Defiant Peaks (The Hadrumal Crisis) (39 page)

‘Ladies, excuse me.’ Zurenne rose and took her goblet to the neighbouring table.

Kheda smiled. ‘Your daughter is a credit to you. The Khusro women would be delighted to establish ties of trade with your barony.’

Zurenne shook her head. ‘That is out of the question.’

‘Why?’ Kheda challenged her under cover of the laughter from the other table. ‘Khusro Rina and his wives wish to restore trade with the mainland and Halferan could profit handsomely by leading the way. If Patri can offer the central domains such new luxury as that fine shawl, while Debis can swear by all the stars that they have rid their domain of magic, they may yet persuade Miris Esul’s wives not to turn their faces southwards for good.’

Zurenne took refuge in the answer which her mother had always used to end any argument. ‘The baron would never allow it.’

‘Corrain is no true baron,’ Kheda reflected. ‘Ilysh is Halferan’s heir. You could secure her position considerably if the mainland’s merchants had to follow in Halferan’s footsteps.’

Zurenne wasn’t about to discuss such any such notion. ‘Why is Khusro Rina’s eldest son not his heir?’ Let Kheda see how he liked impertinent questions.

The Archipelagan smiled. ‘Because the warlord and his wives judge their second son to be more fitted to rule.’

‘What does their eldest son think of that?’ Belatedly, Zurenne realised how rude that sounded and blushed.

Kheda looked at her unblinking. ‘I imagine he deems himself fortunate to have been born to Khusro where surplus sons are allowed to live. In some domains they are killed, before or after their father’s death. In others they are made
zamorin
or blinded or maimed in some other way which leaves them unfit to rule. I have learned that the leader of the corsairs who plagued you was just such an unwanted son, deprived of his eyes and discarded.’

Zurenne couldn’t believe how calmly the tall Archipelagan related such horrors.

Kheda smiled faintly. ‘You think we are barbarians? But we are an island people. We cannot let rivals tear the domains apart, dividing each group of islands into ever smaller dominions. We cannot send surplus sons to seek their fortunes over the next hill or even far away over the ocean in this new land which your wizards and mariners have discovered.

‘Consider this, my lady.’ He glanced at Ilysh. ‘No Aldabreshin warlord’s daughter would be obliged to marry her guard captain to save herself from men and laws allowing her no voice in her own fate. No woman with the wits to enrich her household with trade would have her horizons limited to breeding children and tending a husband’s whims. That would be considered barbaric from the northernmost Archipelago to the uttermost south.

‘The Aldabreshi consider it arrant folly and an abject breach of faith to grant rule over countless subjects to a man whose only claim is the accident of birth. What if a first-born son lacks strength of character or the ready intelligence to defend his populace with just laws and if needs be, astute leadership in battle?’

Zurenne thought of some of the Caladhrian nobles whom her beloved husband had cursed as too foolish to come indoors out of the rain. ‘But their own sons—’

Kheda laid his dark-skinned hand on hers. ‘We are not all barbarians. Khusro Rina and his wives follow the custom of many in the western reaches. They simply do not teach their other sons to read or calculate beyond the most basic arithmetic. No man could take on a warlord’s responsibilities without such skills.’

‘Oh.’ Zurenne couldn’t imagine that solution ever occurring to a Caladhrian baron cursed with an excess of sons resenting the eldest born.

Kheda withdrew his hand. ‘When Khusro Anai succeeds his father, his brothers will be allowed to join their married sisters’ households. Of course, that could still lead to problems in years to come but I have travelled widely through the islands and across your mainland. I have learned that no one realm or race has any more infallible wisdom than any other. Any more than any man can build a roof guaranteed to never leak.’

Debis’s thoughtful voice cut through the amusement at the other table. ‘Surely the fall of these symbols could be read as omens in themselves, as well as taking the outcome of a game for a portent.’

‘Oh, they are,’ Ilysh said with a ready smile, ‘among the Forest Folk and the Mountain Men. Cast one while you keep a question in mind. The upright rune suggests the answer, the reversed face offers a warning while the third which lands unseen reminds you of something you haven’t considered.’ As she spoke she rolled a bone onto the cloth.

Before Zurenne could see what the runes were, Kusint strode the length of the taproom.

‘This is sacred lore and not to be shared with barbarians!’

The Aldabreshin bodyguards might not understand his words but they assuredly saw the anger in his face. Leaping to their feet, their hands went to their sword hilts. Kusint halted and reached for his own blade.

‘Captain, do not dare draw steel in my presence!’ Zurenne sprang up, terrified that Kusint would be gutted before their eyes.

On his feet beside her, Kheda spoke in the Archipelagan tongue, harsh and commanding. Debis instantly rebuked him, her eyes flashing with anger. Quilar rounded on the three swordsmen with some scathing reprimand of her own. The bodyslaves retreated, shamefaced, to sit down again at their table.

Kusint remained standing in the middle of the taproom although he held his hands prudently wide of his weapon.

‘Forgive me, my lady Zurenne—’ he didn’t sound in the least contrite ‘—but the noble ladies of Khusro should be told that using the runes for foretelling is part of the ancient magic of the Forest and the Mountains which you call Artifice.’

‘Magic?’ Debis couldn’t have been more horrified if she had found herself juggling snakes.

‘Not wizard magic.’ Ilysh was on the verge of tears.

‘You have no knowledge of such Artifice, my lady Ilysh?’ Kheda walked over to the table and gathered up the bones.

Mute with distress, Lysha nodded, handing him the leather bag which had held the runes.

Kheda said something in his own tongue and Zurenne saw the fear and anger on the Khusro wives’ faces fade to wary relief. He gestured to the pearls scattered across the table and Debis Khusro forced a brittle smile, sweeping them into an iridescent heap with shaking hands.

‘Lady Ilysh, we beg your forgiveness for this misunderstanding. Please accept my sister Patri’s gift to your daughter as an apology from us all.’

‘You honour my daughter with such generosity and truly, there is nothing to forgive,’ Zurenne said quickly. ‘Indeed, I beg your pardon, most humbly.’

Kheda tossed the bag of runes to Kusint. ‘I believe these belong to you.’

The young captain plucked the bag out of the air and looked the Archipelagan straight in the eye. ‘How can you have dealings with magic without being stained by it?’

‘I killed a dragon.’ Kheda stared him down. ‘Its blood is the most powerful of all talismans against magic. The creatures will always shun any place where one of their own has died. They fear that whatever killed their kin still lies in wait for them. Since I was mired in such slaughter, that blood wards off contamination from any lesser sorcery.’

‘How—?’

Ilysh bit back her question but the tall Archipelagan answered anyway.

‘With ropes and nets and spears and swords wielded by brave men risking and losing their lives at my order, even though the beast was already half-dead from fighting one of its own kind.’

Zurenne couldn’t decide what astonished her more; this tale of bravery fit for some minstrel’s ballad or the self-loathing in Kheda’s voice.

The bodyslave Lafis said something under his breath which prompted an unfriendly laugh from Saie. The previously impassive swordsmen looked at Kusint with scarcely veiled anger.

‘Mama?’

Ilysh’s frightened whisper spurred Zurenne to clap her hands.

‘Captain Kusint. Return to the manor and ask— ask Sergeant Reven if Master Soviro has any news for Khusro’s noble ladies. At once!’ she added sharply as obstinacy flickered across the Forest youth’s face.

After no more than an instant, though it felt like an aeon to Zurenne, he bowed his coppery head. ‘My lady.’

He barely glanced at Ilysh but Zurenne saw his hectic flush of emotion as he turned for the door. So she and Corrain had missed the mark entirely, thinking that Lysha might be mooning after young Reven as the sergeant so visibly adored her. But that was a problem for another day.

She breathed a little easier as the door closed behind the captain, only for her heart to pound with apprehension as the Khusro wives rose to their feet.

‘We wish to see the view from that far window.’

‘I’m sure you’ll find it a very pleasant prospect.’

Zurenne saw the relief in Debis’s eyes as she answered that transparent lie with one just as flimsy.

Sitting down, she reached for her goblet, barely managing to avoid pouring the almond dregs down her chin. She watched the Khusro wives stand close together in low-voiced conversation. Whatever they were discussing, Zurenne would wager all the gold in Halferan’s strong room that it wasn’t the view of the village market place.

Kheda produced a square of hemmed silk from a pocket and scooped up the pearls, securing them inside a lumpy bundle. ‘These are yours, Lady Ilysh.’

‘Mama, I can’t.’ Lysha looked apprehensively at Zurenne. ‘That necklace was Lady Patri’s. It’s worth a prince’s ransom.’

‘You will accept her gift and thank her as courteously as you know how,’ Zurenne told her daughter in a forceful undertone. ‘I know you meant no harm, sweetheart, but the Khusro ladies are probably afraid that some magic has touched those pearls. Lady Debis as good as told Lady Patri that she must be rid of them.’

‘Your mother is right,’ Kheda confirmed. ‘But remember that pearls are a talisman against magic. That will have protected the Khusro wives.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Lysha’s lip quivered.

Zurenne sighed. ‘Nor do I, but we must do our duty to Halferan. Once Madam Jilseth has left with whatever she finds among the Khusro treasures, these ladies will return to their islands and search out our people still enslaved there.’

She must hold fast to that, Zurenne told herself, as the Aldabreshi women returned. She knotted her trembling hands in her lap. Knowing the fate of those lost guardsmen and saving those who still lived was her justification to Corrain or to Lord Licanin or any other baron who dared to chastise her or Ilysh for inviting these Archipelagans into Halferan.

‘We were wondering—’ Debis resumed her seat with a determined smile ‘—precisely what wares and materials your barony produces? Which merchants and markets do you favour?’

‘We rear a great many sheep.’ Zurenne began to elaborate, profoundly thankful for her unseemly knowledge of the demesne’s ledgers.

If they could keep conversation limited to such innocuous topics, perhaps they could get through the rest of this perilous visit without further incident, or worse, bloodshed.

To make quite certain of that, Zurenne silently vowed not to ask these Khusro ladies anything about Jagai ships in Col or to question Kusint about Soluran Artifice. Madam Jilseth would just have to find some other, wizardly means to learn whatever she needed to know.

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