by L. W. Jacobs
The countryside was beautiful here, land rising steeply in bluffs to either side of the Genga, the valley floor a flat patchwork of fields. Ella recognized golden flax and barley and purple mavenstym, alongside other more exotic plants. Hamlets spotted the bluffside, and closer in, Achuri farmers called to ox teams or bent double in the fields, pulling weeds. What would it be like to live that simply, just working the land?
She smelled Captain Ralhens before she saw him, the rich aroma of his pipe. Ella turned. “Captain Ralhens.”
He inclined his head to her. “All packed up?”
She nodded. “As well as I can be. I’ve a bit more furniture than your average passenger.”
“Aye.” He pulled on his pipe. “Got yourself a plan, do you?”
“Patronage,” she said, looking back over the waters. “I’ve taken on with Odril for the time being.”
“Odril,” the captain said, leaning against the railing with her, as they’d done many times. “He seems like a decent man.”
“He’s not, but he’ll do.” She looked over at him. “I intend to work up passage and return north. If our timings coincide, would you…consider taking me on?”
Ralhens puffed on his pipe, watching the passing fields. “Don’t know as I can say, Ella. I will miss having you on board.” He paused, then, “If you ever need anything—while I’m in port, I mean—”
He’ll what, refuse to help us again?
Ella nodded, ignoring LeTwi. He might not follow through, but any friendly sentiment was welcome at the moment. “Thank you, Captain. It really has been a pleasure.” She stood up. “I should go. Pack my small things.”
He nodded. “And I have deckhands to wrangle. Good luck, Miss Ella, and be careful in Ayugen. It’s a far cry from the capital.”
She nodded and, with a clasp of his wrist, took her leave.
The Ayugen docks were a bee’s nest, twig-haired Achuri men scrambling alongside Seinjialese and Yersh seahands to haul in boats, vendors crowding the dock, everyone shouting over each other. Fish stank and roast meats wafted and gulls wheeled in the air above, riding air currents toward the densely terraced bluffs of the city.
This is where I live now, Ella thought. At least for the present. It was a strange feeling—the Swallowtail had been her home for the last year and a half, in some ways more home than she’d ever had.
She was dressed in a modest Councilate gown, pearl white with laced sleeves. Odril had frowned when he first saw her—he was likely the kind of man who preferred women in full makeup and evening wear. There would have to be some adjustment there—she was a calculor, not a keisua. Meanwhile, she had a city to explore and a thief to catch. Ella knew the names of every man on the boat by now, and she intended to find out who had done it.
Some of them stared at her as they waited to disembark, but to his credit, Odril didn’t seem to mind. He seemed, in fact, in fine spirits.
Ella adjusted her braids. “Are you happy to be back in the South?”
“Hardly. Filthy place, Ayugen, full of backstabbers and mudhairs. You’re going to hate it.”
Ella cleared her throat. “I’m actually looking forward to it.”
He scratched at his nose. “Suit yourself.” He put a hand to the small of her back, and Ella stepped away. She would have to toe a line with this one.
The streets were a patchwork of humanity—begging children, Achuri vendors, Seinjialese men jangling with metalwork, and Yersh women with straw-colored hair tied in glass beads. She was surprised at the amount of lawkeepers—nearly every corner had a pair standing guard. “Is the city normally this…militarized?”
Odril grunted. “Didn’t see the wreck in the docks? Word is rebels burnt it, and the Arbiter’s out for blood.”
Ella nodded, then gaped at a passing man, towering and thick-bodied with scarlet hair covering nearly every part of his body save the eyes.
“Never seen a mountain ape before?”
“He’s Minchu, isn’t he?” They were subject more of legend than rational observation—she had never seen one, and not even Markels had made it to their mountain homelands.
Odril spat. “The lot of ’em. Come out of the east, don’t speak a word of Yersh, but work like dogs, digging mines.”
Ayugen’s buildings were as she remembered them, smoke-darkened wood covered in elaborate carvings—vines and scrolls and human figures, some entire walls covered in single scenes, though here and there, newer planks showed, done with inferior carvings or left totally blank.
“Is your house in New Ayugen?” she asked. Most of the Swallowtail Mistress’s passengers stayed there—a kind of separate community for citizens of rank. The first place to look for her thief, once she got some yura.
“Nah. Newgen’s scatting pricey. I got a place here in Riverbottom.”
“Is it far?” They trailed a team of porters hauling Odril’s trunks and her things, bureau and feather mattress looking very out of place on the backs of Achuri men.
“Not too much farther, you’ll be happy to know. I’m docking portage fees from your wages.”
“Wha—” Ella spluttered. Portage fees? “Very well. I trust you have a room for me.”
“Don’t expect too much.”
Odril’s house was the second story of a dye factory, reeking of vinegar and echoing with the calls of workers downstairs. The building was fine and old, had been grand in its day, but was now somewhat in disrepair, a few of the glass windows replaced with oilpaper, much of the interior plaster flaking, in need of a paint job.
“It’s…charming,” Ella said. Incense cones burned in the corners, smell warring with vinegar in the warm air.
“It’s not.” Odril dropped his bag on the floor. “But it’s cheap. Living in Newgen would break me. Tunla will show you your room.”
With that, he started through the wide drawing room, piles of papers and bags and old clothes everywhere. “Work starts in the morning.” He shut the door.
“Welcome to patronage,” she muttered. Somewhat less glamorous than a gold-digger’s dreams.
Tunla was an Achuri woman in her mid-thirties, lustrous black hair reaching to her waist. “Is he always this cordial?” Ella asked.
The woman stifled a grin, glancing at his door. “That’s one way to put it. Want to see your room?” Her Yersh was accented but fluent, and the eyes that regarded her were intelligent.
“Yes, thank you. Are you his maid?”
“Another calculor, actually,” Tunla said, leading the way down the flat’s single hallway.
Ella started. “Are you Councilate-licensed?”
Tunla laughed. “Ancients, no. Don’t need a license for what we’re doing. But you—are to be his calculor?”
There was a possessiveness to his that made Ella uncomfortable. “Temporarily. I got into a bit of a bind on the passage up and—but where are my manners?” She began to hold out a hand in the Councilate style, then remembered her studies and reached for the woman’s shoulder. “Ellumia Aygla.”
Tunla returned the gesture, forming a circle of arms. “Tunla of Wenla of Wensir.”
Ella cocked her head. “Those are your father’s names?”
“Mothers. We trace our lineage through our mothers. Or blood aunts.”
“Interesting.” Markels had written only of patrilineage—but then he’d likely only been speaking to men.
“Is it? Most northerners don’t seem to care.”
“I—have an interest in lifeways. In preserving them, or at least recording them. I think it’s a shame that women are dropping the traditional naming system.”
Tunla gave her a long look. “You are from Worldsmouth?”
Ella laughed. “I never really fit in.”
“Nothing wrong with that. We could use a few more lighthairs like you.”
“And less like Odril?”
Tunla grimaced, glancing down the hall. “Aye,” she answered, lower. “And a few less like him.”
The room was of a piece with the
house: shabby, untidy, furniture covered in moldering stacks of ledgers and broadsheets. The bed and floors had been kept clean, but it still stank of vinegar and old newsprint.
“Well,” Ella said, dropping her satchel of books on the bed. “This is pleasant.” She’d been about to say something different, then realized it might look nice to Tunla, might be better than a lot of Achuri homes.
Tunla snorted. “I’ve tried a few times to get the place cleaned up, but Odril wants it this way.”
Your room is a reflection of your mind, Ella’s mother used to scold on the few times she’d visited.
Ella grimaced. “Well. I think I’ll go out for a while, then. I’ve never really seen Ayugen.”
“Out?” Tunla paused in dusting off a slump-shouldered bureau. “You might not want to do that.”
“Why? Is it dangerous?” She was familiar with the dock area from previous visits, and it hadn’t seemed bad, but maybe with the new rebellion, things were getting worse.
“They’re dangerous enough,” Tunla said, handing her a satchel, “but Odril’s worse. He doesn’t like us leaving without permission.”
Ella stood up. “Well, he’s going to have to get used it. There’s no way I’m staying inside with a whole city to explore.”
And a thief to catch.
Tunla shrugged. “Maybe he’ll let you get away with it.”
The subtle emphasis on you was clear—maybe he’ll let a lighthair get away with it. But Tunla wasn’t wrong—there were lots of things her hair let her get away with. Things she’d done nothing to earn. It was easy to forget that.
The city air was a relief after the stench of the dye house, though its smoke and sweat and refuse piles were still a far cry from the fresh air of the river. Ella wandered up the main road, trying not to stare like a peasant girl. Ayugen had clearly changed since contact with the Councilate, buildings bearing scars of fighting, others burned down or newly built, but the beauty of old Ayugen, of Markels’ Ayugen, was still there: the rushing watercourses, their milky blue waters melted from the ice sheet itself, the carved wood streets and quaint smokehouses climbing the bluffs. It was nowhere near the size of Worldsmouth, perhaps forty thousand souls, but still on a par with the capitals of Yatiland and Seingard, and with a style the Councilate hadn’t managed to stifle.
Not yet, anyway, LeTwi put in. Give it time.
The first order of business was yura. She would feel a lot better about being alone in Ayugen, about living in Odril’s house, if she could use her resonance.
The problem was money—not only did the thief take her yura cache, he’d taken her means to buy more. Kellandrials had written much about Ayugen’s black market and the cheaper moss available, but all the yura shops she passed had lighthaired proprietors and high—if still cheaper than Worldsmouth—prices.
Worse, none of them were willing to take barter. While the thief had gotten all her money and moss, he’d at least left her jewelry—and she’d trade it in a heartbeat for a little peace of mind. But where to find a black market? In Worldsmouth, it would be signaled by fruit vendors selling rotten fruit, or cobblers with broken shoes, but she saw no such vendors here.
They saw her instead. Halfway down an average street, lined with low-end woodworking shops and children begging coin, a bright-eyed girl with salt-and-pepper hair called to her. “A few coins for a smile, milady?”
Her Yersh was startlingly good, down to the high-country accent. Ella stopped, realizing there might be more to these children than begging.
It turned out they were indeed selling yura—not only that but the street tough caring for them hinted he could access his resonance without yura, which really perked her curiosity.
Of course, that was the moment a lawkeeper decided to intervene. Tough and children were gone in moments, lawkeeper hard on their heels, apparently trying to fill his arrest quota for the day.
Ella gritted her teeth in frustration. This was exactly what was wrong with the Councilate—quotas for lawkeepers? What kind of stupidity was that?
One you should be familiar with, my dear. And anyways, Mr. Tai appears to be making a handy escape.
Ella sighed. “And here I thought I was going to help him out.”
Let me say it again: bad ideas have their own inertia, just like good ones. You’d do better if you stopped expecting the Councilate to change at your first whim. Ultimately, we all die. Better to enjoy the time you have.
She disagreed but, like usual with LeTwi, couldn’t find the words to express it. Instead, she walked until she found another line of begging children and lingering street toughs. There was another with decent Yersh, and though the boy knew nothing of resonating without yura, he was willing to take a pearl earring in trade for two balls of yura.
The sun setting, she returned to Odril’s house, pleased she could find it with a minimum of effort, only to find the man irate and pacing his front room. “First day,” he said to her, not exactly in return to her greeting, “first day with my new calculor and she’s not even here. I have to wait up for her.”
She cocked a head, undoing the laces on her shoes. Tunla was gone. “I didn’t know you were expecting me.”
“Of course I was expecting you! I was expecting you to be here, for supper, not wandering the town doing gods know what! We have a contract, woman, and part of it states you don’t leave the workplace without my permission.”
“But this isn’t—”
“This is the workplace, until I say otherwise. And if you even try to renege on our contract, I’ll have lawkeepers on you so fast, you’ll wish I’d left you to Pruitt and Gettels.”
“I…” How did you respond to that?
“Good. Now get to work.” He gestured at a pile of books on the floor. “I’ll want those collated by morning.”
Ella nearly bit into her yura and let him have it right there. No one talked to her like that. But anything short of killing him and the man would hold to his promise; she was sure of that. And he had paid off the men on the boat, to the tune of three thousand moons.
So, taking a firm hold on her anger, she gathered the books and returned to her room to begin working. The numbers settled her, pages and columns of disorderly figures turning into neat rows and taxable calculations under her practiced hand. She’d lived through worse than this. Much worse. This was just a setback, and a good excuse to do some research into the Achuri. She would find her thief and pay Odril off and be on her way. And if not, she would find a way to pay the debt off fast, work extra shifts and take extra clients.
She would get free either way. Ella smiled, quill scratching in the lamplight. And woe to anyone who tried to stop her.
6
That someone must do the work, there is no doubt. But fellow members, the men returning from these mines are hardly human: wasted, pale, malnourished and blinking at the daylight. Can we abide Councilate citizens, even darkhairs, being subject to this?
–Society for Decency in Commerce broadsheet, Yiel 95
Tai was up before dawn, breath fogging in the blue dark, air chill even in the height of summer. He’d buried their savings in waxed bags, fifty or a hundred moons to a spot, in the forests and fields outside town. Fortunately, it was all there, a hefty pile of iron and red-gold moons. Tai packed it in the kind of burlap sack smallholders used to carry produce, all too aware of the risk he was taking if someone realized what he had and attacked.
But who would attack the Blackspine? Tulric, apparently. The thug made it sound like everyone was starting to doubt his reputation. Ironic that the same system of street cred that had kept them safe was the reason they were in danger now.
No more ironic than a thug turned lawkeeper, Hake put in, sounding for all the world like he’d just woken up. Or a city getting rich off moss no one used to care about.
Tai took the eastern path down the bluffs, where houses faded into huts and forest. It looked like any morning in Ayugen—porters oiling carts in alleys, householders unearthing ashes o
r dumping chamber pots, bleary-eyed workmen making their way to the watercourses to wash. And yet today he was leaving this place, the city he’d lived his whole life. Leaving it with the first real family he’d had, at least since Marrem had kicked him out at eight winters, saying she had too many mouths to feed. A family that in a few years had saved what would be a fortune to anyone other than a lighthair, begging coins and selling black-market yura.
Despite the danger, despite worries about life downriver, Tai couldn’t help feeling hopeful. Maybe Worldsmouth would finally be a home. Though it was the capital of the lighthairs, people said it had people from all over, red-haired Yati hillmen and sandy-headed Yersh peasants, and the fine darkhaired Seinjialese so many people mistook him for. With that many kinds of people, maybe none of them would stick out, not Fisher with her speckled hair or Aelya with her tight curls. And with the money they’d make selling yura down there, they’d finally have choices. Pang could be a street performer, Curly could study math, and Fisher could learn to do whatever she wanted.
And you?
He’d…do whatever he wanted too. Travel, maybe, on the way back and forth to Ayugen to restock yura. See the Seinjial mountain valleys. The shattered glass towers of the old Yersh capital. Study with the highland monks who walked the cities, faces old and eyes young. See the Prophet’s waystones.
Good. You could use a rest.
The docks were a swarm of activity, even with the sun barely over the horizon. Porters hauled bales of sour-smelling mavenstym and earthy yura through the crush of merchants arguing prices, dogs sniffing at fallen scraps and gulls crying in the clear sky above. Farther down, miner crews worked with a massive team of elk, trying to clear the wrecked ships. The men were pale as ghosts, either arrested Achuri or criminals from other parts of the Councilate, working toward amnesty. Once the easy yura had been picked and the supply of men willing to work the mines slowed, the Councilate had declared the mines a special economic zone, where anyone who worked seven years would emerge forgiven of their crimes, no matter how bad.
