Thraxas - The Complete Series (61 page)

“You’re better than you look, fat man,” he snarls, kicking out at my shin. It hurts but I don’t let go till I’ve pulled him right up to me, then I butt him in the face. He yells in pain as his nose caves in. I like that.

He swings his sword wildly, but he’s lost concentration. I stay calm and wait my chance. He makes another rash lunge towards me. I leap nimbly over the still comatose figure of Sarija and he stumbles into her body. I grab a dagger from my desk and fling it at him. It sinks into his chest, and he slumps dead to the floor.

I stare at the body. He wasn’t much of a fighter. He should have known better than to attack me. I’ve had a great deal of experience.

Makri bounds naked into the room with a sword in her hand, alerted by the noise.

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

I light a lamp so we can see better. I still don’t know. Just some anonymous-looking thug I’ve never seen before.

“What happened?”

“I found him about to kill Sarija.”

Sarija has not woken up. Powerful stuff, dwa. Maybe it would make me sleep better.

I haul the body out of my room and carry it along the street, where I dump it in an alley. I don’t want to report this to the Civil Guards because it’ll only give them an excuse to make my life even more difficult. The rain immediately washes out all trace of my footprints, not that the Guards will spend a lot of time looking for clues anyway. If you’re found dead in an alley in Twelve Seas it tends to be regarded as the natural order of things. When I return Makri has put a tunic on.

“Couldn’t you have done that before you came in the first time?”

“What for?”

“Just one of these civilisation things. Round here young women don’t rush naked into men’s rooms.”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if there had been four of them and you needed me to help.”

“I suppose not. Don’t you wear anything when you sleep?”

“No. Do you?”

“Of course. Sleeping naked is only for Barbarians. Like eating with your fingers.”

“What if you’re in bed with someone?”

“You still use cutlery.”

Makri says that now she’s up she’ll use the few hours before dawn to study some philosophy. She attended a public lecture in the forum by Samanatius and she’s been puzzling about eternal forms ever since.

“Do you think it’s true that somewhere in the universe there is one great, perfect axe of which my own axe is just a pale reflection?”

“No.”

“Samanatius says it’s true. And he’s the wisest man in the west.”

“Says who?”

“Everyone.”

I start on a joke but bite it back. Makri is keen on her philosophy and can get upset if I mock. As she rushed into my room to save me I figure I might as well be polite for a while. She asks me if I’m going to take on the case for Sarija. I tell her I will, if Sarija ever wakes up.

“I need the money. Anyway, I want to know who killed Senator Mursius. He was my commander. I owe him. What did Hanama want?”

“Some advice on gambling.”

“Gambling? Hanama? What for?”

“It’s private,” replies Makri.

“Why would she ask you about gambling?”

“Why not? After all, I’m a woman who just won eight gurans on Orc Crusher.”

The chariot came in an easy winner, winning eight gurans each for Makri and myself.

“So now I have eighteen gurans,” says Makri. “What’s the next bet?”

I see that Makri is not going to tell me any more about Hanama the Assassin, so I let it pass for now. Makri takes tomorrow’s form sheet from my desk and spreads it out.

“You’re keen on the chariots, all of a sudden.”

“I’ve no choice. If I don’t come up with sixty gurans pretty soon I’ll be in disgrace with the Association of Gentlewomen. It’s all your fault really.”

I promise to study the form for the next races.

Sarija wakes with the dawn. For a woman rich enough to buy the finest food, cosmetics and hair-dressing skills that Turai has to offer, she’s looking pretty rough. I try and get a little breakfast inside her but she has no appetite and barely manages a mouthful of bread. I eat heartily and ask her for some details of the case.

“I’ll find the killer. I have to. I’m the main suspect.”

Sarija asks me if I did kill him. I assure her I didn’t. She seems to believe me.

“Who do you suspect?”

I admit I have no real suspect. Apart from Sarija, possibly.

“Why me?”

“You can’t have been getting on too well together. He won’t give you money in case you spend it on dwa. In return you sell off a few works of art and he hires an Investigator to get them back. It doesn’t add up to a very harmonious household.”

She admits that what I say is true but points out that she had no reason to kill Mursius.

Not strictly true, I reason. If Mursius wasn’t around to interfere, all the family money would revert to the control of Sarija, giving her unlimited access to dwa. Dwa has already proved an ample motive for murder many times in Turai. I ask her where she was when Mursius got killed.

“In Ferias. The servants can testify to that.”

“Servants can generally testify to anything. Did anyone else see you, anyone not connected with the household?”

She shakes her head. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to her that she might well be a suspect. “Surely any Sorcerer could clear me?”

“Maybe. A powerful Sorcerer like Old Hasius the Brilliant at the Abode of Justice can sometimes look back in time and see what happened. But it’s a hard thing to do. Depends on the moons being correctly aligned at both the time of the crime and the time of the enquiry. More often than not it’s not reliable. That’s why we still have people like me to investigate things. Do you know why Carilis came to see me yesterday?”

At the mention of Carilis, Sarija makes a face. “I’ve no idea.”

“You didn’t like Carilis?”

“She was sent by my husband to make sure I didn’t get any dwa. Of course I didn’t like her. And I think she had an idea in her head of replacing me.”

“Replacing you? As Mursius’s wife?”

Sarija nods. “That’s why I was still able to buy dwa. Carilis was meant to be preventing it, but she’d always turn a blind eye, hoping I’d die from an overdose so that she could move in. She figured it was time she married into some wealth. She comes from a good family, but her father lost all his money in some land scandal. They were cousins of Mursius. He took her in.”

I see. I wondered why an obviously aristocratic young woman like Carilis was working as a nursemaid.

“Have you ever considered giving up dwa?”

“Every day. It’s not so easy.”

I talk to her a while more. Now her mind is clearer she’s not nearly so unpleasant. In fact, I end up rather liking her, particularly when she tells me about the trouble she had with Mursius’s relatives after they married. Sarija comes from a decidedly lower class than the Senator and they didn’t like that at all.

“My mother was a dancer from Simnia. I kept up the tradition. I used to work at the Mermaid. It was a rough place in those days.”

“It still is. Roughest place in Twelve Seas. I can see why Mursius’s relatives didn’t like you. How did you meet?”

“During the Orc Wars. You know how class divisions relaxed for a while when the Orcs were at the gate. Mursius used to come into the tavern with some of his men when they were off duty. We fell in love. After the war was over he came back to Twelve Seas, whisked me off in his carriage and married me. I wasn’t expecting it. It was good for a while…” She spreads her hands. “But his family never accepted me.”

I sympathise. I suffered much the same sort of thing with my wife’s relatives. You can usually tell the birth of a Turanian from their name. High-class women’s names generally end in “is,” like Carilis. No one would mistake Sarija for an aristocrat, even if she acted like one.

“Do you have any beer?”

I give her a bottle.

She drinks it with some relish. “You know the upper classes only drink wine? I haven’t had a beer in years.”

I don’t tell her about the man I found trying to cut her throat. Maybe he was just a burglar with a mean streak. I doubt it.

She drinks her beer quickly and asks for another. I’m starting to like her. Any friend of beer is a friend of mine. I hope she didn’t kill Mursius. We talk about him a while more. Suddenly she starts to cry. Not hysterical, just a slow, sad kind of weeping.

I hate it when my clients cry, particularly the women. I never know what to do. I try patting her hand. It doesn’t help much.

“I’ll find the killer,” I tell her.

She seems a little comforted, but it doesn’t stop her from crying.

An official messenger arrives from the Senate. I rip open the scroll and eye it warily.

Come immediately to the Stadium Superbius
, it reads. It’s signed by Cicerius. I suspect it’s bad news, but really I’m pleased at an excuse to run away from Sarija’s tears.

T
he Stadium Superbius is situated outside the east gate of the city walls. It’s huge, the largest arena in any of the League of City-States. The chariot-racing track is the longest you’ll find in this part of the world. Samsarina’s is longer of course, but Samsarina is way out west of here, and far bigger than Turai.

I travel through the pleasure gardens to the east gate. Usually I’m excited by the journey but as the pleasure gardens are half underwater they’re a sorry sight and I’m apprehensive as to why Cicerius has summoned me. I guess I’m about to meet an Orc. Furthermore I am currently as wet as a Mermaid’s blanket, because I’ve left the Avenging Axe without my magic dry cloak. Instead I’ve used my sorcerous capacity to load the sleep spell into my mind. No matter if Lord Rezaz is here at the invitation of the King. I’m not meeting Orcs without some means of protecting myself.

Prince Frisen-Akan owns a villa right next to the Stadium and it is here that Lord Rezaz is staying. His presence in the city is not yet publicly known. A Guard takes me to Cicerius.

“We have a problem,” says the Deputy Consul.

“Already?”

“I am afraid so. Come with me.”

He leads me through the villa. It’s as splendid as you might expect but I’m in no mood for appreciating fine furnishings. Before I’ve prepared myself properly Cicerius has led me into a large reception room. There, standing in front of the window, is the Orc I last saw at the foot of the crumbling city walls fifteen years ago.

“Lord Rezaz Caseg,” says Cicerius, and introduces me.

Lord Rezaz is large, even for an Orc, and looks much the same as I remember him, slightly more gnarled, though it’s hard to tell. Orcs tend to be gnarled anyway. Despite his rank he wears the standard black tunic of an Orcish warrior. Over it he has a sumptuous dark red cloak and he carries a golden mace. With him are two other Orcs, both rather small for the race. Each has dark shaggy hair, as is normal, and one wears the black garb of a warrior. He looks mean. The other is unarmed and turns out to be Rezaz’s charioteer.

I am extremely uncomfortable. I’m in a room with three Orcs and only Cicerius for Human support. Cicerius was never much of a fighter, even in his youth. I can’t shake the feeling that, diplomatic mission or not, these Orcs are going to attack me. I prepare the sleep spell.

“I remember you,” says Lord Rezaz, startling me.

“You remember me?”

“From the walls. You fought that day. I saw you. You were thinner then.”

I’m even more startled, and a little annoyed. The last thing I was expecting was for Rezaz the Butcher to comment on my weight.

“I am pleased that the man assigned to aid us is a warrior,” says the Orc Lord.

Cicerius looks satisfied that I’ve got off to a good start. A servant brings us wine. Before coming I had determined to decline all such hospitality. I will not share drinks with an Orc, I told Gurd. “To hell with it,” I think, and take the wine. No point making life difficult for myself.

“Would someone like to tell me what the problem is?”

“Sabotage,” says the Deputy Consul.

“Already? But the chariot isn’t here yet.”

“My charioteer’s prayer mat has been stolen,” says Lord Rezaz. “And without it he cannot ride.”

I stare at them, uncomprehending. “His prayer mat?”

“It is necessary for an Orcish charioteer to place his prayer mat under his feet before competing. Without it he cannot race. Last night someone stole my charioteer’s.”

“Can’t you give him another one?”

Apparently not. It seems that an Orc gets his own prayer mat from a priest when he comes of age and losing it is a serious matter. A replacement can only be obtained from an Orcish temple and the nearest Orcish temple is some weeks’ ride away. As I know nothing about Orcish religion this is all news to me. I wasn’t even sure if they prayed.

I turn to Cicerius. “Isn’t this place guarded?”

“Heavily. But the theft still happened.”

“We foresaw that there may be some difficulties during our stay,” says Lord Rezaz. “But we did not foresee that the moment we arrived in Turai, under the protection of the King, our religion would be insulted and our persons robbed.”

Cicerius is troubled. He can see the copper mines disappearing from under his nose, and with them his favour with the King.