Page 62 of The Salt King

You couldn’t just barge in and expect to see the lady of the house. You had to go via other people.

The porter looked interested to see him up close, the Brocken boy who’d run away and come back in the service of a foreign god. “Regarding what, brother?”

“Permission to accompany the next Hringen shift down the Saint’s Way.”

The porter vanished for a few minutes, and then came back to say that yes, he could come in and wait.

Inside, salt chandeliers lit the way from the high ceilings. There were no candles despite the slate-coloured morning: no need to cater to Outsiders here. The hallway floors were glowing with beautiful salt inlays. In an antechamber by a merry fire, an entire wall was mosaiced with an image of a castle. Outside it were two crowned statues: one, a king holding his hands open in the ancient gesture of welcome; the other, a queen with an arrow in her bow.

Caer Halen.

Light steps, and then a familiar voice. “Avelyn?”

He stood up quickly. “Ras.”

They had been at school together. Ras Teksa—now Ras Hringen—was slightly younger than him. Avelyn had last seen him when he was about fourteen, but he hadn’t changed much. He still had his rich fall of dark curls and his perfect teeth; now, though, he was much taller than Avelyn, and he had to stoop to hug him. As he did, the salt and silver beads in his hair chimed as they slipped over his shoulder, and the indigo fabric of his coat, lined with silver that flashed when he moved, shushed in heavy folds. Everything about him breathed wealth. He looked like they had all dreamed of looking when they were young, the elegant lord of a Witan lady, a married man’s silver choker glinting and ruby-studded around his throat.

They stood looking at each other for a few strange seconds. Avelyn could see him taking in the black with its strict collar and plain seams, the rosary on his belt.

“How is your nailed god?” Ras asked.

“Oh, you know, he’s getting along. And the King?”

Ras lifted his eyebrows in the way that universally meant, Don’t let’s even start. “I think you’re here about the King?”

“I am. I was hoping that your lady would let me come down the Saint’s Way on the next shift. It would be helpful to see what the salt light does when it’s even brighter than it is now at An El . . .”

Subtly, Ras had put his hands together and tilted his left about thirty degrees. It was how you reminded children where north was.

“Ugh, north at An El, you can tell I’ve been away. We’re seeing—well. Unexpected things. I need to send proof back to my . . .” There was no Hreod word for superior that implied a man. He gave up. “My grandmothers southeast in Rome.”

“I should think so,” Ras said. He was still studying Avelyn. “I can take you to Lady Hringen, of course. I think . . . she might be unwilling, though, to take down someone who is not a miner.”

“I know—that’s why I’m here. No one else will take me down, or even tell me anything. What’s going on?”

“I should leave that to my lady to tell you,” Ras said, with all the diplomacy of any Hreod lord worth his salt. Avelyn had found it enraging when he was young, the way his uncles and the gentlemen of the clans had spoken in these infuriating diagonal lines instead of just saying what things were, but he understood why. It was a test of your elegance.

“Do you think I could persuade her?”

“Well, that’s the game.” Ras was looking at the fire, thinking. “She’s talking to the Witan now about the Outsiders stranded here.”

“Today?” Avelyn said, confused. “But the fair?”

“Believe me, I’d rather be at the fair too, but none of this will wait.” He sounded as if he hadn’t slept. Avelyn had a flutter of unease. “I just wonder if a public petition might do you more good than a private one. She likes being seen to be generous.”

Avelyn stayed quiet to let Ras think. Petitions, private meetings, antechambers, and at the periphery, the lords of the clans with their heads together in corners in unofficial coalitions that the ladies wouldn’t acknowledge but would act upon: it was the air the Witan breathed. He hadn’t been old enough to understand it when he left. All he had known was that his uncles had spent a lot of time stressing the importance of diplomacy and clan honour, which generally meant not being caught drinking by the eel pools with that little bastard from the Harkta like some delinquent Outsider.

“Let’s do it now,” Ras decided.

“In front of the Witan?” Avelyn said, alarmed.

“Jesuits are missionaries, are they not?” Ras said. “You’re used to talking to people who disagree with you.” He was quiet for a double-edged moment. There was a terseness to his politeness. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but . . . Lady Hringen has not, I think, ever forgotten that it was supposed to be you, wearing this now.” He touched the silver choker around his own neck. “She has always wondered about you.”

Avelyn had the unpleasant realization that probably he needed to listen more closely when Jericho made doubtful sounds.

“Ras,” he said, “I didn’t mean to come here and claim any . . .”

Ras inclined his head, which somehow directed Avelyn’s words into the far corner, where a pair of hunting foxes were curled up by the fire, noses on each others’ backs. “I know. I only mean she will listen.”