The swollen river makes us faster as we head away from the burned-out Kelssen theit, home of these children and Ydka, mother to two of them. It has been raining hard, and they have long since gone through crying about what’s happened.
“Pot’s filling up quick, Blackeye.”
The girl Dottke is smiling now despite the cold rain hammering down as though it hates us. The one pot that had been stashed in the boat with the pack of food, clothes and plant is filling up nicely with water and should replenish our flasks.
Brek is asleep next to me. The arrow-shot boy woke in the night and a finger of opia eased him off again. Ydka’s baby starts whining, barely an hour after she last give him her bab. She jerks awake, her hands moving around under the cloak she’s wrapped in, helping it onto her nipple. She pulls a face before looking over at me.
“Think he was born with teeth, this one.”
“Does he have a name, Ydka?”
“Not until he’s a year. My ma was clear on that rightly from the moment she heard I was with him. Same with me as it was with Jorno.”
“A Fasties woman then.” Which meant, among other things, the da wouldn’t have really had a say, not least because these was hard lands and nobody wanted, in Hillfast winters, to be stitching names into the weave only to unpick them before spring.
“I’m sorry for your family,” I says, “for Murin and all the Kelssens.” She looks about us, only Dottke awake, but she has lain back down and curled up into Litten and Aggie.
“Thank you, Amondsen.” She’d been crying in the night. This miserable and bitter dawn, a mist fogging up the lands beyond the banks of the river, give us a solitude and quiet that is needed. It hides us too, though the sounds of the horns faded in the dark hours before dawn. I don’t think we are being followed.
“Whose lands will we be in now?” I ask, looking to put her mind onto something useful.
“Jannissens. There’s a river dock we’ll come to shortly. Nakvi-Russ joins the Nakvi-Anssi and the docks are just past their joining.”
She looks ahead at the river. We’re not talking about how we go from here; what I will do, what I won’t do, what will happen to these children. I have given no promises, no word, and that is as it is meant. I don’t want this. From the moment Ydka’s keep come out of the trees, freshly mutilated by the whiteboys, I hadn’t wanted this.
I’m tired. I lift the hood back away from my head to let the cold rain soak me and keep me awake.
“I didn’t want to say something the last few days you been with us, but you been beaten haven’t you? Was it the whiteboys did it?”
“Yes,” I says.
“You paid colour though, you must’ve seen a few of them off too. Were you working for Othbutter then?”
“No, I … I used to be a merchant, in the port of Hillfast. We was attacked when I was coming back to my homeland.”
“You got away with your life. You must owe Sillindar.” This is a saying meaning that it is thanks to the magists that I am still alive. I have fuck all to thank a magist for, this much is true. I have even less reason to tell her my troubles.
“I do owe Sillindar, among others.”
“How come you’re not headed back to Hillfast then? You lose the shirt off your back, as the saying goes? Is there a way you can help us now?”
“There’s nothing for me at Hillfast. I expect there’s debts, mind, I don’t rightly know.” I look about me at the sleeping children. Ydka’s dut wriggles about again, he’s fed and he’s awake. She lifts him up a bit from her babs and arranges a hood over both of them to protect him from the rain.
I think about Mosa and I need to look away from her, though my face is now so soaked she might not notice my tears. My face still hurts, cheek and eyes still puffy to the touch. Swelling has gone down a bit in my mouth. Seems like the spear I took and this change in my eye and the scar next to it hurt less in every way than what Khiese did to me. The woollens and boots the Oskoro left me from the herders are at least helping with my feet and the cold. I don’t know what they’d have used the bodies for.
“Where will you go?” says Ydka.
“To the port, then south to Jua or over the Sar somewhere. I got my letters so maybe a cleark, enough to feed me and to put the citadels behind me.”
“First time I seen a bit of light in your eyes, you saying that, Amondsen. I see you mean it.”
She says it with a smile but I feel there’s a bit of sadness too and she never meant for me to feel guilty about wanting to leave them, but she is alone with the last of her family, last of all the Kelssens, in this small boat.
A couple of the duts are whispering and it’s the littlest girl, Aggie, who pokes her head out of the blanket.
“I’m hungry. Where’s Ma, is she coming?”
“Ssshh, Aggie, she’s not.” This was her brother, Litten. He’s looking at me and I do my best with a frown to persuade him to hold telling her for now and he says no more than that.
“There’s a few bits in the sack there,” says Ydka. She points under the stern sheet I’m sat on while I work the scull. I drag the sack over to Ydka, and the movement of Aggie and Litten wakes the other children.
“Breakfast,” says Ydka. I watch them as they take the broken bread. They can hardly look at me as they nibble away. They’re staring at the sides of the boat or out onto the river, and the previous night will be at the front of their thoughts. She’s young, Ydka, young to have a dut and Jorno, who must have been nine or so years old.
“You had Jorno young, must have,” I says.
She’s chewing on some bread herself, and it seems to diminish her age further, cowed by the rain alongside the children, letting it moisten what is in her fingers.
“I was fourteen years. My da promised me to Murin as Orgrif hadn’t the women enough to give him any choice and you know how it is with the blood. It helped my own ma wasn’t from these parts either.” She means by this the mixing of clans that is seen to strengthen blood. She’s got hair a bit darker than the children in the boat, darker than Jorno’s too, like wet sand to their dry. I look at Jorno as she’s talking but he doesn’t seem to be listening. “More important for the match was a stretch of some three acres that was around here, Gabb’s Pen, where I was sniffing a few days ago as you know. It was known to be good land for hazel and with that come the belets and of course the henbane if you’re lucky. Orgrif felt Murin was worth it.”
“He was very lucky, I think.” She’s a fine beauty too and I feel she’d lift a bit to hear it. Her smile and the joy for her duts as she gives them comfort are startling, like a fierce sun flashing through cloud, beautiful enough I feel my own cheeks flush a bit.
“So this is your own family’s land we’re passing through?” I says.
“Not my family no more and not for years. I weave the Kelssen rope now.”
This is more true now than it was yesterday morning. It’s possible I might have been sold off like she had, and thousands like her, but for the Amondsens being a bigger family.
Of course Jorno was listening though. He leans against Ydka and hides his face.
“I want Ma!” shouts Aggie. “I want to go home.”
“And me,” says Dottke.
“You can’t go back, bluebell,” I says. “And there isn’t an easy way to say this. Those men with the painted faces, they … well, they burned your theit. All your homes are gone, and your mas and das are gone and all, I’m sorry to say.”
“They kilt them all is what she’s saying,” says Brek, who’s not opened his eyes but is clearly listening.
Litten gets upset now, and he starts crying and he’s only got Aggie to hold on to, who sees her brother upset and so she cries too and it hurts me the way Aggie cutches into him. Me and Ydka have to let them cry, and she hums for them a bit, reaching over to hug them in her spare arm.
“I need more of that rub, Blackeye,” says Brek, meaning the opia.
“You don’t. I’ll look at your wound when we get to the docks, for now you’ll have to hold till we reach it.”
“It’s hurting bad.”
I lean over him. “You sound like a drooper. You need your wits in this world, now more than ever with this lot to care for, don’t you think?”
It pleases me to see him firm up, not liking the comparison. There’s two ways people go when they get their first good taste of opia. They either shrink, like their bodies want to settle around it, and after years of seeing droopers, that shrinking’s done long before they’re robbing and killing for it. Or, like Brek, you tell them they don’t need it and they see it right, see the weakness looking to rob them, and they knock it back as much out of fear as of hate.
Late morning and voices—shouting, singing, whistling—are carrying through the last of the mist on the river. The rain’s cleared and there’s a bit of blue peppering the sky. The Russ and the Ansi join and I need Ydka’s help to oar us to a small rotted-looking pier in the current. It’s a small dock, no more than ten piers for barges, though a few more are tied to posts around.
I haven’t slept and I need to badly. I step out of the boat and tie it. There’s a couple of stone houses but the rest is tents, paddocks for the horses or dog teams doing the hauls or sleds up through the riverways, and so a lot of yapping and howling, in part from the men about.
We might as well have been a boatful of honey-glazed boar meat to all those that watch us through their pipe smoke. We are noticed by all who are stood about taking the air, or distracted from their haggling over the wares here: piles of raw and filthy furs, kegs of whale oil from the coast, linens, cottons and fish. The smell of stews and frying oils catches the attention of the children most and they look about for the source of the smoke drifting to us through the vanners, bargemen and scratchers at their business.
The moment we’re off the boat a man walks up, the only one about with a weapon in hand, a spear. He’s wearing a leather jerkin but it’s old and worn enough it should be torn up and used for polishing.
“Four bits, that spot there you’re tethered to. Pouch of bacca might cover it.” He’s got one tooth and black gums, no taller than me with his back straight. He knows he isn’t comparing as well as he’s used to, for though he’s been at the gruet he’s a noke, and colour is colour.
“Spare us, sir,” I says. “We’re out of the Kelssens. There’s trouble, we escaped with our lives. We only want to ask a bit of food and some furs and we’re gone again.”
I’ve taken my fieldbelt off of course, I don’t want to use it up yet to bargain for something to eat, but we have a purse with us that Mell had stashed in the boat. The children are standing behind me. I need to see to Brek’s shoulder but showing some colour to these men is a bit more important in giving them pause. The guard sees Ydka then, who’s been kneeling with the duts to straighten out their tunics and whisper them some rules to follow. As she straightens up his eyes widen some, seeing her beauty, but before he can speak there’s another appears behind him. His beard hoop’s carved, Carlessen rings engraved on it, the five Families of the Carlessen clan linked together. He’s older, grey beard stained with bacca spit and a tunic stained worse than a beer cloth.
“Nothing for trade in the boat that I can see. These your slaves, soldier?”
He’s speaking King’s Common, likely then from the Carlessen port.
“Are you the quartermaster?” I ask.
“Not me. Name?”
Like he was having that. “I’m Seikkerson, these are Kelssens and they aren’t slaves. You got whiteboys, Samma Khiese, a day or so away. You have to tell your quarter. They killed everyone but these here.”
He frowns, like I’d gaffed.
“She’s talking about that bandit up in the Circle, Dakka,” says the guard. “You not listened to those coming in off the Ansi last few weeks?”
“Been laid up with my chest, in’t I. You must have a belt on you, Seikkerson, you paid colour, and you old wheezers always have to pack it, even after paying out.”
“You think I should just give you my plant?” It’s too confrontational, and I instantly regret it, but who the fuck thinks plant’s there for the taking off an old merc like me, surely not a man his age.
“You won’t help me then?” He’s given me a way back in, saving a bit of honour for us both.
“Might have something can be threaded into your bacca, but I’d need to see. I lost a lot when I was attacked.” The state of my face should be plain to see.
“Much appreciated, Seikkerson.” He looks over those with me, eyes also lingering a bit on Ydka.
“What happened?”
“Whiteboys, this bandit’s soldiers that he has covered in chalk and paint, they come in and burned the Kelssen theit to the ground. Boy there’s got an arrow wound. I just about managed to get away, the chief asking me to take the children to safety. They’ve killed everyone else.” I say this last bit quieter, enough noise about us to mask it with Ydka now talking to the duts, and they didn’t need to hear it said again.
“Nowt’s happened like this round here for many years. I can hardly believe it,” says Dakka.
Another man shouts over at us then—dressed well, a clean tunic and beard, and he’s fat with fine living, boots shining with wax and a rich green cloak with a bronze clasp that is finely worked.
“Hope you’re not bargaining on those children without me getting a chance to bid, Dakka,” he calls.
He comes over, leaving what must be a couple more guards behind him.
“What’s he offered? I have a drudha can cure a dozen ailments. You’ll get a better deal from me because I can sell them for more if they’re in better shape. Wait, they’re not chained?”
“They’re not slaves either,” I says.
There are a fair few questions queued up in the corners of his mouth but a few looks are exchanged between him and the other two and he straightens up to leave.
“My mistake. I’m Gressop, of the Bethessens, Clan Carlessen of course.”
“I’m a Seikkerson, my name’s … Well, I’m called Blackeye by these duts.”
“Yes, been looking at that, looks in a bad way,” says Dakka.
“Like the rest of her,” says the guard. Dakka finds this funny.
“You’re in trouble?” says Gressop.
“We all are. I need to see the quarter, but first I need to see if someone has enough kindness to spare these children some food and furs.”
He is about to ask about our trouble when Dakka interrupts. “I’ll tell you shortly, Gress. Look, Seikkerson, we get hundreds of beggars through here with their stories of bandits and other shit. Good luck getting a man here to give food away for nothing in return. Pay your bits to my man Eddler here and you’ll have this fine pier till tomorrow at dawn.”
He leads Gressop away. I get the pouch and pay the bits and so Eddler leaves as well.
“How much did Mell put in there?” says Ydka, of the pouch.
“Another ten bits and a silver, been clipped as well, though we might get away with it.”
“Let’s get the duts some stew and a bit of that fish and be going,” she says.
“How? That won’t get us far down the river and then we’re all out.”
“Your belt?”
“No. No, not yet.”
She gives me a dirty look. “Let me have the pouch. I’ll get them something and bring you and Brek back a bite. Might be I can get a bit more pity with this dut.” With that they walk off.
Brek’s struggling with the pain as I clean and cover the bark with cotton.
“It’s itching bad,” he says.
“It will while the bark knits in. Isn’t much of a wound, but bark’s the best for drawing out the poison. It’s thirsty is bark.”
“What are we going to do?” he asks.
“Get enough food to make the run to the Carlessens’ port.” I say no more because that’s as far as the plan goes, as far as I go. They need an almshouse and some work if they aren’t going to die.
I hear a scream then despite all the other noise of the market, a child, and there’s too few of them here for it not to be one of mine.
I start walking towards the smell of the food, the direction Ydka took them. Dottke runs up, tells me Jorno got into some sort of trouble and now Ydka’s in trouble. Sure enough, a few men are surrounding her, must be dock guards. One’s holding Jorno, who’s trying to kick out, while Aggie and Litten are holding on to Ydka’s dress. She sees me, she’s upset and desperate.
“A boy snatched the pouch as I was paying for some bowls of stew off this one. I can’t pay.”
“Where did he go?”
“Oi, you with her, can you pay for the stew she just give these duts?”
“Beggars get beaten,” says one of the other two. One of them’s paid colour, faded like me though, been off the brews a while longer by the looks of him. Him and his mate have clubs in hand, though the one who’s holding Jorno against him hasn’t used it on him.
“You saw what happened then, she had coin. Did you see who run off with it?” I look about us, but there’s a crowd here, we’re near a couple of pavilions that are set up for clearks and auctions and such. A boy could have ducked round any number of corners here.
“Well, it might be we can spare your slaves that bit of gone-off turnip and piss you call a stew, eh, Ces?”
A look that has some sort of meaning passes between them, and it don’t feel right.
“I’m going to let this little one go, you should tell him how much a club hurts.”
“Jorno, stand with your ma. We’re grateful for this,” I says.
“You got plant you can trade for more,” says Ydka to me.
“She has?” This was Ces, the old man who’s standing over his pot and a pile of dirty bowls. “You got a bit of white seed?”
I shake my head. “Is it for your throat or can’t you shit?”
That brings a laugh from the dock guards and a smirk from Ydka.
“Throat of course.” Cow shit. He was saving face. He rubs the front of his throat under a short filthy beard to make better his lie.
“I can put a finger of mallow root in some hot water. Should help your throat.”
He looks grateful, and it seems only the two of us here know its main use is for his guts.
“Fetch it and there’s another bowl or two of this fine stew for these duts.”
He dips two of the dirty bowls back into the pot, gives one to Ydka and one to Litten.
I’m surprised a moment that he’d do this before getting his mallow, surprised at the two dock guards standing here with us as someone behind me hits the mud, and a roar goes up from five or six men drinking outside the tent of a brewer. The man fallen over is too soaked to get back to his feet easily and another, smaller man, quite young to look at, is in a rage, kicking him in the gut while being cheered on. The man on the ground is drunk enough to be laughing, and in a flash he grabs the other’s leg mid-swing and pushes him back off balance, knocking over a few plates and mugs. The brewer’s shouting out now for help, so why are the dock guards standing here?
When I look back from the scrap they’ve walked off towards the pens.
The old man selling his stew catches my eye, looking about him before whispering, “Boat.”
Fuckers was keeping an eye on me.
I splash through the muddy tracks, past the two men fighting and the growing ring of herders, sniffers and vanners looking for a moment’s circus.
At the pier I see Brek sat up and he’s crying.
“I was shouting for you!” he says. It’s clear before he says it that we’ve been robbed. There’s no sack under the stern sheet, my sword’s gone and my own sack, with Mosa’s shirt in it. I feel sick, my belly’s flipped upside down inside me. I can’t have lost it, not after this winter and all these months, all I’ve been through.
“Where did they go? Hey, Brek, it’s fine, come here.” There isn’t any gain in squeezing him now for whoever did this. There’s a connection here, given the old cook couldn’t have said anything while the guards was standing with us, keeping us there.
I sit next to Brek, who tries to adjust himself to better let me sit next to him without the boat rocking too much. I put my arm about him, gentle at his shoulder. He’s having a proper cry now, heaving and emptying all the last day out of him, I think. It’ll hit them all once the hunger’s eased back a bit.
His crying ends with the usual shudders and snotty sleeve. He leans behind him then fetches out my sack, which would have been lying beneath him when the robber come.
“Oh Brek,” I says. I kiss him.
“I was propping myself up with it to have a look about. When he come I just moved a bit so’s he couldn’t see it.”
I take the sack, small, grey leather, covered in my sweat and blood with no care or wax given to it since I found it forty yards from a dead man’s cart before midwinter in the high hills of Hardy. The worn leather drawstring is tied tight. The weight is right, barely more than the sack itself.
“What’s in it?” he asks.
“Something precious.” I loop it across my body.
“I’m sorry, Blackeye, I was scared and I didn’t want to be.”
“Don’t be. I’ll fetch Ydka and the duts back here and go looking for our things.”
He tells me what the man looked like, tells me who was stood near when it happened. His description isn’t going to be much use, a plaited blond beard and a brown hooded cloak, though this man did have a few teeth missing.
Ydka and the others I send back to the boat to see out the afternoon while I make up the mallow root decoction for the cook.
“Tell me about the quarter here,” I ask him.
He’s boiled up some water and I strip the guira and mallow and press them out into a bowl he’s prepared.
“Leb Carlessen, face like a bald ferret, can’t be much over twenty, dresses fine enough and I reckon has been put here to keep him out of the port’s taverns and to learn how to do something useful instead. About as straight as a horseshoe is the trouble. He quickly got used by a couple of brothers who cut their rope a few years back down southeast near Hope lands. I reckon Forontir would pay a bit to see their heads. Now he’s got them as his clearks.”
“Names?”
“Westal and Gressop. Westal’s paid colour. You know, I saw him playing with the woman Leb keeps around, out when I was foraging a week or so back. Kept my head down or he might have cut it off. Could be something you could wedge between them.”
“Leb’s got that longhouse just off the two big piers I saw coming in?” I ask.
“He has.”
He confirms there’s only one way in or out of the longhouse. He’s as grateful for the brew as I am for that bit about Westal.
I walk through the few other stalls that are set up and past some fires been made by those who are stopping over for the night. There’s a lot of eyes on me, woman who paid colour, and I’m sure my black eye don’t help. It’s rubbing bad and I need some oil on it. I’m desperately tired and hungry now, but I want to go walk around this longhouse of Leb Carlessen’s before I head back to the boat to get some rest. I don’t know how I’m going to feed the duts next.
I walk a route around the staging post and Leb’s longhouse, a habit from my soldiering, looking for runs in and out of the place. Sure as the old cook said, just the one door. As I return along the piers I can see Gressop at our boat, Leb’s man, the would-be slaver from earlier. He’s alone, standing with Ydka slightly apart from the children in the boat, and turns when he sees the children and Ydka look at me approaching.
“Aaah, Seikkerson.”
“What’s going on, Ydka?”
“He wants to help us.” There are tears in her eyes as she cradles the baby.
“I do. I heard of your misfortune from two of Carlessen’s guards.”
“I’m sure you did.”
I see a shade of tightness in his jaw, his lips. He doesn’t realise how much I can see, thinks perhaps my eye is worse than normal, or even blind, not far better.
“I can help Ydka and she can help all of you.”
“Ydka, what the fuck is going on?”
“Don’t, Amondsen.”
“Amondsen?” he says.
“Oh Teyr, sorry, I’m sorry.” I hold a hand up to shush her.
“I said my name was Seikkerson. It’s not, I’m Amondsen rope. I was being cautious.”
“Of course, I understand.” He swallows as he says it, as if the name caught him by surprise, as if it means something to him.
“So what do you mean by saying that Ydka can help all of us?”
“Ydka is beautiful, like Sillindar made a woman out of honey if I may say so, and, even better, she’s milking for that dut. I know a merchant with a number of main ten cargo interests—sorry, I’m saying that he’s very rich—and he will need a wet nurse come the summer.”
“A slave, then.”
“There are slaves and there are slaves, as you must know if you’ve paid the colour. You’ll have seen slaves broken in mines and you’ll have seen slaves living well. I have been plain about this with Ydka.”
“Who’s going to see Litten, Aggie, Dottke and Brek right then, with that food and coin?”
“Well, her older boy, Jorno, he’s not—”
“No.”
“Amondsen …” says Ydka, a tremor in her voice telling me she has talked about Jorno finding his own way—with me, she must think.
I look past her. Jorno is wrapped in a cloak and sat next to Brek. They’re all laughing at something Aggie must have said, as she’s cross and Litten has to hold her from rocking the boat too much. The sound of them at play rings a heavy and cold bell, and for a moment I’m hearing the harbour bell from the apple trees of my old garden. He’s hiding, I’m counting to ten.
“You’re abandoning your son as well as all these duts of your Family? You’d sever your rope?”
“Don’t talk to me about rope, Amondsen. You give your Family nothing. You said as much to Mell the other night and I heard you clear enough. This is about feeding my dut and keeping the Kelssen rope, all that’s left of it. You stopped to help the theit and you didn’t have to, so you made it your work to care for them now.”
“Like fuck I did,” I hiss.
“Five silver coins and food for the journey should see you south,” says Gressop over us. “If Jorno finds an almshouse to take him in the port then I’m sure some form of correspondence would be allowed. My friend will not open his doors to a family, and what then would Ydka and the rest of you do if you insisted on her refusing me? This sacrifice she makes now will help all these children until you can find something better for them. But, sorry, I forget that you have so many more important things to do, you would leave them.”
A moment where I see my fist hammer into his face passes.
“We’ll find some food, Ydka. I can hunt, I can sniff.”
She glances back to Jorno before looking again at me.
“Look at you, Amondsen. Look at us. Scrabbling around for hazelnuts and belets? No proper woollens or boots for the next few weeks? Is it better or worse for my boys, now my Murin’s gone and our theit’s gone? We’re not going hungry and right now we choose either nothing or five silver and food for all these.”
I turn to Gressop, whose concern is smeared thin across his face. “Gressop, if your family name was in need of even an ounce of honour you’d be supporting these Kelssens, you oily piece of shit. You’re all one clan. I’m going to speak to Leb.”
“That’s a good idea. We should do that.”
That wasn’t the answer I thought he’d give. Something smells bad about all of this.
“They your men, Gressop?” says Ydka.
Gressop and I turn to look behind us. I see a couple of men leading horses through the main run, but their backs are to us and they’re soon obscured by others loading and unloading barges.
“No idea,” says Gressop.
“They was looking our way, like they knew you.”
“Not seen them before, and dock guards wouldn’t be leading horses through the main run,” he says.
He was right about them not being guards. The horses are thick with mud and saddlebags and the men’s cloaks just as dirty. They’d just come in and looked road heavy, as we used to say back on campaign.
“We should speak to Leb, Amondsen,” says Gressop. “Sooner we can work this out the better. It’ll rain shortly.”
I shiver, a reflex that’s my body’s way of slapping me awake. I barely heard him, and he’s waiting for me to answer, seeing sleep crowding at my eyes. I want to argue with him about charity, but I have no idea if the Bethessens and Kelssens are close or not. His family’s honour does not move him, at least as much as I can see. I look up and see the black clouds building from the west. There’s nowhere for the children to shelter except we’d have to beg people for a corner of their pavilion or covered wagon.
“Amondsen, he’s waiting,” says Ydka. And Gressop’s now behind me, waiting for me on the edge of the main run.
“We need to talk later, Ydka. A slave is a slave.”
She doesn’t answer. If anything I’m hardening her in favour of Gressop’s offer of slavery, not the opposite.
“I’ll be back later, Brek. Dottke, can you look after him?”
“Yes, Captain Blackeye.” She’s pleased with herself for saying it and I’m warmed by it.
Gressop leads me to the longhouse. Two men who paid colour are standing at the door to it, both been at the gruet and must be from further south, darker hair, shaved faces. They do their best to look at me like I’m dirt. Then the one speaks, and it’s Common.
“Belt.” I don’t like it, any of it. I managed to get a lick of amony while Gressop walked in front of me moments ago, so if there’s trouble I might only have the advantage in the next half an hour or less.
It’s small enough inside, even humble. A fine but plain high-backed chair is at the far end of the room. Must be Leb sitting on the chair, from the old cook’s description. Lad has lost most of his hair already, just a band around the sides he keeps razored and a sad little moustache in need of a good dinner. The more interesting face by far is on the man to his left, standing in leathers, belt and blade. He’s scarred worse than me, an expression that’s calm, that weary expectant look in the eyes that a long day won’t end quietly. No spears about the room, that’s something in my favour. He must be Westal.
Leb stands, adds a few inches to his height. He puts on a frown to make himself appear more serious.
“Gressop?” he says.
“This is Teyr Amondsen, Quarterman. She’s arrived this morning from the Kelssen theit upriver. Burned to the ground, she tells us. She, along with a delightful young mother and some orphans, are all that survived.”
Leb looks to Westal and back at Gressop. Westal subtly shifts his feet, maybe doesn’t know he’s doing it, his back straightens. It feels like me or my name is getting this reaction. I’m glad of the amony, it’s taken me away out of the exhaustion I was feeling, though I’ll likely drop where I’m standing when it wears off. For now the world is as sharp as needles to my eyes and ears.
“Well, we have a friend down at port looking for a fine young wet nurse, so I offered a fair sum to this girl and Amondsen here that would more than help her see the children safe somewhere. Food enough to get them there too. She thought, however, that I should just give her and these Kelssens alms for the honour of it.”
Westal looks me over carefully. He’s not amused like Leb is. He’ll be the most trouble.
“Teyr Amondsen,” says Leb. “There’s a name to rattle the old scabbard, eh?”
“You heard it before?” I says.
“Well …”
But he’s said enough, for he can’t know me. I had an agreement with Tarrigsen in Hillfast about leaving trade with this clan to him, for a price, so I’d not dealt directly with any at Port Carl. I’m about to make a move on them when Sillindar chooses to smile on me. A woman walks through from a doorway behind Leb’s chair. I see a desk and scrolls, but I don’t see ink on her fingers, which are as white as the babs she’s got only half covered by a dress of more use down in sunny Jua than here. Her glance at Westal the moment before she reaches Leb’s side is enough to seal it.
“Fladdie, can you leave us for a while. I’ll send Hekkl for you later.”
“Yes, Quarterman.” There’s little formality in her speaking.
“Best not send Westal, eh Leb,” I says, “it’ll take him a few minutes longer to fetch her, from what I’ve heard.”
There’s a delightful moment as Leb turns to look at Westal, Fladdie’s mouth drops open and Westal looks over at both of them.
This moment’s all I need.
I run at Westal, Gressop yells but I’m at him. The world narrows itself into only balls, eyes and throat. He’s good enough close in, sadly. He leans as my fist comes in. I catch his neck and it’s enough to give me another moment to kick his knee back. But he’s as calm as me, our learning done in alleys and battlefields, so he shifts balance to the other knee. He won’t have time for his sword and wastes none trying to free it. Leb shouts for the men out front. I have to press Westal again because right now he’s the only one has a weapon. He grabs my leg as I kick again and I use it as an anchor to launch a kick to his head with my other foot. I don’t land well enough from that however. The other two have come in and I hear steel drawing from scabbards. Westal has staggered backwards, stunned for a moment, but in righting myself I can take no more advantage of it. Still I have to rush him, give him or the men with swords behind me no time. He sets himself and throws a punch as I come in, uppercut. My guts are ready and I’m too close for it to go near my head. His punch rattles my ribs and I gasp but manage to jab a knuckle in his eye, pull his head up with his beard and punch his throat. Footsteps behind me. I push Westal to my side so I can fall forward to my belly, winded, fighting for my breath. A grunt accompanies the thrust of the sword, inches above where I fell. I turn my head to see him ready for another thrust, but I’m on the ground, he has to close. As he stands over my legs, thinking the winding I’ve got’s done me, I shift my weight so I can kick his balls. As he goes down I yell out, desperate and hoping someone outside might hear and interrupt them. I go for the man’s sword, get close into him, risk a stabbing as he hits his knees. His sword’s up but the kick’s emptied him. I grab and twist his wrist, a disarm. Just as the sword leaves his helpless fingers and drops into mine I feel something hit the side of my head, a fragment of nausea and everything’s gone.
Flickering torchlight squirms its way into my eyes. Left eye won’t open, swollen and as solid as an iron slingshot. My black eye needs almost no light to see. Some time has passed. I keep still: two I can make out in front of me. I’m sitting on a chair in Leb’s longhouse still, my arms tied behind my back and legs bound to it.
“She’s still alive, thank Sillindar. You’re a fucking idiot, Westal. Kill her and I’ll make sure it’s you stood in front of Othbutter.” This was Gressop.
“Suck me, Gress, think I give a shit?” The words are whispered—dry, forced out. Good. Tells me my punch still hurt him, tells me not long has passed. “I’m bored. Bored of us yessing and noing that lamb of a boy. When we going to make some real coin?”
“Easy to forget the frostbite and starving, hiding from the militia and posses trying to string us up by our gizzies. Yet you’re always forgetting.”
Westal spits. I hear some talking at the door then.
“Who’s there, Hekkl?” says Gressop.
A new voice from the doorway, letting in the sounds and smells of evening fires.
“I’ve scrolls for Leb. I’m to see they’re given to one of you as he’s not here.”
“On the table in the back room there. You have a seal?”
“Scrolls are waxed. For Leb only.”
A woman. The voice has given me pause. Why do I think I know it? I open my eye a sliver and see colours flashing with her movement as she nears and passes me to the room at the back of the longhouse. I’ve worked out that these colours come with the smells, like the eye can see what I smell. She’s wearing a fieldbelt, and she’s taken something, it’s on her breath.
“Who’s that?” she says.
“None of your fucking business,” says Westal.
“Excuse me, I didn’t hear you?”
I smile.
“He said fuck off,” says Gressop.
“I don’t think we will,” she says.
“What?”
She draws her sword, the slick sound giving away that it’s pasted. Someone opens the door and comes in.
“Where’s Leb?” they say, but muffled, must be masked. A man, another voice that dances about my memory.
Westal’s drawn his sword. “You’re not taking her, if that’s your plan.”
“Sporebag says we are,” says the man.
“You won’t make it out of Carlessen land alive.”
“Amondsen, I’m cutting you free,” says the woman. She’s near now. I hear the leather of her belt and armour cracking, smell the dayer on her breath. Then I feel a sack go over my head. Westal, seeing what this means, moves towards us, but Gressop screams and I know the sporebag’s been thrown, a splash of blues and purples is all my eye sees. The woman’s got me by the arm and I’m being stood up, my legs trembling, knees in pain. Gressop and Westal start choking, there’s a brief smack of swords and then repeated stabbing.
“Take this,” she says. I feel the hilt of a sword against my fingers.
“I can hardly fucking see,” I says, but I take it. “Where’s the guard, Hekkl?”
“Leyden’s told him Leb’s wanted here. That man he just killed was right: we won’t make it out of Carlessen land if we leave this lot alive.”
“For me?”
“Master Amondsen, I’m one of your vanners working Ablitch—everyone calls me Cherry. I put the bag on your head because anyone finds out it’s you, it’ll be a death sentence for Cleark Thornsen as well as you if he’s found to be hiding your whereabouts.”
“Cherry? Oh Sillindar, is that you, Jairu? I haven’t seen you in near a year.”
“Yes, yes, it’s me. Leyden told me it was you, on the boat earlier. Your whole guild had orders from Thornsen to keep a lookout for you on our runs, stop at every stagepost and riverdock and theit to ask after you. Here, hold your head still.” I hear her at her belt, then she takes the hood off and presses something wet and cool over my eyes, river moss in it, burdock. It’s tingling, and I feel the water and blood leak out.
“Good mix,” I says.
“One of Thad’s.”
I see him the moment she says his name, singing on a ship, filling his pipe with bacca, holding me as we leave Marola, betrayed by our own.
“Master Amondsen, I know yer got questions, as many as we have for you,” says Leyden, “but first we have to do this Leb Carlessen.”
“Why?”
“There’s a bounty on you. Othbutter.”
“What?”
“Othbutter’s got you down for killing his brother. Got sent his hoop and sword from the Seikkersons. How did you not know?”
My mind’s spinning. There’s no time to catch up. They’ve been reckless, they haven’t thought it through, too young. I’m moved, how they just acted as they did from the moment they saw me, but killing Leb was making trouble for these two and Thornsen, who’s given them the order to find me.
“Right,” I says, “we can’t go over this now. You’ve been seen, word’ll spread if you kill Leb. He’s the only one with any clout in Hillfast and these two was running him. I was told they was gangers got their claws in. Might be we did him a favour in killing them. Cherry, tie my hands back up, sword on me, when he comes in say you found me killing them. Say you’ll take his seal and me downriver to his uncle. I bet Thornsen didn’t give you the Amondsen seal, did he?”
Leyden smiles. “Nope, gave us Carlessen’s.” I send a wish up to Sillindar for Thornsen’s savvy.
Cherry’d just got my hands tied when Leb walks in. Hekkl’s with him and he straight away levels his spear at us all.
“Get out!” shouts Hekkl.
“Wait,” says Cherry. “We’re Carlessen vanners. Stopped this one trying to leave as we were putting our scrolls in. She says she got loose and killed these two.”
“She did?” He puts up a hand to relax Hekkl. “Check she’s tied, Hekkl. You two, back up against the door.” They do as they’re told.
He’s rougher than he needs to be of course. He’s scared as he comes in close.
“No touching my arse,” I says, which gets me a punch in the side and doubles me over, being near the rib Westal got a heavy fist into earlier.
“Knot’s good, Quarterman.” He shoves me down into a chair and levels his spear.
“And you, you have our seal?” Which they then hold up before them.
“Excellent. You’ll understand my caution, seeing my two advisers dead. Well, it is our good fortune you arrived when you did.” He looks over at Gressop and Westal, their blood pooling out from their backs. He can barely hide his relief; his brow softens, and he takes a deep breath.
“She won’t have told you she’s got a splendid bounty on her head from Chief Othbutter. Murdered Crogan and been on the run ever since. I’ll bet she was the one killed all those poor Kelssens in their theit not two days ago and is selling those children.”
“We’ll run her into the port and your uncle, Chief Carlessen. It’s where we’re headed back to,” says Leyden.
Leb’s in a fine mood as he realises his freedom from the gangers. “Do you need Hekkl or another of the dock guards to go with you?”
“No need. We’ll get her on the droop until we reach port,” says Cherry.
I can see the room better now with the mix clearing out my eye. Leyden’s still got that look of a beaten dog which has served him well in many scraps, while Cherry’s red hair is still thick and proud as sedge.
“The duts, well, Gressop didn’t get to selling them on,” says Leb. “Ydka left on a barge a few hours past though. I’d guess whatever fee was agreed is on his body somewhere. You two, find those children and take them to my uncle, he’ll get some good coin for them and you’ll get a cut in return.”
“Where are the children? How could Ydka fucking leave them?” I stand sharply, get the point of Hekkl’s spear in my chest. “Sit back down, old girl,” he says.
I’m sure they find it strange my seeming so attached, and it eats at me why I’m so suddenly desperate that they aren’t lost or hurt, why I’m cut so deep about it. It don’t stop me being angry at the thing in me thinking I’ll somehow be making a difference to them, or making up for what happened to Mosa.
Hekkl keeps to his duty while Cherry and Leyden head off, and Leb goes and fetches some of the other dock guards to drag out Gressop and Westal’s bodies. There’s some noise as that happens, I even hear a cheer.
“You do it? You kill Crogan?” asks Hekkl.
“No. Don’t matter, does it? Samma Khiese’s coming for all of you, and Othbutter.”
“We’ve heard things, few barges come from up north now.”
“I got no problem with you, so when I tell you you’d better get anyone you love out of here south, think on it.”
He’s about to say something when Cherry comes back with the duts.
“Blackeye!” shouts Dottke, who starts to run over to me with Litten and Aggie but then sees Hekkl’s spear at my chest.
“Don’t kill her,” she says, “she’s my friend.”
“Where’s Brek and Jorno then, Dott?”
“Brek’s gone with that man to look for him. Ydka left us, and Jorno was shouting and crying and ran off after them. Brek couldn’t run because of his shoulder.”
“You’re tied up,” says Litten.
“She is,” says Hekkl “She killed Chief Othbutter’s brother.”
“Who?” says Litten.
“She killed lots of men, I saw her,” says Dottke. “They were whiteboys and they killed my ma and da so she killed them back.”
“I’m hungry,” says Aggie. Cherry bids Hekkl go get some of Leb’s stores to feed the children. The three duts come over then, each one putting their arms around my neck, Aggie finding her way onto my knees to sit against me. I look up at Cherry, hoping somehow to tip the tears back into my eyes. Mosa would sit on my lap and I’d pick pieces of cheese off a wheel to drop into his mouth or I’d hold the jar while he dipped his fingers into our lingonberry jam and push them at my mouth to try and feed me back, catching my gums and lips with his fingernails, which Aude always promised to cut and never did.
Leyden comes back a while later. “The two boys are in the boat; Jorno won’t come in. I’ll get a sheet for us and I’ll stay with him rest of the night. We leave first light.”
I’m untied from the chair and tied instead to one of the stone posts that hold up the roof, even given a mat so I can better sleep. I sleep like the dead and grateful for it.
The following morning Cherry comes in the boat with us, Leyden takes their horses and follows along the bank, Hekkl seeing us off. Soon enough, when she takes off the ropes binding me, the children realise the two vanners have come to help me escape and they’re pleased. It gives me a chance to sit with Jorno. He won’t look at us, or he shouts at us, but he doesn’t say anything when I sit next to him or fuss when I chance smoothing the hair back on his head. The only way of getting him to rest is lying to him about seeing his ma again.
Cherry looks at my rib, there’s a bruise there and I’m having trouble breathing so I take a pipe with her, which helps a bit. She puts some more of her mix on my knees and legs where Westal must’ve kicked me as I was out cold after our scrap. Honestly, I’m bruised all over and cheek’s swollen again from the whack I took. Lucky there’s hardly any teeth in that side of my mouth anyway, but at least my attempts to talk keep Dottke and Aggie laughing. Mercifully it stays dry, just an icy breeze as we pass through trees or steep hills. We pass some boats and barges coming from the south, only a few, and it’s for appearances and what gossip they’d otherwise pass to Leb that Leyden and Cherry come this far. As it gets dark we bank the boat and Leyden gets a fire going. Once the children are sleeping around it we go to the riverbank for a smoke. I need some bacca to give me some sleep. I can hardly move for the kicking I took. Cherry put some ointment on my eye that got blackened, easing it.
“Thornsen’ll be pleased to know yer not dead,” says Leyden. “We all are.”
“I remember you come to see me when I got back from my clan up at Keppel-Kaise, when they buried my da,” says Cherry. “Thought I was in trouble when you walked into the Truin shed asking after me as we were prepping the van into the Moors.”
“I sent your ma something, I think. I don’t remember so much.”
“You came up to Truin just to see me. I’ll never forget what you did.”
“Cherry, you vanners risk your lives for a tally. I know, I been one. Least a master can do is recognise that it matters. Leyden, your brother back working now?”
“Course. You had Thad ride out to Linsback. He mended his arm fierce quick. He even stopped to help with the harvest or we’d have lost much of it.”
“He said your sister’s kiss was payment enough. I’m glad he’s well.”
“Now you should get away, Master Amondsen, we can take the duts downriver. Thornsen will be delighted to know you’re alive, but you can’t really come back,” says Leyden.
“I know, he’s right. But do this for me: take these instructions to Thornsen. Tell him and Tarrigsen I’m sorry, sorry for Aude and Mosa, sorry even for Crogan and all the others. Tell him to pull everyone out of Faldon Ridge outpost if Othbutter isn’t putting at least a few hundred men there or at Elder Hill; I won’t have our families or any more people still in my employ dying for me. Get them back to Tapper’s Way. If Othbutter don’t defend the Braeg river and get those Crutter and Warrens dogs to put up some men, then Hillfast belongs to Khiese.”
“Can’t be, Master, he can’t have that many, this Khiese.”
“I been months up in the mountains over winter, left for dead by him, and all the clans in the Circle are his. He’s no cave worm, Khiese; he wins hearts as well as hands and he’s building an army can’t be bought off him. You have to get back to Thornsen and Othbutter with this as fast as you can or many more’ll die than what these poor duts have seen this last few days. Cherry, get our birds at Ablitch Fort going up to Faldon Ridge and over to deliver the message to Hillfast. Leyden, you’ll come with me to the port and get yourself on a boat, you’ll make sure the message gets there if the birds don’t. You’ll take this with you and all.” I give him the bag with the shirt in. “Tell Thornsen to put it in the house. Tell him I wanted something of us to get home.”
“I will, Master. But I’m concerned that you’ll be spotted if you don’t lie low, because if the posters and criers are out, that scar on your lips is as easy to describe as to see.”
“First and last time I kissed an axe. Look, I won’t leave these duts, not now. I’ll take my chances. I can’t do much for them after getting them to port. I got no way to feed them and I’ll be arrested the moment someone figures who I am. I have to hope I can find them alms before that, then I don’t give a fuck what happens to me. Tell Thornsen the company belongs to him, he’s earned it a thousand times over, what he’s done for me these past few years.”
“Don’t do this, Master, please. What could have happened since you left that …?” but Cherry stopped Leyden from continuing.
“I went too fucking far is what happened, Leyden. I didn’t think Khiese was much more than a thug that could be sorted out. But … but no, it wasn’t that was it; it was me thinking that I just decide something has to be how I want it and it’ll happen. I had a dream and saw it becoming real and I wouldn’t let it go no matter what. Now everyone’s dead, and I was happy to die and all but my heart kept beating, and when it stopped the fucking Oskoro made it start again.”
They was quiet for a bit, sorting this out in their heads.
“So why does your heart keep beating?” says Cherry. “Must be some reason you can’t figure just yet, Master Amondsen, something it’s not telling you.” She smiled and put her arm around me.
“Might be. But I’m going to find somewhere quiet, if I can escape, so I can let those heartbeats just get to the end. I’ve done enough harm.”