'We go down to the dock,' he told Gal decisively. 'As soon as the galley's here, you go and fetch my lady Janne and the others. If Ulla Safar's going to make another attempt on my life, he can make it in full view of too many witnesses even for him to kill. I'm not risking myself in any dark corridors, so Safar can wring his hands over some panicked underling's tragic mistake, and I'm certainly not having Janne caught up in some skirmish.'
'This way, my lord.' Gal led Kheda unerringly down the stair curling below the watchtower in the thickness of the wall and then through corridors busy with startled underlings. Lamps were being lit, doors opening and closing, servants and slaves alike shying away from the two men's drawn swords and dangerous expressions.
A final turn and a flight of steps brought them to the door leading to the room behind the dock in the fortress's outer wall. Gal hammered on it.
'Open to Daish Kheda!'
The heavy iron-bound wood swung open so fast, someone had to have been waiting behind it. Kheda followed Gal through it to find they were in a lofty hall with torches burning in brackets high on the walls and another door opposite. Arrow slits piercing the walls all around and holes in the ceiling for the better delivery of boiling oil, scalding water or just skull-crushing rocks would make sure no one uninvited would get a chance to use either entrance to the fortress. A sizeable contingent of Ulla swordsmen stood in the centre of the floor, between Kheda and departure.
'Open the outer doors, if you please.' Kheda addressed himself to the captain whose brass-decorated helm denoted his rank. 'My galley will be arriving in a moment.' He kept his voice mild.
Gal's scowl and the menace in every line of his body should make it plain we're not to be trifled with. That and our naked swords. Do you have the stones to ask us to put them up, I wonder?
'As you command, great lord.' The sentry captain bowed low and jerked his head to send a couple of his men unbarring the heavy double doors. Kheda walked forward, not looking at any of the Ulla guards. As he walked out on to the landing stage, he saw the Daish galley looming out of the night, moonlight catching the white foam stirred up from the river as the oarsmen turned the mighty ship around. The Ulla men followed him out, drawing up in solid rank along the edge of the dock.
'Get those chains clear!' Kheda looked up to see an armoured man shouting from the stern platform, the ship's contingent led by one of Serno's most trusted subordinates. More men crowded the deck, looking every measure warriors even in the cotton trews and open-necked sleeveless tunics of a galley crew. The captain of the dock sentries jerked his head to send his men to unhook the heavy chains rigged across to prevent any unbidden ship sliding into the welcoming embrace of the landing stage.
'Go and tell Janne Daish we are returning to the shelter of our own galley.' Kheda nodded to Gal who immediately disappeared back into the labyrinth of the fortress. Kheda stood, arms folded, forbidding arrogance challenging the sentries to notice his bare chest, torn and dirty trousers, the absence of everything that should have proclaimed his status as warlord.
The galley docked behind him in a flurry of rushing water. Rapid feet on the stern ladder announced the swordsmen jumping ashore, drawing up around their lord to join in staring down the Ulla sentries. Kheda looked discreetly from side to side, caught Serno's man's attention and narrowed his eyes in mute warning.
The last thing we want is belligerence and mistrust on both sides turning this confrontation into a dockside battle. How to put a stop to that?
Kheda lifted his eyes casually to the sky, studying the heavens. No swordsman would make a move while a warlord was looking for portents. More than one battle had never been joined because an omen had decided the outcome in advance.
As he looked up, more than half his attention on the tense situation all around him, Kheda saw two more white streaks of light in the night sky. More shooting stars, crossing the north of the compass, to vanish in the arc of travel and learning.
It seemed as though half the night had passed before Kheda heard Birut's familiar bellow clearing the way for Janne Daish, first wife and beloved mother, cherished by all her domain. The porters threw open the double doors to the entrance hall and the entire Daish retinue poured out on to the landing stage, maids and musicians alike burdened with an amount of salvaged property that astonished Kheda. His wife's appearance came as less of a surprise.
'My husband.' Janne strode forward, Birut glowering at her shoulder. Somehow, she had managed to find time to dress in a simple yet brightly embroidered gown of blue logen vines on white silk and even had sapphires gleaming around her throat and in her tightly rebraided hair. Jevin hadn't managed to find jewellery for Itrac but she too was at least dressed in something approaching respectable ostentation, in a flowing dress of silk brindled like turtle shell and enough bangles of the real thing to remind everyone whose wife she still was.
'My lady wife.' Kheda waved away Birut who was advancing with a suitably lordly tunic over one arm, intent on improving his master's appearance. 'I suggest we depart and allow Ulla Safar to restore some order to his residence after all these most unfortunate accidents.'
'Indeed.' Janne looked around the Ulla sentries with searing contempt. 'I will not lie to you though, my husband. This has been a most disagreeable visit thus far.'
Kheda nodded to the attendant maids clutching jewel coffers tight with frightened hands. 'Get aboard.' He drew Janne aside, with a sharp gesture to dissuade Birut from approaching.
'Ulla Safar has made every attempt to kill me tonight, short of stabbing me in the back himself. If he doesn't know where I am, he can't try again.' He spoke low and urgently. 'I'm not going to play these games on his terms any longer. We cannot afford to and I need time to think. Tomorrow morning, you will be wanting to make your meditations at the tower of silence by the waterfall upstream, where the brook from the black rock joins the river. Do you hear me?'
Janne nodded, eyes wide with a myriad questions. 'But Kheda—'
He silenced her with a kiss, catching her around the waist and pulling her close. Breaking free of her lips was one of the hardest things he had ever done. 'We're going. Get Itrac below and stay there.' Abandoning Janne he ran lightly up the Rainbow Moth's stern ladder, making his way through the crowded deck to the high stern platform, to stand behind the helmsman watchful by the long tiller that governed the mighty rudder below.
Apprehension twisted Kheda's innards as he waited for everyone to get aboard, the galley's crew shoving off as none of the Ulla men moved to lend a hand. The rowers bent to the oars and the galley soon hauled itself out into the broad main channel. Inadequate as the earlier showers had been, they had still brought a little more water to speed the river's flow. Kheda waited, judging their progress till they were beyond the light shed by the fortress's lanterns, not yet winning close to the random glimmers from the shore.
'What's that?' Kheda pointed into the darkness of the waters, voice sharp with alarm. 'There, did you see it?'
'My lord?' Startled, the helmsman and shipmaster both followed his gesture.
'What is it?' Kheda stared into the night, astonishment in his voice.
After the chaos of the night, that was all it took to set a ripple of panic running through the vessel. The shipmaster hurried to the forward rail of the stern platform, helmsman half standing, face questing. Stealthily, Kheda began taking deeper and deeper breaths.
'Bow watch, what can you see?'