Matthew Elmslie's Blog, page 6

Spring 81: help

Most beloved Zann,

Ran’s father and I finally talked. His name’s Jornay. He didn’t really understand, at the start, what I wanted. Or I suppose he didn’t understand that I didn’t want anything for myself. And then when he did understand he didn’t like it any better.

“So you’re some kind of do-gooder,” Jornay said.

I grimaced and twisted to avoid the word. “I don’t know. I just… I don’t want to not solve the problem. If Ran is throwing rocks at people, something’s not right. Well, maybe I could walk home a different way. That would be easy. Everything would be fine for me. But it wouldn’t mean everything’s all right. He’s just going to throw rocks at someone else. And maybe the someone else will get rough with him. Or worse. That’s no good either. So somebody has to fix it.”

“You think I can’t?”

“I hope you can. I’m not his father and he doesn’t like me. For all of that, I don’t like him. But maybe I can make it easier for you to fix it.”

“How? You going to give me money?”

“I might if I thought it would help.”

Jornay stared at me. “What did you think you were going to do, show up here every day and play longball with him?”

“Um. I don’t know. Maybe?”

“He wouldn’t. He’d, I don’t know, run off, or drop a brick on you, or something. Anyway the real problem is money. I had a good job in Cas Crid before the Nap. And my wife, Ran’s ma, was a wallpainter. But now Cas Crid isn’t there and I guess it took my wife with her, and I’m making do. If I could put fifteen silver cups together I could get Ran into the apprenticeship cooperative and that would… well, it wouldn’t fix everything, but it would fix the biggest thing.”

“Oh.” Fifteen silver cups? That was a lot of money, but we could probably do it…

“You don’t think I ever thought about this?”

“Uh…”

“The apprenticeship co-op is a lot better use of the kid’s time than longball or border-bridge or whatever the piss you had in mind.”

“Sure. Right.”

“Plus it wouldn’t leave him sitting around wondering what was next. If there even was a next.”

“Ay.” And then, “Fifteen silver cups? That’s a lot of money for apprenticeship…”

“Usually it’s eight. But you know Ran. He’s going to need… special attention. So the fellow there said, fifteen.”

I nodded slightly.

“So.” He stood up. “That’s the way it is, and I don’t care what street you use to walk home. Are we finished here?”

“Not quite,” I said, standing up and heading for the door. “I said I wanted to help and I meant it. I’ll be back with your fifteen silver cups. And it’s not charity. You can pay it back if you want to. I just won’t come around looking for it.”

Couple of hours later, when I handed it to him, he was surprised. I don’t think he should have been that surprised.

Love,

Ybel

Spring 80: misunderstanding

Dearest Zann,

I fed Jhus and put her to bed tonight. She wasn’t exactly difficult, but I had to tell her at every point that I was using Wande’s authority to tell her to clean her teeth and change into her sleepsmock. And she didn’t look at me during any hour of the evening. She didn’t throw rocks at me, so that’s one good thing. Honestly, I’ve never appreciated her more.

Wande came in late. She looked exhausted, and was favouring her right leg. I fixed her a pop as she slumped into the big chair. “Thank you,” she said.

“Where’d you go tonight?” I asked.

“Out with Ostavon and Geme. We ended up walking across half the city finding the right tavern.”

“Oh.” I felt a little left out. Why not invite me to that? They’re more my friends than hers, really.

“You would have hated it,” she yawned. “One of Geme’s cousins thinks she can sing.”

Well, that’s true. I don’t have any patience for bad singing. “Do you need dinner? There’s still some–“

“No, we ate at the place. I should just go and sleep; I’m going to be hopeless at work tomorrow.”

So we went to sleep. I did remember one thing before we drifted off, though. Geme doesn’t have any cousins.

Must be some kind of misunderstanding, though. I mean, Wande of all people, on the sliparound? Ridiculous.

Love,

Ybel

Spring 79: children are the future

Dearest Zann,

I spent a lot of time, far too much time, trying to figure out what to do about that little pissard who was throwing rocks at me. I thought, maybe I could get a spell from Ambe to paste him to the wall and humiliate him. Maybe I could throw rocks back. Maybe I could pummel him up with the stick Srix is trying to teach me to use. I thought for a long time about things like that.

And then later I thought, what am I doing here. It’s a kid. The real answer is both easier and harder.

So on my way home today I came by Council Street again. It was about the same time of day. The boy was on the steps again, with a friend this time.

“See, I told you,” he said to his friend. “Watch this.” And he whipped another rock at me. I tried to step neatly out of the way but it caught me right on the cheekbone and hurt a whole lot. I stayed on my feet and pressed a handkerchief to the wound.

“Fuck!” the friend said. “Let’s get out of here!”

“No,” the boy said, laughing. “You don’t have to run. He’s not going to do anything except fart some more.”

I stepped toward them. “Are your parents home?”

“Are your parents home?” he repeated in a nasal voice.

I looked at the friend but he was silent.

“Well, then,” I said, and trotted up the steps into the roost-tower.

“You can’t go in there!” the kid said. “That’s my tower!”

“Which roost is yours?” I asked.

“Which roost is yours?” he answered.

“I’ll just ask everybody,” I said, and knocked on the first door I came to.

“Get out!” he yelled, and started pelting me with rocks. His aim failed him; only a couple hit me, not seriously.

The door opened. A woman answered it. “Hoy,” I said. “I’m Corporal Ybel of the Rosolla Guards. Do you know which roost this boy lives in? I’d like to talk to his parents.”

“You pissard!” the boy yelled. “Are you trying to get me in trouble?”

“Him,” the woman said. “He lives on the fourth floor at the front. His name’s Ran. I don’t think his father’s home; he works late.”

“That’s not where I live! She’s lying! I don’t have a father! My name’s Wolf!”

“Thank you very much,” I said, and turned to go upstairs. Ran ran off.

Nobody answered when I knocked at four-front. So I settled down to wait. The kind of situation that being a guard is good training for.

Every now and then Ran poked his head around the corner to see if I was still there. I glanced at him but made no effort to catch his eye or anything. I waited there for hours. That was fine. I knew this was going to be a long process. Nobody else passed by. I guess the people on five and in four-back had different schedules.

Finally I heard voices below. Ran was saying, “No, Pa, he’s a robber! He’s waiting until you open the door and then he’ll bust you over the head and take all our things!” And then a deeper voice responding, “Is that what he said?” “He didn’t say anything! He’s crazy!”

When they came around the corner, Ran was with a man, older than me, in work clothes. I could see the resemblance between the two. Same cheeks and brows. Ran looked panicky. His father wasn’t angry, but he didn’t look friendly either.

“Day. My name’s Ybel,” I said. “I’m a corporal in the Rosolla Guards. I’d like to talk about Ran here.”

He didn’t tell me his name. “He’s my son, so he’s my concern, and none of yours.”

“No, sir. That was true until he started throwing rocks at me.” I indicated my cheek and my chin. “Now he’s my concern too.”

“I didn’t throw rocks at him! He did that himself!”

“I’ll see to it,” the man said. “Now move away from my door.”

I didn’t move. “I’m not here to see that he gets thrashed. I could have done that myself–“

“No you couldn’t! I’d kill you!”

“–could have done that myself, but I didn’t think it would help. He’s been thrashed before in his life, right?”

“See here, I don’t know who you are,” the father said. “And I don’t know what want. But he’s my son–“

“I’m Corporal Ybel of the Rosolla Guard. What I wanted yesterday was to walk down the street without anyone bothering me–“

“He’s lying! He’s creepy! He said he’d pay me five pennies if I farted on him! Don’t listen!”

“–and what I want today is for you and me and anybody else who’s concerned to help Ran so he doesn’t want to do things like that anymore.” The man was taking his time responding, so I said, “Might make things a little easier for you, too. I work these kinds of hours too, sometimes. Hard to keep everything in your life arranged when you don’t have help.” I stood away from the wall. “Think about it. I’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll see if we can agree on a plan. Will you be here around this time?”

He gave me a slow nod. “No, Pa!” Ran said. “Don’t let him! He wants to sell me!”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Ran, you too.” And I left.

Love,

Ybel

Spring 78: rocks

Dear Zann,

One of our new recruits decided not to be a guard anymore so I had a double shift today. When I got off the longcoach at Blackfloors I was as weary as you please. I suppose I was a draggy sight as I slogged home through the crowds.

I didn’t take Procession, which is the biggest street going anywhere near our roost. Too crowded. Council Street is quieter, narrower, prettier, and runs parallel to it. And sometimes I stop in at the fountainroom that has the frostmint flavouring. I might not go that way anymore, though.

Because today I passed a roost-tower on Council and there was a kid sitting on the stairs in front. Hadn’t quite started to grow hair on his face. I noticed him but didn’t really look at him. Anyway, he threw a rock at me.

It bounced off my shoulder. Only hurt a little. I stopped, turned, amazed.

“What?” he said, grinning.

“What did you do that for?” I said.

“I didn’t do anything. Anyway, you smell bad.” He threw another rock. I dodged it. I probably didn’t smell bad, and even if I did, he was too far away to tell.

I wasn’t sure what to do next. Could I catch him? Maybe? And then what? Forget it.

So I kept walking. He slipped off the stairs and followed. He bounced a rock off my back.

“Stop doing that,” I said.

“Or what? Are you going to thrash me? A young boy? You’d be a big man then! Is that what you’re going to do?”

“What are you going to do? Keep throwing rocks at a stranger?”

“I’m not throwing rocks,” he said, and threw a rock. Smirking. There weren’t any crowds around, but there were some other passersby, and they were watching us out of the corners of their eyes.

I wasn’t sure what my options were. I’d run away if I wasn’t so tired. I certainly wasn’t going to thrash him.

In the end I just kept walking home. He followed the whole way, throwing rocks and asking questions. “Why do you smell like that? What’s your name? Why don’t you like me? Why don’t you say anything? Did you know your chin is bleeding? Are you angry? Do you live here? Can I come in?”

In case you’ve forgotten details from previous letters, I’m a professional guardsman and soldier. I never expected to feel this helpless.

Love,

Ybel

Spring 77: past

Beloved Zann,

Things have quieted down. I don’t know what the greenkind are doing about trying to find the chancellor’s killers, but whatever it is, it’s subtle. And the killers are lying low. Or maybe they’ve already done everything they wanted to do; I don’t know.

It’s easy to expect an entire revolution to happen at once. Sometimes that’s not how it works, though. Sometimes it comes in drips and draps before reaching its full flood. I ought to know.

Oh, the past, the past. I never asked to leave it. The Great Nap pulled me out of the past, though, and now here I am in Crideon. I’m not the person I was when Acea and I tried to lead a rising against Master Gratteck. I can still feel what I felt then, though. The anger.

There’s never yet been a greenkind as cruel or as rapacious as Gratteck. But then when Gratteck looked at you, you knew he saw you. Most of the greenkind I’ve met never even looked at me. They took our country without looking at us. Of course I still feel the anger.

It makes me want to seek out the chancellor’s killers. Join them. Help them, guide them, lead them against the laurans. Strike a blow myself, force the pissards to look at me, tell them your name.

But I can’t. That’s just not who I am anymore. There are things I want more, and if I’m very cautious and very patient and very daring and very cunning, I just might get one of those things.

And I’ll be very sorry if all the people fighting back against the greenkind, the laurans, are defeated and executed. But I can’t help them. I can’t help you either.

Your always loving,

Ybel

Spring 76: aftermath

Dearest Zann,

First, Wande and Jhus were fine. They hadn’t seen any trouble all day, although they had heard stories from people who had. I hugged them both and Jhus kicked me. Wande seemed to be taking it all very calmly, and she said she wasn’t worried about what was going to happen, but that night I felt her shuddering as she tried to go to sleep.

I’ve since seen Quoon and Fafafa at Kayar’s Tavern. They’re well. Their people too. Ostavon didn’t happen to be around, but Quoon said that he had seen him and he was well too.

There was some damage, though. I saw five burned-out buildings just in our neighbourhood. Some overturned carriages. A dead Qualison Guard in an alley.

We had some crowds clustering around the palace, trying to get in. They didn’t get anywhere; they kept trying to come in between the towers and wandering off confused by all the defensive spells around. A couple of people tried so hard that they ended up walking erratically in circles and had to be rescued from getting flattened by an incoming longcoach in the middle of the road. Candur and I watched some of this from a high parapet and we both felt pretty useless afterwards.

Everybody has questions. Who killed the chancellor? How many of them are there? Where are they now? What are they going to do next? All the crowds rioting–are they part of it? Or are they just people?

Quoon has lived in Crideon for a long time. He says that if something like this happened under the Talistags, the King would come out of Cas Crid and face the crowd and say something. It might have been something unwise or ineffectual, but he’d make some kind of speech. He’d look at his people’s faces. The Valnelatars don’t do that. They haven’t exactly pretended it didn’t happen, but they certes didn’t talk to any humans about it. They just appointed a new chancellor and sat quiet.

(The new chancellor is somebody named Kerinweth. Never heard of him or her.)

Love,

Ybel

Spring 75: chancellor

Cherished Zann,

My longcoach was just leaving Blackfloors Square this morning when I heard a loud crack! behind me.

I looked out the window. My angle was bad, but I could see a lot of people running around a carriage that had fallen over on the other side of the square. Something was smoking. I tried sticking my head out the window but by the time it was open wide enough, we had turned a corner.

I didn’t find out what had happened until I got to the palace. Everybody was talking about it. Of course they’ve got magic that can send information back and forth to the city; that’s well known. It turns out that some fellows, humans, at least one of them a wizard, had ambushed Chancellor Shonalea’s carriage, hauled her out, and executed her.

You see, the city is run out of Blackfloors. That’s where the mayor and all the councillors are. But now that the laurans, or I suppose the greenfolk, rule Crideon, the Valnelatar family has appointed a chancellor to watch over the mayor and make sure everything goes according to how the Valnelatars want it to. But now the chancellor is dead.

Not only dead. She was killed with a soldier’s spear, and her mantle of office was torn in half and scuffed into the mud. I’ve heard guards and greenfolk saying that this was to signal that humans are at war with laurans, and that humans reject the palace’s authority over Crideon. Which seems obvious, but I suppose they would have done it differently if it was just a matter of intrigue or a dislike of Shonalea’s specific policies.

Candur called us guards together and told us that this doesn’t change anything as far as we’re concerned. We still have the same job to do and we still have to do it the same way. There were a lot of expressions on people’s faces wishing he had said more than that.

We heard rumours of riots and other calamities throughout the city but none of them sounded true. I hoped Wande and Jhus were all right.

Love,

Ybel

Spring 74: corp

Dearest Zann,

Today I was standing at my locker, changing out of my Rosolla pajazuse into my street clothes, when Trall and Carsuaduam swaggered by. I nodded a greeting at them, wondering what options I had.

“Corp,” Trall said, grinning, and tapped his temple like we were sharing a joke.

Carsa clapped me on the shoulder and they continued on to their lockers.

And that was it.

What was that all about?

Love,

Ybel

Spring 73: parry

Most cherished Zann,

Today I was leading a formation of Rosolla Guards, some regular guards and some of Daust’s people, in a ceremony where a young lauran woman was to inherit a title. This was in a large chamber at the top of Comet Halls. If I understood it right, her parents, the Lord and Lady of Spicyway, weren’t dead, but there were other titles that the family owned. And now that Pixiana was old enough, she could have one of them.

So we were all there, including old Princess Shonne of the Valnelatars to officiate, and Pixiana’s friends and suitors giggling in the gallery, and a delegation of Amaydyans with their formal masks. I was standing left of the dais, with Chath on the right, and another couple of guards by each of the doors, bored. Lord Spicyway had just begun his speech, when there was a crash from above: someone or something had just broken through the high window.

I pulled my cape over my face to protect against falling glass. A thump: that was a person landing on the floor. “Never!” a lauran voice said. “Pixiana will never be Countess Wanderpath! That title belongs to the Helmcreeks family!”

There was some shouting and chaos, and I dropped my cape to see the intruder, an intrepid lauran man in a hooded mask, facing off with his sword against one of Pixiana’s attendants, her brother or something. The intruder stabbed the attendant in the leg quite neatly, dropping him to the floor.

Chath said, “Try me, you swashbuckling pissbag,” and stepped in the intruder’s way, sword drawn. Before anything else could happen I grabbed Chath by the back of his pajazuse and yanked him to the floor. He fell with a startled “meep”. The intruder bounded over him to the dais.

“How dare you!” shouted Pixiana, and drew her own sword on the intruder. They clashed blades. Pixiana tried a tricky move that I probably should know the name of, and the intruder spun around and parried it. She gasped. “That parry! Elfonso–is it you?”

“Yes!” the intruder said, throwing off his mask and stabbing another of Pixiana’s cousins. “I am revealed! It is I, Elfonso of the Sparkling Isles!”

Pixiana threw her arms around him and kissed him. A trio of Rosolla Guards (including one of Daust’s men–what could he have been thinking?) started forward to seize him, or possibly both of them. I slid a bench across the center aisle and they stumbled against it. A couple of Amaydyans stepped smartly out of the way. There was now a shiny white protective haze around Princess Shonne, who had retreated to the back of the dais.

“I don’t want to be the Countess of Wanderpath! Elfonso, take me away!”

“My love!” Elfonso flipped his cloak inside out and it turned into large yellow-and-blue wings. He punched Lord Spicyway in the nose, embraced Pixiana, and the two of them flew out the high window.

Everyone was still milling around, and Chath grabbed my arm. “Did you do that? I had him!”

“I liked when you called him a pissbag. That was great. Don’t ever do anything like that again. Now could you go get some healers? I think everyone here is still alive. And cleaners!” I told him. There really was a lot of blood on the floor.

The other guards also had some complaints for me. But, later on, Candur slapped me on the back and told me I had done a magnificent job and gave me a five-cup bonus.

Love,

Ybel

Spring 72

[translated from code]
Dearest Zann,

Got a little further ahead today. I’ve mapped and listed all the kitchens and pantries in the palace. Still a long way to go; I don’t know how often they’re supplied, or what other signs to look for. I’ve hidden the map and list. Don’t know how long this is going to take.

Love,

Ybel