Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (19 page)

The Sheason then turned a kinder eye on Wendra. “Anais, I must ask you not to make your music in the company of others. They will misunderstand.”

Wendra looked perplexed, but she did not contend with Vendanj.

Tahn opened his mouth to speak.

“Later for your questions, Tahn,” the Sheason said. “Let us get food in our stomachs and rest for our eyes. Tomorrow is soon enough.” Tahn shut his mouth.

A moment later, Vendanj nodded, pulled his reins about, and led them down the road to Myrr.

“That’s telling him, Woodchuck,” Sutter teased. He clapped Tahn on the back, and rode to catch Wendra.

For several hundred strides along the road into Myrr, small, ramshackle huts and market carts cluttered the highway. A few more permanent-looking structures were erected a stone’s throw from the road. The roadside itself swarmed with merchants calling for customers to attend their wares. Children played wherever water pooled; young dogs barked and ran alongside their owners.

The smell of human waste was overpowering. It emanated from a large hole dug too close to the food vendors, who ladled stew into bowls, a copper a serving.

The closer to the city gates they came, the denser the crowd grew. Soon they were forced to ride a circuitous route through the milling masses. Rough torches set atop poles near the road gave light to the street, but left the faces all in shadow. Great gouts of laughter erupted from some of the larger buildings erected nearest the city walls. Tahn guessed these were taverns.

Thirty strides from the gates, the chaos ended. A low stone wall topped with rusted spikes mortared into the stone jutted straight out on either side of the entrance. A shallow ramp the height of a man’s ankles rose from the earthen road, becoming a cobbled pavement. There were no outer guards. Braziers fixed to the low wall burned brightly, casting shadows upon the entrance. Iron barred gates, appearing to swing outward when opened, fronted heavy wooden gates.

“This is our welcome?” Sutter jested. “They must not have known we were coming.”

“Quiet,” Vendanj said brusquely. The Sheason dismounted and quickly crossed to the left side of the entrance. He rapped on the wood there in the same manner a man would knock at the home of a friend. A moment later, a small door cut into the larger inner gate drew back and a man appeared wearing a tight leather jerkin and a green cape.

The man started to protest until Vendanj gently placed one hand through the blackened iron and touched the sentry’s wrist.

“What’s he doing?” Sutter asked.

“Vagrants aren’t allowed inside the gates at night,” Mira explained, some ire in her voice. “The call for occupancy is always at last hour, before the heart of night. With such constant change in the citizenry, no census exists, only property holders or inn-residing travelers may stay. Property holders vote, merchants and travelers drink.”

“Surely there are poor and homeless in such a vast city?” Braethen asked, incredulous.

Mira spared a look at the makeshift outer town they’d just passed. “Those poor who do survive within its walls are treacherous. Be wary of anyone you meet who has no place to call home. It surely means he sees you as a meal and a bath.” She trailed off, watching as Vendanj concluded his instructions to the man at the gate. In a hushed voice, Mira added, “But these too must live.”

The inner left gate pulled back just a few feet.

As Vendanj mounted, Tahn saw him cast his gaze one last time over the vagrant town that lived outside the great walls of Myrr. Looking out at the homeless masses, the Sheason spoke low to Mira, but Tahn overheard his words. “It’s begun. The rumors of the Quiet are driving them from their homes.”

Then the Sheason whispered something that Tahn alone heard: “These poor people.” The utter empathy he heard in the man’s voice startled him. But it also gave him a kind of hope he hadn’t felt in a long time, perhaps because he sensed the single-mindness and vigor with which the Sheason would defend and advance his cause.

The party followed Vendanj through the narrow opening in the gate and immediately into a byway to the left, where they were enveloped in shadow.

One central corridor toward the city’s center remained paved, but elsewhere the roads and alleys were earthen and strewn with straw to make the footing less treacherous on muddy streets. Pedestrians milled in the main thoroughfares, so Vendanj wove through narrow alleys close to the outer city wall. Clutter of barrels, broken handcarts, piled waste, and discarded articles of clothing lay near the base of exterior walls and alley doorways. Occasionally, they passed what looked like a beggar or what Mira described as “alley traders.” But these human animals did not petition or accost passersby. Their eyes followed Tahn and the others as they crossed the narrow terrain these individuals called home, a hint of contempt playing upon their lips. Human waste fouled the air, and rats and carrion birds searched the straw for food, the latter as though they had forgotten their lofty capability of flight.

Distantly, the major causeways thrummed with activity. But here, on the city periphery, the streets were quiet, skulked by figures with forgotten scruples, plying secretive trades. Sutter clutched his knife as they passed appraising eyes.

Wendra looked long upon those who sat against the walls, and more than once Tahn heard Braethen mutter, “Is nothing to be done for them?” Tahn considered the question, but found himself wondering if these people, too, served a purpose. The thought surprised him and held him in its grip. But he had no answer.

Vendanj came to a larger cross street where squares of yellow were cast on the ground from windows all along the street. Far off, illuminated against the night stood a grand structure with several ascending planes and a half-dozen parapets. Other buildings rose magnificently, topped by flaming torches that winked like distant light-flies, but none shone so grand or tall.

Jole abruptly halted, and Tahn lurched. “Watch where you’re going,” Mira scolded. The others had stopped before a livery, and Mira had grasped Jole’s harness to pull him about.

“Sorry, I’ve just never seen—”

“Watch what you say, Tahn,” Mira said in a low voice. “Your observations reveal much about you to others.”

A wide door drew back and a man with a thick, full beard ushered them in. No sooner had Braethen entered than the man slammed the door shut and threw the crossbar.

“Ah, Bean, good to see you,” the man said.

His words issued from thick lips buried in a profusion of hair. Tahn had no idea to whom he could be talking.

“And you, Milear,” Vendanj said, dismounting.

Sutter’s head whipped about as if he’d been slapped, and he and Tahn mouthed the word simultaneously:
Bean?

“Darling girl, what of you? Are you well?”

Mira slid from her saddle. “Much better seeing a familiar face, Milear.”

The man wiped his hands on his leather apron and extended his arms to her. Mira embraced him, and he patted her on the back as he might a daughter.

Then he released her and pointed at Vendanj. “You, too, Bean, I’ve no mind to forsake you a squeeze.” A sliver of a smile touched Vendanj’s lips, and he took the shorter man’s invitation. Milear patted Vendanj’s back in the same manner.

Sutter’s mouth fell agape. He and Tahn shared a look and with wide eyes again mouthed simultaneously to each other,
Bean
.

The rest of them dismounted as Milear released the renderer and stood back, appraising them all. “So this is what lives in the Hollows. Fine young people, Bean, I can see it in their jaws. Sturdy. Resolute.”

“But say it softly, old friend. We are not yet known in the city,” Vendanj said.

“Bean, you cannot come to Myrr but that you are known. Strangers, they will say, but they
will
say it. You cannot stay here long.”

“A day is all,” the Sheason answered.

The man looked up into the rafters of the livery, his eyes distant in what Tahn recognized as recollection. Then his eyes focused and he looked back to Vendanj. “Ayeah, I’m done now. No more will I speak on it.” He brushed his hands again on his leather apron and set about stabling their horses. While he did, Mira checked her weapons and spoke in low tones with Vendanj.

Nearer the door, Braethen had retrieved a book from his saddlebag and sat on a bale reading from its pages. Wendra, too, sat, and rubbed her ankles.

Sutter approached Tahn. “How about you, old Bean, let’s have a hug.”

Tahn smiled. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. But I don’t think I’d mention it to him.”

Sutter snickered. “Really, I was thinking of asking Vendanj for a hug. Anyway, we’ve got places to go, right? Did you see that palace? I’ve never seen anything like it. I thought the Fieldstone was big. Will and Sky, Tahn, this is a root-digger’s dream.”

“Maybe,” Tahn said, “but you won’t be going anywhere. You heard Vendanj, and even if you’ve got dirt in your ears, you saw the fellows in the alleys we came through. They’d roast you like a spring pig.”

“Listen, Woodchuck, I didn’t come all this way to sit in a room and talk.” Sutter flicked Tahn’s chest with his finger. “And neither did you.”

“A man with his hands in the dirt is a grounded man,” Tahn said, trotting out the old taunt. “All right.”

A winning grin spread on Sutter’s face. “You’ve got clay in your blood, Woodchuck. What stories we will have to tell.”

A soft intake of breath, just audible from where they were, interrupted them; no one else heard the sound. Tahn looked toward the noise and saw the sodalist look up from his book, his brow deeply furrowed. Slowly, he shifted to look at Wendra, who was rubbing her calves. Tahn followed Braethen’s eyes to his sister, then looked back at the sodalist, who shook his head so slightly that it might not have been a voluntary movement. Braethen closed his book and rubbed the binding thoughtfully with his palm.

Milear finished his task and came back to the center of the stable. “You folks gather round.” He waved them toward him. Vendanj and Mira concluded their quiet conversation and came close to Milear. “You’ll want to stay at the Granite Stone tonight. It’s just two streets north of here. A friend of mine is the proprietor and he won’t get overly curious about you. I’ll send you with a horseshoe nail. He’ll understand. People are wary these days, ever since the League established a permanent contingent here. Cursed fools, haven’t the sense of a quarry mule. Ah, have done with that. Listen, the man’s name is Ulee, his family is down out of Ir-Caul. A tighter lip there never was.”

“Is there a rear entrance?” Mira asked.

“Every inn in Myrr has a rear entrance, but using it would be more suspicious than walking in the front door. The straw drift you would no doubt pass in the byways would try to sell the information, likely as not to the League, who are going to know you’re here sooner or later anyway. Later is always better with the League.”

“Are they making charges?” Braethen interrupted.

“Two just today. A man was seen neglecting to bow to the hat of Highborn Crolsus and was charged with sedition. The other had something to do with a tracker who came through Mal’Tara and was requesting an audience with Crolsus, talking about Bar’dyn legions as far south as Mal’Sent.” Milear appraised Mira and Vendanj as he spoke. Tahn saw no visible change in either the Sheason or the Far, but Milear nodded. “Will and Sky,” he said softly.

The stableman turned to Braethen. “And hide that blazon you wear, sodalist. It is not an emblem to the League’s liking. Here.” Milear took an iron nail from a pouch in his leather apron and handed it to Vendanj. “Now take your rest. We can talk tomorrow if you’d like.”

“Thank you, Milear,” Vendanj said. The Sheason handed the livery owner something wrapped in a green cloth and strode directly to the door.

“Solace be yours, my friends,” Milear said, looking at Tahn and his companions. Mira put a hand on Milear’s shoulder as she passed. The others quickly followed the renderer out of the livery into the street.

Vendanj strode without looking to either side as he led them north. The smell of wet straw commingled with a tinge of rot from the mud.

The Granite Stone stood five stories of magnificent granite. The face of the building was fluted at wide intervals, giving it an oddly striped look. A circular cascade of steps rose from the muddy, straw-covered street to a set of double doors. Passing wagon wheels and hooves had splashed mud three feet high upon the walls.

“Remove your hoods,” Vendanj said. “Nothing will inspire someone to look more than concealing what you don’t wish seen. Wear the expression of weary travelers.”

That would be no problem for any of them.

The renderer pushed open the left-hand door and passed inside. Tahn took a deep breath and followed close behind Mira.

Stone partitions the height of a man’s waist divided the room into at least twenty smaller sections. Two of the areas housed long tables suited for feasts. To the right, the conversation became quieter where men and women sat nearer the outer wall. Two hallways at the back of the great room were crowded with serving matrons and youths carrying plates of food. And on the far left, an area designated for contests was cleared, chalk lines drawn upon the floor and walls.

Vendanj did not pause, but found a table to the right that would seat them all. When everyone had taken a seat, a portly woman promptly appeared.