The Reformer

* * *

'I've got to admit, the Confederates outdo us in this, at least,' Adrian said, lying back in the cool water.

Public baths in an Emerald city were usually small and utilitarian. This was a palace, and not a small one either. The main pool lay under a high dome, the tiles that coated its interior silvered to reflect light from the round windows that ran completely around the base. The walls below them were rose-pink and snow-white marble, with a ten-foot band of bas-relief murals below that, and the floors had fifteen different types of colored stone. Water arched from the mouths of fabulous bronze beasts into the pool; in halls leading off on three sides were steam rooms, hot tubs for soaking, rooms for scraping down and massage, exercise and workout rooms, small libraries. .

It was rather noisy; someone was making the air hideous with song as he stood under a stream of water and rubbed himself with a sponge. He could hear the slap of hands on flesh from a massage table, the click of dice from a friendly game in a corner, the grunting of would-be athletes as they swung lead weights, the tremendous splash as someone did a belly flopper in another corner of the pool, the cries of a vendor with a tray of sausages and pickled artichokes.

'When you've got the whole world to loot, you can afford the best,' Esmond said. 'Shameless degenerates,' he added.

Adrian smiled. Public baths in the Emerald lands didn't mix the sexes. . and the women here weren't all whores, either. It certainly added to the scenery, he mused, watching a statuesque redhead go by in nothing but the towel draped over her shoulder.

'Come on, we'll get weak as girls if we just lie about like this,' Esmond said.

His brother attracted more than his share of looks as they walked over to the steam room-mostly from women. The hot chamber was empty, the time being a little early-the baths really filled up after three o'clock in the afternoon, when free men knocked off work and came to meet their friends and spend a pleasant few hours before dinner. They said you could meet anyone from a Priestess of the Hearthfire to the Lord of the Western Isles in the Vanbert baths, and hear what the Council was going to do before the Councillors knew themselves.

'Don't sneer too much at Confederate wealth,' Adrian said. 'Since you're going to get your hands on some of it yourself. . Three hundred arnkets a year, plus your keep, a room and a servant! You can easily save two hundred of that. With three thousand, you could open your own salle d'armes back in Solinga, or buy an olive grove or shares in ships.'

Esmond made a restless gesture and tossed a dipperful of water on the hot rocks in the corner of the room. A smell of hot cedarwood went up from the chips mixed with the glowing stones, and the heat struck like a padded club.

'Here,' the older brother said, tossing Adrian a blunted, curved bronze knife from a rack. 'Do my back.'

Adrian began scraping the smooth, rippling muscle. 'It only costs a copper dimeh to get a slave to do it,' he teased.

'They never get it right. . harder.'

'What's really bothering you, brother?'

The broad shoulders shrugged. 'I don't know why in the Gods' names Wilder wants a trainer. He's middle- aged, fat, and sluggish.'

'Maybe he wants a weapons trainer because he's middle-aged, fat and sluggish?' Adrian suggested. 'He's certainly paying enough.'

'To him, three hundred arnkets is like you or me buying a spiced bun in the street,' Esmond said, and then shrugged. 'I'm to get a bonus for working as a bodyguard, though-protecting him and his wife when they go out, and so forth. It's work with a sword at your belt, at least.'

'Don't they usually hire old games fighters for that?' Adrian said, curious.

'I'm better than any of those broken-down masses of scar tissue,' Esmond said scornfully.

'And a lot more decorative,' Adrian grinned. 'There-your turn now.'

'Decorative!' Esmond said, in mock indignation. 'Here-I'll show you how they scrape loudmouths down at the wrestling ground for the Five Year Games!'

He whirled and came at Adrian with his arms out, the wrestler's pose. Adrian fell into the same stance, and they circled on the hot planks. It ended as it always did, with the younger man facedown on the boards and slapping his free hand down on the floor in sign of surrender.

'Peace! Peace!'

'Peace is a suitable theme for a teacher of rhetoric,' Esmond laughed, letting him up. 'A rinsedown and a cold plunge, and then we'll have to get back-move our things out of the rooms and into the Redvers house. I managed to get you permission to use the library, by the way.'

'Thank you, brother; I'll take advantage of that. But I won't be teaching cauliflower-eared ex-generals how to give speeches, nor their pimply sons.'

Esmond paused. 'You won't?'

'No, I'm going to go to work in the law courts.'

'Clerking?' Esmond looked shocked. 'That's slaves' work.'

Adrian shook his head. 'Pleading cases.'

'But. .' A puzzled frown. 'That's illegal, only Confederate citizens can appear before the Vanbert courts.'

Adrian tapped a finger along his nose and winked. 'In theory. In fact, if you're formally reading the speech of some Citizen advocate, it's allowed.'

'You won't get far in front of a Confederate jury,' Esmond warned, shaking his head. 'And think, brother. I don't doubt you're an expert on Solingian law, but this is Vanbert.'

'Oh, I don't know, I've picked up a good deal,' Adrian said. He shifted into the Confederacy's tongue: 'And I'm fairly fluent, aren't I?'

The blue eyes went wide. 'No accent at all!' he exclaimed. 'How did you do that in four months?'

'Divine intervention,' Adrian laughed, slapping him on the shoulder. 'Let's go take that plunge.'

TWO

The Redvers family had an extensive library in their townhouse; Adrian bowed a greeting to the Emerald slave who ran it. The man was wrinkled, bald, stooped, and dressed in a long robe uncomfortably like that of a Scholar of the Grove. His grandfather might well have been a Scholar, enslaved in one of the endless wars.

'Greetings, learned Salman,' Adrian said.

His reply was a sniff and a quick shooing motion of the hand. Adrian walked past the simple slab desk where Salman worked, repairing and recopying and keeping every one of the six thousand or so scrolls in its proper niche. The library beyond was nearly as large as the Academy's, and far more sumptously fitted. The ten-foot-high racks were Southland curly maple, clasped and edged with gilded bronze, each bolt end wrought in the shape of a woodspirit's face. The scrolls lay in the familiar manner, each one in the hollow of a honeycomb in the rack, the same way that wine bottles were kept. These were mostly fine goatskin vellum, though, not the cheap reed paper. The twin winding rods were gordolna ivory, and the little listing tags that hung down on cords from each were ivory and gold, bearing the title of the scroll in elegant cursive silver inlay. The walls on either side were clear glass, large panes fully a foot on each edge in metal frames, and there were comfortable padded couches and marble-topped tables at intervals for the use of readers. There was a pleasant smell of well-cured vellum, ink, and furniture wax.

So much, so good, Adrian thought critically; suitable for a man of immense wealth and some pretension to culture. The statuary along the walls, one in each window bay, was far too much-just to begin with, most of it was loot from the Emerald cities, and from temples at that.

Only a Confederate Councillor would boast of having loot from temples in his study. The piece of Gellerix, the Goddess of Passion, was a case in point. Fine enough in one of Her temples, but a life-size marble depiction of the act of generation was scarcely conducive to philosophic calm in