by Gregory Ashe
Chapter Eighteen
Dag untied his horse’s bridle from the wagon and jumped down from the tailgate. He hurried out of the way to avoid being trampled as the train moved on.
“You done here?” Chin shouted back at him.
Dag mounted and rode up alongside the man. He had grown somewhat fond of Chin over the weeks of travel, more than he had expected, although it had been a touch act keeping the man from prying too deeply into Dag’s knowledge of Aqeur.
“City’s up ahead,” Dag said. “I saw the walls from the last hill. Tell Matta I’m moving on.”
“Sure she knows already,” Chin said. “Well, take care. If you make it back to Aqeur, ask around for me. We pass through there a couple times every year, might be you’ll catch me one of them.”
“I’ll do that,” Dag said. “Thanks for the help.”
“You change your mind about going on with us,” Chin said, “you can find us in the Gut, The Tibbler’s Tits, east harbor. Matta’ll pay you good if you decide to come; she doesn’t short, and she took a shine to you.”
“Thanks,” Dag said. “I’ll keep that in mind. Might be you’ll see me sooner than you think.”
“Eh,” Chin said. “We’re moving on quick this time, Matta says. Just a day to unload. So think fast if you plan on changing your mind.”
Dag nodded, waved goodbye, and rode toward the city. He quickly left the caravan behind, grateful to be away from the dangerous contraband. If the Apsian officials caught them with black market Ghiyn steel, the whole lot would hang; if they made it into the city safe, they were going to stir up a hornet’s nest with those weapons. Either way, Dag wanted to be far away from Matta and her wagons.
His first sight of the famed city of Apsia, capital of the world—to hear the Apsians tell it—took his breath away. Contrast seemed to be the heart of the city’s design. At the top of the city, marble buildings shone, and the copper roofs bristled with sunlight. At the other end, the buildings at the bottom of the hill, near the vast harbor that made Apsia a power on Amala’s Heart, looked diseased, speckled with dirt and grime, more wood than stone. The great expanse of gray water, the tips of the waves green in this distance, looked as though Ishahb himself had placed it there to contrast with the incandescent city on the hill. It might have rivaled Ghiynmar itself in size.
A moment. That was all he allowed himself to admire the city of the enemy. Dag forced himself to look deeper. A city of torturers, murderers, thieves. A city built on the broken backs of the poor and enslaved, on the sweat of men and women broken in the galleys of the great Apsian trading vessels. The city itself, with its marble homes built on top of the shacks and hovels of the sprawling Gut, could not have better represented the heart of the Apsian life.
The golden law, that Apsian had called it. No law except the golden law. Well, Dag had gold, and more importantly, he had good steel to back it up. He rode toward the city, glad, for once, that Brech had coerced him into this job. Dag hated what he was, but he hated Apsia more.
By the time he reached the gate, the hills and folds of the coastline hid the wagons from his sight. The guards waved him through after a desultory search and a more eagerly accepted bribe—the golden law still held sway—and Dag was inside the city.
“What’s the name of this road?” Dag said to the guard at the gate as he dismounted to lead his horse.
“Fisher’s Lane,” the guard said. “If you’re looking for the Blue Quarter, you’ll want the western side of the Tacline. You can follow the Foreign’s Wind, the road here that cuts west.”
“Blue Quarter?”
“For the rich foreigners,” the guard said. “Haven’t been there myself; it costs a pretty piece for an Apsian to enter.”
“I’m from Aqeur,” Dag said. “I’m Apsian.”
“Sure you are,” the guard said with a grin. “Well, you can stay wherever you please then. If you’re looking for a good inn, my brother-in-law has a place near the Rose Walk, just go south on the Lane until you reach the Walk and then east a few blocks. Called Roserest, a big white rose on the sign. You can’t miss it.”
“Roserest?” Dag said.
“I told him to change it, but he thinks it’s clever,” the guard said.
Dag passed him another coin. “Sounds nice,” he said. “I’ll look him up.”
He headed south, but when the gate and wall were out of sight, Dag turned west on the next street. No point leaving an easy trail for someone to follow. The street he followed was crowded with people, and more than one person gave his horse a dirty look. Dag turned down another street, smaller than the first, that looked less busy. Two blocks further he found the Triple Bunk, a ramshackle inn that took up half a block on its own. The sign showing the eponymous bunk hung askew, and great curls of paint peeled from the shutters. Disreputable, but not bad enough to bring trouble. Not in the Gut, meaning little chance of having his horse butchered for stew—if the stories Dag had heard about the Gut were true.
The innkeeper matched the building, his apron stained and torn, one eye fluttering constantly. He introduced himself as Calidi, gave an oily smile at the sign of coin, ordered a boy to take care of Dag’s horse, and showed Dag to a room.
“Are you here for the holy days?” Calidi said. “Not many of you come in for the holy days, I didn’t think.”
“Not many of us?” Dag said
“Jaecan,” Calidi said. “More now than ever, though, I guess. City’s changing, time’s changing. You won’t hear me complaining about Jaecan in the city, oh no. Coin is coin, the golden law.”
“That’s kind of you.”
“Kind as coin,” Calidi said. “I had to run that bunch of you off last week, you understand. Nothing against your kind. The boss would not pay. I was going to get the law, I was, but—”
“Other Jaecan? Who, merchants?”
“No. Merchants pay. Sailors. Sammeen told me he’d pay their rooms, said he’d send someone with coin. Then that Gut rat crawled up here, making threats, and Sammeen didn’t pay, so I threw the lot of them out.”
“Threats about what?”
Calidi cackled. “No, no, I don’t need loose tongues talking. I’ve said too much, but just so you’ll know that I had no hard feelings toward your kind. Threw them out because no one paid, not because of the threats, let the dock rats say what they will. The golden law, you know.”
He left Dag outside the small room he had rented. Dag stored everything but his knives and purse in the room and headed back to the street. Other Jaecan in the city, and not merchants. Strange. And that name, Sammeen. He had heard that name before; one of Brech’s agents in the city, one he could contact for help.
Might as well pay him a visit, Dag thought. If Trenius Evus had shown himself, the old man would have been noticed. At least, Dag hoped. A Jaecan war hero would have been honored with a grand homecoming, but the Apsians were strange, and Evus was old. Best to see what Sammeen knew before anything else.
It took him several tries to find someone who knew the name, but after that he was on the man’s trail. The offices of the Coi trading magnate were as impressive as the name, a large complex of stone buildings right on the waterfront at the eastern edge of the central harbor. Apsian sailors, most bare-chested and wearing those ridiculous, loose trousers, lounged in the street in front of the offices, while porters loaded and unloaded wagons in the yard.
The smell of the sea overwhelmed Dag, the climax of the discomforting, foreign scent that perfumed everything in the city. He had smelled it during his journey, as the caravan reached the coast and followed it south, but always diluted by the wind along the cliffs and the plains. Here, trapped by the stone, penetrating the timbers that reeked of salt and rot, the odor was overpowering, a part of the city itself, so that when Dag drew in a breath laden with the scent of dead fish and green-gray water, he felt like he took a part of the city into himself, a poison that coated his tongue and lips.
Dag quickened his pace and moved toward the building. The sailor
s continued with games of dice and backgammon, not paying him any attention. Inside, the smell was worse, as though he stood in the briny heart of the Apsian sea. The only windows faced out onto the harbor, and the press of bodies—men and women carrying papers and crates and iron-banded chests—added its own tinge to the palette of smell.
No one paid him a second glance. Dag pushed through the cramped hallways, poking his head into different rooms, but he saw only Apsians. He made his way upstairs. Immediately he heard a commanding voice over the commotion in the hallways.
“Bring me the factor’s report from Mitsyow—what’s the bastard’s name? And the sample of that new purple dye he sent, it’s in my chest.”
Dag made his way toward the voice, past more people. Here, their arms were laden with goods—rich silks, small ceramic pots, trays of precious stones that shivered back and forth in the bustle. The wealth of an empire, it seemed, in constant revolution, moving back and forth between side chambers and a large room at the end of the hall that overlooked the harbor. Dag could smell it from here, the open window that must have, in some past age, overlooked a fish market, whence the smell of hundreds of years of aquamarine decay.
With a grunt of disapproval, a stout woman wearing one of those loose, white dresses he had seen all over the city—some new fashion, perhaps—pushed past him, a silvered tray covered with dozens of pieces of apparently blank parchment. Dag took advantage of the break to slip inside the large room.
A man bent over a massive wooden table, strewn with cloth and gems, ivory and wax, polished steel blades and beaver pelts. It looked like the collection of a madman or an eccentric, albeit one with the wealth of a small kingdom. The man at the desk held blank parchment in both hands, rubbing circles on them with his thumbs.
“Alia,” a man called. “I’ve changed my mind. Buy from Yehiva, if you have to buy it at all. See if you can’t get it from one of the smaller—”
He cut off as he turned and noticed Dag. He was a man of middle height, with coloring just dark enough to be Jaecan, although he would pass for an Apsian. He wore a silvery-white cape, embroidered with more silver, over a snowy shirt and the cuffed, tight leather breeches of a man of the city. His accent was flawless Apsian.
“Well, what is it? What do you have?”
Dag shrugged and leaned up against the doorframe. “Sammeen?” he said.
“Yes, yes, hurry up. I have a dozen things to do, and I should have done them yesterday. What did your master send you with? Inks? Dyes? Or are you the one bringing the new amber samples from Greve Sindal? You’re a week late, and the market might as well have collapsed for what I’m going to pay your master now.”
The words washed over Dag before he could say anything.
“Yes, the amber,” Dag said. “Something like that. If we could speak in private?”
“Ha! Private,” Sammeen said, brushing back a lock of his fine, loosely curled hair. He turned back to the table and picked up one of the beaver pelts. “Set the stones down and be gone. I’ll send for you when I have an offer.”
A man, his arms loaded with tiny ceramic pots, brushed past Dag and began setting them on the table and uncapping them.
“This is the new purple,” he said, passing the first pot to Sammeen. “And here is a sample of the cloth after dying.” He pulled a swatch of a rich purple fabric from his pocket it and passed it as well.
Sammeen held it to the light, running a finger over it. He appeared to have forgotten Dag completely. “Nice,” Sammeen said. “Very nice, and a bloody coup on the market if it really does produce this shade. Leave the pots, all of them. I’ll have them tested myself.”
The man bowed and scurried out without another word.
“Excuse me,” Dag said. “I know you’re busy. My employer sent me to you specifically, he said you might be able to help me. In private, he said.”
Sammeen glanced at him again over one shoulder. “Jaecan, no? I can tell by the accent, so that means Greve Sindal. Nothing else from that bloody empire is worth its salt.”
Dag kicked the door shut. A woman let out a squawk and stumbled back, and then the door was closed. Dag dropped the heavy crossbar.
“Listen,” Dag said. “I’m here to settle your account with Fakholme.” The code phrase. It had taken him a moment to remember it. “That means you make time, Ishahb burn you, when I ask for it. No more puttering around with this whore’s collection of silks and jewels, no more dismissals. Sit down and talk. Now.”
“A moment,” Sammeen said. He moved to a desk loaded with papers, pulled out an ink jar and a quill, and scribbled something down. “You can read, I suppose?” he asked.
“Doesn’t matter if I can read or not,” Dag said. “Sit down. We’re going to talk right now.”
“Take the paper,” Sammeen said. “I don’t have an account in Fakholme, and I don’t intend to have one, and if you press me any further, I’ll make sure that the Watch doesn’t get involved until they’re pulling your body out of the harbor on the morning tide.”
Cries and pounding at the door.
“Here, take this to my agent at the west docks,” Sammeen said. “If there’s a mistake, he’ll have time to deal with you. He’s not allowed to buy the bloody stones, though, so don’t think you can pressure him into it. He’ll look at them, send them over to me. Now get out of my Bel-blessed office.”
With the patience learned in his trade, Dag took the piece of paper. It was better than grabbing the knife at his belt, at least for now.
“You’re making a mistake,” Dag said. “And your account is going to come due. I’ll see you soon.” He lifted the bar and walked out of the room. Three women, their olive-hued faces red, stood outside. They shouted at him, but he pushed past them.
Ishahb burn all merchants, Dag thought. The Apsians were the worst of all. It was hard to say if the man were an idiot or a turncoat, but judging by the way he dressed and spoke, Sammeen seemed more Apsian than the Six Fathers themselves. As he walked, Dag kept his hands at his sides to keep from clutching his knives. Instead he mauled the paper in his hand, debating whether or not to read it. He did not like torture, but a simple beating often proved immensely satisfying. Dag was half of a mind to ignore the note, track down Sammeen tonight, and beat an answer out of the man.
The stench of the harbor flooded over him again when he reached the street. Dag turned and rushed up the hill as though Ishahb’s sacred flames were nipping his heels. He half-feared he would lose his mind if he stayed near that stench much longer.
He did not recognize the street he followed—a narrow, towering flight of stairs that seemed designed for the single intention of sending someone plummeting straight back to the harbor at the first misstep. A stray breeze brought the scent of lilacs to him, and Dag turned off the stairs to follow the smell. The street he followed did not look prosperous—not even middling, like the area around the Triple Bunk. It was not the Gut, though, and the streets, built parallel to the harbor, blocked the sight and smell of that pit of human misery. The wood-framed homes here were not crowded with whores and cutthroats; the children who played in the streets were not racked with dry coughs, their bones did not protrude obscenely. With stucco and white-wash, it could have been a street from As-as-Din, and Dag would not have been at all surprised to see Rida sweeping the slumping wooden steps, or weeding the patch of wilting pansies near the road. He swallowed and pushed down his longing to be home and away from this place, this job.
A small park sat at the end of the road. Twisted olive trees provided shade for a pair of stone benches, and weeds choked the beds of lavender and alkanet. On the far side of the park, a stretch of the wide, open-blossomed Apsian roses, deep red and fragrant in spite of the late season, screened another quiet street.
Dag sat on a bench and continued to crush the paper in his hand as he tried to relax. Things had not gone well on this trip. Everything had been turning right for him those few months in As-as-Din; Fawda had seemed better, happier, al
though with him it was hard to tell. Rida, for sure, had been happier, her eyes brighter, her back straighter.
He had thought she might love him again, when he passed her the first rose of spring, and the thorn stuck her palm. He had kissed the wound and apologized, and she had kissed him in return, and the dusk and dust of that sunset and the brush of the velvet petals had told him that, perhaps, in this small village, there was a way back to who they had been before everything else. That had been enough for him.
All of that had ended when Brech came. Brech of House Ordin, son of Old Grim himself, the man who had crushed the tribes of Greve Sindal. Somehow he had learned who Dag was and had tracked him down. He knew the right amount of pressure, the right words, the threats and promises that Dag needed to hear. Dag left the next day, and Rida’s eyes were dark, and the roses were the last thing he saw as he rode out of As-as-Din.
He ran one finger along the hilt of his knife and smoothed out the paper. The ink had smeared, but it was still legible. Midnight. Driptangle, where the Ocher meets the Third Bridge. So, Sammeen at least recognized the coded phrase and intended to play along, all his arrogance aside for the moment—if only for the moment. The message made no sense to Dag, and he scanned the paper again, wondering if the language barrier were hiding something that would be obvious to a native. And if that’s the case, the first question I ask will make it obvious I’m not Apsian, even if I do claim Aqeur. A pun, a play on words, some phonetic game—codes had a nasty way of utilizing multiple layers, and if that were the case, then Sammeen had made a mistake.
Nothing presented itself. He would have to ask for help. If nothing turned up, well, he always had the more attractive plan of smashing in Sammeen’s face to get what he needed.
