Chapter SIX
Svera wasn't home when Blade finished his wanderings through the Cities and reached Captain Foyn's little house. Neither was Captain Foyn himself.
«No doubt he still be at t' ship,» said the elderly maidservant.
«No doubt,» said Blade. He couldn't tell the maid why he needed to see Svera. He didn't know to whom she might pass on anything he said to her. He had nearly got himself killed once by trusting the wrong person, on a mission in Turkey. The lesson had stayed with him. But it was maddening to think that Svera was probably out there in the Cities with her Conciliator friends, busily planning their moves, like lambs marching on the slaughterhouse. One more frustration, on a mission that seemed to be producing more than its fair share of them.
However, there wasn't much he could do about this or any other frustration at the moment, except sleep on it. Considering how long the day had been and how much he might need all his strength and wits tomorrow, that was also the best thing to do. He asked the maid to show him to the guest room Captain Foyn had promised. She did, and Blade was asleep almost before he could unfold the blankets and crawl under them onto the seaweed-stuffed mattress. He didn't even bother to close the curtains on the small window.
He was awakened by sunlight streaming through the window. He climbed out of bed and began rinsing out his mouth with water from the jug by the bed.
As the maid came in, there was a sudden uproar of shouting and running feet in the street outside. A good many men were pounding past at a dead run.
«What's going on?»
«Ah, sor-nathin' t' bother ye, not at all. Y'see, them Conciliators, Goddess curse them, w' our boys not yet restin' in the sea-are agoin' to do suthin' at Council House.»
Blade took a deep breath. «What?»
«Dunno, sor,» said the maid, shrugging. «But a good many o' the captains be leadin' their menservants and crews t' Council House. They be hopin' the Conciliators to come, and then they swear by the Holy Silver Goddess herself they'll have them all for good. And then we can go out and smash them Fishmen w'out any traitors in our midst.»
Blade managed to make his voice sound almost completely calm. «Is Svera at home yet?»
The maid shook her head. «And a sad disgrace to a good house it be, w' her father doubtless needin' her. She's naught but — «
She might as well have been talking to a yulon. Blade was pulling on the rest of his clothes with one hand and snatching up his sword and dagger with the other. The door of the house slammed behind him as he tore out into the street.
A group of half a dozen sailors was jogging past as he came out. They shouted and waved greetings with heavy clubs. «Coming to join us, man?» one of them shouted.
Blade almost answered «No,» then realized he had no idea where Council House was. He nodded without speaking and fell in step behind the sailors.
They did not head for the bridge to the City of the Merchants, but instead turned into a street that ran away from that bridge. As they tramped along that street, more and more men joined them, and some women. All seemed to be armed, if only with kitchen knives, frying pans, or lengths of wood. All seemed to be grimly determined to cover as much ground as possible as fast as possible. It was as though a moment's delay in reaching the Council House might sink the Cities to the bottom of the sea. There was an ugly feeling in the air that came to Blade as clearly as the smell of the sea. The people beside him might be good or at least sensible people most of the time. But now they were part of a mob, and what they might never think of doing by themselves they might easily do now. Blade would have broken into a run, except that he didn't dare stand out too much from the crowd.
At the end of the street, the swelling mob had to turn again. By this time there were so many people trotting along that they filled the street solidly from side to side. At the corner they jammed into a pushing, shoving, cursing mass. Blade used knees and elbows and occasionally fists to keep from being flattened against a wall or accidentally jabbed by somebody's spear.
Then a voice that roared like surf on a rocky shore rose above the crowd noises. «All right, ye stupid bastards. Sort yerselves out, there! People in the lead, get movin'! The rest of you, stop the shovin'! Save it for the Conciliators!»
The voice sounded vaguely familiar. Blade peered over the heads of the crowd and saw the huge sailor he had drunk with the night before, standing in the street and bellowing. Gradually he got the crowd sorted out. As it broke up and began to move along its new path, Blade joined the sailor. The man's eyes widened, and his weatherbeaten face split in a gap-toothed grin.
«Well, by the Goddess, if it don't be Foyn's armsmaster. You be goin' to help us smash the Conciliators?»
«If they show up, yes,» said Blade cautiously.
«Don't worry 'bout that. They've already got a good dozen or so outside the Council House. You'll be seein' plenty o' Conciliator heads broken today, that you can be sure. And it'll be Gershon Dund's son who'll be doin' the greater part o' the breakin'!»
«My name is Richard Blade.»
Down the street they went, windows opening with bangs above them and shouted questions floating from doorways. Eventually they reached the end of the street and the bridge that led to the City of the Guilds and the Council House.
The thousand-foot pontoon bridge swayed and lurched ominously under Blade's feet as the mob poured out onto it. Slave porters carrying loads crowded back against the railings of the bridge as the thousands filled the bridge from side to side. Blade saw some of the porters driven back over the railings and into the sea. Some sank at once, dragged down by their loads. Others were lucky enough to be rescued by the boats that carried the heavier loads back and forth between the Cities and the island of Talgar.
Then they were off the bridge. Blade could see a cluster of six gilded spires around a green dome ahead. «The Council House,» Gershon said. Blade nodded.
In front of the Council House was the largest open space Blade had seen in the Sea Cities. Everywhere else he had been, buildings jostled each other like rush-hour riders in a subway, to get as much living space as possible in the smallest area. But the Council House fronted on a square nearly two hundred feet on a side.
The square was already half-filled when Gershon and Blade led their crowd into it. Directly in front of the Council House was a small cluster of people all dressed in white and green. There were no more than thirty of them. They were carrying banners with green lettering on white cloth. As Blade got closer, he could make out the banners:
LET THERE BE PEACE
A WARNING FROM THE GODDESS
CONCILIATION NOT VENGEANCE
As he got still closer, he could make out Svera, holding one end of the LET THERE BE PEACE banner. Blade grimaced. There was such a thing as being right at the wrong time.
As the rest of Gershon's mob poured into the square, the circle around the Conciliators tightened. There were now a good three thousand people facing the thirty-odd demonstrators, most of them armed. They weren't in quite such an explosively ugly mood as they had been, fortunately. The long run had taken the wind out of a good many of them. If the Conciliators would just have the sense to quietly fade away and not say anything, the whole affair might blow over.
Moments later Blade's hopes were smashed. Svera herself gave her pole to someone else, sprang lightly up on the railing of the front steps to the Council House, and waved her arms at the crowd. There was an angry growl, but it faded away quickly. Perhaps Svera's beauty and courage would give her a peaceful hearing? Blade hoped so, but realized he was grasping at straws. A step at a time, he inched his way forward, until he was in the front row of the mob, only a few feet from the demonstrators.