Children of Chaos

five

FRENA WIGSON

was driving her chariot down a long hillside, hooves drumming, wheels bouncing, axle squealing, leather floor squeaking. She clutched the reins in one hand and the rail in the other and let her knees absorb whatever jostling and bouncing was not stopped by the webbing. That was the theory; in practice she was going up and down like laundry in a water trough. The wheels leaped from ridge to ridge and the wind whirled her hair like a flag. Exhilaration!

"What village is that ahead?" She had to shout very loud.

Verk yelled back, "Bitterfeld, mistress. A very forgettable place."

There were few things more enjoyable in life than driving a pair of strong young onagers on a fine morning and letting the wind blow your hair around—assuming you had hair suitable for the purpose—but it was not the best situation for conversation. On a smooth track, yes, but there was no real track at all through these hills. Travel was very educational.

Her companion was Verk, her father's senior guard. His big hand grasped the rail without a single white knuckle and he held himself rock-steady with no visible effort except the rhythmic flexing of the muscle in his forearm.

"Tell her she's driving too fast!" Uls howled from the other chariot, close behind. If he remained farther back, he would not have to breathe Frena's dust, but Uls was not the sharpest sword in Skjar and he invariably stayed closer to Verk than his shadow. The brothers were so alike that nobody could tell them apart—as long as neither spoke. After that it was easy.

"Am I driving too fast?" she said.

"Dark and Night are enjoying the run," Verk said. "If you do not let them get overheated, they will come to no harm."

He was being tactful, because Frena had no practical way of reducing speed at the moment. Pulling back on the reins would frighten the onagers and hurt their mouths. She lacked the strength to do any good with the brake lever and would certainly not ask Verk for help. But Dark and Night were as sure-footed as ibexes, and the car had been specially made for her by the best wheelwright in Skjar.

Here the stony hills opened up to cup a valley, bottomed with scabby grain fields. She did not know this road at all. She usually traveled by the north trail, but Father's letter had said to come the south way, without saying why.

"Bitterfeld?" she said. "Father owns this land!" She had heard the name on the tribute list. "They are late planting." She should stop and talk with the headman. It never hurt to let them know that Horth Wigson was watching.

"The rains are late," Verk said.

She did not know Verk well. As chief household guard, he spent most of his time close to Father, but he was a pleasant companion, well-spoken and good-looking. Father had hired the twins not long before she left for Kyrn, to spend the summer in the hills as all sensible rich folk did.

The chariot was a tight fit for two people and necessarily intimate. Verk's long braids hung below his bronze helmet, jiggling and dancing as the car bounced, and the wind rippled the golden fuzz on his arms. His armor was a knee-length leather smock coated with bronze scales, the hot sun making it reek of the dozens of house guards who had worn it before him. That was not his fault, but it was another reminder of proximity. His free hand was supposedly steadying his scabbard against his thigh, but every few bounces Frena would be thrown against that arm, like it or not, and her wrap was sleeveless also—skin against skin.

Fortunately Frena always kept her emotions under tight control. She had no romantic interest in a mere swordsman, a slab of a man who would risk his life for the chance to live and eat in a mansion. Verk was intelligent enough to share a little mild flirting without getting illusions.

He glanced down at her with a gleam in his unusually dark blue eyes. "If you do lose a wheel or snap the axle, mistress, please make sure you break my neck as well as your own."

"You are feeling suicidal? Angry husbands after you?"

"Husbands never frighten me, but an angry employer would."

"My father is a gentle, loving person, and extremely generous to his staff."

"Aee! That's true, mistress, but they do say he's mean when his servants skimp their duty."

"That's not true. Give me one example! Just one!"

"Quera."

"Who?" Frena said uncertainly.

"Quera. He had her impaled, they do say."

"No! You've been listening to slander. Who says that? That horrible Master Pukar, I'll bet!"

Verk shrugged his bronze-clad shoulders, not looking at her. Not smiling.

"You weren't there and I was!" Frena said icily. "I was only thirteen, but I saw! That awful woman was brought in to be Mother's night nurse when she was injured. When Mother died, Father could have beaten her and then dismissed her, or he could have had her charged with negligence. He didn't do either. He threw her out in the street with his own hands. I saw it! She deserved much worse than that, but even a court would not have impaled her. Impaling is only for really terrible crimes."

"Aee! Gold clinks louder than thunder, they do say."

"That is treason! And blasphemy! Judges in Skjar are all Speakers of Demern. Witnesses of Mayn give testimony. You accuse initiates of those holy cults of accepting my father's bribes? Of being intimidated by him?"

"Who won't march to the beat of the golden drum?"

This was subversive talk, going beyond informal chat. No servant should speak of his employer like that. "If my father wins a judgment it is because he is in the right."

"Ah, I meant no affront to the master, dear lady! Forgive a poor swordsman's folly. Any man who wears a sword in Werist country is born stupid."

"Tell her to slow down!" Uls yelled again. He was falling farther behind, still enveloped in the red clouds raised by Frena's wild passage. Uls was stupid.

Verk was not.

Horth Wigson enjoyed owning things in sets—strings of pearls, fleets of ships, streets of houses, and now a pair of identical house guards. Not to be outdone, his daughter had treated herself to a matched pair of black onagers, very rare and very costly. After all, onagers were useful, while swordsmen were only decorative—life-sized animated bronze ornaments. Verk and Uls attended Horth when he expected important visitors. They escorted him on the rare occasions when he went calling on someone. The rest of the time they did little except harass maidservants.

Yesterday he had sent them to Kyrn to fetch Frena back to the city. The tablet they brought had been cracked, but quite legible. The seal impressed on it had certainly been his, and the Kyrn house scribe had read the message as being what the swordsmen said it was, that Frena was to go home to Skjar as soon as possible and they were to escort her. It had not said why Father needed her, which was annoying.

She hoped her visit would be short. The city was a steam bath in summer. Kyrn, on the far side of the hills, was blissful. All her friends were there now—boating, swimming, hunting birds in the marshes, driving chariots. In groups, of course. Women must watch their reputations, and very rich youngsters must be well guarded. All her friends were rich, although no old family fortune could compare with Father's. Not that life was all play at Kyrn. Far from it! She supervised the lambing and planting. Today she should be directing the planned extensions to the threshing floor and oast house.

"What did you mean, if not what you said?"

Verk pummeled himself, as if trying to scratch an itch under the bronze smock. "If Quera had been bribed to harm your mother, would you just throw her out in the street?"

The chariot was slowing down as the ground flattened and the onagers tired. Frena was able to spare her companion a hard stare.

"Are you suggesting my mother was murdered in her own house?"

"Someone tried to murder her outside of it, mistress. They might have paid her to finish the job."

Frena had never thought of that. But she had seen Father throw the stupid woman out. What was Verk trying to tell her? He shielded his eyes from the sun as he studied the village ahead.

The track was barely visible, and Bitterfeld was only a scatter of mud hovels around a spring. No doubt one of those thatch roofs covered a shrine to the Bright Ones and some others cattle sheds. What a revolting prospect! How could anyone stand the lethal dullness of life in such a burrow, where the principal occupation would be keeping the livestock out of the crops? But Father owned these lands, as he owned so much around Skjar, and the residents would certainly make Frena welcome, offer confections of berry juice, honey, and cream; have the children sing and dance for her. She would inspect the village and tell Father's tallymen what was needed, if anything.

Except that there was nobody home. Some sort of ceremony was already in progress a couple of bowshots away from the village, at the base of a rocky knoll bedecked with a few straggly fruit trees. The crowd looked surprisingly big to have come from so few houses.

"What's happening? A midsummer festival?"

"Something," Verk muttered, frowning.

"Praying for rain, perhaps. Let us go and see." Frena worked the reins, easing Night back, flicking Dark's haunches. The chariot curved off across the fields, heading for the assembly.

The center of attention was a man standing under a tree with his arms raised, as if appealing to the Bright Ones. The crowd had gathered in an arc before him, children closest, adults on the outside. Voices surged like waves of Ocean beating on shingle, but in no song or chorus she knew.

"What in the world are they doing?"

Verk did not answer, his craggy features oddly tense as he studied the scene.

"Which god do farmers pray to?" Even a city girl ought to know that much. "Holy Weru, perhaps? He's god of storms."

Still concentrating on the crowd, Verk muttered, "Not Weru, mistress! Not farmers."

"Holy Ucr, then?"

Everyone knew Father was an initiate of the Ucrist mystery, for no one could acquire so much wealth without the god's blessing. As patron lord of prosperity and abundance, Ucr should support farmers as much as merchants.

"They might pray to Ucr to stay away," Verk muttered. "Holy Nula, more like. Turn away, mistress! This is not for you. Go back—now!"

"You do not give me orders!"

"Stop her!" howled Uls, who had caught up with them by cutting the corner of the curve.

The crowd had noticed her approach and turned to watch. So far the man under the tree was ignoring her... and was wearing nothing but a blindfold? The man under the tree was hung there by his wrists, feet barely touching the ground. He was bloody, as if he had been savagely beaten.

"What is this?" Frena cried.

"Drive on, mistress!" Verk barked. "This is not for you."

"I am not going anywhere until I understand what is going on here! And what are those men over there doing?" Three of them, digging a hole.

"Tell her that black hair is bad luck!" Uls yelled shrilly.

"And black onagers, too! Drive away, mistress, as you value your life. They think you're coming to rescue him."

"I will rescue him!" she shouted. "What crime has he committed? What Speaker has pronounced holy Demern's judgment? Is that hole meant to be a grave?"

"Of course it is," Verk howled. "Now, drive on!"

Some of the watchers shouted and started running forward.

"Remind her what happened to her mother!" Uls screamed.

"I will not drive on!" Frena bent and gripped the brake lever with both hands. She raised it to dig the claw into the ground; the chariot shuddered and slowed, throwing her against the wicker of the front and raising a cloud of red dust. "What they are doing is murder. Tell them who I am. I want to know what they're doing to that man and what he's done to deserve—"

"Missy!" Verk barked, in a tone she had not heard from him before. He jerked the brake lever from her grip by slamming it down with his sandal. "Your father swore by his god that he would have me impaled if I did not bring you home safely today. Now you must drive on or I will."

With his longer arms, he reached past her to tug on Dark's reins. He snatched the whip from the socket and expertly laid it on Night's back. Braying in protest, the onager surged forward and the car began to turn away from the mob.

The mob howled and gave chase.

"What the man has done is use the evil eye, mistress. I expect he cursed the lambing or made the rain stay away." Something clinked off his helmet. "What they are doing, mistress, or are about to do, is send him back to the Old One who sent him, and whose thing he is." Gradually the chariot was gathering speed. "And good riddance for all such as he!"

The crowd was running. They were coming for her, like the mob that had killed her mother. Black hair was unlucky, the mark of the Old One. Nonsense, of course— Florengians had darker pigmentation than Vigaelians, that was all, and she had inherited it from her mother. Shouting and baying, the crowd streamed toward her. She could make out no words, but the hatred was obvious. The village dog pack had arrived already, yapping and snarling all around, making Dark and Night twitch and snap and try to kick.

The man under the tree had been a Vigaelian spattered with filth and blood, not a Florengian, so it was not his color that had provoked the lynching. Perhaps he really was a chthonian, a Chosen of the Old One.

Stones spun through the air, narrowly missing her. The mob's words were still incomprehensible, but there was no mistaking the rage and threat in that animal roaring. She cried out as a rock struck her shoulder.

"Uls!" Verk yelled. "Cover my left!" He thrust the whip into Frena's hand and drew his sword.

She thrashed the onagers and screamed at them to go faster. The stubborn brutes were distracted by the dogs, more inclined to kick and bite than run and draw the pack after them.

"I still don't understand!" she said as calmly as she could. The Old One, Mistress of Darkness, was named Xaran, but that name was never spoken except in holy rites, lest it summon Her. The Chosen were Her agents, supposedly workers of evil. Yet it was very hard to see evil in that helpless victim dangling under the tree, or holy Demern's justice in this brute horde.

"He belongs to the Evil One." The swordsman yelled more oaths at the onagers. He was trying to shield her as rocks and sticks rang on his metal scales and thumped against the sides of the chariot. "She sent him. They have covered his eyes lest he afflict them with evil, and gagged his mouth to stop his curses. They must send him back to Her who sent him, laying him facedown in the ground and covering him with good earth. Do you want to share his grave, mistress?" He goaded the onagers with his sword, but missiles were striking them, too. Braying with rage, they lurched into a full gallop.

Frena's arm was bleeding, and she'd have a nasty bruise there soon. If one sharp stone could hurt this much, what had the man under the tree endured already? Or her mother, who had been waylaid by an unknown mob of thugs outside her own front door, and beaten so badly that she had died a few days later? At least she hadn't been buried alive! Blood and birth; death and the cold earth...

Now a raging, screaming mob was pursuing her as the two chariots squealed and bounced away from accursed Bitterfeld. Nimble youths were closing the gap, and some were armed with poles. Although they were only skinny, near-naked shepherd boys with wild, shaggy hair, as they drew nearer Frena thought she would rather be chased by a pack of hungry catbears. Everyone knew that madness came from holy Eriander, not the Old One, but surely the bloodlust and hatred in those boys' eyes was pure evil? Fortunately the onagers, having decided to run and not fight, were going as fast as they could; now all the snarling and snapping just made them try harder.

Uls had pulled alongside them on the left, but the pursuers were not much interested in him. They wanted the girl with black hair, dark eyes, and brown skin. Many townsfolk in Skjar considered such coloring unlucky. Frena had been cursed in public more than once and out here people were even more superstitious.

Journey had become nightmare, a pleasant drive a flight for life. Again she lashed the onagers. Two youths were closing in at the back of the chariot, evidently intent on grabbing Frena. Another was running alongside, staying out of Verk's reach and trying to strike him with a pole. Verk parried repeatedly, but the bouncing of the car made both attack and defense matters more of luck than skill. If that pole caught Frena with a crack on the head, she would be sharing a stranger's grave.

She felt a tug on her fluttering robe, but Verk was not so distracted that he missed the move. He swung. The boy screamed and went down in blood. His companion tried to board in the confusion and met the same fate. A staff rang on Verk's helmet. Older men were arriving, carrying larger poles, and they were more dangerous, trying to spoke the wheels or break the onagers' legs while staying out of reach of the swords.

But even hardy hill folk could not outrun onagers for long. One by one they gave up and slumped to the ground. When the last of the dogs had disappeared, Frena glanced back along the trail of crushed grain she had left from the village, confirming that the chase had been abandoned. So she was safe, and could now take time to admit to a whirling heart and sick terror. The exhausted onagers dropped from a trot to a walk.

"It's all over," Verk said. He put an arm around her, and she realized that she was weeping. She was not sure which shocked her more—her weakness or his brazen presumption. But she let his arm stay there while she dribbled tears on his shiny scales.

The chariot stopped.

"I was a fool. It was my fault for not listening to you. I'm sorry. And I'm very grateful to you and Uls."

"Aee! Just doing our duty, mistress. Saving our own skins also. That's never hard."

She swallowed and wiped her eyes with the back of her She was trembling quite disgustingly. "My mother... She had two swordsmen with her when she was attacked."

"Hadn't heard that," Verk growled. "What happened to them?"

"No one knows. They must have run away."

"All bark and no bite isn't worth table scraps."

She pulled free of his arm. "My father will reward you well."

Verk pouted. "Happy ending won't excuse bad start."

"You're right. It would be best if Father never heard about it."

"Aee! The onagers don't speak much, but Uls...

Uls!?" Uls was sagged limply over the rail of his chariot. His brother leaped down and ran to help.

♦

The hills dividing Lake Skjar from Ocean had once been famed for their forests of cloud-combing hemlocks. It was written in the Arcana that arrogant mortals had used the timber to build themselves houses fit for gods, and holy Demern had removed the trees until mankind learned humility. Apparently that had not happened yet, because the Bright Ones had not returned the trees. The sunburned slopes were barren, fit only for pasturing ibexes, and the only memorials to their former glory were a few fragments of giant roots wedged in the rock.

At a division in the trail, Verk reined in his chariot and waited for Frena to bring hers alongside. He had been driving Uls, whose arm had been shattered by a blow from a staff. Although Verk had bound it up with the strap of his scabbard, Uls was obviously in agony—his face ashen, the immobilized limb swollen and discolored against his mail vest.

One branch of the track wandered on along the hillside; the other headed down toward the shore, where a narrow strip of flat land showed a startling green. The lake spread out beyond, a bright expanse of blue that met a sharp horizon speckled with storm clouds like puffs of mold on week-old bread.

"Onager ranch down there, mistress—By-the-Canyon."

"Yes. Father owns it." She was weary from the journey and still depressed by the horrors she had seen at the village. She kept thinking about the ghouls and their victim, wondering if they had finished burying him yet. Had he truly been a Chosen, or as innocent as her mother?

"The bouncing is hard on poor Uls," Verk said. "And the teams are tired. If we leave them all down there, I can drive you home now and come back tomorrow with help."

Normally Uls protested loudly at any suggestion that he be parted from his brother. He was beyond even that now.

Frena said, "He will be missed. If we can go on to the city, we can take him to the House of Sinura." She could have the cut on her arm healed at the same time. Cost was no problem to Horth Wigson's daughter. "I would just as soon not worry my father by mentioning what happened." He had so many worries!

Verk said, "There is also the matter of the sword, mistress. It's a poor swordsman drops a precious bronze sword and forgets to pick it up."

"Can't we stop somewhere and buy a sword?"

Silence. Verk was staring at her, and for some reason she felt her face burn all the way up to the roots of her hair. How dare he look at her like that!

Finally he said, "Aee! I am a lucky swordsman today."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that when your father hired us he made me swear on the Arcana that I would tell him when anyone offered me gifts. He swore on the shrine of Ucr that he would give me thrice. So now I get three swords I can sell?"

"Me? Bribe you? You dare accuse me of ..."

But he had dared, and she had tried to bribe him. She looked away, unable to meet his cold stare. More furious at herself than at him, she said, "Let us get Uls down to the ranch house quickly."

♦

So it was that Uls was dosed with poppy and put to bed, the weary onagers led away to be fed and watered. Frena herself was granted refreshment with all the deference due Horth Wigson's daughter. Rested, she drove off along the trail with a fresh team and Verk as passenger once more.

"I was not trying to get you impaled, Verk." She studied the road ahead. "I just want to keep Father from being worried unnecessarily."

"My lady is kind." His tone was so flat she could not tell if he was mocking her. "I know of a swordsman who failed to save his master and the master's wife had the man skinned. Aee! It was sad."

"I am sure Father will not skin you. I would just as soon not tell him. He would be very upset." He would be devastated. Horth, who now rarely went anywhere, in his youth had made the arduous, hazardous trek over the Edge to the Florengian Face. This had been long before Stralg's invasion, when the trail was less used and even more difficult than it was nowadays. Horth had returned with precious trade goods that had formed the foundation of his fortune, but he had also brought a wife, Paola Apicella, the only love of his life. Rich men were expected to keep concubines, sometimes junior wives, but there had never been a hint of another woman for Horth, even after Paola's death three years ago; never a whisper among the servants. A brutal and senseless mob attack in the streets of Skjar had killed her. He must not learn that the same sort of mob had so nearly claimed his daughter.

Verk said, "I spoke in haste, mistress. How can we explain Uls's absence? My brother is a simple soul, yet I am fond of him. I do not wish to see him skinned."

"Stop ranting about skinning! No one skins anyone in Skjar. He fell out of his chariot when the axle pin broke and the wheel came off." A white lie, surely, told without malice, just to save her father needless anxiety?

"Aee! Then the wicked stableman who mounted the wheel must be beaten."

Frena opened her mouth indignantly and closed it again. That might be true. All this talk of punishment was strange to her. She had never considered a life where such things might happen. "It was my fault. I set too fast a pace and Uls's chariot overturned on a rock."

Verk's pale face twisted under its lawn of golden stubble as if wrestling against a smile. "And what sort of guard would let you be so foolish? Aee! I will be impaled most surely."

"Stop that! You know perfectly well that Father orders no punishment more than the law allows."

"Forty lashes for a man of my age," Verk said sadly. "But who counts? A court will surely judge a sturdy swordsman fit to bear more anyway. Who will employ him when he bears such scars?"

"Then a thunderbolt startled Uls's onagers and they ran away with him. That can happen to anyone."

Verk nodded judiciously. "The master might consider a broken arm punishment enough for that. But I should not have let you drive close to the villagers, so I must throw myself at his feet and beg for my life."

"It was my fault! I will not let him punish you."

Verk said, "My lady is kind," again, with very little conviction.

♦

When they came to the place where the Skjar River drained out of the lake, Frena yielded the reins to Verk. Soon walls rose on both sides to form the twisted gorge called the Gates of Weru. There, on uncounted rocky islands, stood the greatest trading city in all Vigaelia. When the stream divided into a dozen dancing torrents, the road left the bank and headed across First Bridge to Bell Song, uppermost island of Skjar. Soon the air was too wet and hot to breathe. Frena felt like a fish in chowder, already. Verk chose to go by way of High to Milk Yellow.

Skjar was a web of bridges. Some crept over the water from rock to rock, writhing and humping like snakes. Others were giddying, rope-bound catwalks strung between the summits of rocky spires. Some were mere planks too narrow for two pedestrians to pass, others had sprouted double rows of stores and houses along their length.

From Milk Yellow to Snakeskin and Egg ...

Some islands were wide and relatively level, others were rocky spires with dwellings adhering to their sides like bizarre fungi and spreading outward from the summits in mushroom caps. Skjarans considered any rock above the waterline to be potential foundation for something, even if only the pier of a bridge, and any group of three or more was enough to support a building.

From Egg to Limpet Bend ...

Skjar was people: carpenters, saddlers, weavers, scribes, brewers, merchants, porters, priests, brass workers, dye makers, and a myriad other crafts. Often among them could be seen Werists in their palls, white-shrouded Witnesses, green-clad Nastrarians, and other recognizable cultists. Mysteries that did not require their initiates to wear distinctive garb must certainly be represented also.

Skjar was incredibly ancient and yet forever new, because it was built of wood, following its ancient skill in boatbuilding. Year by year it was culled by rot, earthquakes, winter storms, or chance fires. Frena had not been gone a thirty and yet she could see changes—Triangle burned down to bedrock, the new bridge between Sheeplick and Honeycomb open at last.

The air was sticky and stale, reeking of food and garbage and close-packed people.

"What did you mean when you said fanners would pray to holy Ucr to stay away? He is their god also."

Verk chewed his lip while easing the onagers through a teeming little market, trying to keep moving without letting Dark and Night clear a path with their teeth. "I spoke out of turn, mistress."

"Continue doing so. Answer me!"

He flashed her a momentary glance, then went back to looking straight ahead. "I beg leave to remain silent. The master would disapprove of what I almost said."

So now they were to be confidants, were they, she and this metal-plated servant?

"I won't tell him, I promise."

Night flashed a hoof out sideways, sending a plump matron reeling into her companions. Curses and threats flew. Verk was remarkably adept with obscenities when he wanted to be. Surprisingly, when the incident was over and the chariot moved again, he returned to Frena's question.

"In hard times farmers see their children starve, mistress. In good times crops fetch bad prices. City mouse always eats better than country bull."

"What has that got to do with Ucr?"

"Ucr looks after his own, they do say."

"Meaning?"

He sighed. "Meaning, in hard times farmers must borrow food to live, mistress. Those that have lend to them that have not. And then the lender forecloses, so he ends up gaining land for a fraction of its worth. Farmer becomes serf, and his children less than that... so they do say," he added with another quick glance.

Frena shuddered. "Are you implying that Father does that?"

"Never, never, mistress! Aee! It would be a poor swordsman who said he guarded a monster, now wouldn't it? Who could trust him?"

She knew that the man was mocking her; she dared not comment in case she made even more of a fool of herself. No servant had ever dared speak to her so frankly. Verk was showing her a whole new way of looking at her father and, by implication, at herself.

Up the long sloping bridge to Grand, higher yet to Ossa's Leap, over the masts of a ship to Dead Ringer, then Live Ringer, and steeply down to Temple ...

"And you really have no idea why Father has sent for me?" There had been no hint of the matter in the tablets he had sent her about the new stables less than a sixday ago.

"He did not confide, mistress. Mouths can hold converse but not secrets, they do say."

"You mean you heard rumors?"

"I did not," Verk said firmly. "Not a mouse squeaked."

So the decision had been sudden. The tablet Father had sent to Kyrn had been cracked, as if fired in haste.

"Yesterday—did anyone come to see Father yesterday?"

After a pause, Verk said, "None that he had me watch over, mistress."

The pause felt like a clue. He was coaching her, as if he had been sworn not to tell her something and wanted her to ask the right questions.

"Did you escort him anywhere yesterday?"

"Not I. Nor Uls."

Then who? "But he did go out?"

The next pause felt like a refusal. The wheels rumbled slowly the whole width of Eelfisher before the swordsman spoke again.

"They do say so, mistress."

Frena pondered her next move. How many questions did she have left? "Without his usual guards?"

"With no guards."

She thought Aee! It was catching. "But he never does that!"

Verk chewed his lip for a moment and eventually said, "Well, he did have the Werists."

"Werists? Did you say Werists?"

"Wearing satrap's stripes. Brought him back later, no harm done."

"I'm glad to hear it!" She could not recall the palace ever sending Werists to fetch her father. She doubted very much that Satrap Eide would have had anything to do with that outrage. She sensed the hand of his wife, Saltaja Hragsdor, the real ruler of Skjar and all Vigaelia. "Was Father expecting them?"

"At dawn? Tearing off shutters? Slaughtering watchdogs? Any other man would have been in bed, but you know the master, never sleeping ..."

"There was a fight?" she cried.

"Aee, no! Swordsmen don't argue with Werists, mistress. It's part of the law—we don't even have to try to fight Werists!"

Verk was shamed, furious. He and the others had been made to look irrelevant. Her father admitted that a man had to be either stupid or very brave to join the guards' guild, for an extrinsic wearing a sword was a red rag to a Werist. And if the Werist turned on the man, a red rag was all he would be.

What had provoked Father's unexpected summons to the palace yesterday and why had it caused him to send for her?

Eelfisher to Chatter Place and then to Blueflower. There Frena was on home ground, amid familiar smells of tar and fish and saltwater, hearing the sounds of rattling oxcarts, wailing seabirds, creaking windlasses. Masts and sails moved between houses. The sparkling crystal freshets that drained the lake had divided and merged, widened and grown brackish, and finally spread out into shipping channels, salt and foul; greasy outlets to Ocean.

Her earliest memories were of her parents' home on Fishgut Alley, on the island called Crab, which faced out directly over Ocean. Her mother had kept house upstairs while her father ran his chandler business downstairs—although by the time her fuzzy childhood images cleared, he was already expanding into adjacent quarters and larger interests. That building had long since been replaced by warehouses.

Year by year Horth Wigson had extended his reach, doubling and redoubling his worth and workforce. Everything he turned his hand to turned to gold. He owned all of Crab now, except for one jetty on the northeastern corner. He owned most of Blueflower, which adjoined Crab on the west so that the two of them enclosed the basin of Weather Haven, a natural harbor secure enough to give him an advantage over all his competitors. Year after year he tore down more hovels, built more warehouses, extended his mansion. Any footprint-size patch of ground in Skjar was precious, yet Horth's windows overlooked a private park. He imported full-grown trees and was planning his own zoological collection. His residence outshone the palace of Satrap Eide.

As the onagers hauled the chariot across the bridge from Blueflower to Crab, Frena broke a long silence. "You will drop me at the door, Verk, and then go straight back to Uls. He will rest better if you are there."

Verk shot her a startled look and almost knocked over a woman carrying a water jug on her head. She screamed abuse after him.

"Tomorrow," Frena said, in what she hoped was the same calm and confident voice, "you will bring Uls to the Healers on Chatter Place. I will tell Master Trinvar to send someone with gold to wait for you there. And tonight I will tell Father what happened and insist that it was all my fault. I promise," she told his skeptical expression. "I think he has a lot more on his mind now than a lost sword and a scrape on my arm."

"My lady is kind," Verk said. He did not argue, so she must have found the best solution to their problem.