I went to the window. It was late morning and the sun was still glistening on the sodden foliage in the garden below. I leaned out to relish the feel of it on my face and sent a probe to Ceirwan. I found the farseeker on his way to the kitchens to meet Elkar and Cinda to take them to visit the farms.
‘Introduce them to Katlyn and Grufyyd,’ I suggested. ‘They might even remain and take midmeal with them. I daresay Brydda will do the same and they can come back to the house with him afterwards. Nightmeal is likely to be somewhat later than usual for us, given that we are to have a guildmerge at dusk.’
‘You ken that already? Good. I have sent a rider down with your missive and message, and Tomash, Wila an’ Sarn are clamourin’ to talk to ye as soon as ye will it. I just saw Tomash an’ Wila headed for the kitchens. Do ye want me to send them up?’
‘Tell them to get their food and bring it up to my chamber. Ask them to bring me a bite to eat, too, would you?’
‘Elspeth, ye mun tell Rushton about Dragon as soon as possible,’ Ceirwan said.
‘It turns out that Rushton knows about her already. I forgot I had told Merret and she told him. Then he told Gwynedd and Dardelan and they have had people out looking for her.’
‘When did ye speak to him?’ he asked diffidently.
‘Just now,’ I said calmly, shielding my emotions. ‘He is hoping that Dameon will find Dragon in the west and bring her back with him.’
‘Maybe he will, for she might have gone to Oldhaven, if it was the only place she could remember,’ Ceirwan sent.
Wila and Tomash arrived carrying papers and maps but without food, explaining that they had not wanted to waste time waiting in the kitchens, but had asked Javo to send something up for us.
‘We must wait for Sarn, though,’ Wila explained earnestly, ‘because although I did most of the finding and copying out of the dream-book entries that touched upon the Red Land, and Tomash was down in the lowlands culling every bit of information he could from shipfolk, it is Sarn who has been putting our research together. She has a genius for it, truly.’
They were setting out their maps and papers still when there was a light knock at the door. A young farseeker entered, struggling under the weight of a tray laden with food. Tomash hastened to help him spread it out on a table by the fire, as I praised the lad. He listened to me in terror and all but bolted after blurting out his thanks. Wila gave me a look of amusement as I urged them to help themselves, then I told them bluntly Dragon’s identity.
‘Matthew knew it!’ Wila cried, half starting up from her seat. ‘In the dreams he kept referring to Dragon and the Red Land in a way I could never understand until now.’
‘Maybe he dreamed of you discovering it in Dragon’s mind,’ Tomash said, pushing his dark curls absently back from his face.
‘I think it is simpler than that. There are carvings of the queen where Matthew now dwells, and they strongly resemble Dragon. As far as I can tell, it was seeing them that let Matthew guess the truth,’ I said.
Wila gave a huff of excitement and abandoned her half-filled plate of food to rifle through her notes. She read out a true dream in which Matthew had gazed in shock at an immense wall carving of the Red Queen in the main square of the Red Land settlement. Then her eyes narrowed and she looked at me. ‘This was your dream?’
I nodded and Tomash said, ‘No wonder Matthew went from trying to force the Redlanders to rise against their oppressors, to plotting to steal a ship. I bet he was planning to fetch Dragon and bring her back to the Red Land!’ Then his face fell. ‘But what if he escapes before you arrive?’
I shook my head. ‘Since Matthew likely dreams of those he knew at Obernewtyn just as we dream of him, I think he probably knows that we are mounting an expedition to the Red Land, and given that Rushton and the others know Dragon’s true identity, he might even know that she is to come with us.’
I was unwilling to tell them that I had made contact with Matthew and that I had commanded the farseeker not to try to escape, because we had both been on the dreamtrails at the time. In truth it had been a brief and unstable encounter because Matthew’s presence there had clearly been the result of illness and he had no control over himself. I was not even sure if he had taken in my command. I had striven several times to reach him since, but unless Matthew learned to build a spirit-form consciously, the chance of meeting him again was slight. More recently, I had given up trying because of Atthis’s warning to avoid the dreamtrails.
‘Do recent dreams suggest that Matthew is still looking to steal a ship?’ I asked after a pause.
‘They don’t, in fact,’ Wila admitted.
‘Then he must believe we are bringing her,’ Tomash said. ‘It would be an ill thing, truly, if he were killed trying to escape. But here, what will happen if Dragon is not found before the ships have to leave?’
‘She must be found and she will be found, since both Dell and Maryon have foreseen that she and I will be together in the Red Land,’ I said firmly.
I had forgotten that neither of them knew I would take part in the expedition, and I let them gape at one another as I busied myself laying more wood on the fire. It struck me suddenly that if I was going to strive on the dreamtrails for Atthis, I might just as well try again to reach Matthew as well. Of course, the chances were slim that the farseeker would be in spirit-form at the moment I was seeking him, but if he could be warned of our plans he could prepare the enslaved Redlanders for the arrival of their queen.
Musing on the way in which a sick person could take on a spirit-form without consciously willing it, it occurred to me that a wounded person who was deeply unconscious and near to death might also drift close enough to the mindstream to shift spontaneously into spirit-form. If Angina had taken on a spirit-form without ever knowing it, and had come to me in his dreams, what had he been trying to communicate when he had asked me to use a black sword to save his sister?
Sarn arrived at last, grey-streaked hair tied carelessly back and her arms full of notes. The lines of concentration between her brows were deep as she set down her papers and began without preamble or greeting to explain that she had organised the information collected by the others into two main categories. One concerned the route to the Red Land, and the other was information about the Red Land.
‘I would hear the information you have that concerns the journey to the Red Land first,’ I said.
‘Remember that most of what I will tell you is drawn from dreams,’ she warned me. ‘That means any or all of my conclusions or extrapolations could be wrong or at least distorted. Some comes from gossip, which might also be untrue or exaggerated. The smallest portion comes from stories told by shipfolk, and of course this might also be exaggerated. But I have tried to make sure that all of the information I have incorporated has at least two sources.’
‘Go on,’ I prompted. ‘Start with how long the journey is likely to take.’
‘If all goes smoothly,’ Sarn said in her measured and slightly pedantic way, ‘the journey from the Land to the Red Land should take no more than three moons. It would take less time if the ships were able to cut across the open sea, but without a map to show the route, that is impossible. Our ships will follow the coastline of the vast landmass, of which Sador and our Land are a small part. The weather ought to be relatively mild until the Days of Rain set in, though given the weather of late, they may have come early this year. This is unfortunate because if the ships sustain any damage, the repairs will have to be made at sea, for the land beyond Murmroth goes immediately to black coasts and there is no possibility of landing.
‘There are a few inlets and little harbours where the ships might take refuge from weather, however, and where it would be easier to make repairs, but there can be no foraging on the land. Nor would it be wise to fish in waters so close to tainted land. The plan is to carry everything the ships and their crew need to reach the Spit, but if there is a delay because of the weather or the need for repairs, there will be no way to a
dd to supplies. This means food will have to be rationed right from the start, since three months of food for such numbers will fill every finger of hold space. Incidentally, the weight of the supplies will make the ships more stable, but they will also sit low in the water, which will make them more vulnerable to high seas.
‘There is also the problem of fresh water. There is none to be had between the Land and the Spit, which means that all water must be carried. Unfortunately the ships cannot carry water enough for the length of such a journey, but the one certainty of travelling at this time is that it will rain and so the Land ship and the Norse Stormdancer have been fitted with rainwater tanks in the hold.’
‘Would it not have been better to have located the tanks on deck where they can catch rainwater directly?’ I asked.
‘The weight would be too great,’ Tomash said. ‘The ships would be top-heavy. I saw the tanks being put into Dardelan’s Voyager when I was in Sutrium. Rainwater will funnel into the tank through pipes running from huge waxed canvas buckets, and they will fill it very swiftly.’
‘What of the Sadorian ships?’
‘It was Bruna telling Dardelan that Sadorian ships have such tanks that made him arrange for the other two ships to be fitted out with them,’ Sarn said. She glanced down at her notes again. ‘The first stage of the journey ends when the ships come to the tip of the land known as the Spit. It is actually the tip of a long peninsula, which juts out from the end of our landmass and features a great, queer, wave-shaped rock. Most of the peninsula is darklands which eventually run back into Blacklands.’ She gestured to Tomash.
‘As you know, darklands are what we call Blacklands that have regenerated enough to be capable of supporting some mutated forms of plant and animal life,’ Tomash said. ‘There are patches of it here and there all along the black coasts, but since there is no way to tell how badly tainted they are the ships will not be able to stop there. The darklands around the Spit are supposed to be only lightly tainted but they are inhabited by some kind of savage mutant animals. The Spit itself is untainted but it is so salty that little grows there other than wiry dune grasses and low scrubby shrubs. However, there is a spring of fresh water that pools at the base of the wave rock. Further round the coast from the peninsula, the land goes back to black coasts and by all accounts the deadness goes on for thousands of miles until you come all the way back around to the Land and Sador. Of course no one knows for sure since no one has ever gone the whole way round.’
‘Tell me about the Spit settlement.’
‘There is no settlement,’ Sarn said. ‘Shipfolk go there only to get water and to trade. Each day there is a temporary market and at night everyone returns to their ships because the misformed beasts that dwell in the darklands behind the Spit venture out seeking water and prey.’
‘Only at night?’ I asked.
‘They cannot tolerate the sunlight, apparently,’ Tomash said. ‘It burns their eyes and their white skin.’
‘Why would these sea traders choose such an inimical place to buy and sell slaves?’
‘Exactly because no one claims it,’ Tomash answered. ‘Trading elsewhere would mean abiding by the rules and lore of that place, paying taxes or fines or fees. And what settlement would invite visits by traders who were also slavers? At the Spit the only rule is that all payments and exchanges arranged that day must be finalised by dusk. But more than slaves are sold or bought at the Spit markets,’ he added. He glanced apologetically at Sarn who nodded for him to continue.
‘I mean, ships do go there primarily because of the slave trade, but although gold coin is the commonest mode of payment, certain fabrics and dyes, rare ferments, fine jewels, medicaments or drugs of various kinds and even special handiworks are also used as payment. Slavers can take some of these goods in payment, knowing they can make a profit from them in their own lands. Others take their payment in coin and then use some of that to buy goods.’
‘I presume temporary stalls with these wares are set up as in Templeport?’
Tomash huffed. ‘I forgot to say that food is sold as well. Not just for eating but food to replenish stores for the journey home. Apparently each ship used to carry what it needed for the entire journey, which meant less room for slaves or trade goods, and if a trip took longer than planned, the crew might well starve. But in time, ships from closer lands began to offer food for trade at the Spit, knowing they could sell it for a good deal more than in some more hospitable place.’
‘Tell me, if you can, why the slavemasters bothered going to the Spit when they have an enslaved population in the Red Land?’
‘There is nothing to suggest it in the research but my guess is that the Gadfians were in the habit of going to the Spit markets to buy and sell slaves before they ever knew the Red Land existed,’ Sarn said. ‘I think a storm blew one of their ships onto the Clouded Sea, which lies between the Spit and the Red Land, and they managed to blunder their way across it to the Red Land. Or maybe they followed a Redland ship, though I doubt the Redlanders would have gone to the Spit, for there was no slavery in the Red Land until the invasion. But however the Gadfians got there that first time, all the shipmaster needed to do was to keep an accurate record of the journey, and it could later have been used to make a map. The slavemasters then invaded and took over the Red Land. By all accounts the Red Queen was a civil woman and no doubt she had treated these slavers well while they connived with her consul to overthrow her. I do not know whether the consul had any notion that the slavers meant to take over the whole of the Red Land, but that is what happened. Once they had control, there would have been no reason for the slavemasters to bother with the Spit markets, save maybe to sell off the occasional load of troublesome slaves. Better to turn a profit, after all, than to simply kill rebellious Redlanders. But in recent times the slavemasters have been attending the Spit markets again, trying to buy as many young healthy male slaves as they can.’
‘You refer to the order for a great number of slaves placed by the White-faced Lord,’ I said.
‘There have been many mentions of the distant land of the White-faced Lords, and their ruler.’
I nodded absently. ‘I suppose we must assume that no matter how many the slavemasters purchase at the Spit markets and offer from the Redlanders, they will not get enough to fulfil this order, else they would have no cause to invade us. Do we know exactly how many slaves the White-faced Lord wanted?’
Sarn shook her head. ‘At least two thousand. An army of slaves.’
‘What I can’t help wondering is why the slavemasters agreed to take such an enormous order in the first place,’ Wila said, buttering a slice of bread. ‘Did they really think Salamander’s ships would bring so many slaves from the Land?’
‘Maybe they did, in which case Salamander’s arrival with the news that the supply from the Land has been cut off might be the very reason the slavemasters decide to invade us,’ I said.
Tomash looked thoughtful. ‘The thing that puzzles me though is why this White-faced Lord did not go directly to the Spitmarket rather than using the Gadfian slavemasters as intermediaries. It would cost a good deal less, surely.’
‘The slavemasters have many hundreds of young male Redlanders they can offer to start with, while the envoy would have to spend many moons at the Spit to come up with two thousand slaves,’ Sarn said. ‘And where would these be housed and how should they be fed and watered? The White-faced Lord who placed the order might have sent a fleet of ships to hold them, since that is what it will take to transport the slaves back to his land anyway. But those ships and their crews would have to sit idly at anchor for months while the slaves were collected, or shuttle them the apparently vast distance to their own land. Coming to the Spit would mean crossing the Clouded Sea, which is by all accounts a dangerous stretch of water swathed in perpetual mists and studded with stone teeth capable of biting a hole in the hull of a ship.’
‘And only the slavemasters know the way across the Clouded Sea,’ Toma
sh said, eagerly.
Not only they, I thought, for the Beforetimer Cassy had made that same journey in the other direction. Probably the Red Queen had given her a map to show her how to negotiate the mists and shoals of the Clouded Sea. It was even possible, I thought suddenly and with a touch of excitement, that this might be the information Cassy had carved into the safe-passage statue in Saithwold.
Wila said, ‘They may not even have known about the Spit to start with, since the ships from the land of the White-faced Lords originally came to the Red Land looking not for slaves but for a rare ore that is mined there. The White-faced Lord aboard made an agreement with the slavemasters to collect a load of it once a year. Over time, the White-faced Lords’ envoys began to show an interest in Beforetime books and maps and specialty slaves – that is, slaves with specific abilities.’
‘Talents?’ I asked sharply.
She shook her head. ‘Slaves with a gift for calculation, or those who could scribe well or had a gift for building things or designing them. They would pay very well for slaves like that, or ones that could draw things that looked real, or who could dance or sing or play an instrument exceptionally. The slavemasters began seeking such slaves at the Spitmarket, knowing they could be resold at a profit to the envoys of the White-faced Lord. After the White-faced Lord came to the Red Land, an envoy was sent to collect the ore whenever necessary.’
‘But it was the White-faced Lord that ordered the slaves?’ I asked, thinking of my dream.
She narrowed her eyes. ‘As far as we can tell, that was only the third time a White-faced Lord had come to the Red Land, and it was not the original one. The one that ordered the slaves was young while the original White-faced Lord was an old man.’
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