Assassin's Edge Read online

  “I think we’d better talk about this some other time,” Shiv said hastily. He caught Usara by the sleeve. “As you say, Archmage, there are other aspects to this that we’d better consider more fully”

  He forced Usara through the door and closed it quickly as the sandy-haired wizard shook himself free with visible annoyance. They descended the stairs in mute irritation.

  “What was that all about?” Usara burst out as they reached the courtyard. “I know he’s been short-tempered lately but that was just impossible!”

  “Maybe we just picked the wrong moment,” Shiv said dubiously. “He looked dog-tired. What do you suppose is keeping him burning the midnight candles? Larissa?”

  Usara shook his head. “She’s spending a lot less time with him. I hear the gossip is upsetting her.”

  “What did she expect, letting Planir charm her into his bed?” There was little sympathy in Shiv’s response. “She’s his apprentice.”

  “He’s genuinely fond of her,” Usara insisted.

  “But she’s a diversion from his cares, not someone he’d share them with. He must miss Otrick.” Shiv’s voice was sad as he trod on the patterned shadow cast by a leaded casement now opened to the morning air.

  “We all do,” Usara sighed. “And who’s Planir got to talk to, now the old pirate’s dead?”

  “Pered doesn’t think Planir’s taken time to grieve for Otrick properly,” Shiv observed. He grimaced. “I win the washing up till next market day. Pered bet me Planir wouldn’t just give us leave to go.”

  Usara looked back at the Archmage’s lofty window. “Perhaps we should have told him the whole plan.” His words tailed off into uncertainty.

  “We agreed we’d take it one step at a time,” Shiv said firmly. “Anyway, who do you suppose is coming to see him first thing before breakfast? Maybe that’s why he was in such a contrary mood.”

  They passed through the gateway and fell silent as a couple of yawning apprentices crossed their path. Usara led the way out to the less exalted buildings of the high road where Hadrumal’s tradespeople were setting about the more mundane occupations of their day.

  “What do you say to some bread and cheese?” Shiv nodded towards a small shop whose solid shutters were now let down to form a counter stacked with flagons of water and wine and baskets piled high with rolls fresh from some nearby bakery.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to see who came and went for a chime or so,” agreed Usara.

  Vithrancel, Kellarin,

  15th of Aft-Spring

  If you want anything else to drink, we’ll have to raid your cellar.” I dumped the flagon of ale on the table in front of Halice.

  She fetched earthenware goblets from the dresser and poured. “What makes you think I’ve got any wine left?”

  “Knowing you better than your own mother did.” A knock sounded at the front door and I wondered who was being so formal. We were in the main room, too small to be called a hall for all the house boasted the dignity of the separate kitchen. “Come in.”

  The door opened to reveal Zigrida’s grandson Tedin. “Grandam’s compliments and it’s a loaf for the corps commander’s lunch.”

  “My thanks to her.” Halice smiled at the lad standing barely eye-level with her belt buckle. “And you did well this morning. You kept your head and ran fast.”

  Tedin ducked his head on a gap-toothed grin of pleasure as he set the bread on the table and scurried away.

  “What’s that man of yours got in the pantry?” Halice asked as the boy pulled the door closed behind him.

  I went to look. Well aware I should barely be trusted to pod peas, Ryshad was responsible for all our cooking and food stocks. “There’s a fresh cheese.” I sniffed the moist muslin bag hanging on its hook cautiously. “Mutton and onion pie and some pickled mushrooms.” Ryshad must have done some notable service to get such precious remnants of a good-wife’s winter stores. I peered dubiously at the label of a small stone jar sealed with waxed cloth and twine. “Pickled broom buds?”

  “I haven’t seen those since I was a child.” Halice came through to carry food to the table. “The old women made them to offer at Drianon’s shrine.”

  “Ryshad wouldn’t have put them in the pantry if we couldn’t eat them.” I shrugged and cut bread. Halice opened the jar and tasted one before nodding approval and taking more.

  “What will Minare have Peyt’s mob doing to earn their crusts?” I asked through a mouthful of tasty mutton pie.

  “Setting fish traps in the river.” Halice grinned. “An afternoon up to their stones in cold water should damp down their embers.”

  I tried one of the broom buds, finding it mildly aromatic with a faint bitterness, not unpleasant. “What are you going to do with Peyt?”

  Halice spread soft white cheese on a heel of bread. “He’ll be upriver to Edisgesset.” Mouth full, she stumbled over the name the colonists had bestowed on the mining settlement in the hills. “He can fetch and carry for the charcoal burners for a season or so.”

  “Will they have enough ore for smelting this summer?” I queried.

  “They opened up the diggings well before Equinox,” Halice pointed out. “And the sooner we’ve got metal, the better for trade. Shipping back fur and wood’s all very well but cargo like that takes up a cursed lot of room for its value.”

  “The right furs can be worth their weight in gold. So can pretty feathers for Tormalin ladies’ fans.” After a visit home last summer Ryshad had been full of notions for trapping any bird with a gaudy tail.

  “Hmm.” Halice gestured with her knife as she swallowed. “What I want is to find some of those grubs that make silk. If Kellarin could break the Aldabreshin monopoly, we’d be set for life.”

  “If hums were hams, beggars would go well fed.” I took a slow drink of ale. “I’m thinking about trying my luck in the wine trade. Do you think Charoleia would be interested? Will she still be in Relshaz?”

  “She was overwintering there.” Halice applied herself to her meal. “I don’t know which spring fair she was planning to visit, Col or Peorle, and there’s no telling where she’ll head after that.”

  “Let’s hope we hear from her by an early ship.” Charoleia would doubtless be charming travellers riding home across the length and breadth of the countries that had once made up the Tormalin Empire, relieving them of their spoils from the Equinox fairs of the great cities. I thought a trifle wistfully of the gaming that had gone on without me.

  Halice’s thoughts were still in Kellarin. “Are you thinking of setting up as a proper wine factor with your own warehouse or just taking orders and a commission for settling them?”

  “I hadn’t really thought.” I took an apple from the bowl on the table.

  “Then think and get your pieces on the board before someone else has the same notion,” Halice told me firmly. “It’s too cursed good an idea to let slip. My cellar’s as dry as a drunk in the morning. And talking of drunks, has Peyt really been sniffing round Catrice?”

  “I’ve no idea where she was flirting her petticoats before Solstice.” I peeled the apple, wrinkled from the store and soft beneath leathery skin but sweet with the memory of last summer’s sun. “She’s kept company with Deglain since the turn of For-Spring. I can vouch for that.” There’d been precious little entertainment to brighten up the winter beyond keeping track of the neighbours.

  Halice looked thoughtful. “So it’s his babe.”

  “Unless Peyt caught her in a dark corner and wouldn’t take no for an answer.” I offered half the apple to Halice.

  Halice shook her head. “He’s all mouth and hair oil but he wouldn’t risk that. Not with nowhere to run but the wild-wood. He knows I’ll flog any man till his ribs show for rape.” She cut another slice of pie with her belt knife. “Who threw the first punch?”

  “Deglain,” I said reluctantly. “But Peyt came looking for a fight. Deg just wanted to sleep off his drink.”

  “Raeponin’s scales don’t tell g
old from lead.” Halice grimaced. “Mercenary rules mean the one who started it gets the heavier punishment, even if only by pennyweight.”

  “You’re going to send Deg to Edisgesset?” I reckoned we should try weighting the god of justice’s scales. “Is he still a mercenary? He’s been working at a trade since before the turn of the year.”

  Halice scratched her head. “I’ll tan Peyt’s arse for him if I’ve picked up his lice,” she muttered. “That’s a good question. If Deg’s thrown in his lot with the colony for good, he’ll be D’Alsennin’s problem.”

  “He’ll be tied to a colony family soon enough, if Catrice’s mother has anything to say about it,” I pointed out.

  Halice chuckled. “I never thought I’d see Deglain chivvied with a copper-stick.”

  “He won’t be the only one, not by Solstice,” I opined.

  Halice nodded at the auburn hair brushing my collar. “You’re growing a wedding plait to lay on Drianon’s altar, are you?”

  I made a derisory noise. “What do you think?”

  “What does Ryshad think?” she countered with the direct gaze of a friend close enough to take such liberties.

  “Save your breath to cool your broth,” I told her firmly. “Think about this instead. The line between who’s a fighting man and who’s a colonist will only get more scuffed with every match and every passing season. We should draw up some rules before that game really gets into play.” Which would make a more interesting day than doing laundry.

  Halice nodded. “Let’s see if we can pin D’Alsennin down long enough to talk it through. It’s time that lad faced up to his responsibilities,” she added with relish.

  We finished our meal and I avoided Halice’s amused eye as I dutifully cleared the table and washed up. You’d need a knife at my throat to make me admit it, especially to my housekeeper mother, but truth be told, I didn’t particularly begrudge such necessary tasks. And Ryshad had more sense than to expect the constant clean linen and immaculate house his mother devoted her every waking moment to. I still considered that a waste of time, even now the novelty of so much leisure hanging on my hands was wearing off.

  Outside, the generous sun of Kellarin encouraged neat lines of seedlings in gardens vivid green from a sprinkling of rain the night before. I took an appreciative breath of clean air, far better than the stench of foetid gutters that plagues even the best of towns. Cruck-framed houses dotted the rolling landscape in all directions, a few already showing wings added to accommodate growing families. There was plenty of room for such expansion and every plot had been liberally measured to allow for a pigsty and a hencoop as well as a sizeable kitchen garden. Not that such bounty was much use to me who’d grown up in a city where fruit and vegetables arrived on costermongers’ carts.

  “You want to be getting your plants in,” Halice observed. For all her years with a sword at her side, she’d grown up a smallholder’s daughter in that border district where the hilly land’s too poor for Lescar, Caladhria or Dalasor to be bothered who claims it.

  “Getting dirt under my fingernails?” I scoffed. “I’ll see who’s willing to wager some sweat. A day digging my vegetable patch should make a decent stake for someone.” Someone who’d want coin to spend when the first ships arrived.

  Goats were tethered on the common grazing cut by tracks already taking on the breadth and permanence of roads. We passed a lad struggling to get a peg in the ground while his beast prodded him with malevolent horns. “Peyt’s less use than that billy,” I observed, “and he smells worse. Can’t you just ship him back to Tormalin?”

  Halice laughed. “Peyt could have his uses. Getting between me and some Ice Islander for one.”

  The chill that made me shiver had nothing to do with the fluffy white clouds fleeting across the sun. “We’ve none too many decent fighters left, not since Arest took his troop to Lescar.” I wondered which of the continuously warring dukes had the gold and good fortune to secure his services.

  “We’ll see familiar faces back before the sailing season’s half done.” Halice was unconcerned. “Allin tells me there’s been camp fever all over Lescar through the latter half of winter.”

  “Lessay should be smart enough to get clear of that.” But Arest’s lieutenant had still opted to leave last summer. Land may be valuable, he’d said over a farewell flagon, and granted, it can’t be stolen or tarnished, but it’s cursed difficult to spend a field on drink or a willing whore. I couldn’t argue with that.

  Genial, Halice swapped pleasantries with toiling colonists busy in burgeoning gardens and met sundry acquaintances bustling about their errands. Village life was what she’d grown up with, everyone living in each other’s pockets. I picked pockets when pressed into a tight corner and moved on swiftly. I’d been raised as a Vanam servant’s daughter in the midst of that busiest of cities where my mother kept herself to herself and not just to avoid the pitying glances of those inclined to patronise an unwed woman with a minstrel’s by-blow at her skirts.

  I smiled and chatted but still found it unsettling to be so readily recognised by folk I barely considered neighbours. After half a lifetime making sure I went unremarked, I found this an unwelcome consequence of living with Ryshad. He’d helped half these people with something to do with their building and had dealings with the rest in his unofficial capacity as Temar D’Alsennin’s second in command. I’d yet to find a subtle way of letting these people know that gave them no claim on me.

  Eventually we reached the wide river curling through the broad fertile plain between the hills and the sea. Indistinct in the mouth of the spreading estuary, I saw the solid bulk of the Eryngo, Kellarin’s biggest ship, riding secure at anchor as the crew made ready for their first ocean voyage, just as soon as the holds were full with goods to raise Kellarin’s credit back home. Closer to, the bare ribs of half-built ships poked above tidal docks hacked out of the mud the year before.

  Halice’s gaze followed mine. “Our own caravels should be exploring the coasts before the last half of summer.”

  “Do you think the Elietimm will try their luck this year?” I didn’t mind letting her hear my apprehension. “They’re not dogs, to take a lesson from the whipping we gave them.”

  “We’ll be a match for anyone looking for trouble.” Halice sounded equal to the prospect. “Peyt and his mob will step up smart enough if it’s a choice between fighting back or having your skull split and I’ve told D’Alsennin I’ll be drilling any colony lads bright enough to swing a sword without braining themselves.”

  I knew for a fact Ryshad wasn’t keen on that idea, concerned that the lads would find their loyalties split between D’Alsennin and the mercenary life. Well, that wasn’t my problem, and anyway, I had more serious concerns. “What about Elietimm magic? Swords don’t do so well against that.”

  “Arrows and crossbow bolts kill an enchanter just as dead as anyone else.” Halice looked out towards the distant ocean. “I can’t see Guinalle and young Allin letting their black ships sneak up unnoticed. Let’s hope for the best while we plan for the worst. With Saedrin’s grace, all those ships will have to do is surveying.”

  Halice turned to follow the track leading upstream towards Temar’s newly finished residence. A woman passed us, full skirts sweeping the grass, decorous kerchief around her head.

  I looked after her. “That’s Catrice’s mother.” The woman hailed one of the boats busy about the placid waters of the river.

  “Off to see Guinalle, I’d say. Let’s see what the demoiselle reckons to all this before we corner D’Alsennin.” Halice used her fingers to blow a piercing whistle and a mercenary called Larn promptly turned his boat towards us. A native of Ensaimin’s lakeland, he was currently earning his bread ferrying up and down the river.

  “Want me to wait?” He showed Halice the deference of all sensible mercenaries.

  She shook her head. “We’ll see ourselves back.”

  I got carefully into the boat, bigger than the cockleshell skitt
ering across the estuary with Catrice’s mother but still none too secure to my mind.

  “You really should learn to swim,” commented Halice.

  I stuck my tongue out at her. “It’s hardly a necessary skill for a travelling gambler.” Vanam is as far away from any ocean as it’s possible to get in the erstwhile provinces of the Tormalin Empire.

  Sitting, I took an unobtrusive grip on the thwart. As Larn leaned into his oars I studied the far bank of the river. The all-entangling vegetation had died back from the stone ruins over the winter and had yet to reclaim them. That laid all the more starkly bare the decay of Kellarin’s first colony, founded generations before Vithrancel was even thought of.

  More than attitudes and priorities separated the colonists and the mercenaries. Temar D’Alsennin and his hopeful followers had crossed the ocean an astonishing thirty generations ago, turning their backs on the dying days of Tormalin’s Old Empire. From their wistful recollections, all had seemed paradise for the first couple of years but then they’d suffered the first fatal onslaught of the Elietimm, ancestors of those same Ice Islanders who’d plagued both sides of the ocean for the past few years. Those early settlers who hadn’t been slaughtered fled upriver, hiding themselves in caves discovered while prospecting for metals. Ancient magic had hidden them all in a deathless sleep until the curiosity and connivance of the Archmage had unearthed the incredible truth, lost for so many years thanks to the Chaos that followed the death of Nemith the Last.

  I’d enjoyed witnessing the discomfiture of Hadrumal’s conceited wizards when the ancient magic of Tormalin had proved to be nothing to do with their own mastery of air, earth, fire and water. I’d been intrigued to discover the same aetheric enchantments could be worked through those ancient songs of the Forest Folk, whose blood ran in my veins thanks to my wandering father’s fancy alighting on my maidservant mother. On the other side of the coin, that Artifice had been able to lock those colonists helpless and deathless in the shades between this world and the next still gave me the shudders and then there was Ryshad’s distrust of Artifice. I wasn’t so interested in it to risk losing him. I realised I was absently twisting the ring he had given me round and round on my finger.