Dangerous Waters

by Juliet E. McKenna

  Ilysh paused to smile shyly at the watching household before going over to Larasion’s statue. The serene goddess gazed at them all, her armful of enchanted boughs bearing bud, blossom and fruit at the same time.

  After curtseying to the goddess, Ilysh carefully lifted up the jug of wine which Zurenne herself had set before Ostrin’s statue on the final eve of For-Summer, giving thanks for the grape, his bounty, and for that season spent in his care. Now Ilysh set the wine before Saedrin, adding garlic and rosemary, rue and wormwood, just as her father had always done.

  Zurenne had laid those herbs ready herself, just as she had always done. No, not quite. She pressed her lips tight together. They had none of the cracked blackspice which Halferan had always used, brought all the way from the remotest islands of the Archipelago. Even if they had Zurenne would not have used it. Nothing from the Aldabreshi was welcome here. So she had gathered sage, expecting that she would be the one to add it to the souring wine.

  Ilysh dipped a sprig of hyssop into the jug and drew it carefully across the width of the threshold, brushing aside the ashes of rowan and elder. The line wavered, damply dark on the stone, running from door jamb to door jamb.

  ‘Saedrin see us safe through the year to come.’

  The household echoed her words in a ragged chorus. Some of the demesne men murmured prayers to Larasion as well. The goddess of weather might not take up her watch over Aft-Summer until the festival was done but there could be no harm in beseeching her favour for the harvest a few days early.

  Zurenne saw the uncertainty which prompted those fervent prayers. This was far from the carefree festivals which they’d enjoyed when Lysha was Neeny’s age, Halferan generous with the barony’s largesse.

  Cracked blackspice wasn’t the only thing she could no longer afford to order from the markets or travelling merchants. She had almost no coin left for anything beyond necessities. None for more than a token towards the gifts customary at this season for loyal servants and tenants. The manor’s feasting, open to all-comers on the solstice eve, had been far from lavish.

  She searched the demesne folk’s faces for any sign of resentment. Did they realise how empty her coffers were? Or did they condemn her miserliness? Did they grumble among themselves and wonder why she didn’t appeal to Baron Licanin now that he held the purse strings?

  Because she dared not draw his attention back to Halferan any sooner than she must. Where was Corrain? He’d promised to be home by midsummer.

  ‘My lady.’ Captain Arigo had stepped forward, his age-spotted hands reaching for the jug and the hyssop.

  ‘No, thank you.’ Ilysh held the herb-steeped wine close.

  Zurenne caught her breath, for fear of a spill on Lysha’s dress. She realised with a shock that the girl was wearing the violet gown which she had been married in.

  ‘I will anoint every doorway myself.’ Ilysh managed to convey her apologies to Arigo at the same time as making it clear this was not open to further discussion. ‘By your leave, mother?’

  She turned to Zurenne who hastily cleared her throat.

  ‘With my blessing, my love.’

  She forced a wide smile but could not follow as the crowd moved away, heading first for the manor’s gatehouse.

  Zurenne had seen Jilseth, standing motionless as the kitchen maids flowed around her.

  ‘My lady Zurenne.’ The lady wizard advanced inexorably to greet her. ‘Fair festival.’

  ‘Fair festival to you.’ The courtesy was out before Zurenne could curb it. ‘As you see, we are busy with our festival rites. What brings you here? More threats? More deceits to acknowledge?’

  Jilseth stepped over the drying wine stain into the shrine. Zurenne could hear the people outside, accompanying Ilysh on her progress to anoint every doorstep in the manor. They might as well have been a hundred leagues away, leaving her in this quiet gloom with the lady wizard.

  ‘I came to see how you and your daughters are faring.’ Jilseth straightened a posy of cornflowers laid before Drianon’s statue. ‘And to thank you for Captain Corrain’s continued silence. We’re glad that you saw there was nothing to be gained by Hadrumal’s humiliation.’

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ Zurenne said waspishly. ‘Thank your Archmage’s threats.’

  The lady wizard had the grace to colour at that reminder. Jilseth looked out through the door into the manor courtyard. ‘I don’t see Captain Corrain. Is he pursuing the corsairs? We’ve been most impressed by your men’s recent successes, and the others along the coast.’

  So the wizards were spying on the coast. Zurenne supposed that shouldn’t come as a surprise. She folded her arms, suddenly bold.

  ‘Naturally Captain Corrain and his men are keeping watch in the saltings. This solstice brings the highest tides and we know full well those often bring the corsairs. Are you telling me that you don’t know that, after all your magical spying?’

  Zurenne saw that the lady wizard knew that she was lying. She felt a surge of triumph nevertheless. She could also see Jilseth’s disappointment. By all that was sacred and profane, Corrain had somehow escaped the Archmage’s scrutiny.

  He had escaped the Aldabreshin slave galleys, which everyone said was impossible, and now the mighty wizards of Hadrumal had no idea where he was. Perhaps Zurenne could dare to hope Corrain would return to make good on his promises. To stand between her and her daughters and those men who would rule their lives. No one else would ever know that he was no more Ilysh’s true husband than a straw man from the fields.

  In the next instant, dread chilled her. If the wizards couldn’t find him, did that mean Corrain had been killed? Was that why he hadn’t returned? Could mages scry for the dead? Zurenne dared not ask.

  She saw Jilseth was studying her face with unnerving intensity. ‘I’m curious to learn what you know of Captain Corrain’s strategy, my lady.’

  Zurenne smiled sweetly. ‘Such matters are hardly a womanly concern.’

  ‘Perhaps not in Caladhria, though I know a great many women elsewhere who’d say different.’ Jilseth pursed her lips. ‘No matter. I can wait until Lord Licanin comes here to take charge of the barony. I imagine he’ll want to know where Corrain has got to.’

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ Zurenne said placidly.

  Jilseth considered that before persisting. ‘Is there nothing I can do for you, to persuade you to trust me? I know you have good reason to mistrust wizardry but I stood by your side when Lord Karpis would have foisted that villain Starrid on you again.’

  Zurenne hesitated. Jilseth looked more hopefully at her. ‘There is something I can do for you, isn’t there?’

  As Zurenne spoke, she spared a fleeting prayer to Saedrin that she wouldn’t regret this. But for all her mistrust of magic, this festival’s display of her poverty had shamed her beyond endurance. ‘If you really wish to make amends, you can find Starrid for me.’

  ‘He’s no longer in Lord Karpis’s service, I take it?’ Jilseth was all business now.

  ‘He was whipped from his lordship’s gate,’ Zurenne said curtly, ‘and last heard of bleeding on the road to Saldiray.’ She saw her opportunity to get an answer to her earlier question. ‘He may not have survived such a thrashing. Can you scry for a dead man?’

  ‘If you can provide me with some of his possessions, I can. Why do you want to find him?’

  ‘Because he might know where that thief Minelas has stowed Halferan’s wealth.’ She gestured furiously towards the door to the great hall. ‘I have spent almost the last of my silver just to offer the demesne folk a plain wafer cake and cup of ale.’

  ‘That’s certainly a service which Hadrumal should render you, as some recompense for your sufferings at Minelas’s hands.’ Jilseth was nodding. ‘Little enough and too late, I know.’

  She meant it too, though Zurenne was getting her measure now. She could see what lay behind the lady wizard’s eyes. Jilseth was thinking she could worm her way into her confidence, once Zurenne was in her debt.

&
nbsp; Zurenne would happily encourage Jilseth in that delusion, as long as the wizards of Hadrumal hunted Starrid down.

  Once the treacherous steward was in her hands, the prospect of wizardly retribution should shake whatever he knew of Minelas’s thievery out of the villain. After Jilseth’s humiliation of Baron Karpis, Zurenne was certain that Starrid wouldn’t risk his own skin by testing that threat for a bluff.

  Moreover, if the Archmage and his subordinates were busy looking for the coward, they couldn’t be hunting Corrain, wherever he had got to. Perhaps there was a slim chance that the vagabond trooper and his Forest ally could make good on their promises.

  Now Zurenne could hear the affectionate crowd escorting Ilysh back towards the great hall’s steps.

  Once again, anguished doubts assailed her. Was there any chance that Corrain would return before Baron Licanin arrived to assert his guardianship? If not, did she dare to admit to the clandestine marriage without his presence to strengthen her hand?

  How would Licanin react to the news? What would this loyal household think of their barony’s heiress married so young to a guardsman of such tarnished character? What if Corrain never actually returned, after Zurenne had publicly linked Ilysh’s name to his, swearing they were truly wed?

  Who would ever ask for Ilysh’s hand in marriage after that? That night’s hasty work could have ruined her daughter’s hopes of future happiness. Was it worth making that sacrifice for the sake of escaping Lord Licanin’s undoubtedly benign control of their affairs?

  ‘You may join us for ale and wafer cakes before you depart,’ she told Jilseth politely, hiding the feverish turmoil of her thoughts. ‘Forgive me, but I cannot offer any guests fitting hospitality until our household’s fortunes improve.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Kevil, Caladhria

  Summer Solstice Festival, Fourth Day, Afternoon

  WHATEVER HAD POSSESSED the Caladhrian barons to hold their Summer Parliament here? Jilseth slapped at a tickle on her neck. She was relieved to feel a trickle of sweat beneath her fingers, not one of the pestilential flies which emerged as the day cooled. If there was some quadrate cantrip to soothe the reddened itching which their bites provoked, she had yet to find it.

  The whole town reeked of decay as the breeze blew in from the fens. While this whole coast was fringed with salt marshes, a great swathe of land lay waterlogged hereabouts. The vast swamp stretched a full thirty leagues inland at its widest point, extending to the north of Kevil from the river that gave its name to the town right the way to the River Tresia flowing down from Trebin far inland. The shortest route between the two rivers would be fifty leagues, if such a path could ever be found amid the shifting channels and treacherous bogs.

  Only the locals seemed immune to the smell. Perhaps that was why they had such a reputation for stupidity. If those in the other countries that had once made up the Old Tormalin Empire told jokes about slow-witted Caladhrians, the Caladhrians told the same jokes about Kevilmen.

  Jilseth was more inclined to think their nostrils simply gave up the unequal fight with the fetid odours in childhood. Could they even taste the subtleties in the celebrated wines of Trebin’s hills? Or were the finest vintages as tasteless as spring water? Jilseth took a sip and wished the blush wine tasted as fragrant as it had in Hadrumal. No chance of that with the stench clogging her palate.

  She contemplated the Merchants’ Exchange on the far side of the market square. The spacious entrance had been built to accommodate the widest wagons bringing goods to be sold and traded. A full season’s produce from leagues around could be stowed safely in the undercroft’s storerooms while deals were done in the great hall up above.

  Now those double doors were spilling Caladhria’s barons out onto the cobbles. The nobles’ deliberations had finally been completed for the day. It had taken long enough but the Caladhrians did take their parliaments very seriously.

  An equal voice for all the barons hallowed by custom and enshrined in law saved their realm from the ruinous rivalries that had beset Lescar as those six dukes constantly sought supreme power. It protected smaller, poorer baronies from being overridden by wealthier ones, in the way that the lesser fiefdoms of Ensaimin were so often bullied by the great city states of that fragmented country.

  It was far superior to the Tormalin Convocation of Princes, in the Caladhrian barons’ opinion. However much influence the men rising to lead the empire’s noble houses might have over their vast dominions, the lesser branches of their extensive families and their countless tenants, they were all still subject to the Tormalin Emperor’s ultimate authority over the laws enforced within their boundaries and his final say on any decision to send the Imperial legions beyond them. No Caladhrian need yield to such tyranny.

  In theory, each new emperor’s authority rested on his acclamation by the Convocation. If they wished to, the other leading princes could designate a different noble house to provide a guardian of their rights and freedoms. In practise, the same dynasty would sit on the imperial throne for generations until some calamitous decision or egregious stupidity forced the Convocation’s hand. They’d learned nothing since the days of Nemith the Reckless, whose folly had brought the Old Empire crashing down into the dark generations of The Chaos.

  That’s what Ilysh had solemnly told Jilseth, when the magewoman had idly probed the girl’s understanding of the world beyond Halferan. Jilseth forbore to tell her how the inhabitants of those other countries routinely mocked the Caladhrians’ interminable, inconclusive discussions that kept the baronies and all their inhabitants retracing their fathers’ and forefather’s steps as dumbly as a donkey in a harness endlessly circling to drive a mill wheel.

  All around the market square, innkeepers shooed their prettiest serving maids forward to smile demurely and curtsey, promising the finest dining in Caladhria within the welcoming shade of their particular hostelry. Kevil hadn’t seen such a gathering inside two generations and the locals were determined to make the most of it.

  Jilseth wished them luck. The stink from the marshes had killed her appetite. Then she realised fine dining was the last thing the barons were considering. A dark haired lord walked past without as much as a glance in Jilseth’s direction. He was arguing hotly with his hook-nosed companion.

  ‘You think we should have sat on our hands behind our manor walls and let the corsairs plunder our domains as they pleased?’

  ‘I know that every merchant whom I have dealings with tells me of outrage in Col, Peorle and Relshaz,’ the hook-nosed baron said with equal passion. ‘If these corsair raids on their vessels continue, they will send their goods by road and river next season.’

  ‘They will not,’ the dark-haired lord scoffed. ‘A ship can carry fifty times the weight of a wagon and make the journey in a quarter of the time.’

  ‘Then these merchants will buy fifty wagons and endure the delay, for the sake of seeing their goods actually arrive,’ the hook-nosed baron assured him. ‘Better that than lose both stake money and profit to some Archipelagan raider. What happens to your lordships’ revenues then, from harbour dues paid in Attar and Claithe and Pinerin, with no coastal trade between Relshaz and Ensaimin?’

  ‘Those revenues are no recompense for our losses,’ the dark-haired lord assured him.

  ‘Then perhaps we should consider my lord of Prysen’s proposal,’ the hook-nosed baron snapped. ‘Perhaps if Lord Halferan had brought that whole business to the parliament as he should have in the first place, we would not be tangled in this coil!’

  ‘If their lordships sitting comfortably a hundred leagues from the coast had agreed to pay the necessary levy to raise an army, we would have seen an end to our losses long since.’ The dark-haired lord was growing angry.

  ‘Who would this army of yours have fought? Where? When?’ the hook-nosed baron demanded, his wrath rising equally swiftly. ‘This isn’t Lescar’s war with dukes and their militias neatly drawn up to face the rebels on either side of a battlefi
eld. When we get wind of a corsair raid, we only ever arrive after they’ve fled and we never have any notion where the villains will strike next!’

  For a moment, Jilseth actually thought the dark-haired lord was about to punch the hook-nosed baron in the face. He certainly clenched his fist. Then he drew back with ill-concealed satisfaction. ‘This business will be resolved without paying these corsairs a copper cut-piece. You have my word on that.’

  He strode away with a superior smile on his face, leaving his associate glowering after him. The baron waved away an obsequious pot man trying to entice him towards a seat. He headed across the market square for a different tavern where more gesticulating barons had gathered.

  Jilseth considered going after him. What was this business which Lord Halferan should have laid before the parliament? It couldn’t be approaching the Archmage for wizardry’s aid. That was all done and dealt with and the whole parliament knew of Hadrumal’s refusal.

  What was Lord Prysen’s proposal? Who was he? Jilseth didn’t know the man by sight or reputation, any more than she knew that hook-nosed baron’s name.

  But she had no standing to prompt any unknown noble into conversation. Not unless she revealed herself as a magewoman of Hadrumal, and that wasn’t something she wanted to do. She had come here to find out as discreetly as possible what Lord Licanin might know of Corrain’s whereabouts.

  Jilseth found herself much less inclined to dismiss the Archmage’s instinct to keep an eye on that potential troublemaker after her recent visit to Halferan. Lady Zurenne was definitely hiding something.

  She rose to her feet, leaving a silver penny to pay for her half-drunk glass of wine. She had seen the barons of Saldiray and Taine emerging from the market hall’s shadowed entrance.

  As she crossed the cobbles to meet them, they were as deeply engaged in heated conversation as those first lords. They didn’t even notice her approaching.