City of Dragons: Volume Three of the Rain Wilds Chronicles (24 page)

“Please, sir, I heard at the trunk market that someone named Malta Elderling would want to know about the ship what’s come in. That she might pay a penny for such news.”

“What news? What ship?”

The boy hesitated until Reyn groped in his belt purse and held up a coin.

“
Tarman,
sir. That boat what went out with the dragons. It’s back.”

Malta lurched to her feet as Reyn slid the flimsy door open. Rain from high above pattered down in stray droplets, but the runner who still stood outside was soaked with it. “Come in,” Reyn invited him, and he stepped gratefully into the chamber and over to the firepot on its baked-clay hearth. He warmed his hands, his clothes dripping water onto the rough plank floor.

“What of the dragons?” Malta demanded.

The lad lifted gleaming blue eyes to meet her gaze. “I saw no dragons when I went down to look. I didn’t wait to ask, lady, but only came to tell you the barge has docked. I was not the first to know, but I wished to be the first to give my news. To earn a penny, as I understood it.” The lad looked worried.

But Reyn was now offering him a handful of coins, and Malta nodded. “You’ve done well. Only tell me what you saw. There were no dragons with the vessel? Did you see any of the young keepers? Did the barge look battered or in good condition?”

The runner wiped a hand over his wet face. “There weren’t any dragons. I saw only the barge and the crew working it. It didn’t look battered, but the crew looked tired. Tired and skinny and more on the ragged side than you’d expect.”

“You did well. Thank you. Reyn, where is my cloak?”

Her husband saw the boy to the door before turning to look at her. “Your cloak is on the back of your chair, where you last left it. But you cannot be thinking of going out in this downpour?”

“I must. You know I must, and you must come with me.” She glanced around the room but saw nothing more she needed. “Fortune has favored us to be here in Cassarick! I will not lose this chance. I need to be there when Captain Leftrin reports to the Council. All
they
will care about is that they are rid of the dragons. I need to know how they fared, how many survived, where he left them, if he found Kelsingra at all . . . oh.” She stopped abruptly and caught her breath.

“Malta? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. He just kicked me, hard, right in my lungs. Took my breath away for a moment.” She grinned. “You win, Reyn. He must be a boy. It seems that whenever I get excited about something, he must dance a jig inside me. No well-mannered little girl would do that to her mother.”

Reyn snorted. “As if I would expect any daughter of yours to be a ‘well-mannered little girl.’ Darling. Why don’t you stay here and let me go in your place? I promise I will come back immediately and give you word of all I heard and saw.”

“No. No, dear.” Malta was putting her cloak on. “I have to be there. If you went for me, I’d only ask you a hundred questions you hadn’t thought to ask and then be frustrated when you did not know the answers. We’ll leave a note for Tillamon so that she doesn’t worry about me if she comes by this evening.”

“Very well,” Reyn agreed reluctantly. He found his own cloak, still wet from an earlier outing, shook it out, and slung it around his shoulders. “I wish Selden were here. He is the one who should be handling this.”

“I just wish I knew where he was. It has been months now since we’ve heard from him. That last letter he sent didn’t sound like him, and it didn’t look like his hand to me. I fear something has befallen him. Yet even if my brother were here, I’d still have to go, Reyn.”

“I know that, my dear. We were raised in the old ways of the Traders, you and I. But even I wonder if we keep faith with a dead dragon. No one has seen her or heard rumor of her for years, now. Is she is dead and our agreements dead with her?”

Malta shook her head stubbornly as she lifted the large hood of her cloak and set it carefully on her pinned hair. “Contracts are written on paper, not air, and signed with ink, not breath. It does not matter to me if she is dead. Regardless of what others may do, we remain bound by our signed words.”

Reyn sighed. “Actually, we said only that we would help the serpents and protect the serpents’ cases until the dragons hatched from them. In which case, our part of the bargain is done.” He grimaced as he pulled up the wet hood of his cloak.

“I was raised to keep the spirit of an agreement, not just the letter of it,” Malta responded tartly. Then, as she realized it was her aching back that was driving her to quarrel with him over their old disagreement, she changed the subject slightly. “I wonder if that woman has returned safely, that Alise Finbok. She gave me such comfort and heart on the day she said she would go with them. She spoke so confidently and learnedly about Kelsingra.”

Malta turned to look at her husband. His eyes were a lambent blue within his hood’s shadows. He spoke reluctantly. “I’ve heard rumors that she was actually fleeing her husband and running off with his servant. There was some talk that her husband had disowned her, but that her father and the servant’s family were seeking news of them, even offering a reward for any word.”

Malta felt a pang of deep dismay. She pushed it aside. “I don’t care about any of that. She spoke like someone well versed in ancient things. The way she described the city, it was as if she had already walked there. She might have been fleeing her husband; she would not be the first wife to do so. But I think she was also bound toward something. So. Let’s go out into the rain and down to the Council Hall. We’ll learn no more about the expedition standing here.”

“Take my arm, then. The walkways may be slippery. I know better than to try to talk you out of this, but at least I shall beg you to be cautious.”

“I won’t fall.” She took his arm nonetheless and was glad of it when he opened the door. A wind curled into the room, full of damp and chill. “If it’s blowing like this under the trees, what is it like out on the river?” she wondered aloud.

“Worse,” Reyn replied succinctly as he closed the flimsy door behind them. “And no, you won’t fall, because I won’t let you. But be cautious in more than that. Please, do not let the Council excite or upset you.”

“If anyone becomes excited or upset, I’ll wager it will be them,” Malta replied sanguinely.

It was early afternoon, but it was winter and perpetually dim this far under the canopy of the great trees. Reyn held her arm tightly as they ventured along the narrow path from their tree branch to the main branch. When it joined a wider way on a thicker tree limb, she felt him relax. He was native to the Rain Wilds and its tree-built communities. She had come here when she was almost grown and felt she had adapted to it well. Usually she moved confidently even on the narrowest paths and when crossing the swaying bridges that connected the neighborhoods of the tree cities. But in these last few months, the burgeoning child in her belly had unbalanced her normally slight body. She held Reyn’s arm firmly, unabashedly claiming his aid and protection. They’d suffered four miscarriages since they were wed; she would take no foolish misstep out of pride now!

The tree-house city, typical of all Rain Wild settlements, spread out in every direction around her. Above her in the higher branches dangled the smaller, flimsier houses of the poor; deep in the shadowy depths below her where the tree limbs were thick and sturdy, she looked down on mansions, warehouses, and the sturdy walls and windows of the Rain Wild Traders’ Hall. Yellow lamplight lit those windows from within.

The Cassarick Rain Wild Traders’ Hall was the newest Trader Hall to be built, and there was still some grumbling among the Rain Wilders about its independent stance from Trehaug. For years, there had been only one Rain Wild Traders’ Hall, and that had been the one in Trehaug. The Rain Wild Traders and the Bingtown Traders had been two halves of a whole, united by a shared history of hardship. With the opening of the new Trader Hall in Cassarick, younger sons and lesser Trader families had come suddenly into more power than they’d ever had before. The politics were still settling. Greed and the need to be decisive had put a sharper edge on their Traders’ Council. Malta did not entirely trust them to hold to the old Trader standards of equality and the absolute enforcement of signed agreements.

She saw that she and Reyn were not the only folk bound for the hall, and by this Malta judged that the word had spread of the
Tarman
’s arrival. Other Rain Wilders were emerging from their homes and onto the walkways that led to the Council Hall. Robed Traders hastened down the winding staircases that necklaced the immense tree trunks. The tidings that would await them there would affect everyone. Still, she did not hurry to get a good seat. She was Malta Khuprus, not only an Elderling but wife to Reyn Khuprus, second son of a powerful Rain Wild Trader family. His older brother Bendir might control the family vote, but he relied on the information Reyn brought him in deciding how to cast that vote. Neither she nor Reyn could claim an official seat at the Council table, but she would be heard. On that she was resolved.

Wind gusted against them, flapping her cloak and tearing leaves from the surrounding trees. Sturdy railings of woven vines edged the path they traveled. Beyond their safety, she saw only thick branches, dense greenery, and small houses dancing in the wind as they dangled from the trees’ great branches like peculiar fruit. The unseen marshy ground was a long fall below them. She gripped Reyn’s arm and let him lead.

L
eftrin had deliberately taken his time. He’d gone to the bird handlers first, and there sent off the messages that had been entrusted to him before he’d left Kelsingra. It had cost him more than he’d expected. Some sort of bird sickness had put message service at a premium. Some of the birds would have a short flight. Several of the keepers had chosen to send messages back to Trehaug to let their families know they were safe. There had been two death notices to send as well. Greft’s and Warken’s families needed to know what had become of their sons. Greft had been a trial to the captain, but his death was still a tragedy and his family deserved to be first to know of it. Last, he had posted Sedric’s and Alise’s missives to their families in Bingtown. All the way downriver to Cassarick he’d agonized over the wisdom of sending those. He’d urged all of them to be circumspect in what they told people about Kelsingra and how they had arrived there, but he had not read any of the messages. By the time this day was over, people in Cassarick would know as much as he intended to tell them, and message birds would be flying in all directions. Best to see that the messages from his friends had a chance of reaching their families first.

By the time he reached the ship’s supply store, he’d acquired several followers. Two small boys tagged at his heels, loudly announcing to anyone they encountered that this was Captain Leftrin, back from his expedition. This led to handshakes and questions that he courteously refused to answer. One young man, probably a gossipmonger, had trailed him for some way, peppering him with a score of questions, only to be frustrated by Leftrin’s insistence that he would report first to the Council. One other, a man wearing a long, hooded gray cape, had hung back and not spoken to him at all but followed at a more than discreet distance. Once Leftrin was aware of him, he took care to remain so. The man was a stranger, and in the brief glimpses the captain had had of him, he did not move with the easy familiarity of the treetop born. He was no Rain Wilder. Dread uncoiled in Leftrin’s chest as he speculated about just who the man might serve.

At the ship’s supply, Leftrin ordered the preserved foods and basic necessities that would restock his ship’s larder. Oil, flour, sugar, coffee, salt, ship’s biscuit . . . Bellin’s list seemed endless. He also bought every sheet of paper and bottle of ink that the store possessed, as well as a stock of new quills. He smiled as he did so, imagining Alise’s pleasure at this trove. He asked that all the supplies be sent immediately down to the
Tarman
. He’d traded there for years, ever since the store had opened, and it did not take much to persuade the owner to accept his signature in lieu of coin. “Council pays me, I pay you within the hour,” Leftrin promised the nodding man, and that was that.

By the time he left the store, his legs ached. Walking the deck of his ship and even hiking the meadows around Kelsingra did not prepare a man for the many vertical climbs of a Rain Wild city. He took a lift down to the Council Hall level, paying the tender with his last coin as the man’s basket passed his own in transit. As he drew near to the Council door, he recalled that the last time he’d come here, Alise Finbok had been on his arm. It had been in the early days of their acquaintance, when his infatuation with her was dizzyingly new. He thought of her shiny little boots and her lacy skirts and smiled a bit sadly. Her finery had dazzled him as much as her ladylike ways. Well, her lace had gone to tatters and her boots were scuffed and worn now, but the gracious lady inside them prevailed as if wrought from iron. He suddenly missed her with a pang more powerful than hunger or fear. He shook his head at himself. Was he a mooning adolescent, to be so thoroughly engrossed with her? He smiled. Perhaps he was. The sensations she woke in him were wilder and sweeter than any other experience in his life. And once he was paid, he anticipated buying little luxuries and dainties to take back to her. The thought put a wider smile on his face.

When he pushed open the door to the Traders’ Hall, he was greeted with light and the murmur of voices and warmth. Braziers burned in scattered locations throughout the room, contributing heat and the sweet smell of burning jalawood. Light came from another source, the tethered globes that floated within the hall. Elderling artifacts unearthed from the buried ruins at the foot of Cassarick now illuminated the meeting place of the humans in a flagrant display of wealth. For a moment, he imagined the surge of greed that would be stirred if he spoke of an Elderling city that stood intact and virtually untouched. His eyes went to the tapestry of Kelsingra that hung on the wall behind the Council dais. Alise had once used that tapestry to prove to them that their destination had existed. And when he told the Council that its gleaming walls still sparkled in the sunlight? His smile tightened.