The Hidden City

thought you might want to be able to listen to them, they always seem to gather just outside this window.’
    ‘You’re an absolute treasure, Alcan!’ Ehlana exclaimed, impulsively embracing the girl.
    ‘Be careful, my Lady.’ Alcan cried in alarm. ‘The hot iron!’
    Alcan was right. The window with the small defective pane was at the corner of the building, and Zalasta, Scarpa and the others were quartered in the attached structure. It appeared that whenever they wanted to discuss something out of the hearing of the soldiers, they habitually drifted to the walled-in cul-de-sac just outside the window. The small panes of cheap glass leaded late the window-frame were only semi-transparent at best, and so, with minimal caution, Alcan’s modification of the cracked pane permitted Ehlana to listen and even marginally observe without being seen.
    On the day following her conversation with Zalasta, she saw the white-robed Styric approaching with a look of bleakest melancholy on his face and with Scarpa and Krager close behind him.
    ‘You’ve got to snap out of this, Father,’ Scarpa said urgently. ‘The soldiers are beginning to notice.’
    ‘Let them,’ Zalasta replied shortly.
    ‘No, Father,’ Scarpa said in his rich, theatrical voice, ‘we can’t do that. These men are animals. They function below the level of thought. If you walk around through these streets with the air of a little boy whose dog just died, they’re going to think that something’s wrong and they’ll start deserting by the regiment. I’ve spent too much time and effort gathering this army to have you drive them away by feeling sorry for yourself.’
    ‘You’d never understand, Scarpa,’ Zalasta retorted. ‘You can’t even begin to comprehend the meaning of love. You don’t love anything.”
    ‘Oh, yes I do, Zalasta,’ Scarpa snapped. ‘I love me. That’s the only kind of love that makes any sense.’
    Ehlana just happened to be watching Krager. The drunkard’s eyes were narrowed, shrewd. He casually moved his ever-present tankard around behind him and poured most of the wine out. Then he raised the tankard and drank off the dregs. Then he belched. ‘Parn’me,’ he slurred, reaching out his hand to the wall to steady himself as he weaved back and forth on his feet.
    Scarpa gave him a quick, irritated glance, obviously dismissing him. Ehlana, however, rather quickly re-assessed Krager. He was not always nearly as drunk as he appeared to be.
    ‘It’s all been for nothing, Scarpa,’ Zalasta groaned. ‘I’ve allied myself with the diseased, the degenerate and the insane for nothing. I had thought that once Aphrael was gone, Sephrenia might turn to me. But she won’t. She’d die before she’ll have anything to do with me.’
    Scarpa’s eyes narrowed. ‘Let her die then,’ he said bluntly. ‘Can’t you get it through your head that one woman’s the same as any other? Women are a commodity—like bales of hay or barrels of wine. Look at Krager here. How much affection do you think he has for an empty wine barrel? It’s the new ones, the full ones, that he loves, right, Krager?’
    Krager smirked at him owlishly and then belched again.
    ‘Parn’me,’ he said.
    ‘I can’t really see any reason for this obsession of yours anyway,’ Scarpa continued to grind on his father’s most sensitive spot. ‘Sephrenia’s only damaged goods now. Vanion’s had her dozens of times. Are you so poor-spirited that you’d take the leavings of an Elene?’
    Zalasta suddenly smashed his fist against the stone wall with a snarl of frustration.
    ‘He’s probably so used to having her that he doesn’t even waste his time murmuring endearments to her any more,’ Scarpa went on. ‘He just takes what he wants from her, rolls over and starts to snore. You know how Elenes are when they’re in rut. And she’s probably no better. He’s made an Elene out of her, Father. She’s not a Styric any more. She’s become an Elene—or even worse, a mongrel. I’m really surprised to see you wasting all this pure emotion on a mongrel.’ He sneered. ‘She’s no better than my mother or my sisters, and you know what they were.’
    Zalasta’s face twisted, and he threw back his head and actually howled. ‘I’d rather see her dead!’
    Scarpa’s pale, bearded face grew sly. ‘Why don’t you kill her then, Father?’ he asked in an insinuating whisper. ‘Once a decent woman’s been bedded by an Elene, she can never be trusted