by Juliet Kemp
Thus the founding of Marek, initially as a city and chief trading-port of Teren (though fairly soon, as the original Thirteen Houses traded and grew wealthy, it had become a semi-independent city-state). A proper road was built through the swamp, and the mountain routes were abandoned. Sea trade was cheaper and more reliable by far, even allowing for the Salinas’ cut. The Salinas themselves notionally lived on islands, but for the duration of the trading season, which lasted most of the year, the vast majority of them lived on their ships, trading goods, transporting people, carrying information both official and otherwise. They’d held the monopoly of the Oval Sea since long before Marek was founded, mostly by being good at it, and only very occasionally by sinking other ships who thought to challenge that monopoly.
But things changed, and the third rate-hike in a row – however justified by the appalling weather in the last year – had led Marcia to suggest that it was worth exploring the mountains again. If Fereno found a route and got a head start… Unfortunately, as the captain had explained quite bluntly to them in private yesterday, and in more polished terms to the Council today, there was no such route. For a few small high-value items, perhaps the route might be worth it – Marcia fully intended to follow that up – but for the bulky produce that was a significant chunk of Marek’s economy and Teren’s survival, sea remained the only reliable option. Even most of the high-value items created by the Guilds would be too large to pass safely and reliably over the route the captain had described. Marcia scowled again. Maybe it was time to try another round of negotiations with the Salinas ambassador. Although the ambassador would find out this result quickly enough, and that would hardly leave Marcia in the best of negotiating positions. If Madeleine would even be prepared to give her negotiating power after this.
On the other hand, this was the time for it; in a couple of days it would be Mid-Year, and after Mid-Year came the trading hiatus, when Marek grumbled slowly to a standstill, the Salinas sailing off to their islands to ride out the storm season, the few carts and wagons whose owners had not already departed standing empty in the yards outside the city, until the weather turned again in a month or two, and the Salinas ships and their cargos returned.
Marcia hated Mid-Year; but not because of that.
She shook her head, flicking the memory away before it arrived. She had to establish another plan now, before Madeleine herself thought of something and took it over.
“Mother,” she started, not sure yet where she was going. “Given this information, I have a few ideas about where we can go from here…”
Madeleine flapped a hand at her, clearly not really paying attention. “Later, Marcia.”
Marcia gritted her teeth. Obviously they weren’t going to have a detailed discussion here, where everyone could hear them, but Madeleine could perhaps be a little less dismissive.
They were in the middle of the foyer now, heading towards the large carved doors to the outside. They stood open, blue late summer sky showing above the heads of those passing through them. Gavin Leandra stepped in front of them, and Marcia nearly ran into her mother as Madeleine stopped and inclined her head.
“Fereno,” he said, his scowl not moving.
“Leandra,” Madeleine said, with a smile.
“A word, if I could?”
Marcia controlled her expression only with some effort. A couple of other House representatives in her line of vision didn’t bother doing that. Leandra and Fereno, enemies for generations, did not, as a rule, engage in private conversation. Marcia thought it was absurd, in all honesty; Marek would do better if the Houses were, in general, more supportive of one another. During her discussions with the Salinas ambassador the year before, she’d encountered the proverb ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’, and it had struck her quite forcibly. However. She wouldn’t have bet that any of the current Heads agreed with her, and she most certainly would have bet, until this moment, that both Madeleine and Leandra-Head did not.
Madeleine inclined her head, still smiling, and Leandra led them away to one of the side alcoves, offering some degree of privacy. Although merely the fact that they were having a private conversation would rouse the gossip-mongers. What was Gavin Leandra up to? What was Madeleine up to?
“The child too?” Leandra asked, indicating Marcia with the top of his stick without looking at her.
“She is Heir. Hardly a child.”
“Which one is it, then?”
Madeleine’s lips compressed. “This is Marcia.” As well you know, she could have answered.
“Ah yes. The other one – left. I recall.”
Cato had been cut off, in fact, when he left, but mentioning that explicitly would be a step too far in this particular dance.
“And how is your own son, then?” Madeleine enquired sweetly.
Leandra’s lips tightened in turn. There was plenty of rumour about why Daril b’Leandra still hadn’t been named Heir and taken his proper House-name. Daril b’Leandra himself was, at least as of the last few years, a notorious hell-raiser with appalling morals and no conscience, so any of the rumours were feasible. But for Leandra’s son not to be Heir was, whatever Leandra might pretend, of deep embarrassment to the old man.
Marcia and Daril had history. She preferred not to think about it.
“The trade routes,” Leandra said, abruptly, abandoning the game.
“We are back where we started,” Madeleine said crisply. “As you knew yesterday, I have no doubt.”
He didn’t react to the implied accusation of spying.
Marcia’s eyebrows drew slightly together. This sounded like the continuation of a conversation, not the start of one. Why was Leandra interested in her project, and why had Madeleine not spoken to her about it before?
“I suggest a meeting. I have information that may be of use to us both,” Leandra said.
“Tomorrow afternoon?”
Leandra shook his head. “No, that won’t work. Day after tomorrow.”
“Very well. At House Fereno.”
Leandra hesitated, then nodded. Madeleine inclined her head in farewell, then swept past him and out, trailing Marcia after her.
Marcia felt her jaw clench again. So, once again Madeleine was keeping her out of things. To think that she’d once expected that being named Heir would involve some actual knowledge and power; rather than just following her mother around until she died. Or until Marcia died. One or the other.
Suddenly, sharply and fiercely, she missed Cato. She hadn’t seen him in far too long. She would look him up soon. This afternoon, maybe. Cato would understand; or he’d mock her, gently, which added up to much the same thing in the end.
“I wonder whether Leandra will ever name Daril Heir?” Madeleine said as they walked down the wide steps that led down out of the Council building. She waved aside the litter-bearers that clustered in the piazza in front of them. “It’s a nice enough day. We’ll walk.”
Their servants, who’d been waiting in the shade under the Chamber portico, fell in behind them. The streets of Marek were safe enough, especially in broad daylight, but it wouldn’t do for the Head and Heir of House Fereno to wander the streets unescorted, not when they were in full Council regalia. The stiff robe was over-warm for the current weather, although it had been rather worse in full summer a month or so previously.
Madeleine liked to have an escort anyway, even when she wasn’t in her formal best. Madeleine liked everyone to be aware of who she was. Marcia preferred walking the city alone, as anonymous as she could manage to be.
It was hardly a long walk back to their House. The Council Chamber was the highest building in Marek; the only thing above it was the park that capped Marekhill, with the statue of Rufus Marek and Eli Beckett right on its peak, looking down over the city. The far side of the hill fell away steeply, with no buildings on it bar a few huts and cottages towards the bottom, dwellings for people who herded the hardy goats which colonised the steep slope and supplied much of Marek’s milk.
“I heard that the old man offered and Daril turned him down.” Madeleine was still talking about Daril b’Leandra. Marcia wished she wouldn’t.
“What was Leandra talking about just now?” she asked, hoping to turn the conversation.
“Oh – he put some money into the expedition,” Madeleine said, off-hand. “Silent partner.”
“What? Mother, you didn’t tell me! I thought this was my project?”
Madeleine shrugged. “I gave you a budget. There was no need for you to know where it came from.”
A hundred retorts rose in Marcia’s mind, but she kept her mouth shut. There was no point in arguing this with Madeleine. She had to focus on her next steps.
Madeleine was still talking. “Leandra mentioned some minor cousin who had some interesting alternatives to the mountain route. I assume that is what he wishes to discuss at this meeting. With these ruinous Salinas rate hikes…”
They were passing House Leandra, whose dark stone had always looked brooding to Marcia, even back when she was sixteen and believed the best of everyone, including Daril b’Leandra.
“Two years of unseasonal storms have taken it out of the Salinas fleet,” Marcia pointed out. “It’s not entirely unreasonable of them, even if we don’t like it.” Move on, move on, get her ideas established… “But I was thinking of trying further negotiations with them. I suppose suggesting that we are continuing to investigate alternatives will be helpful. And there are those small high-value possibilities the captain mentioned. That might give us a little leverage, too.”
“Yes, yes,” Madeleine said, clearly not paying much attention. “A fine plan.”
Five Houses further along, at the end of this tier of the road, they approached House Fereno. Its warm golden stone always cheered Marcia. House Fereno was the farthest north, its northern windows overlooking the river. Beyond it, the road switchbacked to start its second tier across Marekhill, and a small path led to the steps down the cliffside to the ferry over to the Old Market. A porter had just reached the top of the path, a box of fruit on her back.
One of the servants hurried up the front steps ahead of them, to push open the big wooden front door. Inside, the blue and grey tiles of the entrance floor shone in the early afternoon light that came in through the window above the door. Stairs at the back of the hall rose towards the library and offices on the first floor; and to left and right the doors to the dining room and the main reception room stood open.
“Well, Marcia, I must be off,” Madeleine said, shrugging out of her Council robe and handing it to a servant. “I want a full analysis of the expedition by this evening, and I expect you at dinner tonight. We have visitors from Teren, and that tedious academic friend of Cousin Cara’s. Formal dress.” She turned, dismissing Marcia, and swept away into the reception room, her secretary and two of the household staff following behind her.
Marcia sighed, and turned for the library.
k k
Daril b’Leandra sat in bed, tackling his breakfast infusion – rosemary, with a little citrus, ideal for revitalising oneself first thing, even when ‘first thing’ meant rather after noon – and bread rolls. Roberts, his man, had drawn the drapes when he brought in the tray, and Daril could see out of the wide windows, down the roofs of Marekhill to the open space of Marek Square giving onto the Old Bridge. The early afternoon sun sparkled off the river. When he came of age, he had toyed with the idea of taking rooms that looked out over the back of the hill and the park, just to annoy his father, but when it came to it, even for that pleasure he couldn’t bear the idea of not having the city under his eye.
In his mind’s eye he could see the lines of power tangling and twisting across the city; Houses and merchants and docks all linked together. He yawned suddenly, his jaw cracking. It had been a busy day or two, and it should all have been over two nights ago. A new cityangel, a co-operative one, should have been safely in place, and ready to move onto the next stage of their plans. Instead, they were unexpectedly only halfway through, and Urso, now he’d recovered from his absurd swoon – and how it could possibly have taken him a full day, Daril did not know – was insisting that he hadn’t the power to go any further alone. Which meant a trip to the squats, and tonight; they couldn’t just leave things as they were for any longer. Really it should have been last night, but by the time Urso accepted his lack of competence it was too late.
Daril tore a roll apart with unnecessary force. He had less than no desire to visit the squats, but Urso was very clear the man they wanted to see wouldn’t so much as listen to Urso on his own.
It was sorely tempting just to send a few heavy-duty folk to take care of the situation; but you could never rely on that sort of thing with a sorcerer. He scowled. Still. The man could doubtless be persuaded, one way or another.
Roberts re-entered the room, and coughed softly.
“Your father is just returned from the Council,” he said. “He wishes to see you at your earliest convenience.”
Daril sighed, nodded, and drained the rest of the infusion.
Roberts provided washing-water and towel, but Daril didn’t need his help to dress in indoor wrap and shirt. That at least should be unobjectionable – his father didn’t hold with modern fashions. Gavin Leandra didn’t hold with much of anything.
His father’s room was in the other wing of the house. Like his own, it looked out over Marekhill and down towards Old Bridge. Gavin, too, liked to be able to look over the city; but he had power over what he surveyed. Unlike Daril. For now, at least. Daril bared his teeth at the thought, then smoothed his expression out before he knocked on the door.
“Ah, it’s you. Only just up, are you? Well, I suppose I was the same at your age.”
Gavin Leandra seemed in an unusually good mood. Normally this would be the prelude to a few minutes on the shocking morals and behaviour of Daril and his friends, as the embodiment of modern youth. Daril had tried, once, a long time ago, to argue that they were dissipated partly because they had so little else to do. His father had listened, expressionless, then tasked Daril with three books in Old Teren to translate and consequences if he failed to do so in the time Gavin Leandra considered acceptable. Daril had done the translation. His father hadn’t so much as cracked a smile.
Of course, last night’s activities had hardly been in the category of pointless dissipation – watching Urso sweat through incantation after incantation might have been, as it happened, pointless, but it was far too tedious to be dissipation – but that was hardly something he could tell Gavin.
Sunlight was streaming in through the big windows that dominated the room, but the heavy, ancient furniture sucked up the light and left an impression of looming darkness. Daril’s father himself added to that. He was a man of medium height, his greying dark hair cut short in the style that had been popular in his own youth and which he had never bothered to revisit. He was a little plump, now, around the middle, and his chin had become two chins. He rarely smiled, and his green eyes were hard and thoughtful
, contemplating his only son.
“The mountain expedition has returned,” Gavin said, abruptly, turning and walking to the windows. The light was bright, and Daril could see him only in silhouette.
“The mountain expedition?” Daril asked.
“By the angel, boy, do you never even read a news-sheet?”
By the angel, indeed. Ha. As it happened, Daril knew all about the expedition, that it had failed, and what might be happening next; because Urso, who was a trader of sorts when he wasn’t practising secret sorcery, was up to his neck in the whole business. Not to mention its implications for their joint project. But none of that was anything he chose to share with his father.
What he didn’t know was why his father was interested in it.
“House Fereno funded an expedition to discover whether any new routes have opened over the mountains, that might permit direct trade with Exuria,” Gavin said. “It transpires that there are not.”
“Why is House Fereno’s business of interest to us?” Daril asked, with a shrug.
“Leandra was a silent partner,” Gavin said.
“We allied with Fereno?” Daril asked. He didn’t have to fake his incredulity. How had Urso not known about this?
“Fereno had the word out that they were looking for investment. Fereno – well, we have had our disagreements, over the centuries.”
Now that was an understatement, Daril reflected. And that was without even getting into his own recent – well, ten years since, now – involvement with House Fereno. He tried not to grit his teeth.
“But they have always had a nose for an investment opportunity. There is – was – the scope for significant financial benefit to us if that expedition had succeeded. And now there is a further option.”
