Elegy for a Lost Star (39 page)

“And in those days, there were far fewer warships than stand in port now.”

Gwydion swallowed, but said nothing. The taste of the desert air had gone suddenly drier, clogging in his throat and burning like fiery sand.

Anborn shifted awkwardly in his saddle, straining to see behind him.

“There was a sheltered point up a ways, if I recall,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at a convoy of horse-drawn wagons accompanied by
soldiers in the articulated leather armor of the mountain columns, units of the Sorbold army that defended the mountain passes hundreds of miles away near the capital of Jierna'sid. The caravan was making its way up the incline toward them on the ancient thoroughfare. “I think we should take cover there now, lest we be seen. My guess is that our presence is unwelcome here.”

The two spurred their horses into a loping trot over the rocky outcropping, climbing into the rough lands perched above the harbor, and took shelter behind the guardian rocks. When the horses were out of sight, Anborn gestured impatiently to Gwydion.

“Help me from this bloody saddle,” he grunted, unstrapping the bindings.

Gwydion dismounted quickly, then hurried to the General's side, assisting him down from the horse. Once down, Anborn shoved him away, and lowered his body, with the strength of his arms and chest, onto the ground, then crawled to the edge of the outcropping. He signaled to Gwydion, who crouched down and lay on his belly beside him on the sandswept cliff.

Silently they watched, heedless of the time that passed, transfixed by the sight below them.

In a little less than an hour's time they noted more than two dozen ships approaching the outer harbor, merchant vessels bound for the inner docks, running the gauntlet of warships. Those ships were boarded, checked, and sent onward with military precision; once in the harbor, their cargo was immediately off-loaded and packed into wagons, unlike the harbor at Port Fallon, in Avonderre, where goods were separated into merchant orders, then debarked by longshoremen from the individual merchants who had come to claim the cargo.

“What does that tell you?” the Lord Marshal asked softly, in the tone of voice he used when instructing the young duke in matters of import.

Gwydion stared down at the barrels and crates being systematically moved into a line of standing wagons.

“All the cargo is either going to the same place, or owned by the same entity?” he guessed.

Anborn nodded. “Undoubtedly the Crown. And to some extent that is not terribly surprising; the new regent emperor, Talquist, was the hierarch of the guilds that controlled these western shipping lanes prior to his ascension to the Sun Throne. But it's not the destination of the cargo that concerns me.”

“Then what does?”

Anborn pointed down the road beyond the rocky outcroppings.

“The cargo itself. Look.”

Gwydion followed Anborn's finger away from the starboard hold of the closest ship on the jetty, where the barrels and crates were being off-loaded
into wagons, to the port side of the same ship. He could see two lines of people, so distant as to be almost indistinguishable from the mass of others working the docks, disembarking from the vessel. The first line emerged from a higher gangplank; they were few in number, and ambulated at their leisure off the ship, where they dispersed into the crowds lining the docks. Gwydion presumed these were passengers.

The second line emerged from a lower gangplank, directly from the ship's hold. At first he assumed it was the crew, but on closer examination saw that the line was herded forward to a column of wagons, much like the cargo wagons, into which the human figures were then loaded. Gwydion counted more than one hundred from a single ship, stumbling and shading their eyes from the brightness of the morning sun. He shook his head as if to clear it, or escape a buzzing hornet, as a terrible realization took an insistent hold. When he could not escape it, the word fell out of his mouth.

“Slaves,” he murmured. “He's trafficking in slaves.”

Anborn nodded. He pointed slowly and deliberately to each of the two dozen ships that had docked within the time they had been watching, each of which was unloading human cargo from its starboard hold, packing the hostages into wagons, which were then disbursed in different directions along the trans-Sorbold passage.

“Slavery is not new to Sorbold,” he said in a low voice. “Leitha was empress for three-quarters of a century, an impressive longevity for someone not of Cymrian blood. In her time it was practiced quietly, with criminals and debtors, or war prisoners, mostly in the gladiatorial arenas. It was generational; a slave family remained captive until a male member of it could purchase freedom for his progeny, usually through prowess as a gladiator. But it was considered an ugly, if not particularly well disguised, secret. The number of arenas was fewer than one per city-state; that's less than two dozen in total.” He cast a quick glance behind him at the horses, then returned his gaze to the port below.

“In the past hour we've seen enough human cargo off-loaded to populate that entire gladiatorial structure. There are still a hundred merchants' ships outside the inner harbor, awaiting passage. And that's only today.”

“Could arena fighting have increased that much in the months since Talquist took the throne?” Gwydion asked, nauseated.

Anborn's eyes narrowed, still focused on the sight below.

“Possibly—Talquist has a reputation for fondness of that kind of blood-sport. But I would hazard a guess that only a very small part of this cargo is bound for the arena. These slaves are probably on their way to the salt mines of Nicosi, or the olive groves of Remaldfaer. But the more important question is not to where the poor wretches are bound, but from where did they come? If half of those ships contain as many captives as we've seen offloaded, that's the equivalent of the population of an entire city.”

“Sweet All-God,” Gwydion whispered.

“Indeed,” Anborn assented. “Invoking Him may be the only thing that can help now; if this has been going on all the while that Talquist has been regent, your godfather is going to have a nightmare on his hands.”

“Please elaborate,” Gwydion said, his hands going cold and beginning to shake.

Anborn rolled slightly to his side and motioned the young duke into silence.

From below them a rumble could be heard as another caravan of wagons crested the rocky rise of the passage. The two men watched as they rolled past, guarded by a cohort of Sorbold soldiers both in front and behind them. Gwydion winced at the sight of the captives, a host of ragged men, forlorn women, and thin, silent children packed into the carts like cattle on the way to the slaughtering houses. He counted eleven wagons, estimating that each contained more than two dozen slaves. Gwydion watched, a knot of increasing tightness choking his throat, until the dust of the thoroughfare had settled and the sound had died away. He leaned over the cliff edge slightly and saw similar caravans making their ways in other directions, into the mountains and along the seacoast, bearing similar cargo.

“Tell me more of the implications of this nightmare,” he said finally to Anborn.

The General exhaled, still watching the port below.

“A certain amount of increase in trade is to be expected when a guild hierarch, someone who has excelled in the mercantile all his life, assumes a throne,” he said quietly, not watching Gwydion's face. “That's not what we are seeing here. Slaves such as these are not for the amusement of the arena; they are for the production of goods. We are seeing the buildup to war, also not unexpected, though Talquist has been hiding behind a cover of peace and the cultivation of prosperity in his lands.

“What is terrifying is the scale—we came here on an ordinary day, without being seen, and have witnessed, therefore, an ordinary day's activities. If this is how Talquist operates on an ordinary day—if Ghant has gone back to being a military port, with ships offloading supplies totally possessed by the Crown, then the scale of what he is planning is unimaginable. It dwarfs the buildup to the Cymrian War—and that conflict almost destroyed the entire continent.”

“Is there any other possible explanation?” Gwydion asked, already knowing the answer.

“No,” Anborn said flatly.

“Then the only thing to do is to return to Navarne at once and warn Ashe,” Gwydion said.

“Indeed you must.”

The young duke blinked. “Me? You're not coming?”

“No. I'm here, so I may as well make use of the journey. I'm going to ride east to Jierna'sid and scout as many of the harbor points, mines, work-fields, and arenas as I can along the way. Once I get to the capital, I will gather as much intelligence as I can, then I will return and aid your godfather in planning the strategy for the war I've told him all along was coming.”

Gwydion fought down his panic, which had risen above the knot in his gorge and was threatening to choke him.

“Alone?”

The Cymrian hero reached out had steadied the young man's shoulder.

“You can do this; do not be afraid. The honor guard is suitable to defend the coach if you are attacked, and the sword you carry will be a decided advantage against any brigands you should engage, or soldiers, if it comes to that, but it won't, because Talquist will not wish to tip his hand by assaulting a noble in the Cymrian Alliance, at least not yet. If you follow the route back that brought us here, you will be fine, Gwydion. Once you're out of Sorbold you can stop at any of the way stations of the guarded mail caravan and demand aid. You're the duke now; they will give you whatever you want, including supplies, a fresh horse, and escort back to Navarne. Just keep all the lessons I've taught you in mind.”

“I—I meant you, alone,” Gwydion stammered. “How are you going to make it across the Sorbold desert—”

The Lord Marshal's brow darkened like a thunderhead. He raised himself up on his elbows and slapped the ground, sending a scattering of sand into Gwydion's eyes.

“I'd been traveling this continent alone for centuries before your father was an itch in your grandfather's trousers,” he scowled. Then he dragged himself over the rocks to where the horses waited, and slowly, painfully crawled up his mount's side, until he was clinging to the stirrup. Gwydion hurried over to him, but the ancient hero slapped him away, pulling himself with great effort into a vertical position, his useless legs limp beneath him. Gwydion could only stand there, suffering silently, as he watched Anborn struggle into the saddle. Finally, when he was atop the horse, he looked down at the young duke with a mixture of triumph and exhaustion in his eyes.

“Mount up,” he said, his voice ringing with the tones of a general. “I will accompany you back to the honor contingent in Evermere, then as far back as Jakar; I want to see what is happening in the gladiatorial arena there. After that you're on your own, but you will be just over the border of Tyrian. I suggest you ride the forest road; your ‘grandmother's' status as Lirin queen will assure your safety there. Tell my nephew that I will be back as soon as I have fully ascertained what is going on in this godforsaken sandbox, but in the meantime, he should be girding the loins of Roland and the entire Cymrian Alliance. It may already be too late.”

The rest of the way home Gwydion's pulse was thrumming in his ears. The drumbeat grew louder when he parted company with Anborn on the crossroads of Nikkid'saar, the gambling borough in the western city-state of Jakar. From the coach window he watched the ancient hero, his mentor and friend, disappear into the endless lines of foot and mounted traffic that plied the roadways of the city, hoping that this sight of him would not be his last. Then he ordered the contingent to turn west to Tyrian, on his way back to his ancestral lands and the mantle of responsibility that awaited him there.

In his mind he practiced endlessly the words he would use to break the news to his godfather that the war Anborn had so long predicted was finally coming. He pushed the honor guard to ride at double pace, finally leaving the carriage at a way station just inside the border of Roland, riding on mount the rest of the way home. His mind focused on silly things as they flew over the ground, like how far outside his keep he would need to stop and make himself less unkempt before entering, how he would communicate to Gerald Owen the urgency of his need to see Ashe without giving away his terror to the servants, how he would break the news to them without appearing as childish and frightened as he felt.

By the time he reached Haguefort, Ashe was gone.

O
utside the window of the vast library, the snowflakes drifted down lazily on the warm wind, melting before they touched the earth.

Ashe looked absently out the window, bored with the grain treaty he was rewriting. His dragon sense had been observing the flakes in their descent. Thaw was here; winter would return soon in its fury, making travel more difficult. He chuckled to himself; he was looking for reasons to leave again.

It had been more than a month since he had last visited Elynsynos's lair, had been able to hold his wife and sing to his child under the approving eye of the wyrm who was caring for them both. For all that he missed her presence with the intensity of a dragon missing its treasure, he had come to believe that her decision to visit with the beast was a wise one. She was much more hale and at ease under Elynsynos's magical care and fond ministrations.

The door of the library opened silently; had he not been aware, by the nature of his blood, of every minuscule happening within a range of five miles, he would not have heard Portia come in. He had to acknowledge, albeit grudgingly, that Tristan had been correct about her worth as well as that
of the other servants he had loaned to Ashe and Rhapsody. The two other women were still awaiting their full usefulness, but Portia had quickly become an invaluable member of the household staff. She was quiet and unassuming, entering a room or delivering a message in a way that was never disruptive. Oftentimes she was gone without even leaving a trace of her vibration on the air of the room.