The Steel Remains

Well, so have you, knight graduate Eskiath. So have you.

Wonder if he had to take it up the arse from his pledge guardian as well. A lingering glance up and down the Lord Administrator’s slim frame. Wonder if he liked it.

Stop that.

Still. Wouldn’t do to underestimate him at Brillin day after tomorrow.

If it comes to that.

“Are you finished checking your manicure, degenerate?”

Ringil looked up at Kaad and had to mask a sudden, unwanted sense of vertigo.

“Very well,” he said coldly. “We’ll do it your way. No mail, no shields, light blades only. Seconds to attend. Now get out of my fucking house.”

WHEN KAAD HAD GONE, THE GRAVELED CRUNCH OF HIS CARRIAGE fading down the drive, Ringil crooked a finger at one of the attendants nearest to him, a shrewd-faced lad who couldn’t be much over a dozen years old.

“What’s your name then?”

“Deri, sir.”

“Well, Deri, you know Dray Street in Ekelim, right?”

“Up from the river? Yes, my lord.”

“Good. There’s a shop there that sells Aldrain junk, on the corner of Blubber Row. I want you to go there first thing tomorrow morning with a message for the owner.”

“Yes, my lord. What message?”

“I’ll write it for you later.” Ringil gave him a coin from the bottom of his depleted purse. “Come and find me in the library after supper.”

“Gladly, my lord.”

“Off you go then.”

“And perhaps now,” the Lady Ishil declaimed icily from the other side of the hall, “everyone would care to get back to the tasks for which they are retained in this household. And someone clean up that blood.”

It set off a scurry of motion, servants dispersing via the various doorways and the staircase. Ishil trod measured steps across the emptying floor space until she was in front of her son. She leaned in close.

“Is it your intention,” she hissed, “to offend every male of rank in this city before you are done?”

Ringil examined his nails again. “They come to me, Mother. They come to me. It wouldn’t do to disappoint them. Or perhaps you’d prefer the name of Eskiath insulted with impunity in your own home? I can’t see Father going for that.”

“If you had not assaulted Kaad in the first place—”

“Mother, for your—” He stopped, cranked down the force and exasperation in his own voice. He looked daggers at the two remaining attendants by the door, who both immediately found a pressing need to step outside. When they were gone, he started again, quietly. “For your information, neither Murmin Kaad nor your beloved husband wants me anywhere near Etterkal. I don’t think it has much to do with Sherin, but we’ve stirred up a marsh spider burrow with this line of inquiry. Kaad showing up here yesterday is just a consequence.”

“You did not need to scald his face. To, to”—Ishil gestured—“half blind the man.”

“He exaggerates.”

“Oh, you think so? Gingren bribed one of the Chancellery physicians to talk to him after they examined Kaad. He says he may never regain full sight in that eye.”

“Mother, it was a flagon of tea.”

“Well, whatever it was, you’ve caused both your father and me a great deal of embarrassment we could have well done without.”

“Then perhaps you should not have dragged me back to this shit-hole to do your bidding in places you will not go yourself. You know what they say about summoning up demons.”

“Oh, for Hoiran’s sake, Ringil. Act your age.”

Their voices were rising again. Ringil made an effort.

“Listen Mother, Kaad hates me for what I am. There’s no way to change that. And he’s up to his eyes in whatever’s going on inside Etterkal. Sooner or later, we would have collided. And to be honest with you I’d rather that happened face-to-face than that I had to walk about waiting for a knife in the back instead.”

“So you say. But this is not helping to find Sherin.”

“Perhaps you have an alternative strategy?”

And to that, as he well knew, Ishil had no reply.

LATER, IN THE LIBRARY, HE WROTE BY CANDLELIGHT, FOLDED AND SEALED the parchment, and addressed it to Shalak. The boy came to find him, stood twitchily in the gloom outside the fall of the candle’s glow. Ringil handed him the letter.

“I don’t suppose you read, do you?”

The boy chortled. “No, my lord. That’s for clerks.”

“Yes, and couriers sometimes.” Ringil sighed. “Very well. You see this? It says Shalak Kalarn. Shalak. You can remember that?”

“Of course, my lord. Shalak.”

“He doesn’t open early, but he lives above the shop. There’s a stairway at the back, you reach it through an alley on the right. Go at first light, wake him up if necessary. He’s got to find someone for me, and it may take him the day.”

“Yes, my lord.”