“I’ve seen that ship,” the boy said, “but not lately.”
“What about a big brimwulf with no name or standard?”
“That one I saw, three days ago. She caught that storm and was listing hard, needed a new mast.”
“Storm?”
“Tho, a bad one. Some ships went down in that one—one of ‘em out of here, the Tunn Carvanth.”
“Maybe the Delia Puchia came by and you didn’t notice?”
“Maybe,” Nel said dubiously. “You can ask around in the Moyr Muc. Why? You have kin on it?”
“Something like that,” Neil replied. “Thanks.” He got his things and started toward the inn.
Beside the door was hung a placard with a painting of a porpoise on it, confirming Neil’s idle suspicion that “Moyr Muc” was the same as meurmuc, which was what they called dolphins on Skern. It meant “sea-pig,” which he’d always thought was a poor name for such a beautiful creature. Of course Neil meant “champion,” a name he didn’t much deserve, either. He had lost his armor and his sword, and now it might be that the princess he had been sent by his queen to retrieve was at the bottom of the Lier.
None of the handful of people in the Sea Pig allowed that they had seen the Delia Puchia, but they pointed out that the shallow-drafted Vitellian ship could have made port at half a dozen other places to weather the storm. That made Neil feel a little better, but the larger problem remained—if Anne was still alive, it was because the Delia Puchia had done just that, which meant once again he had lost her trail.
Not too surprisingly, no one in the village of Torn-y-Llagh owned a sword, but he managed to buy a fishing spear and a knife, which was better than nothing. He ate a supper of boiled cod and bread, enjoying the simple familiarity of it. The next morning, feeling even stronger, he set out once more for Paldh.
Paldh was an old city. When the great harbors of Eslen were still marsh, before the building of the great Thornrath wall, it had been the only deepwater port of any size for a hundred leagues in either direction. In those days before the Crothanic Empire, Crotheny, Hornladh, and Tero Galle had all relied upon Paldh for their shipping. They had battled over it with their navies, and before them the Hegemony and the Warlock Kingdoms.
How many thousands of ships lay rotting in the channel of the Teremene River, no one could know, but the oldest of them had not been built by human beings.
Nor had the oldest walls of the city, most of which appeared to stand on a regular gray cliff thirty yards above the highest tide. Neil had never before seen them, but now that he paddled alongside he saw that what he had heard was true; above the barnacled high-water mark, one could still discern the faint seams that stretched between the original blocks of stone. When he reached the harbor, the massive barrier swept in an enormous semicircle that was something over a league in length, and here an ancient quay of the same stone provided the anchor for the floating docks.
The quay was perhaps a hundred yards in width, and a sort of sailor’s city had grown up on it—taverns, inns, gambling houses, and brothels all crowded against the artificial bluff. Even from afar Neil could see that the dock town was teeming with colorful life.
He made out the brimwulf almost immediately, because he passed the dry-docks on his way in, and there she was, up on scaffolding with workmen scurrying about, making a music of hammers and saws. There were a number of other ships there, none of them the one Anne had sailed on.
He thought back to his fight in z’Espino. The brimwulf had been far down the docks from the Delia Puchia. The sailors on her wouldn’t have seen the fight—and he’d been in armor anyway.
He paddled his boat over to the quay and tied her up near the ship, then climbed out onto the time-smoothed stone.
He waved at one of the nearer sailors.
“Hello, there,” he attempted in Hornish.
“Ik ni mathlya Haurnaraz,” the sailor replied.
Neil forced a laugh, and switched to Hanzish. “Neither do I,” he said. “It’s good to hear you speak—I’m so tired of trying to understand the gibberish around here.”
The sailor smiled and poked a rough finger at Neil’s boat. “You come all the way here in that?”
Neil shook his head. “No, the ship I served on was beached in the storm the other night. I bought this from a fisherman.”
“Bad storm, that,” the sailor said. “We almost went down in it.”
“Pretty good blow,” Neil conceded.
“What ship was that you were on?” the man asked.
“The Esecselur, out of Hall.” That seemed safe enough—Hall was one of the most remote and least visited islands in the Sorrow chain, and it was—last he’d heard—one of the few under Hanzish rule.
“Ah, explains your accent,” the fellow said. “Well, what do you need?”
“I wondered if you might use another hand, at least until the ship is repaired. I’d work for a place to stay and a coin or two until I can get a berth on something headed home.”
The sailor scratched his head. “Well, the captain did tell the mashipmanna to hire some local help, but I’m sure he’d rather have someone who speaks the godstongue.”
Neil hoped he didn’t flinch at that. He’d spent most of his life fighting people who spoke Hanzish. The fact that they thought their language was the language of the saints was just a reminder of why.
He must have hidden his feelings well, for the sailor then introduced him to the firstshipman, who looked him up and down, asked him the same questions the other fellow had, and then shrugged.
“We’ll give you a try,” he said, “But I’m telling you now you won’t pull a berth with us. The lord whose ship this is is peculiar about who he takes aboard. But if you’re still interested, it’s a schilling a day plus a middle meal, and you can sleep in the tents.”
“That’s fair enough,” Neil said.
“And your name?” the man asked.
“Kniva,” Neil improvised. “Kniva Berigsunu.”
“You ever trim out a mast?”
“Before I was six,” Neil answered.
“Over there, then. If I don’t like your work, you don’t get paid.” Working on the mast was a good place to be—it allowed him to see all who came and went. He didn’t see anyone he recognized, though, and certainly none of the knights or their men-at-arms. That was a good sign, probably—it suggested that they were still looking for Anne and her companions.
It made him feel itchy, working side by side with his enemies, but after a time he relaxed. The other men toiling on the mast seemed to take him for who he said he was, and he managed to get friendly with a couple of them. They were both from Selhastranth, an island off Saltmark, and their language and bad blood aside, Neil’s island boyhood had been much like theirs.
So at the end of the day, as they collected their schillings, he wasn’t surprised when Jan and Vithig asked him along to the tavern.
The curm vale the inn served was bitter and thick, not that different from the ale they brewed on the islands—and Neil knew he ought not have much of it. He’d never been a big drinker, and it had been a long time since he had imbibed more than a little wine.
Jan and Vithig showed no such inhibitions, swaging it down as if it were water. By the time their portions of eel stew arrived, they were well on their way to Saint Leine’s hall.
After a round of bragging about various exploits at sea, Neil leaned forward. “I’ve seen strange things lately,” he said, in a low voice. “Uncanny things. I’ve heard the draugs singing and seen a dead man walk on Ter-na-Fath. My fah says the end of the world is coming.”
Both of their faces scrunched up at that. Jan was a big, ruddy man with a bald crown and dark eyes, while Vithig’s face was so angular, it looked as if he had swallowed an anvil and it had stuck in his head.