Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis) (28 page)

‘I see no reason to take Velindre away from her business.’ Mellitha found her reticule and satisfied herself that the embroidered satin pouch held whatever she might need. ‘Come on.’

She led the way through the cool, airy hallway. Naturally her coach was ready, waiting in the courtyard that separated the white stone house from the quietly prosperous street. Two more servants hurried to open the heavy gates in the high wall that sheltered Mellitha’s residence from prying eyes.

Jilseth followed her into the light carriage with its single forward facing seat and Tanilo the coachman prompted the neatly made roan into a brisk trot.

Mellitha loosened the ribbons tightening the neck of her flower-bedecked purse and fetched out a silver memorandum tablet. ‘There are some other matters I can usefully attend to.’ She didn’t explain further, as she unfolded the hinged tablet and took out a stylus to inscribe notes in the smooth beeswax.

Jilseth looked out of the window as the carriage turned into a wider road carrying them towards a busier quarter where taller buildings were plastered white rather than built of stone. Each balconied floor was a separate family’s dwelling, four and five at a time set on top of each other. The women calling out to each other from their open windows wore dresses of bright coloured cotton, their only silk the ribbons and flowers in their hair.

She wondered if Mellitha owned a single cotton gown. On her previous visits to Relshaz, Jilseth had soon realised the magewoman was reckoned to be significantly wealthy, even for this river-mouth city of canals where generations of traders had amassed fortunes far beyond the greediest dreams of the destitute who drifted through its backwaters.

She was far richer than any other mageborn whom Jilseth had met, who had quit Hadrumal for life among the mundane. Their lives had all been in keeping with the wizard isle’s opinions; that a mage of modest ability could live in unassuming comfort by assisting the mainland populace with their everyday tasks.

The light carriage had reached a more busily commercial district with the ground floors of each building given over to merchants. Each open frontage was flanked by eager apprentices trying to catch the eye or the elbow of potential customers hurrying past, and all the while keeping their own eyes open for sneak-thieves pilfering from the counters behind their open shutters. Goods were carried on strong men’s shoulders or mules’ sturdy backs between wharves and quaysides, workshops and warehouses.

The carriage turned into a street that was evidently the province of lamp sellers and candle makers. Warehouses offered everything from the finest Archipelagan glass lanterns to robust branches holding a double handful of candles and supported on stands as tall as a short man, all wrought from Gidestan brass.

The Relshazri craftsmen’s custom of staying so close to their rivals must doubtless make shopping easier, Jilseth mused. Though she couldn’t recall visiting another city where there would be so many competing artisans in any one particular trade.

At the end of the street, the rumble of the carriage wheels over cobbles changed to the quieter trundle of the iron tyres over flagstones. They had reached the far side of the city and a broad square where crowds clustered around the broad bowls of the fountains tiled with blue to reflect the sky.

‘Make sure to carry nothing you value if you visit it. There are as many pickpockets as pilgrims hereabouts.’ Mellitha looked up from her note-making and nodded towards the spotless white marble temple on the far side of the square. ‘There are individual shrines to every god and goddess of the Tormalin Empire inside, and to deities and cults you’ve never heard of.’

Jilseth presumed their exploits were among those featured in the frieze of busy statues all along the temple’s pediment, supported by the ornately carved pillars dividing the temple’s bronze doors. She had no interest in such superstitions.

‘What exactly is Velindre’s business?’

Mellitha put her memorandum tablet back in her reticule. ‘She sells her knowledge of sea states and incoming storms to merchant ships’ captains.’

‘Oh.’ Jilseth was taken aback. While that was an entirely obvious occupation for a wizard with affinity for the air, it seemed singularly commonplace for a magewoman of Velindre Ychane’s reputation.

According to Hadrumal gossip, she been considered a potential Cloud Mistress, after the former Master of her element, and her lover, Otrick, had died in some distant adventure. No two rumours agreed about that escapade but all concurred on the eccentric old mage’s volatile nature.

‘Here we are.’ Mellitha tightened her purse’s ribbons as the light carriage drew to a halt.

Jilseth stepped down as the coachman opened the door. ‘Madam Velindre does her business in a tavern?’

Though this was a superior inn. The taproom was well swept and well lit with wide shutters bolted open. Customers preferring the open air could find comfortable chairs and freshly wiped tables beneath a vine clad arbour reaching across one half of the building’s frontage.

‘Velindre!’ Mellitha raised a gold-ringed hand.

A slender woman at a corner table acknowledged them with a beckoning gesture. The weather-beaten man sitting across from her rose to his feet, handing her a fat purse.

Velindre passed a hand over it and the coin pouch vanished in an ostentatious flash of sapphire magelight, doubtless for the benefit of any light-fingered onlookers.

Before they reached the arbour, as the mariner hurried away, Jilseth caught Mellitha’s elbow. ‘Has Madam Velindre been ill?’

The magewoman’s pale golden hair was cropped as short as a fever patient’s. The effect was as startling as it was oddly flattering to the woman’s angular features.

‘No.’ Mellitha smiled with private amusement. ‘She had it cut when she travelled through the Archipelago in the guise of a eunuch. She found growing it back to its former length so tiresome that she’s gone shorn ever since.’

Astonished, Jilseth followed the older woman through the tables and chairs. She had never heard that particular detail about Velindre’s rumoured travels among the Aldabreshi. She also noted that this business of selling weather guidance to mariners must pay handsomely. Velindre’s periwinkle gown could have come from Mellitha’s own dressmaker.

‘Will you join me in a glass of orgeat?’ The tall magewoman gestured at the opalescent glass jug on the table. ‘Or would you prefer wine?’

‘Orgeat will be very welcome.’ Mellitha took a chair, settling her skirts decorously around her ankles.

‘Please, sit.’ Velindre’s tone was more instruction than invitation as she glanced at Jilseth before signalling to the tavern girl to bring two more glasses.

Jilseth did as she was bidden.

‘Do we have any idea what this uncouth Mandarkin intends to do with his new slaves?’ Velindre asked Mellitha without preamble.

‘Nothing as yet.’ Mellitha didn’t hide her frustration. ‘Will you join us as we work our next scrying to see if you can blend a clairaudience into the spell?’

‘Do you think that’s wise?’ Jilseth demanded. Perhaps this was why Planir had sent her here.

‘That will depend on your part in the working.’ Velindre looked straight at Jilseth. ‘Have you felt any threat of wild magic when you’ve worked with Mellitha? Do you feel any excessive antipathy to elemental air?’

‘No.’ Jilseth poured herself a glass of the pale liquid and sipped it. The taste of orange-flowers amid the almond sweetness surprised her, though not unpleasantly. The revelation that Mellitha or Planir had told this stranger of her tribulations was far more unwelcome.

‘I’ve seen no reason to doubt your control of your affinity.’ Mellitha looked from Jilseth to Velindre. ‘It’s not as though we’ll be working with a nexus and Relshaz doesn’t have one tenth of the wizards to be found in a single hall in Hadrumal. There won’t be any stray stirring of the elements to be caught in a vortex.’

Velindre was still looking at Jilseth. ‘I’ve been caught unawares by untamed wizardry. An unpleasant experience,’ she observed dispassionately. ‘The crucial thing is to learn from such calamities.’

‘Indeed.’ Jilseth set her glass down and studied the stencilled border on the painted table top.

Mellitha accepted the orgeat which Velindre poured for her. ‘Is there any word along the docksides of the Aldabreshin warlords’ thoughts on the corsairs’ fate?’

‘Not as yet.’ Velindre shook her head. ‘But the news is spreading barely half a day ahead of their ships. Until now, all anyone knew is the raiders had vanished from the sea lanes. There was speculation of course.’

She unfolded her thumb and fingers to count off the theories.

‘Some hoped that the thieves had fallen out among themselves and cut each other’s throats. Or some squall sweeping in from the western sea had sunk all their ships at anchor. If no one knew exactly where they laired, or wouldn’t admit to it if they did, we’ve long known that their harbour lies in the northwest of the Nahik domain. The most optimistic guessed that Nahik Jarir had finally found his manhood stirring and sent his own triremes to drive them out.’

Jilseth resolved to play a part in this conversation. ‘Why did he tolerate their presence in the first place?’

Velindre topped up her own glass from the glistening jug. ‘A handful or so years ago, there were several raiding fleets prowling the northernmost sea lanes. They were small undertakings; perhaps three or four galleys following in a single trireme’s wake. Crucially, they were only intent on raiding the mainland coast. So they traded Nahik Jarir a handsome share of their loot in return for their anchorages. Some scoured his outlying islands for runaway slaves and handed them over without asking for recompense. That suited him very well.’

She waved away the serving maid who would have taken the jug to refill it.

‘According to Aldabreshin custom and law, neighbouring warlords have no interest in whatever mischief Jarir permits in his own waters, as long as it doesn’t impinge on their own domain. Moreover, for those first few years, these corsairs were also killing the mainland pirates who lurked in the hidden coves between Attar and Markyate. Those pirates regularly attacked Aldabreshin galleys heading for Relshaz or Col.’

‘Going unpunished by Caladhrian barons who saw no need to concern themselves with some shoeless southern barbarians’ losses,’ Mellitha remarked sardonically.

‘Any more than a northern reaches warlord will have lost sleep over any Caladhrian’s suffering,’ Velindre agreed with a glint in her eye. ‘The corsairs sank the mainland pirates’ ships in successive bloody seasons, finally leaving those coves deserted. After that, the corsairs turned on each other but as long as they were only killing each other, the warlords saw no reason to intervene. Meantime, they took their pick from the defeated galley crews and swordsmen who turned up chained in the slave markets.’

‘Jagai Kalu would have rallied a fleet against them,’ Mellitha observed, ‘and we tried to persuade the mainland ports to forbid anchorage to galleys sailing the Nahik sea lanes until the corsairs were driven out. We have been working against these corsairs for some years now,’ she explained, ‘discreetly of course.’

‘Does the Council know?’ Jilseth wondered why she’d heard no whisper of this in Hadrumal.

Velindre’s careless shrug skirted a direct answer. ‘We work at the Archmage’s behest.’

‘He must think highly of you,’ Mellitha’s dark gaze fixed on Jilseth, ‘to send you here to join us.’

‘I am honoured.’ Jilseth had been fretting about dismissal from Planir’s confidence. Now she worried about serving Hadrumal alongside these formidable magewomen with her own magic so untrustworthy.

‘But the mainland port reeves wouldn’t risk turning away trade which some neighbour would promptly welcome,’ Velindre continued, sardonic.

‘While the warlords from further south in the Archipelago weren’t prepared to risk their galleys on the more perilous eastward routes for the sake of starving Nahik Jarir and his people into agreement.’ Exasperation deepened the lines in Mellitha’s face.

‘Thus by the summer of this year, a single corsair leader had emerged with a formidable fleet and considerable force of arms at his disposal,’ Velindre explained to Jilseth. ‘Nahik Jarir would have been very ill-advised to try moving against him. Jagai Kalu would very much like to but he cannot hope to act without the full support of Khusro Rina on his own western flank and Miris Esul to the south of Nahik waters.’

She raised a hand and Jilseth realised her expression must have given away her confusion at this flood of unfamiliar names. ‘I will send you a chart that shows all the detail of their respective domains.’

Mellitha sighed. ‘The Aldabreshi may tolerate a corsair fleet master in their midst for a little while but as soon as they know there’s a wizard lurking on that island, they will act. Whatever they do, news will come to Relshaz first and we must keep the Archmage informed.’

‘And act in Hadrumal’s interests, as we see fit.’ Velindre’s eyes glinted.

‘Do we know where Kheda is?’ the older magewoman demanded.

‘In the southernmost reaches unfortunately.’ Velindre grimaced. ‘I’ve no notion when he plans to come north again.’

For the first time, Mellitha betrayed exasperation. ‘If only we still had Sirince picking up slave trader gossip.’

‘Sirince?’ Jilseth was astonished. ‘Sirince Mar?’