Books! She paused, fingering the small pouch of money Tyron had given her to last until she got herself a job: six heavy eight-sided silver pieces, and a handful of the thin little copper pieces called clipits. The idea was to work her way along, and only keep the silver for emergencies. Spending them her first day in the harbor seemed a bad idea. You didn’t get books for coppers.
But! If she could get a berth on a ship, then she could come back and buy a single book for the journey.
If, of course, she could remember how to get back, she thought a while later, as the old road twisted and turned its way toward the steep bluff on which sat the Harbormaster’s building.
At last she reached it—and found a vast crowd waiting outside, mostly men and boys. Everyone seemingly talking at once.
She squeezed between two boys with bulging sacks over their shoulders as she looked for someone in charge. A bell clanged from somewhere, and the noise dropped to a hissing sea of whispers and mutters.
“Sun’s gone!” a big voice bellowed. “Clear out! Doors open at sunup!”
The crowd began to surge out, everyone talking in at least a dozen languages. Wren was pressed back against the wall. For an endless time she couldn’t move as a solid wall of people shoved past. Then two girls neared, each carrying a heavy sack. They were speaking Siradi.
“ . . . longest I’ve ever gone ‘tween cruises,” one was saying.
The other shook her head. “Hroth is the worst harbor to get stuck in, come spring. M’uncle always told me, you stay outa Hroth during the spring. Everyone in the world is there, lookin’ to hire for the summer ocean-cruises, and boomers everywhere.”
Boomers? Wren sighed to herself. Of course it wouldn’t be easy. She’d been a fool to think she’d just walk right in and they’d have a ship all ready to take her aboard.
She followed the two girls, partly to listen, and partly to see where they stayed. Maybe she’d learn some more.
They walked down one of the twisty streets as the crowd thinned, and stopped at an inn built where two streets branched, one going up, the other down. It was an odd building, three-cornered, the front narrow where it nestled right up to the road-branch.
Through open windows Wren heard female voices. The two girls went in, and as Wren followed, a big, friendly woman with an untidy nest of gray hair said, “Yer new. Lookin’ fer a night-berth, are ye?”
Wren nodded, and for five clipits got a hammock in a corner. Most of the girls and women in the hammocks and bunks crammed in that room spoke languages Wren had never heard before.
No chance of scrying Tyron there. At least she’d told Tyron she was safe. If he wanted to know anything more, he could always scry her.
So she stretched out. Hammocks actually felt pretty good, once you got inside, and odd as it was to lie with your head and feet up, instead of flat. She fell asleep to the sounds of female voices, and woke up to the same. The sun had not come up yet, but someone had lit candles, and everyone was busy getting dressed and packing together their gear. Sailors rose early, it seemed. Even earlier than mages.
The innkeeper set out hot biscuits slathered with honey-butter, and steamed milk with cinnamon, and Wren was glad she’d paid extra for the breakfast.
She made a hearty meal, listening to the chatter about ships, berths, storms, bad and good captains, then once again she hefted her pack and set out for the Harbormaster’s building, though the sun had not yet risen. This time she meant to be in first, if she could.
The purple sky of dawn silhouetted the rooftops as she and a bunch of the girls and women reached the line already formed at the Harbormaster’s doors. Wren got in line behind a pair of brothers busy shoving one another and snickering. The doors way up front opened and the line fell silent.
“New hires here, ratings over there,” a huge man bawled, pointing to his left and right. “Newbies here! Ratings there!” That time he shouted it in the language of Fil Gaen. He shouted again, in languages Wren did not know, and she stood uncertainly, not sure what a ‘rating’ was—then decided since she didn’t know, she couldn’t possibly be one. Whereas ‘newbies,’ she understood.
The newbie line was, at least so far, the shortest. Wren found herself standing with a varied group of mostly young people around her own age. The other line, much longer, seemed to be made up of older, tough-looking sailors, all carrying big bags. Men and women looked equally weather-beaten and fit. Many were barefoot.
“Here, move up.” Someone behind Wren nudged her forward.
Wren’s turn came soon; a bored-looking youth with a long face looked her over without a vestige of interest and said in the language of Fil Gaen, “Name and place of origin first. Any experience on board?”
“Wren Porscan, Allat Los.”
The young man gave Wren a sharp look, then he sniffed and muttered, “More landrats. Why don’t they stay on land?” as he wrote her name out.
Wren didn’t like that look. But the clerk was just being rude—he couldn’t possibly know Wren was a mage student. She’d changed her real last name, which was Poth. Mages were supposed to keep their calling secret, unless hired to act as mages.
“Now, what’s your experience? Hand, reef, steer?”
Fil Gaen’s language was close to Meldrithi, but required concentration. Wren didn’t admit that she had no idea what he meant by ‘hand, reef, steer.’ “No experience on ships.”
“Got your gear?”
“What gear?”
The fellow pointed a skinny finger at a sign across the room, barely visible; a group of young people stood around it. “You’ll find the recommended list there. What skills have you?”
“I learned baking and some cooking at an inn. And if needed, I can throw pots, but not very good ones.”
“Cook’s mate,” he said, writing it next to her name. “Always needed. Get your gear, report back. We’ll have today’s hires by noon, and we’ll see where we can fit you. Next?”
“Wait! Don’t you want to know where I’d like to go?”
The fellow’s long face creased with not-very-pleasant laughter. “Next!”
Wren turned away, making a sour face over her shoulder.
“Aw, don’t give him a second thought. Them clerks is all like that,” came a high voice at her shoulder.
The girl was a little shorter than Wren, with curly black hair and a pair of wide set brown eyes. Her grin was merry as she asked something in a quick tongue with one or two vaguely familiar words. When Wren shook her head, she said, “They all tell you t’ hire your own yacht, or wait until someone wants you, but my sister says you can always find your way to your favorite ports. Especially cooks,” she added, smacking her chest. “Good cooks is almost as wanted as good top-hands.”
“What’s a top-hand?” Wren asked.
The girl looked surprised, then nodded. “You don’t know Dock Talk, an’ y’don’t know the work, so you must be a landrat. Well, top-hands is the ones’t go for the topsails. Anyone can learn to hand, reef, steer, on the deck, but them topsails is tricksy bizness,” she said. “I’m Patka. You? What I hear, Robin?”
“Wren.”
“Knew it was a land bird,” Patka said cheerily.
“What is this gear he was talking about?”
“Your hammock,” Patka said. “Rain gear, mess kid, spoon, winter and summer wear. Sewing kit. Tools, if ye need ‘em. Like that.”
“Ships don’t have dishes and tools?”
“Only the big war ships, or maybe a royal yacht or a big, rich merch,” Patka said, laughing. “But you won’t get no first hire on them. You hire on with your own. Outside waitin’ is the skimmers,” she added. “Ones’t’ll stop the newbies and promise everything at an easy price. Easy.” She snorted. “Four times the going rate, but newbies don’t know that, and gumpy stuff—hammock breaks first storm, knife that shatters. Like that. Steer alongside me and me brothers. We show you where to get gear.”
Patka pointed at the boys Wren had seen earlier, now s
tanding at the doorway, still nudging one another and chortling with laughter. They had the same dark curly hair as did Patka. With them stood a tall, skinny redhead with a worn tiranthe slung at his back, and a pale-haired boy whose dusty embroidered velvet looked quite out of place here.
“Let’s go,” Patka said.
Sure enough, outside the door several people addressed the emerging newbies with big, friendly smiles and exhortations of, “Want the fastest way to get equipped? Over here—across the way!” “Norta’s Shop—all gear, good prices!”
The boy in velvet pulled out a hefty coin purse and followed one of the sellers, who clapped him on the back, acting friendly and confiding as they walked away.
It occurred to Wren that Patka, for all her friendliness, might be another one of these, but that feeling faded as the morning wore on; Patka and her brothers and the red-haired boy with the tiranthe roamed up the streets and down, poking into small shops here and there, sometimes comparing prices. Patka and her family didn’t have gear either, but they knew what to get, and had been given coins by their family in order to get it.
By lunch they were all friends, and Wren realized that Patka, who had just turned fourteen, had hoped to begin her career on the sea with another friendly girl to ship out with. Patka insisted that Wren had to learn Dock Talk as soon as possible, or she’d never get along in the world’s harbors.
“Dock Talk is Charas, see? Empire lingo, only easy,” Patka explained.
Wren soon figured that meant regularizing verbs, getting rid of plurals and articles and other bits of grammar not needed, and borrowing colorful terms from a lot of other languages.
Switching back and forth between languages, Patka told Wren they came from a family of sailors, their home base being a village on the coast of Fil Gaen south of Hroth Harbor.
Just after noon, they lugged their new gear up the hill, Wren’s old knapsack so stuffed the seams were ready to pop. Once again they joined the newbie line.
A young clerk came out from the back and moved to the portion of the counter where the newbies stood in line. Before she could speak, she was pushed aside by that same long-faced clerk with the sour expression. He seemed to be looking right at Wren when he said in a loud voice, “No lists today for newbies.”
“What?” said the other clerk, her surprise echoed all the way down the line.
“Orders from the Harbormaster,” the scowler said. “You, prentice, go help keep track of guild inspections. The rest of you.” He glared at the line. “Come back on the morrow. Noon.” He retreated behind the counter, leaving them standing there.
The newbies looked at each other, but no one had any answers. Still, they asked variations on No ships, none at all?
Patka said with a shrug, “Kind of strange, but season’s just opened. Not much traffic in the harbor yet.”
Wren, glancing out at that forest of masts, wondered what ‘busy’ would be like.
“That’s it for today,” yelled Patka’s older brother Thad, who had already been on a cruise, but chose to line up with the newbies so he could stay with his siblings. “Let’s have some fun!”
“We don’t have any coin, except enough for a bed and sup tonight,” their younger brother, Danal, pointed out. He was thirteen. “We won’t be shippin’ out tonight. And look up, it’s cloudin’ up, gonna come on rain.”
“No fun, sleepin’ in rain, if we spend everything we got,” Thad muttered.
The group stood in a circle, looking dejected.
Then the tall redhead smacked his tiranthe. The steel strings rang sweetly. “Shall I try to earn a few coins? Maybe there’s some inn with no singer already hired.”
“Aw, Lambin, there’s singers everywhere.” Thad sighed.
“I happen to know a few storytelling spells,” Wren offered.
Everyone looked her way. Patka frowned, and her brothers looked askance.
“Is something wrong?” Wren asked.
Patka shrugged. “Sorry. Doin’ spells for players isn’t being a mage, after all. I hate mages.”
Wren’s mouth dropped open. “What’s wrong with mages? Did one do something nasty to you?” She thought of Andreus of Senna Lirwan.
“No.” All three shook their heads. “It’s what they don’t do, see?” Thad said.
“Like, if they know so much magic, why not make everybody rich and comfortable, not just themselves?” Patka declared.
“Our dad says, there’s nothing worse than nobles and mages. We do all the work and they get all the fun.” Danal grinned, and Wren wondered if Danal liked the idea of getting all the fun.
He didn’t seem too bothered, but Patka flushed with anger, and declared, “Me, I don’t blame nobles as much. They can’t help being born what they are, same as us being born into a sailing family. But mages, they’re said to come from everywhere, but you don’t hear of ‘em going off to learn, then coming back home and using their magical spells to put everyone at home into a fancy castle, all nice and rich.”
Wren let her breath out in a slow trickle. There were so many wrong things here she didn’t even know where to begin. Or even if she should.
So save it for later, she thought. Just solve the problem we’re facing right now. “I do player spells at my auntie’s inn,” Wren said. “On rainy nights.”
All three faces cleared in relief. “Entertaining,” Thad said. “Oh, well, that’s different.”
“That’s an honest living, doin’ spells for players,” Patka said.
Danal smacked his hands and rubbed them. “And I know just the place we can go and use music and spells to earn some coin.” He nudged Thad. “You remember. We saw it yesterday?”
His brother jerked his thumb behind them, and they ran off in a pack.
No wonder mages don’t reveal themselves unless they have to, Wren thought as she toiled behind with her knapsack bumping on her back.
o0o
Not long after dusk a gentle rain began to fall. Wren and her new friends sat snug in a big tavern that usually boasted entertainment, but whose minstrel group had shipped out the day before. The innkeeper said they could play just until his new group arrived, which would be at the dinner hour, but until then he had no objection to their giving their skills a try. “I won’t pay you, but if you get any coins thrown, you can keep ‘em,” he said.
“He hopes we’ll bring in custom, not chase it away,” Patka muttered as the innkeeper walked away, shouting orders to his servers.
The red-haired boy, Lambin, had a wonderful singing voice and he played well. Wren added just enough illusory stars and shimmers to enhance the songs.
The big common room was sparse enough at first, and the few customers paid them little heed. But gradually they gained more attention, until new customers coming in who sat near them turned their way expectantly instead of trying to talk over the music. Those who wanted to chatter sat at other tables farther away.
Gradually the room got more crowded. Thad had found a little hand drum somewhere and he tapped out the beat in time to the tapping of Lambin’s foot. Patka circulated through the listeners with her winter cap held out open, into which a gratifying rain of coins was tossed.
They played and sang, Wren adding more and more images, to the oohs and ahs of the audience, until the professional group came in. Wren and her friends picked up their knapsacks, to shouts of appreciation and thumpings of spoons on the tables. At the other end of the common room they crowded around to count out their coins.
“Fifty clipits, twenty-one coppers, and one silver,” Danal proclaimed with satisfaction. “How shall we spend it?”
“Games!” Thad proclaimed.
“A really good dinner,” Patka said. “Better than I can cook.”
“Good music, up at the Redfern Inn,” Lambin said somewhat wistfully.
“We can do it all,” Thad stated. “And have enough left over for a snug bed somewhere down near the docks. Let’s get started!”
They slipped out the back. The boys
chattered happily, nearly masking the hiss of footsteps on the cobblestones, and whispered voices.
Wren began to turn—but a rough sack was thrown over her head. Someone else shoved her off-balance, and while she struggled, her knapsack was yanked out of her hands, and someone else wrapped rope around her, binding her arms to her sides.
“Hey!” “Ow!” “What’s this?” “ You can have the coppers!” the others shouted and wailed.
Wren was thrown into a wagon, and then something that smelled like heavy canvas was thrown atop her. She could hear her companions protesting. Wren stayed silent; she was sure that just before she was attacked, one of those whispering voices had said, “There. The one with the stripey hair, that’s the one.”
Six
Teressa sat alone on a dais decorated with flowers and cloth bunting, the warm breeze carrying scents of blossoms and crushed grass. On either side, seated decorously on benches brought out that morning by laboring servants and stable hands, her courtiers watched the horse races. They wore their newest riding clothes, short tunics over voluminous trousers instead of robes or gowns. Both men and women sported bunches of ribbons tying up their slashed sleeves, showing contrasting color beneath, the ribbons dancing bravely in the breezes as they clapped, waved, and took turns racing horses from one end of the grassy sward to the other.
Everyone dressed in their best, but Teressa’s attention was drawn by how flattering a simple brown walking tunic could be when worn by someone slim and graceful as a bird, her only adornment long silver hair.
A burst of clapping caught her attention. Her cousin Garian had won another race. He smiled her way, fist in the air, and she hastily clapped, but as soon as he turned away to change mounts, Teressa’s attention snapped back to the far end of the observers’ half-circle, where Tyron and Orin, his oldest beginner magic student, stood at the very edge, in earnest converse.
Or rather Orin talked earnestly, her long silver hair blowing like a flag in the wind, as Tyron gazed at the horses, his profile pensive.