Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) (29 page)

“Were there any other terms to the agreement,” Eredion said, “or was it simply a sale?”

“Just a sale, my lord. A peculiar sale, to be sure, with such a high price for my inn and a low price for his. I’ll soon make back what I spent, even with the journey here, and I doubt he’ll say the same within five years. But that’s not illegal, is it?” He watched Eredion’s face anxiously.

“No, not in the least,” Eredion reassured the man. “If stupidity was illegal, the jails would be overflowing.”

The innkeeper grinned with sincere relief, then bobbed a hasty bow. “If you’ll excuse me, then, my lord?”

Eredion nodded and watched the man almost trot away. He wondered if the speed of departure had to do with actual work to hand or a strong desire to get out of his odd guest’s company. Either way, the innkeeper was facing a hellacious learning slope over the next few months; Eredion found himself hoping the man would adapt and master his new culture.

This is happening too often.
Scratha’s letter about the Sandsplit inn being bought in a similar exchange had only been one alarm note sounded. Eredion’s own watchers had brought him similar stories from along the Coast Road with disturbing frequency.

Someone was making a power grab. Someone backed by a
huge
amount of resources. Not likely to be Sessin, as this didn’t match Lord Antouin’s forthright style. Certainly not Scratha, nor the Aerthraim. Which left Darden or F’Heing: one ugly, the other worse.

Eredion sighed and headed back to the palace. As he walked, he thought over ways to find out which Family was behind this latest incursion into the northern kingdom. It was no good going to the king without more evidence. As the innkeeper had said, nothing illegal was happening—yet.

His proper duty was to report it to Lord Sessin, anyway. It bothered him that he’d even thought about Oruen first.

Maybe it was time to go home, after all. Go home, father a few children for the sake of the Family, and fade back into the pleasant obscurity of being a minor son in a large Family. If another problem was cranking up to prominence in the northlands, he wanted no part of it. He wanted to pass the burden of caring about it all to someone younger and less scarred by the past.

And now I’m being juvenile again,
he thought ruefully.
Until Alyea returns and takes back control of Peysimun Family, I can’t go anywhere. And once Lord Antouin finds out about that situation, I’ll likely find myself just about set on fire from his wrath. Talk about taking sides without proper approval....

Retiring to any sort of well-earned peace, other than the most final version, wasn’t likely to happen anytime in the next few years.

“In the meanwhile,” he said under his breath, “at least I have a well-stocked liquor cabinet. And Wian—for however much longer she stays around.”

The latter thought was enough to make him want the former option with a sudden, fierce thirst; he rubbed at his eyes, shook his head, and decided on a side trip that might lift his spirits more effectively. At worst, it would take one more responsibility from his list of duties for the day, and that alone would help.

Probably.

Walking from the eastern to the western side of the city allowed Eredion time to ponder, not for the first time, the differences that could be packed into a relatively small area. The eastern half of Bright Bay, with its constant flow of traffic to and from the rest of the Northern Kingdom, had a distinctly fluid air about it these days: businesses changed hands rapidly, houses their color almost as often, and the styles of dress ranged from Water’s End brazen to Northern Church conservative. There was money floating through the streets, as the saying went, and even the poor had honor.

The west side, by sharp contrast, with its array of docks all but controlled by F’Heing and Darden, had remained heavily influenced by the southlands—and thus, during the Purge, had suffered extensively under the combined malice of Northern Church and Rosin Weatherweaver.

Rebuilding here would be slow and painful.

Eredion walked past shattered and burned-out hulks of once-beautiful buildings, their architecture barely a trace element in the rubble: a low window reduced to a shelf, a graceful archway broken into chunks of stone for the dispossessed to gather up as seats. Much of the damage had been done by the former residents; once their own homes were destroyed by Church or soldiers, they had revenged themselves on the supposed spies among them.

They’d often been wrong, but not always.

Saved our servants and let our daughter die....

Lennimorn’s daughter hadn’t been all that admirable. Eredion suspected the man’s anger came, in part, from not wanting to admit that.

“Oy,” someone said from his left.

Eredion stopped and turned. A gangly man, leaning against a relatively untouched building, watched him without a smile.

“You lookin’ serious today,” the man commented. “Lose the pretty?”

Eredion blinked; then, remembering that he’d last walked through here with Alyea, shook his head. “She wasn’t mine.”

“Huh.” The man flicked a hand, eyebrows arching sardonically. “You missed out, then, she’s a choice one.”

Eredion regarded the man with amusement and didn’t bother warning him off. Alyea could easily handle a street-rat.

“You have something, Ferrow, or are you just being friendly today?”

“Tuh.” The man spat to one side. “Wailer’s gone, no sign nor sight of Lifty.”

“Yes, I know. Those are both settled out.”

“You said t’watch,” Ferrow said, aggrieved.

Eredion sighed. “What do you want?”

Ferrow’s pale eyes narrowed. “You been after askin’ me for watchin’s,” he said, “f’while now. I reckon as I hauled your ass outa trouble a time or two.”

“You’re in trouble?”

“This whole gods-forsaken
area
in trouble, high-born,” Ferrow said, his lip curling. “When’s the king gonna do some work over this way, huh? When am I gon’ get my house back? Everything on to repairing, it’s on the east side. On’y thing bein’ worked on here is the docks. What good’s a dock do us as out in the street? What good a new road for the ship to bring boxes to eastside market, when there’s no building past that bein’ done here?”

“You’re right,” Eredion said, “and I’ve mentioned that to King Oruen already. I’ll mention it again; that’s all I can do.”

“The king’s too busy with makin’ his new high-born friends,” Ferrow said, and spat to one side again. “You talk to that rich merchant you have as a friend these days. The one out of Stass. You tell him he can make some more money here, rebuilding. He can near own the western half, he puts out a few coins for to help us set back up.”

He already does own half the city,
Eredion thought ruefully,
and Oruen wouldn’t stand for Deiq putting his mark on more of it.
But that was beyond Ferrow’s understanding. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said instead.

“You do that,” Ferrow said, “or maybe some of us start taking what we need, huh? Maybe things get real ugly, if the high-borns can’t be bothered to put a foot in the mud for to help those as clean their homes and muck their streets.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Eredion said soberly, “but don’t bring threats into this, Ferrow. That’s not the way.”

Ferrow just sneered and ambled off into the maze of ruins around them. Eredion watched his shadow slide over broken masonry for a few moments; then it blended into the shadows of a stand of large, ivy-draped feather-pines and was lost.

“So much for improving my mood,” he muttered, and went on.

Pointless to even promise he’d try. He was liaison for Sessin, not for the western half of Bright Bay. Nor for Deiq, nor for Peysimun Family, and certainly not for the last of the Northern Church priests in the area; but he’d somehow picked up all of those robes along the way, so what was one more?

For once, the sight of the ivy-vined lattice, profuse with lilac and honeysuckle, did nothing to bring a smile to his face. He walked along the perimeter until an ancient, gnarled pine stood to his right and the fence on his left, then stopped and looked up at the tree while he checked the area for hostile onlookers. Sensing nobody, he turned to the fence and reached through the ivy; slipped the hidden latch and let himself in, quickly securing the gate behind him.

Thin, white lattice on each side formed a narrow corridor that ended, several steps along, in a small white picket gate. Eredion stood where he was, and waited quietly. At last a faint scuff came from his right, and a voice said, “Lord Eredion.”

“I’d like to see Aima,” he said, keeping his gaze straight ahead. “If this is a good day for it.”

“It is,” the voice said. “Did her father send you another of those letters?”

“No. I ran into him direct, this time.”

A faint sigh. “Lord Eredion, you hold no responsibility for Aima. Your generosity is more than your soul’s due already; why do you torture yourself this way?”

Eredion shut his eyes and breathed through his nose, then said, “Let me in or send me away,
sionno.”

“Come ahead,” the priest said, reluctance clear in his voice.

The picket gate yielded to Eredion’s hand. He stepped through, drawing it closed behind him as carefully as he had the outer gate. In front of him lay a wide, sun-drenched courtyard edged with fragrant herb and flower plantings, punctuated with wide stone benches and wooden sun-chairs. A walkway beyond the plantings connected an arc of a dozen small cottages, each with large windows on every side and a door with no lock.

Two larger cottages stood at each end of the arc, near the inner fence line; these had a much sturdier construction, smaller windows, and lockable doors. Eredion surveyed the setup with his usual moment of satisfaction that his suggestions had worked out to be both practical and attractive; then, reluctantly, he turned his attention to the people in the courtyard.

On one stone bench sat an older man with grizzled black hair and a thick beard; he turned a simple children’s puzzle square over in his hands, frowning at it as though trying to remember how it worked, and ignored all else around him. Another bench held a younger man, this one with brown hair that shone like brass under the flood of sunshine; he had stretched out onto his back and looked for all the world to be simply enjoying a sunbath, except that his mouth moved in a ceaseless series of whispers.

Eredion knew what he was saying; he’d listened to that man’s whisperings before, and the memory of it still put chills up his back. This wasn’t one who’d be released any time soon, and he lay far beyond any healing Eredion or the priests could offer. Eredion had actually recommended that the priests slip something into his drink and free the bed up for someone more deserving, but they had fixed him with uncompromising stares and told him that
all
their guests were deserving.

Not the first time he’d disagreed with them.

The
guests
wore simple grey tunics, caught at the waist with a bit of rough cord, and leggings if they so desired. Most of them refused anything more than the tunic, and often stripped that off completely, wandering about in sun and in rain naked as newborns—and usually as witless. The priests watched to prevent them from causing harm to themselves or the other guests, fed them, cleaned up after them, and tried to guide them into prayer and therapeutic activities whenever possible.

A young woman in tunic and leggings sat sideways on one of the stone benches, cross-legged, her back to Eredion; slightly bent forward, studying something before her. Eredion walked slowly towards her, careful as he always was, here, not to make any sudden moves or noises that might upset the guests. When he was still a dozen steps away, she lifted her head to sit up straight and said, without turning, “Lord Eredion.”

He crossed the remaining distance, circling round to give her plenty of room before he faced her. “Good morning, Aima.”

Her blond hair had been shorn back nearly to stubble: her choice, as she’d claimed the weight of her once-long hair gave her headaches. Her grey-brown eyes blinked, unfocused, staring through him at something invisible; she blinked again, more rapidly, and her vision seemed to clear. She looked up at him, squinted, then said, “You’ve seen my father.”

“Yes. May I sit?” He kept his gaze on her, politely not looking to see what she’d been working on.

“You may,” she said gravely. “See? I’ve been painting.”

He glanced down at that tacit permission, and smiled; the small canvas held a reasonable likeness of a large white flower.

“Lovely,” he said, and meant it: her previous paintings had featured dark monsters, nightmares come to life. It seemed highly encouraging that she had begun painting lighter items.

With care, she leaned over and set the still-damp painting aside on the cobbles to her right; closed up and did the same with the paint jars and brushes.

“He still hates you,” she said, not quite looking at him.

“Of course he does. He thinks you’re dead.”

“And that bothers you.”

He didn’t say anything.

She darted a quick glance at him, her eyes more grey than brown. “If he knew I was alive, he’d spare no effort to get me out of here and back where he thinks I belong. And that would be a bad idea, wouldn’t it?”