by David Drake
"And another thing, sweetest," he added over his shoulder. "Do you think that your friend Sharina would be willing to join us for the outing?"
Ilna thought for a moment. They reached the landing and Chalcus touched her waist again as they continued.
"You'd have to ask her, of course," she said at last, "but yes, I think she would. She won't be going with Cashel and Tenoctris, and I think she'd like something to take her mind off whatever it is that's worrying her."
"Then we'll indeed ask her, before we leave the palace tonight," Chalcus said with satisfaction. "And if it's why? you're wondering, dearest-let's just say that from all reports this Sidras is a canny fellow who'll recognize a hawk however many swan feathers it drapes itself in. Were I to go alone to see him, the interview would be very short and not at all to my liking. But with a pillar of unquestioned rectitude like yourself, and with the sister of the prince on my other side-then I think he'll listen even to an old pirate long enough to hear that he's reformed!"
Chalcus laughed merrily. As they started down the hallway to the suite Sharina shared with Cashel, he began to sing, "Dig a hole, dig a hole, in the meadow, dig a hole in the cold, cold ground…"
Chapter 6
As they paused at Harbor Street, Sharina massaged her left calf where a thorn had caught her as she left her suite by means of the window. Her foot had slipped on the terra cotta pipe and she'd flailed her leg into one of the roses trained up the palace wall.
"Aye, there they are," said Chalcus, gesturing with his open left hand toward the three large vessels in the reed-choked water just beyond the stone embankment. "Before I'm hanged, I'll be able to navigate the nasty, narrow lanes of a city as well as I do the sea."
"I thought we were going to a warehouse," Sharina said, eyeing the ships. "Though I don't mind, of course."
This morning she wore an eared bonnet and matching beige muslin shawl, both garments borrowed from her maid. Even so she'd decided to climb down the pipe which funneled rain water to the cistern in order to avoid the guards who'd otherwise insist on coming with her. The Princess of Haft had the power to do many things, but she had a lot less control over herselfthan plain Sharina os-Reise had taken for granted.
Sharina didn't think it was a good exchange, but when it was important she could work around the problem. She'd decided that joining Ilna and Chalcus to see a merchant, three friends together on an outing, was important; especially in her present mood.
"Master Sidras is a clever fellow," Chalcus said, sauntering along with Ilna on his right and Sharina on the other side. "Instead of a building on shore, he bought a hulked transport and dredged a trench for it into the mudflats. The bridge to the embankment is easy to guard. Save for that, you can't reach his store by land or by boat either one, at least not a boat big enough to carry off any amount of loot. And as he prospered, he bought two more hulks to increase his space."
The broad waterfront pavement would allow the largest goods wagons to pass in opposite directions. Ages without maintenance had tilted the paving blocks one from the next, but since there was little other traffic this morning the trio walked toward the hulks with reasonable ease.
Less than half of the ancient harbor was in active use. The northern portion where the river entered had become a mudbank. The huts of eel fishermen and birdcatchers stood on stilts over the vegetation, and freshwater streams meandered across the mud to reach the brackish water of the harbor proper. Small animals-probably rats-scurried and splashed among the coarse reeds, and once Sharina saw what she thought was a snake slither across the mud like a riffling breeze.
She didn't mind snakes, particularly. She'd faced more danger from human beings than from any other animal she'd met.
At the landward end of the bridge to the hulks was a wicket gate and behind it a guardhouse. The watchman hadn't rung his large brass gong in the shape of a lion's face, but he must've communicated in some fashion as he watched the trio approach: two more men came out of the hulk and walked down the bridge. The well-dressed one was on the other side of middle age, while his younger companion was a squat troll carrying an iron-bound club.
"There's a cord running under the wharf," Ilna said without pointing. "It must ring a bell in the ship."
Trust Ilna to notice a line… but Sharina should've seen it herself, since she'd known it must exist.
"Hello, good sirs!" Chalcus called, still ten feet short of the gate. "We've been told that Master Sidras or-Morr handles the Serian trade here, so we've come to see him."
"Have you?" said the well-dressed man, Sidras himself by his demeanor. His hair had been blond and his beard a deeper red when he was younger; now there was more gray than not in both. He set his left hand on the wicket and glared out at his visitors. "Maybe you're here to tell me to stop dealing with foreign devil-worshippers?"
"We are not," said Chalcus, his tone no longer cheerfully bantering; at best that would inflame Sidras' obvious hostility. "And while I've had my problems with the Serians in years past, they do not worship demons, sir."
"Huh!" said Sidras. "From the look of you, lad, it wasn't the Serians who caused the problems."
The watchman had gotten his crutch under his left arm and lifted himself off his stool. He held a mallet in his free hand and tried to look threatening, though without much success. The bruiser with the club was another matter, though, and Sidras himself looked like he could give a good account of himself in a fight despite his age and fat…
Sharina smiled at the way her mind was running. She'd learned to size up strange men quickly when she tended bar in her father's inn during the Sheep Fairs. Today she and her friends were here to do business, not to brawl.
Chalcus had halted a double-pace back from the gate to make clear that he didn't intend to push beyond his welcome. Sidras looked from him, to Ilna, and finally to Sharina. The situation obviously puzzled him.
"Who are you, then, mistress?" he said, nodding to Sharina.
"I'm Sharina os-Reise," she said, making the choice of words in the split second between the question and her answer. "My friend is Ilna os-Kenset, and we're accompanying Master Chalcus, who wishes to bargain with you."
She didn't know Chalcus' father's name. For that matter, she wasn't sure that Chalcus himself knew.
"Huh!" Sidras repeated. "I suppose I'm to think you're Princess Sharina of Haft, am I, because you're tall and a blonde?"
"You're to think I'm a respectable woman from Barca's Hamlet on the east coast," Sharina said. "Because I'm telling you that, and you needn't flatter yourself that I think you're worth lying to!"
Sidras smiled faintly, though the unsettled look didn't leave his eyes as he switched his gaze to Ilna. "If your father's name's Kenset…," he said. "And you come from Barca's Hamlet too…?"
"I do," Ilna said. From Ilna's expression, Sharina judged she wasn't best pleased to be interrogated this way, but she was holding her temper. Ilna had a lot of experience not being pleased, after all.
"Would you chance to know a fellow named Cashel, then?" Sidras said, surprising Sharina as much as if he'd suddenly jumped off the dock.
"He's my brother," said Ilna simply. "Though we're not a great deal alike."
"Huh!" said Sidras. "That's not whatI see, mistress, despite him getting all the bulk of the family. Unlock the gate, Mattion."
As the watchman fitted the four pins of his key into the slots in the padlock, Sidras looked his visitors over again and shook his head. "I'm letting you in," he said, "because if you two trust Master Chalcus I'll trust him too. But we may all three of us be the greatest fools ever born!"
Chalcus laughed. He bowed and gestured the women ahead of him with his left arm.
The bridge to the nearest of the three ships was wide enough for carts and as solid underfoot as the stone pavers of Harbor Street. Sidras walked alongside his three visitors while the guard stumped behind the group.
Sharina glanced at him over her shoulder; the fellow's expression was sullenly ang
ry though she couldn't tell whether he was still worried about Chalcus or if he were simply a sullenly angry person. The Lady knew there were enough of them in the world, and the attitude was probably less of a handicap in a bodyguard than in most professions.
"We're here to see the goods you trade to the Serians," Chalcus said. "Not the silks and ceramics they bring to Carcosa, Master Sidras. I'm on a voyage to Valles by the northern route, and there's a few trifles I want to take along to make up my lading."
The freighter's original deck had been raised two levels with wood framing, increasing the enclosed volume considerably. It had already been a large vessel, much bigger than anything anchored normally in Carcosa Harbor now.
Echoing Sharina's thought aloud as they entered through the open doorway, Chalcus said, "She was in the grain trade from Tisamur to Blaise, was she not?"
He bent to scratch the deck with the nail of his index finger, illustrating his question and probably checking the soundness of the wood at the same time. "Great wallowing pigs, but as sturdy as the rocks of the shore itself, to be sure."
"Aye," said Sidras, not displeased. "She was to be broken up for her wood. I bought her in Blaise and had her towed here in the summer when the winds were as much to trusted as ever you can."
"As ever you can," Chalcus agreed. He put his hands on his hips as he surveyed the room the factor had brought them into. It was a vast echoing hall, open save for wooden piers and the frames holding goods in bales and baskets.
Sharina's eyes took a moment to adjust to the light filtering through side windows. Half a dozen clerks, men and women both, were at work among the shelves; one of them was using a lantern.
"I'm readying a back cargo for the Serian ship docked at Clasbon's Factory," Sidras said, leading the way through the racked merchandise. The cross-aisles were offset from one another, so crossing the width of the ship was like walking a curving forest path. "Otherwise you'd have to come down into the hold if you wanted to see my Serian stores."
Sharina could only guess at most of the goods stacked about her. She walked around a pile of sacks whose contents had been emptied into wide storage jars. Ilna paused to run her fingertips across the coarse fabric; then she jerked her hand away and shook it with a look of distaste, as though something foul was sticking to her skin.
"Here, then," Sidras said with a gesture toward a row of pallets. Though it was morning, Sharina's eyes had adapted well enough to see by the light diffused through the broad windows in the west sidewall. "Anything in particular you're looking for, or do you plan a general cargo?"
The odors of the goods in the vast hall mixed with the miasma of the mudflats on which the vessel stood. The combined smell was a thing Sharina felt she could touch.
The pallet nearest to her held a pile of small sharks; they'd been sliced down the middle, sun-dried, and pressed flat. Blotches of orange mold grew on their dull gray skins. Next to them was a pallet stacked with dried sea cucumbers whose salt pungency reminded Sharina of the marsh grasses along Pattern Creek in the borough. The goods farther down the line continued the varied assortment of the sea's produce. Few of the items were food in Barca's Hamlet-or, Sharina suspected, in Carcosa either.
Chalcus and Sidras were examining a large unglazed pot which sat on a tray sealed with pitch to hold an inch of seawater. The bottom of the pot was dark because water was wicking through the raw earthenware.
Sidras lifted the lid; the smell of camphor breathed over the air around. The men bent forward cautiously, keeping well back from the opening as they looked within. Sharina hadn't heard their discussion; she stepped closer.
"Careful!" Sidras warned. "The camphor keeps them quiet, but you don't want to take chances with these."
Sharina glanced over to see that Ilna was examining bolts of dyed linen which had probably come from Blaise. Nodding-Why do I feel responsible for Ilna, who's managed her life with as little help as anyone I know?-Sharina peered into the pot. For a moment she saw only slick iridescence; then a small oval head rose.
"Enough," said Sidras, straightening up. He replaced the lid.
"Reef snakes," Chalcus explained. He grinned, but there was sweat on his brow. "They're little things that live on the reefs west of Haft and hunt fish. I've never heard of one longer than a man's arm."
"If they bite your hand," said Sidras, "it feels like you've stuck your arm in molten bronze. You start to swell right away, and after an hour or so you die."
"If you're bitten, you die," Chalcus said. His fingers were twitching where his swordhilt would've been if he'd not left the blade behind to seem less threatening. Some men fear spiders, some fear cats; and some men, even unquestionably brave men, are terrified by snakes. "And you're screaming to the end."
"The Serians eat these too?" Sharina asked. Compared to the sea cucumbers, a meal of snake meat didn't strike her as particularly disgusting.
"I think their healers use the poison," Sidras said, shaking his head. "They buy the snakes live and pay well enough for them, let me tell you. They have to, for there's few enough fishermen willing to risk the bite. I've heard men say that there's no real danger if you're careful, that they're sluggish devils and near-sighted besides. But I've never known anyone to gather them unless he was in more need of money than usual."
Ilna hadn't seemed to be paying attention, but as Chalcus looked up from the container of snakes she opened her hands to display the pattern she'd woven while she was turned away. Sharina caught a flash of it and felt momentarily warm, as though a cat had brushed her leg. Chalcus looked fixedly into the knotted cords for a moment, then hugged Ilna tight.
"You must think I'm a weak, frightened man, Master Sidras," he said with a laugh. He stepped away from Ilna and bowed to the factor.
"I do not," said Sidras. "An assistant of mine reached into the container on a dare once. He was a clumsy boy, and a fool, and a pilferer besides I shouldn't wonder. But he didn't deserve that death. Nobody does."
"Now these…," said Chalcus, moving to wicker baskets of conical seashells packed in straw mats to keep them from chipping one another. "Are new to me. You fish them from these waters?"
"We do now," said Sidras, pulling out one of the shells. It was slender and only a little longer than the merchant's middle finger. When he held it to catch the light, it shimmered with the colors of a brilliant sunset: purples and magentas and reds that shaded suddenly into indigo. "Lusius does, at any rate. Three years back the sea bottom rose west of the Calves-"
He glanced at Sharina and raised an eyebrow.
"Those are the three islands north of Haft," Chalcus explained. "Commander Lusius has his base on the easternmost, Corse."
"Aye," agreed Sidras. "And if Idid refuse to deal with folk because of the way they live, it wouldn't be the Serians and their idols I'd start with. But Lusius controls the belemite shell, and there's no lack of buyers for it."
He handed the shell to Chalcus, then drew out another one and offered it to Sharina. It was as delicate as eggshell, with a faint spiral pattern. She could see the shadow of her finger through the side.
Chalcus held the shell up and turned it. He said, "So the bottom rose and these-the belemites?"
"Aye," said Sidras, nodding. "They're little squids with shells, and that's what Lusius says they're called. He's got a wizard with him who learns things, I don't know how."
Sharina heard the strong implication that Sidras didn't want to know what wizards did. Sharina knew more about wizards than most people did-and based on her experience, Tenoctris was the only one who didn't deserve Sidras' prejudice.
"And the winged demons came at the same time?" Chalcus said.
"The Rua, right," said Sidras, scowling thoughtfully. "I don't know about them being demons, but they fly. They're sure not men like live around here."
He barked a laugh. "They fish for the shell too," he added, rummaging between baskets and coming up with a swatch of coarse fabric.
A net, Sharina thought, but Sidras sho
ok it out and she saw it was a bag. The meshes were open enough hold objects the size of belemite shells but nothing smaller.
"Lusius fights the Rua for the shell," Sidras explained. "From what I hear he doesn't do a lot better than he does keeping them from raiding ships, but one of them dropped this bag when an archer pinked him."
"May I look at that?" Ilna said. Everybody turned, startled to be reminded that she was still present. Grinning wryly she went on, "I'm not interested in snakes or seashells, but cloth is another matter."
"Of course," said Sidras. Chalcus had already swept the bag from him and offered it to Ilna. She held it in one hand and ran the tips of the other fingers along the loose meshes.
Chalcus and the factor began talking about the Commander of the Strait and his troops. Sidras seemed to have lost his wariness of Chalcus, and their mutual dislike of Lusius added to their warmth.
Sharina examined the shell again. Then, turning her head, she glanced toward Ilna. Her friend was motionless; her eyes were open, but they weren't looking into anything in this world.
Sharina looked away, licking her lips. Ilna had a talent for fabric; it told her things that no one else could hear.
But Sharina herself had learned that not all secrets are good to know.
***
"Your highness…," said the servant, his face lowered so that he wasn't actually looking at Garric. He was one of the staff Lord Tadai had summoned from Valles, not a member of Count Lascarg's establishment. "The delegation from the Temple of the Lady of the Sunset has arrived under Senior Priest Moisin bor-Sacchiman."
The room Liane and Reise had chosen for Prince Garric's public business was on the ground floor of Lascarg's palace; Garric supposed it was meant for small entertainments or the overflow from large ones. The high ceiling had scenes painted in each coffered cell, though even now in daytime there wasn't enough light to be sure of the subjects. They weren't terribly well drawn, either: the Counts of Haft didn't attract artists as able as those who decorated the palaces of nobles on the more powerful islands.
