"What toll do you propose to pay?" A solidly built mercenary stepped forward to talk to the coachman.

Karn didn't hear the man's reply. The mercenary frowned, snapping his fingers to summon someone else from inside the half-open gate. Along with everyone else, Karn watched with interest. Two yellow-headed men of less than common height emerged and he gasped with the rest. Such blond hair meant they were Mountain-born.

Uncommon, though not unheard of among mercenaries, he thought privately. Mountain Men were generally notable fighters and these two in particular carried themselves like practiced swordsmen. Anyone hoping to join this warband and choosing to prove their mettle against the shortest members would soon rue their mistake.

The two blond men approached the door of the coach. A neatly dressed maid opened it and the heavy-set mercenary gallantly offered his arm. She accepted it calmly and stepped down. There was someone else in the coach. The maid turned to say something and one of the Mountain Men laughed. Frustrated, Karn couldn't get close enough to hear.

The maidservant folded her hands demurely and placed a chaste kiss on the tallest Mountain Man's cheek. She almost had to stoop; he was barely her height.

The second Mountain Man stepped up smartly. Before the woman could object, he swept her into a close embrace, kissing her full on the lips.

"Trimon's teeth!" Outraged, the coachman rose to his feet and the carriage swayed alarmingly.

"Don't be a fool." The heavy-set mercenary half-drew his sword as a warning.

"Toll's paid." The first Mountain Man cuffed the second around the back of the head. "Drive on, with our compliments."

The second blond man released the girl, grinning widely. As soon as her hands were free, she slapped him as hard as she could. He just carried on smiling, despite the mark of her hand on his fair skin burning as red as her outraged blushes. Shaking his head, the heavy-set mercenary helped the girl back into the carriage. As soon as the gates to the bridge opened, the coachman whipped up the horses and drove on. Karn noted how perilously close the lash came to the shorter Mountain Man's head.

"They'd better not want kisses from me," a labourer beside him growled.

"Don't think you've got the looks for it," Karn commented.

These men might take a few liberties with pretty girls but everyone else would be paying with solid coin. If all they had was lead-weighted Lescari marks, they'd pay with whatever else they were carrying.

He had enough Tormalin silver in his everyday purse to satisfy them so that they wouldn't go looking for the gold hidden inside his shirt. As soon as he was safely in Parnilesse, he'd steal a swift horse and ride for home. Master Hamare would want to know all about this day's happenings.

Chapter Four.

Tathrin Master Wyess's Counting-House, in the City of Vanam, Spring Equinox Festival, Fourth Day, Morning

"Master Wyess punched Master Kierst?"

"In the Furriers' Hall last night?"

All the younger clerks in the airy ledger room abandoned their sloping desks to crowd around Tathrin.

"Yes, he hit him," Tathrin said shortly.

"Saedrin's stones!"

Tathrin clipped the excited boy round the ear. "Dishonour his name like that again and I'll wash your mouth out with vinegar."

"What happened after that?"

"Master Kierst went home and so did Master Gruit and everyone else ate their dinner."

Kierst had said nothing further, possibly because he feared his loosened teeth would fall out if he opened his mouth.

Tathrin looked sternly at the boys until they abandoned hope of learning more and returned to their desks.

"Conversation over the nuts and brandy must have been awkward." One of the older clerks leaned against the doorpost.

Tathrin took a moment to place him. Eclan, who'd warned him that Master Wyess would question him when he least expected it. "It was mostly speculation over which troupes of players have the prettiest dancing girls this festival." He couldn't help grinning at the recollection.

"Nothing of consequence, then." Eclan clapped his hands briskly. "If you lads want to stuff yourselves sick with cakes this afternoon, you had better see to your morning duties. If there's a set of sack-weights or corn-measures in this counting-house left uncertified by noon, I'll flog the lot of you!"

A few voices rose in protest, but the younger boys hurried towards the stairs regardless.

Tathrin thought Eclan was joking. Although he had seen the clerk wield the birch that hung by the door when one lad had stumbled into work stale-drunk on the first morning of the festival.

"Master Wyess said you're wanting to get your father's coin-weights certified?" Eclan crossed the room to unlock one of the cabinets. "I'm to take the counting-house sets. Give me a hand and the magistrate can assess yours at the same time."

"Thanks." Tathrin was relieved. He hadn't been sure of the correct procedure.

"No need to thank me." Eclan hauled out a heavy casket. "Let's just get there before the queue stretches all around the Excise Hall."

"Right."

Tathrin fetched the polished cherrywood case that he'd locked in his own desk over in a favoured spot lit by both the tall windows and the room's broad skylights. Tucking his father's weights securely under one arm, he took one of the chest's handles.

Eclan took the other. "So what were people really saying after Wyess flattened Kierst?"

"The next bells came and went before anyone did more than ask for the pickles." Tathrin grimaced as the weight of his burden pulled at his shoulders. "As soon as the libations to Raeponin were done, people started leaving."

"I wonder how he's feeling this morning." Eclan shifted his grip. Carrying the chest between them was awkward given that he was a head shorter than Tathrin. "Did you have to carry him home?"

"No," Tathrin said shortly.

Though Wyess had drunk a prodigious quantity of wine, silently seething, ignoring the sumptuous banquet, he had leaned heavily on Tathrin's arm all the way back to his own doorstep. At first Tathrin had worried that some footpad might mark them down as a pair of drunks ripe for rolling. Then he'd been more concerned that Master Wyess might welcome such a fight.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and went out into the counting-house yard. Tathrin helped Eclan lift the chest into a pony cart that a groom held ready.

"They must have discussed what Master Gruit had said." Eclan settled 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 pony's head to take a left-hand fork and a right-hand turn after that. They reached a crossroads where a brewer's dray was unloading barrels into an inn's cellars. Wagons and carriages waited to pass by on the other side of the road. The pony snorted with a jingle of its brass harness ornaments.

Tathrin wasn't sure if anger or embarrassment coloured Eclan's angular cheekbones. "What's your father's trade?" he asked tentatively.

"Leather." Eclan flicked the cart whip idly at a wisp of straw blowing past. "He owns one of the biggest tanneries down by the lake. He shares business interests with harness-makers and shoemakers, glovers and such. The only time he ever left Vanam was to cross the lake to Wrede when my grandsire proposed a match with one of his trading partners' families. He had the pick of all their daughters and my mother suited him best. Happily they proved well matched." Eclan smiled with genuine affection for his parents.

"My older brothers will take over his interests here, so I've been set to learn all I can from Master Wyess about trading more widely." He snapped the braided lash over the pony's ears as a gap opened up ahead. "What does your father do, that he can spare the coin for you to study mathematics?"

"He's an innkeeper in Carluse," replied Tathrin.

Eclan jerked at the reins, surprised. "A tapster?"

"He owns a coaching inn on the Great West Road, just before Losand," Tathrin corrected him. "Merchants warehouse goods with us sometimes, for purchasers to collect. We help if they need to hire guards or trade horses. One of my sisters married a blacksmith who set up his forge there." And of course, there was the money-changing his father did in defiance of Duke Garnot's edict.

Eclan encouraged the pony into a brisker walk. "So there's plenty of coin to be made."

Tathrin shook his head. "I earned my board and lodging in the upper town as a servant for richer students."

That did surprise Eclan. "It was worth it? For a ring to seal your documents with the proof that you're a scholar?"

"It was," Tathrin said firmly.

His father would have paid ten times as much to see him safely away, after those dreadful days when Duke Moncan of Sharlac had sent his mercenaries into Carluse, carrying slaughter to the very walls of Losand. The carts had been loaded with all they could bear and Tathrin's family had made ready to flee, waiting for word of the battle's outcome. His father had paced the hall, spade in hand, ready to dig up the gold he had buried in the cellar.

Unable to stand not knowing, against all his father's wishes, Tathrin had saddled a horse and set out for Losand. Riding only as far as the nearest market town, he'd nearly blundered into a detachment of mercenaries who'd abandoned the main battle in search of easier prey. Seeing the slaughtered bodies of men and boys whom he'd known all his life, he'd realised how close he'd come to death through his own arrogant folly.

Not knowing might have been better than never forgetting. Tathrin looked down to see he was gripping his father's box of weights so tightly that his knuckles showed white beneath his skin.

"So why isn't Lescar as dull as Caladhria?" Eclan prompted as they turned uphill away from the lake.

Tathrin forced his thoughts back to ancient history. It might stop him recalling recent horrors. "You know the princes of Tormalin choose their Emperor from amongst their own number?"

"I've never understood that," Eclan said frankly.

"Tormalin's princes all rule vast holdings. Tens of thousands of men and women are sworn to each noble family. The yearly trade that any noble house controls could equal that of Vanam." Tathrin united the hills and buildings ahead with a sweep of his hand. "So any quarrel between two noble houses could soon turn into all-out warfare. They have the men and the coin to raise armies as quick as they like." He snapped his fingers.

"That's why the Princes' Convocation chooses an Emperor to preside over the law courts and the lawmakers. Everyone is charged with protecting the greater good from individual ambition, and bound with sacred oaths. As long as whichever family holds the Imperial throne proposes talented successors, the other princes confirm them. If an Emperor stumbles too often, some other noble family will present their own candidate. Every so often the princes decide it's time for a change of dynasty."

"And all this ensures peace and harmony?" scoffed Eclan.

Tathrin grinned. "There are untimely deaths and convenient accidents and no end of negotiations over land and marriage settlements, but the princes know that cooperation serves their own best interests." His smile faded. "They still remember how their ancestors were fool enough to allow Nemith the Last to claim the throne because every wiser man was busy quarrelling with his rivals. Until Nemith brought the Old Empire crashing down into the Age of Chaos."

"And the Lescari liked chaos so much they've cherished it ever since?" Eclan teased.

"Ancient Tormalin rule over Lescar was different." Tathrin tried to stifle his irritation, but it still coloured his tone.

"I didn't mean to speak out of turn," Eclan said slowly. "I'm just curious."

They drew to a halt outside the imposing severity of the Excise Hall.

"Are you two going to sit chewing your cheeks all day?" A man in Excise Hall livery glared at them.

"We're here to get our weights certified." Jumping down from his seat, Eclan used his fingers to blow a piercing whistle. Three urchins idly picking through litter beside a public fountain came racing up the street.

Eclan held up a silver quarter-mark and each boy's eyes fixed on it. "Water the pony and keep your pals off the cart and there's one of these for each of you when we come back."

"Aye." The tallest of the three spat into a grimy palm and held out his hand.

Eclan spat and shook on it without flinching. Tathrin didn't think he could have done the same.

"Right, let's get these weights certified."

They carried the heavy chest through the arch into the Excise Hall's forecourt. There was already a long line of people waiting to be summoned before the assessors.

Tathrin saw a close knot of short, stocky men with flaxen hair and guarded expressions wearing high-collared tunics. "Mountain Men?" he queried.

"It's not just Lescari tapsters who value a properly certified set of weights." Eclan lowered his end of the chest. As Tathrin did the same, Eclan sat on it and looked up expectantly. "So what happened when the Tormalin legions of the Old Empire first invaded Lescar?"

"Move up." Eclan shifted and Tathrin sat beside him. "They conquered the local lords and divided Lescar into six provinces. Each province had a governor who answered to the Emperor. All revenues were sequestered for the use of the armies and the administration of justice wherever Imperial writ ran. So Lescari coin financed the conquest of Caladhria and Tormalin ventures into Dalasor and Gidesta. The governors all competed to earn Imperial favour by increasing revenues, and some say that's how the rivalries first started." He tried to keep his tone level.