Wellspring of Chaos (31 page)

The second shop on the side of the street away from the harbor held hats—broad-brimmed hats for women. The third shop was a tailor’s, and it displayed jackets and colorful vests, all of silk or light fine cotton, but for men.

Beyond the immaculate shops with their wide glass windows and open archways was a cafe under a white-and-black-striped awning. Both men and women sat at tables in the shade. Most wore shimmering white, the men in white trousers and boots, and embroidered white shirts with lace and designs in silver, and the women in loose white robes of some light fabric. The women also had filmy white scarfs across their bare shoulders, as if the scarfs would be used as cover or veils when they left the cafe.

Kharl strained to hear what they said, but realized that they must all have been speaking in Hamorian, because he understood not a word.

In his plain and worn carpenter’s grays, Kharl felt very out of place. He kept walking.

After returning to the Seastag just before sunset on the first day in Swartheld, Kharl thought, and read, then slept less than easily. He dreamed of white wizards in burgundy, in black and orange, and in flowing green—all speaking in languages he did not understand and doing all manner of wizardly tasks he could not have explained, let alone duplicated. He asked them, and they ignored him, as if he did not exist, and went on with their incomprehensible tasks.

He woke early the next morning, pooled in sweat, and not just from the heat and dampness of Swartheld. After deciding that he could not sleep longer, he eased out of his forecastle bunk, and slipped out with his clothes. He washed up as quietly as he could and then made his way topside.

In the gray light before dawn, Kharl stood at the railing near the bow. Even in the open air, there was not so much as a hint of a breeze. A light haze blurred the outlines of the buildings and the more distant piers and ships, giving them an air of unreality. For the moment, the pier was empty, without vendors and without teamsters and wagons, and Kharl relished the comparative silence. Even the city seemed hushed, and Kharl could hear the lapping of the harbor waters against the pier and against the hull of the Seastag.

In time, he heard footsteps, but he did not turn.

“You came back early,” Rhylla said. “With all your coins, I’d wager.”

“I didn’t take that many,” Kharl admitted. “I had an ale, and some supper. The ale was worth it.”

“They like their foods hot and spicy here. I think most folks in warm places do, but for the life of me, I don’t understand why you’d want to be hotter in a place that’s already too hot. But they do.“

“I don’t, either,” the carpenter replied, absently blotting a forehead he hadn’t realized was so damp until Rhylla had reminded him of the heat.

“Why did you come back early? If I could ask?”

“Something about the place bothered me,” Kharl paused. “And I saw a wizard, and he was wearing a uniform.”

“You didn’t know that?” Rhylla paused. “All wizards or mages have to work for the emperor. He pays well, they say. ‘Course there’s no alternative.”

“I saw that, too. He destroyed a man he said was a wizard who had broken the laws of Hamor. Something about being examined.”

“Huh… didn’t know that. Just knew that all the wizards and mages worked for the emperor. Anyone who tries to get one to do something for him without the permission of the emperor—that’s a death sentence.”

“A death sentence?” Then Kharl nodded. In a way, it definitely made sense, at least from the emperor’s point of view. “He controls the mages, and that means he controls everything.”

“I wouldn’t say that… the marshals are pretty strong, they say.”

“But if the mages and wizards are all under the protection of the emperor…?” Kharl looked at the third mate.

“Oh… frig… see what you mean.”

After Rhylla left, Kharl turned back to the railing to study the port city. Somehow, it wasn’t just a coincidence that the two strongest lands in the world were the two where mages and wizards were placed to support those who governed. Recluce had some sort of council where the Brethren had a strong voice, and the emperor controlled the mages in Hamor. Candar had once been strong, but when Recluce had destroyed Fairven and the White Order, Candar had fragmented into conflicting lands. From what Kharl had seen, most of Candar, except for Southport and possibly Diehl, was in decline. Even Brysta looked shabby, but both Nylan and Swartheld looked vigorous.

Still, while all that might be true, what could a mere carpenter do about it?

On the following afternoon, with one more day of loading to go before the Seastag was ready to put back to sea, Kharl decided to make another foray into Swartheld. He’d picked the late afternoon because he was off duty, because he wasn’t certain he wanted to deal with the human creatures of the night who frequented port cities, and because he had the feeling that there well might be more of the emperor’s mages about later in the evening.

When he left the pier, he forced himself to remain on the lower harbor way as he walked southward along the edge of the water. He hadn’t thought of it before, but none of the merchanters had iron hulls, and all had sails. Some were even full-rigged and without any form of steam power. Was that because of the cost of coal? Or for some other reason he didn’t know?

Yet warships were all iron-hulled, even the smaller gunboats of Brysta, and he had seen no merchanters with cannon. That made sense, in a fashion, because a white wizard could touch off gunpowder or cam-mabark and turn a wooden ship into an inferno. He still had no idea whether it was the combination of ordered iron vessels and the order of the sea that protected warships from mages or whether it was something else. He’d searched The Basis of Order, but as usual had found no definitive answers.

Ahead, there was a small crowd of men standing opposite an open window. When Kharl neared, he could see that a single woman danced slowly in the wide unglassed window of the tavern. Her body was covered with the filmy fabric Kharl had seen on the veil-scarfs of the women at the cafe—except the fabric was reddish and stained with the darkness of sweat. With the thinness of the fabric, little of the woman’s figure was left to mystery, and her figure was good, Kharl had to admit, although not any better than Charee’s had once been.

At that thought, Kharl swallowed. The sadness and emptiness still came when he least expected it.

“You want to enjoy one like this? Just a silver for a half glass… and she’s all yours, sailor man.” The big man who made the offer topped Kharl by half a head, and Kharl was not small.

“She’s too costly for my wallet,” Kharl said with a forced laugh, easing past the man and along the quieter space of the street immediately past the brothel. Was it just sadness? Or the sense that he and Charee had lost something over the years? Had they ever had that something? Or had their consorting just been an arrangement set up by their families and held together in the beginning by physical attraction and later by the boys? He shook his head. Why was he even asking himself such questions? He couldn’t do much about what was past and gone.

Across the harbor road he caught sight of a pair of Hamorian patrollers in their khaki uniforms. He watched the pair as they walked along the street. The two never relaxed, but kept moving, and each held a truncheon at the ready.

Abruptly, after passing the patrollers, who had scarcely given Kharl a glance, the carpenter turned left, away from the harbor, and began to walk up the gently sloping street toward the better sections of Swartheld. Farther south, he discovered, he had to walk a greater distance east before he reached the more prosperous area—almost eight blocks. But he did find another boulevard with shops and flowers and cafes with awnings and wide verandas—and he felt almost as out of place as he had the first time.

Yet, why should he have felt out of place? He wondered. He was nicely dressed, if not so extravagantly as those on the boulevard. He was not poor, or without coins. He had a respectable trade, and even a position, low as a subofficer on a merchanter might be.

He kept walking as he saw another set of Hamorian patrollers. This pair walked with empty hands, their truncheons in their belts, and they smiled, although their eyes still never stopped surveying the street and the shops. A woman, her head covered by the filmy scarf that was almost transparent, nodded to the patrollers. Both returned the smile, an expression of friendliness, but continued on their way.

From a distance, he saw another of the mages in black and orange, again an older man, accompanying a single patroller in khaki. The two turned eastward, moving even farther from the harbor. Kharl thought about following the pair, but almost immediately dismissed the idea. Instead, he turned back toward the harbor, hoping to find somewhere to eat, less fancy than where he was, but quieter and better than along the harbor way.

Finding such a place was harder than Kharl had thought it would be, and he ended up walking along side streets for what seemed almost a glass before he found himself before a low, dark redbrick building with tan window trim. The still air held unfamiliar scents of food, but without the rancidness of grease, and there was little hint of chaos about the premises—except for the thin residual whiteness that seemed everywhere in Swartheld. Kharl stepped inside.

Immediately, a servingwoman in tan shorts and shirt, with a dark brown apron and sandals, greeted him. “Yes?”

“A good meal and ale or lager?”

She looked puzzled.

“Food.”

She beckoned, and Kharl followed her into a long narrow room with a high ceiling. The off-white plaster gave an impression of coolness. Kharl settled into the small table against the wall.

“Drink… what kind?” the server asked.

“Light ale? Lager?”

She said something to another server, and got an answer back, then nodded at Kharl before slipping away. Within moments, a squarish older woman set a dark brown mug before Kharl. “Be two coppers.”

Kharl extended three coins.

She studied them and nodded. “Fare’s simple tonight. We’ve got burhka, cutlets, sea trout, and fowl in lemonweed with Luban noodles.”

“How much?”

“All the same. Four coppers.”

“I’ll try the last.”

“It’s the best. Be a bit.” She slipped away.

Kharl settled back into the chair and took another sip of the ale, enjoying it as it washed away the last of the dust in his throat.

Two younger men, but well dressed in white shirts and multicolored silk vests, sat at the corner table. Although their voices were not that loud, they seemed to carry to Kharl, perhaps along the smooth white plaster of the wall.

“… don’t understand the edict… just applies to outlanders trading here…”

“… not just to outlanders like us… another one… harsher… for Hamorians…”

“… no brimstone to Valmurl… but to Bruel? Why one Austran port and not the other? Not as though Lord Estloch has a huge fleet…”

“… no saltpeter or cammabark, either…”

“… doesn’t make sense… Valmurlans don’t use firearms… don’t use powder except for cannon, and they’ve got few enough of those… we’re supposed to give up good trade and coins…”

“… careful…”

“… mages don’t come down here…”

“… don’t know where they’ll turn up… walls sometimes report to the patrollers, too…”

“… still makes no sense… can ship dried fruits, but not grain?”

“… rich the only ones who can buy dried fruits… everyone needs bread…”

Their voices died away as a server brought two platters and a basket of bread to their table.

Kharl sipped his ale and considered their words. He didn’t care for the implications, not at all, and he knew he’d need to mention the matter to Hagen, although he would not have been surprised if the captain already knew.

Hagen had not been aboard the Seastag when Kharl had returned the night before, but immediately after eating the next morning, the carpenter made his way to the master’s cabin, where he knocked gingerly on the door. “Ser… it’s Kharl. I’d just heard something… thought you ought to know…”

“Come on in, carpenter.” Hagen’s voice was polite.

Kharl eased through the hatch door into the captain’s cabin. The space was large, but somehow not so large as Kharl would have guessed, with a double bunk built into the rear bulkhead, and a small closet, half-open, set into the left bulkhead. In the middle of the cabin was a circular white oak table, anchored to the deck, and behind that sat the captain. A stack of papers and parchment was at his left, and he still held a pen.

“What is it?”

“Captain… last night, I was eating at a place well away from the harbor, and there were two traders, outlanders…” Kharl went on to recount what the two had said, word for word.

When Kharl finished, Hagen nodded. He did not seem surprised. “I’d heard about the brimstone and saltpeter… but I didn’t know they could sell in Bruel.” A darkness dropped across his countenance, before he forced a smile. “I hadn’t heard about the grain because we don’t usually carry it, but it’s not surprising. Hamor’s been looking at invading Austra for years, and every so often they embargo goods, usually military equipment. They’ve had an embargo on gunpowder and cammabark for two years, but they decided on expanding that about a season ago to include brimstone and saltpeter and a few other goods.”

Kharl tried to keep his own surprise to himself. The two traders he had overheard had clearly been talking about an edict recently issued, and Hagen had known about it for nearly a season. “Is that why we’re carrying brimstone back, ser?”

Hagen grinned. “You noted that, did you?”

“I noted that it wasn’t all off-loaded at Dellash,” Kharl replied. “Why is Hamor going after Austra? Aren’t some of the lands in Candar better targets?”

“Some are weaker, but Candar lies close to Recluce. Also, it’s a long voyage from Swartheld, and under steam power, a costly one, with nowhere to stop for coal. Austra is much closer, and considerably smaller.”

“And Lord Estloch does not have many warships?”

“He does not.”

Kharl frowned. “But Austra is united under a single ruler, while Nordla has the four Lords of the Quadrant, and they agree on little, and have even fewer warships.”

“Nordla is far less prosperous, is it not?” Hagen laughed ironically. “What would be the point of spending thousands of golds, hundreds of thousands of golds perhaps, if one could not plunder the land to recover it, then tariff it heavily? Why does one seek to conquer anything?“ After the briefest of pauses, Hagen went on. ”Some think rulers seek fame and glory in war, but both are fleeting. No… most wars are fought for gain, either to keep another land from gaining an advantage in power and wealth or to extend one’s own power and wealth.“

“That’s not true if your land is attacked.”

“No… but you can wager—with heavy odds—that the one attacking has planned on great gain. Unless the ruler is mad, and few mad rulers survive to make war, and fewer still survive their wars. Of course, such madness is the ruin of their land and their people.”

“The Emperor of Hamor is not mad. He controls his own lands too well for that,” suggested Kharl.

“Who would know?” questioned Hagen. “In a land as vast as Hamor, the governing is done by the emperor’s minions. Good minions can conceal much about a ruler.” The captain snorted. “But you are right. The emperor is most astute, and all the world may suffer for that.”

Kharl could see that, and, despite the safety of the streets of Swartheld, he was less than certain that he would wish such a rule in either Nordla or Austra. He almost frowned, thinking that Lord West’s son Egen would—if he had the chance—govern with the power of the emperor and even less wisdom.

“That troubles you? Well it should.”

Kharl did not correct the captain. “That was all I heard, but I thought you should hear about it.” He smiled. “I thought you might already know, but I was not sure.”

“You see more than you let on, Kharl. That is a good trait.” Hagen smiled in return. “You’re welcome to remain as crew so long as you desire.”

“I thank you, ser. I’m still thinking of going ashore in Austra, but I will consider your offer, and I do thank you.”

“It’s my gain as well.” Hagen laughed, then looked down at the sheets of paper on the table before him.

Kharl stepped back and eased the hatch door closed as he left. The captain had known about the embargoes, and he remained worried about them. Despite Hagen’s laughter, the worry had shown through.

As he walked back across the main deck, Kharl realized once more that there was far more to Hagen than merely a trading captain. Kharl

had heard the references to other ships, but would even a merchant factor with a number of ships have known what the Emperor of Hamor was planning a season in advance? Kharl didn’t think so, and that left the question of what exactly Hagen might be, honorable as he appeared to Kharl and to the other crew members on Hagen’s vessels.