“I don’t foresee a shortage of camels anytime soon,” Alluin said.
They were standing together at the edge of the quay—or Torien was standing, glad for the feeling of solid rock underfoot. The crossing had taken the better part of a week, and he had spent most of it retching into the pot in the ship master’s cabin. Alluin had deposited himself onto a coiling of heavy ship’s cable piled up unused at the water’s edge. He had taken off his helmet and was draped along the coils with his hands behind his head, fingers laced together, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. Through half-closed eyes, he was watching a camel driver assemble his train a little way down the shore, southward past the arched harbor gate. “Wonderful animals,” he said, “and fierce in battle.”
“I’ll recommend your transfer to the camel troops when we reach the fort.”
“Camel troops,” Alluin said. He sat up, suddenly, swinging his legs in. “My father would be proud.”
There was a thin edge of bitterness to his voice—inaudible, perhaps, to other ears, but Torien heard it. He cast a sidelong glance to Alluin’s face, but Alluin was looking down the quay and his face was blank. “When do you suppose the offloading happens?” he said. Despite the clamor of traffic on the quay, he spoke quietly.
“Night,” Torien said.
“You think he’s paid up with the city guard?”
“Possibly. Not necessarily. If not, he’s paid up with someone who knows how to make a diversion.”
“Figure the camel man knows anything about it?”
“It’s worth finding out.”
Alluin’s fingers slipped down absently to his sword grip and drummed a swift, silent rhythm on the ivory. “Now?”
Torien shook his head. “No. I don’t want our Modigno friend getting wind of it. The fort can handle it.”
“Unless he’s paid up with the fort.”
Torien darted another glance to Alluin’s face, uncertain whether he had meant that as a joke, but the question never left his lips: just then Alluin nodded to the ship and pushed himself up from the coils. “The horses,” he said. He reached for his helmet. “I was beginning to think they’d tossed them overboard for ballast.”
They went on foot along the quay and out from the city through the harbor gate and then, mounting, westward over the open sand from the waterside, keeping the city walls close. They would make better time this way than through the city. Besides, he wanted to get a sense of the terrain. Here by the shore, the sand was as bronzed and hard-packed as clay; further out, the wind was kicking it up in swift spirals along the sunburned tops of the dunes—the dunes themselves stretching to the western sky, as far as the eye could see.
The fort lay due west of the city at a distance of perhaps two miles. A strip of wide paved road led between them, running a straight line out from the western gate of the city, flanked at intervals by bone-white stone markers like rows of broken teeth. The road passed close under the southern wall of the fort; then the paving ended and the markers marched on alone westward into the sand. That was the Salt Road. Back at Vione and away from official ears they called it the Blood Road, and he understood this was not only because it poured life into the city Tasso like a heart vein, but also because so much blood had been spilled on it and for it. The Imperial presence here had accomplished little in that regard. The tribes had been slaughtering each other over this salt-rich strip of desert for centuries, and Torien supposed it was typical Vareno arrogance to imagine they would lay it aside by reason of one Imperial fort.
He studied the fort as they approached. It had been built with the administration and defense of the Road as its immediate object; accordingly, it was laid out on a north-south line, its main gate opening southward onto the Road, its heaviest defenses arrayed along the southern and western walls. It was, in fact, an imposing structure—the walls of sun-bleached sandstone blocks wide and deep as he was tall, wind-blasted smooth and seamless as marble, tall enough to be near unscalable. The towers at each corner were half again as tall as the walls. There would be a clear view of the harbor from that height, and of the desert for miles and miles around.
He ran his eyes along the fort’s near wall, the eastern wall, lingering a moment at the base. There were date palms and brushy scrub trees overspreading a broad, shallow basin close by the foot of the wall. He recognized the presence of water. He reined in and glanced back over his shoulder to the city, then in a swift arc across the barren sand around them.
Alluin reined in alongside him. “What is it?”
“Look at the wall.”
“The trees?”
“Fresh water—the only source of it I can see.”
“Convenient.”
“For us.”
“You don’t think the locals appreciate our watch-care over their water supply?”
“I don’t imagine they’ve much choice.”
“Such an elegant way to ensure we are hated as well as feared,” Alluin said.
Torien had expected—in the mind’s-eye image he had been building since Vione—that the Tasso garrison would have the sour, brittle air of men left too long on the fringes, their discipline corroded in salt and sand, their dignity forgotten if not their technical ability in itself. He had seen it before, in men come back to Vione from terms spent on the frontier. They had not forgotten how to fight—in fact, they fought more bitterly and bloodily than before—but they had forgotten why they fought, and that was worse. But—looking around now, as he and Alluin passed beneath the gate arch onto the broad, guttered thoroughfare running north-and-south from gate to headquarters—he saw the fort well-ordered, functioning as smoothly as an oiled blade, weapons and gear polished and ready, men quick to attention, and he was conscious, all at once and painfully, of his own appearance—of the smell of brine and sweat soaked deep into his tunic and cloak and the leather of his jerkin and cuirass; of the fact he had not bathed properly since his first night in Modigne, a week ago.
But there was nervous excitement in him just the same, remembered for the first time since that night in Modigne, as they swung down from their saddles at the headquarters steps. He had asked for this commission, after all. There had been other postings available to him, better postings—more prestigious postings, at least. He might have stayed on to train cavalry at Vione. They had offered him so, and a yearly bonus to the sum of two thousand eagles, and that was nothing in comparison to the bonus offered him by Maris Pavo, High Commander of the Imperial Guard, for accepting a Guardsman’s commission. He had turned down both offers in favor of Tasso. Part of that had been because there was a foolhardy, boyish desire in him for action, for the opportunity to unsheathe his sword and prove his worth in blood, but deeper down and unspoken it was because the Empire had been built not by the Guard nor by the instructors at Vione, but by ordinary folk who did their duty without thought for what they stood to gain from it.
A young lieutenant, in full harness and crested helmet, was waiting for them at the top of the steps.
“Commander Risto,” he said, “Lieutenant Senna.” His voice was assured, proper, but tinged with the provinces. From his blunt-nosed bronze face, Torien suspected he was not full Vareno blood—half Modigno, possibly, or of the islands. He saluted them with a swift upward flick of his right hand, appraising them both in turn. His dark eyes were as keen as a surgeon’s probe and startlingly cold. “I am Lieutenant Tarrega, Commander Espere’s adjutant. The Commander has asked me to show you to his office.”
He had built a mind’s-eye image of Espere, too: a stout, petty, middling officer, shunted away to the frontier because he was no use elsewhere—the sort of man to spend his career behind a desk if he had stayed at Vione. He had begun dismantling the image inside the gate, and he discarded it now completely. Espere was a tough, sun-browned veteran, his stocky legs bowed from long days in the saddle, his fingers deft for the handling of weapons. His tight, wiry black curls had gone to silver-gray here and there; T
orien judged him to be perhaps mid-way past forty. He was leaning against his desk when they entered the office, his right leg stretched out straight to the floor, his left propped up and knee-bent on the edge of the desktop, foot swinging carelessly. He had his service knife in his right hand, a bowl of raw red meat balanced on his thigh. He was cutting up the meat in long strips and flinging it down piece by piece to the floor. A giant spotted yellow cat lay at his feet, tearing at the meat in silent fury, head bobbing, jaws pumping. Its whiskers and the paving stones around it were flecked with blood.
Torien’s hand, racing up in salute, faltered a little. He brought it quickly back down before Espere could see.
Espere did not raise his head from his work. He made no move to return the salute. “Your voyage was uneventful, I hope.”
Alluin found his tongue first. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
“You were lucky.” Espere cut another strip of meat and slung it from his knife-point. The cat lunged for it, rattling the silver chain around its neck. “The Modigno ship was a foolhardy choice. I do not tolerate foolhardiness in my officers. I trust you will remember this in the future.”
Torien risked a glance sidelong to Alluin. Alluin’s eyes met his very briefly, and Torien saw the question there. He shrugged, as openly as he dared. He did not speak. A thin lash of annoyance flicked over him: Espere was deliberately toying with them.
Alluin turned his eyes back to Espere. “Sir, how did you—?”
“The harbor master is under orders.” Espere put the empty dish down and reached for the finger-cloth bundled up beside him on the desk. He wiped his hands and his knife blade. He sheathed the knife at his belt and stood up at last to face them. “He sends me word: every ship, every itinerary, every manifest. I’ve found it a necessary measure in curtailing smuggling and piracy.” His eyes passed dismissively over Alluin and came to rest on Torien’s face. “It’s your custom to let your adjutant speak for you, Commander Risto?”
“Now and then I let him speak his own mind, sir.”
Espere’s face was like stone. “I assume—perhaps too generously—you appreciate the risk to you, Commander, as the son of a noble house—a pointless risk, and one which may well have threatened Imperial security. You’re aware of the sort of demands which might have been made upon your father in exchange for your life?”
Annoyance licked over him again. “No, sir. Perhaps you could elaborate for me, sir.”
“You think this occasion for flippancy, Commander?”
Alluin intervened—dependable, as always. “Sir, we intended to speak with you on the matter of the ship.”
Espere’s eyes did not stray from Torien’s face. “Did you so?”
“Yes, sir. We discovered certain discrepancies in the Modigno’s cargo manifest, sir.”
“Explain.”
“He’s smuggling slaves, sir.”
There was a moment’s silence in which Espere’s eyes swiveled at last from Torien to Alluin.
“We’re not sure how many—or where he plans to market them, sir.” The latter was, Torien had decided, necessary falsehood. They had only Lida’s word now on the mines, and to produce the girl as a witness might well be to incriminate her for an attack on a soldier. “But we know he only paid harbor taxes on three thousand jugs of very bad Galleno. The wine should be criminal in itself, sir, as Commander Risto can attest. He made an uninformed decision to partake and spent the next three days regretting it into a pot.”
Espere had turned away on one heel. He picked up a tablet from his desk and read it to himself while Alluin spoke, his eyes going quickly back and forth across the lines, his face blank. He snapped the tablet shut and swung back around. “You’ve seen these slaves, Lieutenant? Or is this guesswork?”
“We haven’t seen them, sir.” Alluin was unfazed. “We counted the crew. Twelve deck crewmen, the pilot, the cook, the master himself, five slaves. Commander Risto and I were the only recorded passengers. You know harbor regulations require two jugs of drinking water per head per day. A six-day voyage, twenty-two souls aboard—not quite three hundred jugs in total, sir.”
“Yes.” Espere’s voice was cool.
“Sir, the ship quit the harbor at Modigne with nearly eight hundred jugs of water stowed, and considerably less than three thousand jugs of wine.”
Espere’s chin came up.
“He might have a hundred slaves aboard,” Alluin said, “maybe more: it’s highly unlikely he feels compelled to abide by standard water rationing with regard to his contraband.”
Espere’s eyes were narrowed. He was impressed or he was contemptuous; Torien was not sure which. “And how does he intend to dispose of his contraband, Lieutenant?”
“We think he means to move them off the ship tonight. He’ll have bribed the harbor master or the guard, possibly both, or he’ll have arranged a diversion—and I’ve my suspicions about the intentions of the camel driver waiting directly out the harbor gate, but on that matter Commander Risto felt it was best to defer judgment to you.”
“Lieutenant,” Espere said.
Torien had forgotten Tarrega’s presence. The lieutenant was standing half-hidden and noiseless in shadow just inside the office doorway. He drew himself up sharply to attention. The tail of his helmet crest rustled stiffly across the shoulders of his cuirass as he straightened. “Sir.”
“Take a column of twelve horse down to the harbor and have a look at the ship. And at the Lieutenant’s camel train. I’ll expect your report in two hours. I’ll expect it to be worth my while.”
Tarrega’s face was blank. “Sir,” he said. He flicked back his cloak and turned to go.
“Commander,” Torien said.
Espere looked at him; the lieutenant, too, pausing in the doorway to throw a glance over his shoulder.
“Sir, it’s more than a matter of the harbor tax. There’s a chance some of them are free-born citizens.”
Espere did not blink. “You mean some of this contraband, Commander?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You think some of them may have been abducted.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have evidence?”
It was laid down like brickwork in his head, piece by piece to the inevitable conclusion. He could make his case, and he could do it well and soundly, and he could count on Alluin to support him—not only because Alluin would stand stubbornly at his side for anything, but because Alluin knew the truth of it, too—and in the end none of it would matter, because none of it would hold up before a court, and he knew that just as surely as Alluin did, just as surely as Espere would.
“I’ve no verifiable evidence,” he said. “But I recommend they be allowed to make their own pleas. At the very least, I recommend the master and his crew be examined upon arrest.”
Espere tilted up his chin. “You suspected all this before taking ship.”
Torien said nothing.
“It is, in fact, the reason you sought passage on this particular ship—come now, Commander.” Espere smiled, but his eyes were cool and hard upon Torien’s face. “Or did you choose the tub for its seaworthiness?”
If Espere recognized this part of it as a lie, he might be forgiven for believing the same of the rest. “I had some suspicion, sir,” Torien admitted.
“A witness?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you judged it advisable to take the matter into your own hands rather than present it to the authorities in Modigne?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Having already decided to dispense with Imperial justice at that point.”
“According to Imperial justice there is no case, sir.”
“Yet you expected I would act upon it, even so?”
“The only thing that would matter to Imperial justice is that the witness put a knife in my back to draw my attention. The rest of it becomes incidental.”
Espere’s voice dripped mockery. “You are very open-hea
rted, Commander, to go under a knife and think first of the grievances of the knifeman. Doubtless the rest of us could stand to learn—”
“The Imperial authorities in Modigne are directly involved in the abduction and enslavement of Imperial citizens. That was the grievance. For my part, I could understand violence as the recourse. An Imperial court wouldn’t—not a Modigno court, at any rate, and I saw firsthand how they go about shutting this thing up in Modigne.”
It was Espere’s turn to be silent. Out of the corner of his eye, Torien saw Alluin shift his weight from foot to foot. The lieutenant was frozen in the doorway.
Espere said, “Lieutenant Senna.” His face was inscrutable.
“Yes, sir,” said Alluin.
“I am interested in your opinion on the matter.”
“Commander Risto and I are of the same opinion, sir.” He said it calmly, without hesitation, but Torien saw his shoulders stiffen, as though he were bracing himself.
Espere was silent, his eyes going back and forth between them. “You realize, both of you,” he said, finally, “the seriousness of the accusation, the penalties incumbent upon you should this go before a court and the ruling come down against you—as it almost certainly would.”
“So you’ll do nothing,” Torien said.
“I will do what I can, Commander, and you will accept it as enough. Is that understood?”
Pride kept him from dipping his chin, lowering his eyes. He felt his face heat up. “Sir,” he said, too quickly, too vehemently. Alluin shifted again beside him.
“Lieutenant.” Espere spoke past him to Tarrega. “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll handle the business at the harbor myself. You may acquaint Commander Risto with the fort in my absence, if he feels he has the strength for it.”
Tarrega said, softly, “Yes, sir.”
Alluin’s eyes came briefly to Torien’s. “Sir, with your permission—”
“If I require your assistance, I will send and ask for it.” Espere’s voice was cool. “As far as you and Commander Risto are concerned—until I determine otherwise—the matter has been settled. Do I make myself clear?”
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