“I am aware of your . . . misfortunes in Umbertide, Prince Jalan. There have been charges laid against you of a very serious nature. A murderer of children would find it easier to get credit than a bankrupt charged with multiple counts of fraud. I am sure that these charges hold no substance, of course, but the mere fact of them is a terrible impediment to—”
“I’m not seeking credit. I wish to sell. The Crptipa mine holds vast reserves of salt immediately adjacent to some of the largest markets and ports in the Broken Empire. It has the infrastructure in place to ramp up production now that the departure of Kelem has opened for exploitation areas that have for centuries been off-limits. Production from the mine could undercut the imported supply while still generating considerable profit on each ton. As a debtor I’m at liberty to conduct business in order to generate funds to cover my obligations.”
Silas laid a withered hand across the deed of sale. “I see that your great-uncle’s blood is not wholly absent from your veins, Prince Jalan.”
I felt a pang of guilt then. “Is he all right? I mean . . . three ships . . .”
Those old eyes narrowed in disapproval, dry lips a thin line. The merchant watched me for a moment then relaxed into the smallest smile. “It would take more than three ships to put much of a hole in your uncle’s concerns. Even so—and with the greatest of respect—it was not well done to lose them.”
“How much will you give me?” I tapped the table.
“Direct.” Silas’s smile broadened. “Perhaps you think a man of my years doesn’t have time to beat around the bush?”
“Make me an offer. The place is worth a hundred thousand.”
“I am aware of its value. The mines have been the subject of considerable speculation. The legalities of your claim however would take some considerable clearing up though and run the attendant risk that Umbertide’s duke might rule your assets forfeit given your unlicensed departure. I will give you ten thousand. Consider it a favour to your family.”
“Give me five thousand, but allow me to buy it back for ten thousand within the month.”
The old man tilted his head, as if listening to the advice of some invisible counsellor. “Agreed.”
“And I need to walk away with the gold within the hour.”
That raised his white eyebrows some considerable distance. “Can a man even carry five thousand in gold?”
“I’ve done it before. Your arms ache the next day.”
And so it was that an hour later I left, carrying a small but extremely heavy coffer clutched to my chest. It took half a dozen senior underlings scuttling about beneath the dome of the Guild of Trade, calling in favours left and right, but Silas assembled the necessary coinage, and I handed over my controlling interest in the Broken Empire’s richest salt-mine.
I walked through main streets, wishing I’d taken Silas up on his offer of a porter, whilst at the same time still agreeing with my own argument that nobody should miss the opportunity to carry that much gold. My passage drew a few looks, but nobody would be foolish enough to think I would carry such riches unguarded, and even knowing it few would be foolish enough to try to rob me in the broad thoroughfares at the heart of the city. In any event my new outfit came with a small knife in an inner pocket just above the wrist, ready for quick release to stab any thieving hands.
By the time I reached the great slaughterhouse a third of a mile from the Guild of Trade headquarters my arms felt twice their usual length and made of jelly. I stared up at the impressive edifice. It seemed a lifetime since I had last been inside. Just over a year by calendar reckoning. Two thousand miles and more, by foot. Once a slaughterhouse for cattle, beef for the royal tables, and now a place where men carved man-flesh, the Blood Holes were one of Maeres Allus’s more popular haunts.
The bruisers on the door let me in without question. Rich men came every day to watch poor men die and bet on the outcome. The elder Terrif brother, Deckmon, he recognized me sure enough, looking up from his cash table. He put a finger to the skin beneath his left eye and pulled it down, letting me know my entrance had been marked.
The usual crowd circulated around the four big pits, the numbers men at the margins with the odds chalked above their stalls. I took a moment to breathe it in, the colour, the noise, the aristocrats dogged by their toadies, a loose halo of hangers on, and moving here and there, wine-men, poppy-men, ladies of negotiable affection.
The stink of blood ran through it all, an undercurrent. I’d not noticed it in those years I spent here, betting on carnage. The smell brought back memories, not of the Blood Holes but of the Aral Pass and the Black Fort. For a moment I felt the icy waters of the Slidr enfold me and the red berserker heat rise to meet it.
I crossed over to Long Will, a trainer and talent scout, a thin strip of a man, crowned by a grey shock of hair. “Maeres here?”
Long Will jerked his head toward Ochre. Of the four big pits it lay farthest from the main doors. I eased my way through the crowd, sweating, and not just from the strain of carrying my treasure. The thought of Maeres Allus put a chill in me, making my legs feel as weak as my trembling arms—though an unexpected anger came with that fear, a rising heat that had been there beneath the terror, keeping me company all the long and rattling ride up from Marsail.
A pretty girl trailed her fingers through my hair, an oily wine-man thrust a pewter goblet at me. I glanced pointedly at the coffer occupying both my hands.
“Prince Jalan?” Someone recognizing me, unsure.
“Is that Jalan?” A fat baron from the south. “Damned if it is.”
Underlings parted before me as I approached the tight knot of colour at the edge of Ochre. More than a year. Thousands of miles. Icy wastes to baking desert. I walked through Hell . . . and here I was again, back where it started. Fourteen months and they hardly knew me, here in the place where I’d spent so much time, and money, and other men’s blood.
A murmur grew about me now: even if the crowd weren’t sure of my name they recognized a man walking with intent toward the heart of things. The last few layers peeled back, men I knew by sight and name, Maeres’s associates, merchants in his pockets, minor lords courting loans or being courted for this or that advantage. The business of business while twenty feet below, two men fought, each doing his level best to beat the other to death with his fists.
Two narrow-faced Slovs stepped aside, and there, revealed between them, stood Maeres Allus, small, olive-skinned, his tunic unostentatious— to look at him you wouldn’t think he owned the place and much more besides. He registered neither surprise nor interest at my appearance.
“Prince Jalan, you’ve been away too long.” A roar of triumph rose from the pit behind him, but nobody seemed interested any more. I imagined the victorious brawler looking up, expecting cheering faces, and seeing nothing but the wooden guardrail and the back of the occasional head.
Jorg Ancrath, that prodigy about whom so many prophecies seemed to circulate, that vicious and victorious youth on whom my grandmother’s plans appeared to pivot, the young king who lit a Builders’ Sun in Gelleth and another on the doorstep of Hamada . . . he had given me his advice on dealing with Maeres Allus. He had spoken his words in the hot and drunken darkness of a Hamadan night, and now, with Allus before me at long last, those forgotten words started to bubble from the black depths of my memory. “I’ve come to settle our business, Maeres. Perhaps we could go somewhere private.” I gestured with my eyes to the curtained alcoves where all manner of Blood Holes negotiations were conducted, from the carnal to the commercial, not that the former wasn’t the latter.
Maeres’s dark eyes rested on the coffer in my arms. “I think perhaps too much of our business has taken place behind closed doors, Prince Jalan. Let us settle our accounts here.”
“Maeres, it’s hardly suitable—”
“Here.” A command. He meant to humble me before witnesses.
“I really don’t—”