The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, Book 1: Embers

  Chapter 30. Mance

  Traffic on and off of Maijha Minor is closely monitored. Supposedly it is a closed system, but everyone knows that smuggling does occur. Shavier slaves sometimes escape to the island, judging the risks of constant hunting worth the benefits of relative freedom among their own kind. Even some grishnard smugglers are willing to trade rare items from the island for the weapons and steel that the inhabitants desperately need.

  —Gwain, The Non-grishnards of Wefrivain

  They left Holovarus three days later, bound for Mance. Gerard didn’t think he’d ever seen a ship repaired so quickly. Neither his father nor Jaleel put in another appearance, for which he was grateful. The Fang still needed a number of small things that Holovarus’s dockyard could not provide on short notice. Silveo opted to pick them up on the way, rather than waiting.

  During those three days, Gerard spent a considerable amount of time walking around town, confirming what Silveo had said about Gwain. Their resistance pirate had certainly asked a lot of questions, most of them about Gerard. Why would he have left a book in the library?

  Even Silveo didn’t seem to have an answer to that, although Gerard suspected he’d read the book in its entirety the night they got back to the Fang. But whenever Gerard asked about it, he said, “Give me a few more days.”

  Gerard also decided to do a little recruiting. He had no trouble finding a dozen shelts on Holovarus and its holdings whom he’d known for a long time and who were able and willing to leave with him. Gerard suspected that if he put out a public announcement, he could in one stroke staff the Police with trustworthy shelts and take the cream of his father’s military. He didn’t dare mention the idea to Silveo for fear he’d do it.

  They were a day out of Holovarus when Silveo finally handed him Gwain’s book. “You won’t be able to read it,” he said. “It’s written in the phonetic, and it’s on some kind of very durable paper. I was hoping I could figure out where it was made, but I’ve never seen anything like it. The content seems to be an encyclopedia of the non-grishnard species of Wefrivain. It’s informative and has some details that are not common knowledge. There’s a whole chapter on Maijha Minor.”

  “Why do you think he left it?” asked Gerard.

  Silveo hesitated. “A mistake? I really don’t know.”

  Silveo did not seem to object to Gerard’s recruiting, although he did talk to each of the new Police himself and had Farell assess their maritime abilities. He made jokes about pulling the better sailors out of the Police into the Watch, but Gerard didn’t think he’d really do it. Restocking the galley slaves turned out to be more of a problem. Mishael Holovar kept very few slaves and no rowers. Even the larger port in Malabar only had a slave auction every other red month. Gerard doubted they would find a decent complement of rowers before returning to the Great Islands.

  Still, they were not badly off as they sailed toward Mance. Their sails, rigging, and masts were in excellent condition, and they continued to make small, nonessential repairs as they went. Most days the Fang echoed with the pounding of hammers and the scrape of saws. Silveo even insisted on retouching the paintwork, and he found gold leaf for the figurehead and trim.

  He occasionally took the Meerkat and sailed with Farell and a few officers to nearby islands. He came back from one with a collection of gaudy mother-of-pearl earrings, necklaces, and bangles, with which he was absurdly pleased. He brought Thessalyn so many beautiful shells that their cabin soon grew cluttered with them.

  Gerard worked with his new recruits in the mornings, read to Thessalyn in the afternoons, and listened to her play in the evenings. His arm healed where Silveo had cut him during the storm, and the bruises around his ribs faded. Sometimes he flew with Alsair to nearby islands and brought back interesting edibles—specialties of various regions. Alsair was no longer trying to hide aboard ship, although he often went off alone to hunt or stretch his wings. Silveo usually ignored him, but twice Gerard overheard him ask Alsair to fly ahead and look for something.

  Gerard had not attempted to tell Alsair the story Silveo had told them on Holovarus-4. He didn’t think it would change Alsair’s opinion. Also, although Silveo had never said so, Gerard felt that the story had been related in confidence and he had no right to share it. Silveo had worked hard to kill everyone who knew that story, and Gerard doubted that anything other than Thessalyn’s magic could have drawn it out of him.

  She mentioned the picnic from time to time in reference to other things. One day she said thoughtfully, “Silveo can’t stand to be touched, can he?”

  Gerard would not have thought of it, but as soon as she said it, he knew she was right. For all Silveo’s vaunted promiscuity, Gerard couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone lay a hand on him in public. He remembered how the admiral had recoiled the first time Thess tried to hug him and how he’d nearly stabbed her the second time. Gerard’s attempt to pick him up in order to save his life had ended in blood.

  “He’s afraid of so many things,” said Thessalyn, “but he’s so good at hiding them, no one ever knows.”

  “Shinies,” said Gerard. “Make it flashy enough, and no one will look too closely.”

  As they neared Mance, Gerard spent more and more time with Thessalyn. He’d grown accustomed to having her nearby, and he was dreading her imminent departure. She seemed to understand this, while at the same time feeling excited about revisiting her school. She had many friends there and Gerard doubted she would miss him as much as he would miss her. Their days slipped away in sun and salt and sweet, and then they were back among the holdings of the Great Islands.

  They stopped in Mage—a holding of Mance—and procured what Silveo described as “a splendid team of wave beaters”—about half of them leons and the other half big shavier. They arrived in Mance’s largest harbor town, Solamade, in fine form with even the minor damage from the storm repaired and the ship sanded and gleaming. Mance was the premiere island for learning in Wefrivain, with eight different schools. It was also the banking capital, with more cowries stamped there than anywhere else. One could trade a variety of other currencies for cowry coins in Mance, including the flat cocoa bean from the Lawless Lands and the strange velum currency of the Sunkissed Isles.

  Thessalyn’s school was on the far side of the island, and Gerard took her there himself early on the second day after their arrival. Silveo handed her a large package before they left. “Open it later,” he said, and turned away before Thessalyn could even try to hug him good-bye.

  Alsair was small for carrying two, although he could do it in an emergency. Gerard hired a big pegasus for Thessalyn and himself, and put her belongings on Alsair, who grumbled about being treated as a pack animal. As Gerard expected, Thessalyn’s friends and teachers welcomed her with excitement. They had not been on the school grounds for a quarter watch before she’d received half a dozen invitations to stay at various homes. Several of her younger classmates admired Gerard as though he were a new and attractive accessory, which made Alsair snicker and Thessalyn blush.

  They stayed the night in the home of a favorite instructor. Thessalyn remembered the school grounds and surrounding town well enough to walk them almost as though she could see. She took Gerard to several favorite spots and introduced him to so many enthusiastic scholars that departure the next morning was almost a relief. He kissed her good-bye, told her to enjoy herself and he would see her again soon. Then he started a leisurely journey back to the Fang with Alsair. Gerard did a little recruiting in one of Mance’s small towns. He thought he’d managed to generate some interest with a number of educated shelts and encouraged them to visit the docks the next day or to apply in Lecklock within the next few months.

  He got back to the Fang late on the second day after he’d left and went to ask Silveo how long they would be in port, so that he would know what to tell the shelts he was recruiting. Silveo, however, was not in his cabin, and Gerard noticed that the ship was unusually quiet and tense. Upon questioning
Farell, he learned that Silveo, who never spent the night ashore, had disappeared two days ago.