Dangerous Waters (39 page)

‘Kusint?’ he demanded, exasperated.

‘All in good time,’ Kusint said absently.

‘We have no time to waste,’ Corrain insisted. ‘Any more delay—’

Kusint looked up. ‘You think we could have got here sooner?’

‘No,’ Corrain said curtly.

They had finally arrived, with barely enough men to manage the galley’s oars. Deaths and desertions had continued through the voyage. The other face of that rune meant those who endured to the end had been rewarded with an even greater share of the loot in the galley’s holds.

The scum-sucking bastards could have been more grateful. Corrain took another swallow of the darkly fruited beer. ‘Have you any idea how much coin the services we seek will cost us?’

He had absolutely no notion how much gold a Soluran mage would ask for and no idea what other expense might lie ahead as they searched for such a wizard. They had already had to pay out for fresh clothes and travelling gear to avoid being scorned as beggars or worse.

Granted, they had a heavy coffer of gold and silver between them, from selling their share of the galley’s cargo and better yet, it was locally minted coin. All the same, so much uncertainty made Corrain tense.

‘Kusint!’ He plucked the accursed compass from the Forest youth’s hands, barely restraining himself from hurling it out into the roadway.

Kusint almost snatched it back, before thinking better of it. ‘We need to go north, and the river will be quickest, but there will be no boats to take us until the Solstice is done. I’m sorry, but there it is.’

‘We can buy horses.’ Corrain wondered what that would cost.

Kusint shook his head. ‘There’ll be no one selling, not tonight, tomorrow or the day after.’

Corrain looked at the crowds enjoying the balmy evening. ‘You’re sure we have to travel? Surely, among all these people—?’

‘Can you tell a mage from the rest?’ Kusint queried. ‘I can’t, and besides, if we find one to help us we still need consent from the Order’s elders. After we wait out the Solstice, we can go straight to an Order’s tower.’

‘Where’s the closest?’ Corrain demanded. ‘We can start walking.’

Kusint took a drink of his own beer. ‘The closest wizards’ Order will be beholden to Lady Kisselle, whose province this is. She won’t countenance any mage heading for Caladhria. None of the coastal lords will.’

‘What have wizards’ affairs to do with her?’ Frustration burned Corrain’s gullet.

Now Kusint looked exasperated. ‘I told you. Soluran wizards have no Archmage. Each wizardly Order is bound by fealty to their province’s ruler.’

‘Can’t we seek an audience with this lady?’ There had to be something they could do instead of sitting here drinking peculiar beer. ‘Explain Caladhria’s plight to her?’

Corrain was beset by more and more irritations, flocking around him like the gulls following the fishing boats into the dockside. If Caladhrian-born wizards answered to the parliament instead of the Archmage, then Corrain would never have had to make this desperate journey. Lord Halferan need never have died in the first place.

‘We could wait thirty days or more even to see her port reeve.’ Kusint gestured at the busy street. ‘We’d be lucky if he gave us a chit to take to her castle door before the end of the year. Lady Kisselle has far more important things to fill her days than granting audiences to travelling strangers. She has more important things for everyone to do, wizards included. Kisbeksar may be one of Solura’s smallest provinces but trade makes it one of the richest. And she’s a ferocious old woman by all accounts. We won’t find anyone willing to sacrifice her goodwill just to help us out, however much coin we offer them.’

Corrain grunted. Kusint had explained how women could both inherit and rule without any man as their guardian, but he found it an outlandish notion.

Kusint delved into a pocket and found a map he’d drawn for Corrain while they were on the galley. It turned out that the cargo included a quantity of the finest quality paper, heavy with rag. The Aldabreshi prized it highly for recording their astronomical observations and the intricate calculations that followed.

‘Here’s the Great River of the East and the Great Forest, your Land of Many Races beyond it.’

‘You mean Ensaimin?’ Corrain interrupted.

‘Here’s Kisbeksar’s northern boundary.’ Kusint sketched in a larger province above it embraced by a broad sweep of the river. ‘This is Brawathar, where Lord Brawen is very weary of seeing the trade from the forest and the mountains heading downstream and seldom even bothering to pay him for an overnight berth. But if he could secure friendly ties with Caladhria and Caladhria’s merchants, then Lady Kisselle would at least have to pretend to treat him with some respect.’

Everything always comes down to self-interest, Corrain reflected sourly. No need to waste time appealing for succour for Caladhria’s suffering innocents. ‘So he’ll tell a wizard to help us?’

To his growing annoyance, Kusint shook his head again.

‘We wouldn’t be able to get an audience with Lord Brawen any sooner than we could with Lady Kisselle. If we find a willing wizard on the other hand, there’s every chance he’ll know exactly how to secure his Order’s permission and those Elders will have no trouble tugging on Lord Brawen’s sleeve that same day.’

‘If?’ Corrain fastened on that word. ‘What if we can’t find a willing mage?’

Kusint ran a hand through his hair, barely. It was short enough after its cropping in Caladhria to turn heads in Solura, where Forest Folk in particular favoured much longer styles.

‘Then we’ll have to head further north, most likely to Pastamar. Mandarkin holds these mountains, north of Resdonar.’ He stabbed at the map with his finger. ‘This region here, north of the Great Forest and west of your Land of Many Races, is always being disputed. The Mountain Men usually drive back Mandarkin incursions but they’ve had their own troubles of late. Last summer, Mandarkin forces—’

‘Why Mandarkin?’ Corrain snapped. ‘Why not ‘Men of the North’ or some such? You don’t grant any other land the courtesy of a name!’

Kusint was more taken aback than affronted. ‘Why should the Solurans bother with names for anyone else? They have no real interest in whatever might lie beyond their great rivers of east and west. A simple description suffices for strange places far away of which they know little and wonder less.’

Corrain felt himself reddening, obscurely ashamed of his outburst. But words once spoken were as far beyond reach as a loosed crossbow bolt. He seized on a different question. ‘Who are these Mandarkin?’

‘A brutal people ruled by tyrants.’ Kusint scowled. ‘If Solura’s wizards didn’t take a stand against their enslaved mages, Mandarkin soldiery would pour through the mountain passes and lay waste to everything between the pine woods and the sea.’

His vehemence took Corrain by surprise. The youth’s hatred for these unknown northerners sounded equal to his own loathing of the Aldabreshi.

‘The Mandarkin often test Solura’s resolve in the summer,’ Kusint continued, glowering, ‘especially when the Solstice sees so many border nobles travelling to Solith to renew their fealty to King Solquen.’

He took another swig of beer. ‘I know this delay galls you but I’ll be able to hear the latest news rumoured round the taverns. If we know where there’s been trouble, we’ll know where to look for a mage.’

Corrain contemplated the map. ‘How many days’ travel to Pastamar?’

‘To the southern end of the province? Ten days by road, far less on a sail barge and there’ll be plenty of those heading north after the Solstice,’ Kusint assured him.

‘Very well, if that’s how it must be.’ Corrain sought to wash away his irritation with more beer. ‘What do we do in the meantime? If no one’s trading over the Solstice, I take it we can’t sell those cursed things?’ He nodded at the discarded compass.

Kusint looked around. ‘We can eat some dinner, for a start.’

Corrain was about to say he wasn’t hungry, but Kusint’s words might as well have been someone cutting the pastry lid of a pie right under his nose. Now the evening air was luscious with tantalising spices and the scents of roast suckling pig. Corrain’s stomach growled.

Kusint laughed. ‘Lightning liquor will lift your spirits, if you don’t like our local ale.’

Corrain managed something close to a smile. ‘That should take care of tonight. What about tomorrow? Don’t you have Solstice rituals to attend?’ he asked belatedly.

As he spoke, he found he desperately wanted to be back in Halferan, where fire and water would be rededicating each threshold to Saedrin. Everyone would gather for the festival feasts where men and boys raced burning hoops against each other, rolling them into the brook between the manor and the village amid cheers and steam.

Corrain had always been among the victors. A little scorching was a small price to pay for the admiration of some young wife giddy enough to be reckless while her husband drank himself insensible.

Would Halferan see such celebrations this year? What of the other coastal baronies? Had corsair raids put paid to their jollifications, despite whatever successes Captain Mersed and the Tallat men might have achieved?

Recalling the corsairs prompted more unwelcome thoughts.

Was Hosh looking up at the skies and marking the solstice, even more bereft than Corrain? Or was the fool boy answering to Saedrin at the door to the Otherworld, explaining Corrain’s failure to save him, to see him safe home again? Corrain grabbed for his tankard and hid his distress in the sickly beer.

Kusint was shaking his head. ‘Solurans will be gathering at their own firesides after settling their debts. Some may offer thanks at their local sanctuary for goodwill and good fortune among family and friends or seek counsel from the priests if they’ve had illness in their household.’

‘You don’t worship the gods as we understand them?’ Corrain hesitated somewhere between a question and confusion.

‘The Solurans don’t,’ Kusint corrected. ‘My father was Soluran but I follow my mother’s religion. The Forest Folk revered Trimon and Talagrin, Larasion and Arrimelin long before their reputation spread east to your people. We were the first to teach the lore of the runes to those once ruled by the Tormalins.’

‘Runes?’ Corrain drained his tankard and slammed the battered pewter down on the table. ‘Let’s find a game.’ That would be one way to pass the time, if there was nothing more constructive to do.

Kusint looked sideways at him. ‘What do you plan on spending to buy your way into a game?’

‘Those things.’ Corrain nodded at the Aldabreshin compass. ‘You think I’d touch our coin coffer?’ He challenged Kusint with a look. ‘That gold’s to buy us a wizard, and as soon as we can.’

His fingers tightened around the tankard’s handle. Lady Zurenne would be expecting him any day now. Lord Licanin would be laying his claim before the barons’ Summer Parliament, to be acknowledged as Halferan’s guardian.

He and Kusint had to get back with a wizard in tow before Lord Licanin arrived to impose his will on Lady Zurenne. If they didn’t, what would she do?

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
F
IVE

Halferan, Caladhria

Summer Solstice

Z
URENNE HAD YET
to decide if she welcomed Lysha’s growing independence over this past half season. She felt they both hesitated on a threshold far more perilous than this entrance to the manor’s shrine.

She closed the door from the great hall’s dais behind her. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Who told you I was here?’ Ilysh laid a garland of leafy green stems and bright blue flowers on the pedestal before Saedrin’s statue.

‘Never mind.’ In fact, Jora had told Raselle, all fond amusement and the dutiful maid had hurried to rouse Zurenne. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘If I am now truly wedded, then my claim to Halferan is secured.’ Ilysh’s composure and determination reminded Zurenne painfully of her dead husband. ‘Whatever the parliament might say.’ Her eyes flashed with a hint of the indomitable will she had inherited from her father. ‘So I must undertake the duties expected of a baron’s lady while my husband is away. Just as you have always done, Mama.’