“Prince Jalan!” The elder son danced between the tables, graceful despite the swing and sway of his belly. “We thought you had abandoned us!”
“Never!” I let him guide me in and draw out a chair for me at one of the reserved tables near the centre beneath high awnings. “Not even death could keep me from your hospitality, Marco!”
“What can I bring you, my prince?” A genial smile on fat and pockmarked cheeks. The man generated a miasma of good humour, his ugliness somehow charming, and if the fact that I owed him the best part of fifty crowns in gold bothered him . . . well none of it showed on the surface.
“A good Rhonish red,” I said.
“Ah, your tastes have broadened, Prince Jalan! But all Rhonish reds are good. Which to choose? Bayern? Ilar Valley? Chamy-Nix? Don P—”
“Chamy-Nix.”
“As you say.” And with a bow he was off. Soon a boy would be scurrying to the cellars in search of my wine.
I leaned back. Todd and Ronar had taken themselves to the shade of a large maple not far outside the part of the plaza roped off for Roth’s customers. The slow ebb and flow of the world passed by as shadows lengthened. My wine came and I sipped it, washing the flavour over my tongue. Relaxed, warm, safe, respected. It should have felt better than it did. After a while the wine began to erode my sense of discontent but from time to time I would see some or other long and rolling horizon from my travels, stretching away, full of secrets waiting to unfold. I tried to shake off the sensation and remind myself how awful it had been from beginning to end.
“Prince Jalan! How are you? You must tell us about your adventures.” A man, catching my eye from a neighbouring table. I frowned a moment taking him in, thin, weasel-like, balding, a port-wine stain beneath his eye as if he’d been crying blood . . . Bonarti Poe! A dreadful social climber and a fellow I would normally cut dead, but lacking company, and remembering how pretty his sister was, I gave him the slightest nod and with a twitch of my finger beckoned him and his cronies over.
Before Roth’s sons had the lamps lit I was in my cups, a bottle and a half to the good, and lying my way through the first leg of my trek north. I steered clear of unsettling detail and made no mention of the Dead King, but even so surprised myself by discovering that for once the lies were merely window-dressing and the truth provided a decent backbone to the tale.
“Two dozen of the brigands, pursuing us up into mountains as steep as any you’ll find around the Aral Pass!” I drained my goblet, shaping the mountains in question with my spare hand. “Edris Dean at their head—as foul a murderer as ever—”
The conversation waned around me, not dying as if a man had walked in carrying a severed head, but fading as if every person there suddenly didn’t want to be noticed. From the looks on the faces around me, all aimed my way, I thought for a moment that perhaps Edris Dean was standing behind me exactly as I had described him.
“Prince Jalan, how good to see you.” A soft voice, slightly nasal, one might almost call it boring.
I turned, having to crane my neck awkwardly. “Maeres Allus.” I managed not to stammer, though immediately I felt as though I were tied to that table of his, waiting for Cutter John to redesign my face with a sharp little knife.
“Don’t let me disturb you, my prince.” Maeres laid one of his small and neatly manicured hands upon my shoulder. “I just wanted to welcome you back from your travels. I believe that Count Isen is to pay a call to the Roma Hall tomorrow, but if you are available after that then it would be a pleasure to see you at the Blood Holes again and discuss matters of business.”
The gentle pressure lifted and Maeres moved away without waiting for a reply. He left me feeling uncomfortably sober and all of a sudden wishing for the security of the palace walls.
“Damn fellow.” I stood up, brushing at my shoulder where he’d touched me. “Remembered I’ve a thing at the palace. Royal . . . reception.” I didn’t feel drunk but my lying was below par. I have on occasion placated wronged husbands with the most ridiculous of excuses—the art is in the delivery. Said with enough conviction even “I dropped my cufflink down her bodice, gift from my mother don’t you know, and she needed help getting it out,” can be made to sound temporarily plausible. Nobody at this table however thought for one moment that I was leaving for any reason other than Maeres Allus.
I hastened away through the tables, making a waiter stumble to avoid disaster, and veering away as Marco hoved into view, no doubt to discuss his own matters of business and the purchase of four fine bottles of Chamy-Nix ’96.