The City of Silver, page 6
part #1 of Moonsong Series
The congregation was seated in the pews before the facing of Nostra, leaving the other two one-third divisions of the grand circle empty save for a few silent patrons in contemplation or study. The young faces arranged below Nostra’s calming visage, facing the assemblage as if on display, wore a strange mixture of emotions. Some were painted with fear and anxiety, and others seemed to be disinterested, or even bored. The boys wore white trousers and the girls wore simple long dresses of green and white. Beside them stood a priestess, wearing robes of white trimmed with muted red and cinched around the waist with a red sash. One of the younger boys at the end of the row began to pick his nose, then quickly snapped his hand back to his waist as the priestess looked his way.
“And so, let us each give what the gods compel our hearts to give, for the maintenance of mankind, worked through the divine knowledge that shall be given unto these pledges,” the priestess said. She began to walk down the narrow steps from the tranquiline altar, a narrow smile parting her smooth face. In each hand, she held a brass bucket, and when she reached the bottom, she handed one to the rows of people sitting on each side. “Some may become physicians,” she said as she walked back up the steps. “Some may become nurses or herbalists, but all shall serve us as trade disciples these next four years.”
“One of these girls could have been me,” Charlotte whispered to Rone as they watched the offering bucket moved down one of the aisles. They sat in the last peopled row, and Rone frequently looked to the church entrance away on their left. “If my maidenhood had persisted but a little longer.”
“Your parents would really demand you, you, ply a trade?” Rone whispered back
“They certainly liked to threaten it. I think it was mostly to inspire me to keep trim and proper, and stay out of the woods.”
“For all the good it did you.”
Charlotte pushed her chin down and cleared her throat as the gaze of the priestess fell upon them. Quietly, she reached into her velvet purse and produced a single silver coin.
“That’s a week’s worth of food, you know,” Rone said quietly as the bucket approached.
“We have plenty more.” She dropped it into the bucket, which she could see was filled almost entirely with rough copper pennies, the scraps that the poorest of peasants produced for change, along with the larger whole cyprals that were stamped by the crown. The priestess nodded to her as she saw the gift, then another cleric, a man dressed in simple black clothes, stepped from the back and picked up the bucket.
“I’m just looking the part,” Charlotte whispered to Rone, who wore a frown. “Merchants are also generous.”
“I don’t know what merchants you’ve known.”
“Well, their wives are.”
“Which explains why the men can afford to do so little giving.” He smiled slightly. The priestess moved to a lectern centered on the altar and opened a large book. She began reading from it, slowly and with dry intonation in the way only a cleric could manage.
“Do you think they’re gone by now?” Charlotte whispered.
“We can stay here awhile longer,” Rone said. “You never know. This might be an interesting tale.”
“Unlikely, it’s the fourth canon.”
“I’ve sat through… perhaps three sermons in my entire life.”
“Do you believe in the gods? In the canon?”
“Those are two separate things,” Rone said.
“You can answer both,” Charlotte said.
Rone smiled as he looked at the altar. “We believe in the gods, but not… Well, not as the gods they are presented to be. They aren’t the creators, nor the guardians of man… or truth, even. They betrayed the dreamer and his eternal servants, long ago, and took upon themselves an identity which they themselves created – an identity which cut them off from their true power.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s hard to explain. The verse and the inverse, the mundane and the magical…” Rone looked at his left hand, frowning. “The canons bind people as they try to bind the world – to make it static. This place has beauty, but there is nothing here of eternity. Just the world that is.”
“A true Somniatel,” Charlotte whispered. She smiled as she said, “Not just a tamed barbarian.”
“As heretical as you need. The Dreamer brokers no guilt for such things.”
“Well, it’s as good a place as any to take a nap.” Charlotte coughed and pressed her hand to her chest as she noticed a pause in the droning cadence of words from the altar and noticed the old priestess looking down upon her again with a furrowed brow.
V: The Trail
Farthow handed the reins of his horse over to a stable boy and dismounted after he passed through the double-gated entryway to Masala Castle. Guards with familiar faces watched him from the house above. He caught the eye of one, a lad named Janry that he had put on a secret extra payroll to keep an eye on the guard for him, and nodded subtly. Quickly, he turned back toward the tall, wide stairs that led up to the keep doors.
The castle itself stood high above the port city of Masala, with a cliff to one side - an easily defensible fortress from a more chaotic time. Its foundations and much of its edifice were made of basalt quarried near the sea, and it appeared black beneath the grey sky. Holes in the clouds, moving swiftly toward the dry highlands to the west, cast strange shapes upon it that swirled and swayed. Flags flew proud upon the corners of its rounded towers, and the banners that hung from its front walls twisted in the crisp sea wind. Between the parapets, the shadows of soldiers moved slowly about.
As Farthow ascended the stair he heard a voice calling to him from behind. “Cap’n! Cap’n! Your woman’s done sobered up!”
“Quiet, you fool!” Farthow said, turning to see Colby behind him, near one of the corners of the keep.
“Catannel’s man is long gone,” Colby said.
“I said quiet!” Farthow jumped the last two stairs and grabbed Colby’s elbow. He dragged him toward the entrance to the outer halls. Colby shrugged off the grip and pumped his arms matching Farthow’s stride. They passed through an opening in the outer walls and rushed across a dusty courtyard, their boots scraping over a floor that was as much weathered flagstones as dirt. An iron reinforced door stood ajar, a steel cuirassed guard standing beside it with a matchlock resting on his shoulder and a pike against the wall. He raised a hand to his head as Farthow passed by and nodded to Colby.
The pair descended a narrow stair, the wooden handrail worn smooth to an almost glass-like sheen. The door clanged shut above them, leaving them with only the lamplight below to guide them downward. The echoes of their footsteps shortened as they reached the bottom where the stairway opened into a low-ceilinged room, the floor made of stone. Years of dust had piled up in the corners. Another man, this one fat enough to look uncomfortable in his breastplate, stood near a gate of iron bars, chewing on something that was invisible behind his overgrown black mustache. He did not bother saluting as Farthow walked by, and Farthow did not seem to care.
They passed down a long corridor with cells branching off to each side. Some were enclosed by iron bars. Others bore banded heavy wooden doors. Another guard stood by one of these, twirling a set of keys on an iron ring. Farthow nodded to him and the guard unlocked the door. It swung outward with a slight squeak. Against the back wall, lit dimly by a small bared shaft leaning back to ground level, sat a young woman wrapped in a blanket. She was eating a bowl of soup with a wooden spoon, but dropped both when Farthow entered, pulling the blanket tighter around her and shrinking into the corner.
“Relax,” Farthow said. The guard brought in a three-legged stool, and Farthow sat down on it a few steps away from the girl. Silence settled in, and Farthow smiled at her.
“I’m free,” she said after a few moments.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Colby said with a sneering laugh.
Farthow held up his hand to silence Colby and said, “We’re not returning you or taking you to market. I brought you here to help you sleep off the opium daze, and because I needed to talk to you.”
“This is a prison, right?” the woman said.
“The best accommodations I could manage on short notice.” Farthow pulled a silver coin from his pocket and tossed it to the feet of the girl. “Recognize that?”
Hesitantly, the girl picked it up and turned it over in her hand. “It looks like silver.”
“The mark, you dummy,” Colby said.
Farthow gave him a perturbed look and turned back to the girl. “Northmarch silver. A little odd for this part of the world. Where did you get coins like this?”
“I don’t have any coins.”
“But you did. Who gave them to you?”
“Nobody.”
“There is no need to lie to me,” Farthow said. “I promise, even if you do not tell me, I will not hurt you. I even have this-” He held his hand out and Colby placed a long box into it. Farthow flipped it open and removed a small pill of orange-black opium. He rolled it between his gloved fingers. “To ease the pain.” He produced from the box a small opium pipe and tapped it into his palm.
The woman reached for it. Farthow quickly withdrew his hand. “Just tell me where you got the coin.”
The woman drew her lips into a line. “A man and a woman. The man was tall. He had sort of yellow eyes. The woman had blue eyes. Red hair, maybe. She had it short, I think. They killed the man taking me to market.”
“Were they his coins? The man taking you to market?” Farthow said.
“No. Not Marcos’s. He was selling me because he was broke. He said he never would sell me, once.”
“Opium?”
“Yes. Sometimes he let me have some.”
“I see. What were their names? The man and the woman?”
“Munin and Daera. I don’t remember which was which.”
“Where were they from?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where were they going?”
“No idea. They turned me loose as soon as they got in the gate.”
Farthow nodded. “Different business, then.”
“How would I know?”
Farthow smiled. He handed the opium to the girl and laid the box and the pipe on the ground. The girl hurriedly picked it up and removed a small oil lamp from the box. Colby walked over and lit it with a match as Farthow stood up. The girl pushed the pill into the bowl of the pipe and leaned over the lamp, sighing as she drew in the narcotic vapor. Colby covered his mouth at the reek and stepped out of the cell.
“Let her leave when she wishes to,” Farthow said to the guard. “But take her out through the south gate. And give her this.” He handed a heavy linen bag to the guard.
“You’re giving her silver?”
“It’s not the coin she was given initially, but it’s of equal weight. Somebody thought she should have it, so have it she shall.”
“Suit yourself, sir,” the guard said, and tucked the bag into his belt pouch.
“You’re on your honor to do right.”
“Aye, sir.”
Farthow turned down the hall with Colby. “We’ve work to do.”
“I’m thinking of the docks,” Colby said.
“Me too.”
*
Rone and Charlotte turned down a sloping paved street and the smell of the ocean began to fill their nostrils. The air had the dull stillness that characterized early afternoon near the ocean, when the winds began to turn from blowing out to sea to blowing back into shore.
“That smell has been a long time in the coming,” Rone said. His feet fell hard against the uneven paving stones on the slope. As they turned a corner, an opening between two huddled buildings revealed a vast and imposing series of docks, freight-ways, and canals. Rone held her arm as they paused to look. “Impressive, eh?”
“It reminds me of the harbor in Fargana, only that city has a river running through it. As busy as a hill of ants.”
They started down the hill. It descended quickly toward the flat walkway in front of the lattice of docks. The buildings around had grown larger and more packed together, composed more of warehouses, stockrooms, and workshops than houses. Between them and the ocean stood a forest of tall masts and rope riggings. Men jostled about in every free space on the old stone walkways, carting great boxes and barrels, and more than a few people in chains.
“Alright, that looks like it up ahead there,” Rone pointed at an ancient sandstone building with a large front door facing off toward the harbor and surrounded by men. It was large enough to be a keep in its own right, though it lacked the usual defenses.
“My, it is big… Though I expected the silver seat of the west to have something a bit more...” Charlotte trailed off.
“Expensive looking?”
“Yes. Um... current is more the word I was looking for. This building looks a lot older than the castle, which is saying something.”
“Aye, I’ve heard the keep has been standing in some sense since the fourth dominion and hasn’t been changed for five hundred years.” He stopped walking to turn and look up the hill, beyond the skyline of the twisted buildings of the city, at the massive castle that overlooked it. It appeared black at that moment, looming at the edge of a cliff over the sea. The clouds, blown swiftly over to the highlands by the winds above the marine layer, were casting frightening shadows across it that swam like a magic haze.
“If that’s the case, it would have to have been built before the Harecs controlled the city,” Charlotte said. “Perhaps the original keep for castle Hadelim?”
“Hadelim? Doesn’t ring a bell. Hard to think of a time without a Harec ruling the Silver City.”
“You know, the Harecs had an unenviable title in the south reaches of Latheria, once upon a time.”
“Are there any titles that are unenviable?”
“Many, at least from a noble’s perspective. The Harec estate was in a swamp.”
Rone raised an eyebrow. “Still, I wouldn’t mind the luxury.”
“Somehow I think you, more than anyone I’ve known, would mind.” She smiled at him. “You are much too restless to live the life of a noble.” She sighed.
“You have me there,” Rone said. “I had an opportunity for restful work, with the guard.” He paused and looked at the sky for a moment. “Not meant to be.”
“I’m sure it didn’t pay as well as your current job.”
Rone looked at her and shook his head. “It’s not that. I haven’t been paid yet, have I? No, there are some things you have to do. Things that are part of what you are, for better or worse.” There was a short silence where Charlotte stared at him contemplatively, then Rone said, “How did the Harecs end up here, do you know?”
“Vanilla.”
“An herb?”
“It was, and is to some extent, the gold and silver of the lowlands. It grows well there. They made enough over the years to buy this fief when the old lords were swept away.”
They were now standing a dozen feet from the front door of the trade offices of Masala, which stood ajar with a line of people reaching out one side. Occasionally a man in a uniformed blue set of trousers would walk in or out of the empty side of the door.
“I wonder what they did to be culled. The old lords.”
“Some significant heresy, I’m sure,” Charlotte wore a half-smile, and Rone watched the light from the pinholes in her parasol crawl across it. Her eyes, now a bright blue, glowed in the shade with reflections of himself standing in the bright sun. A strand of copper hair picked up in the wind and blew across her nose.
Rone stared at her for a long moment before realizing how close she was standing. He took a step toward the door. “How did you their family’s history?”
“The count of Masala was a prospective suitor. It was worth my time to know.”
Rone nodded and chewed his lip. “Come on.” Charlotte looped her arm into Rone’s and they threaded themselves through the throng into the larger inner room.
The inside of the registrar was dim, but neatly kept. The thick walls and small windows were a relic of an older style of construction within the city, much more concerned with sturdiness than comfort. That concern was well preserved within the ancient docking agency, which (as Rone reckoned) held onto much of the contraband that was confiscated on site. On each deep-set window was a set of crossed bars planted firmly in the stone, reaffirming this purpose. The ceiling was stained a deep gray, nearly black, from years of candles, lamps, and other light sources. On one side was a set of tables with a stack of books and papers piled up on it. The line of people from the outside led up to it, and a mousy clerk sat behind it scribbling onto a ledger with a ragged goose-feather pen. Rone and Charlotte could hear him conversing with the man in the front of the line as they walked by.
“Fifteen men, twelve women, three child, just like it say.” The old man was holding out a dirty sheet of paper that the clerk was eyeing over.
“I assume you will be housing them on ship until tomorrow?” The clerk never looked the old man in the eye, instead focusing on the scratchy writing of his pen.
“Yar, that’s the plan.”
The clerk handed him a piece of paper. “Take this to the cashier next door, he’ll give you a set of stamps once you pay the total due. Be mindful of them, we can’t replace lost stamps, and you’ll have to pay the tax twice if your slaves pull theirs off before the auction. Next.” Another man with a stack of papers stood up to the table. The little man didn’t seem to notice Rone and Charlotte as they walked leisurely into the next room.
The next room was darker than the first. The rear wall contained a pair of great iron doors, double-barred both inside (so Rone assumed) and out, with two padlocks. To its left was a cashier’s cage, iron-shod, with an old bespectacled man writing in his ledger beside stacks of silver and gold coins just out of arm’s reach. The old man from the previous room walked up to the cage and, despite his ragged exterior, produced a dirty leather purse from his pocket and began to count gold coins out on the counter while the cashier inside began stamping a set of small papers.
