Shanakan (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 1)

by Tim Stead

  It was agreed, and Delf felt that it was a good thing. There would be a stone tablet also, he decided, bearing the man’s name, and it would be placed in the great hall of the Kalla House, so that whenever people from Sorocaba went there they would see it and remember.

  Later that night as he stood behind the guard and watched the funeral pyre burning against the darkening blue-black sky he knew that he had been right. Hundreds of people had come out from the town to pay their respects. Even some of the angry young men, The Free, were in the crowd, looking solemn.

  A victory indeed.

  26 Visitation

  Today was going to be an interesting day for Tarlyn Saine. In a few minutes he was expecting the king, Simon Tarnell, to arrive for their scheduled monthly visit. He was expecting Ella, too, but ever since Amrista had arrived a few days earlier with news of the events that had taken place in Gulltown, he had been worried. Tarlyn didn’t worry a lot about his children. They were both very capable and endowed with common sense far exceeding the usual quota, but he knew that his daughter had been struck by one of Tarnell’s men, and he knew nothing of the aftermath of that incident. He had deliberately not contacted Tarnell, not wanting to put more pressure on the man.

  He sat now with Corban and Calaine in the dining area of the house. Calaine looked impatient, eager to see her father. She also looked healthy and happy, and talked distractedly with Corban.

  Saul came to the door.

  “They’re here, sir,” he said. Tarlyn could tell by his expression that he was concerned. “And…”

  “It’s all right, Saul. Just show them in.”

  Saul hesitated for a moment, then nodded and went back down the stairs. There were raised voices in the courtyard.

  “Is something wrong?” Calaine asked. Corban, too, was beginning to look concerned.

  “Yes, there is,” Tarlyn said. “Nothing to worry about, though.”

  Simon Tarnell came in first, by himself. He looked like he badly needed to say something, but couldn’t find the words. It took him a few moments to say anything at all.

  “There’s something I have to tell you, Saine,” he began.

  “I already know,” Tarlyn said. His tone was deliberately mild. “Please ask Ella to come up.”

  Ella came into the room almost at once, and Tarlyn found that he had put his hand to his mouth. The bruise that covered the side of her face was spectacular. Like a fine wine a good bruise needs time to develop the colour and depth that make it really impressive. Ella’s was at its peak. Tarlyn spared a glance at Calaine, and saw that the colour had drained from her face. Corban looked as though someone had slapped him.

  A large man followed Ella into the room. He was not huge, but looked as hard as iron. His hands were still, his eyes were blank, and he took up a position just behind Ella. Saul followed him in with four armed men.

  “This man should not be here, sir,” he complained to Tarlyn. “This is Killer Kane.”

  Tarlyn raised an eyebrow in the direction of Tarnell, but the king just shrugged.

  “I didn’t bring him, Saine,” he said. “Your daughter did.”

  “Ella?”

  She grinned, and with the bruise it looked truly awful.

  “Kane is my bondsman,” she said. “You already know about Gulltown. Amrista would have told you, but because he hit me the king offered me his life. I took it, of course, but in a better way. I took his bond”

  Ella was pleased with herself, and looking for compliments. She got the reaction she wanted from Saul.

  “Kane is your bondsman? He does what you tell him?” She nodded, still grinning a lopsided, purple grin.

  “You look terrible, Ella.” Corban had found his voice. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not so much.”

  Tarnell was still looking uneasy, and Tarlyn saw him exchange looks with Calaine.

  “Trader Saine,” he said, interrupting the informality of the household with a distinctly formal note. “I am aware of the terms of the contract that I assented to. Under that agreement you now have the right…”

  “No!” It was Ella. “Don’t be absurd,” she said. “Nobody’s going to do anything to Calaine.” She walked across the room and took Calaine’s arm. “I have things to show you, sister.” She led a faintly protesting and surprised Calaine out of the room.

  “Saine?” Tarnell looked confused.

  “Oh, she’s quite right, Tarnell. We like Calaine – there’s no way we’ll enforce the contract blow for blow. Just be a lot more careful next month.”

  “Careful? She’s a fifteen year old girl and she’s taken my best man off me. I should have to agree with you, Saine, I have to be more careful.”

  It was unlike the king to be generous or complimentary, but the relief on his face was plain. It made him softer, more human.

  “Please, Regani, come and sit with us and have something to eat. I shouldn’t think you’ll get Calaine back for an hour at least.”

  They sat and talked of inconsequential things for a while.

  “Is it true that you have a copy of the laws of the king?” Tarnell asked.

  “Yes. Has Ella has been quoting from it?”

  “Indeed. I had thought the book lost. Could I somehow have a copy of it made?”

  “Of course. Do you read the old language?”

  “It is in the old language? And your daughter can read it?”

  “She is the brightest of us, Regani, the scholar of the family. She reads everything and remembers a lot. Neither my son nor I have mastered the old language, but Ella is quite fluent.”

  “So even if I have a copy it won’t be any use to me.”

  Tarlyn was impressed. He was beginning to understand what had gone on between Ella and Tarnell. She had quoted law, and he had acquiesced, taking her word as honest. She had manipulated the agreement, and he had abided by it. The king was a man of his word, in any sense that mattered, and he respected the law, even if he did not know it, and he believed in it, perhaps only because it was the law of the king, but he still believed.

  “The only person who can make a translation for you is Ella. I’m sure that she would do so if you asked.”

  The king didn’t say anything for a while, but picked at the food. Tarlyn could see that something was on his mind.

  “If I asked you, could you teach my daughter?” he asked.

  “Calaine? What do you want us to teach her?”

  “I’ve never valued learning,” Tarnell said. “Not from books. I’ve always been at one end of a blade, and wisdom has been such knowledge that would keep me and my men alive. Calaine will not rule, but she will be by her brother’s side, and he has always listened to her. I have not, perhaps, given her the skills that she needs.”

  Tarlyn felt that it was not the time to point out that nobody would rule unless the Faer Karan permitted it.

  “What, exactly, does she need to know?” Corban asked.

  Tarlyn was going to have to speak to Corban again about subtlety. A direct question was not what was needed just now. If he was right, then Calaine could barely read, let alone study books in the old language. He cut across any chance that the king would answer the question.

  “Regani, we will teach her as if she was one of our own,” he said. This seemed to satisfy the king. They would discover for themselves what she knew and did not know. The king’s pride was an asset that they needed to preserve. He had little else.

  * * * *

  Calaine walked with her father in the gardens of the Saine house. Fruits hung from the trees, as they did all year, the grass was soft and neatly mown, and cool breezes descended from the peaks above to ease the heat. Everything here seemed designed for comfort.

  “You are satisfied to stay here?” Tarnell asked.

  “I am,” Calaine confirmed. “They have done nothing but seek my comfort. The son, Corban, is more interesting, and challenges me more, but that is welcome.”

  “How do you judge them?”

 
“It is outside my experience, father. When I came here I thought them weak and foolish, but I am constantly surprised by their strength, which is not in arms. It lies more in knowledge, and the way in which they approach problems. They seem to get more out of compromise that we get out of victory.”

  “Their ways are very different from ours, Calaine. There is some wisdom in this house that may be preserved from the time before the Faer Karan. I want you to learn what you can. I have asked them to teach you, and they have agreed. Learn their skills, but do not forget that you are the daughter of the king.”

  “I shall not.”

  “You have been here for a month now. Do you yet understand what they do or why they do it?”

  “It is complicated,” Calaine said. “They buy from one person and sell to another, always at a higher price, but somehow they seem to know what is needed, and how much. Everything is written in books, and they pore over them when they are not buying or selling. It is true that they live well here, but much of their advantage is given away – to Ocean’s Gate, to people who seem in need, and now to us.”

  “But why do they do it, if there is no gain?”

  “There is gain. They eat well, and live comfortably. The house is full of servants, and the guard do not bother them. At one time they were wealthy, and I think that they have gone on doing what they do because it is what they know, and what they are good at.

  “Do you remember the mage’s wisdom that I was taught as a child – about how the body works? The guild of traders is like the heart. It pumps and pumps and carries all the substances needed from one part of the body to the others. It makes nothing itself, but life is not possible without it.”

  “As important as that?”

  “I think so. There would be little food in the city without them. There would be no wood for the carpenters, and no nails. The sword smiths would have no iron and the weavers no cotton to make cloth.”

  “You do not think that others would arise to fill the need?”

  “Over time, perhaps, but the city has no time. Theirs is a skill as difficult to master as the sword itself.”

  “So you conclude that they are necessary.”

  “Vital, father. There is one more reason for what they do. They see the city as theirs, as though they own it, but also as though they love it. I think that this is what has kept them to their task for generation after generation.”

  Tarnell nodded. He had felt something of the same when talking earlier to Tarlyn and his son. He was forced to contrast this uncomfortably with the hatred that had always driven his father, and now drove him. They hated the usurpers, the Faer Karan, and that hatred was so vast, so deeply ingrained in their hearts that he could not think their names without his hand moving to his sword. He knew that he could not face Borbonil and live, not even the least of the usurpers could be threatened with a blade, so his hatred spilled over onto those that could be hurt, those that had made accommodation with the Faer Karan; people like the trading house of Saine.

  For Tarnell, his whole purpose was his vendetta against the usurpers. Yet in spite of that he knew in his heart that it was futile. He carried on because there was nothing else. He was the King of Samara, by right the ruler of the city and all of its people. If he did not oppose the usurpers there was no reason for him to be.

  It troubled him more than he would admit that his legacy to his son was this futile hatred, this un-winnable fight. It shamed him that he knew it was futile, and that he held back from the fight. If he was too successful he knew that Borbonil would solve the problem once and for all, and that the house of Tarnell would end.

  Somewhere inside him he hoped that this vague alliance with the trading house of Saine would give him another way to make sense of his life.

  “Learn from them, Calaine,” he said, knowing that his daughter was innocent of the waste and the guilt that he felt, but that her innocence would not last for ever.

  * * * *

  It was impossible for Ella to get rid of Bellamaria. The old woman fussed around her and insisted on putting a balm on her bruised face. It was only when Tarlyn came to fetch her that she was reluctantly given up. She went with her father down to his study for what she expected to be something of an inquisition.

  “Ella, I am so sorry to have done this to you,” Tarlyn said.

  She was surprised.

  “I don’t feel done to, father,” she said. “I think I did more of the doing.”

  “Your face looks awful.”

  “It will look better.”

  “What of this Kane person? Is he as dangerous as Saul thinks?”

  “Probably, but he is no danger to me. I have watched him, and I believe that he is like a machine. He bears no malice, does what he is told to do, and is terribly good at what he does. He hides a great deal behind his face, and I do not know what it is. Something to do with the time before he was in service to Tarnell, perhaps as far back as childhood, but I will find out.”

  “There is more to him than you think, perhaps. He is very controlled in every movement. Think how he came to strike you. He was not ordered to do so. Do not take risks with men like Kane, Ella.”

  “How often have you told me that being born is a risk, father?”

  “Too often, it would seem. This man may be capable of terrible things.”

  “Oh, I am sure that he is, but only if I tell him to do them. He obeys, father. It is simply what he does.”

  “But he struck you.”

  “And I saw his face after he did it. It was not that he cared for me, or even knew me, but he knew Tarnell, and Calaine, and the contract. He accepted death, I think, only a moment after the blow. In effect he had struck Calaine, and he knew what that meant.”

  “So Tarnell tried to avoid the consequence by offering you his life?”

  “He offered me a dagger!”

  Tarlyn smiled. The idea of Ella being offered the chance to stick a piece of steel into Kane was almost comic if you knew Ella, and certainly if Kane was who he was supposed to be.

  “I’m surprised that you didn’t keep the dagger,” he said.

  “I did,” she smiled, and pulled the weapon from where she had concealed it tucked into the back of her waistband.

  Tarlyn laughed.

  “So what do you think of the house of Tarnell,” he said. “How do you judge them?”

  “They are full of pride,” she said. “They are lost, afraid, weak, close to death, desperate, and full of potential.”

  “And can we help them?”

  “I think we already have, father. I think Calaine is wonderful, and she has a soft spot for Corban.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Why?”

  “It is not our place to mix with kings and queens, Ella. We are the oil that eases the workings of the world, not destined to rule anything but our own house.”

  “Nothing is forbidden, father. It is a thing that you say yourself.”

  “Quite so. Nothing is forbidden, but many things are unwise, and many things may lead to trouble. This is one such. You know how Tarnell feels about his daughter.”

  “Yes. I saw it when he realised that Kane had hit me, and again when we were in the dining hall. Have you met her brother?”

  “No, but I hear a lot about him.”

  “I did not see him in all the time that I was there. They say he is wilder than Calaine, travels about the city with his own men and drinks a lot.”

  “Perhaps he will become more steady as he grows older. Are you happy to return with Tarnell?”

  “I am content to do so. Now that I have Kane to protect me I feel safer, and more independent than I did at first. I do not understand why, but I trust Kane, and he seems content with the change in his standing, though he is the hardest man to read that I ever met.”

  “Hard indeed, but you can gather much from what he chooses not to reveal.”

  “I will bear that in mind, father, but I think I will ask a few questions of the others who knew
him before. That might be more revealing.”

  Ella was certainly her own person, and that pleased Tarlyn because it was what he had tried to give her; confidence in her own reasoning, her own judgement. She learned her lessons well.

  They went back up to the dining hall, as by this time the day of visiting was drawing to a close. Before he left Tarnell asked Tarlyn if he could have a private word with him, and they walked out onto the balcony that overlooked the town. It was a fine evening, and just at the time when the sea was visible as a different dark blue from the sky. They stood in the light spilling out from the house and looked together at the city as it darkened.

  “I feel that I need to warn you about a man called Fram,” the king said.

  “Who is he?”

  “He was one of mine. He accompanied Kane on the task to which Ella attached herself, the time that she was… hurt.” His voice dropped on the last phrase, and Tarlyn could sense that he still felt the shame of it. “While your daughter was talking to the woman inside the house and Kane was waiting outside, Fram urged Kane to kill your daughter and flee the city. It is something that a different man might have done, but Kane has always been more bound by loyalty. When Kane told me of this, after he had become Ella’s bondsman I cast Fram out of my service, but not before having him beaten. He swore that I would regret it. I think that he is an unpleasant man, and may try to strike against either of our families, especially our daughters, because of the contract.”

  “But he is one man.”

  “He has friends – men like himself who enjoy the suffering of others. I do not think that they will move against strength, but if he sees weakness he will try to do harm. He is clever, so be on your guard.”

  “I shall be careful, and I will tell Corban and my militia commander to watch for him.”

  “That is well. Now we must go. My men are growing restless and want to be back to their own place.”

  “I shall see you next month, Regani.”

  “As you say, Trader Saine.”

  The king’s party left, and Tarlyn sat down to await the evening meal. He was joined by Corban and Calaine. The san Regani seemed wistful.