior and language of this—
place
 …!”

“Why, Lord Baster-kin,” Isadora says without turning, and now smiling just a bit: for she has rattled this supremely confident man. “Do not tell me that this situation unnerves you? But come …” Then, in a supreme bit of theater, Lady Isadora holds her own arm out, to wait for the now-familiar resting perch of his lordship’s own. “Time and plague bear down upon us …”

Baster-kin obliges without answer; and as he does, Isadora’s steps become easier.

The alleyway into which Isadora leads her “guest” eventually terminates in the mighty edifice of the city’s southwest wall, which looms over everything beneath it. Confronted by the dark mass before him, the Merchant Lord pauses at the alleyway’s head, and says, “You pile mystery upon mystery, my lady—and to what end? I have already said, I would be inclined to believe you in this matter.”

“To believe is hardly to witness,” Isadora calls. “Come, my lord. You need not wait for your men—for we shall have guards enough, upon our brief journey …”

Before it can reach the great edifice near its terminus, the narrow alleyway down which the pair walk leads into that broad military path that runs about the entire base of all the walls of Broken, and is kept constantly free of any form of congestion so that the soldiers of the city may always move freely to and along that critical route to their positions. Thus, the alleyways adjoining it must be kept as dark and clear as the greater path itself. These highly secluded spots in a very questionable neighborhood, when used by persons not of the army, are places where transactions of an illegal nature take place: the buying and selling of stolen goods, unlicensed whoring, or, as ever and perhaps most common of all, robberies and murders.

How strange then, that each doorway of this particular alley leading to the imposing southwest wall of the city—a wall which is easily twice or three times as high as the largest of any of the shacks below, and still bears the clear marks of enormous, long-handled chisels and wedges—is apparently guarded, by two long lines of sentry-like men on either side of the passageway: not particularly young or healthy men, but men, most of whom are wan with age, sometimes supported by canes or crutches, yet all still possessing an essential military demeanor that cannot be manufactured; and, oddest of all—to Lord Baster-kin’s eyes, at any rate—it is the single most agèd and crippled of these figures, a thin, balding wisp of a man with a crutch, who is at the head of the alley, and in apparent control of the rest. He holds a Broken short-sword in his free hand, while staring at the Merchant Lord with a peculiar smile.

Blows and wounds seem entirely possible, although it is not clear between whom—instead, however, the ancient man on the crutch sheathes his blade, and hobbles toward Isadora and Lord Baster-kin.

“Lady Arnem,” Baster-kin murmurs quietly, to Isadora’s further satisfaction, “what, in the name of all that is holy, have you led me into …?”

{
ix
:}

“Well, Linnet Kriksex,”
†
Lady Arnem says happily, before she can answer Baster-kin’s question, “so you have made good on your promise.”

“Aye, Lady Arnem!” the old soldier answers, in a voice that is as rough as a large piece of stone being dragged across a quarry floor. “We were not certain when to expect you, but I told the men that your return was promised, and that it would take place. The wife of Sentek Arnem would never offer assistance and forget the pledge, I said!”

“Well done, Kriksex,” Isadora answers. “And now allow me to present Lord Rendulic Baster-kin, master of the Merchants’ Council and first citizen of the city and kingdom of Broken.”

Kriksex takes one or two steps toward Baster-kin, who, in a rare moment of humility, rushes to meet the hobbling old fellow more than halfway between them.

“My lord,” Kriksex says before delivering a sharp salute. “Linnet Kriksex, your lordship! Pleased to be of assistance to my kingdom, once again.”

“Kriksex?”

Another voice has joined the conversation, this one Radelfer’s; and Baster-kin and Isadora turn to see the seneschal stepping forward from his guard detail. “Is it really you?”

Kriksex looks past the great Lord Baster-kin, his face going first blank, and then joyous with recognition. “Ah, Radelfer, you have truly come!” he cries out, again flailing the crutch about as he moves quickly to meet what is apparently an approaching comrade. “So the stories were all true, and you did indeed remain with the clan Baster-kin!”

The two older men embrace, although Radelfer is careful with the seeming sack of bones and scars that was once his own linnet.

“But how are you still alive, you bearded, ancient goat?” Radelfer laughs. “It was enough that you survived the campaigns we undertook as young men, but—to find you here, among all this strange business, with what appears your own small army—it seems incredible!”

“Radelfer,” Lord Baster-kin says, not sternly, but rather with the tone of one who has had enough mysteries, for one night. “Perhaps you will be good enough to explain to me just who this man, who these
men,
are, and what they are doing seemingly guarding a decrepit alleyway, for no apparent purpose.”

“Your pardon, my lord,” Radelfer says. “This is Linnet Kriksex, who commanded my
fauste
when I joined the Talons, many years ago. And a more faithful servant of the realm you would be hard-pressed to find.”

“Indeed?” Baster-kin asks, looking at Kriksex and not quite sure of the explanation. “And I suppose this is the basis for your authority over these other assembled men, Kriksex, who also look to be veterans of various campaigns?”

“These are loyal men, my lord,” Kriksex replies, “here to protect the God-King’s name and laws in this district. An able core of veterans keeps the residents in this neighborhood free of both crime and vice. But the ominous occurrence that appeared again recently, the—the riddle that I showed Lady Arnem a few nights ago—went, I fear, beyond the power of men to either create, or to control. And so we determined that we must keep the situation exactly as we have periodically found it—spring is usually the most common time—until we determined whether or not we could persuade someone of greater consequence than ourselves to inspect it. My lady’s visit here was by chance; but then, Kafra be praised, you agreed in short order to accompany her back!”

Baster-kin looks up and down the alley with an uncertain expression, as he follows the agèd veteran. “I fear you confound me, Kriksex,” Baster-kin answers.

“The smell tells much of the tale, my lord,” he says. “But if you will only follow me to the southwest wall, I believe the peculiarity will become apparent quickly enough. It will be preceded by a worsening of that same stench, in all likelihood, one noticeable above even the usually delightful aromas of the Fifth.”

Baster-kin takes a deep breath, holding his forearm out to Lady Arnem once again. “My lady? May I assist you, as we follow this good man, that I may see what the difficulty is?”

“Your attention is much appreciated, my lord,” Isadora answers, placing her hand upon his lordship’s arm; she signals to Dagobert, who steps forward and moves on his mother’s free side further down the alleyway and through the lines of veteran soldiers, each of whom salute in turn.

Kriksex maintains the lead of the guard detail that surrounds the three important visitors, and he often turns to watch the intrepid Lady Arnem with his same smile, no less genuine for its lack of teeth. As the moments mount, however, he seems to find some emotion uncontainable, and he lags back a few feet to whisper toward Lord Baster-kin’s left ear: “Is she not a fit lady for Sentek Arnem, my lord? Fearless!”

Baster-kin nods, making his way into the deeper darkness. “Indeed, Kriksex,” he agrees, in an equally quiet voice that Lady Arnem—who is increasingly engaged by those she passes by, despite young Dabobert’s attempts to keep her way clear—cannot overhear. “A finer woman could not be found in all of Broken. But, for now—to the business at hand. For, unless I am losing both my sense of smell and my mind”—the noble nose wrinkles, and a sour expression consumes the face—“Something—perhaps many things—seem to have
died
, hereabouts …”

“Aye, Lord—many things, if we judge by that stench,” Kriksex says. “And yet you will find neither rot nor offal to explain it; only a seemingly ordinary, even innocent source …”

It takes but a few minutes to reach the southwest wall of the city; but before the interlopers have done so, Lord Baster-kin’s disgust only grows. “Kafra’s great holiness. You say there are
no
dead bodies in this area?”

“Several citizens
have
died in recent days,” Kriksex replies. “But they are not the source of it, for their bodies were burned by the district priest, according to all proper rites and methods, eliminating their remains as a cause. Young, they have been, most of them, as have been the others who have recently died in the district.” Lord Baster-kin casts a quick glance at Isadora; for he knows that the rose fever attacks the young before all others. “A terrible pity and waste, it has all been,” Kriksex continues. “But no, my lord—what you smell is a more inexplicable thing, and yet still, the cause will appear simple enough—nothing more than a small stream of water.”

Yet that seemingly innocent statement is enough to make Baster-kin pause for a moment. “But there is no water that flows above ground in the city—even the gutters that empty into the sewers are moved by collected rain. Oxmontrot saw to as much, to keep his people safe from the evils that open water of unknown origin can bring.”

“Just so, my lord,” says Isadora, who by now is standing on the pathway that runs at the base of the massive wall. From somewhere behind Baster-kin, a group of torches seem to simply appear, carried by Kriksex’s men, and they light the scored city wall, as well as the pathway beneath it; and when the noble Lord Baster-kin turns, he sees that by now every alley and nook, every window and rooftop of any house that offers any kind of a view of what is happening in this place has filled with the faces and jostling bodies and heads of curious citizens of the neighborhood, who must, by now, have heard who their visitors are. This eerie scene is, for a man such as Baster-kin, a glimpse into another world, almost into the mouth of
Hel
itself, and he has no wish to prolong it any more than he need do.

“Lady Arnem?” he calls out, in a somewhat unnerved voice, turning to notice that she has seemingly disappeared. “Lady—Linnet Kriksex!” the Merchant Lord demands, and Kriksex immediately lends him guiding aid:

“My lady is farther up along the wall and the stream, my lord,” the hobbling soldier says, appearing as from the darkness and pointing. “In the same area that interested her when first she came here, where the water first appears.”

Baster-kin nods, hurrying along to where Lady Arnem crouches. There, a delicate trickle of odoriferous water does, indeed, seem to spring from the base of the massive city wall itself: a trickle that soon grows, and that should, according to Oxmontrot’s plans for the city, have been intercepted and fed into the underground sewer system long before it ever reached this open spot. It appears to run some hundred or hundred and fifty yards, hugging tight to the wall, until it finally disappears as suddenly and inexplicably as it now bubbles up beneath the lord and lady.

“How can this be?” Baster-kin asks incredulously.

“I have been puzzling with that since being shown it,” Lady Arnem says, inspiring his lordship’s momentary admiration—for he had truly believed that her ends in this journey had only to do with her husband and her second son’s service in the House of the Wives of Kafra. Now, however, it would appear that patriotism numbers among her motives. “And yet,” she continues, “its appearance is not the most disturbing part of the matter.”

“No, my lady?” he says, mystified.

“No, my lord,” she replies, shaking her head. “There is this matter of its coming and going, especially during the rains. And there is also this …” With which, she opens her hand, and holds it up to the torchlight.