“It is being arranged as we speak.”
The guildmistress kicked a burning ember that had spattered out of the hearth back into the fire grate with the toe of her boot. “Make certain that you tell the head journeyman at the tile foundry to adjust the schedule to replace the boy, Slith, and Bonnard. I don’t want to fall behind on any orders.”
“Bonnard as well? He knows nothing; it’s a shame to lose so competent a ceramicist.”
Esten turned and leveled her gaze at the guild scion. Her voice, when she spoke, was flat, her words carrying double meanings.
“What do you know, Dranth?”
Dranth swallowed, his eyes signaling his understanding.
“Did you see that she is pregnant?” he asked hesitantly.
“Tabithe? She is?”
“Yes. Hiding it under the folds of her ghodin.”
“Ah.” Her gaze returned to the fire as she pondered the information. After a moment she crossed her arms.
“Her information was useful.”
“Yes, Guildmistress.”
“Perhaps we should be lenient then.”
“If you wish, Guildmistress.”
“Very well, then. No extra delivery fee for the baby.”
14
L’ort Fallen, at Avonderre, was the largest and busiest in all of Roland; with the exception of modest fishing villages and harbor towns, it was the only port, and the only combined shipping and naval center in the Cymrian Alliance.
Farther south along the coast were Tallono, the great sheltered harbor that had been built by the Gorllewinolo Lirin thousands of years before with the help of the dragon Elynsynos, and the two great western seaports of Minsyth and Evermere in the unclaimed region known commonly as the Nonaligned States. But none of those ports had the size or the open access of Port Fallen. Tallono was restricted only to Lirin vessels, while Minsyth and Evermere were dwarfed by the massive inner harbor of Ghant in Sorbold, which lay to the east above the Skeleton Coast. The combined size of all four was still not quite that of Port Fallon.
In the heyday of the Cymrian Empire, a lighttower one hundred feet in height was constructed at the mouth of the harborway, where the southerly currents of the Northern Sea cleared from the easterly ones of the open ocean. The light from the tower could be seen, it was said, on the clearest of nights by ships as far away as the outer archipelago to the east of Gaematria, the mystical island of the Sea Mages that straddled the Prime Meridian.
In one of the most ambitious engineering projects of the Cymrian era, an enormous sluiceway had been constructed, a floodgate of a sort being formed from the natural curve of the coastline, to keep the tides from damaging the ships in port. What nature had already provided to Avonderre’s coastline was embellished, a new causeway built that turned the harbor into an enormous lagoon, eight miles wide from the outer villages, protected from the elements. In the most virulent of storms, the harshest of winter weather, or even in the wake of a tidal wave that crashed to the north on the coast of the Gwynwood reef, destroying not only the port but the villages nearby, the mighty, bustling harbor of Port Fallon remained unharmed, safe in her natural shelter.
The existence of the sluiceway made the all-but-impossible task of patrolling the harbor achievable; the harbormaster had outposts that flanked the entry channel into Port Fallon from which his large fleet of guidance, rescue, and interdiction craft could be launched. Thus the ships that made Port Fallon a destination were protected both by nature and by law from the misfortunes of the sea; the favorable geography improved upon by Gwylliam’s engineers saved many a ship from sundering in a storm, while the vigilant patrols of the harbormaster and his sailors prevented the more brutal scourge: pirates.
To keep the trade flowing in and out of Port Fallon, the harbor patrol ships were on constant dispatch, routinely trolling for anything entering or leaving the harbor that seemed untoward. Their moorings were on the two causeways to the sides of the harbor’s mouth, so their launchings were easy, and the sea at die sluice was glasslike. It was certainly impossible for diem to inspect every ship, check every cargo, even interdict every act of privateering, but by and large they maintained order in the harbor, and that in turn made Avonderre one of the safest and most prosperous headwaters of the shipping lanes the world around.
Avonderre’s wharf stretched along the north-south coastline for as far as the eye could see, peaking in the center at the pinnacle of the lighttower, then gradually diminishing down over the harbor proper, where along the colossal jetty a hundred merchant vessels could be off-loaded at once, in a meticulously choreographed dance of longshoremen, deckhands, barrels, crates, horses, and wagons drawing forth treasures from around the world with die precision of an anthill, only to be equally efficiently reloaded and sent on their way again.
It was this massive amount of seafaring traffic that had made the seneschal decide to risk sailing into Port Fallon in an unregistered vessel, without the papers of special waiver he had represented to the captain that he possessed. In the course of an average day, a thousand ships or more might pass through die waters of the sluiceway. How likely, then, that a modest little frigate like the Basquela, hovering at the harbor’s outer edge, politely waiting its turn in the queue, would be assailed by the harbormaster?
Far too nicely, it now appeared.
The seneschal cursed again at the sight of the masted cutter skimming quickly over the smooth waves toward them, signaling them with the harbormaster’s inspection flag.
He glanced around quickly to ascertain that no other ships were within easy sight, then motioned to the reeve, who in turn nodded to Clomyn and Caius. The twin bowmen slid into position at the rail, casually balancing their ever-present crossbows on one arm.
The captain was signaling to the cutter his preparation to be boarded for inspection. A three-man scull was being launched, with two rowers and the harbormaster’s agent climbing into it as the other three crew members on the cutter lowered it over the side. The seneschal could hear their voices on the wind, calling to one another.
“Handsomely, now, lads,” the agent was shouting to the sailors. “Have been in the drink already once today.”
“And you still need a bath, Terrence,” one of the men on board shouted back to him. “You stink of bilgewater and Mistress Carmondy’s perfume.”
“Twas a rough night,” the agent said agreeably.
Good-natured cursing and laughter was keeping the harbormaster’s crew occupied for the moment. The seneschal turned away from the rail for a moment and stared at the captain, who was chuckling along with the first mate, waiting for the arrival of the boarding party. The captain turned, still smiling, to the seneschal.
“You should lay hands on those documents of waiver, Your Honor,” he said, signaling his crew to lower the rope ladder, though the scull had barely touched the water and was just being cast off. “The harbormaster’s agent will want to inspect them upon coming aboard.”
“I have no such documents,” the seneschal said calmly.
The smiles faded from the faces of the captain and the mate; they both turned in to the wind to stare at the seneschal, the expressions on their faces indicating they thought they had misheard him.
“Pardon, Your Honor?” the captain said.
“I said I have no documents of waiver,” the seneschal repeated, louder this time so as to be heard over the snapping of the sails.
The captain left the rail and came to the seneschal. “I am quite certain you said that you had arranged for waiver before we sailed, sir,” he said, his face growing flushed.
The seneschal shrugged. “Perhaps I did. If I did, I lied. I apologize most sincerely. I cannot possibly afford a trail of documents that would lead back to Argaut.”