I had advised Suhail to stop after that statement, lest the clamour drown out his next words. He took my advice, but the pause lasted longer than either of us had anticipated. Finally he gave up on waiting for silence and went on, pitching his voice to be heard above the din of audience commentary. His point did not rest upon that single example: he believed he had found cognates for a number of words, methodically connecting them to examples in Akhian, Lashon, Seghar, and historically attested languages no longer spoken today. It was, as he had said to me, guesswork; all he could do was tentatively identify specific glosses from the Ngaru text, and then extrapolate into speculation on other Draconean inscriptions. One tablet from a site in Isnats, for example, seemed to be a kind of tax record, as he found probable words for “sheep,” “cow,” “grain,” and more.
Any one example could easily be shot down. Assembled together, however, they constituted a very reasonable theory—or so I thought. But I was not a linguist, and there were gentlemen in the audience that day who laid claim to that title. They were more than prepared to disagree with Suhail.
When I heard voices rising at the back of the hall, I assumed it was an argument over the substance of the lecture. The magister I mentioned before, ten rows ahead of me, had risen to his feet so as better to shout his disagreement at my husband; presumably the noise behind me was more of the same. When I turned to look, however, I saw a small knot of men at the door, facing one another rather than the stage.
Surely they would not begin an altercation over a matter of historical linguistics? But I have spent enough of my life among scholars to know that academic conflicts and fisticuffs are not always so far apart as one might expect. Rising from my seat, I went to see if I could defuse the situation before it reached that point.
But the argument at the door had nothing to do with Suhail’s lecture. From my seat, I had been unable to see the man at the center of the knot; now that I drew near, I caught a glimpse between the shoulders of the other men. He dressed in the manner of a northern Anthiopean and had his hair trimmed short, but a suit did nothing to change his features. The man was Yelangese.
Now, on the surface of it there was nothing so terribly strange about a Yelangese man attending a public lecture in Falchester. Ever since long-range maritime trade became a common feature of life, there have been sailors and other immigrants in Scirling ports, Yelangese not excepted. At the time of Suhail’s lecture, though, we were firmly in the grip of what the papers had dubbed our “aerial war” against Yelang, wherein our caeligers and theirs jockeyed for position all around the globe, and our respective military forces clashed in a series of minor skirmishes that kept threatening to break out into full-scale war. Men of that nation were not exactly welcome in Falchester, regardless of how long it had been since they called the empire home.
Furthermore, readers of my memoirs know that I had quarreled with the Yelangese on multiple occasions: when I was deported from Va Hing, when I stole one of their caeligers in the Keongan Islands, and when they made organized efforts to sabotage our work at Dar al-Tannaneen. This was public knowledge at the time, too—which meant that the gentlemen near the door, seeing a Yelangese man show up at my husband’s lecture, had leapt to some very hostile conclusions.
I kept my voice low, not wishing to draw any more attention than this incident already had. Fortunately, the magister who had stood up was still on his feet, along with another man who was attempting to shout over him. “Gentlemen,” I said, “I suggest we take this matter out into the lobby. We do not wish to disturb the lecture.”
There are benefits to having a famous reputation. The men recognized me, and were more inclined than they might otherwise have been to heed my suggestion—which was, of course, a thinly disguised order. One of them shouldered the door open, and we escaped into the relative quiet and privacy of the lobby.
“Now,” I said, once the door had swung shut behind us. “What appears to be the problem?”
“He’s the problem,” the tallest of the Scirlings said, jerking his chin at the foreigner. He topped the Yelangese man by more than a head, and was using his height to loom menacingly. “I don’t know what he thinks he’s about, coming here—”
“Have you tried asking him?”
A brief pause followed. “Well, yeah,” another man admitted. “He said he was here for the lecture.”
“Anybody can say that,” the tall man scoffed. “That doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“Nor does it mean it’s false,” I said. In truth, though, I suspected there was indeed more to the story. The Yelangese stranger, though doing his best to keep a bland expression, had clearly recognized me. Which was all well and good—as I have said, I was very recognizable—but something in his manner made me suspect I was his reason for coming to Caffrey Hall that day.
My tone was therefore sharp as I addressed the stranger. “What is your name?”
“Thu Phim-lat,” he said, in a heavily accented voice. “Lady Trent.”
So he would not attempt to pretend that he did not know me. Under the circumstances, none of us would have believed him anyway. “How long have you been in Scirland?”
“Three weeks.”
My heart stuttered in its beat. Perhaps you think it was a foolish reaction; I will not argue with you. But I had been on the receiving end of Yelangese trying to kill me, and could not forget that so easily. Had Thu Phim-lat been a longtime resident of Falchester, I might have persuaded myself that he was no threat. But if he had just arrived …
I decided to press the matter. “You may be here for the lecture, Mr. Thu, but I doubt that is your only purpose. Tell me what you hope to accomplish.”
His eyes darted from side to side, taking in the men watching us. They had arrayed themselves quite close, clearly ready to interpose their bodies if Mr. Thu made a single move toward me. “Oh, come now,” I said impatiently—as much to myself as to them. I did not like feeling afraid in my home city, and I liked even less feeling afraid when I had so little cause. “If he wished me any harm, there are far easier ways for him to achieve it than by walking into a public lecture hall.” He could have accosted me on the street, appearing out of the crowd before I even knew he was there. A cosh to the back of the head, a knife between the ribs … but that was foolishness. Yelang had only troubled me when I troubled them, by investigating dragons in their country or attempting to breed my own for the Royal Army. There was no reason for them to assassinate me at home, unless I had made a much more personal enemy than I knew. And doing so would only make them look dreadful in the court of public opinion.
THU PHIM-LAT
The Scirling men looked unconvinced, but I had persuaded myself, and reassured Mr. Thu enough that he answered me. “I wished to meet you,” he said, speaking very slowly. I realized later that this was because his grasp of the Scirling language was far from perfect, and he wanted to make certain he committed no errors of grammar or word choice that might cause his point to be taken awry. “I have news of a thing I think you would like to hear.”
“News may be sent by letter,” I said. “Or you could present yourself at my townhouse—its location is hardly a secret. Why come to a public lecture?”
“If I came to your home, would I be let in the door?” he asked. “Would my letter be read?”
“Yes, or else my servants would have a great deal to answer for. I do not pay them to make such decisions on my behalf.”