Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (43 page)

Jastail pulled Wendra along. The two hirelings they’d been traveling with quickly found room at tables and tossed coin onto the slate to enter the games. On the left, a handful of large men stood stoically overlooking the whole of the room. They wore swords menacingly on their backs, the handles protruding in bold advertisement of their function. A black and white patch had been sewn to the left breast of their tunics. Next to them, a very small man, perhaps only three and a half feet tall, stood on a raised platform serving bitter and wine. He waddled in a strained gait, having to throw his left shoulder up to lift his right leg, and his right shoulder up to move the left. His pants were held in place with strange belts looped over his shoulders and fastened to both the front and back of his trousers. He looked terribly uncomfortable, but he smiled constantly, apparently happy in his work.

They wound past the long counters near the entrance and found men seated at short square tables, a man in the same yellow shirt standing as in mediation next to those who were seated. Intense eyes met over a series of square wooden placards that appeared blank. Each man took turns overturning a placard. Disgusted looks rose in their faces until one took up a placard whose underside was graven with the image of a bird. The mediator handed him a fistful of coins.

At still another of the small tables, two men sat engaged in simpler contests. Wendra watched as one of the gamekeepers placed a wooden block in the center of the table, asking the players to put their hands in their laps. The mediator then stood back and waited an indeterminate amount of time before quickly saying, “Take.” The contestants then both anxiously grabbed for the block. The man who took it won the prize.

As they meandered past various games, a general hilarity swirled around them. Wendra noticed that many of those gambling were dressed in unrefined wool, a few even in pelts; these men and women bet more meager amounts than those better dressed, but they drank more deeply, loosing bawdy laughter from wet lips. Beside them were players adorned in silk and twilled cotton, linens of extravagant color and design. Their wagers often flashed of gold, sometimes several coins high. And their cups were just as full as the rest.

The participants seemed to share a familiarity. It was common, Wendra saw, for a man here to put his hand on a woman’s breast, or she to cup another man’s loins. Even men and women who appeared to be here together seemed to feel free to lay hands on others. The gestures fetched bouts of laughter and calls for more bitter. Sweet-leaf tobaccom stems flared and puffed like small cloud makers, filling the room with a pungent haze. The revelry never abated, but fed upon itself as the boat moved down the river.

Jastail took hold of Wendra’s hand to guide her more surely through the throng. Toward the back of the great room, a few round tables sat partitioned off from the rest by a low wall. One of the swordsmen stood at the passageway into the area. Upon seeing Jastail, he stood aside and let them pass. Only a few men sat at the tables, most of the seats empty. Jastail led Wendra to the last table, where just one man sat with a stack of thin wooden placards like the ones Wendra had seen moments before. He wore a smartly tailored russet tunic with golden piping and a double column of silvery buttons down the front. A ring on each forefinger bore a weighty, elegant gem. And his beard had been frosted to match his buttons. The fellow did not rise, did not take note, but sat shuffling the placards over and over. Jastail’s tall shadow fell across the table; the man surely knew they were there. But he refused to immediately acknowledge them. Jastail waited, holding Wendra by the wrist.

The seated man took a tobaccom pipe from the lining of his jacket and tamped fresh weed into its bowl. He pulled a straw from a wooden canister beside the table lamp and lit one end in the lamp’s flame. With deliberation, he applied the flame to his bowl and puffed his pipe to life. With his head wreathed in the sweet smell of perfumed tobaccom, he looked up with smiling eyes and greeted Jastail.

“Hello, my friend,” he cooed. “Come again to test your luck, have you?”

Jastail flashed his standard smile. “You are a temptation to me, Gynedo. How can I resist the game?”

“And you play well for such a young man,” Gynedo said. “But young men should not be so willing to pay the price of the game, I think. Old men as I haven’t the … concern for reputation or consequence that young men should. How say you to that?” One brow rose in expectation of a response.

Jastail motioned to the chair opposite Gynedo.

“Please,” the older man said, puffing at his pipe.

Jastail sat, pulling Wendra to the tableside where he could see her, and let go of her wrist. “In any other time, Gynedo, I would say you are right. But these days we live in are filled with rumors. This is not a time for a man to lay stores by in the hope of surviving the winter. I—”

The old man pointed his crooked finger at Jastail, arresting his answer mid-word.

“You’re a philosopher, my young man,” Gynedo said, his eyes narrowing, “but leave the rhymes and riddles for those you intend to betray. Tell me why you come to game here.” The old man tapped the table with his finger, seeming to indicate not the boat, or even the room, but the very table at which he sat.

Jastail’s smile failed him. Wendra liked the look of his face plain, absent the attempt to distract or deceive. He appeared to earnestly consider the question, his eyes thoughtful and directed despite the confusion of noise from the outer room. “Because it thrills me,” he said finally. “It is a base logic. Fah, no logic at all. I play because no other trade makes me feel alive, no other contest or wager speeds my heart.” His voice grew quieter, but somehow cut through the din. “I come, Gynedo, because I am a young man, younger than you, and I have learned already the intoxication of where you are willing to go. I can no longer do less.”

Gynedo sat appraising Jastail, considering his answer. Finally, he nodded. “A pity for you, I think, Jastail. Your trade in human flesh has dulled your senses.” The old man looked at Wendra.

Jastail said nothing

“But it
is
a thrill.” And the old man’s eyes lit with excitement and energy. “None greater that I know, no paltry thing as what the herds come to partake.” He motioned in disgust at the outer room. “They with their pittance upon the slate, their heads dulled with watered bitter, their wanton hands betraying their animal nature. I need my wall.” He gave a wan smile. “But yes, it is a thrill, one that I will enjoy until my flesh is gone to dust. But you, friend, you may live to tire of even this game, and then what is left to you?”

“I will never tire of it,” Jastail said in a convincing voice.

“No?” Gynedo remarked, his voice rising with incredulity. “Well, I will hope you are right, because I have seen what is next, and it were better that you should perish now than live to know such stakes.”

Jastail had no reply.

“Then let us make our accountings,” the old man said and stood up, leading Jastail into a small anteroom.

“Stay here,” the highwayman said to Wendra. She sat, glad to finally rest her feet.

But she watched through the open doorway as the old man, Jastail, a woman she could not see well, and a few others took turns holding up various items, pointing and touching them as they seemed to describe what they were. Wendra couldn’t hear what was said, but solemn faces and appreciative nods followed the presentation of each item. Assessing value, she imagined. It seemed clear that the various articles they discussed would be what the players would wager in their game. For the moment, the highwayman was embroiled in something that didn’t involve her. It gave Wendra a much needed respite, and she relaxed ever so slightly, realizing how weary she was.

What Gynedo called
the accounting
took an hour, and Wendra had nearly nodded off when the group came out of the anteroom.

Gynedo sat, as did Jastail. The two men stared at one another for some time before Gynedo divided the placards and pushed one pile toward Jastail. “Pick them up, my young friend, and let us see where the chances take us this night.”

Jastail picked up the thin wooden placards and fanned them out, studying each with great interest. Wendra could see a number of designs on the placards, but could not understand what they meant or what game they might indicate. As the two began to play, the other players who’d taken part in the accounting gathered around them. Three were men, all elderly like Gynedo, and all puffing pipes as though in imitation of the man. One was the woman, younger and wearing a beautiful satin dress. Her hair had been tied up above her head, exposing the delicate, white flesh of a neck that had never been exposed to the workaday sun. Gold earrings dangled delicately against her skin, and on each thumb she wore a gold ring with a large white stone. But she did not watch the men: she turned her attention immediately to Wendra, looking closely at her hair, her lips, her bosom, and her legs.

“Set three ways,” she said, speaking to Gynedo and Jastail, but looking still at Wendra as if with some prescient knowledge.

The men stopped their analysis of the thin woods in their hands and looked at the new player. Gynedo sat deliberating, smoking his pipe, savoring the sweet blend of the weed and the power he had to make others wait. He looked at Jastail, who nodded his agreement.

“Just so, Ariana,” the old man said. “Take a chair and three will play.” He looked up at the other men. “But no more.”

Wendra thought she could feel peering eyes, and looked over her shoulder to find a number of gamers and gamblers watching the development of the contest. She hoped Gynedo or Jastail would send them away, but the men were busy reshuffling the placards to divide them into three piles. None of this was getting her any closer to Penit, or to Tahn, and her frustration mounted. A stirring of song came darkly to her mind and fought for release, but she held herself still and thought of Balatin and his words concerning patience:
Fortune serves he who is long-suffering
. She turned her attention to the game, trying to understand how it was played.

After several minutes of consideration, Gynedo put a placard down on the table in front of him. Both Jastail and Ariana looked surprised at the play. The placard held the image, rendered in red, of a serpent with great wings.

“To you, then, Jastail,” the old man said, taking pleasure in his pipe and smiling around its stem.

Jastail spared a look at Ariana, touched one placard, then quickly removed the leftmost one in his hand and set it before him. It was Gynedo’s turn to show surprise, but only in the raising of one brow. The old man nodded, then shook his head, still smiling around his pipe.

Ariana’s face showed nothing, and she did not hesitate in making her play, immediately putting down a placard bearing the same symbol as Jastail’s.

“One round,” Gynedo said. “What have you to carry you to the next?”

Jastail removed an earring from his belt that bore the likeness of a tall woman.

“Most impressive,” the old man said. “It was you that did it, then.” He nodded appreciatively.

Ariana turned baleful eyes on him. Jastail did not favor her with a return look. The woman’s composure failed for only a moment, though, before she removed a glove from a small silken bag tied to her wrist. Woven of metal shavings, the warrior’s glove shimmered in the light.

“He went to battle for you, dear Ariana,” Gynedo said. “How better suited to play the game is a woman, don’t you agree, Jastail?”

Wendra’s captor looked at Ariana, whose obvious hatred now burned through cold, inscrutable eyes.

“We shall see,” Jastail finished.

The old man laid a small drawing on the table, rendered in an unpracticed hand, like that of a child’s. A hush fell over all who saw the wager. “That gets me to round two. Does anyone disagree?” No one spoke. “I will accept that as my invitation to continue.”

Another round of placards was laid down, and again each of the players produced an item that seemed to shock those gathered to watch. Wendra didn’t immediately understand the significance of the objects being used to buy the players an opportunity to present another placard, but her mind danced close to understanding that they represented people in some way, and that the literal value of the item was secondary to what it signified.

Around they went, laying six cards on the table. Each time was followed by some token that appeared to be the personal effect of someone the wagerer had known.

Then Wendra understood, looking at the pile of items on the table: a mourner’s kerchief, a child’s diary, an author’s quill, a worn doll, a stringless fiddle, and more. Things she’d seen them presenting and discussing in the back room before the game began. These were tokens of loss, of emotional pain, of death, the voices of which were the sounds of silence and sorrow, of life’s sacrifice and bereavement. And somehow these gamblers were the cause or custodians of these moments of grief and regret, gamblers whose souls were so hardened to the effects of money and wine that all that remained worth betting—that could stir their desire to wager—was the despair and tragedy represented in the offerings heaped on the table before them.

Only human suffering seemed able to move them, and perhaps thereby convince them of their own lives.

Wendra’s heart ached with the knowledge.

“Young friends, you’ve played well,” Gynedo said with a hint of condescension. “But your placards don’t make a strong bid against your last play.” He leaned back and drew deeply on his pipe. “There is only small shame in getting up from the table. But to do so, I require you to take back your wagers.”