The Merchant of Dreams (2 page)

A long flight of stone steps led down from the citadel to the quayside, where housewives haggled with fishermen over baskets of the morning’s catch. Flocks of gulls screamed overhead; their more cunning fellows sidled around the stalls, yellow eyes fixed on the fishermen’s baskets. Mal looked around for the chandlery, but his eye was caught instead by a squat stone watchtower at the end of the quay, connected to the citadel above by a length of wall that ran up at a sharp angle. No entrance was visible from this side, nor any windows, and yet the islanders were giving the building a wide berth.

Mal looked out to sea, shading his eyes as if looking for a ship, and drummed his fingers thrice on his dagger hilt. Coby halted at the signal and waited expectantly.

“There,” he said, glancing sidelong towards the tower.

She nodded, following his gaze discreetly.

“The skraylings?” she whispered.

“I’m sure of it.” He could not say how, but he was as certain as if someone had just told him. “Where better to lock up a score or two of unexpected prisoners?”

“How are we to get them out?”

“Our only hope lies in stealth. We’ll return tonight, after dark; a few hours will make little difference.”

Youssef’s ship, the
Hayreddin
, was a sleek galleass of the sort popular with both Turks and Christians. As well as its three triangular sails, it had two dozen oars on each side, the better to manoeuvre in battle – or sneak into a harbour against the wind. However it was too large to go unnoticed on a moonlit night, so they dropped anchor and went the rest of the way in the ship’s boat.

Though they rowed as slowly and carefully as possible, the splashing of the oars sounded over-loud in the night air. Their course was not easy, hugging the foot of the citadel’s hill as close as possible so that anyone on the walls above would have to look over and down to see them, instead of out across the water. The darkness that concealed them came at a price, however; it also concealed the rocks near the shore, and one of Youssef’s keenest-eyed men was obliged to crouch in the bow, raising a hand now and then to steer them away from destruction. On several occasions Mal thought they were about to be dashed against the rocky shore, but the sailors’ skilled rowing thrust them back out to sea. He wondered how often they had done this kind of work before. Best to be grateful they had, and not ask questions.

The harbour was not unguarded, of course. Torches burned in cressets at intervals along the waterfront, and a sentry paced back and forth. Not, Mal noted, too close to the little tower. His conviction that the skraylings were held within deepened.

Their little craft slipped from one fishing boat’s shadow to the next and into an empty berth. Mal scrambled ashore, signalling for the rest of them to stay put. He waited until the sentry was nearing the far end of his course, then slipped silently across the quay and hid in the alley between two warehouses. Long moments passed, punctuated only by the sentry’s receding footsteps and the occasional hawk-and-spit. Then the feet turned and began to approach. Mal edged closer to the alley mouth and drew his dagger.

As the sentry drew level, Mal stepped out behind him, clamped his left hand over the man’s mouth and slammed the dagger up under his ribs towards his heart. The sentry writhed in his grasp, stubble grating against Mal’s palm, then sagged to the ground. Mal wiped his blade on the man’s clothing, sheathed it and hurried back to the waiting boat.

At his signal, Coby clambered ashore, followed by Youssef and two of his men. The sailors scattered to keep watch, whilst Mal and Coby ran towards the tower. A large arch pierced the connecting wall. Mal paused in its shadow, scanning the shrub-covered slopes between the waterfront and the base of the citadel, but could see nothing moving. He beckoned to Coby and slipped round the far side of the tower.

To his relief there was a double door at ground level on this side, its rusty handles secured with a new steel chain and padlock. Any doubts that they might have the wrong place vanished. Why lock up a watch tower so securely, unless you were afraid of what was inside?

Coby uncovered a small lantern as she neared the door. Handing it to Mal, she rummaged in her satchel and produced a canvas roll. Mal positioned the lantern so that its beam fell on the enormous padlock, and Coby began probing the workings with the largest of her skeleton keys. Mal kept watch as she worked; they were well hidden from view here, but also cut off from their allies if things went wrong.

Coby muttered under her breath and blew on her fingers to warm them. Mal glanced back down at her and she made an apologetic face. Biting her lip, she twisted the key again – and the padlock gave a satisfying click and sprang open. Mal took hold of one end of the chain with his free hand whilst Coby gently unwound the rest from the rough, flaking handles of the tower doors and lowered it to the ground. Mal seized the handles, and a shudder of unaccountable dread swept over him. He took a deep breath and hauled the doors open.

A rush of warm air swept their faces, an ancient maritime scent of salt and seaweed, laced with a familiar musky scent: skraylings. Mal gestured for Coby to raise the lantern and stepped forward, expecting to see chained captives blinking back at him. He was partly right. At his side, Coby whimpered and clapped a hand to her mouth.

“Dear God in Heaven,” he murmured, making the sign of the cross.

The bodies of about two dozen skraylings lay on the floor of the tower in a pool of dark blood, still roped together. Their wrists and fanged mouths were bloody, as though they had torn open their own veins – or one another’s. He began methodically examining the bodies in case any of the victims had survived, but they were already beginning to stiffen. This must have happened hours ago. Was that the cause of the unease he had felt back at the cathedral: the skrayling soul trapped within him, mourning for the snuffing out of its fellows? He shuddered, not liking that line of thought.

At that moment he caught sight of a dark head amongst the white-streaked hair of the other skraylings. Short black hair. He frantically pulled the dead bodies aside until he had uncovered the dark-haired one and turned him over.

It was not Kiiren. Yes, the face lacked the tattooed lines of skrayling traders, and when Mal lifted the upper lip, the canine teeth had been removed; but this was not the ambassador. Another Outspeaker, then?

A scuffle broke out away to his left and he sprang up, drawing his sword. Coby’s lantern shattered on the stone floor as she grappled a slight figure who barely came up to her shoulder. More than that, he could not make out in the darkness.

“
Kuru tokh nejanaa sjel! Kuru tokh kurut siqirr kith-gan nejanaa sjel, nej nejt adringeth dihaaqoheet-iz aj-an
.”

Though Mal could not understand the words, the frightened, pleading tone was unmistakable.

“Hush!” Coby replied. “Friend, no hurt you.”

As Mal’s eyes adjusted to the faint moonlight, he realised she had hold of a young skrayling, probably no older than herself though his hair was already striped with silver like his elders. When he caught sight of Mal, the boy froze and stared.

“Erishen-tuur?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Mal replied, sheathing the rapier. Seeing the boy’s confusion, he racked his brains for what little Vinlandic he knew, and inclined his head in greeting. “
Kaal-an rrish
.”

“
Kaal-an rrish
, Erishen-tuur,” the boy replied, bowing back. “
Nejanaa Ruviq
.”

“Ruviq-tuur.” Mal guessed it was the boy’s name.

Ruviq grinned, revealing his eye-teeth, then looked guiltily back at his dead comrades. Coby said something to him in an undertone and put her arm around his shoulder.

“Come on, we’d better get back to the ship.” A thought struck Mal. “Wait. Help me collect the necklaces from all the bodies.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it. Quickly.”

It was a grisly task, but Mal’s instincts were correct. After a few moments the boy Ruviq began to help, and they quickly gathered them all into Coby’s satchel.

“I can manage,” Coby said as Mal took the satchel from her and slung it over his shoulder. “It’s not that heavy.”

“It will be if you fall in the sea with it weighing you down. Look to the boy.”

He led them back round the tower and signalled to Youssef. The Moor raised a steel-grey eyebrow at the lone skrayling youth but did not ask for an explanation. Mal’s respect for the man’s professionalism increased, and he wondered if he should bring Youssef into his cadre of regular informants. Perhaps later, when this business was dealt with. He helped Ruviq into the jolly-boat and sat beside him; the boy seemed to take comfort from the presence of a familiar face. Mal smiled to himself. Sometimes being mistaken for his twin brother had unexpected benefits.

At that moment a bell tolled somewhere in the citadel high above them. Rapid footsteps echoed down the long stair leading to the quay, along with shouted Italian. Youssef pushed off as muskets popped and flashed in the dark and bullets whistled overhead. Mal scrambled to help the rowers, whilst Coby pulled the boy down behind the flimsy shelter of the bulwarks. The jolly-boat lurched against the tide, moving agonisingly slowly into the lee of a fishing boat. Soldiers were pouring out onto the quay and boarding the boats. Bleary-eyed fisherman trailed in their wake, swearing at everyone indiscriminately.

As the jolly-boat pulled steadily out of the harbour, the soldiers appeared to be squabbling with the fishermen over who was in charge of putting to sea in pursuit. A few musketeers lined up in the sterns; the rising wind had scattered the clouds and the fleeing rescuers were an easy target. Youssef yelled at his men to row faster as the first fusillade peppered the water around them.

The fishing boats cast off at last, but the wind was in the west and they would have to tack hard to get round to the
Hayreddin
. Youssef’s men laughed until a lucky shot caught one of their number in the head, sending him sprawling back against the gunwales. Coby pulled Ruviq close, not letting him see the man’s body; she looked as if she was going to throw up herself. The rest of the crew bent to the oars and pulled as if the Devil himself were after them.

They reached the
Hayreddin
without further casualties, and climbed the rope ladder one by one. Ruviq moved slowly as if in a dream, or a nightmare. Mal beckoned to Coby, and together they took the boy into the small side-cabin in the stern.

Mal could tell she was eager to question the boy, but he stalled her with a gesture. She took the hint and with signs and a little Tradetalk encouraged Ruviq to lie down and rest. When he was settled, she followed Mal back out onto deck and they stood at the rail, staring out across the moon-limned waves.

“You needn’t have killed him,” she said. “The harbour watchman.”

And here he was, thinking she was worried about the boy.

“Perhaps not,” he said. “But you well know how chancy a business it is, to knock a man senseless. Too hard, and you may kill him anyway; too soft, and you might as well not bother. Would you rather I had taken that chance, and he had raised the alarm before we could rescue the boy?”

“No, of course not.”

He put an arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him, though as much, he suspected, for warmth as any other reason. Still, it eased his own heart a little.

“So what do we do with the boy, sir?”

The note of formality in her voice brought him back to the present, and his duty to his masters in England.

“We take him back to Sark,” he said. “And then we try and find out why the skraylings were here in the first place.”

CHAPTER II

They sailed back to Marseille with Youssef then rode to Mal’s estate near Aix with the boy. At this time of year the roads were so empty of traffic that three travellers on horseback attracted curiosity, so Coby used a little of her stage makeup to cover the tattoo lines on Ruviq’s brow and cheeks and hid the rest of his face with a hood and scarf. Only his amber eyes threatened to give him away, and he kept those fixed on his hands where they rested on the pommel of his saddle.

Concealing Ruviq’s identity from the servants was a different matter. They were only just coming to terms with having an English-born master, and Mal did not trust them to keep quiet about a skrayling visitor, however well-disguised. He therefore rode ahead and ensured the entire household were too busy lighting fires and preparing supper to notice Coby smuggling Ruviq into the house as dusk was falling. She had her own apartments with a lock on the door to keep out prying eyes when she was undressing, so hiding the boy for a short time would be little problem. There were however a few suspicious glances when she appeared later that evening, and not a few mutterings when she asked to eat in her room.

After supper she came down and sat by the fire with Mal. The servants brought mulled wine laced with honey and lavender to aid sleep, and then left them alone. Coby knelt before the hearth and stared into the flames, her hands wrapped around the steaming mug. Mal coughed to get her attention, and she looked up, half her face red-gold in the firelight, the other in darkness. It took all his self-control not to fall to his knees beside her and drink from those wine-hot lips until…

“How are things?” he asked instead, glancing up at the ceiling. One could never be quite certain the servants were not eavesdropping.

“As well as can be expected,” she replied, taking the hint. “But the sooner we leave, the better.”

Mal nodded. “Pack tonight, and we’ll be away at dawn. The days are short enough as it is.”

He drained his own cup, bade her goodnight and retired to his own chambers, before he could do something they might both regret.

“It would have been safer to go by sea,” Coby grumbled one day as they rode through yet another small village where people stared at the three of them as they passed.

“The boy has been through one shipwreck already. I didn’t want to alarm him with another long sea voyage, especially at this time of year. The weather out in the Atlantic is far worse than our crossing to Corsica.”