Giant thief

CHAPTER 13

Though the day was still cold, the water was glassy and calm beyond Casta Canto. Willows dredged their leaves from the banks. Waterfowl steered around the leafy curtains and each other in complex, aimless patterns. Sometimes a boat would pass, usually a scow moving cargo to or from distant Altapasaeda. The sight of two people in a nine-tenths-sunk skiff being clumsily rowed by a giant drew questions, jeers or, most often, stares of speechless alarm.

When we had the river to ourselves, there was nothing to hear except the sough of wind in the trees and our oars slapping rhythmically through the surface. No one had much to say after the incident with the ferry, and it made for a strange sort of silence, tense and uncomfortable.

Saltlick appeared to be rapt in his newfound occupation, though perhaps his look of absorption had as much to do with trying not to upset our beleaguered craft. He couldn't have stared more intently into the distance if he'd been powering the boat by sheer force of will. Estrada had been gazing at the forest since Mounteban and his companions had vanished, as though she expected them suddenly to burst forth again. Mounteban had confused the issue of his betrayal by rescuing us, and probably she found the whole matter very puzzling and significant.

It had occupied my own thoughts for all of about two minutes. It was clear that he'd waited near Casto Canto, assuming we'd be too lost and disorganised to deviate from the plan. It was equally obvious that his motive for such a preposterous and melodramatic deed was his obsession with Estrada. The only question in my mind was whether he'd try to follow us further. If he did, he'd have little luck now that the width of the Casto Mara was between us.

With that cleared up, I'd decided I still couldn't give a donkey's arse about the fat old crook. It wasn't me or Saltlick he'd saved. He probably wouldn't piss on me if I was on fire and he had a bladder infection. We would likely have escaped anyway, and without so much carnage or needless spectacle. All told, it was easy for me to put aside the whole shameful incident.

At first, I'd experimented with trying to get comfortable, but I was too cramped to make any headway. Even stretching a foot or twitching a hand sent the boat into dangerous convulsions. I settled for watching the clouds scud by overhead. After a while, I drifted off, half awake. I'd start occasionally, struggle to remember where I was, and look around in alarm at the liquid expanse around me. The sun was lower in the sky each time, there was a little more chill in the air, and Saltlick and Estrada were still gazing at nothing. On the fourth such occasion, I found the sky streaked with melting bands of purple, and the nip in the breeze a distinct coldness. Little else had changed, within or without the boat. Estrada had her eyes closed, Saltlick was still rowing steadfastly, and ducks and moorhens were still bustling about. The river's flow had picked up, however, since my last inspection. The ripples were white-flecked once again, and deep enough that in the failing light the muddy current resembled a furrowed field convulsing under small tremors. We must have travelled quite a distance into Paen Acha. The forest would continue more or less unbroken on the east bank until the tail of the valley choked it off. To the west, it was only a wide stripe across the land, which soon would give way to…

"Saltlick," I cried, failing to keep the alarm out of my voice, "we should stop now."

Estrada's eyes flicked open. "We've an hour's light left," she said, sounding slightly groggy.

"That's nothing to do with it. Saltlick, pull in to the bank."

Estrada, wide-awake now, told him, "Keep going. Leave him alone, Damasco."

"We're getting close to Altapasaeda."

"So?"

"So, there may not be many places where I'm welcome in the Castoval, but there's only one where they'll chop my head off before they even bother to arrest me. The farther I stay from Altapasaeda and their crazy ideas about law enforcement, the less likely they are to find an opportunity."

Estrada looked at me with puzzlement. Then, as though talking to an addled child, she said, "Damasco, where did you think we'd been going to all this time?"

In retrospect, standing up in the boat wasn't the best idea I'd ever had. Alarm at Estrada's revelation seemed like less and less of a good excuse as the night wore on. While it had achieved what I'd wanted, that hadn't proved to be much comfort — not as I tumbled into the river, not while I flailed to keep my head above the surface, not even as I floundered to the bank and lay choking greenish water into the mud.

Nor had it carried much weight with Estrada and Saltlick. Estrada proved a strong swimmer after her initial panic, and Saltlick was able to gain a footing on the riverbed; the sight of his upturned face bobbing shoreward would have been humorous under better circumstances. He'd even managed to salvage our boat, dragging it behind him with one hand.

Once they'd landed, it had provided them a seat from which to ignore me.

Since no real harm had been done, such vindictiveness struck me as uncalled-for. Estrada only broke the wall of silence when — sick of shivering on a fallen tree trunk in my sodden cloak — I decided to build a fire.

"Are you insane?"

I glared at her. "What was that? I couldn't hear for the sound of my teeth chattering. If it was 'Are you cold, drenched and pissed off?' then the answer is yes."

"You know we can't light a fire."

"I know that the troops at Casta Canto were a scout party, and we must be far ahead of them by now. I know we've likely gained the same lead on all of Moaradrid's forces. So I suggest that, when the alternative is freezing to death, we should make the most of it."

"You talk as though none of this is your fault."

"And you talk as if this didn't happen because you've been leading me into the hands of people who want to kill me."

Estrada sighed, ran a hand through mud-clotted hair. "Fine, do what you like. It was stupid of me to think you'd listen to anyone but yourself."

"Whenever I do," I called at her retreating back, "it seems to end badly."

I turned irritably back to my would-be fire. It had been hard to find dry wood, or indeed dry anything, and it was a long time before my carefully constructed heap of grass and sticks produced much besides smoke. I nearly whooped with joy when the first amber tongue licked out from a fissure between two twigs. Conscious of Estrada's eyes on me, I tried to pretend it was exactly what I'd been expecting. After that, it was easy work to pile logs and branches onto the hungry blaze, until it danced waist-high in the twilight.

I'd been wondering if Estrada's stubbornness would win out over her misery. I was pleased when she and Saltlick came to join me, Saltlick still hauling the upturned boat behind him, trailing its broken mast like a tail.

"Are you sure you want to sit here?" I asked, chewing a piece of soggy bread I'd discovered in one of my pockets. "I'm expecting Moaradrid's entire army to arrive at any minute."

"Yes, Damasco. I'd like to share your fire, if that's all right."

"Of course it is, Mayor Estrada."

"And perhaps," Estrada added, with a glance towards Saltlick, "we can save any other matters for a later date."

What she meant was, " Let's not argue in front of the giant."

Her tone conjured a memory, of my father speaking to my mother when she returned from one of her nights of drunken frivolity. A little, timid man, he would listen to her rant about some inconsequential thing, and then say softly, "Perhaps we can discuss this later, my darling?"

Close on its heels came another vision: Estrada and myself, wearing the joyous expression of proud parents, stood over a gigantic crib in which sat a dribbling, hiccupping Saltlick.

I shuddered.

Still, I'd no desire for any more forced reconciliations; my throat was still smarting from the last one. I managed a smile, and said, "Of course."

Anyway, I had more immediate concerns. The wet bread had only enraged my appetite, and all the rest of my edible supplies had ended up in the river. It didn't make me feel any better to watch Saltlick contentedly tucking into bunches of leaves he'd stripped from a nearby bush.

"Do you have anything we can eat?" I asked Estrada.

"I left my rucksack on the harbour in Casta Canto," she replied, a little guiltily.

"Then I'm going to see what I can find."

Two miserable hours had passed before I returned. The fruit of my labours was a handful of gnarled apples and a rabbit so ancient it would probably have expired that night even if I hadn't clubbed it over the head with a rock. My fire had tormented me all the while as a glimmer of beckoning orange through the trees, and I was depressed to find that Estrada had let it burn down to a heap of flickering embers. I added branches to the neglected blaze, then sat down next to her and set about gutting the geriatric rabbit. Estrada eyed the work with distaste, but said nothing.

I was drooling with hunger by the time I'd rigged a makeshift spit and begun to roast my prize. Yet once it was done and the meat divided, our portions were so meagre that you'd have thought I'd cooked a shrew. With vigorous chewing, it was edible at least, and followed by the apples it dealt with the worst of my stomach cramps. Since Saltlick lay beside the boat heaving out loud snores, I decided the time was right to tell Estrada what I thought of her plot to get me executed.

Perhaps she caught the glint in my eye. "I know what you think about going to Altapasaeda. You made that quite clear when you capsized our boat."

"That was an accident. Not that I wouldn't have done it deliberately if it meant keeping my head on my shoulders."

"I also know how stringently they pursue the law there. Nevertheless, it's crucial that we go to Altapasaeda, and terrible things will happen if we don't. So before we begin arguing again, won't you listen to why? I'll tell you the truth — the whole of it."

Her tone was almost beseeching. This wasn't what I'd expected. "I'll listen, but nothing you say is going to make me value my head any less."

Estrada nodded, gazed thoughtfully into the fire, and said, "I'm not sure where to begin. Anyone else would have worked out most of it already. You've a knack for ignoring the big questions."

"That's untrue. I'm the first to ask what's for dinner, or where the nearest inn is. Perhaps we just disagree about what the big questions are."

"You haven't wondered how Moaradrid recruited the giants, or why?"

I remembered what I'd overheard him say, that night in his encampment. "The 'why' is obvious. Once he's subdued the Castoval, he plans to march north again, against the King. It takes more than a bunch of unwashed plainsmen to pull off something like that."

Estrada looked impressed. "You have been paying some attention. But you didn't ask why the giants would follow him when they hate fighting so much? It's not as though they can't stand up for themselves."

"I wondered. Then I got diverted by fleeing for my life."

Her voice dropped to a whisper. "And the stone? You didn't ask yourself what the stone is for?"

Did she mean the jewel I'd left in Reb Panza? No, she could only be talking about that red-striped pebble, which I'd found in Moaradrid's pouch and thought no more about. They'd taken it from me when I was imprisoned in the caves, and I'd hardly noticed the loss. Now that I thought back, though, hadn't Moaradrid referred to a stone as well?

"All right, you've got me there. What is it?"

"It's the answer, Damasco."

I had to lean in close to catch her next words.

"One of our agents found this out, once we discovered what Moaradrid had brought back from the south. Giant society is very simple, you see — what you might call an elective monarchy. They decide on a leader, and that giant has responsibility for the tribe. Since all the giants are more or less equal and they don't tend to argue, or go anywhere, or do anything unusual, it's not the most taxing position — although they take it very seriously.

"Anyway. The giants don't seem to hold much with airs and graces, but their leader does get a staff to mark them out in a crowd. The staff is just a piece of wood; it's probably changed a dozen times over the centuries. What matters is the stone mounted at the top. Simply put, whoever holds that is chief, for as long as they live, absolutely and without dispute."

"That's what it is? That pebble is their chief-stone? And Moaradrid stole it." This struck me as remarkably funny, for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"Then you stole it from him."

"And he's been chasing me all this time to get it back." The final pieces slipped into place, and then I really couldn't help but laugh. "So that's why you've been using us as bait. Moaradrid will chase up and down the Castoval forever, because if he doesn't then sooner or later he'll have a mob of disgruntled giants to contend with." I shook my head, suddenly bewildered. "All this for a bit of rock. I'd have given it back if he'd only asked."

"It's a good job for the Castoval, for the whole land, that you didn't. He'd probably be sitting in the royal palace by now."

"And I'd be asleep in bed, instead of on a log in the middle of nowhere talking to you. That doesn't sound like such a bad deal." Before Estrada could tell me what she thought of my priorities, I added, "None of this explains why I have to go to Altapasaeda and have my head chopped off."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you. As a mayor, I have diplomatic privileges, and Prince Panchetto wouldn't dare ignore that even now. As long as you're in my entourage, you're safe. I have my own reasons for going there, but as far as the plan is concerned it will give Moaradrid a chance to catch up."

"That's a good thing?"

"It is if we're going to lead him into our ambush. Except, none of that can work if you're not there, because as far as he's concerned you have the stone, or at least are the only one who knows where it is. So you see, Easie, I have to protect you if I'm going to save the Castoval."

"Yes, I see."

What I didn't say was, " This all assumes you can protect me. Marina Estrada, mayor of a town that was probably in enemy hands by now, leader of a resistance so petty and muddled that the greater part of the Castoval had no idea it existed. What exactly was the diplomatic status of an ex-mayor, or a failed resistance leader?" Whatever the answer, I doubted her word would carry as much weight in Altapasaeda as she imagined it would.

The question was ultimately irrelevant, because I hadn't the faintest intention of going there. The crucial fact, which Estrada had failed to mention, was that I no longer had the stone. Presumably, she did. If that was the case, there were two possibilities: she'd have to reveal it in order to lure Moaradrid, or her plan would fail, she'd be captured, and it would fall into his possession that way. Whatever happened, I'd only have to stay out of his hands for a week, probably less, and then his interest in me would evaporate. This mad, interminable hunt would be over.

Just to make sure I said, with laboured innocence, "It won't work, though. I lost the stone days ago. I didn't know the thing was important so I didn't think much about it."

Estrada reached up and drew the neck of her undershirt open. For one terrifying moment, I thought she was about to try to seduce me. Then I saw the pouch, worn like a collar over her breastbone.

"We took it from you, while you were asleep in the caves. We genuinely didn't know whose side you were on. Then Castilio suggested sending you to rescue Saltlick, to test you and to put Moaradrid on our trail. It would have been ridiculous to hand it back to you and say 'try not to lose this when you're down there in Moaradrid's camp'. After that there was never an opportunity."

"That's fine. I don't want the damn thing anyway."

"As long as Moaradrid believes you have it, that's all that matters. We could give it to Saltlick and it wouldn't make any difference."

I laughed. "Saltlick, chief of the giants! What would he do? I don't think he's the order-giving type."

Estrada smiled. "I'm glad we talked. I wish I could have been honest with you earlier. You see now why you have to come to Altapasaeda with me?"

"I do."

Which wasn't to say that I planned to. Getting out of her absurd scheme would be another matter — but one that could wait until morning at least.

"We should try and catch some sleep. We've a long day ahead."

"Yes." Estrada slid to the ground, so that her back was propped against the log and her body lay alongside the fire. "Goodnight, Damasco."

• • • •

I woke to shouting. My first thought was that I'd been wrong after all: Moaradrid's men had seen our fire, and I'd be beaten to a pulp at any instant, hog-tied, and dragged off to indescribable torments. Blinking muzzily at a bright morning sky, I felt more irritated at being proved wrong than afraid. How Estrada was going to gloat!

It struck me then that it was her shouting, and only her. Either our assailants were unusually subdued or something else was going on. I stumbled to my feet, knuckled my eyes and glanced around our makeshift campsite. Saltlick was just sitting up, evidently also woken by her cries. I could just make out Estrada through the foliage, standing close to the riverbank, dancing from foot to foot and waving her arms. I couldn't see who she was signalling to, if in fact she was signalling at all and hadn't just gone insane.

Who could it be, out here in the backend of nowhere? Please not Mounteban, I thought, better Moaradrid than that pompous crook. I clambered over the log that had served as our pillow and jogged towards her. She was veiled by the bank-side willows, so that it was only when I was right behind her that I saw what she was looking at. A riverboat lay moored, close enough that its crew could have leaped ashore without wetting their feet. It was a grubby, unkempt craft, its name invisible beneath anonymous filth that had dripped from above, its cargo hidden beneath sheets of soiled oilcloth. It had a single, tattered sail, currently furled. Two boys lounged on deck and a shovelbearded man in a long crimson coat — that must have been expensive before decades of disrepair took their toll — leaned over the side towards us.

Estrada, noticing me, said, "Damasco, meet Captain Anterio. I happened to see him passing and thought he might be able to help us. Captain, this is my travelling companion Easie Damasco."

"A pleasure," I said, without conviction.

"The captain was just agreeing to take us up the river."

"Depending on our settling a reasonable fare," Anterio added quickly. Then his eyes widened, and he took a step backward. "What in the hells is that?"

I followed his distraught gaze to see Saltlick ploughing through the trees towards us.

"Ah," said Estrada. "I was about to mention Saltlick."

I never heard the final sum Estrada paid for our passage. I've no doubt it went up considerably when Saltlick entered the equation. Though Anterio eventually agreed to let him on board, he insisted on making him sit at the stern, with his back to us. It seemed a bizarre precaution, but Saltlick didn't appear to mind, and soon we were underway.

Captain Anterio's riverboat stank worse than it looked. Unprompted, he explained irritably that he was carrying a cargo of turnips into the city.

"Why do they smell so bad?" I asked, my voice muffled from trying to speak with my hand around my nose.

"Because they're rotten," he replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

However malodorous and ramshackle our vessel was, it cut swiftly through the water, propelled by a sharp southerly breeze. I silently cursed both wind and boat. I needed time to think of an escape plan, and it was rapidly running out. We were soon beginning to see signs of civilization, occasional farms and drifts of smoke marking hamlets further inland. What little say I had in my future would be gone if I didn't act soon.

Estrada sat in the prow with Anterio for a long while. I guessed from what snatches I overheard that she was catching up on local news, perhaps even fishing for rumours of Moaradrid or the resistance. It was at least an hour before she stood and walked back to sit with Saltlick. We were passing tracts of pasture, by then, and fields of grain dotted with large farmhouses and barns. I knew we were drawing near to Altapasaeda.

I waited a couple of minutes, then sidled over to Anterio and sat beside him. I tried to judge his age and failed. His face was lined and tanned a ruddy amber-brown, and he could have been anywhere from forty to sixty. I did recognise his jacket, though, as a dress-coat of the Altapasaedan City Guard, and wondered what had led him to be wearing it upon this dingy barge.

He didn't notice me at first. He was concentrating on trimming his beard with a small pair of scissors. It was an occupation he clearly took seriously, though he was dreadful at it. Up close, the wedge of wiry black hair was lopsided and uneven. When he finally looked round, I said softly, "Captain, I have a proposition."

Anterio dropped the scissors into a leather pouch, which he secreted within the folds of his coat. "A good captain is always open to propositions. Some days it's only propositions that pay the bills."

"That's exactly right. In this case," I said, holding out a hand containing five of my remaining onyxes, "it could be very profitable for both of us."

He squinted. "I hope you don't intend any harm to that young lady back there?"

"None whatsoever."

"It might be better for everyone if you drowned the monster," he added vehemently.

"No need for anyone to be drowned. All I ask is this: you drop my companions at Altapasaeda as planned, and then continue upriver until we can find another boat for me, one that's headed away from the city. That's it. Five onyxes for an hour's work."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

Captain Anterio offered me a greasy palm. "Then I accept your proposition."

The rotten vegetable smell had an insidious quality that made it impossible to ignore. I decided, after wrestling with it for a while, to try to live with it instead. I sprawled out on the narrow portion of the deck that was free of mouldy produce and considered a nap.

After our brief conversation, Captain Anterio had devoted his attentions to a series of small jobs about the boat, joined by the two boys, who bore just enough similarity to him that they might conceivably be his sons. Estrada and Saltlick still sat together, speaking in short exchanges. I couldn't guess what it was they found to talk about.

I watched the banks slide by and wondered if my plan could work. Anterio was certainly a man in need of a few extra coins, and it wasn't as though a little additional travel would spoil his cargo. If I could find a boat heading north, I might make it as far as Aspira Nero. Even if Moaradrid came looking for me he'd be hard pressed to catch up. Moreover, since Estrada would have to reveal her possession of the stone or watch her plans go up in smoke, it was unlikely to come to that.

Overall, things looked more promising than they had in days. I found myself almost looking forward to reaching Altapasaeda. The sooner I got there, the sooner I could leave. That nervous excitement and the flavourful stench kept sleep at bay, and I settled for staring into the distance, willing the city to materialise from the haze.

I saw the bridge first. It was the longest and grandest in the Castoval, its arches tall enough for even high-masted boats to pass beneath. They called it the Sabre — for its shape, presumably, and the way it sliced the Casto Mara in two. At that distance, it was a skeletal black outline above the water, and the walls before it just a smudge.

The ground was low and flat. It was possible to see the vast tracts of forest behind us, and even the mountains, a purple border on the edge of vision. We were still travelling through farmland, but the plantations were richer, dedicated to luxury goods for rich city folk. There were vineyards and apiaries, olive trees, and estates devoted solely to supplying the Temple District: with flowers, incense, birds, cloth and statuary. It was a riot of colour, and of heady scents that reached us even in the middle of the river. The road on the west bank was packed with traffic, and we passed more boats than we had the day before.

Soon we were overtaking the suburbs of Altapasaeda — a polite name for the high-class slum that lay like a second shadow beyond the northward walls. I couldn't help looking for signs of Moaradrid's army, but it was impossible to say from a distance whether there were more tents in the chaos of the outskirts than on any other day.

I turned my attention to the city itself. Altapasaeda was unique in the Castoval, an intrusion of northern civilization into our simpler and infinitely calmer existence. Compared with the Castovalian towns, it was like a glamorous but ageing whore: grand and startling, but most of its glamour purely for show and even more simply painted on. High towers jutted above the walls for no purpose but to jut, and hardly a building went unmarked by some architectural eccentricity. It was hard not to be impressed by Altapasaeda, harder still to take it seriously.

It was only when we dipped beneath the rightmost arch of the Sabre that the docks came into view. I squinted against the sudden darkness. There were only shapes at first, sharp rectangles and triangles glistening in the sun beyond the bridge. As we broke back into the light, leaving the dripping grey ceiling behind, the scene gained depth and perspective. The docks of Altapasaeda were a far cry from the sagging jetties of Casta Canto. Here everything was built of stone in two tiers joined by wide steps and ramps. There were metal bollards to tie off against, and even a pair of mechanically assisted cranes to unload the largest vessels.

It was so busy, both in the water and upon the dockside, that we wasted ten minutes manoeuvring for a spot. All the while, the captain and his two boys shouted incomprehensibly to neighbouring crews, the harbour hands and each other. I grew impatient, and a little nervous. There were a handful of guards strutting around. Any one of them might recognise me. Was all this fuss really necessary for so brief a stop?

Our dilapidated craft sidled into a gap between two similarly run-down scows, with difficulty and yet more yelling. I watched Anterio as he hurled a guide rope to a lad running back and forth on the quay and, once we were drawn in and tied off, as he swung out the gangplank.

"Here we are," he called. "Altapasaeda, glorious lady of the south."

Now was the time for him to put Estrada and Saltlick to shore. It would be a moment's work to cast off and withdraw the plank. We'd be gone before they knew it. But all Anterio did was stand there, hands on hips. When his two boys scampered ashore, he made no move to stop them.

Suspicion got the better of me. I sidled up to him and hissed, "What's this? What happened to our arrangement?"

Anterio looked at me with disgust. "What kind of man would try to abandon his pregnant wife and her poor, deformed brother? The lady warned me you'd try something like this." He pressed four coins into my hand, adding, "Less one, to teach you a lesson." Placing a palm on my back, he shoved me roughly down the gangplank.

When I looked back Saltlick was descending, blocking any hope of escape.

I was trapped in Altapasaeda, and there wasn't a thing I could do.