‘We’ll go on,’ he said at last. The Verneths did indeed need closer watching. Tam was possibly right. Probably right. And perhaps it would give him some comfort, later, if he could convince himself of it. Amlis shrugged and wiped his shoe clean on dark-hair’s white silk trousers.
They strolled down the wide sweep of Sunfall and crossed the Court of the Broken Knife. A single pale light flickered beneath the great statue in the centre of the square, too small in the dark. A woman sat beside it, weeping quietly. A place where someone was always weeping, the Court of the Broken Knife. We live, Orhan thought, looking at her. We die. For these things, we are grateful. The statue was so old the man it depicted had no name or face, the stone worn by wind and rain to a leprous froth tracing out the ghost of a figure in breastplate and cloak. A king. A soldier. A magelord. An enemy. Even in the old poems, it had no face and no story and no name. Eyeless, it stared up and outward, seeing things that no man living had ever seen. In its right hand the broken knife pointed down, stabbing at nothingness. In its left hand it raised something aloft, in triumph or anger or despair. A woman’s head. A helmet. A bunch of flowers. It was impossible to tell.
A man in white circled the square, looking for an opponent. Folly, or bravado, or ignorance: it was ill luck to fight there. A tall woman in a silver dress made wide eyes at Orhan as he passed her, tossing her black hair. Her legs were hobbled with thin cords, giving her a creeping, sinuous movement like a charmed snake. Orhan shook his head gently. Painfully slowly, she crept back across the square to her waiting place. There was a weary look on her face, as if she had been there a long time.
‘Pretty,’ said Amlis.
‘Probably diseased,’ said Sterne. ‘And look at her face. Keep clear.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ Amlis grunted. Sterne shot him a look like daggers. Orhan almost laughed.
‘Sterne’s right,’ he said. ‘Keep clear.’
‘You’d know, would you? My Lord.’
‘About disease, yes.’
A litter swept past them, shining red silk lit from within by candles. The bearers wore dark clothes and hoods, blurring them into the night so that the body of the litter seemed to float, a glowing red world. Shadows moved and danced on the surface of the silk. Two women, hair loose, one with long trailing sleeves and a headdress that nodded like horses’ plumes as she twisted her head. The shadows they cast were distorted by their movements and by the flickering of the candle flames, making them grotesque, tangles of limbs and hands and huge heads. The woman with trailing sleeves raised her arm for a moment and her long fingernails writhed in the light.
‘I’d assume they’re headed where we’re headed,’ said Amlis.
‘Almost certainly.’
Twelve or fourteen bearers, six feet square of fine silk. A very expensive means of transport. And remarkably impractical, given the width of some of the city’s streets. Lucky for the owner that House Emmereth wasn’t in the habit of throwing parties. They’d have to demolish several buildings to get it down Felling Street.
They followed the litter into the courtyard of the House of Silver. It was not large, as such places went, neat and square, without porticoes or columns but faced and roofed entirely in silver, tarnished and murky, mottled with rainbows, light and reflections shifting. A dream of water in the desert. A dream of heat haze. The blurred vision of dusty light. The blazing red of the litter standing before it cast it in soft crimson, beating like a heart.
‘Lady Amdelle.’ Orhan gave a delicate half bow.
‘Orhan.’ Celyse Amdelle, wife of the Lord of the High West, opened her golden-brown eyes very wide. ‘How lovely. I really hadn’t thought you’d be here. And arriving at just the same time.’
Orhan took his sister’s arm and they walked towards the open doorway. Amlis disappeared into the servants’ quarters; the other woman in the litter, presumably an insignificant Amdelle girl Celyse was trying to marry off, followed them in silence, five paces behind. Celyse walked slowly, her body very erect to support the weight of a headdress of silver wire and tiny mirrors that chimed and glittered as she moved.
‘And how’s your dear wife?’ asked Celyse sweetly. ‘Not accompanying you? She doesn’t seem to go out so much these days. The last time I saw her, she looked horribly tired. Nothing wrong, I trust?’
‘She’s already here. She’s had a bit of a cold, that’s all.’
‘Oh! What a shame for her. I was worried it was something more than that.’
‘She’s neither pregnant nor dying, if that’s what you’re after. I’d tell you if she were.’
‘Of course you would. So unfortunate for you, Orhan. You make a marriage of convenience that’s really anything but.’
Orhan sighed. Poor Bil. ‘Your own marriage, of course, being so much more successful.’
‘Oh, I’d say it probably is.’ Celyse smoothed her dress with long fingers. ‘I get some happiness out of mine, at least.’
Coloured light broke onto them as they entered the inner courtyard of the House of Silver. A fire burned in the centre of the court, enclosed in a great framework of multi-coloured silks that cast shifting patterns of light over the people around it.
‘Ahhh,’ Celyse said with real pleasure, ‘it’s even prettier than my litter.’ The mirrors of her headdress shone and danced, swirling the colours around her like a cloak. Tasteless, but undeniably striking. She must have found out about it in advance and themed her entire outfit accordingly.
‘Something of a fire risk, I’d have thought,’ Orhan muttered.
Celyse laughed. ‘Eloise has hired a mage, of course, to control it.’
Orhan stared at her. ‘She’s hired a magician to stop her party piece burning down?’
‘You make him sound like a cheap conjuror. He works with the craftsman who makes the things, keeping them fire-safe, protecting them. Made my litter: it has bindings in it, to stop it catching if a candle tips. He did a demonstration before I bought it. Eloise is quite charmed by him, she’s thinking of keeping him.’
The things the high families felt the need to waste money on … Orhan gazed around the courtyard, looking out for friends and enemies. Saw Bil almost immediately, sitting on a low bench on the other side of the court, near the firebox, talking to a young woman with fair hair and a pale face. He ought to at least tell her he was there. He wandered over to her, was half surprised to see her look almost pleased to see him.
‘Orhan,’ Bil said with a bright smile. ‘What a surprise. Landra: my husband, Lord Orhan Emmereth, Lord of the Rising Sun. Orhan: Lady Landra Relast. Her father is lord of a small rock somewhere in the far east. She only arrived here two days ago. I’ve promised to show her around a bit.’
The woman nodded her head in greeting and they exchanged pleasantries. No, she’d only been here a few days, not seen much of the city yet. Yes, the Great Temple was indeed beautiful, she’d seen that. No, she had no particular purpose being here. Just come to … nenenthelesal? ‘Get away from things’? Was that the right word?