Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3) (15 page)

“Good! See, it’s not so hard. Distance is all that’s left—look here—this line translates to fifty miles.”

Idisio blinked, reassessing. From Bright Bay to Agyaer port made sense, but from the Wall to Scratha Fortress was twice that far, at a guess; and they’d stepped over it in moments. He shut his eyes for a moment, feeling vaguely ill, and hoped he’d
never
have to go through one of those weird portals again.

He looked up and found Cafad watching him with a peculiar expression.

“Idisio,” the desert lord said, his tone shifting to a different flavor of seriousness. “It’s been a long road since we met, and it didn’t start out well at all. I’m sorry for how I treated you.”

“Don’t,” Idisio said involuntarily. His eyes burned, not quite tearing, but hot and raw-feeling. “Just because you know I’m ha’ra’hain now—”

“No,” Cafad said. He sat down behind his desk, regarding Idisio gravely. “I was sorry long before that. It took Riss to make me realize I’d been in the northlands too long. I wasn’t raised to treat servants with violence or contempt. I disgraced my Family with my actions, and I can’t erase that stain.”

“Lord Scratha—”

“I pray,” Cafad said, ignoring the half-protest, “that my blows were the last you’ll ever receive, and my harsh words the last you’ll ever hear directed your way.”

Idisio bit his lip, not sure what to say.

“I’m not all that nice a person,” Cafad said. His mouth quirked. “But at least I recognize my mistakes, and try to amend them. So to Idisio the street-thief, I say: you’re honorary Scratha. It may come in handy, places where you don’t want to be seen as ha’ra’hain but need some status to throw around.”

Idisio’s breath caught in his throat. “Thank you, Lord Scratha.”

“You earned it,” Cafad said. “As such, and as ha’ra’hain, you can come and go here as you please, and take whatever you like from the fortress stores, treasury, and kathain.”

Idisio flinched. “They’re not
chairs,”
he said, surprised at his own vehemence. “You can’t just give them away like that! What happened to not treating servants with contempt?”

Cafad’s eyebrows arched, then settled into a frown. “I’m not offering you a traveling companion, nor a whore,” he said. “I don’t have that right. Kathain choose such things for themselves. I’m offering you your due courtesy while you’re
here.”

Idisio looked away, his ears burning again.

“Idisio,” Cafad began, then stopped and sighed. “You’re still northern,” he said at last. “Try not to let that influence your reports to the king too much.” Paper skritched and shuffled. “Here—take this letter to Oruen. I’ve given you Scratha’s formal backing, as I told you. Work with Deiq and Alyea on that accent of yours, by the way, before you step in front of him again. It’s gotten better, but you still sound like a tradesman at best, not a respectable noble.”

Idisio took the sealed packet; it had a definite heft. Cafad had written a half-dozen pages, at a guess.

“What’s wrong with trades?” he said, a little sullenly.

“Nothing at all,” Cafad said, “if you’re a tradesman or a lesser. But you’ll be among nobles. They won’t respect you, ha’ra’hain or not, if you sound like a katha village reject.”

Idisio shivered, words tangling together in his mind.
Kathain.
Anada.
Katha villages—

Bile scorched his throat briefly. A grey haze covered his vision, then cleared to reveal a flash of bright red hair tangled with black. The ground swayed beneath him, as though he were back on that godsbedamned ship.

He shut his eyes and breathed deeply, shoving the vision aside, forcing his knees steady.

Opening his eyes, he found Cafad watching him with narrow-eyed consideration.

“Another vision.” Cafad didn’t bother making it a question.

“I haven’t been having them as often,” Idisio lied. “It’s nothing.”

“Have you spoken to Deiq about this yet?”

“I’m fine. I didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all. Need a nap.”

Cafad pursed his lips and lifted a shoulder in a faint, irritable gesture that said without words:
You’re a damn fool, but have it your own way.
Idisio grinned more from nerves than amusement.

“Lord Scratha, thank you,” he said all in a rush. “I owe you—”

“Nothing at all.”

“—everything,”
Idisio overrode him. “I would be dead by now if not for you. Anytime—if I can help. With anything. I will.”

Cafad dipped his head in a slow nod, his fierce dark stare never leaving Idisio’s face. “Gods walk with you and keep you safe,
ha’inn,”
he said soberly.

Idisio couldn’t resist. He tossed back, “May your hands always find gold and the guards look to the sky as you pass.”

Cafad laughed, the weary strain lifting from his face. “Street thieves,” he muttered. “Go get a nap. You’ve a long road tomorrow, traveling with the teyanain; and under an unchancy time of moon, at that. But I have a feeling
you’ll
be fine, somehow.”

Idisio offered a short bow, grinning with real amusement this time, and left.

In the northeastern caravan yard, the odors of horse dung, sour beer, sweaty humans, oil, metal, and dirt competed for dominance. Tank resisted the urge to wrap a piece of cloth around his face to block out the dust and smoke swirling through the air. The rainstorm had turned the dirt into quagmire, churned by boots and hooves alike; Tank slogged through the muck with immense care. Falling or losing a boot would be equally catastrophic at the moment.

He paused by the first caravan corral he came to. Inside was a contraption that had probably started life as a noble’s in-town coach. It had been poorly modified into a long-haul carriage, with bags and boxes precariously strapped or bolted to every available outer surface, thicker wheels that didn’t match the delicate frame, and a few crude attempts at reinforcing the light structure with metal and wooden bars.

A single overfed grey gelding was being strapped into harness by an equally fat, sweaty, irritable woman; it kept jerking its head up out of her reach as she tried to settle the carriage-bridle into place.

The woman looked up at the sky in exasperation, then caught sight of Tank. She glared at him and snapped, “Whatcher want, then? Lend a hand or stuff yer gawk up yer bootside.”

He blinked, sorting out dialect; finally decided she’d said
backside
not
bootside,
and stepped forward.

“Glad to help,
s’a,”
he said. “Mind telling me where I might find Venepe along the way?”

She straightened and considered him with a sour squint. “You think I know everyone in this godsforsaken yard?” she demanded. “Help or get clear. I’ve no time for gossiping with a redling.”

He turned his back without comment and took two steps away from her.

“Tuh,” she said. “C’m’ere, redling. What you want with that sheep-bagger escapes me. Get this leather over onto the bedamned trocker’s head for me and I’ll tell you. Husband usually does it, but the bagger’s off swapping clods with his knits. Damn fool.”

Tank resisted the urge to smile—or ask for a translation—and dutifully followed the woman’s directions. The grey gelding rolled its eyes irritably but allowed Tank to settle the straps about its head.

The woman nudged Tank aside once the carriage-bridle was secure and began busily clipping lines together along the body harness and carriage rails.

“Venepe’s up ahead,” she said as she worked. “Go straight until you come to the yellow featherman’s spot, then turn left. Venepe’s up just past the black double-team. He’s a sour little clod. You can’t miss him.”

I won’t miss Dasin, at any rate,
Tank thought, the double meaning of which killed any remaining impulse to smile at the woman’s odd dialect slang and bizarre carriage.

“Thank you,
s’a.
Good journeys.”

“Tuh,” was all she said, shaking her head, and ignored him after that. He clumped on, trying to walk on the few non-mucky spots as much as possible.

The
featherman
turned out to be a man who sold birds: not live ones, but parts-pieces, from feathers to claws. His small, sturdily built carriage was a bright yellow, painted with colorful depictions of his wares. He himself dressed in vibrant blues and reds, with lace edging at the sleeves. His large black hat featured a single enormous firetail-bird feather, and tightly bound silvery-black braids draped over his shoulders.

As Tank passed, the featherman climbed up to the driver’s seat of his carriage and set his team into motion, whistling cheerful and startlingly accurate imitation of several birds in rapid succession. His two bay mares, less enthusiastic, leaned into the harness, straining to drag the carriage through the sticky mud; as though by way of comment, one lifted her tail and added somewhat to the stench. The carriage lurched forward, sliding more than rolling. After a few lumbering steps, the wheels caught and the carriage jolted into true motion.

Tank turned to the left and went on.

The black double-team was easy to spot: two massive draft horses leaning sleepily against one another in the shade of a massive, ivy-draped pine tree. Beyond them stood a cart heavy enough to have pulled raw ore down from the northlands. Tank paused to study the beasts, noting the difference between their bulky build and the leaner riding horses he was—marginally—accustomed to. The hooves alone seemed larger than his head; he wondered if they were even
able
to break into a gallop. They’d probably leave craters in the road along the way, if they ever did.

He wondered what the cart would haul back north. It was likely to be a lighter load, unless the merchant involved had an arrangement with the Stone Islands marble quarries. Dasin had always been better at understanding trade matters, but Tank knew enough to figure by; and the coastal southlands didn’t have anything heavy to offer the north. Possibly the lands south of the Horn might, but that trade wasn’t easy for northerns to get and ran more expensive than an ore-cart hauler could likely afford.

He was delaying.
I can still turn around...
It was a tempting option. But Dasin being out of Aerthraim Fortress and attached to a local merchant meant that Tank would have to deal with him sooner or later.

Might as well be now. And he didn’t
have
to take the contract. He was only going to find out what Dasin was doing here, nothing more. Say hello. Say goodbye.

He shrugged at the horses, who showed no interest in him whatsoever, and went on. A stone’s throw past the black double team paddock, a sturdy, wide-bellied carriage with slanted vents along the top edges stood atop a series of wide planks, keeping the wheels out of the muck. Two bored-looking bay geldings stood at the far end of the small paddock, their long tails busy warding off flies. Closer to Tank, two men sat crossways on a rough wooden bench, facing one another, their heads bent together over a thick book turned sideways on the bench. One was older, with sweat-lank, thinning brown hair and a round figure; the other, his back to Tank, seemed barely wider than the bench he sat on, and his long, pale blond hair had been bound into an intricate series of braids, then tied back out of his face.

Tank paused at the rail of the paddock. The older man looked up immediately, scowling; then his eyes narrowed and he cut a sharp glare at the blond.

“This that redling you were telling me about, then?” he demanded.

The blond startled upright, turning before he was even clear of the bench; cursing, the merchant snatched the book up out of the way.

“Godsdamned—”

The rest of the epithet was lost as Dasin nearly tripped over the bench, hopped sideways on one foot to get clear, slid in the muck, and brought the other foot down hard in an effort to catch his balance. Mud sprayed and splattered. Tank ducked back reflexively. The merchant swore again, hunching over his book to shield it.

Tank grinned, straightening.

“You’re graceful as ever,” he commented. In the distance, the Palace Bells began to toll, marking off two hours past noon.

“Hopefully you’re a better dancer than your friend here,” the merchant said sourly, glaring at Dasin. “He
says
you’re a fighter.” His gaze tracked to the sword bound, southern-style, across Tank’s back. “Didn’t believe him when he said he knew a redling southerner. Your kind’s all up by Stecatr, far as I know.”

His tone made it clear he’d prefer them to stay there.

Tank set his teeth in his tongue, amusement fading. A glance at Dasin caught a frantic head-shake, warning Tank not to take issue; but
damn
he was getting tired of being called a redling. For all that he’d stood out in the southlands, he’d never been insulted over something as trivial as his hair color so routinely and casually.

Insults are what you make of them,
he remembered Allonin telling him.
They have the power you give them, and nothing more.
That had seemed remarkably sensible, within the yellowed walls of Aerthraim Fortress; at the moment, it seemed remarkably foolish.

But when do you make a stand?
he’d asked once.
When do you fight?
And Allonin had said, as though the answer ought to have been obvious:
When you have no other choice.

“Merchant Venepe,” Dasin said, shoulders hunching a little, head ducking to one side, “this is—”

“Tank,” Tank interrupted, not wanting the other name to come out if it hadn’t already been said.

Dasin squinted a little, the slant of his head more intrigued now than embarrassed.

“You have no grace and he has no manners,” Venepe said. “Terrific.” He stood, more carefully than Dasin had. “Let me go put the stock book somewhere
safe.”
He glowered at Dasin again, then turned toward the wagon.

Dasin let out a long breath, rubbing a hand over his face, then came over to the fence, moving with exaggerated care. Face to face with Tank, he stood a handspan taller; his pale blue eyes searched Tank’s face as though reading something new and unexpected there.

“Tank, huh?” he said. “Good thing I never gave Venepe a right name, apparently. I wondered, when that iron-assed captain at the Hall wouldn’t allow to you being around.”