Post by Sire Halfblack on Aug 4, 2014 20:01:18 GMT
Octuar IM 1003
“I,” Jemmy opined to her far larger companion, “hate snow.” Not a big woman, ‘Jemmy’ was lithe, starved, even, and her clothing was stained with years of ground-in soot, roof tar and structural grime. Her hair was cut savagely short and what nails she had were little more than tiny stubs upon her long fingers. She might have rattled had not her tools all been held in individual sheaths of leather and felt and she might have concerned herself with the attentions of the more brutal criminals of the city had not she the dedicated service of Mulet her faithful thug.
“Not of course that snow is, and of itself, that which I would grant such hatred. Rather it is what it turns into. I saw this painting the other day of Halgar during the great drifts of 998. What I noted most of all about this painting was that the rooftops were covered in what could poetically be referred to as a blanket of snow.”
“S’nows, ‘ere.” Pointed out Mulet.
“Ah!” Jemmy held up a corrective finger. “Ah yes. It snows and it is white and rather attractive in a certain light. But what happens when it reaches our dark and filthy streets?”
“It ends up all like rubbish…” For Mulet the six words almost constituted a speech. It was true of course; Deci was as filthy as the hereditary trousers of a long and proud line of city beggars. It was a ground in sort of filth that, if somehow cleaned, would probably cause the settlement to collapse when it was discovered that the very dirt of Deci was the very glue that held it together. True winter was little more than a month away and the thick snow was already diluting some of the filth to make of the streets shallow rivers of foul-smelling detritus.
Even the rats seemed to look askance at the filthy tides that swept to-and-fro across the squares and alleyways. For the vermin Deci was always a good provider and in many ways this made the foot-long vermin somewhat snobbish about what they ate. Or picked their way through.
But as the people tried to stock up for winter and the thieves broke into their rude houses and crumbling, stacked atop and beside one another hovels inevitably they came into conflict with one another and fresh bodies in the gutter were far from an uncommon sight. So strong were the slurry tides in fact that many were carried along the streets to bump into one another when no one came to deal with them. And of course, being Deci, as many of the bodies were the thieves themselves as those they sought to rob.
In the grander parts of the city, young bravos in leather masks and fine capes hunted down the carefully selected riff-raff of the city. The sounds of horns broke the late night and the jingle of carriage chains showed the passage of the hunts that were growing in popularity amongst the great, the mighty, but never the good, of the city…
But the city was here and it endured. It might be a dark, vindictive place with little to recommend it to outsiders but it was Deci and in that there was the source of what it was that made the settlement… a city. The citizens saw themselves as barely part of the Empire for they were proud of their no-nonsense views, their lack of credulity in the face of laws and taxes that went to Halgar. They barely acknowledged that the people of Eartholme and Alguz might, just barely, be tough enough to be worth speaking to but the rest of the cities were merely the soft, padded houses of the idly decadent and weak. Worst was Thimon where everyone knew they watered their ale out of choice.
But it was soon to be winter and if a wise man was to wonder what the city needed most it was pride. It needed victories to point to. It needed to feel good about itself at the expense of others. To some of the goodly faiths, pride was a sin. Many of the citizens of Deci sincerely hoped so since that way they would probably have the whole set.
It was some way beyond the city though that the Governor now stood. Directed to where he now stood by another, Jander reappeared with some muttering having taken himself back to Deci after suddenly appearing by that which he sought. That he had vanished was clearly successful, that the statue had come with him was not.
So it was that, thin lipped and somewhat annoyed, Jander had returned as quick as he was able to now see that the statue was afloat on a rather frail raft in the middle of the cold lake. Several tribesmen clustered about it and their presence did not help to keep it the whole afloat as the water’s choppy waves sought to unbalance them with every passing moment.
The statue had not recalled with Jander and he had not had the time to track down the merchants whom were interested in it. Jander couldn’t name any prominent merchants in the city and whilst he could have found them quickly enough he did not have the knowledge to find the ones he sought. Anath could have done it but then Anath didn’t even seem to be in the city at the moment. So it was that the Governor actually raised his eyebrows in surprise when he actually got his first break of the day.
On the slight rise that he crouched on he could see the lake before him and, come along a track a mile or more behind him, a small gathering of men whose huffing, breathless state and glittering robes denoted them to be merchants. Quickly, he hurried down the slope and closed the distance between them, holding a hand aloft to halt their progress.
Riding in thick wheeled, open-topped carriages, three men in rich garb looked at the Governor who visibly ignored the mercenaries they had hired to protect them. As there thin mouthed, greasy faces stared at his, Jander explained to the merchants what he knew about the statue. They listened in a sneering way until he was completed and then the fattest of the three cleared his throat before replying.
“This has nothing to do with you.” He announced.
“Did you not hear what I said?” Jander snapped back.
“Quite. But all this talk of ‘primal spirits from the first age’, all nonsense of course! We knew that the city would move against our faith at some point, but we had expected to be Fade who would do it.”
“Look, I’ve offered to buy the fetishes from you…”
“Yes, exactly. I find it very curious that you want to do business so close to where we are to make the exchange. You’ll forgive me for pointing out that we are somewhat more learned in trade than you and this all sounds very much like an attempt to gain something to me. As for ‘selling us goods at bargain prices’,” the merchant snorted, “it is you who will no doubt come to us in the coming months to buy food and the like. We have it, you need it. Now get out of our way or do you attempt highway robbery?”
The Governor breathed slowly, keeping his temper readily in check. He knew that if went for the statue directly there was a very good chance that any conflict would just send it into the depths of the lake and it wouldn’t go with his recall, probably precisely because of what it was.
*
For a month Andre had worked hard for the good of the city. Not for the good of the people since it was widely known that he was directly responsible for the new, rather harder to avoid Tax Houses that had sprung up throughout the City. The people of Deci understood the idea of taxation, it was protection money after all, but this being the case then it was really one of those voluntary things that came down to the conscience of the individual.
Andre’s actions therefore were heartily applauded by the merchants, scribes and leading guildsmen but were less than favourably viewed by just about anyone else. But Andre had turned a new corner, entered a new town, one in which he was a staunch defender of the law and if he loved his city then it was a hard sort of love. As hard, indeed, as an iron bound club and there were many of those with his name on them of late…
By Alan Morgan (CI5V11)