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“Dag, my friend, I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” Uni said. He suddenly realized that he was not reacting to his friend’s words the way he ought to.
The fresh air on the balcony refreshed him, and the vast expanse of greenery seemed to call him to the shores of some unknown country. Only now did Uni begin to feel the difference between the narrow world he had always inhabited and the fantastic opportunities that had suddenly landed in his lap.
He turned back to his friend. “Don’t be offended, Dag. You see, it’s only my body that is here in Herandia. My heart is already there, over the seas. Just imagine that you’ve spent years studying what seems like nonsense – at least that’s what everyone would have me believe – when suddenly the laughter stops and you fly from the archive basement like a bird, rising to the Sun! I’m going to see with my own eyes the land that I’ve learned about in old manuscripts! It’s a fairy-tale. A miracle! I feel like someone hit me in the head with a log. Even without wine, I’m drunker than ten thousand sailors!”
Vandey scowled and looked away. When he turned back, there was an unpleasant smile on his face. “You’re such a child, Uni! I’ll wait until you return from your trip. We can talk again then. You’ll see the world outside of your archive, and maybe you’ll learn a thing or two.” He patted his friend on the shoulder and led him back inside to the world of idle merriment that he so despised.
When they returned to the table, the political philosophers found their friends deep in their cups and very far from such matters as universal brotherhood and justice. Uni and Vandey discovered they had made a fatal mistake during their fervent discussion: they had missed the main course, which was the whole reason for coming to the Sleepy Fish. Neither of them showed much disappointment, however. Vandey no longer made any attempt to disguise his revulsion at the immoderate feasting, and Uni suddenly felt that his stomach could not take any more contributions that evening, even those of the most elegant variety. He poked his fork at the marinated eels that encircled a giant egg made of Ulinian rice before resting his chin on his hand and observing his friends, who displayed much greater enthusiasm as they devoured the delicacies placed before them. Sorgius was handing around some kind of long, green leaves stuffed with a sticky, white substance.
“Try it, my dear. I’m sure you’ll like it,” he said as he handed one of those mystery tubes to his companion. The young woman gingerly took the leaf and tried a tiny bite. Sorgius gleefully mimicked her movements, turning them into something that looked much more intimate. Not bothered a bit by the humor, his girlfriend ate half of the strange leafy tube.
“What are these things, anyway?” asked Vordius as he ate his third one.
“My friend, this is the most elegant dish of the season, a combination of the culinary traditions of two sworn enemies: the Unguru and the Arincils.”
“Don’t keep us in suspense. I’m not interested in geography, and I suspect there’s something not quite right here.”
“Oh no, it’s all quite right. What you’re eating is a pâté made from the heart of a newborn lacrobus mixed with the milk of makabu caterpillars and all wrapped in grape leaves. The leaves are domestic, however, because the leaves called for in the original recipe would cause gastric distress among the people of our Empire.”
Sorgius’ explanation was cut short by an unexpected protest from Luvia, whose gentle nature could not bear the thought of violence against an adorable animal.
“The poor lacrobus! They’re so sweet and helpless – how could anyone possibly kill one!”
The others put their leaves down one by one. Sorgius, who had until then been the life of the party, struck up a private conversation with his girlfriend. Vordius comforted Luvia, Uni lost himself in daydreams, and Dag Vandey looked like he had just discovered one more reason to expose the bloodthirsty Herandian Empire. He was the first to leave, with the excuse that he had the farthest to travel to get home.
Sorgius’ girlfriend, likewise, seemed tired of the party and the endless toasts in honor of people she barely knew. She pursed her lips and turned away from the table making it clear to her beau that she would prefer to continue the evening somewhere more private.
“I’m afraid we must be going, too!” said Vordius, once the redhead had gotten her way. “Would you like us to walk you home?” He felt responsible for getting Uni home to his loving, but strict, mother.
“Do I have a choice?” the young diplomat grumbled, and the threesome found themselves outside in the empty streets, where the shadows of the oil lamps flickered and seemed to flee from them as they approached.
Strolling around town at night was not, generally, a good idea. While residential areas like Trikazinso were well-guarded, even the wealthy were drawn to the many taverns and pubs scattered around the city. The Sleepy Fish was almost in the very center of Enteveria, but it was divided from the good neighborhoods by the ravine and the artisans’ quarter. Here, the perfectly square city blocks gave way in the face of nature, and Uni and his friends had to go a long way around to get home.
“We should have taken a carriage,” Uni remarked.
“You ate too much!” Vordius said with a grin. Suddenly, he stopped short. His friend was turning white.
“I’m sick,” Uni managed to moan before lead weights seemed to attach themselves to his arms, legs and neck, and there was nothing for him to do but fall to the ground.
“Demons take me!” Vordius cried as he bent over his friend, helpless.
Luvia knelt and put a hand on Uni’s forehead. “He’s as cold as ice!” she whispered.
“Stay with him. I’ll be right back!” Vordius shouted over his shoulder as he ran back towards the Fish, where hired carriages and litter bearers usually stood waiting. They charged outrageous prices because of the perceived wealth of the tavern’s patrons, but Vordius wasn’t thinking about money.
Chapter 7. You Can Never Just Leave
When Uni opened his eyes, the world seemed to be some place above him. He felt like he was buried deep under a pile of sand at the bottom of a monster jug of some kind. He was barely able to poke his head out of the sand, and his ears strained to pick up the alarming sounds coming from somewhere outside the jug.
“I think he’s awake,” Luvia murmured.
“Blessed be the healing Sun, most generous giver of life!” Vordius burst out.
He sat down on the edge of the bed. Uni felt like the pile of sand was leaning and leaning, pouring and pouring into a sinkhole somewhere on his left. Terrified that he would be sucked into the sinkhole with the sand, he grabbed at the edges of the jug, but his arms were still leaden and refused to obey him.
“Lie still!” said Luvia, brushing her fingers across Uni’s forehead.
The jug started to crack, and pieces began falling away from him. The room around him began to look like its usual self.
An unfamiliar male voice somewhere in the distance pronounced that he needed to drink something.
“Let me do it, father,” someone said, and gentle hands brought a cup of something bitter and herbal to Uni’s lips. “Help him sit up a little,” Luvia told Vordius.
Vordius complied immediately, and Uni felt his lips curl in something like a smile.
If I’m drinking something, I must be alive! he thought ruefully.
“I’m surprised he survived,” Septinel Tokto’s elegant baritone shook, betraying his concern as a physician and his amazement as one of the most important members of his profession in the Empire who had seen almost everything in his time. “With cistrusa poisoning, if the patient isn’t given the antidote before he loses consciousness, nine times out of ten he won’t pull through. And that’s if the patient is a warrior. I only know of one man who had cistrusa poisoning and still walks the earth.”
“Who was that?” Uni asked in a weak voice. Until he heard his own voice he hadn’t been sure he could speak. It was only then, eyes wide in fear, that he realized what had happened to him. His friends understood what he couldn’t say.
“Please stay calm, Little Uni,” Vordius said in a calm voice. “It was poison. The honorable Enel Tokto has seen enough cases in his life to be sure on that point.”
The former chief physician for the Imperial Army nodded. “The symptoms are classic. It couldn’t be anything else. But since you’re still here, I think you’ll be back on your feet soon enough. There’s no cause for real concern. But how did it happen? Perhaps it was a very small dose? The whole thing is very strange.”
Vordius hung his head. It had always seemed an inexplicable turn of fate that he possessed the very qualities that were lacking in his best friend. The well-built young man’s charming smile had always attracted the fair sex, who all agreed that the girl who married him would be a lucky young woman, indeed. Vordius, however, unexpectedly chose for his future wife the modest Luvia, who had generally gone unnoticed among the showier young men and women who made up high society in the capital. In fact, quite a few people hadn’t even known of her existence until her engagement was announced.
As an innkeeper, Sevelia Virando always knew the latest news, and she had explained to her son just how sensible Vordius’ choice had been. Luvia’s father was not famous, but he was respected both by the Empire’s elites and by its simpler folk. He held the post of senior priest of Sangia, the god of protection from illness. That made him the Emperor’s chief physician and the chief inspector of hospitals, markets, and water pipes. It was not, of course, a prestigious post, but it was undoubtedly useful and it earned him the loyalty of the people while keeping him far enough away from palace intrigues to ensure him a long and peaceful tenure. Septinel only took the smallest of bribes – solely out of respect for tradition – and people spoke of his honesty with the utmost admiration. A less upstanding man than Septinel would have had a hard time keeping his greed in check if given the power to expel any merchant from the giant covered market for selling something that was past its prime or even simply unfamiliar. Septinel was actually not too shy about such expelling. He had not learned his profession at the Imperial Academy, but rather on the battlefield when he had ridden on campaigns with the present Emperor’s father. Having seen firsthand how an entire army could be brought to its knees by drinking water from the wrong stream, he was not one to take bribes to look the other way in matters concerning public health.
Tokto was similarly strict with his daughter, politely but firmly beating back her admirers whose sincerity he doubted most heartily. The general opinion was that he was putting in a double effort to protect his daughter to make up for the fact that she had lost her mother as a small child when an epidemic of Semerian malaria swept through the Empire. Indeed, Tokto had been true to his wife’s memory for seventeen years.Vordius, with his old-fashioned views and natural tenderness, found the only possible way to Septinel Tokto’s heart. With his usual directness, he made friends with the father, and after a few months Tokto told his daughter she would be a fool not to take notice of such a worthy young man. As a result, Vordius soon felt like a member of the family. That idyll was now threatened, and Vordius felt culpable for involving Luvia’s father in a matter involving a poisoning.
“I swear by the Sword of the Heavenly Throne that I will find out who did this, no matter what it takes!” He strode back and forth like a caged tiger. “How could this have happened? It makes no sense!”
His future father-in-law accepted the situation with the philosophical reserve of a professional who had been through much more serious crises, and he betrayed no sign of dissatisfaction that his beloved child had gotten mixed up in a situation that simply reeked of the underworld. Instead, he rose before the sun and, against all the rules of polite society, paid an unexpected visit to an inconspicuous villa that stood in a grove of young oaks on the edge of Trikazinso. After drinking a cup of Ulinian wine with its owner, his old friend from campaigns in Torgendam, he put a few direct questions and received reassurance that his safety and that of his daughter were being guarded by men no less talented at their work than he was at his surgery and healing work. After that early morning meeting, Tokto returned home so he could pat Vordius on the shoulder and kiss his daughter on the cheek. Before leaving home again to handle official business, he checked on his unexpected patient and reassured him that all would be well.
It did not seem that there was any serious cause for the most experienced physician in the Empire to be concerned. After sleeping for almost twelve hours in a row, Uni felt much better. He was still too weak to lift his head, but his strength was slowly returning – to the obvious surprise of Tokto and the delight of his friends.
Vordius sent word to the Guards that he was unable to report for service that day. Then he went to find Sevelia Virando and bring her to Uni, telling her on the way that her son had been laid low by the effects of fortified Torgendam wine on his tender stomach. The friends had decided to keep the truth about Uni’s near brush with death a secret until they could find out exactly what had happened. This would be the job of the newest officer in the Imperial Guard. Once Sevelia was gone (she had fortunately arrived to find her son sleeping peacefully), Vordius detained his future father-in-law to ask some detailed questions about how to find the source of the poison.
“Tokto is convinced it was cistrusa,” he announced as soon as Uni woke. Curled up on his left side with his eyes half-shut, Uni did his best to make sense of the information. “It starts to act an hour or two after you ingest it. If that’s the case, then you were poisoned at the Fish. I’ll tear that place down to the last floorboard, may the Dark Chasm take them!”
Uni took a deep breath. “I don’t think a scandal is what we need. Remember who their guests are. The owner keeps a tight watch over the kitchen. If the poisoner had tried to bribe one of the waiters or kitchen staff, it would have been discovered.” His voice trailed off. “And how would anyone in the kitchen make sure that I was the one who got the poison? It would be too difficult.”
Vordius scowled. “You should have seen how those fools jumped when I told them what happened! They paid for the carriage and offered to send a physician if only we would keep our mouths shut. You ate dinner at the Fish and nearly died on the doorstep. If the other patrons knew, they’d have the place shut down for good!”
“Exactly. That’s why I think it was someone at our table who did it.”
“One of your friends?”
“Oof.” Uni tried to sit up. “No one else could have done it. It’s awful to think about it, but if you’re right about the poison, it had to be one of our party.”
Vordius stared at him. “You don’t suspect Luvia or me, do you?”
“Of course not,” Uni smiled weakly. “You’ve had plenty of chances to kill me before this.” He patted his friend’s hand.
“Thank you for your confidence.”
“That leaves three people: Dag Vandey, Sorgius Quando, and that suspicious redhead of his.”
“I didn’t like the looks of her, either. Dag is an odd one, of course, but you’ve been friends since we were all boys…”
Uni raised an eyebrow. “He has at least one motive.”
“What are you talking about?”
Luvia slipped into the room and looked questioningly at Vordius. After a pause, he nodded at a low bench in the corner. She sat down to listen.
“I didn’t want to say anything about it, but now that this has happened I’ll have to explain,” Uni said. “Dag has been trying to get me involved in a secret society of what he calls ‘fighters for justice.’ It’s obvious that they are up to no good. They may even be plotting against our beloved Emperor. He tried to get me worked up when we were out on the balcony at the Fish. I didn’t feel like serious talk, so I brushed him off. Perhaps he got scared that I would turn him and his friends in.”
“Dag a conspirator?” Vordius laughed. “He’s just an old moaner. He whines like nobody I’ve ever met, and he can’t stop himself from passing on rumors as long as they make someone else look bad.”
“I’m not so sure about that. A lot of the things he says make sense. I just don’t think his ideas are practical.”
Vordius shook his head in annoyance. “You know me. I don’t care whether it makes sense or not. Point me toward the enemy and I’ll bury him! All these bookworms have lost their minds, stirring up trouble and then pretending they didn’t mean it when something goes wrong. Dag’s an idiot! He should stick to his lawyering. If he likes giving speeches, let him do it in court instead of going out and exciting the riffraff.” He rubbed his chin. “There always was something off about him. I’ve always known it.”
Uni leaned back on his elbows, trying to stay somewhat upright. “According to what I hear, Dag isn’t just a lawyer. He defends poor people for free. He may be a fanatic, but he is also honest. He’d never try to poison a man.”
Vordius nodded in agreement. “He’s never been a sneak. And where would he have gotten the poison from if he wasn’t worried until after your conversation on the balcony? Did he bring it with him just in case? That’s nonsense.”
“Moving down the list. Sorgius. He’s the world’s biggest blockhead, but no one would ever call him a murderer. And he couldn’t possibly have a motive. He and I live in different worlds.”
“What about the girl? I can’t remember her name. Who was she?”
“I didn’t catch her name, either.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard to find out.”
“That’s true.” Uni was silent for a moment. “I just don’t understand who could possibly want me dead?”
“Do you have any enemies? What about someone you may have angered on accident?”
“Not a thing. I’m a nobody, with no money and no rank.”
“What about this delegation you’re supposed to go on? Maybe someone doesn’t like it.”
“But who? There wasn’t anyone else in the running for my post? Old Barko and I are the only two people in the Empire who speak Virilan.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Of course. They could have hired a Capotian. Lots of the merchants who trade with Virilan know some of the language. But the purpose of our mission is so secret that they don’t want to risk letting a foreigner be present for the negotiations.”
“Do you mean to say that if you’re dead, the delegation won’t happen?” Luvia asked from her seat in the corner.
Neither friend spoke for a moment. Vordius stopped pacing the room. His mouth hung open.
“You hit on it! We both missed it, but you figured it out!”
“She is right,” Uni whispered. He lay back on his pillow and stared stupidly at the ceiling, which was painted to resemble the canopy of a forest in the evening light. “It’s as easy as shelling peas! I’ve been laughing about the secrecy around our trip because I thought it was bureaucratic paranoia. I had no idea things were so serious.”
“This is beyond serious! You’re a pawn in a dangerous game, and you didn’t even know it until now.”
Uni passed a hand over his eyes. “I always did think it was strange that there hasn’t been a delegation to Virilan before now.” He paused and took a sip of water from the cup at his side. “I suppose someone at the palace doesn’t want our Emperor to have direct contact with Virilan. I even have an idea who it might be. But what could he gain by going so openly against the Emperor’s will? Old Forsey was worried about hurting our relations with Capotia, but that was just for cover. The palace would never give up an opportunity to profit from direct trade, and we will need all the allies we can get if there’s a war with the Arincils.” He sighed. “It would be so interesting to get to the bottom of it all!”
“Just look at him!” Vordius exclaimed to Luvia before turning back to his friend. “Wake up, Uni. You’re in the real world now. You could get killed. Did you not know that?” His voice lowered. “You don’t need to be chasing down secret enemies. You need to hide before they find out you’re still alive!”
“Do you really think they would come after me here, at the home of the Emperor’s chief physician?”
“Great Sun, do you still not see? If they tried to kill you once, they’re capable of anything! They resorted to the most primitive type of attack, and that means they’ve run out of other options!”
Vordius crossed his arms and stared down at Uni, who lay helplessly in his bed. Then he turned to Luvia, whose light-blue eyes were full of pity.
“Here’s what we do,” he said. “Luvia’s father is off on official business. You two stay here and be quiet. I’ll tell the servants not to open the door to anyone. I’ll run down to the barracks and get five or so of my men. We’ll move you to my house until it’s time for your departure. That’s the safest way.”
“But I have to see my mother,” Uni objected. “And someone has to explain to her what is happening.”
“I will talk to Emel Virando. She does not need to know too much.”
“Is that so? I’d like to see you tell her that.”
“I’ll come up with something. She has always had a soft spot for me.” Vordius grinned.
“Of course she has,” Uni gave a wry smile. “You always defended her only son from the older boys at school.”
“See? It’ll work out somehow. And even if it doesn’t, they won’t let her into the barracks to see you.”
Luvia couldn’t help but object. “You’re terrible, Vordius! Why don’t you let me talk to her?”
“No, you two sit still!” he hissed. “Neither one of you so much as looks out a window. Your mother will thank me for this someday,” he said to his friend as he slipped out the door.
Uni folded his arms behind his head and made a sad face at Luvia. Once again, life was teaching him that he was not in control. Even of himself.
* * *
The most popular establishment in Enteveria’s southern port district bore the ridiculous name “Bedsores”. The secret to the success of this lowly tavern had nothing to do with its tasteless moldings and vulgar draperies which were intended to emulate the interiors of the Emperor’s palace. No, it was people’s finer moral feelings that brought them to Bedsores. If you were an upstanding merchant or middling civil servant and firmly convinced that it would be a terrible thing for your wife if you were to carry on an affair with another woman, then your feet eventually carried you to Bedsores. First of all, it was in a neighborhood where nobody would recognize you. Second, it was relatively safe. And third, because it was located near the port where there were lots of foreigners with their own strange beliefs, it seemed reasonable that the Heavenly Deity – who had nothing to do with nonbelievers – would not turn his eyes that way often.
Interestingly, those same upstanding merchants’ wives had similar ideas and habits, especially since Bedsores was strategically located close to a number of large markets that a woman could be expected to visit on her shopping days. The only risk was that a husband and wife might run into each other within the tavern’s walls; however, since men preferred to take their recreation after the end of the working day and women tended to stop by in the middle of the day, problems only occurred if someone violated this unspoken rule.
The rule certainly seemed to be in peril as a tiny woman wrapped in a brown head covering made her way through the masses of lower-class workers who were on their way to their evening entertainments. With a speed and lightness that did not match her status as a middle-aged matron, she quickly slipped around anyone blocking her way in the street, her rounded buttocks eliciting rude comments from the people behind her. Before the local troublemakers had a chance to wager as to her intended destination, she slid through the front door of Bedsores. Several people guffawed as the door closed behind her.
