The Astrologies

Chapter 15: Cadras Gets A New Job

It was shortly after midday and Cadras still had not slept. He threaded his way through the hectic third ring of the palace, toward the captain's station where he would report for guard duty. Lords and ladies were arriving for the festival with their travelling parties. Every noble assumed that their needs would be met immediately, and the stewards were scrambling, bowing and nodding, and yelling at their assistants. Cadras was in uniform, but he also knew how to maneuver in a crowd, and every time he saw somebody who wanted something— be they nobility or bureaucrat— he picked his route to make sure that he was never the closest person to them.

Wagons full of material were rolling slowly down the main avenue, being checked in and directed by the same harried stewards. Travelling nobles, servants, and men-at-arms all wandered in the throng, paying little attention to where they walked, scanning faces for friends they had not seen in years.

Cadras turned the corner into the main square and stopped briefly to take in the scene. In the center of the square, a full-sized galleon was being built on runners. He was nearly run down by a pair of well-dressed adolescents guiding an antiquated chariot poorly through the square. He cursed and took a step back into the shelter of a doorway. He shifted his weight and flexed his shoulders. His neck and back ached. He pulled out a plug of stuff from the alchemist, the gum of the casper tree, and began to chew it. It was bitter and astringent, but almost immediately 

Cadras felt his pulse quicken and his desire to close his eyes diminish.
He ground his teeth, thinking back over the hours he had spent with Halvered around dawn, sitting across from the libary gate in a tea shop, playing stones. The old thief had showed up happy— not even seeming to remember that Cadras' treachery had landed him in prison— which had alarmed Cadras until he realized he was drunk. Cadras thought back over their conversation about the library.

"How did you get into the library before?" He had asked.

Halvered had shrugged. "Bought myself a cowl. Set fire to the gatehouse. Ran around with a bucket of water for a while, then slipped inside in the confusion."

It had a vulgar kind of elegance to it.

"And how did you get into the Sacred Heart?" Cadras had asked, excited, chewing a plug of casper gum.

"The what?"

"The Sacred Heart of the Library. Where all the greatest treasures are stored."

Halvered had shrugged again, and answered "Never heard of it. I grabbed the first thing I saw with jewels in it, shoved it under my robe, and ran like a Islander." When Cadras had stared blankly at him, the old thief had grinned, spat through his teeth, and added, "Siltian trader paid me thirty weight gold for it, and he was robbing me blind."

Halvered was not a good stones player. Cadras quickly found himself trying out radically experimental openings that he would never play against his father. Cadras had sipped tea, and Halvered had sipped tea and rot gut liquor.

"We'll have to get inside without alerting the knights. We'll go through the gardens to find the side door." Cadras had said, watching the guards at the gatehouse. They were not knights, and they were not disciplined. They diced and flirted with the passing women.

"The gardens?" Halvered had asked with alarm. "There's panthers in the gardens."

Cadras had scoffed, "The panthers are there because when our esteemed former Emperor was going mad, he brought back a boatload of huge cats from the Southern Isles. When the Master Gardener threw a fit and demanded that the Emperor's cats be removed from the palace, they were sent to the library as a 'protective measure,' much to the dismay of the scribes and priests who were accustomed to taking their walks in the gardens."