The Fall of Lostport

by R. J. Vickers

  “It’s good to see you,” Laina said. “But you look awful! What’s going on?”

  Jairus lowered his head. “I don’t want anyone to see me here. Can we talk in private?”

  Curious and a bit frightened, Laina led him to the back room below her father’s bedroom. It had once been a guestroom, though of late it had been converted to a pantry and storeroom. “What is it?”

  Jairus removed his sodden jacket and sat on the empty frame of the bed. “I’m in trouble. Conard told me to come to you. He thought you would help.”

  “Tell me.” Laina sat beside Jairus and took his hands.

  “I went to Port Emerald two nights ago to show Conard the way to the cave we have been using. On the way out of camp, we were stopped by a guard, who I knocked out. He woke the next day and remembered I was Varrilan. Conard came last night to tell me I was in danger. The builders are ready to kill any Varrilans they find, I think. I hope there are no others in town.”

  Laina shook her head. “I haven’t seen any of your people around. But we need to hide you. Port Emerald will be finished before long, probably before the next span is up, and we might get enough of the builders to leave by that point that they’ll give up. Will you stay here until the Whitish are gone?”

  “If it does not inconvenience you, I would be forever grateful.” Jairus swallowed visibly. “Your Conard is a good man. I hope he does not find himself in danger.”

  “I shouldn’t have sent him down to the builders’ camp. He’s already liable to be arrested for disobeying the terms of his exile, and if the Whitish ever find out what he’s doing, they’ll be after his blood as well.”

  Jairus pressed his lips together. “It is for the good of Lostport, and all of the Kinship Thrones. I think I would do the same, if I was in his place. It would not be a burden.”

  Laina shrugged. She could not shake the sensation of looming danger—as long as Conard remained at the builders’ camp, it was only a matter of time before he was caught. Unless he joined Whitland first.

  “Would you mind if I told the household about you?” Laina asked. “They are absolutely trustworthy. Besides, no one is going to report you to the Whitish. They’re our enemies as much as yours.”

  “Thank you,” Jairus said. He withdrew his hands from Laina’s grasp and stood, looking very uncomfortable.

  “Shall we speak to the household now?” Laina said. “I think you should stay in this room, unless my father allows you to use my brother’s old bedroom.”

  She led Jairus to the kitchen first, since most of the staff liked to congregate by the fire when it was rainy out. Sure enough, the housekeeper and tailor were both perched on a bench in front of the fireplace, mending a heap of clothing, while Nort and Barrik were deep in conversation with the gardeners at one of the wood tables.

  “How is the king?” Mylo asked, wiping his hands on his apron.

  “Recovering,” Laina said with a guilty twinge. “He is still very weak, but he doesn’t seem confused. I have something to tell you.”

  She took Jairus by the elbow and drew him forward, into the warmth of the kitchen.

  “You all know Jairus. The Whitish have turned strongly against any Varrilans here, and he’s in danger if anyone sees him. We need to provide him refuge until the Whitish leave.”

  “Welcome to our humble manor,” Mylo said slyly. “We might be able to scare up a free corner you can kip in.”

  Laina snorted. “I was thinking we could give him the spare room downstairs, unless my father lets him take my brother’s old bedroom.”

  “Don’t push your luck.” Mylo snapped his fingers. “Nort, Barrik, help the housekeeper clean out the spare room. I’m sure we don’t need half that junk anyway.”

  “I will help,” Jairus said, depositing his wet coat by the door.

  Mylo retrieved the coat and hung it on the back of a chair by the fire. “No you won’t. Make yourself comfortable. And try to get warm! You look miserable.”

  Laina joined the tailor on his bench alongside the dancing flames. Heat tickled her back, enveloping her in the gentle smell of wood-smoke. “Come join me.” She beckoned Jairus over; he came hesitantly, his gaze flickering around to assess each of the kitchen-maids and gardeners. “I want to hear everything.”

  Once Jairus had settled hesitantly beside her, Laina whispered, “How is the gemstone-making? Have you started?”

  He nodded. “Swick and I have trained four men from town to help us, so the work will go on even without me.”

  “Have any townsfolk approached Swick for help with maps?”

  “Yes,” Jairus said slowly. “People seem to worry their neighbors will steal their valuables, so they have insisted we keep the maps separate. Many of them have asked to take their map home so it cannot be replicated.”

  “Well, that way they can’t blame us if the map goes missing, I suppose,” Laina said. “I thought there would be more unity among the townspeople, though. There are thousands and thousands of Whitlanders, and not very many of us; I thought people would band together a bit more.”

  “People are inclined to mistrust each other,” Jairus said. “Everyone is suspicious right now. About everything.”

  Laina wondered if Jairus included himself in that generalization. He certainly did not seem to trust her father’s staff to keep his whereabouts secret, and he had more than enough reason to hate the Whitlanders.

  The youngest kitchen wench approached with her head down, clearly wary of Jairus, and offered up two steaming mugs of mulled wine.

  “Thank you, sweetie,” Laina said, smiling at the girl. She was new in the household—Laina’s father had taken her in after her parents sold their house to pay off a debt.

  “Do you think our plans might work?” Jairus said quietly after the girl had hurried away.

  “They sound like madness, don’t they?” Laina sipped at her wine. “You know, I don’t care what the odds are. I’ll make this work. I promise.”

  They finished their mulled wine in silence, listening to the crackle of the fire and the rhythmic chopping as Mylo diced a mound of onions. How lucky to be a kitchen maid, with a good home and steady work, certain that the king would take care of matters too big for you. Laina was half-tempted to run off with Conard and pursue a future in the Twin Cities far to the north. As a nameless city-dweller, the fate of the land would not rest on her.

  * * *

  Conard spent the next two days dizzy with exhaustion. He skipped dinner so he could head to bed immediately, but once in his tent, he lay wide-eyed and restless.

  The following day he woke congested and achy. The sky was swollen with clouds, snagging their bellies on mountaintops and threatening rain. Conard considered visiting the healer’s tent, but he did not wish to draw attention to himself. He would not be listed in the original records of arrivals, and he would have to explain the odd circumstances of his appearance. Worse, they might see his exile’s band.

  By lunchtime he was certain he had a fever—his throat was parched, his nose so blocked-up he could taste nothing, and he felt so weak and sore that he had to sit down between hauling each brick.

  Once he had collected his soup and roll from the dining tent, Conard wandered into the woods to eat, wishing to be left alone. He sat on a springy patch of moss beneath a tree that was alive despite being split in half. The high chatter of birdsong that usually rang through the forest was quieter here, silent apart from two brown fantails twittering and chirping to one another as they flitted from branch to branch. The others must have been scared off by the construction.

  Conard drank half his soup and dunked his roll into the remainder. While he waited for it to go nice and soft, he thought he would lie down for a moment. He curled up at the foot of the tree, his knee wedged against a protruding root.

  He woke to the first drops of rain. Either the clouds had grown darker than ever or it was nearing sunset; the forest was so dim he could hardly find his soup-bowl propped beneath a mossy bush. Uns
teadily he rose and stumbled back toward camp. He could not stand the thought of food right now; if he was lucky, he would make it back to his tent without being seen and sleep properly for once.

  No such luck. As soon as he emerged from the forest, Captain Drail confronted him. “Lazy swine! Where’ve you been all day?”

  “I’m sick,” Conard muttered. “Must’ve fallen over. I don’t know.”

  “Why didn’t you report to the healers, if that was the case?” Captain Drail said sharply.

  “Wanted to work. Wasn’t going to say anything.”

  Captain Drail snatched the soup bowl from Conard. “Go rest. We can’t let men get the idea there’ll be no consequences for disobeying orders. Once you’ve recovered, you’ll owe five lashes.”

  Ordinarily Conard would have protested, but he was too miserable to do anything but nod and slouch away. He was asleep the moment he crawled into his sleeping roll.

  Two days later, the fever finally broke. Ian had taken it upon himself to bring Conard water and soup, forcing Conard to drink even when he pretended he was asleep. Each time, Ian begged Conard to move to the healer’s tent and seek proper care, and each time Conard refused.

  It was only after he felt well enough to rise and hobble over to breakfast on his own that Conard remembered the five lashes waiting for him. He had never been whipped or even hit before, unless you counted the play-fights he used to have with Laina. His father had always been gentle and cautious, never one to raise a fist in anger. Though he had known pain enough through his years of traversing the rainforest, camping out with nothing but a sealskin cloak as shelter, this was different. He was afraid he would scream or cry—after this he would be known forever as the man too feeble to move his bricks and too cowardly to take a lashing.

  Ian and the other failures rose to greet Conard when he joined them at breakfast.

  “He’s alive!” Quentin said.

  “Just don’t touch anything,” one of the others said. “I’m not gonna do like you did and lie in my tent for the next span.”

  “Ian,” Conard whispered, taking a seat beside him. “They’re going to give me five lashes. Have any of you been whipped before?”

  “It was standard while we were on the barge,” Ian said grimly. “As hard as you try to stay out of trouble, it’s never enough. I have a few scars yet to heal.”

  Conard grimaced. He was the only uninitiated one in camp, and the others would immediately see as much.

  Though Conard was far from fully recovered, Captain Drail approached him between bricks and informed him that the lashing would be that afternoon before dinner.

  “You’ll be everyone’s favorite,” Captain Drail sneered. “The lazy bastards will take any excuse to get off work early.”

  As it transpired, his ability to stand the lashing was the least of Conard’s worries. He was led to a bare spot beneath a dead old tree, the entire camp looking on. Men jeered and spat at him as he passed, though when he reached the front of the crowd he found Ian, Quentin, and the other failures forming a protective ring around the tree.

  “Shirt off,” said the burly soldier who was in charge of administering punishment.

  Conard went cold. They would see his exile’s band. He should have realized this would be standard protocol for a whipping; he could have tied a strap of leather around his wrist like a token, as the gypsies sometimes did.

  “Take it off!” the soldier barked. “Or I’ll do it for you.”

  The men laughed.

  Could he somehow tear his sleeve in the process of taking the shirt off, so his wrist would remain covered? He tugged at the fabric experimentally, but it was much too sturdy to rip. He knew there were exiles among the soldiers, but they had been banished from Chelt and Dardensfell and the like, not countries that had any direct relation to Lostport or Whitland. Conard could pretend he was one of them, but he had no idea whether exiles were banded the same way in other lands.

  When the soldier raised his whip in impatience, Conard sighed and unbuttoned the white uniform. There was no immediate reaction from the crowd when his band was revealed, so he dared to hope these men did not recognize it.

  The first blow came before he expected it. He was standing there limply, shirt still in one hand, when the soldier laced his whip across Conard’s exposed spine.

  Conard shouted and stumbled forward, bracing himself against the rotting trunk.

  Again the crowd roared with laughter.

  With the second blow, he was slammed forward, face against the bark, so he was nearly hugging the tree. He grasped it desperately, trying to keep his feet, as the lashes continued. He bit his tongue so hard he thought the end would fall off, yet still he could not muffle a second yelp. For the hundredth time, he wondered why he had been so witless as to agree to this mad scheme.

  Laina, he thought, trying to crowd out the pain with her image. It’s for Laina. I’d lay down my life for her.

  Easier said than done.

  At last the soldier stepped back and wiped his hands on his dirty trousers. Conard wanted to collapse at the foot of the tree and lie there, unmoving, until someone carried him away; instead he forced himself to straighten, every stripe across his back searing at the movement, and turn to face the crowd.

  This time the cheering did not sound spiteful. Every one of the hardened men out there had gone through the same trial; now, in their eyes, Conard finally belonged among them.

  Ian and Quentin leaped to Conard’s side to support him as he limped past the crowd toward the dining tent.

  Captain Drail stopped him just outside. “Come talk to me after dinner.”

  “Sure,” Conard said, trying not to betray his fear. Had the project manager recognized his band?

  Strangely enough, Conard’s public humiliation appeared to have won him respect among the builders. For the first time, as he heaped turnips and fish onto his plate, he was greeted and patted on the shoulder by strangers. The latter made him wince, which only encouraged more men to do the same.

  “Welcome to Port Emerald,” men joked.

  “Maybe you’ll be able to haul a few more stones now that you’re a real man.”

  “Wear those stripes proudly, mate.”

  Conard tried to return the jests, though his head had gone a bit fuzzy. He still felt sick. When he joined his friends at their usual table, a tall mug of rum was waiting for him.

  “You did better than I did my first time,” Ian said, flushing slightly. “I started bawling.”

  Emerett snorted. “Won’t forget that, will we,” he rasped. “I can’t talk, though. My whole life’s been nothing but brutality. My whole body’s so scarred I could hardly feel the whip.”

  “What was that name you were muttering?” Justain teased. “Laina, was it? That’s the princess of Lostport, that is.”

  Conard froze. He hadn’t realized he had spoken aloud. “It was Lena, not Laina. She’s my girl back home.” He feigned nonchalance.

  “Ooh, don’t you think a lot of yourself,” Justain said. “Courting the princess. What a gentleman you are.”

  “Shut it.”

  Conard escaped dinner early, saying he’d been summoned to talk to Captain Drail.

  “Don’t envy you,” Quentin muttered.

  “Good luck,” Ian called after him.

  Captain Drail was dining with five other leaders in his private tent, a cavernous space draped with furs and decked out with furniture that looked as though it belonged in King Faolan’s manor.

  “Good of you to join us,” Captain Drail greeted Conard.

  Conard eyed the captain suspiciously, not trusting the changed tone. Perhaps the man was only feigning courtesy in the company of his peers.

  “I wanted to apologize for the way you’ve been treated,” he said. “I’ve spoken to your friends, and they’ve told me you were deathly ill. I don’t doubt it. You’re still pale as sea-foam. But it’s not easy, keeping a rowdy bunch of men in line. You’ve got to make examples of the o
nes who stray, or they won’t heed your word.” He gave Conard a serious frown. “Men noticed that you’d disappeared. If I’d let you get away with vanishing midday, we’d have men slipping off to visit the gypsy whores all day.”

  “Understood,” Conard said. Was that all?

  “But I haven’t called you here just to explain what I’ve done,” Captain Drail said, his voice resuming its usual sharpness. “Your friends say you’re an intelligent man. We’ve need of a man who can help draw plans for the plumbing and sewage systems in Port Emerald. Someone who knows how to work with this terrain.”

  “But I still haven’t made it through my stack of bricks,” Conard said ruefully. “Won’t the men talk if I’m let off easy?”

  Captain Drail gave him a sharp nod. “True. But you’ll be less than useless at physical labor until you’re fully recovered. That’s the reason I’ll give. I’m sure your friends will understand.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Conard said. He could hardly believe his luck.

  “Now get out of here. The architects will expect you at sunrise tomorrow.”

  With a salute, Conard backed out of the tent and made his way back to his own bed, dizzy with surprise.

  It was only once he had lain down to sleep that doubts began to niggle at him. Had Ian or Quentin actually spoken to Captain Drail about his intelligence, or were darker motives at work here? Conard had no knowledge of plumbing or architecture, but he certainly knew this land better than any of the Whitish. Did Captain Drail suspect the truth?

  * * *

  The day after his accident, Doran was wakened just after sunrise by a smug-looking Duffrey, who announced that a number of eligible women had arrived to make his acquaintance.

  “Tell them to wait outside, would you?” he ordered Duffrey. “You can tell them they will accompany me for tea.” He reached for one of the cleanly-pressed shirts he had left folded beside his bed. “Take me to the dining hall, please, and help me settle in at the head of the table.”