Northern Storm

Chapter Seventeen

The harsh Aldabreshin tongue was the first thing Velindre heard as her senses returned. Slowly she realised that the darkness was no longer complete. There was light beyond her eyelids. She was lying somewhere, on her side. There was something soft beneath her but no coverlet.

Velindre tried to open her eyes but found her lashes sticky and crusted. She tried to raise a hand to rub at then but her movements were clumsy and awkward. She rolled on to her back but any further movement was beyond her. The air was stale and stifling, unexpected heat oppressive.

Someone caught her hand and placed it carefully on her midriff ‘All right, don’t fret.’ She felt a hand on her neck, checking her heartbeat.

She recognised that voice. It was the girl who had drugged her. Velindre tried to twist away but her body wouldn’t obey her.

‘Lie still,’ soothed the girl.

Risala, that was her name, Velindre remembered. Further recollection fled at the shock of a cool, damp cloth on her forehead. The magewoman could do nothing but submit as her eyes were gently cleansed. She lay rigid with growing anger as memory returned. She had been here for some unfathomable length of time. She recalled struggling to wake, time and again, tormented by thirst. The water she had been given to drink had thrust her back into the abyss of unconsciousness.

‘There you are,’ concluded Risala with satisfaction.

Velindre blinked and squinted, her blurred vision clearing to reveal that she was lying in a cramped, window-less room. Bright sunlight edging through a narrow door fell on the wooden walls and floor. She did her best to scowl at Risala, who was kneeling beside her.

‘What did you do to me?’ Her accusation was a harsh whisper. Her mouth was dry and foul.

‘I’m sorry.’ Risala’s apology was perfunctory. ‘We couldn’t afford any more delay—still less risk you refusing to come at all. Not when we knew you had the lore we need.’ She slipped an arm behind Velindre’s shoulders to raise her up, bringing a wooden cup to her lips.

Velindre found some strength returning to her nerveless arms but not enough to resist. Not enough to slap this bitch’s face. She resolved to bide her time and sipped at the liquid in the cup. Citrus juice cut through the stale-ness in her mouth and she licked at her rough, dry lips. ‘So you enslaved me?’ She would have said more but a fit of coughing seized her, leaving a burning ache in her chest. Not exactly.’ That seemed to amuse the girl, to Velindre’s impotent fury. Risala tugged at a cushion to prop the magewoman’s head up and sat back on her heels. ‘Don’t worry. The soporific will soon wear off

Velindre looked down towards her feet, wondering when she would be able to move. Then she would be gone from here as soon as she could find some breath of air to work with. She looked at her legs, distracted by the realisation that she was now dressed like her captor. Both of them wore loose trousers of undyed cotton reaching to mid-shin and sleeveless tunics in faded red. Velindre’s skin was startlingly pale compared to the Aldabreshin girl’s rich brown complexion.

Her thoughts wandered. She’d never worn anything red, not since she’d been a child. Her parents had dressed her in neutral colours until their acute observation might determine the nature of any inborn affinity she might possess.

She dismissed the irrelevance angrily. She must still be half-stupefied. No matter. She’d be gone from this inadequate prison just as soon as she could gather her wits and her strength. Her stomach gurgled noisily. ‘I’m hungry,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘Am Ito be starved as well as enslaved?’ Risala smiled with that infuriating amusement again. ‘I’ll get you some food.’ She disappeared through the open door.

Velindre looked after her, trying to make sense of the noises beyond. With a jolt that was half-surprise and half-fear, she identified the slap of water against a ship’s hull and the creak of oars and ropes. A pipe was sounding out a regular rhythm somewhere in the pattern of light and shade beyond the door and she could half-hear, half-feel the rush of the sea running beneath the wooden floor of her prison. Idle conversation floated over the boards above her head.

With a further shiver she realised that she had no way of knowing what was being said. She might be fluent in every tongue spoken from the polite debates of Toremal’s enlightenment to the haphazard archives of Solura’s robust feudalism, but that would do her little good here. She’d never had cause to learn anything of Aldabreshin languages or dialects. These uncouth barbarians had never produced any scholarship worth noting. Nor would they, as long as they persisted in their superstitious fear of magic. That superstitious fear would be the death of her, if she didn’t get away.

Velindre realised that more than disquiet was coursing through her. With an unpleasant crawling sensation, warmth was replacing the numbness in her legs. Bracing her hands against the flower-embroidered quilt beneath her, she managed to sit upright against the planking. She froze at the abrupt realisation of another violation, far worse than the loss of her clothes: her hair had been cropped so short it barely covered the nape of her neck. She ran a shaking hand over her head, unbidden tears starting to her eyes. Risala reappeared in the doorway, a covered bowl in her hands. ‘Weep if you want to,’ she invited with sympathy. ‘It’s the soporific. It distresses some people.’

‘I’m not distressed, I’m angry,’ Velindre said with shaky accusation. ‘You cut my hair.’

‘I did,’ the Aldabreshin girl admitted with more genuine remorse than she’d shown thus far. ‘I’ve kept it for you. I’m son-y, but it had to be done.’

‘Why?’ snapped Velindre, scrubbing the tears clumsily from her cheeks.

‘Eat this, slowly.’ Risala knelt to place the bowl between Velindre’s hands. Once she was satisfied that the wizard woman had secure hold of it, she lifted the lid. ‘I’ll explain what I can.’

The bowl was warm between Velindre’s hands and against her cotton-clad thighs. A savoury scent rose and her stomach growled again. Swollen golden grain was sinking slowly in a clear broth along with chunks of pale fish. Resentful, she picked up the long, shallow spoon of unadorned silver and began to eat. The sooner she regained her strength, the sooner she would be gone.

‘I’m sorry we had to take you like this.’ Satisfied with the magewoman’s apparent compliance, Risala sat on a folded quilt by the door. But the lives of hundreds depend on the lore that you promised, and much more besides. We must be rid of this dragon.’

The concoction in the bowl was delicious. Velindre forced herself to pause in her eating. What has any of that to do with cutting my hair?’ she asked coldly.

Risala considered her for a moment, blue eyes opaque. ‘You do know what happens to those who use magic in the Archipelago?’

‘Yes,’ said Velindre curtly, shoving the spoon viciously into the delicately poached fish and aromatic ^grain

‘Then you appreciate the necessity for some disguise.’ Sarcasm coloured Risala’s tone. ‘We’ve a long way to travel and there are plenty of domains who’ve suffered at barbarian hands. More than one warlord prefers killing any unexplained traveller with pale skin or yellow hair over risking further theft or insult. Travelling openly as a northern barbarian would draw every curious eye towards you, never mind risking inevitable suspicion that you might be a mage.’

‘And you have the gall to call us barbarians,’ Velindre muttered, returning to her food. ‘So what’s my part in this masquerade? Slave?’

‘Yes, for the moment. To be safe under Chazen Kheda’s protection, you’ll have to play the part of a slave. Forgive us, but it’s the only way someone so obviously barbarian—’ Risala corrected herself ‘—someone born in the unbroken lands would ever come to the far southern reaches of the Archipelago.’

‘You want my help but you dress me in rags and crop my head like a criminal?’ Velindre scraped crossly at the last few spoonfuls of broth.

‘There’s more to it than that.’ Risala sounded sufficiently awkward to make Velindre look up.

‘Slave or free, you’ll still be turning every head,’ Risala said frankly. ‘The best way to quell that curiosity is to make it known that you’re a eunuch—’

‘What?’ Velindre was dumbfounded.

‘Hear me out.’ Risala leaned forward to retrieve the bowl that was threatening to roll from Velindre’s lap. ‘It must be an omen in our favour that you’ve the build and colouring to make it believable—’

‘That I’m some mutilated man?’ Velindre was still too astonished to be angry.

‘That you’re zamorin who was made so in early youth.’ Risala set the cover back on the bowl and leaned against the wall. ‘If a little boy, and I mean one barely walking, is taken to be made zamorin, he’s bathed in hot water and the seeds of his manhood are squeezed each day until they disappear—’

‘I don’t want to know this,’ Velindre protested, appalled. ‘You need to know, if you’re to be believed.’ Risala overrode her. ‘A eunuch, zamorin in our tongue, who has been made in that way keeps a smooth skin, grows tall for the most part and, if he has barbarian blood to begin with, will often stay fair-haired and fair-skinned. You’ll be entirely believable as such a zamorin, as long as you dress in loose tunics,’ she added apologetically.

Velindre couldn’t help but glance down at her modest bosom, barely showing through the folds of cotton as it was. She had lost still more weight in her drugged sleep on this voyage. ‘You’ll make me out to be one kind of freak, to stop people thinking I’m some other more dangerous oddity. That makes some kind of sense.’ She scowled. ‘Was this Dev’s idea?’

‘Dev knows nothing of this,’ Risala interrupted. ‘It doesn’t concern him. My concern is to get you to Chazen waters undetected and this is the best way to achieve that. You’ll have far more privacy if people think you’re zamorin than you could in any other guise. Zamorin made as little children are actually quite uncommon; it’s hardly something to do lightly, to cut such a young boy off from his chance of fathering children.’

‘An unfortunate turn of phrase,’ commented Velindre coldly.

Risala studied her for a moment before going on. ‘Most zamorin are made as grown men, at best, after thorough consideration and with good reason. At worst, yes, there are domains more interested in the profit to be gained from trading in such slaves than in the violence they do to their captives and their futures. Depending on how it is done, yes, some zamorin are cruelly mutilated. So all zamorin are given a good deal of privacy for bathing and suchlike. You’ll have to do something remarkably stupid to be discovered. Do you think you can manage to avoid that?’ Her tone was unexpectedly cutting.

‘What do I have to do, to play a slave?’ Velindre’s eyes narrowed. ‘Fetch and carry and keep my mouth shut? I think I can manage that. And you can hardly have me stripped and whipped without revealing our secret,’ she concluded with bitter satisfaction.

‘Dev has been telling us you’re very clever. Perhaps, but you’re as ignorant as any other barbarian.’ Risala drew up her knees and laced her hands around them. ‘Let me guess: you’re convinced that all Aldabreshi live lives of indulgent ease, their cruel feet stamping on the necks of downtrodden captives who are worked to death burdened with chains?’

‘I’ve seen the slave market in Relshaz,’ Velindre countered frostily. ‘Every unfortunate who ends up there can expect shackles and manacles, not to mention the lash if they so much as look sideways at the wrong person.’

Risala shrugged. ‘It’s no business of ours what you mainlanders do with people whose fortunes in life bring them to such a pass.’

‘You prey on such unfortunates readily enough,’ retorted Velindre.

‘What do you mainlanders do with those destitute or desperate enough to give themselves over to theft or violence to keep themselves alive?’ Risala countered. ‘You flog them or hang them or leave them to die like dogs in the gutters. No one need fear such a fate in the

Archipelago, slave or free. Besides, what has a slave to complain of, when his own choices have led to his ruin, if a warlord or his lady is prepared to take up the burden of guiding his life toward a better future?’

‘What is there to complain of?’ Velindre stared at the girl. ‘In slavery?’

‘You’ve never seen life beyond your own waters.’ Risala cut her off with a sharp gesture. You need to hide your ignorance if you’re to play your part well enough for us both to stay safe.’ She rose to her feet. ‘Keep your main-lander opinions to yourself or we’ll both be at risk.’

Velindre looked up, uncomprehending, as the ship lurched and voices rose on the deck above. Feet ran, slapping unshod on the planks. There was a splash and the vessel was brought up with a jerk as an anchor bit into the sea bed. Cheerful approval rang through a sudden tumult of voices in the main body of the ship.

‘You also need to learn some skill in our language. We can’t use Tormalin much further south than these waters.’ Risala stood, one hand on the half-open door. ‘We’ll keep you away from other people as far as possible but we don’t want you giving yourself away every time you open your mouth.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Velindre sarcastically.

‘Let’s go ashore and see what you make of our brutal licentiousness.’ Risala smiled with that irritating amusement

‘Ashore?’ Velindre was taken aback, but only for a moment. Very well.’ She got gingerly to her feet. ‘How do you feel?’ Risala held out a supporting hand.

Velindre brushed it aside. ‘Light-headed,’ she admitted cautiously. ‘Fresh air should help.’

The only question in her mind was where she should flee to. Back to Relshaz or to Hadrumal? Either way she would be provided with the means to bespeak Dev before the day was out. He could go whistling for any lore on dragons until he apologised on bended knee for dragging her into this insanity.

The magewoman followed Risala through the narrow door to find herself on an equally narrow gangway running between tiered ranks of rowers. They all looked back at her with frank curiosity, sitting in the shade of the trireme’s side decks. Velindre looked up at the strip of brilliant blue splitting the uppermost level.

‘Up you go.’ Risala urged her towards a broad-runged ladder.

Her desire for the touch of the breeze was more than hunger, more than thirst. Velindre climbed as fast as she could, her knees still weak, her hands clumsy as she pulled herself upwards.

Risala followed close behind her. ‘This is the Kaasik domain. We’re just over half a cycle of the Greater Moon south of Relshaz.’

Velindre ignored the barbarian girl. She ignored the bearded Archipelagans on the cramped stern platform of the trireme. Best to return to Relshaz, she decided, and seek advice as well as some decent clothing from Mellitha. She reached for the breeze toying with an ochre pennant flying from the arching stern post.

There was nothing there. She could see the wafting silk and hear its faint rustle and snap, but she couldn’t sense the air that stirred it. Velindre looked at her hands in disbelief. The breeze drifted across her open palms. She felt it but couldn’t take hold of it. Gooseflesh prickled on her bare arms despite the heat of the sun. She seized Risala by the shoulders, shaking her viciously. What have you done to me?’ Wincing as Velindre’s fingers dug into her, Risala looked past the furious magewoman to one of the mariners, her few words quelling. Then she looked Velindre in the eye, blue gaze emotionless. ‘We did what had to be done. We cannot risk any inadvertent display of your skills. And I

didn’t imagine you’d stay long if you were able to leave.’

‘What have you done?’ Velindre’s voice cracked with fear and fury.

Risala looked over the wizard’s shoulder again, insisting on something in brisk Aldabreshin before returning her gaze to Velindre. ‘It is a different kind of soporific’

Velindre gripped the skinny girl so hard her own hands ached. ‘As soon as I can work the slightest magic, I’ll be gone. You can all be cursed to whatever fate awaits you, along with your dragon.’

‘You’ll be in Chazen waters before that happens.’ Risala spoke through gritted teeth, her eyes creased with pain. ‘You can talk to Dev. If he can’t convince you to stay, we won’t stand in your way.’

‘I’ll be long gone before that.’ Velindre declared, but the girl’s self-assurance was making her uneasy. ‘The mage soporific is in all the water aboard this ship,’ Risala said bluntly. ‘Refuse to drink and you’ll be insensible before you recover your spells. Then I’ll just pour the draught down your throat like I’ve been doing so far.’ One of the mariners behind Velindre said something loud and threatening. She glanced over her shoulder to see the man brandishing a naked dagger back and forth. His dark face was stern and unfriendly. The other two men had their hands on their own dagger hilts.

Reluctantly, she let Risala go. ‘You seem to have covered all the angles on this game board.’

Risala’s laugh surprised Velindre and the three Aldabreshin mariners. ‘I didn’t think you played the stones game on the mainland.’

Velindre shook her head. ‘I was thinking of a game called White Raven.’

Risala looked at her, uncomprehending, before shrug—

ging. No matter. We’ll have plenty of time to discuss such things. Let’s go ashore. The sooner you learn even a little about our ways, the safer we’ll all be.’ As she spoke, she unbuckled the lizardskin belt from around her waist and Velindre realised that the girl had been wearing two daggers all along. She slid one off, sheath and all, and offered it to Velindre.

‘So your eunuchs aren’t entirely emasculated.’ The wizard woman frowned as she took it. ‘What’s to stop me sticking this between your ribs the first time your back’s turned?’

‘Anyone who finds me dead will kill you in the next breath.’ Risala said something to the three men, who all laughed. The foremost waved his dagger at Velindre one last time before sheathing it solidly.

Feeling chilled once more, Velindre followed Risala to the stern of the ship, unbuckling her own belt to thread the plain black leather through the dagger’s sheath. She saw a long ladder hanging down to the water. A piercing whistle beside her made her jump. The bearded Aldabreshin chuckled and pointed to a youth sculling a small flat boat towards them with a single oar over the stern.

‘He’ll take us ashore,’ Risala explained. Velindre’s hand went instinctively to her belt. ‘Where’s my purse?’

‘Safe.’ Risala was unperturbed. ‘It’s no use to you here.’ The youth caught hold of the lower end of the ladder and Risala swung her legs over the slope of the stern timbers, climbing rapidly down. Velindre followed more carefully. The dagger at her belt was hard and inflexible, digging into her thigh. The sensations of wearing trousers were unfamiliar and unwelcome. Worse than anything else was the motionless emptiness all around her. She was cut off from the most basic, instinctive sense of the elements that had been with her for so long she had come to take it for granted. It was worse than being blind or deafened. Nausea rose in her throat.

She landed in the boat with trembling legs and sat down hurriedly. ‘So what—’

Risala cut her off with a merciless smile. When we’re ashore.’

Velindre realised the lad at the single stern oar was watching her, dark eyes hright and curious. She caught his gaze and held it, summoning all the disdain she felt for this place and its deceits. Her bruised spirits rose fractionally when he looked away, unease replacing his cockiness.

The shallows were crowded with a bewildering array of small boats, scurrying to and from the larger ships at anchor out in the deeper water. Velindre searched for any more familiar-looking vessel among the sleek triremes and the fat-bellied galleys with their square-rigged sails furled in hanging swags. There was none that she could see. She concentrated on keeping her growing wretchedness at bay until they reached the shelving golden beach and stepped into the ankle-deep surf.

Risala exchanged a few words with the youth. What does he get out of ferrying us?’ Velindre desperately sought distraction from the realisation that the earth was inert beneath her feet as the two of them walked up the sand.

‘The satisfaction of having done a good turn to a Chazen fast trireme. The shipmaster won’t forget his face, if the lad comes looking to take an oar out of these waters sometime in the future.’ Risala ticked off points on her fingers. ‘And he’s proving to whomever Kaasik Rai has presiding over this trading beach that he’s reliable and trustworthy. If he keeps his wits about him, he should be able to make a few trades of his own.’

‘Trading what?’ Velindre demanded. ‘You want me to learn. Teach me,’ she snapped.

‘His services.’ Risala paused to survey the scrubby fever trees that separated the beach from the dry and dusty clearing beyond. ‘And whatever his fortunes bring him by way of gifts from people like us.’ Velindre made a derisory noise. What gifts could you offer him?’

‘You’d be surprised.’ Risala reached inside her faded, saggy tunic and produced a small, soft leather bag. Untying the drawstring, she tipped it to let a few glistening pearls roll to the lip of the leather. Earl was as large as a woman’s smallest fingernail.

Velindre blinked. ‘What are these worth hereabouts?’

‘Whatever someone is willing to trade for them.’ Risala secured the pearls inside the bag once again. We don’t reduce everything to some nonsensical number of stamped bits of adulterated metal. Make sure you remember that,’ she warned. ‘Life in the Archipelago is a balance of cooperation and obligation. Every man in a village plays his part in building his neighbour’s new but so that he’ll have help when he needs it. One woman will watch another’s children so that woman can weave cloth for both of them. Fishermen trade crabs for a share in a villager’s vegetable plot.’

‘And the ties of obligation bind everyone more securely to their place and station of birth than chains around their ankles,’ Velindre murmured under her breath.

The earth was no more than dry dirt beneath her feet. The sea was barely ten strides away but it might as well have been ten leagues. She could feel the sun’s heat on her skin, the brush of the breeze, but that wasn’t the elemental consciousness that united her with the whole of the natural realm. She was hemmed in by mere physical sensation. She felt sick again, weak and abject.

Fighting a rising urge to fall to her knees and weep, determined not to give this chit of a girl such satisfaction, Velindre looked along the line of twisted trees. Solitary traders she would call no more than pedlars sat in the shade of the fringed, red-tipped leaves. ‘What are we looking for?’ she asked tightly. ‘This and that.’ Risala led the way along the shore, surveying base-metal plates and spoons on offer beside bracelets and necklaces of polished shell, next to small boxes of intricately carved wood. Beyond the pedlars, more prosperous groups of merchants were distinguished by family resemblance or some common motif on tunic or sleeveless overmantle. Silver and brassware were displayed on carpets spread on the ground. There were bowls and ewers and jugs, plain or chased with florid designs of plants and animals. Some were ornamented with fine enamels or coloured stones. One family had claimed a long stretch of beach, erecting several awnings to protect bolts of fine cloth from the bleaching sun. Some of the soft pastel muslins were plain, some printed with bold designs. Others had smaller, more convoluted patterns in vivid dyes.

‘Ikadi traders,’ murmured Risala.

‘How do you know?’ Velindre wondered.

‘Their daggers.’ Risala tapped the hilt of her own weapon. ‘Every domain has its own design. We’re wearing those of Chazen.’ She smiled with discreet amusement. ‘Archipelagans don’t feign like barbarians. Everyone can see everyone else’s origin, their rank and status.’

The cloth traders’ grey-haired, grey-bearded patriarch sat on a brilliantly coloured carpet surrounded by rolls of vivid silk. He was intent on a conversation with an elderly woman in a loose red gown with frolicking green birds embroidered around the hem. Nodding with satisfaction, the grey-haired woman bustled off towards a cookfire set beneath the spreading shade of a tall, warty-barked tree. As she gestured, several little girls began ladling rich meaty stew into bowls. A woman plainly mother to the children and daughter to the grey-haired cook was deftly slapping unleavened breads on to a searing griddle. The merchant and several of his sons came over and sat in a circle as the little girls handed out the bowls. Tearing scraps from the flatbread to scoop up his stew, the greybeard nodded and chewed as the younger woman spread her arms to indicate the lengths of cloth she required. The little girls eyed the brighter muslins eagerly. ‘You must use coin when merchants from Relshaz or Caladhria come south to trade.’ Velindre tried to keep her desperation out of her voice. There would surely be someone she could pay for passage back to safer waters, if she could find out where this thief had stashed her purse. No, she need only get far enough away for whatever poison the traitorous bitch had given her to fade from her blood. She summoned up all the anger she could to overwhelm the sick fear lurking at the edge of thought. Still searching the assorted traders, Risala shook her head absently. ‘Only warlords who trade directly with Relshaz hoard their worthless metals. They can get rid of them buying slaves.’ She shot a sideways grin at the stony-faced wizard. ‘Kaasik Rai won’t have any dealings with barbarians.’

‘Why not?’ Velindre couldn’t help asking, pointlessly affronted.

‘Some mainlander merchants came down here a year or so back’ Risala indicated the long curve of the bay with a sweep of her hand. ‘Six big galleys that decided they didn’t want to trade through Kaasik Rai as would be customary courtesy for such visitors. They came straight to the trading beach and offered barbarian coin for whatever they fancied. They had no notion of honest bargaining, offering the same insulting sums for pieces of vastly different value. They grew more and more angry when the traders wouldn’t take their tokens. They saw every refusal as a ploy to drive up the price.’

They were passing by a merchant sitting between two wide, shallow chests holding beautiful glassware nestling in soft cotton cloths. Risala gestured towards what looked like long-necked bottles, each capped with a pierced silver dome. One was as clear as crystal, adorned with precisely engraved flowers. The other was blue-green glass with threads of white spiralling upwards. ‘Which rose-water sprinkler would you say is more valuable?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Velindre caustically. ‘I’m no merchant.’ She took a deep breath as her stomach roiled at the smoke from a cookfire.

Risala smiled briefly at the hopeful-looking merchant before shaking her head and moving on. ‘If you were from the eastern reaches, you’d favour the coloured one. If you were thinking of trading down to the far west, you would want the crystal piece. Knowing that would affect what the merchant would take in trade, as well as any history between you, any obligation owed or sought. How can you reduce such complexities to some arbitrary weight of impure metal?’

Raised voices interrupted her. Every head on the beach turned to see one of the youths who’d been fetching and carrying for the cloth merchant standing toe to toe with some other bare-chested lad. The cloth merchant’s boy shoved the challenger, modest beard bristling. The bare-chested youth responded in kind, sending the cloth merchant’s boy stumbling backwards. He followed up his advantage, shouting insults. The cloth merchant’s boy recovered his footing and yelled back.

Two tall men in gleaming chain mail appeared out of the trees. One had his sword drawn, striking vivid ^glints from the sunlight. The murmur of more normal conversation resumed as everyone else on the beach turned tactfully away to leave the youths explaining themselves.

‘Kaasik Rai’s men keep the peace.’ Risala glanced at Velindre. ‘Those barbarian traders soon discovered that. They left after suffering a beating sufficient to match the offence they had offered. And Kaasik Rai decided that branding them was appropriate, not least so that everyone would see them for what they were if they ever returned.’

‘The Relshazri didn’t object?’ Velindre was almost shocked enough to forget her weakened, sickened state.

Risala shook her head. ‘Archipelagan trade is too precious to be risked because some ignorant individuals bring down suffering on themselves.’

Cold fear halted Velindre. ‘So some imprudent mage meeting a hideous death in the Archipelago would be of no concern.’

No wizard would be so foolish as to travel these waters.’ Risala steered her inland with a merciless hand at her elbow. ‘As a scholar, you will know that.’

‘A scholar?’ Velindre shook her arm free. ‘First I’m a eunuch and now I’m a scholar?’

‘The two often go together.’ Risala nodded. ‘If you’ve no stake in the future through your body, you want to leave your mark for posterity with your wits. Many of our greatest philosophers, mathematicians and physicians have been eunuchs.’

‘Oh.’ Velindre couldn’t think what else to say. ‘So what manner of scholar am I?’

‘You had better be an historian.’ Risala smiled. ‘Reading our histories as we sail will do wonders for your understanding of our language. I’ve the pearls to trade for books to get you started and that’s the man I’ve been looking for.’ She pointed to a white-bearded ancient sitting on a battered chest bound with tarnished brass, idly kicking his feet as he listened to a younger man sat cross-legged on the ground reading steadily from a sheaf of white reed pages. The old man had a stoutly bound book open on his knees and was following the text with one gnarled finger.

‘He’s taken a copy of the scholar’s book.’ Risala nodded at the younger man. ‘When the scholar’s heard him read it back, to be sure he hasn’t made any en ors, he’ll certify it as accurate and it can be bound properly.’

‘And how does he pay for it, if you don’t use money?’

Velindre demanded.

‘He offers what he thinks it is worth.’ Risala spoke as if that were obvious. ‘As well as something of equal value to whatever other teaching he’s had. Noted scholars, highly appreciated poets, particularly astute seers—they’ll often find a warlord to house and feed them. So you need to be able at least to bluff you way through this, so no one thinks it too odd that Chazen Kheda is willing to be known as your patron.’ The sensation of crushing emptiness all around was threatening to wholly overwhelm Velindre. She focused desperately on the strange incomprehensibility of the Aldabreshin language instead. What’s he saying? What does the book say?’

The white-bearded scholar spared the pair of them a faintly irritated look. Risala drew Velindre some way back. ‘It’s philosophy.’ She listened for a moment before continuing in a low voice. ‘Consider the round lute. Only one string is plucked but the others around it resound in sympathy. The experience of any individual affects all those around. Consider the fig tree. If its fruit falls in its shadow, the seedlings cannot thrive. If a loal carries the fruit away, whatever is lost on the way can grow into a new tree that feeds many more animals than just the loals. If a village’s hunters kill all the loals, eventually they will have no fig trees. Other animals will go hungry. All our actions have consequences, even if we cannot see them at first hand.’

‘That seems a little simplistic’ Velindre sniffed. ‘Like your rationalisation of slavery.’

Risala looked at her. ‘Perhaps we had better buy you some books of philosophy as well as some history.’

‘Why not?’ Velindre agreed. ‘I shall need something to focus my mind on or I will go mad, thanks to your cursed poisons!’

The white-bearded scholar looked up again, scowling.

‘Keep quiet.’ Risala drew the magewoman further back. We’ve a long voyage ahead of us and you don’t want to draw attention to yourself.’

‘How long?’ Velindre demanded with low urgency.

‘It’s thirty days or so till the rains should break. After that, perhaps another ten days, if the storms don’t delay us too badly.’ Risala looked away to the south, face tightening with apprehension. ‘I only hope we’re not too late.’

Velindre could not have spoken even if she’d had anything to say, the choking sensation in her throat was so vile. She pressed her hands to her face, shaking, fighting to control her horror at the prospect of such a long voyage deprived of her magic.