And now she was on a holy mission.
She laughed out loud, and continued laughing as she stumbled the few miles to the edge of the forest.
With her back to the treeline, she gazed out over the devastation her people had caused. Mile upon mile of forest stripped bare and cut down. Nothing lived or moved out here among the sad looking stumps, nothing except the root scavengers. She sighted the closest set, a few miles down a deeply rutted cart track, and continued onwards.
It was mid-afternoon by then, and the weak autumn sun was on her back as she limped down the track. The scavengers’ cart grew closer, and she could see a family out working, with shovels, mattocks and picks. There was a middle aged couple, and three teenage children, all Holdings by the darkness of their skin.
She hailed them from a distance, and they turned and stared. The mother, who was closest, raised her pick axe.
‘I’m Holdings,’ Daphne shouted, her voice hoarse. ‘I’ve escaped from the Sanang.’
The family squinted at her, then the mother approached.
She gasped when she saw Daphne’s condition.
‘I need food,’ she said, ‘and water, please.’
‘Kids,’ the woman called. Her accent was from the River Holdings, like Weir’s. ‘Bring water, and the food.’ She called to her man. ‘Sandy, come over here and give me a hand.’
They helped Daphne hobble to the cart, where they set her down. She drank deeply from a water canister, and ate what had probably been intended as the family’s evening meal.
‘Thank you,’ she managed to get out between mouthfuls.
‘What’s your name?’ the woman asked.
‘Lieutenant Black,’ Daphne said. ‘Captured at the third supply camp.’
‘We heard the apes took prisoners this time,’ Sandy said. ‘Didn’t believe it myself.’
Daphne nodded. ‘I need to get back to the frontier forts, can you take me?’
The family looked at each other.
‘We’re a poor lot,’ the woman said, ‘though you probably already guessed that, seeing as how we’re out so far, scavenging for anything left behind. We need to be out here for the whole season, to make enough to get through the winter.’
‘What date is it?’ Daphne asked.
‘The sixth day of the second third of autumn,’ the woman replied. ‘We’ve still another ten days out here before we’re due to head back.’
‘I’ll see that you’re compensated,’ Daphne said. ‘My family has money. Once we get to the wall, I’ll make sure your winter will be a comfortable one.’
The family looked at each other again.
‘What if she’s lying?’ one of the teenagers said. ‘And she bolts on us once we get to the wall?’
‘You have my word,’ she said.
‘That might be a lie too,’ the teenager shot back.
‘Be quiet, Mabel,’ the woman said. She looked at Daphne. ‘We’ll take you,’ she said, ‘though you’d better be telling us the truth.’
‘You have my word,’ Daphne repeated.
Chapter 12
Douanna
Midfort, Sanang/Plateau Frontier – 21st Day, Second Third Autumn 503
Daphne flitted through the dawn crowds of Midfort market like a ghost. A grey, hooded robe covered her, and she kept her head low amid the bustling Holdings traders, peddlers and beggars. She was hungry and tired, but coinless. All her life she had enjoyed easy access to money, but never needed it, and now she needed it she had none. Having escaped with nothing but her clothes and a knife, she didn’t have anything she was willing to sell. She slowly made her way across the square to the merchants’ quarter.
Mabel had been right.
As soon as the wagon had passed through the gates of Southfort, she had bolted, using a dash of battle-vision to flee down the back alleys. She remembered the layout of the streets from the time she had been stationed there, and had soon lost her enraged pursuers.
She had eaten and drunk and slept under shelter for half a third due to the hospitality of the scavenger family. The thought of them going hungry that winter because of her clawed at her conscience, but the alternative would have been to hand herself in to the army, and she doubted the family would have seen any money if she had done that.
Daphne had ditched her phoney name and assumed another. She now introduced herself as Beth, a merchant’s assistant, separated from her caravan and looking for passage home to the capital. She had listened in to conversations, hoping to hear word of Mink or Weir, and had heard snippets of news from the Holdings. The queen was ill, though some swore it had to be poison. More relevant to her immediate situation, she discovered that she had been tried in her absence by the military courts and found guilty of treason. Assumed dead, no sentence had been passed on her, but there was no doubt what the common people felt about the matter.
Bereaved wives and husbands of soldiers killed in the campaign begged on the street corners, and more than a few cursed and spat on the name of that bitch Daphne Holdfast and her leash-holding father. The first time she had heard it she had slipped away through the streets, stolen the robe, and hidden.
The following day, with still no word of her companions, and scared that she would be recognised in the town where she had worked the previous summer, she left Southfort and walked the ten miles up to the larger town of Midfort. The stone fortress was built into the wall itself, and was the biggest castle on the frontier defences. The town that had grown up on the near side of the wall around the fortress was as big as any to be found back in the Holdings, though unlike them, it had been untidily constructed, and was a sprawl of wood. It was large enough to be divided into quarters, with the marketplace in the centre.
This was where the Rahain traders were now based, Daphne had noticed. They worked out of an office in the merchants’ quarter, and seemed considerably wealthier than they had the previous year. They were dressed in rich robes and sparkling jewels, with Holdings bodyguards lurking at their shoulders.
Her hunger had driven her to stealing food from the marketplace, fruit, bread, anything she could surreptitiously clutch and pull into the folds of her robe. She kept her left arm out of sight, though she realised she would be less recognisable if it were visible.
She had made a deserted warehouse loft her temporary home, as she waited and listened for news of her companions. Twenty miles away, the voice had said. They must be close to returning, even if they had walked the whole way. She stopped herself. The voice? Surely she had imagined the whole thing. In truth, her recollections of the endless run through the trees were vague and hazy, and she believed she had been close to losing her mind in the forest. The further she got from the dark woods of Sanang, the more dreamlike the whole experience seemed.
She felt fully awake now that her mind was free of the forest drugs, and she was terrified. She had thought of no plan other than to wait for Mink and Weir, but as the days had passed, and she grew hungrier and more desperate, she had decided to act.
She entered the merchants’ quarter, staying close to the shadows under the overhanging eaves of the timber buildings. They were packed tightly together, with little thought for planning, and wagons squeezed through the streets amid the crowded bustle. All around her were the voices and accents of her homeland, sounds that she had longed to hear for thirds, and now she stayed hidden among them, afraid to reveal herself to her own people.
She found a small tea house close to the offices of the Rahain Trading Company, an opulent building faced in stone. On a search of her warehouse, she had found a few odds and ends left behind that she had peddled for a handful of coins. She knew she needed to buy food, and her stomach complained at the injustice it was suffering, but she handed over her money for a tiny pot of tea, and sat at a table by the roadside.
She waited a full hour before catching sight of a Rahain merchant. With a waiter hovering by, she slipped out of her chair and crossed the street.
‘Excuse me,’ Daphne said.
The merchant turned. She was dressed in a long blue gown, with silver tracery down her arms, to accentuate her subtle scaling. Her eyes were a light green, flecked with yellow, and her vertical pupils widened as she appraised Daphne.
‘I’m looking for a Rahain merchant,’ she continued. ‘Douanna. Do you know her?’
The Rahain’s tongue flickered in and out. Daphne tried not to stare.
‘No,’ the merchant replied, and started to turn.
‘Wait, please!’ Daphne said. ‘Are there any records that I could look at? Maybe I could ask around, to see if anyone knows her? It’s urgent.’
The Rahain considered. Looking like she wanted to avoid a scene, she nodded to Daphne, and strode towards the front door of the office.
She knocked, and a slit opened at eye level. A few seconds later, the door swung open, and the merchant went in, Daphne a step behind. They walked into an entrance hall.
A Rahain doorman put a hand out to stop her.
‘Is she with you, ma’am?’ he asked.
‘No,’ the merchant replied. ‘She was asking after a Douanna. Give her ten minutes in the saloon to make enquiries. If she’s still here after that, you can throw her out.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ the official replied, his tongue flickering.
The merchant disappeared through a side door.
‘Your name, please?’ the Rahain asked Daphne, going to a lectern with a ledger balanced on top.
‘Beth of Hold Down.’
He wrote for a moment, then handed her a ticket.
‘Welcome to the Rahain Trading Company, Beth of Hold Down,’ he said. ‘This paper marks you as a visitor, and states that you are permitted to be in here. Show it to anyone who asks.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, putting on a smile. ‘The saloon?’
‘That door,’ he pointed. ‘Then first on the right.’
She went through and heard the saloon before she saw it. The room was large, smoky, noisy, crammed with Rahain, and impossible to miss. Standing on the polished wooden floor, she noticed a few other Holdings people present. They fell into two types: the rich, and the waiting staff. The rich were dressed similarly to their Rahain hosts, in long flowing robes, while the young serving men and women were in plain brown uniforms of tunic and trousers, of the same type as the doorman was wearing. There were tables covering the floor, and booths along three of the walls, but the place was crowded, and many were standing. A long marble-topped bar stretched by the wall to the left, serving alcohol openly, presumably under a special license, Daphne guessed. No wonder it was packed.
She walked to the corner on the left, and started there. Three Rahain men sat, drinking some wine imported from their homeland.
‘Please excuse me,’ she began.
‘No beggars,’ one of them growled in the Holdings tongue.
Daphne was stunned, but only for a moment. ‘If I were a beggar, sir, then I hardly think I would have got through the door,’ she said in her best aristocratic voice. ‘And to think I had considered the Rahain a most polite people.’
‘My apologies,’ he spluttered, while one of his companions laughed. ‘My lady, how may I be of assistance?’
‘You are most kind,’ she said, sitting down at their table. ‘Gentlemen, last year, I enjoyed a quite profitable business with a merchant by the name of Douanna, from the city of Jade Falls. I am looking to enquire whether the same merchant has returned this year, and if so, where I may be able to locate her.’
‘What line of business was this merchant involved in?’ asked one.
‘Tobacco,’ she replied. ‘Some tea also.’
‘I can introduce you to an excellent trader,’ he said, ‘who happily for you deals in both of those commodities. I think he might be in here today, I’ll just…’
‘My apologies for not making myself clearer,’ she cut in. ‘I promised Douanna that I would always deal with her first, and,’ she paused, ‘I’m a woman of my word.’
The merchant sighed. ‘Very well, you can make me a promise too.’ He pointed across the table at her. ‘That if you cannot find this Douanna, you will come back here and I’ll set you up with all the connections you’ll ever need.’
‘Then you don’t know the woman?’
He shrugged, and looked at his companions, who shook their heads.
‘Thank you very much for your time, gentlemen.’
Daphne made the rounds of the large room, long out-staying her allotted ten minutes, but no one came looking for her. She spoke to drunk Rahain, bored Rahain, excitable Rahain, most of whom tried to buy or sell or introduce her to someone or something. She found she slipped back into the role of young noblewoman easily, and, despite the poor quality robe she was wearing, realised not for the first time that it was all about the tone of voice, how one carried oneself, and confidence. She surprised herself at being able to laugh at the merchants’ poor jokes, and she flattered them, and ingratiated herself. It was a role she hadn’t played since her teenage years when, as the youngest daughter of a member of the Queen’s Council, and an heir to one of the richest families in the Realm, it hadn’t been a role at all, but her life.
It was well into the afternoon before she found someone who recognised the name of the merchant she was looking for.
‘Yes, she’s in town,’ the old man said, ‘or rather, she was the last time I looked, a while back.’
‘Please, I don’t suppose you could write down her address for me?’
She passed a scrap of paper and a thin charcoal pencil across the table.
He picked up the pencil, then eyed her for a moment.
‘It’s a little late in the season for business, is it not?’
‘Indeed it is, sir,’ she replied without hesitation. ‘That’s why it’s so important I find her before the season ends altogether.’
He pursed his lips, his tongue flickering, then scratched out an address on the scrap of paper.
She took it from him, scanning it.
‘My thanks, sir,’ she said, rising.
He looked regretful, so she disappeared into the thick crowd before he could have second thoughts.
A different doorman was on duty, and she handed him her pass. She had read it while in the bathroom of the saloon, one of her many trips there, due to the endless mugs of filtered water she had drunk. The pass hadn’t mentioned anything about a time limit that she could see.
The doorman took the ticket, read it, then marked it with a rubber stamp. He stepped forward, and opened the door.
‘One last thing,’ she said. ‘If you would be so kind as to tell me where Daryon Road is?’
‘Go left for half a mile, then ask around,’ he replied, before closing the door in her face.
She stood on the doorstep, her sight dazzled by the low sun over the wall to the west. The crowds in the streets had thinned, and some of the shops had shut up for the day. The tea house was still open, and she recognised the waiter who had served her earlier. He glanced over at her and paused in his stride as their eyes locked for a second. He looked away, but Daphne felt troubled and started to hurry down the street. As she neared a corner, she risked a look over her shoulder, and saw that the waiter was talking to another man, and pointing at her.
She froze. Through instinct, she drew upon her battle-vision and took in the scene. The man the waiter was talking to looked vaguely familiar, medium height and build, short brown hair; he could have been one of the many officials or soldiers she had met the previous year. He was squinting at her, and she saw his expression change from bafflement to profound realisation, and his mouth opened in amazement.
Daphne turned and ran as fast as she could, barrelling through the winding streets, eking strength and speed from her vision well of energy. After ten minutes, she entered a poorer part of town, and slowed down. The shadows were lengthening, and the narrow streets were cloaked in the gloom of early evening. She slipped into a dark alleyway, her robe wrapped around her, and watched the road.
She chanced a quick line-vision, using the top of a nearby building to latch her sight to, from where she scanned the streets. Satisfied that she had lost her pursuer, she pulled her vision back to her body, and immediately fell to her knees and vomited up the water she had drunk at the saloon, letting it splash down into the gutter.
That was stupid, she thought. She had eaten little in days, and needed food and rest. But first she had to find Daryon Road.
It took her several more hours of following vague and misleading directions from the inhabitants of Midfort before she found the road and the house halfway down it, that she had been seeking.
It was a modest four-storey timber tenement, cheaply built. She entered through the entrance lobby and climbed the stairs to the top floor. She was exhausted, and had to stop several times on the way up, gripping onto the rough wooden rail, urging herself onwards over the complaints from her body.
She reached the top and knocked on the door. After a few moments, it opened a crack, and the face of a Rahain man appeared.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she panted. ‘I’m looking for Douanna.’
‘And who shall I say is calling at this hour?’
‘Beth of Hold Down,’ she said without thinking.
He turned to go. ‘Wait!’ she said. ‘Say that it’s her student from last summer, come for a lesson.’
He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, and closed the door.
She leaned up against the wall, taking in long deep breaths, trying to steady herself.
What if the Rahain woman couldn’t be trusted? Too late for that, she realised. In her condition, she was going nowhere.
The door opened again and the Rahain man, dressed in a simple brown uniform, beckoned for her to enter.
He closed the door behind her as she walked into a small entrance hall, lacking in the opulence she had seen associated with the other Rahain in town. She followed the man through to another, larger room, with a roaring fire, and comfortable chairs. Standing by a dining table to the left stood the Rahain merchant from whom she had learned their language the previous summer.
The Magelands Origins Page 16
