She was eight years old.
He cursed himself; the momentarily human impression of sensuous womanhood, incorrect and dangerous as it was, left him feeling light-headed, weak, as if he had been walking carelessly along an abyss, thinking it merely an irrigation channel, not seeing it for what it really was in the darkness.
Dranth cleared his throat again, louder this time.
“Visitor, Guildmistress.”
Esten turned finally and stared at him, her gaze as devouring as the desert sands that were said to have swallowed the legendary city of Kurimah Milani more than a thousand years before. Dranth gestured into the darkness, motioning the young woman to come forward.
Like a pale ghost she appeared, swathed from head to toe in her light blue ghodin, her face white in the fireshadows. She was trembling, and the tremors redounded through the fabric of her ceremonial garb, making her appear as a ship’s sail on a windy sea. Darks curls peeked out at her forehead, the only part of her hair showing, framing her face.
Esten seized her own long locks and, in a lightning-quick motion, bound them into a knot at the nape of her neck, then stood slowly as the taller woman approached.
“Well, well, this is indeed an honor,” she said, venom dripping from every syllable. “A Shanouin priestess has deigned to come and visit me. How interesting. What is your name, Holiness?”
The tall woman squared her shoulders and folded her arms beneath her flowing garment. “Tabithe, Guildmistress.” Her voice was soft, respectful.
“What do you want?”
The priestess coughed, then nodded an apology for the disturbance. “I have come to beg for the life of my mother-in-law,” she said.
“Ah. And whom would that be?” Esten folded her arms, mirroring the priestess’s stance.
The Shanouin woman coughed again, this time from deeper within, a rattling sound that hinted of red-lung, a common illness among the well-digging tribe.
“Mother Julia,” she said finally.
Esten began to walk in a slow circle to the woman’s left, nodding exaggeratedly. The priestess remained rigid, her eyes toward the firelight, while the guildmistress completed her stroll. Finally Esten stopped directly in front of her. She leaned forward, her face wreathed in a sinister smile.
“Too late,” she said.
The woman blanched but otherwise her expression did not change.
“Truly, Guildmistress? Are you jesting?”
“Truly, Holiness. I never jest.”
The woman was silent for a moment, then inhaled deeply.
“Then may I barter for the body?”
Esten snorted. “I doubt you would want it in the state that it is in, Tabithe; my hair is still damp from washing the blood out of it. I suggest you return to your husband — which of the wretched charlatan’s litter would he be?”
“Thait, Guildmistress.”
“Ah. Well, I suggest you return to Thait and tell him that his impostor of a mother is resting in peace — pieces, actually — and that I did him a favor excising such a blight from your family.”
The pale young woman struggled to remain focused. “I have information I believe to be valuable, Guildmistress,” she said, her voice betraying her slightly.
“Really? That’s interesting. Your mother-in-law did not. Hence her current state.”
The priestess nodded. “I did not have a chance to tell her, or anyone else, this information,” she said haltingly. “I have only come upon it this afternoon; I had gone to Mother Julia’s house to tell her, but —”
“What is this information?” The guildmistress’s tone became suddenly intense.
Tabithe blinked several times, her face otherwise a mask. She inhaled, her lips set in a thin line, then spoke. “For my mother-in-law’s body, Guildmistress?”
Before she could exhale, there was a dagger at her throat, a blade that had sprung forth from the leather sheath at Esten’s wrist. The edge pressed across her gullet to the point of stopping her breath, just before breaking the skin. Esten’s prowess with a blade was renowned, and it was said that, no matter the size or speed of the opponent, once Esten decided to employ said blade, it would sever the jugular before the next beat of the victim’s heart.
“For the continued soundness of your own, Holiness. Speak.”
The woman winced. “I delivered water to the work tent of the Bolg today.”
The blade disappeared, and the priestess exhaled, drawing another ragged breath before the bright black eyes were next to her own.
“What did you see?”
“Very little — the flap was only open for an instant.”
The voice dripped ice. “And why do you think this would purchase the pieces of your mother-in-law?”
“I — I saw the Firbolg king,” the Shanouin stammered. “He was swathed in black garments, his eyes of different colors, the skin of his face mottled with veins. It was an unholy sight.”
The black eyes narrowed. “And you think this would interest me? I know the Bolg king is there, and that he is hideous. Both are common knowledge. You are trying my patience.”
“Behind him the Bolg were operating an enormous drill; there were a halfscore or so of them turning the handle of a machine. It had great metal circles lined with teeth that interwove like weaver’s threads.”
“Gears.” Esten took a step back. “I am listening.”
“I could see the bit,” Tabithe said. “At first I did not realize what it was; I had never seen one of such length and breadth before. It was curved, like a twisted tallow candle, driven into the ground by the machine, not a tamper as we use.”
“Is that all?” Esten began to stalk the dark shadows, disappearing in and out of the light.
“It was made of steel, I believe, Guildmistress,” the priestess said, summoning her courage. “Steel that glinted both black — and blue.”
All the noise went out of the room as Esten stopped pacing. She turned slowly to the priestess.
“Say that again,” she said quietly.
Tabithe hugged herself tighter beneath the pale blue ghodin. “The bit of the drill the Bolg are using is forged of blue-black steel, similar to the thin circle you described,” she stammered. She stood in silence as Esten stared at the floor; what she was cogitating on, Tabithe had no idea, but she could see that the epiphany she was undergoing was enormous.
Finally the guildmistress looked up again; whatever deliberation had been going on in her mind a moment before was no longer reflected in her eyes.
“Thank you, Holiness,” she said politely. “Your information is indeed valuable, and you shall be rewarded handsomely for it.” She turned to the guild scion. “Dranth, reassemble Mother Julia and have her body wrapped in fine Sorboldian linen. Put the body in a wagon for Her Holiness, and deliver to the house of Thait.” Her eyes returned to the priestess as she finished her directive. “Collect from him the lowest delivery fee.”
“Yes, Guildmistress.” The guild scion disappeared into the dark reaches of the guildhall, returning a moment later. “It is ordered.”
“Good. Thank you for the information, Tabithe. I’m sure your husband will be grateful for your efforts, given what stock your family places in the burying of kinsmen and the like.”
“Yes, Guildmistress,” the priestess said.
“Nonsense, if you ask me,” Esten added. “I know that the clan you married into is a superstitious lot, but even your own people have the same silly practices. I never cease to be amazed that a tribe such as the Shanouin, who dig in the earth, laying back the blankets of uncounted bones, can still have a belief in the Afterlife. Tomfoolery, all of it. But enjoy your little rituals, if they make it easier for you to face the inevitability of mortality.”
The priestess bowed respectfully and followed the hands that beckoned to her from the darkness into the alleyway beyond.
When the door closed behind Tabithe, Esten turned back to the fire.
“Dranth, did you make certain that a wide wa
gon was hired for the delivery?”
“Yes, Guildmistress.” He had anticipated the request.
“Good. Please instruct the driver to collect a double fee when he delivers the bodies. And extra for the linen — perhaps as a kind gesture you can wrap Tabithe in blue.”
“It is being arranged as we speak.”
The guildmistress kicked a burning ember that had spattered out of the hearth back into the fire grate with the toe of her boot. “Make certain that you tell the head journeyman at the tile foundry to adjust the schedule to replace the boy, Slith, and Bonnard. I don’t want to fall behind on any orders.”
“Bonnard as well? He knows nothing; it’s a shame to lose so competent a ceramicist.”
Esten turned and leveled her gaze at the guild scion. Her voice, when she spoke, was flat, her words carrying double meanings.
“What do you know, Dranth?”
Dranth swallowed, his eyes signaling his understanding.
“Did you see that she is pregnant?” he asked hesitantly.
“Tabithe? She is?”
“Yes. Hiding it under the folds of her ghodin.”
“Ah.” Her gaze returned to the fire as she pondered the information. After a moment she crossed her arms.
“Her information was useful.”
“Yes, Guildmistress.”
“Perhaps we should be lenient then.”
“If you wish, Guildmistress.”
“Very well, then. No extra delivery fee for the baby.”
14
AVONDERRE HARBOR, PORT FALLON, OUTSIDE THE SLUICEWAY
Port Fallon, at Avonderre, was the largest and busiest in all of Roland; with the exception of modest fishing villages and harbor towns, it was the only port, and the only combined shipping and naval center in the Cymrian Alliance.
Farther south along the coast were Tallono, the great sheltered harbor that had been built by the Gorllewinolo Lirin thousands of years before with the help of the dragon Elynsynos, and the two great western seaports of Minsyth and Evermere in the unclaimed region known commonly as the Nonaligned States. But none of those ports had the size or the open access of Port Fallon. Tallono was restricted only to Lirin vessels, while Minsyth and Evermere were dwarfed by the massive inner harbor of Ghant in Sorbold, which lay to the east above the Skeleton Coast. The combined size of all four was still not quite that of Port Fallon.
In the heyday of the Cymrian Empire, a lighttower one hundred feet in height was constructed at the mouth of the harborway, where the southerly currents of the Northern Sea cleared from the easterly ones of the open ocean. The light from the tower could be seen, it was said, on the clearest of nights by ships as far away as the outer archipelago to the east of Gaematria, the mystical island of the Sea Mages that straddled the Prime Meridian.
In one of the most ambitious engineering projects of the Cymrian era, an enormous sluiceway had been constructed, a floodgate of a sort being formed from the natural curve of the coastline, to keep the tides from damaging the ships in port. What nature had already provided to Avonderre’s coastline was embellished, a new causeway built that turned the harbor into an enormous lagoon, eight miles wide from the outer villages, protected from the elements. In the most virulent of storms, the harshest of winter weather, or even in the wake of a tidal wave that crashed to the north on the coast of the Gwynwood reef, destroying not only the port but the villages nearby, the mighty, bustling harbor of Port Fallon remained unharmed, safe in her natural shelter.
The existence of the sluiceway made the all-but-impossible task of patrolling the harbor achievable; the harbormaster had outposts that flanked the entry channel into Port Fallon from which his large fleet of guidance, rescue, and interdiction craft could be launched. Thus the ships that made Port Fallon a destination were protected both by nature and by law from the misfortunes of the sea; the favorable geography improved upon by Gwylliam’s engineers saved many a ship from sundering in a storm, while the vigilant patrols of the harbormaster and his sailors prevented the more brutal scourge: pirates.
To keep the trade flowing in and out of Port Fallon, the harbor patrol ships were on constant dispatch, routinely trolling for anything entering or leaving the harbor that seemed untoward. Their moorings were on the two causeways to the sides of the harbor’s mouth, so their launchings were easy, and the sea at the sluice was glasslike. It was certainly impossible for them to inspect every ship, check every cargo, even interdict every act of privateering, but by and large they maintained order in the harbor, and that in turn made Avonderre one of the safest and most prosperous headwaters of the shipping lanes the world around.
Avonderre’s wharf stretched along the north-south coastline for as far as the eye could see, peaking in the center at the pinnacle of the lighttower, then gradually diminishing down over the harbor proper, where along the colossal jetty a hundred merchant vessels could be off-loaded at once, in a meticulously choreographed dance of longshoremen, deckhands, barrels, crates, horses, and wagons drawing forth treasures from around the world with the precision of an anthill, only to be equally efficiently reloaded and sent on their way again.
It was this massive amount of seafaring traffic that had made the seneschal decide to risk sailing into Port Fallon in an unregistered vessel, without the papers of special waiver he had represented to the captain that he possessed. In the course of an average day, a thousand ships or more might pass through the waters of the sluiceway. How likely, then, that a modest little frigate like the Basquela, hovering at the harbor’s outer edge, politely waiting its turn in the queue, would be assailed by the harbormaster?
Far too likely, it now appeared.
The seneschal cursed again at the sight of the masted cutter skimming quickly over the smooth waves toward them, signaling them with the harbormaster’s inspection flag.
He glanced around quickly to ascertain that no other ships were within easy sight, then motioned to the reeve, who in turn nodded to Clomyn and Caius. The twin bowmen slid into position at the rail, casually balancing their ever-present crossbows on one arm.
The captain was signaling to the cutter his preparation to be boarded for inspection. A three-man scull was being launched, with two rowers and the harbormaster’s agent climbing into it as the other three crew members on the cutter lowered it over the side. The seneschal could hear their voices on the wind, calling to one another.
“Handsomely, now, lads,” the agent was shouting to the sailors. “Have been in the drink already once today.”
“And you still need a bath, Terrence,” one of the men on board shouted back to him. “You stink of bilgewater and Mistress Carmondy’s perfume.”
“’Twas a rough night,” the agent said agreeably.
Good-natured cursing and laughter was keeping the harbormaster’s crew occupied for the moment. The seneschal turned away from the rail for a moment and stared at the captain, who was chuckling along with the first mate, waiting for the arrival of the boarding party. The captain turned, still smiling, to the seneschal.
“You should lay hands on those documents of waiver, Your Honor,” he said, signaling his crew to lower the rope ladder, though the scull had barely touched the water and was just being cast off. “The harbormaster’s agent will want to inspect them upon coming aboard.”
“I have no such documents,” the seneschal said calmly.
The smiles faded from the faces of the captain and the mate; they both turned in to the wind to stare at the seneschal, the expressions on their faces indicating they thought they had misheard him.
“Pardon, Your Honor?” the captain said.
“I said I have no documents of waiver,” the seneschal repeated, louder this time so as to be heard over the snapping of the sails.
The captain left the rail and came to the seneschal. “I am quite certain you said that you had arranged for waiver before we sailed, sir,” he said, his face growing flushed.
The seneschal shrugged. “Perhaps I did. If I did, I li
ed. I apologize most sincerely. I cannot possibly afford a trail of documents that would lead back to Argaut.”
“What? Why?” The captain’s face darkened from red to purple. “This may be nothing more than a fine for you, sir, but I could have my ship seized.”
“I would not despair of that, Captain,” the seneschal said, nodding to Clomyn and Caius.
“I took your word, sir, as a high official of Argaut, and I am shocked that —” The captain’s next few words were lost in the sound of the crossbows unleashing their bolts.
The brothers had fired three shots each before the mate had recovered enough to gasp; the captain was at the rail in time to see the last of the three sailors on the cutter fall back with a quarrel in his throat. He looked down in horror at the scull to see the agent and one of the rowers, the agent supine, the rower prone, bolts in the throat and neck as well.
On the floor of the scull one sailor remained, a quarrel lodged in his lower spine, his legs useless, as he flailed helplessly in the bilge. Caius laughed aloud and cuffed Clomyn on the ear.
“Blunderer! Cheese-fingers! Look at that!”
His brother shouldered him angrily, aimed, and fired again. The sailor lurched and then lay still. Caius shook his head and clucked in mock disapproval.
“Two quarrels for one man? What a waste! A sin, I tell you. A sin!”
“I could keep my scale of bolts used to men killed one-to-one if I bury my bow’s stock in your forehead, Caius,” his brother growled.
“Hoist the scull, aboard,” Fergus ordered the Basquela’s crew; the sailors stared at the bewildered captain and the horrified mate, then quickly jumped to the rail, drawing the long rowboat to the ropes.