Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

Brexan, who had been quiet all morning, brightened. ‘I wish you would do more of that,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Talk of him.’ Brexan’s face was half in shadow.

‘Of Versen?’ Garec said, looking a little surprised. ‘All right, I’ll talk of him all the way to Pelli- ah, Averil, if you like.’ He searched her face, not sure what he expected to see. Brexan simply stared back at him. ‘You got to know him well in a short period of time, didn’t you?’ he said finally.

‘I don’t know what’s worse for me now,’ she said, ‘wanting what I had, keeping my little box of memories all tidy and neat, or wanting what you have, a lifetime of stories, highs and lows, good and bad. Do you know what I mean?’

‘I do,’ Kellin said. ‘It’s like my father – he died when I was young, and I never asked my mother about him. She told me some things, but I’ve always been content with what I remember of him. He’s the only perfect person I’ve ever known. He probably had just as many flaws as the rest of us, but I’m not interested in knowing them.’

Garec felt the Morning Star creak as it rolled beneath them. He said, ‘I don’t know what to tell you, Brexan, but I’ve lost six close friends in the last two Twinmoons. Sallax, Versen and Brynne were the best friends I’d ever hoped to have.’ Without looking at Kellin, he added, ‘I am as alone as I can imagine, but like anyone, I find comfort where I can, from Kellin, from knowing my family is safe at home, working the farm, from feeling like we’re nearing the end of a painfully long struggle… and most especially from my memories of who they were – who they still are – in my mind.’ He reached for Kellin, who took his hand. ‘Did you know that Versen could eat his own weight in eddy-fish? Eddy-fish… We lived a quarter-aven from the ocean, and all he ever wanted to eat were those fatty bottom-feeding river fish that any seventy-Twinmoon-old kid would throw back as worthless. We used to stay up late, drinking and singing, and sometime after the middlenight aven, when the rest of us were beginning to drift, he’d come charging in with rods and rigs, a couple of bottles of wine in his cloak, wanting to go night-fishing.’

Garec looked around the deck and smiled. ‘I wish now that I had gone with him more often, but it was always humid and the bugs were bad down there. But Sallax often went, and they’d come back after dawn, hungover, and smelling like a warm case of death, and we’d all eat eddy-fish for breakfast. It was wonderful.’

‘How did he prepare it?’ Brexan was crying, but she was smiling through her tears.

Garec snorted, then, embarrassed, said, ‘He always rolled them in something – ground sugarroot, pepperweed, greenroot, anything he could lay his hands on. We teased him about it, that all he was doing was trying to find the perfect mask for the flavour – eddy-fish tastes like day-old laundry water to most people. But actually, he had a way with them that made them edible – the sweet potatoes were the best.’ He licked his lips, savouring the memory. ‘It was his own invention. He’d fillet the fish, dunk the bits in egg, and then coat them in mashed-up sweet potatoes. Then he fried them… gods, I can remember the smell! Those mornings everyone joined us for breakfast.’

‘Sweet potato-wrapped eddy-fish, for breakfast?’ Kellin made a face.

‘And beer,’ Garec added.

‘Sounds wonderful,’ Brexan said as she wiped her eyes. ‘You’ll have to make it for us one day.’

‘I’ll have a go at it, but I don’t know where we’re going to find eddy-fish out here.’ He turned to watch Orindale fade off their stern.

Kellin pointed at Marrin, now climbing the rigging above the mainsail like a lemur. ‘Punched out, and he can still crawl about up there. I’d have given up five or six times already.’

‘Or bailed my stomach, for the gods and everyone to see,’ Brexan agreed.

‘We were lucky to find them,’ Kellin said softly, ‘and even more lucky to find you, Brexan.’

‘They do seem to be a competent crew,’ Garec mumbled.

‘I hate lying to them,’ Kellin said.

‘So do I.’ Brexan was glad for the chance to bare her soul a bit. ‘I don’t know how we’ll convince them to make for Pellia.’

‘We won’t have to,’ Garec said. ‘Steven and Gilmour will take care of that.’

‘It doesn’t seem right,’ Brexan said, pressing the point. ‘These are good people.’

‘This is bigger than us, Brexan,’ Garec said. ‘You know that. If a guilty conscience and the loss of their trust is all we have to suffer from here on in, then I’m all for it. Unfortunately, there’s much, much worse waiting for us in Malakasia; trust me.’ Garec blurred for a moment, his shadowy doppelganger, the Bringer of Death, appearing, flickering and then fading like Orindale harbour. He had seen and suffered more than either of them knew; that much was apparent. If he could stay focused on their goal, surely they could too.

‘Come on,’ he said and started towards the helm. ‘Let’s see if we can help.’

The Wayfarer Inn wasn’t one of Pellia’s most popular watering holes, but it enjoyed a steady business letting out rooms to merchants, sailors and the occasional naval officer. The front room was comfortable, and warm even in the worst winter Twinmoons, and the bar was well-stocked with an interesting selection of wines and well-kept beer, and hearty food was always on offer. Yet the inn lacked the one thing that brought drinkers in droves: it lacked women. It was situated two streets away from the marketplace and four blocks from the waterfront, far enough from Pellia’s shipping and market districts that young people ignored it. There was little tourist trade, even in summer, so the Wayfarer relied on its regulars, the dinner-aven crowds, and the letting of rooms to cover the Moon’s overheads. It was a lean living for Erynn Kestral’s family, but most Twinmoons the bills were paid, the firewood replenished, the larder restocked and the casks refilled.

Once or twice in every ten Twinmoons, Erynn’s parents planned a Moon party, not on the Twinmoon itself – there were too many festivities planned by the waterfront and marketplace taverns, and the Wayfarer couldn’t possibly compete with them – but a few days afterwards. Morgan Kestral liked to wait just long enough for Twin-moon hangovers to fade, wine shakes to subside and indigestion to pass. Then he and Illia would spread the news that they were slaughtering a pig, or a dozen fat gansels, and there’d be a few extra casks, from the Peeramyde Brewery in south Pellia.

The locals, many of whom worked in the marketplace or on the wharf, carried word of the party across the city and on the eve of the festivities, assuming Morgan and Illia’s timing had been right, the district was abuzz with anticipation.

The street in front of the Wayfarer was clogged with hawkers and revellers. Musicians played for spare Mareks; prostitutes – men and women – worked the shadows and the street corners, and after dark, people dragged out wood, old furniture, once even a broken-down cart, and built a great bonfire on the cobblestones. The city guards would carry off anyone who flagrantly broke the law: stabbings, gang assaults and too-public negotiations for fennaroot were generally frowned on, but the mood was usually good and the party raged on until dawn.

When the street reopened the following morning and the debris was shovelled away, Morgan and Illia were exhausted, looking ten Twinmoons older, but the locals were happy and the Wayfarer’s future was secured for a bit longer, thanks to the great pile of copper Mareks secreted under a floorboard in the Kestrals’ bed chamber.