The Cities of Song

T H E CIT I E S OF SONGFIRST FOLIO

MAT THEW BEST

3

THE CITIES OF SONG FIRST FOLIO

MAT THEW BEST

4 5The Cities of Song — First FolioMatthew Best

ContentsA Dedication 7

Introduction: A Cosmic Kiss 9

Canto I: Separations & Reunions 12

Canto II: The Intruder’s Tribunal 18

Canto III: Underbelly 31

Canto IV: The Induction of Ayla Zeybek into the Honourable Company 39

Canto V: A Coming Harvest 45

6 7

A Dedication

For my Prime Star. As many as you might hire and train, you will always be

the only one. May you take as much pleasure from the world I’ve created,

and may this always prove a reliable escape from long hours. I pray you take

this as pure appreciation for everything you are.

9

Matthew Best8

IntroductionA Cosmic Kiss

There are many places most of us will never see. Not for want of trying, not

for a lack of thirst for adventure, not because we cannot reach the farthest

places of our tiny rock or, like Icarus, the stars themselves.

We will never see them because they do not exist. Not here, at any rate.

These myriad places hide in other Universes; other Cosmos. Places like

our own, but different in some ways. Like people, these places are cut from

the same template: Superficially similar, but underneath it so different, each

behaving according to its own set of rules.

These cosmos dance together across time. Most are strangers to each other,

but some meet at times. And some still are like lovers, forever intertwined.

Fewer still might be compared to fickle lovers, the kind of hatred and adoration

that intermingles so intoxicatingly.

You know it; it’s the kind of love that has former flames coming to your

doorstep in the dark hours of the morning, scented in perfumes pulled from

the bottom shelves of bars, your mutual hatred eclipsed only by mutual passions

consummated in angry congress, your goodbyes the next morning lying

promises to never repeat the same mistake for the tenth or twentieth time.

Our home lies in just such a firmament, its celestial travels often taking it

within arm’s reach of its own sometimes-lover. Like fickle lovers, they could

not stop colliding, and, like fickle lovers, they could not stop their parting. It

would just happen, much to the annoyance of the Cosmos.

And in those chance meetings, furious at knowing they would part again,

they would make love. And, as is the case with our own acts of carnal knowledge,

an exchange would take place. Like the sticky fluids left behind, or the breaths

inhaled during a kiss, these collisions would swap a portion of one cosmos

for another, carried away by one paramour or the other during their parting.

Matthew Best The Cities of Song — First Folio10 11

The stuff of life, kept like a token, secreted away on the body of one

sweetheart or the other.

It happened that our Cosmos met his lover in that time beyond time. He

knew something was dreadfully wrong inside of him. He would recover, as

he always had; these moments were unpleasant—agonizing, even—but they

were also fleeting.

And so our Cosmos told their Cosmos of his distress. And their Cosmos,

as she always did, looked at him with bitter resentment. She hated him for

being so different, and hated herself for always coming to him anyway, and

loved him for coming, and loved those brief moments together, but what she

hated most of all was when those brief moments of ecstasy were coloured by

disaster, for her lover’s pain always meant that their time together would be as

unfulfilling as it was short.

So their Cosmos grabbed onto our Cosmos as hard as she could (already

being pulled away by forces more powerful than either of them). She drew him

in, as only a Universe can, and pressed her mouth to his, and she felt his breath

hot in her own mouth, a brief bridge between each other’s bodies.

As she was finally pulled away, she saw the tears already forming in our

Cosmos’ eyes.

The first tear fell at the same time Archduke Franz Ferdinand did, and

millions more would fall with the bodies of the First World War’s dead.

But that story is well-known to us, and it is not the story your humble

chronicler set out to tell. Our story instead follows their Cosmos.

For as she drifted away from her on-again, off-again familiar, her own

body beginning to be racked by the internal pain of strife and discord and

coming cataclysm, she carried away on her lips the faintest of fumes from our

Cosmos’ body. In that opening between Worlds was the stuff of life—from our

Cosmos to theirs.

There is one important thing to take away from this: The stuff of life in a

universe is quite literally the stuff of life—it is the souls that inhabit it.

There are many places most of us will never see.

And there are a few places some of us will.

The Cities of Song — First Folio 13

12

Canto ISeparations & Reunions

The boy woke up on a shore. He had no memory of how he got to the

shore. He did not know where the shore was. What he did know was

that he was Reza Zeybek. He was born in 1900, and he was 14 years old.

His father was Ali, his mother was Yeliz, and his sister was Ayla.

He also knew that this was most definitely not Menekşe beach, where

his parents would take him swimming on the hottest of days, and he knew

that the waters were not those of the Sea of Marmara, nor were they the

Bosporus. He knew from scanning the skyline that Topkapi Palace was

nowhere to be seen, nor was Galata Tower. He knew that the city in the

distance was not Istanbul.

He rose from the sand and brushed off the scum from the water, and

the gritty white grains of sand that clung to his pajamas. He set off down

the coast, hoping to find a friendly face—if not a familiar one.

“Anne! Baba! Ayla!” he recited over and over again, calling to his

mother, his father, and his sister in turn.

Still, the city loomed, threatening him. The faces he could see on the

fishermen and fishwives were alien; too pale. Turks could be fair indeed,

as well as the Greeks, and even moreso of the Balkans, but these made him

feel as if he’d washed up in Britanya or Fransa… or perhaps İskandinavya.

He recalled the stories his father would tell him of the Vikings, the

pale-faced barbarians that raided Europe and pushed as far as the Black

Sea; the Varangians who marauded across the lands of the Empire before

there even was an Empire.

Please don’t be İskandinavya. Please don’t be Vikings.

He shuddered at the thought that these faces might not be so friendly

after all. That they might just throw him straight into the sea.

No, he thought to himself, I am fourteen and nearly a man. I am not to be

frightened.

“Anne! Baba! Ayla!” he called out again, his voice deepening with confidence

now. He would show these Vikings he wasn’t afraid, and they would respect

him for it.

The pale folk had begun to stare at him in earnest, each seeming as puzzled

by him as he was by them. He noticed one woman, plump and aged, gesturing

at him and speaking with great animation to a very official looking man in a

uniform. Noticing him, the uniformed man waved and called something out.

Reza had heard stories of the Janissaries, the Christian boys that used to

be captured and made to serve in the household guard of the Sultans, and he

wondered if these Western European Christians, whether they were English

or French or Vikings, intended to enslave him into their army.

He decided he did not want to find out. He decided, instead, to run.

He turned towards the city, which had a sizable beach between him and

it, and seemed even farther away now that he had decided to flee his would-be

captors. Still, the tight alleys between the half-timbered houses provided a maze,

and the precarious angles at which they leaned in on each other seemed, even

at this distance, to provide a wonderful shadow in which to lose his pursuers.

Reza wondered if he even had pursuers. He turned to look over his

shoulder.

He had pursuers.

The man in uniform was still calling out to him, running after him. He had

run often, mostly when stealing sweets from the vendors in the bazaar, or from

the girls he and his friends would sometimes try to eye bathing.

Still, the man in the uniform was fast, and Reza knew that if he didn’t make

it to those alleys quickly, he would be snatched up soon.

As luck would have it, he reached the cobblestone of the streets and ducked

into the first alley he saw, with room to spare from his pursuer. He began to


weave through the jostle of people—poor looking, hardy looking, hocking

meats and fish and beer—confident he’d lost the man in uniform.

But as luck would not have it, the man in uniform that gave chase was not

the only man in uniform in this alien city, as Reza discovered when he collided

with another one. This new man in uniform seemed to be only puzzled by

Reza’s appearance, and perhaps was as confused by Reza’s strange dress—his

still-wet night clothes—as Reza was by those around him.

That truth held until he heard a shout go up. He looked back in the direction

he’d come from, and heard a voice calling out to catch a strange boy with dark

skin and black hair in wet clothes.

As the man in uniform’s hand clamped firmly onto his shoulder, Reza could

not help but wonder why these Vikings were speaking Turkish.

Reza sat alone in his cell. It was spacious enough, and dry, and the uniformed

men had been polite enough to offer him a change of clothes and a warm bed

and food, but they wouldn’t speak to him, even though they spoke his language.

He had tried speaking to one of the men in uniform, but they wouldn’t talk

to him except to say that they were waiting for the Syndic to appear and hold

court, and that Reza would be brought before an Intruder’s Tribunal.

Reza did not know what a Syndic or an Intruder’s Tribunal were, and did

not care to find out. But he did have other questions, such as “where am I?”

and “who are you?” that went ignored by the stern man in uniform standing

watch outside his cell.

And so Reza occupied himself other ways. He studied the uniform, trying

to guess what country he was in, but he hadn’t seen many militaries from

other countries. The uniform looked quite formal. It was a deep, dark blue,

almost black, and braided up either side of the breast with gold. The buttons

fastening it together were also gold. The brown boots looked like leather, and

quite expensive. They were matched by brown leather gloves flared at the cuff.

The collar had no lapels, but a simple cylindrical gorget, also braided.

The uniform looked formal, but the uniform also looked indistinct. It could

belong to any European country. Maybe he was even in the Americas. He still

couldn’t puzzle out how he’d gotten there—or why they were speaking Turkish.

So he decided to occupy his time another way. He began to pull little balls

of lint from the uniform. This tugging got the attention of the man wearing it,

and he began to shoo Reza’s hands away. It was clear he wasn’t going to hurt

Reza, so he sat there picking at the felt and unravelling strands, laughing at

the guard’s annoyance.

It may have been minutes or hours later when the clamour arose. The

guards were hollering about another intruder. In a matter of moments, one of

the guards was frogmarching another prisoner into the cells.

It was Ayla.

If truth be told, Reza was not overly fond of Ayla. She teased him. She

taunted him. The only redeeming quality Reza could think of for her was

that Ayla’s friends were certainly nice to look at, though even that had its

downsides—at three years older than him and grown women (if just barely),

Ayla’s friends were pining over young men, not 14-year-old boys.

Still, he loved her, he supposed. And he was definitely glad to see her.

“Ayla!” he shouted as she was pushed into his cell, running to embrace her.

To his surprise, the older sister that mercilessly teased him hugged him

back tightly, fondly… lovingly. “Where’s anne and baba?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I woke up on a beach. I don’t know where we are.”

“I woke up in a cellar. I went upstairs, and a strange man started shouting

at me to get out of the barracks.”

She too had had a change of clothes, her own nightwear replaced with a

simple dark linen dress. She too had been fed, so she told him. And she too

was bewildered as to where they were.


“I think they’re Vikings,” Reza told her, and explained his theory—and his

fear—that they would end up as a sort of Turkish Janissary. And Ayla might

end up in a Viking’s harem.

Ayla scoffed at the idea.

“Vikings don’t speak Turkish, dummy,” she said.

“It’s not hard to learn a new language. We have Turkish, and Arabic, and

Persian. And Greek, and Bosnian, and Croatian, and Albanian…”

“OK,” she interrupted, “I get the point. They still aren’t Vikings.”

“Then who are they?”

“Have you tried asking them, Reza?”

“Of course. They don’t answer except to tell me that we’re waiting for the

Syndic to hold a tribunal. I don’t know what that means either,” he said.

“Well, have you tried asking them what that means instead?” She asked.

In truth, he had not, as he was forced to admit. He’d moved on from the

questions he didn’t care about to try to get at truths he did, and he was also

forced to admit that that had been rather short-sighted of him.

Ayla reached out between the bars and put her hand on the guard’s arm,

just above the elbow Reza had been picking at before she was brought in.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but who is the Syndic and what is the tribunal?”

The guard turned his head slowly to look at her. She batted her eyes and

pouted the way her and her friends did when trying to attract the attention of

young military officers. Though this guard looked more like a man of the line,

it worked all the same, and a hint of a smile cracked his stony, serious face.

“The Syndic of Madrigal is the ruler of the Free City of Madrigal. The

Intruder’s Tribunal is a hearing to see what is to be done with intruders who

come over. We haven’t held one in living memory.”

Reza was shocked. While it seemed clear enough that the Syndic was like

a Sultan, or perhaps a Grand Vizier, it was the name of the place that threw

him for a loop.

Where the hell is the Free City of Madrigal? he wondered.

“Where the hell is the Free City of Madrigal?” he asked.

The guard looked at Reza. The guard looked at his increasingly thread-bare

uniform. The guard looked back at Reza. The guard looked away.

“Will we be seeing the Syndic soon?” Ayla asked, giving his elbow a little

squeeze.

In answer, another guard marched up. “The Syndic is here,” he said.

The cell guard turned back to Ayla, and then again to his uniform, and

then again to Reza. He smiled, wider this time.

“Yes.”

The Cities of Song — First Folio 19

18

Canto IIThe Intruder’s Tribunal

Ayla and Reza were led through a building. Its architecture was queer.

The vibrant colours of their home were gone, replaced with grey stone

that appeared slick and wet. The complex tiling was gone, replaced with a

cobblestone floor. The bright sun of the Mediterranean was gone, replaced

with a cold grey light that, like the stone, appeared to be wet.

They walked through this building for what seemed like hours, but

Ayla knew it was only minutes. Her trepidation, her fear, was distorting her

perceptions. She swallowed and walked on, following the rhythmic footsteps

of the guard’s leather boots.

Left-2-3-4

Left-2-3-4

She began to stare at the boots, concentrating on nothing but them. She

was scared. Really, really scared. She had laughed at Reza’s idea that these were

Vikings, but what frightened her more was that she didn’t know who these

people were, or where they were. While Reza was haunted by visions of the

frightening stories of distant barbarians he was familiar with, she was frightened

by the unknown. The unknown offered only a single truth: Whatever she might

imagine, there was a possibility that the reality could be even worse.

She repeated that to herself, over and over again. With each footfall, at the

speed of thought, her mantra repeated itself:

Left- You could be imprisoned.

2- You could be executed.

3- You could be tortured.

4- And still it could be worse than that.

A frisson of fear climbed up her spine, the soft vellus hairs on her back

standing at attention, mimicking the rigidity of the soldier in front of her.

Left-2-3-4

Now they were at a door. Huge, red, and ornamented; not ornamented in

a comforting way, either, but with twisted wrought-iron handles and matching

studs every foot or so, leaking trails of rust a shade paler than the door’s red

paint. The door looked not only like it was pierced through by those iron studs,

it not only looked like it was bleeding, it looked like the door was bleeding

wrongly, with blood lighter than red.

The guard’s gloves creaked as he reached out to grip the iron handles,

and as he pulled the door answered with a piercing creak of its own, its hinges

squealing in a way that sent shocks through Ayla’s teeth.

And still it could be worse than that.

The guard stepped back, stood against the wall, lowered his head, and

gestured with a bent arm and an open palm into the room. “Inside,” he said,

softly.

The softness in his voice frightened her even more. It was beyond courteous;

it was pitying.

Ayla swallowed hard, turned back to Reza, and offered her hand to her

little brother.

It’s easy, she thought. Just put one foot in front of the other. Left, two, three,

four.

They were over the threshold.

The Syndic’s Tribunal was an elegant room. Dark, to be sure, but Ayla

noticed the detail about the room. The braiding on the tapestry and carpets,

the filigree on the metalwork, and the wainscoting on the joints of the walls

and ceiling, all in gold highlights. The rest was coloured red, deeper and richer

than the door—what the door would have been, if it had been tended to as

well as this room.

A middle-aged man ushered them to their place, a plain bench in the centre


she and Reza had come through. Whereas the Syndic was merely handsome,

this one was beautiful and exotic to her. His skin was as fair as the others, his

hair blond and wavy. He had a thin mustache curled slightly at the tips, and

a touch of beard just on his chin, brought to a point as fine as those on the

mustache. Unlike the gold that decorated the room, his blond was more honest,

more like the colour of wheat waving in the wind on a sunny afternoon than

a precious metal coveted by the avaricious and decadent.

As he got closer, she noticed his eyes, which were very blue. And around

those eyes were the most lovely of his features; when he smiled, he showed just

the hint of crow’s feet that her mother and father had. On a face so youthful—he

could not have been older than his mid-twenties, Ayla thought—they let slip the

truth, that he was not only wise and cunning, but that the crow’s feet showed

only when he smiled meant that this had been tested again and again, and he

had come out on top, grinning at his victories until they were permanently

etched into his face.

The Syndic looked less than pleased.

“The Baron of Underbelly speaks for the intruders.” The Syndic said it

with such distaste Ayla wondered if this Baron would be the boon she hoped

for, or a bane.

She looked up at him, and noticed Reza doing the same. He glanced back

and smiled, the crinkles around his eyes comforting her.

“Who are you?” The man asked.

Reza answered first. “I’m a Turk, from…”

“Aturk? Fine. And you?” he asked, turning to Ayla.

“Not Aturk, just Turk, and my name…” Reza continued.

“Fine. Turk, not Aturk. Fine, fine. And you, girl?”

“Ayla,” Ayla said, more than a little frustrated that he thought of her as a girl.

Reza would not stop. “My name is Reza, not Turk. I’m a Turk.”

The beautiful man suddenly looked very pleased by her brother. “So you’re

of the room, with a plain table in front of it. They were the only plain things

in the room, though the wood they were made of matched the red perfectly.

Around them sat a gallery of curious onlookers. Men and women, young

and old, divided only by their relative levels of affluence, which Ayla guessed

from their clothes; even that was diverse, ranging from impoverished to noble.

Ayla was quiet and curious, taking in the sights around her. Her old fear

was pushed aside by awe and confusion. The onlookers simply stared back

at her, equally bewildered. Reza was the only sound in the room, a nearly

imperceptible nervous tap-tap-tap of his foot.

“The Syndic of Madrigal of the Harmonious Cities, First among Equals,

Peerless among Peers!” a crier bellowed, startling Ayla.

A handsome man in elegant robes rose to the dais in front of them. Just

entering middle age, his hair was dark brown, his eyes darker still, and shaved

clean on his face, unlike their guards, who had sported a variety of unsightly

stubble. But, like the guards, his jaw was strong and square, and his expression

was one of stony silence, unreadable to Ayla.

The Syndic grabbed an iron globe in his hand, and brought it down with a

clatter once, twice, three times, each ringing bang strung between a pregnant

pause that let the sound echo about the chamber.

“So convenes the tribunal for the intruders, who have come into our city.

It is my right to decide what to do with these two. It is their right to have

somebody speak for them to inform my decision,” the Syndic said. “Who here

will speak for the intruders?”

Ayla looked around the room expectantly, and as she swivelled her head

to meet the impassive stares of the gallery, she noticed that Reza was doing

the same.

“Apologies,” came the answer, “I had a little more information to gather

before I presented myself to the tribunal.”

Ayla turned to look at the speaker, who had entered through the same door


with blotches of red, the bridge of his nose wrinkled like the skin of a fat, mangy

dog as he twisted his mouth up into a snarl.

“This tribunal will not be mocked!” he yelled.

In a flash, the Prince of Cats was standing. Like that, his feet came off the

table and planted themselves on the ground. Like that, his laid-back posture

snapped forward to lean toward the Syndic as much as he could from across

the floor. Like that, his hands had unlaced themselves from each other and

slammed down on the red desk with a banging so loud it dwarfed the earlier

echoes of the Syndic’s globe.

And now he too was yelling: “I can no more mock this tribunal than I can

make this table into itself, I can no more mock this tribunal than I can make

the bench we sat on a bench, and I can no more mock this tribunal than I can

make you, Syndic, into a short-sighted, bureaucratic moron who hides his

cowardice behind his office the same way he hides his gut behind his girdle.

A thing cannot be made itself; it already is itself, and it is for that reason alone

that this tribunal shall not, cannot, and will not be mocked, for it already is a

mockery.”

Ayla was disturbed. She appreciated the Prince of Cat’s passion, but he was

their counsel in this strange land, and it seemed like he was slipping the noose

around their necks. If anybody had spoken to the Sultan or Grand Vizier as he

had spoken to the Syndic, that person would have lost their head.

She swallowed hard. She was not disturbed, she realized. She was terrified.

Next to her, Reza had gone stiff, and she could see the whites of his knuckles as

his fingers dug into his knees. She didn’t know if her little brother was scared

of the proceedings or their counsel or both, but she knew that their mutual

fear was a uniting factor.

Poor Reza. He tried so hard to be a man. She supposed it was a rite of

passage for boys, to emulate their heroes in the hopes of one day being able

to step into that space themselves. But Reza was not a man, he still was that

Reza, also known as Turk. All the better.”

“Reza,” Reza said, “my name is just Reza.”

“Shh. You two, say nothing, especially you,” their counsel said, addressing

Reza with a finger.

He turned to the dais and spoke. “Syndic, shall we proceed?”

The Syndic nodded his ascent. “Baron, let’s get right to the quick of it and

dispense with formalities…”

“Prince,” the blond man interrupted.

“Excuse me?” the Syndic asked.

“My name is The Prince of Cats.”

“The Tribunal will not address you as Prince.”

“You said we were to dispense with formalities. Baron is my title, Prince

is my name.”

“The Prince of Cats is your night-name…”

“The night-name is just another formality you asked we dispense with.”

“The Free Cities of Song have not had royalty or even a regent since time

immemorial, and as such the tribunal will not address you as Prince.”

“Given that you wanted to dispense with formalities—my title being one

of them—it seems that the tribunal will address me as Prince. It simply won’t

like doing so. And since we’re dispensing with formalities,” the Prince of Cats

said, “allow me to make myself comfortable.”

With that, he plopped himself on the plain red bench, threw his feet upon

the plain red table, and crossed one leg over the other. He tossed up his hands

in open-palmed defiance, then laced his fingers together behind his head. He

smiled.

Ayla found this cavalier act to be quite attractive, but all the same she

was frightened—was this man destroying what little hope they had with his

arrogance?

The Syndic was visibly livid. His once-handsome face had become mottled

24 25The Cities of Song — First FolioMatthew Best

but all the Cities of Song against the King of Autumn—”

“And having preyed on the good citizens of Madrigal ever since with your

thievery—”

“Which the Act of Alliance between the Harmonious Cities and the Most

Honourable Company recognizes as a valid tax to be levied at the discretion

of the Company Baron, namely me, for the welfare of my demesne, namely the

public lands of Underbelly, and the freeholders of the barony, namely those

who live under my protection,” he gestured to the impoverished members of

the gallery; weathered people in weathered clothing, their faces as stained by

grease and bleached by sun as their clothes.

“I question, Syndic,” the Prince of Cats continued, “if you wanted to

dispense with formality if only to forget your place. I assure you I have not

forgotten mine.”

Ayla could see that the Syndic’s teeth were on edge, showing between his

lips. His voice was a hiss. “Perhaps we should reinstitute the formality of the

tribunal.”

“Perhaps we should,” the Prince of Cats answered.

“It is the opinion of this tribunal that they be escorted outside the walls,

that they may found a freehold among the farmers, to live out the rest of their

days. What say you to the contrary, Baron?”

“Intrusion is not a criminal fault, Syndic. And exiling two intruders is a

death sentence. They have no coin to buy a freehold, no assets to trade for one.”

“Madrigal cannot afford to feed and clothe two intruders, Baron, let alone

take them in.”

“Madrigal is one of the two ports in the Cities of Song. I find it absolutely

incredible, Syndic, that you are telling us that we are too impoverished to

provide for two children.”

“And yet, Baron, you are not a member of the Syndicate, and as such are

not privy to city-level affairs.”

boy, yet to complete that rite. He was still awkwardly filling out his own body,

getting used to the length of his bones; he couldn’t be expected to stand on his

legs yet, let alone alongside giants.

She put her hand on top of his, as her mother had many times when

comforting her. It caught his attention, and he looked over at her. She smiled

at him and gave his hand the slightest squeeze.

She only hoped he did not look at her eyes and see that her smile was a lie.

The Syndic had graduated from lividity to apoplexy. He punctuated each

word of his reply to the Prince of Cats thus: “I. Will not. Be spoken too. Like.

That!”

The Prince of Cats smirked, and for the first time in their brief encounter

Ayla saw hints of cruelty sneak up on his face as he smiled. Like his feline

namesake, the smile wasn’t to show some sense of joy, but to display his teeth

for the benefit of the prey those teeth would soon consume.

“It seems like you will be spoken to like that. It seems that you simply will

not like being spoken to like that,” the Prince of Cats said, repeating his earlier

mocking.

“Baron!” the Syndic shouted.

“Prince,” the Prince of Cats corrected.

The tribunal had descended into madness, with both the Syndic and the

Prince of Cats interrupting each other. While the words were in clear Ottoman

Turkish, the phrases they made were gibberish to Ayla.

“The Free City of Madrigal tolerates your band of thieves—”

“The Most Honourable Company of Acrobats, Escapists, and Jugglers is

not a band of thieves, Synd—”

“The Most Honourable Company of Acrobats, Escapists, and Jugglers is a

most dishonourable gang of burglars, lockpicks, and knife-throwers—”

“Given freedom of the city and autonomous rule of Underbelly by one of

your predecessors seven centuries ago for our defence not only of Madrigal


“For what? There will only be another tribunal for him. Has the Prince

of Cats become the bureaucrat he despises, that he would mire our good city

in procedure simply to forestall what he knows must happen? Why delay the

inevitable? Why not simply allow justice to take its course? Why waste all of

our time, and drag the good people of Madrigal out to witness in the gallery

not once but twice?”

He made a grand gesture around the room, trying to play the gallery’s

sympathies as the Prince did so well. But the Prince was a charismatic ruler

who could sway a crowd so, and (as the Prince had noted) the Syndic was the

bureaucratic one. Ayla could see even the Syndic’s own people, the nobles,

staring back at him with boredom.

“Because,” the Prince answered with that cruel smile again, “there will be

no other tribunal for the boy.”

He held up a hand to forestall the Syndic’s inevitable protests before

continuing. “Allow me to explain just why this tribunal is a mockery, Syndic:

The boy was apprehended in Underbelly by the city guard. This is a breach of

the Honourable Company’s rights, and our treaty with the Cities. As such, the

status quo must be restored, and we must act as if he was never apprehended.

Since his proper apprehension would have taken him to me, not the city gaolers,

I would have learned before the tribunal that he has taken the night-name

of Turk, and would have taken him as ’prentice myself, as is the right of any

Honourable Companyman.

“Since this is what would have happened had you not illegally breached

our treaty and apprehended him, this is what shall happen from this moment

forward.”

“What proof does this tribunal have that you would have apprenticed the

boy into your Company?”

“What proof does it need? The onus is on you, Syndic. You breached the

peace. What proof do you have that I would not have ’prenticed the boy Turk?”

“Be that as it may, you found the boy Turk in the Underbelly, did you not?

And Underbelly is still my demesne, is it not? And as such, your guards were

in violation of Underbelly’s autonomy, were they not?”

The Syndic began shifting uncomfortably in his seat. The Prince of Cats

continued, “You know the treaty, Syndic. The city guard may move freely

through Underbelly, and may take reports therein. They may give chase, but

they may not apprehend. Not within our borders. When they raised their hue

and cry, was it to inform the Honourable Company that intruders were within

the borders of Underbelly? It was not, because that was the information I was

out gathering before coming. Not only have I brought that information with

me, but the witnesses to that act as well. No, that hue and cry the guards raised

was to demand the apprehension of an intruder—”

“We have not had an intruder in nearly seventy years, Baron. The guards

were excitable, but that does not mean they were in the wrong. They acted well

within their authority to apprehend an intruder—”

Ayla noted that even with the pretensions of formality restored, the Syndic

and the Prince had descended back into interrupting one another.

“The guards breached the autonomy of Underbelly, Syndic, and this

tribunal is concerned with the law, is it not? Shall the criers tomorrow say that

in a court of law, the Syndic ordered that the breach of a treaty was lawful, and

the Baron of Underbelly’s protests to that act were unlawful?”

Ayla watched the Syndic. He was silent for a long while, his discomfort

clearly growing. The Syndic said nothing, choosing instead to stare at the Prince

of Cats. The Prince, in turn, stared back.

It was the Syndic who spoke first. When he did, Ayla’s heart leapt in her

throat, and she knew in that moment that they—the Prince, really—had won;

the Syndic had caved.

“What would you have me do, Baron?”

“The boy Turk is to be turned over to me.”


women, the old and young.

“Let it not be said that the Syndic of Madrigal is not bound by the Laws of

Trade of the Harmonious Cities, nor let it be said that the Syndic of Madrigal

shall allow a breach of the Act of Alliance between the Harmonious Cities and

the Most Honourable Company.

“It is therefore the finding of this tribunal that the Apprentice of the Most

Honourable Company of Acrobats, Escapists, and Jugglers be restored to

his master, the Prince of Cats, Baron of Underbelly. It is also the finding of

this tribunal that the City of Madrigal shall offer penalty to the Honourable

Company, which it shall pay with the second intruder, the girl Ayla, as another

Apprentice to the Honourable Company.”

He picked up his globe and hastily smashed it down three times. There

was no pause for the banging to hang in this time. “This tribunal is adjourned.”

The people in the gallery began to shuffle out. The Prince of Cats laid a

hand on each of their shoulders, addressing Reza and Ayla in turn.

“Thank you for not speaking. The tribunal doesn’t care if intruders don’t

know the rules of the land, and loves to watch people walk themselves to the

gallows, so to speak.”

He turned to Ayla, a mischievous twinkle in his pretty eyes. “Plus I got to

put that pompous ass in his place,” he whispered with a wink.

The galleries finally emptied out, and on queue the Syndic rose from his

seat, brushed his hands against his robes, turned to leave and, almost as an

afterthought, turned back to the Prince of Cats.

“Is the ruling to your satisfaction, Baron?”

The Prince of Cats smiled again, this time without a hint of cruelty; his eyes

were smiling too, the crow’s feet becoming more than hints. “To my utmost

satisfaction, Syndic,” and as he said this he affected a little bow that Ayla noted

was quite mocking under its formality.

The Syndic went back to his uncomfortable shifting routine. Bit by bit,

he was losing, though Ayla was still unclear on what, precisely, he was losing.

“Fine. The boy is yours. The girl, however, has no such protections. She

was found in the Arsenal barracks. Not only is the Arsenal of Madrigal well

outside of your borders, Baron, but women and girls are expressly forbidden

from the barracks—”

“Nonsense. Intruders do not choose the point of their intrusion. She is no

more guilty than if a footpad knocked her out and threw her in there.”

“All the same, Baron, the Arsenal is outside of your borders, as I remind

you for the second time. To make no mention of the fact that that footpad

would have likely belonged to your ‘Honourable’ Company.”

“All the same, Syndic, you breached the treaty, as I remind you for the fifth

time. And while the imaginary footpad of my example may have belonged to

me, the guards in the very real apprehension of my ’prentice most definitely

belonged to you.

“In case you’ve forgotten the Laws of Trade governing the Harmonious

Cities, Syndic—and I can assure you I have not forgotten them—it is not enough

to make a party whole, as you have done by restoring Turk to me. You must

also pay a penalty equal to your breach.”

The Syndic was shifting again, but Ayla noticed something else. The Syndic

was staring daggers at her. While Ayla didn’t know what the Prince of Cats was

getting at, it was clear to her that the Syndic did.

“What is equal to taking an intruder from the Baron of Underbelly? Why,

giving another intruder to the Baron of Underbelly. No other restitution can

compensate me, Syndic. The intruder Ayla must come with me. Or shall the

criers call out your breaking the Rules of Trade tomorrow?”

The Syndic set his face in an expression so stony that the faces of their

earlier guards seemed wildly animated in comparison. He looked over the

gallery, making a slow pass with his eyes over the rich and poor, the men and

31

Matthew Best30

Canto IIIUnderbelly

Reza walked beside the Prince of Cats. He was in awe; this man was like

something out of the stories from his childhood. That awe washed away

all the fears he had felt before. Reza looked up to his father, but he did not want

to be him, and he had never found the right shoes to fill until now.

He occupied his time sneaking glances at him: At his posture, at his step,

at the way he held himself. He wanted to take these mannerisms not to copy

them, but to make them his own. One day he would be the next Prince of Cats;

charismatic and daring and bold and intelligent.

Although Reza wasn’t anxious anymore, a lack of anxiety would do nothing

to quell his curiosity, and so he spoke with the Prince of Cats, both to fill

his mind and the time. The Prince, for his part, was open to answering his

questions, at least all but one. “Who is the King of Autumn?” was the first

question Reza had asked, and the Prince dismissed him with a short reply of

“Later.”

Other answers, however, were forthcoming:

“Where are we?”

“We’re in Madrigal. It’s one of the Harmonious Cities. We call them the

Cities of Song. We were in the Halls of Law—where you were held and had

your trial—and we’re travelling to Underbelly, where I live and rule. You’ve

been there already, this morning, when you were captured.”

“But where is Madrigal?”

“I’ll wait to answer that question. There’s plenty of time to explain later.”

It was impossible for Reza not to notice that the Prince of Cats’ voice had

somehow changed. His words were clipped and faster now than they were

before the Syndic, where the two men sounded as equals. Now, out of the

presence of the court, the Prince was speaking more like a man from the lower

“Excellent,” the Syndic said, and Ayla noticed that the cruel cunning

that had left the Prince’s face had gone to the Syndic’s instead, “because the

Honourable Company will need every able body it can get.”

“Oh?” the Prince of Cats prompted.

“You assured me you had not forgotten the laws, and truth be told I have

not forgotten them either. In fact, the law I’m remembering most clearly right

now is one of the very laws you brought up. Your astute mind’s legal acumen

will no doubt recall the provisions of the Act of Alliance, Baron. That the

Harmonious Cities did not just give your thieves and thugs free reign, but

allowed you to ‘levy your taxes’ so long as you would answer the call to defend

the Cities from future threat.

“And you will also recall that I mentioned you were not privy to all City-

wide news. Allow me to rectify that, Baron of Underbelly. Let me tell you why

we are tightening our purse strings. Why we cannot afford your new pets. Why

they would have been better off in the farms than the City.

“You’ve taken them out of the pot and put them on the fire, Baron. The

Augurs have seen the signs, and they point to the coming of another Wild

Harvest.”

And, as Ayla looked at him, the Syndic laughed.

“The King of Autumn has risen.”

Ayla wasn’t sure what that meant, other than it probably couldn’t get worse

than that.


class than a man from the ruling class. It was bizarre; the words he used were

the same, but they reminded Reza more of an argot than noble speech.

There was something more pressing about the Prince of Cats’ speech than

his mannerisms, however. It was what bothered Reza the most since coming

here. Now he had to ask about it, and so he did.

“Why are you speaking Turkish?”

The Prince looked at Reza playfully and gave him a little, knowing smile.

“It’s what makes the Cities of Song so special. It’s called the Charm of

Harmony—that’s why the ‘Harmonious Cities’—and it’s a very ancient spell.

Long ago, the rulers of the Cities of Song got together and decided that language

was an obstacle to trade. Why, how many more craftsman or merchants

or mongers or caravan guards could be freed up if they weren’t working as

translators? How much more money would flow? How many more taxes and

tariffs could be levied?

“They consulted with their magicians and asked them if they could cast

a spell just so, that any man, woman, and child inside the borders could

understand one another, as if they’d grown up not only in the same city, but

in the same house. And they offered them a substantial sum, too, as men who

value money are wont to do.

“Well, the magicians and the artificers toiled for over a century, and the

ruling class was satisfied and they trusted their magicians, or perhaps they

didn’t and history didn’t record their pestering to soothe their desire to appear

magnanimous. Whatever the case was, after scores of years of work, those

magicians and artificers and the engineers they cobbled together put up their

charms and their wards and their other little trinkets, and infused them with

their words.

“From Madrigal to the Drowned City of Sonata, and Matins in the east and

Nocturne to the west, and all the rest of the Cities of Song, and the highways

and farms and villages in between, the men then spoke like a single language.

Or rather, they all understood each other as if they did.

“I’m not speaking Turkish. I’m speaking Madrigalian—Low Madrigalian,

at that. You and your sister are speaking Turkish. But the Charm gives us

perfect harmony.”

Around Reza, the city loomed large, alive… and poor. The mercantile class

that had greeted them from their shops when they left the Halls of Law gave

way to street vendors selling whatever wares they could. Rag-and-bone men

pushed their way through throng, moving the refuse of the lower class away

with them to scrap houses and the waiting merchants. The streets were paved

with clutter—here some waste, there some slop—and slick beneath Reza’s feet.

He hadn’t penetrated this deep into the city when he’d first arrived, save

for his captors carting him through, bound and blindfolded. He was as awe-

struck by Madrigal as he was by the Prince of Cats, not for its majesty (which

motivated his idolization of the Prince), but for the sheer penury around him.

Istanbul was discordant between its wealth and its poverty, to be sure, but here

in Madrigal it seemed completely medieval.

All the same, the people seemed upbeat, if worn by weather and times. They

smiled and waved at the Prince, and called out his name. In turn, the Prince

gave them coins from a leather coinpurse, pressing each one into their palms,

and clasping their elbows with a genial smile. The men and women would give

quiet thanks, and put the coin somewhere secret and safe. The children would

run off squealing, holding the tarnished coins over their heads like trophies.

Reza was still taking in the sights around him when Ayla spoke up and, at

last, asked the question Reza feared asking himself. “How do we get home?”

At that question, the Prince of Cats looked genuinely sad. He stopped

handing out coins, laced his purse to his belt, and placed one hand each on

the shoulders of Reza and Ayla.

“You don’t.”


They walked in silence through Underbelly for a long while. Tears came

easily to Reza’s face, though he tried not to weep. Ayla had abandoned any such

pretence and wept openly, her sobs coming in tiny gasps.

The people of Underbelly gave them a wide berth. They averted their eyes

and pulled their own children away to give the Prince of Cats and his two

young charges the space they needed. They seemed to know that this was not

the moment to expect alms.

A thought came into Reza’s head: Was he stronger, trying to be a man, by

not sobbing? Or was Ayla stronger, for accepting the pain? Was he avoiding the

pain, though? He looked inside himself for that pain, and found none. There

was only emptiness. Was that what brought the tears? The sudden hole where

home used to be?

If it had been Vikings, at least they could have sent him home. At least they

could have put him on a ship around Europe and across the Mediterranean

back to Istanbul.

And then more thoughts came flooding in. From the ruling, it sounded as

if one of his other fears had come true: They were Janissaries of a sort. They’d

been given to the Prince of Cats by the Syndic, and all of a sudden he felt very

apprehensive of the Prince. Was his charm all just an act?

He shrugged loose of the Prince’s hand, and turned to look at him. From

what felt like so far below the Prince, he was worried his voice would go

unheard—or unheeded, at the very least.

“Are we your slaves?” Reza asked him.

He saw there, in the Prince’s face, a look of hurt.

“No, of course not!”

“Then why can’t we go home?”

The Prince of Cats sighed, and the hurt expression melted away, to be

replaced by one of sympathy and sorrow.

“Whatever world you’re from, this is not it. Whatever place you’re from, you

can’t go back. That’s what an intruder is—one who intrudes from your world

to ours. The tribunal is our way of deciding what to do with them.”

That makes sense, Reza thought.

No, it doesn’t, he thought.

He tried to put it together. There was magic, the Prince had said, and he

believed it. It explained why all these odd people were speaking perfect Turkish.

But wasn’t there magic and miracles in his world? He’d heard people talk about

it, but he’d certainly never seen it for himself.

Or, he thought, I’m dreaming.

On the other side of the Prince of Cats, Ayla’s sobs continued to come.

It was a long time later, walking through the poorest areas, smelling the salt

air from the sea, that the Prince of Cats led them finally to a building. Outside

hung a sign, painted red letters on a white background, stark against the grey

stone that otherwise seemed to be ubiquitous to the city. It read simply The

Honourable Company Hall. Again in perfect Turkish, Reza saw.

The Prince of Cats took hold of the door and pushed. It opened nearly

silently, and in the dim light thrown off by the sconces that hung on the wall,

Reza could see stairs leading down.

“Your new home,” the Prince said dolefully.

Reza swallowed hard. Below the darkness seemed to go on forever, judging

by the dots of light that made their way down.

The Prince pulled the door shut, and this time it wasn’t silent. As the wood

hit the jamb, a loud bang gave Reza a start. Again the Prince’s arm was on him,

bracing him.

“Watch your step,” the Prince said, and began to descend the stairs.

The descent wasn’t as bad as Reza had feared. It was perhaps four or five

flights, and then a landing, another door, and past that a hallway. The air down

here was oppressive, though. Thick and wet and damp in a way that made Reza


miss the Halls of Law, whose air seemed crisp and clear by comparison.

Through that hallway was a massive chamber, circular with spokes leading

off to other rooms. It was well lit and Reza couldn’t help but notice an immediate

change in the atmosphere. The air here, unlike a mere two feet away and over

the threshold, was cool and fresh and breathable. The chamber was deserted,

however, save for one figure sitting off across the large expanse, leaning against

a desk, deep into something.

“Lady,” the Prince of Cats shouted, “get Gahn, and bring him back here.

And send runners to gather all the others.”

The woman looked back—or at least, Reza thought she did, it was too far to

tell—and wordlessly and gracefully left the desk, bounding off to another room.

The Prince led them closer to the desk the woman had been leaning over.

It was large, plain, sturdy wood, with a single chair on the far side of it. There

was an open book on the desk, full of writing. Here and there Reza could make

out words in the tight, spidery script: Brooch and Necklace and Furs and Salt,

100 lbs. and, in a parallel column, figures.

The Prince closed the book. “Our taxes,” he said, and then, “It’ll be just a

moment. Make yourselves comfortable, please,” and he gestured to the large

empty space with a laugh.

Reza wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He looked around the empty

space blankly, the cavernous room extending all around him. His “new home”,

a hole.

He was brought out of his minor reverie by the ringing of bells. Jingling,

getting louder, closer, until the source of the sound loomed into view. A giant

of a man, bare-chested and well-muscled, with wild, dark hair. His clothing

was a simple, baggy pair of green burlap tied to his waist with a red sash, and

fastened to his pants were dozens (possibly hundreds) of tiny bells, and sandals

for his feet, the thongs of said sandals having bells woven into them as well.

He might have terrified Reza, if not for his gregarious smile, which made him

look brotherly.

Behind him was the woman who had been at this very desk minutes ago,

the one the Prince of Cats had called Lady. Reza stared at her, his mouth agape.

He felt like an idiot, but no other reaction would do. She was the most beautiful

woman he’d ever seen. Dark, dusky skin, with a heart-shaped face framed with

black hair so rich it threw off light. Her lips were a cupid’s bow, open slightly to

frame perfect, white teeth. Her body was perfect, too. She stood tall—nowhere

near as tall as the man with bells, but at least the Prince’s equal—and curved,

with full breasts and hips and a slender waist. She seemed to know it, too, as

she was dressed in a white bustier with a slit, trailing white skirt that left one

of her long, dark legs exposed to the knee.

Stop staring, she’ll notice.

He turned his eyes away from the newcomers to the Prince of Cats. The

Prince looked sour, and Reza was genuinely surprised that anybody could look

so around this Lady, as well as the jingling man who seemed so jovial.

“Turk, Ayla, please meet Gahn-of-the-Bells and Lady, two masters of the

Honourable Company. Your masters, actually, as you’re new apprentices. You’ll

learn from them, study with them, and work under them.”

Gahn-of-the-Bells spoke first. “These are the two ‘truders that popped by

this morning, no? So you beat the horse’s ass at the Tribunal, no? So why you

lookin’ so sad, boss?”

The Prince of Cat’s speech was again stilted with notes of formality as it

had been at the tribunal. “A good victory wrapped in ill news I’ll share later,

when we’re all assembled. The moment’s work is getting these two properly

inducted and under our protection. The Syndic wanted to throw them out of

the city, and he’ll do it if they aren’t Companymen,” he said.

Now Lady spoke, and Reza was immediately hypnotized by her breathy

voice. He was concentrating on the sound, not the words, but if pressed, he

would swear she said something like, “Have they taken their names yet?”

39

Matthew Best38

The Prince of Cats gestured to him, and said “The boy calls himself Turk,

but is named Reza. It was that that made the victory go from likely to certain

at the tribunal. Ayla is the girl’s given name; she has taken no name yet.”

Is that the night-name he kept mentioning? Reza wondered.

“Is that the night-name you kept mentioning?” Reza asked.

“The same,” the Prince said, “The Honourable Company takes our names,

we are not given them.”

“Is my name Turk now?”

“If you wish. If not, choose another during the ceremony. It’s a fortunate

name, though; it won you my protection—and the protection of the city walls.”

Reza considered it for a moment. It was a good name, the name of his

people. The Prince of Cats seemed to like it. And, if he were to tell the truth,

he simply couldn’t think of a better one. He looked over at his sister, who had

long ago stopped sobbing, but was still struggling to keep her eyes from wetting,

as she was doing now.

I wonder what name Ayla will take, he thought.

I wonder if I’ll be apprenticed to Lady, he wished.

Canto IVThe Induction of Ayla Zeybek into

the Honourable Company

It would come to pass that Ayla was apprenticed to Lady. The Prince of Cats

had excused himself and followed one of the spokes of the chamber out,

asking that the giant Gahn-of-the-Bells and Lady start the initiation ceremony

immediately.

Lady approached Ayla and, taking her by the hand, led her off yet another

spoke of the round room to a chamber. Small but not cramped, it was lined

with stone benches on three walls and, in the middle, had a stonework firepit.

Over the firepit was a tall chimney that escaped into the darkness. In front of

the benches were metal drains, and Ayla understood why immediately, as this

room too had a wet about it. In one corner sat a bucket of water and a ladle. In

another corner, tucked underneath the benches, lay some tinder. Lady calmly

gathered the wood from the tinder pile and fed the stonework firepit, before

striking it to flame.

Lady beckoned Ayla to sit and, as she did so, took a seat next to her herself.

“Do you have any questions before we start?” Lady asked her.

Ayla had many, but no one question competed for prominence, so she

simply shook her head no. “Then you can ask as we go,” Lady said.

“The first step is to choose your night-name. I can already guess you have

a question about that. It’s the name that members of the Honourable Company

go by to hide their identities, to work the streets at night. It becomes our new

identity. Your brother will forever be known now as Turk, as the Prince told

the Syndic that it was his night-name. In truth, he had no choice, though the

Prince would want him to feel that he did. You, though, have a choice. And so

all I can say is, where there is choice, there should be meaning.”

Lady cupped her hands around Ayla’s, and looked her in the face. As a peer,


body, she knew, as she clasped one wrist in the other hand, covering her pelvis,

her arms covering her breasts. One foot stood on the other, and her eyes were

downcast.

No man, but no woman at all.

“Little thing,” Lady said, and cupped her hand on Ayla’s face. Her voice was

sympathetic, neither pitying Ayla nor condescending to her.

Ayla heard the sound of laces running through eyelets, and as she looked

up Lady’s beautiful white bustier had fallen to the ground. Lady looked into

Ayla’s eyes and smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile, but a loving, sisterly one. It

said I know your sorrow without speaking a word. As she smiled, she undid

the clasps of her skirt until it too fell to the ground, and she stood dusky and

bare, as naked and vulnerable as Ayla.

“I was not nearly as beautiful as you are when I was your age, and that’s the

truth. It’s not something I’m saying to make you feel better. I know that look in

your eyes. I once stood like that in front of looking-glasses, too.”

She took Ayla’s hand and led it to her breasts that didn’t seem so full now,

but fought against their weight. “Time.” And to her face, where she had Ayla’s

fingers trace the crinkles and creases around her eyes and lips. “And time again.”

And then to her thighs, where here-and-there there was the mottled texture

of cellulite. “Age.” And last to her belly, across a scar just above her pelvis. “A

lost child.”

She took a step back from Ayla, who now could not help but notice all

the imperfections. Here wrinkles, there scars, an aquiline nose rather than a

youthful, gracefully sloping one. But still Lady held her head high and proud,

her black hair still throwing off the light of the wan fire, and (as Ayla couldn’t

help but notice) looked all the more beautiful for it.

“We are not what we are given by birth, little Nemo. We are what we take

for ourselves, and what we choose to be.

“I know how men look at me, and as much as you might covet that, it means

Ayla noticed, not as a child. “Does the name Ayla have a meaning?”

“It means ‘halo of light around the moon’,” Ayla answered.

“Does that meaning make you happy?” Lady asked.

It did not, Ayla thought. It was girlish, a name made by men who wanted

their daughters to stay children forever and never grow up into women. Men

had strong names, like Aslan, that meant ‘lion’, or Galip, that meant ‘victor’, or

Alp, that meant ‘hero’.

She remembered a story her father had read her, 20,000 Leagues Under the

Sea by Jules Verne, and its enigmatic Captain Nemo. She had asked her father

what kind of name Nemo was, and her father told her briefly of the Odyssey;

that when Odysseus had blinded a Cyclops, he said his name was Outis, or

“no man,” so that when the other Cyclopes asked who had blinded him, he

would tell them no man had blinded him, and they would be on their way.

The Romans had translated the poem into their own tongue, and Utis became

Nemo, “no man” in Latin.

Like Odysseus and Captain Nemo, she was in exile now.

And she was certainly no man.

“Nemo,” Ayla said.

“Does that have a meaning you love?”

“It means ‘no man’,” Ayla replied, to Lady’s throaty laughter.

“That’s certainly true.”

The tinder was heating the coals in the pit now, and smoke rose up through

the chimney. Lady threw wet branches on top, and the room filled with steam.

“Undress,” Lady said.

Ayla felt suddenly very self-conscious. That her breasts were too small,

her hips too small, her arms and legs still awkward and girlish. In front of

Lady, who was every part a woman, she felt awful. No man, she thought, but

no woman yet, either.

Still, she undressed and stood bare and vulnerable. She showed it in her


nothing to me. I could befriend all the scum in the city, from the lowliest thug

who kills the elderly and infirm for the few coins the almoners give them to

the highest-born sadist who crushes kittens beneath his feet because he can.

Some would want my body, some would be grateful for whatever mercy and

tenderness and attention they could get before they were brought to the gallows.

“It isn’t the quantity of those who look at us with desire, whether it’s for

our bodies or our minds, but the quality of it. Build yourself into the woman

you want to be, and all the world will covet the treasure that you are. The trick

then is finding those who are worthy of that treasure. A single Prince of Cats

or Gahn-of-the-Bells is worth a thousand Syndics.”

She smiled and leaned into Ayla conspiratorially. “A single Nemo is worth

ten thousand Syndics,” she whispered, returning her hand to Ayla—Nemo’s—

cheek and smiling again, this time joyfully.

“From the time of your birth your path has been chosen for you, even

your name. But from today forward you choose your name, you choose your

destiny, and you choose who you are. You will be what you want to be, not

what others make you.

“We are not the Honourable Company because we stride around mightily

to hide our flaws. We are the Honourable Company because when we are weak,

we take strength from each other. Because when we have our histories chosen

for us, we choose our futures. We earn respect, we do not demand it. We wear

no marks, bear no signs, because honour is recognized by sight. It does need

to hide behind banners and pennants.”

Lady bent over and set her clothes aside, choosing to stay vulnerable. She

took a pewter bowl of thick oil and set it on the coals until it ran thin and its

surface was vibrant with rainbow colours. She took the bowl from the coals

and held it over Ayla’s head and anointed her with oil.

“Do you foreswear the name Ayla and all your past, to choose your own

name and your own future?” Lady asked.

“I do.”

And another handful of oil was spilled over Ayla’s hair.

“Do you swear to do right by your brothers and sisters of the Honourable

Company?”

“I do.”

The oil came again.

“Do you swear to take from those who have too much, to give to those

who have too little, to give bread to those who are hungry, to give comfort to

those who are ill, to give company to those who are alone, and love those who

are unloved by all others?”

“I do.”

By now Ayla’s body was slick with the oil, and it coated Lady’s hands, too.

The ritual went on like this; vows to protect the downtrodden, vows to protect

the Cities of Song, vows to protect the people of Underbelly, vows to never

betray a member of the Honourable Company. To each vow asked of her, Ayla

responded in the affirmative. She would protect her new home, she would

protect her new people, she would learn at the hands of her master, Lady.

At the end of it, coated with four pewter bowls of warm oil, Lady embraced

her. She planted a kiss on her cheek. “My apprentice,” she said, and then tilted

Ayla’s head forward and kissed her on the crown as her mother and father did.

“My sister.”

She felt a pang of pain and a simultaneous twinge of comfort at the act.

These people would henceforth be the only family she knew.

Lady produced some powdered soap and set about warming water on the

coals. Ayla scrubbed herself as Lady washed her hands and face, until all the oil

was gone and the anointing was well and truly finished. She poured the warm

water over herself and watched bubbles and oily residue throw more rainbows

over the grey stone floor, making their way down the drain.

45

Matthew Best44

“Dress,” Lady told her, and Ayla dressed, as did Lady.

Lady extended her hand to Ayla and led her from the room. “Come, Nemo

of the Honourable Company, and meet your brothers and sisters.”

Canto VA Coming Harvest

The Prince of Cats sat at the desk in the center of the Company Hall. His

runners had assembled most of the Companymen, though some were

still out on business, robbing from the rich to feed Underbelly, and would

trickle in in time.

Soon his two new company apprentices would come back from their

initiation ceremonies and hear the stories of his world. The horrible stories, of

the King of Autumn, the Wild Harvest, the husks, and the Seven Saints of the

Fall, the King of Autumn’s sorcerous generals, once glorious kings and queens

in their own right (according to legend), corrupted beyond salvation.

Could the Prince remember their names? Not their true names as, like the

men and women of the Honourable Company, those were lost to time. But the

names of the legends from centuries earlier.

There was The Flayed Man, who was said to have peeled back his own face

to expose the skull and muscle below, who peeled back the skin of his forearms

and his legs, and who cut out his own heart in a ritual of self-mutilation. The

most trusted of the King of Autumn’s generals, it was The Flayed Man who led

the front. Brutal, remorseless, and a warrior without peer; The Flayed Man was

(despite his own lack of a face) the face of terror itself.

The Watcher, who was said to be older than time, once a benevolent force

whose immortality turned his boredom and frustration with mankind’s self-

destruction to sadism and hatred of the living, and who was also said to have

been such an ancient evil that he taught the King of Autumn nearly all he knew

until the King of Autumn grew so powerful he dominated The Watcher himself.

Soul Harvester, the King of Autumn’s other teacher, was the one responsible

for the husks—she showed him how to sap the spirit from men’s bodies until

only the meat remained, an empty shell, and animate it, and it was she who gave


there was mud and flooding and torrential rains. The rivers and lakes formed

in her wake hid countless husks, who, taking no breath, would lie in wait to

drag men on the march screaming to their deaths in the depths, bolstering

their own ranks. The soldiers prayed for the sun, and Weather obliged them.

It baked the earth hot and made men long for the old wet weather, a time

when the plentiful rainfall could be collected in their mouths and helms even

if seemingly shallow puddles could not be safely approached. They dropped

their armour, they dropped their packs, they dropped their weapons, and then

they dropped dead from exhaustion.

And then they rose again.

The assembled Companymen were staring at him now. How long had it

been since he had been lost in the haunting thoughts of what was to come? He

stared down at what he was doing before he’d been picturing the missing face

of The Flayed Man from the illuminated manuscripts every child north of the

Frostspine Mountains knew. The stories of the Wild Harvest, the burning of

the Silver Forest, the drowning of Sonata, ending in the Triumph of the North.

There, in the same thin script that dominated the other ledgers, he had

started to write Brother Turk, Apprentice to Gahn-of-the-Bells of the Honourable

Company. He had only gotten as far as the first syllable in ‘Turk’ before drifting

off in stress over his responsibilities. The ink had pooled slightly and would

need to be blotted, he thought absentmindedly, as it began to spread out to the

nearest fibres, ruining a small portion of the page.

He finished writing Turk’s record. In time, ‘Apprentice to Gahn-of-the-

Bells’ would be struck through, leaving only ‘Brother Turk of the Honourable

Company’, his apprenticeship remembered but no longer necessary, as it always

had been for their kind.

He returned his hand to the task and scrawled Sister , Apprentice to

Lady of the Honourable Company, leaving a blank space to record Ayla’s night-

the Wild Harvest its name. She was at once the weakest and most terrifying

of the sorcerers, for where the others had acquired countless powers in their

unnatural spans of existence, her only power was also the only one which

could utterly sap the world of life, and the King of Autumn was the only other

person—thing—known to have mastered it, something even the millennia-

old Watcher could not accomplish. The last record of the Wild Harvest noted

the lifeless bodies of children turning on their parents, and how the armies

that stood against the forces of death were nothing but mass recruitment for

the King of Autumn’s own ranks, each soldier falling to a husk rising again in

thrall to evil.

There was Fall-From-Grace, a sorcerer from the farthest southern reaches,

about whom little was known, but who was suspected of being the one who

took the goodness from all but the Watcher, a suspicion based only on his name.

The Mother of a Thousand Poisons, known more briefly as The Mother,

an alchemist without peer, once a holy queen of a long-forgotten realm and

a kind-hearted healer until her downfall, now a thing that had but to touch

a droplet of mother’s milk to leave a baby with a slow, agonizing death —and

who reveled in just such vile things.

The Keeper, a madman whose knowledge of past, present, and future lead

the dark to countless victories. More powerful than any Augurs, the Keeper

knew all without a need to divine it, without need for ritual, and without want

for sanity. The archivists who recorded the Harvest War—the First Harvest

War, the Prince of Cats realized—said that Llan, the hero of the war, realized

that the only future the Keeper could not see was his own, and exploited this

to turn the tide of battle, blinding first The Keeper and thereby the King of

Autumn and the rest of his seven evil “saints” to the plans of the Harmonious

Cities and the Union of the North.

Last was Weather, whose name told of her primary power. The armies who

stood against her before her defeat at first learned that where there was battle,


name when the initiation was complete.

He looked out over the assembled members of Honourable Company. How

had he gotten to be their Baron? He used to believe it was his competence, his

charisma, his genuine love for his people. He had believed Baron of Underbelly

was a title that carried with it a responsibility that he was able to do—definitely

not the only one able, as Lady had had her name in contention as well, and

she was most definitely his equal in all things save being able to grow a beard.

They had flipped a coin then, when the vote had come down to the two,

for which would bear the responsibility of leadership; loser of the coin toss

won the title. He had made it that far, and he felt that that spoke slightly to his

abilities, his humility be damned.

Gahn wasn’t the wittiest, but he was a wonderful leader… for a gang of a

dozen men. He lived for the crew, and wouldn’t want or enjoy the responsibility

of the barony. He would be a perfect model for Turk. The Prince had seen

the way the boy looked at him, looked up to him, and he wanted him to look

to Gahn-of-the-Bells instead, whose size came from his personality and not

whatever animal husbandry had made him a giant. A perfect leader for a man,

but a terrible leader of men.

There was Widow, now an old woman whose night-name was accurate to

her age (though that hadn’t always been so) who would have lead the Company

if she hadn’t been so content hovering about being everybody’s mother.

Leadership interfered with the joy she felt when she took the coins the sale of

the company’s taxes brought in and pressed them into the hands of hungry

little children in Underbelly.

There had been The Night Crawler, gone now. He would have very likely

taken the reign had he not been struck down by a wagon whose horses had

panicked. A fluke crushed the neck of the greatest acrobat the Company had

ever known, struck down in his thirties, a truly skilled leader who eclipsed

both the Prince and Lady.

That was over, though. A long forgotten past, even if it had been only half

a decade earlier. The Company had elected him, barely twenty at the time, to

lead them. And leadership had been enjoyable; sparring with the Syndic, giving

the poor of Madrigal hope, giving the rich a reason to lock their doors, and

getting a laugh from how poorly they locked them.

But now…now the responsibility of leadership felt the heaviest that it had

since the Harvest War, he was sure. Looking out at these faces he saw were

staring back at him in anticipation, he wondered if he could bring himself to

tell them that, as had happened seven centuries earlier, their skills would be

the eyes and ears of the Cities of Song and all the souls north of the Frostspine.

He wondered if he could tell them that in the coming months half of them or

more would meet their ancestors in the grave.

He wondered how he could tell that to two children he had just informed

would never see their homes again.

The task was easier than he thought. Lady presented Sister Nemo, and the

Prince of Cats duly recorded her name. Gahn-of-the-Bells presented Brother

Turk. The Company welcomed them formally. And then the Prince spoke.

“Brothers and sisters of the Honourable Company, may you now listen

to my words and keep them only to the company. Our two newest members

know the words I am about to speak but not their meaning. The rest of you

know the meaning of the words you’ve yet to hear. In a moment I’ll be stealing

all your innocence.

“The Syndic spoke briefly to me after the tribunal. Taunted me in his defeat,

I suppose. He told me that the King of Autumn has returned, and another Wild

Harvest is coming.”

The Prince of Cats stopped speaking. In the dark of the room, he heard

men and women gasping, and Turk and Nemo looking perplexed.

“We will honour our treaty, of course. We will do all we can to train our new


apprentices, and get them ready for the coming times. All of you are expected

to fight against the darkness. If you choose not to fight, you may leave, but

know this: I am invoking the blood exit.”

There was silence as the news sank in; not one person protested. The

blood exit was an ancient rule of the Honourable Company that decreed that

no member may leave the Company, save by death. It hadn’t been enforced in

centuries, and members had been allowed to retire if they chose, until now.

But the Prince of Cats would not allow a single able body or keen mind go to

waste, not in this moment. They could fight to live or choose to die.

“The last war for a free north—a living north—was nearly a millennium

ago. They were the days of heroes, but heroes are only the ones fortunate enough

to live, or those who die spectacularly. The rank and file dead are forgotten,

as we will be. But we will do our part, as we have sworn to do. We will do our

part because we need to do it.

“I love each and every one of you. I love you as your Baron, your company

brother, and your friend. And in the coming months, I will say goodbye to

some of you for the last time. Know that I do not do that lightly. Know that

my decision to spend our lives is taken with the thought that each life I spend

will buy more lives in turn. And please know that your names are recorded in

the Company annals. You will never be forgotten.”

Still an air of silence surrounded them, and nobody spoke.

“If any brother or sister has something to say, say it now,” the Prince said.

A voice spoke up. “Is there any chance the augurs have seen false?”

He recognized the voice as Feather, a young, burly man who was known

for his fearlessness and general joviality that could be replaced in a moment

by his hot-headed temper. One of Gahn’s gang, on whom that giant man had

rubbed off on quite considerably, since (like Turk) Feather had been one of

his apprentices.

The Syndic was pompous and self-righteous, but the Syndic was no liar.

If he said the augurs had seen the signs of a Wild Harvest, they had. If he said

the King of Autumn had risen, he had.

“Have the Augurs ever seen false?” the Prince asked. “I’m afraid not. The

Syndic is many things, but a liar isn’t one of them, and the Augurs are many

things, but blind isn’t one of them.”

“The blood exit then, how is it to be done?”

The Prince of Cats hadn’t considered this. He had invoked the rule on a

whim of firm leadership, to show the gravity of the situation. He’d given no

real thought to it other than that his men and women would fight however

they could. How he would take the lives of his own people hadn’t entered his

mind at the time. And he was deeply disturbed that Feather was asking this.

“By the Companyman’s choice. It’s their exit, they may leave through

whatever door they wish,” the Prince answered. Then, “Why are you asking

this, Feather?”

“I don’t want to be one of them… things,” Feather answered.

Again the silence. In the dim, the Prince looked towards the sound of

the voice and saw Feather’s large frame standing there, shivering in fear. The

feisty lieutenant of Gahn’s looked genuinely afraid. He’d seen the man single-

handedly fight a gang of a dozen stevedores and seamen armed with planks and

win just last week, when the impromptu group tried to stop the Honourable

Company from offloading a single crate of furs bound for the Clerk’s Ward

from a shipment of hundreds.

And he was shivering at the thought of becoming a husk. He was asking

to die to avoid it. He was asking his Baron’s permission to die.

This was also something he hadn’t considered. How many of his men and

women would choose to die out of a fear not of fighting against evil, but of

rising again in service to it? Of being stolen away and made to throttle their

mothers and fathers and children?

Could he refuse them that right? He couldn’t, the Prince realized. He could


not tell the Companymen, who prided themselves on their freedom of choice

and of identity, that opting to deny the King of Autumn another set of hands

was any less valid than opting to lend those hands to the innocent people of

the Cities and the Merchant Coast.

The weight of leadership felt heavy again on his shoulders, as he realized

he had laid down an absolute rule, one that was meant to unite them, and they

had—as Companymen are wont to do—immediately found a loophole that

would divide them, fracture them, and take their lives in the end.

And he understood their reasoning completely.

“Feather,” the Prince said, “if that’s what you want to do, that’s your choice.

That’s every member of the Honourable Company’s choice. But please, do not

make that choice lightly.”

There was nothing left to say, not to the Company anyway. The darkness

was coming, and it wasn’t the comforting darkness they lived in. They all

understood that, all but two. His new wards and apprentices needed to know

the turmoil ahead.

The Prince of Cats addressed the congregation of thieves again. “You know

what we face. Tell any not present, and tell them in whispers. I don’t want to

wake to news of families in Underbelly who felt as Feather does; that death is

a preferable route.”

The thieves, lockpicks, and knife-throwers of the Honourable Company

shuffled out of the chamber.

The Prince of Cats led Nemo and Turk to his private chambers. Decorated

in goods personally stolen by past Barons, it was lavish, a symbol of office that in

no way matched the humility that lay beneath the Prince’s cavalier demeanour.

These poor children. They’d just been told they would never again see their

home. And now they needed to be told that they must fight, or they must die.

And they needed to be told what they would die to, if and when the time came.

He sat them down, and he told them of the Saints of the Fall. Of the man

with no face and the poisoner and the mad prophet and the eternal evil and

the mad seer and the bringer of storms and droughts and the corruptor and

the stealer of souls. He saw the terror in their eyes, and he despaired. And then

he told them what despair really was.

He told them of the King of Autumn.

“There is no evil I have described that can match the King of Autumn.

Nobody knows his true name, nobody knows where he’s from. Soul Harvester

called her lifeless servants husks, and her method of making them a harvest,

and so the people named him the King of Autumn.

“Nothing I have told you of The Flayed Man or The Mother of a Thousand

Poisons can compare to his barbarity and cruelty. Nothing I have told you of

The Watcher can compare to his power. Nothing I have told you of Fall-From-

Grace can compare to his ability to corrupt. Each of those seven evils answered

to only one thing: The King of Autumn. Folk from all over the land willingly

threw themselves in service to the King of Autumn, even though all who had

before had died at his hands, so potent was the fear of him that a moment in

his service seemed like an eternity left alive.

“We do not know what he looks like, save for the drawings in the records

of the Harvest War. No one has ever seen his face. Cloaked in black feathers,

a stag’s skull for a crown.

“In the Harvest War, villages and cities fell. The entire City of Sonata was

cast into the sea. The people of the north, adults and children alike, were

impaled on spikes in forests of bodies that went on for miles. It was said that

he would stand for days in those forests of bodies, making no motion or noise,

taking no food or drink, simply standing still amongst the dead as the husks

wrought by him and Soul Harvester impaled whole families facing each other

so they could watch those they loved die in agony.

“Each of those Saints of the Fall had a motive, a corruption, that ate at


them. As evil as they were, they had a reason, or were grim reflections of their

righteous selves. The King of Autumn simply was. He existed, and he existed

so that he might be the wake in which all life dies.

“I must demand you stand in the fight against him. I will not ask this of

you, I will tell you. You saw a man out there, Feather, prefer death over facing

this. Death comes for us all, men and women, young and old, and now it is

coming in the form of the King of Autumn.”

He stopped talking. Turk and Nemo didn’t move or speak, only looked at

him in fear. Nemo took her brother’s hand in hers, and the Prince saw him

squeeze his fingers tightly around the offered hand. “If you have anything to

ask, ask it now,” the Prince said.

It was the girl who spoke. “We’ll fight, but how?” she asked, with a look

towards her brother, who simply nodded his agreement.

“The Honourable Company was the eyes and ears of the Union of the

North. That was how we fought. Our duties were not to be soldiers of the line.

We hid in the shadows, as we still do, and we brought back whispers, though we

brought them to the Syndicate and not each other. We went where no soldier

could go, and it will be the same now.

“Gahn and Lady will train you, as I’d always planned, even before the Syndic

told us the news and invoked the alliance to defend the cities,” the Prince said.

In truth where was no need for the Company’s treaty with the Cities. There

was no need to call upon them to defend, because what else could they do? It

was a choice of risk dying in the fight, or be guaranteed to die cowering.

If and when the King of Autumn appeared on the horizon of Madrigal as

he had Sonata when he sunk that city into the sea seven hundred years ago,

the men and women and children would watch him march over the slippery,

piled dead, and they would know the number of their days.

Canto VIA Hole Where Home Used to Be

Reza was alone in Gahn’s chambers. The giant man had left him when

Reza asked for time to gather his thoughts. He’d placed a massive hand

on Reza’s shoulder and said, “Yes, I hear you,” not a word more, and then left.

He’d asked Gahn to go because the shock was wearing off. He felt very

suddenly alone. He felt alone and nakeder than when the giant had been coating

him in oil and he was afraid now, afraid all of a sudden, afraid of being alone,

afraid of never seeing his parents again, afraid of this place, afraid of Gahn and

the Prince and even Lady, afraid of Ayla, afraid she’d be mad at him, afraid that

he’d lose the only family he had left, and naked, so naked and alone and afraid.

He wouldn’t be showing anybody he was nearly a man. He wouldn’t be

showing anybody anything but the tears that very suddenly started running

down his face again.

I knew it, Reza thought, I knew Ayla was right to cry and I wasn’t right to

hold it back.

Documents

The Cities of Song