Broken Devices

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Unlike the half-empty harbor on the southern shore, the central harbor of Yenit Ping was full of life. The river rarely froze in winter, and traffic up and down the northern shore was active year round, though this was far from its busiest season. Signal flags the height of a man flapped, five and six at a time, from three stout masts, visible from the harbor and bluff of Tengwa Tep, Penrys assumed.

Their ship sought its modest mooring well away from the grand plaza of temples and imperial buildings, set back from the edge of the embankment, that displayed the order and power of Kigali for all to see. The three travelers and their guide leaned on a rail out of the way of the sailors, and the foreigners gaped at the sight.

“Is that where the emperor lives?” Munraz asked, happier now that they were no longer in the grasp of the main river.

Najud chuckled. “Hardly. He’s up there.”

He pointed up to the ridge with its cliffs, almost a quarter of a mile back from the level embankment. “The court and its functionaries live up there in Juhim Tep. What you’re seeing are the central offices of government—they have satellite locations in Juhim, and scattered in smaller districts throughout the city, and in the lesser cities of the empire, but this is their central place. The temples, too, though the best of those are up in Juhim Tep.”

“What I want to know,” Penrys said, “is how they built this huge flat place so high above the river, with the ridge set so conveniently back.”

Zep Pangwit condescended to explain the glories of Yenit Ping to these outlanders. “Our ancestors found the rubble of Tegong Him here, where the river had brought it down. All that was necessary was to break it up and level it out, until they were satisfied with the height above the floods. Of course, they broke off more of it as needed to make the cliffs steeper, for the better defense of Juhim Tep.”

Penrys blinked. Pride and satisfaction were strong in his voice, but when she’d digested his explanation, she thought them well-merited. The civic and religious buildings were faced in a smooth white stone, but the older buildings she could see were the same red-brown as the cliff in the distance. The central portion of the city and the foundations of the embankment were all made from the stone of the ridge. What the river had started, the Kigali had continued, improving on nature. She wondered what it had looked like, before the empire.

From her reading she knew that there were famous hoists that hauled people, horses, and goods from Mentsek Tep at the base to Juhim Tep, but she couldn’t make out any of the details from here. What an impregnable situation for a seat of empire, like a castle with a moat of air.

She opened her mouth to ask how the upper town was defended from the back, and then thought better of it. It would be probably be interpreted as military spying rather than academic interest.

The sailors uncovered the hatch to the cargo hold, and Penrys postponed her inquiries to help unload their goods.

“Try to keep up.” Zep Pangwit’s testy complaint woke Penrys to the fact that she was staring like any countrywoman while the traffic passed her by in both directions.

There was just so much to look at. The Kigaliwen she’d met in a military context had been orderly and professional. But these city-folk, with their innumerable interests and their busy errands were endlessly distracting—as many women as men, all carrying something or hastening somewhere, children and dogs underfoot and dodging the delivery wagons, and a few people on horses, like themselves. Now and then a closed litter passed behind its guide, its four bearers chanting rhythmically to keep step together. It made the bustling Gonglik with which she was familiar seem like a rural village.

Some of the Kigaliwen stared back at them, surprised by the sight of nomadic Zannib in the heart of Yenit Ping.

Najud had taken charge of Munraz and kept up a quiet buzz of conversation to defuse the young man’s panic at the size and closeness of the crowds. Penrys swallowed uneasily and almost wished he’d do the same for her. The smells were as alien as the people. Tavnastok was nothing like this.

They finally reached their goal just off the grand avenue—a bonded stable that occupied part of a compound associated with a hostel where they could leave their horses and goods temporarily and be confident of finding them again. Zep Pangwit had no knowledge of what would happen after he delivered them to his superiors at the office of Imperial Security, but he couldn’t drag them there in their travel clothing with eighteen horses. “Zannib barbarians,” he’d muttered when he’d first seen what they planned to bring into the city. This was his solution to the problem.

As the designated leader of their party, Najud was bombarded with questions by the clerk of the stable who recorded all the answers neatly on a piece of papyrus—the names, ages, and citizenship of the travelers, the list of horses and goods, and so forth. Zep Pangwit tried to hasten the process along, moaning about them being expected by now.

Penrys paid little attention until the clerk’s words “and to whom should the goods be released if you die or are imprisoned” struck her ears, and she turned on her heel to stare at him. “Very civilized,” she commented to Munraz in wirqiqa-Zannib, and he grinned in appreciation.

“Najud said they’re responsible for the safety of all our goods,” Munraz said. “The penalties for failure are… severe.”

Maybe so, but I hate to leave my power-stones here. Penrys hoped the hefty sack of pea-sized dull stones would pass for something of little worth, if anyone should look. They were far more valuable, anywhere wizards used devices, than the two small pouches of gold that Tun Jeju had awarded them, on the emperor’s behalf, after their success in Neshilik six months ago.

“We should change clothes.” She nudged Munraz in the direction of their personal packs. She rooted through hers and removed the new trousers, shirt, and boots she’d bought in Qawrash im-Dhal, and the green himmib Zannib robe, with the woman’s stiff and embroidered bodice, one of several sets of clothing for both work and formal occasions that she’d purchased on Najud’s advice when she re-equipped herself there. The permanent base of the Grand Caravan had everything a traveler could want.

The goat’s-wool of the robe was soft against her cheek. She looked around for any sort of water source and found nothing except a pump for the use of the horses. She borrowed a clean bucket, rinsed it out and partially refilled it, and ducked into the tack room, shooing the grooms out that she found there and latching the door. She used her discarded shirt to do a quick wash with the cold water and redressed in her new clothing. A run of her fingers through her hair, and that was about all she could do to make herself presentable, under the circumstances.

When she emerged with the bucket in one hand and the dirty clothes in the other, she caught sight of her husband’s grin and a sneer on the face of Zep Pangwit. The interested attention of the stable staff put her on her mettle, and when their guide opened his mouth to rebuke her, she lowered the bucket to the stable floor with a clang of metal and interrupted him before he could properly begin.

“That will be quite enough of that, Zep-chi,” she said, in her most upper-class Kigali yat. “Is it my fault that you can’t convey the invited guests of Tun Jeju to someplace with bathing facilities so that we can show him the proper respect when we meet, or would you rather we arrive in all our dirt, after traveling for two months and then laboring like stevedores to get here?”

Their guide flushed and pressed his lips together, and Penrys let her irritation with him help her keep a stern expression on her face, despite the wide eyes of Munraz, standing out of his sight behind him. “Your turn,” she told him, handing him the empty bucket. “The pump’s over there.”

After months of wearing her Ellech workroom clothing and its replacements, and then the shorter robes and comfortable bodice that the women of Zannib adopted from men’s clothing when riding, it was a challenge for Penrys to modify her stride and posture to accommodate the longer formal woman’s robe and the stiff bodice.

She was grateful for the light trousers and low boots that went with it, allowing the robe itself to be open down the front rather than confiningly closed. Her glimpse of some of the wealthier women, as the party returned on foot to the government district, made the drawbacks of the high-necked tight gowns they wore clear. They were lovely, elegant and somber, but with no thought of horses—not that they needed them, since they either walked or were conveyed by litter.

Najud and Munraz strolling at her side behind the guide had no cause for complaint. Their style of attire was unchanged, though the fabrics were new and vivid. The turbans were larger, too. *Is that an armed anah im-ghabr?*

Najud turned his head at her silent question and nodded. She’d told him about something she’d read in Ellech, where a fighting people who wore turbans had a practice of including a metal skull cap for protection within them, as well as small concealed weapons and tools. The idea was new to Najud, but he’d been fascinated by the possibilities, and one of his outfitting excursions in Qawrash im-Dhal had resulted in an array of interesting sharp and pointed objects strewn on his bed in the kazr.

She herself wore a thin belt under the bodice, to hold the fancy knife Najud had given her for occasions such as this, useless for serious defense. A much longer and more serious blade was fastened at an angle behind her back. If she was going to have a stiff back from the bodice, the posture was at least useful for a concealed weapon.

Najud and Munraz couldn’t wear the khash, the curved Zannib sword, openly here in the city, but she knew her husband had both visible and hidden knives, and she suspected Munraz of the same.

The quality of their clothing earned them a bit more space on the busy streets, but its foreign nature drew stares, more curious than hostile. It was obvious that the city-folk recognized their nationality, even if Penrys didn’t quite fit in, and Zannib was an ally and trading partner, not an enemy, but it was strange to stand out so obviously in such a crowded place, with nothing but Kigaliwen in all directions. It made her skin twitch.

Even in Ellech, where she’d been clearly a non-native, they were so used to visitors from many nations in the harbor at Nachempolek that one more, even at inland Tavnastok upriver, was much less a matter of interest. I don’t think they see many foreigners here, in the heart of Kigali.

She had a sudden vision of the immensity of the world, stretching out from this one point. Ellech was more than two thousand miles away from a harbor itself almost a thousand miles distant, and as far as she knew they were the only Zannib north of the river that bisected the fifteen hundred miles to the west, barring any ambassadorial staff maintained in Yenit Ping. Not a good place to try and hide in, not for us.

Her hand reached up involuntarily to touch her chain. Her instinct had been to wrap it in a scarf, but Najud had pointed out that it had to be why they’d been summoned. Better to display it proudly, he’d said.

He’s a clever man, my husband, and well-traveled, especially for a Zan, but I think he may have mis-estimated these people. The Tun Jeju she remembered was subtle and intelligent, and though he’d done them no real harm, she was wary of him. It hadn’t escaped her attention that it was not only his name on the caravan permits Najud carried, but also that of Menchos, an even scarier man in what seemed to be an analogous position for Rasesdad. The two of them, working together, would be formidable opponents, even if such an alliance between traditional enemies was unprecedented. And yet, there were the joint caravan permits Najud had received to attest to the partnership.

She smiled to herself. The permits declared they could be copied anywhere in Kigali, and Najud had taken the precaution to get copies made while in Tengwa Tep and place them into the hands of their friends to carry back into sarq-Zannib, just in case the originals were taken away again. This, in addition to the second official version of the originals that had arrived in clan Zamjilah’s winter camp from Ussha and would be put safely in charge of Rubti when she returned that way.

Despite Penrys’s suspicion, she knew Tun Jeju and Menchos would also make powerful employers, if they were both involved in this summons, and the permits for a new western caravan were prepayment for an unknown task. Better wait until you know what they want before panicking.