The Proof House (38 page)

The horse wanted to go left, following the coastline up towards Ap’ Bermidan. Iseutz had no strong feelings on the matter either way. They turned left; and before long they were on the outskirts of the town, passing the square wooden frames where the fishermen hung up their catch to dry in the sun and the wind. She took note of the fish as she rode past, contorted by death and desiccation into melodramatic writhing shapes, stiff as boards and flaking loose scales. Dipped in olive oil or smeared with a little garlic butter, the stuff tasted like greasy firewood, and none of the locals would touch it. Instead they shipped it inland, where it was reckoned a delicacy.

As she reached the edge of the harbour, a shallow half-moon enclosed by a long artificial spit extending from a projecting spur of rock, she saw that there were only two ships tied up at the quay. One of them was a short, stubby galley, the pitiful excuse for a ship that was all the Imperials knew how to build. The other was completely different; curved and tapered at each elevated end like a slice of melon, with small castles fore and aft standing high above the water. She hadn’t been a merchant’s daughter very long, but even she could recognise a Colleon long-haul freighter. She reined in the horse, frowned, then grinned. It was pointless, of course; they’d never go for it, and besides, the timing would be all wrong - they’d probably only just arrived and would be in no hurry to leave. Nevertheless, she couldn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t give it a try. All she could do was fail.

There was a small gang of men loading barrels on to the ship with a block and tackle. ‘Hello,’ she said. They stopped what they were doing and looked at her.

‘Where are you headed?’ she asked, hopping down from the horse.

There was a long pause, then one of the men said, ‘The Island.’

‘That’s a bit of luck, then,’ Iseutz replied cheerfully, ‘because that’s where I’m headed.’

The man who’d spoken looked her up and down. ‘Merchant?’ he asked.

Iseutz realised that her ludicrous outfit was just the sort of thing an Island merchant might be wearing. ‘Courier,’ she replied. ‘For the Shastel Bank. Just letters,’ she added with a smile, ‘no cash money, so there’s no point throwing me overboard as soon as we’re out of sight of land. I missed my connection a few days back and I’m running really late, so if you could possibly help me out, I’d be very grateful. And so would the Bank,’ she added.

‘Not up to me,’ the man replied.

Iseutz nodded. ‘Then if you could possibly see your way to telling me where I can find whoever it is up to—’

The man jerked his head up at the ship. ‘Captain Yelet,’ he said. ‘You got much stuff to take? We’ll be off soon as this lot’s loaded, or we’ll miss the tide.’

She smiled, shook her head, unfastened the saddlebag and slung it over her shoulder. It was surprisingly heavy, and as she held it against her cheek, she thought she could hear the chink of money.

‘Captain Yelet,’ she repeated. ‘Thanks ever so much. See you later.’

The captain wasn’t hard to find; but by the time she tracked him down, checking the fastenings in the cargo hold, she’d had a chance to peek inside the saddlebag. Fool’s luck: there was a small fortune in there.

‘You want to be careful,’ the captain warned her gravely as she counted out two gold quarters into his huge round hand. ‘Travelling on your own with that much money.’

Iseutz shrugged. ‘I manage,’ she said.

 

Dear uncle
-

She’d never even tried to write left-handed before. It was still a mess, but much better than she’d ever managed with the stumps of her right.

As the sun set, so the wind had dropped, and at last the ship was holding still long enough for her to be able to put her ink-horn down beside her on the deck with a reasonable chance of it staying there. Quite the treasure trove, that saddlebag; as well as the money she’d found this adorable little traveller’s writing set, pens, powdered ink, a dear little penknife, ink-horn and stand, all in a flat box you could use to rest on. And her fool’s luck didn’t end there; after Captain Yelet concluded his business on the Island, he was heading for Barzea, where he was sure he’d be able to find a jute-dealer headed for Tornoys who’d be only too pleased to deliver her letter. It was turning out to be a good day after all.

Wasn’t over yet, of course. There was still a drop or two of blood to be squeezed out of the sun before it set, enough time for the soldiers’ galley to show up and arrest her, assuming that they’d heard about this ship and figured it right. That was what ought to happen; but in the other pan of the scale was the luck of the Loredans—

(
After all, Uncle Gorgas managed; I wonder how he did it. Did he ride to Tornoys, that day I was conceived, and just happen to find a ship on the point of sailing for Perimadeia? Did he open the saddlebags on my father’s horse and discover a fat purse of money, enough to buy him his passage across the sea? Did he stop to wonder how much further he could get before the rope ran out?
)

She thought for a moment, trying to find the right words. Never an easy job at the best of times; when the course of one’s entire life may hang on a misunderstood nuance, decidedly ticklish.

(No need to specify further.)

-
and I think a change of scene would do me good. Needless to say, I promise I’ll behave
-

(Or would that strike the wrong note? A lot would depend on whether the letter reached him before the official pronouncement that she was a wanted fugitive, and that in turn would depend on whether Captain Yelet was going straight to Barzea after stopping at the Island or working his way up the coast making deliveries and running errands, and whether the price of jute was good enough at the moment to justify the Barzea ropewalk owners buying in raw materials from the Mesoge. On balance, better to leave it out; he wouldn’t believe her anyway, or care particularly much.)

-
A change of scene would do me good. I feel as if I’ve been cooped up in this dismal place for simply ages; and besides, it’s been years since I last saw you. How are Uncle Clefas and Uncle Zonaras, by the way? You realise, I’ve never met them, so that’d be something to look forward to. So if you could see your way
-

(No. Don’t plead.)

-
Oh, one other thing. According to the captain of this ship I’m on, there’s not much leaving the Island right now - something to do with the provincial office chartering anything that’ll float; I’m so behind with the news that I’ve probably got that all mixed up - so if by any chance you happen to know of any ships sailing to the Island from the Mesoge and back again, could you possibly ask the captain to look me up and take me back with him? I don’t quite know yet where I’ll be staying; I don’t know anybody on the Island, so I expect it’ll be an inn somewhere
-

(The right degree of pathos there, or should she stress it a little more? No; being obvious would most likely prove counterproductive.)

When she’d finished writing the letter, she sealed it up with a drop of the rather splendid blue sealing-wax in the writing set - she was just about to press down on the little cornelian seal when it occurred to her that Uncle Gorgas might just conceivably know the man she’d stolen it from, and that could cause problems; so she marked a big L for Loredan with her thumbnail instead - and took it to Captain Yelet, who made a great point of putting it away safely in his own document case, neatly curled up in a smart brass tube. Apparently the captain had formed the impression that she was the daughter of some prosperous Island family, sent abroad on her first errand, who’d made a mess of things and missed her boat, so that helping her out would quite probably pay dividends in the future. She hadn’t said anything to him herself; so presumably it was the chain-mail blouse and daintily embossed hardened leather cuisses of the warrior-princess look that misled him.

‘It only goes to prove what I’ve always maintained about us,’ said Eseutz Mesatges, watching the tenders loading up beside the City Wharf. ‘We aren’t really businessmen, we’re romantics. We play at commerce because it’s fun, the same way other countries play at war. We aren’t in business to make money; it’s just an excuse for a good time and exciting adventures.’

‘Now that’s not—’

‘Ignore her, Ven, she’s just being perverse,’ Athli interrupted, before Venart Auzeil could reply. ‘Aren’t you, dear?’

‘Certainly not.’ Eseutz perched on the edge of a large bale of Ap’ Imaz wool and rested her elbows on her knees. ‘I meant every word of it. If we really cared about money, we’d be sad right now, because it means this wonderful deal is drawing to a close; but I can feel the waves of relief wafting over from you lot like cooking-smells on a hot afternoon. You were bored just sitting still and taking the prefect’s money for nothing. Now something’s happening, you’re all looking forward to watching a cracking good war, then getting your ships back so you can get off this poxy little island and out into the big wide world again. Admit it,’ she said with a grin, ‘I’m right. Probably,’ she added, ‘sheer force of habit.’

‘Yes, Eseutz,’ Athli said severely, ‘anything you say.’ But she had to admit, there was a certain degree of truth in what Eseutz had just said. As a non-Islander she could see it; they, of course, couldn’t, as was only to be expected.

City Wharf derived its name from the traffic it had been built to serve, the regular exchange of goods between the Island and Perimadeia. When the wharf was built, there hadn’t been any need to specify which city, just as when you talked about the sky, you didn’t have to identify which sky you were referring to. Since the Fall (on the Island, the word Fall was equally unambiguous), business on the Wharf had dropped by over a third. Only Colleon freighters called there now; the Islanders’ ships sailing for Shastel, the Empire and the west started their journeys from the Sea Dock or the Drutz. It was like old times, people were saying, to see the Wharf crowded again; a sign of things to come, they added hopefully, as and when the provincial office rebuilt Perimadeia and reopened her countless factories and workshops.

‘It’s about time they dug out the Cut,’ said Venart, who’d been following this line of thought. ‘Ever since the Fall it’s been silting up. If people are going to start using the Wharf again—’

Athli smiled. ‘Rather a big if, don’t you think?’ she said. ‘The fleet hasn’t even sailed yet, and already you’re dreaming about new business opportunities.’

‘You’re putting words in my mouth,’ Venart replied grumpily. ‘I’m just saying, the Cut needs some work doing on it, and the longer we leave it, the worse it’ll get.’

The Cut had been a thing of wonder in its day, a canal dug across the Island from the Wharf to the Drutz in a dead straight line, right through the low hills just above Town and (thanks to the team of Perimadeian engineers who’d built the thing two hundred years earlier) under the White Mountain by way of a mile-long tunnel chipped out of solid rock. Compared to the Cut, the small man-made harbour on the other side was a fairly ordinary achievement; but it was the harbour that bore the name of Renvaut Drutz, the chief engineer, not the canal that was undoubtedly his greatest achievement, both in terms of magnitude and utility. That was the Island for you.

‘Well,’ said Vetriz Auzeil, who’d been sitting quietly in the shade of her small painted parasol, ‘I agree with Eseutz; at least, I think I do. The sooner they’ve had their blasted war and we get our ships back again, the sooner Ven can get back to work and I can have a little peace around the house. He’s been insufferable these past weeks with nothing to do. The day before yesterday, he spent three hours making a written inventory of the linen-closet—’

‘Only because you never—’

Vetriz ignored him. ‘You should have seen him, it was comical. “Item, one sheet, worn, sewn sides to middle, white, discoloured. Item—”’

Eseutz giggled. Athli smiled and said, ‘How very practical of you, Ven. Now if ever there’s a fire, you’ll have a record for the insurance.’

‘No, he won’t,’ Vetriz objected. ‘When he’d finished it he put it in the document cupboard in the counting house. It’ll get burned to a crisp along with everything else.’

‘My mother used to do that,’ Eseutz said. ‘Patch up old sheets, I mean. By the time she died, pretty well every scrap of cloth in the house had been mended so many times it was more twine than cloth. The whole lot ended up going to the paper mill. And it wasn’t that we couldn’t afford to buy new; she was just compulsive—’

‘Just as you are,’ Athli observed, ‘only the other way round. All the times I’ve been to your house, I’ll swear I’ve never seen the same wall-hangings twice.’

‘That’s business,’ Eseutz retorted. ‘Stock in trade. Anything I haven’t got room for in the warehouse I hang on the wall. Then when people come by and say,
My dear, where did you get those divine hangings?
I make a sale.’

The tenders were the traditional Island pattern, not found anywhere else; long, clinker-built barges with impractically high keels that served no known function and added days to the time it took to build one. From the front, they looked for all the world like a black swan landing on the water. Now they rode low in the water, wallowing under the weight of the bales of supplies and provisions that were appearing as if by magic from the lofts and doorways of the warehouses that faced the Wharf. The warehouses were probably the most beautiful and imposing buildings on the Island; built in imitation of a hundred different architectural styles from a hundred different places, no two of them were the same. Merchants who were happy to live in small, cramped apartments and drafty attics behind inconspicuous doors in the ramshackle streets and alley-ways of Town had spent fortunes on decorating the façades and metopes of their warehouses, arguing that they spent more time there than they did at home and met their customers there. The Great House of the Semplan family was seven storeys high, had solid brass doors twelve feet tall and three inches thick, and was faced with Colleon marble decorated with bas-reliefs depicting ancient sea battles; a hundred years ago, every detail of the sculptures had been carefully picked out in red, blue and gold paint, which the salt sea air stripped away within a matter of a few months. Nobody had the faintest idea whose the ships were, or what battle was recorded; Mehaut Semplan had taken them in settlement of a bad debt from a customer in the City, and spent as much as she’d originally lost on the deal getting them home and putting them up. The Semplan House, in the lower end of South Town, was hidden away behind a bonemeal store.