Master of Whitestorm (23 page)

XIII

CITY OF THE SULTAN

Ye crowned prince of Rachad’s seed

beware the Light-Eyed Man,

He of foreign birth and breed

thy bane lies at his hand.

Datha’s Scourge, the Light-Eyed’s deed

before which none shall stand.

SEVEN MONTHS
passed, unrelieved by seasons. The sun shone hot over southern lands, and reflections like chipped diamonds flashed off the breakers which rolled from the Tammernon Sea; carried on winds from higher latitudes, ships made port from Fairhaven. The sovereign of South Englas had acquired the habit of gazing out his casements toward the harbor. Alert for the clutter of servants and heraldry that accompanied mercenary captains, the king was unprepared when at last the man he had summoned arrived on South Englian shores.

Confronted in his chamber of audience by a black-clad northerner with a grim face and impeccable manners, he bade the visitor rise. He found his person touched by an unfathomable gray gaze.

When the stranger spoke, his words were devoid of boastfulness. “I am Korendir of Whitestorm, Your Royal Grace. I’ve come to engage the Dathei, and to bring your daughter home.”

Touched by deep disappointment, the King of South Englas regarded the mercenary before his dais. The sailors had neglected to mention that the man possessed rare coloring; in South Englas folk were seldom born with light eyes; and never with hair the rich, red-brown of spring honey. Aware that his silence had lasted discourteously long, the king cleared his throat. Decency demanded a response.

“I will pay your expenses.” The king toyed regretfully with his signet ring, then sighed in outright unhappiness. He looked again at the man who waited, too still, before his throne. “For honor’s sake, I dare not bind you to contract. Datha prophecy holds that a light-eyed man will destroy the sultan’s dynasty. Sight of your face would seal your death in that land. My realm has endured grief enough from such enemies without adding murder to the score.”

Korendir of Whitestorm laughed, but without any resonance of humor. His hand rested quietly on his battered scabbard, empty, since the sentries in the hallway disallowed weapons in the presence of royalty. But even swordless, his presence felt dangerous, and the scars which traced the backs of his knuckles marked him out for a killer. “Compensation for my troubles shall not be necessary, Your Grace. If the Scourge of the Dathei is to be a man with gray eyes, that’s my advantage, not my bane.”

As leary of conflict as his door guards, the King of South Englas yielded with gratitude. The sailors from Fairhaven had spoken high praise for the Master of Whitestorm’s talents. If half what they claimed was true, the Datha prophecy might have been made against this same mercenary’s arrival. Prepared for demands of troops and immediate quantities of weapons, the king was startled enough to question when Korendir asked instead after the camel trader who had delivered Iloreth’s message from Telssina.

The bronze-haired swordsman inclined his head with chilly courtesy. “Your Grace, when men at arms are needed, I’ll ask for them. Until then, I work alone.” Korendir bowed and stepped back. From the seneschal’s hand he accepted the camel trader’s address. Then, without pause for refreshment, rest, or ceremony, he left the palace.

* * *

Since the sale of the king’s finest ruby, Elshaid the camel trader disdained to deal in livestock. He inhabited a mansion on a quiet street and lived in indolence, attended by slave girls garnered through dealings with black market smugglers from Arhaga. The illicit possession of flesh made Elshaid leary of visitors. He paid an ex-assassin to guard his premises; another, all muscle and loyalty, both answered and safeguarded his door. The services of these brutes cost dearly. The former trader was therefore irate when a black-clad, sword-bearing northerner arrived unannounced in his bath chamber.

“I’m here to demand your service on the king’s behalf,” the intruder snapped out in clipped accents. He had bronze hair, light eyes, and an air charged as a stormfront with the promise of trouble.

Immersed like a walrus in hot water, suds, and rare oils, Elshaid roared a blasphemy. He heaved himself erect, and the slave girls who tenderly sponged his neck became drenched by the sloshed contents of his tub. Though their silken garments became plastered to their nubile skins, the man in the doorway remained cold-bloodedly undistracted.

Elshaid concluded that northerners must love boys before he barked a command to his women. They shed perfumed towels and sponges and fled through a carved screen behind the bath. The erstwhile camel trader glared at the stranger and coughed soap from his mustache. “Get out.”

“Not yet.” The swordsman set his hip against the nearest panelled wall, braced up one foot, and regarded his length of bared steel. The edge was sharpened razor thin, and well nicked with use.

The bath water abruptly seemed cold. Defenseless and nakedly fat, Elshaid cupped both hands at his crotch. “How did you get past my servants?”

The stranger smiled in a manner that chilled. “The guard and that ox at the door? They dream the visions of the faithful, unconscious. Both will recover with headaches.”

Elshaid understood when he was disadvantaged; experience at swindling Datha horsemen had taught him not to buckle to threats. “Who are you? What do you want of me?”

“I’m called the Master of Whitestorm.” The swordsman did not look up from his weapon. “And I need to know how you got a certain square of silk from Her Grace, the Princess of South Englas.

“Oh, that.” Elshaid restrained an impulse to smile with relief that his slave girls were not at issue after all.

But the northerner was quick; he saw the glance his victim darted toward the screen. Before the merchant could reply, he added, “The welfare of your comforts depends on how carefully you tell the truth.”

Now Eishaid’s smile turned fatuous. He considered himself wronged; in good faith he had recommended this mercenary to his king, only to have the man burst uninvited into the most private sanctum of his home. Elsaid phrased his answer in vindication, certain the Lord from Whitestorm could gain nothing of value from the information. “I received Her Grace’s message from one of the sultan’s porters. He was a slave loaned to Del Morga to convey gifts of state to the port.”

Korendir absorbed this without setback. “Then I’ll need you to assemble a caravan to admit me to the sultan’s city of Telssina.”

Elshaid shot splashing to his feet, his shrivelled manhood forgotten. “Impossible!”

Korendir measured the camel trader from head to dripping privates. His hand tightened ominously on his steel. “Don’t claim you have no experience with contraband,” he cautioned. “Unless your slave girls are gifted at swordplay, your survival is a forgone conclusion.”

Scarlet with indignation, Eishaid bent over. He groped a fallen towel from the floor beneath the screen and sullenly began rubbing off soapsuds. “The sultan’s defenses include a double ring of walls!” He twined the towel around his girth, plainly unhappy about the force required to make the two ends meet. “And I’m no conjurer, to arrange for a spell of concealment. Telssina’s guards never slack duty. They take pleasure in flaying the skin off anyone in the company of a man with frog-spawn eyes like yours.”

“Then that’s a problem you’ll have to solve quickly,” the northern mercenary said. The last of his tolerance vanished. “Get dressed!” He snapped his blade aside, and with a move most enviably fast, hooked and tossed back a silk robe which lay heaped on a nearby chest. “Ready or not, we leave for Telssina by noon.”

* * *

Five days later a packtrain carrying scented oils, brocades, marten furs, and rare wines approached Telssina from the northeast. It had originated from the sultan’s port of Del Morga and gone on to cross the desert under pitiless late summer sun and curtains of ochre dust. The heat had turned the pelts rancid. Poorly cured to begin with, their taint threatened to spoil the cloth goods, and in a gesticulating display of temper, the merchant who stood to lose profits scrambled from his litter in a haste that nearly tore his trappings. His camels succumbed to riled nerves and spat on his silk over-robes.

Elshaid’s cheeks flushed purple. “Fetch out those Neth-blighted furs!” he screeched to his beast goad, a turbaned man with a squint that all but buried gray eyes. The merchant took pleasure in his ranting. “Then find some cord. Tie the pelts on your head, and bear them so until we arrive in Telssina’s great market.” Here Elshaid smothered a spiteful chuckle. Under his breath he added, “And, Neth hear my plea, may the stink of three dozen dead martens addle the functions of your brain.”

The gobbets of beast spittle had soaked in, leaving a residue of hay shreds. While the king’s precocious mercenary applied himself to bundling smelly furs, Elshaid howled for his body servant to unlash his chest of spare clothing.

The caravan moved on within the hour. Burdened by a headdress of corrupted skins, the camel goad eased his squint long enough to study the city of Datha’s Sultan, laid out on the plain like a desert chief’s jewel in a setting of high stone walls. Sentries in plumes and scimitars guarded the five arched gates. Horsemen in double-file companies patrolled the outer perimeter throughout each hour of daylight; by night their numbers would be trebled, and archers would stand watch at fifty-foot intervals along the torchlit walls.

The camel goad reviewed these defenses with his eyes unreadably in shadow. As Elshaid’s caravan approached the market gate, his sole concession to risk was to droop the furs lower on his brow, and to develop a hitch in his stride that required him to constantly watch his feet.

The camels bawled and halted, and stirred dust spread over a compound trampled bare of desert fern. Bronzestudded gates loomed overhead, and the towers on either side threw shadow in swaths across the earth. Beasts jostled and sidled against their halters to seek relief from the heat; only the half-wit wretch who managed them remained in the glare of the sun, pelts piled sloppily atop his head, and his camel goad looped at his wrist. He looked too lazy to present any bother. The guardsmen assigned to inspect caravans focused on the loud-voiced merchant who sweated through the labor of dismounting.

“Elshaid, by the Hells!” exclaimed the most seasoned of the guardsman. “Squandered thy fortune and had to retire to merchanting, I see.”

“Certainly not.” The fat man stuffed his handkerchief in his cuff. He straightened pearl-stitched lapels and tried through discomfort to look dignified. “This caravan carries an order for a favored customer.”

Bristling with weapons, the guardsmen closed for a routine inspection of the goods. Elshaid dispatched servants to fetch out his lists.

“Special order smells spoiled to me,” observed the officer who passed near the camel goad. “If furs constitute thy delivery, and if thy client is Lord Ismmail, thou wilt surely get thy butt bastinadoed.”

Elshaid shrugged. “My client is not Lord Ismmail. These furs are bound for another, one I warned that this was not the acceptable season for buying pelts. Scarcity was sure to compromise the quality. Oh yes, I assured this much. But he stubbornly insisted.” Smug now, Elshaid folded his hands on the dome of his belly. “Of course, I made the fool pay for his martens in advance.”

The guardsmen chuckled their appreciation. “His persistence became thy good fortune, Elshaid?” teased the one who was an acquaintance.

“Just so.” Eishaid waved to the wine tuns, carefully lashed under linens to keep off the sun. “Those, now, they’re another matter. I brought several extras, for the sultan’s guard to share among themselves.”

The officer in command stiffened suspiciously. “We cannot drink wine while on duty. If thou thinkst—”

But the guard acquainted with Elshaid interrupted. “The merchant is wise to our laws. In the past we provided our address, and Eishaid delivered his gift to our dooryards.”

Elshaid nodded with obsequious diffidence. “I trust such arrangement will be acceptable?”

At this, the sultan’s faithful clustered about the merchant, who, after tedious rounds of repetition, collected directions from each guard. Beyond the compound, the next caravan in line was forced to wait. Driven to vociferous impatience, its head drover assailed the officer with imprecations. The guards stirred reluctantly back to duty. Since their captain suspected a bribe, they inspected Elshaid’s wares meticulously, then left the camels to their bad temper. There remained only the beast goad’s putrescent load of pelts. The man sat crouched with his eyes closed. The sultan’s finest had been in shade long enough that the shift to full sunlight made them blink; by now, the stench of rotted furs had attracted a buzzing cloud of flies. The soldier commanded to take inventory was in no way inclined to duck down and peer beneath the bundle for a look at the face underneath; and the accounts tallied without discrepancy.