Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) (34 page)

Now Corrain had returned to The Goose Hounds to quiz Estry. So far he had established that those scholars whom the potboy knew of by reputation were all sworn to the study of Music, History and Rhetoric.

Corrain frowned. ‘Are any of them friends with Mentor Garewin?’

Estry shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Can you find out? For a silver penny?’ Corrain prompted.

‘I can try.’ More curiosity than greed lit the boy’s eyes. ‘Is the master adept truly going to mend your friend’s face?’

‘Let’s hope so,’ Corrain said curtly.

There’d been no evidence of any aetheric healing after Hosh’s first day sequestered with the mentors in the library. Compared to the terrifying power of elemental spells, Artifice seemed paltry magic.

Over their evening meal of salt beef stew and peppery biscuits, Corrain had encouraged the lad to tell him what had transpired. Hosh had changed the subject every time, relating some snippet of Col’s history in such uncharacteristic words that Corrain had heard the clear echo of Mentor Garewin’s voice.

As long as Hosh showed no inclination to tell him, Corrain had sworn to himself that he would restrain his curiosity. Thus far he had kept his word, though this morning, he had found himself wondering if he had some unseen aetheric healing to thank for the lad’s snoring not waking him five times in the night.

Or was that a consequence of the pungent herbal tisane which Mentor Undil had given Hosh? Either way, Corrain was encouraged to see that the bitter concoction had stemmed the weeping crusting his reddened eye and nose.

If there was some visible change when Hosh returned this evening, they could call on that wizard Olved, whose second peremptory summons was tucked in Corrain’s pocket along with his first note.

Or perhaps he would wait till tomorrow, until he had some meaningful news for the Archmage. Corrain decided he would go with Hosh to the Red Library for the second bell of the morning. He would ask Garewin himself if he’d ever had dealings with those particular scholars. Perhaps the mentor would see some connection between them. At the moment, Corrain could no more understand the Soluran’s aims than a dog could grasp criss-crossing strategies on a white raven board.

Then there was the other riddle he still had no answer for. ‘Any news of those Aldabreshin ships?’ Corrain asked Estry.

‘None as yet.’ The pot boy scowled and went off to collect empty tankards and plates.

Corrain took another swallow of ale, listening to the carillon’s bells marking the last hour of the day with its individual tune. Hosh would soon be making his way back here. He reached for the plate of food which the tapster had served him, to tide him over until the dinner chime. It seemed that Col’s residents habitually ate a good deal later than Caladhrians, whatever the season.

He speared a slice of succulent pink mutton with his belt-knife and laid it on top of butter-rich bread flecked with shreds of dried onion. He was beginning to wonder if anyone raised pigs on this side of the Gulf of Peorle but the local mutton cured with salt and Aldabreshin spices was most palatable and he assuredly preferred it to the endless local variations on smoked and pickled fish.

Listening to the taproom chatter, he realised that those settled here for the evening were once again debating the wizardry underpinning Mandarkin’s tyrannical rulers. More than that, they were musing on their own vulnerability to magecraft. Who had set that hare running through the conversation? Corrain looked around for Estry but the potboy was still busy.

‘There’s no denying it. There’s nothing we could do, if some wizard took against us,’ a man with a drinker’s broken-veined nose declared.

‘Why would such a thing happen?’ a thin-faced woman demanded scornfully. ‘Wizards come here to use our libraries and talk the nights through to guttered candles with alchemists and natural philosophers and the other scholars.’

‘They spend their coin with a generous hand while they’re at it,’ her comfortably rounded companion added.

‘True enough but a hundred Aldabreshi come to Col from equinox to equinox, for any one mage from Hadrumal year round,’ a contemplative man with a merchant’s manner countered. ‘The Archipelagans turning against us would do as much harm to our trade as the corsairs ever did.’

‘Is it even true that the Archmage cleared the seas of those corsairs?’ a neatly-capped matron asked no one in particular. ‘I heard that Hadrumal’s Council rebuffed the Caladhrian parliament time and again. Wizards don’t involve themselves in warfare, isn’t that what they say?’

Corrain curbed an urge to answer for Planir, chewing on this puzzle along with his meat. This Soluran was spreading disquiet about magecraft through the city and most particularly, among those university mentors most deeply engaged in studying Artifice. But as Corrain had good reason to know, Solura’s wizards and their aetheric adepts, of whom this man was undoubtedly one, worked hand in glove opposing Mandarkin’s brutal wizards and warriors.

He was pleased to hear someone in the taproom was making that very point.

‘Ah, but,’ the ruddy-nosed man argued, ‘Solura’s wizards bow to their liege lords and those lords kneel to their king. Hadrumal’s wizards answer to no one!’

‘They answer to their Archmage.’ Though the woman who doubted wizardry had driven off the corsairs didn’t sound convinced.

‘Who does Planir the Black answer to?’ The merchant’s question hung unanswered in the air.

‘Who’s to make him pay heed?’ A new voice spoke up. ‘If his kind are no longer welcome in Col? If that’s to be the price of doing business with the Aldabreshi? If we’re not to lose all their trade to Relshaz?’

As Corrain looked up from his plate to try identifying that speaker, the ruddy-nosed drinker chuckled into his tankard.

‘Ask these Archipelagans if they want our city rid of wizards.’

Along with everyone else in the tavern Corrain stared, open-mouthed, as three Aldabreshi entered and halted inside the door.

Two were swordsmen, clad in chainmail so finely wrought, each link so small, that the armour draped like cloth. Steel breastplates inlaid with curving bronze designs protected their vitals. Both wore round helms with chainmail veils to protect neck and face. For the moment, those veils hung loose and their helmets’ sliding nasal bars were raised high on their foreheads to give them a clear view of the room. Both dark-eyed men surveyed the gathering with the calm gaze of untroubled killers.

Corrain sincerely hoped they had no intention of starting a fight. The corsairs who’d enslaved him had been brutally formidable in battle yet even those proficient and prolific murderers never dared to take on any warlord’s chosen swordsmen. Corrain had seen such retainers practising their skills on the trading beaches where the corsairs had made landfall while he and Hosh were chained to their oar. Those deliberate displays made it clear that anyone hoping to rob a warlord’s ships would end up hacked into carrion to feed the crabs which scavenged the sands.

So much for the two swordsmen. Was this third Archipelagan their master? Weren’t warlords supposed to be redoubtable warriors in their own right? While this man might be taller than most, he didn’t look as though he could lead a charge against anything more challenging than a dinner table. The diamonds and sapphires glittering on his rings almost disappeared amid his soft fingers while his broad smile added a third jowl to the rolls of fat blurring his clean-shaven jaw line. A gust of wind through the open door sweetened the taproom with the expensive scents perfuming his heavily brocaded azure silk robes .

‘Good day.’ He spoke in formal Tormalin, his voice more highly-pitched than Corrain had expected. ‘I bring you greetings from my master Jagai Kalu, who has long traded with your city and has always valued your honesty and rigorousness in bargaining.’

His bland smile swept the room, encompassing everyone whether or not they deserved such compliments.

‘My lord has determined that the skies to come offer the most propitious omens for the Jagai domain’s continued trade with Col. Accordingly, we wish to retain men of this noble city to defend our interests—’

The merchant was on his feet, his smile eager. ‘My lord, I would be willing—’

‘Ah, forgive me.’ Contrite, the plump Aldabreshin raised a beringed forefinger. ‘We look for men able to defend our interests with sword and shield.’

He bowed again to the dumbfounded gathering.

‘Please spread this word to any who will find this of interest. Our ships are anchored at the Spice Wharf. Those with skill at arms wishing to test their mettle against my lord’s swordsmen are invited to present themselves at the first chime of the day, tomorrow and each morning following until the last night of the Greater Moon.’

He raised his forefinger once again. ‘Warriors will be tested to the first, trivial scratch, not to any wound that might prove mortal. My lord has no wish to stain his new venture with ill omens of spilled lifeblood.’

With a final smile, he turned around with a dull rustle of heavy silk and left the tavern, his impassive swordsmen following.

Corrain’s first impulse was to head out into the night, to hire a gig to go to the harbour and find out where the Spice Wharf might be. He could be first in the queue tomorrow. If the Archipelagans were looking for swordsmen, he could wield a blade with the best that Col could offer. Once he had proven himself, he could ask what this warlord Jagai Kalu wanted mainland men to defend. Why wasn’t this Archipelagan trusting in his own loyal warriors?

All around him, the tavern’s customers exchanged their own exclamations and questions.

‘Does the Jagai warlord mean to build a permanent holding on Col’s wharves?’

‘To have his own men overwinter here, like the Archipelagans do in Relshaz?’

‘The Elected would never allow it!’

Corrain raised his tankard for another swallow of ale and contemplated the slowly fading scars on his wrist. Strip off his shirt for a fight and he’d bare the whip marks on his back. Any Aldabreshin would know him for a former galley slave.

Corrain’s heart pounded. Would the Archipelagans load him with chains and demand to know which warlord he had fled from? He knew full well how unforgiving the Aldabreshi were to absconding slaves.

Those accursed corsairs would go hunting through the Nahik domain’s outlying islands through the winter seasons when storms made venturing onto the open seas too hazardous. Prowling the backwaters and remote islets with their clubs and whips, they dragged fugitives from any number of domains back to the galley where Corrain and Hosh had toiled side by side on their bench. Most had been barely half-alive and half of those had died before they’d returned to the corsair island, to be penned like dumb animals until Nahik Jarir sent his own galleys to carry off the tribute which secured the raiders their anchorage.

Corrain forced himself to breathe slow and deep until the blood racing through his heart and head slowed. He was Baron Halferan, not some nameless slave. Even the Archipelagans would know him for a Caladhrian as soon as he opened his mouth. That Jagai warlord’s underlings wouldn’t risk offending Col’s Elected by shackling Corrain without testing the truth of this claims.

Then of course, he would have to explain to everyone from the Elected downwards why a Caladhrian baron had been presenting himself as a sword for hire to these Aldabreshi and lying about his name and allegiance. No, Corrain concluded with a resentful sigh, there was nothing he could usefully do at the dockside.

‘What omens could Jagai Kalu possibly have read in the heavenly compass?’ The woman in the neat cap was perplexed. ‘Aren’t the skies ill-favoured above their islands now? On account of their Emerald star?’

Corrain looked at her. She was right. Hosh had said that only the Sapphire crept around the sky more slowly than the Emerald. Any shift of these slowest jewels was considered most significant.

Hosh had said that the Emerald would linger in the heavenly compass’s arc of death until the third For-Spring to come, as measured by mainland almanacs. The Archipelagans would read the most gloom-laden and ominous interpretations into the portents they saw around the earthly compass with this hanging over their heads. This Jagai warlord sending his envoys to Col became even more of a puzzle.

The tavern’s front door opened. Hosh halted, aghast, on the threshold as every face turned towards him. The room fell silent but for the crackling fire. Hosh shied away, pulling his cloak hood across his maimed features as he fled into the night.

Corrain hastily wrapped the rest of his bread around the mutton and hurried out into the carillon square. To his relief, he saw Hosh hesitating halfway to the fountain. Where was the lad to go in this strange city with so few friends?

‘Hosh,’ he called out, low-voiced. The last thing the lad needed was more turning heads.

‘Why must they stare so?’ Hosh spun around and Corrain was relieved to see anger as well as humiliation burning in his eyes. He hid his disappointment at seeing no visible change in the boy’s disfigured face.

‘They were only wondering who was coming through the door next. Three Archipelagans had just been in to announce that they’re looking for swords for hire.’

‘What?’ Hosh stood open-mouthed.

‘Let’s go and tell this mage Olved.’ Corrain knew full well that The Goose Hounds’ customers would subject Hosh to searching looks if he returned after he’d recoiled so publicly. Better to let a chime or so of the night pass before they came back to the inn.