Drakenfeld

New Luxuries

The family residence was located in one of the ancient parts of Tryum. The walls of the house were made of thick stone, in the old style – a blessing in any season. But even more fortuitous was how the old buildings blunted the sound of hammering by the local smiths in the streets beyond. Set further away from the streets were the main living quarters, a simple, classy affair, with chequered stone tiles, rich red drapes, pleasant seats and rustic tables. On the walls were paintings of great battle scenes and of gods.

All of which was a step up in the world from our hovel in Venyn City.

Outside the front gates was the splendid architecture that had echoed in my dreams for so long: the colonnades, fountains, market gardens, statues, frescoes, and the bowed or domed rooftops so typical of the Polyum and Regallum quarters. In the street, two children were practising their spelling by scratching low down on the pale walls, as I used to do myself. From here the view that presented itself was of the hill leading towards Regallum, filled with temple roofs and, just beyond that, the mighty royal residence and centrepiece of that district, Optryx.

Leana had been on a brief tour of the house, investigating all the little nooks and crannies. There was a new cook who lived here also, a different one from when I lived here, and she had not left when my father died.

Her name was Bellona, named after a Maristanian goddess of food, which I took as a good portent. Older than me, she stood a shade shorter than Leana. Her nose was broad, her lips thin, her eyes gentle and intelligent – her pale, sweaty face had a welcoming demeanour. With a deep voice and a local accent, she spoke affectionately about my father and told me how handsome I looked.

I could get used to that.

After I confirmed I would of course keep her in my employment, she unceremoniously rushed forward to bow at my feet. Leana’s gaze was one of amusement, and I must admit to feeling rather uncomfortable. I helped Bellona up again and asked, if it wasn’t too much trouble, to prepare a little dinner before dusk.

‘Of course, master,’ she replied, before tentatively adding, ‘though we need some coin to replenish provisions.’

‘Oh, right.’ I reached into my pocket and handed over a couple of silver pieces that came to ten pecullas. She seemed to gaze at the coins as if they were god-blessed. ‘I’ll eat whatever you eat.’

‘I eat very poorly, despite my appearance,’ she said. ‘Cheap things, not food fit for the master of the house.’

‘Honestly, I’ll eat what you do,’ I repeated. ‘If that means you have to buy better food for yourself, then so be it.’

With a warm, toothy smile, she turned to leave.

‘And please, there’s no need to call me master,’ I shouted after her. When I faced Leana again, she gave me that look of hers. ‘You can stop grinning,’ I said.

‘Yes, master,’ Leana replied. ‘I tell you now, she will have you overweight within one month.’

‘I’ll be careful what I eat.’

‘I will have to train you twice as hard,’ Leana warned me as she stepped around leisurely, absorbing the place that was to be our home for the time being – not that it was known how long we might be staying.

It would only be a matter of time until her room became filled with skulls and tribal offerings, and I wondered what the upper classes of Tryum would make of such trinkets.

‘So, you grew up here?’ Leana asked.

‘I did.’

‘It is very different from that bottom-floor apartment in Venyn. I did not know your family was… so wealthy.’

I shrugged. ‘So, what do you think of the place?’

‘Far too many furnishings. Too many precious paintings. Such things make for a soft upbringing. It would at least explain your gentle nature.’

‘Among other things, I like to think. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about it.’ I gestured all around me. ‘They’re just walls. And all this art does wonders for one’s soul.’

Without reply Leana meandered back into the house and, breaking the lingering silence, Bellona returned to ask what meat I’d like to eat. I exchanged a few more pleasantries with her, and enquired whether or not there were any other staff on my father’s payroll. Bellona replied negatively, but she seemed coy about the subject, so I didn’t press it any further. She must have been unhappy discussing money with a relative stranger and returned to the kitchen.

Only moments later, I could smell something wonderful.

I stood perfectly still in the hall, and closed my eyes to the paintings, statues, terracotta walls and slender pillars. Pots rattled in the kitchen. Water bubbled in the fountain outside. Just beyond the house – my house – carts clattered along the cobbled street. Vaguely I tried to match the noises with my youth: soon, layered above the ambient sounds, came my mother’s tender Loccon voice, her sisters, my cousins. My father, for whatever reason, seemed to possess no firm memory in my mind. No, that wasn’t quite true – I remembered him with a belt in his hands as he threatened to strike me over some misdemeanour. Then of course our foulest argument came back to me, when he betrayed my trust with regard to a girl I’d once known and loved.

Leana reappeared, without her doublet on, and her fitted white shirt was striking against her dark skin.

‘There is a room on the north side of the building. It is the one with many green cushions on the bed, also. If you have no objections, I will take this for my quarters.’

‘Why not?’ I replied. With a smile, I added, ‘Just make sure you don’t find all these furnishings too soft and comforting.’

My very first engagement back in the city was to identify and honour my father’s body at the temple, before making suitable arrangements for his burial. Over a green, silk shirt I wore a dark brown cloak, on which I pinned the golden brooch of my office.

Leana and I stood at the gates of the house, regarding the street. A vendor was frying meats nearby, while further along came the smell of pine-scented incense. The noises were startling now we were closer to the throng. Traders were packing up or travelling from the market at the forum – if I was of the right mind I would have rummaged among their wares to take advantage of the cheaper prices at this time of day.

‘Will you be all right on your own?’ Leana asked, pushing the hilt of her sword beneath her cloak.

‘I’m going to a temple not a battlefield.’

‘That is not what I mean.’

I shook my head. ‘I’ll be fine. Look, first, sell our horses – we’ll have little need of them in Tryum and we could do with the spare coin. Then go, explore, stay in Polyum or near Regallum,’ I replied. ‘Don’t head too far down-city, avoid Plutum and Barrantum after dusk, and don’t go finding any trouble, or you might need to ask your spirit gods for a little help.’

Leana snorted with derision. ‘It will be the locals who would require the help of their gods.’ As she walked slowly into the darkness of the adjacent lane, I could only agree with her.

I passed through the evening traffic towards the temple and found the humidity and crowds suffocating. Traders rolled their carts past, nearly knocking me over, before scraping their wheels on the walls or slightly raised kerb, while boys ran ahead ringing small bells to warn of the oncoming traffic. From nearby came the stench of decaying matter from whatever foods had not been sold and thrown in the gutters. Graffiti was to the point as always: no matter where one travelled in Vispasia, a hastily scrawled penis followed by a name was forever in fashion.

I walked down one familiar street where two good childhood friends had grown up, Clidus and Aetos. It was a wide, well-to-do street with a high pavement and cloth merchants folding away their wares, pulling down awnings. I lingered there for a while, half wondering what I’d say to them if they ever came by, but mainly observing who came out of the red and yellow doors from their big houses. It seemed neither them nor their families were to be seen. I asked an old man who was sitting in the sun with a cup of wine if he knew of them, and he said that he did, but they had long since left the area.

In a nostalgic mood, I continued on my way.

A farmer was attempting to drive five cows through the narrow lanes, and people had to press themselves against the wall to avoid being trampled. An attractive woman walked by and flashed me a bright smile before she was lost in the throng. Preachers leered or chanted from the relative sanctuary of decorative archways, a dozen dialects rising to my ears, whilst passers-by lit incense to offer to small statues of their gods. The sheer variety of people in Tryum was mesmerizing. From clothing to foods to the decorations on clay pots, one could almost walk the length of the continent in a single street.

The two main libraries were still here, exactly as I remembered. Their symmetrical limestone facades towered into the sky. Torches flared at regular intervals along the passageways, and philosophers had gathered on the front steps overlooking the forum, posing for the masses to see them engaged in debate, as they always did. I recalled having to bustle past them whenever I needed to study. The graffiti here was more satisfying – full of electoral slogans and statements of support from wealthy businessmen. Hardly a phallus in sight.

Loathed by many, loved by others, the street theatres were doing a roaring trade. There were several different performances on today, makeshift stages and melodramatic actors with exaggerated expressions. Further along the street, the taverns were full with all manner of clients, all the chatter here in the Detratan tongue. I tried to recall the haunts of my younger days, of conversations in the morning sunlight, of minted teas shared with a young lady on a good day, or with a dull legal scholar on an average one. They were discussions that people could lose themselves in, and which could be forgotten about soon after. It wasn’t so much about what was said, but the energy, the sparring, the craft of carving out one’s sense of being.

Much of my understanding of the world had developed in those establishments. In fact, I’d spent many an hour there with the one woman – though she was then a girl – the only significant romance I’d ever had. Her name was Titiana, and I wondered vaguely what became of her.

Now, looking back at the taverns, oil lamps stood on tables, shining their mellow light on new faces, none of which I recognized, even though I somehow hoped I might: the stories shared here were no longer for my ears.

People moved on, I had moved on, and that was life.

The Temple of Polla dominated the street that bordered the city districts of Polyum and Regallum. Two immense torches burned within iron cressets, framing a staircase of twenty steps. Polla’s slender face set within a blazing sun was carved into the centrepiece of the facade and from her lofty position she gazed down on all those who entered.

Already I felt calm in her presence. The noises of the city fell away and from beyond the double doors came scents of incense. A serene priestess dressed in white silk greeted me in the entrance way; she asked if I could wait inside until the pontiff was prepared to see me, so I thanked her and went in.

The marble floor glittered under candlelight as people drifted past in whispered conversation. Crimson drapes hung on the walls and within small alcoves bronze statues of Polla’s other-world husbands stood. Incense, flowers or small blood offerings lay at their feet. On the side I could see a resplendent edition of the Book of Wisdom, a large text that contained details on how best to explore and interact with the world, as well as speculation on the movement of the stars and of plants and creatures that had not yet made it to Vispasia.

The senior pontiff arrived, a slender, aged man with sunken cheekbones, a minor hunch and garbed in a red robe. I returned his gracious greeting. He regarded me with a pity I didn’t feel was strictly necessary.

‘We did not expect you so soon,’ he announced.

‘I took a ship rather than coming across land.’

‘Would you like to see your father now?’

‘Please.’

‘Come, Polla has preserved him well. The rituals are nearly over. His ashes will be ready for burial in four days.’

Together we descended to the subterranean levels beneath the temple, and entered a small chamber halfway down a dark and cold corridor that, even though it probably had little public traffic, was every bit as ornate as the temple above. Inside, the pontiff lit several candles and there in front of me, wrapped in layers of thin, resin-covered cloth, was my father’s body.

I had seen many corpses in my lifetime including, as a young boy, that of my own mother. I did not know what to feel. I became strangely numb, void of thought. I simply stared, trying to connect my knowledge of my father to the body before me.

‘When was he brought here?’ I asked.

‘About twenty days ago,’ the pontiff replied.

They had done a good job of halting the decay and bad odour. ‘And where was he found?’

‘In his offices, not too far from here. A member of the cohorts stopped by and found him slumped over his desk – he raised the alarm initially, and our physician arrived first.’

‘What was his name – the man in the cohort?’

‘Brellus, I believe, but he died three days later trying to evacuate a building that was on fire.’

I glanced at the priest, saddened for the loss of life, but frustrated that I couldn’t talk with this Brellus.

‘Was there anything suspicious about the scene in my father’s office?’

‘The matter has been looked into—’

‘By the cohorts?’

‘Yes, and our physician. No signs of a disturbance, no markings on the body. Our physician suggests this was an unfortunate occurrence and concludes that it was his heart that failed him.’

My father’s face appeared far older than I remembered – his time-worn lines, saggy skin and white hair. Decay will do that to a body, of course. I placed my hand to his ice-cold cheek and withdrew it as if it had burned me. Here lay the great man of the Court of the Sun Chamber, a man whose name travelled further than mine could ever hope to. Suddenly it didn’t seem to matter so much. What precisely was the point in competing with the dead?

‘Your brother, Marius, visited us,’ the pontiff whispered.

‘Did he?’ I grunted. ‘I didn’t even know he was in Tryum.’

‘He is not. After a few months living here, he decided he’d had enough. He came here, very briefly, to pay his respects. But he’s since left the city.’

‘I’m sure he has.’

‘He had hoped to still be in your father’s will, but there were only a few trinkets for him.’

‘What can he expect?’ I grunted. ‘They hated each other.’

The priest’s sad expression almost made me feel sorry for Marius. The man’s sense of pity was beginning to become too much.

‘They tried to heal things, so I understand. People change. Meanwhile,’ he continued, ‘you received the property in full. Your brother also said for us to wait for you to return before your father’s full burial.’

‘That was… kind of him.’ I glanced over the shape of the body, then beneath the cloth. Though it wasn’t always easy to tell after twenty days of death, there was no obviously large gut, nothing to suggest he had succumbed to the finer things in life such as overeating.

‘Your people say it was definitely his heart?’

‘You find this hard to believe?’

‘He always kept in good shape, exercised regularly and ate well – he’d been like that all his life.’

‘Who knows why the gods decide to take us,’ the pontiff replied. ‘His funeral will be in a few days, once we continue the rituals here to see his soul is at peace. The necessary arrangements and notifications have already been made.’

‘Oh…’ I fumbled around for a purse of money. ‘How much should the donations be?’

The pontiff waved for me to relax. ‘It has all been paid for by the administration of the Sun Chamber. You will be notified before his body is to be burned. We are reading the stars each evening, waiting for an auspicious alignment.’

‘And then?’

‘After that, once we allow his ashes to be collected, it will be another day or so before you may have them to place within the family mausoleum.’

‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘I’m staying at his – my – house, should you need to find me.’

It was reassuring that my father would receive the dignity bestowed upon his office, but now that I had seen his body, something did not sit right.

With a head full of sorrow, I walked back to my residence alone, speeding through the streets now, passing the bars and taverns with their oil lamps, past the youths clustering in alleyways, and through the emptying plaza in which wind-blown litter skittered across the flagstones.

And when I eventually arrived home, there was a visitor waiting for me.