Juliet McKenna: Northern Storm

‘My lord.’ One acknowledged Kheda with easy self-assurance. His hair and beard were white in stark contrast to skin as wrinkled and dark as a sun-dried bevy. Unhurried, he studied the empty oyster shell, fine-bladed knife hovering around a sizeable blister marring the iridescent nacre that so closely mimicked the pearls it bore.

Kheda found he was holding his breath as the old man scored a fine line around the bulbous swelling. A trivial omen, but an omen nevertheless. Will he find a pearl? Or will this be one of those pockets of stinking black slime?

The old man eased the sharp steel into the nacre and the swelling burst to leave a perfect milky sphere rolling in the hollow of the shell. ‘Should clean up well enough.’ Putting the pearl carefully in a cotton-lined box, he took another shell from the basket and contemplated a cyst of three half-moon pearls clinging stubbornly to one edge.

‘You’re polishing them here?’ Kheda moved on towards an awning shading men and women gently scouring impurities from gleaming pearls held in scraps of soft deer hide, their forearms shimmering with pearl dust.

‘And drilling them, my lord.’ Borha bowed obsequiously, simultaneously indicating a tent some way beyond where the most skilled craftsmen were studying pearls through handheld lenses or marking them precisely with calipers tipped with lampblack.

As Kheda approached, he observed that one man had already drilled a large silvery pearl from one side and was plucking it from the moist scrap of leather holding it in a notch in the wooden block gripped between his knees. Deftly reversing it, he set the needle-fine tip of his drill on the sooty pinpoint he had made earlier and cupped the upper end of his drill rod in a discarded oyster shell. As he worked the bow back and forth, slowly at first and then more swiftly, the string whirled the steel-tipped drill around.

‘Ever seen this done, Dev?’ Kheda asked.

No.’ The barbarian grinned with open appreciation. ‘It’s quite some trick.’

Using his little finger on every other stroke, the craftsman was deftly flicking water from a larger hollow in the block on to the pearl. His apprentice watched attentively, pausing in his own duty of sharpening drill points on a broad whetstone. As the driller pulled rod and bow away, the lad instantly picked the pearl out of the hollow and washed it carefully in a little pot of fresh seawater.

‘Are you having many pearls break?’ Kheda asked casually.

‘Very few, my lord,’ the craftsman assured him with a half-smile.

‘They’re still getting their eye in on the biggest pearls.’ Unbidden, Isei spoke up. ‘There’ll be more losses with the smaller ones.’

‘True enough,’ said Kheda mildly.

But the fewer losses the better, both as portent for my rule and for the sake of the domain’s trade, when we need every resource to make good all the losses of this last year.

‘Please take these to our lady Itrac Chazen, my lord.’ Borha had stepped away for a moment, returning with a box of berale-tree wood still pale and fresh from the joiner’s hands. Dev stepped up smartly to claim it.

‘We’ll be hard pressed to have all the pearls polished and drilled by the time our lady Itrac wishes to sail north.’ Isei’s beard jutted defiantly. ‘So many of our craftsmen were murdered by the invaders. And there are those who would say those of us that remain would be better spending our energies elsewhere.’ I’d wager that whale-tooth talisman wasn’t won by some ancestor who found the beast dead on the shore. He was probably master of the ship risking life and limb to drive it into the shallows and the waiting spears.

‘I take it you’re one of them?’ Kheda looked straight at Isei once again. ‘Then make your case. What concerns do you have? Speak freely,’ he commanded.

I’m not some lord like Ulla Safar who can kill a messenger for bringing undesirable news. Nor, to his credit, was Chazen Saril.

Isei hesitated before drawing a deep breath and plunging on. ‘We’ll run short of food before the end of the dry season, my lord. The rains were more than half-gone before we could get our sailer seedlings in the ground. We have fewer men to work the land, with so many dead or fled, and fewer still to tend what we could salvage from the fruit and vegetable plantations. Even with all the women and children lending their strength to bring in the harvest, we nowhere near filled the granaries.’

Kheda raised a hand to quell the voices of the other spokesmen suddenly emboldened by Isei’s words. ‘I’m hardly ignorant of such vital matters but you’re right to make certain that I appreciate your situation.’

‘What do you propose to do about it?’ Isei looked straight back at him, unabashed.

‘I propose to discuss all the domain’s necessities with my lady Itrac Chazen,’ replied Kheda with a hint of reproof, ‘so that she may trade these pearls with the ladies of Redigal and Daish and the domains beyond, to Chazen’s best advantage.’

‘We have concerns there as well, my lord,’ asserted Isei boldly.

‘Explain yourself,’ Kheda prompted tersely, noting Borha wincing out of the corner of his eye.

‘My lady Itrac will doubtless feel that Chazen is under obligation to Daish, Redigal and other domains for their help in driving out the invaders.’ Isei folded his arms across his chest. Which is certainly true. But I believe Daish owes Chazen some debt that should be weighed in the scales before any price in pearls is agreed for sailer grain or dried meats. Many Chazen who had no choice but to flee before the invaders were given sanctuary among the Daish islands. The Chazen repaid this generosity with their labour in the Daish sailer fields and vegetable plots.’ Isei hastily qualified his words. ‘And such labour was gladly given, don’t mistake me. Daish harvests have been plentiful and we’re glad of it, and to see Daish Sirket’s rule begun under such good auspices. But it’s a fact that Daish Sirket’s decree that all those of Chazen quit his domain before the stars of the new year has left his islands with fewer mouths to feed while we have more come home with every tide and little enough to share as it is.’

‘You think Chazen might rightfully claim some share from the Daish granaries and storehouses?’ Kheda hazarded.

Is this some test, honest Isei? Do you think I should prove my fitness to wear a Chazen dagger by challenging my own son, who was forced to declare himself Daish warlord because I was believed dead? Don’t think I haven’t heard the murmuring, honest Isei, the whispers of those who say I should have raised my sword against Sirket instead of turning to claim this leaderless domain. Do you think I should have brought internal warfare on the people of Daish, with untamed savages massing on their southern border? Who would have driven the invaders out of your islands then, after Chazen Saril had fled in abject terror?

Isei made no reply, staring at the ground in front of him. The uncomfortable silence lengthened.

‘I will discuss all the domain’s concerns with my lady Itrac Chazen.’ Kheda turned from Isei to address Borha with a friendly smile. ‘I know it’s early days but are there many pearls of unusual colour or shape?’

‘This way, my lord.’ Borha eagerly ushered Kheda towards an open-sided tent sun: ounded by shallow baskets redolent of decayed shellfish. Women sat at trestle tables, sorting through layers of salt-stained cotton to retrieve smooth orbs, tear drops, angular hound’s teeth, flattened petals and half-moons.

Kheda paused by a plump matron comfortable in a shapeless gown of orange patterned with yellow vizail blossoms, a turtleshell comb in her grizzled curly hair. Her deft brown fingers were quick as a silver crane plucking shrimp from the shallows as she dropped each style of pearl into separate silk-lined boxes. ‘How are the pickings?’ Kheda enquired genially.