Juliet McKenna - The Assassin's Edge

The Mountain travel truce lasted three days and three nights and I wondered if that meant we’d be spared aetheric curiosity for that period. As I was trying to find a way of hinting as much to Sorgrad, a booming blow on the double doors made me jump. I wasn’t the only one and I saw Olret stifle a smile behind a polite hand as this peremptory demand was repeated. He said something to Sorgrad that I didn’t catch.

“Olret has business to attend to,” Sorgrad told us. “He wishes us to stay and observe as his guests.”

Someone somewhere was watching, perhaps behind one of the floor-sweeping curtains, because lackeys instantly appeared from a side door with stools for us all. Maidservants hurried after with more plates of titbits and pottery flasks of pale liquor as well as goblets various goats had sacrificed horns for. One corn-haired lass poured me a generous measure, which I sipped cautiously. The stuff was smooth, light on the back of the throat and innocuously flavoured with caraway. It drawled long, slow lines as I rolled the small goblet casually around in my hand. Too much of this and our host wouldn’t need Artifice; we’d all be confiding our innermost thoughts to our new best friend.

On the other hand, refusing to drink would probably be an insult. I took an anonymous finger-length of meat from a plate. It wasn’t unpleasant with a rich gamey taste beneath the subtle smoke but I couldn’t have said if it were fish, fowl or beast. What it was, it was salty, excellent for provoking thirst.

The great doors were opened and the throng from the courtyard filed in, heads dutifully bowed. Our host moved to a high seat skilfully wrought from dark wood and yellow bone carved with blunt and ancient symbols. Shiv cleared his throat and I looked at him, curious as to whether he might recognise any of these symbols. The mage glanced meaningfully at my goblet as he passed his hand casually over his own. I held my own drink absently to one side as I reached for what I fervently hoped was a morsel of cheese. Shiv’s hand brushed my own as he moved to offer Ryshad a dish of small crimson berries. When I took a sip from my goblet to try and quell the unexpectedly acrid taste of the cheese, I found the intense liquor had been diluted to a more manageable potency.

The man who’d led us into this well-baited pen was back again. He stood at the edge of the wooden floor, carrying a long staff carved from one single, mighty length of bone, some tantalising gems set around the ornately carved head. He struck the wooden planks and the crowd shuffled obediently about until a line of men pushed to the front, each carrying a leather bag.

“Proceed.” Olret looked on impassively as each man stepped up to empty his offering on to the long table.

The haul proved to be birds’ beaks. The nearest tally proved the death of a goodly number of hooded crows along with several ravens. That chilled my Forest blood; my father had always told me killing a raven prompted dreadful luck. I saw the predatory yellow curve of an eagle’s beak as well. Plainly no one worshipped Drianon hereabouts.

The men who’d come forward surveyed the competing piles and those who’d been less assiduous backed away. That left about half looking smug and expectant as the man with the bone staff walked the line and offered a tooled leather pouch to each one. Faces intent, every man pulled out a slip of horn that he held up for the man with the staff to see. He turned to the gathering and I picked enough words out of his declarations to learn three different sorts of rights were being granted.

“Driftwood without tool marks on the Fessands.”

“Worked wood brought ashore on the Arnamlee.”

“Stranded seabeasts from Blackarm to the Mauya Head.”

Olret looked expectantly at Sorgrad as the ritual was concluded.

The Mountain Man bowed politely. “Those that work to defend your territory from predators share in the chance-brought wealth of the seas.”

Olret smiled with satisfaction. “Ilkehan keeps all such bounty for himself.” His words carried and a shudder of fear and disapproval rippled through the gathering.

The bone staff thudded on the floor again and the crowd parted like a flock of goats as Olret’s grey-liveried hounds brought a handful of men before him. Each one wore only a filthy shirt, wrists securely bound in front. However enlightened this Olret might think himself compared to Ilkehan, his prisoners suffered the usual brutalities. One man’s eyes were all but closed with bruises while another’s hair was clotted dirty brown with old blood.

Each prisoner was hauled forward in turn and Olret pronounced sentence, expression unchanging. If there was such a thing as arguing a case at trial hereabouts, it must have happened earlier.

“White.” The man’s face turned hopeless.

“Green.” Someone unseen at the back hastily stifled a sob of relief.

“White.” For some reason, that came as a relief to that man.

“Red.” That provoked some disturbance on the far side of the hall that had the guards wading in to haul a struggling youth outside so fast his feet barely touched the floor.

“White.” The final judgement disappointed someone but they had the sense to shut their mouth after an involuntary exclamation.

The man with the bone staff waved it in unmistakable dismissal and the crowd melted away as fast as it had gathered.

“He works a deal faster than Temar,” I quipped to Ryshad.

The great doors closed to leave us alone in the vast hall with our host. Alone, apart from whoever was keeping watch behind the curtains. Of course, we were all still carrying our weapons and I reminded myself not to condemn the man out of hand for simple prudence. He left his impressive chair and pulled up a stool, helping himself from the spread of food.

“What had those men done?” My command of the Mountain tongue was sufficient for that but Olret ignored me, addressing himself to Sorgrad.

“Do you still administer the three exiles in the lands of the Anyatimm?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.” Sorgrad looked genuinely puzzled.

Olret seemed faintly disappointed. “The red exile is from life itself. That man will be flung from the cliffs. The green exile is from hearth and home but that man may find himself some shelter within the sekke and his friends may save him from death with food and water. The white exile is from the sekke and its people. Those men must leave our land before nightfall and none may offer them the least help.” Olret’s polite smile turned a little forced. “That was the exile the Anyatimm of old imposed on our forefathers. We fled north and east over the ice, little thinking that we would find these lands held fast in the cold seas. Then Misaen melted the path and, as many would have it, left us here for some purpose.”

Shiv and Ryshad were both growing visibly frustrated as I struggled to listen and to translate at the same time. Olret waited for me to finish speaking before surprising us all.

“Forgive me. I only know your tongue from the written word and speak it poorly.” His Tormalin was entirely comprehensible, for all his hesitations and harsh accent.

“You have the advantage of me, my lord.” Ryshad spoke slowly with all the practised politeness he’d learned serving his Sieur. “It is you who must forgive our ignorance.”

“May I ask how you know our language?” Shiv smiled but I could see he was thinking the same as the rest of us. Now we’d have to watch every word we said, even among ourselves.

“I have visited your shores.” Olret could barely conceal his satisfaction at astounding us with this news. “Not often and never for long but we have long traded with the men of the grasslands.”

A frisson ran through me. “The Plains People?” I enquired blandly.