If Crows Know Best (Mage of Merced Book 1) (16 page)

CHAPTER 25

I led Wieser back down to the kitchen to meet Honni for the trip to the fish monger. She carried a flat basket over her arm and wore a shawl loosely around her shoulders, in town-fashion. She smiled as I came through the swinging door, making me feel as if my feet had grown suddenly a hand-span longer, and I did not know how to set them down and walk. I managed not to stumble, and nodded to her. For who can say what girls have in their minds when they smile like that?

“Let’s be off,” she said briskly, and went out through the back door. As I followed her down alleys and between buildings, I saw a much different Bale Harbour to what I had walked with Virda. Plenty of folk still came and went, but most at a slower pace, as if the business they attended to was not so pressing as that of the crowds on the main streets. Patrolling soldiers were more scarce. Some men carried draw-neck bags of heavy canvas slung over their shoulders; Honni said these were sailors with sea bags. Many women and girls scurried or sauntered with parcels and laden baskets, depending, I supposed, on whether their masters demanded quick work or cared not how soon the tasks were done. Here and there, men gathered by twos and threes to play at cards or cups. I was astonished to see filthy barefoot boys picking up dog piles and placing them into small pails. A couple of them followed Wieser, arguing over which would have rights to any she provided, until Honni shooed them away.

“The fresher the better, Donatta!” one shouted. “It looks like it could make one worth my time, huge old thing!”

“For the tanners,” Honni told me, for I must have looked curious. “They get coppers for a pail-full.” That did account for some of the smell at the tannery, then. Honni greeted folk here and there, some asked after her family, and several waited to see if she would say anything about my presence at her elbow, but she never said a bit. And stuttered seldom when she did speak.

When we drew near the wharves where the fish mongers’ calls could be heard, she said softly, “Let me see where Orlo is, and t-tell him you want to talk to him. He may not wish to, since he doesn’t know you.”

“Wieser and I will look at the sea fish. There are many I’ve never seen before,” I said, and wandered toward a booth made of stacked crates topped with planks where the fish were spread out in the sun. They were accomplishing a fine stench; I thought Wieser’s nose might be overwhelmed. Mine nearly was.

Wieser and I stood gaping at a large flat-bodied fish with two cloudy eyes on its back and a slit mouth underneath, as a matron lifted it into her basket. “How can it swim?” I mused to Wieser, and heard a choked laugh behind me.

I turned to find Honni standing beside a lanky, shaggy black-eyed youth who looked me up and down with cocksure amusement. “A person would never know
you
were new to town,” he said, baring his teeth in what didn’t really look like a grin.

I didn’t care to be mocked, but kept my eyes friendly. Wieser put her nose in the air and sniffed in his direction, giving no sign of concern. Honni pointed at me, and said, “Here’s Judian. Come walk along while I get what Mistress G-g-guthy wants.”

I fell into step with Orlo as Honni moved into the crowd, and we trailed her in silence with Wieser padding between us. Near the end of the pier, Honni found the vendor she wanted and began selecting slim silvery fish that looked more like the ones I caught in mountain streams.

“Do you smoke the flesh, as we do at home?” I asked, by way of starting some exchange.

“We can get them fresh every day, why would we want to preserve them?” Orlo answered for her.

“I can get them fresh every day I want to go fishing,” I said evenly. “I don’t have anybody to do my fishing for me.”

“We will have fish stew at Guthy’s. I make it often as the old salts like it well,” Honni murmured, paying coins into the merchant’s outstretched hand. She turned and pinned Orlo with a meaningful look.

“He’s not even asking me anything!” he said.

“Out here?” I swung an arm out to encompass the busy pier, and nearly caught a maidservant carrying a long fish with a sword on the end of its snout. “Have a care!” she snapped.

Honni sighed the way I do when Noda the goat upsets the milk bucket. “I need to take some of my wages to Mum. Come along and t-talk behind doors, if that suits you better.”

We trailed in further prickly silence as Honni paced along the alleyways until we reached the back gate of a dirt yard. Here a grubby-faced boy about the age of Morie shouted with joy at the sight of her, and more tattered children poured from under the back steps to surround Honni, pat her hands and pull at her skirt. Honni laughed at them all talking at once, and allowed them to draw her through the gate. They evidently knew Orlo, and grabbed him around the knees and pestered him equally, but Wieser and I received only a few shy looks from under tousled hair.

The uproar brought a ruddy-cheeked woman as round as Honni was spare, who looked out from the top half of a cut-door with a genial wave. “Come on, come in!” she called, and we made our way across the yard as the tumble of children would permit.

Donah Emeral enfolded her daughter against her roundness, and stroked her hair. “How are you, love? Not too worried about our men?” Honni clung to her mother for a moment, and made me think of my own mum and how much I missed her still.

“I’ve brought Judian from Guthy’s, Mum,” Honni began, standing back from her mother’s arms. We were directed to sit on the bench alongside the kitchen table. And without a stutter, she told all the tale of my adventures with the patrol last night, leaving out her own courage in coming after me, so as not to worry her family, I suspected.

Orlo especially seemed caught up in the story, and bounced one of the youngest on his knee without looking at him. He kept staring at me instead.

The other children came closer and closer, until I had one on each knee and another sitting on my left foot. Honni’s mum was round-eyed and breathless on hearing what a hero I was, which made me heartily wish Honni hadn’t put such a slant on things. Donah Emeral served me cold buttermilk and a great slab of buttered bread; Orlo’s portion was not half so large. He chewed thoughtfully, while Honni counted out some coins and pressed them into her mother’s hand. I shared my bread around with my stick-tights, who took the pieces reverently.
I should have Honni come to tell Wils about my trip to town
, I thought.
He could never be put out with me then
.

“We’ll see if Guthy still thinks so high of me when she notes she is short a pitcher, a trencher and four tankards,” I said. “Or when every hungry patrol in town turns up on her stoop.” I wished there was something I could do to divert that from happening.

“Aye, there are so many of them to feed, it’s true. They take their rations from the goods coming into the town, mostly. Yet they always seem to be looking for more.” Donah Emeral shook her head.

“My da says soldiers are always hungry, and not just for food,” I put in. This remark stirred up a discussion of the men who were absent, my da included, and how they might be faring wherever they were. I offered them some of what Wils had told me on his return, mostly what news supported that the non-uniformed troops had not been in the way of the invasion force. This caused Ma Emeral and some of the children to cry; not the intended effect. It was Orlo who told me, “Don’t worry, they cry when they hear good news as well as at bad.” I gave him a grateful look.

At the conclusion of the brief visit, Honni stood and slipped her basket of fish over her arm. Wieser waited at the door, a model of patience. I smuggled her a bite of my bread and butter. We left the way we had come, with what seemed dozens of pudgy hands waving at us until we turned up the next alley out of sight.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Orlo asked, stooping to pat Wieser’s curly black head.

CHAPTER 26

Orlo accompanied us all the way back to Guthy’s, pointing out the alleys best avoided and the back doors where a handout could be cadged “if you know what you’re about.” He sat with me on the back steps when Honni went in to start the fish stew.

“Do you work at the harbourmaster’s house still?” I asked first.

“Not as I did, else I’d be there now. I bring the coal, and am sent to the market since I can read and count change. But they do not need me every day, since the rest of the family is not at the house.”

“Honni says you were there when the soldiers took the family away. Any idea where they are kept?”

He shook his head, staring into the middle distance. “The old master is fair frantic. I keep my ears pricked, but no word on where they are.”

“The soldiers make him run the harbour as before? He keeps track of all the ships and cargoes?”

“He must do, as the ships come and go just as before. Or, no, not just as before—Guthy’s old salts have been saying far more ships carry goods away than bring cargo into Merced since the occupation.”

“Where do all those ships take their loads to? What country is their destination?”

“Well, not just one country. There are hundreds of ports in as many countries. The world is large, farm boy.” His grin was real this time, and I did not take offense. “But they say much of the goods go to Scythera, where there is drought and famine.”

“That’s where the mages come from, isn’t it? The ones the sailors call weather-workers?”

“How did you hear about the weather-workers? I’ve heard the sailors talk about them, in the public houses. But if they can magic the weather, why don’t they cure their country of drought and make the crops come right?”

“I wonder. Maybe the King hired all the mages away, to get him his deep-water harbour, so there’s none left for their own land. But then, why does Keltane send Scythera all the goods? Are the Scytherans so rich they can buy it all?”

Orlo shrugged as he plucked a stick from the woodpile and poked the tip into the dirt at our feet. “That’s not the kind of thing any of us in the back alleys would know. We worry more where our next meal can be scrounged, and whether the roof we managed last night will still be over us tonight.”

“Do you not want to be rid of the Keltanese?”

“Sure, but mostly we work around them … they’re not too quick-witted.”

“How do you work around them? Everyone must to be off the streets at curfew every night, and violators are never seen again, Honni says.”

He laid a finger aside his nose and tapped it. “There are ways to be abroad and not run afoul of any patrols. We’ve been avoiding patrols for years, with the local constables and guardsmen before the soldiers.”

“Say on,” I urged.

His expression turned evasive, eyes shifting aside. “What’s it to you how we live here? Honni says you’re bound for home come morning.”

“My brother and I are looking for a way to divert enough to keep our home folk well provided and aggravate the Keltanese, but not so much as to make ourselves worth pursuing avidly,” I temporized. “To do it, we need some way of knowing what cargo is coming our way and when.”

“You’ll find it does not do to be fat and happy when privation shows all around you.”

“No, no. The village folk are smarter than that, considering we’re farmers.” That drew a quick flash of his teeth. “Can you tell me how such information can be gotten, without putting the one who gets it at undue risk?”

“I don’t know why you would want to go to that kind of trouble, when you could just use the smugglers to get what you want. As long as you can pay, you can get anything you like.”

An unexpected turn, which left me feeling I had just stepped in a puddle far deeper than I thought. “Smugglers?” I echoed stupidly.

“All ports have smugglers. As long as too much doesn’t go missing at the docks and warehouses, the port guardsmen don’t raise a hue and cry. Or they make enough noise to get their cut, if that’s their way.” He raised his shoulders. “It’s just how shipyards work.”

“If my brother wants to go that way, can you put us onto the ones we need to talk to?”

“I can make inquiries.”

“How do they manage to take goods from under the noses of the Keltanese? Are the soldiers in on it, too?”

“Nah, I told you, they’re not too bright. And they don’t know anything about harbours and all. See, the smugglers use the tunnels below the streets and the caves in the cliffs, have for years.” Orlo warmed to his topic now, wanting to show what he knew. He did look about him, though, as if to check for anyone else in earshot.

“Is that how you get around after curfew, using the tunnels?”

“Quick for a country boy, I’d say,” he said with a dip of his head. “Maybe you want to see tonight?”

I rose to the air of challenge in his tone. “Yah, I can tell my brother better what we are considering. Will I meet you here? I have an errand before sunset.”

It appeared from his expression that he had thought I would not be brave enough to come out to the smuggler’s tunnels. But then, he had only just met me. “Sure, you come out after you have your fish stew, eh? I’ll be here in the back.”

I nodded and stood, and Orlo rose as well, and lifted a hand as he turned to the gate. “And don’t tell Honni,” he said before he was more than a couple of paces away. “She’s prone to worry.”

I acknowledged this with another nod, and went into the kitchen. “Did you t-two get on?” Honni asked from the fireside.

“Sure, thanks for bringing me to meet him. Is Virda in with Guthy?”

She pointed to the keeping room, and I found the two women by the fire with mending in their laps and mugs of tea to hand.

“Judian, you missed your noontime meal. Have Honni give you a bite of something,” Guthy said.

“I will. I want to go up to the chapel where my brother was married last fall.” Virda began to rise, but I motioned her back to her seat. I had not told her I planned to go and check if the messenger hawk Annora sent had found the apostate, and whether anything had come of it. “Uphill is harder for you, Virda. Wieser and I can make the climb, I’m sure I know the way. It won’t take long.”

I won’t say Virda did not have misgivings about me heading out alone, for she looked uncertainly at the door to the street. She said no more, however, and I took the packet of cheese and brown bread Honni gave me and set off with Wieser to walk up the hill to the chapel.

The streets continued as crowded as ever, and I wondered idly where folk were bound for—the sailors with their gear, the matrons with children in tow and determination in each footfall. Aside from sailors, not many men—unless old or young like me. The conscription had taken so many of an age to fight. Now the Keltanese guardsmen were the only men of majority age on the streets, except, as I noted, for the sailors who came and went dockside without interference from patrols. The smugglers couldn’t be women? Or, maybe boys like Orlo, who looked maybe two or three years older than me.

I would find out tonight.

The chapel stood just as I remembered it, down to the crows in the oak tree. I had reason to pay more mind to crows since Gargle came to me, and paused to peer up into the branches. Eight crows stared back, cawing at once like watch dogs sounding the alarm. Wieser looked up as well, tail up and waving like a flag.

“There’s no need for that,” I said, not really intending the crows to hear me, just an absent-minded remark. The cawing stopped at once, though, and a pair of crows flew down from the crown of the tree to a branch that jutted just over my head. “Did I call you two? I seem to have developed a knack all unawares …”

Both regarded me with the same inscrutable look that Gargle used. When I walked on toward the chapel door, both heads swiveled to follow me.

I was surprised to find the door secured; chapels were generally open for worshippers at all times, so offerings could be left and rites performed. I raised my hand and knocked, and saw my two observers had silently come to perch on the top of the sign affixed beside the door frame. “Will I find him within?” I asked them. I swore, both of them nodded. I just commenced wondering whether I had lost my senses when the apostate swung the door open a hand span—and no further.

“Who is it?” he said in the lispy voice I recalled from the joining day. He applied his eye to the crack.

“It’s Judian Lebannen. You remember when I was here for my brother’s wedding? The day the men in town marched for the western border?”

He made a wary nod, but the door opened no more.

“May I come in for a bit? I wanted to speak with you.”

“How fares the young couple?” he said, but still he did not swing the door aside.

“Please, may I come in?” I gave him a steady stare, and finally with a breath through pursed lips, he pulled me in through the threshold. I signaled Wieser to stay, and saw her settle on the stone step with her paws outstretched. All was dark shadows within, where usually fine beeswax candles burned at the altars for each of the gods. He followed my glance, and said with bitterness, “Yes, the tholdiers took all my candles. Bullying heathens! Come down to the thellar. We can thpeak there.”

He
was
hiding in the cellar, as I had suspected on the mountain when Annora dispatched her message. It looked as if he lived there instead of in his rooms behind the chapel proper, for bowls and spoons and a kettle on a small grate showed he cooked within the gloomy room, and a long bench along one wall had a wad of blankets at one end. I was lucky he had heard me knock.

“I don’t have much to offer,” he looked about as if food might volunteer itself, “perhaps thome broth?”

I shook my head. I hated to take any of the little he appeared to have. Instead, I held out what remained of my cheese and bread from Guthy’s, as Honni had been generous. He looked longingly at it, but did not reach out to take it, so I set it on the bench. “I wanted to ask, holy brother, if …” Better to waste no time, I decided. “If you received a message we sent from our hiding place on the mountains by the northwest pass?”

His jaw worked for a moment, without sounding out a word. He sank onto his bench, and put his face in his hands. “The gods did not thend the hawk to me?” he said after a long moment. He left his hands over his eyes.

“I cannot say how it was guided to you, that may have been divine, at least in part. But the message was written by my brother’s bride, sent the morning after I saw that the troops had come through the pass. The enemy may have been well on their way to the coast before we knew. Were you able to get word to our troops here?”

I saw tears leaking between his fingers. “I did try. I went into the threets and found thome of our men working to build the barricade. I told them the Keltanes were coming from the near pass, that the gods themselves had thent word. They thought me a panicky fool, I could thee. I don’t think there were more men who could have been brought in, anyway. We were thin, thin. We were overrun in mere hours.” He lifted a tear streaked face to me. I had given him short shrift, and regretted my earlier certainty that he would do nothing out of timidity.

“It is true our men were too few, most of our troops had been lured out into the western territory. The Keltanese used mages from Scythera to achieve their victory here. I believe the sorcerers delayed the winter to keep the nearer pass open. At least I wanted to know our message reached you. You did everything you could. I thank you for trying. We only hoped our warning might have made a difference, but it came too late.”

He nodded slowly. “Your father, he theemed to know thomething was upon us.”

“He and my brother went with the troops that marched west that day. My brother has returned, but my father is under siege at the border fort, Hasseron. Our fight continues there, to keep the Keltanese from controlling the western pass unopposed.”

The apostate brushed away the wet on his cheeks, and pushed his hands on his knees to stand. “What’s next for us, I can only wonder.”

“I came to make sure our delivery method worked, holy brother. We need a way to send information between Bale Harbour and our farm, and our troops to the west, at the fort. Could you help us?”

“Me help?” his voice went faint. “What would I do to help in a war?”