Beneath an Opal Moon (26 page)

Clever girl, Moichi thought. But now they were out of touch with each other. He shrugged mentally. There was nothing he could do now but carry on with what he had planned to do. He had no idea where she was. He would just have to wait to see if she contacted him.

“Come on,” he said turning. “I have to meet a Daluzan in a taverna at the foot of Calle Córdel. You might as well come along. I want to hear the whole story.”

El Cambiro
was at the foot of Calle Córdel, hard by the wooden wharves of Corruña.

The smell of the sea was thick in the air, rich and heady and robust, and Moichi, breathing deeply, felt instantly invigorated.

The creaking of the ships' fittings as they rested some distance out at anchor came to him as sharp and clear as if they had been alongside. That was the water, he knew, an excellent conductor of sound both above and below.

Fishermen were already taking down their nets from where they had hung drying in the hot sun all the long afternoon. Now they spread them out along the quiet quays, before the dew got to them, rotting the hemp, to pick out the last few bits of seagrape and flotsam that had caught there the day before, then rolled them carefully up into long lines, taking them, two men to a net, on board their fishing lorchas, stowing them on deck and covering them with an oiled cloth tarp.

A bit of canvas fluttered in the wind, thumping; the slap-slap of the tide against the piling, increasing as the coming storm whipped up the surface of the sea.

Beyond the sanctuary of the port, he could see that the sea was already heavy. Visibility was unusually clear and the horizon, restlessly shifting with the swells, stretched blackly away.

The taverna was a low, squat structure of whitewashed plaster with a swinging wooden door through which lemon light poured beckoningly and with a creaking sign over its frontage, depicting a giant crab so elaborately carapaced it seemed prehistoric.

They went inside.

The place was as wide as it was deep, its rough-hewn walls echoed in the plain wooden tables and chairs stained with a combination of drink and seawater. The ceiling was low with thick wooden beams striping its length. An enormous fire crackled in a stone hearth set into the far wall. A dark wood bar curved along the left-hand wall. Behind it, shelves lined with bottles. It was smoky inside and smelled of liquor and fat and tallow.

Moichi led Martyne to an empty table in a corner opposite the bar where he could see the door without having to turn around. They ordered a local brew as thick and dark and almost as sweet as mead.

The place was not quite half full. A seaman sat slumped over near the hearth, his head cradled in his burly arms, a line of empty glasses at one elbow. No one bothered to take them away, not even when he twitched in his sleep and sent one of them crashing to the earthen floor.

A pair of weathered sailors, their faces lined and scarred, played dice, the rattle rhythmic and soothing like the slap of the sea against a ship's hull.

The fat man with greasy jowls and a three-day-old beard behind the bar hummed a tuneless sea chantey, wiping at the already gleaming bar top.

It was well past midnight.

A tall Daluzan sailor came in and, taking off his knit cap, smacked it against his thigh several times. He went to the bar and the fat man drew him a drink, then went back to his wiping. The sailor took the glass to an unoccupied table and slumped down. He took a long swallow, smacked his lips noisily.

Moichi sipped at his drink, not liking it much. Martyne had told him as much as she knew but he wished that she knew more. She had obviously provided Chiisai with a crucial clue to the key of this entire affair. This she had repeated to him but he still had no idea what it meant He was abruptly angry at Chiisai for running off. Unfortunately, he had to agree with what she did. To allow such a chance to slip past would have been inexcusable. But, of a sudden, he felt in the dark, and it was a truly uncomfortable sensation. He felt as if he were battling shadows.

The door opened, pulling him away from his gloomy thoughts. A cambujo boy, thin and small, came in and looked around. He had a package under his arm.

He spotted Moichi and trotted over to where he sat with Martyne. He handed Moichi the package and started to leave.

“What is this?” Moichi asked.

The boy turned around, shrugged. “Only what it seems, senhor. A package for you.”

“How do you know me?”

The boy shrugged again as if this were his only gesture. “The man on the pier who gave me the package. He told me what you look like.”

“What man? What did he look like?”

“It was dark, senhor. Very little light. I did not notice.” He turned away and ran out the door.

Moichi stared down at the package for a moment. It was fairly small, wrapped in oiled paper with fisherman's twine. Carefully, he unwrapped it.

Martyne gasped.

It was a man's heart, covered in blood. It was wrapped with a sweat-and blood-soaked purple headband. Rohja's.

Moichi covered the thing up with the oiled paper and very quietly said, “I want you to get up and walk out of here as if nothing has happened. Go back to the mercado and forget all about this. Do you understand?”

“I want to help,” Martyne whispered. “Anything I can do—”

“I have just told you what you can do. Please do it. Now. I will have Chiisai contact you when it is safe; when all this is over. I'm sorry I brought you here, Martyne. It was foolish on my part. Please go now.”

She stared at him for a minute, then nodded briefly. She slid out of the chair and went to the door, went through it without looking back.

When she had gone he stood up. He left Rohja's heart where it sat, covered, on the table and left the taverna. Now he burned with a cold fury.

There was nothing but the sea and the sky.

The racing clouds had erased even the shadows.

He thought that it would be fruitless but he did it anyway. Nothing could have stopped him. He prowled the jetties and wharves, the tavernas and fish markets, the homes of the waterside cambujos and the two or three gigantic warehouses dockside. He searched for Hellsturm. Surely it had been he who had barbarously plucked the heart from the young seaman. He recalled Martyne's description of the Tudescans.
They are like beasts
. But she was wrong, for no beast would ever do such a thing for sport. Beasts hunted to eat; killed so that they might continue to live. There was a terrible calculatedness in this that went far beyond bestiality. It was demonic.

Just the splashing sea and the lowering sky and Moichi Annai-Nin between, striding the creaking timbers of the docks, his eyes alight with a ferocity as the anger shook him. And along with it, he knew he felt a kind of seeping despair. For the world would never change. Men and women and, yes, children too would die as others were being born; and new cities would be built upon the rubble of the old; and ever, ever would there be those who practiced dark secret rites, the evil they worshiped seeping from them like coagulating blood.

He was alone in the dark for now even the fishermen who had earlier been abroad were belowdecks in their lorchas, asleep before the coming of dawn—the last guardians gone, it seemed to him—and now Corruña was alight with the myriad dreams of its inhabitants and he, alone in all the city, awake.

He thought, unbidden, of Kossori, of the man's youth when he was utterly alone along the Sha'angh'sei bund, and he felt tears welling up behind his eyes. Now he knew what it was like. So desolate, not like the real world at all. Even animals had somewhere to go.

At length, having exhausted his search and perceiving that it was near daylight, he turned his mind to more practical matters. Chiisai. She was his only possible link now to Hellsturm. She would, if she could, he knew, send him a message. But to where? She knew of three places he might be in Corruña: the taverna,
El Cambiro
, where she knew they were to meet Rohja; the house of the Senhora Seguillas y Oriwara; and Aufeya's lorcha. He rejected the first immediately. Even if he had met Rohja, Chiisai knew that they would be there for only a very limited amount of time; much too risky. Another kind of risk held true for the house; Chiisai would have no way of knowing how his “interview” with the Senhora turned out, whether he was now considered friend or foe there; that was out. Only the lorcha remained.

The sailor on watch saluted him as he came up the gangplank.

“Has anyone come on board tonight?” Moichi asked him. “Other than members of the crew.”

The man shook his head. “Not on my watch, piloto. But I have only just come on.”

“Who had the watch before you?”

“Armazón, piloto. He is below now.”

“All right. I am going to see him. If anyone comes—anyone at all-call me immediately.”

“Aye, piloto.”

Moichi went for'ard, easing himself down the companionway belowdecks. He went past the tiny but superbly efficient galley, for'ard into the crew's quarters. Most of the berths were, of course, empty, as many of the men had chosen to spend the night in the city with their families or girl friends. Armazón was not in his berth.

He turned and went aft to the captain's quarters. This was where Aufeya had slept, and even on the return voyage Moichi had not stayed there, preferring to give it to Chiisai. Now he found Armazón asleep on the captain's wide bed, one arm flung across his face.

Moichi woke him.

“Oh, it's you,” Armazón said. “Thought we'd all seen the last of you.” He rolled back onto the bed.

“Has anyone come aboard tonight?”

“Huh? No. Nobody.”

Moichi went up the companionway and off the lorcha. He had just stepped onto the timbers of the pier when he thought he caught a movement deep in the shadows near a pile of wooden casks. They were empty, rotting husks now.

He saw a small face appear and took his hand from the hilt of his sword. He moved toward the face but it darted away from him and he was obliged to leap over the barrels. He grabbed hold of the small body.

“Come here, little one,” he said. “Who is it you seek?” He saw her clearly now, a small girl.

“Begging your pardon, senhor, but would you tell me your name before I answer?”

Moichi laughed. “Yes, of course. I am Moichi Annai-Nin.” He gazed at her. “And who might you be?” He sat and put her on his lap.

“Alma, senhor. I have a message for Moichi Annai-Nin.”

“Tell me it then,” he said, on edge.

She lifted one small hand up to his face. “Please, senhor, let me see your nose.”

“My nose? Why in—?” Then he perceived that she was looking for the diamond set into the dusky flesh of his nostril. “Have you found it then?”

“Yes, senhor. The message is from Chiisai. She told me to come to this lorcha but to speak only to you. I have been here for some time. I went aboard earlier but the man blocked my way and said he had never heard of you and to go away. When I didn't, he said you would be away all night but told him to take any message that might come. I did not believe him, senhor.”

“And you did well not to,” Moichi said, tousling her hair. “Tell me, Alma, what did this man look like?” She described Armazón.

“Chiisai found me near the western gate, senhor. There a small caravan was about to depart. Not a trade caravan, for we knew nothing about it. She said to tell you that she is well and that she travels northwest.”

“She follows the caravan.”

“Yes, senhor.”

“Did you see any of the men in the caravan?”

“Not well enough to describe them to you.”

Was Hellsturm among them? he wondered.

“I did right to wait, senhor?”

“Yes, Alma, you did.”

“It's scary here, at night.”

“Is it?”

She nodded. “Yes, it is. That man from the lorcha came around once or twice, looking for me. But I hid behind the barrels and he didn't find me.”

Moichi hugged her affectionately. “You are very brave.” He dug into his sash and gave her a silver piece. “This will buy much food and clothing, Alma. But if you take it you must promise me you'll do something.”

“What, senhor?”

“Buy yourself a warm cloak.” He stood up, putting her on the timbers. Her arms reached up and he lifted her. She kissed him on the mouth. A decidedly un-childlike kiss.

“Off with you now,” he said softly. “See that you go straight home.” He watched her silently as she ran down the length of the quay, as unobtrusive as a shadow, and disappeared amidst the streets of the city.

He went aboard the lorcha again, coming silently into the captain's cabin. He hauled Armazón out of the berth.

“What—what are you doing?” the other spluttered.

“No one came aboard asking for me, eh?”

“Why, no,” he said, righteously. “I told you that. Anyone who says different is a blasted liar.” His fingers pried desperately at Moichi's grip but it was like iron.

“It's you who lie, Armazón.” He jerked the bos'un toward him. “About the Senhora. Now about the cambujo girl.” He dragged the man off the bed; his pants were half off. “What a twisted, mean soul you have. You disgust me!”

“Listen, listen,” Armazón cried. “It was probably Rohja who has filled your head with all these stories about me. They are totally untrue, believe me! He wishes only to become this ship's new bos'un. He'll say anything to get that—!”

Moichi slapped him across the face and he whimpered. “Shut up, you insect! Rohja is dead, but while he lived he said not one word against you to me.” He began to drag the man down the ship to the companionway. “The little cambujo girl found me on the dock.”

“But she lies!” Armazón pleaded. “I wouldn't give the little beggar food, that's all. And who could blame me? If I gave some to her, I'd have to give to all of them.”

“Do you think I'm an idiot to believe such a tale?”