Not much more than a youth, crouching, arms held wide, body swaying slightly. The stance of someone used to hand-to-hand combat. Bare feet. A brown-skinned sailor and no shoes. He’d heard about them: skilled sailors from the Va-forsaken half of the globe, but not from Pashalin. They were recruited from the scattered islands of the Summer Seas and their reluctance to wear shoes in all but the coldest weather was legendary.
What did the Pashali call them? Lascars, that was it.
But what in all the foaming oceans was he doing in Lowmeer? Lascars crewed Pashali trading vessels half a world away. They didn’t turn up in warehouses in chilly, wet Ustgrind, capital of Lowmeer, though he’d heard they occasionally reached the eastern coasts of his own nation, neighbouring Ardrone. He’d never glimpsed one, though.
He dropped his hand to pull out his dagger, but barely had it free of his belt before the young man sprang at him, turning sideways as he came, his front leg rising in a kick. Confused by the move, Saker hesitated. The man’s heel–as hard as iron–slammed into his wrist. The dagger went flying and he was left gasping in pain. Consign the whelp to hell, a wallop like that could kill. And with bare feet too–his heels must be as thick as horn!
He ducked away and, to give himself time to recover, said with all the calm he could muster, “Can’t we talk about this? I imagine you don’t want to get caught in here any more than I do.”
That was as far as he got. The youth came barrelling at him again, his speed astonishing. Saker reacted without thinking. He slid one foot between his opponent’s legs, laid a hand flat to the floor to give himself leverage, and pushed sideways. His legs scissored around the youth’s right knee, pitching him over. The lascar fell awkwardly, grunting in pain. Saker threw himself on top, and for a moment they wrestled wildly on the floor.
The sailor might have been small in stature, but he was all sinew and muscle. Worse, he was a scrapper. He head-butted Saker’s face, sending fierce pain lancing through his cheekbones. His nose gushed fresh gouts of blood. Only a lucky blow using his knee to jab the fellow’s stomach saved him from further ignominy. They broke apart, panting. Saker cursed. His shirt was torn all down the front, so he used it to wipe the blood from his face.
His opponent had scooped the fallen dagger up from the floor and drawn another from his belt. His blade was oddly sinuous. Saker’s mouth went dry. Sailors said there was sorcery in blades like that.
Fobbing damn, Fritillary will be furious. Sorry, your reverence, I think trouble has come calling again…
Sometimes life just wasn’t fair.
He back-pedalled away, fast, relying on his memory of the configuration of the cargo heaped behind. The lascar leapt after him.
Saker grabbed a barrel balanced on top of another and pulled it to the floor between them. The metal rim rolled over his attacker’s bare foot. He didn’t flinch. Saker tumbled another after it, and then a third, a smaller one, bound around the bulge with cane. The cane broke when it hit the floor, splitting the staves apart to release a cloud of bright yellow powder which billowed up around him. Disorientated, he tripped over one of the staves and fell facedown into brightly coloured ground spice. He pushed himself up, blinded, utterly vulnerable, dripping blood and sneezing, blowing out clouds of gold-coloured powder.
He blinked away the spice and found himself looking into twinkling black eyes. His assailant’s amusement didn’t prevent him from pricking his ribs with the point of his wavy dagger, or twisting his other hand into his torn shirt to haul him to his feet.
Pox on the cockerel!
Saker could have said any number of things. Instead, he wiped bloodstained powder from his face and selected the most harmless question he could summon. “What is this stuff?”
“Kunyit. Here, men say turmeric.”
“A spice, I hope, and not a poison.”
The grin broadened. “Maybe you no live long enough to be poisoned, yes?” The fellow jabbed the point of his dagger a little more firmly into his side.
Saker sneezed again, a series of explosive paroxysms. Each time, the point of the dagger jabbed unpleasantly through the cloth of what was left of his shirt. Va help him, he was as helpless as a featherless squab!
The side door of the warehouse swung open with a loud creak. Light and the sound of voices flooded in. Both of them froze, then–as one–ducked down below the level of the stacked cargo. The lascar eyed him warily, keeping his wavy blade at the ready, even as he slipped Saker’s knife into his belt in a deliberate gesture of ownership.
Their danger was now a shared one. If the newcomers wanted to inspect the cargo, there was no way they’d miss the broken cask with its contents spilled. Any man caught in an Ustgrind warehouse could expect no mercy. Lowmian law protected trade and traders, and punishment of transgressors tended to be lethal.
Va-blast, we could soon be as dead as soused herrings in a firkin.
Silently he shrugged at his unwelcome companion. The lascar leaned forward, until his mouth was almost at his ear. “Betray me, my blade stick your heart. You understand, no?”
Saker rolled his eyes to signal his lack of interest in continuing the fight. He glanced at his rope where it hung against the wall. It suddenly looked all too obvious. Carefully he reached for his gloves. The lascar watched, alert, as he pulled them on.
Footsteps rattled floorboards at the entrance. He counted the number of shadows cast across the light as men entered the door one by one: five. Five people. Only one spoke, directing the rest to the desks. Relieved, Saker breathed out. Clerks, then?
No, too early for clerks. This was a clandestine meeting.
Chairs scraped, more murmured conversation. Then one voice, authoritative, irritated, spoke above the rest. “Well, Mynster Kesleer, what’s all this about, then? Dragging us out of our warm beds at this Va-forsaken hour! I trust you have good cause.”
Kesleer? Kesleer himself? The Ustgrind merchant who not only owned the warehouse, but who possessed the largest fleet in all the Regality of Lowmeer.
The idea that such a powerful man had called a meeting at five in the morning in a dockside warehouse was startling. Saker’s astonishment paled, though, under his growing fear. If he was caught and identified as an Ardronese witan working for Fritillary Reedling, the Pontifect of the Faith, he would not only be hanged as a thief and a spy, but his involvement would drag the Pontificate into an international incident. He winced. The repercussions would be horrendous.
He strained to hear the conversation, but the men had dropped their voices to a murmur. Beside him, the lascar peered around the edge of the bales to see what was happening. His frown told Saker he wasn’t having much luck either.
The next audible words were uttered by a different man, his tone incredulous. “That’s a preposterous proposal! Your skull’s worm-holed, Kesleer, if you think we’ll agree to that!”
Once again, the reply was muffled. Saker gritted his teeth. What proposal? To do what? Between whom? Without a second thought, he hoisted himself up the side of the bale until he lay flat on top. He was nowhere near the front row of the stacked cargo, and stuffed sacks on top of the bales still hid him from the Lowmians, but there was a gap between them, several inches wide.
A slit he could look through.
He had a narrow view of the counting table near the desks, now scattered with papers and charts, and the face of a man seated there. A lantern on the table provided more illumination, and there could be no mistaking him: Uthen Kesleer. Although they’d never met, the merchant had been pointed out to him on the street, and a bulbous growth on the side of his nose made for a distinctive visage.
A soft scrabbling behind told Saker the lascar had followed him. The young man, baring his perfect white teeth in a grin that might have been infectious in another situation, burrowed his way between Saker and the sacks, until he was sharing the same view.
One of the men raised his voice to growl, “Profit? Not from this recent venture of yours, I think, Mynster Kesleer. I not
ice neither of your other carracks followed the Spice Dragon up the Ust estuary home to the berth outside.”
“Scuttled in the islands. Shipworm. Three in every four men in the fleet died, so there weren’t enough to man all three vessels anyway. Those still alive sailed the Spice Dragon home. The dead were no loss. More profit for the rest, in fact.”
The lascar drew breath sharply and his muscles tautened against Saker’s torso. His hand groped for his wavy-bladed dagger, now thrust through the cloth belt at his waist.
He was on board, Saker thought with sudden insight. He sailed on the Spice Dragon to Ustgrind. Those poor bastards who’d died had been his shipmates. Scurvy-ridden fish bait, probably, or dying of bloody flux and fever in strange ports.
“Come now,” Kesleer was saying, “you know how it is, Mynster Mulden. Since when have any of you rattled your brains about such things? It’s the way Va has ordered life. There are always plenty more tars willing to take the risk and seek their cut of the trade. I’m sure Mynster Geer and Mynster Bargveth agree with me.”
The shoulder muscles of the youth rippled like a cat about to spring. Saker gripped him, shaking his head. The fellow turned to glare, dark eyes flashing, daring him to say something.
He kept silent.
The conversation mellowed, the softer words unintelligible, but he had gleaned the identity of three of the other four men. Geer, Mulden and Bargveth, all merchant families with shipping interests, families not just wealthy, but influential at the Regal’s court. The Geers hailed from Umdorp, the second largest port of Lowmeer. The Muldens controlled the docks and fleets of Fluge in the north, while the Bargveths had a monopoly of trade out of Grote in the far south.
That they were talking to one another astonished him. Competition between ports was a normal part of the country’s commerce. Lowmian shipping merchants didn’t cooperate; they prattled the whereabouts of rival merchantmen to Ardronese privateers instead.
Cankers ’n’ galls, what’s going on? The Pontifect won’t like this, whatever the truth. When rich men played their games of wealth, they endangered the independence of Va-Faith and the neutrality of the Pontificate.
He strained to hear more, but caught only fragmented snatches. And he still didn’t know the name of the fifth man.
“… new design of cargo ship. They’re called fluyts…” That was Kesleer speaking.
“… the Regal will want a privateer’s ransom!”
“Well, we can’t succeed without him, that’s for sure.”
“… I have just such a tasty bait…” Kesleer again. The words were followed by a short silence, then a rattling sound.
“A piece of wood as a bribe for the Regal?” someone asked, tone scathing.
“This is bambu,” Kesleer replied, “from the Summer Sea islands. It grows like that, with a hole down the middle.”
The lascar jerked, the expression on his face an odd mixture of both pleasure and fierce rage as the conversation murmured on.
Oh, Va save us, what now?
“This hollow stuff is valuable?” someone else asked, incredulous.
“No, no. The value is in the contents.” That was definitely Kesleer again. The next few words were indecipherable. Then, also from Kesleer, “Here, take a look…”
Saker couldn’t see what Kesleer was showing them. He pulled a face, frustrated.
More muttered words, then, “I agree, they’re certainly magnificent, yes, but what value can they have?”
What the rattling pox were they looking at? With a sudden movement the lascar pulled himself away from the crack and hauled himself up onto the bulging sacks to see better.
In horror, Saker leapt upwards to grab his ankle before he’d crawled out of reach. He yanked as silently as he could, trying to draw the young man backwards. What in all the world was he trying to do: get them both hanged?
The lascar kicked, but Saker was below him, well away from his flailing foot. Infuriated, the young man turned back and slashed with his dagger. Saker released his hold before the blade connected and the lascar wormed his way out of reach, heading across the sacks towards the merchants.
And the Pontifect thought he was reckless? He was a model of circumspect decorum compared to this idiot of a tar. At that moment, he could have cheerfully murdered the fellow. Instead, he slipped down to the floor. Stepping over the shattered cask of turmeric, he headed through the maze of cargo towards the back wall of the warehouse and his dangling rope.
Kesleer was saying, “… but Regal Vilmar is a jackdaw, hoarding pretty things. He’ll love the idea that King Edwayn will have to watch and fume while Ardronese court women clamour after goods like these, at our price. Huge profits for Lowmian merchants…”
Every nerve in Saker’s body told him that in a moment, the relative quiet of the warehouse would vanish. These men would react violently when they realised their secret meeting had been overheard. What if they were armed with pistols, those new-fangled wheel-lock ones that didn’t need a naked flame to ignite the powder? If he climbed up on the bale to seize the end of his climbing rope, he’d be visible to anyone who looked his way. Worth it, or not?
The Pontifect’s words echoed in his ears. You’re a spy, not a one-man army. In Va’s name, try subtlety, Saker Rampion!
Best to wait until the lascar was seen, then escape in the ensuing confusion. No sooner had he made that decision than a child’s voice echoed through the warehouse. “Papa! Papa! Someone’s been here. There’s a broken barrel and yellow footprints! Come see.”
He winced.
The fifth person. A child. At a guess, Uthen Kesleer’s ten-year-old son, Dannis.
He had no choice now. He hauled himself up the wall of bales, gripping with his knees and digging his fingertips into the burlap for purchase. Behind him, chairs scraped, enraged voices shouted. Kesleer called out the boy’s name, but it sounded as if he wasn’t sure where the lad was in the maze of aisles.
And then, a gasp behind him, just as he pulled himself onto the topmost bale. Lying flat, he looked back over the edge.
He’d never seen Dannis Kesleer, but this had to be him. He was dressed in black, a miniature merchant, with silver buckles on his shoes and belt, his broad white collar trimmed with lace.
They stared at each other. He hesitated, reluctant to use force to stop the boy yelling for his father. But Dannis was silent, staring. Not at Saker’s face, but at the medallion around his neck. It had fallen free through his torn shirt and now dangled over the edge of the bale. His cleric’s emblem, the oak leaf within a circle. His immediate thought was that the lad would not recognise it, for it was the symbol of an Ardronese witan, not a Lowmian one. Ardrone and Lowmeer might share the same Va-Faith, but there were differences in the way they practised it. The oak leaf was not used in Lowmeer.
Beyond Dannis, he caught a glimpse of the lascar fumbling among the papers on the table on the other side of the warehouse. Their gazes met as the man found and snatched up what appeared to be a wooden rod. The merchants had scattered and were nowhere to be seen.
Saker looked back at the boy to find that Dannis Kesleer knew the oak symbol after all. He was making the customary bow given to all clergy, with both hands clasped under his chin. Saker smiled down on him and raised a conspiratorial forefinger to his lips in a sign of silence. Briefly he thought of directing the lad’s attention to the lascar to make his own escape easier, but dismissed the thought. Instead, he made a gesture of benediction. Obediently, the lad laid his hand over his heart in acceptance. Then he turned and walked away.
Saker let out the breath he’d been holding, but his heart refused to stop thudding. He leapt for the rope and clawed his way up. The skin between his shoulder blades tingled as he imagined lead shot ploughing into his back. He scrambled on to the beam and hauled the rope up behind him, frantic.
How can they miss seeing me?
But the merchants were still shouting at one another, their voices coming from all over the warehouse as they
looked for Kesleer’s son. No one looked up.
Kneeling on the beam, he untied the rope with fumbling fingers, his mouth dry. A movement low on the opposite wall near the desks caught his attention.
The lascar was on top of the ledger shelving. Even as he watched, the youth began to climb. Saker froze. Va’s teeth, how was he doing that? He knew sailors could climb rigging in the roughest of seas, but that wall was sheer, built of rough wood planks, and all the man had were his bare toes and fingers. And his dagger. He was carrying the stolen wooden rod too, which he’d shoved down the front of his shirt so that the top of it poked up over his shoulder. Even that didn’t seem to faze him.
That must be the bambu they were talking about.
Fortunately for the lascar, that corner was deeply shadowed and so he remained unseen. Incredibly, he paused to look at Saker, who was keeping an eye on him as he slid back the loose shingles where he’d entered the warehouse. Their gazes met, and the lascar removed the bambu and waved it, grinning hugely, as if to say, “Look what I found!”
Saker winced, convinced the overconfident tar would plummet to the floor, or be seen by the traders. Yet his luck appeared to hold. He scrambled up to the top of the wall where he pushed open the ventilation shutter. The gap would be just wide enough for him to squeeze through, but the morning light now slanted in to illuminate him.
Va favours the bold, Saker thought. Still, on the other side there was a sheer wall dropping straight onto a narrow walkway along the canal, and near certainty of being seen by the outside guards.
Saker pushed his rope through the hole he’d made and prepared to wriggle out. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the merchants rush past the table. His action scattered papers and something else lying there, something wispy. Gold-coloured filaments fluttered in the air, as bright as sparks. Yelling, the man pointed a pistol at the lascar, and pulled the trigger. The noise was deafening.
Looking over his shoulder, Saker saw the unharmed sailor one last time through the opening of the shutter. He was outside the warehouse, hanging on to a beam of the overhang. He made some sort of hand gesture just before he swung up onto the top of the roof, as agile as a squirrel.
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