Charles Stross - Examination Night

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Examination Night

Charles Stross

Midsummer night, and a thin haze of mist rose from the gutters. Vendors and

peddlars hawked their wares by the light of guttering oil lamps, long after most would

normally have been abed. A strange bustle of business kept them busy, tradesmen and

fishwives and dragoons and whores strutting and shrieking and haggling with forced

vehemence beneath the posies hanging from the eaves of taverns and shops; meanwhile

balls and soirees ran on late into the night among the scented gardens of the rich.

There was a dark undertow of fear among the revellers in the streets, and some of

them muttered prayers and cast out the evil eye with fetishistic regularity. It was a custom of

the city that on solstice night one must not sleep; for according to the legend anyone who

closed their eyes between sunset and sunrise would awaken to find themselves in the abyss.

Midsummer night was a time when the slings and arrows of fate were supplemented by the

guided missiles of demonic malice, for the University held it s graduation exams this evening.

It would therefore have been quite inexplicable to the ordinary town-dwellers to see Sebastian

wending his way through the alleys and smokey tavernae of the Lower City on the dog-watch

of this festival of grimness. Nevertheless, there was an entirely reasonable explanation: for he

would not be graduating tonight. Sebastian had decided to refuse his baccalaureate, and

having reached the limit of his tenure he would inevitably be sent down.

"Pissed as a newt," he sang tunelessly, wobbling from side to side in the narrow

Shambles, narrowly avoiding the dungheap in front of old Vladislaw's tannery: "Pissed as a

salamander of the eleventh order of syrinexae! Stoned as a basilisk's boy-friend! Drunk as a

student, for tomorrow they will send me down! Hic." He leaned against the wall, flask in hand,

and took a mighty swig from it. Frowning, he up-ended the vessel over the cobbles; what

remained of its contents dripped across the stones, glittering like blood in the light from the

leaded windows of the tavern opposite. "Fuck me, I must be mad! Worms on the brain. A bit

more balls and I could have – could be –" He looked up at the swirling clouds overhead, saw

complex shapes forming and dissolving among them with unearthly speed, and shuddered.

"Bastards." He spat the word venomously then heaved himself up and, dusting down his

tunic, stumbled over to the tavern door and banged hard upon it.

The door swung open, and Sebastian squinted at the gnomish shape of the bouncer,

Old Flog. "Loadsa dosh," he sang, waving his limp purse; "More wine, and faster!"

"So you think the master's going to let you back in here again after what you and your

catamite did to the cobbler's daughter last month?" Flog sneered at him. "Think again, you

swiving whoreson bastard nebbish offspring of a scholar's quill by a goose's bum! I'll give you

a sodding drink! Unless you can pay for the table and the pickled lampreys." He thrust out an

upturmed hand, yellow nails clicking impatiently. "Give me the purse, shit-face. Now!"

"There's three groats and a copper bit in there," said Sebastian, dropping the purse in

the bouncer's palm; "I want to stay drunk all night. Why don't you –"

Flog wasn't listening. He pawed his way through Sebastian's lucre like a miser

searching his ledgers for a bad debt, then shook his head. "You've got enough here, right

enough. Seeing you've got the money to pay for your past sins, I can't keep you out; but I can

–" a sharp-nailed claw jabbed hard at Sebastian's cod-piece –"promise you a rough ride if

you throw up on the cat again! Comprendez?"

Sebastian belched. "Of course; just show me to the bar and I'll be good." The gnome

nodded grimly and stood aside to let him enter. He stepped indoors without so much as a nod

at the bouncer, and the heat washed over him like a monsoon shower.

The Gibbet and Felon was not the lowest dive that the grand city of Rask could offer,

but it could certainly pass for such in refined company. It was distinctly unwise to enter and

linger there should one be a stranger to these parts; Sebastian, however, was safe. Students

of the Academy were recognised in this tavern, and although tempers ran high on

Examination Night no-one would ever dream of waylaying him. Scholarly pranks could be

vicious to the point of malice, and the prospect of waking up in the arms of a century-old

corpse one morning – or worse, of waking up as a century-old corpse – could do wonders for

those of even the most villainous disposition. So it was that when Sebastian marched right up

to the bar, wobbled ever so slightly, crowed "a pint of sack! a pint of sack!" at the landlord,

and subsequently collapsed across the rough-hewn timbers of the bar, all but one of the

clientele knew enough to ignore him.

"What do you mean by a pint of sack?" asked a fluting voice from the vicinity of his

left shoulder. It spoke with an outlandish accent, curiously musical and unsettling to

Sebastian's ears. He blinked and stopped tittering. Gonna throw up, he realised: the thought

was instantly sobering.

"You needn't trouble to answer right away," added the owner of the voice; "you

appear to be a little intoxicated and I would be most displeased if your reply came in the form

of a regurgitation across my boots."

Bloody foreigners, he though resentfully. It somehow slipped his befuddled brain that

he himself had been a foreigner no less than four years ago, and would shortly be one again.

He mustered a reply: "Sack, sirrah, is the fermented juice of the vine, blended and ice-cast

from the barrel. It's called sack because that's what they did to the city it came from, y'see.

Now are you ready to defend yourself or must I see my stomach and my honour slighted by a

coward?" He straightened up agressively, turned round, and stopped dead in his tracks.

"You are mistaken: I offer slight to neither organ," said the stranger. She smiled

faintly and a shock of electric recognition flew threw him: a wandering wysard! He breathed in

sharply and muttered a quick incantation for a lesser ward, but she merely shook her head.

"Really, as if that would do you any good, you scoundrel! Mind you don't spew over my cape,

though. And when you finish purging your bilious humours if you'd be so good as to order me

a drink... I shouldn't take it amiss, I warrant you."

Her presumption upon his familiarity was so great that Sebastian would have laughed

at her had he not first glanced into her eyes, and seen there a certain steadiness of gaze.

"Two pints of sack," he called to the barman, surprising himself. Then: "and get me a

bucket," he added, gulping. "I'm going to be –"

How the door came to be open, and how he came to be doubled over beneath the

lintel with his stomach spraying the street and the rain spattering his hair, was a complete

mystery to Sebastian. How the woman came to be holding him by the shoulders was another

mystery. When he was done he straightened up, wiping his lips. Inebriation and water

conspired to bedraggle him so that he presented only a palid shadow of the infamous student

ruffian Sebastian de l'Amoque when he turned to address the woman. "I t hink I would

appreciate your company more if you had introduced yourself to me in the traditional manner.

What do you want of me, and why?"

She stepped back into the tavern, one hand resting lightly on the pommel of her

sword. Her lips quirked, so that if he ignored her eyes he could almost convince himself that

she was smiling like a coquette. "I am Anya of Tigre, and you are the Sieur de l'Amoque of

the Academy, lately apprenticed to the High Lord Wysard Vargas Escobar," she said, still

smiling that curious smile. "If this is so I am pleased to meet you, for I have been searching

this metropolitan midden for you for some time. But now would you care to drink at my

expense, and let me trouble you for the answer to some minor trivia; or would you rather

satisfy me with respect to the insult you rendered to my honour?"

Sebastian cleared his throat and spat in the gutter. A flash of sudden sobriety

showed him the gravity of his situation. "No offense was intended, madame, and it is my

sincerest hope that none should be taken at my earlier incoherence. If you would care to

share a table with me, the landlord will see to our provision while we discuss those matters

you would quiz me upon. However, I think it would be best if you waited for a while before you

tax my head overmuch; it's ringing like a bell and my hands are still shaking."

Anya nodded, then turned and retreated to a shadowy table in a nook at the very

back of the tavern. Sebastian followed her, still shaky, beginning to wonder just what this

maid – no, this un-woman killer bitch of Tigre – wanted. Oh yes. He'd heard about wandering

women and what they did to men who crossed them any way but one. He thought fuzzily: it's

a tough life being a wife and mother, but that's no excuse for brigandage.

The table Anya selected was strangely empty, and the bag of possessions she had

left there was still untouched despite the raucous congregation of orc-browed night-soil

attendants who hooted and gambled with manic intensity at the next table. She sat down

beside her baggage and smiled gratefully as the cobbler's daughter planted a jug of wine and

two tankards on the table. The barmaid looked round, saw Sebastian coming, and her eyes

widened: her ears flushed a hot coral pink as she picked up her skirts and fled for the

sanctuary of the cellar. Sebastian sat down and shook his head in disappointment, charting

her progress with resentful eyes. Whorespawn bitch-cow ballock-ripper ... "I didn't mean it but

for fun," he said unconsciously, "how was I to know the silly strumpet was still a maiden?"

"You should be more prudent." Anya's expression was neutral as she poured the

dark wine into each tankard and pushed one towards him. Her sobriety was nevertheless

clear: she didn't spill a drop. "If you dishonour her further in the eyes of her family, you might

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Charles Stross - Examination Night

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