The Assassin's Edge

To all Resident Mentors and Scholars

By long tradition festivals at the turn of every season are a time for this university to welcome visitors from other seats of learning. We are accustomed to do so with every courtesy and luxury afforded by this city’s extensive trade, our contribution to the commerce that is Col’s lifeblood. Students and scholars alike mingle with visitors and townsfolk, broadening their experience of life. Accordingly, the Prefects of this university will not tolerate any repetition of the incidents disgracing this most recent spring Equinox.

In choosing a life of study, we all suffer accusations of idleness, and rebuke for perceived failure to produce anything of tangible worth to the unscholarly mind. We rise above such taunts, secure in the knowledge that learning outlasts any achievements of merchants and architects, artisans and their guilds. All of which tolerance is rendered worthless when students, scholars and even several mentors are clapped in irons by the Watch for brawling with visitors from Vanam’s university in taverns frequented by common dockers.

Worse, word now circulates that these arguments were not over money, some business disagreement or a lady’s favours, but over points of scholarship. This university has become an object of ridicule among the populace. The Prefecture considers this an offence graver than all of the damage done around the city. Broken windows, doors and wine bottles may be redeemed with gold. A reputation once tarnished may never recover its lustre.

To obviate any recurrence of such offences, the Prefecture offers the following for the immediate consideration of mentors and scholars and the judicious guidance of students.

Denying Temar D’Alsennin is who he claims to be is as irrational as refusing to accept the accounts of that restoration of him and his people through the offices of Archmage Planir of Hadrumal. It is equally nonsensical to claim this is all falsehood in service of some all encompassing yet curiously ill-defined conspiracy involving the Archmage, the Mentors of Vanam and even Emperor Tadriol himself Such foolishness does this university’s standing immeasurable harm.

However, and notwithstanding the overweening arrogance of certain scholars of Vanam, the return of Temar D’Alsennin to Tormalin will not answer one hundredth of the questions as to why the Old Empire collapsed. He cannot tell us why the dethronement of Nemith the Reckless and Last precipitated the Chaos rather than orderly transition to a new Emperor and dynasty. D’Alsennin’s attempt to found his colony has no bearing on any of these events. It was a minor undertaking compared to other ventures the Old Empire was then engaged upon, most notably the ultimately fruitless conquest of Gidesta. That this colony was of little or no consequence to the Convocation of Princes is plain. Rather than divert resources to helping D’Alsennin, the Annals record every House turning its efforts to quelling secessionist revolts in Caladhria and opportunist uprisings in Ensaimin.

D’Alsennin can offer only a limited account from a very partial perspective as a young and untried esquire of a minor House long distanced from the councils of the powerful. He had already crossed the ocean to Kel Ar’Ayen before the final, crucial years of Nemith’s reign and had long been rendered insensible by enchantment before the most violent period of warfare between the Houses of Aleonne and Modrical. While his reminiscences may offer some interesting sidelights on those momentous events, they are insignificant in the wider context of the established historical record.

Granted, it seems likely that the as yet only partially explained deterioration in the usages of aetheric magic contributed to the collapse of the Empire. Judging the impact of such a blow, set alongside the attested assaults of famine, civil strife and the recurrent devastation of the Crusted Pox will certainly be a fruitful area for study. Similarly, a full assessment of the role of this aetheric magic in the governance of the Old Empire must now be made. We of Col should not be laggard in undertaking such enquiries. We need not concern ourselves with boasts from Vanam that their mentors’ links with Planir’s expeditions to Kel Ar’Ayen give their scholars unassailable superiority tn such studies.

Col is the main port through which travellers to and from Hadrumal pass. We should set aside our habitual reserve in dealing with wizardry and invite mages to refresh themselves in our halls and join in our debates. We may usefully encourage our alchemists to correspond with those wizards studying the properties of the natural elements. This university was founded by those scholars who salvaged all they could from the burning of this city’s ancient temple library during the Chaos. It is now evident that such temples were centres of aetheric learning in the Old Empire. Resident scholars and mentors must seek out such valuable lore hidden in our own archives. We can claim more peripatetic scholars than Vanam and many now tutor the sons and daughters of Tormalin Houses as well as the scions of Lescari dukes and Caladhria’s barons. All such archives may yield invaluable material for further study and this prefecture is writing to enlist the aid of all entitled to wear this university’s silver ring.

Rather than wasting time and effort in vain attempts to prove this university’s supremacy over Vanam through fisticuffs, it is the duty of every mentor, scholar and student to establish our preeminence through the ineluctable authority of our scholarship.

Vithrancel, Kellarin, 15th of Aft-Spring, in the Fourth Year of Tadriol the Provident

In that instant of waking, I had no idea where I was. A crash of something breaking had stirred me and the muttered curses that followed took my sleep-mazed mind back to the house of my childhood but as I opened my eyes, nothing seemed familiar. Insistent daylight was entering unopposed through a door in an entirely unexpected wall. Come to that, when had I last slept with a heedlessly open bedroom door?

Wakefulness burned through the mist of sleep. I wasn’t back in Ensaimin, for all that someone outside was muttering in the accents of my childhood. This was half a world away, clear across an ocean most folk would swear was impassable. This was Vithrancel, newly named first settlement of Kellarin, a colony still finding its feet after a year of digging in its heels and setting its shoulder to hacking a livelihood out of the wilderness.

Well, whatever was going on outside, it could happen without me. I wasn’t getting out of bed for anything short of a full-blown riot. Turning over, I pulled the linen sheet up around my shoulders, pushing my cheek into the welcoming down of the pillow, plump with my spoils from the festival slaughter of geese and hens. How many more days up to my elbows in chicken guts would it take before I had a feather bed, I wondered idly.

No, it was no good; I was awake. Sighing, I sat up and brushed the hair out of my eyes to survey the little room. I’d slept in better, in stone-built inns with drugget laid to mute the scuff of boots on polished floorboards, tapestries on walls to foil stray draughts and prices just as elaborate, never mind the extra copper spent to keep the potmen and chambermaids sweet. Then again, I’d slept in worse, down-at-heel taverns where you were lucky to share a bed with strangers and picking up whatever vermin they carried was all part of the price to pay. The most wretched inn was better than a freezing night beneath a market hall’s arches, giving up my last copper to persuade a watchman to look the other way.

I went to open the shutters to the bright midmorning sun. No, I wasn’t about to complain about a warm, clean room, floor newly strewn with the first herbs of spring. The breeze was cool on my bare skin and I looked for a clean shirt among clothes and trifles piled on my fine new clothes press. Ryshad had bought it for me with three days trading his skills with plumb line, mallet and chisel to a nearby carpenter. My beloved might have decided against his father’s trade in the end but he’d not forgotten his lessons. I really should tidy up, I thought, as I sat on his old travel chest pulling on my breeches.

The bright leather of a newly bound book caught my eye among the clutter on my press. It was a collection of ancient songs that I’d found the year before, full of hints of ancient magic. In an optimistic ballad for children, there’d have been some charm within it to summon sprites to do the housework for me. I smiled, not for the first time, at the notion. On the other hand, any number of darker lyrics warned of the folly of meddling with unseen powers, lest the unwise rouse the wrath of the Eldritch Kin. I’m too old to believe in blameless strangers turning into blue-grey denizens of the shadow realms and turning on those who dishonoured them but there were other reasons for me to shun some of the more tempting promises of Artifice. If I used aetheric tricks and charms to read an opponent’s thoughts or see their throw of the runes ahead of time, I’d blunt skills that had seen me through more perils than Ryshad knew of.

Chinking noises outside drew me to the window instead. A stout woman in practical brown skirts bent to retrieve shards of earthenware scattered on the track between our house’s ramshackle vegetable garden and the neater preserve over the way. A spill of liquid darkened the earth at her feet.

“Dropped something, Zigrida?” I leant my elbows on the sill. She straightened up, looking around for who had hailed her as she brushed a hand clean on her dress. I waved.

“Livak, good morning.” A smile creased her weathered face agreeably. “It’s Deglain standing the loss.” She sniffed cautiously at the base of the pitcher she’d been stacking the other pieces in. “It smells like the rotgut that Peyt and his cronies brew.”

I frowned. “It’s not like Deg to come home drunk, not at this time of the morning.”

“Swearing fouler than a cesspit and throwing away good crocks.” Zigrida’s voice darkened with disapproval. “But he’s a mercenary when all’s said and done.”

“Not like Peyt,” I objected. Granted Deglain had come to Kellarin paid to stick his sword into whoever might wish this colony venture ill, but a year and more on he’d returned to skills learned in some forgotten youth and half the colonists simply knew him as a tinsmith.

Zigrida grunted as she tucked a wisp of grey hair beneath the linen kerchief tied around her head. “I can’t see any more pieces.”

“There aren’t many passing hooves to pick them up,” I pointed out.

“That’s not the point, my girl.” Zigrida looked up at me, shading warm brown eyes with an age-spotted and work-hardened hand that brushed the lace trimming her kerchief with a hint of frivolity. “It’s time you were out of bed, my lady sluggard. You can get a bucket of water to wash this away.” She scraped a stoutly booted foot across the damp ground before glancing towards the steadily retreating trees that fringed the settlement. “I don’t care to know what the scent of strong liquor might tempt out of that wildwood.”

I grinned. “At once, mistress.” I’ll take Zigrida’s rebukes as long as a twinkle in her eye belies her scolding and besides, doing her a favour always wins me some goodwill.

Tidying up could wait. I dragged the sheets across the mattress brushing a few stray hairs to the floor, bright auburn from my head, curled black from Ryshad’s. Our bed was a solid construction of tight-fitted wood finished with golden beeswax and strung with good hemp rope. Ryshad wasn’t about to sleep on some lumpy palliasse or a box bed folded out of a settle. Lower servants slept on such things, not men chosen for preferment out of all those swearing service to the Sieur D’Olbriot, nigh on the richest and most influential of all Tormalin’s princes.

Then I looked rather doubtfully at the sheets. The mattress was still fragrant with bedstraw gathered in the golden days of autumn but the linen wanted washing, if not today then soon. I had a nice wash house out behind the house but spending the day stoking the fire to boil the water in the copper and poking seething sheets with a stick was scant entertainment. Before I’d come here, laundry was always someone else’s concern as I’d moved from inn to inn, earning my way gambling and with the occasional less reputable venture.

I pulled the top sheet free of the blanket and dumped it on the battered chest at the foot of the bed. Ryshad stowed his possessions inside it with neatness drilled into him from ten or more years of barracks life. He deserved a clothes press like mine, I decided. Ryshad’s help had set Kerse up with a better workshop than any of the other woodsmen of the colony. They were all turning to joinery now they could spare time from shaping joists and beams. Now spring Equinox had opened the sailing seasons, Kerse needed to consider the markets for work this fine right across the countries that had once made up the Tormalin Empire. I knew quality when I saw it; in a girlhood seeming even more distant than the lands we’d left behind, I’d been a housemaid polishing up prized pieces not worked with a fifth the skill of our new bed.

But Zigrida had asked me to fetch some water. I’d better do that before thinking about laundry. I abandoned the sheet and went down the cramped stair boxed into a corner of the kitchen that took up the back half of our little cruck-framed house. Using the belt knife laid on a stool with the jerkin I’d discarded the night before, I carved a slice from the ham hanging by the chimneybreast, savouring the hint of juniper and sweet briar that had gone into the curing. Chewing, I went in search of a bucket in the tiny scullery that Ryshad had screened off from the kitchen. I ignored the flagon of small beer keeping cool in the stone sink my beloved had painstakingly crafted. If I was going to the well, I’d make do with water. Ale was never my first choice for breakfast, nor Ryshad’s, but the winter had seen supplies of wine from Tormalin exhausted.

As I opened the kitchen door and crossed the rudimentary cobbles Ryshad had laid to get us dryshod to the gate, a girl came running up to Deglain’s house, across the track. It was twin to our own, sunlight white on lime wash still fresh over the lath and plaster solidly walling the timber frame. It had been interesting watching them being built; Ryshad had explained exactly how the weight of one part leant on another that pulled something else, the tension keeping the whole house solid.

The buttercup yellow shawl over the girl’s head gave me a moment’s pause but then I recognised the lass. “Catrice! Is everything all right?”

She ignored me, hammering on Deglain’s door. Deg opened the door, only a crack at first. Seeing Catrice, he flung it wide and tried to fold the girl into his arms.

She resisted his embrace with a forceful shove. “You stink!”

Deg’s reply didn’t have the piercing clarity of Catrice’s outrage so I couldn’t make out his words but his blinking eyes and unshaven disorder were eloquent enough.

“I’ll not sleep in the bed of any man who falls in it half dressed and full drunk,” she shrilled, hysteria sharpening her tone.

“Do you suppose her mother knows she’s here?” Zigrida came to the fence on her side of the precisely delineated alley separating our two properties. With a whole continent to spread ourselves over, there would be none of the squabbles over boundaries that plague the higgledy-piggledy burgages of Ensaimin’s close-packed towns.

“She’ll be none too pleased when she finds out,” I commented. Catrice was the only and much cherished daughter of one of the southern Tormalin families come to make a new life in this untamed land the year before. They were still apt to take their consequence rather too seriously for my taste. Zigrida was from the north, close to the Lescari border and, as such, considerably more down to earth.

Whatever Deg had to say for himself was enough to set Catrice to noisy weeping. She didn’t resist as he pulled her into an awkward hug, clumsily wiping at her tears with the edge of her shawl.

Zigrida watched the pair disappear inside. “You reckon something’s boiling up?”

“Could be something, could be nothing,” I shrugged. “But we’d best be ready to stick in a spoon to quell any froth.” In general, colonists and the mercenaries hired to defend them rubbed along easily enough together but there had been a few awkwardnesses. The sons and daughters of sober yeomen occasionally found the free and easy attitudes of the soldiery rather too enticing for their parents’ peace of mind.

“Are you going to send for the corps commander?” Zigrida asked.

“Perhaps.” Halice, currently in charge of the mercenaries, had been a friend of mine for years and I served as her unofficial deputy when I had nothing better to do. “Did you see Ryshad this morning?” I’d got used to staying asleep when Ryshad rose with the dawn to pursue one of his myriad projects around Vithrancel.

“That Werdel came calling first thing. They’ll be out at the clay fields.” Zigrida’s tone was warm with approval. She liked Ryshad.

I smiled too. I was more than content with a cruck-framed house, it’s how four-fifths of Ensaimin’s towns are built but Ryshad considered wooden buildings as nothing more than temporary. Before the previous autumn’s Equinox had barred the ocean to ships, he’d recruited the son of a brick-maker known to his stone-mason brothers in Zyoutessela and had half the men of the colony digging clay on the promise of a share in the bricks and tiles. As soon as the scarce frosts of Kellarin’s mild winter had passed, Ryshad reminded everyone they’d promised to help build a drying shed while Werdel puddled and shaped the weathered clay for a successful trial of his new kiln. Fired with enthusiasm, my beloved had bored me to sleep these past few nights with explanations of how to turn quicklime into mortar.

I swung my bucket idly by its rope handle. “You’ve been baking bread this morning?” Zigrida had a smudge of flour by the spray of colourful flowers embroidered around the laces of her sober green bodice.

“What’s it to you?” She cocked her head on one side.

I hefted the bucket. “Water for you today in return for a loaf or so?”

Zigrida laughed. “Fresh bread will cost you more than a few pails.” A frown deepened her wrinkles as she pursed thin lips. “You can give me an afternoon in my garden, helping with the fruit canes.”

I shook my head in mock consternation. “You drive a hard bargain.”

“Then do your own baking, my girl.” Her smile lifted a generation from her laughing eyes.

I waved a hand in capitulation. “I’ll get some water and then I’ll call round for the bread.”

Zigrida nodded and disappeared within her own doors. I headed for the nearby outcrop of rock offering plentiful clean water from one of Kellarin’s many springs. It was a pleasant walk. Halcarion’s blessing loaded the knot of trees around the wellspring with richly scented blossom as soon as the Winter Hag had quit her watch. Maewelin hadn’t disputed the Moon Maiden’s authority with late frosts or sudden storms and even people who barely paid lip service to either goddess had celebrated all the traditional rites of thanks at the recent Equinox.

With winter keeping everyone close to home and making improvements, a broad stone basin had been built around the spring so I didn’t have to wait long before I could dip my pail beside busy goodwives and less eager maidens about their mothers’ bidding. I sympathised with the sullen faces; I’d walked out on hearth and home at much the same age, fleeing the drudgery of service to someone else’s whims and malice, buoyed up with all the ignorant confidence of youth. But I hadn’t sulked about my errands when I had been my mother’s least reliable housemaid. I’d taken any chance to get out of the house, to learn more about life and pocket any coin I could win with a smile or a jest.

“Livak, good morning to you.” One of the bustling women nodded approval at my brimming bucket. “Wash day at last, is it?”

That immediately raised my hackles. “Not that I know of, Midda. Tell me, you haven’t heard who it is setting up as a laundress, have you?”

Midda looked puzzled. “No.”

“Oh well,” I shrugged. “Still, if you come across her, pass the word that I’ll be on her doorstep with a hefty bundle every market day.”

I smiled but Midda was frowning at the thought that something might be going on that hadn’t reached her ears. With luck, once she set about interrogating her gossips, the spreading word would prompt some woman or other to set up her own wash tubs to steal a march on my mythical would-be laundress.

Mind, I’d still have to find some way to pay for someone to do my washing. I felt a little mildewed as I walked back, swinging the bucket to see how far I could tilt it before I risked slopping the water. There was a sizeable share of what little coin the colony boasted secure in a coffer beneath our bedroom floorboards but that was precious little use to me. Work was the currency of Kellarin and it was Ryshad’s skills that were putting credit in our ledger to buy me the prettiest plates from the potters or the softest blankets bright from the looms.

It wasn’t as if I didn’t have talents of my own but there was just precious little scope for them. I could usually find a friendly game of runes or someone happy to play the White Raven against my Forest Birds to while away an evening but these placid craftsmen and farmers weren’t in the habit of laying bets against their luck with the fate sticks and, after the first half season or so, were hardly inclined to wager against my chances of driving their raven clear off the game board.

I lifted the bucket and cupped myself a drink of water. Halcarion save me but I’d hand over that whole coffer of coin for a decent cask of wine. Mind you, I thought wryly, I wasn’t the only one fed up with water and ale. Whatever fruit Zigrida’s canes might produce after my untutored ministrations wasn’t destined for pies; she’d told me as much. But fruit cordials would never match the velvety seduction of Angovese red or the aromatic coolness of Ferl River whites.

That idle thought prompted another that stopped me in my tracks. Aft-Spring’s winds would soon bring ships and it was a safe bet they’d carry trifles and trinkets to tempt the colonists as well as the necessities of life we couldn’t yet make for ourselves. Traders from Tormalin would be wanting coin on the barrelhead, not unquantifiable promises of bartered labour. If I found some opportunity to set people like Midda fretting about that, I might get more takers for my money staked against their sweat. Come to that, traders in an anchorage without any of the usual amusements would probably be only too eager for a casual game of runes. It would take more than a winter’s idleness to leave my fingers too stiff to lighten some Zyoutessela merchant’s purse.

My spirits rose as a new notion occurred to me. Those ships would surely be carrying wine. If I bought up as much as I could, I’d have something better to trade for goods and services than the donkey work I’d been taking on, just so I wasn’t sitting on my hands and living off Ryshad’s efforts. I wasn’t about to do that here in Kellarin, any more than I’d have taken his coin to be called his whore back home.

Those same ships could take letters back to Tormalin for me. I considered how I might have them carried to the more distant trading centres of Relshaz and Peorle. As sworn man to D’Olbriot, Ryshad had had the right to use the Imperial Despatch and I wondered if they ever carried any unofficial correspondence from men who’d left their Prince’s service. In the right places, I had friends who could ship an entire cargo of wines and liquors across the ocean with my name branded on every barrel. If I became the woman the colony turned to for its wine, where might that lead me?

Feet marching in ragged step behind me interrupted such speculations. Midda and her friends scattered like hens in a farmyard, white aprons fluttering, sweeping skirts aside lest some heedless soldier tread on their hems. Not that Ryshad would have called this rabble soldiers and even Halice would have admitted they were barely worth a mercenary’s hire. I picked up my pace a little as the unshaven mob passed me to halt milling around outside Deglain’s door with the usual unfocused malice of a gang of drunks.

“Deg! Hey, Deg, we didn’t finish our game!”

That was a voice I recognised and one I didn’t like. Peyt hadn’t taken the hint when Halice had offered to pay him off the previous autumn, suggesting he head back for more profitable wars, as so many other mercenaries had done once the colony had thrived unmolested for a full year.

Most of those warriors who’d stayed had taken up old trades like Deglain or turned unskilled hands to hunting and foraging in the woods, stripping bark from felled trees for the tanners, hauling cut lumber to wherever the next house was being built. There was more than enough work to go around, after all. But I couldn’t recall Peyt and his cronies lifting a finger, not beyond grudgingly using cudgels on fleeing rats when the sheaves stooked in the new fields won from the forest had been taken for threshing. For all their supposed skill with blades, they’d shirked Aft-Autumn’s gory cull of the pigs, sheep and cattle we had no fodder to see through the winter. Ryshad had been scathing in his contempt for Peyt more than once, likening him to one of the fat black leeches lurking in the swampy stretch of land to the east. The only work I’d seen the idle bastard do since the turn of the year was drowning the few hound pups too sickly to find takers, once Ryshad had pointed out to Temar that Vithrancel could do without any pack of masterless dogs.

I reached my own gate and, once inside, latched it carefully, alert to the swelling murmurs, picking out accents from gutters all the way from Toremal clear across to the Great Forest. The door across the way burst open.

“You shut your mouth before I shut it for you!” Deglain’s bellow rang out before his voice was lost beneath a flurry of voices, some calming, some goading.

“No one’s looking for trouble here,” said one unlikely optimist.

“Peyt only says it like he sees it.” That interruption was larded with malicious expectation. “She looks a well-thumbed lass to me.”

The ragged ring of men spread out to corral two figures now circling each other.

“I’d carve a slice off her ham,” someone agreed with the misplaced earnestness of the truly drunk.

I moved to lean against the fence as a growing number of people from nearby houses emerged to do the same.

“Her thighs open like a gate on a windy day.” The speaker squared up to Deglain, smiling nastily as he made an ostentatious adjustment to his groin. He was a rangy man with a few days’ growth of beard shadowing a hatchet face beneath slicked back, oily black locks. His red, embroidered clothes had once been expensive but rough living and worse table manners had left them bagged and stained. “I’m not the only one who’s combed her quiff.”

A cackling laugh at the back raised the old mercenaries’ toast. “Here’s to loose women and well-fitting boots!”

“You’re a lying bastard, Peyt.” Deglain took a step closer and Peyt backed away. Deglain was a few fingers shorter but broader across the shoulder and with plenty of muscle beneath the fat that a winter of leisure had left padding him. He was wearing no more than a shirt and tan breeches and the slight breeze flattened the fine linen to outline his solid bulk. His blunt face was twisted in a scowl, thick brows all but lost in his unruly brown hair.

“She’s the one carrying the bastard and you’re the fool letting her father it on you,” taunted Peyt. “But you’re welcome to my leavings, if you can stomach them.”

“I’ll make you eat horseshit for spreading such lies!” One of Catrice’s brothers forced his way through the crowd, face scarlet with rage, all youthful long limbs like a heron on stilts. One of Peyt’s cronies tripped him and the youth went sprawling to unsympathetic laughter. But Glane hadn’t come alone and an angry lad punched the man with a deft fist brutal in his kidneys. Some colonists were picking up mercenary tricks.

“Saedrin’s stones!” The man buckled at the knees and was surprisingly slow to get up. Seeing Peyt distracted, Deglain stepped in with an uppercut solid enough to rattle the mercenary’s teeth. But it wasn’t enough to fell him. Clean living among the colonists had made Deglain forget how hard and fast a mercenary fights and he was a breath too slow in stepping back. Peyt drove a swift, instinctive punch into his belly and with a noise half groan, half curse, Deglain doubled over.

“Go back to your little hammers,” Peyt sneered. “You fight like a cat with gloves on.”

He looked for the adulation of his hangers-on but he was celebrating too soon. Deglain rammed a shoulder like a bullock’s rump into Peyt’s skinny ribs, dumping him on his arse.

“If I had a dog as worthless as you, I’d hang him.” He pinned his tormentor long enough for a few good blows then two others dragged him off, their boots and fists going in brutally.

“I’ll kick your arse so hard your gums’ll bleed!” Peyt was back on his feet, resilience being one mercenary quality he did possess. Blood pouring from a gashed eyebrow, he swore foully as he headed for Deglain.

The big man was holding his own against Peyt’s hangers-on with a man at either shoulder to help him, each dressed in the sombre breeches and old-fashioned jerkins of colonists. As more mercenaries stepped up to back Peyt, so men who’d just come to watch found themselves taking a stand to stop Deglain and the others being outflanked. Mild blows to ward off attack were taken as outright assault by the mercenaries for whom fighting came as naturally as breathing. Finding their attempts to defend themselves provoking vicious retaliation, the colonists rapidly abandoned restraint.

“Are you fetching Halice?” Zigrida was by her door, scowling disapproval at the spreading melee.

“Let’s see how this plays out.” I leaned against the fence that would protect the burgeoning nettles in our plot from these trampling boots well enough. My neighbours’ smug turnips were similarly defended with hurdles and hedges set to foil browsers sneaking down from the woods.

“Mercenaries.” Zigrida’s contempt was withering. “Fighting for no more reason than cats in a gutter.”

I held my tongue. Brawls were hardly uncommon in the mercenary camps I’d traversed over the years, especially at the end of a long and boring winter as the men geared themselves up for the perils and profits of a new season’s battles. Halice wouldn’t be that concerned, as long as no one suffered any real hurt. There was plenty of blood staining shirts and jerkins but no one was on the ground where boots might splinter ribs to gut a man from the inside out. Some had paired off in wrestling holds, feet digging into the dirt before sweeping forward to try and cut the foe’s legs out from under him. I saw two men falling all of a piece as neither would let go the grip they had under each other’s armpits. Scrambling apart in the dust, one offered his hand to the other, pulling him clear of Glane who was fighting his own little battle. From what I could see, he wasn’t the only colonist glad of a chance to let rip, paying back slights imagined and intentional stored up over the last few seasons.

As the swirling fight swept the pair in my direction, I recognised the mercenary Glane was punishing with lightning fast blows, heedless of the damage to his own fists. The lad would learn that lesson the hard way. His victim was a burly bruiser called Tavie, blood staining his grimy shirt as it dripped from a split lower lip. A winter’s laziness had left a belly on him like a woman scant days from childbed and he was paying a heavy price for such sloth. Then I saw Tavie decide to level the odds and reach for a dagger at his belt.

“No you don’t!” I snapped my fingers in Zigrida’s direction but didn’t take my eyes off the fat mercenary. Knife poised, he was advancing on the hapless Glane who at least had the sense to retreat as fast as the scuffles all around him allowed, chance sending him scuttling towards me. I scooped up a stone from a pile I’d dug from our supposed vegetable patch in an uncharacteristic fit of enthusiasm the previous autumn. I weighed the stone in my hand, hard and heavy with one jagged edge raw against my palm. Halice is the one with the height and heft to take up a sword alongside the men and make them eat their mockery. I’ve neither the skills nor the inclination so I’ve cultivated an accurate throwing arm. What I needed now was the chance to hit Tavie without braining some other fool who got in the way, and preferably before he caught up with Glane.

I saw my moment and took it. The rock hit Tavie hard in the meat of his knife arm. The distraction gave Glane an instant to gather his flagging strength and fraying nerve. The smack of his fist into the side of the mercenary’s head was clearly audible over the uproar all around and I winced.

It was Glane’s bad luck he knocked Tavie into Peyt. The fortunes of the fight had temporarily driven the tall mercenary away from Deglain. Furious, he turned to find out who had just dropped his man at his feet.

“Fighting for your sister’s honour?” A predatory smile curved Peyt’s lip as he leered at Glane. “What a waste of effort!”

“You lay one filthy hand on my sister and I’ll cut it off.” A treacherous break in Glane’s voice betrayed his youth. Young enough to be stupid enough to get himself killed, he pulled out his own workaday belt knife and levelled the inadequate blade. Peyt stepped back but only far enough to scoop up the longer, sharper dagger that Tavie had dropped.

“Tell you what, I’ll give you a turn on the spit, when I’ve beaten a bit of humility into you, see how you compare with your sister? How about I ram that oyster-sticker up your hairless arse when I’m done with it?” I knew Peyt’s taste didn’t run to boys but the threat disconcerted the lad, just as Peyt intended. He dropped into the crouch of the practised knife fighter. I could see Glane’s hand trembling, his back to me and our fence blocking any further retreat. The boy tried to edge away. Peyt darted forward and I made my move.

My bucket of water caught the mercenary full in the face. The chill and the shock left him gasping in momentary confusion, his startled yell harsh enough to startle everyone into stillness now the first rush of enthusiasm for bloodshed was passing.

“Glane!” I snapped with biting emphasis. “Put that knife away and get yourself home.”

A nicely brought up boy, the habit of obedience to an older female voice had him turning tail before recollection of his manly duty prompted him to go and hide behind Deglain instead.

Deprived of his target as he scraped sodden hair out of his eyes, Peyt turned an ugly scowl on me. “Livak! You pox-ridden bitch!”

“Good morning to you too.” I smiled at him. “I saw you hadn’t bathed yet, so I thought I’d save you the trouble of fetching your own water.”

He jabbed a menacing finger at me. “I’ll give you trouble, rag-mop.”

“You don’t want to do that,” I assured him, still smiling. The fence was high enough that Peyt would have to vault it to get at me and I’d be inside the house and bolting the door before he got a foot on the palings.

“Who’s going to stop me?” Peyt took a menacing step towards me. Everyone else abandoned their scuffles to watch this new entertainment. “Where’s your man? How about a torn smock from me to teach you your place is on your back and lifting your heels?”

“You lay a finger on her and I’ll make you eat your own stones,” snarled Deglain but Peyt’s cronies were a solid barrier between him and me.

I looked past Peyt and smiled. “Thanks all the same, Deg, but Peyt’s got to learn that size really doesn’t matter.”

Peyt’s glower turned into an unpleasant smirk, as aware as anyone else that he topped me by a head and more. “I think you’ll find it does, you draggle-arsed whore.”

I shook my head, taunting him with mock disappointment. “When are you going to learn, Peyt?”

He was within a stride of the fence now, face intent like a fox with a mouse in its sights. “Learn what?”

I took a pace back to keep him coming. “Which women are good for more than easing the ache in your breeches. We can take care of ourselves.”

“You’re backing yourself against me?” He barked a curt laugh. “That’s worth a prince’s ransom!”

Then Halice punched him hard in the back of the head. Before he could recover enough to think of raising his knife, she had one hand twisted in his lank black hair, jerking his head back to apply an expert stranglehold all the more effectively with her other arm. Much the same height and with broader shoulders, she had no trouble holding him.

“No, but I’ll back Halice against you any day from Solstice to Equinox,” I told Peyt. The fury in his eyes faded to an instant of panic and then to bitter blankness as Halice choked him senseless. Zigrida’s grandson was wide eyed and out of breath behind her and I winked at the child who scurried back to his grandam.

Halice dropped the limp, unconscious Peyt to the ground.

“Dump him in his bed and when he wakes up—if he wakes up—he can come to me and take his punishment for this little nonsense.” She turned to scowl at the shifty crowd, none of whom dared challenge her authority. “When you’ve dumped him, get yourselves down to the riverside and tell Minare I sent you. If you’re idle enough to be this stupid, he’ll make use of you. Move!” Her words goaded the mercenaries into a hasty retreat. Peyt half carried, half dragged away, by two of his cronies.

Halice turned her scorching glare on the colonists, dark eyes hard and unreadable. “You don’t have better things to do than this?” She bent to pick up Peyt’s fallen dagger and threw it to me.

I picked the knife out of the air and idly tossed it a few times. That should remind people I wasn’t just some insipid little twirl Ryshad kept to warm his sheets. Everyone instantly remembered ten tasks requiring immediate attention and took themselves off.

“Halice—” Deglain stepped forward, twisting grazed knuckles in the palm of his other hand, teeth marks plain on his forearm. Glane hovered behind him, bruises darkening on cheek and forehead.

“I’ll see to you later.” Halice shaded her promise with threat, holding Deglain’s gaze until he turned away. Squaring his shoulders, he ushered Glane towards his house where Catrice waited on the threshold, buttercup yellow shawl pressed to her tear-stained face.

Halice rubbed a broad hand over the dun-coloured hair she kept cropped as short as any other soldier. Now there was only me to see, her coarse-featured face turned amiable. “I may as well take an early lunch since I’m here. You can tell me what that was all about while we eat.”

The Island City of Hadrumal, 15th of Aft-Spring

Do you suppose there are many of those dust-ups between mercenaries and colonists?”

The speaker was a wiry man with thoughtful brown eyes and a reddish beard worn close trimmed, whose sparse sandy hair was cut so brutally short it was nigh on invisible. He was young to have gone all but bald, much of an age with his companion still boasting a full head of black hair, long enough to reach his shoulders if he were to untie the scrap of leather holding it back. The two men shared a sinewy build but that was as far as any similarity went. The dark-haired man had a sallow complexion and was noticeably taller than his companion whose fair skin showed freckles as they emerged from the shadow of a doorway into the early morning sun.

“Livak and Halice looked to have everything well in hand.” Breezily confident, he stuck his hands into the pockets of his grass-green jerkin, a garment significantly more relaxed in cloth and cut to the sober buff of his companion’s clothes.

“Livak’s got more than her fair share of wits,” the sandy-haired man said thoughtfully. “What did you make of Halice when you travelled with her?”

“She’s as shrewd as she’s plain faced.” The taller man smiled. “I don’t imagine there’ll be trouble with those hired swords but we can mention it if you like, if our esteemed Archmage needs some excuse for having Hadrumal send representatives to Kellarin.” From his tone, he plainly didn’t think this would be necessary.

The two men turned off the long curve of Hadrumal’s high road and through an ancient gateway of weathered stone that pierced a tower rising dark against a still sky all but colourless with the first light of the day. Footsteps loud on the flagstones, they crossed a courtyard where most windows were still firmly shuttered, their fellow wizards not yet stirring to a new day about the age-old study of magic.

The black-haired man opened an iron-studded door on to a dark staircase. A single window at the top shed scant light on the oak treads and both men paused to accustom their eyes to the gloom. Ascending in step, obvious expectation lightening their feet, the pair exchanged a grin as the sandy-haired man rapped a brisk knuckle on the door at the top.

“Enter.” The summons was curt enough to startle the pair into identical looks of surprise.

The dark-haired man opened the door. “Archmage.”

“Shiv.” The man within had his back to them, standing by a table piled high with books and documents. He looked round to greet them with a brusque nod. “Usara. What can I do for you?”

“We thought we’d invite you to share some breakfast with us.” Shiv’s words tailed off into uncertainty.

“You’re expecting someone?” Usara didn’t hide his surprise at the Archmage’s formal robe, an expensive gown of silk as dark and glossy as a raven’s wing, arcane symbols picked out on the fronts in matt black embroidery. Planir’s hair was as black as his robes but for a touch of frost at his temples.

“As you can see,” the Archmage replied tersely.

Hesitation checked Shiv’s smile. “We wanted to discuss Kellarin.”

“What about it?” Planir made a neat stack of the small volumes he’d extracted from his pile of books.

“There’ll be a lot happening there this year,” Shiv began rather lamely. “The colony was set fair to expand by the end of last autumn and now we’re past Equinox, there’ll be nothing to hold them back.”

“There’s a whole new continent to discover,” Usara chipped in. “Hadrumal can offer all manner of assistance. Wizardry will make exploration far quicker and safer.”

“That’s wizardry in general or you pair in particular?” Planir turned shadowed grey eyes on Usara. The early light through the lancet windows made harsh angles of his cleanshaven face.

“You know we have an interest in Kellarin, Archmage,” the younger man said slowly.

“Any ship wanting to make the ocean crossing needs a wizard aboard,” Shiv shrugged. “It may as well be us as anyone else.”

“I beg leave to disagree,” said Planir with a weary hint of humour. “That’s a task ideally suited to mages fresh out of their apprenticeship who need a lesson in the differences between the theories they have learned and the practical application of magic.”

“We could keep a weather eye on them from Kellarin,” Usara suggested. “Use our own experience of the oceans and the coastal currents to help them.”

“You don’t see your duty here as more important?” The faint smile faded from Planir’s face. “It is customary to pay for the learning you’ve gained by passing it on, turn and turn about with your contemporaries. What about your own apprentices?”

Usara looked uncertainly at the Archmage. “I think we’ve taught them all we can. Equinox always means apprentices moving on to new masters, so we thought we’d be free—”

“Did you consider who might be planning to pass their apprentices on to you? Herion’s already mentioned two lasses he thinks would benefit from your assistance, ’Sar.” Planir gestured towards the long roofs of Hadrumal’s buildings visible through the windows, tall towers and lesser buildings subservient to them. “You’re both of some standing in the Council now, respected among the halls. More than one mage is interested in your notions of working magic cooperatively.”

Usara opened his mouth but Planir cut him off with a curt sweep of one hand. “Do you imagine you’ve learned everything Hadrumal has to teach you? I don’t recall Shannet releasing you from your pupillage with her, Shiv.” He fixed the dark-haired mage with a hard look. “What does she think of your plans? I take it you’ve told her?”

“No,” Shiv replied slowly. “She hates any mention of Kellarin, as you know full well.”

“Because Viltred, love of her youth, died there and Otrick, friend of her old age, returned moribund.” Planir’s eyes were flinty beneath fine black brows.

“You don’t need to remind me of that,” retorted Shiv, stung.

“No?” Planir’s voice was cold. “Have the dangers that proved so fatal for them vanished?”

“Elietimm have made no move against the colony in more than a year,” said Shiv with determined composure.

“But the possibility remains, of course. Which is all the more reason to send mages with more up their sleeves than a talent for keeping a fire in overnight or picking the best place for a well,” Usara pointed out.

“They worked enough malice in the north last year, as you know better than any.” The Archmage folded his arms carefully over his robe. “Despite your success in foiling their plans, ’Sar, I don’t suppose they’ve given up their hopes of alliance with the Mountain Men. If you’re in Kellarin we could be seriously wrong-footed if we suddenly find we need the benefit of the contacts you made among the Forest Folk and the upland strongholds.”

“Whenever we’ve countered an Elietimm threat, they’ve tried something else, not the same thing again. There’s been no sniff of them in the Archipelago since Ryshad exposed their conspiracies.” Shiv took a step forward. “And the Mountain Men will be full on their guard, any fool can see that. Elietimm eyes will start looking south again. Apprentices will be hardly able to defend the colony if they attack. If we’re there, we’ll know what we’re dealing with and how best to fight it.”

“So do you consider them a threat or not?” Planir looked puzzled. “You just said there’d been no sign for over a year. Perhaps you should think through whatever your argument is before we discuss this further?”

Shiv coloured but didn’t say anything.

“Kellarin has mercenaries and magic of its own, don’t forget that.” Planir smiled thinly. “In any case, the Tormalin Emperor and I have come to, shall we say, an agreement over Kellarin. He’ll allow the colony its independence as long as Hadrumal does the same.”

Usara looked perplexed. “I don’t see the two of us threatening that.”

“Your modesty does you credit, ’Sar.” Planir’s tone warmed a trifle. “Consider the reputation you have in Toremal as the mage who drove the Elietimm out of the mountains all but single-handed last year. Of course, such power and valour was only to be expected from one of the wizards who rediscovered the lost land of Kellarin the summer before that, fighting with mighty mages like the admirable Shiv to defend its people, even to the death of such worthies as Viltred.”

“I hardly think sarcasm is called for,” said Shiv curtly.

“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to mock.” Planir looked tired despite the early hour. “I appreciate you have an interest in Kellarin and close ties to people there but you can keep your weather eye on them from here.”

He glanced at Shiv who tried and failed to look innocent. “Don’t tell me you’ve not been scrying for them because I won’t believe you. No, don’t worry about it. Scry all you want as far as I’m concerned and if trouble does come floating down from the Ice Islands, then you can give Kellarin all the assistance you want. The Emperor will be too glad of it to quibble and the first to cheer Elietimm ships burnt to the waterline with magical fire or drowned like rats in a barrel with a conjured storm.”

“I appreciate your confidence but we’ve no great record of success against the Elietimm enchanters,” said Shiv bitterly.

“Then wouldn’t you be safer here?” queried Planir. “You’re contradicting yourself again, Shiv.”

“We’re scarcely any further forward in understanding aetheric magic.” Usara’s frustration was evident. “I need to work with those adept in Kellarin if I’m to make any sense of the little we’ve learned over the winter, if I’m ever to see how Artifice relates to wizardry. We might even see how the two magics might work together rather than stifling each other.”

“A hope I hold before the Council each and every time some sceptic calls the value of your studies into question.” Planir raised a quizzical brow. “Surely you’ll make better progress surrounded by twenty generations of learning documented in Hadrumal’s libraries than struggling to fit in your studies around keeping ships away from dangerous currents and tracking lodes of ore for the colony?”

“I need to discuss my theories with the Demoiselle Guinalle,” Usara insisted. “She’s the leading adept, after all.”

“Ah yes, Guinalle.” Planir slowly inclined his head. “But what about Aritane, ’Sar? She can’t go back to her people in the mountains. These Sheltya who hold their lore, they’ll assume—and rightly—that’s she’s told you all she knows about their ancient aetheric magic. You told me that would mean death for her if the Sheltya ever caught her.”

“She’s safe enough in Hadrumal,” said Shiv with a dismissive shrug.

Planir kept his stern gaze fixed on Usara. “You’ve complained to me often enough about the scant respect she’s shown, ’Sar. You hear all the arguments that Artifice is no more than some second-rate magic unworthy of Hadrumal’s notice. You’re going to leave Aritane to face all that alone?”

“Then she can come to Kellarin with us.” Usara was looking exasperated now.

“You’ve managed to persuade her?” Planir was astonished.

“I understood she sees herself as exiled to Hadrumal for life. It’s the only place where she can stay hidden from Sheltya working Artifice to hunt her down, isn’t it?”

“I’m sure Guinalle could protect her in Kellarin,” said Usara stiffly but his face belied his words.

“You don’t think her race’s ancient kinship with the Elietimm will make her even less welcome than she is here, among colonists who suffered so dreadfully at their hands?” Planir hazarded. He frowned. “And of course, if Elietimm enchanters do seek a new target for their hatred as you suggest, Shiv, and were to attack Hadrumal for instance, then we’ll find ourselves with both Guinalle and Aritane, the only two with any real knowledge of such magic and more crucially how to counter it on the far side of the ocean.”

“Why are you making so many difficulties, Archmage?” Shiv demanded bluntly.

“Why haven’t you two thought through all the consequences of your actions?” snapped Planir. “Haven’t I taught you better than this? Is this notion entirely your own? Did someone else suggest it? Troanna for instance?”

“I don’t answer to Troanna,” Shiv replied in the same breath as Usara’s protest.

“I’m your pupil, Planir, no one else’s.”

“Then why is this plan leaving you so blinkered to wider considerations?” Planir said abruptly. “Tell me ’Sar, is your desire to see Guinalle entirely academic? You’ve set aside your romantic inclination for the lady?”

“No, but that doesn’t interfere with my duty to Hadrumal.” Usara coloured furiously beneath his beard. “No more than you’re hampered by your attachment to Larissa.”

“I think we’d better talk about this some other time,” Shiv said hastily. He caught Usara by the sleeve. “As you say, Archmage, there are other aspects to this that we’d better consider more fully”

He forced Usara through the door and closed it quickly as the sandy-haired wizard shook himself free with visible annoyance. They descended the stairs in mute irritation.

“What was that all about?” Usara burst out as they reached the courtyard. “I know he’s been short-tempered lately but that was just impossible!”

“Maybe we just picked the wrong moment,” Shiv said dubiously. “He looked dog-tired. What do you suppose is keeping him burning the midnight candles? Larissa?”

Usara shook his head. “She’s spending a lot less time with him. I hear the gossip is upsetting her.”

“What did she expect, letting Planir charm her into his bed?” There was little sympathy in Shiv’s response. “She’s his apprentice.”

“He’s genuinely fond of her,” Usara insisted.

“But she’s a diversion from his cares, not someone he’d share them with. He must miss Otrick.” Shiv’s voice was sad as he trod on the patterned shadow cast by a leaded casement now opened to the morning air.

“We all do,” Usara sighed. “And who’s Planir got to talk to, now the old pirate’s dead?”

“Pered doesn’t think Planir’s taken time to grieve for Otrick properly,” Shiv observed. He grimaced. “I win the washing up till next market day. Pered bet me Planir wouldn’t just give us leave to go.”

Usara looked back at the Archmage’s lofty window. “Perhaps we should have told him the whole plan.” His words tailed off into uncertainty.

“We agreed we’d take it one step at a time,” Shiv said firmly. “Anyway, who do you suppose is coming to see him first thing before breakfast? Maybe that’s why he was in such a contrary mood.”

They passed through the gateway and fell silent as a couple of yawning apprentices crossed their path. Usara led the way out to the less exalted buildings of the high road where Hadrumal’s tradespeople were setting about the more mundane occupations of their day.

“What do you say to some bread and cheese?” Shiv nodded towards a small shop whose solid shutters were now let down to form a counter stacked with flagons of water and wine and baskets piled high with rolls fresh from some nearby bakery.

“It wouldn’t hurt to see who came and went for a chime or so,” agreed Usara.

Vithrancel, Kellarin, 15th of Aft-Spring

If you want anything else to drink, we’ll have to raid your cellar.” I dumped the flagon of ale on the table in front of Halice.

She fetched earthenware goblets from the dresser and poured. “What makes you think I’ve got any wine left?”

“Knowing you better than your own mother did.” A knock sounded at the front door and I wondered who was being so formal. We were in the main room, too small to be called a hall for all the house boasted the dignity of the separate kitchen. “Come in.”

The door opened to reveal Zigrida’s grandson Tedin. “Grandam’s compliments and it’s a loaf for the corps commander’s lunch.”

“My thanks to her.” Halice smiled at the lad standing barely eye-level with her belt buckle. “And you did well this morning. You kept your head and ran fast.”

Tedin ducked his head on a gap-toothed grin of pleasure as he set the bread on the table and scurried away.

“What’s that man of yours got in the pantry?” Halice asked as the boy pulled the door closed behind him.

I went to look. Well aware I should barely be trusted to pod peas, Ryshad was responsible for all our cooking and food stocks. “There’s a fresh cheese.” I sniffed the moist muslin bag hanging on its hook cautiously. “Mutton and onion pie and some pickled mushrooms.” Ryshad must have done some notable service to get such precious remnants of a good-wife’s winter stores. I peered dubiously at the label of a small stone jar sealed with waxed cloth and twine. “Pickled broom buds?”

“I haven’t seen those since I was a child.” Halice came through to carry food to the table. “The old women made them to offer at Drianon’s shrine.”

“Ryshad wouldn’t have put them in the pantry if we couldn’t eat them.” I shrugged and cut bread. Halice opened the jar and tasted one before nodding approval and taking more.

“What will Minare have Peyt’s mob doing to earn their crusts?” I asked through a mouthful of tasty mutton pie.

“Setting fish traps in the river.” Halice grinned. “An afternoon up to their stones in cold water should damp down their embers.”

I tried one of the broom buds, finding it mildly aromatic with a faint bitterness, not unpleasant. “What are you going to do with Peyt?”

Halice spread soft white cheese on a heel of bread. “He’ll be upriver to Edisgesset.” Mouth full, she stumbled over the name the colonists had bestowed on the mining settlement in the hills. “He can fetch and carry for the charcoal burners for a season or so.”

“Will they have enough ore for smelting this summer?” I queried.

“They opened up the diggings well before Equinox,” Halice pointed out. “And the sooner we’ve got metal, the better for trade. Shipping back fur and wood’s all very well but cargo like that takes up a cursed lot of room for its value.”

“The right furs can be worth their weight in gold. So can pretty feathers for Tormalin ladies’ fans.” After a visit home last summer Ryshad had been full of notions for trapping any bird with a gaudy tail.

“Hmm.” Halice gestured with her knife as she swallowed. “What I want is to find some of those grubs that make silk. If Kellarin could break the Aldabreshin monopoly, we’d be set for life.”

“If hums were hams, beggars would go well fed.” I took a slow drink of ale. “I’m thinking about trying my luck in the wine trade. Do you think Charoleia would be interested? Will she still be in Relshaz?”

“She was overwintering there.” Halice applied herself to her meal. “I don’t know which spring fair she was planning to visit, Col or Peorle, and there’s no telling where she’ll head after that.”

“Let’s hope we hear from her by an early ship.” Charoleia would doubtless be charming travellers riding home across the length and breadth of the countries that had once made up the Tormalin Empire, relieving them of their spoils from the Equinox fairs of the great cities. I thought a trifle wistfully of the gaming that had gone on without me.

Halice’s thoughts were still in Kellarin. “Are you thinking of setting up as a proper wine factor with your own warehouse or just taking orders and a commission for settling them?”

“I hadn’t really thought.” I took an apple from the bowl on the table.

“Then think and get your pieces on the board before someone else has the same notion,” Halice told me firmly. “It’s too cursed good an idea to let slip. My cellar’s as dry as a drunk in the morning. And talking of drunks, has Peyt really been sniffing round Catrice?”

“I’ve no idea where she was flirting her petticoats before Solstice.” I peeled the apple, wrinkled from the store and soft beneath leathery skin but sweet with the memory of last summer’s sun. “She’s kept company with Deglain since the turn of For-Spring. I can vouch for that.” There’d been precious little entertainment to brighten up the winter beyond keeping track of the neighbours.

Halice looked thoughtful. “So it’s his babe.”

“Unless Peyt caught her in a dark corner and wouldn’t take no for an answer.” I offered half the apple to Halice.

Halice shook her head. “He’s all mouth and hair oil but he wouldn’t risk that. Not with nowhere to run but the wild-wood. He knows I’ll flog any man till his ribs show for rape.” She cut another slice of pie with her belt knife. “Who threw the first punch?”

“Deglain,” I said reluctantly. “But Peyt came looking for a fight. Deg just wanted to sleep off his drink.”

“Raeponin’s scales don’t tell gold from lead.” Halice grimaced. “Mercenary rules mean the one who started it gets the heavier punishment, even if only by pennyweight.”

“You’re going to send Deg to Edisgesset?” I reckoned we should try weighting the god of justice’s scales. “Is he still a mercenary? He’s been working at a trade since before the turn of the year.”

Halice scratched her head. “I’ll tan Peyt’s arse for him if I’ve picked up his lice,” she muttered. “That’s a good question. If Deg’s thrown in his lot with the colony for good, he’ll be D’Alsennin’s problem.”

“He’ll be tied to a colony family soon enough, if Catrice’s mother has anything to say about it,” I pointed out.

Halice chuckled. “I never thought I’d see Deglain chivvied with a copper-stick.”

“He won’t be the only one, not by Solstice,” I opined.

Halice nodded at the auburn hair brushing my collar. “You’re growing a wedding plait to lay on Drianon’s altar, are you?”

I made a derisory noise. “What do you think?”

“What does Ryshad think?” she countered with the direct gaze of a friend close enough to take such liberties.

“Save your breath to cool your broth,” I told her firmly. “Think about this instead. The line between who’s a fighting man and who’s a colonist will only get more scuffed with every match and every passing season. We should draw up some rules before that game really gets into play.” Which would make a more interesting day than doing laundry.

Halice nodded. “Let’s see if we can pin D’Alsennin down long enough to talk it through. It’s time that lad faced up to his responsibilities,” she added with relish.

We finished our meal and I avoided Halice’s amused eye as I dutifully cleared the table and washed up. You’d need a knife at my throat to make me admit it, especially to my housekeeper mother, but truth be told, I didn’t particularly begrudge such necessary tasks. And Ryshad had more sense than to expect the constant clean linen and immaculate house his mother devoted her every waking moment to. I still considered that a waste of time, even now the novelty of so much leisure hanging on my hands was wearing off.

Outside, the generous sun of Kellarin encouraged neat lines of seedlings in gardens vivid green from a sprinkling of rain the night before. I took an appreciative breath of clean air, far better than the stench of foetid gutters that plagues even the best of towns. Cruck-framed houses dotted the rolling landscape in all directions, a few already showing wings added to accommodate growing families. There was plenty of room for such expansion and every plot had been liberally measured to allow for a pigsty and a hencoop as well as a sizeable kitchen garden. Not that such bounty was much use to me who’d grown up in a city where fruit and vegetables arrived on costermongers’ carts.

“You want to be getting your plants in,” Halice observed. For all her years with a sword at her side, she’d grown up a smallholder’s daughter in that border district where the hilly land’s too poor for Lescar, Caladhria or Dalasor to be bothered who claims it.

“Getting dirt under my fingernails?” I scoffed. “I’ll see who’s willing to wager some sweat. A day digging my vegetable patch should make a decent stake for someone.” Someone who’d want coin to spend when the first ships arrived.

Goats were tethered on the common grazing cut by tracks already taking on the breadth and permanence of roads. We passed a lad struggling to get a peg in the ground while his beast prodded him with malevolent horns. “Peyt’s less use than that billy,” I observed, “and he smells worse. Can’t you just ship him back to Tormalin?”

Halice laughed. “Peyt could have his uses. Getting between me and some Ice Islander for one.”

The chill that made me shiver had nothing to do with the fluffy white clouds fleeting across the sun. “We’ve none too many decent fighters left, not since Arest took his troop to Lescar.” I wondered which of the continuously warring dukes had the gold and good fortune to secure his services.

“We’ll see familiar faces back before the sailing season’s half done.” Halice was unconcerned. “Allin tells me there’s been camp fever all over Lescar through the latter half of winter.”

“Lessay should be smart enough to get clear of that.” But Arest’s lieutenant had still opted to leave last summer. Land may be valuable, he’d said over a farewell flagon, and granted, it can’t be stolen or tarnished, but it’s cursed difficult to spend a field on drink or a willing whore. I couldn’t argue with that.

Genial, Halice swapped pleasantries with toiling colonists busy in burgeoning gardens and met sundry acquaintances bustling about their errands. Village life was what she’d grown up with, everyone living in each other’s pockets. I picked pockets when pressed into a tight corner and moved on swiftly. I’d been raised as a Vanam servant’s daughter in the midst of that busiest of cities where my mother kept herself to herself and not just to avoid the pitying glances of those inclined to patronise an unwed woman with a minstrel’s by-blow at her skirts.

I smiled and chatted but still found it unsettling to be so readily recognised by folk I barely considered neighbours. After half a lifetime making sure I went unremarked, I found this an unwelcome consequence of living with Ryshad. He’d helped half these people with something to do with their building and had dealings with the rest in his unofficial capacity as Temar D’Alsennin’s second in command. I’d yet to find a subtle way of letting these people know that gave them no claim on me.

Eventually we reached the wide river curling through the broad fertile plain between the hills and the sea. Indistinct in the mouth of the spreading estuary, I saw the solid bulk of the Eryngo, Kellarin’s biggest ship, riding secure at anchor as the crew made ready for their first ocean voyage, just as soon as the holds were full with goods to raise Kellarin’s credit back home. Closer to, the bare ribs of half-built ships poked above tidal docks hacked out of the mud the year before.

Halice’s gaze followed mine. “Our own caravels should be exploring the coasts before the last half of summer.”

“Do you think the Elietimm will try their luck this year?” I didn’t mind letting her hear my apprehension. “They’re not dogs, to take a lesson from the whipping we gave them.”

“We’ll be a match for anyone looking for trouble.” Halice sounded equal to the prospect. “Peyt and his mob will step up smart enough if it’s a choice between fighting back or having your skull split and I’ve told D’Alsennin I’ll be drilling any colony lads bright enough to swing a sword without braining themselves.”

I knew for a fact Ryshad wasn’t keen on that idea, concerned that the lads would find their loyalties split between D’Alsennin and the mercenary life. Well, that wasn’t my problem, and anyway, I had more serious concerns. “What about Elietimm magic? Swords don’t do so well against that.”

“Arrows and crossbow bolts kill an enchanter just as dead as anyone else.” Halice looked out towards the distant ocean. “I can’t see Guinalle and young Allin letting their black ships sneak up unnoticed. Let’s hope for the best while we plan for the worst. With Saedrin’s grace, all those ships will have to do is surveying.”

Halice turned to follow the track leading upstream towards Temar’s newly finished residence. A woman passed us, full skirts sweeping the grass, decorous kerchief around her head.

I looked after her. “That’s Catrice’s mother.” The woman hailed one of the boats busy about the placid waters of the river.

“Off to see Guinalle, I’d say. Let’s see what the demoiselle reckons to all this before we corner D’Alsennin.” Halice used her fingers to blow a piercing whistle and a mercenary called Larn promptly turned his boat towards us. A native of Ensaimin’s lakeland, he was currently earning his bread ferrying up and down the river.

“Want me to wait?” He showed Halice the deference of all sensible mercenaries.

She shook her head. “We’ll see ourselves back.”

I got carefully into the boat, bigger than the cockleshell skittering across the estuary with Catrice’s mother but still none too secure to my mind.

“You really should learn to swim,” commented Halice.

I stuck my tongue out at her. “It’s hardly a necessary skill for a travelling gambler.” Vanam is as far away from any ocean as it’s possible to get in the erstwhile provinces of the Tormalin Empire.

Sitting, I took an unobtrusive grip on the thwart. As Larn leaned into his oars I studied the far bank of the river. The all-entangling vegetation had died back from the stone ruins over the winter and had yet to reclaim them. That laid all the more starkly bare the decay of Kellarin’s first colony, founded generations before Vithrancel was even thought of.

More than attitudes and priorities separated the colonists and the mercenaries. Temar D’Alsennin and his hopeful followers had crossed the ocean an astonishing thirty generations ago, turning their backs on the dying days of Tormalin’s Old Empire. From their wistful recollections, all had seemed paradise for the first couple of years but then they’d suffered the first fatal onslaught of the Elietimm, ancestors of those same Ice Islanders who’d plagued both sides of the ocean for the past few years. Those early settlers who hadn’t been slaughtered fled upriver, hiding themselves in caves discovered while prospecting for metals. Ancient magic had hidden them all in a deathless sleep until the curiosity and connivance of the Archmage had unearthed the incredible truth, lost for so many years thanks to the Chaos that followed the death of Nemith the Last.

I’d enjoyed witnessing the discomfiture of Hadrumal’s conceited wizards when the ancient magic of Tormalin had proved to be nothing to do with their own mastery of air, earth, fire and water. I’d been intrigued to discover the same aetheric enchantments could be worked through those ancient songs of the Forest Folk, whose blood ran in my veins thanks to my wandering father’s fancy alighting on my maidservant mother. On the other side of the coin, that Artifice had been able to lock those colonists helpless and deathless in the shades between this world and the next still gave me the shudders and then there was Ryshad’s distrust of Artifice. I wasn’t so interested in it to risk losing him. I realised I was absently twisting the ring he had given me round and round on my finger.

As always Halice’s thoughts were more immediately practical. “Why’s Ryshad so set on making bricks? Isn’t there enough stone here to keep him happy?” She nodded at bright scars marking the age-stained grey masonry. Beyond using the place as a quarry, most colonists had no use for these uncomfortable reminders of years lost while they lay insensible under enchantment.

“Not with him and Temar insisting that everyone’s cesspit is stone lined,” I told her. “Have you seen all the warehouses, market halls and workshops they’re planning?” I’d been shown the drawings, in exhaustive detail; every footing to be set firm with stone and topped with all the bricks Werdel could turn out. Vithrancel’s past would underpin its future as D’Alsennin took the lead in turning his face to the here and now rather than the long lost past.

I got carefully out of Larn’s boat on the far side. Breeched and booted, we easily gained on Catrice’s mother, her strides hampered by the petticoats rustling beneath her hurrying skirts.

A lofty hall appeared round a turn in the gravel path, surrounding wall newly repaired in sharp contrast to the tumbledown ruins on either hand. This time-worn dwelling had been built by the long-dead Messire Den Rannion who’d invited the colonists on their ill-fated venture. It had been their first sanctuary in that confused season when Planir had reawakened them. We had all fought with our backs against these walls, mercenaries, mages and ancient Tormalin alike when the Elietimm had attacked, determined to kill any rival claimants to this land. Guinalle, more formally Demoiselle For Priminale, had tended the wounded in the ancient steading using her life-giving Artifice in despite of Elietimm enchantments. By the time the sufferers had either died or recovered, Guinalle had quietly had the place re-roofed and the perimeter wall made secure. No one had had any luck since suggesting the highest-born surviving noblewoman of the original colony move herself across the river, which at least kept the stink of boiling medicaments away from the rest of us. As an apothecary’s customer whenever I had the chance rather than a devotee of the still room, I’d never realised quite how much pungent preparation woad needed.

“You can do the talking,” I said to Halice.

Halice shook her head. “You can’t blame her on Ryshad’s account for ever.”

“I don’t,” I said indignantly.

Halice shot me a sceptical look. “A blind man in a fog can see how he mistrusts Artifice.”

“I’ve done more than half the scholars in Vanam to unearth lost aetheric magic,” I protested. “I brought back no end of lore from the Forest and the Mountains last year.”

“You still walk stiff-legged around Guinalle because of what happened to Ryshad,” said Halice mildly.

My dismissive noise came out rather more non-committal than I intended. Drianon be my witness, I occasionally caught myself watching Ryshad as he slept, wondering if any trace of the enchantment that had enthralled him remained. The bodies of the colonists had been sealed away in the Edisgesset cavern when Guinalle worked the enchantment that locked their true selves, the very essence of their lives, into rings, jewellery and, in Temar D’Alsennin’s case, into his sword. Those vital tokens had been sent back to Toremal to summon aid but the few who escaped the destruction of Kel Ar’Ayen found their Empire in the toils of anarchy. No rescue had ever come.

I didn’t know how body and consciousness had been separated. The thought of what Guinalle called Higher Artifice gave me gooseflesh. Eventually—and the scholars of Vanam continued to argue with Hadrumal’s wizards as to why—these sleeping minds had stirred the dreams of whosoever chance or some god’s fancy had left holding the artefact. The first hints of the lost colony’s true fate had emerged from the contradiction and exaggeration of legend.

But Planir the Black, fabled Archmage of Hadrumal wasn’t ever one to leave things to chance or even to Saedrin himself. He’d made sure Ryshad was given Temar D’Alsennin’s sword, hoping similarities between the two men would form a bond to reach across the shades and bring back the answers Planir wanted. It had worked, after a fashion, but I still considered the way Ryshad’s body had been possessed by Temar’s questing mind too high a price.

But only fools argue over a hand that’s been played out. All those runes had been gathered for drawing anew and I planned to make the best of my luck and Ryshad’s.

We followed Catrice’s mother through the darkly stained gate now reinforced with pale new timber. The courtyard of the ancient steading was busy; Guinalle wasn’t alone on this side of the river. Masons cleaned stone reclaimed from the ruins and men studied a plan, pegs and cord for marking something in their hands. I recalled Ryshad mentioning a kiln wanted hereabouts to burn rubble into lime for his precious mortar.

The outraged matron ignored everyone as she hurried into the wide hall. “Demoiselle, Demoiselle, a moment of your time, if you please.”

We followed and I wrinkled my nose at a faint smell of paint. Looking up I saw the roof had been repanelled since my last visit, its decoration begun. The first pious scene completed showed Saedrin sorting his keys by the door to the Otherworld while Poldrion poled his ferry of newly dead across the river that flows through the shades.

I looked for Guinalle and found her by a long table covered with a pungent array of greenery dotted with early flowers in blue and yellow. A woman a touch below my own height, she was neatly made with a trim waist to balance rounded hips and a bosom to catch a man’s eye. Dressed in the same work-stained broadcloth as the other women, the golden chain that girdled her nevertheless marked her rank, carrying a chatelaine’s keys, knife and small mesh purse. The women sorting herbs for immediate decoction or bundling sprigs for drying looked up with ready curiosity at Catrice’s mother. The busy hum of conversation took on a speculative note.

“Mistress Cheven.” Guinalle ushered the red-faced matron into a side aisle where withy screens separated bays into an illusion of privacy. I favoured the inquisitive women with a sunny smile while Halice leaned on the doorpost, dour faced, prompting most to tend their steeping jars and tincture bottles.

“One of those filth—” Catrice’s mother struggled for words to express her contempt, accents of Toremal strengthened by emotion and echoing round the stone walls. “He calls my girl a slut, says she lays with any who asks, claiming her babe as his.” Fury choked her to silence before abruptly deserting her, leaving her plump face slack with the threat of tears.

“Calm yourself.” Guinalle looked past Mistress Cheven as she pressed the woman to take a stool. “Corps Commander Halice is here and I imagine about the same business.” She beckoned to us with unconscious authority.

Halice walked over unhurried, me a pace behind. “Mistress Cheven, Demoiselle Tor Priminale.” She bowed and Guinalle sketched a perfunctory curtsey out of archaic habit. “I came to warn you about Peyt right enough. He’s out to make trouble for Deglain and slandering Catrice was the best thing he could think of. There was a fight—” Halice raised a hand to soothe Mistress Cheven’s inarticulate distress. “Peyt came off second best and he’ll feel the sharp edge of my tongue as well as due punishment. It was Deg I wanted to talk to you about, Demoiselle.” She looked at Guinalle. “Back in Lescar, hired as a corps, I’d have him flogged for messing with a girl, if she was unwilling. If she was willing but found with child, I’d pay him off and promise him all the torments of Poldrion’s demons if I ever found he’d abandoned them. But I’d still be calling him to account for throwing the first punch in a brawl.”

“But this is not Lescar,” Guinalle concluded Halice’s unspoken thought.

“Deglain’s a good man, not one to fight unless sore provoked.” Mistress Cheven looked concerned. “Me and her father, we’re glad to see Catrice keep company with him. They’ve been talking about wedding this Solstice coming. Back when, that is, if we still held to old customs, they’d be handfasted long since.”

“Deglain’s been working as a tinsmith since before the turn of the year,” Halice pointed out. “Does he come under my jurisdiction these days? I wouldn’t argue for it.”

Guinalle sat on a stool herself. “No, I don’t suppose he does.”

“I don’t want Peyt to sniff an excuse to go stirring up any bad feeling between mercenaries and colonists. This seems as good a time as any to agree a few rules about exactly where D’Alsennin’s writ runs and where my authority holds.” Halice studied Guinalle’s heart-shaped face before turning to Mistress Cheven with firm assertion. “But Peyt definitely comes under my lash and I’ll see it bites him. He won’t sully Catrice’s name again.”

“That answers your complaint, doesn’t it?” Guinalle brushed absently at the chestnut braids coiled high on her head and I noticed green stains on the ladylike softness of her small hands, grime beneath her precisely pared nails.

The habit of obedience to anyone noble born prompted the older woman to stand. “I suppose so.”

“Send Catrice to see me,” Guinalle smiled reassurance. “I can see how far along the babe is.”

“That would be a kindness, Demoiselle.” Mistress Cheven looked relieved. “It being her first—well, there are things a girl won’t ask her mother.” She glanced at Halice and me, colouring as she curtseyed a farewell to Guinalle.

“Didn’t women ever wear breeches in the Old Empire?” I watched her go with amusement.

“Not that I’m aware,” replied Guinalle with a smile too brief to reach her hazel eyes.

“Can Artifice tell you if Deg truly is the father?” Halice asked bluntly.

“I might get some sense of it.” Guinalle hesitated. “Does it matter, if he loves Catrice and acknowledges the child?”

“I’d like to be forewarned, if it’ll come out wearing Peyt’s nose.” Halice looked stern. “I’ll ship him back across the ocean before Catrice’s due season for a start.”

“Which will almost certainly be For-Autumn.” Guinalle’s unguarded face showed an instant of weariness. “Another one. Drianon only knows where we’re going to find enough Bluemantle.” She looked at the long table where her women were still diligently sorting herbs between whispered comments and snatched glances in our direction. “I wonder how anything got done over the winter, there are so many babes expected between hay and harvest.”

I couldn’t decide if Guinalle sounded disapproving or envious. No matter, midwifery was none of my business and I’d make doubly sure of that with a little herb gathering of my own, as soon as Halcarion’s Vine came into bloom on this side of the ocean.

Halice had other concerns as well. “We need D’Alsennin—” She broke off as two men with belligerent expressions hurried into the hall and hailed Guinalle.

“Demoiselle—”

“My lady—”

One was a colonist I vaguely recognised; the other a craftsman come over the previous year after D’Alsennin had taken ship to Toremal to settle a few matters with Emperor Tadriol and start recruiting new blood and necessary skills.

“It’s the piglets,” one began.

“I’ll pay with a share when it’s killed,” protested the other.

His Tormalin lilt was already coloured with the ancient intonations and mongrel mercenary accents that were blending into Kellarin’s speech.

“There’s ten in the litter,” the first man appealed to Guinalle. “Me and the wife can’t eat that much sausage! We need firewood. He’s got it stacked up to the eaves—”

“And I sweated for every axe stroke,” protested the craftsman. “And Estle’s boar did the work on your sow, not you!”

“I was talking with the demoiselle.” There was an ominous edge to Halice’s voice and both men took a pace back.

The colonist twisted his cap awkwardly in square hands. “Beg pardon, Mis—” He swallowed the word ’Mistress’ as Halice glared at him.

“If you want D’Alsennin to extend his authority over Deglain, Corps Commander, take it up with him.” Guinalle stood, smoothing the front of her plain gown. “I have more than enough to do here.”

“So I see.” Halice frowned and the men with the squabble took another step back but I didn’t think her anger was directed at them. “Have you any adepts trained to share your duties yet?”

Guinalle stiffened. “We’ve managed some study over the winter but time is limited with so much to do.”

“And it’s always quicker and easier to do things yourself rather than show someone else. Why risk them fouling it up?” Halice’s voice was firm but not unsympathetic. She looked down at Guinalle with a rare smile. “Which is all well and good but you need to let folk learn by their own mistakes.”

“It’s for me to judge how best to train practitioners of Artifice.” Guinalle’s chin came up, her expression one of frosty hauteur. “Haste is often at odds with wisdom, especially when we can ill afford even the most trivial errors. Good day to you.” Guinalle nodded a brusque farewell and swept back to her waiting women, leaving the men with the squabble looking blank.

Halice strode out of the hall and I followed, noting she was rubbing absently at the thigh she’d broken a couple of years back. Guinalle’s skills with the healing power of Artifice had saved Halice from life as a cripple and Halice was ever one to honour her debts, whether the noblewoman wanted her help or not.

“That girl needs to take a bit more time for herself and ask a lot more of other people. I can’t recall when we last talked without someone interrupting to ask her to judge a barter, solve a quarrel, or advise on some triviality.” Halice shot me a glare. “There wasn’t one of the adepts she’s supposedly training around that table.”

“Don’t look at me,” I warned her. “My tricks with the Forest charms are only Low Artifice and that’s as much as I’m interested in.” That Guinalle barely concealed her disdain for such minor magic didn’t exactly endear her to me.

“You could learn the Higher Artifice,” Halice challenged. “You’ve shown an aptitude for enchantment.”

“I don’t want to,” I told her bluntly.

“You mean Ryshad doesn’t want you to,” countered Halice.

“When did I last hide behind a man’s say-so?” I scoffed. Ryshad hadn’t told me he didn’t want me studying Artifice with Guinalle. He probably wouldn’t, even if I did. But he wouldn’t like it all the same and that was enough to tip the balance in favour of my own reservations, even if I was curious to learn how Guinalle worked her enchantments without the songs that were the only way I knew of using aetheric power. I wasn’t that curious. Tricks to light fires or smooth over footsteps are all very well but I knew better than most how Artifice could get inside people’s heads, even leave them dead without a mark on them. I could count the people I’d trust with that kind of power, even with the best of intentions, on the fingers of one hand.

Halice was scowling. “D’Alsennin’s some skill with aetheric magic, hasn’t he? He should lean a bit more weight on the traces.”

It was a safe bet who’d be telling him that. Which would certainly be more interesting than going home to do the laundry. A new thought occurred to me. “Sutal will probably come back if Lessay does. She’d take some of the load off Guinalle.”

Halice nodded grudgingly. “We could do with a proper surgeon, regardless.”

We got a ride back across the river on a flat-bottomed boat laden with salvaged masonry and I scrambled gratefully ashore at the jetty that marked Vithrancel’s first proper landing. I spotted Werdel among the men piling stone up beyond any risk of flooding.

I waved to him. “Where’s Rysh?”

He rested dusty hands on his thighs. “Taken D’Alsennin up to the drying sheds.”

I looked at Halice. “Do you want to go after them?”

Halice looked around the buildings that were finally giving Vithrancel some appearance of a real town. Colonists and mercenaries alike had tacked haphazard shelters on to ancient remnants of walls and roofs, scant defence against that first uncertain winter. A full eight seasons later, the last of these makeshifts were being cleared as new buildings staked firm claim to the land and we even had an irregular space people were calling the market square. A brewer had claimed the first plot to universal approval and his solid establishment now offered Kellarin’s only taproom where I occasionally found a friendly game among those keen to quench their thirsts. The long low building beside it sheltered looms shared informally by men and women with the skills to use them and I saw the usual throng of people with wool to swap for yarn or finished cloth around the door. The loft above served as a store for the dyers and fullers who’d set up pungent work further downstream.

Halice was glaring at an impressive building at the head of the market square. It had a definite air of authority, roofs neatly slated with stone rather than wooden shingles and walls scoured clean of the mottled stains of age. A splash of bright green on a ground of azure blue hung bashful from a lanyard, waiting for Temar’s return to hoist it to the foremost gable. Held out by a helpful wind, it would show a device of three overlapping holm oak leaves.

“It’s all very well Temar hanging out his flag but as soon as anyone fussing sees he’s never there, they head straight for Guinalle. What we want is some magic to stick the lad’s arse to a chair every morning,” said Halice with a glint in her eye. “Artifice or wizardry, I don’t care which.”

I chuckled. “Shiv might oblige. Let’s see what’s trading while we’re waiting.” I gestured towards the large hall to the offhand of Temar’s residence. That had rapidly become the centre for barter and bargaining among colonists and mercenaries alike. I might find something worth the promise of a few of Ryshad’s bricks.

The Island City of Hadrumal, 15th of Aft-Spring

Hearth Master, Flood Mistress.” A startled maidservant bobbed a curtsey to the stout man sweeping into the quadrangle. He spared her a lordly wave of the full-cut sleeve of his velvet robe. The woman with him ignored the girl, cutting directly across the flagstones towards Planir’s door, unyielding determination on her weathered face. She held the door for her companion with visible impatience but remained silent, setting a punishing pace up the stairs. The man rapped a fat hand on Planir’s door, ruby rings dark on three fingers.

“Come in.” Planir sat in a high-backed, comfortably upholstered chair by the empty fireplace, a book in one hand, a goblet of fruit juice in the other, a crumb-strewn plate on a small table at his side. “Troanna, Kalion, please, help yourselves. There’s caraway loaf or sunrise breads. Something to drink?” He got to his feet.

Kalion, flushed from the exertion of the stairs, smiled at the generously laid table. He tucked a cushion behind him as he sat and unbuttoned the high collar of his scarlet gown, its nap still fresh from the tailor’s brush. “Thank you, Archmage, a little plum cordial, with plenty of water,” he added hastily.

“Just a glass of water, if you please.” Troanna sat unsmiling in an upright chair and ignored golden glazed buns still warm from the oven, split ready for fluffy sweetened cream and the preserves to hand in crystal dishes. As Kalion filled an eager plate, she settled the skirts of an emerald gown in the Caladhrian style favoured by most of Hadrumal’s women. Troanna’s dress was as severe as her expression, without even the usual embroidery to lighten it. Her hazel eyes studied Planir with an intelligence that made it plain she was no mere gap-toothed matron subsiding into dumpy middle age and greying hair. “We came to discuss appointing a new Cloud Master.”

“Or Cloud Mistress.” Kalion looked up from the breakfast table with instant alertness. “Archmage, have you seen the conclusions Velindre drew from her voyage around the Cape of Winds last summer? She’s proving extremely talented.”

“I’ve not had the pleasure of reading her journal as yet.” Planir smiled as he poured drinks at an expensively inlaid sideboard. He waved a hand at the books stacked higher than Troanna’s head on the reading desk. “I have so many calls on my time.”

“You should make time to consider all candidates,” Troanna said, unimpressed, hands laced in her lap.

“Such excessive delay is causing talk around the halls,” Kalion warned as he spread damson jam with precise knife strokes.

“I’m assessing every candidate most thoroughly.” Planir gestured towards the book he’d set aside. “That’s Rafrid’s treatise on the interaction of the southern sea winds and the winter winds from the northern mountains.” He handed a crystal glass to Troanna and set a carafe of water together with a goblet of ruby liquor by Kalion’s elbow.

“If Rafrid had ambitions to be Cloud Master, he shouldn’t have accepted mastery of Hiwan’s Hall.” Kalion emphasised his words with a jab of an empty cream spoon.

“Master or Mistress, we need someone coordinating the proper study of the element,” insisted Troanna.

“Quite so.” Kalion added a little water to the cordial in the goblet. “Archmage, what am I to do when some apprentice appears with a query that should properly be referred to a Cloud Master?”

“Your talents with the air are well known.” Planir resumed his seat, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair as he steepled his fingers. His face was amiable. “I imagine you’re both equal to such questions.”

“That’s no answer and you know it.” Troanna’s response was curt. “Those coming here to explore their affinity deserve guidance from the leading proficients in each and every element.”

“I agree.” Planir’s expression was more serious. “Which is why I won’t rush such a crucial decision.”

“All delay gets you is dirt and long nails,” Troanna retorted.

Kalion took another bun with a casual air. “It would be quite proper for you to nominate two or three candidates to the Council and ask for a vote. There’s plenty of precedent for such appointments.”

“The Council won’t select Rafrid,” Troanna warned. “He can’t be Cloud Master and run a hall.”

Kalion’s laugh was forced. “He can’t run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.”

Planir looked at him, unsmiling. “You have a point to make?”

Troanna was unmoved by the chill in the Archmage’s voice. “You say you’re so busy? Perhaps you should set aside some duties. Let the Council choose a new Stone Master at the same time as the Cloud Master we need.”

“Or Mistress,” interjected Kalion.

Planir shrugged dismissively. “I’m hardly the first Archmage to be an Element Master at the same time.”

“Sooner or later, they all relinquished the lesser duty,” said Troanna bluntly. “I thought you’d have the wit to see the necessity sooner, Planir.”

“Archmage, you’ve naturally been preoccupied with guiding Hadrumal through the last few years’ upheavals in the wider world.” Kalion’s sincerity was unaffected by the cream smudging his plump chin. “It’s no reflection on your abilities but can you honestly claim to have time for assessing some apprentice’s notions on the cohesion of rock?”

“What if these Elietimm with their peculiar enchantments reappear?” Troanna spoke mercilessly over him. “Can Hadrumal stay uninvolved if they threaten Tormalin or Kellarin again? As Archmage, you’ll have Emperor Tadriol, the dukes of Lescar, the Caladhrian Parliament and whoever else come running in a panic and asking for our aid.”

“What if they attack Hadrumal itself?” Kalion’s ruddy cheeks paled and recollection haunted his eyes. “We’ve seen their abhorrence of wizardry. You’ll need a full nexus of Element Masters backing you to work quintessential magic to stop them.”

“I hardly think it’ll come to that.” Planir took up his fruit juice and sipped it with unconcern.

“No?” Troanna’s scepticism was biting. “Otrick was my friend and this Artifice left his mind dead within him. I can’t forget that. Nor do I want to sit vigil over any more living corpses because you were tied up in disputes over pupillage agreements when you were needed to defend someone else.”

“Set the Elietimm aside, Archmage.” Food abandoned, Kalion leaned earnest elbows on the table. “Even without them, your duties as Archmage increase with every season from what I can see. Hadrumal is committed to helping these people in Kellarin. They need our magecraft to sail the very oceans, never mind anything else. You’ve extended invitations to any wizards in Solura who might care to study here. You’ve been talking about pursuing Usara’s discovery of magebirth among the Mountain and the Forest races. We have Mentor Tonin trying to search out Artifice’s secrets and Vanam’s scholars visiting here while our mages travel to their university. The pace is hardly going to slacken. All we ask is you consider setting aside some of your other burdens.”

“Perhaps.” A line appeared between Planir’s fine black brows. “I’d be a fool to let my scones burn because I wouldn’t let anyone else at the griddle, wouldn’t I? If Hadrumal needs a new Stone Master, Usara’s the obvious candidate.”

Troanna narrowed suspicious eyes. “What dedication has he shown to the proper study of magecraft lately?”

“He and Shiv have been seeing how mages might work together in lesser combinations than a full nexus,” Planir offered.

“I fail to see how he’ll have made much progress when he spent all last summer traipsing round with the scaff and raff of the mainland backwoods.” Kalion leaned back to fold thick forearms over his substantial girth. “Not even representing Hadrumal to anyone of influence.”

“Then he wasted the winter breaking his nails trying to pick aetheric lore out of that collection of old Forest songs and whatever myths that Mountain lass he dragged back here could think up.” Troanna was contemptuous. “Mentor Tonin is welcome to indulge such intellectual curiosity but it’s hardly the province of wizards.”

“You wouldn’t welcome some Artifice of our own to counter the Elietimm?” Planir asked blandly.

“I would if there was any sign of it, Archmage.” Kalion sounded genuinely regretful. “But there’s none beyond the simplest tricks, is there?”

Troanna looked at him unsmiling. “We would do better to meet any aetheric assault with tried and tested magic worked by a full nexus of Element Masters.”

“There are more candidates for Stone Master than Usara.” Kalion barely let the Flood Mistress finish speaking. “Galen has been examining the fundamental assumptions underpinning our understanding of the element of earth.”

“I had no idea.” The Archmage shook his head thoughtfully. “But he hasn’t initiated any discussion that I’m aware of and I do keep current with such things, the earth being my own affinity. Kalion, you should drop Galen a hint to share his conclusions, otherwise people will only think him good for the latest gossip.” There was a barb in Planir’s casual geniality.

“Usara is far too young to have any credibility with the older mages,” Troanna said with finality. “He hasn’t the experience to claim pre-eminence in his element, no matter what his recent reputation as an adventurer might be.”

“While Galen has spent so long in Kalion’s shadow, he has no reputation of his own at all.” Planir met Troanna’s stern gaze calmly. “Who could be confident he’d be sympathetic to some apprentice’s adolescent confusions or could summon the necessary diplomacy when two mages dispute a pupillage? There’s more to mastery than pure study, as you know better than anyone.”

He sprang to his feet, crossing the room to stand by the window. “There’s no obvious candidate for Cloud Master — or Mistress — any more than there is for Stone Master. True, I could offer a handful of each to the Council but do you think any would command a consensus? I don’t—and I certainly don’t want Hadrumal splitting into factions and backbiting when, as you so rightly say, Troanna, we must be wary of threats from outside. The Elietimm have been quiescent since their attempt to stir revolt in the Mountains was foiled but we cannot relax our vigilance just yet. Kalion, your hopes of greater influence on the mainland may finally be realised with this new understanding we’ve come to with Tadriol over Kellarin. Even the appearance of dissension among ourselves could undermine all the work you’ve done to convince people of Hadrumal’s potential to help them. It never takes much to revive the suspicions and misinformation that plague wizardry’s reputation in the mainland.”

“Ifs and buts are no excuse for inaction, Planir.” Troanna was unimpressed. “This situation is intolerable and, as Archmage, your duty is to resolve it.”

Kalion’s jowled face creased with dissatisfaction. “And quickly.”

“Hasty with the whip and the horse may stumble,” warned Planir. “I’m sure the best candidate will become apparent in time.”

Troanna snorted. “Or you’ll spend so long looking, you’ll pass over an adequate one. Better ride a donkey that carries you than a horse that’s always bucking.”

“I’ll find a proverb to trade you for that one tomorrow,” Planir smiled.

Troanna stood. “This is no matter for levity.”

She looked at Kalion and the stout mage reluctantly rose to his feet. She ushered him out of the room, neither mage saying anything further before she closed the door with an emphatic clunk.

Planir looked at the plain oak panels for a long moment before slinging his robe haphazard over the back of his chair. Weariness at odds with the early hour carved deep lines in his face now as the animation left it. He moved to the window, looking down as Kalion and Troanna disappeared beneath the arched gateway. Holding out his hand, he studied the great diamond ring of his office, sunlight catching the faceted gem set around with emerald, amber, ruby and sapphire, all the ancient tokens of the elements of wizardry. On the finger beside it, he wore a battered circle of silver. Whatever device had decorated it was long since worn to obscurity.

The Archmage clenched his fist and closed his grey eyes on a grimace of regret and frustration. The glasses Kalion and Troanna had used began to tremble slightly, a faint rattle from the table beneath. The dregs of plum cordial suddenly ignited in a startled flame while the untouched water in the larger goblet began to seethe before breaking into a rolling boil. The fluted bowl of the cordial glass folded in on itself, the long stem wilting. The water glass sank beside it, empty of all but a fugitive trace of steam, the broad foot spreading into a formless puddle. The gloss of the polished wood beneath was unmarred.

“Childish.” Planir said reprovingly to himself before opening his eyes with a wicked grin. “But satisfying.” Tossing the now cold and solid glass into an ash bucket by the hearth, he pulled a well-worn jerkin from the back of the door, shrugging it on as his light tread echoed rapidly down the stairwell.

Vithrancel, Kellarin, 15th of Aft-Spring

Why are people always so eager to give you gifts?” I followed Halice out of the trading hall.

“It won’t be my beauty, so it must be my charm.” Halice offered me the little mint-lined basket of withy strips.

I took a sticky sweetmeat and nodded at Temar’s residence. “His lordship’s back.” The bold flag fluttered jauntily.

“Let’s see what he’s got to say for himself.” Halice curled her lip.

“Mind your manners,” I warned, mock serious.

“Me? Who served the Duchess of Marlier?” Halice pretended outrage.

“Who got dismissed for giving her mouthy daughter a slap,” I pointed out.

“She deserved it.” Halice laughed.

We turned down what looked to be a lane at first glance, running between the trading hall and Temar’s residence. Inside the latter, hammers still echoed and saws rasped over the much interrupted and delayed business of making it fit for a Sieur’s dignity. Two lads barely older that Tedin sat in a doorway dutifully straightening scavenged nails. One scooped a few from rain-dulled tiles at his feet. Their broken patterns beneath the gravel and the stumps of pillars buried in the new stone of the walls on either side were the last remnants of a great hall that had once stood here. But the roof was long since fallen and the mighty walls only offered a few broken courses so the colonists had merely taken them as a guide for new buildings raised around the shell of the old hall. We passed carved embellishments worn featureless by generations of rain.

The one elegant doorway that had survived above head height was now the entrance to Temar’s private quarters at the back of the tall building. Halice pushed open the door without ceremony. Once the carpenters had fitted out the reception rooms, archive and private salons necessary for the rank the Emperor had confirmed him in, Temar might be able to turn this into suitable accommodation for the Sieur D’Alsennin’s servants but for the present, the lower floor was undecorated with crude screens at one end inadequately masking a kitchen and a private chamber for Temar above reached by a plain wooden stair.

Temar and Ryshad stood behind a long table up at the far end, poring over a slew of charts with a couple of other people bending their heads close.

“Master Grethist got an ocean boat up to this cataract.” Temar tapped the map with a long finger. “With sail barges, we can explore further.”

So they were planning another expedition. If Ryshad was going, perhaps I should tag along. Summer in Vithrancel didn’t promise to be overly interesting without him.

“Portage over that ground will be a trial and a half.” A black-haired woman, sedate in a homespun tunic over undyed skirts traced a line with a chipped nail. “It’s far more broken than the slope on this side.” She looked up at our approach.

“Rosarn.” Halice greeted her with a familiar nod. The woman’s homely appearance was deceptive; Rosarn had been a mercenary longer than any bar Halice and as soon as Temar gave the word, she’d be in boots and leathers, daggers sheathed at hip and wrist, ready to cut her way through thickets a squirrel would rather go round. Half the corps commanders in Lescar went looking for her if they needed an enemy position scouted out or a potential advance reconnoitred. She specialised in tasks demanding light feet and the wit to think fast on them.

“How far did you get, Vas?” Ryshad, the love if not of my life then certainly of these past three years, brushed at his black curls in absent thought.

“Here at autumn Equinox.” Vaspret set a stubby finger on the parchment. Stocky, weather-beaten and with manners as ill made as his much-broken nose, he had come to Kel Ar’Ayen as one the original venturers and sailed on the first explorations of the continent’s coasts with the long-dead Master Grethist.

“To retrace Vahil Den Rannion’s route, we should really be using the caves.” Whatever they were planning, Rosarn was clearly looking forward to it. I’d heard her say more than once a whole continent to explore without risk of a Lescari arrow in the guts was a gift from Talagrin.

Temar was fair-skinned by nature and the spring sun had yet to tint his winter pallor but I saw him blench from where I stood. Ryshad looked sharply at Rosarn and a shadow darkened his amber-flecked brown eyes. Then he saw me and smiled, affection softening the stern lines of his long jaw and broad brow. I smiled back and the minor discontents of the day vanished like morning mist on the river.

“We want an overland route to join the two rivers,” D’Alsennin said with a touch too much firmness. He searched for some other map. “We can hardly take wagons or mules through caves, even if the route Vahil used is still passable, by some miracle of Misaen’s grace.”

And you’d rather face invading Elietimm single-handed than spend any time out of reach of daylight, my lad. I’d no idea if it was Temar who’d originally been afraid of the dark or Ryshad in some childhood fastness of his mind. Perhaps it was some echo of the imprisonment in Edisgesset’s sunless caverns that they’d both tasted, caught in the toils of Artifice. Whatever the case, both men now shared an abiding fear of enclosed spaces and I kept waking to an open bedroom door because Ryshad couldn’t sleep with it shut.

But Ryshad was older than Temar by a double handful of years and more. He set his jaw, visibly ignoring his own qualms. “Is there any chance the missing artefacts could have been lost in the caves, before Vahil got to the ships?”

Vahil Den Rannion, Temar’s boyhood friend and now twenty-some generations ashes in his urn, had borne the task of taking the sleeping minds of Kellarin’s people beyond the greedy Elietimm grasp. He’d found a way through the caves that riddled the high ground between Vithrancel’s river and another that ran down to a second settlement in the south barely founded before the Elietimm scourge arrived. I wouldn’t have wagered a lead penny on his chances but, against all the odds, Vahil had won back across the ocean, only to find the Empire collapsing around Nemith the Worthless’s ears. Every noble House had been too busy saving its own skin to spare any thought for a colony all but written off a year or more since.

So the treasures had been scattered, their true value unrecognised down the long years. Then mages consulting with alchemists at Vanam’s university had piqued Planir’s curiosity with tales of bizarre dreams tantalising scholars of the days before the Chaos. Since waking to find himself required to lead the colony, Temar had striven to recover all that he could, even challenging the Emperor of Tormalin to help him but there were still a few poignant sleepers insensate in the vast emptiness of the cavern that had protected the colonists for so long. Guinalle visited them every Equinox and Solstice, searching her learning for any clue as to how she might rouse them without the artefacts that bound them to the enchantment.

“I suppose that’s possible,” Temar acknowledged reluctantly, ice-pale eyes hooded like a hawk’s under narrow brows. His hair was as black as Ryshad’s but fine and straight, cropped like a trooper’s.

“We should send someone to search,” Ryshad said firmly. His commitment to finding the lost artefacts was equal to Temar’s. That had been one factor in the Sieur D’Olbriot’s decision to release him from sworn service, the prince seeing how Ryshad’s sense of obligation had him increasingly torn between D’Alsennin’s interests and D’Olbriot’s.

Temar’s angular face lifted with relieved inspiration. “Guinalle could devise an incantation to find anything holding enchantment in the caves.”

“Why not improve your own skills with Artifice rather than always relying on her?” asked Halice sharply.

Temar looked at her with surprise. “I’ve scarcely time to study Artifice.”

“A Sieur decides where to spend his time.” Halice flicked the corner of a map hanging over the edge of the table. “What is it now? Charting coasts? Prospecting for metals?”

“Scouting a route to Hafreinsaur,” said Temar defensively. Fired with enthusiasm when the Emperor had decreed independence for Kellarin, as present day speech rendered the ancient name, one of Temar’s first and thus far few acts as Sieur had been naming the settlements to honour the original founders: Vithrancel for Ancel Den Rannion, Hafreinsaur for Hafrein Den Fellaemion. He’d wanted some such name for the mining settlement but that had failed in the face of mercenary tongues mangling colonists’ colloquial references to their cave sanctuary in Old High Tormalin. The compromise that was Edisgesset was now firmly established.

Halice gave him a look that would have shrivelled any mercenary. “I can name ten men who’ll do as good a job as you.”

Temar rubbed a cautious hand over his mouth. “You think I should be doing something else?”

“Spend more time in and around Vithrancel,” Halice told him frankly. “Do some of the pettifogging work that weighs down Guinalle from sunrise to dusk. Someone’s asking her advice every second moment because you’re never around. She’d have more than enough to do if she were only working Artifice, what with fools falling sick or injuring themselves and her insisting on warding all the crops and animals every chance she gets. She’s exhausting herself and it’s the willing horse that gets worked to death, my lad.”

“We’ll discuss this later.” Rosarn rolled up her maps with a rattling sound. “I’ll see what progress the boat-builders have made.”

“I think—”

Rosarn deflected Temar’s indignation with an apologetic smile, gathering up Vaspret as she headed for the door. Never mind Tadriol the Prudent, 5th of that House to rule as Emperor of Toremal decreeing Temar was now Sieur D’Alsennin, prince of that House and overlord of Kellarin. Rosarn answered first and foremost to her corps commander.

Temar took a seat at the head of the table, squaring his shoulders. For lack of any ready response, he raised a lordly hand. Bridele, a young woman widowed before the first fall of Kellarin, scurried up with a tray of glass goblets and a jug. Temar had servants if no one else did.

Ryshad and I cleared space among the parchments and she poured suspiciously pale wine for us all. Halice didn’t wait for an invitation to sit but Ryshad waited for D’Alsennin’s nod.

“Of course I’ll help Guinalle,” Temar said stiffly. “She only has to ask.”

“Can you see her doing that?” Halice’s disarming grin lightened her coarse features. “Forfeiting her noble obligations, never mind her pride? Tackle the easier problem. With you away so much, folk all got into the habit of running to Guinalle. You need to let people know to come to you.”

“Guinalle doesn’t have any truly competent adept to share her burdens, does she?” Ryshad commented with careful neutrality.

“I do not have the time to study Artifice,” Temar repeated, colouring slightly.

Ryshad and I exchanged a glance. It wasn’t only pride that had Guinalle keeping her own counsel so much and Temar taking every opportunity offered to go off and explore Kellarin, leaving her to rule Vithrancel. They had shared a brief passion before the ruin of the colony’s hopes and as inexperienced lovers so often will, they’d wounded each other deeply in tearing themselves apart.

“I don’t think many folk hereabouts do,” I remarked in the same light vein as Ryshad. “Not with the dedication Guinalle demands of them.” I didn’t imagine I was the only one whose general curiosity about Artifice had retreated from the rigorous study the demoiselle demanded of would-be adepts.

“Perhaps we should see if Demoiselle Tor Arrial is ready to return from Toremal,” Ryshad suggested.

“You’re welcome to ask but don’t expect me to,” said Temar bluntly. “It will take more than Tadriol designating me her Sieur before I try claiming lordship over Avila.” The Demoiselle Tor Arrial was a formidable older noblewoman who’d known Temar since his extremely callow youth and seldom let him forget it.

I looked at Ryshad. “Avila’s doing valuable service where she is, sending us news of Tormalin and making sure we get decent goods, not the dross of dockside warehouses.” And making a new life in Tormalin meant she could put the bereavements of Kellarin’s destruction behind her somewhat.

“Without her there to use her Artifice, we have no means of sending word to the Emperor.” Temar set his jaw. “I will not recall her.”

No one was going to argue with that. If the Elietimm ever reappeared, we all wanted some way of calling up reinforcements and quickly.

Halice nodded. “But where can we find more people with aetheric skills?”

I had an idea. “What about those scholars from Vanam who visited Guinalle last summer, all curious about lost aetheric teachings? They’ve had all winter to study the lore we found in the Mountains and the Forest last year. Surely they’ll have some competent practitioners by now?” Even before these recent additions to their knowledge, Mentor Tonin and his scholars had had enough Artifice to break the enchantments in Edisgesset’s cavern. That was how we’d roused Temar and Guinalle in the first place.

“What about recruiting a few more wizards?” Ryshad mused. “Whoever Hadrumal sends with the first ships might agree to stay for a season or so.”

“When are we expecting those?” I looked for an answer.

“I did ask Guinalle to find out from Avila.” Temar couldn’t quite keep his composure as he caught Halice’s exasperated glare.

“You’re as bad as the rest of them.”

“Allin could bespeak any number of mages in Toremal to find out,” Ryshad pointed out.

“So where is she?” demanded Halice.

“She’s helping Werdel with modifications to his kiln,” Ryshad admitted a little sheepishly.

Halice snapped her fingers at Bridele’s sandy-haired son who served as Temar’s ever-eager page. “Go and find Lady Allin.”

The lad grinned at her and took to his heels. I sipped at wine watered almost to tastelessness and grimaced.

“Bridele can make you a tisane,” offered Temar.

“From the last dust of her spice jars?” I asked “Or some unknown herb? My thanks but I don’t need poisoning.” At least one recent death had been some obsessive steeping himself a quick route to Poldrion’s ferry in a vain attempt to eke out his tisanes.

I saw Temar was looking pinched around the mouth. Maewelin had exacted precious little due from Kellarin over the winter but Temar took each and every loss hard. “Is there news from Edisgesset? Are the miners ready to start smelting?”

He was successfully diverted. “As soon as possible.”

“What are you going to do with the copper?” I asked.

“Trade it with Toremal.” Temar looked puzzled then smiled. “For tisane herbs and decent wine, perhaps.”

“We need iron.” Ryshad was serious. “We’ve found no trace of ironstone and our smiths are reusing every rusty scrap of chain as it is.”

“Coin would simplify trading with Toremal.” Ryshad raised an eyebrow at me but I looked at him with bland innocence. “Ready copper around here wouldn’t come amiss either. It would save you and Guinalle adjudicating barters and such.”

“Coining is a skilled trade.” Temar frowned.

“I know a man who could do it,” I offered. “Make it worth his while and he’ll cross the ocean.”

“That Gidestan with the cropped ears?” Halice recalled his name. “Kewin?”

Temar chose his words carefully. “I hardly think the Emperor would take kindly to us making free with his currency.”

I looked at him, exasperated. “I’m not suggesting forgery. What about your own head on a few pennies?”

“It would make a fine statement of independence.” Seriousness underlay Ryshad’s amusement. “Kellarin needs to stand on its own two feet.”

Temar looked doubtful. One of his more appealing qualities was a lack of the usual arrogance that goes with noble blood. Halice and I were agreed he wouldn’t get the chance to develop it.

Ryshad on the other hand wanted to see Temar stamp his authority on Kellarin a good deal more firmly. “It’s certainly worth considering.”

I saw Temar sneaking a glance at his maps. “If you want to trace those caves why don’t you see if Hadrumal could help? Shiv could follow the rivers and Usara should find any hollow from a rabbit scrape down.” I’d travelled the wild fastnesses of forest and mountain with Usara and watched experience broaden the mage’s horizons far beyond the narrow vistas of Hadrumal.

“That’s a good notion.” Ryshad reached for the parchment he’d been covertly studying. “Two mules make a better plough team than one.”

“Perhaps.” Temar’s aristocratic politeness didn’t fool any of us. He wasn’t past the youthful folly of jealousy because Usara showed an interest in Guinalle.

“If we want more mages, they’re the obvious ones to invite.” I knew Halice was thinking the same as me. In her self-possessed fashion, Guinalle had shown signs of welcoming Usara’s attentions. A friendly wizard knowing all too well the demands and frustrations of magical arts might prompt the stubborn girl into admitting her own limitations.

“Where’s Jemet?” snapped Temar, sipping his pathetically weak wine.

I caught Ryshad looking compassionately at the younger man. I wasn’t so indulgent. Granted Temar had a hard row to hoe to make a success out of Kellarin but I wondered if my beloved was a little too inclined to give the young nobleman the benefit of the doubt.

The swish of the door broke the awkward silence and Allin hurried in behind Jemet the page. Of all the wizards I’d met since a chance venture introduced me to Shiv and repaid me with more trouble than I could have imagined, Allin was the least like an Ensaimin balladeer’s fantasy. She was no willowy mage-woman sweeping all before her captivating beauty, earth-shaking, lightning-swift powers snaring all men with lust in the same breath as scaring the manhood out of them. Allin was short, round, plain enough to make Halice look passable and frequently unflatteringly red in the face. At the moment, out of breath, she was quite scarlet.

“Sit down.” I offered her my stool and the watery wine. I liked Allin and her ready habit of sharing any skill, magical or practical, had won her many friends in Kellarin. Not that she realised this. The last child of a long family, her humility bordered on the ridiculous and Temar wasn’t the only one determined this mage-girl learn to value herself as highly as other people did.

“How can I help?” Her hectic colour faded as she drank the wine.

“Could you please bespeak Casuel?” Temar asked politely. “See if he knows when we might expect the first ships?”

Allin turned to the expectant Jemet. “A candle, if you please, and a mirror.”

The lad scurried to fetch the paraphernalia for Allin’s spell and then stood at Temar’s shoulder, blue eyes avid.

Allin snapped her fingers at the candle to kindle enchanted flame and carefully captured the unnaturally ruddy light in the mirror. She went about her wizardry with far less ceremony than most of the mages I’d had the dubious fortune to encounter but even this understated display had Jemet in silent thrall, Bridele sneaking a look from the kitchen door. The lately come craftsmen still retreated awkwardly when magic was worked but the original colonists had lived in an age when Artifice was a readily acknowledged skill. They made no distinction between Guinalle’s aetheric enchantments worked for their benefit and the different abilities of the mageborn. As far as they were concerned, magic of any stripe meant Kellarin would never again suffer Elietimm attack undefended and unable to call for aid.

The reddish glow on the metal shrank to an eye-watering pinpoint of brightness and then spread once more in sweeps across the mirror like wine in a jolted glass catching the light. Concentration lent dignity to Allin’s plump face as the radiance faded to a burning circle around the rim and the mirror reflected a miniature scene. We saw an elegantly appointed bedchamber where a familiar figure was stepping hastily into his breeches.

“Casuel, good morning,” Allin said politely.

“What’s so urgent it couldn’t wait until after breakfast?” Casuel fumbled with his buttons before running a hand over tousled brown hair, not yet pomaded into fashionable waves.

“Esquire D’Evoir.” Temar came to stand beside Allin and inclined his head in a well-bred bow. “I beg your pardon. It’s rather later in our day.” He spoke with the aristocratic precision that Casuel always took as due respect but I generally felt it was D’Alsennin’s way of hiding his irritation with the wizard’s pretensions.

“Sieur D’Alsennin.” Casuel’s tone turned abruptly from brusque to ingratiating. Temar’s House might have vanished in the Chaos but if the Emperor decreed it be raised again, that was good enough to win a grovel from Cas.

“Everyone else in Toremal will have eaten their breakfast long since by now.” Ryshad’s murmur was for my ear alone as he moved behind me, folding strong arms around me.

I craned my head back to whisper. “Since when’s our Cas been Esquire D’Evoir?” In those same ballads where Allin’s appearance would have been as appealing as her personality, Casuel’s all-encompassing knowledge of the fragmentary history of the Old Empire would have been arcane learning essential for saving a princess or restoring a king to his throne. As it was, his self-serving scholarship had been entirely focused on proving his merchant family’s claim to ancient rank. Then Planir had seconded his scholarship for his own mysterious purposes and Cas had inadvertently helped save Kellarin’s people.

“Temar helped fill in the missing twigs on his family tree.” Ryshad nodded at the distant image. “Imperial grant of insignia at Solstice, he’s now Planir’s liaison with Tadriol and official conduit for any prince wishing to communicate with Kellarin.”

So Cas had been rewarded with all the access to the great and the good of Toremal that his snobbish heart could wish for.

“We need to know when we might expect the first ships from Bremilayne or Zyoutessela,” Temar was explaining as Allin somehow brought Casuel’s face closer to the mirror.

“But the first one will have arrived by now.” Casuel fiddled with a tasteless gilt fish brooch pinning the frilled collar of his silk shirt.

“I would hardly be asking if it had,” Temar said with more courtesy than I’d have managed.

“It set sail on the twelfth of For-Spring,” insisted Casuel.

There was a pause as we all mentally tallied up the days and the phases of the greater and lesser moons.

“That’s very early to be setting out.” Ryshad knotted doubtful brows. Raised in the southern port of Zyoutessela, he knew more about the seasons’ vagaries than the rest of us.

“Especially when you have neither mage nor aetheric adept aboard to cope with ocean winds and currents.” Unpleasant satisfaction turned Casuel’s well-made face ugly.

“I don’t understand,” Temar said sharply.

“The ship was backed by Den Harkeil gold,” began Casuel pedantically.

“Avila told me that was arranged,” Temar interrupted.

“The Sieur Den Harkeil has set his clerks loose in every archive he can secure access to.” Casuel looked momentarily envious. “They’ve dug up every scrap of parchment detailing Den Fellaemion’s voyages and the Sieur’s convinced it should be possible to cross the ocean without magical aid. There’s no mention of it in any of the tales of Nemith the Sea-farer.”

“Because no one with a grain of sense would think of venturing into the open ocean without an adept aboard in those days,” said Temar tightly.

“Why does Messire Den Harkeil feel entitled to ignore both Planir and the Demoiselle Tor Priminale saying a ship needs a mage or an adept or ideally both?” Halice was scornful.

“He believes the islands in the mid-ocean are the hidden secret that enabled Den Fellaemion to reach Kellarin,” Casuel said reluctantly.

Temar bit his lip. “Suthyfer?” It was a measure of his concern that he used the mercenaries’ everyday name for the islands, not the fanciful Garascisel he’d decreed.

“Is that possible?” Ryshad looked from Temar to Allin who was looking distressed.

“Has the vessel come to grief?”

“I don’t know.” Temar chewed a thoughtful knuckle.

“Just because something hasn’t been done, doesn’t mean it can’t be.” Halice had other concerns.

“Ships nowadays are sturdier than the ones Den Fellaemion used.” Ryshad looked apprehensive. “Mariners are more used to sailing the ocean, with the growth of trade up to Inglis.”

“Half the noble Houses in Tormalin want a taste of the Kellarin trade,” I pointed out. “They’ll be sticking down their own colonists without so much as kissing your hand if they can get away with it.”

Allin shook her head emphatically. “Cloud Master Otrick himself always said it would be impossible to cross the ocean unaided.”

“Did he say the same after he learned about Suthyfer?”

Halice studied a map. “If a ship could reach the islands, take on fresh water, take bearings on the right stars and check the sun from solid land, that would set them fair for the second leg of the journey.” She looked at Allin. “Did Otrick factor that into his calculations?”

“I don’t know.” Allin faltered with sudden self-doubt. “The Emperor has decreed that any land grant must have my seal,” Temar insisted but he looked worried.

“We’re going to throw people back into the sea, when their prince has sent them here on the promise of a new life?” Ryshad said dourly.

“Tadriol’s going to sail up and down the coast to enforce his writ in person, is he?” I chipped in.

Halice jabbed an emphatic finger at Temar. “What about people who don’t recognise Tormalin writ? Land hunger’s been a goad in the Lescari wars for I don’t know how long.”

“Let’s not go begging for trouble.” Temar was scowling. “If the ship is lost—”

“—we’d best look for wreckage or survivors.” Ryshad completed the thought.

“Could you tell us where currents might have carried them?” Temar looked to Allin.

“The Tang will discover its fate.” Casuel spoke over her with irritating condescension. “Naldeth’s on board. I warned him Den Harkeil’s arrogance would doubtless lead to disaster.”

“The Tang? Den Castevin’s ship set sail?” Temar waved everyone else to silence. “When can we expect that?”

Casuel looked affronted. “They left on the 37th of For-Spring.”

“Just before the full of the greater moon.” Ryshad narrowed his eyes. “They should make landfall any time in the next ten days.”

“The lesser at dark won’t have been a problem, not with a mage aboard.” Halice was doing her own calculations.

Allin didn’t look so sure. “Naldeth’s affinity is with fire, not air or water.”

“Parrail’s on board as well.” Casuel’s dismissiveness made my palm itch to slap him. “One of Mentor Tonin’s pupils. He has sufficient Artifice to assist.”

“Thank you for this news, Esquire D’Evoir, and for your time. We need keep you no longer.” Temar nodded to Allin who snuffed the candle with a prosaic puff. Casuel’s obsequious farewells dissolved like the thread of blue smoke unravelling from the wick.

Temar rubbed a hand through his close-cropped hair, leaving it in unruly black spikes, his blue eyes haunted. “Dastennin forgive me but I could almost hope Den Harkeil’s ship has foundered.” He wasn’t invoking the god of the sea out of habit or hypocrisy.

“They knew the risk they were running.” Halice was no more inclined to sympathy than me. “Folly’s generally a capital crime sooner or later.”

Ryshad moved away from me towards a half-completed map of the coast between Vithrancel and Hafreinsaur. “Where do we suppose they might land, if they’re looking to set up their own standard?”

Halice twitched the map out of his reach. “We’re only guessing till one or other ship turns up. We’d be better off organising ourselves so we’re ready to meet any challenge. Temar, you’re calling yourself Sieur; it’s time you started enforcing your writ. If you’re going to do that, we need to know where it runs.” She grinned. “Which is what I came to discuss in the first place. Are you going to claim fealty from any of my lads who throw in their lot with colony families. Are they going to get the restraint they need if you do?”

“What’s brought this up?” Ryshad sat on the edge of the table, dark eyes alert. He knew the value of discipline among fighting men and had suggested more than once it was time Temar swore men to his own service in the manner of Messire D’Olbriot’s militia. Temar kept avoiding the issue, claiming he didn’t understand the customs that had been devised in the uncertain days of the Chaos.

I sat on Ryshad’s abandoned stool and took out my belt knife, idly cleaning my nails as Halice explained about Deg and Catrice. Temar rallied his wits and proposed reviving some of the ancient customs his grandsire had relied on. Ryshad advised a few modifications in the light of the greater independence Tormalin princes allowed their tenants these days. Halice grudgingly approved a few changes he suggested to the rough and ready sanctions she used to keep the mercenaries in line. Even Allin ventured a few hesitant observations on Hadrumal’s parallel systems of influence and power.

The only interest I’ve ever had in justice is keeping well clear of it. In some towns that means playing an honest game, watching my manners and trusting to Halcarion to keep my luck polished up. In other places it means taking every chance that offers and making my own besides. Sometimes, you just have to trust to a fast horse waiting to take you out of reach when some fool with an empty purse goes crying to whoever thinks they’re in charge.

I pared my nails and wondered if it mightn’t be more interesting to go home and wash the bed linen.