Ice Forged (The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga) (14 page)

“Did everyone feel it?” Connor fingered the crystals and turned the amulets over. The metal was thin and greasy,
cheaply made. The “crystals” were mere glass, not semiprecious gems. He had spent enough time around Penhallow to gain an eye for both magical items and fine craftsmanship. He doubted these trinkets provided any more protection than one could obtain by whistling in the dark.

“Some more than others,” the fat trader replied. “My wife scared the wits out of me, she did. Toppled over as if she’d been struck by the gods. When she came back to herself, told me that—just for a moment—she felt the magic rush out and then swell back, like the tides.” He shook his head, eyes wide. “Never saw the like of it. You can believe she’s wearing my amulets now, too. Won’t take them off for anything.”

“Is that what’s got everyone talking?” Connor asked.

The trader looked at him as if he were daft. “Aye, it’s got them talking all right—and by this time tomorrow, I warrant that anyone who’s able will be on the road south, as far away from Quillarth Castle as they can get.”

Connor frowned. He looked around at the crowded streets and realized that more than a few handcarts and small wagons were loaded with people’s personal possessions, hastily packed and tied down under threadbare blankets. “Why? Why leave the city?”

“It’s not just the way the magic flickered. Bad omens lately. Fishing boat sank off the wharves, not a scratch on her. The old crone who reads cards in the square says that every run of cards she lays warns of danger and fire. Old Phearson’s cows quit giving milk yesterday. The man who brings eggs to market says the hens have been off their nests.” He shook his head, and Connor had the impression that this part of the discussion was not contrived to sell the trader’s wares.

The man looked genuinely frightened. “It’s bad enough that the big ships aren’t sailing. We should have realized something
bad was coming. There’s talk among the captains about a blockade, but that’s not the reason.” The man leaned closer, conspiratorially. “King Merrill stopped sending the ships because we don’t have enough to feed the soldiers and keep the war going, let alone feeding those criminals at the end of the world. Let ’em starve, I say.”

“What of the convicts? Where do they go?”

The trader’s smile was mirthless. “The worst of the lot go to the end of a rope, that’s where they go. Hangings happen nearly every day since the ships stopped sailing. The rest are conscripted for the war effort. Able-bodied men to the front. Women and those too young to fight go to the cook wagons, or sew uniforms or help the healers with the wounded.”

“What about you? Will you stay, or are you packing up, too?”

The trader sighed. “My wife’s not well. She won’t leave, and I won’t leave her. But if I was free to go, I’d already be gone.”

Connor gave the man a copper for one of the amulets and went on his way. The tide of people trying to leave the city grew greater the farther down the hill he went. Many were headed for the Forest Road, the main thoroughfare out of the city. Others headed down the hill with their tattered bundles of possessions, and Connor realized why as he reached the wharves.

Throngs of people jostled for position, shouting to be heard. Captains of vessels of all sizes and states of seaworthiness bargained the cost of passage with those who could pay. By the look of it, many of the ships might not make it out of the harbor. Some were trawlers and fishing boats, unsuitable for carrying passengers. Connor’s gaze rose to the masts of the larger ships that sat with their sails furled on the big docks. Those made the ocean voyage to the Far Shores, trading for the exotic luxuries for which the nobles were willing to pay dearly. Other ships he recognized as being supply and convict ships. Guards
were posted around the decks and gangplanks of all the larger vessels.

He shouldered through the crowd, buffeted by people who were carrying heavy bundles and dragging screaming children. The Rooster and Pig was a brisk walk from the wharves, near the storehouses where the merchants kept their goods, and the Foley Yards, Donderath’s largest shipyards.

Half-built ships rose against the night sky like skeletal gods. From the materials and wood shavings littered about, war had not slowed construction on the newest ships. If anything, the yards had an unusual level of disarray, as if the builders had been working more quickly than usual. There were only two likely reasons for that, neither of them good. Either the shipbuilders had been urged to supply new vessels quickly for the war or to breech the impending blockade, or the owners, succumbing to the crowd’s fearfulness, had urged their builders to step up their schedules.

The Rooster and Pig’s red roof stuck out among the drab warehouses. One of its bright-blue shutters was loose, banging in the wind, like the winking of a whore’s painted eye. Yet the tavern served some of the best fresh fish in Castle Reach, along with its signature bitterbeer and cheese bread that brought the most wayward sailor back for more.

Connor was glad for the dagger beneath his cloak and the shiv in his boot. The Rooster and Pig had a better reputation than most of the port-side bars. Fights were few and usually limited to punches thrown over a claim to one of the tavern’s trollops. Travelers could spend the night with reasonable certainty that they would not be relieved of their clothing or wallets. Still, with the tension in the air this night, Connor was unsure whether old ways were likely to remain true.

The heavy door opened with a firm push. Every table and
chair was occupied and many patrons stood along the walls nursing their drinks. Men played at dice or cards, and brightly dressed trollops circulated through the crowd, urging high rollers to bet more or conveying luck with a kiss. Connor made his way to the bar, looking for the proprietor.

“Busy day?” Connor greeted the tavern master.

“Busy enough that we never closed from yesterday,” the man replied without looking up as he used a pitcher to slosh ale into three tankards in a row.

“I’ll have one of your best bitterbeers, and two buckets to take with me when I go,” Connor said. That was enough to get the tavern master’s attention, and he looked up, then grinned broadly.

“Connor! It’s been a while. Doesn’t your master let you out?”

Connor chuckled. “Who do you think one of the buckets is for? It’s mighty thirsty up the hill these days.”

Engraham, the tavern master, was a lanky man, thirty seasons old, with wavy brown hair and light-blue eyes. It was obvious to anyone from court who made their way down to the pub and took one look at the man that Engraham was also the bastard son of Lord Forden. Forden had made no attempt to deny paternity, and it was rumored that Forden had staked Engraham the money to build the Rooster and Pig. Despite the tavern’s questionable location, it boasted a well-appointed private back room for gambling that was ofttimes occupied by the wastrel sons of the nobility, and an equally popular set of comfortable rooms upstairs for wenching. If the citizens of Castle Reach sought to drink away their worries, Engraham stood to make a small fortune.

“Is it true?” Engraham brought Connor his bitterbeer and leaned across the bar, lowering his voice.

“Is what true?”

“That Donderath is losing the war. Folks around here are afraid Meroven troops will be marching in any day now.”

Connor drank a long draught of his beer and wiped his mouth. “Not to my knowledge. The war isn’t going well—I don’t think that’s much of a secret. Meroven’s put up more of a fight than I think anyone—including King Merrill—expected. But if we’re on the verge of being overrun, I haven’t heard about it… and I do have pretty good sources.”

Engraham nodded. “Aye, that you do. That you do indeed.” He poured Connor another bitterbeer before the first was empty, the price of information.

“What do you know about the convict ships?”

Connor took another swallow and let the dark ale slide down his throat. “Nothing I didn’t learn from a peddler on the roadside.”

“Has the king abandoned Velant?” Engraham’s blue eyes glinted with uncharacteristic anger. In Connor’s experience, Engraham was one of the most easygoing men he knew. Where many tavern keepers would wade into a brawl, fists flying, to restore order, Engraham usually called for a free round on the house, which was equally effective without a loss of anyone’s teeth.

“He hasn’t said as much, but I see the ships in the harbor,” Connor replied.

Engraham swore. “It’s not right to send people away and then cut off supplies,” he growled. “They’re likely to starve without those ships, with winter coming on.”

Connor sipped his beer and nodded. Engraham was the result of a dalliance between Lord Forden and a ladies’ maid, and while Forden had admitted his paternity of the child, he had wanted nothing more to do with the child’s mother. Disgraced and forced by scandal from her position at the castle,
the desperate young woman had been reduced to petty theft to get by. She had been caught and sentenced to exile in Velant, and it was only Forden’s belated intervention that spared Engraham from going with his mother when he was a half-grown boy. The funds for the tavern were most likely conscience money.

“Have you had any word?” Connor asked, dropping his voice.

The look in Engraham’s eyes darkened. “None in several months. Last I heard from my mum was at the beginning of the summer. She has a place as a shopgirl in one of the stores in Bay-town.”

“Is there any chance that your father—”

Engraham shook his head. “M’lord was rather clear on that. He may not love his wife, but he’s dependent on her wealth. He’d own up to me, but he was just as glad, I think, to have my mum far away.” He sighed. “I send her money and warm clothing when I can get Captain Olaf to take it for me. His drinks here are free.” He rubbed his thumb and fingers together in the universal gesture for bribery. “No one comes back from Velant. Out of sight, out of mind.”

Connor finished the first tankard of bitterbeer and set it down with a thunk. “On that note—is Alsibeth about?”

Engraham jerked his head to the right. “Yonder, in the far corner. It’s packed like fish in a barrel in here tonight. Been this way since the magic blinked.”

“Worried that most of your patrons will leave the city?”

Engraham shrugged. “Not really. If the worst happens, where can they run that will be better?”

“How about the ones down at the dock haggling with the trawler captains?”

Another shrug. “Assuming they don’t capsize and drown,
the best they can hope for is to get to the Lesser Kingdoms, to the south. And what will they do once they get there? I wonder.” He shook his head. “And before you ask, I’m not going anywhere, either, least not until fire rains down from the sky or some such sign. After all, where could I get better ale than right here?” He grinned.

“Where indeed?” Connor gripped the handle of the second tankard. “Save me those two buckets of bitterbeer, my friend. I need to talk with Alsibeth.”

Crossing the crowded tavern common room was no easy feat. By the time Connor reached the far corner, his toes had been trod upon several times and a third of his beer had been sloshed on the floor as he fended off clumsy patrons. Finally, he made it to the far corner where Alsibeth held court.

Connor and Engraham had often speculated about Alsibeth’s age when the seer was out of hearing range. Cascades of dark, wavy hair fell nearly to her trim waist, and a shimmering chain of small gold bells hung from each ear and chimed softly when she moved. She had luminous eyes that were nearly violet, and delicate, long-fingered hands. Connor had never seen Alsibeth dressed in anything except the vibrantly colored silks that draped from her shoulders and swathed her narrow hips. He had as little clue to her birthplace as to her age, but he thought it likely that she could trace her lineage to the Far Shores, beyond Donderath’s borders and the Continent itself.

“You’re late, Connor. I’d have thought to see you a candlemark ago.” Alsibeth did not look up.

“Delayed by a peddler on the road, m’lady,” Connor replied. He’d grown used to Alsibeth’s uncanny knowledge, and took comments like these as reassurance that other, more important prognostications were also correct.

“Wait a moment.” With that, Alsibeth returned her attention
to the items spread before her. She had claimed one of the tavern’s tables for her own, and with the number of people who came to ask for her to read their fortune, Connor had no doubt that Engraham made his money back several times over in spite of the loss of a table. Alsibeth had spread the table with a silk covering in blue like the color of the deepest ocean. In a semicircle around her were the tools of her divination: burning candles in a variety of colors and heights, a wide bowl of clear water, a small bundle of sage that smoldered in its pewter holder, and a small wooden “tree” hung with dainty bells.

Alsibeth passed her hand through the sage smoke. Without touching it, the bell tree trembled. Alsibeth listened carefully to the sound of the chimes and raised her face to the anxious woman who stood next to the table, awaiting the prediction.

“The one you trust is not telling the full truth. He does not lie, but he withholds information. You would find this information to be important. Until you are told everything, resist the urge to put your trust in this person.”

The patron’s eyes widened, and she nodded, clearly taking the meaning of Alsibeth’s reading. She gave a shallow bow. “Thank you, m’lady, thank you. I’ll do as you say.” She placed several coins into a basket that sat on the edge of the table and hurried away.

“I must rest,” Alsibeth said to the group of watchers who clustered around her. “Leave me for a while, and come back later.”

Her audience drifted away into the tavern crowd, and Alsibeth motioned for Connor to have a seat next to her. Her violet eyes watched him intently for a moment, and then she nodded. “Yes, I felt it.” Alsibeth gave him a faint smile. “Your master sent you to find out why the magic flickered.”

Connor set out the two gold coins between them. “Yes. He wanted to know how widespread it was, and what caused it.”