“And how am I to manage that?” Klin asked, but Dawson could see that he already knew the answer.
“You help me kill him.”
Marcus
T
he trade ships from Narinisle arrived in Porte Oliva, and the city was a madness of activity. Merchants flooded the inns and pubs near the port, digging for information, pouring beer into the sailors and coin into the purses of keeps and brewers. Which ships had left first, which last, which traders had met with each other on the distant island kingdom. No detail was too small to be wrung of all significance. It was the high season of Porte Oliva, and even in the exhausting heat of the day, trade and barter and negotiations filled every corner. The Medean bank had placed no direct stake the previous year, and so the absence of Cithrin bel Sarcour could be excused. It could not, however, go unnoticed.
A light rain fell from a low, white sky, leaving the air steamy and thick. The interior of the taproom was punishingly hot. Given the choice between the damp and the heat, rain won out, and the courtyard that overlooked the sea was thick with benches and chairs. The keep had taken away the tables to make more room. Marcus sat with Yardem, Ahariel Akkabrian, and the Jasuru named Hart. Four men of four different races all sitting together. They were, Marcus noted, the only such group in the yard.
“You need a cunning man who can turn the beer cold,” Ahariel said.
“You need a desert,” Hart said.
“How’d a desert help?” the Kurtadam asked. He’d had his pelt shaved almost to the skin for the summer. Seeing his pink skin dotted with thick black stubble and improbably pink nipples exposed to the air felt slightly obscene. Without his beads, he looked more like a Firstblood, but also eerily less like a human—neither one race nor another. Some other of his race left a decorative V of fur to keep the beads in place, but Ahariel had opted for the extreme.
“You take a great pot,” Hart said, making his arms round. “Put a small one within, and sand between them. Damp the sand, and it will keep meat or beer cool. Only it won’t work here. Too wet.” His teeth clicked on the last word like it was threatening it. “What about you, Yardem? What do the Tralgu do?”
“Drink warm beer,” Yardem said with a wide, canine grin.
The others laughed, but not Marcus. He’d come drinking because he didn’t want to stay another day in the barracks or at the counting house, and a taproom by the port seemed to offer the chance of something interesting. Once he’d gotten there, the press of bodies and the roar of the voices left him anxious. There were too many people in not enough space. There was no way to see a threat coming. The tension was building across his shoulders and in the pit of his stomach.
He scanned the crowd, looking for something without quite knowing what it was. A familiar face, perhaps. Cithrin or Pyk. Or Master Kit. Yes, that was it. He was looking for Kit. Not—he told himself—because of the mad scheme the man had talked of. Only to pass an evening in conversation with someone who’d seen the world outside Porte Oliva recently. Someone whom the world hadn’t yet nailed in place.
He wondered where Kit had gone. What he was doing just then. It was hard to imagine him away from the other players. Kit had built a life and a family and then had walked away from it because he felt he had to. It didn’t matter that the reason was nonsense, it was still the mark of a brave man in a world of cowards. Marcus wasn’t going to leave his work here to run off on some mad and doomed adventure. Unless, perhaps…
Someone put a hand on his shoulder and he looked up into the face of Qahuar Em. The half-breed had the coloring and features of a Firstblood, but with a rough skin where the Jasuru scales hadn’t quite formed. Once, he had been Cithrin’s rival and lover, and that he couldn’t father children had been the only thing Marcus liked about him.
“Buy you men a round?” Qahuar Em asked, and then waited for an answer.
“Why not?” Marcus said, shifting on the bench.
Qahuar shouted to a harried serving boy and gestured toward the little knot of guards before he sat. His smile was both practiced and sincere. He was a difficult man to dislike. That was his job.
“The magistra seems to be missing the season,” Qahuar said.
“Pressing work in Carse,” Marcus said. “Don’t know much about it. Just poor soldiers, us.” Qahuar Em laughed, because they both knew better. “I heard your escort fleet hasn’t gone as well as planned.”
“We knew it would take a few years before we saw profit,” Qahuar Em said, with a shrug. “I heard that I might have some gratitude to offer you, though.”