Day the 6th of the Grain Moon

Year the 6th of the Independent Alliance of  Traders

Kim to Detozi

I fear you have taken a simple reminder of the rules as if it were a personal rebuke. Detozi, surely we know one another well enough for you to realize that I was only carrying out the tasks of my position when I reminded you of the rules regarding personal messages. I am not the sort of person who would run to the Council with such a trivial complaint. I merely thought that if I reminded you of the rules, I might save you from embarrassment and nuisance if it came to the attention of someone who was petty enough to enforce them. That was all. Sa's Mercy, I am shocked at how seriously you have taken all this! I will, for the sake of our friendship, ignore the unfounded accusations and cruel allegations of your last missive. Kim

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Suspicions

He awoke before dawn, cradled in a warm cocoon of contentment. Life was good. Leftrin lay still in the dark, enjoying it for a few long moments before letting his mind start enumerating the tasks of the day. Tarman was as still as he ever got, nosed up onto the mudbank. Sometimes it seemed to him that his ship grew more thoughtful when it was pulled up on the riverbank, as if he were dreaming of other days and times. He could hear and feel the gentle tug of the river's backwater current on the aft end of the ship, but mostly all was still. It was quieter than when he anchored or tied up in the river, almost as if Tarman himself were dozing on the sunny bank. The bedding smelled sweet, of the cologne that Alise Finbok wore, but also of Alise herself. He rolled his face into the pillow and breathed deeply of her scent. Then he grinned at his own foolishness. He was as infatuated as a beardless boy who had just discovered that women were wonderfully different from men. The giddiness that had passed him by as a youth now spun him delightfully, infecting every moment of his day. Thinking of her freckled, speckled face made him smile. Her hair, the colour of a hummer's breast, turned into tiny curls all around her brow when it escaped from her pins. The times she had reached out and taken his arm when something frightened or alarmed her always made him feel as if he were taller and stronger than he had ever been in his life.

There was no future to it. He knew that in every corner of his yearning, aching heart. When he thought of how it must end, he felt despair. But for now, this morning, on the dawn of carrying her off up the river on a journey that might be weeks or even months long, he was happy and excited. It was a mood that hummed through the ship, infecting the crew as well. Tarman would be very pleased to be underway. Leftrin still considered it a ridiculous mission, a journey to nowhere herding reluctant dragons. Yet the pay the Council had offered was excellent, and the opportunity to take his ship and crew beyond the boundaries of what had been explored was something he'd always dreamed about. To have a woman like Alise not only appear in his life, but suddenly be given him as a companion for the voyage was good fortune beyond his ability to imagine.

He took another deep breath of her fragrance, hugged his pillow and sat up. Time to face the day. He wanted to make an early start, yet he would wait for the delivery of the supplies he had specially ordered in the hopes of making her more comfortable. He scratched his chest, chose a shirt from the hooks near his bunk and pulled it on. He still wore his trousers from yesterday. Barefoot, he padded out of his stateroom and into the galley. He stirred the embers in the small stove and put yesterday's coffee to reheat. He wiped out a coffee mug and set it on the table. Outside the small windows of the deck-house, the world was hesitantly venturing toward day. The deep shadows of the surrounding forest still cloaked the boat and shore in dimness.

He felt a small vibration and then that prickle of awareness.

Someone, a stranger to Tarman, was on the deck of his ship. Leftrin stood silently. From a nearby equipment box, he picked up the large hardwood fid used for mending and splicing the heaviest lines. He weighed the heft of it in his hand, smiled to himself and moved quietly as the cat to the door. He eased it open. The cool air of morning flowed in. In the upper reaches of the forest, birds were calling. In the lower levels, bats were still heading home to roost. He stepped out on his deck and began a noiseless patrol of his vessel.

He found no one, but when he came back to the door of the deckhouse, a small scroll rested on the deck there. His heart gave a lurch as he stooped down to pick it up. The paper of the scroll was soft and thick; it smelled of a foreign land, bitterly spicy. He carried it back into his stateroom and shut the door. The wax that sealed it was a plain brown blob; no signet press betrayed the owner. He flicked it off and unrolled the small scroll. He read it by the grey light seeping in his small window.

'There are no coincidences. I've manoeuvred you into place. Lend your support to the one that I've arranged to be there. You will know him soon enough. You know what he seeks. A fortune rides on this, and the blood of my family. If all goes well, the fortune will be shared with you. If it does not go well, my family will not be the only ones to mourn.'

It was not signed, but no signature was needed. Sinad Arich. Months ago, he had given the foreigner passage to Trehaug, and almost as soon as the boat had docked, the Chalcedean merchant had vanished. He hadn't asked for passage back down the river. Two days later, when the Tarman was loaded with cargo and Leftrin had heard nothing from or about the man, they had departed. The foreign trader had left few signs of his passage on the Tarman. There had been a shirt that Leftrin had dropped overboard and some smoking herbs that he'd appropriated for his own use. The crew never asked what had become of their passenger, and Leftrin hadn't made much noise about his leaving Trehaug that day. The man's papers had been in order and he'd sold him passage up the river. That was what he intended to say if anyone ever asked him about the merchant. But no one ever had, and Leftrin had hoped he had set that misadventure behind him.

He'd hoped in vain. He wished he'd never heard of that damn Chalcedean merchant, wished he'd found a way to throw him overboard a year ago. Sinad Arich had haunted his nightmares since he'd last seen the man. After all that time, Leftrin had almost believed he'd seen the last of him, that the man had only wanted to use him once and then let him go.

But that was what it was to deal with Chalced or any Chalcedean. Once they knew you had a weakness, a secret spot of any kind, they'd hook into you, exploit you until you were either killed in the process or turned on them and killed them. He gritted his teeth together. Only a few moments ago, he'd been doltishly happy at the prospect of travelling upriver with the object of his fascination. Now he wondered who else would be travelling with him, and how relentless they would be in their threats. He wondered if he would have to kill someone on this journey, and if he did, how he would do it and if he would be able to keep it concealed from Alise.

It saddened him. He suspected that if she knew half the things he'd done in his life, she'd have nothing to do with him. He didn't like that he had to conceal part of what he was to enjoy her companionship, but he would. He'd do whatever he must to have what little time with her that he could. He was already at an immense disadvantage with such a fine lady. Here he was, a Rain Wilds riverman with little more than a boat to his name. She couldn't even imagine what a unique and wonderful boat the Tarman was. She couldn't possibly see his ship as his fortune. So he didn't know why she seemed to like him. He worked hard and expected he always would. He had no fine home to present to her. His clothes were rags compared to the garments of her dandified escort; he wore no rings. Before she had set foot on his ship, he'd had little more ambition than to continue doing what he'd always done: carrying freight shipments up and down the river, and making enough to pay his crew, and to have a good meal when his schedule allowed him to overnight in a town. He'd had his chance to make a fortune selling off that wizardwood. He could have been a wealthy man now, with a palatial home in Jamaillia or Chalced. He didn't regret the decision he'd made; it was the only right thing he could have done.