Saga of Menyoral: The Service by M.A. Ray

time he walked away, he’d collected a couple of interesting bits of information: there’d been a riot in the slums outside Dreamport, and somebody had taken a jab at killing Akeere’s High Priestess. He laughed to himself, thinking of the likely fate of whatever dumb bastard tried for Disa, as he walked over to Alexei the Scrivener’s booth. Alexei was a Muscodite expatriate. Mostly he did up souvenir scrolls or letters for Squires who couldn’t write, but at least once a year he had something special for Vandis: a book. It was usually another copy of Naheel’s scriptures, but sometimes it was The Life and Rule of St. Aurelius .
    Where Alexei had gotten his contact, Vandis didn’t want to know. He suspected the younger man was an apostate Aurelian, but that might have been because he was losing his hair and it looked something like a tonsure. In any case, Vandis had his money ready when he came to the booth. “Morning,” he said.
    Alexei looked up from his work and greeted him. “Happy Longday, Vandis. Here for your order?”
    Vandis jingled his purse. “ Same as always. What do you have for me?”
    “It’s Sun and Steel this time. Work of the highest quality, visually interesting,” Alexei said, rising from his canvas folding chair. “Let me fetch it for you.” He disappeared under his small table and rummaged in a saddlebag, bringing out a cloth-wrapped book.
    “Thanks,” Vandis said, and handed over his money.
    “If I were you,” Alexei said conversationally as he counted change, “I’d have a look at that straightaway. As I said, the work is of the highest quality…” He leaned close and gave Vandis a few silver royals back. “…but very disturbing in places.”
    “Al l right. See you around.” He tucked the wrapped book under his arm, planning to glance over it at dinnertime when he could sit down. He certainly wouldn’t be eating; Vandis walked around the fair, buying food from this vendor and that one and eating it slowly in view of the booth, chatting with cooks, counter girls, and other Knights who came to buy. By dinnertime, he had a stomach fit to burst and a fairly clear picture of what was going on around Rothganar. He heard, of course, a lot about Muscoda, and sadly added a few names to his mental list of the people they’d lost; about a new Matriarch on the Council of Windish; Snorri Jarl of Jarls lying on his deathbed up in Rodansk and his son impaled by a narwhal; the desperate need for more funds and supplies in the refugee camps the Knights ran outside Brightwater. He heard snatches of personal gossip: weddings, babies, who was fucking whom, deaths, and whose daughter was just so smart she ought to be a Squire at seven years old, no fooling.
    He made a stop at a smith’s portable forge to order a set of knives; he planned to give t hem to Dingus after the Oath of Service. That done, he headed back to his campsite on foot, feeling too full to fly. Near the edge of the campground, he heard someone call his name. “Vandis! Hey, Vandis!”
    When he looked around, he saw Hui running toward him. “Hui. Have you seen Pearl yet? She’s been worrying over you.”
    “Not yet. I have to tell you something. I got hung up with the City Watch in Dreamport. Did you hear about Disa?”
    Vandis grinned. “ I did. I feel sorry for whomever it was that took a crack at her.”
    “It was Aurelians,” Hui said, and the grin slid off Vandis’s face. “They came to Headquarters. They came for you.”
    “Anyone else hurt?”
    The young Senior shook his head. “W e handled it. Someone died at the Cathedral. Disa got a whack on the head, but listen, there’s more. They went to the House of the Sun, too. They killed Solveig and five or six of the priests. They burned everything inside.”
    Vandis wished he hadn’t eaten so much; suddenly it seemed as if everything congealed into an icy ball, stretching his stomach.
    “I don’t understand it,” Hui went on. “Why’d they try after their