Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel, Book 3

by Joel Shepherd

  Sasha stretched back, hands in her hair. “It’s so frustrating. Every side has a piece of the puzzle, yet they refuse to share.”

  “Sasha, you should meet with Lady Renine,” Alythia insisted. “You have heard only ill of her since you have been here, where everyone hates her. You will be astonished, I promise you. She loves everything about Rhodaan that you do, as does Alfriedo. And she despairs at the inaction of the council.”

  “’Lyth,” Sasha said, “I’m not about to take sides in this.”

  “I’m not asking you to. On the contrary, you could be the perfect neutral mediator. Someone who can bring the sides to talking, instead of fighting.”

  Sasha stared across the library. She could not help the terrible feeling that she would be betraying her nation. The Army of Lenayin was marching to war aga Rhodaan, and here she would be trying to help Rhodaan put its house in order.

  Lenayin and Rhodaan were not yet at war, she told herself. Sofy was yet to marry. Larosa and Lenayin were a poor match, anyone could see it, and if those two sides came to blows in a fit of mutual outrage at the other’s appalling behaviour, Sasha would not be surprised. The die was not yet cast, and until then, her loyalties, and indeed her duty, lay with Kessligh.

  The Torovan maps called it Panae Achi, or Harbourtown, but the locals called it Reninesenn, or Renine’s Town, in Rhodaani. Errollyn walked the cobbled streets, past wagons loaded with cargo, and wholesalers crowded with buyers. The haggling spilled onto the streets.

  Blackboots chatted easily with a barber before his shop, cleaning a razor on his smock. A tavern did a rowdy business of sailors and dockers. In front of a bakery, women piled fresh bread into a handcart.

  The Civid Sein liked to paint Tracato’s divisions as entirely of class, the wealthy against the poor, but Reninesenn showed otherwise. Noble families had always controlled the trade in Tracato. Today the old ties lingered, and the Dockside folk had not embraced the idea of a future without the nobility, preferring instead the old ties of patronage and wealth. Noble families owned most of the ships and nearly all of the warehouses, and any merchant or trader looking to move goods had to establish good connections.

  Errollyn did not sense any hostility toward him but, equally, he knew he should be careful what he said.

  Questions on the docks took him to a tavern opposite a grain warehouse, where carts crowded three deep, and men heaved heavy sacks onto waiting shoulders. Errollyn walked straight to the barkeeper, past tables of loud-talking men.

  “I’m looking for Duchess Teresa,” he said to the barkeep, who waved him toward a table by the windows. Errollyn saw a table of sailors, rough looking yet not quite as disreputable as popular myth. Some had good coats, though hard wearing, and many wore braids in the fashion of seafarers. All looked as though they’d bathed in the last day or two.

  “Welcome, sir!” said one man in Torovan as Errollyn approached the table.

  “I thank you,” said Errollyn.

  “And what can I do you for?” Conversation at the table ceased, yet Errollyn sensed no ill will. Serrin business on the docks was common and, for the most part, welcomed.

  “I’m looking to buy raw silver and gemstone,” said Errollyn, hooking his thumb into his belt by a money pouch. “I’d heard the Duchess Teresa was in the business this run?”

  “Ah,” said the man, “I was the quartermaster for that run, but I’m afraid we’re all pledged to other customers; my apologies, sir.”

  “Not at all. Might I buy the table a drink and ask of the conditions of trade?”

  “Absolutely!” beamed the quartermaster, and his mate pulled Errollyn a chair from a neighbouring table.

  Errollyn asked the usual questions, of wind and currents, but also of Larosan naval activity and what news of ships lately sunk or in action.

  “So you’ve been in Voscoraine then?” he asked the quartermaster.

  “Oh no, sir,” said the sailor, sipping the ale Errollyn’s coin had bought. “Poscadi.”

  “I wasn’t aware there was good silver and gemstone in Poscadi.”

  “A new mine,” the sailor replied easily. “Up in the northern Ameryn hills.”

  “Council won’t allow us in Telesian ports anyhow,” said a second man. “There’s a war on, you know.”

  “Telesia has not declared for one side or another, the last I’d heard,” said Errollyn.

  “And the Torovan army’ll be marching straight through Telesia on their way to Larosa,” said the sailor, waving to an acquaintance who entered the crowded inn. “Excuse me, I spy a friend. Thanks for the drink.” He got up and left.

  “I heard they charge a tariff to enter Poscadi these days,” said Errollyn, edging his chair aside as more sailors crowded onto a neighbouring table. It was hard to hear above the din of conversation. “Three per cent of cargo value, what impact does that have on the silver trade there?”

  “That’s a terrible thing,” the quartermaster said. “Damned inspectors, they overestimate our cargo value then pocket the extra for themselves. I’ve made barely enough to feed my children on this run, the next won’t be any better.”

  Errollyn talked until the man’s ale was nearly gone, then thanked him and his companions and left, to empty-mug salutes from the sailors. But he already knew what he wanted to know. The Duchess Teresa had been in Poscadi Port in Ameryn. He knew from many conversations with Petrodor sailors that the Poscadi Port harbour tax had recently gone up to five per cent, not three, giving the quartermaster another chance to whine about how high his expenses were, if he’d known about it. The quartermaster had definitely not been in Poscadi Port recently.

  That left Voscoraine, in Telesia. Telesia remained an independent kingdom, having at various times been a part of Torovan or Algrasse. Now they attempted to maintain neutrality, being greatly dependent on Saalshen and Rhodaani trade, yet squeezed on land between neighbours determined to wrest the Saalshen Bacosh away from Saalshen’s influence by force. Telesia’s port of Voscoraine was not far by road from Larosa and Sherdaine. The Rhodaani Council had barred Rhodaani flagged vessels from berthing there, knowing the port to be full of Larosan agents, and fearing a trade of spies, or the loss of vessels. For the Duchess Teresa to have been in Voscoraine Port would have violated the Council’s order. They must have remained there a long time, to simulate the time it would have taken to reach Ameryn.

  Further questions directed him to a laneway, in search of the Duchess Teresa’s captain, the man the quartermaster had professed not to know. The building was clearly a brothel—red lanterns hung between cramped tenements. Errollyn entered, and pushed past several drunken sailors in the hall. It opened onto a main room, where girls dressed like noble ladies coiffed and preened—another of Tracato’s strange tastes, every ale-drenched, salt-stained sailor wanted to bed a noble lady.

  “My, my,” said the madam, leaving another customer in female hands to come to Errollyn, looking him up and down. “Dear sir, welcome. Can I interest you in…”

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  The madam sighed. She wore much jewellery, all fake. “I should have guessed, you serrin never did appreciate the business.”

  “That’s because we fuck for free,” Errollyn said drily. “I was told the captain of the Duchess Teresa might be here?”

  “My customers’ business is strictly confidential,” said the madam airily. Errollyn pressed a large coin into her hand. “Second floor, the third room on the left,” she said, pocketing the coin.

  He walked up the cramped stairs, edging past customers and working girls. At the room, he rapped on the door. It swung open. Errollyn was fairly certain such doors were supposed to be locked. He pushed it wide, a hand straying to his belt knife—the walls were too close for swords, he could barely spread his elbows. On the bed he found a naked man, face down and unmoving. The sheets beneath his upper body were soaked in blood. Somehow, Errollyn was not entirely surprised.

  The windows were closed, but the small room had
a closet. Errollyn flung open the closet doors. Within huddled a girl, dressed like the others. Her hands were flecked with blood. Errollyn grabbed her, and slammed her against the wall.

  “That’s the captain of the Duchess Teresa, yes?” The girl remained mute, eyes flicking back to the bed. “Why kill him? What was the Duchess Teresa doing in Voscoraine Port?”

  The girl tried to drive a knee into his groin, but Errollyn had played rough games with a far more dangerous girl than this. He blocked her with his leg, and slammed her harder back against the wall.

  “An honourable serrin gentleman wouldn’t hurt a girl, surely?” she taunted him. Errollyn was getting tired of humans who thought behavioural codes could excuse all evils, and hit her in the face. He picked her back up, her nose bloody, and slammed her back against the wall.

  “Murderers don’t get to plead delicacy,” he told her. “Why kill him?” Her stare was defiant.

  “Family Renine aren’t playing fair,” Aemon had told him. There had been a courier on the Duchess Teresa, heading for Voscoraine Port, bearing the Renine Family seal.

  “There was someone on the ship, wasn’t there? Someone carrying letters for people in Telesia?”

  The nobility of Algrasse? Algrasse was an ally of Larosa, they had stood with the Regent Arrosh when he had been but a lord of Larosa, and assisted him in his rise to regent of all the Bacosh. Their position was strong, there was no chance they’d be scheming with the Renines against their sworn feudal lord. Which left just one serious option. “Lady Renine is negotiating with Regent Arosh, isn’t she? Behind the Council’s back?”

  “I’ll not say anything to foulblood scum like you!” the girl hissed. “Murderer!” she screamed. “Murderer, come quick! Save me!”

  Shouts came from the neighbouring rooms. Then a scuffling under the bed itself. Errollyn spun, and saw a man scrambling from beneath the mattress, and cursed himself for a fool.

  The door crashed in, and Errollyn flung the girl hard across the room. A man rushed him, knife in hand—a house guard, protection for the girls. Errollyn caught the man’s thrusting arm, broke it, and threw him back into the face of the second guard. Behind him the windows crashed open and the man from under the bed leaped out. Errollyn sheathed his knife and leaned out the window. Below was a canvas awning, protecting the brothel’s rear entry in a narrow lane. Beneath the awning, the jumping man was scrambling to his feet.

  Errollyn got a foot out for leverage, and jumped. Somewhat heavier than the first man, he hit the awning hard and it tore…he crashed to the ground in a tangle of canvas, scrambling to extricate himself while thankful it had at least broken his fall.

  Finally up, he ran after the other man in time to see him vanish around a corner. Errollyn dashed around it, struggling against the stiffness of a bruised thigh. Down the next lane, past an unloading cart and tethered horses, he saw the man run into a crowded main street.

  Errollyn followed, sunlight suddenly bright to a serrin’s sensitive vision. Errollyn shielded his eyes and peered up the street. Was that him? He had spots in his eyes, and nothing was clear. There were crowds around him, some looking at him, others evidently startled by the recent passage of a sprinting man. Even if he caught the man, what could he do, in this crowd? These were feudalists, some of them even royalists, or restorationists, or whatever fancy term the clever scholars in the Tol’rhen liked to apply. Serrin were welcome so long as they did not swim against the stream. A serrin accosting a local in the street would be mobbed.

  Errollyn took a deep breath, wincing as the bruises from his fall began to hurt.

  “Everything okay there, sir?” a local man asked him.

  Errollyn shook his head. “A murder in the Fletcher Street brothel,” he said loudly enough for others to hear. “The captain of the Duchess Teresa, a man of a noble family.” He pointed after the escaped runner. “That man cut his throat. Pass the word and have him caught, I can’t do it myself. Reninesen shendevan soni Reninesen shendevan. Renine’s Town business is Renine’s Town business,” that was, in Rhodaani.

  The local nodded warily, and rushed to tell others. Soon, the Blackboots would be summoned. Errollyn turned and walked down to the docks, figuring he could do little more here, and satisfied that whatever Family Renine thought to gain by killing the captain, they could lose in having killed one of their own.

  Soon he found one of the few people in Renine’s Town he could trust to give him a straight answer.

  “Captain Aimer was a renowned drunk and gambler,” a red-coat drily informed him, sipping tea outside his customs house. “Frankly I’m not surprised he’s dead. In a brothel, did you say?”

  Errollyn nodded.

  The red-coat shrugged. “I’ve heard he was in debt, then out of debt, then in debt again. Possibly someone got tired of constantly bailing him out. Then again, he also had a very big mouth, wch is never a good thing.”

  Errollyn recalled his conversation with the quartermaster at the inn, and the sailor who had risen from the table to go and talk to a “friend.” Had that been the same man as had been hiding under the bed? He hadn’t got a close enough look. Either way, he thought it reasonably clear what was going on.

  “Thank you, sir,” he told the red-coat. “I have to head back to the Mahl’rhen.”

  “What do you think is going on?” the red-coat asked him.

  “Noble games, my friend,” said Errollyn.

  “Those are the least entertaining kind,” the red-coat said, and sipped his tea.

  When Errollyn returned to the Tol’rhen, he found Civid Sein rallies being held upon the square. Leading them were Tol’rhen Ulenshaals, black robed and shouting, to massed cries from the thousands-strong crowd. If the philosophies of his people spoke of anything, it was the supremacy of one person’s rightness to think alone. Here on the square, before the walls of the institution dedicated to the teaching of serrin thought, thousands of individual minds concentrated as one, and yelled in unison. They yelled for justice, yet it was emotion that spoke, not reason.

  He left the square before some well-meaning fool spotted him and tried to make him a part of their dangerous game. Tracato was supposed to be above such human nonsense, yet here he could feel it slipping toward a precipice. His own people were supposed to embody the final word in enlightened thought yet, too often, in their own gentle way, behaved just like the mobs outside.

  He found Sasha in the training courtyard, blade in hand and covered in sweat. Spirits, she was beautiful. He watched her for a moment, the shapes her body and blade made in the air. To watch Sasha train was to observe the primal and the civilised, the thinking and the unthought, the beautiful and the ugly, all in one.

  She was so human, and in her humanity, described a world he recognised far more intimately than his own people had ever managed.

  He saw something else, too.

  “Sasha!” he called at a pause in her strokes. She turned to him, and her eyes lit up. Even now, his heart leapt. “Something’s bothering you?”

  “How can you tell?” she asked. She was sensitive about her moods.

  “You always train when you’re angry.”

  “You’ve seen the mob outside?” Errollyn nodded. “Kessligh’s trying to talk to them. I told him he should just tell them to fuck off, but he refuses.”

  Errollyn sighed, flexing his sore leg. “Kessligh has great hopes for this civilisation, Sasha. He’s been in the wilds in Lenayin for a long time.”

  “What’s wrong with the wilds of Lenayin?” Sasha said indignantly.

  “I’m not certain he’s sure what he’s achieved. He comes to a place like this, and he wonders if he could have done more; Sasha stared at the pavings. Errollyn put his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve offended you.”

  “No. No, you’re right. But damn it, he should be able to see where this is going! These people are lunatics, haven’t we all had enough of lunatics after Petrodor?”

  Errollyn searched her face. “That’s not all that’s
bothering you.”

  Sasha’s eyes didn’t quite meet his own. That was very unusual. “I’d rather not say.”

  Errollyn frowned. He thought about it. Sasha was prickly over her Lenay honour, but could typically deal with such things, sometimes in ways he truly wished she hadn’t. She was embarrassed by little—in that, they were alike. But here, she almost seemed…

  He raised his eyebrows. “Some man asked to fuck you?” Sasha aimed a kick at him, and missed on purpose, scowling. Worse than that, then. “Some man tried to fuck you.” She looked elsewhere, exasperated. Damn. “Does he live?”

  “Yes!” Sasha retorted, angrily.

  “Do you still have one of his ears?”

  “Errollyn, this isn’t funny!” Errollyn couldn’t help smiling, against his better judgement. The look she gave him nearly made him fear for his safety. “It was Reynold Hein!”

  “Oh,” said Errollyn, not especially surprised.

  “What do you mean ‘Oh’?” Sasha fumed. “That’s the one form of attack I can’t raise a blade against! And if I can’t raise a blade, I’m left with fists, and I can’t beat up a man his size! Or your size!” She knocked his hands from her shoulders. Errollyn folded his arms.

  “Sasha,” he said calmly, “you know as well as I do that if he’d tried to rape you, you’d have stuck a knife in his throat.”

  “It’s not honourable!” Sasha snapped. “He never raised a blade against me!”

  Oh, thought Errollyn, realising. That was it. “Well, you can hardly just let him overpower you and take you, can you?”

  “Rather than stick a blade in a man not wielding one?” Sasha retorted. “I can’t cut a bare-handed man!”

  Errollyn rolled his eyes. “It’s hard living to a code of honour, yes?