Grand Conspiracy

by Janny Wurts

  Not about to stay mollified, Parrien paced. The sheath of the broadsword he wore at his belt sliced wide arcs that clipped tasseled furnishings. He fumed as he stomped, and disgruntled the robed secretaries by insisting on preferential treatment. When asked to show more seemly decorum, he raised his iron-flecked brows in astonishment. ‘Show me why an overdecorated galley from Jaelot should outrank a duke’s brother where there’s space at the docks to tie up.’

  An elderly official in Southshire’s silk livery answered in stiff-lipped reproof. ‘That vessel’s sworn to the Alliance of Light.’

  ‘You say!’ Parrien jutted his square chin across the propped ledgers arranged like a barrier on the desk. The foghorn bellow he shared with three brothers rattled the walls as he ranted, ‘So what if some puffed-up captain from that mayor’s prissy galley flies the sunwheel banner? Alestron’s in league with that cause as well. You won’t see a sniping scrap of white cloth on my masthead, just our own family banner. S’Brydion don’t claim borrowed loyalty out of need to protect what’s ours! Any ignoramus who holds his life cheap can slight our name at his peril. He’ll get his head dunted with no cry for help for the Prince of the Light to send in armed might for backing.’

  Rawboned and mean as a fidgety tiger, the duke’s oldest sibling crashed his forearm into the ordered papers of officialdom. Reed pens and parchments jumped from the blow. The flask burped up a dollop of black ink, to a trilling squeak from a clerk.

  For a moment the quiet became thick enough to wring running sweat from cowed servants. The balding harbormaster tapped an attenuated finger into a cheek like boiled leather, while two onlooking captains and several wattled ministers peered with circumspect caution from under their hat brims.

  ‘Sithaer’s biting furies, man!’ Parrien stormed. ‘You know what’s good, you’ll see me happy. I’ve a shipload of my brother’s best mercenaries manning the oars belowdecks. Once they’ve drunk a skinful, they like to make sauce out of unsuspecting lightermen with their fists. I suggest you find me a berth at the docks. Let my men stagger back from their whoring on foot, and maybe your bonesetters can keep their chance of getting an honest night’s rest.’

  The harbormaster blinked, bored. ‘Banners aside, we have no berths free at the moment.’ His enervated shrug made Parrien’s high temper seem overdone to absurdity. ‘And if there’s a bonesetter anywhere in Southshire’s sea quarter who gets an uninterrupted night before equinox, I don’t know him. One brawler more or less before thaws isn’t likely to matter.’

  Which was the plain truth; late winter on the south coast was no place for a man too refined to withstand the roughneck pursuits of a seafaring neighborhood. Even here, overcrowding made way for no nicety. The raw noise and shouts from the thoroughfare beat through the clay walls, interspersed by the croaks from the rooks nesting in the harbormaster’s watch turrets. From that high vantage, each day, sharp-eyed tally boys stood counting ships. They matched their numbers against each entry in the register, and made accurate lists for the constables. Those captains who tied to a mooring without paying were systematically accosted and fined.

  The shoreside watch was in fighting trim, with the taverns and brothels packed night and day, and the wharf quarter tuned to the hysterical pitch of a carnival. Street stalls under their sun-faded awnings shook and bulged to capacity crowds. Each morning, men were knifed in hot-tempered arguments. Fights and trade conflicts heated to boiling in minutes, as vendors and landlords elbowed to rake in the easy flow of winter silver.

  ‘What’s the price of your extortion, then?’ Parrien grumbled, not beaten, but shrewd enough to know when intimidation became wasted enterprise.

  The secretary’s clerk peered up from his rodent’s perch over the cash box. ‘Cost for a mooring’s six coin weight the night.’

  Parrien howled.

  The harbormaster shrugged. ‘No pay, then no anchorage.’

  His bland-faced indifference would not yield to s’Brydion wrath at this season. The slow months would return all too soon. Today’s raucous press of patrons would dry up after equinox, until only the high-class establishments could stay open. No responsible captain allowed crewmen on shore leave in summer, when spoiled stores and green flies, and the humid, sick airs hazed the sea quarter, and the brothels, with their louvered galleries, languished in the dense south coast heat.

  ‘Six silvers for mooring? That’s robbery.’ Parrien leaned forward; paperwork crackled and ivory marquetry groaned to the press of his weight. ‘Find me a berth. I’ll pay eight, and my mercenaries will toss no one’s taproom.’

  ‘The galley from Jaelot has priority. They carry a half company of new sunwheel soldiers as well.’ A last shrug from the harbormaster ended debate. ‘Those brutes were recruited from Alland’s league of headhunters. Since they’re just as likely to hammer my lightermen, your threat of bashed noses is moot.’

  Parrien flashed teeth in a barracuda grin. ‘Very well, man. Don’t say you weren’t warned. I don’t give any six of your town watchmen a chance against just one of mine when he’s pissed.’ The duke’s brother slapped down the coin for his mooring, then clomped to and fro to vent ripping impatience while the clerk marked the register and the tally boy recited the colored markings on the buoy assigned to his galley.

  ‘Make sure you tie up at the designated mooring,’ fussed the hovering clerk. ‘Claim another, and you forfeit your legitimate fee and subject yourself to a squatter’s fine.’

  ‘Do I look blind or stupid?’ Parrien glared. ‘I sure as blazes see well enough not to splash my own shoe, which does me credit, looking at you.’

  He turned on his heel and shouldered his way out, laughing gales at the whey-faced official, who had swallowed the jibe and now bent like a stork in a worried inspection of his slippers.

  Outside in the streets, under sun like fine wine, the reek of human sweat wove through the stench of the midden carts, stale horse urine, and the bouquet of patchouli and lavender worn by the half-silver whores. Parrien collected his captain of mercenaries, a hatchet-faced man with scars on his arms who had no smile to spare for the doxies. Like black steel struck through cloth, the cohesive armed party sauntered off down the docks toward the sailors’ quarter.

  ‘Boys,’ Parrien flipped back to the swordsmen, who padded like wolves at his heels, ‘you’ve got my leave to tear up this town for the threefold hell handed down by its windbag officials.’

  His pantherish stride clove through the press, the otter sleek knot of his clan braid cruising level with the froth of feathers that spilled from the trade factors’ hat brims. On either side, between loiterers begging handouts and the clouds of grease smoke from the sausage vendors, his eye caught the gleam of fresh paint.

  Parrien’s mouth twitched. ‘Will you look at that?’

  His captain also noted the sunwheel emblems newly blazoned on the doorposts of the houses. His sole comment became the gob of spit he ejected into the gutter.

  The frown set in place at the harbormaster’s furrowed the ridge of Parrien’s nose. ‘You saw the sunwheel flying alongside the banners over the guildhalls.’

  ‘I did.’ The captain’s grin came and went like the cold gleam of quartz in a streambed. ‘This town’s fawning terrified of piracy, looks to me.’

  Parrien curled his lip. ‘It’s their purses they’re protecting, sure enough.’ His laughter slapped echoes off the shaded arches of the shop fronts, and turned the heads of three girls buying ribbons.

  The raids had become the scourge of seagoing trade. Afloat in armed strength in their contraband ships, Tysan’s clans came down like plague on those galleys bearing slave convicts. Despite his family’s lip service loyalty to Prince Lysaer, the spreading fashion of Alliance support galled s’Brydion independent sensibilities.

  ‘Best walk softly on our business indeed,’ Parrien said in low warning to his captain.

  The mercenary gave back a wary, clipped nod. Southshire had declared for the Light with a fervency they had seen
repeated with unsettling frequency in their port-hopping voyage down the coast. Just like the guard garrisons at Elssine and Telzen, the uniformed watch here had sewn sunwheel patches beneath the city blazon on their sleeves. At the Fat Pigeon Inn, the recent trend proved entrenched. When Parrien arrived to complete his small errand, the louvered dimness of the taproom was crammed with a large party wearing the white tunics denoting a vow of life service.

  ‘What’s this, the new kennel?’ Parrien grumbled, but softly. Only his captain overheard.

  What seemed a whole troop of Alliance men-at-arms sprawled at ease, dicing and wenching and swilling down beer. Others arm wrestled for coin, companionably mingled with burly deckhands on leave wearing Jaelot’s rampant lion livery. Officers in gold braid commandeered all the corner nooks. Their immense, florid captain lounged with his boots propped on the best table, his beefy hands laced over his belly as he hobnobbed with a trio of pouting merchants. Behind their pastel velvets and lace, a ferret-nosed official in a spotless white tabard lounged against the frame of the window sash. He appeared to listen in, but did not participate. His searching glance raked the taproom’s noisy patrons with a focused reserve that lifted Parrien’s hackles.

  ‘Slinking headhunters,’ he mouthed under his breath. ‘Never mind those milk-sucking dockside clerks, I’d buy any man a night’s pleasure to cripple a few of these ham-brained murderers, and give a life pension for the head of that weasel-faced sunwheel informer.’

  A seasoned veteran of Alestron’s service, the captain rubbed his old scars. ‘Won’t stay the night to catch lice for that lot.’ He passed a surreptitious signal and closed his men into a wedge, prepared when the familiar wry twist curved the duke’s brother’s lips.

  ‘Well, you’re right on that score.’ Parrien laughed. ‘Bloodying faces is a sight cleaner fun than the whores would provide at this season.’

  Together, he and his companion plowed through the flattering hands of those wenches not engaged by drunken sailhands.

  The landlord of the Fat Pigeon held nothing in common with the comfortable name of his establishment. Slender as worn string, he limped on arthritic knees, which had led many to underestimate the hand that could strike with the speed of a cobra. More than one swaggering brawler had found himself flattened, spitting smashed teeth on the floorboards. Given the sight of Parrien’s squared jaw and soft tread, the man dropped the damp rag he used for buffing the enameled glaze on his tankards. His black eyes brightened to recognition like a spark chipped off a struck flint. ‘Don’t give a rat’s tail for my customers, I see. That’s no excuse. Make trouble, and just like any other scum, you’ll land facefirst in the gutter.’

  ‘That’s what happens with fleabrains who draw their damned steel in this taproom,’ Parrien quoted in an evil imitation of a southcoaster’s drawling vowels. He grinned wide as the moon, folded his arms, and leaned across the bar top. The muffled grate of metal beneath his loose sleeves betrayed the fact he wore a mail shirt. ‘Don’t tempt me. The bodies you’d toss alongside mine in the midden would be for the dogs, stone dead.’ He measured the spotless, bleached cloth of his cuff as if weighing the cost of the penalty. ‘For that lot, a roll in the garbage might just be worthwhile.’

  As a beery new recruit in a sunwheel tunic swiveled to sling return insults, the Fat Pigeon’s landlord scowled. ‘Fighting armed packs of drunks was beneath your family dignity once. Or has your clan honor gone to mayhem along with the peace in this Ath-forsaken port?’

  ‘So Southshire’s been raided, too?’ Parrien laughed.

  ‘Three galleys hit, just this past week. Made off with the chained oarsmen and sank every hull without troubling to off-load their cargoes.’ The landlord inclined his head toward the merchants wringing lace sleeves in the company of the Alliance captain. ‘That lot were just hired on with the gold sent for the cause by the Mayor o’ Jaelot’s generosity. So now you know why this joint reeks like a barracks.’

  ‘Never mind.’ Parrien’s grin broadened. ‘I like my shirts clean and my steel sticky, right enough. That finicky habit’s unlikely to change. Not for as long as I walk on two legs without need of a stick to stop doddering.’

  ‘What’s to do then? Do I pour you a beer?’ The landlord wiped oversize knuckles on his apron and hefted a crockery mug thick enough to be used for a cudgel.

  Parrien folded an elbow, eased the wet rag aside, and leaned close. ‘Beer’s fine.’ His blunt, sword-scarred finger traced a cipher on the dampened wood of the bar, then idly swiped the mark out. ‘Along with the drink, I need a wee dispatch slipped to the next courier who happens through.’

  The landlord looked up, his shrewd eyes intense.

  That instant, the door to the kitchen banged open. Parrien’s wary start passed unnoticed amid the leaping commotion as a sweaty, cursing drudge barged into the taproom, hauling a yelping cur by the scruff.

  The snapping animal and the woman tussled their way toward the streetside exit, while sailhands caught in her path staggered clear. As she passed, the sunwheel mercenaries hooted and pinched, or called noisy wagers to name which combatant would wind up arse down in the gutter.

  ‘Damned Jaelot thugs have the manners of swine.’ A whipcrack snap of Parrien’s fingers dispatched one of his mercenaries, who took two fast strides and relieved the girl of her problem. The outer door swung closed on the heels of the cur, to a pounding on tables and derogatory hoots of displeasure. Alestron’s swordsman never once turned his head, an astounding display of strong character.

  ‘Those blighty curs take advantage all the time,’ the landlord smoothed out by way of wry thanks and apology. ‘Though their fracas serves Kats right, since her little daughter steals from my tables to feed them.’ Turned reticent since the byplay with the cipher, he blinked, while Parrien waited.

  No revealing move was forthcoming from the s’Brydion or his mercenaries. The one given orders reassumed his post, planted and watchful at his lord’s shoulder. The coded request would not be repeated, nor the sketched sign, too dangerous to redraw on the bar top where the sunwheel informer might notice.

  The landlord repressed the nervous urge to glance backward over his shoulder. ‘The next man who could make your delivery isn’t due for six months.’

  ‘No matter.’ Parrien jerked loose his cuff lace. ‘This news will keep.’ He fished a sealed square of parchment from beneath the gambeson under his mail shirt.

  Long since, the Fat Pigeon’s landlord had given up trying to fathom the recipient: like all such missives, this parchment’s wrapping had no mark. Nor did the wax impressions in the seals ever show a device to reveal the point of its origin.

  As Parrien pinned him with the same narrow look used to sight down a fresh-sharpened sword blade, the landlord gloved his unease in forced humor. ‘Though actually, this could be your day for blind luck. It just happens the carrier who made last month’s pickup hasn’t left here on schedule.’

  That news made Parrien’s flesh crawl. Without turning, he knew: someone’s eyes watched his back. A flashed glance toward his captain confirmed the suspicion by way of a covert hand signal: the shifty, robed informer billeted with Jaelot’s company now took an unwelcome interest.

  A silver coin passed across the bar top. ‘Get your prettiest wench to sally over to that clerkish type in robes, and trip up, and maybe spill a trayful of beer in his lap,’ Parrien suggested. ‘His prissy white silk is making me wonder if there’s a man with natural parts underneath. Now, say on. Why hasn’t this courier taken his bundle and gone?’

  The Fat Pigeon’s landlord returned the blank, injured gaze of a catfish. ‘My girls are never clumsy. The inn’s reputation relies on them. With regard to the laggard still camped upstairs, since your mercenaries seem handy at tossing out layabouts, I’d be pleased if you’d lend help with this one.’

  Parrien’s eyebrows peaked up in startlement. ‘The courier’s a wastrel?’

  ‘You might say so, yes.’ A grin like a twist of sun-faded yarn pull
ed at the landlord’s lean mouth. ‘He’s been barricaded inside my third-story garret with the best of my whores for three days.’

  Parrien went owlishly deadpan. ‘He’s fat? Has hair in screwed tangles like my wife’s wretched lap spaniel?’

  ‘He’s a friend?’ Surprised, the landlord added, ‘You know he carries on as though he’s being knifed each time my cleaning drudge tries the door latch.’ On a sigh of irritable resignation, he hooked back his rag and grabbed for the next water-spotted tankard. ‘Go on. The potboy by the hob will take you. Though by now, the miserable wretch might be prostrate. My Sashka could tumble a spring ox to exhaustion. Three days of her favors would wring most of her partners unconscious.’

  Shown the closed panel of a door in a corridor ingrained with stale sweat, closed-in dust, and the musk of randy sailors, Parrien wasted no time. He sent the potboy away with a fistful of coppers. Then he tipped his sleek, braided head toward the strapped pine that had not budged to his opening soft knock and flashed a wild grin at his mercenaries. ‘Stove the damned thing in.’

  No peep of protest emerged from the threatened sanctum. One ear pressed flat to the door, the captain signed back that the room appeared to be empty.

  Parrien frowned. ‘Break in, but quietly,’ he repeated, too jaundiced to accept the stillness inside at face value. Nor would he credit the landlord’s pat theory. ‘As I know the scoundrel I think we’ll find in there, the whore’s more likely the one who’s banged senseless. Her client won’t have scarpered after the fact, either. Far more likely he’s sunk in his cups to the nethermost pit of oblivion.’

  The captain at arms straightened, linked elbows with the stoutest of his men, then jammed his steel cap straight, and said, ‘Go!’

  The pair struck the door shoulder down in neat unison. The latch burst. Torn bits of metal scribed arcs into gloom and skated with a tinny clangor across the floorboards inside. Stray noise ended there; the captain’s deft hand hooked the edge of the panel before it slammed into the wall.