Midnight tides

Halting before the three women, he glanced round for a chair. He found one and dragged it close, then settled with a sigh.

‘What do you want?’ asked the bald one.

‘That was my question. My servant informs me that you visited my residence this morning. I am Tehol Beddict… the one who sleeps on his roof.’

Three sets of eyes fixed on him.

Enough to make a stalwart warlord wilt… but me? Only slightly.

‘You?’

Tehol scowled at the bald woman. ‘Why does everyone keep asking that? Yes, me. Now, by your accent, I’d hazard you’re from the islands. I don’t know anyone in the islands. Accordingly, I don’t know you. Not to say I wouldn’t like to, of course. Know you, that is. At least, I think so.’

The red-haired woman set her bottle down with a clunk. ‘We’ve made a mistake.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that-’

‘No,’ the bald woman said to her companion. ‘This is an affectation. We should have anticipated a certain degree of… mockery.’

‘He has no trousers.’

The dark-eyed woman added, ‘And his arms are lopsided.’

‘Not quite accurate,’ Tehol said to her. ‘It’s only the sleeves that are somewhat askew.’

‘I don’t like him,’ she pronounced, crossing her arms.

‘You don’t have to,’ the bald woman said. ‘Errant knows, we’re not going to bed him, are we?’

‘I’m crushed.’

‘You would be,’ the red-haired woman said, with an unpleasant smile.

‘Bed him? On the roof? You must be insane, Shand.’

‘How can not liking him be unimportant?’

The bald woman, the one named Shand, sighed and rubbed her eyes. ‘Listen to me, Hejun. This is business. Sentiments have no place in business – I’ve already told you that.’

Hejun’s arms remained crossed, and she shook her head. ‘You can’t trust who you don’t like.’

‘Of course you can!’ Shand said, blinking.

‘It’s his reputation I’m not happy with,’ said the third, as yet unnamed, woman.

‘Rissarh,’ Shand said, sighing again, ‘it’s his reputation what’s brought us here.’

Tehol clapped his hands. Once, loud enough to startle the three women. ‘Excellent. Rissarh with the red hair. Hejun, with Faraed blood. And Shand, no hair at all. Well,’ he set his hands on the table and rose, ‘I’m content with that. Goodbye-’

‘Sit down!’

The growl was so menacing that Tehol found himself seated once more, the prickle of sweat beneath his woollen shirt.

‘That’s better,’ Shand said in a more mellow tone. She leaned forward. ‘Tehol Beddict. We know all about you.’

‘Oh?’

‘We even know why what happened happened.’

‘Indeed.’

‘And we want you to do it again.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes. Only this time, you’ll have the courage to go through with it. All the way.’

‘I will?’

‘Because we – myself, Hejun and Rissarh – we’re going to be your courage. This time. Now, let’s get out of here, before that server comes back. We’ve purchased a building. We can talk there. It doesn’t smell.’

‘Now that’s a relief,’ Tehol said.

The three women rose.

He did not.

‘I told you,’ Hejun said to Shand. ‘It’s not going to work. There’s nothing left in there. Look at him.’

‘It’ll work,’ Shand said.

‘Hejun is, alas, right,’ Tehol said. ‘It won’t.’

‘We know where the money went,’ Shand said.

‘That’s no secret. Riches to rags. I lost it.’

But Shand shook her head. ‘No you didn’t. Like I said, we know. And if we talk…’

‘You keep saying you know something,’ Tehol said, adding a shrug.

‘As you said,’ she replied, smiling, ‘we’re from the islands.’

‘But not those islands.’

‘Of course not – who’d go there? And that’s what you counted on.’

Tehol rose. ‘As they say, five wings will buy you a grovel. All right, you’ve purchased a building.’

‘You’ll do it,’ Shand insisted. ‘Because if it comes out, Hull will kill you.’

‘Hull?’ Finally Tehol could smile. ‘My brother knows nothing about it.’

He savoured the pleasure, then, in seeing these three women knocked off balance. There, now you know how it feels.

‘Hull may prove a problem.’

Brys Beddict could not hold his gaze on the man standing before him. Those small, placid eyes peering out from the folds of pink flesh seemed in some way other than human, holding so still that the Finadd of the Royal Guard imagined he was looking into the eyes of a snake. A flare-neck, coiled on the centre of the river road when the rains are but days away. Up from the river, three times as long as a man is tall, head resting on the arm-thick curl of its body. ‘Ware the plodding cattle dragging their carts on that road. ’Ware the drover stupid enough to approach.

‘Finadd?’

Brys forced his eyes back to the huge man. ‘First Eunuch, I am at a loss as to how to respond. I have neither seen nor spoken with my brother in years. Nor will I be accompanying the delegation.’

First Eunuch Nifadas turned away, and walked noiselessly to the high-backed wooden chair behind the massive desk that dominated the chamber of his office. He sat, the motion slow and even. ‘Be at ease, Finadd Beddict. I have immense respect for your brother Hull. I admire the extremity of his conviction, and understand to the fullest extent the motivation behind his… choices in the past.’

‘Then, if you will forgive me, you are farther down the path than I, First Eunuch. Of my brother – of my brothers – I understand virtually nothing. Alas, it has always been so.’

Nifadas blinked sleepily, then he nodded. ‘Families are odd things, aren’t they? Naturally, my own experience precludes many of the subtleties regarding that subject. Yet, if you will, my exclusion has, in the past, permitted me a certain objectivity, from which I have often observed the mechanisms of such fraught relationships with a clear eye.’ He looked up and fixed Brys once more with his regard. ‘Will you permit me a comment or two?’

‘Forgive me, First Eunuch-’

Nifadas waved him silent with one plump hand. ‘No need. I was presumptuous. Nor have I explained myself. As you know, preparations are well along. The Great Meeting looms. I am informed that Hull Beddict has joined Buruk the Pale and Seren Pedac on the trail to Hiroth lands. Further, it is my understanding that Buruk is charged with a host of instructions – none issued by me, I might add. In other words, it is likely that those instructions not only do not reflect the king’s interests, but in fact may contradict our Sire’s wishes.’ He blinked again, slow and measured. ‘Precarious, agreed. Unwelcome, as well. My concern is this. Hull may… misunderstand…’

‘By assuming that Buruk acts on behalf of King Diskanar, you mean.’

‘Just so.’

‘He would then seek to counter the merchant.’

Nifadas sighed his agreement.

‘Which,’ Brys continued, ‘is itself not necessarily a bad thing.’

‘True, in itself not necessarily a bad thing.’