The Burning City (10 page)

Samorty laughed thinly. “It fell once. To us! But peace. It won't fall tonight. More wine?” He poured from a pitcher on the table.

Shanda stirred and whispered, “That's you they're talking about.”

“Sneaker?”

“No, the
Lordkin!”

Whandall nodded. His family, street, city, in the hands of these dithering, bickering Lords…. Was he too young to be sold onto some foreign ship? For an instant the idea was indecently attractive…

“Yangin-Atep's still asleep,” Quintana said. “Watchmen told me there were three fires over in the benighted areas.”

“I didn't hear about any fires. Have trouble?”

“Just brush fires. The kinless must have put them out.”

“This time,” Samorty muttered. “What I worry about is when the Lordkin won't let the kinless put out the fires.”

“Yangin-Atep protects houses,” Quintana said.

“But not brush. Suppose all the chaparral burned at once?” Jerreff asked. “Would that wake Yangin-Atep? Half the city could burn if Yangin-Atep wakes while the hills are burning!”

“Now that would be something to worry about,” Rowena said.

“Sure would. You're too young to remember the last time,” Samorty said. “I was only ten or so myself.”

“We don't know what wakes the god,” Qirinty's wife said.

“Sure we do. Hot weather. No rain. That hot, dry wind from the east,” Qirinty said.

“Sometimes.” Samorty sounded doubtful. “I grant you that's usually what things are like when the Burning starts. But not always.”

“Get us some rain and things will be all right.” Qirinty toyed nervously with a salt shaker, then caused it to whirl about.

“Sure,” Rowena said.

“If we can't get rain, maybe we ought to do something else,” Qirinty said carefully. He put the salt shaker down.

“What?”

“Finish the aqueduct. Get more water into the benighted areas—”

“Be real,” Samorty said. “That's no easier than getting rain!”

“They have a new aqueduct in South Cape,” Quintana said. “One of the ship captains told me.”

“Sure, and they have wizards in South Cape,” Qirinty said. “And dragon bones for manna. We don't. But we could still build the aqueduct—”

“There's no money,” Samorty said.

“Raise taxes.”

“We just raised taxes,” Jerreff said. “You can't squeeze the kinless much more.”

“Borrow the money. We have to do something! If there's another Burning it will cost even more to rebuild and we'll
still
have to finish the aqueduct.” At the word
still
, Qirinty made a dagger vanish. From his vantage above, Whandall saw how he did it. He might have learned it from a pickpocket. “Doesn't Nico owe us?”

“Sure he does, and maybe he can talk his masons into working with him as a favor, but it would still take two hundred laborers to finish that job. They'd all have to be fed.”

“I suppose,” Qirinty said sadly.

“Maybe we can talk the Lordkin into finishing the aqueduct.” Rowena laughed sourly. “After all, they're the ones who need it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Quintana said. He poured himself another glass of wine. “But Qirinty's right. We should do something…”

Lord Quintana's wife was slim and long, with sculpted hair. She'd arranged herself on the couch so that everyone would see her legs and painted toenails, and she seldom spoke. “I don't see why everyone worries so much about the Lordkin,” she said. “We don't need them. What do we care what they do?”

Quintana ignored her.

“No, I mean really,” she said. There was a hard edge to her voice. “They need the aqueduct, but they won't work on it. The very idea that they might makes us laugh.”

“And when Yangin-Atep wakes and they burn the city?” Samorty said gently. He liked Lady Siresee.

“Kill them.”

“Not easy,” Qirinty laughed. “There are a lot of them, and after all they won last time.”

“Squeeze the kinless much harder and you'll get another war,” Jerreff said. “Some of them are getting desperate.”

“Yes,” Samorty said. “But they'd really be in bad shape after a Burning.”

“There are stories,” Jerreff said. “Whole city burned down. Even our town.”

“Where did you hear that?” Samorty asked.

“At the Memory Guild. Yangin-Atep used to be more powerful,” Jerreff said. “He could seize everyone, Lordkin and Lords too. Burnings were really bad in those days. Didn't your father tell you that, Samorty?”

“Yangin-Atep has no power in here.” Samorty waved at the sculpted gardens and too-perfect houses. “And damned little in town.”

“Sure, and you know why,” Qirinty said. “We can fence him out, but we can't control him.”

“Gods have gone mythical,” Jerreff said.

“Don't be a fool,” Samorty said. “You heard what Morth said. And suppose we
could
send Yangin-Atep into myth—what happens then?”

“No more Burnings,” Jerreff said.

“At what cost?”

“I don't know,” Qirinty said.

“Neither do I, and that's the point,” Samorty said. “Right now we've got things under control—”

“Sort of,” Jerreff said.

“Enough.” Samorty clapped his hands. The kinless servants brought in new trays of mugs. “We have a performance tonight.”

“Oh, what?” Qirinty's wife asked.

“Jispomnos.”

“No, no, that's long,” Quintana said.

“Not all of it—scenes from part one,” Rawanda said. “Nobody does the whole thing.”

“Even so,” Quintana said. “I'll be back…” He went off toward the small room under the stairs.

Performance
was a way of telling a story. Several people acted out lives that weren't theirs, on a platform with moveable furniture. A man with a booming voice spoke as storyteller. Whandall had never seen anything like it.

The performance was long, and Whandall didn't understand a lot of the words. Jispomnos had beaten his woman, had tracked her down after she fled from him, had killed her and the man he found with her. Whandall understood that well enough. Whandall's uncle Napthefit had killed Aunt Ralloop when he found her with a Water Devil. He'd tried to kill the man too, but the Water Devil had run to his kin.

But Jispomnos's woman was kinless!

The killing wasn't shown.

Guards took Jispomnos away. He walked away when they turned their backs. The guards chased Jispomnos around and around the stage in excruciating slow motion and all sang in a harmony that Whandall found beautiful, but they sang so
slowly!
—in time to somnolent music that ran on forever….

Shanda pulled his ear to wake him. “You were snoring.”

“What's going on now?”

“Trial.”

He watched for a time. “I don't understand anything at all! What's the trial about?”

She looked at him with wide eyes. “There was a murder,” she rebuked him. “It's about whether he did it or not.”

“Jispomnos is a Lordkin, isn't he?” Or was the
actor
a Lordkin
playing
Jispomnos?

But Shanda only looked at him strangely.

Whandall swallowed what he was about to say. Shanda wasn't Lordkin. Instead he pointed and said, “The kinless woman and the two men, who are they? They're doing all the talking.”

“The men, they speak for Jispomnos. Clarata speaks for the court.”

“Jispomnos won't speak for himself?” Cowardice or pride? “Why
two
men?”

“I don't know. I'll be back,” she whispered.

Whandall nodded. It had been a long performance.

He watched. It was difficult to untangle. The kinless woman Clarata told of the killing, questioned any who had been nearby, showed bloody clothing. Of the men who spoke for Jispomnos, the little kinless man demanded that Clarata produce Jispomnos's knife. Whandall nodded: no Lordkin would throw away his knife. He argued that the clothing wasn't his, didn't fit. Jispomnos was elsewhere during the killing—in the Eastern Arc, in the woods, in a dockside winery with Water Devils to vouch for him, and on a boat bound for Condigeo—until the audience roared with laughter, covering Whandall's own giggles.

But the Lordkin advocate spoke of Jispomnos's prowess as a fighter, his standing in the bands…

Shanda came back. “What did I miss?”

“I think I get it.”

“Well?”

“They're not talking to the same people. The little kinless, he's funny, but two of the judges are kinless, so he's talking to them. He tells them Jispomnos didn't do it. But Jispomnos took a kinless as his woman. He lives like a kinless. What the Lordkin judges want to know is, did Jispomnos make himself kinless? The Lordkin advocate, he's telling them that Jispomnos is still a Lordkin. He had the right to track his woman down and kill her.”

“The
right?”
Her eyes bugged.
“Why?”

He had no way to tell her that. It just
was
.

So he lied. “I don't understand that either.”

Shanda whispered, “I don't think anyone does. It's based on something that really happened in Maze Walkers. A Condigeo teller wrote this opera. The grownups like it.”

The trial was still going on when part one ended and everyone applauded.

The lords and ladies drifted apart. Samorty and Qirinty walked under the balcony. Samorty was saying, “And that's the
best
part. Greatest argument for getting rid of that arts committee I ever saw.”

“Let
me
run the arts committee. Or you. Or Chondor. At least we'll
have shows that satisfy someone.” Qirinty stopped in his tracks. “That's what we need! A show! Not for us. For the Lordkin!”

“Not Jispomnos!” Samorty said. “You'd start the next Burning!”

“No, no, I mean, give them a parade,” Qirinty said. “Get their attention and tell them about the aqueduct. Tell them we'll have it done… before the rains?” He went back to his couch, looked up at the night sky. “It's the season. Why doesn't it rain?”

“Not a bad idea,” Jerreff said. “While all the Lordkin are off at the parade, Samorty here can meet with the kinless association council. Explain what we're really doing with their taxes.”

“Find out if they're ready to join the Guard,” Siresee said.

Quintana said, “Lordkin hear you're meeting with kinless and not them, there'll be trouble.”

Jerreff waved it off. “We'll meet with some Lordkin too.”

“Who?” Qirinty asked.

“Who cares? Get the word out, we're meeting their leaders. Somebody will show up.”

“Now that's disrespectful,” Samorty said. “And the Lordkin want respect.”

“No, they don't. They demand it.” Siresee's words were meant to cut.

“Well, they say they want it, and they certainly demand it,” Samorty said placidly. “I agree, Jerreff, it doesn't matter a lot which Lordkin we talk to. They don't keep their own promises, and none of them can make promises for Yangin-Atep. But we have to talk to them.”

“Why?” Siresee asked.

“Time you children went to bed.”

Behind him!
Whandall jumped, but it was only Serana the cook. “Before Miss Bertrana catches you up so late,” she said.

Morning was cloudy, and just after breakfast Miss Bertrana came into the kitchen and took Shanda by the hand. “Your father wants you,” she said. “In your pink dress. There are visitors.”

Shanda looked pained. She turned to Whandall. “I'm sorry…”

“That's all right,” Whandall said. “I'd better go home.”

“Yes, but have some of my corn cake,” Serana said. “I like to see a boy with a good appetite.”

“Where did you say you lived?” Miss Bertrana asked.

Whandall pointed vaguely to the west. “Over near the wall, ma'am…”

“Well. Miss Shanda will be busy all day. Tomorrow too.”

“Yes, ma'am. Too bad, Shanda.”

“Are they showing me off?” the little girl asked.

“I wouldn't put it that way, but it's Lord Wyona's family.” Miss Bertrana said the name reverently. “Come on; you'll have to change.”

Shanda hesitated a moment. “You'll come back?”

Serana was at the stove rattling pans. “It takes two days each way,” Whandall whispered.

“Please?”

“I'll be back,” he said. “Really. I just don't know when.”

“Next time we'll get to the forest.” Shanda lowered her voice. “I'll leave some things for you in my room, in the chest. You can have all the boys' clothes there.”

The chest was nearly full, and Whandall couldn't tell the boys' clothes from the girls. Most of the things were too small anyway. Shoes: fancy, not sturdy. They wouldn't last a week in Serpent's Walk. There was far more stuff here than he could carry, and even if he could carry it, what then? He'd look like a gatherer. If the Lordsmen didn't catch him, his own people would.