by Mark Eller
After kicking one more stray lump into the fringes of the main pile, Faith decided she had done her bit toward cleaning up. She headed for the main deck and to hell with the owner having to deal with the filth of a dust covered shoveler. The most they could do was refuse her a recommendation. It wouldn't break her heart.
Besides, Brenda Montpass was a passenger on the main deck. Faith found herself more than a little interested as to where the dear gal was going and exactly who the one-time jailbird wanted to see.
* * *
Brenda Montpass leaned against a dockside rail, her eyes panning over a bay filled with moored ships and wind driven dory's. A moderate breeze rippled through her hair, caressing it with invisible fingers Armand wished were his own. Something wistful and yet tense about her pose spoke of powerful feelings and emotions held in check by an unnatural calm.
Even more than he wanted to run his fingers through her hair, Armand desperately wondered why she had come to Halimut. Stepping up behind her, he paused as the smell of her natural perfume rode the salt laden sea breeze to surround him. After a few moments, he moved to stand beside her. Leaning his folded arms on the top rail of the dock's fencing, he allowed his gaze to wander over the green sea, seeing flying gulls, hearing the musical slap of small waves lapping about the dock posts.
Kerlew Kerlew
Brenda stirred. Moving his gaze to her, Armand saw she watched him.
"I forgot to bring my racquet," she said.
"Mine's in storage."
"Are you following me?"
Her eyes were steady, unveiled, not at all the type of eyes he usually saw in people with something to hide. They were also, he noted, almost an artificial shade of brown. Small flecks of gold drifted deep within.
Raising a hand from its rest, Armand cocked a thumb toward the ship. "I came in on her. Worked maintenance below deck." Shrugging, he gave her a sheepish grin. "I was a bit short of money so I took the berth."
She cocked one eyebrow. On a younger woman the gesture would have been flirtatious. On her, it was only questioning.
"I'm surprised your wife let you go. I recall you telling me she's a fearful woman." She paused. "Or did she come with you?"
"She came, but she's not the jealous type," he pointed out. "After me all the time, she is. Constantly telling me she needs another hand to help out. If I don't get myself a second wife soon, my little Faith will kill me."
Kerlew Kerlew
The hint of a smile played about her lips. "I believe you're flirting with me again."
"I'm not a very subtle fellow," Armand admitted.
She shook her head. "I think a person needs to listen to you very carefully. I think there's more going on inside your head than you ever admit."
"I admit you intrigue me." Armand glanced back to the ship, catching sight of Faith's coal dark figure coming down the ramp. Fighting back a frown, he hoped his wife owned sense enough to stay back. He had to trust her instincts.
"I'm saving myself for someone," she said.
"Male?"
"Yes and not someone you can compete with."
Armand gave her his best smile. The smile could no longer be called boyish. He was far too old for that. Still, it was one he'd practiced many times over the years. It had bought him attention from more than one woman.
"I saw you with Mister Khante on the ship," he said. "I don't find the man very impressive. He's too thin."
"He's rich and has a living brother," Brenda said pointedly. "Few can compete with a man who has a brother."
"I can try. Dinner tonight?"
Shaking her head no, her expression slowly changed, showing traces of sadness and regret. Her brown eyes seemed darker, and the previously dancing gold flecks within were extinguished. "You don't know me."
"I'd like to know you," Armand said, feeling displeased. This was not working out as well as he would have liked.
"Okay." Drawing herself up, her eyes flicked to a covered carriage pulling up to the dock. When she looked back to him, her gaze challenged. "My name is Brenda Montpass. I'm a spy and a liar, and they say I murdered my husband."
"Did you?" Armand asked, taken aback. The last thing he expected was for her to admit her crimes.
"You tell me."
Brenda's voice remained cool, her manner distant, but when she raised her hand to brush aside an invisible strand of hair, she signaled that Armand possessed her full attention.
He spread his hands wide. "My guess. You're a liar and maybe a spy. You're not a murderer."
"Is that what you think?" She gave him a brief nod. "So tell me, Mister Crowley, am I acting as a liar or a spy when I tell you investigating the Andrews family would serve your agency well. Mr. Khante informs me they have an interesting factory in Efran. He says it's attempting to manufacture explosive powder ammunition."
"I'd say you're being a little bit of both," Armand admitted, "or you've been deceived. Either way, there's little I can do about it from here."
"You can write a letter," she said before nodding toward the carriage. "My ride."
When Brenda moved, Armand quickly reached out to touch her arm, staying her.
"Dinner tonight?" he asked again.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Mister Crowley," she answered, "I didn't tell you I never committed murder. You only assumed." Pulling her arm free, she turned and hurried away. The soft soles of her shoes made no noise on the wooden dock boards. Her butt looked very good as she walked.
"Enjoying the view?" Faith asked quietly. She stood at his side, their duffels slung over both her shoulders.
A gentleman, Armand thought, would offer to carry at least one bag. Fortunately, he didn't have a well-bred bone in his body. As her husband, he was allowed to be lazy until she threw a bag at him.
"I am," Armand admitted. "More importantly, I'm wondering why she's in Halimut and why she traveled on the same boat as us."
"Me too," Faith answered. "Time will tell…or it won't" She gave a brief look at the sun, gauging the time by its position. A small, amused, smile played about the corners of her mouth. "Just curious. You do realize, don't you, not many people in Halimut speak Jut?"
"There'll always be someone nearby. After all, Jut's the language of trade and the sciences," Armand answered, but he suddenly realized he understood nothing being said around him.
"The main language is called Swinese," she said. "It's one of the romance languages, based on a bastardized rendition of Laitan." Her smile grew larger. "I know Laitan. It shouldn't take me long to figure out the local variations."
Armand smiled back, though he started to feel uncomfortable. He had known Halimut didn't adhere to the idea of Jut as a universal language, but Jut really was the language of trade. Knowing this made him comfortable about accepting the mission when it was first presented to him. At the time, he had not realized Faith would one-up him on the communication end. Her private school rich-bitch education ensured she would soon be able to speak to almost everyone. Armand's pick-it-up-where-you-can-but-don't-get-too-ambitious-about-it education ensured he'd be lost without Faith's help.
He held out his hand. "Honey, those bags look heavy. Let me carry them, and we really need to find a room with a bath. You can soak for a couple hours while I rub your back." He shook his head. "I can't believe how hard they made you work. It's practically inhuman."
* * *
Bang Bang Bang Bang
Whirrk Whirrk Whirrk
"I need another support joist here. Hand the thing up."
"Hang on a minute! I have to finish cutting it first."
Whirrk Whirrk Whirrk
"There you go."
"About time."
"Takes longer to cut them than it does to pound them in."
Feeling pensive, Autumn looked around, seeing a hotbed of activity. The area was crowded with people, boards, stone, scaffolding, and everything else needed to build major buildings. Women and men worked with a dedicated singularity inspir
ed by an unreasonably large pay scale. Already, Autumn was surrounded by the completed outer stone walls of the university complex. Those walls, she had been told, had taken more people to build them than would the entire rest of the university. Her father insisted on them for security reasons, though Autumn didn't see the need since the books the university owned would only be copies. Besides, its role during these beginning years would be to teach Johnny to read, not to educate people on how to make earth shaking discoveries. No Chin, living or dead, possessed a decent education.
Still, Autumn had come to realize the university was like the city of New Beginning. One day they would both be interesting and needed. Because of this, they were being built to last hundreds of years. After looking over the plans a week earlier, she silently admitted her father had put a lot of thought into the place. More importantly, he'd hired a very skilled architectural firm to design both the university and New Beginning.
She supposed it was only natural her father took such exacting care. After all, New Beginning would one day be the governing center of his empire. In fact, once the university buildings were completed, finishing the government offices was the top priority. She supposed the only reason they were not already completed was because the Chin Empire had very few public employees.
She counted the people she knew of on her fingers. Her father and Melna, of course, Patton and Aybarra, Mister Linley was the Minister of Trade, and Missy was the Finance Minister. She supposed Heralda was part of the inner circle, too, though the clanswoman hadn't shown up anywhere around Autumn or her father in the last three years. As Autumn understood it, Heralda wandered from tribe to tribe, healing where she could and acting as an ambassador for the emperor when she could not.
Oh, yeah, there was Ard Chuck and also the war council, but the council members were really just hired help, on board to deal with a serious situation. This being the case, Autumn figured the entire Chin government consisted of eight people, only five of whom actually lived within the Chin borders more often than not. All in all, not a lot of heads and hands to run an empire consisting of a couple million people spread over a very large segment of land.
Then again, as emperors went, her father was rather powerless. More of a figurehead than anything else, she guessed. The tribal yermod ran daily affairs, made the decisions, and pretty much set the course for when the tribes would meet to settle differences.
Autumn willingly admitted she was not the brightest person she knew, though she'd have argued the point fiercely before meeting Melna. Even so, she was smart enough to know Helmet Kline and the Chins set her father up as emperor because they wanted to use him. Resource and money poor, most of the Chin loyalists were more than willing to grab a chunk of her father's riches. After putting Aaron Turner in the driver's seat, they demanded he furnish them with all the trappings an empire needed.
As a result, her father was building them a city, using more than two thousand workers he paid from his personal accounts. He also paid for all the supplies. When the city was finished, the Chins would most likely accept New Beginning as their just due and not bother saying thank you.
Snorting, Autumn admitted to herself she might be just a little bit prejudiced since she had yet to meet an actual Chin. She also felt irritable from living in a tent while perfectly good houses were being used by even the lowest paid workers. Maybe she was wrong, but she did not think it right the emperor's daughter slept on a cot while the workers slept in real beds.
Autumn grimaced. Sometimes her father was so self-effacing she wanted to scream with frustration.
Well, at least her tent-mate didn't snore. When Leona Harbor fell asleep, she only grew quieter.
"Miss," a voice said acidly, interrupting her train of thought. "I hate to bring this to your notice, but the truth is I've always been better with a saw if I actually had something to cut."
"Oh. Sorry." Autumn looked down at the board in front of her, wondering why her mind so often wandered. She set the straightedge along the board's side, lined up the marks, and drew her penciled line.
Releasing a grunt, the sarcastic woman took the board with a grumble. Autumn couldn't blame her. For the woman to mark her own work would have been much more efficient, only the owner's daughter was bored and had begged for something to do. Maybe in a few days Mister Grebfax would give her something more entertaining, such as nailing wooden support joists or cementing together stone walls. When she originally asked for a job, Autumn hadn't pictured it as something so simple. This was nothing more than make-work to keep her happy.
Only she wasn't happy. She felt bored.
To Death.
In answer to her silent pleas, she saw Grebfax enter through the front gate, a trim, professionally dressed woman by his side. He peered around and then led the way toward her, making only those small detours needed to keep from tripping over one pile of debris or another.
"I need a four by ten marked off to sixteen feet," a man's voice said from behind her shoulder. Autumn turned to look at him, seeing the Lorn fellow, the one all the women swooned over. A flash of Talent raced through her mind, giving her a vision of Lorn grown twenty years older, balding, and running toward flab. He sat at a table with a child of about ten beside him. They looked at a piece of paper with equations on it.
"Here, you measure it. I'm done with this job." Autumn handed him her tape and pencil, feeling good because her vision had shown laugh wrinkles around the man's eyes.
He accepted the items, and she went to meet Grebfax.
"Just the person I'm looking for," Grebfax said. His face was covered by a faint sheen of sweat, and his hair was damp. "Our visitor wants to meet you."
Autumn gave the woman a welcoming smile while trying to work out exactly who she might be. Her slacks and blouse were expensive but also practical. Her heavy work shoes were buffed shiny brown. They looked well-made and comfortably padded, but not one scratch marred their surface, so they were new bought things, barely worn. Not surprising since the woman had the appearance of city about her.
A hand thrust in her direction.
"I'm Amanda Bivins, your father's lawyer." The woman's voice flowed smooth and even, sounding much younger than the forty years she looked.
Surprised, Autumn almost did not accept the offered hand. "Miss Bivins? What are you doing here?" Suddenly realizing the impression she gave by those two questions, Autumn grew warm. "I mean what a surprise it is to see you. My father has spoken fondly of you on many occasions, and I visited your home once, but you weren't there, only Miss Dandledge and Chase were."
"And I'm sure your father has spoken less than fondly of me on many other occasions," Bivins replied, raising one eyebrow. She released Autumn's hand. "My life-partner thought I needed a vacation. I couldn't think of anyplace else I wanted to go, so I came here."
"But how?" Autumn exclaimed. "The next caravan isn't due for another week."
"Did you know your river runs from the ocean all the way to your river bank?" Amanda asked.
"But there's no shipping to the outlet. The passage isn't clear."
"Sweetheart, I bought my own ship. It dropped us and a steam driven boat off at the river mouth. Only took us a week to get from the ocean to here. The entire trip from N'Ark only took twenty days."
"Twenty days," Grebfax repeated, his expression slightly stunned. Autumn understood why. It took the caravan more than a month to travel from Efran to New Beginning. "But Daddy says the river's unusable. There are too many rapids and shallows."
Humor glinted in Amanda's eyes. "Must have been a while since he had anyone out that way. I've had a crew working on the problem for more than six months. Planned it as a birthday present for him."
"He'll be surprised," Autumn said, an obvious understatement.
"I hoped he would be. I like to give him a little surprise every now and again." Amanda turned her head, allowing her gaze to travel over the grounds. "So, this is what he's been building. The place is shaping up."
&nbs
p; "There isn't much here for relaxation," Autumn noted. "Your vacation will be rather dull."
"Miss Turner, I've spent the last several years mostly sitting on my butt. I'm willing to entertain myself with a little manual labor."
The pained expression on Grebfax's face was worth a month of Autumn's allowance. She could almost see little mice scrambling around on his mental hamster wheel as he tried to think of some unskilled job this aristocratic lady could do.
"Well, I'm tired of make-work," Autumn said emphatically. "What do you say we take the rest of the day off? I can show you around the place while we get to know one another."
"Sounds good," Amanda Bivins answered. She crooked her elbow, and Autumn looped her arm through it. Tilting her head back, Autumn looked up into the older woman's face. Amanda's features were curious and friendly, showing not even a trace of the condensation Autumn expected from adults when they looked down on her twelve-year-old body. Amanda's friendly eyes were refreshing. Without knowing why, Autumn found herself grinning at the older woman. Amanda's grin answered back.
"Can we be friends?" Autumn asked impulsively, and then the world around her disappeared. She caught a sight of Amanda, her face seamed with age, drinking pale coffee from an oversized cup.
Shaking the vision away, Autumn hoped it would come true, but her visions only meant a particular outcome was likely. The future was always in flux, the further away an event the more so. Nothing was ever fated to happen, but some things were more likely than others.
"We already are friends," Amanda answered. "Let me tell you a couple stories about your brother. Just a week before I left he…"
* * *
"It's dark," Amanda noted. Her slacks were no longer pristine clean. Juice from bruised leaves and almost ripe berries marred the material. Crouching, she gazed into the dark depths of the low roofed cave. Autumn had been in the same position often enough to know what the older woman saw. Pretty much nothing. The opening only went in for a few feet before the passageway curved.