Scar Felice (The Fourth Age of Shanakan Book 3) (7 page)

She was aware that people looked at her. Sometimes they stared, but mostly they glanced, once in passing, and then again to be sure that they had seen what they thought they had seen. It did not bother her much.

When she entered the dock area she sensed a difference. It was as though she was known. People, even the roughest of sailors, stepped out of her path, and she found herself walking in a respectful clearing through the busy crowds. She approached a ship that caught her eye. It was as tidy as the Sea Swift, neat and clean, if a little smaller.

A large man hurried down the gangplank to meet her. He was young and looked massively strong. He had clear eyes and an intelligent look.

“Karana, how may I serve you?” he asked.

“Where do you sail?” she asked.

“To Samara,” he replied. “In three days time if all goes well.”

“And what would you charge for passage to Samara?”

The man’s face broke into s huge grin. He seemed delighted. “For yourself, Karana, there would be no charge. We would be honoured to carry you.”

She was puzzled, suspicious. “Then what would you expect of me?” she asked. Her frown seemed to cow the man. His smile vanished and he looked away.

“Nothing, I assure you. Your presence on my ship would be a great honour, Karana.”

“I wish you’d stop calling me that.”

“Then what should I call you?” the man seemed puzzled, but desperate not to offend.

“You may call by my name. I am Felice Caledon.”

“As you wish.” She was astonished to see him execute a small bow.

“And what is your name? You are the captain?”

“Yes. I am called Grayal Brand, owner and captain of the Bright Star.”

“I shall remember you and your ship, Captain Brand. Three days, you say?”

“Quite so, Ima Caledon, but if you wish us to delay a day, it can be done.”

She left the dock and walked back towards Jem’s house. She rested in the park, feeling the effort of so long a walk, and sat on a seat looking at the sea, feeling the cool breezes that it breathed on the land. This was a beautiful spot, and other people were here, courting, walking, there was even a family preparing to have their midday meal on the grass nearby. She watched them for a while, for theirs was an elaborate affair with cloths, plates of good porcelain, glasses, and several baskets of food, wine, and even fine cutlery.

Some time passed before they noticed her watching, and she thought that they grew uncomfortable with her stare, so she rose and walked on, taking the hill up to the house as slowly as she could, feeling each step as tiredness in the legs.

When she arrived she made the additional effort to seek out Jem. He was talking with one of the men he employed, explaining a task, taking time to make sure that it was clearly in the man’s head, but when he saw Felice he quickly wound up the conversation.

“You wanted something?” he asked when the man was gone.

“I walked down to the docks,” she said.

“A long way. You must be tired.”

“There’s something very odd going on down there. Everybody seems to know who I am, and they treat me like the queen of Pek.”

“We have no king or queen,” Jem said, but she could tell by his eyes that he was avoiding the implied question.

“What is it?” she insisted. Jem pulled a face, but gave up.

“What happened on the Sea Swift. The men have spread the story around town, and now they think you are a mataga – a weather witch.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she laughed, thought he was joking, but he just looked embarrassed. “You’re serious? But nothing happened on the boat…”

“Ship…”

“On the ship. Nothing happened. I collapsed from a fever. One of your men saved me.”

“You cursed the wind and the sea – a whip and a dog I believe you said. You told the storm to go away. It did.”

“Coincidence!”

“So I believe, but I am in a minority, and it’s not just that the storm went away. A storm like that should veer round to a southerly when it dies. The wind backed to the north, drove us down the coast. If it had gone southerly we would have taken another two days to make port. You would probably have died.”

“But it’s not true…”

“That you’re a weather witch? Perhaps, but all the facts are correct as I tell them, and sailors are a credulous lot. They believe it.”

“I’ll tell them it’s not true.”

“They won’t believe you. It’s more likely you’ll make them suspicious. Just accept it. I’ve never met a weather witch, if they exist, but it would be a damned useful skill for a captain to have on board. Any captain will take you to Samara and be glad of it.”

“It’s dishonest.”

Jem shrugged. “Don’t confirm it. Do you always tell everyone who’s wrong that they are? You’d be a poor trader if you did.”

She changed tack.

“Do you know the Bright Star – a captain called Brand?”

“Yes. He’s a good man and a fine navigator. You spoke to him?”

“He offered to take me to Samara for nothing, sailing in three days. He even offered to delay sailing for a day if that was more convenient.”

“Well, it’s a fair offer, and you’d be safe on board.”

“Unless there’s a storm.”

Jem laughed. “You’ll be in the southern sea. No storms at this time of year. Do you still want to go?”

“To Samara? Of course.” She thought she had heard an anxious tone in Jem’s voice, and she studied the man more closely. He seemed nervous, tucked one hand into his belt and rubbed the side of his face with the other.

“If you want to stay, you can,” he said. “For as long as you like.”

She resisted a sudden urge to step closer to him, to take his hand.

“I have to go. I promised Todric. I have to go back to the Scar.”

“Helena likes you,” he said, then looked her in the eye. “I like you.”

Her hand went to the scar on her face. It was an involuntary movement, but she was immediately aware of it.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

“I have to go,” she repeated, though a part of her longed to stay here, with Jem, with Helena, in the big white house that overlooked the sea, every comfort imaginable at hand, and where people thought her something special. “I have to.” She knew that it was true. If she stayed here the wound would never heal, and she would always think that she had betrayed her brother, abandoned her father.

“I know,” he said. “Will you come back?”

“Perhaps. I don’t know.”

“I understand. Do you want me to speak to Brand for you?”

“If you think it would be best.”

He nodded. “We speak the same language, and it may save you… explanations.”

And so it was settled. Jem arranged with Brand that she should ship out with him for Samara on the third day. The three days passed more quickly than she could have believed, but they were not easy days.

Helena was not happy that Felice was leaving. The blind girl avoided her for a day, and then seemed to seek her out every moment with demands for attention. Jem was less demanding, but she felt that he was trying to make it easier for her, because he knew that she wanted to stay, and he knew that she could not.

On the morning of the last complete day he joined her for breakfast, which was unusual. He was normally gone two hours and about his tasks by the time she rose. On this day, however, he was at table and eating.

“I have a gift for you,” he said.

“Oh?” She was surprised. Both to see him and at the idea of a gift.

“You have forgotten,” he said.

“What?” She felt a twinge of guilt. What had she done now?

He looked at her and shook his head. “What is the date?” he asked.

“The date?” She tried to remember. It had been the thirty-first day of spring when they had left the Scar. She added days: the journey, the time in Yasu, the voyage, the illness here, the recovery.

“Oh. How did you know?”

“That this was your birth day? I was told.”

Todric. Of course, Todric. He was always free with information, even secrets. She was eighteen on this day. It was a day that she had expected to spend with her father, her brothers, an important day in a person’s life. She was an adult in all senses now, and she felt the pain of loss. In truth she had forgotten that the day of her birth was at hand. There had been so much else, and even now it seemed a trivial matter. There was no way in which she was a grown woman today that she was not yesterday. In spite of that she felt the loss. It should have been a happy day. There should have been a fine meal, a house full of aunts, uncles and cousins, a table full of gifts.

She looked at the small, cloth wrapped bundle that Jem had placed on the table. The cloth alone was worth good money. It was silk, and drifted away in her hand, gliding across the smooth metal surface of his gift to her. The gift itself was a dagger, but she had never seen a weapon like it. The sheath in which is rested was the finest thing she had ever seen. It was a dark metal, inlaid with gold and silver in a most intricate pattern of flowers and leaves that swirled up from the tip, eventually to form a wreath around the top where the dagger’s guard rested. The handle matched it so that the pattern repeated up to a smooth steel pommel.

She drew the blade. It shone with a silky lustre. The blade was shaped almost like a bird’s wing, and an artist of great skill had etched the feathers into the metal with incredible detail. She didn’t know much about blades, but she knew enough to know that this was special.

“How old is it?” she asked. Her voice was hushed, almost a whisper.

“I have no idea, but certainly more than four hundred years. It was made in the time before the Faer Karan.”

“I can’t accept this. It must be worth a hundred gold.”

“If anyone had the money to buy it, perhaps. I have several such weapons, but this one is a lady’s knife, and Helena will never use it. You will need something to defend yourself if you must go adventuring through the world.”

She stroked the feathers. The knife was very light, but must be strong to have survived so long. The grip fitted her hand perfectly.

“It is a magnificent gift,” she said. “Very fine.” There was nothing else to say. It was the most valuable thing she had ever seen. It would be worth more than her father’s house, and perhaps as much as the Sea Swift. She could not give Jem what he wanted in return. She felt that acceptance of his gift was her own present to him.

The knife was the last thing between them. She did not see him again, and boarded the Bright Star before dawn the next day, looking back at the shore, searching the faces of the people along the pier until the ropes were cast off and the ship was towed out by oarsmen into the light morning air that blew up from the south. She watched the shore retreat until the faces were indistinguishable from each other, and then she went below to eat a fine breakfast with captain Brand.

The weather behaved all the way to Samara, and it was on the morning of the third day that she was awoken by someone rapping on her cabin door. She acknowledged that she was awake.

“Captain’s regards, my lady,” a voice said from beyond the door. “We have the coast in sight and he thought you might like to see the city from the sea as we approach.”

She made her way up onto the deck of the Bright Star, bracing herself easily against the ship’s gentle roll, almost a comforting motion after so many days at sea in the Sea Swift. She climbed to the stern where the captain and his mate stood, looking to the starboard bow. She looked in the same direction. It was still mostly dark. The sun was below the horizon, but enough light had taken to the sky for her to see the shore as an irregular grey line in the distance, defined only by the darkest blue sky and the black sea, and adorning that grey line were the lights of Samara.

She had never seen a city from the sea at night, and it took her breath away. It was as though a thousand stars had fallen from the sky and now lay flickering across the land, calling their ship in from the night.

“I never tire of it,” the captain said. He was smiling, enjoying her enjoyment of the spectacle.

She nodded, but did not speak. From here the city seemed to spill from the mountains on the east side, down to a great river, and further, spreading out on the plains that stretched away to the west, a glittering pool. As the light brightened and they drew closer she began to see how large it was; bigger even than Pek. This was the heart of the world, Samara, the great city itself.

It was three times the size of Pek; four, even. It just grew and grew as the lights that defined it faded in the rising sun and she stood transfixed by the sight. There were buildings to the east of the river mouth that compared with the fortress at East Scar for size, and exceeded it in beauty. The captain named them for her. The citadel, the Great House – the residence of the King that was still being rebuilt, but was already an imposing landmark – and the temple, which had once been a ruin, but now stood equal to anything in its magnificence.

The mate ran forwards to the bow and cast the boat buoys into the sea as they approached the piers. She saw the scramble as boats crashed into the low surf, heard the oarsmen call out in steady rhythms as the boats pulled out to gain their prizes, and in no time at all they were drawn in to the piers among a host of other vessels and a thousand people who thronged the waterfront.

“It’s so big,” she said.

“It is that,” Brand replied, half his mind was on the pier and the men with the ropes. He waved to someone on the shore. Bags stuffed with cloth and sacking were thrown over the side of the ship as it drew close to the dock, and they hung down on short ropes to protect the hull from the stone pier. It was all so complicated, and the city was so huge. How would she ever find anything here?

“Where are you staying?”

She turned and looked at the captain. Nowhere. She had arranged nothing, and had not even considered it. How ill prepared she must seem.

“I have not yet decided. Is there anywhere that you would recommend?”

Brand looked uncomfortable. “I usually stay aboard, Ima Caledon, but there are many inns in the town.”

“I know it is an imposition, captain Brand, but may I stay aboard for one day? That will give me time to choose a suitable place.”

“Of course, Ima,” he replied.

She felt pleased. It was a problem avoided, and she was sure that by the following evening she would have secured something suitable for as long as she needed it. Perhaps she could even travel back to Pek on the same vessel.

She leaned on the rail and studied the throng of people. They seemed similar to the people who hung around the docks in Yasu, and those who did the same in Pek. It was busier than either, but the difference was only a matter of scale. There was a tavern on the waterfront, a place that seemed to do a great trade, centrally placed and well kept, and so after a while she stopped watching and went down onto the shore, feeling the thrill of a new place in spite of herself. She made her way to the tavern’s imposing double doors, thrown open to the summer day. A great sign hung above them proclaiming that its name was the Shining Wake, and advertising food and ale.

She went inside. It was a dark place, cool compared with the dockside, and the smell of rich food mingled with the smells of ale and sweat. The people within seemed a strange mix. Most were what she would have expected – rough men who made their living here – but there was a sprinkling of others, well dressed men and women who sat apart and kept themselves to themselves, usually in groups.

She pushed through the throng to the bar and after a while managed to catch the landlord’s eye. He leaned across the bar to catch her voice in the general noise, and she asked for a glass of wine, which he brought quickly. The price seemed high, but the taste was quite fine. She caught the man’s eye again before he turned to the next customer.

“I’m looking for a man,” she said.

The landlord shrugged. “Plenty here,” he said.

“A particular man,” she said. “Karnack. A guardsman out of East Scar.”

The man shook his head again. “So many come and go,” he said. “I don’t know the names – only the ones who come a lot.”

She hadn’t expected news. In a place so large it would be better to rely on those who knew the city.

“Is there a Kalla House here?” she asked.

“Not by that name,” he replied. “But we have a House of Law – it’s where they see to matters of justice if that is what you seek.”

“Thank you.” She said. “I have a warrant for the man Karnack, and must deliver it there. Can you tell me where it is?”

“In the Old City, close to Morningside. It would be easier to ask someone on the street, Ima, someone who can point you the way.”

She nodded. It was sound advice, as she knew none of the streets, and none of the districts in the city. She sipped her wine. It was really quite good, she decided, though she was hardly an expert in the matter. She studied the people around the bar again. Many of the better dressed people were eating, so perhaps it was the food that brought them here. If she was here for the evening perhaps she would eat here as well.

“You should be careful what you say.”

The voice spoke in a Scar accent, and close to her ear, but it was unnecessarily loud. She turned and saw that a man was standing very close to her, staring at her, and looming over her. He was tall, looked well built, and was dressed like a guardsman. He was also clearly quite drunk, although it was very early in the day. For a moment she thought that it was Karnack, her quarry, suddenly in front of her, and she was afraid, but very quickly she saw that it was not.

“I will say what I wish,” she snapped back at him. Then she saw that there were two of them, both guardsmen, and both from East Scar.

The man looked at her face. She could feel his drunken eyes tracing the line of the scar across her cheek. It felt almost obscene.

“You should watch it,” he said. “It’s bad to slander good men.”

“Good men? Karnack is a murderer, and he cheats at cards,” she said, not knowing why she felt the need to provoke these men. She could sense the danger, but it didn’t seem to matter. The other man, the one who had not spoken, did not look drunk at all. He stepped forward and put a hand on his companion’s shoulder to steady him.

“You should let us see that warrant,” he said.

“I don’t think so.”

“You’ve got it on you, haven’t you,” the man demanded. “We could help you. Let us see it.”

“No.”

The man took a step forwards, the left hand finding the hilt of his dagger. His drunken friend put his hand to his sword. Felice pulled out her own knife, Jem’s gift. The guardsman smiled.

“Do you know how to use that?” he asked.

“I know which end to stick into you,” she said, managing a bravado that she did not feel. How had she got herself into this situation? She was picking a fight with these men, men skilled with weapons who were twice her size, men who could certainly outrun her if she tried to escape. She heard noises behind her, chairs scraping, and the sound of people moving back. The buzz of conversation died away. A man appeared standing beside her, and she spared him a glance. He was a sailor, and his knife was drawn.

“At your service, Karana,” the man said, nodding. His accent was Pekkan, but she didn’t recognise him.

“Ah, she’s got a ship rat,” the guardsman remarked to his drunken friend.

Other men stepped forwards from behind her, and she guessed that they were all Pekkan sailors, people who thought that she was mataga, a weather witch, and an asset worth protecting. The guardsman looked less happy now, faced with six blades and only a drunken comrade to back him, but both of them drew swords as the space around them grew. Felice didn’t want the sailors to die for her, but didn’t know how to stop it happening. Sailors were no match for guardsmen, even five of them would be lucky to win out. If she gave them the warrant it would stop, and nobody would die, but it would be a betrayal of her brother, and worse than that, a murderer would go free.

“I think that’s enough.”

All heads turned, and Felice saw a girl of about her own age, as slightly built as herself. She wore a simple black dress which brought her pale skin into shocking contrast with her thick, dark hair, worn loose about her face. She wasn’t pretty, but she looked confident, and why not? At her back stood the sort of man that should always stand at your back. He wasn’t massively tall or broad, he wasn’t exactly young, and there was a touch of grey at the sides of his close cropped hair, but he looked indestructible, as though killing men was a job like sharpening a sword – something routine. He wore plate armour on his chest and appeared armed to the teeth.  If he was alone in a room you’d think there was a fight going on.

“Put your blades away,” the girl said. The two guardsmen did so at once. They were looking at the man in armour, and Felice was sure that they knew who he was. The sailors were slower to comply, but when they saw the guardsmen had obeyed they did the same. Felice was the last to sheath her blade.

“Good,” the girl said. “Now, what was this about?”

Nobody spoke. Felice didn’t know who this girl was, although she must wield some power to have a man like that behind her. She glanced around the room, but saw no prospect of assistance. She was in the midst of strangers.

The girl walked up to her and looked her in the eyes. Felice felt that this other girl could read her mind, so penetrating was her stare. She dropped her eyes from the contact.

“You’re the odd one out,” the girl said. “What started it?”

“Nothing,” Felice replied.

The landlord appeared beside the girl, giving every sign of deference.

“With your permission, Karana?”

She smiled at him, and it was a good smile. “When did you ever need my permission for anything, Shabrin?”

“Since you started licensing taverns,” he replied. She laughed. The landlord turned to Felice. “Ima,” he began. “You may trust the lady Ella with your business, or indeed with your life. She is the trader guild representative on the King’s council, and most dedicated to justice. She has been a good friend to this tavern, to the city, and is known to the Mage Lord himself.”

Felice looked at the girl with new eyes. So young and yet holding such a position! She made a small but polite bow to the girl. The decision to trust her was an easy one. Such a figure in such a public place could do nothing other than support her case against Karnack.

“I am the trader Felice Caledon, of East Scar, the daughter of Marcos Caledon. My brother, Todric was murdered by a man in the port town of Yasu, a man whom he had caught cheating at cards. I bear a sworn warrant from the Yasu Kalla House, all in good order, presenting the evidence and requesting his arrest and trial for the deed.”

“And the argument with these two?”

“I believe they are friends of the criminal – a guardsman called Karnack. They wanted to destroy the warrant.”

The lady Ella turned to the two men.

“You know this Karnack?”

The sober guardsman bowed. “We do have the honour to know him, my lady,” he said. The man’s tone was defiant. “We have both served with him on several occasions, and he has proven a true and trustworthy friend, as well as a fine soldier.”

“So you would not consider the charges against him to be possible?”

“Mistaken identity.”

The Lady Ella shrugged. “It is a matter that will have to be determined by the Guardians of the law,” she said. We will all go the House of the law and you will present the warrant there. These men will come with us as witnesses, since it is clear that they know the man and may have knowledge of his whereabouts.”

The guardsmen looked as though they might protest, but the formidable figure that accompanied the girl appeared behind them and placed a scarred hand on the shoulder of each of them.

“Quietly now,” he said. They stayed silent, but nodded.

Back out on the street they moved effortlessly through the throng on the dockside, the crowds parting for them and keeping a respectful distance. They moved away from the sea along streets paved with smooth, rounded stones and lined by people selling an unimaginable array of things from carts, small tables and even just laid out on the ground. Felice had to resist an urge to stop at several of the makeshift stalls. There were things here that aroused her curiosity, strange new things.

“You have travelled from East Scar?”