Moon's Artifice by Tom Lloyd Read Free Book Online Page B

bore. Lawbringer Rhe indeed ; the man under whose tutelage you’ll ascend to the rank of Lawbringer, assuming you don’t get yourself brutally murdered first. The man whose sharp eyes will soon enough notice his protégé’s distracted state and time spent on a side matter – then do what comes naturally to such a sanctimonious, arrogant shit : investigate.’
    As the evening light turned the vast white walls of the Imperial Palace golden, Sheti realised she had been lost in the sight and shook herself back to her senses. She set her sewing aside and blinked out through the window at the skyline beyond, breathing in the scents of jasmine and honeysuckle that drifted up from the garden below. Far in the distance, around the towers and sharply peaked roofs of the Palace, long-winged birds turned lazily through the thermals. The day’s warmth remained and when she leaned out over the window to look down at her small corner of the garden, she could hear the contented hum of bees as they attended to the flowers.
    It was an indulgence, she knew, to have her part of the communal garden taken up by flowers, but her needs were modest now that family life was behind her. The tall plants and bushes provided a snug, secluded spot in the sun where she could work, partitioned from the rest of the grounds by a prickly hedge the chickens and geese steered clear of. She turned her head right and looked down the length of the communal garden. It was empty of people, but a pair of geese waddled between neat plots of beans and tomatoes, their bamboo frames shaded by lemon trees.
    ‘My boys are improving,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’ll make peasants of them yet !’
    Though she had two grown sons of her own, Sheti had spent almost a decade working in this one Imperial compound for unmarried men. She had moved there soon after her husband’s death and regarded many of the residents with maternal fondness. The Imperial staff who lived there had mostly grown up as orphans within the colleges of their professions. After a childhood in college dormitories and being worked hard from an early age, most were shy of anyone beyond their own small world and so unused to the presence of women they frequently never married.
    Even Investigators like Narin, who saw the harsher side of the city, were often as wary as little boys around her. Sheti knew it was only at the urging of his worldly friend, Enchei, that Narin had first invited her to eat with them, more than a year ago now. The invitation was now a regular one and she had found the pair enjoyable company in a way her stern and weary daughters-in-law were not. Spurred on by the occasional invitation to these convivial evenings, others in the compound had tentatively followed suit. Now a growing sense of family was developing ; Sheti playing matriarch to two score men mostly young enough to be her own sons.
    Sheti straightened and shook her hair out. Pulling it deftly back she slipped a scarf – black, denoting peasant caste – over her head and tied it underneath her hair in the style of a married woman. She paused and blew a kiss towards a small painting of a young man that hung above the fire. It was a typical sailor’s portrait ; simple and quickly-made, but accurate enough to stir her memory.
    The portraits were traditional wedding gifts for the brides of sailors, as so many men were lost to the sea-fogs and rocks of the Inner Sea. She had almost refused it when Oshene had presented the portrait to her, feeling immediately guilty at the idea, but for once he had been insistent. The pain of his loss was dimmed and distant nowadays, but forever present. It remained one of the reasons why she had chosen to work in the compound rather than live with one of her sons.
    Only in the quiet moments did she remember him properly, felt him at her side as the bed creaked gently at night or a breeze brushed the sheets. For that ghostly memory she was glad to put up with long hours of work at the