Nights of Villjamur - Mark Charan Newton [126]
All in Villjamur.
CHAPTER 28
NIGHTTIME, AND NONE OF THE CITY BRIDGES WERE VISIBLE, LET ALONE the spires they led to. Thick, immovable, a fog had rolled in from the coast, and Aide Tryst walked cautiously along the snowy cobbled streets, one hand shoved deep in his robe pocket, the other clutching half a roll-up of arum weed, his feet tingling with the cold. The snow had been relentless the last few evenings. Where it had been cleared by seawater, you had to pick your route with caution. Each day there were stories of people breaking arms and legs. Despite the threat, children walked along the same streets waiting to meet their snowball destiny.
Lamps offered faint orbs of light at regular intervals, which prevented him from getting completely lost.
And it certainly makes trailing someone fucking difficult, he thought ruefully.
Few people about, though he could hear the keening of a banshee, somewhere in the distance. It sounded as if it originated from somewhere further down in the levels of the city, maybe in one of the many underground passageways or derelict buildings—at least he hoped it was nowhere close by. He swore he heard a sword being drawn from its scabbard, and Tryst cursed that he was having to be out so late. He took a final drag on the arum weed before dropping it into the slush.
So, Jeryd isn’t only content with confining me to the lowest ranks of the Inquisition, he also sends me out in the freezing fucking cold, so that I can watch a whore.
At least he now knew more about his superior’s vulnerabilities. Tryst was intrigued by something that Chancellor Urtica had said in one of the Ovinist meetings: that no matter how stalwart a man pretended to be, it was usually his heart that let him down—and, more importantly, let him be brought down. Many a great man was destroyed in some way by the affections of a lover. On hearing this, Tryst decided Urtica was one of the wisest men that ever lived.
To rattle his boss, Tryst could simply kill Marysa. But that seemed too brutal and, besides, he didn’t really wish something so catastrophic on the rumel. A degree of respect was something that remained between the two of them: their relationship was complex and adversarial, but couldn’t be severed entirely. There were no black and whites here, where the textures of their lives crossed, linking positively whenever they shared a joke or discussed a certain case they were working on, and it wasn’t a simple matter of hurting him too badly, but just enough, just a little lesson, a firm mental slap. No, he wanted to disturb Jeryd rather than destroy him, and then still have him solve the murder of the councilors. That was something dear to Urtica’s heart, and therefore dear to his own.
Tryst stepped into a wide piazza, near where the prostitute lived by Cartanu Gata and the Gata Sentimental. The sound of laughter from a doorway, the clink-clink of glasses, shoes sliding on stone. Where he now stood you could hear a symphony of these subtle sounds of the night, seemingly coming from everywhere. Someone coughed behind him, but there was no one solid there, only a long shadow darting across the stone. There was no wind here, the buildings being high and crammed together, so the smells of incense and fried food reached him invitingly, with little obstruction. Ahead of him through the fog was the bold glow of one of the bistros. He remembered the prostitute saying how she hung around these places a lot. Perhaps she was there now. As good a place to start looking as any. Tryst walked toward the light, heard the soft rhythm of lute and drum.
The bistro was filled, mainly with hooded customers who preferred their own company by the looks of them, and Tryst thought he’d blend in nicely. He took a seat near the edge of the room, far away from the stage at the end of the long stone chamber. Through the heady smoke, serving girls sashayed to and fro between tables, in the dim light of candles and the torchlight that lit up the stage.
Up there, on the stage