by Adrian Selby
I listened to myself as I told him that the threat Eirin and I would pose at the Auksens would keep Khiese’s eye away from them. That Eirin needed someone who knew the Auksen lands, and I might make the difference to her crew getting out of here alive. That if I failed I really would give up and follow them back. I listened to myself say all those things and he nodded at the right times. He didn’t look at me, his hair fell forward hiding his expression as he stared out at the fort as the clan went about its morning. I stopped talking.
“There was a night,” he said, “nearly a year ago, during the planning of this expedition. I’d said something about lumber, how if Omar could secure the Bloody Gully you might get larch for the cords from the Kreigh clans straight onto the Crith and cut out three tolls and the usual shit Crutter’s men try on. We were in the greet room and you were making a fire. Mosa came in and helped you and I thought you hadn’t heard me. You gave him a puff on your pipe and he coughed and was nearly sick.”
“I remember it. He wanted to know why, if it smelled like cherries, it didn’t taste like them. He kept hiding that pipe from then on, and then I lost it. I’d had it since Marola.”
“You were never cross with him about it and I know how much it meant to you. I loved you for that. But two months later you came home from a run to Elder Hill and pulled out from your pack a contract with Two Cock Crawtte for your barges to pass through the gully. You thanked me for the idea.”
“I enjoyed thanking you.”
He reached out to put his hand on mine.
“You never hinted that you’d heard me, but you’d spent months securing that contract. I felt then that nothing would stop you. And nothing will stop you.”
His hand on top of mine kept me still. He took a deep breath before turning to me.
“Keep safe, bluebell. Come home. You’ll know you did everything and we can make other plans. Me, Thad and Thornsen, we’ll help you build an empire to rival any in the north. Then we’ll make Mosa master of your fleet, maybe even of Hillfast.”
I couldn’t help a tear getting free. It was the thought of Mosa grown up, being taller than me. I needed him to be proud of me, and it would take time. I thought perhaps Aude was teasing me out of my course of action by not standing against it. I couldn’t be sure, for really he was cleverer than me.
“Ma, Da!” Mosa was below us, at the bottom of the ladder.
“Climb up,” said Aude.
“What brings you up here, young man?” I said.
I helped him up onto the wall, and he looked out for a moment, pleased to have a view across Amondell and into the trees and hill that flanked us north and west.
“The wagons are ready. Chalky told me to tell you.”
Aude and I looked at each other then. He picked Mosa up and sat him in one arm, his legs around Aude’s hip.
“Your ma has something else she needs to do. Something dangerous, so we can’t be with her. That’s why we’re going back home.”
Mosa reached his arms out to be held by me, and I held him up in the air before bringing him down to a hug. He’d been running about again, his neck hot and damp with sweat against my cheek.
“Are you going to drink a brew and grow big and strong to fight them?”
“I might have to.”
He scratched my head with his fingers, he loved the feel of the stubble there. I blew into his neck, which made him squeal.
“Captain Eirin and her men are coming with me and Thad. You’ll have Sanger and Yalle and their crew to look after you on the way home.”
“Is Drun coming with us, and his da?”
“No, they’ll stay here. This is their home. They’ll be safe behind these walls. Will you keep your da safe for me?”
“No, Ma, he’s bigger than me.”
I held him for another minute, the moments seeming to quicken to our parting. I put aside the fears that slithered into my thoughts as I closed my eyes to better breathe him in. I felt better to know they was heading home.
I watched them all leave a short while later, our van rolling out west, having settled the scrolls with Yalle and Sanger. Mosa waved all the way till the trees took them. I turned back and saw Eirin lining up her crew for drilling the Forms.
I took my place in their line and become a soldier again.
Chapter 7
Now
Cherry, my vanner, left us, heading to Ablitch as I asked, to send birds and raise the alarm about Khiese up at Elder Hill, Faldon Ridge and Hillfast.
She’s a good woman, seemed to have become good friends with Leyden, them promising to meet up back in Hillfast someday soon for a few ales and pipes.
Leyden’s said they’re looking for women who paid colour all about Port Carl. This won’t be easy. Steid Carlessen is still the chief. His sister is Othbutter’s keep and he exploits it richly. And Othbutter. He has a finger up the arse of every merchant and half the herders that come to market. Othbutter might well think he’s getting a good slice of the take, but that’s a joke.
I call to Leyden, who’s leading his horse on the riverbank beside us. “We’ll pull in shy of the jetties. Best to go in on the trails, fewer eyes.”
Three days since we left the docks and we’d found a measure of peace. I’d taught Brek a few stretches for his shoulder and he was in better spirits. Dottke chattered almost constantly, asking questions of me and Leyden, or she was humming and singing, teaching Aggie the words to one of their churning songs that the women of their theit used to harmonise on. Even Leyden joined in. I was able to talk to Jorno a bit more in those days as well, reminding him we was getting closer to his ma. He didn’t say much back. Today, after Leyden got us some cheese and eggs from a theit we passed, we dragged the boat to the shore for the final time.
“You should go on ahead, Leyden,” I says. “We can’t waste any time, and if there is a purse up for me, you can’t be seen with us.”
“We don’t know the tide, might be I’ll come find you if there’s no boats leaving till the morrow.”
“Go ahead then, tell Carlessen what’s happened to the Kelssen theit and theits further north in his own lands. Then find a way around the coast.”
We stand in a meadow of cotton grass, out of the trees that crowd the banks. In the distance on the side of a hill a line of people lead packhorses along the main trail as it rises, beyond which is Port Carl.
“Sillindar follow and guide you, Master Amondsen, you and these children. I hope I’ll see you again one day.”
I embrace him. “Give my love to Thornsen and everyone back at the sheds.”
The children all embrace him in turn and he has a quiet word with Dottke, no doubt to look after us all, for she nods sternly.
We follow him up to the trail and up the slope towards the port. As we crest the hill there’s a breeze unmistakably off the sea, a cold that only the sea can give the air. Before us are Carlessen’s main export to the Old Kingdoms, lobelia and greymint fields, vivid blue and green, a patchwork of fabulous rugs over the soil this southern clan enjoys. The air’s full with the sound of bees, the smell of tea and jams, a summer smell that lifts our spirits as we follow the trail winding down the slope towards the port. There’s few guards out here, making it easy to filch some leaves and lobelia seeds for my belt. I cut a handful of mint leaves and put them in a square of linen, soaking them. Brek puts the compress to his shoulder and a smile flickers across his face as he feels the mint seep into his shoulder, cooling and softening it.
“I never knew you could use mint for this,” he says.
“Knowledge is power, Brek. Knowledge can help a small power always overcome a much greater power.”
Port Carl squats against the river to our left, its jetties like spiders’ legs fanning out. The port is up from the coast and the sandbanks there, somewhat safe from the pirates of the Sar. It’s mid-afternoon when we reach the port itself, many wagons passing us as they leave the market for the day. The children on the wagons look down at us, some wave, others a
re pulled into the laps of their mothers for we are filthy. As we get closer the noise of the port builds: horns are blowing on the river, whistles and shouts come from the docks as trade turns to cups and pipes. The mint in our noses gives way to the dung of pigs and deer, deep sticky furrows of it, pools of mud that suck at our boots as we hold hands and thread our way through into the streets proper. These are the fisherhouses and sheds, builders and smiths’ shops.
“What’s the matter?” says Dottke looking up at me. “Your hand’s shaking.”
How could I tell her that I could barely stand to be here, my heart’s pounding? I haven’t been in such a crowd since I left Hillfast. Had solitude for so long all this is overwhelming me. I can’t look at anyone without feeling sick, like I’m being judged or assayed, circled, somehow guilty. I try to stone my breathing with all this chatter, these narrow runs and people pushing past us, leaning into each other to whisper. I can’t bring myself to believe they’re not looking for me, that there won’t be whiteboys. A horn sounds then, deeper than theirs but enough that I swear and stop still. Poor Dottke hisses and I realise I’m squeezing her hand.
“Sorry, Dott. I’ve spent such a long time alone, up in the Mothers. The last people I met before I found you all and your theit were, well, the last was trying to kill me, and those who live in those passes also would have killed me if they’d caught me, for everything I ate I took from the mouths of their own.”
They had nothing to say. Aggie leans into my leg now I’m stood still.
“Where are we going?” asks Brek.
“I told Jorno I would look for his ma—any of that man Gressop’s friends might have her—and I need to find the whereabouts of almshouses. Aggie, I bet you’re hungry as well?”
“I am, Blackie.” It’s nice to see Litten smile a bit, for Aggie was always on at me for food and it had become a joke among us.
“But we’ve got nowhere to stay and no coin,” says Jorno.
“I’m going to look out for someone what’s paid colour like me, might be they’ll have a bit more sympathy for us all than fearing the colour like most nokes do. I don’t exactly look like a soldier these days either, I don’t look flush.”
Truth to tell I looked like a lot of old mercenaries I used to wonder at when I was in my prime, thinking back then they’d made bad choices for themselves. I’d give them a bit of coin though not, at first, from choice. It was my friend Ruifsen, who I hadn’t seen for a good few years now, who told me that even those who paid out was always paying the colour, and you should help them where you find them, when they can’t help themselves.
We go through the market, now only a dribble of people closing up. I’m spat on from an open window above us, a whorehouse, and a prostitute’s cussing me for a slaver of children. Brek’s about to shout back at the man when I shush him. Dottke tugs my arm to lower it and she wipes the spit off with her sleeve.
“Ach,” she says, “there’s black bits in it.”
“It’s blood, little bluebell, that man’s not well.”
We find a well in an open square and queue a bit, filling our flasks. Carlessen at least has the good sense to keep the wells free next to a river. I’m looking about us for someone who’s paid out and I see a man leading a big old draft pulling a cart on which are kegs of sati, the sweet, lemony smell of its juniper strong both in my nose and a wavering blue in my eye. He’s a big man, must do his own tasting, but in looking at him and closing my old eye, I see a man at ease, honest, but how that comes into my mind with the altered view of him I can’t say. He has a big old leather apron and a grey beard, a wolf’s tooth through his ear he must have grown the hole for. His colour’s faded with the years, olive now.
“Hail? Common?” I call and walk over to him.
“I never seen such a horse, Blackeye,” says Litten. He’d said in the boat that he used to love riding out with his da, when we was all talking and me trying to get them to go through their upset, not hide it away and let it rot their spit and spirit as I’ve seen it do.
“Her name’s Feather, for she was a bag of sticks as a foal, I’m told.” He nodded at me as he said it, by way of saying hello, and he spoke Common at Litten, which answered me.
“If they wasn’t walking free I’d have said you were a slaver, not a very successful one either.”
“I’d rather kill myself. I’m Eirin,” I says.
“Nirdde.” He lifts Litten up onto Feather’s back. The boy’s delighted, and Aggie puts her arms up to follow him.
“You and all? Why little dut, you’re naught but a tunic full of feathers yourself. Is that one behind you your brother?” Aggie looks at me and bows her head, running Feather’s mane through her fingers.
“We need somewhere to stay, Nirdde. Their theit was raided, they’re all that’s left alive. They’re from upriver a week or so, Kelssen Family.”
“I see. I’m sorry to hear it. Explains how you all look, if you’ll forgive. I got nowhere though, I sleep in the sheds myself as I’ve got little need of a house I’d never visit, but there’s a spot against the wall the kiln’s against, has a bit of overhang should it rain, and it tastes like it might soon enough.”
I smile. “I knew someone said he could taste the rain coming. We’re grateful for your help.”
“Where’d you serve?” He starts walking and the children fall in.
“Farlsgrad, then further south.” I don’t want to say too much, don’t want to lie to him either. “You?”
“Forontir, Argir. Lot of troubles around their borders years back as you may know. Ran some vans with Legger Black along the Lagrad borders, to Tirinmoth and up as far as Alhglish.”
“Legger himself? My old Forms master taught him, a few years before me. There’s stories there. Headed into the Wilds and never come out again, I heard.”
“Same.”
I wait at his wagon while he drops off three of the kegs at a flophouse. There’s a cheer as he enters and he’s had a mug with them by the look of his beard when he returns. The rest was empty, and we follow him back to his brewery. His trade makes him a popular man, so I walk the far side of his wagon to where he’s leading his horse. I need a cap from somewhere, something to hide this scar across my lips that’ll give me away.
We’re soon at his brewery. A big archway runs through his storehouse, which stands on the edge of the lane, beyond which is a yard leading to his two sheds, one for the malting and one the fermenting. He has some quiet words and gives instruction to a few of the men waiting to help him with the wagon and Feather. He gives Litten some hazelnuts to give her as a thank you, and he pats her head and seems right at home with her. She drops her head at his words.
“Get that boy a mouthpiece, he’s a natural,” says Nirdde.
“Seems to be,” I said, thinking of how Mosa struggled to make a good soothing sound out of a singer’s mouthpiece, our horses bolting rather than settling with him.
“I’ve got to get on, fair bit to do with the gruit and juniper, and a barrel of wort to be pitched before I get to my mat.”
“Can you fetch me a candle? I got some bark needs oiling.”
“Course. Need help with it?”
“I’d be grateful. This eye needs doing as well.”
It isn’t long before he’s done and hands me back the melted bit of stick. There’s a few comments from his men who are watching as I lift my shirt, but they’re soon pulling faces as he rubs the end of the stick over my Oskoro eye. He also gives me a couple of furs for the duts, and I lead them around the side of his shed into the alley there. It’s short, only two houses opposite before there’s a wooden fence closing off the end. A woman opens a shutter and closes it again on seeing us. There’s some swearing at a man in there who seems to cut her short with the scrape of a chair I’m guessing he’s stood up from.
“It stinks here, Blackeye,” says Jorno. He’s right, the brewery’s sickly smell is mixing with the shit around us slopped out from the houses. My wounds feel better, but lik
e these children I’m struggling with how hungry I feel.
“We’ve got to make the night here, just the one. I can get you to the almshouse tomorrow.” I put the furs over Aggie, Litten and Dottke.
“Can you come in there too with us?” says Dottke.
“They won’t take someone like me or they’d take every beggar. I can’t give you a life, can I, Dott? Look at us, sitting in the shit here with these flies and no food. You know what Leyden said, there’s people after me. If you’re with me when they catch me I won’t know what will happen to you, and in an almshouse you’ll be fed and have a mat of your own. Let me show you something Leyden and Cherry give me the night before she left us. You was all sleeping.”
Out of my sack I take a scroll. “They know their letters as I do. This scroll says that the almshouse that takes you will receive some coin every month for as long as you’re there. That’ll persuade them to take you in.”
We squat down against the wall, the brick warm at our backs from the kiln behind us.
“How can anyone drink beer when it stinks like that?” says Brek.
“I used to say that and all. But life might get harder than this, if you can believe that, and for people who hate their life or have a lot of sorrow, they might tell you beer makes it all go away for a while.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t see the point if all your sorrow comes back the next morning.”
“Me either. Right, we’re a bit out of the way of any militia down here, they’ll be on the jetties and around the main lanes and sheds. I need to get us something to eat. We’ll get nothing proper if we’re on the lanes, we’ll just get hurt by the militia moving us off. Brek, you need to look out for the others.” I take my knife from its scabbard. It’d be more use for whittling than killing but was better than a fist that hadn’t ever punched anything properly.
“I in’t ever used a knife, Blackeye,” he says.
“I know. Hope you won’t have to, it’s just in case someone does take a look in here and think they can try something. I won’t be long.”