"Is that really the same one?"
"No, of course not," she said. "This is my daughter, Roni. Roni, greet Whandall Placehold Feathersnake, merchant prince and a very old friend of your mother's."
Whandall bowed. "And this is Green Stone, my son, and Burning Tower, my daughter. I think the girls will be about the same age. Will you come in, Lady Shanda? We have tea." He led her into the inner nest.
Shanda marveled. "You have done well. Two mirrors! And I'd love to know the secret of how you get wood to shine like that." She stared admiringly at the carpets. "You have dune well indeed, Whandall Feathersnake."
"Thank you. Lady. And have things been well for you?"
"Not as well as we would like," Shanda said, serious for a moment before her smile returned. "But well enough."
"Did you ever finish the new aqueduct?"
Her smile faded again. "Not yet. We keep hoping."
"Peacegiven Square," Whandall said. "I was shocked."
She nodded, waited until Burning Tower poured tea, sipped, and nodded again. "Thank you. Whandall, it shocked us all, that second Burning."
"What happened?"
"Lord Chanthor always hoped to buy dragon bones," Shanda said.
"I remember. We were hiding on Shanda's balcony," Whandall said to his son. Green Stone and Burning Tower knew the story, but Roni looked at her mother. "Some captain sold Chanthor rocks in a fancy box. He had the man killed."
"Yes. And another promised but couldn't deliver, but he didn't take any money. Chanthor kept trying. One day it came. Dragon bones! In an iron box. Terribly, terribly expensive.
"We really couldn't afford them, but, well, we planned to do so much for the people!" Shanda said. "Make rain in just the right places to clear out the waterways, wash all the filth out to sea. Repair buildings. Heal the sick. Finish the aqueduct! It would have been worth what we paid." She was talking as much to Green Stone as to Whandall. Maybe it was the ears? Green Stone could absolve her, speaking for the kinless? Forgive her for the crushing weight of taxes to buy this disaster.
Resalet had opened a cold iron box. ...
"Back there, at that building, the Witnesses had an office." Shanda pointed through the doorway to where no building stood. Dark ground, charred. "Lord Chanthor brought the box there to be registered. Then they set up by the fountain for the ceremony," she waved at the fountain, blackened and split by heat and near waterless, "with our wizard. We tried to find Morth of Atlantis. He'd gone like smoke in a Burning. Years later we were told he left with you, Whandall! So we hired the wizard from the ship that brought the dragon bones, and on the fountain he opened it...". She fell silent.
"And the last thing his eyes ever saw?"
She stared.
"Yangin-Atep took the magic," Whandall prompted.
Shanda's daughter Roni jumped. "Yes!" she said. "He's right, isn't he, Mother? We were home waiting. Mother was so excited, all the good we could do, and she was watching for dark storm clouds, for rain, and suddenly black smoke was pouring up everywhere. Burning," Roni said. "We'd just had a Burning!"
"It was horrible, Whandall," Shanda whispered. "They burned so much! The square, the new ropewalk we'd paid so much to build after we lost the Ropewalker family! To you, they told me! You took the Ropewalkers out of Tep's Town. I don't think I ever quite forgave you for that."
"I didn't know who they were when we started through the forest," Whandall said. "Or what Ropewalkers do. But, Shanda, I'd have freed those children anyway."
"What? Yes. Yes, of course," Shanda said, and blushed violently. "Whandall, I almost went outside. My stepfather thought of marrying me to a Condigeo merchant prince, and I'd have lived in Condigeo. But he didn't-maybe the man lost his nerve-and then I met Qu'yuma." Her voice and expression changed and for a moment Whandall envied Qu'yuma.
Green Stone asked, "Yangin-Atep took the dragon bone manna to himself. Like with new gold?"
"And came violently awake," said his father. "And possessed whoever he could."
"And the city has never been the same," Roni said.
He thought, Really? He remembered better than that.
Shanda brightened. "But now you're here! You can help."
"How?" Whandall asked.
"Trade. We can use more trade," Shanda said.
"It's hard for wagons to compete with the sea captains," Whandall said.
Roni started to say something, looked to her mother, and kept silence. Whandall let the silence stretch on. It was painful, but he was Whandall Feathersnake, and his son was watching. Better to win the bargain and then be generous than to let anyone think he could be cozened.
"There aren't so many ships, now," Shanda said, trying to keep it light. She sipped weak hemp tea. "They came for the rope, of course," and the words were escaping, slipping free. "It was all that brought them. Father explained it to me. When the Ropewalk disappeared, we had to import another system, and that evil captain screwed us against a wall-sorry. Sorry. But he took every coin we could find, and then the Ropewalk was gone in the two Burnings! Ships still come for tar, but now the harbor is silting up," she said. "It's hard to get in, and worse, we don't have as much to trade as we used to. There's only the little Ropewalk now, so there's not much rope for the ships."
"Tar," Whandall said. "Tar is always valuable."
"And we have lots, yes," Shanda said. "But I may as well he honest. They found tar somewhere south of here, some lagoon between here and Condigeo. It's hard to get to, but if we charge what we need, the ships will go there instead. But you'll help, won't you?"
"Why should he?" Green Stone demanded.
Whandall gestured. This was not the time to play roles in the game of negotiation. Was it?
"It's his home," Shanda said simply.
"No, Lady," Green Stone said. "Not anymore. Whandall Feathersnake lives in the New Castle at Road's End. Everyone along the Hemp Road knows that!"
Burning Tower looked admiringly at her brother.
And it's all true, but this was my home, Whandall thought. Good or bad, it was my home. "I'll do what I can," Whandall said. "We'll look to see what's plentiful here and valuable on the Hemp Road. There must be something. And however easy or hard these new tar fields are to get to by ship, this place is easiest for me. Decide what's your price for tar. It'll tell me whether I come back."
A pony nickered outside. Whandall's expression didn't change as he thought how valuable a bonehead pony grown into a one-horn stallion would be. He said, "Ponies, maybe; there are places along the Hemp Road that might buy a pony. There must be other such things, magical items and animals stunted by Yangin-Atep. We'll look.
"But there's a problem," Whandall said. "The Toronexti make it very difficult for traders."
"We've spoken to them about that," Shanda said. "But I'm afraid they go their own way, much as the Lordkin do. And they have a charter."
"Scraped-off skins?" Whandall asked. "Covered with black marks?"
"I never saw it," Shanda said. "Writings, yes, witnessed by Lords in every generation, granting them privileges. Promises made long ago."
"By dead men."
She shrugged. "Still promises, written and witnessed. Written and witnessed."
Summon them up and ask....ut this is Tep's Town. "If they lost that
charter?" '
Her eyes twinkled, just a touch, like the young girl he'd known deviling her governess. No one else saw it. "They'd never do that. It would be like-like it never was, wouldn't it?"