by Tim Stead
“It is a rare book,” he said.
“Rare?”
“Yes. They do not have a copy in Bas Erinor. There is no copy in Bel Arac. As far as I know this may be the only copy in Avilian. The Berashi claim to have a copy, but they will not let scholars see it.”
“Is it valuable?” She looked at the book. She had been thumbing the pages while she ate cheese and fruit. She prayed silently that she had not done it harm.
“Yes. There are scholars who would spend twenty guineas to have an hour in its company. The old duke would have paid a thousand to own it. We were told about it. Part of our education – the Pelion Codex they called it. The oldest book that mentions Pelion. The original, the one written in Magic, “ he pronounced it as she had done, which made her feel good, “would be dust by now, and the Keffish, and probably the High Avilian. There will be errors of translation, but it is a most valuable work.”
“I am glad to have found it,” she said. It was luck, of course, ridiculous, outrageous luck, but she felt a certain pride, never the less.
“I thought there might be something of value in the library, but nothing like this. It seems you have done me yet another service, Sara.”
“Please do not reward me again, Lord Skal,” she said. “I am already overwhelmed.”
He laughed again. “As you like,” he said. “But there will be more work for you. When scholars in Bas Erinor learn that the book is here they will want to visit and study it. You must organise that.”
“As you wish, Lord Skal.” Scholars. Great men of learning would come here to read a book that she had read. She wondered what they would make of it. She did not doubt that they would learn more than she had by reading it.
“Now I truly shall leave you to rest, Sara, and I will leave the book in your care, as it shall remain.” He bowed slightly, something that she found entirely surprising, and left the room with the precious red and cream book beneath her hand. A thousand Guineas? She and Saul could have lived their whole lives on such a fortune. She stroked the silken leather.
I will read it again, she thought.
13. Cain’s Plan
A gusty, hostile wind picked at the walls of the city of gods, it tugged at clothing, spun the few remaining dead leaves in dusty, transient tornadoes, and made eyes water with its penetrating chill. Duke Aidon looked quite put out at having to the leave the warmth of Bas Erinor castle and trek out into the courtyard where Cain had set up his demonstration, but the innkeeper wasn’t concerned. Narak looked interested, if a little distracted at times, and he thought that Havil genuinely didn’t feel the cold. The Berashi prince stood next to Narak and told jokes, sipped spiced wine, and generally seemed to be enjoying the outing.
“Must we stand around in the cold?” Aidon asked, confirming Cain’s diagnosis. “I am not dressed for it.” It was true. The Duke wore only a cotton tunic embroidered with green leaves that seemed at odds with the season and a cloak hastily thrown over his shoulders. Cain wasn’t cold. He’d dressed for the walk up from the low city, and he’d been working with his men most of the night. He didn’t feel tired, buoyed up by the anticipation of what he was about to show them.
“Forgive me, my lord,” Cain said. “This will not take long.” He produced an hourglass, a nicely crafted piece of work that he had stolen from the kitchen in the Seventh Friend. “This measures one tenth part of an hour,” he said. He turned it so that the sand began to run and whistled loudly.
Four men ran out into the centre of the courtyard. They were carrying a large, oddly shaped piece of wire netting, a fisherman’s net of steel. They placed it on the ground, pulled tools from their belts, and began to bend it. Cain watched them work, and kept an eye on the glass. So far it was going well. It was like watching a dance. The men moved in unison, taking short lengths of wire from their belts when they needed them, standing, and moving together, kneeling, twisting wire. It was an unintended harmony, but it looked good. The men quickly folded the sheet of wire until it had taken on the shape of a box about a pace high, a pace wide and two paces long with a lid which they had left open. When they had reached this point they stood aside and Cain whistled once more.
More men began to enter the courtyard in a steady stream, all soldiers from the regiment. Each carried a wicker basket full of broken stone – about as much as they could carry – and on reaching the wire box, emptied the stone into it and departed once more.
Cain checked the glass once more as the procession continued and the wire box filled with stone. Still it was better than he had hoped. None of the men had dropped a basket, and the new bindings on the box stayed firm. They had experimented with twine, but the weight of stone had split it every time they filled the box past half full. Now they were using the same wire as the box itself, twisted three times around the edges that they wished to join. They had only been able to test it once before this, and that had been early this morning. Very early.
In a short time the box was full. It held firmly. The first team of men moved in again and tied the lid down with more wire.
It was finished. What stood before them was a rough block of broken stone, bound together with wire. Aidon stared at it. Narak smiled. Cain picked up the glass just as the last grains of sand fell from the upper chamber.
“One tenth part of an hour,” he said. “And twenty four men to do the work.”
“And what is it that you have created for us?” Aidon asked.
Narak did not let Cain reply. “A wall,” he said.
“It’s a damned small wall,” Aidon said.
“Yes, but that was a tenth part of an hour and twenty-four men. Think what can be done with several days and three thousand men.”
“It does not have the strength of stone,” Aidon protested. “The wire will rust. A couple of years from now it will start to fall apart.”
“But Seth Yarra comes to the White Road in spring, Lord Duke,” Narak said. “Imagine a wall built thus, just thrown up in a few days, perhaps the height of three men, stretching side to side across the pass. It can be defended.”
Aidon saw. Cain could see the light in his eyes switch on. “It answers,” he said. “It damn well answers.”
“How long would that take, Colonel Arbak?” Havil asked.
“I cannot say for certain, lord prince,” Cain said. “At great height such a wall is not stable, so I have made all my estimates based on a wall that it built in increments, so if it is five blocks high then it must be five wide at the base, then four, then three and so on so that only the top is a single block thick and all line up to present as vertical face to the enemy. The back is stepped, and so easy for the defenders to climb, and each block is wired to those around it.”
“Guess,” Havil said.
“Three blocks high means twenty-eight hundred boxes, and I think we can do two thousand in a day, so two days. Four high is four thousand, five high six thousand. I do not think we can make enough wire cages for six high, but if we could we would certainly complete the wall within a week.”
There was a stunned silence. Cain had expected surprise. It had surprised him when he had calculated the numbers himself. This was the best idea he had ever had. It was the sort of thing that could change the nature of warfare, lead to the creation of temporary fortresses where ever they were needed.
“You can build an eighteen foot high wall across the White Road in a week?” Aidon sounded like he did not believe it.
“We cannot make the boxes for such a wall, but if we had them, yes.”
“And the stone, it’s already there,” Narak said. “The White Road is walled and floored with frost shattered rock.”
“How many do you carry on a wagon?” Havil again. The prince was walking around the block, tapping it with his boot.
“The wire frames? On a good wagon we can put fifty. Less on a light one.”
“So at least a hundred and twenty wagons. Do you have so many?”
“No, lord prince.”
“Well,
there must be a few in Berash,” Havil replied. “Can you send a man back with me to show how the frames are made? We can ship them directly to where you need them – Berashi frames for Berashi wagons.”
Aidon stepped in and they began to plan in earnest. Narak took the moment to draw Cain aside.
“You have done well, Colonel,” he said. “I have no doubt that I can buy you the week that you need, and then we will have a chance. This is a work of genius. How did you come to the idea?”
“A pig, Deus” Cain said. “And baskets of nuts.”
Narak looked blank for a moment. “It doesn’t matter. You have put my doubts to flight. You have proven yourself yet again. I would go so far as to say that you have provided the means by which Avilian, Berash and Afael may be preserved. All three kingdoms owe you a debt, and I shall see that it is paid.”
“There is no need,” Cain protested. He meant it. He was as happy with his life now as he could ever have conceived. He did not want it changed in the smallest part. He had the inn, he had Sheyani, and he had the estate at Waterhill. He could not imagine a better life.
“We will see. Remember that you have a duty, Cain. It is not always about what suits for men who serve the kingdom.”
Cain sighed. He did not want to be anything more than he already was. Yet… “There is more, Deus. I need wood for making palisades.”
“Palisades? Why do you need palisades when you have a wall?”
Arbak pulled a roll of parchment from beneath his cloak and unrolled it so that Narak could see. “It’s the brushwood, Deus,” he said. “If we build these, like so, and cut all the brushwood…”
Narak took the plan from him and studied it carefully.
“Aidon, Havil, you must see this,” he said. Their heads came up and Havil stepped across at once, towing the Duke in his wake. “Your lord of Waterhill has yet another scheme,” he said as they approached. “And this time I see the seeds of victory.”
14. Narala
Narala waited with the wolf. She left the small guest hut on the island of supplicants only once a day to buy food from the vendors who gathered in the noisy market at the north end of the island. They arrived every morning in a flotilla of gaily painted boats and set out their stalls just above the white sand beach among a grove of palms, laying their wares on fibre mats. Those who came first picked the prized spots around the path that led from the guest village, and sat behind their mats, palm trunks for their seat backs, ready to pounce on anyone who showed the slightest interest.
It was a gauntlet that Narala ran each morning. She needed food for herself, but also meat for the wolf. Meat was expensive, but the wolf did not like fish, and seemed not to understand that vegetables were for eating. It raised eyebrows, buying so much meat. The man that sold it did not do a great trade, and his place of business was close to the beach, a poor spot.
She remembered such markets from centuries ago. She had been a child not more than a hundred miles from here, and she had run behind her mother amazed and delighted by the colours and sounds and smells. Not much had changed. The men and women who sold still sat, still shouted the virtues of their wares at anyone less than twenty paces from their mats. They still picked on her.
But Narala was not the same Narala as that little girl. Now the Wolf stood behind her, and she was a formidable warrior in her own right. She had seen more summers than all these people put together, travelled the world from east to west, north to south, seen a thousand towns and cities. She’d eaten spiced glassfish on the docks of Afael, walked across the high passes of the Dragon’s back, thick with snow, stood in the presence of kings, princes, legends, and gods.
Yet for all that this was their place now, not hers. She was a stranger here. Wolfguard was her place, her home, never mind what her skin said.
She walked through the market with an even, confident stride, ignoring the eager cries of the sellers. She was not alone in this. Those who came to this island were all here to the same purpose: to see the Sei. Most were highly placed men seeking favour, asking permission, airing a grievance. They were of high rank or status, and they ignored the common people as a matter of course.
She stopped in front of the man who sold meat. He was a thin man, dressed in a traditional lemo, a simple brown wrap tied and tucked about his waist. He had portions of meat – “fresh today” – folded into palm leaves which he kept cool by means of an awning of coarse cloth that gave shade and a bowl of fresh water. He had a small scoop and constantly dribbled the water across the leaves to lessen the heat.
“Ah, the great lady honours me again,” he cried when she approached. “I am overcome with your beauty. It outshines the sun.”
This, too, was the common way. In the Green Isles the impertinence of the poor was matched only by the haughtiness of the rich. Respect dwelled only in the homes of friends.
“Enough of that,” she said. “Do you have anything edible today, or are you still foisting that week old rotten flesh on your patrons?”
“I am wounded, great lady,” the vendor shouted. “For you know that I only sell the finest goat meat, slaughtered by my own hand in the light of the blessed rising sun this very morning!”
She looked at the meat. What she could see of it seemed fresh enough. To be fair it had been good yesterday. The wolf had devoured it without hesitation. But it did not do to be too easy with these people. She pointed to a cut. “Turn it so that I may see the other side,” she said. The vendor sighed and did so, complaining at her lack of trust and protesting his unimpeachable honesty all the while. It still looked fresh and red. She went on, choosing pieces and examining them, and when she had enough she told him to wrap them in leaves and began to haggle over the price. They came out at about the same as the previous day, as she had known they would.
That task being complete she walked back through the other sellers, buying a fish and a scoop of rice for herself, as well as a selection of vegetables. By now the market was becoming busy, and quite a few wealthy men and their servants and wives strolled about, pointing and choosing things from the mats of the vendors.
“Narala!”
She turned and saw Salis Petraya, the portly merchant. Salis wore a boola, as he always did to hide his bulk. It was a simple enough garment, a square of cloth with a hole cut for the head and draped and belted to the body with a sash of cotton or silk. According to custom the tails of the cloth brushed the ground. Salis’s boola was red silk. His sash was white silk, and around it neck he wore seven strands of leather heavy with gold. Red silk also wrapped his head. He had four men with him; young men in his service, all bearing arms.
“Salis Petraya, I am glad to see you well this morning.” She was not glad to see him at all. She thought him a dangerous, greedy, selfish man.
“As always the sight of you brightens my day,” Salis said. He bowed. He was the sort of man who bowed without taking his eyes from your face. She bowed in return and made to step past him, but Salis put a hand on her arm, then snatched it away again before she could react. “There is something that I must tell you, Narala,” he said.
“Then speak it,” she said. “For I am here and I attend your words.” Polite to a fault.
Salis sidled closer. He dropped his voice. “The lord that you serve,” he whispered. “He who spoke with the Sei two days ago. He is in danger.”
“How so?” She felt a thrill of uncertainty, but Narak was not in danger. She was certain of that. No man here was able to harm him. There was no blood silver, and even if there was she could think of no man capable of surprising the Wolf.
“Sei Feras Tiar,” Salis said. “The King of Blood and Fire would have him dead, and by the king’s hand.”
“He wishes to test himself against Narak?” She was almost amused. The king might be a great warrior, but if he drew a blade on Narak he would learn only humiliation. There could be serious consequences, however. It would not be diplomatic.
“My lord is a great warrior,” she told Salis. “He
does not fear the king, but he will not fight him, I am certain, because he seeks an alliance.”
“The Sei will provoke him, I am sure.”
“I thank you for this warning, Salis Petraya. I shall speak to my lord of it, and bloodshed will be avoided.”
Salis shook his head. “There will be blood if the Sei wills it,” he said.
Narala took her leave of the merchant. She walked slowly back along the path to the village, trying to measure the fat man’s mind. Why had he warned her? Was the warning genuine? If he had hoped to provoke a confrontation then it would not work. Narak would not be so easily moved if he knew their intent. But Salis was linked to Sei Koshan Burdenna, and it might be that the King of Storms and Woes believed Narak, wanted alliance with the north. That would be motive enough to warn him. Yet it was not her place to judge. She would tell Narak, tell him what she had been told and what she knew, and he would decide.
