'I heard something about that.' Kheda didn't dare look up and meet the man's eyes. 'What do you reckon to Daish Sirket's chances, if he is to be warlord?'
'If he's as much his father's son as Daish Kheda was son to Daish Reik, he should be strong enough to stand up against anything short of outright wizardry,' said the merchant stoutly. 'I shall hold to that thought next time I sharpen my blade, to sharpen the lad's luck.'
'Any portent that comes unsought and unheralded is likely to be of the greatest significance.' And how often did Daish Reik tell you truth often speaks through chance-heard words?
'Is there any word of this magic coming north?' Kheda asked, tension knotting in the pit of his stomach.
'No.' The merchant shook his head with welcome certainty. 'Not with the rains due any day'
Kheda smiled warmly at the man. 'Let's see what the shells have to say about your voyage to Endit waters.'
He threw the shells and looked up with a smile. 'I'd say you'll have fair winds to take you there and good fortune when you make landfall.'
'What are you at, friend?'
Kheda looked up to see three other men walking up the beach towards them, their attention caught by the only activity on the beach. Like his new acquaintance, they were evidently merchants who sailed as their own shipmasters.
'Having my fortune told. Our friend here's a soothsayer.' The merchant narrowed his eyes against the bright sun. 'I reckon I'll be under way before the day's end. There's no trade to be had here.'
'I'll probably follow you,' shrugged one of the shipmasters, wearing an Endit dagger with its sharply back-bent blade. 'We only had each other to deal with yesterday and it doesn't look as if we'll do any better today.' Wiry rather than muscular, his beard and hair were freshly plaited and he wore white cotton robes immaculate despite the inadequacies of the campground.
'If we all stay, we may yet tempt some of the Ulla people down from the hills,' protested a second, thickset man with grizzled hair and beard, his voice gravelly with years of shouting over wind and wave. Kheda noted a Taer blade with its deer-hoof handle at his belt. 'All we'll be sure of if we leave is sailing back home with a full half of the cargo we set out with. Where's the profit in that?'
'Endit Nai may not be thrilled to see me report such paltry trade but at least I'll be able to promise him a voyage as soon as the weather clears, with plenty of goods all ready to ship.' The dapper merchant had plainly made up his mind. 'And maybe this uproar in the south will be past,' he added with a meaningful look at the Taer shipmaster. 'I imagine that's one of the things keeping the Ulla people close to their huts.'
'There's no word of that kind of trouble anywhere north of Chazen,' protested the Taer man.
'What does the soothsayer say?' The third galley master stood, weight on his back foot, arms folded as he watched the other two argue. All three wore the same style of clothes, sleeveless tunic and trousers like any other sailor, but his were of better cloth, better cut and embroidered sea serpents coiled around his shoulders. He was also as much of a barbarian as Sain's slave Hanyad, though younger, barely Kheda's age. The sun had burnished his skin to a coppery sheen and lightened his hair to a dull gold, as unexpected among the dark heads all around as a Mirror Bird suddenly alighting in their midst.
'Can you tell us when the first rains will arrive?' demanded the Endit shipmaster.
'Can you tell us if we'll prosper for a longer stay here?' interrupted the Taer merchant.
'I can read the auguries for you,' Kheda answered calmly. 'Whether I will or not depends what you can do for me in return.'
That silenced the Endit shipmaster and the Taer merchant both.
'What do you want?' asked the barbarian, amused.
Time to test your luck, Daish Kheda.
'Passage north.' Kheda was momentarily disconcerted to see the man had green eyes, not unlike his own. 'I am no rower, you can see that from my hands, but you have my promise that I'll do my best. I can carry water to your oarsmen, take a turn for a tired man, tell you everything I see of the weather and seas ahead.' He poured the shells from one hand to the other again.
'I don't think my rowing master would thank me for you.'
Kheda wondered if the Endit shipmaster had some reason to look so suspicious or whether it was just a habit.
'I can take you to Tule waters,' offered the Taer shipmaster grudgingly.
'How far north do you want to go?' asked the barbarian. 'We're an Ikadi ship and bound for home.'
The other merchants looked at him, surprised.
'He's the closest thing we're going to find to an augur on this shore,' the Ikadi captain pointed out. 'You can go looking in the villages if you like, but even if you find someone who can read you the portents, it'll cost you dear, you know that.'
Kheda was searching his memory for any mention of the Ikadi domain.
How far north is that? Nearly all the way to the unbroken lands? This has to be an omen in my favour. You were right, my father. Seize an opportunity and you can make your own good luck.
'I'll travel as far as you are going.' He smiled at the barbarian. 'And read the weather and the auguries for you all the way.'
'You've certainly got a good trade out of that.' The Taer shipmaster looked at Kheda with disfavour. 'What will it cost me for your insights, now I can't offer you passage?'
'A pair of trousers,' Kheda said boldly. 'A tunic, not new if you can't spare them but clean, if you please.'
'We should have had our pick of four or five soothsayers on this beach,' grumbled the Endit merchant. 'Last time there was that one with the chest of crystals and a silken star map to cast them on.'
'This time, there's just me.' Kheda smiled at the man. 'And if you want any warning of foul weather or anything worse coming up from the south, it'll cost you a bowl and a spoon and a water skin.'
'If your father was a soothsayer, was your mother a trader?' chuckled the eastern merchant who'd first befriended him.
Kheda winked at the man. 'Of sorts.'
'Oh very well,' said the Endit merchant with considerable ill grace. 'It's a deal for my part.'
'If there wasn't this uproar in the south—' The Taer shipmaster broke off. 'All right.'
'Did you all share the same fire?' Kheda stood up and hitched his bundle up on to his shoulder.
'We did.' The Endit merchant looked dubious all the same.
Kheda led the three galley masters and the friendly eastern merchant towards the camping ground, stopping at the first blackened circle. 'This one?'
'And all our crews gathered firewood,' the Ikadi barbarian confirmed.
'Then we can take the augury here.' Kheda bent to pull a half-burnt stick from the ring of rocks and used the charcoaled end to score a circle on the ground. He went on to mark every quarter and arc in full, carefully drawing the signs for each constellation around the outside. When he glanced up, he saw the Ikadi shipmaster consulting a small compass.
He nodded approval at Kheda. 'You have north exactly.'
Kheda grinned. 'My father taught me well.'
'What now?' asked the Endit merchant impatiently.
'Tell us the prospects if we stay on this beach in hopes of more trade,' said the Taer shipmaster quickly.
Kheda was about to cast the shells on to the circle, when a sudden thought held his hand.
You could give them any reading you wanted. You're not Daish Kheda, whose every pronouncement will be talked over, compared with previous utterances, your words scrupulously examined in the light of whatever events might later confirm or contradict them. No one will ever see a resemblance to the Daish warlord, once glimpsed on a distant trireme's deck or in some splendid procession aglitter with silks and jewels. You're nobody, a soothsayer they'll likely never see again.
Nobody but still a man with power. Not Daish Kheda's power but power all the same. You could foretell the direst consequences if they stay here, and not only for now, but if they ever return. You could predict disaster f
or any ship venturing into Ulla waters between now and the return of the dragon star to signal the new year. These mariners would pass the word to their fellows; they wouldn't dare not. You could do untold harm to the Ulla domain, with just a few well-chosen words. Beggarly oracle you may be but what reason would such a man have to lie?
'Well?' The Ikadi shipmaster looked intently at him with those green eyes so like his own.
No. I won't forswear myself even for the sake of revenge on Ulla Safar.
Kheda lifted his face to the blazing bowl of the heavens as he cast the shells and then looked down.
'There's certainly no wealth in your futures here,' he said with some surprise. That arc of the earthly compass was entirely devoid of shells.
'How so?' The Taer shipmaster stared at the ground as if he expected to see words writing themselves in the dirt.
'What will the future bring?' demanded the Endit merchant.
'Travel, for all three of you. Honour, for two.' Kheda pursed his lips. 'Friendship, for the third.'
'Which of us would that be?' enquired the Ikadi barbarian.
Kheda glanced at him. 'I cannot tell, not without making individual readings.'
'What else do you see?' The Endit merchant was still gazing at the shell-strewn circle.
Kheda considered the rest of the shells. One lay within the arc that signified health, open side up, another close by within the arc of children. Without knowing more about these men, it was impossible to say whose family they might signify. Closed face up, the last had fallen into the arc for siblings. All three were at the midpoint between the centre of the circle and its outer edge.
'Your families will be glad to have you home again,' he said firmly. 'The sooner the better.'
'I hardly need a soothsayer to tell me that,' scowled the Taer shipmaster. 'Not that they'll be pleased to welcome me without my lord's favour to see us fed through the rains.'
'Better safe at home if a little hungry than drowned with a belly full of salt water. That's plain enough for me.' The Endit merchant sighed heavily.
'I suppose that earns you some cast-offs from my rowing master,' grunted the Taer shipmaster grudgingly. 'I'll wait for a better choice of soothsayer before I ask anything more.'
'Your word's good enough for me.' The Endit merchant smiled with better humour. 'I'll send your recompense to the Springing Fish, shall I?'
'If that's the galley I'm shipping on,' replied Kheda with a glance at the Ikadi barbarian, who nodded his confirmation.
'As you say, it's plain enough we'll not prosper here.' The Ikadi captain bent to gather up Kheda's shells, handing them to him with a smile. 'Bee!' His sudden shout turned heads by the shade trees. 'Let's make ready to get underway while we still have the tide in our favour!'
The crewmen from the other galleys didn't wait for their shipmasters' orders but immediately started collecting themselves and their gear, piling things on the sand by the water, a plain signal to the ships to send rowing boats ashore.
The eastern merchant nodded a friendly farewell to Kheda. 'My thanks for your reading of my path. I hope your journey prospers, and here's my payment for your augury, with my hopes that you find what you've lost.' He handed Kheda a small gold chime, the kind Janne liked to have hanging in her windows for the breezes to stir.
Startled, Kheda couldn't find a reply before the merchant moved away, calling out to his boat for his second in command to come help pack away their merchandise. All the lesser merchants were taking down their awnings now, wares packed back into their coffers and waiting to be hauled back on to their little ships.
Kheda turned the little gold bell over and over in his hands, spirits rising.
You did Ulla Safar a bad turn after all, and no need to dishonour yourself to do it either. You've passage further north than you could possibly have hoped for and a gift to give Janne on your return. What more proof do you need that you're on the right path, that your quest will prosper?
'What can you tell me of the rains, friend, if we're sailing today?' The Ikadi shipmaster looked quizzically at him.
Kheda tucked the bell securely inside his quilt bundle along with the twist of sea ivory and studied the skies. A tracery of white was spun out over the islands hiding the southern horizon but there was no hint of anything more substantial, no hint of the fine milky veil that would turn the sky the colour of mother of pearl, before the rising storms turned it the dour hue of an oyster's shell. Walking towards the shore, he looked for the run of the surf past the reef, the colour of the water out in the open seas. Turning to the land, he picked out the telltale perfume trees in the tangled scrub above the beach. Their leaves were curled, silvery undersides showing. The liquid song of a glory bird floated out over the trees, its mate joining in with a charming harmony.
'There'll be the afternoon hot wind and the evening showers but there's at least three more days before the first true storms arrive,' he said confidently.
The Ikadi shipmaster's forehead wrinkled in thought. 'Which will see us well into the main strait through Seik waters. That's sheltered enough for us to row through all but the worst weather. So, friend,' he added. 'If you're crewing on my ship, I'll know your name.'
'Cadirn.' His mother, Zari Daish, had had a body slave called that when he'd been little. The name had been close enough to Kheda's own to catch his attention most times she'd called.
'I'm Godine.' The Ikadi shipmaster walked towards one of his galley's boats, drawn up on the shoreline to load up their goods. 'We don't go much south of here,' he continued casually. 'But I wouldn't care to get on bad terms with any of the warlords. On the other hand, there are some warlords I wouldn't care to deal with, not given the way they treat their people.' He gave Kheda a meaningful look. 'Their people who don't have the choice to pack up their pots and pans and take a ship to the next island if they don't like the rule they're living under. If there's a domain where you'd better stay aboard whenever we make landfall, I'd appreciate knowing. You need not tell me any more than that.'
'My—' Kheda bit his lip, thinking fast. 'I have enemies; I will not lie to you. They think I am dead, but perhaps it would be as well for me to stay out of view until we are clear of Ulla or Endit waters, Tule too.'
'I was a slave,' Godine smiled with apparent inconsequentiality. 'You can see that much by my eyes and hair. Ikadi Nass bought me and my mother from Mahaf Coru's father. I was too young to remember much about that life, and my mother won't ever talk about it, but she has always told me we were lucky to be sold as we were. She'll carry lash marks to her grave, that much I do know.' He shot a sideways look at Kheda.
'And you rose to become master of that ship, the Springing Fish, is it?' Kheda looked at the galley to avoid meeting Godine's eyes.
'My mother bore Ikadi Nass a daughter, so we were both made free.' The mariner smiled, proud. 'My lord found me a place on his galleys and I haven't looked back.'
'Unless there's a storm coming up astern,' commented Kheda with a smile.
Godine looked at him, face serious. 'I'm hoping you'll be warning me about any storms coming up from the south, of any nature.'
Kheda looked at him. 'I will do all that I can.' That much was no lie.
'Good.' Godine gestured towards the galley's waiting rowboat. 'The first thing you can do is learn how to use an oar.'
Chapter Twelve
Has any other warlord ever learned the art of rowing, three men to an oar on a merchant galley?
Kheda leaned over the thick wooden shaft, ducking his head to try and see out of the leather-shrouded oar port.
'So this is Beloc domain? What's it like?' They had reached waters Kheda barely knew by reputation, never mind accurate accounts. 'Whereabouts are we? Is this a central isle or somewhere on a border strait?'
His companion on the narrow seat on the Springing Fish's rowing deck wasn't listening. 'Why does Rast have to pick now to change ships?' he grumbled, broad mouth downturned. 'We'll get some fuzz-faced youngling who'll be gri
zzling for his mother before we've gone a day's pull.'
How many warlords realise just how many men travel the Archipelago like this, taking ship for a few days, slipping ashore to find another heading in the right direction?
Kheda studied his own hands, palms now as hard as any galley master could wish. He ran a cautious finger over the shiny round scar of what had been a vicious blister.
Well, almost. Better get some salve on that crease or it'll crack again.
'If we don't get someone to take Rast's seat, you'll be bellyaching about doing two men's work, I suppose,' the man across the aisle commented.
I really did expect the rains to lift Ialo's mood; everyone else was a new man once the heat broke and we got cool winds to help us north instead of that dragons breath scorching us from noon to dusk.
'I should be taking a prow oar by now, working with the experienced men.' Ialo glowered at the backs of the men idly chatting on the foremost benches. 'I shouldn't be wasted back here with you island-hopping rabble.'
'I've been rowing merchant galleys since Asyl Nian first gave me leave to quit his domain.' The man across the aisle was indignant. 'Anyway, you came aboard three days after me. I'll be moving forward before you do, pal.'
'Reading your own fortune in your hands, soothsayer?' queried the oar port rower from the bench behind Kheda.
He smiled. 'I think we can all see our futures, until dusk at least.'
As he spoke, a whistle shrilled at the far end of the long, dark deck. With resigned sighs and discreet groans, the foremost rowers slid along their benches and began filing along the gangway between them.
'Shift yourself, Ialo.' Kheda's oar mate was still slumped on the seat.
The heavily muscled man looked up, sulky. 'I might change ship here. Rast was all right and you're willing to learn but why should I be landed with some kid who'll just want the splinters picking out of his arse?'
The inboard rower from the bench behind gave Ialo's shoulder a shove. 'Shift your own arse before it gets my toe up it.'
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