Rain Wilds Chronicles (187 page)

They stepped into the cramped little galley of the ship. The room was deserted. A single mug, half full of coffee, graced the table. The small room smelled of coffee and cooking grease, tar and people living in close quarters. Alise felt her heart lift. “It's so good to be home,” she said.

He folded her into his arms, his hand sleeking her Elderling robe to her body. His mouth found hers and he kissed her, slowly and gently, as if all the time in the world belonged to them. When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, she was breathless. Words came in a whisper. “Now is all we really have, isn't it?”

He tucked her against him, his chin resting on top of her head as if she were an instrument he was preparing to play. “Now is enough,” he murmured. “Now is enough for me.”

Day the 2nd of the Plough Moon

Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

From Reyall, Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown

To Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug, and Erek

 

Standard message tube, wax applied.

I am sure you are aware of the unhappiness of many of our patrons. The Bingtown Traders' Council has now filed a formal petition asking that the Bird Keepers' Guild accept a Committee of Traders to look into allegations of corruption, spying, and the selling of secrets. Messages and even birds have gone missing now. I think it likely we can blame some of the missing birds on the unwieldy message tubes and attachments that we are now being required to use!

Three of our apprentices have reported being approached by Trader families wishing to breed and use birds of their own to establish private message flocks. I do not need to explain to you how this would undermine the Guild. A whole way of life and livelihood will be lost if this comes to pass.

We have been directed here to adhere strictly to all rules about messages between keepers. Appending an additional message to an official message sent by a client is now cause for dismissal from the Guild. We must do bird counts three times a day, including eggs and fledglings, and any bad eggs or young birds that die in the nest must be witnessed by three keepers of journey level or higher before they can be disposed of. Bird handlers in Bingtown are allowed to touch only birds specifically registered to their own coops. Informally helping one another, allowed in the past, is now forbidden.

Have these measures also been enacted in Trehaug or Cassarick or the lesser settlements? I will tell you that there are rumors that the Guild is sending out “testers,” but the gossip does not tell if these are men attempting to bribe bird handlers, or if they are messages designed to tempt those who tamper and spy. It saddens me that I rise to being a full Keeper of the Birds in these distrustful times.

In happier news, Erek, your swift birds appear to be breeding true. Two of the offspring set records this last week in a race back to Bingtown after being released from a ship that was four days out of port. I have submitted the breeding records to the Guild masters, noting that you were the one who saw the potential and began specifically breeding this line. I hope they will recognize your expertise.

With respect and affection,

Reyall

C
HAPTER
N
INE

Passing Ships

H
est was trapped in someone else's life. This was not the existence of the heir-son of a Bingtown Trader! He had never lived in such miserable conditions, let alone traveled in them. He'd lost count of the days he'd been confined belowdecks. He still wore the same garments he had been wearing when the Chalcedean had abducted him. Now they hung on him, their tailoring a victim of his greatly reduced diet and heavy labor. He knew he stank, but his only option for washing himself was cold river water, and he knew the dangers of using it. The chores the Chalcedean gave him put him out on the deck in the weather as often as not. His hands and face were chapped and sore from exposure to rain and chill and sun; his clothes were fading and tattering. He could not remember the last time his feet had been dry. He was starting to develop sores under his toes, and the wind-reddened skin on his face and hands stung constantly.

He still had nightmares about disposing of Redding's body. Dragging Arich's body out along the narrow walkways in the dark and rain and eventually shoving him over the edge had been disgusting and unpleasant work. They had heard his falling body crashing through branches, but there had been no final sound. It had made Hest queasy, but it paled in comparison to his final parting with Redding. The Chalcedean had made him carry Redding's body, and they had gone quite a distance, choosing always the tree paths that seemed least used. Eventually they had been balancing along a limb that had no safety ropes at all. Redding's body was slung across Hest's shoulders as if he were a hunter bearing home a deer. The familiar fragrance of Redding's pomade mingled with the smell of the blood that dribbled down Hest's neck. With every step, his limp burden had grown heavier and more horrific. Yet he had no choice but to lurch along in front of the man with the knife at his back. He suspected that if he had fallen while carrying the body, the man would have thought it of little consequence. The Chalcedean had finally chosen a spot where the narrowing limb of their tree crossed branches with another. Hest had propped Redding there and left him for the scavengers to find. “Ants and such will take him down to bones in just a few days. If he is found, which I doubt, no one will be able to tell who he was. Now we go back to your room and obscure all sign that you were ever in Cassarick.”

He had meant it quite literally. He'd burned the children's hands in the pottery hearth and destroyed the elaborate boxes that had held them. Redding's cloak became a sack to hold the precious stones he'd salvaged from the boxes. He'd departed briefly, warning Hest not to leave. Hest suspected that he went to murder the woman who had rented him the room. If he did, he accomplished it very quietly. Perhaps, Hest told himself as he gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering, he had only bribed her well. But he was gone a very long time, leaving Hest alone in the room that smelled of burned flesh and spilled blood. Sitting in the dimness, he could not shake the image of Redding's ruined face peering back at him from the crook of the tree. The Chalcedean had slashed it repeatedly, crosshatching it with cuts until his familiar features were eradicated. Redding's eyes had stared out from the dangling tatters of his once-handsome face.

Hest had always thought of himself as a ruthless Trader. Deception, spying, sharp deals that bordered on theft; he had never seen any advantage to being fair, let alone ethical. Trade was a rough game and “every Trader needs to watch his own back,” as his father often said. It had pleased him to think of himself as rough-and-tumble, a man hardened to everything. But never had he been a party to murder. He hadn't loved Redding, not as Sedric overused that tired word. But Redding had been an adept lover and a jolly companion. And his death had left Hest alone in this mess. “I didn't mean for any of this to happen,” he had told the dying flames. “It's not my fault. If Sedric had never made his insane bargain, I wouldn't be here now. It's all Sedric's fault.”

He had not heard the door open, but he had felt the draft and seen the hearth flames flicker. The Chalcedean was a black shadow against the blackness beyond. He pulled the door quietly closed. “Now, you will write a few letters for me. Then, we shall deliver them.”

Hest had been beyond questioning what was happening to him. He wrote the letters as he was told, to names he did not recognize, signing his own name to them. In the notes he bragged of his reputation as a clever Trader and directed the letter recipients to meet him before dawn at the impervious boat that was tied up at the docks. Every letter was identical, stressing discretion and hinting that a great fortune awaited them now that “our plans have come to fruition,” and citing names of Traders that Hest had never even met.

Each letter was neatly rolled, tied with twine, and sealed with a drop of wax. Then the Chalcedean smothered the fire in the hearth and they left the stripped room, carrying the missives with them.

The long night had become endless as they moved through Cassarick. The Chalcedean was spry but not absolutely certain of their way. More than once, they retraced their steps. But eventually, the six scrolls had been delivered, tied to door handles or wedged into door frames. Hest had been almost grateful to follow the assassin down the endless stairs to the muddy road at the bottom of the city. His well-appointed stateroom, a clean warm bed, and dry garments awaited him on the impervious ship. Once he was there and alone, surely he could put the night's events into focus and decide what he must do next. Once there, he would be Hest again and this evil adventure would become no more than an episode in his past. But when they reached the vessel, the Chalcedean had prodded him along at knifepoint, forcing him into a cargo compartment belowdecks, and then dropping the hatch shut behind him.

The indignity had astonished him. He'd stood, arms crossed sternly on his chest, and waited in silence, certain that the Chalcedean would return at any moment. As time passed, the discomfort had infuriated him. He groped his way around the freight compartment but found only rough timber walls with no hope of egress. The hatch was just out of his reach, and when he climbed the short ladder to push at it, he found it secured. He pounded on the hatch but could achieve no real force, and his shouting roused no one. He had paced, cursing and roaring, until he was exhausted. Eventually he had sat down to wait for the Chalcedean, but awakened to darkness. How long he had been held there, he did not know.

Time passed. Hunger and thirst afflicted him. When the hatch was finally lifted, the wan daylight flooded down and blinded him. He immediately started up the ladder.

“Out of the way!” someone shouted at him. And other men were pushed pell-mell down the hatch. Three landed well, cursing and trying to fight their way back to the ladder even as others were being forced down. Hest recognized some of them as his fellow passengers from the trip up the river, and others as members of the ship's crew. Some were Jamaillians who had invested in the boat's construction, the last a pair of Bingtown Traders. The men who looked down at them, mocking and threatening, were unmistakably Chalcedeans, with their embroidered vests and the curved knives they favored.

“What's going on?” Hest demanded, and one Trader shouted, “It's a mutiny!” while another said, “There were Chalcedeans hiding belowdecks for the whole voyage. They've taken over the ship!” The cargo hold was crowded with men, at least ten of them. One was holding his shoulder, and blood seeped between his fingers. Several of the frightened and confused merchants bore signs of a struggle.

“Where's the captain?” Hest asked through the shouting and taunts.

“In on it!” someone shouted at him, as angry as if it were his fault. “Well paid to let these bastards on board and hide them. Claims they invested just as much as we did, and paid him more on the side!”

The hatch cover began to slide shut. Men surged toward the ladder, shouting defiance and pleas, but in moments, the light was gone.

If being alone and locked below the deck was bad, then being crowded in with two dozen strangers in the dark was worse. Some were irrational with anger or fear. Others argued heatedly about exactly what had happened and who was at fault. Some of them were not former passengers but Rain Wild Traders “tricked into coming down to the ship by a false message.” Hest kept his mouth shut and was grateful for the darkness that kept him anonymous.

The Chalcedeans who now commanded the ship had apparently killed at least three crewmen in taking over the ship, and possibly four, as a woman who had come aboard had been flung over the side bleeding but still alive. Hest suddenly grasped the full ruthlessness of the assassin and the gravity of his own situation. When one of his fellow prisoners speculated that they'd probably all be dead before long, someone roared at him to shut up, but no one contradicted him. Two of the men climbed the ladder and exhausted themselves trying to force the heavy hatch open while the others shouted encouragement and suggestions. Hest had retreated to the corner of the compartment and put his back to the wall.

While they were pounding, a new motion started. It took Hest a moment to deduce what it was, and in that second, one of the crewmen shouted, “You feel that? They've shoving off. We're under way. Those bastards are kidnapping us!”

A roar of voices rose, the angry cries underscored with wild wailing from one man. The victims pounded on the walls and shouted, but the rhythmic rocking of the ship only increased as it picked up speed in its battle with the current.

“Where are they taking us?” Hest demanded of everyone and no one.

“Upriver,” someone responded. “Feel how she fights the current.”

“Why? What do they want from us?”

His question was drowned in the outcry the others raised as they realized they were being carried away from any hope of outside aid.

The swearing and the shouting went on for a long time, to be replaced gradually by angry discussion and then muttering and the sound of someone weeping harshly. Hest felt dazed by his situation. He crouched in his spot in the darkness, smelling sweat and piss. As time trudged by and moving water whispered past the sides of the vessel, he wondered what had become of his organized and genteel life. None of this seemed possible, let alone real. How furious his mother would be when she heard of this outrage to her son!

If
she ever heard of it. And in that moment, Hest suddenly realized how completely he had been severed from his old life. His name, his family's money, his roguish reputation, his mother's love for him meant nothing here. All shields, all protections, had fallen away. In a caught breath, he could become a body, his face slashed beyond recognition, food for ants or fish. He gasped, his chest hurting. He subsided onto the deck and sat in the darkness, his face resting on his knees. The thunder of his heart filled his ears. Time passed, or perhaps it did not. He could not tell.

When the hatch was finally slid open, it admitted a yellow slice of lantern light. Night reigned. A voice Hest recognized warned them, “Stand back! If any man starts up the ladder, he'll fall back with a knife in his heart. Hest Finbok! Come to where I can see you. Yes. There you are. You. Come up. Now.”

Back in the corner of the hold, someone bellowed, “Hest Finbok? Is that Hest Finbok? He is here? He's the traitor that lured me here with a note left on my doorstep, even signed his own name to it! Finbok, you deserve to die! You're a traitor to Bingtown and the Rain Wilds!”

By the time Hest reached the top of the short ladder, he was fleeing the ugliness below as much as reaching toward space and air. As he scrambled out onto the deck on all fours, curses and threats followed him. Two sailors slid the hatch shut, cutting off the cries of those trapped below. He found himself at the feet of the Chalcedean. The assassin was holding a lantern and looked very weary. “Follow me,” he barked and did not wait to see if Hest obeyed. He trailed behind him to the door of his erstwhile stateroom.

The scattered contents of Hest's plundered wardrobe littered the floor of his compartment, his garments mingled carelessly with Redding's. The chest of wine, cheese, sausages, and delicacies that Redding had so carefully packed stood open, and the sticky table attested to the enjoyment of its contents. Obviously the Chalcedean had settled in and availed himself of all the room's comforts. The bedding on Hest's bunk was rumpled, half dragged to the floor. Redding's was undisturbed. The shock and loss of his friend's death swept through him again and he drew a breath, but before he could speak, the Chalcedean spun to confront him. The look on his face drove the breath from Hest's lungs and he stumbled back a step. “Clean it up!” he barked, and then flung himself, boots and all, onto Redding's bed and reclined there, eyes half lidded, face lined with weariness. When Hest just stood, staring at him, he spoke quietly. His scarred lips bulged and stretched with the words. “I don't really have a need for you anymore. If you are useful, I may keep you alive. If not . . .” His hand lifted and one of his little knives had appeared. He waggled it at Hest and smiled.