Shadowless: Book 1 of the Ilmaen Quartet

by Helen Bell

  oOo

  ‘It seems our luck has turned at last,’ Kerin declared as they put the blankets away in the wagon the next morning. Naylan and Bighur had offered to share their breakfast, and though two meals between four would not be filling it would at least take the hunger away. Naylan expected to make the next town in time to set up stall by midday; an afternoon’s work would earn the cost of their next few meals. For now he had just enough left to buy them all a bite of lunch before they started work.

  ‘You’ve decided then.’ The bitter note in Vel’s voice startled Kerin; the look he saw on his companion’s face dismayed and bewildered him.

  ‘He’ll take us south-east, Vel. It may not be perfect but we will not find better cover, not in our circumstances.’

  ‘Our circumstances may not be good, but at least we know what they are. In the meantime the girls could be anywhere, in any state – but they’ll be on the coast, we know that much. Naylan was travelling the coast road up to now. I couldn’t say where he was really planning to go before he met us, but you charmed him and now he goes south-east.’

  ‘You want to go and look for them?’

  ‘Quick, aren’t you?’ Vel taunted, making Kerin bristle.

  ‘Vel, they could be in any of a dozen ports along this coast. In fact, I dare say they are no longer in any port; they have the money and the gear, they will be on their way to Karn by now, on Heaven only knows what route. We cannot take the time to search for them! Renia made that clear. None of us came all this way just to see Jastur’s life slip through our fingers.’

  ‘We didn't come expecting to be abandoned by our friends either,’ retorted Vel darkly.

  ‘They will not think we have abandoned them, Vel, and they will not be looking for us. No one could have expected us to survive that storm. But you saw how determined Renia was to carry on at the Three Villages. That is what she will be doing now. I will lay you odds she is at Karn before we are.’

  ‘Before you maybe,’ Vel replied bluntly. He got up and started looking around for stuff for his journey that Naylan might be able to spare. ‘Stay,’ Kerin protested mildly, but Vel rounded on him.

  ‘If you’re going south-east, you’re going without me. Since I know you won’t change your mind, you’d better get used to the idea.’

  Kerin got up too, watching him with a heavy heart and searching desperately for a way to change his mind. ‘Vel, I don’t think I can save him without you.’ Vel’s rummaging among the shelves continued unabated. Kerin leant back against the cupboards. He had finally pushed his companion too far, and in his arrogance he had not even noticed. ‘My fault, Vel. It was unreasonable of me to assume you were my man in these circumstances.’

  Vel paused, then asked, ‘But you still won’t come and look for the girls?’

  ‘No.’

  Vel used the blanket to bag together the few things he intended to ask Naylan for. He shouldered past Kerin and set his hand on the door, but turned back before he opened it.

  ‘Your assumption, it was no more unreasonable than mine about you. I hadn’t realized you were such a haliwr.’

  Kerin hauled him back at that and slammed him against the cupboards, but their affray was halted by the sight of Bighur as the door swung open. His eyes were round as he looked from one to the other of them.

  ‘You gon’ fight?’ He looked quite enthusiastic at the prospect, then his expression changed, dismissing the idea.

  ‘You no fight. You friends, yeah? The boss man, he sort this. You ask him. Boss!’

  The call was made before they could stop him. They glared at each other as the boy bounded off, exasperated at this turn of events and each blaming the other for it. Vel walked down the steps, dropped his bundle and stood with his arms folded, waiting. Kerin sat on the wagon steps, no less sullen. Naylan appeared, carrying the water can he had just refilled, and Bighur danced round him, telling him as much as he knew of the row. How much did he know? Kerin tried to remember the angry words, what they had actually said to each other in the heat of the moment. He could tell nothing from Naylan’s expression as he approached.

  ‘Dey were gon’ fight for real, you know. Dey not practise.’

  ‘All right, Bighur. Don’t push your luck.’ Naylan set down the water can. ‘So who’s going to tell me what’s going on?’

  He looked at Vel, who said sullenly, ‘Ask him.’ Naylan turned with a look of patient enquiry; Kerin stopped glaring at Vel and sat up a little straighter.

  ‘When we sailed from Mhrydain we were travelling with two women. One is his sister. Although they have all the money and gear, he feels they are not safe or able to look after themselves alone, and wants to look for them in the ports ahead. I, on the other hand, think they will shift very well for themselves. What I haven’t told you, but what is certain, is that my brother is in mortal danger in the east, and that if we make a search here, we will be too late to save him.’

  ‘Hmm. And do you want to add anything to that?’ Naylan asked Vel, who unfolded his arms briefly to spread his hands, no more to say, and folded them again.

  ‘Well, a pretty dilemma, to be sure.’ Naylan furrowed his brow, took up the can and walked over to the fire, where he set about filling the kettle and putting it on the flames while he thought.

  ‘Well...’ He got up from the fire and walked back to them. Bighur had settled into a crouch nearby and gazed up at Naylan, looking strangely like a dog watching its master.

  ‘You know that my route takes me south-east.’ Vel’s shoulders slumped a little. ‘I go that way for good sound business reasons. It’s busy. Lots of towns. Lots of people on the road. Lots of reasons for them to stop me and give me money. It’ll be a slow route, unless we want to draw attention to ourselves by turning business away – and something tells me that, whatever your reasons, you don’t want that.

  ‘On the other hand, the coast road is well made but less busy. There will be fewer stops, and it turns inland in forty miles anyway. When we part company you should be able to pick up a bridge over the Sen that much sooner, and make your way north of the citywild. How about we try the ports between here and the Sen and then go inland?’

  Kerin calculated distances in his head and tried to estimate the number of stops.

  ‘Forty miles, you say?’ Vel asked.

  ‘’Bout that,’ Naylan replied.

  ‘How many ports would that take us to?’ cut in Kerin. Naylan screwed up his face.

  ‘For a ship the size you said, two or three. If it happens that she’s hove to in deeper water off a shallower harbour, the land’s flat and clear from the road to the sea, all along the coast. You’d soon spot her.’

  ‘Vel?’ Kerin prompted tentatively. Vel raised his head, still thinking it through; Kerin waited. After what seemed an age, Vel gave him a curt nod.

  ‘Right, breakfast then,’ Naylan concluded, and returned to the fire. Vel picked up his bundle and started back to the wagon. Kerin got off the steps to let him pass; they weren’t ready to look at or speak to each other, not yet. He crossed to the fire to help out there. Bighur followed him over with a smile that split his face, and it was an effort not to smile along with him. Vel rejoined them, still silent but no longer angry. Bighur’s smile stayed put all through the meal, and the washing up they shared.

  ‘So you missed a big fight, but you’re happy?’ Naylan asked him eventually, his own face all seriousness.

  ‘Eyah. You did real good, Boss. You damn’ clever bugger.’ They all wore grins now. On Naylan’s face it made all the stubble stand to attention. He thumped the boy across the shoulders with rough affection.

  ‘And you're a damn’ cheeky one, bog rat. I suppose you want to drive as well.’

  ‘I first there, I drive.’ Having declared the rules of the game, Bighur scampered off.

  Chapter 15 – The Company

  Jesral watched Renia trying to sleep against the shaking of the coach, and wished she hadn’t pushed her so hard. It had only just occurred to her
that there might have been another staging coach the next day. They had made it to the inn by two o’clock, by the skin of their teeth, despite the extra pack to contend with as well as Renia’s ankle. The pace Jesral had forced had been too fast. Even Kerin had not pressed Renia so hard.

  She had spent a bad night at their overnight stop, despite her homemade medicine. And this morning she continued to fret because they had left without even a note to Captain Harrat, despite the handful of Internationals they’d left him in the room for his trouble. Kerin would have been livid with them for doing that, it screamed out the deceit they had practised, but they’d have to take their chances. Even if Harrat had harboured any suspicions about Kerin, who would imagine that two Mhrydainaidd would take up his cause once he was dead?

  When had she made Kerin her spiritual mentor? Here she was, trying to think like him, still feeling uncomfortable about breaking his governing principles – this was ridiculous. What worked for him would not necessarily work for her. That was why they were on this route.

  And she knew their route so well. That was thanks to Atune’s teaching. God knows why she had thought it so important Jesral should learn it, but it stood her in good stead now. Posters in the last town had confirmed the Company were on this road. She and Renia would probably overtake them before Latuc. She had toyed with the idea of getting off at one of the minor halts along the way, if she should spot them, but had decided to carry on to that port even if it meant a day’s wait for them. It had to look like a chance meeting, an accident – or serendipity. She had to be careful; Atune would be angry if she sensed she was being played, and if Cedas smelt a rat, he could make things very difficult. As if things wouldn’t be difficult enough for Jesral anyway, with him around.

  So… get there ahead of them. Be somewhere a chance meeting could happen – the marketplace, probably. Just bump into one of them – so long as it wasn’t Cedas, anyone but Cedas. Tell them our tale of woe, accept a ride, and…

  And then what? Oh, Hell. It’d come. Give it time, the right idea would come. Let’s get that far, at least.

  She glanced at Renia again, still with her eyes closed. Jesral felt bad about deceiving her too, implying she had the answer to their problems when her plan was so full of flaws only an idiot would have considered it. She herself went into most things in life full of optimism, and right now she doubted this plan’s chances. But it was the best she had to offer.

  The coachman’s assistant sounded three blasts on his horn, the signal for slower traffic ahead to pull aside for them. Jesral tucked herself in behind the blind just enough to see but not be seen. They passed two covered wagons, then several caravans. The angle was too tight for her to see any of the drivers – but that vehicle, she knew. It had been given a fresh coat of paint, but it was Atune’s beyond a doubt. Jesral settled back while the stage passed the remainder of the caravans then shut and rested her eyes, readying herself for the work ahead.

  The staging office stood next to a boarding house, where they took a room for the rest of the day and overnight. It had a little parlour, book-lined on one wall: she selected a few volumes and settled Renia in their room with them. For practice, Jesral told her. She left Renia frowning over one, trying to fit the spoken language she knew to the written word she had not, apart from a few place names, ever seen before.

  There was the usual range of food bars and drinks shops at the top end of the town square. Jesral ordered herself a hot drink and a sweetroll at one and settled down at one of the tables scattered before it. She wasn’t hungry; in fact she had no appetite at all. She was just delaying the next step while she worked it through and through in her mind.

  There was so much that could go wrong, it was almost bound to. What did they do then?

  Carry on to Karn on the staging coaches, she supposed. But nothing she and Renia could do there would get them into the fort proper – short of being arrested themselves, in which case they wouldn’t be of much use to Jastur.

  She stirred the hot drink absently. There must be some organized resistance to this man Maregh. She had overheard conversations at the inn last night, and today on the coach and in the square as she had idled her way up here. Everyone agreed that things were going badly, be it trouble on the southern borders or local taxes and lawlessness both going up. Surely some of the people at the top were prepared to do something about it, even if only to further their own ends. But Kerin had been the one who would know who to contact, and how. She had been over this ground before…

  ‘Hello, stranger.’

  She glanced up, and stopped stirring the drink.

  ‘Good Lord… It's been a long time, a long time. How are you, Nina?’

  Bright, confident mahogany eyes looked at Jesral from a pretty oval face. There was the old remembered smile, if a rather guarded one, as they had parted on such a bad note; but it was enough to maintain the conversation. Thank you, God, thank you for interceding like this, Jesral acknowledged fervently.

  ‘I’m well enough, thanks,’ Nina told her, and settled on the nearest chair, staring at her with an expression of wonder. ‘Where have you been? We thought you'd crossed the water, it's been so long since we saw you.’

  ‘I did. I only got back the day before yesterday, but it's been a bit of a nightmare so far. I came in a foursome and there's only two of us left now. The others drowned in the crossing, we hit an almighty storm. We have a desperately urgent task in the east, and have to get there as fast as possible. My friend who made it, she’s in a daze; one of those who drowned was her brother. She has a bad ankle too, which doesn't help. Fact is, Nina, I'm at my wit's end as to what to do now.’

  ‘So nothing changes, then? You really do get yourself into some situations.’ Nina thought for a little. ‘We may be able to help. But you haven't asked after the others.’

  ‘No, I'm sorry. How are they? How's Atune, and Cedas?’

  ‘Well, Cedas is in charge now. Age has finally caught up with Atune. She has had a couple of bad winters, especially this last; we thought we might lose her. She still insists on having a say, you know how she is, but she realizes the organizing is too much for her now. Cedas and I do most of it. We're still together...’

  ‘That’s good. Really, it is, Nina. Cedas and I are old history. I'm long over him. The only thing I hold against him now is that he came between us – and we were stupid enough to let him. Things are different now; we're different. It would be nice to start again, wouldn't it?’

  Jesral cringed inwardly, for this was not the total truth and it sounded false and grovelling to her ears. But Nina smiled at her again. It was more natural than her first smile, but also more wry. She knew Jesral well enough to see there was an element of acting in this, knew she had a knack for extricating herself from almost any situation – almost as good as her knack for getting into them.

  ‘Look,’ she told Jesral, ‘you know the Company is going up the coast road from here. If you want to go east that's a bit out of your way, but if it helps you're welcome to come. Usual rules: if you travel with the show, you contribute to the show. We're camped outside the south gate. It’s just an afternoon show here, we’re to be on the road again tonight. Can you and your friend get there by five?’

  ‘Of course!’ Jesral declared excitedly. ‘We'll get the old routines going again, and Renia – oh, she can tell you what she does when you see her. Look, I’ve got to get our things sorted. I'll see you there later. Give Atune my love, eh?’

  oOo

  They received a cool reception from Cedas, as Jesral had anticipated. Luckily he had been too busy striking camp to pay them too much attention, but had simply directed them to a particular wagon. Jesral was glad of that; there would probably be Hell to pay when he discovered that Renia was not merely injured, but totally inexperienced. She must let her friend know about that part of the bargain, of course, but not now. Renia sat on her pack nearby and was gingerly flexing her ankle – they had been in less of a rush this time but again the journ
ey had taxed her. She was tired and in discomfort, and that bit of news could wait.

  Cedas was going to be a problem. Jesral had seen the controlled anger in him when they arrived, upsetting his schedule. It was written all over him, in the way he moved, the way he spoke. He was even short with Nina. The ambitious bastard: he wouldn’t let anything affect the Company's performance. She had always suspected that the Company had come before her, back when she had reigned in his affections, and he hadn’t even been in charge of it then. Well, let Nina have that painful knowledge now; she was welcome to the disadvantages as well as the advantages of a relationship with Cedas.

  Jesral was only seeking to fool herself, though. There was no denying that little leap inside she’d felt on first seeing him, followed by unspeakable depression for the next ten seconds at the thought of going through all that pain again. The anger that followed had been her defence mechanism and it was working well now, but even with defences in place Cedas's magnetism was overpowering. Granted, when you looked at him closely he was not conventionally good-looking, but something about him… the rich dark glow of his skin, those fluid brown eyes that could be hard as coal or sweet as dark honey… all this had once enthralled her. And then there was the way he moved and held himself. He was a short man, but with his natural, effortless grace he projected a presence as proud as a lion amongst the biggest men. The next few weeks looked set to be the longest of her life. Jastur had damned well better be at Karn, after all this!

  oOo

  The wagon Renia had been sent to was fairly typical of those the Company used, consisting of a cabin ornamented by painted decoration and fronted by a fancy driver's box. It was backed by a short veranda with a bench and steps down to the road, and that was where she and Jesral now sat. A young man of about seventeen had clambered up to drive, and Jesral and Renia watched the port fall away behind them as the convoy of wagons moved north-east along the coast road. It was a warm day, but the sea breeze buffeted them on the back of the wagon and irritated Renia, blowing her hair into her eyes. It was long enough to tie back, but wisps always escaped anyway, and she had not got round to combing it that morning either. It was a mess and a nuisance, and Renia decided to get inside out of the wind.