The Banes passed the Palace, going around the west side of that imposing building to reach the small Palace Ward behind it. This was not a regular Ward, crowded with people and livestock, humming with the work of the city, but a quieter place. Here, the King allowed certain of his servants to live in relative luxury. There were small parks with greenery and ponds, wider streets, bigger rooms, and special warehouses for the taxes and treasures of the Royal House. Even Salick seemed impressed, though she must have patrolled here many times.
“Maybe people lived like this before we were crowded into the walls six-hundred years ago,” Dorict said. He shifted his basket of scrolls to one hand and pointed with his iron-bound staff.
“I think the Stewards School is over there.”
He indicated an imposing three-story building near the east wall. Men and women dressed in conservative clothes of muted greens, reds, and blues were coming in and out of the three entrances. Above the central door, a circular carving showed a pair of hands holding up a model of the city and a crown over all. The meaning seemed clear enough: the king may rule and the people may go about their business, but it was the stewards who made all this possible.
“Where are we in this carving?” Garet asked, speaking to no one in particular, but he got an answer.
“In the circle that surrounds it, Bane,” a deep voice said behind him.
They turned and saw Barick, the new City Historian and lately butler to the King, standing behind them. He wore a striped robe of blue in different shades, wrapped around his prodigious belly and chest. His great soft face smiled down on them, and he waved a fleshy hand.
“I sought to greet you at the gates, but was too late, I’m afraid. It is so hot to be walking. Aha! These records are most welcome. Perhaps Garet can bring them in? I wouldn’t want to hold these others from their important duties at the Hall.”
Salick’s smile disappeared, and she looked as if she might protest, but in the end handed her basket to an already overburdened Garet, gave him a look he couldn’t interpret as anything pleasant, and left with Dorict.
“There now,” Barick said, looking to where Garet juggled three baskets full of paper. “That’s, er . . . better, isn’t it? Come along, Bane. We have much to do.”
The large man led him up the stairs at a stately pace, which was just as well for Garet had to stop every three steps to pick up a fallen scroll.
BARICK LED HIM
to a set of rooms on the third floor. He indicated a table, and Garet placed baskets at each end and stacked the slippery scrolls between them. When he was done, he turned to find the Historian waiting by an inner door, one ear pressed against the wooden panels.
“Excuse me, Barick,” Garet said. “Did you need me for anything else?”
Barick waved him over, and Garet went to him, wondering what was going on. Thinking about the apologies he must make to Salick, he had no wish to linger.
After a moment, Barick lifted his head from the door and turned the handle.
“Would you mind stepping in here for a moment, Bane?” he asked. He said it so courteously that Garet could hardly refuse, though he wondered why he had been asked here just to be ushered away.
The door closed softly behind him before he realized the inner room was already occupied. Two men, one older and the other still young, were playing surround, a board game Garet had often seen. Dorict was fond of it, and had explained the rules to him many times in the hope that Garet would agree to a challenge. So far Garet’s duties had not given him the necessary time, for it could be a very long game, and he valued his own studies—and his sleep—too much.
The board was divided into two halves by a blue stripe called “the river”, rather like the city itself. On each side, pieces representing Hounds, Harriers, and Huntsmen tried to trap a single piece, the Prey. Each player controlled the Hunters on their own side and the Prey on the side opposite. To win, one had to both catch the opponent’s Prey and destroy the Hunters chasing their Prey. Draws were quite common, and a decisive victory meant you were good at both chasing and escaping.
One of the two men, the younger, looked up and smiled.
“Ah, Garet, how surprising to meet you here.”
“Your Majesty!” Garet said, for it was indeed Trax sitting there, pushing a Hound after the Prey controlled by Lord Andarack, who sat opposite the King.
The King continued smiling, genuinely for once, Garet thought.
“Since this meeting is not actually taking place, why don’t we drop all titles for a while, like we did in our first, very violent meeting. I won’t call you Bane, and you won’t call me Majesty, all right? Now since we aren’t here, you should know where we really are. Andarack and I are in another part of this building, checking with the Chief Steward about preparations for the festivities to come. Go ahead! Tell him, Andarack.”
The Ward Lord blushed and put down the game piece he had been turning in his hand.
“Well, Garet, it seems I’m getting married,” he said.
Garet stared at the man. He liked and respected Andarack, but he must have been in his fifties at least, and though Garet supposed love could strike at any age, it just seemed . . . odd.
“Who is the lady . . . Andarack?” he asked. Perhaps she was the daughter or sister of a neighbouring Ward Lord. He might even have met her on his patrols.
“Well, it’s Dasanat, actually,” Andarack said, and his cheeks reddened until he resembled one of his furnaces.
If Garet was surprised before, he was stunned now. The chief of the Mechanicals thought of nothing but the machines she so expertly made. To believe she was in love was more than just odd. It was unbelievable.
Courtesy forced him to say something. Anything.
“I had no idea she was of a . . . marrying mind,” he said.
The King gave an ignoble snort.
“Well,” Andarack replied, “there was much wooing involved before she agreed. In the end, I think she decided to take me on as a sort of experiment.”
He was now flushed from chin to hairline.
Trax laughed. He reached across the board to put a hand on Andarack’s shoulder and give it a friendly shake.
“Nonsense. She suits you down to the boots, man! And you’re the only one who knows how to talk to her, since even her King can’t get a word out of her most days. So let us say it was a match ordained by Heaven but much delayed.”
Andarack smiled. He turned to Garet who awkwardly extended a hand.
“Congratulations, Andarack!” he said.
The Ward Lord stood and took Garet’s hand in his own, pumping it vigorously.
“Thank you, Garet. You have been a friend to both me and Dasanat since you came to Shirath, and I honour that friendship. I hope you will attend the ceremony with Salick and those two youngsters, but I’m afraid this is all the time we have to talk of such pleasant matters.”
He released Garet’s hand and pointed to a third chair.
“As you have no doubt guessed, we are here to discuss matters of import to both the Hall and the City.”
There it is again, that split between the two where there should be none.
Garet sat down in the place the Ward Lord indicated. The older man remained standing and began to pace as he talked, a habit Garet had seen before.
“I’m sure Salick told you that I avoided answering the questions she put me at that dinner. She wanted to know about the silkstone armour suit, probably for Dorict’s sake. That young man has been very helpful in testing and refining it. Why, he found ways to cut its weight by four and a half pounds! I’d say the Mechanicals lost a fine prospect when he joined the Banehall.”
“Andarack?” Trax said. He made a running motion with two fingers along the board.
“Ah, yes. Well, the reason I haven’t asked him to help me with the suit is because I no longer have it.”
Garet stared at the Ward Lord, then at Trax. The King shook his head.
“No, I don’t have it either. I have enough suits of armor lining the palace halls, and I have no use for that particular one without Andarack’s expertise.”
The Ward Lord nodded.
“Nor would you have taken it in such a criminal fashion! Three guards wounded, one badly. Gonect—I think you remember him, Garet—Gonect was nearly killed by an axe blow. Luckily he had his plate on or I’d have lost a friend and a good Chief of Guards. They came upon a group of black-clad men and women breaking into my house. The armor was in the great room, set up for testing. They took it and all the silkstone boxes not already at the Banehall.”
“But why, Andarack?” Garet asked. “What good would it do any but you?”
“What good indeed?” Trax said. He tossed a folded piece of paper to the Bane, and when he opened it, Garet found a sketch of one of the masks he had seen two nights ago.
“My agents saw a man wearing this and sneaking out of the Seventh Ward just after a demon was killed there, and not by Banes.”
“Your . . . Trax, these are made of silkstone. I found a chip of it after the Masks attacked that big demon in the Fifth Ward.”
The King nodded. “The Masks, hmm? My guards say that’s what they’re being called in the streets now. Regarding the silkstone, we thought as much, for what else would allow a man or woman not of your Hall to fight such a creature?”
Andarack stopped his pacing and faced Garet. “What can you tell us of them?”
Garet paused for a moment to think. Branet would not approve of this meeting. He would say this was Hall business, that anything to do with demons fell under his control, not the King’s. Garet guessed that anyone born in this city might well agree, but Garet was from the Midlands. He could see the city from the outside, see how each part as it helped or hindered in a way those raised inside its walls could not. Master Mandarack had valued that in him. Like Garet, the old Master’s loyalty had been to the city as a whole, rather than just the part of it that was the Banehall.
“At least one of them was a Duelist. She is the one who survived that night when the Caller was killed by your brother.”
King and Lord looked at each other.
“Shirin, I think her name is,” Trax said. “Officially the Duelists are extinct, and many of them now work on chain gangs in the fields and woods, but I can tell you that some escaped, or rather hid with the help of others. We think we know who, but without certain proof, I cannot accuse a Ward Lord of treason!”
“Treason?” Garet asked. The word had an unpleasant taste in his mouth, especially since some would consider him a traitor to the Banehall for telling even this much to the King.
Trax said nothing, but looked to where his Prey stood menaced on the board in front of him.
“He’s right, Garet,” Andarack said. “That charge might set the Wards against each other in a brutal conflict, the like of which hasn’t been seen for two hundred years. Then it was plague and a bad king who started it. Now it might come out of a war between the Banehall and these Masks with everyone else taking sides.”
“Well, at least we don’t have a bad king this time,” Trax said, “unless you’d like to disagree, Garet? I know what Salick’s opinion would be.”
Garet looked at the King a long time before replying. He was surprised to see the man was actually waiting for a response.
“I think, Trax, that you care more for the city than yourself, which is saying something indeed. I also think you are a manipulative man, and not to be trusted in personal matters, but that you would lay down your life for Shirath.”
Andarack looked mortified at such honesty, but Trax laughed.
“You sound like my father! Heaven’s Shield, you two would have made a pair. But you’re right. I was given this city’s care, and for my pride’s sake, I intend to see it kept safe until I rise up in the smoke of my funeral pyre—if Heaven will take me, that is.”
Even Andarack laughed at that. The King wiped his eyes and waved Garet to sit back down when he made to stand, sure that the interview was over.
“One more thing, oh honest man! I’ve come to respect your view of things since our first meeting in the winter. If it breaks no vows, can you tell us what the Hall is doing about the increase in demon attacks? Branet is closemouthed on the topic, and although people want to believe in the renewed power of the Hall, you and I have both seen it slip at times.”
Garet bristled at this last bit, but answered. “Anyone can see that the patrols have been increased, to the limits of our numbers as you must have guessed. One patrol comes soon after another, and then the next, and so on. The same strategy, just more of it, you might say.”
“Would you change the strategy?” Andarack asked.
“Yes, what would you do if you were Hallmaster?” Trax asked.
“I’m not,” Garet said. His tone could have chipped ice.
“Nor likely to be, so don’t fret,” Trax said. “I won’t repeat your criticisms, but I would like to know what you think should be done.”
Garet took a deep breath. He
had
been thinking about this, if only because it was his nature. Years spent sitting on rocks in the sheep pastures of his father’s farm, throwing stones to frighten any ewe that tried to leave the flock had left nothing
but
time for thinking. On those endless days, he had examined all the “what ifs” and “what nows” of his life over and over. He had planned escapes from his abusive father and brothers a thousand, no, a hundred thousand times. He had dreamed of Shirath and the other cities of the South, populating them with people both ordinary and bizarre, building their walls and homes in his mind, only to tear them down and build them higher, better. Coming to the real city had not cured this habit. He guessed that nothing ever would.