‘Admire if you want but lay a finger on any of them ‘ Kheda raised the goblet to hide his lips ‘—and I’ll cut it off.’
Naturally, my lord.’ Dev’s answering murmur dripped with sarcasm.
Kheda sipped velvety sard-ben-y juice, its richness quenching his thirst as the heady scent cleansed the lurking memory of the rotting oysters.
‘My lord Chazen Kheda.’ Another of the islanders’ spokesmen addressed him, stumbling over his words. Kheda searched his memory for the stained yellow talisman the man wore on a leather thong: a tooth from some piebald whale either taken by a valiant ancestor or washed up on these shores as a sign to bemuse anyone other than a seer or a warlord. ‘Isei, isn’t it?’
Tell me, why is your fist so tight around the stem of that goblet that your knuckles are white?
‘You come dressed for war, my lord.’ Isei cleared his throat. ‘I was wondering how the western isles fare. Are the invaders finally defeated?’
Some of the other spokesmen edged away to dissociate themselves from such boldness and a few closed their eyes, helplessly struggling to hide their expressions of pain.
Do you think I would disapprove of such a question? That I don’t have my own unwelcome memories of the destruction that swept across your islands not even a year ago?
‘I was taught to always travel armoured.’ Kheda shrugged.
Taught by my father, Daish Reik, warlord of the stronger, richer Daish domain to your north, a man to be treated with all due respect lest he make your lives intolerable by closing the seaways to you. Who would ever have foreseen that his son would become your warlord? Not Daish Reik. Not me, that’s for sure, when I was Daish Kheda. Not Chazen Saril. But then none of us foresaw the invasion of Chazen by brutal savages from some unknown land beyond the southern horizon.
He looked slowly around the circle of intent faces. ‘As for the invaders, we wrought your vengeance with the death of nearly all of them in that first sustained assault, with Daish lending their swordsmen and ships and warriors from Ritsem and Redigal domains coming to our aid as well. The last sony remnant disappeared into the thickets of our most remote southern and western islets. We continue to hunt them down, making sure we have cleared each island entirely before we move on to the next. But we are being cautious, yes. I don’t intend to spend a single Chazen life for the sake of a hundred savages, not if I can help it.’
Kheda paused and drank from his goblet, noting one of the spokesmen pressing the back of a burn-scarred hand to his tight-shut eyes.
He hardened his voice. ‘Their savage wizards are all dead, so they cannot visit the foul evils of their magic on us ever again. They have no ships, so they cannot escape. Our triremes keep vigil along the seaways and crush any of their log boats trying to put to sea. Few of the islands they hold have water year round. They’ll be as thirsty as these reefs before much longer into the dry season.’
He gestured at the temporarily flourishing greenery beyond the pavilion before startling the assembled spokesmen with sudden entreaty. ‘Leave me and the warriors of Chazen to serve the domain in fighting these vermin. Let us take your vengeance on a people so debased they brought magic to fight their battles for them. Your strong arms and backs are better used in rebuilding your homes and your boats, in restoring your vegetable gardens and grain plots, in recapturing your house fowls. Then, when we have put the last invader to his richly deserved death, you will be ready to help restore those islands in their turn:
‘You don’t fear that the presence of such vile savages will have corrupted those islands beyond cleansing?’ Isei’s free hand strayed to the hilt of the dagger at his plaited-leather belt.
Crescent-moon Chazen dagger like the one I wear now, not the smoother curve of a Daish blade like the one my father gave me.
Kheda looked him straight in the eye. Not after every trace of their foul presence has been burned to ash and scattered to the seas and the winds.’
For retribution as well as purification, for the sake of all those innocents they slaughtered and all the villages they burned in their accursed rampage.
‘My lord, something to eat?’ Borha broke the tense silence with a snap of his fingers at the waiting maidens. One immediately proffered candied lilla fruit slices set on cakes of steamed sailer grain glistening with honey.
‘Thank you, no.’ Kheda smiled to mitigate the rebuff ‘Passing by the oyster vats has left me without an appetite. Tell me, are the divers convect? Are we going to see a good harvest of pearls for the Chazen domain?’
‘It’s early days yet, my lord, but yes, I think it will be a truly splendid year.’ Borha’s smile was wide and ingratiating.
‘Let’s go and see for ourselves.’ Kheda abandoned the pavilion and strode towards the crude awnings sheltering those sifting through the pearls already won from the close-mouthed oysters. The assembled spokesmen hurried after him, other islanders trailing after.
Let’s keep you all looking to the future and let’s hope it’s a favourable one. Let’s not remember the invaders who brought chaos and death last year. Let’s not recall the calamity or your erstwhile lord Chazen Saril dead in exile from his birthright. Let’s not wonder how rumours of my own death turned out to be falsehood or contemplate those events that set me over you as your new ruler. Let’s not ponder just why it proved impossible for me to return to my home and my family and the Daish domain I was born to rule.
Borha drew level with Kheda’s elbow. ‘We filled the vats within a few days of starting to dive. They were already rotted down enough to be emptied yesterday. We’ve had a fine haul of pearls and there are plenty of shells warranting a closer look’ He gestured to the baskets of dark mottled ovals in the midst of a gang of old men sitting cross-legged on a stretch of faded, sandy carpet.
‘My lord.’ One acknowledged Kheda with easy self-assurance. His hair and beard were white in stark contrast to skin as wrinkled and dark as a sun-dried bevy. Unhurried, he studied the empty oyster shell, fine-bladed knife hovering around a sizeable blister marring the iridescent nacre that so closely mimicked the pearls it bore.
Kheda found he was holding his breath as the old man scored a fine line around the bulbous swelling. A trivial omen, but an omen nevertheless. Will he find a pearl? Or will this be one of those pockets of stinking black slime?
The old man eased the sharp steel into the nacre and the swelling burst to leave a perfect milky sphere rolling in the hollow of the shell. ‘Should clean up well enough.’ Putting the pearl carefully in a cotton-lined box, he took another shell from the basket and contemplated a cyst of three half-moon pearls clinging stubbornly to one edge.
‘You’re polishing them here?’ Kheda moved on towards an awning shading men and women gently scouring impurities from gleaming pearls held in scraps of soft deer hide, their forearms shimmering with pearl dust.
‘And drilling them, my lord.’ Borha bowed obsequiously, simultaneously indicating a tent some way beyond where the most skilled craftsmen were studying pearls through handheld lenses or marking them precisely with calipers tipped with lampblack.
As Kheda approached, he observed that one man had already drilled a large silvery pearl from one side and was plucking it from the moist scrap of leather holding it in a notch in the wooden block gripped between his knees. Deftly reversing it, he set the needle-fine tip of his drill on the sooty pinpoint he had made earlier and cupped the upper end of his drill rod in a discarded oyster shell. As he worked the bow back and forth, slowly at first and then more swiftly, the string whirled the steel-tipped drill around.
‘Ever seen this done, Dev?’ Kheda asked.
No.’ The barbarian grinned with open appreciation. ‘It’s quite some trick.’
Using his little finger on every other stroke, the craftsman was deftly flicking water from a larger hollow in the block on to the pearl. His apprentice watched attentively, pausing in his own duty of sharpening drill points on a broad whetstone. As the driller pulled rod and bow away, the
lad instantly picked the pearl out of the hollow and washed it carefully in a little pot of fresh seawater.
‘Are you having many pearls break?’ Kheda asked casually.
‘Very few, my lord,’ the craftsman assured him with a half-smile.
‘They’re still getting their eye in on the biggest pearls.’ Unbidden, Isei spoke up. ‘There’ll be more losses with the smaller ones.’
‘True enough,’ said Kheda mildly.
But the fewer losses the better, both as portent for my rule and for the sake of the domain’s trade, when we need every resource to make good all the losses of this last year.
‘Please take these to our lady Itrac Chazen, my lord.’ Borha had stepped away for a moment, returning with a box of berale-tree wood still pale and fresh from the joiner’s hands. Dev stepped up smartly to claim it.
‘We’ll be hard pressed to have all the pearls polished and drilled by the time our lady Itrac wishes to sail north.’ Isei’s beard jutted defiantly. ‘So many of our craftsmen were murdered by the invaders. And there are those who would say those of us that remain would be better spending our energies elsewhere.’ I’d wager that whale-tooth talisman wasn’t won by some ancestor who found the beast dead on the shore. He was probably master of the ship risking life and limb to drive it into the shallows and the waiting spears.
‘I take it you’re one of them?’ Kheda looked straight at Isei once again. ‘Then make your case. What concerns do you have? Speak freely,’ he commanded.
I’m not some lord like Ulla Safar who can kill a messenger for bringing undesirable news. Nor, to his credit, was Chazen Saril.
Isei hesitated before drawing a deep breath and plunging on. ‘We’ll run short of food before the end of the dry season, my lord. The rains were more than half-gone before we could get our sailer seedlings in the ground. We have fewer men to work the land, with so many dead or fled, and fewer still to tend what we could salvage from the fruit and vegetable plantations. Even with all the women and children lending their strength to bring in the harvest, we nowhere near filled the granaries.’
Kheda raised a hand to quell the voices of the other spokesmen suddenly emboldened by Isei’s words. ‘I’m hardly ignorant of such vital matters but you’re right to make certain that I appreciate your situation.’
‘What do you propose to do about it?’ Isei looked straight back at him, unabashed.
‘I propose to discuss all the domain’s necessities with my lady Itrac Chazen,’ replied Kheda with a hint of reproof, ‘so that she may trade these pearls with the ladies of Redigal and Daish and the domains beyond, to Chazen’s best advantage.’
‘We have concerns there as well, my lord,’ asserted Isei boldly.
‘Explain yourself,’ Kheda prompted tersely, noting Borha wincing out of the corner of his eye.
‘My lady Itrac will doubtless feel that Chazen is under obligation to Daish, Redigal and other domains for their help in driving out the invaders.’ Isei folded his arms across his chest. Which is certainly true. But I believe Daish owes Chazen some debt that should be weighed in the scales before any price in pearls is agreed for sailer grain or dried meats. Many Chazen who had no choice but to flee before the invaders were given sanctuary among the Daish islands. The Chazen repaid this generosity with their labour in the Daish sailer fields and vegetable plots.’ Isei hastily qualified his words. ‘And such labour was gladly given, don’t mistake me. Daish harvests have been plentiful and we’re glad of it, and to see Daish Sirket’s rule begun under such good auspices. But it’s a fact that Daish Sirket’s decree that all those of Chazen quit his domain before the stars of the new year has left his islands with fewer mouths to feed while we have more come home with every tide and little enough to share as it is.’
‘You think Chazen might rightfully claim some share from the Daish granaries and storehouses?’ Kheda hazarded.
Is this some test, honest Isei? Do you think I should prove my fitness to wear a Chazen dagger by challenging my own son, who was forced to declare himself Daish warlord because I was believed dead? Don’t think I haven’t heard the murmuring, honest Isei, the whispers of those who say I should have raised my sword against Sirket instead of turning to claim this leaderless domain. Do you think I should have brought internal warfare on the people of Daish, with untamed savages massing on their southern border? Who would have driven the invaders out of your islands then, after Chazen Saril had fled in abject terror?
Isei made no reply, staring at the ground in front of him. The uncomfortable silence lengthened.
‘I will discuss all the domain’s concerns with my lady Itrac Chazen.’ Kheda turned from Isei to address Borha with a friendly smile. ‘I know it’s early days but are there many pearls of unusual colour or shape?’
‘This way, my lord.’ Borha eagerly ushered Kheda towards an open-sided tent sun: ounded by shallow baskets redolent of decayed shellfish. Women sat at trestle tables, sorting through layers of salt-stained cotton to retrieve smooth orbs, tear drops, angular hound’s teeth, flattened petals and half-moons.
Kheda paused by a plump matron comfortable in a shapeless gown of orange patterned with yellow vizail blossoms, a turtleshell comb in her grizzled curly hair. Her deft brown fingers were quick as a silver crane plucking shrimp from the shallows as she dropped each style of pearl into separate silk-lined boxes. ‘How are the pickings?’ Kheda enquired genially.
She didn’t look up, intent on her task. ‘Far better than last year.’
‘Here, my lord.’ The woman on his other side surprised Kheda by taking his hand and dropping two coloured pearls into his palm. One was a deep vibrant gold, the other a mysterious cloudy blue. Both were as big as the nail on Kheda’s smallest finger.
‘Isei.’ He held them up. ‘Your village chose you to speak for them so you must read the day-to-day omens. What do these signify to you?’
‘Yellow for wealth, my lord.’ Isei’s eyes brightened with faint hope. ‘Blue for good fortune.’
‘A fine portent to greet your visit, my lord,’ said Borha obsequiously.
A fine portent and, better yet, one that I had no hand in seeking out. An interpretation that we’ve all known since childhood, plain enough for even the disaffected to read. A sign I can trust! That the fortunes of this hapless domain are finally turning to good after the ills that have plagued it? Reassurance that my actions haven’t irrevocably blighted my future or theirs?
‘I’m interrupting you, forgive me.’ Kheda smiled at the women whose fingers hadn’t stopped working. He walked on, beyond the shade of the tents where bolts of closely woven black material were stretched along the dry sand. Buckets were being emptied out on to the cloth and the scent of decay was inescapable.
‘What’s going on here?’ Dev wrinkled his nose.
‘After fifteen days the vats are filled with seawater, to float out the maggots and slime and leave the pearls and the shells.’ Kheda nodded towards the detritus on the cloth: tiny scraps of shell, a few dead and broken maggots, nameless sparkling fragments and sand of every colour the reefs offered. ‘The slurry from the bottom is sieved for seed pearls. Then it’s dried and picked over for dust pearls.’
‘I didn’t think Daish went to so much bother,’ commented a man searching the debris in front of them. He only had one hand, and was propping himself on the stump of his other wrist. His leg on that same side ended abruptly at mid-thigh.
‘Daish doesn’t. This is Chazen.’ Kheda looked out towards the reefs where the pearl skiffs were now anchored for their day’s work, distant bobbing specks. ‘Tell me, has there been much sight of sharks? Any word of sea serpents?’
Not so far.’ The man looked up with frank thankfulness.
‘You’ve got funny eyes.’ A little boy squatting beside the crippled diver to search the dark cloth for minuscule treasures stood up. His curly black head barely reached Kheda’s sword belt as he peered up with open curiosity. ‘They’re green.’
‘Su, that’s your
lord Chazen Kheda,’ a slim girl said in strangled embarrassment, scrambling to her feet and dusting her hands against well-worn cotton trousers.
‘He’s still got green eyes,’ said the lad forcefully.
‘You’re plainly your father’s son.’ Kheda hunkered down to meet the child on his own level. ‘My forefathers and foremothers made alliances that brought barbarian blood into my line. See, my hair’s more brown than black, isn’t it?’ He took off his helmet and relished the breeze on his sweating forehead. “He’s a barbarian.’ Su’s glance flickered dubiously to Dev. ‘But he’s got brown eyes.’
‘So he’s not that different from you.’ Kheda ruffled the lad’s tousled black hair. ‘And now he lives among civilized folk, so that makes him an Archipelagan.’
Su looked wide-eyed at Kheda. ‘Is is true the northern lands run unbroken all the way across the horizon?’
‘I’ve never seen that myself,’ Kheda answered apologetically. Dev?’
‘It’s true enough,’ the barbarian confirmed with a grin.
‘I’m going to take ship to the north and see for myself when I’m grown,’ the little boy said robustly. ‘I’ll take an oar on a galley and work my way up to helmsman and then shipmaster.’
‘When will the merchant galleys be coming, my lord, from the other domains?’ The girl bit her lip at her own daring. ‘It’s just that we’ll need silk, for stringing the pearls.’ Someone behind Kheda caught her eye and she fell silent, dropping her gaze to the ground.
‘I shall remind my lady Itrac Chazen,’ Kheda assured her, just as soon as may be.’ He stood and thrust his helmet back on his head to hide a furtive sting of tears in his eyes.
Sirket was like that as a child, always ready to speak his mind and full of questions. Mesil was more of a thinker, doubtless still is, certainly not one to play a wager against unless you’ve all your wits about you. Which will my third son grow to be—eager seeker or careful observer? How will I ever know, separated from him and all my other children, my beautiful, beloved daughters?
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