The fisherman’s manner changed subtly. “I don’t have business with that kind of folk,” he said, with a sneer of disgust. “They take the coin out of the purse of too many honest folk, and do naught but drink and fight. Since the duke died they’ve been a’thumpin any regular folk who complain. But there is some group of them in town,” he admitted. “Hells, they nearly run the place, now that the Viscount fled, too.”
“Anything more particular?” Tyndal asked, adding to his bribe.
“They frequent the waterfront, near the market, so it’ll be thereabouts,” the fisherman said, scratching his beard. “They associate with porters and pirates, mostly. Don’t know many names, save one: he’s Skrup, and he’s often shaking the poor clammers and crabbers in town for their extra coin; sometimes he’s called Hard Skrup on account of his manner with those who don’t pay.”
“We’re familiar with the ruffian,” Tyndal assured him, contemptuously, at the thought of the man. Tyndal did not like Hard Skrup. Neither did Rondal.
Hard Skrup was the Rat who was directly in charge of Ruderal, apparently because he was the one who’d discovered him and his abilities. The thug had seen his possession, rationalized under the Brotherhood’s convoluted code covering such things, as a means of advancing himself. He’d protected the boy jealously, though he’d treated him foully. And then he’d nearly killed the both of them, and had slain one of their Kasari friends, at the orders of his master. Rondal had sincerely hoped that something awful had happened to him, coming out of the Land of Scars, but another part of him looked forward to some much-deserved vengeance.
“I don’t know where he works from. But if you’ve silver to pass around, someone there will be able to lead you to him. They aren’t hard to find,” he added, ruefully. “This lot is particularly bad. I heard from folk in Pearlhaven and upriver that their Rats are better behaved, but this lot is brutal with the townsfolk. The warden raised market fees, and the poor folk protested. Those bilge-dwellers broke it up. Two fishermen died,” he added with disgust. “Honest men, who just wanted a chance at an honest wage. While Hard Skrup and his lot are eating beef on our coin!”
“I’ve heard that life in Enultramar can change on the shift in the breeze,” Tyndal said, philosophically. “Who knows how a chance meeting with a couple of foreign gentlemen might change that? What can you tell us about the boy and his mother?”
“Oh, good folk, good folk,” he assured, warming up to the boys. “She was raised on the wharfs, met up with a mariner, she said, and fell in love.”
“Do you know of the father?” Rondal prompted.
“Typical story in the Bay: he shipped out with presents and promises to return when she come expecting, but o’ course he never did. Shipwrecker likely has him, now. She had the babe, of course, but didn’t send him to an orphanage. Moved in here seven years ago, mending nets or taking in washing or whatever other respectable work she could do to raise her boy.
“When he was old enough, he started digging clams and crabbing on the banks, and when he started to get big he got hisself a punt and started fishing. Started with nothin’,” he said, proudly. “Afore the trouble started, he was starting to make a little coin in market, even. Had a real knack for it. Could have been a great fisherman,” he said, sadly, as if being cursed with magical talent had prevented the boy from a lofty career harvesting the sea.
“Was she . . . wild?” Tyndal prompted.
“Oh, no,” assured the fisherman. “She was chaste as a nun. Tried to sweet-talk her with some rum, a year after she moved in, but she wasn’t having it. Completely devoted to her boy. Didn’t want no man to come betwixt them.”
“Ruderal mentioned his sire was a Seamage,” Rondal prompted. “Do you know anything about that?”
The man looked a bit embarrassed. “Maybe he was, maybe not. She wouldn’t be the first lass to invent a colorful sire to explain a swollen belly, and I was too polite to ask more than a few questions about it. He could have been a Seamage, a scoundrel, or the bloody Duke of Alshar, for all I know.”
“I think we can safely rule out the last,” Rondal decided, “but we’re curious because of his great Talent. If Ruderal’s sire was a mage, then knowing who he was and what his abilities were might be important,” he explained. “Magical talent doesn’t always flow from generation to generation, but the children of magi tend to have a higher degree of Talent than most.”
“Stands to reason,” conceded the fisherman. “But if Rudi’s sire was more than a rut in the dark after too much brandy, as is likely with a young and ignorant lass on the docks, then she alone knows the tale. I do hope you find them,” he added. “Since they left, I’ve been worried. You see them, tell them that Chestnost was asking after them.”
“We will, my friend,” agreed Tyndal, handing him another shell. “And remember: your discretion is very much appreciated.”
After securing the door to the hovel as best they could, the lads walked back to the ancient walled town that overlooked the river mouth, ancient Solashaven.
A long bridge of stonework covered with a timbered roof spanned the inlet, and another town, Pearlhaven, even larger and grander than Solashaven, was on the other side. The two towns were the seat of two different viscounties, politically, but the folk of both towns traversed the bridge and conducted business without regard to that.
That was the normal routine in Enultramar, they’d found. Whereas in the Riverlands territorial boundaries were jealously guarded as opportunities for revenue through tolls, in the wide gray-rocked Bay of Enultramar there were few such fees. It was far too simple to avoid them, if they’d been in place, by taking passage on the thousands of boats and skiffs that raced across the far-flung towns of the Bay.
“So, what do you think of storied Enultramar, now that you’ve seen it?” asked Rondal.
“It’s amazing,” Tyndal said, happily. “I never knew Alshar was so . . . big.”
“Considering you could fit most of this valley into the Wilderlands south of Vorone and still have plenty of room to rattle it, calling it ‘big’ seems a little misspoken,” Rondal observed. “But I take your meaning. Solashaven is one of the smaller ports in the Bay, silted up and economically depressed. But it’s still half the size of Vorone.”
“There must be over a million people living on the Bay, alone,” agreed Tyndal.
“Closer to two, once you add the Coastlord havens,” Rondal replied. “I looked it up before we left Sevendor. Once you get to the fertile coastlands, things aren’t as densely populated, but there are still some big cities amongst the orange groves and apple orchards. Rhemes, Bortiner, and of course, Falas.”
The magnificent castle overlooking the central river of the valley, just south of the escarpment that divided the Coastlands, proper, from the Great Vale, had impressed both boys powerfully. Seven giant towers, each as big as a keep of a lesser castle, enclosed the massive walls of the central keep.
Behind the castle the many spires of Falas rose to heights unequalled in engineering since the fall of the Magocracy, and a sprawling city of over half a million glittered brightly as they’d changed boats at the docks on the river there. The Duke’s Palace, where Anguin II should rightfully be installed, rose above the great walls of the castle above even the sentry towers, terminating in a grand spire bearing the gilded anchor motif.
“Nor does that count the cities of the Great Vale,” agreed Tyndal. “Roen is nearly as large as Falas. That was supposed to be the new ducal capital, back when Gilmora was in Alshari hands, and it’s still the ecclesiastic capital, almost a quarter of a million people. Supposedly Inmar, alone, has a hundred thousand people.”
The famous Alshari City of Temples was unfortunately not on their itinerary, but Tyndal was especially eager to tour the place. “When you put it all together, there have to be millions of people in southern Alshar.” Such numbers challenged the lads, who were born and raised in the sparsely-populated Wilderlands.
“And now they are
all under the control of a rebel government,” Rondal pointed out. The news about the unofficial council that currently ruled southern Alshar in the stead of the duke was thick with intrigue all the way down river. The two had paid especial attention to such news and rumors in an attempt to determine just who was in power in the region.
The basics were clear enough: when Duke Lenguin perished on the battlefield (though the lads knew for a fact that he’d survived the battle and died the next night, after knighting them both) and word arrived that the Duchess was assassinated in the summer palace shortly thereafter, her children taken into custody by the Castali “for protection”, the reaction in the south was fierce. The leading nobles remaining at Falas and the administrative capital at Roen met in council over the crisis, and from that council arose a small group of high nobles and court officials who were “bravely” rising to the challenge of running a government without a sitting sovereign.
The Count of Rhemes, Vichetral, seemed to be the mastermind of the usurpation of ducal authority. Protesting loudly about being bereft of the nation’s beloved sovereign family, in private his forces quickly moved to secure assets throughout the south and ensure that the interim council appointed his loyalist to sensitive interim appointments. In private, it was commonly understood, the Count of Rhemes was delighting in how his family’s old rivals, the Counts of Falas (also known as the Alshari Ducal House) had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Though he employed members of the extended ducal family in his government, and was allegedly grooming the next heir in line for the throne should it become necessary, he had yet to declare himself Duke.
But he was not alone in the rebellion. Many prominent landholding barons and certain members of the clergy had backed the council, providing their public support for the rebellion against the new King. Others were steadfastly loyal to the Ducal house, and favored closer ties with their old rival and frequent business partner, Castal.
The latter seemed a large but largely powerless minority. As the rebel council sought to rule the land, they had taken great pains to isolate and silence any vocal support for the new Kingdom and its Castali royals. The official word was that Anguin II was a captive, and that Castal had conquered all of Alshar beyond the Narrows.
Of course, the boys knew otherwise from personal experience. The day they had finally crossed the heavily-guarded frontier between the rebellious south and the rest of the Five Duchies, they received word from their former master and current patron, Minalan the Spellmonger, that Duke Anguin was planning a secret effort to cross the frontier from his exile and seize control of the summer capital of Vorone with two thousand mercenaries and a thousand supporters. The goal, their former master Minalan reported, was to attempt to build a functioning statelet on the ruins of a lovely resort city on the edge of a warzone.
While the task the young Duke had chosen was daunting, both of the young knights had confidence in the thoughtful lad’s chances. Particularly so, as Duke Anguin continued to enjoy the quiet aid and patronage of the increasingly powerful Arcane Orders. They were encouraged when they’d heard that their old master’s dearest friend and professional colleague, Lady Pentandra, had left the stewardship of the Arcane Orders in Castabriel to become Anguin’s ducal Court Wizard. Minalan assured them that she would support Anguin’s claim – and the interests of the magi – as an independent political power, not a client of the Castali. Neither one of them could conceive of a situation that the dedicated wizard’s power and subtlety could not defeat.
The two had engaged in plenty of speculation on the trip down-river through the heart of beautiful southern Alshar to consider what would happen if it did, indeed, become common knowledge here that the Duke of Alshar was, once again, actually in Alshar. The rebellion depended upon anti-Castali sentiment.
The Count of Rhemes was the public face of the rebellion, but as his every pronouncement proclaimed loyalty and fealty to the ducal house to support his own aspirations, it would put him in a difficult spot once it was known that the young, orphaned Duke Anguin was alive, well, and enjoying an independent rule in the Wilderlands. Either he would have to truly raise the banner of rebellion against his rightful lord, or he would have to submit.
From what the lads heard on the several boats they took from Falas to Enultramar, the latter was unlikely to happen.
The clergy had been particularly strong in their support for the rebellion. The new Skyfather of Orvatas in Roen, the seat of the official cult of the sky god, issued pronouncement after pronouncement urging the people to follow the Count of Rhemes, and the important temples (as determined by the amount of treasure they had to influence politics) fell into line. Even the Temple of Trygg had condemned the assassination of the Duchess and the plight of the Orphan Duke and his sisters as an anti-Alshari act perpetrated by the mischievous Castali.
More troubling were the merchant houses that were taking advantage of the lax nature of revenue collection, under the rebellion. By all tales Enultramar was enjoying the first boost in tonnage and profits since the Farisian Campaign after the rebellion. Whereas the reign of the Narasi Dukes had always involved limits on the merchant fleets and what wares they could trade in as a matter of administrative regulation – not to mention revenue for the sovereignty – the ducal house was no longer a factor in their trading decisions.
As a result, the rebellion had allowed the accumulation of tremendous capital by the merchants, Coastlord and Sea Lord alike, in the absence of Ducal dock fees and taxes on cargo. That was an economic advantage they were loath to give up.
Yet most of the common folk they’d overheard were far more supportive of the ducal house. The merchants and farmers of the Great Vale, especially, were pining for their Narasi lord, and the folk of the Coastlands seemed stricken that the Duke was captive.
“Why is the Alshari ducal house represented by an anchor, anyway?” Tyndal asked as they passed one of the many little civic shrines from ages past that dotted Enultramar. This one was a small stone plinth detailing the gift of the roadway between Solashaven and points inland. The plinth had a large stylized anchor as the sigil of the dukes of Alshar.
“History,” supplied Rondal, “a subject you seem to have developed an allergy to.”
“I can’t help it if I find romantic poetry more intriguing than the antics of dukes long dead,” Tyndal protested. “It’s how the gods made me.”
“Thankfully, they had more foresight when they made me,” Rondal boasted. “When the first Narasi duke arrived here, after the Conquest in Merwyn, he had to battle it out with the locals: Sea Lords and Coastlords, the latter descended from the hated Magocracy. But the Sea Lords were the ones who were really giving him trouble.
“When he took over the fortress he made out of the Imperial palace at Falas and declared it his seat, he also married the daughter of the Imperial Consul, who was, locally, the Count of Falas. A Coastlord.”
“Anchor?” reminded Tyndal.
“Right. Well, a few centuries before, when the Magocracy first got here with the Coastlords and battled with the Sea Lords for dominance, they adopted a Sea Lord icon, the anchor, as a token of their determination to stay. Of course, to the Sea Lords the anchor is the symbol of the Fairtrader, daughter of the Storm Lord, so that was just insulting and borderline blasphemous to them. Having your foes usurp the symbol of one of your gods and literally wave it in your face from every banner is annoying.
“But the Coastlords, and their leader, the Imperial Consul – that is, the Count of Falas – did that on purpose. Indeed, they took it as a symbol of the House of Falas, and it eventually became a token of the Lord of the Fields as much as the Sea Axe became the token of the Lord of the Waves. When the Narasi duke married into the family, he took the anchor as his token because of how much it meant to the locals. In a few generations, after intermarrying with Coastlord and Sea Lord alike, the various pieces of iconography got mixed together with traditional Narasi symbols to form the iconography of Alshar.”
“That was a brilliant explanation of the subject, and a credit to your scholarship,” Tyndal said, impressed. “It’s also a stunning validation of why you have such abysmal luck with girls.”
“Some girls like history, thank you!” Rondal protested.
“Not enough, perhaps, to ensure you will find one who likes you,” dismissed Tyndal.
“But that does explain a lot about the whole anchor-and-antlers standard.”
“Well, the antlers weren’t added to the heraldry until after the Black Duke lost Gilmora, and the ducal house wanted to elevate the Wilderlands in position,” conceded Rondal, “but the anchor has been there since the beginning as a symbol of Alshari sovereignty.”
They arrived at the gate of Solashaven shortly before evening set in, during the heat of the day. Even this late in the autumn, with cool rains showering the Great Bay daily, the temperature and humidity hovering over Enultramar’s stately palm trees was oppressive, compared to the mild climate the boys were used to. The sweat soaked their heavy Riverlands garb at arm and neck, and the flies and bloodsuckers were everywhere.
Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series Page 4
