The Sigil Blade (11 page)

The symmetry was not lost on Edryd. An economy built around raiding merchant ships travelling to or from Nar Edor was now being destroyed by a group of raiders that were in turn attacking the ships of An Innis. It was an example of the inherent risk that came with choosing to employ such tactics against an enemy. Success is often brief and short-lived, and inevitably, methods used to good effect against others are just as easily imitated and turned back upon those who first employed them. Those who live by the sword are not immune to dying by the same and should be prepared to defend against it.

As the evening hours progressed, people began making their way out of the establishment. There were still several fragmenting groups distributed unevenly at several of the tables, but Greven was nowhere to be seen. In fact, he hadn’t popped out of the kitchen for some time. Looking around at the other groups, one person stood out. Flanked on either side by guards who were wearing tightly fitted blue coats, a graceful woman, wearing a beautiful high-collared green dress made of fine silk, stood up near the other end of the hearth hall. She was of a different class entirely, and looked completely out of place amongst the people in the inn. At first, Edryd failed to register that she was headed in his direction. A moment later she sat down, settling in tightly beside him with her hips and shoulders making contact against his own. The two guards remained standing behind her, arms crossed behind their backs.

Edryd had rarely felt less certain of himself. He was at a loss as to what he should do. Rather stupidly, he continued to stare straight across the table at nothing in particular, as if he could pretend that he had not noticed the woman. He might have gone on doing so, but she reached out and lightly touched him on the arm with a soft hand. Edryd’s eyes were pulled towards the contact. There was no jewelry on her smooth fingers or her pale thin wrist, but the fabric of her delicately embroidered clothing was evidence enough to suggest extraordinary wealth.

“You would be Edryd?” she asked him.

Edryd turned to look at her face for the first time. She did not look Edoric or Rendish. Her skin was not dark enough for either. Her deep brown hair had been made up in an elaborate pattern that left a few curling strands of loose hair over her brow, falling down past beautiful hazel eyes. Her pale face was a mask of practiced adoration, and looked as though it had never once been subjected to the indignity of unfiltered sunlight. She had at first appeared fully mature, an illusion brought about by the modest but flattering style of clothing and her formal hairstyle, but now that he was seeing her up close, this woman was plainly still a young girl. She could not possibly be more than fifteen years old.

Though many of them were trying to hide it, most of the eyes in the room were looking in Edryd’s direction. Less circumspect individuals, of whom there were quite a few, openly leered at the girl, cautious of the two guards and resentful towards Edryd for what they felt was his good fortune.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know who you are,” Edryd said.

“My name is Lineue,” she answered. “Esivh Rhol has invited you to accompany me and visit him at his home.”

Edryd knew by now the sort of business interests that Esivh Rhol trafficked in, so he also now knew what he should have guessed long before. Lineue was one of the women owned by Esivh Rhol, who were sold out of the palace built upon the mountainous peak at the top of An Innis. Conservative by upbringing, in the typical fashion of his homeland, Edryd was repelled by the inappropriate nature of what was implied in the offer that she was delivering to him.

“You like an older woman,” she said upon seeing his reaction. There was a look of relief on her face.

Her guess was correct as far as it went, but this accounted for only part of his discomfort. He was about to say that he preferred a woman who wasn’t someone’s property, but thought better of it.

“You will forgive me for being impolite,” Edryd said, “but please tell the Ard Ri that I have no interest in his invitation.”

Lineue’s guards both shifted in their stances behind her, reacting to the stern tone Edryd had used, and feeling surprised by his refusal. Lineue took it more evenly, though it was plain to Edryd that she was also troubled by his response. She might have been relieved at his disinterest with her personally, but his complete rejection of Esivh Rhol’s invitation was a problem for her, representing a failure for which she would not be forgiven.

“You do not refuse an invitation from the Ard Ri,” one of the two guards said from behind Edryd.

Edryd turned to face the man. “Clearly you wouldn’t, or I should say didn’t decline the man, but I have no business with him.”

The well-dressed guard went red as his partner resisted an urge to laugh. He wasn’t sure what it was that Edryd had meant, and if he had asked, Edryd would have had to admit that it had not been anything specific, but there were plenty of wrong ways to interpret the comment, and the guard had obviously chosen one of them.

Obstructed on one side by Lineue, and also corralled by her two guards standing behind the bench, there would be no easy way to quickly get up from the table in the event his ill-considered approach to this situation triggered a disagreement as seemed increasingly likely with each moment that passed.

Lineue diffused the situation by getting up and telling her guards that she was ready to leave. “You will find yourself in trouble with the Ard Ri if he thinks you made things worse,” she said to the guard whom Edryd had offended. Reluctantly, he turned away from Edryd and began escorting Lineue away. Edryd watched until they disappeared out the front door.

Edryd did not need to look to know that everyone was staring at him. It had been a bad idea to come here. Edryd decided not to waste any more time and went looking for Greven.

Leaving the common room and entering Greven’s kitchen through a simple archway, he found the space to be a good deal cleaner than the rest of the inn. It would have seemed an impossible task considering the state of the common room, but Greven had managed to keep the floor swept clean of the dirt and mud that surely was getting tracked around with trips in and out of the kitchen to serve the customers. There were a few pots being kept warm on an iron stand set atop the coals in the kitchen fireplace, but otherwise the room showed no sign of activity.

Wondering where Greven could have gone, Edryd spotted a partially opened door that led into a stepped passageway that led down to an underground storage room. As he approached, Edryd began to make out two low unintelligible voices. One of the voices rose in pitch suddenly and could be heard clearly.

“I didn’t know he was here!” the voice insisted. It was Greven’s voice. Edryd crept closer and settled in next to the wall beside the doorway, trying to make out more of the conversation.

“Now that you do know,” the other voice said, trying to calm the innkeeper, “you are in a position to provide a useful service.” The voice sounded like it could have been Vannin, a man Edryd had met in this inn that first night here.

“What would you have me do?” Greven asked.

“He has rejected the hospitality of Lord Seoras’s estate, and it seems like Seoras would just as soon not make him return by force if it isn’t necessary,” the man explained. “Offer him a place here, and convince him to stay. Gain his trust if you can.”

“It wasn’t a week ago Seoras insisted that I refuse him a room, now you are telling me to give him one?”

“Whatever the source of Seoras’s peculiar interest in this Edryd, I don’t know the reasons. I expect he wants the man to believe he can go about his business unhindered. I am just trying to learn what I can of the man, and relaying to you my orders as they were given.”

“I imagine it goes without saying that I am expected to keep track of when he comes or goes?” Greven queried sullenly.

“And report on it.”

“I don’t suppose I have a choice in the matter?”

“No,” Vannin confirmed.

Edryd, deciding it was time to leave, backed away from the doorway. He deposited the set of keys atop the table in the middle of the kitchen, and forgetting that he had no money, absentmindedly began fishing into the leather case at his belt looking for a coin to leave behind in appreciation. In doing so, he discovered that the purse was not empty. It held a single bronze coin of local currency that he was sure he had never seen before. With no time to ponder how it got there, Edryd secured the cold metal coin in a closed fist and headed towards the archway that led into the common room.

Belatedly, Edryd stopped, hit with the realization that leaving the keys behind was a terrible mistake. They would be plain evidence that he had been in the room, and a clear signal that he had possibly overheard the conversation between Greven and Vannin. At the sound of booted feet on the bottom step of the stone stairway, Edryd silently darted back to the kitchen table, and before he could be seen, he snatched up the set of keys and hurried back through the archway and into the common room. Edryd worked his way to the entrance, mindful now of the people in the inn, trying to pick out anyone who might be trying to watch him. He had only been here for a few days, he thought to himself, and could not begin to understand how he had attracted so much attention from so many people.

As soon as he was outside, Edryd made for an alleyway opposite the entrance to the Inn. Once he was out of sight, hidden by the shadows between the two buildings across the street, he accelerated his pace and began to put distance between himself and the businesses in the mercantile section of the town. Pausing occasionally to make sure no one was following him, for he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was, Edryd kept moving at a rapid speed that left him breathing hard and feeling hot in spite of the cold night air. Reaching an empty corner made by two abutting buildings, where he felt confident he could not be observed, Edryd set his back against one of the stone buildings and took a moment to rest while he assessed his situation. The bronze coin was still pressed tightly in his hand and had become warm through the influence of a dissipating heat that was seeping rapidly from his body.

Edryd took the coin between his fingers and held it out under the moonlight. The coin appeared to have been recently struck. The obverse side of the coin bore the image of a crowned figure with subscript identifying the man as Lord Esivh Rhol. The face had been marred with a sharp implement in a manner that obscured Esivh Rhol’s eyes under a mess of deep scratches. Near the bottom edge of the coin, through part of Esivh Rhol’s throat, was a small hole punched straight through the coin. The previous owner of the coin must have thought none too highly of the self-proclaimed Ard Ri of An Innis.

Edryd shifted the coin in his fingers. An outline of An Innis decorated the other side. The island’s two piers were marked at the western shoreline, beside a stylized symbol stamped closer to the center of the coin that approximated the form of the palace at the island’s peak, making it a sort of simple but functional map. There was only one other remarkable feature. The hole in the coin cleanly pierced the outline of An Innis at a specific point near the southernmost edge of the island. The placement of the puncture did not appear accidental. Edryd rotated the coin, orienting it so that it matched up with the actual island, and located the direction of the spot marked by the piercing. It wouldn’t take half an hour to reach the location.

He was nearing exhaustion, but unable to subdue his curiosity, Edryd began picking his way through the city, angling slowly southward, intent on investigating the area marked by the hole on the coin that had been so strangely placed into his pocket. Thinking about the mysterious pickpocket, Edryd wondered at the possible motivations the man might have had for slipping him the coin. Surely it had not been an accident. If he was being lured to the location on the coin, Edryd had to consider the possibility that he might be walking into an ambush. He was in no shape to deal with something like that.

It seemed far too elaborate a method for a simple robbery though, one that required you slip a coin into instead of out of the target’s pocket. Edryd didn’t doubt that it was more likely that he would find himself standing alone on an empty shoreline feeling foolish, than set upon by a band of over-thinking criminals. With his recent poor luck though, it made sense to anticipate the possibility of more serious complications, and he continued to be alert to anything that might signal that he was being followed.

The borders of the town soon receded behind him, and Edryd found himself on a sparse and unobstructed rock strewn plain that continued on to a series of crumbling cliffs at the southwestern edge of the island of An Innis. Looking back he saw nothing out of place. There was plenty of moonlight and no cover in which someone could have hidden. If anyone was following him, they had stopped at the edge of the town. Checking the coin once more to be sure of the direction, Edryd headed straight for the location designated upon it. It led to a barren place where an inlet from the ocean had carved out a deep fissure in the cliffs, from which rose currents of damp air that were heavy with the smell of brine.

Passing through a thicket of low shrubs as he arrived near the edge, Edryd surveyed the narrow ocean canyon walls. It was difficult to see, but after some searching he spotted traces of a faintly worn footpath that descended down one side of the crevice before it disappeared into darkness.  It took time to find the top of the footpath, which was well hidden by a maze of tall plants, but Edryd soon found himself taking slow careful steps in the dark along the canyon wall. In the dim light that reached into this place, Edryd was able to make out traces of recent travel going both up and down on the pathway. It was persuasive confirmation that the placement of the hole in the coin had not been random.