by John Booth
The Denger brother’s grinned at Hala’s discomfiture and waved them away. Tonas nodded his dismissal. Jalia led Hala some distance away before she let go of her ear.
“I was only trying to earn my keep,” Hala whispered furiously when they sat down.
“Oh, I was quite pleased you gave me an excuse to get us away from Tonas. He seems to have become his father overnight and I never liked his father that much.”
Hala rubbed furiously at her throbbing ear.
“You didn’t have to hurt my ear so much then.”
“It’s still connected to your head,” Jalia said, unperturbed by Hala’s complaint. “So you should consider yourself lucky.”
While Jalia and Hala ate their breakfast, Cara and Don entered the room. Cara Marin was a stunning woman, six feet tall, round pretty face with a strong chin, raven-black hair and possessed of very ample bosoms. Jalia felt jealous of that last feature. The fact that Cara was physically attracted to Daniel did not endear her to Jalia.
Don Marin was a wiry young man, not yet twenty. He was tall, but still stood an inch below Cara’s height. Don had been forced to make this journey with his sister to protect his family and he was no friend of Jalia or Daniel. They had killed his younger brother and turned his mother against him.
Jalia saw Tonas wave at them and watched as they approached his table. There followed a few minutes of earnest conversation and Jalia saw money change hands between Tonas and Cara. This was also something that did not escape Hala, who had also been watching.
“See, I could have got money out of him too.”
“Do you remember what I promised I would do if you dared to step out of your room last night?”
Hala gulped and instinctively her hand touched her bottom. She remembered Jalia’s threat all too well. Jalia was waiting for an answer so Hala reluctantly nodded her head.
“Neither have I,” Jalia said enigmatically, and the conversation came to a halt.
“Can I go up on deck and watch?” Hala asked when they finished eating. “I’ve never been on a boat before.”
“Can you stay out of trouble, a long way away from Lady Sorn, and avoid falling in the river?”
“I think so.”
“You’ll need this.” Jalia handed Hala’s throwing knife to her under the table.
Hala hadn’t noticed that Jalia was carrying it. The last time Hala had seen it, it had been sticking in the gut of a bowman, exactly where she had thrown it. Hala took the knife gingerly and returned it to its sheath on her belt.
“Don’t kill anybody, unless you absolutely have too,” Jalia said in a whisper.
“I’ll act just like I was you.” Hala rose from the table. Jalia’s hand caught her by the arm.
“Be much more cautious than that,” she whispered. “Try and stay out of trouble.” Hala nodded her head vigorously as Jalia grip was hurting her arm. Jalia let go and she rushed off, heading to the upper deck.
Hala found it windy when she stepped out onto the walkway that ran around the boat. There was a metal rail running around the outer edge to stop passengers falling overboard, brightly polished and worn with age. According to Daniel, this boat was over a thousand years old. It was impossible to imagine anything surviving that long in one piece and yet, here it was.
She leaned out over the rail and stared at the water running past below. The boat was going up river and the water was flying past, cut clean by the bow. Once outside, the steam engine sounded much louder than it had indoors. The rush of the wind across her face and the water whizzing past below intoxicated Hala. She wanted to burst into laughter and run along the deck, regardless of any danger. She leaned out a little further.
Hala found the rail was slippery and she leaned out so far that she couldn’t stop herself rotating. She might have swung clean over the rail if strong hands had not clasped her around the waist and steadied her. She regained her balance and turned to find she was in the hands of a man in his twenties. The fact he was well dressed and very handsome didn’t escape her, though her first reaction was one of profound embarrassment.
“Thank you, I was slipping,” Hala said as her face reddened.
“I did the same thing when I was your age,” the man said with a smile on his face. “I had to cling to this very rail for what seemed like forever until my father came out to haul me back onto the deck. When he finished punishing me, I seriously wondered if letting go might not have been preferable. My name is Dor, by the way. And what is your name, young lady, if I might be so bold?”
“Hala Taldon”
“No relation, I imagine, to Mallon Taldon of Taldon’s Fort?”
“My great uncle,” Hala said, surprised that anyone this far from Taldon’s Fort had heard of her family. “You knew Mallon?”
“Only by reputation,” Dor said neutrally.
“Oh.” The Taldon reputation had not been a good one for many excellent reasons. “I am traveling with Jalia al’Dare and Daniel al’Degar,” she said in the hope of keeping his good opinion.
“I thought you were dressed awfully similarly to Dare,” Dor remarked, a quick grin appearing on his face. “Are you, by any chance, her apprentice?”
Hala giggled at the idea of being Jalia’s apprentice. “No, I am just traveling with them because I had nowhere else to go. My father died recently and Daniel has promised to show me Slarn. I have never seen a city.”
Dor led Hala along the walkway until they came to a bench and then sat on it. Hala sat down beside him and they watched the distant bank of the river speed by.
“If you are only going to see one city in Jalon, then the city to see is Slarn,” Dor told her with a distant look in his eyes. “It is one of the great cities built by the Magician Kings and some say it was their greatest work.”
“Tell me all about it.”
“Words cannot do it justice, I’m afraid. You will have to see it for yourself.” Dor gave her another smile. “Tell me, why are Jalia and Daniel traveling to Slarn?”
Dor asked the question so innocently that Hala told him.
“They are trying to get Lady Sorn to return some of their property.” A shiver ran through her body as she realized she shouldn’t be talking about Jalia and Daniel’s private affairs to a stranger.
“They must be important things if they have come all this way to retrieve them,” Dor said quietly. “Whatever are they?”
“Why do you want to know?” Hala asked sharply.
“I just saved your life, the answer is surely far less important than that.”
Hala stood up and backed away from the smiling young man.
“If you want to know their reasons, I suggest you ask them,” she said in a sudden panic and ran towards the dining room and safety. On the way, she bumped into a man who looked like a soldier. She pushed past him almost hysterically and hurried back inside the boat.
Jant watched Hala run out of sight before he sat beside Dor.
“I see that My Lord is still getting little girls to run from him with tears in their eyes.”
“I’ve told you before about that style of address, Jant. The girls who run off crying are usually older than Hala and I would remind you it is because of what I won’t do to them that gets them upset, and not because of anything I do.”
“If you tell me so, I must take your word for it, sir,” Jant replied imperturbably. “So what is it that you didn’t do with that one?”
“Why my father thinks so highly of you I cannot imagine,” Dor retorted. “You are insufferably rude, even as you ‘sir’ and ‘my lord’ me to death.”
Jant raised an eyebrow questioningly. Dor relented and explained.
“I was hoping to get some information about Dare and Degar out of her. What their plans are, why they are going to Slarn and so on, but she became suspicious.”
“So you failed.”
“Not quite. It seems Gally Sorn has acquired something of theirs so important to them that they have chased her across half of Jalon to retri
eve it. Anything that important to them could be equally important to us and the cause. We shall have to find out what it is, and steal it from Sorn before they get a chance to retrieve it.”
“Stealing from Gally Sorn has never been to be a wise thing to do.”
“We are going to steal those damned swords from under her nose. Whatever Dare and Degar’s property is, I doubt it will annoy Gally Sorn half as much as that.”
Hala calmed by the time she reached the dining room. It was empty, apart from a couple of members of the crew who were busy cleaning up the tables in preparation for lunch. Hala went through the dining room and emerged on the other side of the boat. A young boy, about her own age, stood in her way. He wore clothes similar to those of the crew, was curly haired with freckles all over his face. He grinned as though they were already friends.
“You’ll be wanting to go up to the viewing platform,” he said in a matter of fact way.
“Will I?”
“Best view of the river you can get, short of being in the Palace at Slarn of course. I’m Nin, official boot boy and general dogsbody on the Dragon. My dad’s the chef on this tub.”
“I’m Hala.” Hala stuck out her hand. Nin shook it solemnly.
“I saw you with that sexy woman, the one I’m going to be dreaming about in bed tonight.” Nin informed her.
“Aren’t you a little young for that sort of thing?”
“I’m thirteen years old and I can do anything a man can do,” Nin said proudly, “And Dad says, ‘Even a peasant is allowed to stare at a king’.”
“That woman looks after me, and her name is Jalia.”
“Jalia, just like the hero in the stories people are telling. I bet she could look after me.” Nin face took on a dreamy faraway look and Hala began to dislike him intensely.
“What’s a viewing platform?” Hala asked, mainly in the hope of getting the disgusting look off Nin’s face.
“It’s a walkway that runs around the top of the ship’s funnel. You can only get to it from the starboard side. Come with me and I’ll show you.”
Nin led Hala up some steps and then across the deck in the direction of the funnel. He took her to the bottom of the funnel and pointed towards thin, pierced metal steps so steep that they might be considered a ladder. They zigzagged their way up the side of the funnel with only a rope to act as a safety rail. The funnel went up a long way and the thought of going up it, open to the elements, frightened Hala who instantly resolved not to bother.
“Girls your age are too scared to climb to the top,” Nin stated in a matter of fact way, completely oblivious to the glare Hala gave him. She felt her hand straying to the hilt of her knife and had to force herself to move it away. Hala didn’t want to become that much like Jalia.
“I can climb up there if I want to,” Hala said defiantly.
“I go up in the evening, just before sunset, when I get some time to myself. I’m on duty now and the Captain is going to whip me if I don’t get back to work. So I can’t come with you. I’ll watch you go up though.”
‘Great,’ Hala thought. ‘Now I can’t retreat when he walks away. I’ll actually have to climb the thing.’ She started to climb the steps determinedly, staying as close as she could to the funnel, which at least had a metal rail attached to it. When she reached the top of the second flight, she stopped to catch her breath and looked down at Nin. He was more than twenty feet below her.
Nin peered up at Hala and there was a certain amount of disappointment in his eyes.
“What’s a matter?” Hala called.
“Girls your age don’t usually bother to wear knickers,” Nin said despondently.
Hala found her face slowly turning a deep shade of red.
“Is that all you think about?”
Hala didn’t wait for a reply, but ran up the stairs to reach the viewing platform, her anger driving her on. ‘How dare he try and see up my skirt?’
There were two people on the platform, a woman in her forties, notable because she wore impractical clothes for where she stood, and a tall, thin, well-dressed man with a very long nose. Hala thought his nose made him look like a horse.
“Well, well, would you look at that,” the woman said on seeing Hala step onto the platform. “Not many girls her age in Tallis would dare to climb to this platform so confidently. Where are you from little girl?”
Hala spent a few moments thinking about that question, as she had never thought of herself as being particularly from anywhere. The woman waited impatiently for her answer. She wore layers of diaphanous material in garish colors that somehow combined into a dress. Not that she was revealing her body, as there were far too many layers. Her dress flapped about wildly in the wind and she struggled to hold it down.
“I’m from Taldon’s Fort near Sweetwater,” Hala replied.
“Never heard of either of them,” the woman said dismissively and turned back to her companion. “Tallis is getting soft,” she told the man. “Jenver would never have considered offering the awful Kalenda for king in the old days.”
“You are so right, Lady Rotiln,” the man replied unctuously. He spoke in a voice slimy enough to grease a door. “Things have gone downhill since we… I mean I, was young. I blame the high families; they have not instilled sufficient discipline in the young.”
Sala Rotiln frowned at Halad al’Faran’s words. “I trust you are not being disloyal to the royal house of Tallis. I will not suffer a traitor in my midst.”
“Of course I wasn’t,” Halad said hastily, retreating from his comment as fast as he could. “I was merely agreeing with you that the youth of today are not what they were.”
Sala sniffed and looked again at Hala. Hala was holding onto the guard rail for dear life and wondering if she was putting dents in the metal with her fingers. As soon as she looked out from the viewing platform, she nearly wet herself. It wasn’t so much the height, as the swaying of the boat, exaggerated at the top of the funnel. She felt she was about to be thrown into the river Jalon at any moment.
“You girl,” Sala snapped, and Hala looked towards her. “What is your name and how old are you?”
“I’m Hala Taldon and I’m twelve years old. And what is your name and how old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Sala Rotiln laughed at the anger in Hala voice. “Quite right, my dear. Introductions should always be reciprocated. Perhaps you would do the honors for me, Halad?”
Halad looked a little flustered, but managed to straighten his back against the wind as he spoke pompously.
“You have the great fortune to be in the presence of Lady Sala Rotiln, of the House of Rotiln, honored defenders of the Royal House of Tallis. I am Halad al’Faran, the leading jeweler and artisan in Slarn.”
“Well, one of those last two, in any event,” Sala corrected. Halad did not look amused as he took in her meaning.
“Tell me, Hala Taldon of Fort Taldon,” Sala continued. “I see that you carry a knife. Do you know how to use it?”
“I killed a man with it yesterday,” Hala said, now thoroughly sick of this woman and her patronizing ways.
Sala clapped her hands in delight. “Do you see, Halad? They still breed warriors out in the hinterlands of Jalon. Little liars too, of course, but you have to admire her spirit.”
“I notice you don’t carry a weapon,” Hala said sarcastically. “Nor does your man. How would he defend you if you were attacked?”
Sala smiled condescendingly. “You see, Hala. We come from a civilized place, where you don’t have to carry a weapon everywhere you go. Only in the savage untamed places of the world must every man and woman look to defend themselves against attack.”
Hala knew she wasn’t supposed to talk back to adults. Every adult had the right to whip a child who was rude to them. That was the law and your parents would probably whip you afterwards if they found out what you had said. In Taldon’s Fort, it had been the social pecking order that mattered and she could be as rude as she liked to th
e slaves. Perhaps it was that that led her to reply so scornfully.
“Perhaps I come from an uncivilized place. But we have never had a war.”
Sala looked thoughtful. “She has a point, Halad. Perhaps you have to reach a certain stage of civilization before you can turn your desires for revenge and power into war.”
“I think she deserves a good whipping for her response to you, My Lady. I can use my belt if you desire it?” Halad started to unbuckle his belt, anticipating her reply.
Hala backed towards the steps. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to walk down them, let alone run, but she wasn’t going to let this man whip her without attempting to escape.
Sala laughed and waved her hand. “The only thing that would happen if you took off your belt is that your trousers would fall down.”
Hala relaxed as Halad took his hands from his belt. Sala turned to her, dropping down to a crouch so their faces were level.
“However, rudeness to your betters is only amusing for a short while, little girl. Rest assured that if you annoy me enough, you will not grow old enough to regret it.” Hala looked into Sala’s eyes and saw cold calculation. She shivered at the strength of the contempt she saw lurking in Sala’s eyes.
Sala got back up to talk to Halad and ignored Hala as if she had suddenly disappeared.
“What gives these peasants and savages the nerve to question their betters are all these stories circulating about heroes. What’s the female one’s name, Dalia Dare or something similar? The peasants stage a revolt at Brinan, which was always a place for old men with gout and women who like attending balls, and these adventurers, if they even exist, are suddenly credited with miraculous powers.” Sala paused for breath as Halad dutifully nodded and murmured agreement in all the right places.
“Dalia magicked all the Association’s gold away, they say. I’ve heard it was a hundred donkeys’ carrying weight of it, though sometimes they say two hundred. Let me tell you, Halad. The Association had surely frittered their gold away long ago, and the coffers at Brinan were already bare when this Dalia woman arrived. Such nonsense is talked about her. It gives the peasants ideas above their station and it may even be the reason that Jenver nominated Kalenda to rule Slarn in the first place.”
