Saberhagen, Fred 03 – Stonecutter’s Story

Kasimir frowned thoughtfully. “It is not obvious to me just what sort of evidence that would be, unless I should be able to catch sight of the Sword itself.”

“That would be desirable, but I fear very unlikely. There are several other possibilities. Perhaps some workers in stone, no longer needed now that their work can be done faster without them, have just been told that their services no longer are required. Strike up an acquaintance with any employee you can, especially one who appears dissatisfied. Or perhaps you will be able to discover discarded scraps of stone bearing marks similar to those we observed at the quarry and the road-construction site. It is really hard to think of every possibility in advance. At a minimum, you must learn who is in charge of doing the stonework for the temple; I feel sure it must be an artist of some stature.”

Kasimir was still pondering the best way to go about this projected investigation of an unknown artist when Lieutenant Komi came up the stairs and looked in at the open door to ask about his orders for the day. Kasimir, while passing through the second-floor room last night before retiring, had observed that the officer had arranged a semiprivate sleeping chamber for himself by enclosing one end of the room with a couple of hanging blankets, while his men sprawled everywhere else upon the floor and furniture. Now Kasimir thought that the lieutenant, definitely an outdoor type, looked ill-at-ease here inside four walls, even such rough walls as these of the inn.

After routine morning greetings had been exchanged, Wen Chang first instructed the officer to follow Kasimir’s orders at any time when he, Wen Chang, was absent. Next he urged him to keep his eleven men under sufficiently tight discipline, and to enforce moderation upon them in their patronage of the local taverns and brothels.

“You must also see to it that they speak and act always as if they were in fact mercenaries, in the service of a merchant who is in the market for fine weapons. Whether that tactic will bring us into contact with the current possessor of the Sword, I do not know. But we must try. That is all I require of you today. Stay-I suppose you will soon be making a report to your prince?”

Komi turned back from the stairs. “Yes sir, though I was hoping for something more to report beyond the fact that we have found lodgings. I have taken the cages with the flying messengers up to the roof of the inn, and one of my men is looking after them.”

“Very good.”

The officer, upon being dismissed, saluted and went downstairs, where Wen Chang and Kasimir could hear him speaking firmly to his men upon the subject of their behavior in the city.

Now it was time for Kasimir to make the few preparations he thought necessary for his own assigned mission. He would leave off his desert traveler’s robe, and wear instead the street clothes of a professional man. He would carry with him only the small medical kit worn on his belt, not the large one that had occupied his saddlebags. And he would use his own name, as it seemed impossible that anyone in this city would yet have any reason to associate Kasimir, the obscure physician, with the famed investigator Wen Chang.

On stepping through the gate of the inn’s courtyard into the street, the young physician began to walk with a certain sense of pleasure through the morning crowds. Around him thronged peddlers, shopkeepers, servants of the Hetman, beggars-no doubt there were thieves and pickpockets- busy people of every description. It had been a long time since he had traveled freely along the thoroughfares of a great city. And there could be few cities in the world greater or more exciting than this one.

Kasimir spent the better part of an hour making his way gradually closer to the Red Temple. Frequently he lost sight of his goal in the maze of narrow streets that intervened, but he persevered, relying on a good sense of direction. At last he emerged from the maze on the western side of a great tree-lined square, whose eastern edge fronted directly on the temple he sought. Seen at this closer range the structure looked even larger than it had at a distance.

The Red Temple in Eylau was perhaps six stories high, somewhat broader than its height, and proportionately deep. The facade of the building, following the usual Red Temple style of architecture, was marked by columns, most of them frankly phallic in design, and some as much as two stories tall, going up the front of the building in tier above tier. Between the columns the statues Kasimir had seen last night as distant white specks, and had heard described by the innkeeper, were now visible in detail. They were finely and realistically carved, and larger than life. Distributed in archways and niches at all levels of the facade, they were almost exclusively of human bodies, generally nude. Most of the bodies portrayed were beautiful, with a few of calculated ugliness to provide comic variety.

The activities depicted among the statues were for the most part sexual, but involved as well the prodigious consumption of food and drink, and the amassing of wealth in games of chance. The ingestion of drugs also engaged the attention of certain of the figures, particularly in one frieze whose carven marble people appeared to float on marble clouds. Whoever had done that carving, thought Kasimir, was indeed an artist of more than ordinary talent.

Behind its new facade, the building must have been recently enlarged. New timber showed in several places, and the color of structural stonework on the upper floors was slightly different from that on the lower. Again the job was not yet finished. Kasimir reflected again that this was indeed a very logical place to begin a search for the stone-working Sword.

CHAPTER 5

KASIMIR had just started across the square-a hectare and more of tessellated pavement studded here and there with fountains and obscure monuments-in the direction of the temple, when his attention was drawn by a noisy disturbance to his right, at the border of the paved expanse.

Some kind of official procession was making its way along that edge of the square. A modest crowd, quickly formed from the people in the busy square, lined the procession’s route. Now mounted guards in the Herman’s colors of blue and gray were using cudgels and other blunt weapons to beat back a minority of the crowd who were trying to stage a chanting, arm-waving protest. The protesters, who were fewer in number than the troops and certainly not organized for resistance, promptly gave way. They had dispersed among the rest of the people on the plaza before Kasimir could get any idea of who they were or what they wanted.

His curiosity aroused, Kasimir moved toward the place where the demonstration had flared up. The procession itself, he saw as he drew near, was quite small. It consisted of an armed and mounted escort, twenty or so troopers, surrounding a single tall, lumbering vehicle. Load beasts pulled an open tumbrel, carrying a single figure bound upright-a man, presumably some object of the Hetman’s wrath, who was thus placed on display for all the city to behold.

The progress of the cart was deliberately slow, and Kasimir had time to walk closer without hurrying. When the cart finally passed him, he was quite near enough to get a good look at the prisoner. The bound figure was dressed in baggy peasant blouse and trousers, both garments dirty and torn. He had an arresting face-people who didn’t know a man might elect him their leader on the strength of a face like that-and he was paying no more attention to the modest crowds around him than he was to those orgiastic statues looming across the square. His eyes instead appeared to be fixed upon some unattainable object in the distance.

A placard had been fastened to the front of the cart, but one corner of the paper had been torn loose; it was sagging in a deep curl, and Kasimir could not read it. Turning to a respectable-looking man who stood nearby, he asked what was going on.

The sturdy citizen shook his head. The corners of his mouth were turned down in disapproval. He said: “I have heard something of the case. The man is called Benjamin of the Steppe, and they bring him out of his cell every few days for a little parade like this. I believe he was engaged in some treasonable activities in the far west, at the very edge of the Hetman’s territory. Something to do with organizing the small farmers there over water rights and taxes.”

“Organizing them?”

“To form local legislative councils. To vote, and govern themselves.” The citizen made a gesture expressing irritation. He obviously didn’t know, couldn’t remember, exactly how those farmers had intended to organize themselves, but it was an activity which he opposed in general. “They’re going to hang him on the first day of the Festival; it’s traditional in Eylau, you know, to execute one prisoner then, and set another free. It’s hanging, drawing, and quartering, of course.” The prospect of that extremely gory spectacle didn’t please the townsman either.

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