Waterborne Exile (8 page)

“Of course.”

“I always knew you were more than just a pretty face.” Grinning, Jervin strode out of the door, leaving Drew to his headache and a sense of having been ill-used. He splashed his face once more with water from the ewer. As he reached for the towel something fell to the floor with a clatter. He stooped and picked it up. The coin he’d noticed yesterday. He’d forgotten all about it. By the daylight getting into the room around the curtains he could see it was not some local coin, as he’d assumed last night. In fact it was utterly unfamiliar. He’d grown used to handling various coins from the Marches as well as those from Highground, since he’d been working for – he couldn’t say “with” – Jervin, but this was different again. Thicker, made from a different metal, but too worn for him to make out the lettering around the face of it. He’d ask Gurney in the counting house, he’d know it.

Drew forgot all about the indifferent start to the day as he became absorbed in the bookkeeping. Whatever bad memories he might have about his time at Vorrahan, he would be eternally grateful for the skills he had been taught there. Without the librarian’s patient tuition he’d never have mastered this work with numbers so readily. He’d completed the accounts up to date, all ready for Jervin’s inspection tomorrow. He straightened up and stretched, stifling a yawn. He’d worked through most of the day, even though it seemed little time had passed since lunch. Gurney was standing up, setting his desk straight when Drew remembered the strange coin.

“Oh, before you go, I wanted to ask you about this.” He fished in his scrip for the coin, and held it out for Gurney’s inspection. The old man peered at it.

“Now, you don’t see many of those in these parts. It’s a southern guinea. No use here at all, unless you know someone who’s bound for Highkell or the sea ports. Worth some then, of course. But if you don’t, then you’ve been cheated.”

“Really? How so?”

“Traders are supposed to surrender them for local coin when they land from seagoing vessels, or cross through Highkell from the south. So’s the administration can take their cut in tax. They’re not legal to use otherwise – stops traders dodging taxes. Not even freemerchants are meant to carry them.”

“I see.” Drew studied the coin in his hand.

“Of course, making the rules and enforcing them’s another matter. But if the powers that be find you trying to spend one of those in the north, there’s the import tax and a hefty surcharge to pay on top.”

“I won’t be trying to spend it then.”

“Might be worth waiting to see what our new king does. It was one of the peace terms the late king’s father – Goddess grant them both rest – agreed. I’ve heard it was pretty unpopular with southern folk. Could well be King Vasic has plans to do away with it – and draw the north’s teeth at the same time, I’ve no doubt.”

Drew tucked the coin away in his scrip. “You think that’s likely? I doubt I’ll be venturing near Highkell any time soon.”

Gurney pulled on his cloak. “Likely? Oh, yes. We’ll be seeing some changes before Vasic’s done, you mark my words.”

Goddess, what had they fed him? Weaver’s head spun. His eyes were closed, but still the dizziness raced through his skull, rushed through his ears with every beat of his heart. And Goddess, the pain. His chest burned with every inward breath. Was this the price he must pay for betraying his own king? Should he have burned back there in the palace, instead of crawling to safety like the craven coward he was? Was he finally being brought to account?

He cracked his eyes open. The room spun about him. It was light enough to see that, at least. Where was he? There wasn’t much light – did that mean it was night, and the room was lit by candles? No, for all his dizziness the light was constant, he could sense it, the steady glow of early daylight, but Goddess, would it not stay still? He pressed his eyes shut, then eased them open a fraction. Better this time. He was looking up at a ceiling. Plain, flat, whitewashed a long time ago. A layer of grime and dust and cobwebs adhered to the surface above him. He could be anywhere. Had the storeroom had a vaulted ceiling or flat? He couldn’t recall. This place was lighter though, for sure. He thought he heard a movement nearby and twisted his head. Was that a door? Everything pitched dizzyingly from the unguarded motion. He pressed his eyes shut again.

“Does it hurt?” The voice was a young woman’s, sweet, perhaps too sweet to be true. A Marches accent. She may even have been from the same small town as his wife…

Where was the crazy boy? How had he come here? He opened his mouth to speak, but no sounds emerged beyond a harsh croak. He closed his mouth again, opening his eyes a slit to see if he could see the speaker. The room pitched less violently now, but it was still enough to turn his stomach. He closed his eyes again.

A hand pressed on his shoulder, oddly insistent. Sharp, prodding at him. “It does hurt, doesn’t it? Are you even awake?” Not so sweet now.

He eased his eyelids open once more and could see a figure moving around. Too close to focus, nothing but a blur. Then his other senses stirred, bringing him a familiar flowery scent. Soap? His… wife? She had used soap with that scent.

“Erian?” He forced the syllables between parched lips.

The hand pinched the flesh of his shoulder. “No, you fool. I have no name here.”

This made no sense. Weaver took another inward breath, more hasty, and his chest rattled. A cough escaped. And having coughed once, he had to cough again and again, each more painful and gut-rending than the last. Finally, exhausted, the coughing stopped. It was silent in the room again. The daylight remained steady, as before. The young woman, whoever she was, seemed to have gone. Good. He hadn’t liked her.

This time the dizziness had faded, but the pain in his chest weighed down on him like a boulder. He could remember now, being dragged along between two priests, face down, feet trailing. The one on the right had stunk of sweat. They’d brought him here, dropped him on this – bed? – without ceremony. Then they’d forced liquid of some kind between his lips. That was it. They had fed him something. He could recall much more clearly. But Goddess, the pain…

“You’re awake.” The young woman’s voice. The rustling of skirts as she crossed over to his side. She must have been watching him this whole time – he had no idea how long, but guessed it might have been as much as an hour. “Does it hurt again?”

Weaver nodded minutely, a tiny gesture, wary of setting the room spinning once more. For now the room held its peace.

“It’ll hurt worse by the end.” Her tone was indifferent. “But they want you alive, so until then I’ve to physic you.” When she bent over him, holding out a deep-sided spoon, her eyes were cold as a shadow on winter snow – the palest grey. He’d seen those eyes before, somewhere. She pressed the spoon against his lips, pouring syrupy fluid over them. Some ran down his chin, before he twisted his head away and the rest spilled over his neck. He wanted nothing from this creature.

“Don’t be stupid. Or would you rather die in agony?”

He might, before he accepted anything from her.

There was a rustle of skirts as she turned away, the clink of a glass stopper. She was refilling the spoon.

“This will make you feel better.” The saccharine note had returned to her voice. A hand clamped over his nose, thumb and forefinger digging into his jaw muscles. He tried to struggle, but he hadn’t the strength to shake off her grip. The instant he parted his lips to draw breath, she jammed the spoon between his teeth and he had to swallow the fluid or choke on it.

She leaned close to him. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Next time, don’t be so difficult.” Her words were all sweet reason, but her smile chilled him.

The room about Weaver seemed to fade, taking with it the pain. He could no longer focus on those cold eyes, which was a blessing. He could imagine himself alone, disturbed only by the clammy trickle of poppy syrup creeping down his neck.

At the lower end of the desert valley stood a gnarled old tree. Twisted by countless years spent in the arid environment, its growth stunted by lack of rainfall, it nevertheless spread a generous canopy beneath which the freemerchants were wont to sit. All business of the community took place there. Children would play there, laughing and singing, or as often squabbling, in the shade of the canopy. But today the children had been chivvied away and they were playing among the boulders that had long ago slid down from a loose section of the escarpment from which their homes had been carved. Laughs and shrieks punctuated the still air from further up the valley as they played some elaborate game of tag.

The elders were assembled under the shade of the tree, waiting as Alwenna and Marten walked down the slope. As they approached the group Alwenna had an overwhelming premonition of hostility. She had enemies here today, no question about it. Grit crunched beneath her feet – everything at Scarrow’s Deep was coated in a fine layer of sand or dust. Everything. How desperate did one have to be to call this arid place home? She wasn’t that desperate, not yet, despite the trail of death that she’d left in her wake. She’d sooner climb those mountains that lay beyond the escarpment and live out her days there, lost in the mists, where the air turned not just chill, but cold. Every night. Where streams gushed in spate down steep, narrow channels, water tumbling over the rocks and plunging into deep pools at every twist and turn…

“My lady, are you unwell?” At her side Marten frowned.

“I beg your pardon. I seem to be always tired these days. Always distracted.”

“Are you suffering visions again?”

“No. Not like before.”

“I see.”

If he noticed her evasion he didn’t comment upon on it. Of course he didn’t – this was Marten. He played so many games of his own, adding one of hers to his list was the merest– No, perhaps she was being unfair. Perhaps he simply knew this was not the time to push the issue. She turned her full attention to the elders, trying to divine the source of hostility. There were several men and a few women, some appearing no more than middle-aged while others were clearly very old indeed. Alwenna would have guessed them to be elders, simply because of the preponderance of grey hair and wrinkled faces. Not to mention a certain air of weighty self-importance that hung about them. But she ought not pre-judge them, even if they did remind her of every group of royal advisors she’d been obliged to mouth polite acquiescence to in the past.

The canopy of the stunted tree grew mainly off to one side of the trunk, shaped by unrelenting winds at some time in the past. Beneath this side were boulders on which the elders now sat, arranged in two arcs facing the tree itself. At the foot of the tree was a bench, fashioned of stone, and it was there that Marten indicated Alwenna should sit. It reminded her very much of the courtroom at Highkell. Did this assembly presume to put her on trial?

Marten cleared his throat, glancing uneasily at Alwenna. “I am sure you are all by now aware this is the Lady Alwenna, rightful ruler of the Peninsular Kingdoms and beloved of the Goddess.”

Quite what he hoped to achieve by that, Alwenna wasn’t sure. Perhaps half the assembled elders regarded her with thinly-veiled suspicion. One woman, with a deeply wrinkled and tanned face watched her with alert curiosity. Alwenna was reminded of a small bird that had once frequented the palace gardens, always following her about when she and Wynne had worked there, gathering herbs or thinning and re-planting plants. It felt like a lifetime ago. A faint movement in her abdomen reminded her that in some cases it was literally a lifetime ago. Beloved of the Goddess…

Marten had continued speaking and she had no idea what he’d been saying.

“– And the circumstances of our departure from the summer palace meant I have sought this meeting at the earliest opportunity, for the Lady Alwenna is in great need of your wisdom and advice.”

A skinny old man stood up. “It is incumbent on me as leader of the council to offer the Lady Alwenna our greetings, and our condolences on the death of her husband. King Tresilian was ever a friend to the freemerchants.” He fixed Alwenna with a steady gaze.

Here was the source of the hostility. How much had he heard of Tresilian’s death already? Alwenna drew on her years of training to remain outwardly cool. “I must thank you and your people for your hospitality in my hour of need, sir.”

The old man did not smile. Instead he cleared his throat and addressed Marten. “Before we take this discussion any further it is the wish of this council that you first give us a full account of recent events. It was our understanding you were to reunite the lady with her husband. It was never part of your plans to bring her here. We must consider the full implications of her presence among us now.”

Marten smiled. There was little to betray his displeasure at the line the elder had taken, but Alwenna knew the displeasure was there, nonetheless. “Sire, we have already discussed this, have we not? I made all the facts known to the elders last–”

“But some were not present, for the meeting was called at short notice. And it is imperative that we put certain questions to the lady herself, in the circumstances.”

Marten spread his hands wide. “I hope you do not doubt my veracity, Rogen?”

“I daresay all is as you said, Marten, but I doubt you’ve told us the full of it. In which case I must assume you have withheld certain knowledge for your own purposes. And your purposes, I confess, I find as impenetrable as they are frequently outrageous.”

There were one or two murmurs of agreement from those seated behind him. There appeared to be two distinct factions within the elders, as well as a number of people who as yet adhered to the views of neither group. Alwenna’s champion was not the most popular in freemerchant circles, it would seem. Marten certainly appeared to have his fair share of opponents. Whether he had a similar or greater number of supporters remained to be seen.

Marten waited for the murmuring to die down before he spoke. “My purposes remain to ensure the wellbeing of the freemerchant people. This is as they ever have been.”