Page 82 of A Trade of Blood

I waited beside the huge old man, content to let the quiet overtake us. The night filled up with the cheeping of countless crickets and frogs, and folk shuffled through the shadowy lanes before us, many casting Trikao poisonous looks.

“Once I was a celebrated man here,” Trikao said softly. “It seems so long ago now.”

The comment hung in the humid air. I felt compelled to respond.

“Oh, sir?” I said.

“Yes. Booking rooms for flesh merchants and top drovers in the inns and the taverns. Spreading talints and wine and cheer about. But since the deaths began, my footfall has been shunned. They think us cursed. I cannot blame them.”

“I know, sir. We labor now to amend it.”

“I thought I could bear it. I have borne much for my family. But…to have my own son now threatened, I…”

“We will find the killer soon enough. And then all can be set aright.”

A soft laugh. “I rather doubt that, Signum! Much had gone wrong before. My son often resents my…my duties. It is like a great pane of glass between us. I am oathsworn to serve my sister, even though I will not inherit. I must aid her and our family in all things. It is understandable, but…Ippeas resents the attentions I give to others, I feel. And he does not love that Velona doesn’t advance him.” He looked at me. “May I ask you something, Signum Kol?”

I tipped my head to him.

“Tell me. Am I a poor father for doing this?”

“My father’s attentions were mostly devoted to spending money he did not have. So. My standard is somewhat low, sir.”

He smiled ruefully. “That isn’t as uncommon among the gentry as you might think.” The smile faded. “The difference is custom, tradition. Heritage. The higher you go, the more it owns you.”

“What might you mean?”

He gazed into the black night and thought for a long time. “When Emperor Ejelgi Daavir conquered the Titan’s Path,” he said, “and first marched to the sea, he celebrated with a great feast. He slaughtered some three hundred cattle and roasted them upon bright bonfires, and he and his soldiers dined and made merry. This feast is as well-known as the face of his son today. It is emblazoned on many crests, and tapestries, and paintings, all across our holy Empire. It is a…a silly thing, but we know, somehow, that nobility and greatness are linked to the riches of a man’s table, to the fare he offers. Even our very bodies know it. Doesn’t your mouth water, Kol, to sniff the air and taste the tallows on the very winds?”

I conceded that this wasso.

“So we grow our herds,” Trikao said, “and drive our cattle. All so that the Empire can dream of tasting that feast, however long ago it was. In doing this, we maintain our heritage—and our fortune.” Helooked back at the jail. His eyes were bright with tears. “But what a thing this work asks of us! And if we refused it, another would do so. Another would come and do it in our stead. And the Empire would feast, while my family would starve.” He pressed a big hand to his face and wiped his eyes. “How perverse it is. We make beasts of ourselves, to be sacrificed to this trade.”

I said nothing, but his words struck a chord with me: more and more I felt myself terribly different from my sister, for my augmentations had permanently altered my very biologies. Had I been made a beast, to be sacrificed for my family and the Empire? Or was I now a shepherd, and the common folk of the cantons my flock?

Trikao turned to me. “Let me say it. You do not think my nephews and niece died naturally.”

“We do not,” I said, surprised. “Why do you say so?”

“Because of all the questions you have been asking,” he said, “ever since you first arrived. As well as what happened to the Buravs. Tell me—is there some evil at work here in Lacanthim?”

It was no easy thing to resist this aged man, pleading with me here in the dark. But I shook my head. “I cannot speculate on the investigation, sir.”

“But I can’t help but feel it’s so. I…I’ve a mind to ask you to release my son, Signum. I wish to flee with him, if we can. It’s like a plague infects this place, and we must retreat from its spread.”

But, of course, I knew that Ippeas was already infected, if not yet conditioned.

“This would do little good, sir,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

I frowned, wondering how best to thread this needle.

“Are you not Iudex?” he demanded. “Aren’t you meant to protect your people? And here I ask you for protection when…”

He trailed off. A strange sound had come from within the jail.

A long, agonizing moan, rising horribly, then tapering off.