Getting out of the mountains took much less time and effort than getting into them. Janu wished they could have flown all the way to Chorus on dragonback, but too close into Lavician territory and the dragon guard would come to investigate. They didn’t bother wild dragons on the edges of their land – why scare away their best source of new dragons? – but otherwise they liked to keep the skies clear. Especially now that many of their reluctant subjects had acquired their own dragons.
To avoid their patrols and prying eyes, they instead had to set down in a tall forest north of the River Kim – the same river they had followed into the mountains all those weeks ago. They had to make do without their horses. While they weren’t pressed for time, Ilarion preferred to retrieve the artefact sooner rather than later, and Janu wanted to spend as much time preparing as possible. Leading the horses out on foot made little sense. Having a dragon fly them out would draw too much attention, if it didn’t just scare the horses to death.
Thankfully, boating downriver always beat a horse.
They came ashore at a port not far past the old university, recently refurbished and extended by new imperial money. This was far enough from the estuary that they didn’t have to deal with the smell of the fish market, though the wind wafted strong gusts their way from time to time.
Ilarion dodged past a group of dockworkers stacking crates from a nearby barge, turning to address Janu and Galnai over his shoulder. ‘I’ll find us a place to stay. You take a look around, do whatever you need to do. We’ll meet back at the university steps an hour from sunset, yes?’
Finding a clear spot, Janu held his hand up to the sky and judged the day’s remaining hours. It was perhaps an hour and a half past midday now, which left plenty of time to explore the city.
He nodded. ‘We’ll see you there.’ If they didn’t specify a meeting point, they would never find each other again in the chaos of this city. With all the new money pouring into Chorus since it had upgraded from royal to imperial capital, it had more traffic and more new construction than it knew what to do with. Ilarion only had to go a few dozen paces before disappearing into the crowd – no mean feat for a man of his height.
‘Where do you want to start?’ Galnai asked. Her mood had been black since her revelation to the princess, and she had refused to discuss the subject again. Though Janu hadn’t had a chance to ask without Ilarion present. Maybe he would try his luck today.
Janu read the signpost by the dock exit, thinking. ‘It’s a bit early to hit the taverns,’ he said, leaning close to Galnai so he didn’t have to explain his thoughts to everyone nearby. ‘How about we just walk for a bit, get a feel for the place, overhear what we can?’
‘It’s as good a start as any, I suppose. Should we split up to cover more ground?’
‘No no, no need for that.’ Janu scrambled for an excuse. ‘You have better eyes than I do. I wouldn’t like to miss anything.’
Galnai rolled her eyes. ‘And you have more ears – a fine pair we make. Lead on, then.’
They wound their way into the bowls of Chorus like the tourists they were – completely aimless, stopping to read every signpost and dawdling past each market stall. Their true aim likely wouldn’t be serviced like this. They needed rumours, gossip, anything that might give them some hint of how to get into the imperial palace. A marketplace had plenty of gossip, that was for sure, but Janu doubted it would be anything useful. Not in such an open space where any guard might overhear. So he kept a closer eye on the walls for any graffiti that hadn’t yet been cleaned up. That was where he would find the real gems.
As they walked, Galnai kept her gaze on the dark alleys and corners, on the shiftier denizens of the imperial capital. Janu had once assumed that this was her knack – spotting the underbelly in plain sight. Her explanation had been simpler. As a countryside girl, she just noticed more of everything in the city, and there was a lower bar to the behaviour that put her on edge.
A countryside girl. Janu didn’t know much more about her than that. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, at the ear she had lost for thieving across the sea.
‘So,’ he said as they passed out of one of the streets on the edge of the fabric market onto a quieter path, ‘how is it that you know Ilarion, exactly?’
The question annoyed Galnai enough that she stopped in her tracks, huffed and glared at him before moving on. He thought that would be the end of it, but then she said, ‘He’s my husband.’
Janu blinked. He had noticed a plain ring on her left hand before, but he had always assumed her a widow, or that she wore it just to ward off the attention of other men.
What had happened there? What did he even ask as a follow-up? He had so many questions, and could see about half of them earning him a cuff around the head. Galnai didn’t elaborate, and it took him another two streets to dredge up something safe to ask.
‘You said he was a levy troop. I take it that was the last you saw of him?’
She nodded and came to a stop before a piece of graffiti – nothing insightful, just a vulgar drawing of some imperial official. Her eyes focussed somewhere beyond it, nearer to Khunuchan than Chorus.
‘Our lord was recruiting for a war against Yerediv,’ she said. ‘None of us wanted that war. None of us gave a shit about Yerediv. But they were rich and powerful and the lords got scared. So they raised the levies and marched off. They came through our village the week after we were married.’
‘I’m sorry.’ The words came to Janu instinctively, and did not match the hard, uncaring lines of Galnai’s face.
Her face darkened, and muscles worked silently in her throat. ‘I don’t remember if I was sad or not, after he left. Life went on. He could have pissed off whoring around the continent for the rest of his life and I wouldn’t have cared a toss if it weren’t for...’ She shook her head and loosened some of the tension that had been gathering in her shoulders. It made her look smaller, somehow. ‘A month or two after he left, it was his father who came to my bed.’ She muttered something long and bitter in Khunuchanian.
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Janu hooked his thumbs into his belt and gripped the leather hard, wishing he hadn’t asked, wishing he could find something to say now that he had.
Before he could think of anything, Galnai met his gaze. ‘He’s dead, for what it’s worth. I killed him. Not long after the bastard told the bailiff’ – she tapped the skin near her missing ear – ‘to just take the one ear, so I’d still look pretty on one side.’
Unable to hold her gaze, Janu examined the crude graffiti. ‘Is that why you were so blunt with the princess?’
‘Life isn’t going to hold her hand. Her parents certainly aren’t. Why should I?’ With a sad shake of her head, she set off down the street again. ‘She’s probably imagined some fairy-tale romance. She won’t find any. All that man will ever do is use her.’
Another thought struck Janu then: Did Ilarion know about any of this? He didn’t have chance to ask before Galnai stopped again and cocked her head at an advert painted in neat block letters on the wall.
‘Sounds like a start, don’t you think?’ she asked. The darkness had slipped from her body, but lingered in her eyes.
The advert was old enough to have acquired a layer of grime, but not to have lost its edges, with the largest text at the top reading ‘Former palace guards – your skills are not unwanted’. Below it, the same hand had detailed job opportunities and the address of someone to apply to.
Janu scratched his beard. ‘Well, it’s about the palace, sure, but I doubt any of those guards will tell us much.’
‘It’s this that caught my eye.’ She pointed to ‘unwanted’. ‘Sort of implies they didn’t leave by choice, doesn’t it?’
‘Or that no one wants to hire snooty retired imperials.’
‘Doubtful.’ She traced the outline of another word that someone had attempted to scrub off before repainting the advert. It featured a distinctly imperial slur that set Janu’s hackles rising. His landlord had used it once or twice.
So none of these former palace guards were from the empire’s core kingdoms. How convenient. The crown must have been cleaning its ranks.
‘Let’s pay a visit to the taverns first,’ Janu said. ‘Pick the ones in quarters with fewer imperials, see if we can find any of these former guards. If that doesn’t work, we can watch for people paying this lot a visit.’ He nodded to the address. Loitering there would be too obvious, but a fair last resort. The more disgruntled the former guard, he imagined, the more likely they would find them at a tavern rather than proactively looking for work. Even if they had work, angry tongues had a way of gravitating towards alcohol. Just look at Fraidun.
They visited three taverns in turn, each one taking them further into the belly of the city, closer to the high-density tenements near the noisy seaside docks. None of them gave them any leads, besides the last, where a group of foppish students had been loudly complaining about the number of their peers from outside the core kingdoms. If those people weren’t good enough for the imperial palace, why were they accepted at the imperial university?
Janu and Galnai slipped out of that tavern upon seeing an angry group of those people head towards the students’ table. The shouts and clattering of a fresh fight followed them into the street. It served as confirmation, though. They were on the right track.
The next two taverns turned up nothing. By now they were well within the poorer districts. Fresh graffiti cursed the empire in every alley and wherever the guards hadn’t had cleaned lately. It came as no great surprise to Janu that many of the people they passed were from Aveshi families, just like him. Most hailed from the neighbouring Medician and Ijaran kingdoms – crossing a land border was much easier than crossing the sea, after all.
‘Two more,’ Janu said as he spotted the crooked sign for the next tavern. ‘Then it’ll be time to head back.’ He wasn’t looking forwards to feigning ignorance in front of Ilarion now that he knew Galnai’s full story.
While this tavern seemed popular, it had no name to speak of. The written portion of its sign had broken off, leaving only a stylised painting of a four-winged drakling wobbling drunkenly by an empty mug as tall as itself. On pushing open the creaking door, a wall of sound and smell greeted them: laughter and singing and the stamping of feet where two men played lyras by a roaring fire; chatter from the patrons crowded around every table; ale both fresh and spilled; the stench of hot drunken men and salt-sprayed clothes. Thick spice hung in the air from whatever food they offered here, and Janu’s stomach growled.
‘This one’s cosy,’ he said, but from Galnai’s sour expression he gathered the crowd unnerved more than enticed her.
Finding a quieter corner, they ordered some small drinks and snacks and tuned their senses to the chaos around them. It didn’t take long to single out a point of interest – a man three tables away from them had gathered quite a crowd, their chairs all turned his way as they nursed their drinks.
‘Had one for every meal of the day, he did,’ the man was saying, his straggly brown hair dipping into his neighbour’s ale. ‘Took the small one for breakfast, the tall one for lunch and the fat one for dinner. Liked to take all three on feast days, I heard. Now where he found hisself girls like that, I don’t know, but he’s their head wizard, ain’t he, so maybe he magicked ‘em up!’ He slapped his neighbour on the back hard enough that he coughed up a mouthful of drink. ‘All it takes is a bit of magic and them lot don’t care what you do, do they?’
A chorus of mutters made its way around his audience, though Janu noted it was mostly jealous remarks about the distribution of women – even from some of the women present.
‘You on about Critobulus?’ Janu asked.
‘Aye, that’s the one. The holier-than-thou freak.’ The man scowled, creasing a deep scar on his jaw. ‘You know him?’
‘In passing. Buy you a drink and we can compare notes.’
With a toothy grin, the man checked the level of his mug, downed the contents, and nodded to Janu. ‘Those are some notes I can get behind.’
Remembering the last time he had turned his back on Galnai and a drunk stranger, Janu sent her to the bar and made space for their new companion. He made his way over, his beer gut more obvious than the hint of former muscles. The crowd he had made around his former table dispersed, each to their own conversation.
‘Take it you’re one of the guards the palace just fired?’ Janu asked.
He nodded, one eye on the bar. ‘Gave ‘em the best years of my life, even changed my name for them. They just kicked me out like that meant nothing. Bastards, the lot of ‘em.’
‘What is your name?’
‘Heketas.’ He returned his full attention to Janu. ‘And proud of it, even if they’re not. So how’d you know Critobulus? I don’t recognise you from the palace.’
‘He threw a rock at my head.’
A laugh erupted from Heketas’ chest, and he was still laughing when Galnai returned with his new ale.
He wiped a tear from one eye with one calloused finger. ‘How’d you manage to piss him off so bad?’
Janu grinned. ‘Not by doing anything the empire would approve of, that’s for sure.’
Heketas took a swig of his ale. ‘They don’t approve of much these days.’ He jabbed a thumb at his chest. ‘Prime example.’
Nodding in sympathy, Janu weighed his next words against the strength of Heketas’ resentment before speaking. The wrong reaction could be fatal. But this wasn’t a man whose loyalties remained intact.
‘Do you ever want to pay them back for that? For kicking you out the way they did?’
Eyes bulging, Heketas swept an arm around the tavern and leaned in. ‘Why’d you think I talk shit about them everywhere? This is the only place in Chorus I’ve not been kicked out of.’
‘More than talk, I mean. Something more active. Because we have a job to do, and we could use your help with it.’
The grin that flashed across Heketas’ face was fierce and feral. ‘Damn right I’ll help with that.’