Wellspring of Chaos

LXIV

On the following afternoon, with one more day of loading to go before the Seastag was ready to put back to sea, Kharl decided to make another foray into Swartheld. He’d picked the late afternoon because he was off duty, because he wasn’t certain he wanted to deal with the human creatures of the night who frequented port cities, and because he had the feeling that there well might be more of the emperor’s mages about later in the evening.

When he left the pier, he forced himself to remain on the lower harbor way as he walked southward along the edge of the water. He hadn’t thought of it before, but none of the merchanters had iron hulls, and all had sails. Some were even full-rigged and without any form of steam power. Was that because of the cost of coal? Or for some other reason he didn’t know?

Yet warships were all iron-hulled, even the smaller gunboats of Brysta, and he had seen no merchanters with cannon. That made sense, in a fashion, because a white wizard could touch off gunpowder or cammabark and turn a wooden ship into an inferno. He still had no idea whether it was the combination of ordered iron vessels and the order of the sea that protected warships from mages or whether it was something else. He’d searched The Basis of Order, but as usual had found no definitive answers.

Ahead, there was a small crowd of men standing opposite an open window. When Kharl neared, he could see that a single woman danced slowly in the wide unglassed window of the tavern. Her body was covered with the filmy fabric Kharl had seen on the veil-scarfs of the women at the café-except the fabric was reddish and stained with the darkness of sweat. With the thinness of the fabric, little of the woman’s figure was left to mystery, and her figure was good, Kharl had to admit, although not any better than Charee’s had once been.

At that thought, Kharl swallowed. The sadness and emptiness still came when he least expected it.

“You want to enjoy one like this? Just a silver for a half glass…and she’s all yours, sailor man.” The big man who made the offer topped Kharl by half a head, and Kharl was not small.

“She’s too costly for my wallet,” Kharl said with a forced laugh, easing past the man and along the quieter space of the street immediately past the brothel. Was it just sadness? Or the sense that he and Charee had lost something over the years? Had they ever had that something? Or had their consorting just been an arrangement set up by their families and held together in the beginning by physical attraction and later by the boys? He shook his head. Why was he even asking himself such questions? He couldn’t do much about what was past and gone.

Across the harbor road he caught sight of a pair of Hamorian patrollers in their khaki uniforms. He watched the pair as they walked along the street. The two never relaxed, but kept moving, and each held a truncheon at the ready.

Abruptly, after passing the patrollers, who had scarcely given Kharl a glance, the carpenter turned left, away from the harbor, and began to walk up the gently sloping street toward the better sections of Swartheld. Farther south, he discovered, he had to walk a greater distance east before he reached the more prosperous area-almost eight blocks. But he did find another boulevard with shops and flowers and cafés with awnings and wide verandas-and he felt almost as out of place as he had the first time.

Yet, why should he have felt out of place? He wondered. He was nicely dressed, if not so extravagantly as those on the boulevard. He was not poor, or without coins. He had a respectable trade, and even a position, low as a subofficer on a merchanter might be.

He kept walking as he saw another set of Hamorian patrollers. This pair walked with empty hands, their truncheons in their belts, and they smiled, although their eyes still never stopped surveying the street and the shops. A woman, her head covered by the filmy scarf that was almost transparent, nodded to the patrollers. Both returned the smile, an expression of friendliness, but continued on their way.

From a distance, he saw another of the mages in black and orange, again an older man, accompanying a single patroller in khaki. The two turned eastward, moving even farther from the harbor. Kharl thought about following the pair, but almost immediately dismissed the idea. Instead, he turned back toward the harbor, hoping to find somewhere to eat, less fancy than where he was, but quieter and better than along the harbor way.

Finding such a place was harder than Kharl had thought it would be, and he ended up walking along side streets for what seemed almost a glass before he found himself before a low, dark redbrick building with tan window trim. The still air held unfamiliar scents of food, but without the rancidness of grease, and there was little hint of chaos about the premises-except for the thin residual whiteness that seemed everywhere in Swartheld. Kharl stepped inside.

Immediately, a servingwoman in tan shorts and shirt, with a dark brown apron and sandals, greeted him. “Yes?”

“A good meal and ale or lager?”

She looked puzzled.

“Food.”

She beckoned, and Kharl followed her into a long narrow room with a high ceiling. The off-white plaster gave an impression of coolness. Kharl settled into the small table against the wall.

“Drink…what kind?” the server asked.

“Light ale? Lager?”

She said something to another server, and got an answer back, then nodded at Kharl before slipping away. Within moments, a squarish older woman set a dark brown mug before Kharl. “Be two coppers.”

Kharl extended three coins.

She studied them and nodded. “Fare’s simple tonight. We’ve got burhka, cutlets, sea trout, and fowl in lemonweed with Luban noodles.”

“How much?”

“All the same. Four coppers.”

“I’ll try the last.”

“It’s the best. Be a bit.” She slipped away.

Kharl settled back into the chair and took another sip of the ale, enjoying it as it washed away the last of the dust in his throat.

Two younger men, but well dressed in white shirts and multicolored silk vests, sat at the corner table. Although their voices were not that loud, they seemed to carry to Kharl, perhaps along the smooth white plaster of the wall.

“…don’t understand the edict…just applies to outlanders trading here…”

“…not just to outlanders like us…another one…harsher…for Hamorians…”

“…no brimstone to Valmurl…but to Bruel? Why one Austran port and not the other? Not as though Lord Estloch has a huge fleet…”

“…no saltpeter or cammabark, either…”

“…doesn’t make sense…Valmurlans don’t use firearms…don’t use powder except for cannon, and they’ve got few enough of those…we’re supposed to give up good trade and coins…”

“…careful…”

“…mages don’t come down here…”

“…don’t know where they’ll turn up…walls sometimes report to the patrollers, too…”

“…still makes no sense…can ship dried fruits, but not grain?”

“…rich the only ones who can buy dried fruits…everyone needs bread…”

Their voices died away as a server brought two platters and a basket of bread to their table.

Kharl sipped his ale and considered their words. He didn’t care for the implications, not at all, and he knew he’d need to mention the matter to Hagen, although he would not have been surprised if the captain already knew.