Page 92 of A Trade of Blood

“Haven’t, sir.”

“Mm. It is a strange thing,” he said softly. “It is tall, white—and at the top, it is surrounded by a very large, unusual structure. Looks like coral, or webbing. Forms a sphere. Sparkles quite prettily in the morning. It is known as aplumaret.It sucks up all the airborne detritus, the castoffs of the living land. Pollen. Ash. Dust. With these tiny things, much can be gleaned about the state of this realm. But it has to tell this tosomeone.” He undid the back collar of his suit and pulled it down. “That someone is me, of course.”

There, just below the nape of his neck, were several small, purple swellings: grafted, augmented flesh. These swellings were unusual in that they were slightly ribbed and had a set of tiny pinprick orifices across their nodules. I was reminded of the shells of sea creatures, crackling and porous.

“The plumaret plugs into me, you see,” Tauri said. “And it feeds me all it knows of this world. And in that moment, Ibecomethis world. I taste of creation, and Iamcreation. I am Lacanthim.” He turned his face away. “I am the pastures. I am the places that once brimmed with trees, before the cattle folk burned it down. And I am the flensing halls. And the mireponds, and fens, and all the waste they make. They are like a cancer, a sore in my brain. They grow each year. And when the winds are in the right direction, like today…” He plucked a bit of grass, tossed it high, watched it dance in the air. “…I can’t escape them. We are far from the fens, but they are still with me. They punish me so. The gentry bear it well, with all their gaudy finery and rings, but I am not so lucky.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know.”

“Ohh, it’s not all bad.” He smiled wistfully. “I shall know more of this land than anyone else, and taste things no other mind or body could comprehend. Yet I wonder—how did that place today seem to you, Kol?”

I reviewed my memories: the sight of the reeking fens, and the pile of bones with legions of vermin scuttling through them.

“All of it was awful, sir,” I admitted. “But more than anything, it…seemed a waste.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, our numbers dwindle so. We’ve so few folk for all we do—that is why the Empire is so free with its gifts, after all. And yet here, in these fertile fields, we’re indifferent to all product of…of womb, and breath, and life. We quite literally throw it away. All for a meal.”

I looked at him, and saw he was watching me with wide, ardent eyes. Though I’d thought my words a pithy thing, it seemed I’d moved him.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “That is the most galling thing of it all. We’ve so much. And this is what we choose to do with it. What a relief it is, to hear another say so.”

I studied him carefully. “If you could dash away the Buravs and the Armentas, would you do it, sir?”

He laughed sadly. “Oh, no.”

“No?”

“No, no. If they went, others would come. Beef is far too valuable. How our people yearn for a plate of cooked flesh! Until that changes, nothing I do or say matters. But it is strange…I left the sea walls, where I managed distant death. I hoped to come here to tend to growth, to nurture life…Yet I find myself in the same old tasks again. You must think it strange, as Iudex, to hear an imperial servant so bitterly resent those they serve.”

“As Iudex, I’m tasked with protecting the decent folk of these lands,” I conceded.

Tauri turned to me, sensing more.

“But—Isometimes feel it has been a good while since I have met a decent person.” I met his eyes. “Though I sense you’ve a decent soul, Commander Tauri.”

We looked at each other for a long while. The trilling of the tree-crickets rose and fell in the far distance.

“Maybe,” he said softly. “Maybe what is left of it is decent. Maybe so.”

—

I thought onall of Tauri’s comments as we returned to the cart. While I found him a terribly beautiful creature, as well as a faintly tragic one, I had spoken the truth to Ana: I would not get involved with a fellow officer during an investigation. Especially when Tauri mightbea suspect in that investigation. For though he claimed it’d be useless to strike out against the gentry families here, that wasn’t exactly exculpatory evidence.

And there was what Ana had said. Too important, and too clever.

Yet more, something bothered me as I turned over his words. Not something about cattle, or fens, or rot, or even the sea walls, but…something simpler.

I grimaced as my memories shuddered and quaked within me. How I hated this feeling now, as if some portion of my very soul had been colonized. Though I might not sprout stalks, perhaps I was just as festering as Lyimo as he lay in that…

I froze as I was about to step into the cart.

“With all their gaudy finery,” I whispered, “and their rings.”

My memories sang joyfully, resonating with these words. My right ring finger blazed with pain, as if suddenly pinched.

“Mm?” said Tauri. “What?”