TWOLAS - 02 - The Ships of Merior

by Janny Wurts

  A last harmonic speared the gloom, cut in mid-flight as Arithon stopped off the string. His regard swept the invalid in the bed, measured the uptilted chin of the daughter. Their insults seemed to prick him like a challenge as he said, 'Ladies, let us see if you also have no use for pity.' His study lingered on them through a moment of trying quiet. Then he set fingers to fret and string and tore the locked stillness into melody.

  One measure, two; the passion of his fingering arrested the air, and then remelted it into a cry. Notes winnowed free like leaves ripped on storm winds, blended into cascades that transfixed the heart with regret. The music wrung out under Arithon's hands begged no forgiveness for an abandonment of home and ties, but appealed for understanding through an offering of a beauty too wild, too forcefully inspired to be held or shackled in promises.

  Arithon sat rapt, head bent to his playing. When he raised his voice in song, he did not see the elderly lady raise crabbed hands to her cheeks to brush off tears. Only Jinesse, herself half-paralysed by his spell, saw the mask of aggressive indifference crack from the face of the daughter. The woman hunched, still and dumb, while the denial and resentment known throughout life unravelled to bare the unanswered pain of a fatherless child's yearning.

  The unsubtle, searching scald of verses gave back husband and father, not as his family wished him to be, but as he had lived, delineated in imperfections and grand strengths. This was not the eulogy Arithon had delivered for Halliron in Jaelot, but in fierce words and harmony the bard's own statement, that given a mortal's years to live and to love, the mastery of his calling had demanded to be shared in lands far removed from his hearthstone.

  By the time the last stanza was sung to its close, and the final chord rang thin and faded, the old lady sat dry-eyed. Her hands rested composed on the counterpane, while the young musician sent as emissary damped his lyranthe and looked up. Arithon waited, suspended in stillness, until she was ready for speech.

  'My husband taught you.' Her desiccated voice had softened from censure. Did he mention that he played that selfsame song on the very day he departed? But he did not style it your way.'

  Steady under interrogation, Arithon laced his lean forgers over the lyranthe's silenced strings. 'The notes and the lyrics were Halliron's, as written. But by his straight bequest, the arrangement was to be my own.'

  The daughter in her corner all but ceased to breathe. Too suddenly confronted by a Masterbard's empathy that owned power to bind her into change, the beldame looked away. 'My husband taught you,' she murmured. 'You, not his family, were his legacy.'

  As though pressed to sorrow, Arithon said, 'I was his choice for the next link in a chain that extends back to Elshian's time. I chose to reveal what Halliron bequeathed me. In truth, that is all I can answer for.' His gaze on the crone's averted face did not waver, though the room had grown close, its tied muslin curtains sealing in the reek of strong remedies.

  In an atmosphere thick enough to suffocate, Arithon gathered himself to finish. 'You should know. Your goodman was on his way south to be with you both for his retirement. An obligation of mine caused his delay. Blame me, not him, for the untimely manner of his death.'

  'The Fellowship sorcerer who returned my husband's ashes claimed most emphatically otherwise.' The old lady raised a crippled hand from the tight-laced breast of her bedrobe. 'He said, prince, that you were not to be faulted. But my heart won't heal for a sorcerer's excuses. I ask a boon to discharge your debt. Since my husband died far from home, I would have you remain in this city through the rest of the season to play. It is fitting. Once Halliron earned mastery, he never returned. The people of Innish should be given their chance to share the fruits he has reaped through your talent.'

  'Mother, that's hardly fair,' the daughter broke in, but Arithon waved her silent.

  Suspended in silence, Jinesse watched the bard, and inwardly begged him to refuse. The tranquil retreat he had chosen at Merior held a purpose, perhaps key to his survival against the threat from the armies in the north. He was Teir's'Ffalenn, and royal, and answerable to no soul in Shand.

  Never had the Master of Shadow revealed more of himself than at this moment, when he arose in compassion and bowed. In words unflawed by impatience, he answered the lonely, vengeful request of Halliron's abandoned widow.

  'I will play the taverns of Innish, and gladly. But on condition that you and your daughter will agree to be present at every performance.'

  The irony dogged Jinesse, over and over, as a return trip was made to the harbour to engage a reliable merchant galley to carry herself and her twins home to Merior: that had Arithon's playing been one whit less brilliant, the old crone would surely have refused him.

  Visions and Voyages

  A winter gale threads uneasy draughts through a taproom in Narms, while Captain Mayor Pesquil spills a moneybag over a tabletop and shouts down the balky argument of a merchant captain: 'You will rig your damned vessel for a northern passage. The message I bear is urgent and I won't stand idle for half measures. Better to risk delay iced into some benighted cove than be waylaid in the Thaldein passes by Maenalle's barbarians. I'll sail to north Camris and arrive in Avenor by springtide, whatever the price for your service. . .'

  In a dockside bordello, abovestairs from the taproom where a Masterbard plies his lyranthe, the Mad Prophet stirs from replete stupor, wrung sick by the tingle of impending prophecy; while the doxy who shares his bed giggles through his fit, he cries words of warning concerning a discorporate spirit away on a desperate errand that stirs Sethvir at Althain Tower to alarm ...

  Sped by the last winter storms, the smuggler's brig Black Drake ploughs bold passage between the grey whitecaps of Minderl Straits, and beside her lady captain on the quarterdeck, Jieret, Earl of the North, chafes in restlessness, bearing news of grave import for a sovereign prince he has not seen for seven years ...

  XI. DISCLOSURE

  The trader brig Captain Mayor Pesquil engaged from Narms by main force made safe port at Miralt Head with her cargo of crystal and iron ore, her fine southern wines and dyed fabric, and her rigging rimed with dirty ice. She would shelter through the season and refit gale-torn sails, then return on the milder airs of spring, laden with furs and seal oil, to rich profits at each destination.

  For the headhunter captain and his hardened troop of scouts, the prospects ahead were less rosy. To cross the Plain of Karmak at midwinter meant a journey of commensurate discomfort. The island roads had few inns. What farmsteads and village hostels would cater to travellers kept their custom for seasonal caravans. In the cold months, their guest beds were stripped bare behind locked shutters, their mattress ticking haven for mice. Once the roads lay hardened under drifts and white ice, and the trade traffic waned, fare for travellers sold at a premium. Fuel and supplies could not be replenished before spring, and since storms off the gulf made each year's thaws chancy and difficult to predict, proprietors were sparse with provender.

  The mobile, armed company en route from Etarra grew to hate the whine of the winds, and the slash of driven ice that clung in each fold of their cloaks. Helms lined with fleeces sang to the rattle of sleet. Nights were bitter and long, the ones spent unsheltered frosty with stars, while the howls of wolf packs rang through the frozen glens and made the horses drag, snorting, at their picket lines.

  The first thing Captain Mayor Pesquil desired upon his arrival at the crossroads town of Erdane was the bath he had done without since the night of his landfall in Miralt. As an officer of the headhunters' league, he was entitled to take lodging at half-price; as an ally of Lysaer's, and an accredited affiliate of Etarra's armed garrison, the Mayor of Erdane extended due courtesy and offered him a minor guest suite in the palace.

  The scouts were given cots in the barracks, and silver to seek their pleasures in the wall district.

  Sunk in a brass tub of suds and hot water, his bristled face wreathed in white steam, Pesquil laced a sinewy, hard-knuckled hand over the knob of one knee; with t
he other, he sloughed off the flaked grey skin gnawed by frostbite between his splayed toes. His silt-coloured eyes were shut when the soft tap came at his door. Since he expected a servant with a razor, he raised a voice gruff as a cutler's rasp and granted permission to enter.

  Instead of a liveried attendant, he received a rustle of damascened silk, a wafted assault of perfumed air, and a stifled explosion of giggles.

  A train of ladies invaded his chamber, not the painted, brazen hussies he frequented after hard campaigns, but ones of impeccable pedigree. These had fine skin and tiny ankles threaded with pearls, and kidskin slippers. Their hair lay piled in pinned loops, or dangled down in pert ringlets, and jewels winked from the ribbons of their gossamer gowns like fruit rind baked in a solstice cake.

  The two with dark hair and cheeks like new apricots were in fact the mayor's cosseted daughters. But seen alongside the tawny-haired one in the lead, the pair might as well have been servants. Collared in ermine and lace-worked gold, swathed below in pearled silk and gold tissue spangled with a sea-foam glitter of aquamarines, the third lady had a complexion translucent as alabaster and lashes like the nadir of night. Even without the magnificent cut of her clothes, her presence seemed designed by Ath Creator to arrest a man's breath in his throat.

  Flushed to the dewlap folds of his neck, Pesquil jammed his shanks straight. The wet-leather scrape of his buttocks made the brass tub give tongue like a hom, and soap suds and water slopped over the rim, to ring him, glistening, his naked flesh cupped like an embryo amid a flood of smashed egg.

  Proprietary as a hunting tigress, his visitor's glance raked over the stringy, scarred muscles of his torso. Her coral-pale lips bent before an amusement whose withering sting left no impact, sheer force of beauty having long since anaesthetized reason. Galled on by reflex, Pesquil plunged his hands beneath the scummed water.

  An ugly man possessed of an iron dedication, the headhunter captain held his ground as a wolf might, nipped at by mastiffs.

  'Captain Mayor Pesquil,' addressed Lady Talith, the affianced bride of Prince Lysaer s'Ilessid. 'I much doubt you would travel the breadth of the continent just to sample Erdane's hospitality. Since barbarian scalps are not in season until spring, I trust you carry news of the Shadow Master?'

  Outside the window, grey clouds sheeted the sky. A sentry called, and a polearm clanged to signal the change of the watch. Beyond the open and violated inside doorway, a woman's voice raised down the corridor, scolding a child for wet feet.

  Talith skirted the rim of the puddle, selected a bulky brocade chair, and slid it squarely in front of the wardrobe that contained the captain's fresh clothes. There she settled herself, while the elder of the mayor's tittering daughters produced a chatelaine's keyring, spun about and locked the door. Her younger sister moved to the hearth, peered askance with a girlish blush, and snatched up the towels left out to warm.

  'I did not ask for bath attendants,' Pesquil said with a grate like the rough scrape of chain mail.

  Talith laced slender fingers in her lap, her eyes direct and her smile, honey spread over poison. 'You shall have two, if they can break the latch and escape from the linen closet where we impounded them. I suppose some drudge will eventually hear their noise and set them free. The gossip should be lively, once the mayor's house steward finds we're all here, quite cosy with his lowborn guest. Is your silence worth the displeasure of your host?'

  A sinew jumped in Pesquil's lantern jaw. He had few illusions; his most guarded point of pride was his station, won through achievement and competence rather than the accident of pedigree. Lady Talith was Etarran, no stranger to sordid jokes played for intrigue. The Mayor of Erdane's flighty daughters were scarcely in her league, though their nervous, darting glances showed them thoroughly intrigued with an escapade.

  Although Pesquil scorned the confined standards of morality the westland cities imposed on their women, the mayor's hospitality implied a trust he misliked the principle of spurning. Uncomfortably aware of the youngest girl's fascination with the cock's comb whorls of hair that seamed the midline of his chest, forced on display before Talith's dizzying charms, the headhunter willed his hard limbs to relax. A rebellious ache beneath the waterline, another bodily part of him cheerfully rejected self-control.

  He was male, after all, and not bloodless.

  An absurd pull of laughter twitched Pesquil's mouth. If he shot up, streaming sour water to stride naked across the tiles and eject his unsuitable company, Talith would fairly scream with laughter. The daughters' too-avid curiosity was unlikely to cause them to faint.

  The situation should have been uproarious, had he not been so roundly outflanked.

  He cleared his throat, reached up and tugged off his last stitch, a greasy lace of leather, then shook hair like iron filings from its battle braid. 'You want something from me. The least you can do is pass the soap.'

  Talith found the small cake in a tray the upset water had skidded near her feet. She bent in a rustle of scent and fine cloth, and obliged his whim with a vengeance. The soap cake hurtled across the room.

  'Temper!' Pesquil had reflexes like a striking snake; the suds scarcely rippled around his loins as he stretched and fielded the catch. 'I gather you don't like Erdane?'

  'Is your bath too hot?' Talith's lashes dropped and halfway veiled her sultry glance. 'If the attentions of the servants are inadequate, you should be in prime position to judge.'

  Too aware of his high flush, and while sweat nicked over his pock-scarred brow, Pesquil lathered his chest. Highborn chatter and double entendre never excited him to empty games of wit. Silence was more efficient, by his creed, and despite the leap and race of his pulse, he was cold-nerved enough to hold his tongue.

  The ladies could blasted well wait until he had washed himself down to the last puckered scar. They would discover soon enough he was just a coarse soldier, prepared to call their bluff. Were he thrown out of Erdane, the mayor's lasses would be punished for their silliness. The vital news he bore would reach Lysaer that much sooner.

  If the pretty dark daughters standing guard upon the doorway showed unease at his balky character, Talith's fresh poise only heightened under challenge. 'I am no ornament to be left waiting on a shelf.' She stood, jerked open a drawer, and plucked out the clean holland shirt scarcely wrinkled from its storage in a saddle pack. 'You have news of Arithon s'Ffalenn. That will mean war. I don't intend to sit here while you rouse my betrothed to muster his armies and quarter the continent to fight him.' A back-step carried her to the casement. She flicked the catch, pressed open the leaded panes, and tossed the shirt upward onto the snow-covered slates of the dormer peak.

  Thin through cold air, a whistle spiralled up from the sentry who stood duty on the wall walk.

  'You bloodsucking minx!' Pesquil snapped soapy fingers to the sides of the tub, while the water sucked and splashed, and the draught raked his leathered skin to gooseflesh.

  Talith smiled. She would toss out his clothes, and be damned to his dignity. His scars would be the talk of every barracks in Erdane, as well as the boudoirs of the ladies.

  There were limits. 'I don't know where the Master of Shadow is laired up. But he's disrupted the peace and caused havoc in one city, and killed seven men in another through an explosion of fire and sorcery. His movement has been traced southward, along the eastern coastline.' Pesquil's lips quirked like wire in his bristle of black beard. Eyes as flat as marsh mud glared upward at Talith, who weighed options as she might select a ballgown, a pair of hose and breeches in each hand.

  'Lady,' Pesquil snapped, 'that's hardly enough to set armies marching, and it happens to be the sum of my news.'

  'You come personally as courier,' Talith contradicted. The hose fluttered in the swirl of the wind, then snapped up to join the shirt in its icy eyrie. The girls smothered giggles; Talith inspected the trousers for inspiration, hooked the breech points in playful fingers, and began to unlace them, strand for strand. No pity in her, Pesquil judged,
that she would neglect the least detail and fail to fling the towels, and even the benighted sheets off the bed.

  'Why?' Talith pressured.

  'Because your fussy pack of Etarran dignitaries was too soft for a winter passage.' Fuming through risen veils of steam, Pesquil gave a barked, ruthless laugh. 'By myself, I'll make sure the message gets through without barbarian interference. Prince Lysaer will receive this news before spring. I leave on the morrow, and if the Great West Road through Tornir Peaks is closed due to storms, I'll fare on by way of Teal's Gap.'

  'That's a fool's errand!' broke in the mayor's older daughter, her hands clenched white on the door key. She darted a worried glance at Talith. 'Lady, the pass this madman proposes to cross lies in the Sorcerers' Preserve.'

  Every child in the westlands knew tales of that place, where fire-breathing creatures once the scourge of past ages flew on pinioned wings sixty spans long. Whenever the wards at its boundaries weakened or failed, caravan drovers brought back nightmare accounts of draught stock slaughtered wholesale, or charred in their traces to bones and papered carbon.

  'If the Khadrim don't flame you to a cinder, or tear you limb from limb with their jaws, there are hot springs, and mud pots, and lava wells, and no guide to choose a safe trail.' The girl cautioned, Better to stay neglected here in Erdane than to find yourself boiled alive.'

  'Wise advice,' Pesquil said, eyes slitted. 'If you think my headhunters will serve as your escort to Avenor, Lady Talith, I'll skid my bare arse over every roof tree in this city just to prove you wrong.'

  'You will take me,' Talith said. The breeches hooked on her fingertips fluttered out the window, snagged on a flagstaff above the rampart, and streamed, displaying frayed seams to the wind. Etarran to her devious core, she spared not a glance for her nervous accomplices.

  Pesquil confronted her tawny magnificence, the water that embraced his hips chill enough to dampen the dregs of any man's ardour, and the soap squeezed to pulp in his fists. 'I won't.'