The Burning City (71 page)

“And Mother.”

Wanshig nodded. “Dead, brother. Dead together, with Shastern. Fifteen years ago—”

“Sixteen,” Wess said. “Firegift is fifteen.”

“Sixteen years ago. The Burning started by Tarnisos.”

“Tarnisos killed our family?”

“No, he started the Burning. It was a Mother's Day; the women had gone to Peacegiven Square. The Lords still gave Mother's Day presents there. You remember?”

“Yes.”

“Shastern went with them. They had collected the gifts, were coming back, when the Burning started.” Wanshig shook his head. “We went looking for them. Found them dead, two Bull Pizzles dead with them. Everything they had was gathered, of course. Later Pelzed and Freethspat went looking for Pizzles to settle the score, but the Pizzles claimed their people were killed helping Shastern. Could have been, even. Could have been.”

“Who did they say?” Whandall demanded.

Wanshig's expression was bleak. “You think you'll get even, now, after sixteen years when you weren't here, little brother? You think I haven't tried?”

“Sorry. Of course you did.”

Wanshig nodded grimly.

“What happened to Freethspat?”

“He tried too. Mother was his woman; he was really close to her. Closer than I was to Elriss by then, I think. He went looking one day. Never came back.”

“And Wanshig became eldest in the Placehold,” Wess said. And didn't say that Firegift was born a few months later, but that was clear enough.

“So. How can we help you, little brother?” Wanshig asked.

“Two ways, if you can work with me,” Whandall said.

“It's possible,” Wanshig admitted. “What two ways?”

“First, burn out the Wolverines.”

“That's hard, little brother. Hard. You know who they are?”

“I hope I do. I've got no quarrel with the Wolverines. But Alferth says they're the Toronexti. I have reasons to think he's right.”

“So do I,” Wanshig said. “And the Toronexti work for the Lords.” He
looked thoughtful. “And you? You have a chariot and a Lordsman driver. Have the
Lords
told you you can burn out the Toronexti?”

“Pretty close,” Whandall said. “They won't help, but if it happens they'll be happy enough to take credit. There won't be a blood war. If there's a blood price, I can give it back to you.”

“I need to think on this. What's your other task?”

“Morth of Atlantis needs help. We'll explain later. But it needs reliable people. He needs a truce with Sea Cliffs, at least to take a chariot there. And Wanshig, I can use some help outside, out of Tep's Town, if there's anyone who wants to go.”

Wanshig stared at him. “Out?”

“There's a whole world out there.”

“Twenty years ago I'd have come with you,” he said. “Not now, and I need all the men I have, in Placehold and in Serpent's Walk. These are hard times, little brother.”

“We like it here,” Wess said possessively. “But I have a son, Shastern.” She nodded at Whandall's look. “Named for your younger brother. He's a wild boy. I don't think he'll live long here. Take him with you.”

“How old?”

“Ten,” Wess said.

“He can come. But Wess, if he comes with us, he won't be a Lordkin anymore. He'll learn different ways. I doubt he can ever come back.”

“You did,” Wess said.

“Whandall, there are some who'd like adventure,” Wanshig said. He sighed. “And I'm still Lordkin, and they'll never let me go to sea again. Unless you own ships, little brother?”

“That's not the route I took. Let me show you, big brother. Did you learn maps while you were sailing?”

“Maps? We knew about maps. Never saw them. They were locked up in the captain's cabin.”

“The idea is to make a picture of where you are and where you want to be and things you see on the way. Landmarks.” Whandall began drawing on the table. Tep's Town as a little black blotch, Firewoods in dried chili seeds, the Hemp Road in charcoal. Wess watched the mess being made, looked at Wanshig, and decided not to interfere.

“This is where we went, me and a wagon with children hidden like wine. Wildest battle of my life,
here.
My tattoo lights up when I kill, out there where there's still magic.” By First Pines, he'd run out of room. “I have to draw it smaller.”

“So that's how it works.”

“May I teach this? In the courtyard? It would be something to give back,” Whandall said. Anyone who worked the caravans would have to learn maps eventually. Who could he take? Best find out who had the knack! Best find out—

“Big brother, do you remember when I tried to teach you about knives?”

Wanshig grimaced. “Yes.”

“May I try again? Teach them all? Tomorrow. Maps today.”

Wanshig looked into his face.

“You're older and smarter. I'm a better teacher. Line up your best knife fighters. Watch me. Watch them. This time you'll get it.”

“You meant it.”

Whandall made no answer.

“Yes. I want to watch that,” Wanshig said. “We'll listen to your wizard and I'll send a gift to Sea Cliffs. Give me a day or so to get the word out—Whandall of Serpent's Walk is back and is welcome at the Placehold. Your woman too, of course.”

“She's not here.” Whandall thought of Willow coming into a Lordkin castle. “She's outside.”

They returned to Peacegiven Square to find Morth raving.

“He's a madman!” Morth shouted. He pointed to Heroul, who stood grinning on his chariot. It looked odd with no horse hitched to it. Then Morth turned jubilant. “But it's
there!”

“The wave.”

“Heroul drove me out to Sea Cliffs. The wave stood up and came at us, way too low, of course. Hit the cliff hard enough to shake our shoes! Then this maniac drove us right down into the lowlands!”

“Heroul, are you all right?” Sandry asked.

The young charioteer's grin was wide. “It was wonderful!” he burbled. “The water just humped itself and came right at us! Real magic! Nothing like Qirinty's dancing cups—”

“And this madman
toyed
with it!” Morth said. “He stayed just ahead of it, all the way—”

“—along Dead Seal Flats. It slowed when it started up the ridge,” Heroul said. “I could see it was slowing, and I didn't want to founder the horses! So
I
slowed, and it came on almost to the top. Then it slumped and ran back down toward the ocean. Ran like water, I mean, not fled.”

“You were teasing it!”

“Maybe a little, sir. And we still exhausted the horses.” Heroul waved to indicate two chariot horses being groomed by some of Waterman's men. “I'll get new ones for tomorrow, let these rest up a day.”

“Not for me, you won't, you maniac!” Morth said.

Whandall grinned. “Younglord Heroul can drive me tomorrow,” he said. “Sandry, if you please, shepherd this ancient wizard around the city.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Morth gave them a sour look. “That water sprite has chased me half my life, and today was as close as it ever came to catching me.”

“But it didn't,” Heroul said. “Sir.”

At dawn the next morning a half dozen kinless came to Peacegiven Square and began work on the ruins of an adobe house at one corner. Whandall remembered the house as belonging to a Bull Pizzle Lordkin. Or was it Flower Market? But the big Lordkin who came with the kinless wore a serpent from left eye to left hand.

In an hour they had cleared out the front yard and set up a cook fire. In another they had set out tables and chairs and hung up a sign painted with a cup and roasted bird's leg. A tea shop, at Peacegiven Square. Another sign went up: a serpent, but this was set at the edge of the lot, right at the corner. The sign in front of the shop bore a palmetto fan to indicate peace, all welcome.

Pelzed had dreamed of taking another side of Peacegiven Square, but he had never dared. Of course now it wasn't worth as much….

Whandall went over to inspect. Sandry—Younglord Sandry—followed. The kinless waitress was in her thirties, well dressed, elaborately polite. “Yes, Lords. Welcome.”

Whandall lifted his hand in greeting. It was a useful gesture, a way to be polite without losing status. The big Serpent's Walk Lordkin came out of the house. He was young and hadn't had the tattoo long. “Lagdret,” he said. “You'll be Whandall. Welcome.” He pointed to the back of the house. “I'll be living here until the Bakers here get the house next door fitted up. Lord Wanshig says if you need me, call.” He went back into the shop without waiting to be introduced to Sandry.

“Polite,” Whandall said.

Sandry looked the question.

“He hasn't anything to say to you, and he won't take up your time. He came out here to tell me only because Wanshig asked him to. His job—never say
job;
it's just what he's agreed to do—is to protect this place. What he gets out of it is a new house kept up by the kinless he protects.” Whandall smiled thinly. “Probably his first house; now he can attract a woman of his own.”

“I should learn more about Lordkin,” Sandry said.

Whandall smiled. “Our custom, it is, to swap information and stories.”

“Ah.”

“I never knew much about Lords,” Whandall said. “No more than I could learn watching from a distance.”

“Sometimes you were closer,” Sandry said. “What do you want to know?”

“There are bandits on the Hemp Road. Sometimes enough of them get together to set up a town and collect tolls. Now, all towns collect tolls, one way or another, but most of them give something back. Keep the roads up, provide dinners, drive away gatherers, keep a good market square open. Bandit towns just take. When that happens, all the wagon trains get together and go burn them out.

“Sandry, your Aunt Shanda wants us to bring wagon trade into Tep's Town.”

“We all do.”

“So tell me about the Toronexti.”

Sandry looked surprised. “I distinctly remember Lord Quintana telling Waterman to talk to you about the Toronexti.”

“Maybe he didn't tell me enough.”

“They have a charter,” Sandry said. “Promises made over the years. Some of them were bad promises, stupid promises, but they've kept the decrees, every one of them, and if we try to do anything about them they can produce a promise, signed and sealed, saying we can't do that.”

“Lords are big on keeping promises?”

“Formal, written, signed, and sealed? Of course.”

“Did you promise to help them?”

“Against all outside enemies,” Sandry said.

“Not against Lordkin?”

“No! They'd never ask. At least they never have, and if they did now, well, it would take three full meetings of all the Lords even to consider extending the Toronexti charter. But it wouldn't happen. The charter says
they
protect
us
against revolt.”

Whandall sipped tea. It was good, root tea, not hemp. The shop wanted three shells a cup, a high price, but prices always went up when the wagon train was in town. “Sandry, are you afraid of Master Peacevoice Waterman?”

“Wouldn't you be?”

“Well, maybe, but by that light I should be afraid of Greathand the blacksmith,” Whandall said. “But Waterman's a Lordsman and you're a Lord.”

“Younglord,” Sandry corrected. “Apprentice, if you like to think of it that way. Waterman would take my orders, if I were dumb enough to talk back to him. Then it would get back to my father. Wagonmaster, you tell your blacksmith what to make, but you don't tell him how to make it.”

“I wouldn't know how.”

“And I wouldn't know how to train men.”

“Or get them to fight,” Whandall said.