City of Ruin - Mark Charan Newton [130]
THIRTY-FOUR
The following morning, after a restless night’s sleep, Jeryd decided to walk along the harbour of Port Nostalgia, maybe clear his head a little, try to regain some perspective. A calm day seemed promised: the cloud layered pale and high, and for once there was no wind, so a pungent aroma lingered, of seaweed and fish and organic detritus abandoned on the boats. This peace was interrupted only by soldier-calls or the hammering of boards being nailed across windows. Troops had been stationed on hastily constructed wooden watchtowers up on the hills to either side of the city, and garudas sailed constantly through the skies on patrol. It was a watched city.
He had recently discovered the harbour to be one of his favourite spots in Villiren, despite the military presence. Soldiers had brought a sense of fatalism to the place, that there was only an ending in sight. Still, here he could stare out to sea and lose all concept of time. With nowhere to run, all he could do was look back to the past. Memories flooded and ebbed.
A few of the local bistros were doing a roaring trade, serving so many off-duty soldiers, and Jeryd decided that some tea might be a good way to continue the morning, perhaps to jolt his mind alert.
Traders were making their way to the irens further in the city, rumel and humans pulling carts, huddled in layered clothing, their breath like smoke in the morning light. Four trilobites were following a rumel stevedore down a side street. Jeryd could smell bread baking somewhere frustratingly distant.
Further up along the street, he spotted three elderly types in dark cloaks behaving rather oddly. They were crouching over some bizarre object, and something about their mannerisms suggested immediately to Jeryd that they were cultists. All wore different shades of tweed cloth, the kind he hadn’t seen in a long time. One was a tall woman, the other two were men as short as Jeryd himself. Listening hard, he distinguished the words ‘Amber’ and ‘Teuthology’.
‘Sele of Jamur,’ he announced, approaching, and they turned sharply to regard him. ‘What have we got going on here?’
‘Ah, good morning, indeed, sir,’ the woman replied. ‘Just a spot of research.’ Grey-haired and thin, she possessed well-proportioned features, laughter lines suggesting amiability, and her blue eyes were intense and warm. A wonderful perfume lingered around her.
Of the other two, one man had a thick grey moustache and wore a flat cap over his wide, chubby face while the other was completely bald and it seemed he wasn’t one for wasting words.
‘Anything we at the Inquisition ought to be aware of?’ Jeryd asked.
‘Oh, um, no,’ the woman said. ‘That is, I mean to say, nothing of a questionable nature. We’re simply cultists, looking into something unusual. We’re not even local, sir.’
‘Cultists . . . say, maybe I could use a bit of your wisdom. Could I buy you all a drink?’
The man with the moustache grinned. ‘Aye. I ain’t never turned down a drink yet, and I’m seventy-two!’
*
Jeryd took them to a decent bistro in the better part of Port Nostalgia. The morning rush of traders had finished, leaving just a young soldier writing at a table by the counter. Two old ladies hovered indecisively over the menu. Behind them, a wood stove burned generously.
The cultists shuffled in a line towards a booth at the back, where the tables looked antique judging by their baronial and gothic carvings.
Jeryd removed his hat and gazed out of the window. In the street below, a ragged family struggled past, hauling loads of bulky items.
Jeryd had seen many such families being moved on by the army for the sake of their own protection, but it must still be demoralizing to be forced out of your own home.
A boy wearing an oddly feminine mask took their various orders for tea. Jeryd also contemplated the pastries offered, then wondered about their contents and declined. Introductions were exchanged: the blue-eyed woman was called Bellis, the chubby man with the moustache Abaris, and the bald man Ramon. He’d met some