The Orphans' Promise (13 page)

Corenn pulled Grigán back and then went forward. This way of doing things wouldn’t do them any good. She held out a golden terce to the guard, who immediately called his dog to heel. The dog obeyed, but growled at the two visitors as the guard ushered them by.

Corenn entered the narrow hallway with Grigán following closely behind. They squeezed their way through the other elite soldiers and their ravenous dogs. Being surrounded like this set Grigán’s nerves on edge. He was relieved when they reached the more spacious entry hall, even if it was just as well guarded as the front door. At least in this room there was no lack of space for him to fight back, if it ever came to that.

“Try not to be so tense,” Corenn whispered to him. “You look like you’re in the mood to start a fight. The guards can tell, and so can I.”

“There are some Züu within thirty feet of here,” he shot back. “I won’t rest easy until we’ve put at least thirty
leagues
between us and them.”

Corenn shook her head and led them toward the scribe at the registry desk, which also acted as the tollbooth. There was a short line of people waiting under the watchful eyes of three jelenis,
who relieved all visitors of their weapons. Corenn and Grigán didn’t recognize any Züu among the traders waiting, but the red killers could very well have a civilian employee in charge of such deals.

Corenn wasn’t carrying a weapon, and the guards didn’t linger on her for long. For Grigán it was a different story. The warrior handed over a dagger, a smaller dirk, and from a much larger sheath drew a Goranese broadsword, which he had brought in place of his usual curved blade. The jelenis suspected him of carrying another weapon concealed in his robes, and Grigán had to endure a thorough inspection in order to convince them otherwise. The guards finished their search with a sigh and a long look at the warrior, disappointed that they hadn’t been able to catch the Ramgrith red-handed.

The scribe collecting fees was in no hurry, and they still had to wait a long time before reaching his desk.

“Names?” he asked, listlessly.

“Adnéra from Mestèbe, and Bahlin from Phar,” Corenn answered, speaking the lies she had prepared.

The scribe slowly copied the information down in an enormous record book, having Corenn spell out each letter of every name, including the names of the two universally recognized towns.

“Is it the first time you’ve come to the Small Palace?” he asked, after consulting a thirty-page list.

“Yes.”

“What is the purpose of your visit?”

“We wish to meet with the priests from Zuïa, so we can make an offering to the cult,” Corenn announced calmly.

The scribe and the two jelenis on either side of him stared at her in surprise. Such candor was rare. Most traders claimed they came out of pure curiosity. The scribe suddenly decided not to
keep these crazy, or complacent, strangers any longer. He had no desire to meddle in the red assassins’ affairs, or worse, admit to himself that he was, by circumstance, the assassins’ secretary.

“Well,” he began, with newfound efficiency, “the rules for inside the palace are simple, but I request that you follow them scrupulously. One: Shouting is not allowed. All deals must take place in a calm and collected manner suitable to these honorable grounds. Two: Any scene of violence, whether verbal or physical, will result in expulsion from the palace. Last, and most important: The mere allusion to an agreement capable of bringing any harm to the Crown, its interests, or the citizens of its kingdom, is punishable by hanging. Do you have any questions?”

“None.”

“Well. May Dona smile upon you,” he said, dismissing them with the merchants’ sacred saying, all too happy to be rid of the bothersome visitors.

“Aren’t you going to ask us to pay?” asked Corenn, most candidly.

The scribe blushed at his oversight, mumbling a string of excuses while receiving an onslaught of mockery from the jelenis and the visitors waiting behind Grigán. Forty gold terces were exchanged, and the Lorelien wrote out a receipt as quickly as possible.

“I would have preferred a more discreet entry,” the warrior muttered as they made their way to the covered courtyard.

“You’re never satisfied anyway,” Corenn teased, still smiling about the scribe.

They walked through an ornate arch and found themselves in the Small Palace’s gardens.

Although their minds were occupied with other things, the arch reminded them of another one, a much more mysterious one, on the island of Ji.

Yan closed his eyes, cleared his mind, and focused on the coin. He didn’t know what else to do to pass the test. Up until now, he hadn’t achieved anything. He pictured the object as clearly as if he were staring at it. He knew its every detail. Every nick, imperfection, variation in color: every point of its surface. He would still remember it even in his dying days. He was spending more time with the coin than any of his friends, he thought, as he tried to regain his concentration. He was beginning to hate the shiny disk.

He imagined it standing up perfectly straight along its edge, a shameful monument, standing tall, symbolizing his numerous failures. He concentrated all his thoughts, all his Will, all of the force in his mind, on a single thing: the image of the coin falling on its side.

After an indeterminate period of time, he opened his eyes again. He was weak as he lifted his tired eyes, feeling exhausted as if waking from a night of bad dreams.

The coin still stood tall, taunting him.

Yan extended his finger and gently tapped the upper edge, finally causing it to topple over as he had imagined it doing countless times.

It only needed such a small amount of force.
Why couldn’t he do it?

“Let’s not stay so close,” Rey whispered to Léti. “We might get ourselves noticed, standing in front of the palace for too long.” Léti observed the Zü tunic the actor was wearing, wondering how they could possibly make themselves any more noticeable. While no one dared to come near them, each time a flash of red fabric appeared, they imagined themselves the target of every glance.

“I would have liked to get my hands on an Ithare mask,” Rey said regretfully as they wandered between the display stands. “The hood can’t be doing that good of a job hiding my face. I’ll end up getting recognized.”

“You sound like Grigán!” Léti said, laughing. “Don’t worry, it looks as if everyone’s trying to avoid looking at you straight on.”

“Even the women? I’d better take this thing off right away!” he joked.

They wandered about aimlessly, though their eyes never wandered from the front door of the palace. Léti thought to herself that under different circumstances, she would have enjoyed letting Rey show her the city, its wealth, its character, and the characters in it. One such character was a man who went from stall to stall, escorted by three burly lads carrying a dozen or more purses at his belt.

“Is he a collector?”

“Surely not! The collectors would never risk it in town with such a small escort. He’s a currency trader. He buys or sells terces for other currencies.”

“That’s a job?” she replied, surprised.

“Of course. And quite lucrative even, albeit risky. The currency traders have everyone on their backs: the collectors, the Guild, the merchants, and even their own clients.”

“I don’t understand how someone can make a living that way.”

“Me neither. I tried for a while, but I had to give up,” the actor admitted with a smile. “The Goranese crowns, the Ithare disks, the moons from the Baronies, the Kaulien queen moons, the beads from the Lower Kingdoms, the Rominian monarchs, plus each of their specific denominations; I mixed them all up. One time I was even offered Wallate and Thalitte coins I’d never seen before! I had to get out before going completely bankrupt.”

“You’ve had an odd career path,” Léti said, with gentle mockery. “Smuggler, currency trader, actor…”

“Waiter, knife thrower, public writer, and even a sailor for a short dékade,” Rey finished. “Sailing was the worst. Eight days on a boat without a single woman aboard!”

Léti punched him on the shoulder out of mock disapproval, but she was full of gratitude for the actor. When she was with him, he always managed to put her anxieties to rest. Today was no different. Around him, she felt good. He was ten years her senior and carried himself with a sense of assuredness, which made her feel reassured. She had found him charming from the very moment they had met. Perhaps, she thought, he could manage to make her forget Yan…

Rey didn’t leave her any more time for reflection and pulled her along with a mischievous grin.

“Come on. I’m going to show you something you can only find here in Lorelia. The only line of work I was actually good at for a while.”

Grigán and Corenn weren’t the first to arrive in the Small Palace’s gardens. Twenty or so merchants were already walking around its paths, and there were at least that many behind the séda hedges that traversed the courtyard. As predicted, jelenis patrolled under
the portico that circled the place, while archers on the balconies were on the lookout for the smallest sign of a scuffle. These precautions, which should have reassured the warrior, made him feel uneasy. In his preparations, he had neglected a deadly possibility: What if the Züu had infiltrated the Lorelien guard? Or bribed them?

“Would you mind waiting for me here, Corenn? I won’t be gone long. Stay hidden in the shadows beneath the portico.”

The Mother nodded her head while Grigán headed for the center of the garden in slow strides, keeping an eye out for any signs of aggression. The people he passed stopped their conversations until he was out of earshot. Doubtless, they took him to be one of the Crown’s many spies who patrolled the market.

The gardens of the Small Palace, where you could sell just about anything, had become the obligatory route for all illegal affairs over the years. All the products and services that were forbidden in the rest of the kingdom were available here with complete impunity. You could hire a company of mercenaries from the Guild, or some Züu. Slaves, drugs, artwork stolen from the various cults were all sold in the gardens between the hedges and under the shade. People made secret alliances, conspired, bargained on neutral ground. It was an inexhaustible source of revenues for the Crown, and a place where Lorelien spies roamed, trying to gain any information they could about her subjects.

After some time Grigán figured he had distanced himself too much from Corenn and returned to her. He supposed that if no arrow had nailed him to the ground, there wasn’t a Zü hidden among the archers. This reassured the warrior, but only slightly.

“The reigning logic in this place is really disturbing,” the Mother declared, when he had reappeared at her side. “I randomly happened upon some conversations. That man, over there, is looking to sell a cargo of precious salt that he got from pirating.
The little one, next to him, is the previous owner of this treasure; he is trying to buy back the cargo and the boat that the first one stole! They are in the middle of agreeing on a price. Don’t you find that extraordinary?”

“What would truly be extraordinary would be if the Züu even agree to listen to us,” the warrior responded with a frown. “Let’s finish this as quickly as possible, Lady Corenn, I beg you.”