The Bird of the River

by Kage Baker

  “What happened to him?” asked Wolkin, fascinated.

  “Nothing happened. He just lived there, and made more money for the sorcerer keeping people’s accounts than the sorcerer made selling protections and things.”

  “And there’s the Master of the Mountain, who has a whole demon army that does what he tells it,” said Krelan. “So I suppose it’s not beyond credibility that our captain is a demon.”

  “But not the kind who eats children,” said Wolkin, looking from Eliss’s face to Krelan’s to see if they were joking. “Right?”

  “Obviously not,” said Krelan. “Have any kids ever gone missing on the Bird?”

  “No.”

  “There you are, then.”

  Wolkin gave a sigh of relief. Eliss thought: Most other men would have told him some made-up story to scare him, because they’d have thought it was funny to frighten a little boy. But not Krelan . . .

  Gilder’s Landing, Bisonder, Trastarine: the Bird of the River crept up on each one, passed its docks or stone wharves with glacial slowness, and finally left it in her wake. At each little town, Eliss went with Krelan to show Lord Encilian’s picture at the better shops, at the better inns, discreetly asking questions. Everywhere they went, people were worried about Shellback’s band of thieves, or about river pirates, and Gilder’s Landing even had masons hard at work building extensions to the city walls and new fortifications on the waterfront. Consequently it was a little hard to pull their attentions to the question of whether or not a handsome young lord and his servant had passed that way, all those months back.

  But Krelan was patient, and Eliss was good at finding the right people to ask. So they learned that at Gilder’s Landing Encilian had still been alive, because he had ordered the best meal the tavern keeper had, thrown it across the room after tasting it, and laughed when the tavern keeper had presented the bill. They learned he had still been alive at Bisonder, because he had tried to buy a gold chain in the marketplace, but Bisonder was a poor town and had no such merchandise to offer him; so he had left in disgust. They learned that people remembered him at Trastarine because he had taken the Patron’s mooring slip, and refused to apologize or move his boat. Later he had gone to view the Patron’s fossil excavations, and had been heard to declare, and loudly, that it was a wretched place that had no entertainment to offer but a lot of rockbound curiosities.

  Everyone remembered the servant too. He had seemed embarrassed by his master’s behavior.

  “But why would your lord stop at any of these places at all?” Eliss asked. “They don’t seem like the kinds of places he’d want to visit.”

  “Well, he didn’t stay long anywhere, did he?” Krelan said. “Just put in, went ashore, made a nuisance of himself, and left next morning.”

  “Was he maybe looking for something?”

  “Why would he need to do that?”

  “What’s this place?” Krelan asked as they came in sight of the first of the docks. He had come up to draw water to wash the breakfast pans. Eliss had come down from her perch, since the river’s face glinted in the morning sunlight untroubled.

  “Krolerett,” said Mr. Riveter, who stood in the bows with a rag-ball fender, ready to kick it over the side as they came to the dock. “Big market town.”

  “How long will we stay, sir?”

  “A few days, maybe. We need fresh food.”

  “The captain will want extra whiskey, then?”

  Mr. Riveter gave him a sharp look. “Two barrels. And I’ll fetch them aboard myself, thank you very much.”

  “So I suppose Captain Glass was annoyed by having to wait for his tipple,” said Krelan as they climbed the broad stone staircase leading up from the wharf.

  “If he was, he didn’t say anything to you.” Eliss shaded her eyes with her hand, studying Krolerett as they came to the top of the stairs.

  “No. Just exuded green supernatural slime,” said Krelan. “Through the cabin walls, no less. Which clearly made an impression on Mr. Riveter.”

  “Well, their cabins are next to each other.”

  “But it doesn’t bother you?”

  “Weird things happen sometimes,” said Eliss. “So Captain Glass has a curse on him. He’s still a good captain. Maybe it’s the will of the gods. Who knows? Sometimes things just happen for no reason.”

  “It’s not the will of the gods part I object to,” said Krelan. “It’s the things happening for no reason.”

  “Why?”

  “I suppose I like my universe to be an ordered place where everything makes sense,” said Krelan. “The gods running everything, and under that the Diamondcuts, and under that my family serving the Diamondcuts, and sort of alongside us all the Dukes and Tyrants and Patrons and other Noble Families, and under that the merchants, and . . . everybody else under them. Everybody following their own foreordained track. Reason prevailing. Nothing going out of balance.”

  “But there isn’t any balance. That’s just made up. A Diamondcut can end up dead in the river mud, and a demon can fall in love with a goddess. Things just happen,” repeated Eliss, shifting Mrs. Riveter’s market basket to her other arm. “Sometimes they’re even good things. Come on. Let’s explore.”

  Krolerett was only a pair of wide streets, crossing each other in an open square, but they were thickly lined with shops built of limestone blocks. Here and there too, were the wicker booths of Yendri merchants who sold baskets of carrots and fresh herbs. Eliss spotted a Yendri bathhouse, draped with green poppy-silk banners, and was amazed to feel something like affection as she walked past and glimpsed a white-robed Yendri standing at the counter inside. Maybe someday that will be Alder. . . .

  The streets were crowded with people: grain dealers just arrived from the inlands by caravan, miners looking to buy equipment, hunters bringing in kills, boat crews from the river. There were inns and eating houses and even, in one vacant lot where a building had fallen down, a hastily built stage on trestles and a players’ cart. At the intersection there was a beggar on every corner, whining for alms without much success; all but one of them looked muscular and strong, under the rags and filth. There were plenty of curbside vendors here too, offering foods cooked over braziers or deep-fried in kettles of oil. There was commotion and shouting to clear the street, as a team of men led by a one-eyed showman pushed a great wheeled cage along. Within it, four demons snarled and spat at the crowd.

  “This is tedious,” remarked Krelan, after being jostled from the high curb for the third time in two minutes. “Let’s seek a respite from the crowd somewhere, shall we?”

  “Where?” Eliss settled a string of onions in her basket, and accepted change from a Yendri grocer.

  “What about there?” Krelan pointed at a building across the street. It had big windows and lamps mounted along its wall. GOLDEN HOSPITALITY was painted above the door, with a mosaic depicting a smiling man offering a golden goblet to make the point for anyone who couldn’t read.

  “It looks expensive.”

  “I’m buying. I think that last jostler broke my foot.”

  “Really?”

  “No, but it was a near thing. He was wearing hobnailed boots.” Krelan took her arm and tugged Eliss with him across the flow of traffic. She glanced down at his feet.

  “You should probably think of getting yourself some boots next. Sandals are comfortable, but they don’t protect you much.”

  “I have a plethora of elegant boots at home,” said Krelan as they stepped up on the curb. “My family prides itself on being well-shod. Also in walking quietly. But there I was, planning to infiltrate a barge crew and I thought, ‘Sandals! That’s just the sort of low-profile footwear the lower classes inhabit, isn’t it? I’ll wear sandals.’ ”

  “Except that we mostly go barefoot on board,” said Eliss. “And the really poor don’t even have sandals.”

  “Well, now I know.” Krelan opened the door for Eliss and she slipped inside. He followed and they both stood blinking in the comparative
dim silence, which was pleasant after the glare and bustle of the street. “Oh. It’s an inn.”

  Eliss glanced at the front desk, and at the dining room entrance opposite. “We can still get some tea or something.”

  “Splendid.” Krelan led her inside and they found a table by the windows. They ordered tea and biscuits. Eliss settled the market basket on the floor between her feet, and sat back on the bench to gaze out the window.

  Just across the street, a man in nondescript clothing leaned against the wall next to the grocer’s booth. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, shading his features. Something about him tugged at Eliss’s memory. She thought back over the morning and placed him: he had been leaning against a shed on the docks when they had come ashore from the Bird of the River. When everyone had had to scramble for the curb as the cage full of demons went past, he had been sampling sweetmeats from a vendor’s cart just across the street. Now he lounged in a slanted square of shade, calmly eating sugared almonds from a pastry cone.

  “Your tea, sir and madam,” said a waitress, setting her tray at the edge of their table. As she set out the tea things, Krelan drew money from his pouch. Encilian’s portrait came with it, tangled in the strings. It fell with a clatter on the table.

  “Oh!” The waitress tilted her head to look at it. “Isn’t that—” Her eyes filled with tears and she looked away.

  “Who did you think it was?” Hastily, Krelan stuffed the portrait back into his pouch.

  “He stayed here,” said the waitress. “Months ago. Please, do you know him? Can you send him a message?”

  “Who did you think it was?” repeated Krelan, leaning forward to speak to her in a low voice.

  “Lord Encilian,” said the waitress, blotting her tears on the hem of her apron. “He had some fancy last name. Diamond something.”

  “Diamondcut.”

  “That was it. Are you his friend?”

  “I know him,” said Krelan, studying her face. “I can certainly get a message to his family, if it’s important.”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t want his family to know! I’m sure. He didn’t care for his family, he told me. He was going to come back here and settle down. He said he liked it here.”

  “Did he?”

  “And he’s going to build a fine big house on the hill up there. He said so. But I thought he’d have come back by this time, you see, and . . .”

  Eliss eyed the girl’s waistline. Poor stupid thing, she thought. Krelan drew out the portrait again and slowly laid it on the table.

  “You’re quite sure this was the man?”

  “Of course I am.” The waitress touched the painted serpent armlet. “I remember that. It was heavy gold. He let me hold it . . .”

  Krelan’s face was stern. “How long did he stay here?”

  “A week, sir. He had our nicest room. There wasn’t room for his servant and he stayed on the boat. I didn’t care for the servant. Cheap piece of goods. But his lordship was . . . he was so kind. Told me that this place had quite taken his heart. Asked me all sorts of questions about it, because he wanted to buy that hill up there and build a palace on it. He was just going up to Karkateen to see to some business first, and then he was coming back. Only, now . . .” The waitress twisted her apron in her hands, close to tears again.

  “Only now he’s never come back,” said Krelan. “My dear, I think perhaps you misunderstood him. I know the man. This isn’t the sort of place he’d choose to live.”

  “You may think so, but I know what he told me!” said the waitress fiercely. “He said he’d wandered the world and only wanted to settle down somewhere quiet. A-and raise a family . . .” Her mouth spasmed down at the corners. She struggled to calm herself a moment before adding, “He went and opened a bank account. Why would his lordship do that, hmm, if he wasn’t planning on coming back here? You tell me!”

  Eliss glanced out the window, embarrassed. The man in the wide-brimmed hat was no longer standing there against the wall.

  “Well, a bank account is something, I’ll admit,” said Krelan. “Which bank, may I ask?”

  “There’s only the one. The Merchant’s Bank. I’ve been so afraid that something might have happened to him in Karkateen, you see, because that’s so big and there are thieves there—”

  Krelan held up his hand. “As it happens, I’m one of his family’s agents. I’ll see what may be done for you.” He opened his pouch and took out five gold crowns. “This is for you, in the interval.”

  The waitress stared at the gold, astonished. “Gods bless you, sir! Gods bless you for your kindness!”

  “It isn’t kindness,” said Krelan stiffly. “It’s duty. I can’t tell you to hope for happiness, do you understand that?”

  “I suppose so.” The waitress swept the coins into her hand and fingered them all together, listening for the heavy clink of gold. She sighed. “I’m not such a fool as you think, young sir. But if there’s any chance—” Her voice broke and she walked away quickly, before turning and coming back to snatch up her empty tray.

  “It sounds as though your lord was being himself again,” said Eliss, when the waitress had gone at last. Scowling, Krelan poured out their tea.

  “Too damned true. The old lord will have to be told about this, though. The Family looks after its own, even the by-blows. And now I really have to buy myself a pair of boots.”

  “What for?”

  “If I’m going to say I’m one of the Family’s agents, I’d better look like one.” Krelan took up a biscuit and bit into it ferociously, scattering crumbs.

  “She didn’t even look at your sandals.”

  “I meant that now I’ll have to go to the bank and present myself, so I can see what Encilian was doing opening a bank account.”

  There was a dealer in ready-made leather goods at the near corner, with a store of boots. Krelan fussed at the clerk and tried on one pair after another, while Eliss stood in the doorway and watched the street.

  The showman with his cage of demons had set up in front of the players’ stage, and the leader of the players and the showman were presently having a screaming argument about who had a right to be there. The leader of the players was an older man and the showman was big and young, tattooed in several colors, with a bellowing voice that carried; but in the end he was the one who backed down, and gave the order for his men to move the wheeled cage.

  Eliss stood back against the wall as the cage moved slowly up the street. The men grunted and sweated, for the sun was now high overhead. The demons inside the cage, shaded by its roof, lounged in elaborate enjoyment.

  “Push harder, red boys,” said one, whose speech was unimpeded by tusks or excessively long fangs. “We’d like to get to the top of the street before nightfall. Hey, pretty girl!” Seeing Eliss, he got up on his knees and waved part of his anatomy at her. “Bet you’d love to know what it’s like to take a ride on this, eh? You can, you know. I’m very tame. Just you pay my master five crowns and he’ll be more than happy to arrange the whole thing.”

  “How much would he charge me to geld you?” said Krelan, stepping forth from the shop and taking Eliss’s arm.

  “By the Blue Pit, look! It’s a talking shrimp!” the demon retorted.

  “Just ignore him,” said Eliss as the wagon passed. “Did you find nice boots?”

  Krelan did a little dance step by way of answer, sticking out his left foot at the end and waggling it. “Very nice. They aren’t Jasper’s of Salesh by any means, but they’ll do for this town. Come on. Let’s go to the Merchant’s Bank.”

  “Where are your sandals?”

  Krelan held them up. Eliss took them and tucked them in her basket. “All right, let’s go.”

  The bank lay at one far end of the cross-street, a big building of limestone carved with bas-reliefs of the gods bringing wealth to Krolerett. As they rounded the corner, one of the beggars cried, “Alms for a poor blind man!” Krelan fished out a copper and tossed it into his bowl.

  “You should
n’t have given him anything,” said Eliss as they walked on toward the bank.

  “My dear! I’m appalled at your heartlessness.”

  “He wasn’t really blind. Didn’t you see how thin the gauze over his eyes was? He could see you perfectly well. It’s an old trick. And didn’t you see how big and strong-looking he was? He’d never get away with that in the cities.”

  “Where there are a better class of beggars?”

  “Where there are really disabled people. They police the streets themselves. If they caught someone like that faking, he’d be beaten black and blue with crutches in no time.”

  “How diverting! Tell me, how does a lame man beat someone with a crutch, if he isn’t a faker too?”

  “He sits down and hands his crutch to a simpleton, and tells him to hit the bad man really hard,” said Eliss. “I’ve known a lot of beggars. Believe me, they have a whole system of rules and regulations worked out.”

  “One learns something new every day. In fact, there’s a whole world I never knew existed, isn’t there?” They came to the bank and Krelan disengaged his arm from Eliss’s. He tugged at his clothes to smoothe them, cleared his throat, and seemed to stand a good inch or two taller.

  “Right. Do you mind very much sort of lurking in the background? As though you were my servant? I need to be a bit more impressive than I was at Forge.”

  “Fine,” said Eliss. They went in. A pair of guards stationed near the door eyed them briefly, then clashed the butts of their spears on the floor. Eliss supposed they did it to remind people that the premises were guarded.

  “Wait over there, please.” Krelan waved his hand at a wooden bench against the far wall. Eliss took a seat. She had never been inside a bank before, and looked around curiously. Three clerks stood behind a high counting table, waiting on merchants who seemed to be depositing profits. The floor was a mosaic depicting the gods presenting the different coin denominations to a body of mortals in old-fashioned clothes. Lamps, extinguished now at midday, hung from the vaulted ceiling. To one side were closed shutters in the wall, as though someone’s private office lay beyond. The air was still and quiet and cold, which seemed odd when Eliss thought of all the anger and desperation that money generated.