by David Drake
“But as for what I want,” she continued, letting the words roll out as her mind formed them, “I want to make the world a better place.”
Her grin was hard, self-mocking. Neither of the men smiled at all.
“If you—” her glance included both men. “—or Tenoctris or anyone has a better use for, for me than to sit in a room weaving, then tell me. Just tell me what you want me to do!”
“As it chances,” Garric said, “the Shippers’ Association has already spoken to me. I said I’d give them a decision in three days after I’d studied the matter. What do you know about it, Master Chalcus?”
“Have they indeed?” said Chalcus in a tone of pleased surprise. “What a quick set of lads they are! I thought they’d be a week at least getting through the folk who keep the prince from being bothered.”
He raised the carafe of wine and poised with it as though he considered pouring himself another mug. Continuing, the banter gone, Chalcus said, “I know that it’s real, that ships are stripped and the crews gone without a trace.”
Chalcus’ smile was as hard as the curved blade of his dagger. “Easy enough to guess where the men are, the sea having so many hungry mouths in it, but the cargoes are another thing.”
“The winged monsters?” Garric said. “They’re real?”
“Aye,” said Chalcus, “they’re real. And—”
He leaned back against the table, though he didn’t let it really bear his weight. When Chalcus and Garric faced one another, there was always the danger that their poses would become threatening. Because they were the men they were, they both worked to avoid the problem.
Men, thought Ilna. But she had even less use for the other sort, for all her irritation at the dangerous posturing that was marrow deep in the Garrics and Chalcuses of the world.
“—I can only imagine what your shippers told you about Lusius,” Chalcus continued, “but if they said he’s a crook who’s dealt with pirates himself in past years... well then, they said the truth. To my certain knowledge.”
“I see,” said Garric. He grinned. “Pour me some ale, would you, Chalcus? My throat’s dry from all this talking. Ilna?”
“No,” she said without dressing up the word. She wasn’t thirsty, so she wouldn’t drink; and the offer had been merely for courtesy, as Garric’s request was really a place-holder to let him think. Humans wove their lives through the lives of others in patterns; because the patterns worked, more often than not, and you had to suit your fabric to your materials....
Garric took the filled mug and met Chalcus’ eyes over it. “I can give you a battalion,” he said. “Of any troops you choose, save the Blood Eagles. And some of them if you like.”
Chalcus laughed. “And what do I know about leading soldiers?” he said. “Or fleets either one, eh? There’s a ship I’ve marked out to hire, a trim little vessel, and six men from your army I’ll take to crew her if they choose to come.”
“Yes,” said Garric. “And?”
Chalcus still smiled, even his eyes, but the lilt in his voice had an edge. “That much I could do by myself,” he said, “as you well know. What I want from you, your highness, is your blessing; and this is not a small thing that I ask, as you know also.”
“To go off and settle the problem?” Garric said. “I’ve given you that, Master Chalcus.”
“I ask that afterwards you accept what I’ve done, my friend,” Chalcus said. His tone was hard, his words very clear. “That whatever promises I make, you will keep as though you’d made them. That whatever deeds others do in my name, you say were done in yours; and that you will honor the doers, no matter what those deeds may have been.”
“Ah,” said Garric, nodding again. “No, not a small thing at all.”
Garric wore his sword always in public during this tour of the kingdom’s western islands; Ilna supposed he was reminding people that they were part of the kingdom, and that the royal army was available to enforce anything that its prince couldn’t manage with his own right arm. Ilna understood the value of symbols, after all.
Though Garric had worn the weapon to dinner, he’d unbuckled it and hung it, belt and all, over the back of his chair while he ate. Now, moving with a deliberation that showed he wasn’t making a threat of any kind, Garric drew the blade and let lanternlight quiver along its patterned steel.
“The sword hasn’t any guilt for the things it’s done while I wielded it,” he said quietly to Chalcus. “Nor will I punish the men who act for me. But you’re right, Chalcus; it’s not a promise I would make were I not sure of the folk I send to act in my place.”
He turned to meet Ilna’s eyes; and, smiling, still holding her gaze, he shot the blade back home in the scabbard.
Chalcus laughed. “Oh, I wish I’d had a few of your sort in my crew in the bad old days, my princeling!” he said. “Well, never mind. I’ll be for you what you’d have been for me—and in a better cause, I’m sure!”
Garric stepped forward and clasped his right arm with Chalcus, each man’s hand gripping the other’s elbow. They backed apart and Chalcus moved to the side, only a hair’s breadth but enough to take him out of the way. Ilna met Garric’s eyes again.
“Ilna,” Garric said, “I would rather lose my right arm than to lose you from my life. Go and teach whoever’s behind the trouble what it means to do evil when there’s a force for good like you in the world. And then come back to me and your other friends, because we need you.”
A force for good? But yes, she supposed so. It was an odd way to think about herself, though.
Ilna extended her arm to Garric. As he’d done before, as she’d hoped he’d do again but never would have asked him to do, Garric stepped closer and hugged her with the delicate care of a very strong man for a woman half his size.
They stepped apart; Chalcus moved to her side. “Travel safely,” Garric said to both of them. “Though—I know there’re risks, but there’ll never be a day I wouldn’t feel safer at your side than I would facing you, either one.”
“Never fear, good prince,” said Chalcus with a laugh as he turned away, his hand on Ilna’s waist. “We’ll bring the ears back for you!”
“We will not,” said Ilna crisply; knowing that it was probably the sort of joke men share, knowing also that with these men there was no certainty that it was a joke at all.
“Ah, then we will not, dearest,” agreed Chalcus cheerfully as he handed Ilna through the line of Blood Eagles. In a more businesslike tone he went on, “In the morning, I’ll ask you to come with me to see the factor who handles the Serian trade in Carcosa. His name’s Sidras or-Morr, and you’ll be no end of help to me dealing with him.”
“I’ll come, of course,” Ilna said without emphasis. “But I don’t see what I can do that you can’t. I don’t know the man—I don’t know anybody in Carcosa.”
“Ah, you’ll see, dear one,” the sailor said. This back staircase was too narrow for them to walk abreast. Without asking or probably considering the question, Chalcus stepped ahead of her and sauntered down. Behind them on the roof were friends and bodyguards, but who knew what might be waiting below? In all likelihood nothing whatever of a hostile nature; but if something was there, it would have to get through Chalcus before it reached Ilna.
“And another thing, sweetest,” he added over his shoulder. “Do you think that your friend Sharina would be willing to join us for the outing?”
Ilna thought for a moment. They reached the landing and Chalcus touched her waist again as they continued.
“You’d have to ask her, of course,” she said at last, “but yes, I think she would. She won’t be going with Cashel and Tenoctris, and I think she’d like something to take her mind off whatever it is that’s worrying her.”
“Then we’ll indeed ask her, before we leave the palace tonight,” Chalcus said with satisfaction. “And if it’s why? you’re wondering, dearest—let’s just say that from all reports this Sidras is a canny fellow who’ll recognize a hawk however many
swan feathers it drapes itself in. Were I to go alone to see him, the interview would be very short and not at all to my liking. But with a pillar of unquestioned rectitude like yourself, and with the sister of the prince on my other side—then I think he’ll listen even to an old pirate long enough to hear that he’s reformed!”
Chalcus laughed merrily. As they started down the hallway to the suite Sharina shared with Cashel, he began to sing, “Dig a hole, dig a hole, in the meadow, dig a hole in the cold, cold ground....”
Chapter 6
As they paused at Harbor Street, Sharina massaged her left calf where a thorn had caught her as she left her suite by means of the window. Her foot had slipped on the terra cotta pipe and she’d flailed her leg into one of the roses trained up the palace wall.
“Aye, there they are,” said Chalcus, gesturing with his open left hand toward the three large vessels in the reed-choked water just beyond the stone embankment. “Before I’m hanged, I’ll be able to navigate the nasty, narrow lanes of a city as well as I do the sea.”
“I thought we were going to a warehouse,” Sharina said, eyeing the ships. “Though I don’t mind, of course.”
This morning she wore an eared bonnet and matching beige muslin shawl, both garments borrowed from her maid. Even so she’d decided to climb down the pipe which funneled rain water to the cistern in order to avoid the guards who’d otherwise insist on coming with her. The Princess of Haft had the power to do many things, but she had a lot less control over herself than plain Sharina os-Reise had taken for granted.
Sharina didn’t think it was a good exchange, but when it was important she could work around the problem. She’d decided that joining Ilna and Chalcus to see a merchant, three friends together on an outing, was important; especially in her present mood.
“Master Sidras is a clever fellow,” Chalcus said, sauntering along with Ilna on his right and Sharina on the other side. “Instead of a building on shore, he bought a hulled transport and dredged a trench for it into the mudflats. The bridge to the embankment is easy to guard. Save for that, you can’t reach his store by land or by boat either one, at least not a boat big enough to carry off any amount of loot. And as he prospered, he bought two more hulks to increase his space.”
The broad waterfront pavement would allow the largest goods wagons to pass in opposite directions. Ages without maintenance had tilted the paving blocks one from the next, but since there was little other traffic this morning the trio walked toward the hulks with reasonable ease.
Less than half of the ancient harbor was in active use. The northern portion where the river entered had become a mudbank. The huts of eel fishermen and birdcatchers stood on stilts over the vegetation, and freshwater streams meandered across the mud to reach the brackish water of the harbor proper. Small animals—probably rats—scurried and splashed among the coarse reeds, and once Sharina saw what she thought was a snake slither across the mud like a riffling breeze.
She didn’t mind snakes, particularly. She’d faced more danger from human beings than from any other animal she’d met.
At the landward end of the bridge to the hulks was a wicket gate and behind it a guardhouse. The watchman hadn’t rung his large brass gong in the shape of a lion’s face, but he must’ve communicated in some fashion as he watched the trio approach: two more men came out of the hulk and walked down the bridge. The well-dressed one was on the other side of middle age, while his younger companion was a squat troll carrying an iron-bound club.
“There’s a cord running under the wharf,” Ilna said without pointing. “It must ring a bell in the ship.”
Trust Ilna to notice a line... but Sharina should’ve seen it herself, since she’d known it must exist.
“Hello, good sirs!” Chalcus called, still ten feet short of the gate. “We’ve been told that Master Sidras or-Morr handles the Serian trade here, so we’ve come to see him.”
“Have you?” said the well-dressed man, Sidras himself by his demeanor. His hair had been blond and his beard a deeper red when he was younger; now there was more gray than not in both. He set his left hand on the wicket and glared out at his visitors. “Maybe you’re here to tell me to stop dealing with foreign devil-worshippers?”
“We are not,” said Chalcus, his tone no longer cheerfully bantering; at best that would inflame Sidras’ obvious hostility. “And while I’ve had my problems with the Serians in years past, they do not worship demons, sir.”
“Huh!” said Sidras. “From the look of you, lad, it wasn’t the Serians who caused the problems.”
The watchman had gotten his crutch under his left arm and lifted himself off his stool. He held a mallet in his free hand and tried to look threatening, though without much success. The bruiser with the club was another matter, though, and Sidras himself looked like he could give a good account of himself in a fight despite his age and fat....
Sharina smiled at the way her mind was running. She’d learned to size up strange men quickly when she tended bar in her father’s inn during the Sheep Fairs. Today she and her friends were here to do business, not to brawl.
Chalcus had halted a double-pace back from the gate to make clear that he didn’t intend to push beyond his welcome. Sidras looked from him, to Ilna, and finally to Sharina. The situation obviously puzzled him.
“Who are you, then, mistress?” he said, nodding to Sharina.
“I’m Sharina os-Reise,” she said, making the choice of words in the split second between the question and her answer. “My friend is Ilna os-Kenset, and we’re accompanying Master Chalcus, who wishes to bargain with you.”
She didn’t know Chalcus’ father’s name. For that matter, she wasn’t sure that Chalcus himself knew.
“Huh!” Sidras repeated. “I suppose I’m to think you’re Princess Sharina of Haft, am I, because you’re tall and a blonde?”
“You’re to think I’m a respectable woman from Barca’s Hamlet on the east coast,” Sharina said. “Because I’m telling you that, and you needn’t flatter yourself that I think you’re worth lying to!”
Sidras smiled faintly, though the unsettled look didn’t leave his eyes as he switched his gaze to Ilna. “If your father’s name’s Kenset...,” he said. “And you come from Barca’s Hamlet too...?”
“I do,” Ilna said. From Ilna’s expression, Sharina judged she wasn’t best pleased to be interrogated this way, but she was holding her temper. Ilna had a lot of experience not being pleased, after all.
“Would you chance to know a fellow named Cashel, then?” Sidras said, surprising Sharina as much as if he’d suddenly jumped off the dock.
“He’s my brother,” said Ilna simply. “Though we’re not a great deal alike.”
“Huh!” said Sidras. “That’s not what I see, mistress, despite him getting all the bulk of the family. Unlock the gate, Mattion.”
As the watchman fitted the four pins of his key into the slots in the padlock, Sidras looked his visitors over again and shook his head. “I’m letting you in,” he said, “because if you two trust Master Chalcus I’ll trust him too. But we may all three of us be the greatest fools ever born!”
Chalcus laughed. He bowed and gestured the women ahead of him with his left arm.
The bridge to the nearest of the three ships was wide enough for carts and as solid underfoot as the stone pavers of Harbor Street. Sidras walked alongside his three visitors while the guard stumped behind the group.
Sharina glanced at him over her shoulder; the fellow’s expression was sullenly angry though she couldn’t tell whether he was still worried about Chalcus or if he were simply a sullenly angry person. The Lady knew there were enough of them in the world, and the attitude was probably less of a handicap in a bodyguard than in most professions.
“We’re here to see the goods you trade to the Serians,” Chalcus said. “Not the silks and ceramics they bring to Carcosa, Master Sidras. I’m on a voyage to Valles by the northern route, and there’s a few trifles I want to take along to m
ake up my lading.”
The freighter’s original deck had been raised two levels with wood framing, increasing the enclosed volume considerably. It had already been a large vessel, much bigger than anything anchored normally in Carcosa Harbor now.
Echoing Sharina’s thought aloud as they entered through the open doorway, Chalcus said, “She was in the grain trade from Tisamur to Blaise, was she not?”
He bent to scratch the deck with the nail of his index finger, illustrating his question and probably checking the soundness of the wood at the same time. “Great wallowing pigs, but as sturdy as the rocks of the shore itself, to be sure.”
“Aye,” said Sidras, not displeased. “She was to be broken up for her wood. I bought her in Blaise and had her towed here in the summer when the winds were as much to trusted as ever you can.”
“As ever you can,” Chalcus agreed. He put his hands on his hips as he surveyed the room the factor had brought them into. It was a vast echoing hall, open save for wooden piers and the frames holding goods in bales and baskets.
Sharina’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the light filtering through side windows. Half a dozen clerks, men and women both, were at work among the shelves; one of them was using a lantern.
“I’m readying a back cargo for the Serian ship docked at Clasbon’s Factory,” Sidras said, leading the way through the racked merchandise. The cross-aisles were offset from one another, so crossing the width of the ship was like walking a curving forest path. “Otherwise you’d have to come down into the hold if you wanted to see my Serian stores.”
Sharina could only guess at most of the goods stacked about her. She walked around a pile of sacks whose contents had been emptied into wide storage jars. Ilna paused to run her fingertips across the coarse fabric; then she jerked her hand away and shook it with a look of distaste, as though something foul was sticking to her skin.
“Here, then,” Sidras said with a gesture toward a row of pallets. Though it was morning, Sharina’s eyes had adapted well enough to see by the light diffused through the broad windows in the west sidewall. “Anything in particular you’re looking for, or do you plan a general cargo?”
