Authors: Jude Fisher
‘No, sire,’ Southeye said firmly. ‘The coffers need filling. Bed her if you must; but wed her, no.’
Ravn sighed. This was going to be a tedious process. Not helped by the fact that the Istrian women were so wrapped about with fabric that you could barely tell whether they were fat or thin, keen or chaste. He liked the touch with the lips, though, all painted up to high heaven: that slash of colour in the midst of all the sombre robes. Did the Istrians have any idea how suggestive was that gesture, how lewd in its implications? He doubted it: they were a dull lot, too, more interested in commerce and their grim religion than the real pleasures life had to offer. Their women could probably do with a taste of the north: a bit of rollicking good fun, instead of the pained, pretentious pawings of their insipid husbands. He hadn’t yet bedded a southern woman: it was almost worth taking one to wed just for the novelty value . . .
‘My lord—’
There was a ruckus at the door.
He looked up to find that two young men had entered the tent, one, tall and flaxen-haired, supporting the other, a thin young man with long light-brown hair that had come free of its braids, whose entire right leg, though wound with makeshift bandages, was drenched with blood.
At once Southeye was off his bench. ‘Thuril! By Sur, lad, what happened?’
‘A scratch with an Istrian pin, Father, that’s all,’ the wounded boy replied, smiling weakly, and promptly fainted.
‘Istrians . . . drunk . . . in the nomad quarter,’ the flaxen-haired lad offered, short of breath. ‘A fight . . .’ he added, unnecessarily.
The Earl gathered his son into his arms. Ravn, roused at last by the prospect of something practical to do, was already out of the door and shouting for the royal ship’s healer.
The remaining lords exchanged anxious glances. Uncharacteristically, it was Egg Forstson, rather than the superstitious Stormway, who recalled the old saying: ‘Blood shed at the Fair marks the pattern for the year: lose one life, and there’s strife: more and there’s war.’
Aran Aranson, in the privacy of the curtained part of the Rockfall booth late that night listened to the regular breathing of his clan-members, then removed the map he had come by that afternoon from the interior of his tunic and turned it this way and that under the wavering light of his taper. It was, he concluded again, a most beautiful piece of work. It was not just the unusual use of the various coloured inks – violets and blues for the ocean depths, greens for the coastlines and scarlet for the landmarks – that commanded his admiration, but the extraordinary precision of the letters and the lines the map-maker had drawn. The handwriting was tiny, barely even legible, especially to one not well versed in reading; but each tiny indentation in the coastline promised a secret bay, each jagged line an outcrop or reef. But it was the rather vaguer markings towards the top of the map that drew his eye most seductively, for there, marked by the broken lines that suggested a shifting seaboard, amid an ocean labelled at intervals with the single word – ‘ice’ – lay the prize itself: ‘
Sanctuarii
’, the land of gold.
Almost unconsciously, his fingers went to the lump of mineral weighing heavy in the pouch against his hip.
Despite the late hour, there were still many revellers abroad in the nomad quarter: it seemed to be the place where all those seeking recreation had come, for the rest of the fairground was still and quiet. Recreation, and re-creation: Tycho Issian had made a momentous decision about his life. He would gamble all he had on one throw of the dice, in a single reckless gesture, and as long as he achieved the outcome he craved, he cared nothing for the rest of the world.
Desperation drove his stride. He elbowed his way through a tangle of folk watching a Footloose woman swallowing, in a particularly lewd fashion, dozens of flaming daggers tossed to her by a tattooed man in vast pantaloons, averted his eyes from a brace of painted prostitutes who were cackling and whistling at him through the gaps in their teeth (one of them, he realised in dismay, seeing the glint of white shells in her hair, was the woman whose services he had availed himself of earlier that day), then was diverted from his crow’s path by a large crowd gathered about what appeared to be some kind of freak show. Horrified (for those who devoutly worshipped Falla believed in the perfection of the human form – deformed babies in the far south of the country were routinely given to the Goddess, left out by night on the high, cold hillsides, where inevitably they gave up their ghosts to the starlight) he found himself suddenly transfixed by the sight of an armless child balanced precariously upon a two-headed yeka calf. Gripping the beast with its knees, it manoeuvred the yeka in neat, swift circles, stepping in and out of a course of red ribbons laid in devious patterns upon the ground, all the while grinning delightedly as the crowd erupted in enthusiastic applause. A small, round man in battered leather, with a silver ring through one ear and a gleaming stud in his nose, laughed loudly and laid claim to another pile of his companion’s coins.
Tycho looked away. To gamble thus on such a freak of nature seemed at best perverse, at worst a deadly affront to the Goddess. Not the best omen for his own venture.
It was with some trepidation that he arrived at the map-seller’s wagon. The money he had brought as a token of his good faith clinked against his thigh. The wagon, however, was in darkness. He walked around it, tried to peer through the curtained windows, but there was no sign of life. Except that, when he returned to the front of the wagon, having made his circumnavigation, there was a large black cat sitting alertly on the steps. He stared at it. The cat, unblinking, stared back, but when he put a hand out to it (he did not know why: he did not like cats at all) it stood away from him on its toes and all the fur on the top of its head rose into a fearsome-looking crest, which then proceeded to extend down the length of its back – now rounded into a tight arch – and spiked its long, snaking tail. It began to hiss.
Tycho took a step backward, and collided with the map-seller, who had appeared, as silent as a spirit, behind him.
‘I do not think the cat likes you, sir,’ the map-seller said in his peculiarly flat voice.
Tycho bit back the retort that formed behind his teeth. ‘No. It seems not,’ he said instead, giving the man a curt nod.
‘It is usually a good judge of character,’ the map-seller went on, reaching to pick the cat up and for once it was cooperative, lying in his hands as limp as a towel, but its ears twitched with annoyance and it regarded Tycho warily. The man opened the door to the wagon, and shooed the cat inside. It disappeared into the darkness without a backward look.
Tycho cleared his throat. ‘I have come to make a bargain with you, map-seller,’ he said, somewhat portentously.
The pale man observed him wordlessly. Then he smiled. The smile made Tycho feel uncomfortable. It was like watching a slick of scented oil spread across the surface of water in a bowl: something which floated on the skin, but had no deeper connection.
Tycho hastily untied his money-pouch and extended it to the map-seller. The man’s glance dropped to the pouch, but he made no move to take it from Tycho’s hand.
‘A down-payment,’ Tycho said quickly, before he regretted his decision.
The man quirked an eyebrow. ‘Ah, yes?’
‘For the woman,’ Tycho hurried on. ‘I will give you twenty thousand cantari for her at the end of this Fair. Take this as a deposit upon the full sum: there’s five thousand in the bag.’
Five thousand cantari was a huge sum in itself: you could purchase a herd of yeka for five thousand cantari; build a villa; buy a stretch of prime land. For twenty thousand, you could raise a small castle, keep a standing army. Tycho had never had twenty thousand cantari in his hands, or even with his banker, at any one point in his life. It was a large fortune. It was exactly the sum he expected to acquire by the end of the Allfair, having traded his daughter to the boorish, but very rich, Vingo boy. Once the Council had been repaid, he would have cleared a comfortable thirteen thousand . . .
He pushed the debt from his mind, and it fled willingly. Madness: this was madness, but he could not help himself.
The map-seller’s face had become oddly blank. Was it the face of a card-player judging the odds, Tycho wondered, or was he shocked into stillness? Either way, he decided to press home his point.
‘It is a very great sum of money, map-seller,’ he said, pointing out the obvious. ‘You could not make so much in a hundred Fairs.’
The man cocked his head. ‘Where is your land, Istrian lord?’ he asked.
It was an impudent question from a nomad. Outrageous, even. But Tycho cared little for etiquette now. ‘In the far south, bordering the mountains.’
The map-seller’s face became even more blank as if this consideration used all his reserves. Then he gave a little nod as if confirming something to himself. Then he took the pouch from the Istrian’s outstretched hand, weighed it consideringly, peered inside, and slipped it into his voluminous robes, where it disappeared without a sound.
‘I will accept your offer,’ the man said tonelessly, and Tycho’s heart leapt, ‘but on one condition.’
‘Anything.’
‘For your twenty thousand cantari you win yourself not only the most beautiful woman in the world, but also the services of myself and my cat—’ The man swept a low bow. ‘We cannot be separated, you see.’
Tycho frowned. What did he want with a map-seller, let alone his flea-ridden animal?
The man smiled again. ‘I can see the question framing in your mind,’ he said softly. ‘But we have our uses, Bëte and I. And I could not let the Rosa Eldi slip out into the world unaccompanied. It would be most . . . dangerous.’
‘I would protect her with my life.’
‘That, sir, is not what I meant.’
The man held his gaze in a disconcerting fashion until Tycho looked away. ‘As you wish then,’ he said briskly, doubts crowding in upon him. ‘You have the money as a token of my good faith: may I see the woman for a few minutes in token of your own?’
‘A moment.’
The pale man opened the door and slipped inside. There was a creaking sound, a rustle of fabric, then the low murmur of voices. A light came on in the interior of the wagon. The man reappeared, then turned and made a beckoning motion to the figure behind him. Tycho, who had rather hoped to be allowed to enter the wagon and share some minutes with the woman in its privacy, felt acutely disappointed, but all traces of regret vanished as the woman appeared, her eyes as round and black as the cat’s in the fitful light. She turned her head slowly towards the Istrian lord and regarded him, for the first time, full on. He thought his heart would burst the bounds of his ribs, it thundered so hard. His blood boiled in his ears, his face, his chest. He tried to smile at her, to allay her anxieties at such a bizarre situation, but found he could not. Instead, he found himself walking towards her like a man in a trance. When he was but a step away, his hands reached up and cupped her lovely face. He found it easier to kiss her with his eyes tight shut. As soon as their mouths met, her tongue flicked between his lips, as if she knew his whole desire. The sensation was so unexpected, so beyond description, that it turned his knees to water, his groin to fire, but when eventually he pulled away, he found her gaze upon him, full and intense, and knew that her eyes had been open all the while.
Eight
Rumours
D
uring the next day or so, the Fair was lively and for the most part well-tempered. Business went on with alacrity in the Istrian and Eyran sectors, deals were done and transactions completed, family alliances were sealed and goods were sold. As ever, folk took their pleasure in the nomad quarter; but everywhere you went there was a sense of indefinable tension in the air, as if strong words were about to be spoken, fists might fly, or tears might flow.
For those with sharp ears and the curiosity to listen, there were also many snippets of interesting conversation to be overheard:
‘They say the northern king will take the Lady of Jetra to
wed—’
‘Many would see that as a sacrilege, to send one of the Goddess’s own into pagan lands—’
‘Aye, well maybe it won’t come to that.’
‘How do you mean? Everyone is saying he’ll take the Swan . . .’
‘Ah, well when he comes to take her,’ the voice drops to a whisper, ‘there may be soldiers waiting.’
‘To do what? Surely even the Empire is not so arrogant it believes it can murder the northern king on sacred ground and come away unscathed?’
‘Not murder, no. Not from what my sources tell me.’
‘Then what?’
‘Have you noticed how the Council is calling in its debts at this Fair?’
‘I had: truly I was far from pleased when they came to me with their request. Early repayment, indeed. We settled on fifteen thousand now and the rest at Harvest month; but I had another two years to go on the loan, so I am not a happy man. But what has this to do with the northern king? Surely he does not expect us to pay him a bride-price, when he is stealing away our finest and best?’
‘Ah, no, I think not. Let’s just say the temptation of reaching the treasures of the Far West may be proving too much for our beloved Council.’
‘And the northern king is putting together an expedition . . .’
‘Exactly.’
‘If Ravn takes Keril Sandson’s daughter, we shall have to move fast.’
‘I have spoken with the leader of a band of freeswords: his price was most . . . reasonable.’
‘I’ve heard tell of a place where even the chamberpots are made of purest gold.’
‘I do not know why everyone is so ridiculously fired up by all this talk of the Far West. We’d do better to mine the ores out of our own mountains.’
‘Oh ho, you don’t want to venture too far into those. Monsters up there, I’ve heard: someone saw a giant with the head of wolf up there only the other week; aye, and huge flying lizards, too.’
‘The stories you believe! Truly, you are a gullible man, Pasto. You’d believe tin was silver and brass was gold.’
‘I would not.’ The voice was indignant. ‘But I do believe there are great riches to be had by those who are adventurous of spirit.’