I wonder if I will be here to see next year’s harvest.
The wind shifted, bringing a startling stench. ‘Saedrin save me!’ Dev barely reached the stern before he lost his breakfast noisily over the rail.
Kheda exchanged a rueful grin with the helmsman, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible. ‘You always tell yourself it can’t be as bad as you remember.’ And perhaps that’s a sign: to concentrate on the here and now rather than indulging in idle speculations about future paths.
‘Then you realise it’s worse.’ The helmsman’s weather-beaten brown face grimaced as he hauled on the steering oar in response to a signal from the shipmaster.
The rowers pulled on their oars with a will, even those gagging on their own nausea. The Yellow Serpent accelerated past the bare sandy reef that was the source of the stink. Masked with swathes of cotton cloth, one of the few men ashore waved. Another was more concerned with throwing an old dry shell at a gull darting down from the cloud of birds wheeling above, squawking their outrage as mats of woven palm fronds frustrated their efforts to plunder the vast tubs the men were guarding. Emerald finches and dusky gnatcatchers swooped unopposed, gorging on the red-eyed flies that hung around the tubs in smoky swarms.
As the Yellow Serpent passed the reeking islet and the breeze brought clean, salt-scented air, Kheda dipped a cup of water from a lidded barrel lashed to the light galley’s rearmost signal mast. He passed it to Dev, who was still leaning over the stern, pale beneath his coppery tan.
‘You people can’t just open your oysters with a sharp knife and dig out the pearls?’ Dev swilled water around his mouth and spat sourly over the rail.
Not when we want every pearl, right down to the seed and dust pearls.’ Kheda watched the water turning from mysterious green to crystal clarity over the brilliant sands as the shipmaster skilfully guided the vessel into the shallows. ‘The only way to get those is to let maggots strip the oysters clean.’
‘We’re sailing west again after this?’ the barbarian growled beneath his breath.
No, back to the residence. I told you.’ Kheda shot the scowling Dev a warning look, his voice low and rapid. ‘After all they’ve suffered in the last year, these people need the reassurance of correct observance of every ritual. As warlord, I have to be there when the new-year stars come into alignment. It’s my duty to read the skies for the domain and give judgement on any other portent.’
‘What portents do you think they will bring you? Lizards caught in bizarre places?’ Dev mocked. ‘Or patterns imagined in a pot of beans?’
‘Just keep your mouth shut on your ignorance.’ Kheda didn’t hide his contempt.
‘Some new year it’ll be, without so much as a sniff of liquor,’ Dev muttered, sipping at his water with distaste. ‘What then?’
‘We’ll see.’ Kheda smiled thinly. ‘In the omens of the heavenly and the earthly compasses.’
He left Dev and went to stand beside the helmsman’s chair. The rowers had slowed, listening for the shipmaster’s shouts of command and the piper’s signals. Some glanced up at the stern platform with discreet curiosity. Kheda kept his face impassive as he made a covert survey of the crew’s bearded faces.
They’re as curious as everyone else to see what kind of pearl harvest will mark the turn of my first year as unexpected lord of this Chazen domain. And I can see a measure of private anticipation, naturally, in their hopes that serving the warlord in person will win them some share in the bounty.
What can they see in you? Very little, hopefully. ‘Show no more emotion than a statue of the finest marble’ that’s what your father used to say. Because people looking at a statue see in it what they want to see more often than not.
to see my rule sanctioned by the best possible omens?
‘I’ve brought swords and archers to keep your harvest safe,’ Kheda called out to the pearl skiffs. ‘Carry water to my ships to refill their barrels, if you please.’
Leaving behind a robust chorus of earnest assurances, the rowing boat soon reached the shallows. The boatman shipped his oars and jumped lithely over the side, grabbing for the bow rope to begin hauling the boat up on to the drier sand.
‘This will do.’ Kheda raised a hand, inclining his head courteously to the boatman as he got out. ‘Make yourself known to my slave before we leave.’ The cool ruffles of surf around his shins were refreshing after the sun-baked wood of the galley’s deck beneath his bare feet. ‘Remember that boatman and give him a few pearls,’ he said quietly to Dev as they walked up the beach.
Naturally, my lord,’ murmured Dev with a touch of sarcasm. ‘A memory for faces is essential in my proper trade.’
Kheda’s spine stiffened despite himself. Before he could find a reprimand for the barbarian„ a handful of men advanced down the beach towards them, leaving more waiting in a respectful half-circle where the white coral sands gave way to dusty soil and sparse coils of parched, grey midar stems. Dev had been walking a pace behind Kheda on his open side, one hand resting lightly on the twin hilts thrust through his double-looped sword belt. As the islanders approached, the barbarian moved swiftly to stand between the warlord and these newcomers, stony faced, until Kheda gave him the nod to stand aside, his smile one of nicely calculated superiority.
You can feign this much of a true body slave’s duties at least.
The leader of the delegation bowed low. The bold yellow cloth of his simply cut cotton tunic and trousers was rich with embroidery mimicking turtleshell. He had a darker complexion than his companions and the more tightly curled hair of a hill-dweller, showing that blood from some larger domain had mingled with his more local ancestry. ‘My lord Chazen Kheda.’
‘Borha.’ Kheda smiled widely to conceal how much that new title still grated on his ears. Get used to it, fool. You’re not Daish Kheda, nor ever will be again.
‘I see you’ve brought plenty of strong arms to reap the pearl harvest,’ Kheda continued smoothly.
‘We left plenty of men to continue our rebuilding.’ The man beamed with pleasure at being recognised but fingered a white crab-shell talisman on a cord around his neck, betraying an unconscious anxiety. ‘I know—we’ve just come from Salgaru. Your village is certainly prospering, and all the others besides.’ Kheda widened his smile and looked beyond Borha to include all the waiting men in his approval. One of the others spoke up. ‘Will you take some refreshment while we wait for our fishermen to return, my lord?’
‘Thank you.’ Kheda walked on up the beach and the islanders moved to either side, giving Dev a respectful distance. A few had darker skin and curly hair like Borha. More had the rich brown complexion and straighter hair prevalent in these southerly reaches. All wore crisp new cottons in reds, blues and yellows decorated with skilful embroidery. Some bore vivid butterflies across their shoulders or patterns echoing any one of the myriad bright birds that graced the bigger islands. Other decorations recalled the intricate traceries of thorn coral or the spirals of seashells. A couple wore bracelets of twisted silver wire and one boasted a chain of gold lozenge links around his neck. Most wore more simple talismans—a plaited wristband of the silky fibres from a tandra seed pod or a string of polished ironwood beams. All the men wore daggers at their hips, but Kheda and Dev were the only ones with swords.