by Glenda Larke
‘Ah. Yes, well—I’ll need a name,’ the shipmaster replied.
‘Brand.’
‘Arrant, you are still too close,’ Narjemah said and hauled him away. ‘That’s a sedrani devil from Zaruba, I think. They are vicious. What if a slat broke?’
This time he didn’t mind obeying her. He didn’t think the animal liked him much, and it made him sad just to see it in such a small cage. He went to stand next to Ligea.
Cord was saying, ‘That might buy you the discretion. Know the man well, d’you?’
She pulled her shawl back from her face a little, to show the scar. ‘He lost the use of an arm at the same time as I lost part of my cheek. Yes, we know one another well.’
‘One hundred silver sestus each, you said?’
‘Fifty each was mentioned, I believe.’
‘Seventy-five each and you have the trip.’
‘That’s extortionate, and you know it. You won’t have to catch a fish for a year at that price. Sixty’s all I can manage.’
He sighed. ‘Very well. I wouldn’t do it at all, ’cept for the name you mentioned. We sail on the tide tomorrow morning. First light. Best you spend the night on board. You’ll need food enough for the journey, unless you’ve a hankering for naught but fish.’ He held out his hand and she placed her own palm over his to seal their bargain.
‘We’ll be back with our baggage before nightfall,’ Ligea promised.
The shipmaster grinned. ‘My commitment would be further strengthened if I could see the shine of your money, lady.’
Arrant thought she might be annoyed, but she just laughed and handed over the coins. They weren’t short of money, he knew that much, but her trust of the man Cord surprised him.
As they left the area with Kabarrab trailing behind like a dog on a string, she said, ‘You see how handy it is to be able to read the truth and emotions of those you speak to, Arrant? Cord is trustworthy. One day, you’ll have the ability to sense things like that too. Of course, even honest men can have the truth beaten out of them, so we still have to be wary.’
He ducked his head, uncomfortable, knowing that it was a skill she expected him to have already attained. It wasn’t fair: he did try, but rarely knew a lie from the truth on anyone’s tongue. He scuffed his sandals along the boards of the wharf, his thoughts unhappy and rebellious.
She grimaced at the emotions he was exuding.
And that wasn’t fair, either. Other boys didn’t have mothers who knew how they felt all the time. He scowled.
‘Ah, Arrant, I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset you. I just want you to know as much as you can absorb. I look at it this way: you will understand anything that you are old enough to handle. If you don’t understand, then you are too young for the information anyway.’
He looked up at her, baffled. Narjemah snorted, apparently exasperated with her. He had no idea why.
Ligea continued, ‘I don’t dare make too many concessions to you because of your age, lad; we’re fighting a war, and you have to grow up as quickly as you can. You have to understand as much as you can. It’s a tough school, I know, and I’m proud of you. For someone who’s just five, you manage very well.’ She smiled at him. ‘Your father is going to be so proud of you, too. Anyway, let’s go back to the moneymaster’s. Arcadim is going to be very, very happy that we are going to move out so soon.’
She was right. Arcadim made no attempt to conceal his relief; even Arrant felt it. The moneymaster sent Kabarrab back to the ship with Ligea’s baggage and arranged to have some food sent on board at his expense. He then had another long and boring conversation with Ligea about money. Arrant didn’t mind that, because in the meantime Reveba plied him with food in the adjoining room and showed him the polished crystal enlarger the moneymaster used to examine coins for evidence of tampering. It made everything look big. Playing with that was fun, especially when he looked at the hairs on his skin and the dirt under his nails, and he was disappointed when the moneymaster and Ligea finished their business.
‘Domina,’ Arcadim was saying as they came out of the inner room, ‘I haven’t told anyone where any of your properties are, not even the Reviarch or my sons, and I never will. And there is nothing written down anywhere that will make sense to anyone but me. While I am safe, your secrets are safe. However, you should realise I’m, um, I’m not a hero. If the Brotherhood questions me…’
She nodded. ‘I know. And I do not pay you to be a hero, Arcadim, never fear.’
He stared at her, as if he wanted to say something more but had lost his voice. Finally he managed to blurt out in strangled tones that didn’t sound like him at all, ‘The—the Reviarch has his own methods of keeping us moneymasters safe. Be—be careful.’
Ligea was thoughtful after that. Several times when Arrant asked her a question, she didn’t seem to hear him.
They left Arcadim’s house after the afternoon siesta, and headed back towards the ship, with Kabarrab once again trailing them a step or two behind. Halfway to the docks, she halted for a moment as if listening.
‘What is it?’ Narjemah asked.
‘That person who was watching the house? This time he’s following us.’
Narjemah grabbed Arrant’s hand. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Find out who it is. You two keep walking with Kabarrab. Don’t look at me.’
They did as she asked, and a little further on, Arrant became aware that she was no longer with them. ‘Keep walking,’ Narjemah told him firmly.
Ten minutes later, Ligea caught up with them again. ‘An Assorian slave,’ she whispered, after a glance behind to make sure Kabarrab was not close enough to hear. ‘Wearing Reviarch Javenid’s colours.’
That did nothing to diminish Narjemah’s alarm, which worried Arrant in turn. She whispered, ‘I heard what Arcadim said—he was warning you about the Reviarch, wasn’t he? What did you do to him?’
‘To the Reviarch?’
‘To the slave!’
‘Nothing! I’m not going to upset the Reviarch by harming one of his slaves.’
‘How could the Reviarch know you are here in Tyr?’
‘The barge,’ she said, calmly skirting a couple of legionnaires chatting at the side of the street. ‘The barge we came in on belonged to the Moneymasters’ Guild. The bargeman must have told Javenid enough for him to guess we were worth investigating, to guess even who we were perhaps.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘Nothing for the time being. It’s not in Javenid’s interest for me to be caught.’
To Arrant’s increased alarm, that remark seemed to upset Narjemah even more. ‘How can you be sure of that?’
‘I know the way the Assorians think. I was a compeer, remember? With all the Brotherhood’s information at my fingertips. It’s true the Assorians wouldn’t want to upset the Exaltarch, but they don’t want to throw away a chance—however slim—for them to earn their freedom from vassalage. They hate the Exaltarchy, Narjemah. Believe me, I know. I have felt it. If I start to lose, Javenid will probably throw me to the Jackals without a qualm, but while there is a chance for success, he will try to sit in the middle of the road.’
‘Arcadim just warned you about him!’ Narjemah was almost crying. ‘It nearly choked him to do so, but he did!’
Arrant wished his cabochon worked so that he could tell what his mother felt. She sounded so calm. ‘The slave is doing no more than following us. Think of it as information gathering, and remember that Javenid knows a great deal about Magor power. At a guess, he knows that I know I am being followed!’
Arrant was still trying to make sense of that when they reached a crowd spilling out over the wharf to block their way. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. These men—those near him were all men—smelled of dirt and sweat and unwashed clothes, while their manners were worse than ditch-dogs. They hawked and spat and swore as they jostled one another. The closest of them, a Tyranian with a face covered in bristles like a worn scrubbing brush,
carried a whip. He ran the thong of it through his fingers in a way that stirred Arrant’s cabochon and made him shiver. He wished the gem had stayed quiet, because he could now sense emotions and most of what he felt was hateful.
Ligea picked him up in her arms, something she rarely did any more, and started to skirt the crowd. From the security of her hold he was able to see that everyone was watching what was happening on the grime-coated deck of a single-masted ship.
‘What’s up there?’ he asked.
‘The boat’s an Issian trader. And that’s a slave auction,’ she explained in a whisper, her distaste obvious. ‘A private slave ship selling off the dross that neither the central market nor the slave pens will accept. Remember this, Arrant.’ She jabbed a finger at the ship. ‘This is what we are fighting to stop.’
Obediently, he watched, although he wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to be remembering. One of the trader’s crew wrenched a slave woman up onto a block on the ship’s deck. Her right eye socket was empty, and her emaciated body could hardly carry her own weight. The bidding was unenthusiastic and her final price was so low the auctioneer cuffed her in disgust, hard, as she stepped down from the block. Arrant shuddered.
By then, Ligea had already circled most of the crowd, Narjemah at her elbow and Kabarrab close behind. Another slave was produced for sale. This one was a boy—and Arrant felt Ligea stiffen like a hunting fisherbird about to spear its prey with its beak. ‘A Kardi,’ she said. ‘No one is supposed to have Kardi slaves any more, but he’s wearing a Kardi bolero…’
Arrant stared. The lad was older than he was, perhaps twelve. He was filthy. And hurt. He clutched his right arm to his chest as if any movement of it pained him. Arrant, revolted by the dirt that clung to the boy, felt more distaste than sympathy, and tried to hide that sentiment from his mother. He wasn’t sure if he was successful.
She’ll rescue him, he thought, but he was wrong. She decided to buy the boy, not fight for him. The brute with the whip was interested in obtaining the slave and so were several other men, which led to more spirited bidding.
‘They want a child catamite for their blasted brothels,’ Ligea muttered angrily in Narjemah’s ear, another remark which meant nothing at all to Arrant. ‘I know that sod with the whip. The nastiest procurer in all Tyr—’ She continued to raise the price until all the other bidders, disgruntled and surly in their disappointment, gave up.
The slave owner gestured Ligea closer, demanding to see the colour of her money before he closed the bidding. ‘He’s suspicious,’ Narjemah hissed at her, worry cutting deep lines between her eyebrows.‘You’re supposed to be an Assorian woman and they don’t come to places like this to buy slaves.’
Ligea handed Arrant over to her. ‘Wait here,’ she said and pushed her way up to the gangplank to pay.
‘You got a bargain here, woman,’ one of the slaver crew told her with a leer as she took the boy from the ship. ‘Be as good as new when that arm mends, and years of work in him—’
She gave him a look that would have curdled goat’s milk and his next words died in his throat. Arrant didn’t blame him. He’d never seen his mother look so mad.
Then she turned away and started down the gangplank, her hand on the shoulder of the boy. Unexpectedly, her stride faltered. Arrant looked over Narjemah’s shoulder, trying to see what had caught her eye. There was a scrawny old woman in the crowd with a slave at her side, and she was staring at Ligea, her eyes as hard as pebbles, her mouth a thin line across her face. An unpleasant feeling settled in the middle of Arrant’s stomach.
Ligea walked on to rejoin them. She still had her hand on the slave boy’s shoulder and said quietly in Kardi, ‘Don’t be afraid, lad. You’re safe and in good hands now. You’ll be back home in a week or two.’ The boy didn’t react. Arrant stared, wondering if he had even heard. He was so dirty and he smelled. As they pushed their way out of the crowd, Arrant pulled a face at him and poked out his tongue. For once his mother didn’t seem to notice his lapse in manners. She hurried them away down the wharf.
The day before she had told him all the funny names of the vessels moored there: biremes and triremes, galleys and caiques, feluccas, liburnias and dhows and others he had forgotten. Today she couldn’t move him past fast enough.
‘What’s wrong?’ Narjemah asked her.
‘That woman back there. She knows me, and she’s greedy. By the feel of her emotions, I’d say she’ll be hunting down the nearest legionnaire she can find. Hurry!’
Arrant cast behind them, but his cabochon wouldn’t work now. Ligea spoke to Narjemah over his head. ‘Her name’s Merriam. She’s a midwife and I went to her when I was carrying Arrant.’
Narjemah was starting to puff, and her cheeks had gone as red as ripe persimmons, so she handed Arrant over to Kabarrab. The slave pursed his lips, but a glare from Narjemah chopped short any protest he might have contemplated.
As they passed a ships’ chandlers, a beam of light shot forth from Ligea’s hand to engulf a large cask at the bottom of a pile stacked high outside the doorway. The wooden staves splintered into dust where the light hit them, a mess of salted meat spilled out and the entire pile stacked above subsided. Casks from the top hit the wharf and split; others rumbled off in all directions. They had to scramble out of the way themselves. The chandler rushed out of his office into the middle of the chaos, took one appalled look and called down a potent curse on the head of whoever was responsible.
After that, they ran. Ligea hauled the slave boy along. Kabarrab swung Arrant onto his back, where he clung, half excited by the urgency, half fearful because he couldn’t understand what was happening. It felt like a game gone wrong.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kabarrab unceremoniously dumped Arrant and disappeared back down the wharf, his job done. Arrant ran past the crate with the sedrani devil inside and up the gangplank, grinning happily. They had made it safely on board! Everything was all right again.
Shipmaster Cord’s regard was thoughtful as Ligea followed him up the gangplank, Narjemah and the slave boy close behind. ‘Your baggage arrived,’ he said. ‘And your supplies. You didn’t mention him, though.’ He pointed at the boy. ‘Not an escapee, is he? You got the deeds of ownership, Domina?’
Ligea held up the parchment. ‘Right here.’
‘You reckon on taking him to Ordensa too?’
‘I do.’
‘That’ll be another seventy.’
‘Sixty.’ She dug into her purse. ‘And how much to leave immediately?’
He chuckled and leaned against the railing. ‘You couldn’t pay me enough, Domina. The tide is contrary.’
‘Sorry. You don’t have any choice. We’re leaving.’
He straightened, eyes narrowing, and made an unobtrusive movement of his hand. Several of the fishermen stopped what they had been doing and moved closer. Arrant, feeling a wave of panic from Narjemah, began to pay more attention. Just getting to the ship, he realised in dismay, had not been enough.
Cord said, ‘If you are in that much of a hurry, you can get off my ship. I don’t want no trouble.’
‘You’ve got it already,’ she told him. ‘I’ve been recognised, and I’m the most wanted woman in all Tyrans.’
Cord drew in a sharp breath. ‘So? That’s nothing to me. You can have your damn coins back. Just get off my ship. Nobody brings trouble to my lady.’ He fumbled with the purse at his waist.
‘Your wh—? Oh, the ship! Well, there’ll be Brotherhood Jackals searching your lady down to her keel within the hour and someone will remember that I talked to you. Cord, you and your boat are finished in Tyr. Forever. Your only chance is to run—now, before your ship has new owners.’
The wallop of Cord’s rage hit Arrant in the middle like a blow. He tried to shut it out, but as usual his cabochon had a mind of its own. He sat down on the deck with a thump.
‘If the Brotherhood wants her, we could earn us a fortune by reporting her ourselves, master,’ one of the fi
shermen suggested, avoiding Ligea’s eyes as he drew his fish knife from his belt.
Cord was staring at her in shock.‘Gods of the Delta, who the Vortex are you?’
Bellowed calls for guards in the distance made Arrant stand and clutch at Narjemah’s leg. He would have preferred Ligea’s, but she was leaning over the railing to aim her cabochon at the crate on the quayside below. The wooden slats splintered. A few moments later, the sedrani devil slunk out, lashing its tail and snarling. ‘That should provide a bit of a diversion,’ she said with some satisfaction. ‘Never could stand caged animals anyway.’
Eyes wide with disbelief, Cord still hesitated.
‘If I’m caught I’ll tell them the meaning of the ribbing on your stern,’ she said. ‘Cord, you’ve already apparently thrown in your lot with Altani rebels. Don’t risk a brush with the Brotherhood. Get this boat out of here before you all find yourselves languishing in the Cages.’
‘Who are you?’ he asked again. And then added, indignant, ‘And she’s a ship, not a boat!’
‘I can tell you who I used to be. Legata Ligea Gayed, Brotherhood Compeer.’
Cord paled and was silent. One of the others wasn’t as wise. ‘Gods of the Delta protect us! There’s a price on her head that would make us all as rich as Assorian moneymasters!’
Ligea raised her hand. ‘Blood money doesn’t benefit the dead, my friend,’ she said. She bathed them all in the golden glow of her cabochon and they winced away, bodies jerking in pain.
Arrant gasped as a wave of unpleasant emotions swamped his mind.
‘Come downstairs,’ Narjemah said to him and pointed to a ladder in the centre of the ship leading down into the dark. She went to scoop him up. He shook his head violently. ‘No! Don’t wanna!’ His fear suddenly became more tangible. In the dark he wouldn’t be able to see, and he had to see. He reached out to the railing and clung. If he couldn’t see maybe bad things would happen to Ligea.
Narjemah scowled at him. ‘Mirage take you, child, you can be as irritating as a bedbug sometimes!’