Before he can say anything, Eles says, “Where is our general of the army? We pushed this meeting up to hear his news. Is it not so alarming that I must sit here squandering minutes?” Eles is so old and desiccated he reminds Livion of a chicken killed, plucked, and forgotten for a week in the sun. His voice, though, retains the sharpness of a beak.
“The general,” Ject says, “has been overstepping his bounds, arresting people in the Upper City, an alarming issue in its own right. While the general may conduct certain operations in the city, I ask the Council to remind him that his activities must be coordinated with the guard. For the public’s safety.”
And for a cut of any prisoner’s board, Livion thinks, if Ject can have a prisoner sent to the guard’s cells instead of the army’s. Ject also gets a piece of a prisoner’s service contract with a company after a conviction. Some of this coin trickles down to the guards, who call it the spoils of their daily war.
“I would like the Council to instruct the general,” Ject says, “when he deigns to appear—” As if on cue, a guard opens the chamber doors and Herse enters.
Unlike Ject’s clothes, Herse’s are rumpled, as if he has just returned from an engagement in the field. He approaches the banc, adjusting his sash. When he was coming up through the ranks, Herse bore a kopis under his arm and his sash was as bedazzled as Ject’s. Now he goes unarmed—the army is his sword—and his sash sports only one honor, the crossed spear and sword for basic weaponry, the first all soldiers receive and the one, Herse has explained, that binds them together in common cause for the city.
By declaring that Ayden, not a dragon, destroyed the wolf pack, that cause would be war.
Could Herse have been lying? Could he know about the dragon attacks too? A double dragon attack does seem less likely than an attack by privateers, especially with Solet coming up empty of late. As for other survivors, would Herse’s forces silence them? Would he just pretend there were no survivors until it’s too late to halt the war?
Livion knows the Shield has to make hard choices when it comes to protecting itself, like a captain has to when protecting his ship. Everyone, from Eles to the night soil man, knows the risks of impeding profit. It’s business, not personal, just as someone has to supply the building materials in the wake of catastrophe. But to take a life, to start a war, to create the catastrophe; that Livion can’t believe of them. He’s worked beside them. He’s taken their pay. He’s devoted himself to them. And for all Herse’s posturing, when Livion looks right at him, this man he’s cheered on the hip-ball pitch seems trustworthy.
Who is he, a junior, to overrule them, regardless of what he may or may not know?
Ject opens his mouth to continue, but Eles recognizes Herse.
After checking that the rumor about the shipment of cinnamon was true and the cargo was awaiting liberation, Omer heads for Livion’s office. In the Round Square, he looks at the poor sods selling their junk and thinks, Am I any better? Every day I unroll my own blanket and lay out the latest rumors. Sure I have a contract with the Shield, but that won’t last. Maybe this cinnamon is my chance. He consciously avoids touching the pouch with his monthly and perk. I have my stake. I could cover the harbor fees and buy the spice myself. Why shouldn’t I get a taste for once? I could sell it to the Shield myself and -double, triple, my money. When I put it like that, he thinks, I have to.
To lift some other boats with his rising wave, Omer tosses pennies into several containers. Their merchants thank him with whispers. One battered and broken old drunk, having seen such gestures before, offers him for a penny more a shark’s tooth engraved and inked with what could be a hook. He says, “With this you’ll always have a fish in your net and a boy in your partner’s belly. I’d bet a penny on it.” Omer declines, the drunk himself proof of its uselessness, and looks around. Where is the man with the huge blue shells? He would have liked one. What pearls must have come out of them!
Omer takes a shortcut to the docks, worried that someone may beat him to the deal. He darts through alleys, dodging teamsters and drunks, fishwives and brats, relieved to come around a corner and see the docks at the end of the way. Then a man blocks out the light. Two more rush up behind him. The man in front digs his middle finger into the corner of his half-red eye.
“Members of the Council,” Herse says, “I’m late because Ayden has again reached inside our walls.”
“Not unlike yourself,” Ject says. “Your trespasses—”
“Take your seat, General,” Eles says. Ject complies, stiffly.
“Members of the Council,” Herse says again. “Bandits supplied by Ayden have robbed and murdered our traders on the road, and their privateers have savaged our shipping. They’ve put our border towns to the torch for not sharing the spoils of our markets with them. Company agents in Ayden have been detained and valuable secrets about company operations have been revealed. And a quarter hour ago my men arrested an Aydeni for entrapping one of our own soldiers.”