Foul Tide's Turning (17 page)

Sheplar called up to him from the side of the wagon. ‘Jacob, is that one of your horses coming down the road?’

He looked out.
By damn, it is
. And Carter slumped wounded across the saddle as the steed was led in by Tom Purdell, the young guild courier riding one of the hold’s horses. Jacob sprinted out as the pair crawled into town, grabbing the reins and halting the old nag, Kerge and Sheplar close behind him. ‘What the hell’s happened here? You’re meant to be working in the library … were you jumped by bandits?’

Carter was too hurt to do anything but mumble through swollen lips; but the state of his face was nothing compared to the blood-soaked shirt clinging to his back.

‘I found him like this in the saddle,’ said Tom as Jacob and his companions practically caught Carter and laid him out on the cart’s flatbed. ‘He’s been drifting in and out of consciousness. He didn’t show up at our hold last night, so I went out towards Hawkland Park to see if the house had seen him. Carter mentioned he might be passing by to see his lady before heading for the library. Best I can tell from what’s said so far, the staff at the mansion caught him trespassing and half beat him to death for it.’

‘Benner Landor,’ growled Jacob, angrily slapping his holster. By the saints, if the grasping landowner was in favour of hedgerow justice, two could play at that game.
I’ll put a bullet in that ungrateful bastard’s heart for this!

‘Do nothing hasty,’ cautioned Kerge. ‘Your country’s laws do not stand on your side.’

When have they ever?
‘They’ve been bought and paid for, you mean.’
Rich man’s law
. This was all too familiar to Jacob, a little piece of history repeating.
And look how well it ended before when you caught up with the high-born bastards who murdered your mother
.

Carter started to cough as Sheplar pressed a water canteen between his lips. ‘Willow,’ he spluttered. ‘Been drugged. Taking. Her south. This morning. Forced marriage. The airfield.’

So, that’s it.
And a lowly book-botherer was no longer required on the scene, even if the man in question was the one who’d saved Willow Landor’s life. But of course, they’d both saved each other’s lives in Vandia. Which meant Jacob owed Willow as much as he owed her father for
this
.

Jacob mounted Carter’s mare. ‘I’ll bring her back if I can.’

‘I’m coming,’ coughed Carter from the wagon.

‘That would be ill-advised, manling,’ said Kerge. ‘You need to visit a healer in Northhaven.’

Carter shook his head, stubbornly.

‘Let him come,’ ordered Jacob. He ignored the shocked expressions Sheplar and the gask shot him. ‘He’s a man, now. He and Willow endured hell out in Vandia. He’s earned the right to make a man’s decision over the Landor woman; even if it’s a damn fool one.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ said Tom.

‘Hell if this is your fight,’ observed Jacob.

‘You saved my life on the road and Carter’s my guild brother,’ said Tom. ‘That makes it my business. This started in Arcadia when the guild sent me to meet Prince Owen and pick up your coded message. I promised him I’d deliver it to you safe, so this might as well finish in Arcadia. Besides, the guild takes a dim view of our initiates being seized and summarily beaten.’

‘And that’s official policy is it?’ Jacob shook his head.

Sheplar pulled an aviator’s carbine out of the wagon and mounted his horse, pulling at the reins to bring the steed close to the wagon. ‘Get Carter up behind me … he will not be able to ride unaided.’

‘We’ll head hard for the airfield,’ said Jacob, looking at Carter wincing in agony as he was propped up behind the mountain aviator. ‘After that, you’re going to the doctor.’ Unless things turned uglier than they had to, in which case the doctor might have to be coaxed out at the end of a gun barrel to wherever they holed up. Jacob nodded at Kerge. ‘Try not to sell the Vandian girl off to any slave traders who might pass by, however tempting that might be.’

‘You do not intend to send for your people’s court officials or constables, do you?’ sighed Kerge.

‘No more than Benner Landor did when his hirelings grabbed my boy.’

‘The tenets of your religion,’ said Kerge. ‘Do your saints and God not require forgiveness?’

‘Oh, I’m sure they’ll forgive Benner Landor,’ said Jacob.
Especially after I’ve beaten him to within an inch of his miserable life in front of his craven staff.

Jacob pulled the mare around and set it galloping down the road, the clatter of hooves from the others loud at his rear. He only spared the spurs for his son’s sake. The airfield had been constructed on the south side of the waterway, close to the piers where riverboats docked and the Guild of Rails’ railhead sat, paid for by government money but serving, like so much else, the commercial interests of the House of Landor’s warehouses. A quarter of an hour later and Jacob was looking over the field. Northhaven’s new airfield was a simple, unfenced affair. A long cruciform of flattened grass, its main runway ran parallel with the river, while aircraft sheds, hangars and a technical site for the maintenance staff squatted on the opposite side, its passenger hall and commercial buildings close to the riverbank. Most of the planes on the ground were small fighters, part of the nation’s freshly minted skyguard, their barracks, air-raid shelters and bomb and ammunitions stores buried under soil and sod as a series of artificial hills. It was meant to be a source of pride for their nation – Weyland’s new-found protection from aerial nomads and raiders, the state’s ability to claim sovereignty of the skies above. For Jacob, it was just another reminder of the blood money that had paid for it.

The pastor halted his horse by a worker walking along the perimeter track. ‘Where’s Benner Landor’s party?’

‘You mean
Prefect Colbert
’s party?’ said the field worker, watching the others cantering in behind Jacob. ‘They took off early this morning for the capital.’

Carter groaned in his saddle, the news not helping his injuries. Sheplar reached behind to help steady him. ‘Willow Landor, she was— She was with them?’

The worker nodded. ‘Daughter, wife, servants, old man Landor himself, the prefect and his aides. Had a bunch of Rodalian diplomats along for the ride, too. All bound for the court, I reckon.’

‘Too late,’ muttered Carter.

‘We might have missed their transport,’ said Jacob, ‘but we’re not too late. We can take another flight and follow them. We’ve still time to halt the sham of a marriage.’

‘It’ll be hazardous,’ cautioned Sheplar.

‘And Northhaven isn’t? Prince Owen is down south risking his neck among that nest of politicians, pitting himself against the usurper’s interests. If the boy can brave the risk of assassination, so can I.’

‘A noble with a claim on the throne going missing would be noticed,’ said Tom. ‘Even with half the nation’s press sitting pretty in the king’s pockets. Whereas any of us …’

‘I’m not asking you to join me,’ said Jacob. Although he doubted his ability to stop these fools from trying. He glanced at Carter. ‘And
you’re
heading for the doctor.’

‘Don’t leave … until I’m fixed up,’ grimaced Carter.

‘You’ll slow us down,’ said Jacob. ‘Wait until you’re patched up; then follow us.’

‘Can travel,’ insisted Carter. ‘Took worse than this … in the mines. And I was expected to work … the next day.’

‘Work until you
died
,’ said Jacob. ‘I didn’t travel all that way to Vandia and rescue you so you could kill yourself at home.’

‘Won’t abandon her,’ said Carter. ‘If Willow was … Mother, what would
you
… do?’

Jacob sighed.
Making another of those decisions
. Just as foolish. ‘Carter, you’d charge hell with a bucket of ice water.’

‘I’m going after Willow.’

‘All right then. Hell if a drought doesn’t usually end with a flood. Sheplar, drag Carter to the doctor opposite my church. Tell the man I want good hard alcohol for the wounds. Make sure those scars stay clear of infection.’

‘You don’t wish me to help arrange passage?’ asked the Rodalian.

‘No choice how we fly out, this time. Only government birds – skyguard and merchant wing.’ More was the pity. When they had needed to get to Arcadia after the slavers’ raid, Sheplar’s friends had provided the aircraft. Now, the skies above Weyland were being treated as protectively as her land borders. Rodalian patrols, once a reassuringly familiar sight in the air, could only be glimpsed now, confined close to the mountains. Jacob noted an aircraft on the field being refuelled with corn ether, the House of Landor’s coat of arms painted on the fuel tank. He recognized the plane from the aircraft silhouettes being published by the jingoistic press, trumpeting the nation’s revived power and influence. A Culph and Falcke Berrypecker. A transport aircraft, far larger than the stubby single pilot fighters dotted around the field. The transporter was a wide 200-feet long wing mounted with ten forward-facing engines, stabilized by twin booms and a single large rear-push propeller at her tail. A pilots’ cabin jutted from the centre of the wing as proud as a warship’s superstructure, aircrew visible moving around inside, a conservatory-style canopy behind it stretching back spine-like across the wing to enclose a hundred or so passenger seats on the top deck, the lower being reserved for cargo. She sat on two massive underwing pods housing fixed landing gear and a gun turret apiece, the gunners’ positions open to the air, heavy calibre rifles mounted on swivel mounts. She looked unwieldy compared to the triangular air wings of the Rodalian skyguard and little more than a gnat compared to the vast city-sized six-hundred propeller carriers he’d travelled on after leaving Weyland in search of the slavers. But if she bore him safely to Arcadia, he wouldn’t complain. Sheplar cantered away with Carter slung behind him, across the field and towards Northhaven.

The airfield worker pointed out a two-storey building where tickets could be purchased. Jacob and Tom rode for the wooden structure, tying up next door to a six-wheeled spring wagon operating between the field and the riverboat pier. A couple of beggars sat outside, calloused farmworkers’ hands reaching out to rattle cups, while a green-liveried doorman eyed them suspiciously, barring the entrance. He opened the door for Jacob and Tom, albeit with an arched eyebrow. Travelling by air was still an expensive novelty. For humble pastors and penurious couriers, the guild’s train service was still the style. They entered a hall lit by tall glass windows, rows of seats upholstered in padded green leather; warm and luxurious compared to the bitter cold outside, iron pipes creaking from the weight of heated water. This was the first time Jacob had been inside. Apart from the porters and staff moving luggage around on hand carts, it was only quality inside, the moneyed cream of the prefecture – women in expensive day dresses and long gloves and men in brightly patterned waistcoats and frock coats. Even their servants were expensively attired. The ticket desk was a polished booth manned by a worker in the same stiff green uniform as the porter, the glimpse of a room through the wooden grille hung with wall-maps of Weyland.

With no queue at the booth, Jacob walked to the front and addressed the ticket seller. ‘Does that ten-engine bird on the field count Arcadia as one of her layovers?’

‘Certainly,’ said the seller.

‘I’ll need tickets for tomorrow morning,’ said Jacob.

‘I’m afraid we’re all sold out, Father Carnehan,’ said the seller.

‘Is that so? Funny thing is, I don’t recall introducing myself,’ said Jacob. ‘Tickets for the day after, then.’

‘Sold out that day, too.’

‘And when will you have tickets available?’

‘Try coming back in a couple of weeks,’ advised the seller.

‘This is outrageous,’ spluttered Tom, banging the counter. ‘Our money is as good as anyone else’s. We need to travel to the capital.’

‘I’m sure the Guild of Rails will sell you tickets to Arcadia, if you’re in a rush,’ smiled the seller.

‘Travel overland by train? That’ll take months!’

Jacob laid a hand on Tom’s shoulder and eased the angry courier back. ‘Our money might be as good as anyone else’s, but our pockets aren’t quite as deep as Benner Landor’s, am I right?’

‘Try the Guild of Rails,’ repeated the seller.

Jacob strode out of the hall, Tom stamping behind him. ‘This is completely contemptible.’

‘The fix has been put in,’ growled Jacob. ‘Landor’s city, Landor’s fuel. Benner was counting on me and Carter following after his party. Don’t waste your breath railing against fate. Even if that fool in there sold us a ticket, our flight would develop engine problems before it ever left the ground. Or maybe get diverted in the air, leaving us stranded even further away than Northhaven.’

‘He can’t stop the Guild of Rails selling us tickets south. They’re neutral.’

‘Maybe. But you’re right about travelling overland. Too damn slow. I don’t think Carter is fixing to interrupt his sweetheart’s honeymoon,’ growled Jacob. He stopped by a luggage desk and picked up a discarded customs form and pencil, scribbling a message on the paper’s blank reverse. ‘You’re the courier. Run this to the radiomen’s hold in the old town for me … tell them it’s official business for the Guild of Librarians. Then find me at the doctor’s.’

Tom took the sheet and read the note. ‘Why transmit a message to a shipping office in the Rotnest Islands? That’s in the middle of the Lancean Ocean, isn’t it? Faster to catch a train south than board a clipper ship, surely … and the Rotnest Islands aren’t exactly the kind of place I’d trust to book a safe passage anywhere.’

‘They operate real fast clippers out of the islands,’ said Jacob, trading the hall’s warmth for the freeze outside.

‘Yes they do. Primarily to escape being sunk by all those pirates and freebooters.’

‘Have a little faith, Mister Purdell,’ said Jacob.

‘If you think I’ll be put off coming with you just because the journey south is dangerous, you’re wrong,’ said Tom.

‘Oh, it’ll be dangerous enough for sure,’ said Jacob, mounting his horse. There wasn’t much he could promise, but he could certainly promise
that
.