Somewhere in those first few steps he found a new knife. He left a trail of flattened and bleeding citizens, using his blade only three times when members of the Terrif pit team made more earnest efforts to stop him. Those he left gutted, one with his head nearly taken off. He was out into the street before half the crowd even knew what had happened.
I leaned over the rail. The hall was in chaos; everywhere men were finding their courage and starting to give chase now that their quarry was long gone. The bear had returned to sniffing the pit floor, licking blood from the flagstones, the red print of Snorri’s hand stark across the back of its head.
Maeres had vanished. He had a way for coming and going, that one. I shrugged. The Norseman was clearly too dangerous to keep. He would have been the death of me, one way or another. At least this way I’d put a three-hundred-crown dent in my debt to Maeres Allus. It would keep him off my back for a good three months, maybe six. And a lot can happen in six months. Six months is an eternity.
FIVE
O pera! There’s nothing like it. Except wild boars rutting.
The only good thing about Father’s interminable opera was the venue, a fine domed building in Vermillion’s eastern quarter where a preponderance of Florentine bankers and Milano merchants gave the city a very different flavour. For the first hour I gazed up at the nymphs cavorting nude across the dome, somehow painted so that the curved surface presented them without distortion. As much as I admired the artist’s eye for detail, I found the scene frequently interrupted by flashes of imagery from the Blood Holes. Snorri felling Norras with what must have been a fatal punch. Ootana falling forwards from the pit wall, the back of his head broken open. That leap. That spectacular, impossible, insane leap! On stage a soprano soared through an aria as I replayed the Norseman launching himself to freedom.
In the intermission I searched for familiar faces. I had come late to the showing and had shuffled my way noisily to a seat blocking everyone’s view. In the dim light and separated from my more punctual companions I had to settle for sitting amongst strangers. Now under the lanterns of the intermisso hall and plucking glasses of wine from every passing tray, I found that despite my brother Darin’s dire warnings the opening night was surprisingly poorly attended. It seemed that Father himself had failed to arrive. Taken to his bed, the gossip had it. He was never a music lover but the Vatican’s coffers had financed this tripe of angels and devils wailing one against the other, fat men sweltering under wings of wax and feathers whilst belting out the chorus. The least their most senior local representative could do was attend and suffer with the rest of us. Damn it all, I couldn’t even spot Martus, or fucking Darin.
I jostled past a man in a white enamel mask, as though he were attending a masquerade rather than an opera. Or at least I attempted to jostle past, failed, and bounced off him as if he were cast from iron. I turned, rubbing my shoulder. Something in the eyes watching from those slits swept away in a cold wash of fear any inclination I had to complain. I let the press of people separate us. Had it even been a man? The eyes haunted me. The irises white, the whites grey. My shoulder ached as though infection ate at the bone . . . Unborn. Darin had said something about an unborn in the city . . .
“Prince Jalan!” Ameral Contaph hailed me with irritating familiarity, puffed up in ridiculous finery no doubt purchased for just this occasion. They must have been desperate to fill the seats if toadies of Contaph’s water were invited to the premiere. “Prince Jalan!” The flow of the crowd somehow pulled us farther apart and I affected not to see him. The fellow was probably just pursuing me for the fictional paperwork regarding Snorri. Worse still, he might have already heard the Norseman was running
I leaned over the rail. The hall was in chaos; everywhere men were finding their courage and starting to give chase now that their quarry was long gone. The bear had returned to sniffing the pit floor, licking blood from the flagstones, the red print of Snorri’s hand stark across the back of its head.
Maeres had vanished. He had a way for coming and going, that one. I shrugged. The Norseman was clearly too dangerous to keep. He would have been the death of me, one way or another. At least this way I’d put a three-hundred-crown dent in my debt to Maeres Allus. It would keep him off my back for a good three months, maybe six. And a lot can happen in six months. Six months is an eternity.
FIVE
O pera! There’s nothing like it. Except wild boars rutting.
The only good thing about Father’s interminable opera was the venue, a fine domed building in Vermillion’s eastern quarter where a preponderance of Florentine bankers and Milano merchants gave the city a very different flavour. For the first hour I gazed up at the nymphs cavorting nude across the dome, somehow painted so that the curved surface presented them without distortion. As much as I admired the artist’s eye for detail, I found the scene frequently interrupted by flashes of imagery from the Blood Holes. Snorri felling Norras with what must have been a fatal punch. Ootana falling forwards from the pit wall, the back of his head broken open. That leap. That spectacular, impossible, insane leap! On stage a soprano soared through an aria as I replayed the Norseman launching himself to freedom.
In the intermission I searched for familiar faces. I had come late to the showing and had shuffled my way noisily to a seat blocking everyone’s view. In the dim light and separated from my more punctual companions I had to settle for sitting amongst strangers. Now under the lanterns of the intermisso hall and plucking glasses of wine from every passing tray, I found that despite my brother Darin’s dire warnings the opening night was surprisingly poorly attended. It seemed that Father himself had failed to arrive. Taken to his bed, the gossip had it. He was never a music lover but the Vatican’s coffers had financed this tripe of angels and devils wailing one against the other, fat men sweltering under wings of wax and feathers whilst belting out the chorus. The least their most senior local representative could do was attend and suffer with the rest of us. Damn it all, I couldn’t even spot Martus, or fucking Darin.
I jostled past a man in a white enamel mask, as though he were attending a masquerade rather than an opera. Or at least I attempted to jostle past, failed, and bounced off him as if he were cast from iron. I turned, rubbing my shoulder. Something in the eyes watching from those slits swept away in a cold wash of fear any inclination I had to complain. I let the press of people separate us. Had it even been a man? The eyes haunted me. The irises white, the whites grey. My shoulder ached as though infection ate at the bone . . . Unborn. Darin had said something about an unborn in the city . . .
“Prince Jalan!” Ameral Contaph hailed me with irritating familiarity, puffed up in ridiculous finery no doubt purchased for just this occasion. They must have been desperate to fill the seats if toadies of Contaph’s water were invited to the premiere. “Prince Jalan!” The flow of the crowd somehow pulled us farther apart and I affected not to see him. The fellow was probably just pursuing me for the fictional paperwork regarding Snorri. Worse still, he might have already heard the Norseman was running
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