Hunting the White Witch Read online

  “The Lauw-yess—” he began, and broke into a gabble of ship’s argot.

  That was how I learned that Charpon, walking with five Hessek sailors, had halted in a winding alley, a shortcut leading from the Fish Market into the docks, saying someone tracked them, some footpad, who must be dealt with. The Hesseks accordingly concealed themselves in the narrow mouths of warehouses that stood about, and Charpon stationed himself alone, facing the direction they had come. The footpad, presumably sensing trouble, failed to appear, so Charpon presently went back a way, with a drawn knife.

  From the gloom of the street there rose suddenly a strangled animal scream, another, and another.

  While it was true that most storehouses in the Commercial City employed guards, it was also true that they recognized their duties as being within rather than without doors. No one therefore emerged to interrupt Charpon as, leisurely and bloodily, he killed Long-Eye, the messenger he had been expecting.

  Of the Hesseks, three took to their heels. Two stayed, gummed to the shadows, trembling and muttering. Eventually the cries, and the whining note that had replaced them, ceased. Charpon reappeared, a red-armed butcher, and he said to the Hesseks plastered flat in their fear to the doorways, “And shall I do the same for the slave’s master, this reptile Vazkor, someday when he sleeps?”

  Then there was a noise, like a bird disturbed on a roof, and Charpon’s head darted up and met some swiftly moving thing that flew to him like a bird. The bird flew into Charpon’s eye.

  When he was dead, which was not quickly, the Hesseks stole over, and saw this bird was a long piece of flint, filed sharper than a knife. They had been careful, prudent from years on the uneasy perimeter of law and safety, not to look for whoever had avenged Long-Eye from the warehouse roof. Yet I got from them, when I questioned them later, that it must be a Hessek, a pure Old Blood Hessek from the ancient city, Bit-Hessee, over the marsh, for such slingshot was what they carried there, to get duck or gulls from the reed-beds. Having been prohibited by Masrian law to carry blades, they had invented all manner of devious toys to compensate for the lack.

  The sailor, having recounted his tale almost on his face, now glanced up. The varicolored lights from the dawn window caught his expression, not of nervousness or secrets, as I had anticipated, but a curious sort of frightened pleasure.

  “Find Kochus and the rest,” I said, “and send them to me.”

  According to his story, he had not glimpsed the “footpad” Charpon had slaughtered. No doubt he had been particular in not glimpsing him, as with the unknown assassin on the roof. Any master of a galley was to a certain extent hated by his men, and Charpon was no exception. Probably one of the three who had run off had put the occasion to his own use in settling an account. A mystery not worth unraveling.

  The master had owned his ship; it would be easy to supplant his rights with mine (a chain of gold cash in a suitable official area), hand the command to Kochus, who would puff up with the delight of an unwholesome and evil boy, and be my creature willingly, as even now he was.

  The thorn, by whatever means, had been plucked from me. It was settled.

  But for Long-Eye, what? Son of a short-lived people, he had lived no longer in my employ. He had saved me from the hurricane that I might give him to Charpon’s knife. He had believed me a god. Perhaps he died in agony, believing it.

  I sat and spoke with Kochus, and listened to the three terrified seconds summoned back from the ship. They had obeyed Charpon in spite of me, and begged me again and again to overlook the lapse. All the while I visualized Long-Eye’s hacked body in the alley near the docks. I knew that as I gave out my orders and my clemency, the mundane rats who dwell here and there about any port were coming from their houses to a feast.

  4

  That day I returned early to Phoonlin’s house, and cured him of the kidney stone. He railed against me, as before. He told me, as before, that I was a dog to bicker over his life. Still, he had had the papers drawn up, and got witnesses ready—he had no choice. His pain had come back, as I had meant it to, and I would not lay a hand on him till I was paid. I thought sourly then that he could not call me any worse name than I had already coined for myself the previous night. I told him he would not dare cheat his tailor, why should he expect to cheat me?

  A crowd had gathered about the Dolphin’s Teeth soon after sunup. It might have been anticipated—the poor, the sick, the inquisitive. When I came in sight, there was uproar. My fame had spread faster even than I had reckoned on. Despite the efforts of Kochus and the Hesseks, I could make no progress for clutching hands. I stopped and looked around, moved by my shame and by disgust, at them, and at myself who traded on their desperation and naivete.

  “I will heal none of you here. Go back to your homes, and at dusk you will find me in the Magnolia Grove. That is my last word.”

  Then a woman rushed toward me, shrieking in Hessek, and Kochus struck her aside. This turned my stomach, but I dared not help her or they would be bawling again.

  Without another glance about, I walked straight on up the steps, and the crowd gathered itself out of my path, save for a rough swarthy fellow who grabbed my arm. But I let him have a shock from my flesh that sent him off howling, and I was not molested further.

  By noon, Charpon’s death at the hand of robbers was news at the hostelry. Charpon’s seconds, who must surely guess my part in the matter, were too awed to voice their suspicions, and helped spread the tale of a mysterious party of thieves from Old-Hessek-over-the-marsh. There had been crimes in the docks before that had found their origin in Bit-Hessee.

  I saw to the business of the Vineyard as quickly as I could, putting Kochus in charge of the vessel as my captain. The man grinned and mouthed his pleasure, yet with a pane of profound unease over his eyes. He only balked once, at my command that the Vineyard’s rowers be unshackled and permitted the freedom of the deck, though under the care of a hired ship-guard, and that these hapless cattle be paid and decently fed. He argued that slaves were violent and prone to flight. Most of those I had seen had looked too broken to attempt it; if they did, I reasoned we could get more. Should the ship be long in dock, I did not want the oar-crew dead from lack of exercise and clean air. Lyo, my former oarmate, who I had long since freed and used as my servant, aboard ship and on land, I delegated to oversee the act and report back to me. It earned me a fresh name in Bar-Ibithni; this time for foolish charity.

  That, my second day, was altogether a busy one. Phoonlin’s agents visited me to arrange payment of my wages, and I spent the remainder of the afternoon in renting for myself rooms fashionably east of Hragon’s Wall and on the fringe of the Palm Quarter, near to the money belt of the city. Everywhere I went my guard of Hesseks went with me, and Kochus, or one of his fellow pirates. Now and again, some group of supplicants would approach me, but I would not break my rule, and rough treatment sent them off. A public benefactor is everyone’s property but his own. I dreaded my evening reappearance in the Grove, the sickness and entreaty, the healing they pressed from me, which brought me no joy, only commerce in reputation and coins. I thought, This is to be sucked dry by leeches. And are they the leeches or am I the leech? Who feeds upon whom?

  It had all come to me too quickly, this I could finally see. But there was no stopping now. I had to remind myself hourly of my goal, my anchor of purpose—requite my father’s name, be worthy of it, slay a white witch.

  * * *

  At dusk the people were thick on the road, their little lamps of tallow under filmy greenish glass dotting the way as far as the gate of the Grove. I did not look about, but straight ahead, for I had learned that to catch a man’s eye meant he would begin to plead and fight to reach me. The people opened a way for me to let me through and fell in behind to follow. And they were very quiet. Even when I entered the Grove and walked up the lawns, the crowds there were silent, a massed darkness all of the garden’s dark, exce
pt for their lights and the fireflies in the bushes. I remember I had some fancy that they knew I had ordered a man’s death the night before, indirectly the death of two men. But it was more simple than that. They had heard how I intended to “live Masrian,” the other side of Hragon’s Wall on the edge of the Palm Quarter. They guessed this was the last I should consent to be with them. There was no riot, no shouting, and no prayer that I abide. They had accepted that they could not influence anything of mine. They moved by me, I touched them, they received healing and melted into the shadows like a ritual. They were like ghosts. I seemed to see through them to the transience of their persons, the brevity of their days.

  It was a black moonless night, and became cold as the nights of early summer do in Bar-Ibithni.

  I was exhausted. I wondered how they could yet draw strength from me.

  Quite suddenly the crowd began to thin, to fade away, the cloudy lights and meanings and pressure of fingers, like a dream. I saw with vacant surprise that the sky was lightening, transparent with dawn.

  An old woman stood at my elbow.

  “Make me young,” she whispered.

  “Now, Lellih,” Kochus said. He had been slumbering beneath some arbor. He yawned, waiting to see if Lellih would amuse or annoy me to discover how he should react to her. The remaining crowd, since she was recognized as a thing of mine, had drawn back in awe to let her through.

  “Young,” she said, clawing my arm, “young, and virgin.”

  “She’s a saucy old piece,” said Kochus.

  I stared at her in the slaty light. Crinkled paper on a face of wire bones, but her crooked back straight as a sword from my hands. I had been expecting her to return.

  “Why not?” I said to her. She cackled. “Not yet,” I said. “Before witnesses. Do you agree, granny-girl?”

  Her face smashed into laughter, like a child’s. She smote me a blow with her cobweb hand.

  “Done!”

  * * *

  I went to the inn and slept like the dead, save that I dreamed. (Maybe the dead dream, too, and forget their dreams when they are born again, as the Masrian priests declare.)

  When I woke I had forgotten Lellih. But she had not forgotten me. She stood in my court, screeching maledictions on me for a fraud who promised her youth and withheld it. Kochus had threatened her with blows and she threatened him with her teeth. She said better men than he had died of her bite.

  It was noon of the middle day of the Masrian month of Nislat. As good a day as any to remove my diverse household from the Dolphin to my new rooms.

  Kochus had seen to the domestic arrangements, hiring a cook from the inn and a couple of girls to feed us and keep the place clean. He also brought Thei and installed him in his own quarters, whispering to me that if ever I felt the need...I kept my guard of ten Hesseks, paying them now, from Phoonlin’s bounty, a daily wage. For these the largest area, the outer yard and stables, was turned into a makeshift guards’ barracks. Shortly, a black dog began to be seen here, which—they said, eager as children—they meant to train against robbers, though mostly they seemed to train it to beg scraps from their fingers.

  There were nine rooms in all, built about a couple of courts, Masrian style. The better of these courts I kept for my own use, the other was divided unequally between the luxurious Kochus and the downtrodden domestics. Kochus’ brother seconds and the residue of the ship’s rabble I had released from my service. Even if I wished to crew the ship tomorrow, I would find men in the Market of the World or the dock eager for such work. For the seconds, they were glad to go, still sensitive to Charpon’s slaughter. I never saw any of them again.

  Beyond my own household, I kept five men in my pay, Lyo being one of them. I allotted them portions of the city. Their instructions were to nose after stories of sorcery, legends of an albino woman who could heal and harm as I did. They were to mention my name, Vazkor, to see if any ripples stirred. Only Lyo dared say to me, “Is it a sister of yours you’re seeking, lord? Or a wife? She must have angered you, lord. Don’t vent the anger on me.”

  “No sister,” I said. “She’s twice my years. A white withered hag with cold eyes. Find me word of her, and I’ll see you rich as the Emperor.”

  Thinking of it, as ever, brought back the old poison into my veins. My dreams had been all of her, that white thing with its silver lynx face, or the black face of the shireen. My instincts, which roared to me of her presence near at hand, could surely not be wrong. I could do so much, I must be able to find one bitch.

  * * *

  By sunset, twenty-three messengers had come to my barely settled apartments. The rich invalids of the Palm Quarter had been awaiting my arrival. Some spoke of gifts to come and others sent me gifts; the outer room grew bright with bits of gold-work, silver dishes, and money chains, over which Kochus gloated lovingly.

  The messengers bowed to me, a couple kneeled down. Their masters were dying of a variety of incurable afflictions—boils, gout, headache, palpitations, the illnesses of overindulgence and refined nerves. I told them I would visit them, and stipulated times. I was prepared to travel to and fro, to spy out as much of this opulent landscape as I could. Anything might be of use to me; the maddening thing was not knowing quite what.

  I had also sent one messenger myself, having first seen him dressed in the black livery tailored for my servants at one of the better shops in Bar-Ibithni. He had carried my letter to the Hall of Physicians. It required an audience of them, at which, I assured them, I intended before witnesses to turn a crone (Lellih) into a girl.

  It seemed too fine a stroke to miss, since her gods had set her in my hand. I no longer wondered if I could do it. Moment by moment I saw myself commit acts that one year before would have had me gawking if another had produced them. Out of boredom, I had raised the wine jar from its courtyard corner where it stood cooling in the shade, raised it without use of hands, by will alone. A voice in my brain had said to me then, It is the time to beware—when you begin to work miracles from ennui. Had my father, Vazkor of Ezlann, ever done so frivolous a thing as raise a jar up in the air that he might hear the kitchen girls shriek? I imagined not.

  Lellih was in the first court, Kochus’ area, shielded from the Hessek barracks by a porphyry wall, a grove of young cypress trees, and a gray marble fountain. A friendship had been struck between Thei and Lellih, a means, I suppose, of preserving the artificial sustenance of their lives. Now they crouched like a couple of cats over a Masrian board game of red and blue checkers, drinking koois in little enameled cups and smoking little female pipes of green Tinsen tobacco.

  My shadow fell on the board, and Lellih sprang around to berate me. I cut her short.

  “Tonight you will go with me to the Hall of Physicians.”

  Lellih screamed.

  “They cut up Hessek women there, and pickle their parts.”

  “No doubt wise. Beginning with the voice box.”

  Lellih cackled her cackle. “Is it to make me young, young before witnesses, eh? Is it?”

  “Yes. It may kill you.”

  “May it? Then he would raise me, would he not, my lovely darling?”

  Magicians work wonders on the living; demons raise the dead. I did not like her words.

  “I agree no bargains of that sort.”

  But she was already back to the old song.

  “Make me young. How young will you make me? Make me fifteen, fifteen and a virgin.”

  Thei laughed. The laugh was disconcertingly a boy’s.

  “She has no modesty.”

  Lellih squeezed his waist, her elder lust tickled by anything toothsome, its sex random.

  “We’ll make a pretty pair.”

  * * *

  I hired horses and a carriage. By conqueror law, no man but a pure-blood Masrian might ride or draft white mounts. Therefore, with the contrariness of my years, I chose blacks. We
made a small procession, going down through the Palm Quarter to the Hall of Physicians, the carriage with its gilt and enamelwork, the six black outriders. I heard the tremor of sound start up all about: “There is the carriage of the sorcerer Vazkor.” Truly, I had not done badly in three days to get myself into such a quantity of heads.

  The thoroughfares were crowded. The Palm Quarter seemed never to sleep by night, lamps burned till daybreak.

  Women with faces in veils of paint instead of cloth leaned from their balconies; torchbearers, each torch in its cage of iron or glass, ran before some lord on his way to a theater, bisecting the road with streamers of gold smoke. On every side, pillars reached up with their round fingers to grasp the cascading panoply of roofs. The prayer-towers murmured at the death of the light, their tall minarets like slender starry war-spears massed on the blue-green dusk, while at the center of the rising terraces, suitably far toward the sky, the Emperor’s Heavenly City made a distant black diadem.

  The Hall of Physicians was crammed to its doors. They had come to mock, as they were telling each other, to deride this obscure showman who dared try to deceive them with some common trick. The talk had an oiled quality of deprecation and laughter, but when the usher led me across the mosaic of winged horses that served as a floor, a silence fell like the night.

  The Master Physician peered at me through a spyglass of topaz while the usher announced me, for all the world as though none of them might guess who I was. There was then a discussion between this fool and that, the purpose of which was to keep me loitering. I broke in.

  “I am aware my name and my intention precede me,” I said, “or I should not have been granted audience here at all. Thus, gentlemen, shall we get on?”

  Kochus and three others escorted Lellih in. Two underlings of the Hall were selected to strip her, for the physicians’ observation, to a dry, curd-colored nudity. Lellih leered about her, unabashed, from inside that case of flapping dugs and bald loins, still irrepressible. Brazen as their scrutiny was merciless, she poked their well-fed sides for every touch she got from them.