City of Masks (4 page)

Garet jumped out of his chair, spilling more ink.

“The Palace? Why didn’t you say so? I have to get a new vest and tunic. Claws, these pants are muddy too. Wait here while I go down to stores and see what they have.”

Salick stomped her foot. “I did say so, or I was about to. Come on, hurry! We only have a bit until the first bell, and that’s when we leave.”

Garet almost ran over Dorict who was coming into the room with a pile of clothing in his arms.

“Claws! Sorry, Dorict. Wait, are those for me?”

He grabbed at a clean tunic obviously too big for the Blue. A green Sash lay under it.

“Of course it’s for you,” the younger Bane grumbled. “Salick told me about the dinner, well, yelled it at me really, when we met on the stairs, and I remembered how you looked at lunch. Did you manage to stay on that horse at all?”

“Briefly,” Garet replied. He stripped off his tunic and undershirt, while Salick studied the corner of the room. Luckily, his boots only needed buffing, and there was a bit of water in the basin to wash his face and hands.

The dinner bell sounded from the floor below.

“Claws!” said Garet, struggling with the buttons of his new tunic.

“Finished?” Salick asked. By her tone it was clear the corner had lost whatever interest it might have held for her.

“Yes. I owe you, Dorict. You are a treasure as a friend!”

Dorict smiled. “You can repay me by asking Lord Andarack when he will call me again to work on the silkstone suit of armour. It’s been weeks since I was last summoned, and we still have much testing to do. Now here, take your rope-thing and go!”

Garet buttoned up the last of his tunic buttons on the stairs. Halfway down, he paused so that Salick could adjust his Sash. Her own was perfectly draped over one shoulder. She leaned her trident against the wall and pulled his sign of rank straight, bright green slashing across the deep purple of his tunic. When she was done, she checked to make sure the stairs were empty of others and kissed him quickly on the lips.

“There, that’s for being so savage when I burst in your door. You were so shocked. You looked at me like I was a demon!”

Garet wished there was time for a longer kiss.

“No demon I’ve faced could match you for creating pure terror. But I can guess why you were upset.”

Salick grimaced in reply.

Last winter when the two Banes were commanded to arrange a perilous meeting with King Trax, Salick had told Garet of her history with Shirath’s ruler. Before Trax came to the throne, he had tried to force marriage on her, the daughter of a Ward Lord but already a Bane. There had been harsh words and perhaps blows in that confrontation, and Salick had never forgiven Trax. At their next meeting, interrupted by Duelist assassins, the King had agreed to support the Banehall. Despite his change of heart, Garet had little trust in the man, and Salick had none.

She brushed at Garet’s collar but didn’t speak. If she had, she might have betrayed some weakness in her voice, and that was something the Gold could never bear to do.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they saw Branet standing by the open doors of the Hall. He was having words, and not pleasant ones, with Relict, a Red and husband to Garet’s own Master, Tarix.

“No,” the Hallmaster said, in a voice just a touch below the level of a shout. “We won’t make anymore attempts to convince them. Let Solantor and the other cities mind their own Halls, and I will mind ours. Am I making myself clear?”

He tapped the spikes of his iron-bound club against one boot.

Relict flushed. He had known Branet for a long time, and the change in their relationship from equality to subservience appeared to be wearing on the smaller man’s good humour.

“Branet. Forgive me,
Hallmaster Branet
, there are rumours that this increase in attacks is taking place all over the South. Hallmaster Corix from Old Torrick’s Banehall has sent letters . . .”

“I know what she sent,” growled Branet, “and that is my concern, not yours. Now, don’t you have patrols to organize?”

“Yes, Hallmaster,” Relict said in a voice so cold it belied the arrival of spring. He turned on his heel and left.

The Hallmaster switched his glare to Salick and Garet where they waited at the bottom of the stairs pretending they were deaf.

“You two, come along. Banes should be punctual,” he shouted.

As they ran to catch up with the Hallmaster’s long strides, Garet said to Salick, in a voice just a touch above the level of a whisper, “Well, the company may be sour, but at least the food should be good.”

THE FOOD WAS
very, very good, but they had to endure much before they could enjoy it.

The Banes arrived as the light in the west was changing from red to silver. Salick, always concerned with the Hall’s reputation, had insisted they both wear winter cloaks, which gave them a certain dark dignity, but were over-warm when one was running after an angry Hallmaster. Once they were out of the Plaza and onto the bridge, the cool breeze coming off the river was a blessing. They were not alone in enjoying it. Many still made their way from one half of the city to the other, and Garet had to step out of the path of a wagon loaded with bags of grain. He waved away the driver’s apology and caught up with Branet and Salick just as they stepped through the Palace-side gates.

He wished he had time to pause and enjoy the scene. The colorful crowds, now muted in the fading light, passed back and forth across the expanse of stone pavement. Thousands could fit inside the Plaza—and often did. Tonight there were only hundreds, and most of those were making their way back to their Wards. A few merchants still called out hopefully from the forest of market stalls that occupied the eastern end of the Plaza, but their cries were going unanswered. But all this Garet had to take in at a brisk walk, as Branet showed no signs of slowing down or stopping his grumbling.

“You two remember that the dignity of the Hall is on display tonight. Do not speak until you are spoken to and keep Hall business to yourselves!” he told them.

Salick nodded. “Of course, Hallmaster, but may I ask why Garet and I are attending this . . . event?”

The Hallmaster ignored the question and climbed the steps leading to the Palace doors. He was all energy and anger tonight, Garet thought.

Like most nights lately.

The door guards surveyed them with little interest or approval and let them enter. A more respectful servant took their weapons and cloaks and led them into an anteroom already full of the decorated elite of the city. Amid all this glory of jewels and lace, Garet felt for a moment as he had when he first came to the city, less than a year ago. Seeing his black hair and darker skin, some of the blonde, pale people of the town had called him “the Midland Crow”.

Here, he felt like the crow again until Salick pinched his arm and whispered in his ear, “What are you staring at? You’ve seen all these Ward Lords before.”

“But not in such fine dress,” Garet whispered back. “And some I’ve never met—or seen—at all. Who is that one, the one with the pregnant woman?”

“That’s Kirel of the Thirteenth Ward, very young to be a Ward Lord, if you ask me. His uncle is there beside them, Gost, I think his name is. Supposedly he’s the real power in that Ward. And,” she said, taking his arm and leading him over to a small alcove, “if you want to attend such dinners, you don’t refer to the wife of a Lord as ‘pregnant’. Pregnancy is for mares, cows, and common people. Lord Kirel’s wife, Kaela is her name, is ‘guarding within her the future hope and luck of her Ward.’ Understand?”

“I think so,” Garet said, rubbing his upper arm. “Speak nicely about my betters or you’ll pinch me again.”

Salick was spared the necessity of further answer or punishment by Branet’s peremptory summons.

“Come here, now! They are about to call the lots.”

“Is this a meal or a game?” Garet asked, and found the question smothered under Branet’s glare.

A steward resplendent in a green coat and silver pants came to the door of the anteroom. All fell silent. She looked the guests over, found them wanting, yet graciously allowed them to enter the dining room. Once inside, Branet pushed Garet and Salick to a space against the wall. The others found their own spaces until all four walls were lined with aristocratic splendor. No one attempted to sit at the long tables arranged in a square around the centre of the room.

Garet looked around. There was a sense of anticipation, as if their luck—a very important thing in the city of Shirath—was about to be tested. The steward announced, “Honoured Guests, the Calling of the Places begins,” and another steward, a man this time, appeared with two bowls, each full of small wooden plaques. He held one while the chief steward took the other around the room, allowing each guest to remove a single token.

The bowl was held too high to see within, and Garet grabbed the first one his questing hand touched. He looked at it. It was a simple wooden tile that bore nothing but a number in gilt, a twenty-six. He looked at Salick’s. It had the number sixteen.

The chief steward took the other bowl and reached in a long-fingered hand.

“To the King’s right, number ten.”

The pregnant, or rather hope-guarding woman clapped her hands together and was escorted to the table at the other end of the room from where Garet stood. She was seated in a cushioned chair beside an even more magnificent central seat that must belong to the King. Many congratulated her as she passed by, but only some of the smiles seemed genuine.

As the steward prepared to draw again, a hand knocked Garet’s, and he dropped his token. Salick and Branet both frowned, and he hurriedly bent to pick it up. He paused in mid-movement when he saw that there were two tokens on the ground.

“I’m so sorry,” said a woman’s voice near his ear.

He turned his head and saw a pair of very beautiful green eyes regarding him. They were the most enchanting eyes he had ever seen, and the rest of her face was just as lovely. Later, when he was remembering what happened, he decided that was why he lost the power of speech.

When it became obvious he wasn’t going to reply, the young woman laughed a little, not cruelly, and scooped both tokens up—a feat in itself considering the copious folds of her gown—and handed one to Garet.

He nodded his thanks and tried to smile back. Salick’s pinch was barely noticeable.

“Forgive his clumsiness, my Lady Lysere,” Salick said, and Garet recovered enough to add a stammering apology of his own.

“Not at all, Salick, isn’t it? I remember you from those endless meetings after the troubles of the winter. You were so polished then, I hoped you might be a Master now.”

Garet took refuge in Salick’s obvious embarrassment to compose himself.

The Hallmaster turned to the young woman and frowned.

“Masters are not so easily made, Lysere, or has the King been telling you differently?” he growled.

Salick looked shocked, but Lysere merely smiled up at the large Bane.

“It seems manners are made even less easily than Masters in the Hall. Ah, your number has been called, Green. I wish you a happy supper.”

The steward was standing in front of Garet, expectant and displeased. Garet could not remember doing anything except dropping his token, and that wasn’t really his fault, but it seemed his sin wasn’t clumsiness, but good luck. He was taken to the head table and placed at the left side of the King’s chair.

No one except Lysere smiled as he passed.

The rest of the places were soon called, and the guests seated. Salick was at one side, far to his left. She sat beside a Ward Lord Garet knew very well, Lord Andarack of the Eighth Ward, brother of the late Hallmaster Mandarack. Branet was placed across from Garet, and looked unhappy with his seatmate, a hatchet-faced woman who seemed just as disatisfied with him. Besides Lysere and Kaela, there were a few others scattered around the table who were neither Ward Lords nor Banes. Four temple priests sat silent in their blue robes, perhaps waiting for Heaven’s guidance before starting a conversation. Garet also noted a physician and an elderly steward and guessed they would be the heads of their respective schools. At the side table to his right, and every bit as uncommunicative as the priest beside her was Dasanat, newly-named head of the Mechanical’s School. It was she who had made Tarix’s brace, and could perhaps fit the child Allifur with some weapon capable of killing a demon. Garet was glad to see her. She had been of great assistance in the Hall’s fight against the Caller Demon, and he counted her as a friend, though an unusually distracted one. He nodded at her, and she scowled in reply.

Garet shook his head. Dasanat was never happy in company, unless that company was made of gears, glass, and spark containers.

“Stand for the King,” intoned the chief Steward, her voice making much of each syllable in her announcement, and the company rose as Trax entered the room. He was subdued, for Trax, wearing a white tunic over black pants and boots with a purple cape over all. The jewels on his collar and sleeves were equally understated. The steward removed the cape, and Trax sat down. After a long breath of time, and at some signal Garet failed to catch, the rest did as well. His was the last bottom to hit a cushion.