A Shadow on the Glass (63 page)

As the sun rose from a sea of mist the ferry emerged silently from the gloom, disgorging a crowd: farm laborers, travelers, a pedlar and others whose purpose seemed innocent enough. The laborers shouldered their tools and headed p the path at once. The others waited on the jetty while an assortment of boxes, bags, trunks and other packages was unloaded. Then the group that had been waiting silently to board the ferry pushed forward, only to be beaten back by he crewman who stood astride the single gangplank. Eventually
order was established and the passengers began to file in.

It was at this point that Llian noticed a tall, lean, sharp-faced fellow standing beside the ferry, watching. Finally the embarkation was complete, the plank was drawn on board and the ferry slipped away. The watcher stood on the wharf until the vessel disappeared into the mist that still hung about the middle of the river, then walked slowly back to the shore and stood looking around idly.

Llian retreated into his cover. Several hours went by. Every so often the watcher walked a little way along the path, first upstream, then downstream, then came back and resumed his station. After the last such walk he returned hurriedly, slipping into the trees on the downstream side of the path. The next ferry was coming.

The sentry made his way past. Llian reached down and picked up a knobbly stick. A mutter came from the road. Several clots of people were making their way down the path.

Taking advantage of the moment, Llian picked up a thin dry stick and snapped it with a crack. The man turned sharply, looked around, then back to the people moving down the path. Llian flicked the broken stick so that it landed a few paces to his left with a soft rustle—the oldest trick in the world, but his quarry was taken in. He crept to ward the sound, dagger in hand. Llian could hear his breathing. From his features he could have been one of the stretcher-bearers of the previous night.

He parted the bushes to one side of Llian with his knife. Llian gripped his stick, hesitated, then the sentry reached out to the bush that separated them. Suddenly there came a shout from the wharf and running feet. The ferry had arrived. The sentry slipped his knife back into its sheath and turned away.

Now!
thought Llian. He slid out between the bush and the tree and dealt the sentry a clumsy blow to the side of the head. The man fell to his hands and knees, tried to get up, then Llian leapt on his back and knocked him down. He tied him up with strips cut from the sentry’s shirt, gagged him with a piece of his shirt, threw his weapons and money in the river and raced up the plank just as the ferry was leaving. He paid the fare with coppers and sat down inside, head down and hood low over his face.

The journey of half a league across the great river took the best part of an hour as the ferry slowly ground its way along the cable. On the other side Llian made his way unhurriedly along the wharf in the midst of a crowd of travelers and so out into the streets of Name.

Name was the largest town in the area, and a trading port of some importance. It was a place of perhaps ten thousand people, but had been greater in the past, and now many of the buildings were empty and ruinous. The waterfront was covered in wharves, boat yards and warehouses. In the middle of the town was an oval-shaped park, with large old trees and a moss-covered stone temple in the center. Surrounding the park the old public buildings were of stone, but away from the center the plan failed and Name quickly degenerated into a tangle of narrow, unpaved streets crammed with tall wooden apartment buildings, terraced houses and ruins.

Llian made his way to a grimy part of town near the river and there found an inn. He paid extra for a room all to him self, extra for hot water, and lay in the bath until the mud of the past days was washed away. Then he barricaded the door and slept until dark.

That evening he spent in the taverns of Name, cautiously listening to the conversations of drinkers, occasionally asking an oblique question, but he gleaned nothing. It was clear
that he was not the only one asking questions in Name, though; people spoke of prying strangers that could only have been Aachim, and Llian realized how conspicuous he was, with his shaggy brown hair, among these close-cropped, black-haired people. When shortly the looks of the townsfolk became unfriendly he walked out into the night and strolled down toward the waterfront. He was not made to be a spy; he would have to find another way.

At the river Llian turned right and walked slowly down stream. Beside the ferry landing was a series of wharves, built out into the river on timber piles that were tarry, rotting and encrusted with weed and small black mussels. The warehouses, like most buildings in Name, were long rectangular structures built of unpainted planks. Most were raised above flood level on poles. The roofs were shingled. The waterfront was quiet, except at the second warehouse, where through the open doorway a group of laborers was manhandling a bale from a tall stack onto a trolley.

He stood outside for a while, watching the operation. The bale was large and heavy, and at the crucial moment one of the laborers slipped. He lost his grip, the bale plummeted to the ground and burst open like a fan, sending raw wool across the floor and scattering the workers. An overseer snatched his lamp out of the way, cursing the offender roundly. Llian moved hastily away from the doorway, as though he might be blamed for the incident.

Beyond the last of the warehouses was a straggle of dingy cottages, also made of planks, several with small boats drawn up on the bank beside them. He examined each carefully then walked back the other way. At the wool ware house the mess had been cleaned away and the workers were busy with another bale. Past the ferry jetty the ware houses extended just as far in the other direction. Llian came to a set of slipways, on the farthest of which a man was hauling
up a boat, similar in design to the one Llian had seen the previous night, with a winch. Many other boats were tethered fore and aft to piles driven into the river.

He walked the length of the boat-mooring area, then back again slowly, examining each boat. He did not see the vessel he was looking for. He turned upstream once more and there it was, near the end of the row, partly covered in a can vas sheet: the figurehead of a chacalot. Llian stared at the boat, sure that it was the one, wondering what to do now that he had found it.

Abruptly a voice from behind him growled, “What’re you doing, sneaking round my boat, eh?”

Llian turned. The speaker was a plump man who spoke with a nasal accent. His face was in darkness. Llian had his story ready.

“My name is Garntor,” he said boldly, using the family name of his grandmother. “I’m looking for a friend, a young woman with red hair. I saw her in your boat, one night past. Do you know where she is?” Then he said softly, “I’ll pay well if you can help me.”

The man took a step backwards. The light from a street lamp fell on his unshaven face. He appeared taken aback.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered. The accent made everything he said into a whine. “Boat’s been here this last week. No work for me, that’s what Kids’ re starving, eh!”

You certainly aren’t, you fat pig, Llian thought. “Look,” he said, “I don’t want any trouble. I just want to find my friend. I’ll pay well,” he repeated, jingling the coins in his pocket.

Fear and avarice fought each other on the man’s face. Avarice won. “Hardly paid nothing,” he whined. “Promised a lot, but paid nothing. Few coppers, that’s all, and took me boat for two nights. And expect me to say nothing, eh!”

Llian found the man’s habit of ending his sentences with a nasal “eh!” irritating, but he merely smiled and jingled the coins in his pocket again. The man licked his lips.

“I’ll give you a silver tar if you will tell me who hired your boat, and where I can find them,” said Llian.

The man’s eyes gleamed in the lamplight; he licked his lips again and said, “Not enough. They’ll come for me. Have to go away, won’t I? Five silver tars, that’s what it’ll take, no less.”

Llian frowned, then turned away, making a play of counting the money in his pocket. He turned back.

“Three silver tars and two coppers, that’s all I have.”

The other held out his hand, but Llian took a step back wards. “First the story.”

But he took Llian’s shoulder and hissed, “Not out here. Come behind the boat” Llian removed the grubby hand but did not budge.

“There’s no one coming. Tell me here.”

The man grew agitated. “Not here. Keep your tars!” he said, and turned away.

“All right,” said Llian, and reluctantly allowed himself to be drawn behind the boat. The darkness was intense.

“Seven there were,” the man began. “Two women and five men. The tall woman was the leader, eh! ‘I want your boat,’ she said. ‘One night, maybe two. I pay good money. No one must know. You must not come near.’”

“When was this?” asked Llian.

“Rode in, in a great hurry, three nights ago. All seven went in the boat. Back before dawn, just her and two others. Upriver they’d been. Night before last they go again, eight o’clock. Hard pull for two, eh! Back after midnight: three in the morning maybe. Six of them, the other on a stretcher. And a girl with red hair. Dead, she looked. Can’t hide
from old Pender. Too late; in with the worms by now she’ll be, eh! Pity.”

He held out his hand. “There, that’s worth three tars.”

“Where did they take her,” Llian demanded coldly, ignoring the hand.

“Don’t know,” mumbled Pender.

“Of course you do,” said Llian, following his intuition. “You followed them. They were easy to follow, for one as clever as you, and they took the girl somewhere nearby, did they not?”

“Not nearby,” Pender said, then stopped, flustered. “Well, course I followed them. Had to know what they did,” he continued, with ill humor. ‘Took her to a big house in the old town, three from the end of Mill Street. Has a spire at the front, falling down. That’s all I know. Give me my money,” he said surlily.

Llian counted three silver tars and two coppers into the hand. Pender slipped the money into a rear pocket and waddled off. Llian stood looking after him, unsure that he had done the right thing. He pulled out his knife. “Pender!” he called. Pender came back reluctantly.

“I trust that I can rely on your silence,” he said, holding the knife up so that it caught the light. Pender stopped dead. Llian stepped forward and grasped him by the shirt. He squirmed; stitching popped. “You’ve already betrayed them. Give me a reason why you won’t me.”

Pender’s eyes bulged. “Choking me, master,” he gurgled. “I know I look bad, but I give service when paid. The woman, she promised, but she still hasn’t paid. I owe her nothing.”

Llian looked at Pender, wondering. “I think I can trust you,” he said. “Prove it and you shall have another five tars. Betray me and I will surely kill you and throw your woman and children into the river.”

The man became so abject that Llian almost began to regret his threats. “Master, master,” he wept. “Trust me. Keep your tars, only leave us be. Name is a cruel place for foreigners. Trust me, eh! You paid well. I won’t betray you.”

“Very well,” said Llian. “See that you don’t. Be off now.”

Pender disappeared into the darkness. Llian stood there for a moment, then followed. A door crashed nearby. He crept across a yard, bare save for an aged tree and a straggle of flowers beside the step. The yellow light of an oil lamp shone out through a window of little panes. Within, Llian saw a room shabbily furnished and the fat man sitting on the bed with his head hanging, while two children clung to a small woman with dark hair. He turned away, guiltily, thinking: What should I have done? Pender didn’t look as though he could be trusted. Still, if he were to meet me in daylight I doubt that he’d be so frightened.

M
aigraith watched Faelamor until she disappeared in the forest, then she continued down the stream. It was mid-morning; they had been searching for more than two hours, but without success. Now it began to rain; only a misting rain at first, but enough to hinder her. It was ages since the last footmarks, and they had been far upstream. Perhaps they hadn’t followed the stream any further—they might have gone in any direction. How tired she was. Though her escape from Fiz Gorgo was over a month ago, she had still not fully recovered. How could she have, al ways hurrying, never enough sleep, afraid of what lay be hind her and what might be ahead?

She leaned against a tree, its rough bark pressing into her shoulder, while she tried to think. They were probably going to Name, but might have taken any way, and how could she find them except by chance? They were strong—they might even go openly. Better to go straight there and watch the waterfront.

Maigraith turned away from the stream and headed through the forest toward the ferry wharf. Had she delayed she would have encountered Llian as he followed the stream down toward the Garr, and the whole future of the Three Worlds might have been different, but by a bare half hour they did not meet. She was reproaching herself for rejecting Faelamor. The confrontation, so long in the making, had at first elated Maigraith, but that had passed leaving a bitter residue of duty neglected. No, wilfully cast aside, and with nothing to replace it.

Maigraith suddenly remembered the horses. She headed back to where they had been left, but the ropes had been cut and the mounts were gone. She turned around again and fought her way through the forest between the river and the path. That was a long weary trip in the rain, and it was nearly dark by the time she reached the wharf, but for once her fortune held: the ferry was still standing alongside the jetty.