Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Roka and the others spent the rest of the day before the choral ball exploring the city and seeing what daytime festival events were ongoing. Elise King did not join them. She explained that other obligations prevented her from enjoying the celebration and departed from their presence as soon as they left school grounds.

With her departure, the oppressive mood created by her argument with Yusubru immediately lightened. Very few Ensigns occupied the ward surrounding the school. Yusubru seemed much more at home walking along streets filled with people that looked like him, and Talit was quick to feed off his positive atmosphere. Roka questioned what that meant for the two of them and the likelihood they could get along with Ensigns like Elise King in the future, but the city distracted her from taking that line of reasoning beyond a brief concern over her master’s intolerance.

For now, they all dove back into the city to experience its festive pleasures. The Breaking Fast celebrations flourished at night, but that did not mean the people of the city spent the day resting.

She and the others immediately ran into a festival tradition Roka knew very well. Four men maneuvered chaotically into the middle of the street, beating each other with thin branches of nearly green wood. No one tried to stop them. A group of women clustered around to watch, each cheering for their man. The street slowly filled with onlookers who clapped when one of the men landed a clean hit or jeered when they shrank back from a series of light blows. A pair of patrolling komhak came onto the scene and joined the crowd, remaining just diligent enough to occasionally check if anyone used the giant distraction as a chance to pick a pocket or commit some other petty crime.

As the four men fought, they shouted at each other about grievances they had been dealt by each other over the previous year. None of them appeared serious in their complaints, and the wet green wood meant their attacks lacked any sting.

Such friendly public disputes were common in Roka’s home village, with all of the local men sometimes joining in the fray, whacking away at each other to playfully resolve their issues in relative peaceful. Most grievances would already have been settled by the time of the bout, but any lingering resentment vanished as the men played and vented their final frustrations. Some truly malignant grievances occasionally survived the bout to resurface later, but the group beating generally meant most feuds died before they could form.

On the other hand, the giant straw cabin in the middle of one of the larger city squares was something Roka had not seen before. Several of the city’s citizens were being directed by officials in building the cabin taller with more straw. Anything else that might have taken up the square—merchant stalls and two puppet stages—had been pushed to the edge, creating a circle of empty space around the cabin the width of three city streets.

Talit explained that the cabin would be set alight as soon as the sun sufficiently dropped below the horizon. Around the time of the citadel choral ball, the fire would burn down to a collection of thick logs and kindling at the core of the cabin and the citizens would dance and feast around a giant bonfire.

Roka thought the entire affair was a little dangerous to be held in the center of a bustling city, but Yusubru assured her that it was a tradition before he had even been born, and no one had ever been severely hurt in the blaze. After learning this, Roka noticed dozens of large barrels of water waiting around the square with members of the local firewatch ready to spring into action and douse any spreading flames. Clearly, the city officials did not take the danger lightly.

“I could use a snack,” Talit said after they had passed around the cabin. “Does anyone want to share a bag of roasted bambra nuts with me? I don’t think I could eat the whole thing.”

“Bambra?” Roka asked.

“A recent import from the west. They’re quite tasty. Want some?”

Roka nodded. Talit’s need for a snack coincided with her own craving for something salty. Talit gave his guard a few coins and the big man came back a minute later with a package of steaming nuts.

Talit took the bag and handed it to Roka. She gingerly picked one nut out and popped it into her mouth. It briefly burned her tongue, but she crunched down quickly and her mouth filled with a salty, vaguely sweet taste.

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“Mmm,” she said, and reached back into the package to grab a small handful. She juggled the hot nuts back and forth between her hands, occasionally transferring a few of them into her mouth.

Talit defied the heat and shoveled entire handfuls into his mouth, chewing with abandon.

“Good idea, right?” he mumbled through a mouthful.

“Mmm,” Roka assented.

They walked and munched and, when there wasn’t some aspect of the city to be explained to Roka, occasionally discussed books they had read. They had quite a few in common. Talit had read more than Roka—no wonder when he had access to such a magnificent library—but there were a few obscure texts she had found in remote villages that he had never heard of. Yusubru did not read as prolifically as either of them, so he mostly stayed silent, occasionally stealing a nut from the bag.

“If you want myth,” Roka said after she and Talit finished a lengthy discussion on a collection of fables they had in common, “I recommend Featherweight Adventure by Zalka Ninitakam. It’s relatively new, but I found a copy in Nokowanga and it instantly became one of my favorites.”

“I haven’t heard of this one,” Talit said. “The author doesn’t sound Ninzamian.”

“Someone told me she’s Misrusish, but the book is written in Ninzamian and doesn’t seem to have been translated, so she must be quite familiar with the empire.” Which wasn’t odd in the slightest. Ninzamian was the default language for many nations that weren’t part of the empire anymore, though Misrus wasn’t one of them.

“What’s the book about?”

“It’s a short story about a young girl cast out from her royal family and left in the forest to die on her own. She is found and raised by a pantheress, and when the pantheress cannot care for her anymore, she passes the child on to a giant python who takes on the role of the girl’s father.”

“I’ll have to see if we have it in the library somewhere. It sounds like fun.”

“There’s a certain amount of tragedy, but yes, it’s mostly fun.”

“Wait,” Yusubru said, stealing another nut, “I read that one with you. We were in Nokowanga long enough I actually had time some time for it. I didn’t think that one was fun at all.”

“I wouldn’t say it was very fun for the girl,” Roka said, “but there’s some childish whimsy to the story.”

“Orphaned whimsy,” Yusubru shot back. “And for such a short book, too many people die.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing that kind of complaint from a seasoned Sentinel, someone who fought in the invasion, no less.”

“If I’m going to read something, I’d rather it either be educational or relaxing, and that book was neither. I’d rather be distracted from death than reminded of it. From now on, any recommendation you make, I’m going to take it with my wits about me.” He turned to Talit. “You should do the same. The press has been used to print some frightening rags, and this girl has read most of them.”

Talit didn’t respond. He stopped and they both looked at him.

“What?” Yusubru asked. “Something wrong?”

“I was just thinking you two don’t behave like a master and apprentice at all.”

“Hmm,” Roka said, taking another nut and the time to chew it. When she looked at Talit, she thought she saw him flinch, but he recovered so quickly it might have been her imagination. “Maybe that’s a sign.”

A juggling performance derailed the conversation. They watched the Zhozai acrobat at the front of the show keep six different objects of varying size airborne for two minutes, and, when he was finished, they moved on to a new part of the city.

The more familiar Roka became with Topto, the more she began to notice cracks in its surface. While not the norm, she had seen many kinds of poverty in her journeys with Yusubru. From lonely homeless men in medium-sized towns, to small families crossing the countryside with all they owned on their backs in search of good land, to entire villages struggling to feed their children after a series of fallow crop seasons; Roka knew what to look for.

While Topto showed off its excess, she could still see signs that not all had been well prior to the festival. Perhaps it was simply the results of a month of intermittent fasting among the people—the reason for the celebration in the first place—but there were many thin limbs and gaunt-looking faces. No one appeared overly concerned, leaving Roka to wonder if she imagined a problem where none existed. Perhaps times of plenty were just around the corner.

Stranger still was the treatment of children. Roka never saw a child under sixteen unaccompanied by an adult. Some strained against their parental supervision, but many appeared content to remain on the apron strings of their mothers or within grabbing distance of their fathers. For a festival so often associated with youthful abandon, strict reservedness won out.

Looking for an avenue to the nearest major street, the group strayed into a more remote part of the city. No festival events were underway in this section, and most citizens who lived in it had left their homes earlier in the day for other wards.

Something caught Roka’s eye and she stopped walking. Half-a-second later, her master picked up on it as well and stopped just ahead of her. Talit and his guard kept going, unaware of a change.

A small-looking man rushed at a fast walk down the side of the street, clutching a package to his chest. Two more men in festival garb followed behind at a short distance, their strides leisurely but long. They kept pace with the little man easily, and when he turned a corner into an alley, they followed a few moments later. Their eyes remained fixed on him the entire time while a handful of other street-goers passed in front of and around them. Neither the little man nor the men following him noticed the two Sentinels on the other side of the street.

Roka and her master shared a look and then went into the alley after the odd trio.