The woman beside Imid said, “King Macrotus, the Overwhelmingly Considerate, and there’s no love in that title.”
“And your name is?”
“Saint Elas Sil, sir. I had a fellow worker trip into me with a knitting needle. Stabbed me in the neck, the idiot. I bled all over the wool, and it turns out that’s a debt even being a saint doesn’t forgive. Only, how can I make restitution? I’m not permitted to work!”
“A newly invoked law by your new king, then.”
Emancipor stirred the mulling wine. The smell was making him lightheaded in a pleasant, dreamy manner. He leaned back on his haunches and began stoking his clay pipe with rustleaf and durhang. His actions had snared the attentions of the two saints, and Emancipor saw Elas lick her lips.
“It is the Will of Wellness,” Imid Factallo said, nodding up at Bauchelain. “Macrotus has elevated the cult of the Lady of Beneficence. It now stands as the city’s official-and only legal-religion.”
Emancipor narrowed his gaze as he met the woman’s eyes. She would have been attractive, he mused, had she been born someone else. As it was, Elas Sil, the saint with the puckered neck, might or might not have been the victim of an accident. The servant set burning ember to his pipe. He recalled, vaguely, that some old hag in his home city of Lamentable Moll had lived by similar notions of wellness. Perhaps the trend was spreading, like some kind of horrific plague.
Imid Factallo continued, “The new Prohibitions are filling volumes. The list of That Which Kills grows daily and the healers are frantically searching for yet more.”
“And all that kills,” Elas Sil said, “is forbidden. The king wants his people to be healthy, and since most people won’t do what’s necessary for themselves, Macrotus will do it on their behalf.”
“If you want the Lady’s Blessings in the afterlife,” Imid said, “then die healthily.”
“Die un healthily,” Elas said, “and there’s no burial. Your corpse is hung upside-down on the outer wall.”
“Well,” Bauchelain said, “how is it that we may help you? Clearly, you cannot be unmade saints. Nor, as you see, are we simple travelers in possession of an army.”
Though there’s one chasing us. But Emancipor kept that addendum to himself.
Imid Factallo and Elas Sil exchanged looks, then the former ducked his head and leaned slightly forward. “It’s not the traders’ season, but word travels anyway. Fishing boats and such.” He tapped his misshapen nose. “I got a friend with a good sight on this road, starting at the top of Hurba’s Hill, so word came in plenty of time.”
“You’re the ones,” Elas Sil said in a low voice, her eyes still fixed on Emancipor as he stirred the wine. A flicker towards Bauchelain. “Two, but three in all. Half of the last city you visited is nothing but ashes-”
“A misunderstanding, I assure you,” Bauchelain murmured.
Imid Factallo snorted. “That ain’t what we heard-”
Bauchelain cleared his throat, his warning frown silencing the saint. “One must presume, therefore, that even as you anticipated our salubrious arrival, so too has your king. Accordingly, it is unlikely he would welcome our presence.”
“Macrotus cares little for tales from neighbouring cities-they’re all cesspits of depravity, after all.”
“And his advisors and military commanders are equally ignorant? What of his court mages?”
“They’re all gone, the mages. Banished. As for the rest,” Imid shrugged, “such interest would be direly viewed by Macrotus, hinting as it would of unpleasant appetites, or at least dangerous curiosity.”
“The wine is ready,” Emancipor announced.
The heads of the two saints snapped round with avid, hungry stares.
Elas Sil whispered, “We are forbidden all such… vices.”
The manservant’s brows rose. “Absolute abstinence?”
“Weren’t you listening?” Imid growled. “All illegal in Quaint. No alcohol, no rustleaf, no durhang, no dream-powders. Not for saints, not for anyone.”
Elas Sil added, “No meat, only vegetables and fruit and three-finned fish. Butchery is cruel and red meat is unhealthy besides.”
“No whoring, no gambling,” Imid said. “All such pleasures are suspect.”
Emancipor grunted in reply to all of that. He tapped his pipe against his heel and spat a throatful of phlegm onto the fire.
“Curious,” Bauchelain said. “What is it you wish us to do for you?”
“Usurp the king,” Imid Factallo said.
“Usurp, as in depose.”
“Right.”
“Depose, as in remove.”
“Yes.”
“Remove, as in kill.”
The saints looked at one another again. But neither replied.
Bauchelain turned to study the distant city. “I am inclined,” he said, “to preface my acceptance of your offer with a warning-a last opportunity, if you will, to say not another word, to simply collect your coins and return home-and I and my entourage will blithely move on to some other city. This warning, then. In this world, there are worse things than a considerate king.”
“That’s what you think,” said Elas Sil.
Bauchelain offered her a benign smile.
“That’s it?” Imid Factallo demanded. “No more questions?”
“Oh, many more questions, my good sir,” Bauchelain replied. “Alas, you are not the ones to whom I would ask them. You may go.”
Well Knight Invett Loath stood above the basket with the wailing baby and glared at the half-dozen women talking near the well. “Whose child is this?”
One woman separated herself from the group and hurried over. “It’s colic, Oh Gloriously Pure One. Nothing to be done for it, alas.”
The Well Knight’s face reddened. “Absurd,” he snapped. “There must be some sort of treatment to silence this whelp. Have you not heard the most recent Prohibition? Loud babies are to be confiscated for disturbing the well-being of citizens. They are to be delivered to the Temple of the Lady, where they will be taught the Ways of Beneficence, said ways including vows of silence.”
The hapless mother had gone pale at Invett’s words. The other women at the well were quickly collecting their children and hastening away. “But,” she stammered, “the medicines we used to use are now illegal-”
“Medicines made illegal? Are you mad?”
“They contained forbidden substances. Alcohol. Durhang-”
“You mothers were in the habit of befouling the blood and spirit of your children?” The notion made Invett apoplectic. “Is it any wonder such gross abuse was forbidden? And you dare call yourself a loving mother?”