“Have you approached any of the others yet?” he asked her.
“No, not yet. Was up all night saving your scrawny neck.”
A slight exaggeration. She’d gotten away from the palace not long after nightfall. Ate at home, with Kefanin and Ishgrim for company. Kef had been dressing the girl up again, lots of floaty satin and lace, hair washed and plumped up, netted and beribboned. It made Archeth feel like a dead, lightning-blasted tree when she stood next to her. She made an attempt to be gay, nonetheless, tried hard not to stare down the northern girl’s cleavage too much, deflected questions about what had gone on at An-Monal. That last part proved easiest of all. Conversation was largely taken up with a breathless narration of the Dragonbane’s run-in with the Citadel picket outside the front gate while she was away. The way Kef and Ishgrim told it struck Archeth as overly dramatic. On cross-examination, she discovered neither had actually seen the fight, and were depending on the gate guard for the detail. But since the Dragonbane wasn’t around to answer for himself, she had to take their word for the tale.
In fact, it transpired, no one had seen Egar for a couple of days now. Kefanin had fed him the morning after the punch-up, but that was the last time he’d been home. The Prophet only knew what chaotic shit he was up to in the meantime.
Might wander up to see Imrana this afternoon, see if he’s camped out there. About time he started getting laid again.
Let’s hope he is.
Truth was, she should have seen the trouble coming. Egar had been in a foul mood ever since Knight Commander Saril Ashant got back into town and started claiming his marital rights. Abruptly deprived of Imrana’s attentions, the Dragonbane had been spoiling for a fight, any kind of fight, with anyone. Natural consequence of a pair of unmilked balls and a lifetime killing other men for a living. Sure, you should have seen it coming, Archidi. But in the end it’s an invigilator, a fucking priest and his bully boys. So do you really give a shit?
She knew, of course, that the ripples from what the Dragonbane had done would end up rocking her boat sooner or later. The usual diplomatic outrage, the gibbering representations about offended faith, the wearying declamatory statements from prayer towers and pulpits. Still, she couldn’t make herself angry with him.
Mostly, she just wished she’d been there to see it.
“Something amusing you, my lady?”
She put her smile away. “Old news. Something I heard last night.”
“Hmm. Yes, well, I can tell you right now this isn’t going to be the jaunt you evidently expect it to be.”
He’s in. He’s hooked. The smile tried to leak out past the corners of her mouth again. She faked a yawn.
“I don’t doubt there will be difficulties along the way.”
Shanta snorted. “There’ll be difficulties right here in Yhelteth. Just putting Tand and Shendanak in the same room is going to be trouble, for starters. Have you thought about who’s going to ride herd on this lot?”
“His majesty has assigned me a squad of Throne Eternal under Noyal Rakan.”
A grunt. “Young. Very young to be pushing rich old men around.”
“He’s a good man, they say.”
“A lot of that is his elder brother’s reputation rubbing off. Seen it happen before. I don’t know much about his war record, so I wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions. But I’m not convinced he’s the ideal choice.”
“He isn’t,” she said bluntly. “He barely saw service in the war. But Jhiral wants this kept among as few people as possible, and Rakan’s squad have already had sight of the Helmsman.”
“So, presumably, have Senger Hald’s marines.”
“Yeah, they’re coming, too.”
Shanta raised an eyebrow. “Throne Eternal telling marines what to do. That’s going to be interesting. Anyone else been invited to this party that I ought to know about?”
“Lal Nyanar and his crew. Hanesh Galat, the invigilator.”
“Nyanar?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong with that? Nice stroke of luck, seeing as how his father’s on the list anyway.”
“Nyanar’s a riverboat captain, Archeth. I doubt he’s been out of sight of land more than half a dozen times in his whole career. He certainly never saw combat at sea—old Shab made sure of that much.”
“I’m sure he’ll make an acceptable first officer.”
“That’s your considered nautical opinion, is it?” But he was grinning at her behind the growl. “Archeth, this is a bag of live eels you’ve trawled yourself here. We’re going to need at least a couple of ships to do this, probably three or four. Now, I will gladly take squadron command, but Nyanar will still have to captain his own vessel, and that means he’s going to have to convince actual seamen he knows what he’s talking about. Good luck with that. Then you’ve got the military side of things. Leave aside for a moment the question of whether Rakan can get Hald’s marines to take him seriously—what’s more important is that at least a couple of the rich men on that list of yours are going to want to come along for the ride. They won’t put up the money otherwise. And you can bet they’ll want to bring their own hired swords with them.”
“You’re talking about Shendanak?”
“And Kaptal. Probably Tand as well, if he sees that Shendanak’s going. No love lost among any of those three, from what I hear. And Shendanak is in the habit of hiring his thugs right off the steppe. They’re mostly cousins and blood-oath bondsmen, and half of them probably don’t even speak Tethanne. So you’ve got the prospect of those guys rubbing up against the marines, plus whatever mob of slave enforcers Tand wants to bring in to balance the odds—”
“If he chooses to come along at all, that is.”
“I’d advise you not to start getting optimistic this early in the game, my lady.”
“Better than getting cold feet, isn’t it?” Sour tone only half in jest, because abruptly the lack of krinzanz was getting to her again, and she really didn’t want to think about what it was going to be like—trying to wield some kind of authority over this whole shabby, patchwork, freebooter scramble after loot. “What’s the matter, my lord Shanta, you turning old man on me all of a sudden? Just want your cup of spiced tea and your slippers?”
“Doddering old man, wasn’t it?”
“Doddering moron, I said. Not the same thing at all.”
“Well, it’s hard to keep up with you immortals, you see.” A sudden edge on his humor now as well, the momentarily unguarded tinge of jealousy she was accustomed to with the humans who didn’t just hate her outright. Shanta heard it, too, hurried past it, sought safe ground again. “Perhaps it’s just, oh, that having had my life saved so recently, I value it all the more.”
The northern ocean is hardly a safe place at the best of times. Who’s to say what may happen there.
Her words to Jhiral the night before came back to her. For one nightmarish instant, she saw herself doing it.
“You’re welcome,” she said gruffly.
Another sideways slanted look, another smile. “You know I wouldn’t miss this—any of it—for the world, right?”
Her own lips quirked. “I guessed.”
“I’m coming with you, Archeth. You know I am. I’ll build your ships for you, I’ll sail them up around Gergis and beyond. I’ll draw the charts and plot the routes, I’ll put in what money you need. I’ll even sit quiet in council with idiots like Shendanak and Tand.” He shook his head, still smiling, perhaps at this recklessness, at his age. “But I’m telling you. You’re going to need more than the likes of Noyal Rakan to wield the whip and keep this lot in line.”
Which was of course when, staring down into the hubbub on the wharf, she spotted the gaunt, black-wrapped figure forcing its way through the crowd.
And for just that moment—like sudden sickness, like krinzanz coming on—it was as if she could feel the vast, ancient machinery of the universe as it turned. As if, through some ragged tear in the tawdry fairground paneling and painted cloth of th
e seeming world, the oiled mechanisms of fate now stood revealed in all their cog-toothed, malevolent intent.
And for just that moment, she was afraid.
CHAPTER 29
ingil Eskiath came down the gangplank of the Famous Victory None Foresaw and joined the bright, brawling chaos on the wharf. Sunlight shattered across the water, slammed glints into his narrowed eyes. The Black Folk Span held the sky to the south like a massive slice of shadow dropped across the estuary. It was better than a mile upriver from where he’d disembarked, but you could sense the cool of its shade from here, beckoning you on.
Yhelteth.
They’d given him a medal here, once.
“Rooms, my lord, rooms! Swan-down beds and views to the great Kiriath wonders of the city! Step this way!”
“Pig’s heart skewers! Piping hot! A Yhelteth delicacy, fresh from the coals!”
“Baths, my lord! Hot baths. Waters perfumed with all the scents of the Great City!”
He wondered, shouldering his way through the press, if that included the reek of hot tar and effluent that crept up from the pilings along the wharf.
“Wanna get fucked, soldier?”
“Wanna get fucked up? The purest flandrijn in town, sire, the finest pipes. A Yhelteth tradition awaits you.”
For a moment, he was tempted, by the latter offer at least. He’d been in some good pipe houses in his time, and doubted the grubby, hollow-eyed individual at his elbow was going to take him to one of anything like the same rank. But he also doubted the tout and any friends he had would be stupid enough to try to roll a man with a blade-scarred face and the tilted crux of a broadsword hilt at his shoulder. Flandrijn they offered, flandrijn in all probability they would have, and a cool, dark place to smoke it in.
Or maybe they would try to roll him.
In the sunny, quick-pulse rush of the morning, he found he didn’t much mind the thought of that, either. He had a full belly from breakfast aboard the Famous Victory, he had a full purse under his cloak—the Lady Quilien had bluntly refused any compensation at their parting, Let us say only that you will owe me a favor, Ringil Eskiath, she told him instead—and he had back his full strength of limb and lung. He was awake in ways he hadn’t been for months.
A flandrijn pipe or a back-alley brawl—he had appetite to spare for either.
But by then, in those moments of idle reflection, he’d already drifted on, and the tout stayed put somewhere in his wake, still crying his wares to the crowd. Ringil kept moving, vaguely aware that he was heading for the Span’s shadow and, as he recalled, a low-rent mercenary watering hole built there. The Good Luck Pony, or something—it had always been a favorite of Egar’s, though Ringil had never been able to see the appeal himself. Scabby fittings, no decent wine to speak of, and a clientele of obnoxious young men all looking to prove their mettle at the slop of a spilled pint. A fistfight a night, a stabbing a week, all pretty much guaranteed.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to swing by. It was a little early in the day for drunken chest-beating; the place would likely be quiet. He might glean some useful gossip on what was going down in the city these days, whether there was much work for freebooters, who to talk to about it. At a minimum, he could get something to eat.
At some point after that, he’d see if he could remember the way to Archeth’s place.
“Ringil Eskiath! Hey, hero!”
For a moment, the voice seemed almost familiar—certainly, he thought he would know its owner as he turned. But the grinning gray-toothed girl who lounged there against the curve of a donkey-sized wine tun left on the wharf was familiar only in type. He’d seen her in a dozen different cities before, her soiled, tight-laced bodice and shredded redrag skirt practically a uniform. Painted nails chewed down to the quick, tanned arms laden with bangles at the wrists, clinking bracelets at the ankles, bare feet clotted with dust and streaked with melted tar. She caught his eye and flexed herself at him, elbows propped back on the tun’s curving surface. Slid one hand down into the rags of the skirt, and shifted it aside on a length of pallid thigh. A wood shard toothpick shifted from one side of the rotted smile to the other, lifted on a darting tongue. She was all of fourteen years old.
“You know me?” he asked warily.
“Who would not, honored sire? Victor at Gallows Gap, savior of the northern cities, slayer of dragons at Demlarashan. The debt we all owe you is without tally.”
“It was just the one dragon.”
She ignored the interjection, as if her words were lines she must recite and he a poor companion player on the stage, forgetful of his part.
“I have a message for you, Dragonbane,” she said.
He looked her up and down. “That doesn’t seem likely.”
“You are awaited at the Temple of Red Joy. Do not delay. All things will become clear.”
“I’m afraid I—”
“And your friend awaits you above.” She gestured upward past his shoulder.
It was such a tried-and-tested old trick, the standby of pickpockets and footpads everywhere, that he already had his sleeve tilted for the dragon-tooth dagger as he glanced the way she pointed. He felt himself loosening for the fight. Was looking forward to the girl’s accomplice and his pitiful street-urchin moves, whatever they might turn out to b—
“Ringil! Ringil!”
Archeth’s voice.
In the hubbub and gull shriek along the wharf, he might not have heard her if his gaze hadn’t been directed toward the cry. He shielded his eyes against the sun-glint and spotted her, leaning on the uppermost deck of some absurd floating bordello built in stacked layers like the world’s largest Padrow’s Day cake. Fussy finish on everything, actual glass in most of the lower deck windows, some of it stained nine different shades of fucking expensive. Natty little gangplank at dock level, complete with ornately carved handrails, a style ill suited to the hired soldiery standing about it with halberds. He counted four, solid and grizzled, giving passersby the odd brutal shove when they lurched too close. They looked handy enough to avoid tangling with.
“Hey, okay, Ringil, look.” Archeth, waving hastily. “Just stay there, I’ll come down.”
She disappeared as if yanked off the rail by the scruff of the neck. He found himself grinning, pure pleasure of a sort he hadn’t felt tickle his guts for what seemed like ever. He turned about to thank the wharf whore, digging under his shirt for a coin.
The worn oak curve on the wine tun, gleaming back at him. No gray-toothed grinning girl to lean on it. He stood and frowned at the space where she’d been, until a harried-looking freight agent suddenly materialized out of the crowd.
“Ah! You are the owner, my lord? Tailen March? From the Scourge of the Maraghan?”
Ringil shook his head, put a boot against the tun to see if it rocked, if it might be hollow for a bolt-hole. It didn’t, it wasn’t.
“Nope.”
The man hesitated. “Then you wish to buy? I can make you a good price, wharf price if you—”
“Did you see the girl who was leaning on this?” Ringil asked him. “Just a moment ago. Working girl? Henna hair, cream bodice?”
A lip curled in pious disgust. “No. I did not.”
“She was right there, man. You didn’t see where she went?”
The man drew himself up. “I am not a whore’s broker, sir, and I’ll thank you not to take me for one. This is Yhelteth you’re in now, not the pirate cities.”
Didn’t realize my accent was that bad.
And then Archeth, suddenly at his shoulder, laughing, getting between him and the agent, grabbing his arm. “Ringil! You old backstabber! What are you doing here? You making trouble already? How long you been in town?”
He saw her shoot the freight agent a warning glance. She needn’t have bothered. He’d already made her for Kiriath and was backing off like a poet asked to wash dishes. Ringil stared vainly about at the brightly colored surge and slop of the crowd.
“There was a—” He gave it up.
Accepted Archeth’s grip, made the four-handed clasp and leaned in close. “It’s good to see you, too, you immortal bitch. That your boat?”
“Belongs to a friend. Why?”
“Ah—nothing.”
“Come on, I’ll introduce you.” She led him to the gangplank. The halberdiers stood grudgingly aside, watched him pass with ill-concealed mistrust. “What are you doing here, anyway? Thought you’d gone home to a happy ending and a handsome reward. What happened? Family reunion not work out after all?”
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