Blackdog (49 page)

Yes, no. The answer she sought eluded her; she could think of no single question. Too many crowded her mind, risking confusion and the failure of the reading, dangerous errors in interpretation.

Chance, risk, change. Just flip a coin, call heads or tails, Shaiveh would mock. A simple yes or no, that was what she needed. She could read a bone, if she had one, but she had noticed no old scatters of wolf- or disease-downed sheep on the hillside. She might spend half the day searching before she found one.

Ivah weighed a single gold coin on the palm of her hand, one of her mother's set of three. Father Nabban, and she would approach the mistress as a traveller wanting to share the caravan's protection on the road east—maybe she was returning to her home Over-Malagru after her travels in the west? Mother Nabban (some emperor in a wide hat, maybe even her own grandfather, sitting by the great River-Mother's knee), and she would dare the dangers of travelling alone on the desert road, follow in secret, until the caravan neared Serakallash and the road up to Lissavakail.

Ivah tossed the coin, caught it, and closed her eyes a moment before looking.

Father Nabban. Her right course lay in action and openness, not in waiting and concealment. She seemed to feel the eyes of the Westgrasslander Blackdog on her again. That sent a twist of fear through her stomach. She thought it ought to be fear, at any rate.

Shaiveh was sitting on a stone at the roadside waiting for her return.

“What did the bones say?”

“Coins,” Ivah said briefly, a minor lie even in the correction. She wasn't going to admit to mere coin-tossing. “We go with them.”

“Sometimes it might be better to trust to common sense, you know.”

“Did you follow them?”

“Yes, my lady, as you commanded.” Shaiveh delivered her report in a mocking singsong. “They unloaded at the Oswyngas’ warehouse and I earned a couple of farthings for helping. Those Over-Malagru men are heading up into the north. The gang's lodged at Attapamil's caravanserai, they don't have a contract south yet, and I heard the gang-boss, that Black Desert woman, talking about meeting some bard at Lizath's teahouse tonight. Don't know what the goddess is doing and I didn't want to be noticed taking an interest. But they work her pretty hard—I don't think they know who she is. Do you suppose
she
doesn't know, is that possible?”

“I don't know.”

“I don't like it, Ivah. We should just follow them.”

“I said we're going with them.”

Shaiveh shrugged, scowling. “If you say so. And what happens when that possessed Westgrasslander sees you're a wizard? He'll be able to tell. Demons can.”

“And there's no reason I shouldn't be a wizard; all At-Landi already knows I'm a coin-reader. There's nothing in that to make anyone connect us with Lissavakail. I'm a diviner from Over-Malagru, you're a mercenary, we met in Marakand three or four years ago, and don't go elaborating that into anything fancy.”

“Fine. Just remember it's me who'll end up dying first.”

“Well, of course. That's your job.”

Shaiveh gave her a sidelong look and got to her feet. Ivah allowed herself a brief grin, behind the
noekar's
back. The point was to her, this time.

T
he Northrons unloaded their ships in the shallows or ran them aground on the log-hardened muddy shore of the river bay that had given birth to the Landing. They were long, graceful craft, but wide-beamed and capable of holding an astonishing amount of cargo for their draft, with stem- and sternposts curving up graceful as a swan's breast. They had masts, but much of their travel up and down the river was done with their crews at the oars, or even towing, wading in the shallows or on long-trodden paths on the shore. They were as fitted to their element as an eagle to the air, a salmon to sea.

“Mooning over these little ditch-boats again? Someday, you really need to see a seagoing knarr, or a longship.”

Pakdhala jumped and looked around. She had been so caught in watching a ship heading upriver, the following wind—Kinsai's blessing the crew would call it—filling the square brown sail, that she had not noticed Varro prowling up behind her. Caught in sudden memory, the boat lifting beneath her, bouncing over the waves as she coaxed the wind up, Oto—no, it was some other Blackdog, and she some other Attalissa, a young woman laughing, saying to an old man,
Careful, you'll have us over.

“You keep saying that, Varro, but you never offer to run away to the North with me.”

“You only have to ask, ‘Dhala darling.”

She folded her arms and leaned back against his warm solidity, affecting a pout. “I thought your heart was given to what's-her-name in Marakand.”

“What's-her-name?” Varro scratched his beard. “Which one?”

“You know. Your wife. That apothecary, the one with all the giggling girls.”

“Ah, her. I'm sure she'd understand. And they don't giggle any more than you did at that age, young ‘Dhala. It's the nature of small girls to giggle.”

Pakdhala sighed. “Still, I'd love to be on a ship like that.” For a ship to be so much a part of the water…the soul of beauty, form and function in perfect unity.

“You can clamber over one tonight, if you like,” Varro offered. “They've got her hauled up on the upper beach.”

“Who does? Friends of yours?”

“Cousins,” he said smugly. “Well, some of'em’s cousins. My cousin Ellensborg is crew on her cousin Ulfhelm's ship, and she's just married his steersman, so there's a bit of a celebration tonight. She said I could bring a friend or two.”

“Or the whole gang?”

“Well, Tihmrose and Django drew watch at the caravanserai, Tusa has disappeared and Asmin-Luya's looking at all the soothsayers and diviners for her, the boss and your father are meeting some bard who'll be taking Doha's stuff and his pay home to his kin, Great Gods bless his soul with a short journey, and I think Gaguush has plans…” Varro waggled bushy eyebrows at her “…for later.”

“Does she?” Pakdhala grinned. “But my father won't let me go off to a brawl like that without him.”

“’T'isn't a brawl.”

“Oh, a gang of Northrons celebrating a wedding? You really think that's not a brawl?”

“The brawl comes later.”

Pakdhala grinned. “I'll come, if I can get away from him.”

Ivah wandered through the many small rooms of Lizath's teahouse with Shaiveh a sullen shadow at her heels. No one paid them any heed; she had made sure of that. The diners sitting on cushions around the low tables carried on with their conversations, or looked up, smiling vaguely, and returned to the plates of tiny filled dumplings and the delicate porcelain cups of clear Nabbani tea, forgetting them at once.

“And how do we make this Gaguush actually talk to us, now that we're so conveniently beneath notice?” Shaiveh grumbled.

Ivah ignored her, backing out of yet another room with a friendly smile at the group of old men reminiscing there.

Gaguush was in the next room they tried. The gang-boss had obviously found a bathhouse; she looked a good ten years younger, with the dust scoured from her skin and her hair glistening, freshly braided. She leaned over the table, looking half like some devil of An-Chaq's tales, all jagged shapes of red and black, as the flame of the lamp swirled. She spoke too quietly to overhear, handing what looked like a purse, its neck lead-sealed and stamped, to an older Westgrasslander woman, a bard, with the bright scarves of her calling wound round her head and her long-necked saz at her back.

And the Blackdog Westgrasslander was there, too, sitting at the caravan-mistress's side.

“Tell his sons he died fighting,” the Westgrasslander said suddenly, addressing the bard as she rose and tucked the purse away in some inner pocket, but his eyes were on Ivah, his hand on the sabre across his lap, and he already had one foot under him, to rise. She almost thought, in the shadowy room, that his eyes reflected the lamplight green, like a cat's.

There were two other members of the gang there as well, the Stone Desert man she had noticed before and a skinny, faded little woman whose folk Ivah could not place, and all four were scrubbed and sober. Lizath would not let caravaneers into her house if they had already begun the drinking that followed any return to civilization.

Ivah was already doubting her choice. Maybe later, once the gang-boss had started drinking too, would have been better. And she should have listened to Shaiveh, gone to the bathhouse first and combed and rebraided the two fat plaits that fell to her knees. She had wanted to look hard-living and dusty, someone who could keep up with a caravan, not be a burden, but now…His eyes weren't green, but mottled light brown flecked green and yellow, like sunlight on a pebbled stream in the mountains. Hot though, not brook-water cool, burning like the glare on the water, watching her. She had an impulse to freeze there, motionless, as though that would make his notice pass. Instead she smiled and stepped aside to allow the bard to leave.

“I'm sorry,” Ivah apologized, breaking the threads that made a one-handed cat's cradle on her left hand, hidden in her pocket. “I was hoping to talk to Mistress Gaguush.”

The caravan-mistress whipped her head around, raised her eyebrows.

“Where did you come from?”

Ivah gestured apologetically towards the door. It was a stupid question, but she wasn't about to point out a caravan-mistress's lack of attention, not to the woman's face, the gesture said.

“If you could spare me a moment…” Ivah let her voice trail off hopefully.

“No. Do I know you?” Gaguush frowned, looking them both over as though she was fairly certain she did not want to.

“Bad news travels fast,” the Stone Desert tribesman murmured.

Gaguush smiled in a manner not at all friendly. “Is that it? I'm not hiring, and this is a private supper.”

“Oh, I know. I really don't want to interrupt. But Master Baruni spoke very highly of you and…”

“I said, I'm not hiring.”

Ivah gave the little formal bow, hands clasped before her chest, which she could get away with, being so Nabbani in appearance. “No, of course not. I should introduce myself. I'm Ivah, a diviner with the Nabbani coins, and my companion is Shaiveh. I want to head back Over-Malagru way, so we're looking for an eastbound caravan to join. We can earn our keep.”

“Why us?” the caravan mistress demanded. “We've barely come in, we don't have a contract south yet, Great Gods alone know when we'll be pulling out. Heard we're short-handed?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Ivah looked surprised. “Have you…if you've had losses this run, I'm truly sorry, I meant no offence to the dead. It's just, we travelled west, originally, with Master Baruni, some years back, and he spoke well of you. And,” she smiled, shrugged, “we happened to see you coming in. We liked the look of your outfit. Shai here helped you unload.”

Gaguush snorted.

“If you could just let us know, once you're preparing to leave? We could even pay something towards our escort. I know we wouldn't be as much use to you as experienced caravaneers, but Shaiveh's handy with weapons, she's worked as a mercenary before, and I can make myself useful. You wouldn't find us a burden. We're putting up at Benno's inn, for now.”

“Yes, fine, Benno's inn,” Gaguush said. “Now out.”

“Thank you.” Ivah offered both hands, Marakander fashion. Gaguush, with a weary look, was nevertheless forced by common courtesy to rise from the table and take them. Ivah gave her another bow. The Nabbani symbols painted on her hands in oil, hardly there, flared with warmth as she pressed the gang-boss's skin with her own. Then she elbowed Shaiveh back and closed the door behind herself.

“Oh, that went well,” Shaiveh said. “Now can we just—”

Ivah slapped Shaiveh's shoulder, touched her lips for silence.

“She'll decide she wants us along before the week's out,” she whispered, hardly above a breath.

“Hey, you, Nabbani! Ivah!”

Ivah turned, not needing to put on a look of surprise. Gaguush stood in the open doorway, inviting her back into the lamplit room with a jerk of her chin. There was some agitation at the table now, the Westgrasslander scowling, the little woman patting the back of his hand as though she meant to soothe him, the tall Stone Desert man looking amused. Gaguush leaned a shoulder against the wall, studying Ivah, head to foot.

“A diviner? Holla-Sayan here says he's heard rumour you're a wizard.”

A lie, no doubt. The Westgrasslander knew, he saw right through her, a yellow-green fire behind his eyes…Half a panicked moment, and Ivah found her innocence again. She had expected him to know. She put on a cautious smile, timid and hesitant.

“Not really. I'm just a diviner, what they call a soothsayer up here, but I suppose that means I have some talent, it's true. I can read the oracle coins, and I've studied Nabbani spell-symbols.” She swept her lashes down. “I've been doing readings here, at Benno's. If you want to ask someone about my skills, if you want me to do a reading for your journey, I'm sure there's people who'd speak for me…” She raised her eyes, met the Westgrasslander's cold-eyed gaze head on. Prove she had no reason to fear him, saw nothing unusual in him to fear. “Holla-Sayan? Who was it told you I was a wizard?”