Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [234]
The wine was Ilsigi; no Rankan god would claim it, though it was not unpleasant: a bit harsh, a bit rebellious—a good match for salt-sea air or a raw, winter’s night. Molin topped off his mug before he began the discussion.
“I have been watching you, Hakiem, since I arrived in Sanctuary—”
The single eyebrow became a bushy, worried arch, which Molin ignored.
“I have seen how the tales you tell spread through the city until they become the truths that everyone believes. I’ve seen, too, how you never tell a fully tragic tale, but always leave a glimmer of hope and justice for the ending. That, too, spreads through Sanctuary.”
Hakiem fussed with his empty mug, “The storyteller’s art—”
“Is optimism.” Molin reached across the table to replenish the storyteller’s wine. “And you are a master.” He tipped his mug. “Of storytelling and performance. Though your listeners do not seem to realize it, they rarely hear the stories they request. They hear the stories you wish to tell. Do they not?”
“The art is more than telling, it’s listening. I hear what they want to hear; I tell them what needs to be told.”
“Exactly!” Molin crowed. This was going better than he’d dared hope. “What the denizens of this gods-forsaken city need to hear. And I propose to give you a stipend—two minted-in-Ranke soldats each week—and two more right now in earnest, if you will tell specific stories to Sanctuary’s denizens.” He pushed four soldats across the table.
Hakiem puffed up his plump, pigeon breast. His cheeks bulged, and his knuckles were white as he pushed himself away from the table—away from a scarcely touched mug of wine.
“Keep your Rankan money,” he snarled. “It can’t buy me.”
Molin’s personal instinct was to let the storyteller go, but it wasn’t personal need that brought him to the table. He pinched the tender spot on the bridge of his nose to lessen the throbbing pain that conversations in the local Ilsigi dialect so often produced. “I did not mean to insult you, Hakiem,” he said with more difficulty than the storyteller could imagine. “Please, sit down. Let me try again. I’ve come to you because, of all the men I’ve met in Sanctuary, you’re the only one who—I think—would choose to remain here, had you the opportunity to live somewhere else. You love this city. I’m not going to ask you to tell stories glorifying me, my prince, or my Empire.”
The storyteller scooted his chair close to the table and took a swig from his mug. “Very well, I’m listening. If you don’t want Imperial pandering—what stories, exactly, do you want me to tell?”
“I’ll leave that up to you, of course.”
Hakiem leapt to his feet. “I will not be made a fool of!”
“Then sit down,” Molin hissed.
He was a priest of Vashanka. He’d commanded armies in the north and he could command a simple storyteller without raising his voice or leaving his chair. Hakiem’s rump hit wood with an audible thump!
“I am not interested in the particulars of your stories—well told and entertaining though they may be. I’m interested in the effect of your stories over time. Let it also be said that when I commission a master, I do not waste his time or mine telling him how to apply his craft. I care only for the result: the propagation of needful stories throughout Sanctuary.”
Molin checked the two mugs on the table and found that his own was lower. He topped it off and continued—
“As an archpriest of Vashanka I am not only a priest of some stature, but also a commander of the Imperial army and a member of the Imperial court. Through my wife and by my own initiative I have acquired considerable property—none of which, I might add—lies in Sanctuary. As result of my far-flung interests, I stand at the confluence of communications flowing through the Empire and sometimes beyond its boundaries. In short, Hakiem: I hear things. I see things. I perceive patterns in events that others might consider unconnected. And of late the patterns I perceive have taken an ominous turn; throughout Ranke and beyond, the omens have been uncanny.”
The storyteller’s interest was piqued. “What does a man of your