Dangerous Waters (41 page)

Who would ever ask for Ilysh’s hand in marriage after that? That night’s hasty work could have ruined her daughter’s hopes of future happiness. Was it worth making that sacrifice for the sake of escaping Lord Licanin’s undoubtedly benign control of their affairs?

‘You may join us for ale and wafer cakes before you depart,’ she told Jilseth politely, hiding the feverish turmoil of her thoughts. ‘Forgive me, but I cannot offer any guests fitting hospitality until our household’s fortunes improve.’

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
S
IX

Kevil, Caladhria

Summer Solstice Festival, Fourth Day, Afternoon

W
HATEVER HAD POSSESSED
the Caladhrian barons to hold their Summer Parliament here? Jilseth slapped at a tickle on her neck. She was relieved to feel a trickle of sweat beneath her fingers, not one of the pestilential flies which emerged as the day cooled. If there was some quadrate cantrip to soothe the reddened itching which their bites provoked, she had yet to find it.

The whole town reeked of decay as the breeze blew in from the fens. While this whole coast was fringed with salt marshes, a great swathe of land lay waterlogged hereabouts. The vast swamp stretched a full thirty leagues inland at its widest point, extending to the north of Kevil from the river that gave its name to the town right the way to the River Tresia flowing down from Trebin far inland. The shortest route between the two rivers would be fifty leagues, if such a path could ever be found amid the shifting channels and treacherous bogs.

Only the locals seemed immune to the smell. Perhaps that was why they had such a reputation for stupidity. If those in the other countries that had once made up the Old Tormalin Empire told jokes about slow-witted Caladhrians, the Caladhrians told the same jokes about Kevilmen.

Jilseth was more inclined to think their nostrils simply gave up the unequal fight with the fetid odours in childhood. Could they even taste the subtleties in the celebrated wines of Trebin’s hills? Or were the finest vintages as tasteless as spring water? Jilseth took a sip and wished the blush wine tasted as fragrant as it had in Hadrumal. No chance of that with the stench clogging her palate.

She contemplated the Merchants’ Exchange on the far side of the market square. The spacious entrance had been built to accommodate the widest wagons bringing goods to be sold and traded. A full season’s produce from leagues around could be stowed safely in the undercroft’s storerooms while deals were done in the great hall up above.

Now those double doors were spilling Caladhria’s barons out onto the cobbles. The nobles’ deliberations had finally been completed for the day. It had taken long enough but the Caladhrians did take their parliaments very seriously.

An equal voice for all the barons hallowed by custom and enshrined in law saved their realm from the ruinous rivalries that had beset Lescar as those six dukes constantly sought supreme power. It protected smaller, poorer baronies from being overridden by wealthier ones, in the way that the lesser fiefdoms of Ensaimin were so often bullied by the great city states of that fragmented country.

It was far superior to the Tormalin Convocation of Princes, in the Caladhrian barons’ opinion. However much influence the men rising to lead the empire’s noble houses might have over their vast dominions, the lesser branches of their extensive families and their countless tenants, they were all still subject to the Tormalin Emperor’s ultimate authority over the laws enforced within their boundaries and his final say on any decision to send the Imperial legions beyond them. No Caladhrian need yield to such tyranny.

In theory, each new emperor’s authority rested on his acclamation by the Convocation. If they wished to, the other leading princes could designate a different noble house to provide a guardian of their rights and freedoms. In practise, the same dynasty would sit on the imperial throne for generations until some calamitous decision or egregious stupidity forced the Convocation’s hand. They’d learned nothing since the days of Nemith the Reckless, whose folly had brought the Old Empire crashing down into the dark generations of The Chaos.

That’s what Ilysh had solemnly told Jilseth, when the magewoman had idly probed the girl’s understanding of the world beyond Halferan. Jilseth forbore to tell her how the inhabitants of those other countries routinely mocked the Caladhrians’ interminable, inconclusive discussions that kept the baronies and all their inhabitants retracing their fathers’ and forefather’s steps as dumbly as a donkey in a harness endlessly circling to drive a mill wheel.

All around the market square, innkeepers shooed their prettiest serving maids forward to smile demurely and curtsey, promising the finest dining in Caladhria within the welcoming shade of their particular hostelry. Kevil hadn’t seen such a gathering inside two generations and the locals were determined to make the most of it.

Jilseth wished them luck. The stink from the marshes had killed her appetite. Then she realised fine dining was the last thing the barons were considering. A dark haired lord walked past without as much as a glance in Jilseth’s direction. He was arguing hotly with his hook-nosed companion.

‘You think we should have sat on our hands behind our manor walls and let the corsairs plunder our domains as they pleased?’

‘I know that every merchant whom I have dealings with tells me of outrage in Col, Peorle and Relshaz,’ the hook-nosed baron said with equal passion. ‘If these corsair raids on their vessels continue, they will send their goods by road and river next season.’

‘They will not,’ the dark-haired lord scoffed. ‘A ship can carry fifty times the weight of a wagon and make the journey in a quarter of the time.’

‘Then these merchants will buy fifty wagons and endure the delay, for the sake of seeing their goods actually arrive,’ the hook-nosed baron assured him. ‘Better that than lose both stake money and profit to some Archipelagan raider. What happens to your lordships’ revenues then, from harbour dues paid in Attar and Claithe and Pinerin, with no coastal trade between Relshaz and Ensaimin?’

‘Those revenues are no recompense for our losses,’ the dark-haired lord assured him.

‘Then perhaps we should consider my lord of Prysen’s proposal,’ the hook-nosed baron snapped. ‘Perhaps if Lord Halferan had brought that whole business to the parliament as he should have in the first place, we would not be tangled in this coil!’

‘If their lordships sitting comfortably a hundred leagues from the coast had agreed to pay the necessary levy to raise an army, we would have seen an end to our losses long since.’ The dark-haired lord was growing angry.

‘Who would this army of yours have fought? Where? When?’ the hook-nosed baron demanded, his wrath rising equally swiftly. ‘This isn’t Lescar’s war with dukes and their militias neatly drawn up to face the rebels on either side of a battlefield. When we get wind of a corsair raid, we only ever arrive after they’ve fled and we never have any notion where the villains will strike next!’

For a moment, Jilseth actually thought the dark-haired lord was about to punch the hook-nosed baron in the face. He certainly clenched his fist. Then he drew back with ill-concealed satisfaction. ‘This business will be resolved without paying these corsairs a copper cut-piece. You have my word on that.’

He strode away with a superior smile on his face, leaving his associate glowering after him. The baron waved away an obsequious pot man trying to entice him towards a seat. He headed across the market square for a different tavern where more gesticulating barons had gathered.

Jilseth considered going after him. What was this business which Lord Halferan should have laid before the parliament? It couldn’t be approaching the Archmage for wizardry’s aid. That was all done and dealt with and the whole parliament knew of Hadrumal’s refusal.

What was Lord Prysen’s proposal? Who was he? Jilseth didn’t know the man by sight or reputation, any more than she knew that hook-nosed baron’s name.

But she had no standing to prompt any unknown noble into conversation. Not unless she revealed herself as a magewoman of Hadrumal, and that wasn’t something she wanted to do. She had come here to find out as discreetly as possible what Lord Licanin might know of Corrain’s whereabouts.

Jilseth found herself much less inclined to dismiss the Archmage’s instinct to keep an eye on that potential troublemaker after her recent visit to Halferan. Lady Zurenne was definitely hiding something.

She rose to her feet, leaving a silver penny to pay for her half-drunk glass of wine. She had seen the barons of Saldiray and Taine emerging from the market hall’s shadowed entrance.

As she crossed the cobbles to meet them, they were as deeply engaged in heated conversation as those first lords. They didn’t even notice her approaching.

‘If the inland baronies won’t countenance paying a levy so we can raise a coastal army, what makes you think they will open up their coffers for the sake of buying off these accursed corsairs?’ Lord Saldiray demanded.

‘Warfare is one thing. This is commerce.’ Baron Taine sounded disgusted.

Whatever his quarrel was, Jilseth saw it wasn’t with Lord Saldiray.

‘Fair festival, my lords.’ She smiled at them both.

‘What are you doing here?’ Lord Saldiray was brusque to the point of rudeness.

Baron Taine overstepped that mark by a long stride. ‘Don’t imagine that you are welcome.’

What prompted this hostility? Jilseth wondered for an instant if the parliament had learned the full extent of Minelas’s treachery. But surely that scandal would have been on every baron’s lips, not this Lord Prysen’s proposal, whatever that might be.

‘Then forgive me, my lords.’ She took a step backwards, ready to walk away.

‘Not so fast, madam mage!’ To her utter astonishment, Lord Saldiray seized her wrist.

Jilseth was so taken aback that she couldn’t even translocate herself. All her instincts reached for earth and stone rather than the elemental air. Then the spell came rushing back to her. Let him find his hand as empty as a winter nutshell—

‘What has the Archmage promised Halferan?’

The desperation in Saldiray’s voice gave Jilseth pause. She let the swirl of enchanted air dissipate.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked warily.

‘Besides guiding them to these victories over the corsairs,’ Baron Taine said impatiently. ‘Have you any notion how foolish we looked in there?’ he asked with mounting wrath.

‘My lord, I have no notion what you’re talking about,’ Jilseth assured him with increasing unease.

Lord Saldiray stared at her, uncomprehending. ‘The corsair galleys which the men of Halferan, Tallat and Myrist have captured and burned over this past half season. The Archmage told Halferan’s captain where they would make landfall.’

‘He most definitely did not,’ Jilseth assured him. ‘Nor any other mage.’

It was inconceivable in the current circumstances that any renegade mage, however well-meaning, could possibly escape the Archmage’s vigilance, or Hearth Master Kalion’s.

Baron Taine spun around with a comical flounce of his lightweight cloak. Jilseth could have smiled if she hadn’t felt such dire misgivings.

‘Lord Licanin!’ Baron Taine’s hail turned heads clear across the market place. ‘If you please?’ he added belatedly.

Lord Licanin had turned aside as soon as he left the Merchants’ Exchange, heading for a side street rather than any revelry. Jilseth thought he might keep on walking until Baron Saldiray added his own plea.

‘A word, by your leave?’

Visibly heaving a sigh, Lord Licanin crossed the market place. He nodded to Taine and to Saldiray. ‘My lords. Madam mage.’

His antagonism was cold enough to drive off the evening’s midges.

Jilseth offered her warmest smile. ‘Fair festival, Lord Licanin.’

‘So what have you to say for yourself?’ Lord Licanin wasted no time on courtesy. ‘Come to that, why are you here?’

‘I came in case you might need my testimony that Master Minelas is dead,’ she said carefully. ‘In support of your proposed guardianship of Halferan.’