“Did they say anything?”
“No, ser. Not a word.”
“Did you notice anyone entering or leaving the piers while you were engaged?” Craelyt turned to Myala. “Did you?”
“I was close enough to see that no one did. The vendors and teamsters ran and stayed away until it was over.”
“Do either of you have any idea what this was all about…or what they might have had in mind?”
Rahl had an inkling of what might be involved, but nothing solid enough to be considered an idea, and he wasn’t about to tell Craelyt. Telling the undercaptain didn’t feel right, and Rahl in fact didn’t actually know. “I don’t know, ser. I thought it might have something to do with the Jeranyi ships, but Mage-Guard Myala has been watching them, and there’s nothing strange going on there.”
“Is that right?”
“I wouldn’t say quite that, Undercaptain,” replied Myala, “but we haven’t seen anything so far.”
“Why do you think they might be a problem?”
“Because, ser, we’ve never seen three of their pirate vessels in port for this long at any time since I’ve been a mage-guard,” replied Myala. “That suggests trouble.”
Craelyt kept questioning them until he had asked the same questions in different forms at least three or four times. Then he smiled and looked at Myala. “I’m sure your report, and that of Mage-Guard Caersyn, will cover everything. You both have had a long duty. Go and get some rest.”
“Yes, ser.”
Rahl followed Myala out of the station, but she did not even look back as she kept walking away, presumably to her home and quarters. Rahl could detect a mixture of both anger and apprehension.
He watched her for a moment, then looked toward the quarters building and the mess. Finally, he turned toward it. He was hungry.
XCVIII
All through dinner, as he ate mechanically, Rahl kept thinking about the attack and all the pickle barrels on the Nylan Merchant Association wagons. It would have been better if the last bravo hadn’t been flamed, because they might have been able to find out who had been behind the attack. He frowned. That blast had come from Caersyn, but Caersyn wasn’t at the table, and neither was Hegyr.
“You’re looking worried,” offered Vosyn.
“More than that,” added Hewart.
“How often do attacks on mage-guards happen?” asked Rahl.
“Not that often, but they do happen,” replied Vosyn.
“Usually at night,” said Niasl. “I’ve had two in maybe ten years. Always with a renegade mage, like what happened to you. They know they have to distract or disable the duty mage-guard. It’s usually so that they can raid one of the ships while most of the crew is ashore.”
Rahl nodded. What had happened to him just didn’t feel like that. “How is Hegyr? Caersyn said he was pretty sick.”
“He’s better,” interjected Dalya from the women’s table. “He was hotter than burning cammabark this morning.”
Cammabark! Vinegar! Rahl almost froze in his seat. Why hadn’t he remembered sooner? Was that what was in the pickle barrels? Another thought struck him-he shouldn’t have been able to smell the vinegar in pickle barrels because they should have been sealed more tightly. So the pickle barrels had been opened recently. But why would Shyret be in league with the Jeranyi?
Rahl forced himself to finish his meal before excusing himself and heading in the direction of his room, but he didn’t enter it, but slipped out the side door and made his way through the dampish evening toward the main mage-guard station building.
Nyhart looked up from the duty desk. “Evening, Rahl. You’re not doing some evening duty, are you?”
“No. I was just thinking about something. Have you seen the captain?”
“No. He was supposed to meet with the undercaptain, but he never did. That’s what the undercaptain said. No one’s seen Captain Gheryk since midafternoon. He might be meeting the regional commander about the rebellion in the south. Do you want to leave a report for him? Or see the undercaptain? He’s around somewhere. He might be out on the piers.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Thank you.” Rahl smiled and made his way from the building. He didn’t want to talk to Craelyt, and he didn’t like the fact that the captain was nowhere to be found. Yet what could he do?
He couldn’t just report his suspicions, not after the captain had pointedly told him not to investigate anything to do with his past, and yet he didn’t feel that he could just let things happen, not the way he felt.
Finally, he turned toward Swartheld itself and walked southward through the darkness beside the road from the piers. When he neared the pier-guard station, he raised the light shield, keeping well away from Suvynt. The night mage-guard turned and studied the area along the wall from the pier gate, but when Suvynt turned away, Rahl climbed up the low wall, still holding his light shield. That wasn’t hard, since the wall had been designed far more to keep wagons out of the pier area than to stop single individuals from leaving.
Once on the other side, Rahl moved a good hundred cubits away from the piers before dropping the shield. Once he reached the section of the avenue where it divided into two sections, he crossed the pavement and took the walkway that ran down the middle, moving at a fast clip, truncheon in hand. Overhead, the leaves of the giant false acacias rustled in the slight evening breeze that brought a faint scent of cooking from somewhere.
He passed a couple on one bench, and neither more than looked at him. Two young men nodded politely as they passed him, and Rahl only sensed mild apprehension. Then, as he neared another bench closer to the boulevard, someone sprinted away across the far side of the avenue. Rahl did not follow him.
When he neared the Nylan Merchant Association, he could tell that Eneld’s cantina was still open, as much as from the boisterous voices as from the mixed odors of melted cheeses and fried meats.
…sailors are a fearsome lot but never fear,
A sailor’s gone so much he’s never here…
Laughter greeted the last line of the song.
Rahl shook his head. Even from across the boulevard, he could feel the diffuse white chaos, far stronger than the last time he had passed by, but he walked farther to the west before crossing the street, using a passing carriage as partial cover, and then headed back eastward.
From a good fifty cubits away, Rahl could see that the warehouse gates to the Merchant Association were shut. He could also sense two guards, and possibly three, stationed in the courtyard near the gates. While the warehouse doors were also closed, Rahl felt that there were more than a few people inside.
Before reaching the ironwork gates, Rahl raised his light shield, and then began to climb the brick wall, carefully, and as quietly as possible. Just before the top, his left trouser leg caught on a projection or a rough brick, and he almost lost his balance and nearly tumbled backward. Breathing heavily, he hung on and lowered his leg, eventually working it free and creeping upward. At the top, he peered over, but did not see or sense anyone nearby.
Climbing down was almost as difficult, because he did not wish to land hard enough to alert the guards. He finally stood in the shadowed corner between the warehouse and the outer wall, dropping the light shield and using his order-senses to survey the courtyard.
Two guards watched the gates, and three men were harnessing a team before the stables under a single lantern. Across the courtyard, the door to the Association building was open. As Rahl watched, two other men each carried two large buckets inside, then returned almost immediately with their buckets clearly lighter, only to fill them from the barrel set just outside the door. From what Rahl could discern, both men were Jeranyi.
He had to hurry, and he had no time to return to the mage-guard station. Girding his light shield around him, he moved quickly along the front of the first warehouse until he came to the door. He paused for a moment. There had been no light from the quarters above, and he didn’t sense any life there, and there should have been. Yasnela never left the quarters in the evening in the middle of an eightday, and Daelyt never left her. Rahl’s lips tightened.