Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [4]
Ma Leyd lived in the cave at the back of the Hitch. Indeed, Tynisa guessed the big woman’s hands had shaped it from the rock of the Barrier Ridge, using Mole Cricket Art to mould and carve the solid stone as she saw fit. Inside were high, groined ceilings, and oil lamps hanging from sculpted hands that reached out from the walls. The whole could have been one of the Great College’s grander cellars, an impression reinforced by a small stack of casks at the back.
The lanterns had been dark, but Ma Leyd lit them with a steel lighter without even having to stretch, for all that they were well above Tynisa’s head. The enormous woman then settled ponderously on to a threadbare cushion, and one of the Grasshopper-kinden locals hopped in a moment later with a steaming pot, before ladling some of the contents into three bowls.
‘Fortified tea,’ Allanbridge identified the liquid. ‘Not real Commonweal kadith, mind, because frankly that’s something of an acquired taste – the taste in question being gnat’s piss. This stuff is better.’
Tynisa sipped it, and used all her willpower to keep a polite expression. The fortification involved was plainly some type of harsh grain spirit, whose aftertaste destroyed any virtue in whatever it was fortifying, like a boisterous army sent to defend a small village.
‘Now, tell me how things stand, up top,’ Allanbridge prompted.
Ma Leyd stretched monstrously. ‘Well, dear heart, I hear the Prince-Major has yet to make any serious decrees likely to cause you problems, although his lackeys are all demanding justice from him regarding these terrible bandits and criminals that they see lurking in every shadow. Not just the Town in Rhael, either, but I hear half of Salle Sao’s gone rogue as well. All the princes-minor want action, but your man in charge there, he must want it to be someone else’s problem. After all, raising levies was what caused half the problems last time.’
Allanbridge nodded, although Tynisa could make little sense of it. ‘I might have some more additions to your menagerie then, Ma,’ he considered. ‘Depends how bad it’s got. Tell me about the Town.’
‘Still there, such as it is. A year ago and I’d have a whole new list of names for who you should deal with, and those you should avoid, but it looks like Siriell has it straightened out now. The same faces as you met last time are all mostly still in place and not knifing each other. ’Cept for Hadshe, who’s dead, and Voren who left. Looks like the current order at Siriell’s Town is there to stay.’
Tynisa glanced between Allanbridge and the massive woman, because whatever dealings were being spoken of were not what she had expected. I should have known better. Before the war, Allanbridge had been a smuggler, and it looked as though he had decided to take up his old ways on his visits to the Commonweal.
‘Now everyone says the Monarch won’t stand for it,’ Ma Leyd went on. ‘They say that Felipe Shah and his neighbours will get a rap on the knuckles, and a million Mercers will set the land to rights: peace and plenty, love and wonder, all that nonsense. But they were saying that almost a year ago and the Monarch does nothing, and frankly it seems even Shah isn’t exactly bailing his fealtor princes out like you’d expect. Mind you, that’s the Commonweal princes all over: dance and paint and hunt and write poetry and whatever the pits you like, except for actually doing something.’ Her leer dismissed all the lands extending above them with utter derision.
‘And what would you know about it?’ Tynisa snapped, the words bursting from her against her will. She knew about the Commonweal, for all that she’d never been there. She knew because the moral standards of the Commonweal – those strict, self-punishing demands that it made of its people – had driven to his death someone that she had loved dearly. He had been too honourable, and the world had not been able to live with him. So he had died. She found that to hear this bloated woman