‘Fishing.’ Kheda smiled despite himself. ‘He’s a pearl diver in from the outer reefs.’
An islander sat quite motionless on the sandy sea floor near a round bulge of mottled brown coral. A shoal of sunset fish nosed along the contorted grooves incised in the outcrop, turning from orange to yellow as the light struck them. Then everything vanished in a flurry of sand and shimmering scales.
‘See.’ Kheda pointed as the islander emerged from the cloud of sand, kicking urgently for the surface. He had a fish in each hand, his thumbs hooked through their gills, The man surfaced with an explosive gasp for air, treading water for a moment before swimming towards a basket he had left floating between two empty wax-sealed gourds. A rope with a stone on the end was anchoring it against the ebb and flow of the curious tide.
‘You don’t think he’d find it easier to use a net?’ Dev wondered sarcastically.
‘Easier but less impressive where the residence girls are concerned.’ Kheda smiled.
‘I should try that.’ There was a lascivious edge to Dev’s chuckle. ‘If that’s what it takes to get a girl to spread her legs.’
‘You don’t think you might get invited into some maid’s quilts if you just let your hair and beard grow in?’ Kheda queried. ‘Half the girls think you must be a man’s man and the rest keep trying to find a discreet way of confirming you’re zamorin.’
‘Ah, but looking so different—that’s all part of my intriguing barbarian mystery, isn’t it?’ Dev ran a hand over his bald head and clean-shaven chin. But maybe I should let some lass into my secret. That would get me half-way to a decent new-year celebration at the very least.’ He glanced over his shoulder to be sure Yere and Shaiam were still intent on their tasks and lowered his voice still further. ‘How long do you think I could get away with staying down for? A count of a hundred? You could win all the wagers you wanted on me—if you shared the take.’
Kheda quelled the barbarian with a warning glare and the heavy trireme went on to pass through the main channel between the outer reefs without incident. Warlord and wizard gazed at the islands lying within the thorny palisade of corals. Men and women were busy around fire pits dug into the white beaches, others hurrying in and out of the long huts set among the nut palms and neat gardens that patterned each scrap of land. Savoury smoke floating across the evening stillness promised feasting and the rowers below stirred and murmured among themselves.
At the centre of the broad lagoon a string of islets lay like gems in a necklace separated by golden links. With no more than a few buildings on each one, these islands I were linked by chains of bridges.
Which can be cut if needs must, to defend one avenue of attack while Chazen swordsmen take other paths over bridges, ropes and boats to strike back at an enemy from side and rear. Defence doesn’t always mean ramparts. With few enough walk to hide behind, any attackers would always be open to arrows from some direction. And if they did take the buildings, what then? The rulers of Chazen would be long gone. No enemy could hope to maintain a blockade around such an expanse of reef. And what enemy could arrive unexpected, with the bulwark of the entire domain between this warlord’s residence and any peril sailing south from the wider Archipelago?
Kheda looked at the well-tended gardens set here and . there along the innermost islands. Trees and underbrush had been long since cleared to leave only the most carefully selected specimens. The beds around them weren’t planted with sailer grain or kitchen vegetables like the outer islands devoted to the prosaic business of growing food and necessities to keep the warlord’s residence supplied. A wide variety of shrubs and plants was care-, fully tended, some vivid with flowers or brightly coloured leaves, others mere creeping mats of dullness but cherished all the same.
‘I imagine there’ll be a fair few healers come to ask my advice and beg for seedlings,’ Kheda said to Dev.
‘Let them know I’ll make myself available tomorrow afternoon.’ I’ll have more than enough to occupy me till then, even if that will give you all the more time to line your pockets will whatever the most desperate will offer you for a chance to reach my presence ahead of the others.
‘You’ll be letting them take away some of your distilled liquor, I take it?’ Dev shot a sideways glance at Kheda. Because they will use it in tinctures and lotions for healing the sick, not for addling their wits,’ retorted the warlord. ‘And you’ll have no credibility as my slave if anyone sees you drunk, even if you are a barbarian.’
‘So much for the comforts of home.’ Dev glowered. We’ll be toasting the new year with your piss-poor excuse for wine, then, will we?’
Kheda was unmoved. ‘And no one will start a fight like some drunken barbarian or fall down dead tomorrow morning with the blood too thick to flow in their veins.’
‘That’s just a myth to keep your swordsmen clearheaded and you know it.’ Dev stared moodily out over the anchorage. ‘I’d have found plenty of people here willing to trade something shiny for northern liquor or leaf if I still had my own boat.’
‘Then I’d definitely have had you flogged.’ Kheda gave a noncommittal shrug. ‘And I’ve seen more than one man who dropped dead for no more reason than an uncommonly hot day following a drunken night.’ The trireme picked its way carefully towards the innermost islands. The buildings were markedly different from the huts of polished wood and tidy palm thatch elsewhere—here they were stone-built pavilions, some long and low, some hollow squares, all roofed with gleaming turquoise tiles. Broad eaves shaded wide steps on all sides where benches were set for those summoned to their lord or lady’s presence but not yet admitted to the inner courts. Generous windows stood open to the breezes; pale yellow muslin drapes within teased out over the sills here and there. Sturdy hakali-wood shutters were pinned back against the white walls, ready to be closed with the fall of rapidly approaching dusk
‘It’ll be some job packing all this up when the rains come.’ Dev shook his head at the flurry of activity along the shore as servants and slaves hurried to make ready for the trireme’s arrival.
‘It’s that or spend the wet season up to our ankles in water,’ Kheda pointed out. ‘And we’d get blown clear across the domain by the storms in any case.’ Then these luxurious dwellings will be stripped bare of everything up to and including those shutters. House lizards and palm finches can come and go as they wish and the fiercest winds can rush through the buildings unhindered. We will all have sailed north to bigger islands less vulnerable to the whirlwinds, trading the safety of this openness for a very different fortress and relying on the rains to close the waterways to all but Chazen vessels. If I feel an interloper here, how much more will I seem a trespasser there?
The Mist Dove approached her customary berth, careful not to hinder the six-oared supply boats toiling across the lapis lazuli water, weighed down with baskets and bundles for the warlord’s household. Kheda noted the bare patches still scarring the physic gardens and black charring on the trunks of the larger trees.
Should we be risking ourselves by staying? Building hen with the rest of the domain between them and the wider Archipelago had been a sound enough strategy for the rulers of Chazen until invaders appeared out of the southern ocean that everyone believed was an empty waste of water. What use wen all these carefully planned networks of bridges and channels when the savages’ wizards could send fire leaping across the empty air and throw paths of solid cloud across the seas?
Visceral loathing of magic curdled Kheda’s belly.
But you were the one who brought Dev here, as the only hope you could find to battle the savages’ wizards. And you still owe him a mighty debt, after he nearly lost his life n doing so.
Oblivious, the barbarian mage was gazing at the beautiful pavilions. ‘Itrac Chazen has worked wonders, hasn’t she?’