The Cistern Edge

How many paces of salt-slick limestone did a man need to ruin eighty lives?

Arslanbek bounded down the spiral stairwell three steps at a time, his wool caftan bunching at the knees as his heels struck cold rock. Below him in the dark, the slap of wet leather soles echoed off the dripping walls. Selim-oglu was moving fast for an orderly who usually complained of gout whenever a sack of grain needed hauling from the gantry, but fear gave the boy good legs. In his left fist, the amber phial held enough refined monkshood juice to turn every belly in Tash-Bashi into a knot of black spasms before the noon bell rang.

"Drop the glass, you half-witted turnip!" Arslanbek bellowed, his voice booming down the shaft like thunder in an empty barrel. "You smash that on the landing and the fumes alone will blister your lungs!"

A frantic scramble answered him, followed by the metallic scrape of an iron latch being kicked open.

Arslanbek took the last four steps in a reckless leap, catching his shoulder against the archway to arrest his momentum. The sudden shock sent a dull ache through his collarbone, but he pushed off the damp stones without stopping.

The subterranean cistern chamber smelled of cold slate, iron rust, and ten thousand gallons of trapped rainwater. Overhead, ribbed vaults of dressed granite spanned a reservoir thirty feet wide and deep enough to drown a mounted rider. Across the surface of the dark pool, ripples caught the faint daylight filtering down from the high ventilation shafts. A narrow walkway of dressed limestone, barely two spans across and slick with green moss, skirted the northern wall toward the main sluice gate.

Selim-oglu stood halfway along the catwalk, teetering against the mossy wall. His chest heaved beneath his torn gray linen smock. His left hand was raised near his mouth, his teeth already clamped around the wax-sealed cork stopper of the apothecary phial.

"Stay back, Master Arslanbek!" Selim-oglu shrieked, the cork muffling his words into a wet hiss. "I swear by the Prophet, I'll spit the plug and drop it in! I'll drown it whole!"

Arslanbek halted six paces away, spreading his feet to find purchase on the treacherous stone. Water dripped from the ceiling vault, ticking steadily against the dark reservoir below.

"With what teeth, boy?" Arslanbek asked, his tone dropping into the dry, venomous drawl he reserved for malingerers in the quarantine wards. "You have two rotten incisors and a jaw that shakes like an old woman's hand. Try pulling a cold tallow seal with those stumps and you will snap your crown before the cork gives."

Selim-oglu's eyes widened, white and bloodshot in the dim gray wash from above. His jaw jerked, the cork slipping against his slick lips. He did not pull it free, but his fingers tightened around the slender neck of the glass.

"You don't understand," the orderly gasped, pressing his spine flat against the curved wall. "If the prince didn't die of the spotted rot, they said none of us would see the spring! They said the mainland garrison would burn the rock from the water line up!"

"Who said that? Timur-bek? The clerk cannot even balance the bean ledger without wetting his fingers."

"Not Timur-bek!" Selim-oglu wailed. He shifted his weight, his left heel sliding two inches over the open drop. A small flake of mortar tumbled over the edge, striking the pool with a soft, hollow plop. "The messenger who brought the autumn salt! He gave me the purse and the hair—"

Arslanbek did not wait for the rest of the sentence. While the boy's gaze tracked the falling pebble, Arslanbek reached into his apron pocket and drew a four-inch ash-wood wedge—the hard, bevel-edged splint tool he used to align compound fractures.

He did not charge upright. Lunging on slick limestone was a fool's gamble that ended with two corpses floating in tainted water. Instead, Arslanbek dropped his center of gravity, lunging low along the catwalk in a sudden, skidding slide.

Selim-oglu saw the movement too late. He jerked the phial upward to cast it out into the center of the deep pool.

Arslanbek slammed his right shoulder straight into the orderly's shins. The impact swept Selim-oglu's legs out from under him with a sharp crack of bone against stone. Selim shrieked as his back slammed flat onto the walkway, the breath exploding from his lungs in a ragged gasp.

The phial slipped from the orderly's grasp, rolling toward the lip of the water.

Arslanbek planted his knee directly onto Selim's throat, pinning the thrashing orderly to the wet flags. With his left hand, Arslanbek thrust the wooden ash wedge beneath the tumbling glass cylinder, scooping it off the edge just as gravity tilted it into the abyss. His knuckles scraped the raw stone, but his fingers closed around the smooth amber glass.

The cork was intact. The tallow seal had held.

Arslanbek exhaled a sharp, shuddering breath of cellar damp. He brought the phial up to his eye line, inspecting the dark fluid within. Not a drop had spilled. Two ounces of triple-distilled wolfsbane, concentrated enough to empty the lazaretto, remained safely sealed inside the glass.

Beneath his knee, Selim-oglu gagged, clawing weakly at Arslanbek's wool sleeve with sulfur-blackened fingernails. Tears carved pale tracks through the grime on the boy's cheeks.

"I caught it, you miserable wretch," Arslanbek muttered, shifting his weight just enough to let the orderly suck in a rasping breath. "Though why I bruised my kneecap to save an imperial poisoner from drowning is a question I will have to put to my own vanity."

Heavy, wet footfalls slapped against the spiral stairs, accompanied by frantic wheezing.

Timur-bek stumbled through the archway, his robes plastered to his round belly from his dive into the courtyard wash-trough. He held a rusted iron fireplace poker like a spear, his round face purple with exertion.

"Is... is it in?" the warden wheezed, bracing both hands against his knees as he fought for air. "Did he... the cistern..."

"The cistern has clean rain in it," Arslanbek said, rising smoothly to his feet while keeping his heavy boot planted firmly on Selim-oglu's right wrist. He held up the amber phial, letting the dim daylight gleam against the dark liquid. "And I have my aconite back. Your kitchen boys may continue serving their tasteless gruel without killing the survivors."

Timur-bek let out a long, shuddering groan of relief, the iron poker clattering against the flagstones. "Praise the heavens. Praise every saint on the coast. Tie him. We must string him from the beacon gantry before the patients wake—"

"No one is stringing anyone from the gantry," Arslanbek cut in sharply. He slipped the precious phial into his deep inner vest pocket and buttoned the wool flap tight. Then he bent down, grabbing Selim-oglu by the collar of his torn smock and hauling him upright against the vault wall. "The boy has a story to finish."

Selim-oglu hung limp in his grip, his knees trembling so violently they knocked together. His nose was bleeding from the fall, crimson dripping onto his chin.

"Tell the administrator what you told me, Selim," Arslanbek said, his voice flat and cold. "Who paid you to dump my wolfsbane into the soup?"

"A courier," Selim-oglu sobbed, his voice cracking into high-pitched hysteria. "In the cargo basket... three weeks ago, before the storm came. A man in gray silk with the Governor's silver seal on his thumb. He gave me twelve gold pieces and a velvet pouch."

The orderly reached trembling fingers into the waistband of his trousers, pulling out a small bundle wrapped in oilcloth. He held it out with shaking hands.

Timur-bek snatched the bundle, unwrapping the stiff cloth with clumsy, wet fingers. Inside lay a single lock of dark, braided hair bound with a red silk ribbon, resting beside a lead seal stamped with the imperial falcon.

"My sister," Selim whispered, his head slumping against the cold limestone. "She works in the Governor's laundry at Trabzon. The man said if Prince Bahadir-oglu did not die of the fever by the first frost, they would send her ears in the next salt basket. And if the prince died of poison instead of disease, they said they would kill every soul on Tash-Bashi so no tongue could speak of it."

Timur-bek stared at the braided hair, the color draining entirely from his fleshy cheeks.

Arslanbek looked down at the weeping orderly, then turned his gaze toward the dark, undisturbed water of the cistern. The boy had not acted out of malice or greed; he was merely the lowest tooth on a very large, very heavy gear grinding down from the capital.

"Get some rope, Timur," Arslanbek said quietly, the mocking humor gone from his voice. "We are putting him in the solitary cell beneath the scriptorium. And you and I are going to have a very long conversation about who else on this rock received a package before the cable snapped."