'We're going to cut across to Endit waters,' nodded the merchant. 'And carrying a boatload of unsold goods with us,' he added apologetically, 'so we've no room to take a tame songbird on board, never mind a passenger.'
'That's all right; I'm going north, not east.' Kheda scooped up the shells and poured them carefully from one hand to the other. 'You spoke of trouble in the south. I'll trade you a reading of these for whatever you know.' He hoped the merchant wouldn't see the tension stiffening his spine into a rod of iron.
'There's magic abroad south of here, friend,' said the merchant bluntly. 'I've heard it from too many people for it to be falsehood.'
'In Redigal waters?' Kheda wondered with studied casualness.
'Nowhere so close.' The merchant shook his head with unfeigned relief. 'Chazen is all I've heard, magical fires setting the islands alight and everyone fleeing to Daish waters. Oh, have you heard the rumour that Daish Kheda is likely dead? Some people are wondering if that's just coincidence or malice working ahead of the magic'
'I heard something about that.' Kheda didn't dare look up and meet the man's eyes. 'What do you reckon to Daish Sirket's chances, if he is to be warlord?'
'If he's as much his father's son as Daish Kheda was son to Daish Reik, he should be strong enough to stand up against anything short of outright wizardry,' said the merchant stoutly. 'I shall hold to that thought next time I sharpen my blade, to sharpen the lad's luck.'
'Any portent that comes unsought and unheralded is likely to be of the greatest significance.' And how often did Daish Reik tell you truth often speaks through chance-heard words?
'Is there any word of this magic coming north?' Kheda asked, tension knotting in the pit of his stomach.
'No.' The merchant shook his head with welcome certainty. 'Not with the rains due any day'
Kheda smiled warmly at the man. 'Let's see what the shells have to say about your voyage to Endit waters.'
He threw the shells and looked up with a smile. 'I'd say you'll have fair winds to take you there and good fortune when you make landfall.'
'What are you at, friend?'
Kheda looked up to see three other men walking up the beach towards them, their attention caught by the only activity on the beach. Like his new acquaintance, they were evidently merchants who sailed as their own shipmasters.
'Having my fortune told. Our friend here's a soothsayer.' The merchant narrowed his eyes against the bright sun. 'I reckon I'll be under way before the day's end. There's no trade to be had here.'
'I'll probably follow you,' shrugged one of the shipmasters, wearing an Endit dagger with its sharply back-bent blade. 'We only had each other to deal with yesterday and it doesn't look as if we'll do any better today.' Wiry rather than muscular, his beard and hair were freshly plaited and he wore white cotton robes immaculate despite the inadequacies of the campground.
'If we all stay, we may yet tempt some of the Ulla people down from the hills,' protested a second, thickset man with grizzled hair and beard, his voice gravelly with years of shouting over wind and wave. Kheda noted a Taer blade with its deer-hoof handle at his belt. 'All we'll be sure of if we leave is sailing back home with a full half of the cargo we set out with. Where's the profit in that?'
'Endit Nai may not be thrilled to see me report such paltry trade but at least I'll be able to promise him a voyage as soon as the weather clears, with plenty of goods all ready to ship.' The dapper merchant had plainly made up his mind. 'And maybe this uproar in the south will be past,' he added with a meaningful look at the Taer shipmaster. 'I imagine that's one of the things keeping the Ulla people close to their huts.'
'There's no word of that kind of trouble anywhere north of Chazen,' protested the Taer man.
'What does the soothsayer say?' The third galley master stood, weight on his back foot, arms folded as he watched the other two argue. All three wore the same style of clothes, sleeveless tunic and trousers like any other sailor, but his were of better cloth, better cut and embroidered sea serpents coiled around his shoulders. He was also as much of a barbarian as Sain's slave Hanyad, though younger, barely Kheda's age. The sun had burnished his skin to a coppery sheen and lightened his hair to a dull gold, as unexpected among the dark heads all around as a Mirror Bird suddenly alighting in their midst.
'Can you tell us when the first rains will arrive?' demanded the Endit shipmaster.
'Can you tell us if we'll prosper for a longer stay here?' interrupted the Taer merchant.
'I can read the auguries for you,' Kheda answered calmly. 'Whether I will or not depends what you can do for me in return.'
That silenced the Endit shipmaster and the Taer merchant both.
'What do you want?' asked the barbarian, amused.
Time to test your luck, Daish Kheda.
'Passage north.' Kheda was momentarily disconcerted to see the man had green eyes, not unlike his own. 'I am no rower, you can see that from my hands, but you have my promise that I'll do my best. I can carry water to your oarsmen, take a turn for a tired man, tell you everything I see of the weather and seas ahead.' He poured the shells from one hand to the other again.
'I don't think my rowing master would thank me for you.'
Kheda wondered if the Endit shipmaster had some reason to look so suspicious or whether it was just a habit.
'I can take you to Tule waters,' offered the Taer shipmaster grudgingly.
'How far north do you want to go?' asked the barbarian. 'We're an Ikadi ship and bound for home.'
The other merchants looked at him, surprised.
'He's the closest thing we're going to find to an augur on this shore,' the Ikadi captain pointed out. 'You can go looking in the villages if you like, but even if you find someone who can read you the portents, it'll cost you dear, you know that.'
Kheda was searching his memory for any mention of the Ikadi domain.
How far north is that? Nearly all the way to the unbroken lands? This has to be an omen in my favour. You were right, my father. Seize an opportunity and you can make your own good luck.
'I'll travel as far as you are going.' He smiled at the barbarian. 'And read the weather and the auguries for you all the way.'
'You've certainly got a good trade out of that.' The Taer shipmaster looked at Kheda with disfavour. 'What will it cost me for your insights, now I can't offer you passage?'
'A pair of trousers,' Kheda said boldly. 'A tunic, not new if you can't spare them but clean, if you please.'
'We should have had our pick of four or five soothsayers on this beach,' grumbled the Endit merchant. 'Last time there was that one with the chest of crystals and a silken star map to cast them on.'
'This time, there's just me.' Kheda smiled at the man. 'And if you want any warning of foul weather or anything worse coming up from the south, it'll cost you a bowl and a spoon and a water skin.'
'If your father was a soothsayer, was your mother a trader?' chuckled the eastern merchant who'd first befriended him.
Kheda winked at the man. 'Of sorts.'
'Oh very well,' said the Endit merchant with considerable ill grace. 'It's a deal for my part.'
'If there wasn't this uproar in the south—' The Taer shipmaster broke off. 'All right.'
'Did you all share the same fire?' Kheda stood up and hitched his bundle up on to his shoulder.
'We did.' The Endit merchant looked dubious all the same.
Kheda led the three galley masters and the friendly eastern merchant towards the camping ground, stopping at the first blackened circle. 'This one?'
'And all our crews gathered firewood,' the Ikadi barbarian confirmed.
'Then we can take the augury here.' Kheda bent to pull a half-burnt stick from the ring of rocks and used the charcoaled end to score a circle on the ground. He went on to mark every quarter and arc in full, carefully drawing the signs for each constellation around the outside. When he glanced up, he saw the Ikadi shipmaster consulting a small compass.