Chapter 13 - The Funeral
From the balcony of the Barthan Foreign Embassy on the Aster side of the city, with one hand set on the painted wooden handrail, and the other tucked halfway into his pocket, Odden of Barthos gazed out at the Longclasp bridge. He heard a soft knock behind him, and turned to see one of the embassy servants stepping onto the balcony. “Pardon me, setter,” said the young man, who had some yellow fuzz on his upper lip, and fingernails bitten anxiously short. “This missive just-”
Odden raised his hand from the balcony and held his finger to his lips. He pointed at The Longclasp, then waved the young man to come onto the balcony. The young man did so; the pair of them stood and stared across the distance.
In emerald and white and pink and black, two columns of muira soldiers rode onto the bridge from the Aster side of Aster-Szem. The ridges on their helmets and pauldrons, and the edges on the tips of their ceremonial spears gleamed under the evening sunlight. Behind the two rows of muira soldiers - royal army in their emerald and pink and white on the left, Villgoranians in their black webskins on the right - behind them there marched the gorvoid and the Junior Ambassador Tamara Simon, followed by the members of Szem’s council, eight elders from the prominent hearths, thirteen Knights of Ahn - who would be given switchknives once they reached beyond view of the city, and asked to cut their wrists at the side of the road - and a few of the notable tradesmen and moneylenders. All were muira, the chosen face of one half of the city. Then behind came the stretcher-bearers as they carried Srik Tillich’s body out of Aster. Once they reached the city wall, the soldiers would accompany the stretcher all the way back to Ahn; the diplomats and leaders would return to Aster-Szem, if only for a brief stay.
Odden took a cup from a small table at the corner of the balcony, and dipped it into the nearby rain barrel. He took a small sip. He said, “Take a drink, setter-”
“Eraton, ambassador Odden,” said the young man. He took an awkward swallow from the cup Odden offered. “Of Pergnus. A small village a few days south of Barthos.”
“Don’t be nervous, Eraton of Pergnus.”
“No setter. Of course not.”
“What is your opinion of the funeral?” asked Odden. He waved vaguely at the procession.
“I- I have none, setter.”
“Would you agree that our neighbors across the bridge honor their deceased leader in a respectful manner?”
“That doesn’t-” the young man began, before taking a quick breath to stop himself. “It is respectful, setter. There was this missive that came for you though…”
“You are concerned,” said Odden, ignoring the latter comment, watching the young man’s face.
“Sorry, setter Odden. I know we Barthans haven’t always clasped arms with the Teironians. But, sir, a man should never side with a muira against another man. Should he?”
Odden stared out, watching as the leading members of the parade reached the other side of the bridge. “I suppose not,” he said at length.
A look of relief spread across the young man’s face, followed by excitement. “It’ll be a short war I think, setter.”
Odden set his cup down and took the missive from the young man’s hand. “Retrieve my inkstand and quill, if you will be so kind.”
“Sit down, Hearn.”
Hearn stopped in the doorway, a whetstone held in one hand, a saber in the other. Ostok sat in a wicker chair on the Villgoranian embassy’s veranda, watching from the raised view as Srik Tillich’s funeral procession passed across The Longclasp into their side of town. The bountyman had turned away from the procession, however, and now looked at Hearn. His eyes settled on the shining edge of the saber which Hearn had been honing. “Planning on cutting someone, eh?” the bountyman asked.
Hearn stepped out and sat down in the chair beside Ostok. “I’ll carry it in case we need it,” Hearn answered. He resumed sharpening. The scrape, scrape, scrape of the stone against the edge of the blade sounded lonely on the raised veranda; the summer wind that had blown all through the last five days had fallen off this late in the evening.
“The Teironian army let you keep your arms and armor after you served?”
“One of the Villgoranians loaned it to me from the armory.”
“Well that was kind of my race.”
“I told them you asked for it.”
“Ah.”
“Ostok,” Hearn said after the bountyman did not go on, “what will happen to Kloe of Teiron when she’s caught?”
On the street below them they saw pedestrians moving out the way, as royal army soldiers walked the street ahead of the procession. Hearn squinted at one of the pedestrians, a man who refused to move off entirely, but sat himself down on a nearby bench. It was the beggar, Theogenes. His silky beard dangled over what looked like a loaf of silt bread. Hearn watched the soldier brandish his spear at the beggar, who stared back unperturbed. Finally the soldier moved away, leaving Theogenes to watch the passing funeral.
Ostok rubbed a trail of shining beads from his spotted bald head with a wool kerchief. He said, “It has been a hot few days.”
“Setter Ostok,” said Hearn, watching his companion, “we should go to the sewers now.”
“In a moment.”
“The assassin might be in the tunnels as we speak.”
“This Kloe of Teiron is likely to have already escaped the city - last night she could have gone.”
“Are we not even to send soldiers to watch?”
“I have asked the Szem mayor to spare a few men. The royal army and the Teironians guards are already watching the passages, though from their description it’s a labyrinth down there. I should say, they’re watching all the entrances and exits they know of in Aster; for, from what that ‘sweet medicine mother’ told us, this Kloe is going back into her native Teiron.”
Hearn only continued to scrape the edge of his saber. There was a tiny hole in the veranda canopy directly above hearn, which allowed a small shaft of light to drop down. The light struck right on the middle of Hearn’s weapon, so that it lit up the coarse hairs on the backs of his knuckles whenever they passed below with the whetstone, and otherwise reflected against the razor edge.
Ostok pulled his god’s bones bag from an inside pocket and set it on one of his thighs. “It’s respectful to engage with one’s household gods during an event like this, you know. Not every day does the funeral of a royal councilor of Ahn pass by the street of a common man. I’m sure my grandfather here never saw any such thing in his time, did you grandfather? You see? His silence on the matter is as good as a ‘yes’. I meant to ask, how did that lovely lockbreaker of yours feel when you returned to her scorched and reeking of silt smoke? I’m surprised she’s agreed to let you accompany me into those tunnels.”
“She doesn’t know,” said Hearn.
“Know what, I wonder?”
Hearn caught Ostok’s eye for a brief moment. He focused on his saber. “She left the town.”
“She’s gone?”
“I haven’t had time yet to see if she made it out before they closed the roads.”
“Did you tell her about the room with the embroidered tablecloth and the cult oath? Did you scare her off with stories about The Footsteps in Red?”
“You should arm yourself.” Hearn turned and looked halfway back into the hall of the Villgoranian Embassy. “Head to the armory.”
“I’m not concerned for safety, yours or mine.”
“They’ll have another saber, or perhaps a spear.”
The bountyman blew a long cloud of pipe smoke from between his pale lips, which drifted out over the balcony and into the waning sunlight before he continued. “Even if Kloe of Teiron has not already left the city,” he mused, “and even if one of the vigil soldiers we have set to watch the sewers does not find her first, I don’t think it’s likely that you and I will run into her. As everyone has said, it’s a labyrinth beneath the paving stones we see down there. And here’s another thing: look at me. I’m not a fighter anymore. No, if it were just you and I alone in that sewer, with some chanting-trained murderer stalking somewhere in the dark, why, my life would be entirely in your hands.”
“No heavy burden then,” Hearn said sarcastically.
“Look. They’re passing below us now.”
The two could just hear the tramp of the soldiers’ boots as the leading members of the funeral column passed under the veranda. The colors of their uniforms seemed to glow in the waning daylight. The soldiers kept their faces still, unsmiling, fixed on the road ahead. Hearn caught the glance of Ahn’s Second Ambassador, Tamara Simon. She passed him a frown, then turned and whispered something to the gorvoid. They continued down the road, past the place where Hearn and Ostok sat. There were no songs, no instruments playing. But for the fading footsteps of the soldiers, the march proceeded in summer silence.
“Isn’t that your beggar friend on the other side of the road?” asked Ostok.
“Theogenes,” Hearn replied.
“He looks content with his bread on his bench.”
“The man says he takes life as it comes. He claims always to be satisfied with what nature sets before him.”
“Would that we all could discover such contentment of spirit.”
“We should go now,” said Hearn, rising.
“Good man, sit down,” said Ostok. “You are making far too much of an event out of this.”
“The assassin could be leaving at this moment.” Hearn flushed, and his fingers tightened unconsciously around the hilt of the saber. “How can you sit complacently?”
“My faithful guide-”
“Whether or not we catch her determines the course of the diplomats and warmongers.”
“But Hearn, you know we won’t find Kloe in the tunnels under Aster.”
Hearn held still at the door into the embassy. He stared at the bountyman. “What do you mean?”
“Sit down. And sheath that saber, you won’t need it.”
The parade had, by that time, passed far enough down the road that very little sound reached the risen, shaded veranda. Only the occasional pitter-patter of a zephyr in the fabric above, and the chirring a bellbug under Ostok’s seat, filled the gap where neither man spoke. Finally Hearn set the weapon back in its sheath. He laid it across his knees as he sank back into the pliant creaking wicker.
“Did one of the soldiers report?” Hearn asked. “Is she gone?”
“Not at all,” Ostok replied. “But it’s plain - to both your mind and my own now - that if we were to track down Kloe of Aster in the sewers, it would not be in the ones running under the Aster side of town. Don’t you agree?”
Hearn clasped a fist over his mouth with a thoughtful look.
“I myself felt immediately suspicious of Mell Vimienn’s suggestion that this assassin, Kloe of Teiron, intended to find safe harbor back in her native country. The moment she said it, I thought to myself: ‘Now that strikes me as out of character for the killer I imagine in my head.’ I imagined, incidentally, a young man to start with, though of course there’s nothing to stop a woman from murder. But to stick to my theme, I pictured this member of the Footsteps as someone driven by real national zeal. Such a person has just achieved their first ambition, the silencing of a foe. What reason would they have to stop there? Oh, I’ll grant that is possibly the initial intention. But my experience is that success in an endeavor only breeds desire for still-greater success. At some point our successful assassin surely says to herself: ‘If I can kill Srik Tillich, Elder Migrant, what’s to stop me from reaching another of the Elder Council with my deadly Amphorae shards? What’s to stop me from reaching the queen herself?’”
Ostok paused. Hearn had his eyes fixed on the darkening figure of Theogenes across the road, leaning over his loaf of bread on the stone bench. He seemed to listen, though he still held his hand clasped over his lips and showed no intention of speaking. The bountyman thus spoke on. “Naturally, then, the successful assassin of Srik Tillich is more likely to pass through the tunnels under Szem - towards The Mantes and into my native country of Ahn - than the tunnels under Aster. What you read from the creed of The Footsteps in Red confirms me in this belief. Naturally I have sent word to both the vigil and the royal army soldiers stationed in the city. They watch many tunnels. But the maze is so vast and complicated, I am told, that I expect the chance of a soldier catching Kloe is not very likely. What I require is a colleague of this woman. Someone who knows what she is like, how she will think, what route she will go down. Let us pass over how I have gained my knowledge, and simply observe what it is I know: I know you are a member of The Footsteps in Red, Hearn.”
Hearn turned to meet the bountyman’s steady, unblinking, small black eyes. “You sound certain of it,” he said from behind his fist.
“Please be courteous with me, Hearn. We’ve been working with one another for several days now. I consider you a fine friend, a very fine one indeed! I’m sure I would never have left that burning siltstack - a spirit still bound to flesh - had you not pulled me out. So do me the courtesy of not quibbling, or pretending like it’s a falsehood. I feel we are too well acquainted for that sort of dialogue.”
“Friends, you say, and in the same breath suggest-”
“Come. It’s more than suggesting. Let me put it to you in this way: you’ve acted and spoken strangely at several points as we’ve gone about the city, every time when we stood upon information which led us truly toward Srik Tillich’s killer. Come, say to me as an honest man that you are not a member of these Red Feet. I’ll immediately banish it from my head.”
Hearn looked back across the road. Theogenes had left, though Hearn could still distinguish the small shape of the beggar’s silt bread lying atop the stone bench. Hearn let out a breath, and at the same time released his hand from before his mouth. “It was a long time ago, setter Ostok.”
“Just Ostok, please. Did you know this Kloe of Teiron during that time?”
“I think she’s one of the members I knew. She went by another name. That was probably a lie as well.”
“Most likely it was. Which way will she take to get out of Aster-Szem?”
“She’ll go back to Ahn. she’ll feel as if her mission is not complete while leaders of Ahn remain to command your armies. Besides, there are… other people in your country with whom she might find shelter.”
“Who are they?”
Hearn shook his head. “I knew five men and women. Those five are dead. All except her.”
Ostok pinched his chin in thought. “A pity that I was right about you, Hearn. You’re a fine human in all other respects.”
“Let me help you yet,” said Hearn. His knuckles whitened around the hilt of the saber.
“I can’t let you come. And I’ll need to tell the captain of the villgoranians inside the embassy here.” Ostok winked. “But the ledge of this veranda is not so high that you could not climb down while I-”
“Let me help.” Hearn repeated. “I know the part of the city she’ll try to leave from - it’s the High Denzo Road on the northwestern end of Szem. And I’ve a strong guess as to which tunnels she’ll use, judging by the streets above. If she’s still in the city, your best chance of preventing her leaving is with me as your agent. Let me help you catch her.”
Ostok scratched his temple, and hummed for several moments. He said, “It’s muira law, Hearn…”