by Kate Novak
“A pair of silver earrings—three interlocking stars.”
“Over a wagon wheel?” Jamal teased. “A gift?”
“Just stars, no wheel, and I bought them myself.”
“At least you don’t have to wear Dhostar livery. That tawny color looks awful on us redheads.”
“Very sweet,” a high-pitched voice said from the doorway. “I’m out tracking down evildoers, and you decide to play dress up.”
Alias and Jamal turned to Olive Ruskettle. The halfling looked as if she had run halfway across Westgate and still had a full head of steam up.
“Our warrior is mixing with high society tonight,” Jamal explained.
“From the back alleys to the castles in a matter of hours, eh?” Olive said. “What a whirlwind life you lead.”
“What did you find out?” Alias demanded.
“Well,” the halfling began, “I followed One-Eye and her bodyguard south to a big manor house right on the edge of the city. She went in, spent about ten minutes, just enough to count that sack of money. Then she and her friend left and parted company.” Olive paused for dramatic effect.
Alias glared. She hated these pauses. “And?” she prompted.
“I didn’t see the occupant,” Olive replied, “but I asked around. “The house belongs to a wealthy vintner named Melman. Melman bought the place ten years ago, after the former occupant died. Guess how.”
“Night Masks?”
“Nope. Guess again.”
Alias let out a sigh of exasperation. “Olive! Spit it out! How did the former occupant die?”
“She took a blast from a staff of power. Her name was Cassana.”
“Melman’s living in Cassana’s house?” Alias asked, a smile of glee creeping across her face.
“Yep. The same place we all knew and loathed.”
“The one with the secret tunnel into the secret basement,” Alias said with a twinkle in her eye.
“The very same,” Olive said, rubbing her hands together.
Twelve
Maiden Voyage
Olive accompanied Alias and Dragonbait back to their inn, making plans for a little breaking and entering. Although the halfling agreed it would be safer to wait until long after dark, she was disappointed that they could not leave immediately. Alias suspected that were she and Dragonbait not on the scene, the normally cautious halfling might have plunged recklessly ahead even before sunset. There was an eagerness in Olive that went beyond a desire to check out the Night Mask Melman’s hoard of ill-gotten gain. Olive really wanted to bring the Night Masks down. It was a side of the halfling that Alias would never have expected to see when the two first met, eleven years ago.
Inside Blais House, Alias hurried to wash up as Dragonbait escorted Olive to their room. When Alias joined them, fresh from her bath, she noticed Olive eyeing the sacks of gold containing her retainer from the Dhostars. “You should have gotten more,” the halfling said.
“Olive, you know I don’t need the money,” the swordswoman argued as she pulled her new silk tunic over Jamal’s white undergown. “Neither do you, for that matter. I might have ended up fighting the Night Masks even if the Dhostars hadn’t offered to pay me.”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” Olive insisted. “Never sell yourself cheap, and always charge rich humans through the nose. The Dhostars are richer than old Misty was. It’s up to people like you to see to it that their floor doesn’t give under the weight of all that coin.”
“Is that what you’re doing for Lady Thalavar?” Alias asked as she slipped her new earrings back in her ears. “Seeing to it that her floorboards don’t give?”
“House Thalavar is nothing like House Dhostar,” Olive insisted. “Lady Nettel has more noblesse oblige in her pinkie than all of the remaining merchants in this city combined. She makes a profit, yes, but she doesn’t invest in things just to see an obscene return. She invests in little businesses so the owners can make a living and patronizes musicians and artists and donates wells and fountains and park land to the people of Westgate.”
There was a knock on the door, and Olive opened it. Mercy stood on the threshold, eyeing the halfling with the same wide-eyed look she’d given Dragonbait and Alias on their first day as guests. The girl, Alias thought, must have too few opportunities to meet other people. The swordswoman introduced Olive as a long-standing friend. Mercy curtsied politely, then informed Alias that there was a carriage waiting downstairs.
“Please tell him I’ll be down in a few minutes, Mercy. Then you can come back and take Olive and Dragonbait’s orders for dinner.”
The half-elf hurried off to do as she was bid.
Alias slid her scabbard onto the lower of the two belts Jamal had loaned her and secured her sword to the scabbard with a piece of silk ribbon tied in an elaborate knot that she could release instantly by pulling it in just the right place. She tugged on the white silk slippers and ran a comb quickly through her hair. Turning about, she asked the others. “How do I look?”
“Very nice,” Dragonbait replied.
“Better than Lord Victor probably deserves,” Olive answered.
Alias hurried downstairs and out to the street. The reins of Victor’s carriage were in the hands of the same old man who’d held them at the Harbor Tower that first day she’d met Victor. The bent, gray-haired servant bowed with earnest deference, and Alias could see he looked at her with a certain approval as he handed her up into the carriage seat. Jamal’s advice on dress pleased at least one elderly member of House Dhostar’s staff. The servant climbed into the seat beside Alias and urged the horses forward.
The carriage pulled up to a pavilion at the western end of the docks, where a footman in Dhostar livery handed Alias down to the ground. The swordswoman stared uncomfortably at the crowd of strangers all about. Most of them appeared to be errand boys, bodyguards, and ladies-in-waiting, left beneath the pavilion to await the returns of their masters and mistresses. Alias smiled politely at a bodyguard dressed in Malavhan livery, but was met with a grim stone face. Too late, she realized he took her for one of the nobles, and in Westgate the servants did not fraternize with the nobles.
Alias turned to thank Victor’s driver, but he had already evaporated, coach and all, to whatever demiplane hid such utilities until they were called for again. Another, larger carriage was pulling up to debark its passengers. The footman asked Alias politely to please move down the pier to join the other guests.
Down the pier there were small mobs of nobles, from dandies to grand dames, in tight little constellations. Wandering planets of individuals only casually acquainted with the brightest stars would graze the edges of the constellations, but finding insufficient gravity to hold them, they would soon look for new orbits. Eventually, in twos and threes, guests drifted up the gangplank of The Gleason. Since she had no acquaintances among any of those on the pier, Alias made straight for the gangplank, but she paused halfway down the pier to stare in awe at the Dhostars’ new ship.
The Gleason, Alias realized, was a galleass. She had heard that Sembia was building such ships, but the Dhostars’ was the first she had seen. It was basically a larger and more heavily armed version of the great galley, one hundred sixty feet long and forty feet across the beam. The sails were lateen-rigged from three huge masts, though at the moment they were tightly furled, tied with cords of black and gold. Tonight the ship would be powered by oar. Alias counted fifty oars, painted bone white and so large that each could be manned by several rowers. A twenty-foot iron-clad battering ram jutted out from the bow. Tarpaulins covered what Alias guessed was a pair of ballistae mounted on a massive turret on the top of the foc’s’le. Both the foc’s’le and the sterncastle, which towered two stories over the deck, featured narrow archers’ slits.
While the fighting capabilities of the ship were not hidden, tonight the vessel was obviously decorated for festivities. The rowers’ benches were curtained off, screening them from view of the guests, and vice versa. A giant ba
nner emblazoned with the wagon wheel and three stars of House Dhostar draped down from the top story of the sterncastle, reaching nearly to the waterline, while a smaller House Dhostar banner and the banners of the croamarkh and the city of Westgate fluttered from poles fore and aft. The stern lantern, fitted with magical light stone, was covered with a square of fine red silk, bathing the ship’s deck and the dockside with a rosy glow.
The pier rattled, and Alias turned to see a chair on wheels, with an awning, like a miniature carriage, rolling toward her. The wheeled chair was white, with a green feather painted on the side panel, and pushed by six halflings. The passenger was an ancient human woman attended by a pale, blonde girl in her teens. The girl’s main duty seemed to be to keep the halflings from pushing the chair into other guests in their zeal to move the device toward the gangplank. Several guests broke away from their constellations to chase after the chair, with as much dignity as they could muster, until the vehicle came to rest at the end of the pier. Then the followers paid their respects to the elderly passenger.
Someone brushed up against Alias, and the swordswoman turned quickly, expecting a pickpocket despite the standing of the crowd all about her. She faced the back of a woman in an elegant gown of yellow satin hemmed and edged with fox fur, with a tiny golden dagger dangling from her gold-link belt. Her dark hair, which hung down her back, was swept back from her face with a barrette fashioned like a basilisk. The woman turned and murmured an apology, which Alias accepted with a nod and a weak smile.
The woman smiled broadly. “You’re new,” she noted with a tone of delight and surprise.
“Yes,” Alias admitted. “I feel like a fish out of water. I’m afraid I don’t know anyone here.”
As Alias spoke, the other woman took full stock of her, her gaze fixing at last on her right arm. The stranger’s eyes became glassy, and her face seemed to petrify. “No,” she replied frostily. “You wouldn’t.” She turned on her heel and made for the next little group over, leaving Alias staring at her retreating form and the eyes of her basilisk barrette.
Alias frowned. Obviously the woman had recognized her from her tattoo. She couldn’t believe she’d been snubbed just for being a swordswoman. Surely Westgate merchants socialized with adventurers on other occasions. She continued moving toward the gangplank, scanning the crowd for a friendly face. As she passed the woman with the basilisk barrette, the group the woman now stood with broke into gales of laughter. At least two other women turned to look at the swordswoman, then hurriedly looked away.
Alias spotted a flash of blue and purple, and thinking it might be Durgar, moved in that direction. At this point, even the opinionated priest would be welcome company.
Fortunately, her rescue was much more pleasing. She spied Victor bolting down the gangplank in long, swift strides. His eyes were fixed on the pavilion at the end of the pier, where the carriages were still unloading guests. He could be looking for someone else, but Alias was determined not to let him hurtle past her without speaking to him. She stepped into his path with her hands folded in front of her as he approached.
Victor checked his stride so suddenly that he almost tripped himself. The anxious look he’d worn was fading into one of delight. “I’m sorry I wasn’t at the pavilion to welcome you. There were so many last-minute—” The young noble interrupted himself. “You look radiant. I’m so glad you came.”
Alias smiled. “So am I,” she said. “Now. You look nice, too,” she complimented him. He wore a three-quarter length tunic of cream-colored silk, trimmed in brown satin, and his hair glistened in the lamplight. Tonight he looked every bit the nobleman.
As Victor took her arm and ushered her up the gangplank onto the ship, a herald began announcing the ship’s imminent departure. All guests, the herald insisted, should board the ship now.
There was a flurry of activity as the guests tried to move toward the gangplank quickly, yet without looking hurried or rudely jostling one another. Still, many people on the pier remained where they were, without moving.
“They don’t all seem to believe your herald,” Alias commented.
“They haven’t all been invited,” Victor explained. “They’re petty nobles, lesser merchants and their hangers-on, come to see the boat off, hoping for some last-minute invitation.”
Alias looked down and saw the woman who’d snubbed her among those not chosen for the voyage. The woman shot Alias a glare as killing as that of the basilisk that adorned her hair.
The last to board the ship was the ancient woman from the personal carriage. She hove herself out of her chair and ambled up the gangplank, leaning on a large, ornately carved staff on one side and the pale, blonde girl on the other. Despite the supports, there was nothing feeble about the woman’s appearance. Her back was as straight as an elm tree, and she carried her head high.
“That’s Lady Nettel Thalavar,” Victor whispered in Alias’s ear. “She’s the only one of the merchant nobles who has even a dram of old Verovan’s blood in her. She’s a third cousin, two generations removed. She’s outlived three husbands and rebuilt her clan’s fortunes to nearly what they were in Verovan’s day. The girl on her left is her granddaughter, Thistle.”
“She’s quite pretty,” Alias said. “The granddaughter, I mean.”
“Hmmm?” said Victor. “I can’t look at her without remembering how she used to tear through the streets as a child with her halfling nannies chasing after her. She was almost as troublesome as the halflings themselves. Her nickname back then was Dervish.”
On the turret where the ballistae were mounted, a small group of musicians had set up two rebecs, a larger viol, and a dulcimer, led by a bard with a songhorn. The players launched into a soft, somber number that drifted along the length of the ship. The ship’s first officer bellowed an order to cast off. As crew members unfastened the lines to the pier, the oarsmen on the near side began pushing off with poles. A moment later, Alias could feel a slow, steady beat on the floor, and all the oars moved, as one, in rhythm with the beat. The musicians picked up their tempo to match the beat, and the Dhostar’s new galleass pulled out into Westgate’s harbor.
Most of the guests stood at the buffet tables lined up down the center of the ship. The tables were laden to the groaning point with expensive delicacies and elaborately prepared dishes. Servants dressed in crisp white sailors’ shirts replenished empty trays and answered questions about the food.
“Care for something to eat?” Victor asked.
“In a bit,” Alias declined. “I’d like to see the ship first.”
From Victor’s smile, Alias could see he was inordinately pleased with the chance to show off the new ship. Taking her arm, he steered her toward the bow as he began a lecture that sounded spontaneous, but must have been partially rehearsed.
“Most of the ships in our family’s fleet are carracks, multisailed roundships,” the young noble explained. “Useful for hauling large shipments of cargo, but not very fast, with maneuverability still dependent on the wind.” Victor pointed to a Dhostar carrack in dock. It was, Alias realized, the same one that had been cut off at the harbor entrance by the Thalavar ship two days ago.
“For the past ten years,” Victor continued, “while merchants along the Sword Coast have been adding even larger carracks, the so-called galleons, to their fleets, merchants of the Inner Sea, including House Dhostar, have invested instead in great galleys. Such ships are large enough to carry perishable and luxury cargoes: silks, spices, perfumes, wines, fruits, messengers, and passengers. They are also maneuverable enough to guarantee safe entry into any harbor.
“Most importantly, they are quick enough to outrun the swarms of pirates haunting the Inner Sea: those making their homes in the Pirate Isles, as well as those along the coastline of Thay and Mulhorand, nations that are not exactly quick to rout out such predators. Should a great galley, despite its speed, be boarded by enemies, the rowers can abandon their oars for swords in the ship’s defense.” Victor led her up a s
taircase to the top of the foc’s’le. Standing behind the musicians, they were able to look out over the bow.
“The Gleason is classed as a galleass,” Victor said. “It’s basically a refitted great galley. It’s much wider and somewhat longer, for more cargo space. It has fewer but larger oars, giving the captain more flexibility in assigning duties. Finally, of course, the galleass is fitted with more armament.” Victor gave a nod toward the battering ram mounted in the fore and then removed a tarp from one of the ballistae to show it off. Alias peered at its well-oiled parts as Victor said, “We choose to have the ballistae manufactured in Neverwinter—their mechanisms are superior to any others. The local Gondsmen suggested we use bombards of smoke powder, but we consider that far too dangerous to transport. For projectiles we’ve settled on iron shot, and oil and flaming arrows.” Victor flipped the tarp back over the ballista and led Alias back down the foc’s’le stair.
“This is our first ship of this sort. We plan to use it as an escort for our carracks traveling to the Easting Reach.”
“Have the other merchant houses in Westgate been building galleasses?” Alias asked.
“House Guldar built two, but they were lost at sea, no doubt due to the treachery of Thay’s Red Wizards. House Vhammos has had one even larger than this half-finished in dry dock for a year, as they muster the resources to finish it. House Athagdal had one nearly finished two years ago, but their dockyard was prey to a mysterious fire, and they lost it as well as three other ships.”
“Night Masks?” Alias asked.
“They may have started the fire,” Victor answered, “but it’s very likely they were paid to do so by House Thorsar. Thorsar and Athagdal have a long-standing feud, fueled by petty jealousy.”
At the bottom of the foc’s’le stair stood a tall, heavy man with long, puffed-out black hair—Haztor Urdo. Alias remained on the stair, glaring down at the Night Mask merchant, her hand resting on her sword.
With a venomous look at Alias, the young merchant greeted Victor with a simple, “Dhostar.”
