Irons in the Fire by Juliet E. McKenna Read Free Book Online Page B

himself on the seat and gathered up the reins.
    "Mostly they were reassuring each other that they already do all they can for Lescar." Tathrin couldn't help a heavy sigh as he climbed up. "Convincing themselves they cannot be held to account for such suffering." He'd made sure he remembered those for whom such consolation didn't seem to suffice. Now he just had to find out their names and businesses.
    Eclan slapped the reins on the pony's dappled rump. "I've never really understood Lescar."
    Tathrin looked ahead as they drove through the gate. If the streets were half-empty compared to the night before, they were still twice as busy as on any normal market day.
    "Why is that man wearing four hats and three cloaks?" The breeze from the lake was refreshing, but it wasn't that cold in the bright sunlight.
    "He's a second-hand clothes seller too miserly or too dishonest to pay half a mark for a stall in the cloth-market. If his customers are lucky, they won't feel the Watch's hand on their shoulder," Eclan added blithely, "because some festival visitor was robbed of that selfsame cloak and hat while they were busy between some whore's dimpled knees."
    "I see." Tathrin couldn't help a grin.
    "So why are you Lescari always fighting each other?" Eclan curbed the pony with deft hands as the beast threatened to shy at a street sweeper. "You want to be a trader, don't you? I'll swap you answers for whatever you want to know about Vanam."
    Tathrin chewed his lip as the cart carried them down to the wide road that skirted the lakeshore wharves and warehouses to link the city's myriad marketplaces.
    "Ask me anything you want to know." Eclan wasn't about to give up. "I've lived here all my life."
    So he probably knew where Master Gruit lived. Tathrin slid a glance sideways. Eclan could have been any of the boys he had grown up with: middling in height, well enough muscled, neither handsome nor ugly, until some misfortune left its mark. Though few of Tathrin's friends had had the blue eyes that were so common in Vanam, or the coppery glint that the sunshine found in Eclan's brown hair.
    He drew a breath. "The days of antiquity saw the Tormalin Empire to the east and the Kingdom of Solura to the west divided by that region known as the land of many races, where neither king nor emperor's writ ran. In the old tongue, it was called Einar Sain Emin--"
    Eclan interrupted. "Now known as Ensaimin, a region of independent demesnes and proud cities, the most prosperous and noble of which is Vanam. I learned that in dame-school. Why did the fall of the Old Empire leave the Lescari fighting like cats in a sack? The Caladhrians don't, nor yet the Dalasorians."
    "Tormalin Emperors ruled over Dalasor in name only," Tathrin said tersely. "Those folk carried on tending their horses and cattle and moving their camps as they saw fit. There's little to quarrel over when five days' hard riding separates one herd and the next.
    "When the Tormalin Emperor invaded Caladhria, the fighting was over in half a season. They're farmers. The Emperor granted local lords title to their traditional fiefdoms. As long as they paid tributes, they saw no more soldiers. Caladhria's a fertile land, so securing their peace by filling Tormalin bellies with grain was no great hardship." Tathrin paused to swallow the bitterness rising in his throat. "When the Empire fell, the wealthiest lords agreed they'd hold a parliament every Solstice and Equinox where new laws would be debated and agreed by all those attending."
    "And Caladhria stagnates peacefully as a consequence," Eclan said with some impatience. "Didn't Lescar's dukes like that idea?"
    "How can you not know this?" Tathrin demanded with sudden anger. "Every mentor insists new pupils attend the elementary history lectures."
    "I was never admitted to the university," retorted Eclan. "I never applied. My father would have thrashed me for wasting my time and his money."
    The pony cart rattled over the cobbles. Eclan turned the