The Swordsman's Oath

A letter discovered amongst the effects salvaged from an Aldabreshin galley wrecked in the Gulf of Peorle in the 278th Year of the Freedom of the City of Col

Segalo Ria greets Imir Sazac with loving respect by the hand of her body slave Cathu

We are all curious to learn of your trip to the mainlanders at Col and cordially invite you to visit us upon your return. If these foreigners are any less predatory than the vermin of the Relshaz mud flats, the dangers of such a voyage will be worthwhile. It is a matter of no little concern to us that you had scant opportunity to deal with mainlanders before the grievous passing of the esteemed Iru Sazac elevated you to the honor of First Wife. Please allow us to impart some of the experience we have garnered over recent years.

You are accustomed to hear all mainlanders stigmatized as thieves. This is not merely based upon the recurrent thefts of spice plants and the subsequent dishonorable diversion of that trade by the men of the leeward coasts, you will find all plead to be allowed to visit your domains and, should you allow this, they will ask repeatedly who owns every item in your residence. Although such a question is meaningless to a person with any honor, reply that everything is the personal possession of Sazac Dega, otherwise these mainlanders purloin anything not actually nailed down.

Make sure that your triremes are well in evidence when your galleys reach Col, a visible display of Sazac Dega’s might. Leave them in no doubt that any attempts at incursion into your domain will leave their boats burned to the waterline, else you will find their clumsy vessels sniffing around your lands, stealing your crops and slaves, attempting to inveigle themselves into your trade.

There is no place for beauty or honor in their notions of exchange. All they want to do is assign a number of little metal tokens to any and every object and then attempt to trade for as few of these as possible. Do not, for example, agree a trade and then offer an additional, superior gem to show your appreciation of politeness, as you would with an Islander. These mainlanders will not understand this, merely taking it as a sign to attempt to extort further gems from you. Also, do not give them any sizeable or noteworthy jewels; they will cut up and facet whatever they get, having no appreciation of the natural forms of the stones.

Be extremely careful to assess the quality of the gold and silver they offer you. Much is badly adulterated with base metals, but you have to understand this is so commonplace as to be openly accepted and not the disgrace it would be among a civilized people. The best metals are worth keeping for turning over to your jewellers and craftsmen but much of the rest is only fit for ballast. All you can do is use it to simplify trading for slaves, which does at least get it off your hands.

Make sure you keep Denil with you at all times and that he knows to keep his blades sharp. Mainlanders virtually leash and muzzle their females and feel entitled to offer insult to any woman not so constrained. We would certainly advise you not to seek recreation with any mainlander; they have simply no idea how to conduct themselves. Their customary use of liquors and narcotics curdles any sense of decency.

Nevertheless, we await news of your trip with great eagerness and wish you every success.

The Palace of Shek Kul, the Aldabreshin Archipelago, 5th of For-Summer

I stood, leaning against the wall for as much support as I dared, and felt the sweat trickling down between my shoulder blades. Although 1 was trying not to move, I must have somehow betrayed my discomfort and that earned me a swift glance of displeasure from Laio’s dark eyes. I tried to concentrate instead on the rhythms of the little fountain playing in a broad ceramic basin set into the middle of the white marble floor. An insect whined somewhere and I tried to spot it, not wanting the bastard to add to my already impressive collection of itching bites.

“So you see, my lady, there is no consistency to the thread. It jams on the loom or breaks, the quality of the cloth shames me greatly.”

The weaver was an old man, white-haired and skinny, wearing only a crisply laundered loincloth, kneeling in abject supplication in front of this girl young enough to be his granddaughter.

Lucky bastard, I thought, my shoulders aching viciously from most of a day spent standing around in chainmail, doing nothing more useful than looking war-like for the benefit of Laio’s workers. Still, at least I was standing upright.

“I understand your problems and there will be no penalties,” Laio interrupted the old man’s complaints, as well she might. We’d been hearing the same thing all day in various forms; I could have told her myself what he was going to say.

Her brisk and efficient manner still struck me as incongruous, as she sat there in a filmy silk dress that left few of her charms to the imagination. Bright paints all but obscured her face and she was adorned with more jewels than the entire House of D’Olbriot at a Sieur’s wedding.

I closed my ears to their conversation and stared out of the open shutters, across the lush grounds of Shek Kul’s palace compound. Precisely tended gardens surrounded the central residence, slaves’ dwellings beyond them and, looming over those, the high black walls patrolled day and night by keen-eyed sentries, always with double-curved short bows to hand. I looked at the green pennant lazily flickering in the breeze above the tower over the main gate and, in the far distance, the dark green hills of the next island in the domain, hazy in the moist heat. So far I’d found as little prospect of getting beyond those gates alone as stepping through a rainbow to meet an Eldritch-man.

Dark clouds were boiling up above the steep conical peaks of the far islands and I wondered when the rains that Laio had been promising for days would actually arrive. Would it get any cooler? I was just about getting used to being covered in a permanent film of sweat. As long as there was some breeze, it was tolerable, unless I was wearing this cursed hauberk, that was. On those days or when the air hung still and heavy, I felt as if I were walking around wrapped in a warm, wet blanket and I found myself dreaming about fresh, salt-scented winds off the ocean at home.

A knock on the door brought me back to my present duties. I opened it to reveal Gar Shek, her golden eyes dancing with delight, Sezarre impassive as always behind her.

“Laio, my dear, I have some wonderful news for you,” Gar smiled sweetly, her customary expression concealing whatever mischief she was trying to foment. “The pigeon-master has just brought me a message from Kaeska. She arrives home on the afternoon tide. Isn’t that perfect; she’ll be here for the birth!”

Laio looked up with a wide smile of untroubled pleasure. “Thank you for letting me know so quickly.” She glanced at the complicated arrangement of toothed and interlocking metal wheels that I had been startled to learn served her as some kind of calendar. The senior wife, Kaeska, hadn’t been due back for a couple of days.

Gar nodded and then looked at the weaver, who was kneeling, forehead to the floor, in what I had learned was the appropriate manner and very hard on the knees.

“Are your workers still having trouble with that yarn you traded from Tani Kaasik?” asked Gar, all innocent concern and missing no opportunity to remind Laio of her lapse.

Laio shrugged. “It’s of no consequence and I had to do something for the poor girl. With that amount of overproduction, she was at her wit’s end.”

Perhaps, but the youngest Kaasik wife had still had the wit to offload the poorest quality cotton on to Laio. I recalled the meeting where Laio’s eagerness to increase her own production and reap the attendant benefits had got the better of her good sense. She had failed to check the yarn for herself and I had garnered a severe slapping when Laio had discovered her error and come looking for an outlet for her frustrations.

“I’m sure you will find a way to resolve the situation,” smiled Gar warmly.

“I have a market in mind for the cloth,” Laio assured her confidently. I would have been completely convinced if I had not seen her storming around her chambers the previous day, volubly lamenting the fact that she had no such thing.

Gar smiled sweetly once again, turned on her heel and swept lightly down the corridor, Sezarre clinking softly behind her. For all that she never missed a chance to needle Laio, I had recently heard Gar assuring some noble visitor that Laio had known exactly what she was doing, generously helping the hapless Tani Kaasik out of the difficulties stemming from the girl’s deplorable inexperience. In the course of a day, I reckoned an Aldabreshi lady wore more different faces than an actor in a Soluran masquerade.

“You are all dismissed!” Laio nodded at the weaver and the line of others waiting patiently in the corridor. They dispersed without a murmur and I looked after them with no little disdain.

“You are looking puzzled. What is it?” demanded Laio as we climbed the stairs to her apartments on the top floor of the palace. I should have remembered that Laio had a talent for spotting every nuance of expression or tone that would even put a professional gambler like Livak to shame; years of training for the complicated life of a Warlord’s wife, no doubt.

“Your slaves, the weavers, they are very obedient,” I said, somewhat lamely.

Laio clicked her tongue in exasperation. “They are not slaves, they are free Islanders. You must learn these things. A slave is one who has been purchased from the mainland or traded from another domain.”

Personally I would call anyone a slave who was entirely dependent on a Warlord and his wives to trade the product of his labors, to keep a roof over his head and to give him permission to marry, raise children or do pretty much anything beyond eat, sleep and breathe. I nodded obediently and added this to the ever growing list of things I had to remember. We reached the top floor and I hurried to open the door to Laio’s bedroom. She was already stripping off her dress as she crossed the threshold, dropping it carelessly on the polished and patterned wooden floor. I had seen her naked too often to react much by now, and simply went to the stairs to send one of the ubiquitous pages for some hot water.

Laio was cleaning off her face paints in the tiled bathroom when I returned with a steaming jug.

“Come here,” she commanded. “I need to speak to you.”

I emptied the ewer into a broad basin and Laio waited while I mixed in some cold water.

“Kaeska is a very clever woman but her power will end with the birth of Mahli’s child. Accordingly, it is entirely possible that she will make some attempt to injure Mahli or the baby.”

I had no trouble believing that; for all their endless courteous dances around each other, I had already seen ample evidence of Aldabreshin ruthlessness. The breeze coming through the open windows still carried a faint hint of ash, carried from a neighboring domain where an island struck by one of the foul pestilences peculiar to the Archipelago had been quite deliberately burned clear down to the black earth, utterly destroying homes, plants, animals and inhabitants to contain the disease.

Laio scowled as she briskly lathered her face. “You are to remain vigilant at all times. We will dine as a family tonight, so you are not to shame me in the slightest fashion. You will speak only in Aldabreshin and only when directly addressed. You will not draw attention to yourself, no matter what is said.”

The soap bubbles rather spoiled the effect of Laio’s stern look, but as I had no desire to feel her cane switch on my back again I stifled my desire to laugh.

“What dress will you wear?” I could manage that much in passable Aldabreshin by now, as well as a few other useful phrases, but it looked as if I was going to spend the evening largely silent. That did not bother me; I may still have been having trouble speaking the language, even though it had proved far simpler to learn than I had feared, but I was finding I could understand more and more, something I took pains to conceal from everyone around me. What I really wanted was to overhear something that would get me out of this compound, past the guards and down to the harbor on my own. I was increasingly certain that waiting for any wizard to rescue me was a waste of time.

Laio paused as she soaped her body vigorously. “The red and gold. Do you agree?”

I thought for a moment. “I’d have said the cream and gold, especially if Mahli’s going to be wearing yellow. Gar has that new red gown, remember?”

Laio nodded. “That should remind Kaeska that Mahli is much supported here.” She tilted her head back and tipped a bowl of cold water over her face. She shuddered, glistening in a very distracting manner as the water curled away down the drain in the sloping floor.

I left her to her ablutions and fetched the dress in question, adding a choice of pearl-studded ornaments of yellow gold for ankles, wrists, neck, waist and hair. I was getting positively casual about handling enough wealth to buy up half of Zyoutessela by now. Laio had cases of the stuff and, quite evidently, no real idea of just what she owned. I could quite easily have purloined a ring, an ear-stud or two, a fine chain perhaps, jewels that would have paid my passage clean across the Old Empire at home. Here they wouldn’t get me past the first gates of the compound, since no one apart from the nobility had any understanding of the value of such things. The irony could have been quite amusing, if it hadn’t been so galling. Her jewel case was an odd mixture too; some pieces of workmanship so fine an Emperor would have coveted them, some plain pieces with huge gems simply polished in their natural shape, for all the world looking like oddly colored pebbles rather than wealth enough to buy every slave in Relshaz.

“My hair will suffice. Do my face,” commanded Laio, settling the folds of her draperies to her satisfaction.

I found the paints and looked for a judicious choice of colors. Whatever else I’d imagined I might learn from an Aldabreshi swordsman like Sezarre, it hadn’t included mixing cosmetics. However, the duties of an Aldabreshi lady’s body slave were proving to be a most peculiar mixture of guard, personal dresser, spy and footman. Luckily, before my father and I had agreed that masonry wasn’t for me, I’d served sufficient apprenticeship to give me a good eye and a steady hand. It could have been worse; the indigo Gar used to tint her hair left Grival with permanently blue nails, from what I had seen.

A brazen scream of horns came from the harbor, startling me so much that I nearly stabbed Laio in the cheek with a silver-laden brush.

She spat something that just had to be an obscenity. “That’s Kaeska’s ship; she’s early of course. Hurry up! Wash your face as well, I won’t have you looking like that!”

I complied, and almost before I was finished Laio was on her feet and out of the door. I followed, trying to ease the screaming pain in my shoulder muscles and wondering when I might have a chance for a cooling wash myself. The best I could do was to tighten my belt, to try and settle as much of the weight of the armor on my hips as I could.

“I don’t think we need hurry, my dear.”

As we emerged from the main door of the keep, we found Shek Kul waiting on the broad steps of polished black stone, his long beard lustrous with oil, looking the complete masquerade barbarian in loose trousers and overtunic of lavishly embroidered white silk studded with gems, still more jewels on his wrists and fingers. His hair was scraped back off his face with more oil, braided and laced with gold chains, the first time I had seen it done so. A gold mounted fly whisk of iridescent feathers added the final touch to his air of ease.

“We will wait for Mahli,” he smiled at Laio, taking her hand with a fond squeeze.

“Of course,” she beamed up at him and I wondered if I would be taking my cotton-stuffed pallet out into the corridor again that night, rather than sleeping at the foot of Laio’s bed like a house dog as I had been forced to become accustomed.

“Trust Kaeska to be early!” Mahli came cautiously down the steps, leaning heavily on Grival’s arm.

Sezarre and I were seeing less and less of him these days; with Mahli scant days away from child-bed, he was hovering around her like an old bitch with one pup. Personally, I was starting to wonder about his fondness for her but was careful to keep my speculations to myself.

“Let us go and greet our wife,” commanded Shek Kul, his steps crunching down the pebble path that wound through the vivid and richly scented blooms filling the gardens. Laio took Mahli’s arm and Grival fell in beside me. I heard the door behind us swing open, but as I went to turn my head to look Grival shot me a forbidding frown. I kept my eyes ahead and my face carefully impassive as Gar hurried past us in a flurry of scarlet silk and Sezarre took his place at my sword hand, the three of us marching in step. I’d been relieved to find that outside the palace buildings everyone wore open leather sandals, but even though my feet were toughening up I could still feel every pebble through the thin soles.

I schooled my expression as we approached the gates of the compound, but could not help a quiver of anticipation deep in my belly. We’d arrived at night and gone straight to the palace, so there had been no chance for me to see the harbor, to get some idea of what boats were available, and assess how closely things were guarded or patrolled.

What I saw now did not encourage me. A rough lane snaked down to the broad curve of the bay, clusters of single-roomed houses on either side, broad shutters open to show people washing, cooking, weaving, spinning, going about their daily lives unconcerned at observation from all sides. At the water’s edge a broad, square building of harsh, gray stone stood sternly above the tide line, watchmen on its roof walk, windows no more than slits for arrows, the only double door a massive barrier of wood, studs and black iron. It was a fair wager that it was a hollow square, like so many of the palace buildings, built for defense on the outside, all amenities facing inward. The great double doors of black, iron-bound wood stood open, meek Islanders carrying in loads deposited on the dark sand of the beach by the flotilla of little boats that were ferrying in considerable amounts of cargo from the galleys anchored in the center of the bay. Even if I had a chance to steal one of those skiffs, I wouldn’t want to risk it in anything more than a stiff breeze, with its shallow draft and triangular, coastal sail. I sighed inwardly. Was I ever going to find a workable plan of escape?

I looked at the ships bringing home the spoils from what must have been a lengthy trading trip by Kaeska Shek. Two were the same style of galley as the one that had carried me here; broad in the beam, square-rigged for a following wind, far more massively built than those that plied the coast of the Gulf of Lescar. Each rower on the benches had his own oar, rather than all three pulling on the same one in the Tormalin style and I knew the Aldabreshi had long made sure that no one else experimented with this technique by sinking any other vessel they saw with more than one rank of oars. Since the Warlords were the ones with all the gemstones, mainland mariners tended to let them have their own way on this issue.

The third ship was a bird of a different feather altogether; lean, narrow, its three ranks of oars set one on top of each other, armed men lining its rails and a fleck of foam betraying the long ram cutting the waves just below the waterline. This was a warship, one of the more compelling reasons why the galleys that ply the coasts from Col to Relshaz and onto Toremal keep close to their own shores and do not venture into the Archipelago without a very specific invitation and the flags to fly to prove it. Two of these vessels had joined our galley as soon as we had left the outer Relshazri anchorages. On our lengthy progress down through the Islands, I had learned that Shek Kul had treaties with other Warlords that allowed his vessels to land each day on certain tiny islets to take on food and water and to rest the rowers. At all of these halts, we had seen more such predatory shapes standing off at sea, shadowing us until we left the waters of that particular domain. I had come to the conclusion that Dastennin has indeed favored us southern Tormalins with the violent weather that screams around the Cape of Winds and keeps the Aldabreshi out of our waters for the most part. At least the prevalent atmosphere within the Archipelago was one of armed truce at the moment and I sincerely hoped peace would hold until I got myself out of there.

A little boat was leaving the warship’s side, rowers bending to their oars, three figures seated in the stern. One was bright in flame-colored silks fluttering in the breeze; sat beside her was a man all in solemn black, close-cropped white hair vivid in the sunlight. He was little taller than the woman next to him but broad in the shoulder and deep in the chest. I had seen such men before, the previous year and in Shiv’s scrying as the heart of the Empire was consumed by flames. I watched the boat draw nearer, a mounting dread stifling my instinctive denials. That man was an Elietimm, I’d wager my oath fee on it.

“Kaeska, my beloved!” Shek Kul walked on to the beach to help Kaeska down himself, oblivious to the wavelets lapping at his ankles.

“My revered husband.” Kaeska’s tones were warm with affection as she embraced him. “Mahli, my dearest, you should have waited in the gardens, in the shade; it’s too hot for you to be walking so far, so close to your blessing.”

“I had to welcome you properly, you’ve been away so long.” Mahli kissed Kaeska’s immaculate cheek with every appearance of sincerity as Laio and Gar stepped forward to embrace the new arrival.

After all the tales I’d heard from Laio about Kaeska’s manipulative, cunning and vengeful nature, I’d been expecting something a little more impressive than a small-boned, doe-eyed woman with neat ankles and a pert figure. Her skin and hair were a little lighter than the other women, there was a distinct tint of red in the curls artfully coiled around her head. I judged her about my own age.

“What a delightful dress, Laio my sweet.” Kaeska held her at arm’s length to get a better look. “Your face too; what an unusual style.”

“Laio has a new body slave,” Gar chipped in, beaming with pleasure.

“Oh yes!” Laio was all girlish excitement. “It was so clever of Gar to choose me a mainlander. Can you believe it, he knows nothing of our ways, not even how to talk? It has been such fun, training him up from nothing!”

I stood and stared straight ahead, trying to look as if their rapid chatter was beyond my understanding. Nevertheless, I caught a fleeting glance exchanged between Gar and Kaeska, the former looking for approval, the latter giving it with a glint of satisfaction in her hazel eyes. So there was something they had woven between them, was there?

“You have brought us a guest?” Shek Kul turned to study the white-haired man with frank appraisal.

“This is Kra Misak.” Kaeska turned her head to acknowledge her companion with a brief nod. “He comes from a land far to the north and wishes to investigate the opportunities for trade here.”

I ran the name through my mind; Kramisak, it would be on a civilized tongue, but it had an unfamiliar ring to me, no echo of the Empire anywhere.

“You are welcome to my domain.” Shek Kul did not bow or offer a hand, but the Elietimm was not discomposed, evidently well briefed on what to expect.

“I will respect your hospitality.” The man ducked his head in a show of nicely gauged homage; his face was honest and open, his stance one of ease masking slight intimidation. He had definitely been very well advised; it had taken me days to work out the precise bows required for the different levels of nobility. My shoulders still smarted under my chainmail at the memory of Laio’s displeasure after I had embarrassed her in front of a visiting friend.

The Elietimm ran a swift glance over Grival, Sezarre and myself, the three of us standing like statues on a shrine front, all alike with our armor, weapons and close-trimmed beards. I kept my eyes motionless, holding the blank expression that Laio’s switch had drilled into me. The man’s eyes were ice blue and austere but gave nothing away as he offered Kaeska his arm and we all began the ascent to the palace compound, Mahli’s laborious pace slowing the rest.

I stared at this Kramisak’s back, sure I was missing something here. Kaeska was talking to him, laughing and smiling. As she turned towards him, I felt suddenly cold, despite the heat of the day. I recognized her in that tilt of her head, in her profile. She was the woman I had seen on the dock at Relshaz, talking to the Elietimm who had been at the slave auction. This wasn’t the same man, the would-be purchaser had been younger, a little taller, that much I was sure of, but there had to be a connection. However I had fallen into that Relshazri lock-up, the Elietimm had known enough to be ready to try and take advantage, hadn’t they? If Kaeska had encompassed my purchase through Gar, what did that signify? I wondered at the Elietimm’s lack of any insignia; all the Ice Islanders I’d seen the previous year had worn a badge to proclaim their loyalty to one or other of the bitterly contested fiefdoms. Why was this Kramisak so anonymous?

Before I could pursue that thought, Sezarre deliberately knocked his elbow against mine. That was unusual enough to get my undivided attention. I slid my eyes sideways to catch his and saw a faint frown darkening his face. He tilted his head a fraction toward Grival, who immediately stumbled for a pace to allow me sight of Kaeska’s body slave, who had fallen into line on his far side.

The man stared straight ahead, one eye darkened by a livid bruise that overlay the fading discoloration of an older injury. His beard was raggedly trimmed, uneven and clotted with dried blood under the ear that I could see. His shoulders were square under his chainmail, but the tension in him was brittle with fear rather than ready for action. His hands were striped red with weals from a whip or a cane and I wondered what other injuries we would see when he was stripped for exercise with the rest of us. His skin was pale, paler than my own tan, and though his hair had the tight black curls of Aldabreshi blood, the cast of his features was distinctly Caladhrian. If he were mixed race, I wondered if he retained any attachment to the mainland that I might use to my benefit, especially given Kaeska was so clearly mistreating him. I didn’t hold out much hope of that; his eyes were as dead as those of a dog whipped too often and too long.

Our progress back to the palace was slowed as the so-called free Islanders came out of their houses to bow low before Shek Kul, press flowers on the ladies and often to lay a gentle hand on Mahli’s distended belly, taking a liberty that rather surprised me. I noticed Mahli seemed to be getting the most and the choicest blooms, and although Kaeska nodded, smiled and laughed to all sides, threading a long stem of golden blossoms through her hair, her eyes were hard and calculating.

The press of people separated the nobles from we body guards and I saw Grival tap Kaeska’s slave on one arm. “How was the trip, Irith?”

The man Irith shook his head, not meeting Grival’s eyes. Sezarre frowned and moved closer. I followed.

“Are you sick?” inquired Sezarre in an undertone, his concern plain.

Irith shook his head again, still staring at his feet, this time making a faint grunt.

Grival glanced warily in Kaeska’s direction but she was absorbed in examining a spray of crimson flowers. “Have you offended our mistress?”

The man grimaced as if in sudden agony and turned to present his open mouth to Grival who recoiled with an expression of naked horror.

“What is it?” hissed Sezarre, but the path suddenly cleared and we had to resume our measured pace behind the nobles.

Grival muttered a word I did not know to Sezarre and I saw the same startled revulsion flare in his dark eyes.

“Sezarre?” I glanced at him as the curve of the path allowed me to turn my head.

“Irith has no tongue now,” he replied with a finality that forbade further inquiry.

As we were halted by another group hurrying up to make their obeisances, I noticed the Elietimm was staring, not directly at me but rather at my sword. That brought me up short as I realized it would almost certainly identify me to him, beard and armor notwithstanding. It may sound silly, but I had been concentrating so hard on learning the rules of this new situation, where the slightest mistake led to a thrashing, that I had hardly given the sword a thought since I’d got here. I certainly hadn’t been troubled by dreams that I was aware of; my main problem sleeping stemmed from the fact that Laio snored worse than Shiv. Keeping my face expressionless and making sure I did not look directly at the Ice Islander, I decided I had better talk to Laio about this as soon as we were alone. If I suggested Kaeska was plotting somehow, I knew I would have Laio’s instant interest.

As we entered the palace compound, one of the underlings came to escort the Ice Islander, presumably to a guest room. I watched him go with relief and wondered maliciously if the slave, who seemed to be what we would call an understeward in Tormalin, would misinterpret the white-haired man’s lack of a beard. I had soon realized why Sezarre had warned me against shaving after I had noted the nightly visits of a couple of sleek-eyed boys to the smooth-cheeked steward’s quarters. At least as a fighting man I was expected to keep my beard close-trimmed, offering no handhold to an enemy, but it still itched abominably in this sultry climate.

“Dinner will be served shortly.” Mahli smiled at Kaeska as she seated herself under a shady tree with visible relief.

“I congratulate you on having everything so well organized.” Kaeska’s tones dripped pure honey. “Especially when you had no real idea of when I would arrive.”

“You need not be so modest.” Mahli shook her head in mock reproof. “I’ve learned so much from watching you over the years. I’ve had a watcher at the north of the island, ready to send a signal down the flag-line as soon as your pennant was sighted.”

“All the flag stations and beacons are manned.” Shek Kul clasped Mahli’s hand warmly. “Everyone is awaiting news of our child.”

“I have some lovely things for the babe.” Kaeska’s expression grew more animated and she took a seat between Gar and Laio. “I have been right around the windward domains.”

The conversation grew more rapid and increasingly idiomatic as the five of them talked about people and places that meant nothing to me. The one thing I did notice was that Kaeska made no mention of visiting Relshaz at all. I wondered how Laio would take my assertion that Kaeska had been there at the same time as the rest of them.

I stopped trying to follow what they were saying and let my thoughts drift as I looked idly around the gardens. A few of the ever present gardeners were trimming the luxuriant shrubs, removing spent blooms, tidying the paths. Eventually a chime sounded from the far side of the central residence and Grival nodded to the rest of us. We escorted our ladies and the Warlord into the long and airy dining room where marble channels carried water around the edge of the room and then cascaded into a central ornamental pool that was home to some distinctly odd-looking lizards. Small censers set to give off faint columns of scented smoke were a welcome sight, since I was starting to think one of my minor roles here was to decoy the cursed insects into biting me rather than the Aldabreshi, who didn’t seem nearly so troubled by them as I was.

I realized this was going to be as long and tedious an evening as the ones when Laio was entertaining visitors from the domain of Kaasik Rai. The only good thing was there was no sign of the Elietimm; I wanted to keep out of his way as much as possible until I had some idea of what he wanted here. I was certainly curious to know just what he might be up to while everyone was dining, but my duties waiting on Laio kept me too busy to worry about it just for the present. A succession of courses came and went, my own hunger increasingly gnawing at my belly since Laio had neglected to eat at noon, too preoccupied with the complaints of her weavers. So I fetched, served, hungered and listened.

When at last the conversation turned to Kaeska’s unexpected guest, I pricked up my ears like the good hound I was spending so much of my time emulating lately.

“Where is he from?” inquired Gar innocently, abandoning her attempts to hold Shek Kul’s attentions.

Kaeska swallowed a mouthful of sour pickled fish. “The north somewhere.”

Laio looked thoughtful but did not say anything. She had been asking me about the precise geography of the Old Empire recently, but everyone else seemed happy to treat the mainland as one undistinguished lump, for all that they could describe every reef and islet of the Archipelago and name its owner besides.

“A mainlander,” Shek Kul’s expression was somewhere between pity and contempt, “they are all the same.”

Kaeska tilted her head in a rather feline gesture. “His people live on islands; I do not find him as uncouth as most.”

“What does he have to trade?” Mahli looked up from her plate. “Are his people interested in proper barter or do they reduce everything to metal bits and paltry gems like the rest of them?”

Kaeska shrugged. “The north has long been a source of metals, timber, leather, has it not?”

I couldn’t decide if she was speaking from genuine ignorance or deliberately being vague. I would have to make sure Laio knew the Ice Islands had none of these resources, to my certain knowledge.

“Let me know when you find out what he wishes to trade for.” Mahli laid a negligent hand on her abdomen as she smiled fondly at Kaeska. “Gar and Laio have been making up their accounts for me and I have been assessing the treasury.”

“Have you examined those sapphires I had from Rath Tek, my dear?” Shek Kul spoke through a mouthful of spiky green stems. “I think you should be able to do very well with them the next time we visit Relshaz.”

Kaeska’s expression froze at this unusually unsubtle exchange and I even saw Laio blink a little at the realization that Mahli had been taking on so many of Kaeska’s duties even before the birth of her child.

“If this man is from a northern land, perhaps he might trade for that cloth of yours, Laio,” Gar rushed to fill the awkward silence, her eyes betraying an unaccustomed confusion. “It’s too thick for anyone in the Islands to want it, even if it were not such poor quality.”

“Oh dear, Laio.” Kaeska’s face was instantly sisterly concern. “Are you in difficulties with your weavers?”

Laio hastily denied any such thing and began to explain how she had only been looking to help the foolish Tani Kaasik. Kaeska nodded and sympathized, but every time Laio looked to be coming out ahead, Gar innocently sank another barbed comment into the sensitive conversation. I was surprised to see Mahli remain aloof from the fencing but she concentrated on discussing household matters with Shek Kul, which seemed to keep Kaeska all the more determined to pursue the issue of Laio’s mistakes.

As the night deepened beyond past the slatted shutters, I saw the greater moon rise above the battlements, not yet quite at the half as it waned, with the lesser moon just showing an edge above the trees. I tried to remember when I’d last seen an Almanac and how many days the Emperor’s Chronicler had decreed for Aft-Spring this year. As far as I could estimate, from what I remembered of the charted phases of the two moons, we would be in the early days of For-Summer, around the 5th or 6th.

Soft-footed house slaves answered Shek Kul’s abrupt summons with small lamps and I hastily gathered my wits. Delighted to realize this interminable evening was about to end, I saw my own relief trebled in Laio’s eyes. Gar and Kaeska linked hands in high good humor and led the way up the broad central stairs though I saw the satisfaction on Kaeska’s face falter when she turned and realized Shek Kul was giving Mahli the support of his own arm. When Shek Kul did not leave his wives at the landing to go to his own apartments on the floor below, Kaeska abruptly dropped Gar’s hand with a theatrical yawn.

“Do forgive me, I am so tired.” She turned away almost instantly toward her own suite. “Irith!”

The poor wretch hastened up the remaining stairs like a beaten hound and Kaeska swept through the opened door to her own apartments without a backward glance.

Shek Kul muttered something I did not catch as he was embracing Mahli at the time. She laughed loudly as she took Grival’s arm down the corridor, a sound that would have carried clearly through the louvered doors of Kaeska’s apartments as she passed.

“To bed!” Shek Kul kissed Gar briskly and then turned to catch Laio around the waist with a swiftness that caught everyone by surprise. He swept her off her feet and planted a smacking kiss on the exposed swell of her bosom. Laio giggled with delight. At her nod I hurried to open the door to her bedroom. As I stood to let the Warlord and his wriggling armful past, I saw Gar’s face, scarlet and a suspicion of tears in her eyes. She turned on her heel and strode down the far corridor toward her own rooms.

Beyond hoping that she didn’t take her chagrin out on Sezarre with a cane switch, I had no time to worry about Gar’s feelings. Shek Kul had Laio’s dress off her shoulders and down to her waist, hands cupping her ripe breasts, by the time I had dragged my pallet out into the corridor and fetched the canvas bag that held all the possessions I was allowed.

At times like this it was nigh on impossible to pretend to myself that I was a servant, not a slave. I was weary and ravenous, my back and shoulders were knotted with pain and, for all anyone cared, I might as well have been a door-post. Shek Kul’s falcons were treated better than us body slaves sometimes. I cursed softly to myself, loosened the thongs on my chainmail and bent over, arms outstretched to shrug it off over my head. The crash it made hitting the polished wood of the floor seemed to echo all around the silent corridors and I froze for a moment, half expecting a rebuke from Laio. I need not have worried; there was scarcely a pause in the sounds of rising passion coming through the flimsy door.

Getting the weight off my shoulders was some improvement, but my aching muscles still screamed their indignation. If I’d been able to go and find Sezarre or Grival, we could have helped each other out with some of the remarkably effective rubbing oils the Aldabreshi favored, but I now knew that once a Warlord’s lady has retired to her rooms for the night her slave is expected to stay with her. Unless he is sitting on his bed in the corridor like a hound that can’t be trusted with the furniture, that is. I couldn’t even hope for a proper bathtub for a hot soak in the morning. Laio had told me in no uncertain terms that only mainlanders wallowed in their own filth, while decent people rinsed themselves clean with fresh water. Rubbing my own shoulders as best I could, I tried to ignore the clamorous demands of my stomach. I hadn’t been this hungry since Laio had arbitrarily kept me without food for a day and a half as punishment for some mealtime transgression that I had never fully understood.

Shek Kul’s wordless expressions of pleasure were settling into a regular rhythm behind the door of Laio’s room and her uninhibited responses were answering him enthusiastically, accelerating to moans of rapture. I knew from previous nights that, when it came to chasing a snake through the undergrowth, the Warlord was a man of considerable stamina for his age, so I padded stealthily away on bare feet. The pages who spent their days in a lobby off the stairwell were always provided with water and I reckoned I should at least be able to get a drink to stave off the worst pangs of hunger.

The stairwell was at the corner of the hollow square that formed the central keep of the Warlord’s residence. Each wife’s suite of rooms ran along one inner side of the square, overlooking a central garden that had some special significance I had yet to fathom. The staircase was at the corner, where Kaeska’s rooms met Laio’s. I moved cautiously, not wanting to alert Kaeska to the fact that I had left my station. As I reached the stairs, I saw bars of light on the dark wooden floor, revealing a lamp was still lit in Kaeska’s sitting room. I swore silently to myself and crouched low, not wanting to risk being found crossing to the pages’ room.

“So what are you going to do to help me?”

Kaeska’s low words drove all thoughts of thirst clean out of my head. Apart from anything else, she was speaking in passable Tormalin. The blood started to pound in my veins, almost deafening me, and I fought to curb my racing heartbeat.

“Whatever I do for you will depend entirely on what you are able to do for me.” The Elietimm accent was unmistakable, for all that his Tormalin was better than Kaeska’s. His tone was uncompromisingly harsh.

“Of course, I will do all I can.” Kaeska was abject, pleading. “Haven’t I already done well? You said you were pleased with me, you said you could reward me—”

“The Queen of the Moonless Night must be properly venerated if she is to answer your prayers.” The Elietimm sounded contemptuous. “She must have worshippers in every domain.”

I forced myself to breath slowly and evenly, to concentrate on getting every word. I had certainly never heard of this Queen he was talking about. How often do you see a clear night with no trace of either moon, anyway? Maybe once in a handful of years?

“I will travel, I will spread your teachings. I have done your bidding, have I not? I told Gar to secure that slave for Laio—” Kaeska’s voice rose in something approaching panic and was cut short with what could only be a slap.

What hold did this man have over her that he dared lay a hand on a Warlord’s wife without losing it in the next breath to her body slave’s sword?

I moved to the corner with agonizing care, lying prone until I could edge my way forward and look into the room through the lowest slats of the door. Kaeska and the Elietimm were sitting on cushions, facing each other from either side of a low table where a candle flickered under some kind of incense burner. This was no mere scent to deter insects; a chance draft wafted a taste of the smoke in my direction and I recognized the acrid, seductive tang of smouldering thassin leaves. I caught my breath, and not just from the fumes. Chewing thassin nuts is one thing; it’s a habit that’s hard to break, but beyond dulling your senses and staining your teeth, it won’t do you too much harm, not taken in moderation anyway. Taking the smoke is quite another matter; any sworn man who started that would soon find himself paid off with a Lescari cut-piece for his oath fee. No one is going to trust a swordsman who might turn his blade on imaginary three-headed monsters at any moment.

Kaeska’s eyes were dark and glazed, her intricate makeup smeared, disregarded. Sweat beaded her forehead and she wiped it away with a clumsy gesture, heedless of the trickle of blood at one corner of her mouth.

“Show me my son,” she pleaded in a hoarse whisper.

The Elietimm shook his head, a cruel satisfaction curling his lip. He was sitting cross-legged, straight-backed, stripped to the waist but for a gold gorget bright at his throat. Strange sigils were dark on his pale skin, on his chest and down his arms to his outspread hands. They must have been painted on; I was certain I hadn’t seen anything on his palms earlier. Even in the dim light of the candle, the man’s eyes were clear and focused; the smoke wasn’t curdling his senses at all and I wondered just why that might be. I was already getting enough to be risking a light head and exotic dreams and I was keeping my face to the floor and breathing as shallow as I dared. Who was this man and what was he doing here with his cursed aetheric enchantments?

“Please…” Kaeska held out shaking hands in abject supplication.

“If I do, you must do something in return. The Queen of the Moonless Night demands balance in all things.” The man pretended to think, but I could see right through his false hesitation. He knew exactly what he wanted.

“Anything.” Kaeska’s eyes were wide and vacant by now, her jaw slack, but she still looked at the Elietimm as if he held Saedrin’s keys to the Otherworld.

“That slave of the woman Laio’s,” the Ice Islander leaned forward, his expression all cold intent, “he and his kind are enemies of my Queen. I will need to counter his powers if I am to get you with child. Trade something for him; if he is yours, we can take him with us when we leave and I can deal with him fittingly.”

“Once the child is born, Mahli will be First Wife.” Concern wrinkled Kaeska’s brow with visible effort. “It will be her business to make such trades.”

“So do it before the child arrives.” The Elietimm’s voice was harsh. “I can dispose of this garbage tonight, if necessary. Crush a few more berries on his gums and he won’t even wake up.”

He shoved a foot at what I had taken to be a pile of cushions and coverlets. It wasn’t; it was Irith who groaned feebly and rolled away from the kick. He came to rest facing me, eyes rolling half open, bloodshot even in the feeble light and a trickle of dark slime oozing from his slack lips.

“Shek will not be pleased,” Kaeska whimpered. “Disciplining a slave is one thing, using tahn on him like this is quite another.”

The bastards, the shit-sucking, pox-ridden bastards. I clenched my fists and fought to contain my revulsion. Anger wouldn’t help Irith, it didn’t look as if anything could now, but I needed to hear as much of this plot as possible, to take to Laio for certain and, if at all possible, to use to my own ends.

“If you swear to me that you will do it, I will show you your son again.” The Ice Islander’s voice was as sweet and seductive as honeyed wine.

“I swear.” Kaeska’s voice was all but inaudible, a trembling whisper, her eyes fixed on the blue wisps rising from the burner as the drug stirred her senses into chaos.

The Elietimm began a low chant and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled like a hound who’s caught a hated scent. The strange words and rhythms echoed those of Kerrit’s paltry cantrips but power rang in this man’s voice, confidence and real, unchallenged power. An unbidden memory of my time as a captive in those distant, barren islands came crawling out of the back of my mind, incantations like this ringing over me as I lay paralyzed, naked and seemingly bound hand and foot. Only later had I discovered that the fetters had never even existed, a delusion wrought inside my head by the one we had called the Ice-man.

The smoke from the censer began to coil in on itself and thicken oddly, a plume rising straight up in defiance of the evening breeze and then twisting into a vortex. Without a pause in the chant, the Elietimm placed something small on the table. It glinted as the candle flared to an unearthly brilliance. It was a belt buckle in a high, antique Tormalin style, and something about it teased at my memory, though for the life of me I couldn’t recall ever having seen it before.

The vortex evaporated abruptly and the faintest outline of a face appeared, wrought from the smoke and the light. But this was nothing like the magics I had seen Shiv or Viltred working. As the thassin fumes wove around my head, for all my shallow breaths I could feel the enchantment hovering around my mind, curious fingers picking at the edges of my wits. Luckily for me, the Elietimm was totally focused on Kaeska and the feeling passed before I somehow betrayed myself. As I watched Kaeska’s breathing quicken like a woman in the throes of passion, I felt sure the sorcery was feeding on her fears and desires in some way I couldn’t fathom. The face grew clearer, more distinct. I frowned, almost risking an attempt to rub the fog from my eyes but holding my hand back at the last moment, remembering the mortal dangers of the slightest noise. This was no more an Aldabreshin face than the belt buckle was Island-made. I could see a youthful face through the skeins of smoke, probably a boy, but perhaps a girl on the verge of womanhood. The hair was reddish, sandy blond, and freckles dusted pale skin; as the pitch of the chant shifted, the unearthly apparition opened its eyes. Even at this distance, I could see they were pale, blue or green, I was unable to tell. Kaeska’s eyes were fixed greedily, insanely on the figure, her breath coming in low, animal pants.

“My son, mine and Shek’s,” she whispered, “heir to the domain and my future.”

The smoke may have been dulling my wits but I’ve bred enough dogs to make me confident that Kaeska and the Warlord wouldn’t produce a child with a face from the Bremilayne hill country if she netted the old ram’s horns every other night and bore a child each Summer Solstice on the strength of it. I can’t say why but I was suddenly convinced that, whatever I was seeing, Kaeska was looking at something quite different.

“And you will bear him in due season. Your rights as First Wife will therefore be restored and you will rise high above the women of the other domains as your trade with my people brings you metals and timber to build Shek Kul’s power still further. You will not need to deal with the thieves and savages of the mainland at all, but with an island people like your own, who understand the value of beauty and honor in trade. You will bring your husband a powerful alliance, place him first among the Warlords as the Islands find friends to defend them against the depredations of mainland pirates and swindlers.”

The Elietimm leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Kaeska. “And your son will inherit all of this. He will grow and thrive while your rival’s child sickens and dies, just as long as the Queen receives her due and you obey her priest without question.”

Meaning him, no doubt. I shook my head slowly, keeping my eyes on Kaeska as the apparition dissolved into smudges of smoke carried off on the night breeze. The eager light faded from her eyes and she clawed at the last wisps with despairing fingers, a sob strangling in her throat.

“Show some dignity.” The Elietimm spat a curt command and the candle guttered, the last tendril of smoke coiling to vanish in the darkness. He climbed to his feet and sneered down at Kaeska as she sprawled across the table, shoulders shaking in silent anguish. He stalked off toward a far door and as soon as he had left the room, I made my way back to my pallet at Laio’s door as fast as I could. I found I had to actively concentrate on walking quietly; my co-ordination was definitely affected by the smoke I had been unable to avoid. Glad to lay my head on the cool, soft cotton, I closed my eyes as the floor seemed to dip and sway beneath me, the scent of the drugs still tantalizing me.

The Kel Ar’Ayen settlement, Autumn Equinox, Year One of the Colony

Temar strode purposefully through the crowded marketplace, his optimistic mood buoyed with simple pride at the raw yellow of new stonework gleaming here and there in the deepening dusk. It was deeply satisfying to see such tangible proof of his success in locating those quarry sites. Elsewhere the gloom was being held back by the light of flambeaux and braziers set around the dancing floor where determined revellers were already forming lines for round-dances. Temar noted with some surprise that some of the craftsmen and traders who had marked out these first lines of their new settlement had still found the time to plant up odd-sized half-barrels and battered kettles. Bright with flowers, the improvised gardens masked the worst deficiencies of the wooden houses and halls that had sheltered the colony through that first summer, giving the place a suitably festive air.

It might be a primitive celebration by D’Alsennin standards, Temar decided, but judging from the noise already echoing around the broad estuary, the colonists were intending to make this a holiday to remember, regardless of what they might be lacking. He nodded as people passed him, waving at half-remembered faces from the voyage and hoping a warm smile would suffice instead of the coin he was used to distributing on the streets at such times of year. The wealth he was carrying tonight was intended for only one recipient.

Temar took a deep breath and paused at the gateway of Messire Den Rannion’s steading, checking that no wisps of hair had escaped their clasp and brushing at the worn patch on his jerkin in a futile gesture. He lifted his chin and set his jaw; it wasn’t as if he was going to be the only one wearing last year’s finery, was it?

“Temar!” A hefty slap on the back caught him completely unawares and nearly sent him sprawling on the beaten earth of the roadway. “Hold on, I’ve got you!”

“Vahil, you idiot!” Temar shook off the hand that had saved him from the fall, tugged at his belt and straightened his shirt, checking the pocket with a hasty pat.

“Come on in.” Vahil’s good humor was undiminished as he hammered on the pale wood of the gate with the hilt of his belt knife. “Everyone’s longing to see you.”

The gate-ward opened to them and Vahil breezed past him with a cheery greeting that surprised Temar. “Drianon’s favor to you,” he muttered a little awkwardly to the man as he passed him.

“And to you, Esquire!” The gate-ward raised his tankard to Temar in an affable salute.

Temar moved to one side of the entrance and looked curiously at the changes made in the season and a half that he had been away. The steading was still surrounded by a fence rather than a decent stone wall, but the gardens were starting to take shape. Lanterns glowed among spindly fruit trees planted in a sparse avenue and vines were endeavouring to soften the rough-cut wood of the palings. The formal patterns of a herb garden were waiting for the plants to start spreading themselves in their new beds, but faint scent was already rising from the little clumps of bee-balm, meadowsweet and moth-bane. Temar wondered in passing where the shingle that crunched underfoot had come from to make the paths, and then he remembered the heap of ballast down by the wharf.

“Your steward’s been busy!” he noted with approval.

Vahil shook his head. “This is all Mother’s work. Come on, let’s find a drink!” He strode purposefully in the direction of the wine standing on a trestle table under a rather scrawny arbor of climbing plants with startling scarlet flowers. “Well, Mother and Jaes, the porter.” He waved an arm in the direction of the gate.

“Since when have you been on first-name terms with the outdoor servants?” Temar helped himself to a modest goblet of golden wine since there didn’t appear to be any servitors doing the usual duties.

Vahil paused and then shrugged as he found himself a flagon of red. “I don’t know really. It just seemed a bit silly to keep everything so formal. Things are a bit different here, somehow, don’t you find?”

Temar nodded as he sipped his drink, blinking a little at its unrefined newness. “I suppose so. It was certainly like that up river, all of us getting on with the tasks to be done. You caught me a bit by surprise, that’s all.”

“We’ve been too busy breaking and planting enough land and getting the harvests in to worry about making sure the right people sit below the salt.” Vahil’s expression turned fleetingly somber. “After losing those ships at sea, we’ve needed to set every pair of hands to work.”

“We?” Temar raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“That’s right.” Vahil met the challenge in Temar’s expression with a direct gaze and unmistakable emphasis on his words. “We have a great deal to be proud of and we can look forward to a secure winter.”

“So what exactly have you”—Temar stressed the question lightly—“been doing?”

Vahil took a pace backward and swept an extravagant bow. “I have the honor to represent the Secretariat on the First Council of Kel Ar’Ayen. Oh, sorry!” He raised an apologetic hand to the passing man whom he had narrowly missed in spilling his wine. “Yes, Temar, give me a couple of chimes and I could show the records of everything that’s been planted, plucked or poleaxed since we made landfall here.”

“Vahil Den Rannion, bonniest buck in a brothel turned bean counter? I don’t believe it!” Temar laughed to cover his astonishment.

“You wouldn’t be alone there.” Messire Den Rannion appeared at Temar’s shoulder, an unmistakable note of pride in his voice as he looked at his son. A harder edge replaced it however. “You’re late, Vahil. Your mother has been wondering where you were.”

Vahil bowed low, neatly avoiding answering. “I’ll go and make my apologies.” He walked rapidly away and his father watched him go with a faint sigh.

“Come, Temar.” The Messire briskly dismissed whatever was concerning him. “There are some people here very eager to hear your news.”

Temar quickly checked the pocket in his shirt again through the breast of his jerkin. “Is Demoiselle For Priminale here?”

He found he was speaking to Messire Den Rannion’s departing back and remembered that the older man was more than a little deaf. Temar shrugged and followed obediently toward a knot of stern-faced men deep in discussion.

“D’Alsennin!” One took a step forward to greet Temar with a brief bow. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Master Grethist.” Temar smiled broadly. “How’s the Eagle?”

“Safely high and dry on the mud flats,” the mariner assured him. “Those rocks didn’t do as much damage as we feared, in any case.”

“That’s as may be, but if that cataract can’t be navigated, we can’t use the river to get to the interior.” A thin man with tired eyes folded his arms in a gesture of finality.

“I’ve heard the ship needs the best part of a season’s work on it if it’s to be seaworthy again.” A taller man with a receding hairline sank his beaked nose into his goblet and took a long swallow.

Grethist shrugged and winked at Temar. “What else would sailors be doing over the winter? There aren’t any brothels hereabouts as yet, are there? I shan’t have too much trouble keeping the lads at their caulking if there’s nowhere for them to soften a stiff rope.”

“We will be sending expeditions along the coasts in the spring, Master Dessmar,” Den Rannion addressed the thin man seriously. “Messire Den Fellaemion’s charts from the original voyages show several estuaries which warrant exploration. It will be some seasons before people are ready to strike out on their own from here and by then we will have navigable rivers and good sites to offer them.”

Dessmar nodded, lips pursed. “Perhaps they’ll find some trace of the ships that were scattered by that appalling storm.”

The balding man continued as if no one else had spoken. “It’s all very well saying the Eagle can be repaired, but more than half the vessels that reached this land need beaching and cleaning now. A goodly number of ropes and sails are in need of repair and materials are severely limited. I hate to think what state the timbers are going to be in by next spring.”

“Finding suitable woods for the shipwrights was one of the reasons for D’Alsennin’s expedition up the river, Master Suttler.” Messire Den Rannion’s tone was relaxed but Temar caught a calculating light in his eye.

“Indeed,” Temar nodded firmly. “We found some excellent stands of mature timber, didn’t we, Master Grethist?”

“We’ll start felling once the growing season ends and the undergrowth dies back,” the sailor confirmed. “I’ve already set those that can be spared from the mines to digging out a dock so we can get a keel laid and work started over the winter.”

“You see, Master Suttler, we’ll have new boats busy along the coasts and up the rivers long before the present fleet are spent.” Den Rannion nodded his discreet approval to Temar. “The larger ships are still in good repair, in any case.”

“We’ll only need ocean ships if we have something worthwhile to send them home with.” A ruddy-faced individual had been following the exchange with an impatient expression. “So, Esquire, what are these mines like? If we’re to get anymore interest in this venture, it’s vital that we prove it’s not simply a singularly ill-timed drain on the Empire’s resources.”

“We have found significant outcroppings of copper in the tributary valleys leading down to the main river, Master Daryn,” stated Temar confidently. “Some of the men with Gidestan experience made a short trip into the plateau and think there is an excellent chance of tin as well.”

“Useful but not exactly news to set all Toremal talking.” The man frowned a little and looked thoughtfully into his wine cup.

“Come on, Sawney, it’s early days yet,” Messire Den Rannion encouraged Master Daryn with a familiar slap on the shoulder. “Who knows what Temar and his men will find over the next hill come the spring.”

“How soon will we know the quality of this ore?” asked Master Daryn.

“The initial assays were promising.” Temar hesitated a little. “I’m afraid it’s not a craft I know much about, but the miners were looking very pleased.” He wondered if he should show these men what he had secure in his shirt pocket but decided against it; Guinalle should see it first.

“So we’ll be able to send ingots home in the spring?” demanded Daryn. “Something to encourage a second fleet, more settlers?”

“I’m sure of it,” Temar stated confidently. “You’ll have excellent news to convey.”

“You wait and see.” Messire Den Rannion smiled broadly. “It’s just as we told you; we will supply the craftsmen at home with all the materials they can desire while as our settlements here spread. Those same goods will find an eager market among our people. Our fellows at home will soon need spend no more effort struggling to sell to rebellious Caladhrians and the like.”

“It might not be gold and silver but the Empire could be grateful soon enough for copper and tin,” Master Suttler observed dourly. “Things were going from bad to worse in Gidesta before we left, weren’t they? His Imperial Uselessness could have been driven back clear over the Dalas by now.”

“Has that lass of Den Fellaemion’s had any information for you recently?” Sawney Daryn turned to Den Rannion. “It’s all very well having Artificers along but I can’t say I’ve noticed her putting herself about much.”

“Demoiselle For Priminale has been busy looking for plants and herbs to replenish the stores and find alternatives for medicaments.” Temar realized he had spoken a little too quickly and certainly too forcefully.

Messire Den Rannion moved smoothly to gloss over the awkward moment. “You know my wife’s sister, Avila? She brought their grandmother’s old still room manuals with her and the women have been trying to remedy their new situation on the far side of the ocean from their favorite apothecary!”

“Trust the ladies to see to their own comforts first!” Master Suttler lifted his beak of a nose above a mocking smile.

Temar laughed with the rest but remembered what Guinalle had told him. He wondered what these men would think if they found themselves lacking soaps for their linen, out of mugwort to dissuade the lice and moth from their gowns, with no bay leaves to keep the weevils out of the flour. He caught Messire Den Rannion’s elbow as Master Dessmar began interrogating Grethist about the precise nature of sailing conditions up river.

“Is Guinalle here?” he asked, hoping he didn’t look too eager.

“I believe so.” Den Rannion looked speculatively at Temar. “Avila told me your expedition met up with one of their foraging trips in Aft-Summer. She was concerned that they had delayed you unnecessarily when you escorted them back to their vessels.”

Temar turned his head to look around the throng, hoping no blush would betray him. “I was not going to risk having to answer to Den Fellaemion for the loss of his favorite niece.”

“Quite so.” Messire Den Rannion inclined his head. “I believe she was with my wife when I last saw her.”

“I’ll go and pay my respects then.” Temar was surprised to see a grin on Messire Den Rannion’s face. “Go on, my boy. Oh, and tell my wife I think it might be a good idea for her to spend some time with Mistress Daryn, would you?”

Temar nodded and walked quickly across the garden toward the new stone hall that was rising from a framework of scaffolding poles.

“Esquire D’Alsennin, isn’t it? Fair festival to you!” A delicate hand on his arm forced Temar to halt and he turned to find a vaguely familiar and undeniably pretty face smiling at him. Golden hair was coiled high above old jewelry decorating rather more shoulder and bosom than he was used to seeing a Tormalin lady display.

“Drianon’s blessings.” Temar bowed low, desperately trying to remember the woman’s name. He rose with a relieved smile. “Mairenne, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, and I shall call you Temar, shall I?” Unmistakable flirtation lit periwinkle eyes set above a pert nose and full, reddened lips. This was one lady who was not running short of cosmetics, Temar noted.

“Temar, there you are.” Vahil appeared at his shoulder. “My mother wishes to speak to you. Excuse us, Mistress Suttler.” He caught Temar’s elbow and wheeled him around with a perfunctory bow of farewell.

Temar shook Vahil’s arm off, more amused than irritated. “How does old Suttler get to put his knife away in a casket like that?”

“Mairenne gave him the key in return for several steps up the ladder.” Vahil strode purposefully in the direction of the hall. “She was on the Reedsong, the two-master that wrecked on the sandbars, and her husband was drowned. He was a tanner, from D’Istrac lands, I believe, but Mairenne keeps very quiet about her origins now she’s a merchant’s wife. Stay away from her, Temar, she’s on the look-out for a gently born prospect in case something carries off old Suttler over the winter.”

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t take her if I found her naked in my bed,” laughed Temar. “I know trouble when I see it. Anyway, you’re not the only one who’s a reformed character.”

“Glad to hear it.” A smile softened Vahil’s words. “Things are rather different from home, with everyone living in each other’s pockets like this.”

They reached the steps of the hall and went in, Temar blinking a little as smoke in the air made his eyes smart.

“Obviously this central hearth is only temporary, the chimneys will be built next.” Maitresse Den Rannion was showing a gaggle of avid visitors around the skeleton of her new domain. “The mason is confident they can continue working well into Aft-Autumn; the climate here is so clement, compared to home.”

“Drianon’s blessings on you.” Temar started to bow as the Maitresse turned to him but she stepped forward to catch him by the shoulders and kiss him warmly, rather to his confusion. “Temar, my dear, how delightful to see you. When did you arrive?”

“This afternoon. We had to wait for the ebb tide to bring us down river,” Temar explained. He took a pace backward and looked the ladies up and down, hands spread in a gesture of admiration. “I feel I should apologize for my appearance, seeing you all so elegant in your new style.”

Several of the women blushed and giggled. Maitresse Den Rannion smoothed the close-cut bodice of her narrow-skirted gray gown, its neckline more decorous than Mairenne’s but still considerably lower than Toremal fashions had been dictating when the fleet sailed.

“Elsire is proving to have quite a talent for dressmaking and design,” she explained with a suggestion of a smile dimpling one cheek, “since she realized that she would have to get two gowns out of every dress-length if she was to maintain her customary variety in her wardrobe.”

“You won’t catch my sister in the same gown twice at a festival,” interrupted Vahil, a broad grin on his face. “What’s this I hear about her bargaining for furs?”

“She intends to make herself a fortune by first tantalizing the ladies of Toremal with the exotic pelts the trappers have been bringing in and then by making sure they stay very exclusive.” Temar wondered if he was imagining the hint of tension in the Maitresse’s voice.

“You’re allowing her to go into trade?” One of the ladies with a figure most unflattered by the new style hovered between astonishment and envy.

“It’s a different life on this side if the ocean, isn’t it? So much has changed, why not this?” Maitresse Den Rannion shrugged airily. “Now then, come and see where we’ve marked out the east wing. It’s only pegs and line at the moment, but you’ll be able to get the idea. I’ll see you later, Temar.”

“I’d like to see Elsire in a dress like that,” Temar remarked to Vahil as the women departed, neat ankles glimpsed through hems short enough to keep clear of the dirt floors.

“There you are,” Vahil gestured with his glass. Temar saw Elsire standing beside a scaffold supporting an open doorway decorated with festival garlands of unfamiliar flowers. He caught his breath as his heart seemed to skip a beat and then start racing like a spurred horse. Elsire was talking to Guinalle.

Elsire’s dress was a vibrant green, the silk shot through with a russet weave that echoed the glossy auburn of her hair. The close tailoring showed off her narrow waist and full bosom to superb advantage, an heirloom necklace of gold and amber bright against the pale skin of her neck. Temar nodded his approval to Vahil and then grinned wickedly. “She’s still got those freckles, though, hasn’t she?”

“A price we colonists have to pay for our labors in the heat of the day,” Vahil mimicked his sister, not unkindly, and Temar laughed.

“Guinalle’s looking well,” observed Vahil with a sideways glance at Temar. “We’ve been seeing quite a lot of her, since she’s been working with Aunt Avila on those old concoctions of Great-Grandmama’s.”

Temar nodded, not trusting himself to speak, gazing at Guinalle as he approached her. She had added her own touch to the new style of gown, deep pleats faced with a darker blue than the rest of the skirt, a color echoed in the trim of the bodice. She wore a modest tippet of lace around her shoulders, pinned across her bosom with a sapphire brooch. Temar shivered involuntarily at a sudden memory of those soft and milk-white breasts naked under a tracery of leaves through summer sunlight.

“I said, Guinalle told us you were interested in continuing your studies of Artifice with her over the winter,” Vahil repeated himself with some amusement.

“What?” Temar hastily reined in his wits. “Yes, that’s right. I think it could be useful, especially when we are planning next season’s explorations.”

“Temar!” Elsire greeted him with a shriek of delight that silenced people in all directions. “How lovely to see you!” She embraced him, delicately scented and warm beneath his hands. “When did you get back? I want to hear all about it, everything, all the details. You’ll be staying with us, won’t you? Have you spoken to Mother?”

“Hello, Guinalle.” Temar looked over Elsire’s shoulder at her, hoping his eyes were speaking the words he could not.

“Fair festival to you, Temar.” Guinalle’s self-possession was secure as always, but Temar was pleased to see a faint blush highlighting her cheekbones.

“I need another drink,” began Vahil, “how about you ladies—”

“I was simply saying that this colony is not turning the profit I was led to expect.” A harsh voice rang through a lull in the general buzz of conversation and heads turned to see Messire Den Rannion standing squarely opposed to a thickset man in an ostentatious gown of purple velvet.

“It was made clear from the outset that the rewards of this venture would depend on hard work.” Den Rannion’s tone was icily polite. “The hard work of each individual, that is.”

“I served my apprenticeship too long ago to take up my tools again.” The sturdy man planted his hands either side of an ample waist. “I am entitled to take a commission from my artisans when I am the one advancing them materials, buying in their goods, arranging carriage for their wares back to Zyoutessela. It’s only right!”

“No one is going to give you license to sit idly by and simply levy a percentage to make yourself rich, Master Swire.”

“Father, let’s just enjoy the evening. Don’t talk business at festival time.” A plain-faced girl tugged ineffectually at his elbow, her long blond hair unflatteringly dressed in coiled braids that only served to emphasize the length of her neck and nose. “Everyone’s staring!”

“I’ll have this out at Council.” The man ignored his daughter, leaning forward to raise a hectoring finger to Messire Den Rannion.

“Council has already established that every artisan is free to deal directly with whomsoever he pleases, whatever his previous status as tenant or journeyman may have been.” Messire Den Rannion’s tone remained courteous, but his face was starting to betray his contempt. “Tell me, Master Swire, you were obligated to Den Muret, were you not, before your Sieur granted you permission to join this venture? Will you be sending a due tithe to that House on the spring sailing?”

“Elsire, can you get Kindra out of there?” Temar was startled by the desperation in Vahil’s voice and looked again at the girl. She was a gawky piece in her lavender gown, thin-hipped and bony, no more bosom than a lampstand.

“Of course.” A combative light glinted in Elsire’s green eyes. “She shouldn’t have to suffer for her father again.”

“I’ll come with you.” Guinalle took a pace forward, to Temar’s consternation but Elsire raised a hand to stop her. “No, you know how nervous you make her.”

Temar watched Vahil wringing his hands as the argument became further bogged down into what seemed to be a familiar rut, astonished at his friend’s agitation.

“I think you should be preparing to defend your own position before Council rather than making complaint against me,” Messire Den Rannion was saying, lips thin with growing anger. “You might care to explain why you have been trying to buy food and fodder far in excess of your household’s needs for the winter. I will be interested to hear how that sits with the testimony of some of those artisans formerly obligated to you, who have been finding surprising conditions attached to your so-called gifts.”

“Kindra, my dear, do come and see what one of the trappers brought me today,” Elsire gushed heedlessly over Swire’s intemperate reply. “It’s so soft, white as miniver, but the pelts are far bigger, you’ll simply love it. You’ll have to tell me what you think, whether it’s fine enough to use to trim a gown or whether we should keep it for hoods and muffs and the like, not that we’re likely to need them here, not unless the winter turns very harsh, but think about the winters in Toremal and up near Orelwood. Do you know that area at all?”

Temar saw people all around smiling at Elsire as she tucked Kindra’s arm under her own and escorted her away in a manner more suited to a herd-dog cutting out a calf than a supposedly polite festival party. Now that her interruption had effectively driven Master Swire’s complaints on to the shoals, everyone turned back to their own discussions and laughter began to lift the murmur of conversation again.

“I’m going to see how Kindra is.” Vahil shot a hasty glance in his father’s direction. “Stall the old man for me, can you?”

“What’s going on there?” Temar raised inquiring eyebrows at Guinalle as Vahil headed for the shadows of the fences and a circuitous route toward Elsire, who was showing something to a clutch of exclaiming girls.

“Vahil has managed to fall desperately in love with the one girl whose father has been an unmitigated pest to both Messires since before we made landfall.” Guinalle’s reply was dry but not unsympathetic.

“She’s not to his taste, far too mousy. He must just be garter-chasing.” Temar spoke without thinking, his mind full of the flamboyant doxies Vahil had been wont to squire around Toremal.

“That’s a sport you excel in, isn’t it?”

Temar could have kicked himself but was immeasurably relieved to see Guinalle smiling at him. He felt heat in his face as it was his turn to try and stifle a blush.

“Not anymore, not since I met you.” His heart was racing again. “Not since we found each other this summer—”

“Temar, about that—” Guinalle raised a hand and Temar wondered at the sudden shadow in her eyes.

“Guinalle!” Before she could continue, Maitresse Den Rannion came in through the open doorway. “Have you seen Vahil?”

“I think he was thirsty.” Guinalle looked toward the wine table, a slight frown wrinkling her brow.

“Oh dear,” Maitresse Den Rannion sighed as she looked over at Elsire and her companions, Kindra’s fair head no longer visible. “I’m sure she’s a sweet girl and I know it’s silly of me to worry about rank and such like, now we’re all setting a hand to the same wheel, but I do think he could do better for himself, quite apart from the trouble it’s making for him with his father.”

“I’ll see if I can find him for you,” offered Guinalle.

“Thank you, my dear, it’s just that now that horrid man has spoiled Ancel’s evening, he’ll be absolutely furious if he finds Vahil’s been disobeying him and speaking to her.”

Maitresse Den Rannion suddenly noticed some new arrivals and hurried to usher them in the direction of food and wine. Guinalle turned to go but Temar caught her hand. “I just want a moment, can we find somewhere a little more private?”

Guinalle nodded. “Just for a moment, we do need to talk.”

She led him around the outside of the hall and into a shadowy corner in the angle of two walls. Temar reached for her, desperate to kiss her, but Guinalle held him away, a hand on his chest, looking around in case they had been observed.

“This isn’t the back end of some wildwood, Temar, with Avila turning a blind eye,” she chided him. “People will talk and gossip spreads faster than fire in a thatch around here.”

Temar pressed her fingers to his lips, his own hand trembling with passion. “Let them talk. Anyway, what’s to gossip about when we’re betrothed.” He reached into his shirt and pressed the precious parcel of linen into Guinalle’s hands, closing her fingers around the silken ribbons.

He heard her catch her breath as she untied the gift and held the gemstone up, the moonlight sparking blue fire from its facets.

“I know the chain’s not much, there wasn’t a lot of loose gold in the streams, but that diamond should have every girl this side of the ocean chewing their hair until they get one.” Temar could not restrain his glee, stumbling over his words in his eagerness. “I asked one of the miners to make it for me; there were only a handful of us on the trip into the hills and I’m to get them a charter from Council to make sure our rights are protected. You’ll be marrying a man wealthy enough to satisfy your family, no question. We announce our betrothal tonight, and then we can be married at Solstice. We’ll travel back to Tormalin next spring, if you like, to visit your family. As long as you’re not pregnant by then, of course.”

“Oh, Temar.”

Temar wasn’t sure what he had expected to hear in Guinalle’s voice—excitement, delight, devotion?—but he certainly hadn’t anticipated a mixture of regret and rebuke. “What?”

“I wish you’d spoken to me before making all these plans.” There was a definite edge of annoyance in her tone. “You haven’t thought this through.”

Temar was instantly contrite. “I’m sorry, my love. I suppose I should have made more of a ceremony of it, but after the summer I didn’t think you’d need me to send a designate to ask for your hand. I thought we’d left all that kind of thing behind us.”

“Temar, listen to me, I beg of you. I’m not about to marry you or anyone else!”

Temar blinked and shook his head to clear his confusion. “What are you saying?”

“I have no intention of getting married for quite some years, if at all.” Guinalle tried to give Temar back the necklace, but he refused to take it.

“Halcarion save us, why not?” Temar felt a hollow spreading in his gut.

“I have too much to do here, too many responsibilities, too many people depending on me. I can’t just drop everything to keep your hearth warm for you. My uncle needs me—”

“He can’t stop you marrying me, I won’t have it.” This made no sense to Temar. “You can still practice your Artifice, if that’s what’s worrying you. Haven’t I been studying what you taught me on the voyage, getting the tricks of it?”

“Artifice is much more complicated than you imagine,” said Guinalle tartly. She took a deep breath and spoke more calmly again. “That’s beside the point. Please try to understand. You say you want to marry me? You want me to bear your children?”

“I love you,” Temar protested. “I want to make a family with you. What’s wrong with that?”

“Are you planning to stay by the fireside and rock the cradle when my duties call me away? What if I die in child-bed?” Guinalle folded her arms, her face unreadable in the shadows as she pulled away from him. “This isn’t Toremal, with maidservants and wet-nurses for hire at every festival fair. Have you had much to do with babies and little children? Do you know the amount of work they are? Three of my sisters have families—I tell you, it’s not something I’m going to take on before I’m good and ready, not while every spare hand this side of the ocean has three tasks to do and four on market day!”

“I’ll help.” Temar was starting to get irritated now. “Anyway, you said in the summer that you could use Artifice to keep you from conceiving. We can still be married; I’ll wait for children, if you insist.”

“And have everyone counting the seasons and waiting for my waist to thicken? Whispering in corners when it doesn’t? No, thank you! For your information, I have better uses for my skills. Oh, Temar, please try and see it from my side of the river. I take it you’re planning to continue to lead the explorations for my uncle and Messire Den Rannion?”

“Of course, that’s my duty.”

“And what am I supposed to do if you get yourself killed on one of these expeditions? I was there when my uncle got news of that rock fall, when Frinn and Eusel were killed, Temar; I know the sort of risks you’ve been running. Saedrin save me, this is a dangerous enough place for the people staying by the shore.” Guinalle’s breath was coming quicker now though her tone stayed mostly level. “This colony can’t support anymore widows and orphans and I’ll be cursed before I’ll be packed off back to a proxy marriage with your grandfather as your only male relative. I can’t waste a year sitting around in mourning to make sure I’m not carrying your child before I’m free again.”

“No one would make you do that.” Temar’s voice rose and he quelled it with an effort. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I don’t think so. You’re the last of your line. In any case, my family do insist on the traditional observances, whatever you might choose to do.”

“Is this about family? Is that it?” Temar could not hide his outrage. “My Name isn’t good enough for you? You know very well D’Alsennin is an ancient house and—”

“If I wanted to marry some well-groomed stud from an impressive bloodline, I’d have my choice ten times over in Toremal.” Guinalle interrupted Temar acidly. “I’ve had fortune hunters after my father’s coin and rank since Drianon blooded me. Why do you think I study Artifice? Why do you think I asked to join my uncle here?”

A nasty suspicion reared its head at the back of Temar’s mind and grabbed his tongue before he could stamp it down. “You keep bringing your uncle into this? You’re not related by blood, are you, only marriage. He’s not planning to salvage the Den Fellaemion bloodline with a judicious marriage, is he? That would be very traditional.”

Guinalle gave Temar’s face a stinging slap. “Don’t be disgusting. You just can’t accept it, can you? You’re so full of yourself that you cannot imagine a girl not falling over herself to marry you!”

“You were quick enough to lie down with me this summer!” Temar scowled as he heard the pain in his own words, suddenly glad of the darkness hiding his face.

“That was different, that was fun, it was delightful,” Guinalle’s anger softened with contrition, “but I would never have done it if I had thought you would make so much of it. I’m sorry.”

Astonishment drove all other feelings out of Temar’s head. “Are you telling me it wasn’t your first time?”

“Oh Temar, I’m the youngest daughter of a long family. My older sisters were the ones who had to make sure they could stain their wedding sheets convincingly.” A faint giggle escaped Guinalle and a glimpse of moonlight betrayed a smile on her face. “You’ve obviously had little experience of virgins.”

“I wouldn’t have thought it of you,” spat Temar angrily. “How could you?”

“Oh really?” Guinalle took a pace toward him. “Tell me, what right have you to judge me? Temar D’Alsennin, the Esquire every chaperone warns their girls not to let him get them behind a curtain? You accused Vahil of garter hunting, didn’t you? What was your score last winter solstice? That was what you would get the girls to wager, wasn’t it? Against your hitting a rune bone with a throwing dagger at twenty paces? According to my brothers, you had the best collection in the cohorts and a fair few girls let you pluck their petals when you claimed your prize didn’t they? Your reputation precedes you, Temar, didn’t you know that? At least I’m discreet!”

Temar stood amid the wreckage of his hopes, furious with Guinalle, with himself, with everything. He opened his mouth but, before he could speak, Maitresse Den Rannion rounded the corner and halted abruptly at the sight of them.

“Maitresse, I’m sorry, I was just about to—” Guinalle lifted a hand toward her mouth before realizing she still had the necklace twined around her fingers.

“My dear, whatever is that?” The Maitresse reached for Guinalle’s hand and lifted it toward a lantern.

“Why Temar, how splendid!” Her eyes were alight with curiosity. “Are you celebrating Drianon’s festival with something important?”

“Temar was telling me of the discoveries his expedition made.” Guinalle tried to pass the necklace back to Temar but he stuck his hands stubbornly through his belt.

“It’s a birth festival gift for Guinalle.” He forced a semblance of a smile. “You were an Aft-Summer baby, weren’t you, demoiselle?”

Maitresse Den Rannion turned to him, open-mouthed. “Now isn’t that just typical! I was asking Messire Den Fellaemion if any of his household would be celebrating their year at the festival and he told me Guinalle was born in For-Winter! Here, my dear, let me take your lace, you must show off a jewel like that!” She unpinned Guinalle’s tippet before the girl could find a plausible objection and clasped the necklace around her throat. The gem shone rich and brilliant on the soft hollow of her throat. “What a handsome present to make, Temar.”

“I think the Messire is looking for you, Maitresse.” Temar pointed through the arch of an empty window to where Messire Den Rannion was waiting by the hearth, head turning this way and that.

“Oh, yes, I think you’re right.” The Maitresse tucked Guinalle’s lace briskly around her own neckline. “I’d better see what he wants.”

“I’ll go and find Vahil.” Guinalle began hastily to walk away from him but Temar followed. “You do that, my lady. I’ll get Elsire away from those silly girls, shall I? The music’s started so if I dance with her all evening that should give the gossips plenty to go on, shouldn’t it? That should protect your reputation, Guinalle. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone how hollow it really is!”

Temar strode past, outpacing her with his long legs, catching Elsire around the waist and making her an extravagant bow, keeping his back firmly turned on Guinalle as he swept Elsire into a closer embrace than was quite appropriate for that particular dance.

The Palace of Shek Kul, the Aldabreshin Archipelago, 6th of For-Summer

I woke with an image vivid in my mind, a dream so clear I could recall every detail. A young man, black hair drawn back in a silver clasp of wrought leaves and dressed in the style of Messire’s ancestral portraits: So this was Temar D’Alsennin, last scion of a lost line and the man whose sword I now possessed. But this was more than an image, more than a dream. I shook my head at the thought of his conflicting hopes and apprehension for the future, reason yielding to an overwhelming need to make a family to replace the one he had lost in his childhood. I felt his pain at Guinalle’s intransigence, his confusion, sympathized with his blatant flirtation with Elsire, just to let Guinalle know she wasn’t the only squab in the dovecote. In many ways he reminded me of myself twelve years gone. I recognized that impulsiveness, the confidence that had led me into the toils of chewing thassin, above all the intensity of youthful emotion unblunted by more mature experience.

I shook my head with a faint smile over Temar’s difficulties with Guinalle; at least Livak and I only had ourselves to please when we finally worked out what we wanted from each other and the future, if we ever did. I wondered fleetingly what Livak was doing at that moment.

It had been a strange dream, mostly seen through Temar’s eyes, but at the same time I had felt separate from him. I was an outsider yet seeing direct into his ambitions and fears in that curious fashion. Above all I was most startled to realize that if I’d met him on the road I would have sworn Temar was the man who had awakened me when the bandits had attacked us on Prosain Heath. What had that been all about? That must have been a dream as well, mustn’t it? I’d recognized that belt buckle too, the one that Elietimm priest or whatever he called himself had been weaving his spells around for Kaeska. It had belonged to Temar; what could that signify? Had it been Temar’s passion erupting into my mind that had sent me insensible in Relshaz? I had no logical reason to think so but felt convinced of it nevertheless.

I sat up on my pallet and leaned against the wall. This early in the morning the air was still cool and the sounds of birdsong in the gardens filtered through the light shutters, no insects to torment me. I savored the peace and quiet, only broken by the sounds of stealthy house slaves going about their early duties far below. Was this recollection of the long-passed festival the sort of memory that Planir the Archmage had been hoping the sword would pass to me? If so I could not for the life of me see any significance in it, other than perhaps as an object lesson in the many paradoxical ways people can find to fall out with those they love. I looked at the sword. If this was aetheric magic, it seemed no more than a curiosity, a far cry from the vicious enchantments of the Elietimm.

I had not long come to the conclusion that one of the most irritating things of the many galling facts of life as a slave was the way I hardly ever had a moment to myself to think my own thoughts. Sure enough, just as I was trying to address these mysteries, the door behind me opened and Shek Kul emerged, bare-chested, trousers loosely tied and his tunic slung carelessly over one shoulder. Despite his lack of gems and adornment, the Warlord looked no less intimidating, formidably muscled for a man of his age, self-possession in every fiber of him. He nodded to me, his smile broad with satisfaction, and he padded softly down the corridor, whistling softly under his breath. I watched him go, partly envious of his good fortune and partly resenting him and all his kind, with their unchallenged power over the likes of me.

I looked through the partly open door to see Laio fast asleep, lying on her stomach in a soft tumble of silken quilts, face child-like in sleep with a lock of hair over her eyes, her nakedness inviting a caressing beam of sunlight that reached through the louvers to finger her smooth thigh. The morning breeze stirred the air in the room, heavy with perfume and the scents of sex.

Stifling a churlish desire to drag my pallet noisily inside and start a thorough tidy-up, preferably with a rasping floor brush, I pulled the door to and began looking through my clothes for a clean tunic. A booted footfall at the far end of the corridor startled me and I looked up to see the Elietimm priest looking at me, an unpleasant anticipation in his eyes. The man was dressed in plain, inconspicuous clothes, a black tunic and trousers, well washed and somewhat faded, looking no threat to anyone, a supplicant for honest trade. Only those eyes gave him away as far as I was concerned, dangerous as a dog trained only to understand the lash and brutality.

“Let me see that sword,” he commanded abruptly.

I looked at him blankly, summoning the expression of polite incomprehension I had been perfecting on Gar.

“I know who you are, Tormalin man.” The priest halted, hands on his hips, looking down at me with disdain. “You are nothing. All I want is the sword. Let me have that and I will let you live.”

I stood up, the scabbard in my hand. The priest was no fool; he was staying just out of the reach of the blade. I put my hand to the hilt and saw an odd mixture of apprehension and anticipation in those light-blue eyes, cold as the winter sky.

“I will have that blade and you as well,” he sneered, my continuing silence evidently needling him. “You will be at my mercy. Before I am done you will be weeping like a whipped child.”

“I think that it is my place to chastise my own property.” Laio opened the door with a swift movement and stared haughtily at the Elietimm, her eyes hard. Her queenly manner was not diminished in the slightest by the fact that she was inadequately clad in a gossamer undertunic. “Your behavior is hardly respectful, for a guest of Shek Kul,” she added with unmistakable emphasis.

The Elietimm’s face was wiped clean of expression in an instant and he bowed low to Laio before turning on his heel and stalking rapidly back down the corridor.

“What a peculiar man.” Laio shook her head in puzzlement. “What is Kaeska thinking of, bringing him here?”

I seized the moment. “I can tell you exactly what she is planning. I overheard them talking last night.”

Laio’s eyes brightened. “Excellent. I knew you would learn to be a good slave eventually. Get something for us to eat and you can tell me all about it.”

She opened the long shutters to the balcony and found a plain, loose dress among the jumble of clothes on a bench, the fact that she was doing things for herself the best evidence that she was seriously interested in what I had to say. I hurried to fetch a plentiful breakfast of unleavened bread, cheese, fruit and juice. I was still ravenous and, anyway, I had learned to make a hearty breakfast whenever I could, it being the meal least likely to spring a nasty surprise on me.

“So, what did you hear?” Laio demanded, settling herself on a cushion and reaching for some berries. “Tell me everything.”

I hesitated, wondering exactly where to start. I couldn’t see the whole business of the sword being of any interest to Laio; I had to tell her something directly relevant to her own ambitions and interests. “Well, to start with, I know where that man comes from. It is a group of islands far to the east and north, in the heart of the great ocean. The thing is, they are very poor lands, they have no metal, no wood, no beasts to give them fine leathers. He is lying to Kaeska about the trade he can offer her.”

Laio shrugged, but I could see satisfaction in her eyes. “Then she will look extremely foolish when she can achieve nothing and she will lose even more status. Go on, and eat something as well. I’ve got things I want to do this morning.”

“The promises of trade are only an excuse.” I took a hasty drink. “He is telling Kaeska that he will help her bear a child and regain her place as First Wife.”

To my surprise, Laio laughed heartily. “Then he is as much a fool as she is. Kaeska is barren, we all know that.”

I chose my next words with extreme care. “She might be barren with Shek Kul but what if she were to take this man as a lover and pass off his child as the Warlord’s?”

Laio frowned at me. “Shek Kul has no difficulty getting children—women in several domains can attest to that; Mahli took particular care to make sure her first child was of his blood as well. Anyway, if it was only a matter of finding a fertile man, Kaeska would have been pregnant years ago.”

Now it was my turn to look puzzled. “Wouldn’t Shek Kul have objected?”

“I keep forgetting how ignorant you can be. Do see sense; the wind may sow the seeds but the farmer who tends the seedlings reaps the harvest.” Laio sighed and shook her head. “It is a wife’s duty to bear children for her husband but it is her business who begets them. After all, some wives are closely related to their husbands, some men cannot get women pregnant, others prefer to go clean-shaven. In any case, we are an island people; bringing new blood to a domain is always beneficial. It’s understood that a good wife will do that with at least one of her children. If we always bred to our own, we would all be three measures tall with six fingers by now.”

She tossed the stripped berry stem on to the floor and took a spoon to a dark green pod of milky seeds. I drizzled honey on a piece of the leathery flatbread and rolled it around a little white cheese, cramming my mouth full while she was busy talking.

“Kaeska is definitely barren,” Laio stated firmly through her mouthful. “She has been married to Shek Kul for nearly twenty years and in all that time has never even quickened. If she would only acknowledge the fact she could quite easily retain her status as first wife, trade for a baby from an Islander and rear it herself, for instance. There is no shame in being infertile among civilized people. The whole problem is that Kaeska won’t admit it. She stays away from the domain as much as possible and lets it be rumored that is why she doesn’t conceive; she has been making herself and Shek Kul ridiculous for years, but he has had to indulge her in order to protect his treaty with her brothers, who dote on her as well as benefiting from her rank. She also does everything she can to provoke him into doing something that would entitle her to divorce him, but he’s too clever to let her get away with that. Still, now that her brothers have been ousted from the Danak domains, Shek Kul does not need to protect her status as First Wife any longer. That alliance is as dead as yesterday’s fish. Now our husband can finally get himself some heirs.”

Laio giggled sunnily. “He and Mahli were busy before Danak Mir’s blood was dry on the sand. I will be next and once Gar has recovered from Kaeska’s demotion, I imagine she will want a child as well. Our husband hasn’t decided yet how long he will keep from her bed, just to make sure she understands he knows about her plots with Kaeska, but I imagine Sezarre will be capable of doing his duty.”

Nailing his owner was one of a body slave’s duties? I didn’t want to jostle that basket of crabs! “What will happen to Kaeska?”

“She will end up as Fourth Wife, unless she does something stupid enough to give Shek Kul an excuse to divorce her.” Laio leaned forward, suddenly intent. “Just what is this foreigner promising her? Do you think she might over-reach herself?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied cautiously, swallowing my mouthful. “He is definitely promising her a child and I know he is using drugs to addle her wits on the subject.”

“Drugs?” Laio looked thoughtful. “I could do much to discredit Kaeska if I let it be known she was indulging in filthy mainlander habits like that. Her negotiations will soon suffer as well. What about distilled liquor? Did you see any sign of that?”

I shook my head. “Would that be worse?”

Laio opened her mouth in exasperation then tossed her head with a sudden smile. “You mainlanders! Of course it would be. Narcotics and strong spirits dull the wits and rot the body; any domain that permits their use soon finds itself with troops on its beaches.” She frowned. “It’s not really enough to get Kaeska divorced though. Is there anything else I can use against her?”

“She’s been using tahn berries on Irith,” I volunteered.

“What’s that?” Laio looked mildly curious.

“It’s a plant; physicians steep its leaves to get a tisane that dulls pain but the berries are very addictive, narcotic, deadly after a while.”

Laio shrugged. “If Kaeska wants to poison her body slave, that’s her business. If she makes a habit of it, Shek Kul will be entitled to rebuke her for the wasted trade, but other than that he has no rights in the matter.”

“She’s had the poor bastard’s tongue cut out!” I objected with some heat.

Laio arched her finely plucked eyebrows. “How odd. Mutes haven’t been fashionable since before I was born. Still, we’re getting away from the point. How does this foreign man propose to get Kaeska with child?”

I forced myself to ignore these further unpleasant sidelights on Aldabreshin life. “I imagine he is going to use magic. He has all the signs of being a sorcerer of some kind.”

“Magic!” Laio breathed, eyes bright with exultation, clasping her hands to her face.

“Can Shek Kul divorce Kaeska for that?”

“He can execute her!” Laio looked like a child who’s woken to find Solstice come a season early. “You will get a substantial reward for this, for enabling us to get rid of her permanently, for such a crime!”

“Magic is punished by death?” I swallowed my mouthful with difficulty, almost choking on my incredulity, but Laio was too pleased to even get annoyed with my ignorance.

“Oh yes, it is absolutely forbidden. The elements are holy, they give us life and nurture us all. Interference with the balance is a desecration only redeemed with the lives of those involved.”

I breathed a silent prayer of heartfelt gratitude to Dastennin that I had not yet mentioned my own connections with wizardry or magic. “The man has been using thassin smoke on Kaeska,” I reminded Laio. “He’s turning her own senses until they betray her and using her desperation for a child to help him dupe her.”

Laio shrugged again, a favorite gesture of hers. “More fool her. Ignorance is no defense to bring before Shek Kul’s justice.”

“What will happen?”

“I will accuse her, Shek Kul will sit in judgment and weigh your evidence against her denials.” Laio bit into a juicy red fruit and licked her sticky fingers. “Then they’ll both be executed.”

This all sounded a little too easy but I tried to keep my disbelief out of my voice. “The Warlord will take the word of a mainlander slave against his own first wife?”

“You are an Islander now, you really must remember that,” Laio reminded me sternly. “Your word is as good as Kaeska’s.”

“When will you accuse her?” I remembered I had my own reasons for speeding up this plot, especially now I didn’t want to have to explain the Elietimm’s interest in my sword in any way.

“I will have to pick my time carefully.” Laio’s eyes darkened with cunning, focused on some point in the middle distance. “I think we should isolate Kaeska first. If we let Gar and Mahli know what she has been up to, Gar will want to get clear of her plots at once or risk being executed herself. That should net us some valuable information.”

“When will you tell Gar?”

Laio turned her gaze on me, irritated. “I will not tell Gar. You will tell Sezarre, who will tell her, so that she can come to us of her own accord and make it clear she is acting on her own suspicions and behaving as a good wife.”

I should have seen that coming. “All right. The thing is, that man, the Elietimm priest, he wants Kaeska to make a trade to get me as her body slave. He’s dangerous and if you want me alive and with enough of a grip on my wits to give evidence, you had better not delay too long.”

“What does he want of you?” Laio frowned, then laughed like a greenjay. “Perhaps Kaeska wants you to father this child of hers!”

That notion rocked me back on my heels; could the vision really have been Kaeska’s child after all? I shook my head firmly. No, the Elietimm wanted the sword, he had made that clear enough.

Laio wiped happy tears from her eyes. “So, what does this man want of you?”

I took my time chewing a mouthful of fruit before answering. Telling Laio that this man wanted to possess an enchanted sword, somehow mystically linked to me, probably in order to frustrate the magical plans of the wizards of Hadrumal, now sounded like a very bad idea.

“I imagine he knows that I can expose him, tell you all how barren his islands are, how little he has to trade.”

Luckily Laio was still so full of the notion of getting rid of Kaeska that she let this rather meager explanation slide past her. I realized that the Aldabreshin obsession with trade would make this sound perfectly reasonable to her, as would the notion that all the Ice Islander sought was an entry to commerce with the Archipelago.

A knock on the inner door startled us both and I scrambled to my feet to answer it. Grival stood on the threshold, looking more agitated than I could recall seeing him.

“The child, it comes.” He managed a rather forced smile. “Mahli wants you with her, my lady.”

“Tell her I’m on my way.” Laio ran her hands through her hair and tied it back all anyhow with a convenient scarf. She turned to me on her way out. “Keep yourself out of mischief and I think you might like to have that conversation with Sezarre today.”

I bowed low and watched her run lightly down the corridor, Grival striding purposefully beside her.