In Constellated Wars - Part 3
Okay, so my day off in the middle of the week kind of threw me off - I kept expecting today to be Sunday, and it was not. Apparently the highly regimented nature of my life has left me unprepared to deal with the sudden windfall of a day off in the middle of the week, which is kind of sad, but there you have it.
On the plus side, there was interesting gossip at work and looks to be interesting gossip for some time to come, so it was totally okay that today was not actually Sunday.
It did not, however, make up for the unusually high level of IT!fail that our IT department likes to inflict on us on a regular basis. It should not take thirty minutes to log on to my computer, that's all I'm saying. Kind of cuts into productivity, you know? (Which is kind of funny, because efficiency is one of the IT Overlord's big things. He thinks his new IT restrictions make us more efficient, thereby saving the company money, when in fact it is just the opposite.)
Anyway, there was also writing. I had a plan for this part, and a direction it was supposed to go, and then it turned around and marched someplace different entirely.
“Ask,” Aubrey said, three days later. “Ask and have done with it; you’re going to drive me mad like this, just waiting for an explanation.”
Thierry turned another page in the ledger he was reviewing. “It’s my duty as a junior officer to observe and learn from my seniors,” he replied, bland. Aubrey was better than most senior Guardsmen would have been about explaining the idiosyncrasies of the Guard in Altera, but there were still things that went unspoken and unexplained by necessity. A Guardsman had to be able to honestly say that no one had told him about certain agreements that went on between the Guardsmen and the local district leaders - such as the one that existed between d’Adamo and Savita - which were permissible so long as they went unconfirmed.
He’d thought, perhaps, that the fact that he’d never heard of the existence of the Thaqiban before now meant that the man was one of those things. It made a certain amount of sense, he supposed. The rest of the world had yet to receive a satisfactory explanation as to what had happened ot the Thaqibans who lived in Altera fifteen years ago. The few Thaqibans who’d remained in the East as merchants or ambassadors had found themselves so beleaguered by questions that they could not - or would not - answer that it drove them back to Thaqib. By the time Thierry had been ten years old, there were no Thaqibans left on the Eastern continent. If anyone caught wind that one still lived in the city they’d abandoned … Well. The Thaqibans were private people, from what Thierry understood. He doubted the Thaqiban from the Oyster Shell would appreciate scholars and inquisitive would-be historians paying him uninvited visits and demanding answers that he might not be willing to give.
Thierry was as curious as anyone else, but he doubted that he’d be very forthcoming with answers, if he were the only one of his people left outside his homeland.
Besides, he was interested in the Thaqiban for a different reason. The Thaqiban - whoever he was - knew something of what had happened to the woman Elanore. He might not have been capable of such magics himself, but Thierry was sure that he knew who was.
Or what, he reminded himself, remembering the Thaqiban’s words. Find what did this, he’d said. Not who.
“The Thaqiban, who is he?” he asked, settling upon that as the safest thing to ask. He had a dozen other questions, each of them more dangerous than the last. Questions like why is he here and how does he know Savita and how does he know the Erelim? They both trusted the Thaqiban, the courtesan and the Erelim. Savita had trusted the Thaqiban enough that he’d been the one she’d sent for before she’d dared to turn to the Guard. And D’Adamo had accepted the Thaqiban’s potion and his rebuke, had trusted the Thaqiban implicitly at his word when the man had said that his people didn’t possess the power to do what had been done to the Oyster Shell’s Mistress of Coins.
Savita didn’t strike him as the sort of person who gave her trust lightly, and he knew that the Erelim wasn’t. Which begged the question of why they both trusted the Thaqiban.
“His name is Ferran. He’s a baker, over on Calle Paradiso.”
“A baker,” Thierry repeated. Aubrey hadn’t shown much of penchant for the sly jokes senior Guardsmen liked to inflict on their juniors, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. And that had to be a joke. The Thaqiban had carried himself like a man of rank, and both d’Adamo and Savita had responded to him as though he had some authority. There was no way he was a baker.
“A baker,” confirmed Aubrey. “Well, he does more than just breads, when he’s has the supplies, so he’s more of a cook, really. But he prefers to be called a baker, so that’s what he is.”
Thierry stared. That wasn’t a joke. Solariel and the Saints have mercy.
“Calle Paradiso’s over in the Market district,” he said slowly. There were two districts between Ravensgate and the Floating Market. That was a longer distance than most people preferred to travel at night. Especially in Altera, where the absence of the Thaqibans rang in the silence like the voices of ghosts.
And yet Savita had asked someone to do so, in order to have the Thaqiban’s expertise. And he had come, because she’d asked.
“So it is,” Aubrey agreed. He checked the clock on the wall and added, “His shop is open till the wee hours. What do you say we pay him a visit?”
“I’d like that,” Thierry said, thinking that doing so might give him a few more pieces of the puzzle that was the political hierarchy of Altera.
And maybe, if he was lucky, he’d be able to ask Ferran what he meant by his words that night at the Shell.
If he was really lucky, maybe Ferran would give him an answer.
*
Ferran’s shop was close enough to the Floating Market to look out on the harbor. There was a wide open window at the front of the shop, uncovered by anything save a pair of thin gauzy curtains that would do nothing to keep out the cold when the weather turned. The window looked out on a tiny courtyard, which was sheltered by a canvas canopy supported by poles that were settled into nooks in the wall on either side of the shop.
Thierry had seen nooks like that before. They were on practically every building in the Market district, but he’d never known what they were for. He’d just thought them a remnant of Thaqiban architecture, another strange small thing that made Altera an alien place even now.
They looked natural on Ferran’s shop. The canopy was used to shade four small tables, and he could see that there were more small tables inside the shop through the open window.
It wasn’t at all what he expected a Thaqiban bakery to look like.
“You can come here for a meal,” Aubrey explained. “Like you would at an inn.”
Thierry blinked and considered the shop as an inn-keeper’s son. Bread was standard fare across the Holy Solarien Empire, and you didn’t need much else to make a meal. Helene kept a stewpot going constantly at Isabelle’s inn - stew was good traveling food. It was hearty if it was made right, and it could be filled with just about anything. It didn’t have to be meat, which was expensive. It could be anything. He peered at the far wall, half-expecting to find an ale keg there, but found only baskets of bread.
He tsked, disapproving. Any inn that didn’t serve ale or beer was a poor one indeed.
“Are you going to come in and eat or just stand outside and scare our custom away?” a young man demanded waspishly from inside the shop.
“You’re a fine one to talk about scaring your custom away,” Aubrey retorted. “Or do you only cater to those who like being harangued by fishwives?”
The boy scoffed. “If you enjoy being mistreated, you can always visit one of Madame Savita’s mews and get one of her Hawks to abuse you.” He grinned, taking the insult out of the words.
“Nuhatai!” a girl’s voice wailed from somewhere else inside the shop.
Thierry started. Nuhatai. Wasn’t that what the Thaqiban boy from the Oyster Shell had been called?
“You can’t speak to customers like that,” the girl continued, her voice getting louder as she got closer. A dark-haired whirlwind burst from the doors of the shop, saying, “I would make amends, if - oh. You again.”
Thierry lifted his eyebrows at this less than enthusiastic greeting. Friendly, he observed.
Aubrey grinned. They like me.
Thierry expressed what he thought of that with a snort. Most people, he’d found, weren’t rude to people they liked. Aubrey might prove the exception to that, since Aubrey seemed to invite good-natured bickering with whomever he spoke to, but he didn’t know enough about Aubrey to make that claim with authority.
“Are you here for your usual?” the girl inquired.
“I’m here for work, I’m afraid,” Aubrey said, regretful. “Perhaps a cup of kahve, though? And one for my partner as well.”
“Of course,” the girl replied, recovering her professionalism when she caught sight of Thierry. “Please, be welcome.” She gestured for them to precede her inside the shop, her movements elegant and deliberate.
Aubrey chose a table against the wall, facing the interior of the shop. Thierry frowned. Aubrey preferred not to sit with his back to the door. Most Guardsmen didn’t. He’d resigned himself to doing so until he had enough seniority to usurp Aubrey’s seat by force if need be. For Aubrey to take that seat without a word of complaint was unusual.
Unless there was something inside the shop he thought was the bigger threat.
Thierry took a seat and tilted his head towards the back of the shop. What’s back there? he asked.
Aubrey shook his head, which could have meant nothing or not here.
Thierry sighed and resigned himself to more unanswered questions. He set the ledgers down on the table and turned his attention to locating the page he’d been on before Aubrey had dragged him to Ferran’s shop.
Savita kept meticulous records, he’d learned. She hadn’t lied about keeping the list of people her House had served in confidence. Most of the patrons who visited the Oyster Shell were identified through oblique references and pseudonyms, which Savita - or Savita’s secretary - had provided a helpful cipher to. Once he’d learned what reference referred to which person, it was easy to read the ledgers and marvel at the amount of time Savita’s Peacocks spent with each of them, and at the value of the gifts they used to purchase a Peacock’s affections.
“Madame Savita kept her word, I see,” the boy observed, returning to their table with two small cups of kahve - whatever that was.
“Nuhatai, you could at least pretend that you’re not prying into the Guard’s business,” Aubrey said, but it sounded less like an admonishment than a complaint he fully expected the boy to ignore.
“It’s not just your business, though,” Nuhatai replied. “I knew Mistress Elanore too, you know. She was always kind to Alhena and me.”
“I’m sorry,” Aubrey said.
Nuhatai’s expression went shuttered and closed. “You’d best find the bastard who killed her quickly, Guardsman. I’d not give a copper wanderer for his chances if Madame Savita’s people find him first.”
“I didn’t realize you were included among their number,” Aubrey said mildly.
“He isn’t,” a new voice cut in. “Nor shall he ever be, and well does he know it.”
Thierry twisted in his chair so he could watch Ferran approach. The Thaqiban baker dusted flour off of his hands and said something to Nuhatai in their shared tongue. It had the force of a command behind it, and it sent the boy into the back of the shop to the kitchen with an irritated set to his shoulders.
Aubrey swore. “How is it you always manage to sneak up on me?” he demanded.
“You’re easily distracted,” Ferran replied. He sounded apologetic, as if Aubrey’s (nonexistent) distractibility were somehow his fault. He looked at Thierry and added, “Be welcome, Guardsman.”
Thierry blinked, unsure of how to respond. “Thank you?” he ventured at last.
“I hope that’s not all you’re having,” Ferran continued, gesturing at the cups of kahve. “You should at least have a sweetbread of some sort, or a honey cake.”
Aubrey smiled slowly as he sipped his kahve. “You wouldn’t be trying to bribe a Guardsman, would you?” he inquired. “And you a fine, upstanding businessman, too.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Ferran replied serenely. “I’m merely hoping to entice you into purchasing something to better my profits.”
Nuhatai reappeared, this time with a plate of honey cakes. He disappeared back into the kitchen, obviously sulking.
“Young things,” the baker sighed.
Aubrey gave the plate of honey cakes a skeptical look. “Interesting tactic,” he said. “Bringing them out and forcing me to buy them. I think that’s called extortion, in some places.”
“It would be, were they for you,” Ferran replied. “As it stands, you can still pay for a plate of your own, if you like. That one is a gift for your junior, who is a guest in my shop.”
“You don’t need to -” Thierry began. He broke off when Aubrey kicked him under the table.
“Never turn down free food. Have I taught you nothing?” Aubrey demanded. “Enjoy it while it lasts. I remember the days of free food. I miss those days,” he added, affecting a mournful look.
“Thank you,” Thierry said.
Ferran waved this aside. “We’ve not been properly introduced,” he observed. “I’m Ferran, which Aubrey has undoubtedly told you.”
Thierry couldn’t remember if the Thaqibans believed in last names or patronymics, or if they kept to one name and left the rest for their scholars and genealogists to sort out. Thaqiban culture hadn’t really been addressed at the Accademia; not much was known about them, and there was little reason to teach what was, since the Thaqibans had retreated to their homeland across the waters.
“Thierry Mèrault,” he offered in return. “I wanted to ask you a -” he began, and stopped when Aubrey kicked him underneath the table again. “Are you going to make a habit of that?” he inquired, addressing Aubrey in annoyed Lucian rather than Altagracian. He didn’t want to question his senior in front of someone else, but he also objected to being kicked like a recalcitrant beast of burden. Using Lucian rather than Altagracian seemed like the most reasonable compromise.
“Drink your kahve,” Aubrey said, ignoring the question.
Thierry eyed the dark liquid warily. “I’m not even sure what this is,” he protested, but the kahve smelled earthy and enticing. He thought he smelled a spice he thought he recognized, so he took a sip despite his misgivings.
Kahve, Thierry decided, setting his cup aside and biting into one of the honey cakes to chase the taste away, did not taste nearly as good as it smelled. It was surprisingly bitter, not herbal enough to taste medicinal but somehow similar. It lingered, unwelcome, on his tongue.
“It’s an acquired taste,” Ferran told him.
“Keep drinking it,” Aubrey advised. “It grows on you.”
Thierry eyed his kahve warily. “I’m sure it does,” he said, trying to be diplomatic and failing miserably.
“I’ll drink it, if you don’t want it,” offered Aubrey.
Ferran put his hand over the cup before Aubrey could snatch it up. “D’Adamo will never forgive me if I send you back to him after two cups of kahve,” he said mildly.
Aubrey scowled. “That was just the once,” he said, aggrieved. “Besides, the Erelim’s got other things on his mind than whether or not I’ve had too much kahve.”
“Then think of it as a mercy to your poor junior, who will have to deal with you until it wears off,” Ferran countered.
“He’s a junior Guardsman. A little suffering is good for him,” Aubrey said, dismissive.
“I’ve been told it builds character,” Thierry muttered, more out of a desire to remind them both that he was still sitting at the table than to support Aubrey’s quest for more kahve.
“Suffering does not build character,” Ferran told him. “It merely makes it easier to see what sort of character you already possess.”
Thierry didn’t know what to say to that. It sounded uncomfortably as if Ferran were speaking from experience. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, but he didn’t want to offend Ferran before he could ask what he’d meant that night at the Shell.
Not wanting Aubrey to kick him again was also a factor.
“What exactly does kahve do?” he asked instead.
“It’s a stimulant,” explained the baker. “Rather like tea, only the effects are stronger if you’re not accustomed to them.”
“Which is a polite way of saying Aubrey behaves like a child after too many festival sweets,” the girl observed, setting a cup of tea down in front of Thierry and removing the cup from beneath Ferran’s hand.
“And who was it, not so long ago, who ate too many festival sweets and dashed through the streets like a mad thing?” Ferran inquired.
The girl flushed crimson. “Pedar,” she protested, dragging the word out the way Thierry’s sisters said his name when they thought he was being particularly embarrassing and older brother-ish.
Aubrey snickered.
The girl whirled on him. “Don’t you laugh at me, Aubrey du Prideaux!”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Aubrey said, affecting an innocent expression that Thierry knew better than to believe.
Judging by her outraged expression, the girl knew it too. She scowled and headed into the back of the shop, where Thierry assumed the kitchen was.
“Young things,” Ferran muttered again.
“They’ll grow out of it soon enough,” Thierry offered, thinking of the changes time had wrought in his sisters while he was away at the Accademia. Time would bring more while he was in Altera - the next time he saw Alais or Yvaine might be at one of their weddings.
That wasn’t a thought he wanted to follow. Alais and Yvaine would always be children to him, the babies who had been given into his care after his mother’s death. Élisabeth and Charlotte were children still, young enough that providing suitable dowries for them was merely an abstract concept.
“Too soon,” the baker replied.
Thierry found he liked Ferran for his answer. Truth be told, he liked the baker for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was his treatment of d’Adamo that night at the Oyster Shell. No one in the Ravensgate Guardhouse treated the Erelim as though he were just another man - an ordinary person who could be spoken to as a friend and bullied into taking care of himself. Even Valeray, for all his mother-henning, kept a slight distance from the Erelim, according him the respect that was due to his position even when it was obvious all he really wanted to do was send d’Adamo home to rest and recover in peace.
He still didn’t trust the man, though.
Ferran looked down at their ledgers. “Good hunting, Guardsmen,” he said softly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve work to attend to.”
“Of course,” Aubrey agreed, and to all intents and purposes went back to the slow process of reviewing the ledger he’d claimed as his own.
Thierry stared at him. Aubrey couldn’t mean to just let Ferran walk away. He knew Thierry wanted to ask him questions - Thierry had told him what Ferran had said, reporting the incident to his senior as was proper. Aubrey couldn’t mean to just ignore it when Ferran was right there in the shop with them.
“Drink your tea,” Aubrey said into the incredulous silence. “It’s very good. Nearly as good as the kahve, even.”
“You can’t -”
“No,” Aubrey said firmly.
Thierry tried again. “But he -”
“I said no, Thierry.”
“He knows something,” Thierry insisted.
“I’m sure he does,” Aubrey replied. At Thierry’s disbelieving look, he sighed. “You’re going to be difficult about this, aren’t you?”
“It’s the business of the Guard to seek truth,” Thierry said stiffly.
“It’s the business of the Guard to protect,” Aubrey corrected. “Truth is for the Ophanim to determine. Don’t confuse your ambitions with your duties.”
“I don’t,” Thierry protested, stung.
“Then listen when I’m talking to you.” Aubrey snapped the ledger shut and drained the last of his kahve. “Our duty is to the people of the city and to a lesser extent, to the city itself. That means all of the city’s people - including those whom you may not think well of.”
Aubrey used Lucian, rather than Altagracian, which was a small mercy Thierry would be grateful for later. There was no mistaking his tone, or the fact that he was obviously berating Thierry for his hasty words.
Thierry set his jaw against an angry reply and dropped his gaze to his own ledger.
“Thierry,” Aubrey said, his tone somewhat gentler. “You’ve not been here long enough to understand all that goes on.”
“I never will, if no one will explain it,” Thierry said, not hiding his resentment as well as he’d have liked. He couldn’t help himself. He’d endured three months of Altera’s secrets - the things that went unsaid and unexplained, for reasons other than the sake of a Guardsman’s truth. He was tired of being kept in the dark all the time, forbidden understanding by his status as an outsider.
“Not all of it is mine to explain,” Aubrey said. “I can say this, though. I should have said it sooner, so some of the fault is mine. Ferran is like Madame Savita - he was one of the first citizens of the city when we took control of it, and he is respected as such.”
“So I should respect him because he has seniority?” demanded Thierry.
“Don’t be stupid, of course you shouldn’t. What you choose to respect a man for is your decision and no one else’s. I’m saying that you should be careful who you choose to offend. People like Ferran and Madame Savita and Madame Sosostris - people who have been here from the beginning - they’re dangerous because they survived when everyone else didn’t, and because they serve as living keys. No door in Altera is closed to Savita. Not even the ones that should be.”
Thierry wanted to argue with him. In Lucia, or anywhere else on the continent, most doors would have been closed to a woman like Savita, unless the mistress of the house was particularly charitable, or the master of the house desired her company. But this was Altera, where Savita Sirèneus was a woman of power, and no woman, regardless of her social standing, dared to wear the gem Savita had claimed as her symbol. He could believe that all doors were open to her.
“You’re saying that no door is closed to him either,” Thierry said slowly. “Nor Madame Sosostris.”
“Yes,” Aubrey said. “I suppose I am.”
“Who is he, really?” Thierry pressed. “He’s not a baker. He can’t be.”
“Oh, he is,” Aubrey assured him. “I’ve no idea what he was before he became one, but he is a baker. Probably the finest one in the city, and the fairest. He believes in charity, does Ferran. I think it’s a Thaqiban custom, honestly, but he’s never said one way or another.”
“He acts like a nobleman,” Thierry said.
“Doesn’t move like one, though,” Aubrey pointed out. “He moves like a soldier.”
“You don’t trust him,” Thierry blurted, surprised.
“No,” said Aubrey. “I don’t.” He opened the ledger he’d been reviewing and turned his attention back to taking meticulous notes on who had visited the Oyster Shell. “Drink your tea, Thierry. It’s too good to waste.”
“Right,” Thierry said, absently sipping his tea while he went back to taking notes of his own.
“Good lad,” Aubrey said, and stole a honey cake.
12146 / 50000
(24.29%)
On the plus side, there was interesting gossip at work and looks to be interesting gossip for some time to come, so it was totally okay that today was not actually Sunday.
It did not, however, make up for the unusually high level of IT!fail that our IT department likes to inflict on us on a regular basis. It should not take thirty minutes to log on to my computer, that's all I'm saying. Kind of cuts into productivity, you know? (Which is kind of funny, because efficiency is one of the IT Overlord's big things. He thinks his new IT restrictions make us more efficient, thereby saving the company money, when in fact it is just the opposite.)
Anyway, there was also writing. I had a plan for this part, and a direction it was supposed to go, and then it turned around and marched someplace different entirely.
“Ask,” Aubrey said, three days later. “Ask and have done with it; you’re going to drive me mad like this, just waiting for an explanation.”
Thierry turned another page in the ledger he was reviewing. “It’s my duty as a junior officer to observe and learn from my seniors,” he replied, bland. Aubrey was better than most senior Guardsmen would have been about explaining the idiosyncrasies of the Guard in Altera, but there were still things that went unspoken and unexplained by necessity. A Guardsman had to be able to honestly say that no one had told him about certain agreements that went on between the Guardsmen and the local district leaders - such as the one that existed between d’Adamo and Savita - which were permissible so long as they went unconfirmed.
He’d thought, perhaps, that the fact that he’d never heard of the existence of the Thaqiban before now meant that the man was one of those things. It made a certain amount of sense, he supposed. The rest of the world had yet to receive a satisfactory explanation as to what had happened ot the Thaqibans who lived in Altera fifteen years ago. The few Thaqibans who’d remained in the East as merchants or ambassadors had found themselves so beleaguered by questions that they could not - or would not - answer that it drove them back to Thaqib. By the time Thierry had been ten years old, there were no Thaqibans left on the Eastern continent. If anyone caught wind that one still lived in the city they’d abandoned … Well. The Thaqibans were private people, from what Thierry understood. He doubted the Thaqiban from the Oyster Shell would appreciate scholars and inquisitive would-be historians paying him uninvited visits and demanding answers that he might not be willing to give.
Thierry was as curious as anyone else, but he doubted that he’d be very forthcoming with answers, if he were the only one of his people left outside his homeland.
Besides, he was interested in the Thaqiban for a different reason. The Thaqiban - whoever he was - knew something of what had happened to the woman Elanore. He might not have been capable of such magics himself, but Thierry was sure that he knew who was.
Or what, he reminded himself, remembering the Thaqiban’s words. Find what did this, he’d said. Not who.
“The Thaqiban, who is he?” he asked, settling upon that as the safest thing to ask. He had a dozen other questions, each of them more dangerous than the last. Questions like why is he here and how does he know Savita and how does he know the Erelim? They both trusted the Thaqiban, the courtesan and the Erelim. Savita had trusted the Thaqiban enough that he’d been the one she’d sent for before she’d dared to turn to the Guard. And D’Adamo had accepted the Thaqiban’s potion and his rebuke, had trusted the Thaqiban implicitly at his word when the man had said that his people didn’t possess the power to do what had been done to the Oyster Shell’s Mistress of Coins.
Savita didn’t strike him as the sort of person who gave her trust lightly, and he knew that the Erelim wasn’t. Which begged the question of why they both trusted the Thaqiban.
“His name is Ferran. He’s a baker, over on Calle Paradiso.”
“A baker,” Thierry repeated. Aubrey hadn’t shown much of penchant for the sly jokes senior Guardsmen liked to inflict on their juniors, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. And that had to be a joke. The Thaqiban had carried himself like a man of rank, and both d’Adamo and Savita had responded to him as though he had some authority. There was no way he was a baker.
“A baker,” confirmed Aubrey. “Well, he does more than just breads, when he’s has the supplies, so he’s more of a cook, really. But he prefers to be called a baker, so that’s what he is.”
Thierry stared. That wasn’t a joke. Solariel and the Saints have mercy.
“Calle Paradiso’s over in the Market district,” he said slowly. There were two districts between Ravensgate and the Floating Market. That was a longer distance than most people preferred to travel at night. Especially in Altera, where the absence of the Thaqibans rang in the silence like the voices of ghosts.
And yet Savita had asked someone to do so, in order to have the Thaqiban’s expertise. And he had come, because she’d asked.
“So it is,” Aubrey agreed. He checked the clock on the wall and added, “His shop is open till the wee hours. What do you say we pay him a visit?”
“I’d like that,” Thierry said, thinking that doing so might give him a few more pieces of the puzzle that was the political hierarchy of Altera.
And maybe, if he was lucky, he’d be able to ask Ferran what he meant by his words that night at the Shell.
If he was really lucky, maybe Ferran would give him an answer.
*
Ferran’s shop was close enough to the Floating Market to look out on the harbor. There was a wide open window at the front of the shop, uncovered by anything save a pair of thin gauzy curtains that would do nothing to keep out the cold when the weather turned. The window looked out on a tiny courtyard, which was sheltered by a canvas canopy supported by poles that were settled into nooks in the wall on either side of the shop.
Thierry had seen nooks like that before. They were on practically every building in the Market district, but he’d never known what they were for. He’d just thought them a remnant of Thaqiban architecture, another strange small thing that made Altera an alien place even now.
They looked natural on Ferran’s shop. The canopy was used to shade four small tables, and he could see that there were more small tables inside the shop through the open window.
It wasn’t at all what he expected a Thaqiban bakery to look like.
“You can come here for a meal,” Aubrey explained. “Like you would at an inn.”
Thierry blinked and considered the shop as an inn-keeper’s son. Bread was standard fare across the Holy Solarien Empire, and you didn’t need much else to make a meal. Helene kept a stewpot going constantly at Isabelle’s inn - stew was good traveling food. It was hearty if it was made right, and it could be filled with just about anything. It didn’t have to be meat, which was expensive. It could be anything. He peered at the far wall, half-expecting to find an ale keg there, but found only baskets of bread.
He tsked, disapproving. Any inn that didn’t serve ale or beer was a poor one indeed.
“Are you going to come in and eat or just stand outside and scare our custom away?” a young man demanded waspishly from inside the shop.
“You’re a fine one to talk about scaring your custom away,” Aubrey retorted. “Or do you only cater to those who like being harangued by fishwives?”
The boy scoffed. “If you enjoy being mistreated, you can always visit one of Madame Savita’s mews and get one of her Hawks to abuse you.” He grinned, taking the insult out of the words.
“Nuhatai!” a girl’s voice wailed from somewhere else inside the shop.
Thierry started. Nuhatai. Wasn’t that what the Thaqiban boy from the Oyster Shell had been called?
“You can’t speak to customers like that,” the girl continued, her voice getting louder as she got closer. A dark-haired whirlwind burst from the doors of the shop, saying, “I would make amends, if - oh. You again.”
Thierry lifted his eyebrows at this less than enthusiastic greeting. Friendly, he observed.
Aubrey grinned. They like me.
Thierry expressed what he thought of that with a snort. Most people, he’d found, weren’t rude to people they liked. Aubrey might prove the exception to that, since Aubrey seemed to invite good-natured bickering with whomever he spoke to, but he didn’t know enough about Aubrey to make that claim with authority.
“Are you here for your usual?” the girl inquired.
“I’m here for work, I’m afraid,” Aubrey said, regretful. “Perhaps a cup of kahve, though? And one for my partner as well.”
“Of course,” the girl replied, recovering her professionalism when she caught sight of Thierry. “Please, be welcome.” She gestured for them to precede her inside the shop, her movements elegant and deliberate.
Aubrey chose a table against the wall, facing the interior of the shop. Thierry frowned. Aubrey preferred not to sit with his back to the door. Most Guardsmen didn’t. He’d resigned himself to doing so until he had enough seniority to usurp Aubrey’s seat by force if need be. For Aubrey to take that seat without a word of complaint was unusual.
Unless there was something inside the shop he thought was the bigger threat.
Thierry took a seat and tilted his head towards the back of the shop. What’s back there? he asked.
Aubrey shook his head, which could have meant nothing or not here.
Thierry sighed and resigned himself to more unanswered questions. He set the ledgers down on the table and turned his attention to locating the page he’d been on before Aubrey had dragged him to Ferran’s shop.
Savita kept meticulous records, he’d learned. She hadn’t lied about keeping the list of people her House had served in confidence. Most of the patrons who visited the Oyster Shell were identified through oblique references and pseudonyms, which Savita - or Savita’s secretary - had provided a helpful cipher to. Once he’d learned what reference referred to which person, it was easy to read the ledgers and marvel at the amount of time Savita’s Peacocks spent with each of them, and at the value of the gifts they used to purchase a Peacock’s affections.
“Madame Savita kept her word, I see,” the boy observed, returning to their table with two small cups of kahve - whatever that was.
“Nuhatai, you could at least pretend that you’re not prying into the Guard’s business,” Aubrey said, but it sounded less like an admonishment than a complaint he fully expected the boy to ignore.
“It’s not just your business, though,” Nuhatai replied. “I knew Mistress Elanore too, you know. She was always kind to Alhena and me.”
“I’m sorry,” Aubrey said.
Nuhatai’s expression went shuttered and closed. “You’d best find the bastard who killed her quickly, Guardsman. I’d not give a copper wanderer for his chances if Madame Savita’s people find him first.”
“I didn’t realize you were included among their number,” Aubrey said mildly.
“He isn’t,” a new voice cut in. “Nor shall he ever be, and well does he know it.”
Thierry twisted in his chair so he could watch Ferran approach. The Thaqiban baker dusted flour off of his hands and said something to Nuhatai in their shared tongue. It had the force of a command behind it, and it sent the boy into the back of the shop to the kitchen with an irritated set to his shoulders.
Aubrey swore. “How is it you always manage to sneak up on me?” he demanded.
“You’re easily distracted,” Ferran replied. He sounded apologetic, as if Aubrey’s (nonexistent) distractibility were somehow his fault. He looked at Thierry and added, “Be welcome, Guardsman.”
Thierry blinked, unsure of how to respond. “Thank you?” he ventured at last.
“I hope that’s not all you’re having,” Ferran continued, gesturing at the cups of kahve. “You should at least have a sweetbread of some sort, or a honey cake.”
Aubrey smiled slowly as he sipped his kahve. “You wouldn’t be trying to bribe a Guardsman, would you?” he inquired. “And you a fine, upstanding businessman, too.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Ferran replied serenely. “I’m merely hoping to entice you into purchasing something to better my profits.”
Nuhatai reappeared, this time with a plate of honey cakes. He disappeared back into the kitchen, obviously sulking.
“Young things,” the baker sighed.
Aubrey gave the plate of honey cakes a skeptical look. “Interesting tactic,” he said. “Bringing them out and forcing me to buy them. I think that’s called extortion, in some places.”
“It would be, were they for you,” Ferran replied. “As it stands, you can still pay for a plate of your own, if you like. That one is a gift for your junior, who is a guest in my shop.”
“You don’t need to -” Thierry began. He broke off when Aubrey kicked him under the table.
“Never turn down free food. Have I taught you nothing?” Aubrey demanded. “Enjoy it while it lasts. I remember the days of free food. I miss those days,” he added, affecting a mournful look.
“Thank you,” Thierry said.
Ferran waved this aside. “We’ve not been properly introduced,” he observed. “I’m Ferran, which Aubrey has undoubtedly told you.”
Thierry couldn’t remember if the Thaqibans believed in last names or patronymics, or if they kept to one name and left the rest for their scholars and genealogists to sort out. Thaqiban culture hadn’t really been addressed at the Accademia; not much was known about them, and there was little reason to teach what was, since the Thaqibans had retreated to their homeland across the waters.
“Thierry Mèrault,” he offered in return. “I wanted to ask you a -” he began, and stopped when Aubrey kicked him underneath the table again. “Are you going to make a habit of that?” he inquired, addressing Aubrey in annoyed Lucian rather than Altagracian. He didn’t want to question his senior in front of someone else, but he also objected to being kicked like a recalcitrant beast of burden. Using Lucian rather than Altagracian seemed like the most reasonable compromise.
“Drink your kahve,” Aubrey said, ignoring the question.
Thierry eyed the dark liquid warily. “I’m not even sure what this is,” he protested, but the kahve smelled earthy and enticing. He thought he smelled a spice he thought he recognized, so he took a sip despite his misgivings.
Kahve, Thierry decided, setting his cup aside and biting into one of the honey cakes to chase the taste away, did not taste nearly as good as it smelled. It was surprisingly bitter, not herbal enough to taste medicinal but somehow similar. It lingered, unwelcome, on his tongue.
“It’s an acquired taste,” Ferran told him.
“Keep drinking it,” Aubrey advised. “It grows on you.”
Thierry eyed his kahve warily. “I’m sure it does,” he said, trying to be diplomatic and failing miserably.
“I’ll drink it, if you don’t want it,” offered Aubrey.
Ferran put his hand over the cup before Aubrey could snatch it up. “D’Adamo will never forgive me if I send you back to him after two cups of kahve,” he said mildly.
Aubrey scowled. “That was just the once,” he said, aggrieved. “Besides, the Erelim’s got other things on his mind than whether or not I’ve had too much kahve.”
“Then think of it as a mercy to your poor junior, who will have to deal with you until it wears off,” Ferran countered.
“He’s a junior Guardsman. A little suffering is good for him,” Aubrey said, dismissive.
“I’ve been told it builds character,” Thierry muttered, more out of a desire to remind them both that he was still sitting at the table than to support Aubrey’s quest for more kahve.
“Suffering does not build character,” Ferran told him. “It merely makes it easier to see what sort of character you already possess.”
Thierry didn’t know what to say to that. It sounded uncomfortably as if Ferran were speaking from experience. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, but he didn’t want to offend Ferran before he could ask what he’d meant that night at the Shell.
Not wanting Aubrey to kick him again was also a factor.
“What exactly does kahve do?” he asked instead.
“It’s a stimulant,” explained the baker. “Rather like tea, only the effects are stronger if you’re not accustomed to them.”
“Which is a polite way of saying Aubrey behaves like a child after too many festival sweets,” the girl observed, setting a cup of tea down in front of Thierry and removing the cup from beneath Ferran’s hand.
“And who was it, not so long ago, who ate too many festival sweets and dashed through the streets like a mad thing?” Ferran inquired.
The girl flushed crimson. “Pedar,” she protested, dragging the word out the way Thierry’s sisters said his name when they thought he was being particularly embarrassing and older brother-ish.
Aubrey snickered.
The girl whirled on him. “Don’t you laugh at me, Aubrey du Prideaux!”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Aubrey said, affecting an innocent expression that Thierry knew better than to believe.
Judging by her outraged expression, the girl knew it too. She scowled and headed into the back of the shop, where Thierry assumed the kitchen was.
“Young things,” Ferran muttered again.
“They’ll grow out of it soon enough,” Thierry offered, thinking of the changes time had wrought in his sisters while he was away at the Accademia. Time would bring more while he was in Altera - the next time he saw Alais or Yvaine might be at one of their weddings.
That wasn’t a thought he wanted to follow. Alais and Yvaine would always be children to him, the babies who had been given into his care after his mother’s death. Élisabeth and Charlotte were children still, young enough that providing suitable dowries for them was merely an abstract concept.
“Too soon,” the baker replied.
Thierry found he liked Ferran for his answer. Truth be told, he liked the baker for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was his treatment of d’Adamo that night at the Oyster Shell. No one in the Ravensgate Guardhouse treated the Erelim as though he were just another man - an ordinary person who could be spoken to as a friend and bullied into taking care of himself. Even Valeray, for all his mother-henning, kept a slight distance from the Erelim, according him the respect that was due to his position even when it was obvious all he really wanted to do was send d’Adamo home to rest and recover in peace.
He still didn’t trust the man, though.
Ferran looked down at their ledgers. “Good hunting, Guardsmen,” he said softly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve work to attend to.”
“Of course,” Aubrey agreed, and to all intents and purposes went back to the slow process of reviewing the ledger he’d claimed as his own.
Thierry stared at him. Aubrey couldn’t mean to just let Ferran walk away. He knew Thierry wanted to ask him questions - Thierry had told him what Ferran had said, reporting the incident to his senior as was proper. Aubrey couldn’t mean to just ignore it when Ferran was right there in the shop with them.
“Drink your tea,” Aubrey said into the incredulous silence. “It’s very good. Nearly as good as the kahve, even.”
“You can’t -”
“No,” Aubrey said firmly.
Thierry tried again. “But he -”
“I said no, Thierry.”
“He knows something,” Thierry insisted.
“I’m sure he does,” Aubrey replied. At Thierry’s disbelieving look, he sighed. “You’re going to be difficult about this, aren’t you?”
“It’s the business of the Guard to seek truth,” Thierry said stiffly.
“It’s the business of the Guard to protect,” Aubrey corrected. “Truth is for the Ophanim to determine. Don’t confuse your ambitions with your duties.”
“I don’t,” Thierry protested, stung.
“Then listen when I’m talking to you.” Aubrey snapped the ledger shut and drained the last of his kahve. “Our duty is to the people of the city and to a lesser extent, to the city itself. That means all of the city’s people - including those whom you may not think well of.”
Aubrey used Lucian, rather than Altagracian, which was a small mercy Thierry would be grateful for later. There was no mistaking his tone, or the fact that he was obviously berating Thierry for his hasty words.
Thierry set his jaw against an angry reply and dropped his gaze to his own ledger.
“Thierry,” Aubrey said, his tone somewhat gentler. “You’ve not been here long enough to understand all that goes on.”
“I never will, if no one will explain it,” Thierry said, not hiding his resentment as well as he’d have liked. He couldn’t help himself. He’d endured three months of Altera’s secrets - the things that went unsaid and unexplained, for reasons other than the sake of a Guardsman’s truth. He was tired of being kept in the dark all the time, forbidden understanding by his status as an outsider.
“Not all of it is mine to explain,” Aubrey said. “I can say this, though. I should have said it sooner, so some of the fault is mine. Ferran is like Madame Savita - he was one of the first citizens of the city when we took control of it, and he is respected as such.”
“So I should respect him because he has seniority?” demanded Thierry.
“Don’t be stupid, of course you shouldn’t. What you choose to respect a man for is your decision and no one else’s. I’m saying that you should be careful who you choose to offend. People like Ferran and Madame Savita and Madame Sosostris - people who have been here from the beginning - they’re dangerous because they survived when everyone else didn’t, and because they serve as living keys. No door in Altera is closed to Savita. Not even the ones that should be.”
Thierry wanted to argue with him. In Lucia, or anywhere else on the continent, most doors would have been closed to a woman like Savita, unless the mistress of the house was particularly charitable, or the master of the house desired her company. But this was Altera, where Savita Sirèneus was a woman of power, and no woman, regardless of her social standing, dared to wear the gem Savita had claimed as her symbol. He could believe that all doors were open to her.
“You’re saying that no door is closed to him either,” Thierry said slowly. “Nor Madame Sosostris.”
“Yes,” Aubrey said. “I suppose I am.”
“Who is he, really?” Thierry pressed. “He’s not a baker. He can’t be.”
“Oh, he is,” Aubrey assured him. “I’ve no idea what he was before he became one, but he is a baker. Probably the finest one in the city, and the fairest. He believes in charity, does Ferran. I think it’s a Thaqiban custom, honestly, but he’s never said one way or another.”
“He acts like a nobleman,” Thierry said.
“Doesn’t move like one, though,” Aubrey pointed out. “He moves like a soldier.”
“You don’t trust him,” Thierry blurted, surprised.
“No,” said Aubrey. “I don’t.” He opened the ledger he’d been reviewing and turned his attention back to taking meticulous notes on who had visited the Oyster Shell. “Drink your tea, Thierry. It’s too good to waste.”
“Right,” Thierry said, absently sipping his tea while he went back to taking notes of his own.
“Good lad,” Aubrey said, and stole a honey cake.
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