by David Drake
The sailor guarding Sharina put two fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill whistle. She turned on him. “Why did you do that?” she snapped.
“Sorry, mistress,” the man said. It wasn't an answer, but she knew by now it was as much answer as she'd get from him. She strode briskly along the shore in the direction Nonnus had gone after they ate together.
The Inner Sea was dotted with tiny islands. Few of them had fresh water, but they provided places for ships to lie overnight and their crews to sleep on dry ground. Many were covered in vegetation to the tide line. This one had a luxuriant growth of fig bushes, though the fruit would probably be small and bitter even in late summer when it had ripened.
Sharina noticed the flicker of red light only when it ceased. She stopped. She couldn't let herself understand what it meant, not yet. For a moment she wriggled her bare toes deeper into the sand for the familiar gritty feeling; then she walked on.
When Sharina had crawled from her tent there'd been a rosy haze toward the islet's northern edge. It was too faint to have crossed the threshold of her consciousness, but her country-trained senses were aware of it.
When the guard whistled, the light had vanished. That change in the previous ambience struck her though the mere fact of the light had not. The light was the sort of tremble-at-the-back-of-the-eyeball Sharina had seen in the past when a wizard worked.
She clasped both her hands about the hilt of the Pewle knife: not as a weapon, but as though she were in prayer.
A figure came out of the darkness ahead of her. “Sharina?” Nonnus said. “You're up early, child.”
“We both are,” Sharina said. The brush rustled. Some islets had populations of goats or pigs, landed in former times to provide meat for future travelers. This place had only rats. “I was having a dream, so I got up.”
Nonnus nodded. “I was checking the weather,” he said. His voice and manner were those of the man Sharina had grown up with, the hermit who prayed every day to the Lady to be forgiven for his past. “We'll have another fine day. We should make good time.”
“As before?” Sharina said. “With half the rowers resting and changing shifts on the hour?”
“Yes, that's the best way to cover a long distance quickly,” Nonnus said. “It's hard on the crew, but these men are trained for it.”
“Where are we going, Nonnus?” Sharina said. “Please, can't I know now?”
They'd rowed east ever since they left Pandah, but Sharina couldn't guess how far they'd traveled. This driving progress by men rowing watch-and-watch would confuse even an experienced sailor, she thought.
“Not yet, child,” Nonnus said. The sky had become enough lighter that she could see the square, familiar lines of his bearded face. “You'll have to trust me.”
He gestured Sharina to turn. The arc of his arm cautiously avoided the Pewle knife she held before her. “Come, we'll see if there's porridge on the fire, yet.”
“Nonnus?” she said in sudden surmise. “Don't you want to take your knife back? I only carry it in...because it helps me remember you.”
“I don't touch iron since I returned to help you,” Nonnus said smoothly. “You keep it if you like, though my men and I will make sure nothing happens to you.”
As the sky brightened Sharina saw a shape under the rope belt of Nonnus' tunic. “You have another knife,” she said.
“This?” Nonnus said, lifting the weapon slightly between his thumb and forefinger. His tone barely hinted at irritation. “Yes, but it's stone. Fossil bone, rather. Now let's go back to the ship.”
“Yes, of course,” Sharina said as she turned obediently. The guard stood close behind her. She sheathed the Pewle knife but continued to rest two fingers of her right hand on its black horn hilt.
The stone knife was no weapon: its hilt and blade were carved with symbols of power shaped in the curving style of the Old Kingdom. Sharina felt sick with fury. Did this creature who pretended to be Nonnus think that she wouldn't recognize a wizard's athame?
He hadn't intended her to see it, of course. She'd interrupted him while he was working an incantation, perhaps trying to foresee the weather. As if Nonnus—or any peasant in Barca's Hamlet!—couldn't have told without wizardry that the morrow would be fair!
Sharina had given herself into the hands of an enemy claiming to be the person above all others that she would trust. This islet was too small to hide on, even if she managed to escape for the moment from the men on either side of her.
But Sharina would escape. For her own sake. For the sake of Cashel, whom she'd abandoned because a lying wizard called to her.
And most of all, for the sake of the dead man whose memory she had stained by trusting an enemy who wore his semblance.
Ilna left her door open while she worked, so she heard Maidus running all the way down the hall from the stairwell. She tamped a last weft thread, closed the shed, and stepped out from behind the loom to face the boy when he burst into the room.
“Mistress Ilna!” Maidus said. “There's a man coming up for you. He's City Patrol for sure but he's not from this district. I think he's from the chancellor's office!”
Ilna glanced at the pattern she'd been weaving and saw nothing that concerned her. She frowned. If the chancellor sent an envoy to obtain Ilna's fabric directly instead of going through Beltar's shop, he wouldn't pick someone who frightened Maidus as much as—
“Ah,” she said, smiling with appreciation. “A stocky man of forty or so? A solid fellow, and probably carrying a baton that's seen use?”
Maidus bobbed his head in furious agreement. “That's him, mistress,” he said. “A terrible man!”
“A hard one, at least,” Ilna said. “His name's Voder or-Tettigah. Well, I knew I'd see him as soon as he decided what he was going to do about me. You run along now, Maidus. I won't need you further today.”
She smiled like plaster cracking. “At least for today.”
“What's he going to do, mistress?” the boy asked.
“Go away, Maidus,” Ilna said with wintry calm. “I won't tell you again.”
The boy backed from the room, transfixed by Ilna's cold glare. She wasn't angry, but anger would have been easier to face than this detached analysis. It was like the look on the face of a cook determining where to start jointing a dead hen.
Voder came out of the stairwell even as Maidus vanished in the other direction. The patrol official clomped heavily on the sagging floor, deliberately warning of his presence. Doors along the corridor banged, leaving Ilna's the only one open.
Voder closed it behind him as he entered.
“Good morning, mistress,” he said, glancing around the room in a deceptively casual fashion. He could probably have reported the number of warp threads strung on the double loom in the corner. “The last time I came to see you, I didn't have to walk up stairs.”
He gave her a lazy smile. She didn't see any new scars, but Voder wasn't carrying quite as much extra weight around his belly as he had the day he visited her in the mansion on Palace Square she'd then rented. He'd probably lost the fat when Ilna had him imprisoned to prevent him from interfering with her schemes.
“The last time you saw me,” she said, “I didn't have so many debts to repay.”
She reached behind the loom and brought out the stool at which she worked. “I can't offer you a proper chair, I'm afraid,” she said, “but you're welcome to this. I don't cater to visitors here.”
Voder laughed. “I guess I get enough sitting done in the office, ever since they promoted me off the street,” he said. He rubbed his waistline. “I didn't used to have a belly like this. Of course, I'm not as young as I used to be either.”
Ilna straightened and crossed her hands behind her back. “Master Voder,” she said, “I wronged you. I apologize for that. You'll have to decide on any further recompense yourself.”
Voder shook his head, still smiling. “I threatened you,” he said, “and then I turned my back. I've been off the street too long
or I'd have known better than to do that with somebody of our sort.”
He walked past Ilna to the window. He moved very softly now, despite boots with heavy soles and exposed nailheads. A man kicked with those boots would know it the next morning; or wouldn't, likely enough.
“We draped that hanging you sent us across the wall opposite the stove,” Voder said without turning around. “We spend most of our time in the kitchen, you know. When I'm home, I mean. The wife keeps a room for company, but the Lady help me and the kids if we stick a toe in and muss it up.”
“I gather there's a market for hangings of that size,” Ilna said. “At any rate, Beltar keeps raising his prices on the ones I let him have.”
“I could get a good price for one of my kids, too,” Voder said, turning with the easy grace of a man in control of his body. “Especially the middle daughter. Quite a little charmer, she is. Nobody in my family or my wife's either was that blond before, but I don't suppose that's a question I ought to be looking into too carefully, hey?”
More people than Voder's wife and children had gone through hard times or worse because of Ilna’s actions. That didn't make it any less wrenching for her to look at the man and think about the others she'd hurt without being more than casually aware of their existence.
Voder smiled. He was a cheerful man, one who'd smile even when he slid his cudgel out from beneath his broad leather belt.
“The wife's got kin here in Erdin and so do I,” he said, answering the question Ilna hadn't asked. “They made out all right while I was away.”
He grinned even more broadly. “She always told me I'd wind up on the wrong side of the walls unless I learned to kiss ass better than I did,” he added. “I guess the only surprise for her was when they let me out again and promoted me.”
Voder faced the window again. He cleared his throat before he continued, “Which I wouldn't have come here to thank you for, but since I am here—”
“You've no cause to thank me,” Ilna said harshly. “For anything.”
“Thank you anyway,” Voder said without looking around. “What I came for was to say that there's a couple men asking around for you. Street conjurers, likely enough... but just maybe they're the real thing.”
He turned. This time his smile was forced. Voder wouldn't say the word “wizard,” because he was afraid of calling to himself the thing he named.
Ilna frowned in puzzlement. “I don't know any male wizards,” she said. Her expression changed to a smile of a sort that Voder, at least, could understand. “None that're still alive, I mean. What do they look like?”
The police official shrugged. “The older one, Cerix, doesn't have any legs,” he said. “The other one's a boy. He calls himself Halphemos but he was just Alos when he came here with Cerix a few years ago. Cerix had his legs then, too. They've been gone from Erdin for almost a year, but now they're back looking for you.”
Ilna shrugged in turn. “I haven't the least notion as to what they want,” she said. “You can direct them to me if you like.”
“If you think there's going to be a problem,” Voder said, turning sidelong so that he wasn't quite speaking directly, “they can leave town before they bother you, you know. What you've been doing these past weeks has helped a lot of people.”
“I'm not afraid of them, Voder,” Ilna said. She laughed harshly. “The only thing I'm afraid of are the things I'm capable of doing myself.”
Nodding toward the room which she kept as living quarters, she continued, “Can I offer you something? I have bread, cheese, and some extremely bad wine. Also cistern water that a boy with a donkey brings by in the evenings. My major luxury. I haven't been able to bring myself to drink canal water yet—”
Her face hardened. “Though most of the people in this building have to.”
Voder nodded. “I've drunk my share of canal water,” he said. “I could say I miss the salt taste since I got some money, but that would be a lie.”
He turned his gray eyes directly on her brown pair. “I still sort of wonder what you were doing, mistress,” he said. “Before, I mean. I knew even then that you weren't in it for the money.”
Ilna sniffed. “Let's just say I was making a fool of myself over a man,” she said. “Not a new story, I'm afraid. Or a particularly interesting one.”
Voder nodded. “Well, if you change your mind about Cerix and the other, let me know,” he said, switching the conversation back so smoothly that it seemed never to have left its original channel. “You can get me through the central office. Or at home, if you like. We've got a second floor on Rush Street. My wife'd be pleased to meet you, I think.”
He looked at a corner of the ceiling again and cleared his throat. “Speaking of work,” he said, “there a watch captain here in the Crescent named Bonbo or-Wexes. He's told the chancellor that you're the mastermind of a gang of thugs who've half-killed a number of wealthy citizens while they were passing through the district in their sedan chairs. He didn't get much of a rise from the chancellor, but chances are Bonbo is going to keep trying until something happens.”
Ilna flicked her head in disgust. “Your Bonbo was paying upkeep on his mistress out of the profits of a child brothel in the next building. The establishment is out of business now. Some of the local people took care of that themselves.”
“Your doing?” Voder asked.
“I suppose,” Ilna said. “I'd like to think so, at any rate. I've provided fabrics for the light shafts of most of the tenements nearby. The residents seem to feel better about themselves, and they're willing to improve their surroundings further by their own efforts.”
She glanced out the window herself. “Some of the brothel's clients were roughed up when it went out of business,” she went on. “Not as badly as they should have been, in my opinion.”
She looked at Voder like a hawk facing a wildcat. “If Bonbo is going to be a problem,” she said, “I'd best take care of him.”
“No,” said Voder. “No, you will not do that thing!”
He slapped the window frame for emphasis; his fingers were harder than the wood of the casement. “Look, woman,” he said. “If a brothel keeper in the Crescent gets mobbed, nobody who matters is going to care. Chances are the particular nobles who got caught in that business don't have a lot of friends either. But if you raise a mob against a watch captain, that's revolution. The earl will send in the army if the City Patrols can't finish you off ourself.”
“Well, somebody had better deal with Bonbo!” Ilna said. “Are you volunteering, then?”
Voder's anger vanished in a gust of loud laughter.
“Yeah, I suppose I am,” he said. “Bonbo is Central Office business, that's a fact.”
He slid out his hickory baton, looked at it, and twirled it experimentally between the thumb and two fingers of his right hand. “Well, I didn't drop it,” he said musingly. “It's been a while, the Sister knows it has; but I guess not so long that I can't still teach Bonbo where he should've drawn the line.”
Ilna gave him a curt nod that was a salute. “Just a moment,” she said, walking to a wicker hamper near the door. She set aside the lid, considered the contents for a moment, and reached in with both hands to bring out a packet of considerable size, wrapped in black baize.
“Here,” she said, handing the cloth to Voder. “Master Beltar hasn't been by to pick up the Ten Days' weaving. If you give this to the chancellor, you may have less difficulty convincing him of why it was necessary to deal with Bonbo the way you did.”
Voder took the gift with the grin of one predator to another. “It might at that,” he agreed.
He put the baton back under his belt for the time being. “I'll go about my business, then,” he said. “You know, I'm pretty much looking forward to it.”
Voder opened the door, then paused and looked over his shoulder. “Mistress?” he said. “Does the fellow you mentioned know what he's walked away from?”
Ilna smiled. “He's a special man,” she said.
“He'll be very important, one day. I think he's done better for himself.”
“I haven't seen much of the world,” Voder said. “I never left Erdin in my life. But I've met a lot of people and I'll tell you this, mistress: you're wrong. He couldn't have done better.”
Voder walked out of Ilna’s room, leaving the door open as he'd found it. His feet didn't make a sound on the floor of the hallway, but he whistled a catchy tune about a milkmaid and her cat.
“This water tastes awful,” said the princess Aria. Her face screwed up as if she was about to cry.
“Well, what did you expect?” Zahag said. “Do you think we're back in the Successor's palace, is that it? I think I did pretty well to find anything to drink here!”
“I know I'm not in the palace,” Aria said. “Because of you! Oh, Mistress God, how could you be so cruel to me!”
And she did start to cry. Again. Cashel didn't know where she found the fluid to refill her tear ducts, but somehow she managed.
“Don't pick at her, Zahag,” Cashel muttered. “She's not used to this sort of thing.”
“Oh, and I suppose I am?” the ape snarled. “Well, you can find your own water the next time!”
Zahag flounced to the other side of the outcrop beneath which he'd located the pool dripping between two layers of limestone. He wouldn't go far, Cashel knew; and it was hard to blame the ape for finding Aria a difficult companion. He sighed.
If you looked toward the horizon, the landscape seemed to have a lot of greenery. That's because it was pretty much flat. Tiny leaves of the low shrubs merged with distance into a solid carpet that looked remarkably sparse at any place you came close to.
There was grass: dead, dry stems but in such profusion that Cashel supposed there must be rain now and again. He tried to imagine the terrain after a storm when suddenly everything was lush and green. He'd woven the straw into sunshades for the three of them to carry on poles of brushwood from which he'd knocked the thorns.
He chuckled.