Free The Burning City by Jerry Pournelle Page A

whispered, “That’s you they’re talking about.”
    â€œSneaker?”
    â€œNo, the
Lordkin!”
    Whandall nodded. His family, street, city, in the hands of these dithering, bickering Lords…. Was he too young to be sold onto some foreign ship? For an instant the idea was indecently attractive…
    â€œYangin-Atep’s still asleep,” Quintana said. “Watchmen told me there were three fires over in the benighted areas.”
    â€œI didn’t hear about any fires. Have trouble?”
    â€œJust brush fires. The kinless must have put them out.”
    â€œThis time,” Samorty muttered. “What I worry about is when the Lordkin won’t let the kinless put out the fires.”
    â€œYangin-Atep protects houses,” Quintana said.
    â€œBut not brush. Suppose all the chaparral burned at once?” Jerreff asked. “Would that wake Yangin-Atep? Half the city could burn if Yangin-Atep wakes while the hills are burning!”
    â€œNow that would be something to worry about,” Rowena said.
    â€œSure would. You’re too young to remember the last time,” Samorty said. “I was only ten or so myself.”
    â€œWe don’t know what wakes the god,” Qirinty’s wife said.
    â€œSure we do. Hot weather. No rain. That hot, dry wind from the east,” Qirinty said.
    â€œSometimes.” Samorty sounded doubtful. “I grant you that’s usually what things are like when the Burning starts. But not always.”
    â€œGet us some rain and things will be all right.” Qirinty toyed nervously with a salt shaker, then caused it to whirl about.
    â€œSure,” Rowena said.
    â€œIf we can’t get rain, maybe we ought to do something else,” Qirinty said carefully. He put the salt shaker down.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œFinish the aqueduct. Get more water into the benighted areas—”
    â€œBe real,” Samorty said. “That’s no easier than getting rain!”
    â€œThey have a new aqueduct in South Cape,” Quintana said. “One of the ship captains told me.”
    â€œSure, and they have wizards in South Cape,” Qirinty said. “And dragon bones for manna. We don’t. But we could still build the aqueduct—”
    â€œThere’s no money,” Samorty said.
    â€œRaise taxes.”
    â€œWe just raised taxes,” Jerreff said. “You can’t squeeze the kinless much more.”
    â€œBorrow the money. We have to do something! If there’s another Burning it will cost even more to rebuild and we’ll
still
have to finish the aqueduct.” At the word
still
, Qirinty made a dagger vanish. From his vantage above, Whandall saw how he did it. He might have learned it from a pickpocket. “Doesn’t Nico owe us?”
    â€œSure he does, and maybe he can talk his masons into working with him as a favor, but it would still take two hundred laborers to finish that job. They’d all have to be fed.”
    â€œI suppose,” Qirinty said sadly.
    â€œMaybe we can talk the Lordkin into finishing the aqueduct.” Rowena laughed sourly. “After all, they’re the ones who need it.”
    â€œYeah, sure,” Quintana said. He poured himself another glass of wine. “But Qirinty’s right. We should do something…”
    Lord Quintana’s wife was slim and long, with sculpted hair. She’d arranged herself on the couch so that everyone would see her legs and painted toenails, and she seldom spoke. “I don’t see why everyone worries so much about the Lordkin,” she said. “We don’t need them. What do we care what they do?”
    Quintana ignored her.
    â€œNo, I mean really,” she said. There was a hard edge to her voice. “They need the aqueduct, but they won’t work on it. The very idea that they might makes us laugh.”
    â€œAnd when Yangin-Atep wakes and they burn the city?” Samorty said