“Done with that, Chief?”
Datra drained his ale and shook the garnish onto his plate, pickled sprout crashing amidst piles of cheese and nuts, then he slammed down the glass, lipprints cracking the light as yeast and scum trickled into the serial numbers stamped into the base. The waitress took it with both hands, and a single lock slipped free of her bun. She reached up to tuck it, and her sleevecuff fell, flashing Datra with a stretch of pale brown skin on the thicker half of her forearm. She looked down and away, and walked behind the counter, plunging her hands wrist-deep into a basin of soapy water—sleeves safe and dry above the suds. Datra watched her work as he pecked at his snacks. Every four or five nuts, he leaned over for a glimpse of the Old Palace: gray parapets drilling the heavens, nothing but blue fields between.
A door squealed open, followed by the sound of a brass lockbox hitting the tiled floor. Anya slid between stools to lean on the bar, two fat duffels slung under one shoulder. She wiped the sweat from her brow and called out “water,” shoving a bag into Datra’s lap as the server brought a cup. She emptied it in one broken draught, pausing for breath with lips on the vessel. “Let’s go,” she said, reaching over for a refill.
“You should have used D’rar,” said Datra.
“He’s watching the kids.”
“They can’t last an hour?”
Anya ignored him and downed another glass. Datra hmm’d and said “I suppose they’re used to having one of us, at least.”
“Let’s go.”
Datra held the sprout in his mouth, shouldered his pack, and dumped the spare nuts in his satchel. He reached for the lockbox, but Anya grabbed it first. Datra tried to protest, but could only grunt through his teeth as Anya barged past the door and the people behind it, Datra trailing in her wake as they plunged into the crowd—a core of smart, trim bureaucrats, with some servants and shopkeeps lingering in the margins; a few of the more established owners watched from balconies, sons lined up beside them.
Anya snaked across Palace Square, making a weak effort to avoid those with rank as she clipped person after person with her luggage. A circle of young men stood in her path. “Move,” she said, and they did, save for a slim adolescent in overclean robes, eyes fixed on the towering façade—Datra looked up: still nothing. Anya knocked him across the cobbles, and the youth spun up to glare. Anya did the same—grayblue eyes flashing down. The upstart turned away, then he saw Datra and dove into the mass.
They burst out on a street, pausing for breath as the traffic thinned, and a few minutes’ walk put them crossing the first bridge to the clades. Two maille-clad praetors manned the checkpoint, truncheons at the hip, polearms leaned against the guardhouse. One reached for a roster; the other, a graybeard with corporal’s stripes, waved them up. “S’diem, Don,” he called out.
“S’diem, fere. How goes the watch?”
“Better than holding a pike in that square.”
“You’d miss it?”
“You’ve seen one; you’ve seen them all, Chief. Not that I should tell you. Besides, the view here’s plenty close.” The old guard jabbed a key towards the Palace, tracing the battlements with a flick of his wrist, then he turned to fumble with the lock. The younger took up a tablet and asked “Name, destination, length of stay, purpose?”
“Don’t act a slave, boy,” said his senior. “You know damn well who this is, and just put ‘admin’ or something. Although, Chief, I would appreciate a final stop. Saves me a fight with the scribes.”
“G. Three or four days. Five at most.”
The corporal pulled the door as his rankless scribbled. “Things must be grim if you’re heading in.”
“Mediation is a bloody business, to be sure.”
“Ha, the bugs ready to talk terms?”
“Oh, you meant the outbreaks? I’d forgotten.” Datra stepped back as Anya scuttled in sideways, lockbox first. He followed. “What good is building a staff just to work over their shoulders? Four in a day might be worth my attention. Four in a fortnight is weather.”
“I sure hope so, sir.”
Datra turned back to lean in the doorway, elbow on the frame. “If you need hope, then how about this: a single alarm before I’m back, and I’ll treat you to dinner at Martin’s.”
“And if there’s none?”
“Then you’ll pay, naturally.”
“Too rich for my blood,” the praetor said, raising a palm in defeat. “Maybe a few years on, after I get my pens—”
“There it is!” yelled the rankless, and all heads whipped towards the Palace.
A mass of white fabric danced between parapets, twirling at the end of an oily black noose. Even at this blurry distance, Datra saw every move as the condemned kicked and bucked and clawed at the rope, the crimson trim of their robes cutting a stark silhouette over clear blue sky. They arched their back, scraping one heel over another, and a sandal flew into the crowd; but there were no jeers, no curses; just the sober spectacle of watching the criminal wind down like a fish on the bank—although, once the head lolled, they looked more like a bird in a butcher’s window. Datra blinked away and thought of Birch, wondering if he might stretch this errand a few days more.
“Someone you know, Chief?” asked the praetor.
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“No. I think he’s one of yours.”
They worked through the city’s interior, hugging hills and cutting through orchards, trying to balance a direct route against time lost crossing between clades: stopping to shoo out memo runners and re-sanitize from scratch. Despite their combined shortcuts, the sun was low by the time the Irrigators emerged from the final guardhouse, footprints glistening in the late red light as they descended the bridge to G, where a young Sudran man faced them with clasped hands, cuff over thumb; toes touching the line of runes which marked the edge of his universe.
The servant dressed in vinaire Pentacost motifs: a cascade of purple and red trimmed out in silvergray floss, patterned in vines and soft leaves. He held his face low as the guests approached, and sunk into a bow as they stopped before him; then he rose with big, expressive eyes and a strong nose, olive skin clean and clear. His shoulders fell slack, and he grinned with the breezy air Datra would expect in a bathhouse. “S’nocte bella, don,” he said.
“S’nocte prim,” said Anya. “How goes the watch?”
Datra rolled his shoulder, waiting for the escort to take his bag. He didn’t, so Datra unslung the duffle and tossed it into the young man’s chest. “Apologies, sir,” he said, tucking it under his shoulder. “Forgot myself.” He held an open hand to Anya.
“Thanks, but I’m going the other way. Please send my regards.”
“I will, if you send mine” he said, softening. “But it’s a shame. Not so long as the Chief, but we’ve missed you, Anya.”
Datra looked on, trying to hide his confusion. He scoured his memory for a word of where Anya would be staying tonight, but found nothing. “Need anything from me?” Datra asked.
“No. I’ll come if I need you.”
“Or, for no reason at all,” said the servant. “Even if it’s late, we’d love to show our appreciation. No small feat: dragging Mr. Dat from his lair.”
Datra burned, then flared as the youth looked into his eyes and laughed. His fingers crept around his baton, shoulders tense with anticipation. “Sergeant…” he growled, preparing to have the youth put to the wall; but Anya spun on her heels and sauntered downstream, lockbox banging against her thighs.
“S’morro, prim. Keep an eye on your mother for me.”
“I will.”
Datra’s eyes snapped back just as the youth’s smile reached the corner of his mouth, then Datra saw it: the slant of his teeth, the odd sharpness of jaw; pale brown eyes lined with delicate folds, familiar and distinctively un-Sudran. Datra’s feet turned to sand as time’s weight blew through him, trying to speak, and failing.
“No hard feelings, sir,” Menander laughed. “I had a bet with my sisters you’d look twice. Not fair, when you’ve changed so little. Shall we go, then? The servants were cooking when I left.” Leading the way upstream, he asked “How should I call you, then? Patre, sir, chief?”
“Chief for now. At home, whatever you want.”
The House of the Alderman, Menora’s palace, sat near clade center, nearly touching the canal, so they hadn’t went far before the upper levels peeked out between waterfront houses. Without speaking, both men turned from the path, slipping into the alley behind that old warehouse, then ducking through the garden of a derelict manor. They walked in sync past the rain-worn graveyard, the unlocked gate, the fountain with the broken penis. In the final stretch, Datra veered off, only to bump into a wall of smooth brick with clean, white mortar; but he hurried back just as Menander returned to the streets, standing in the shadow of his home: a great horseshoe of milky stone, with blocky levels rising up from the toe, each floor smaller than the one beneath, crowned by the master’s penthouse like a hilltop temple.
“S’nocte, Don,” called a soft, wooden voice, and Datra looked down to find a stiff old man with swarthy skin and a grand mustache, dressed in a somber shade of the family colors. He moved to bow—too slow—Datra rushed up and clasped his hand like a rail in the mist. “Don’t you dare don me, Boris! Lord, the years have been kind.”
“I’ve spent them in good company. Three generations of Pentacosts has made for a simple life.” He glanced at Menander, whiskers twitching into the tiniest smile. “Mostly.”
The youth rolled his eyes and reshouldered the duffle, leading the way inside. They swept up the steps, through pillars and doors and the short antechamber lined with busts of former Aldermen, from a great uncle of Richter to Menander’s namesake, looking as stern and quiet as the man himself. With each corner and threshold, Datra saw the palace of memory overlaid with the real place of silk and stone: statues into fountains, portraits to landscapes, a stretch of stained glass where there’d once been dark shutters; and the floors were looser than he’d remembered, with more than a few doors turned into open archways—in one disconcerting moment, Datra was uncertain if he was walking through a hallway or a bedroom.
“Mother never leaves things for long. Do you like it?”
“I’m just glad the walls are here.”
“For now.” Menander laughed.
An unseen figure dashed in and flung thin arms around Datra’s neck. He squirmed and fought himself still, wanting to throw an elbow but knowing it would end poorly. He leaned down until his assailant’s feet touched stone, then she gripped his shoulders and stepped back to face him, bluegreen eyes staring up through a shock of auburn hair. Menora toed up to kiss him, a peck on the cheek; then bounced back and fixed her hair—the alderman vanished; replaced by a young stranger who’d stolen her face.
“A little tact, miss Sena,” said Boris.
“Lucky to be alive, really,” said Menander.
“Datra, you really came! Does mother know you’re here?”
“I was going to help our guest settle…” said Boris, but Sena bounded off mid-sentence, running up a staircase.
“She’s grown,” Datra said.
“Yes, but not changed.” Menander followed her. “She could have taken the bag…”
They rounded a corner and walked down one of the palace’s wings, slot windows on one side, offices on the other. Most had been closed or switched over for sleeping, desks folded up to make room for cots; but in one broad, bright room, scribes milled around an isle of paper and wax, reaching over each other to borrow a stylus, or brushing their tablets with washed out ink. Rows of brass cabinets lined the walls, open locks dangling from the handles, with a stout iron safe in the corner. A grid of numbers ran across the rear wall, etched in stone above the windows: interest per rate per term, worked out to the fourth decimal.
Boris led him to the courtyard garden, canal walled off by a sheet of morning glories. Datra stood before the family shrine, a stone collage of spears and horses, with a salmon arching the crest. He tossed a coin and said “I’m glad something’s left of the old man.”
“More than you might think,” said Boris.
A young boy pattered up with a miniature cart, driblets of snot smearing the pink of his chiton. “Boris,” he said, “can you…” but the old servant stayed him with a raised palm. “We’ve spoken of this,” he said, turning towards Datra. “Young master Miro has been working on his manners. If you would indulge me…”
Datra crouched down. “S’nocte, prim. I am Chief Datra.”
Miro looked between them and set down his toy, taking a few tries to clasp his hands before he found the proper pose. “S’nocte, patre. Welcome to our home.”
“Well, done,” said Boris. “Now, how can we help?”
The boy showed them the underside of his cart, where stray tuft of hair had gunked up the axel. Boris worked it free and tested the wheels on his palm before handing it back. “Much better. Now, what do we say?”
Miro threw his arms about Boris’s legs. “Thanks uncle Boris,” he said before running off.
Datra raised an eyebrow at Boris, who chuckled and coughed, mustache crinkling over an awkward smile. Datra just stared, and blush crept over the old man’s cheeks, plain as day next to his swan white whiskers. Behind him, a bright contralto voice called out: “Datra!”