Cast In Fury (13 page)

She uttered a single Leontine word, which Kaylin thought was
men.
“What exactly did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. I wasn’t even certain he knew—I received the call from the midwives guild, and I went to the house in the Quarter. I helped a small Leontine woman named Arlan deliver a single live cub. I licked birth fluids off its eyelids, and I left.” She held out her hands, palm up. “I didn’t know, Kayala.”

“Arlan is not her name,” Sarabe said. “Maybe you are thinking of the wrong—”

“She had your coloring.”

Silence.

“Was the birth difficult?” Kayala asked softly.

“Yes. I’m not sure why.”

Sarabe made an almost subvocal sound, pushed herself away from the table and walked out of the room. Kaylin started to follow, and Tessa grabbed her arm. “Leave her,” she said quietly. “She needs time.”

“Marcus must have known,” Kayala said. “He must have.”

“I honestly don’t remember—Marcus considers off-duty time my own problem, and he never asks. Well, unless I’m hungover and he’s trying to make a point, in which case he doesn’t care what he
says,
he only cares that he says it loudly.”

“How was the mother?”

“She was…odd. But she said the child was very important.”

“Oh, he is. He will be.”

“From the sounds of it, it doesn’t look as if he’ll survive.” Even saying it made her tighten up. And Kayala noticed. Nothing happened under this roof that she didn’t know about. Kaylin let the silence continue until she couldn’t stand it anymore. “How does Marcus fit into this?”

“Marcus went to see her on Sarabe’s behalf.”

“Recently?” Kaylin continued.

“Very recently.”

“Kayala—the Leontine who was killed—”

“He was one of the Elders,” she replied.

“His name?”

“Does it matter?”

“I can’t exactly ask questions if I don’t know at least that much.”

“Gorran.”

“He was married?”

Both of her brows rose. “Of course! You can’t be an Elder without being married. If our ways are lax in the city, they are
not
that lax.”

“Got it.”

“Did Marcus kill him?”

Kayala turned away.

“Kayala?”

“It was not murder,” she said at last. “Of that, I’m certain.”

“But you’re not certain he didn’t kill him.”

“There were witnesses, Kaylin. Many witnesses.”

“Yes, but the death didn’t occur in the Leontine Quarter, and to non-Leontines, you all look the same. Well, if your fur is the same color.”

“Some of them were Leontines.”

Kaylin frowned. “Say that again?”

“Some of the witnesses were Leontines.”

“So…we have not one, but two, Leontines outside of the Quarter—the murderer and the victim—and then we have
other
Leontines to bear witness? Kayala, Leontines almost never leave the Quarter.”

“This one did.”

“Did Marcus know him?”

There was a pause. “I cannot say for certain if the Leontine he killed was the Leontine he went to meet—but yes, he knew Gorran. They were friends of long standing.”

“He agreed to meet a Leontine outside of the Quarter.”

Kayala nodded. “It was unusual.”

“I bet. And the Leontine died, and Marcus—apparently—killed him. Can I speak with Marcus?”

They looked at each other again.

“Is that a no?”

“Marcus must agree to meet with you,” Kayala replied.

“None of you have seen him.”

“No.”

“Spoken with him?”

“How?”

“Mirror.”

“Ah. No.”

“Let me guess. Caste jails don’t have mirrors.”

“No.”

“Was he injured?”

Kayala finally hissed. It was a brief, angry sound. Kaylin immediately lifted her chin, exposing her throat.

The hiss died. “Kaylin, kitling,” Kayala said wearily. “It is tiring for me to explain so much. You are part of my Pridlea, but you are not Leontine, and you do not understand our customs.”

“But I need to,” Kaylin said. And then she paused for a moment. “Kayala, if there are tribes of your people who exist outside of the city, why are your people
here?

“I understand why the Tha’alani are here,” she added. “They’re just as isolated as you are, but they seem to…suit life in a city. The Barrani and the humans wander the whole city at will, and they get into whatever trouble they get into—the Aerians fly it, and they come to market from time to time. They also interact with some of the other races, in the human Quarter.”

“The humans don’t really
have
a quarter,” Tessa answered, when Kayala did not. “They get into
everything.
”

“You could say the same about rats.”

“I have.”

Kaylin grimaced. “Thank you.”

“Kitling—”

Kaylin lifted a hand. “I’m going to talk to Severn,” she told them all. “Since my guess would be he’ll have to ask for access to Marcus as no one will listen to me.”

“They may listen,” Graylin said quietly. “They may just kill you out of hand, or try to take you home.” Her expression hadn’t changed at all; if she was joking, she gave no sign of humor.

“They could try.”

“Kitling,” Kayala said, also lifting a furred hand, “we make no jokes here.”

“Neither do I. If they tried, you can damn well bet it wouldn’t be a case for the Caste Courts.”

“Only if you survived.”

“Do you doubt it? Marcus trained me, Kayala—do you really doubt it?”

At that, Kayala let out a small burst of sound—a truncated chuckle. “I understand why he loves you,” she said.

It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. “How did Marcus receive the message to visit this—this friend?”

“By mirror.”

“Here?”

“No. At the office.”

“At the office.”

Kayala nodded.

“I wish you’d told me this while I was also at the office.”

“Why?”

“We can sometimes track mirror messages,” she replied. “We can tell where they originated, and if they’re keyed—which I highly doubt—we’ll know who sent them. If they’re not keyed, we’ll still have a good idea where they started. If they’re rerouted, it’ll be a bit harder, but that will tell us something, too.”

“What will it tell you?”

“That whoever wanted to talk to Marcus didn’t want to be immediately traceable. That he was taking precautions to remain hidden. Most people hide for a reason,” she said. “I still have a couple of hours before I have to be on duty. I’ll see what I can find out. Can I mirror?”

Kayala nodded. “The mirror is keyed.”

“To Marcus?”

“To all of us, yes. But I believe it is keyed to accept your messages as well. Marcus always worried.”

Severn was waiting and the carriage was waiting and the horses looked as if waiting was something they did only on the outer edge of panic; horses and Leontines were not the
best
combination, and there were a lot of Leontines. The driver looked decidedly relieved to see her. She waved at him as she opened the carriage door and wedged herself through the small entrance.

Severn’s arms were folded across his chest; he appeared to be napping. But he opened his eyes as she sat down. “Well?”

“Do you even know where the Caste Court building is?”

He nodded.

“Can we go there?”

“We can go anywhere,” he replied quietly. “However, we have no jurisdiction in the Caste Courts.”

“The Emperor made the laws, right?”

Severn shifted his weight toward the window of his carriage door, and he slid out of it with a good deal more grace than Kaylin had used going through a much larger opening. She heard his voice, and his instructions, before he returned to her.

“Yes, the Emperor created the laws.”

“So he created the Caste Court system.”

“Yes.”

“So in theory it’s sort of Imperial.”

“Theory and reality seldom have so little in common. The Caste Courts take a form and observe customs that are not Imperial Court customs. I am not certain you would recognize them as the same entity. The Caste Court is
not
the Imperial Court writ small—each Court is different. The human Caste Court, which is almost never used, is functionally similar to the Imperial one. The Tha’alani Caste Court exists entirely in theory—there are no jails, and no separate building, although matters that might concern a separate Tha’alani law are conducted in the longhouse. I do not believe the Barrani Caste Court exists outside of the High Halls.”

Kaylin, who was certain she’d been taught this before, and at greater length, nodded. “I always hated the Caste Court system,” she told him.

“You would. But it serves a purpose.”

“Which would be?”

“It allows each race to deal with the elements of its populace that it doesn’t wish to be held up as an example—a bad one—of racial behavior. It also allowed the laws and customs of each people to be respected, to have weight. People let go of old laws slowly, if at all. I imagine the Barrani will have a Caste Court for at least as long as their race exists.”

“I never understood why the Barrani were part of the Empire, either.”

“Given the Barrani-Dragon wars, I admit it’s a mystery to me—but it could have something to do with the location of the Empire’s capital. They can’t move the High Halls and, for reasons you are familiar with, they cannot abandon them. But they are not uneasy in the city.”

“No.”

“What do you think the Leontine Caste Court will look like?”

“I don’t know. I’ve seldom been inside Leontine buildings, and before you ask, they have very few restaurants and very few bars.”

“But not none.”

“Not none, no. But they are not simply human establishments with fur—there are significant differences. And no, you don’t want to know what they are.”

She nodded. She didn’t.

To call anything a court when it existed as a flat, open space and a lot of stand-alone cages was not in any Elantran vocabulary. Kaylin’s vocabulary, already quite extensive, got a workout after she found her voice. The “court,” as it was called, appeared to be a series of descending concentric circles—large, arena-size, circles—which ended in one flat circle on the ground well below where she now stood. The circles were smooth; Kaylin imagined that people actually sat in them, side by side, looking down.

Most of the cages were empty. One of them was not.

She began to make a beeline for the one that wasn’t, and halfway down—when she’d reached the third of five circles—she was stopped by two Leontine men. One of the Leontines was golden, the most common color, the other a dusty gray.

As a rule, Leontines didn’t wear armor. As a rule, when it was warm, they didn’t wear much. Marcus, a Hawk, wore regulation uniform when he was in the office. He wore robes when he was at home—at least when Kaylin visited. These men obviously didn’t see the need for either. They did wear loincloths; they did wear bracers. They wore belts, across which hung small pouches and—of all things—truncheons.

Marcus was not required to carry a sword in service to the Hawks. His weapons were a bit more natural.

Severn was a few steps behind Kaylin, but he caught up quickly. He put a hand on Kaylin’s arm, which was probably a good thing, because her hand was resting on the pommel of a dagger. She hadn’t had the chance to go and get it enchanted in Elani street yet, but silence wasn’t required here.

But Severn came to stand by her side; he wanted—by the direction he attempted to push her in—to stand in front of her. She wasn’t biting. In a manner of speaking. Neither were the Leontines—yet.

“Stay out of this,” he told her. She started to speak, and he moved, his kick—aimed at a region that would have been considered unsporting in a practice bout—signaling an end to conversation.

She stood her ground, although it was difficult. One on one against Leontine claws was considered poor odds for a human. Two on one would be considered astronomically worse. But Kayala’s words had made it clear that women didn’t interfere in the affairs of men—which affairs, apparently, involved a lot of fighting for dominant space. She understood what Severn was doing. She even understood why it was necessary.

Neither of the guards raised an alarm; neither shouted for help. Their breathing, short and sharp as they moved to counter Severn, was quiet. It wasn’t feral; they weren’t enraged.

They didn’t even seem to be surprised, although the first kick had landed pretty much exactly where Severn had intended to place it.

But they didn’t unsheathe their claws; they pulled their truncheons. Severn had not drawn a weapon either. He was
fast,
she’d give him that. Fast, and much stronger than he looked when compared to the Leontine bulk. The Leontines were steady on their feet, much like the cats that were their namesake. They jumped to either side of Severn, and he rolled through them, continuing the motion down to the next circle, the second above the cages. Which was smart; they’d already leaped to intercept him. They missed.

He didn’t.

None of his blows were fatal; none of them were slight. He favored kicks, for reach, and he could snap them, pulling back, keeping his body in motion so that no part of him could be easily grabbed. They tried. One Leontine leaped a little too close, and Severn pivoted sideways, avoiding, by the sudden appearance of an unexpected profile, the collision with a much heavier body. The Leontine missed and fell.

Two minutes, three minutes, four minutes—Kaylin was counting seconds. Severn couldn’t keep this up forever. Two against one? You went for broke as fast as you could; you tried to even the odds.

He wasn’t quite doing that. The golden-furred Leontine that he’d kicked was definitely slower, but not so slow that it was an advantage for Severn, given the presence of the gray one.

She forced herself to be silent when the second cat clipped Severn’s jaw, sending him out of his stance. She forced herself to be still, which was harder. Her hand itched, hovering above the dagger she wore. She couldn’t fight the Leontines without drawing the dagger. She didn’t have the mass to play this game, and the game she had the skill for involved attrition through blood loss, hopefully none of it hers.