The activity in the plaza was winding down for the evening; market stalls being wheeled away; wares being loaded back onto abada carts; customers drifting down the side streets. A few desperate merchants continued to hawk their perishable wares, offering fruits and vegetables at prices so ridiculous it couldn't be true, if their patter was to be believed.
The ailurs were lively enough to mount by the time the pair had crossed the plaza. There were more stone buildings further from the river; homes of the wealthiest merchants and offices of the governor's small army of sychophants and moneylenders. Only the ground storeys were of stone, the upper levels made of the same pale wood as the warehouses. The buildings had high, narrow windows covered with colourful awnings, and stepped porches up to their slender doors. Here and there a servant or maid swept dust onto the cobbled streets, while workmen laboured on tiled roofs or repainted the stones with thick coats of white. Of the owners, there was no sign.
Slightly apart from them was the three-tiered precinct of the Brotherhood. Atop the precinct a huge golden disc depicting Askhos's face glared down at passers-by, flanked by two limply hanging flags. None of the bureaucrat-priests could be seen, though Ullsaard had no doubt that his arrival and progress would be noted from within the narrow windows.
The cobbled road gave way to a packed dirt track a short way from the plaza, and the houses were again made solely of wood, roofed with grasses and leaves. They had no windows and smoke drifted lazily from chimney-holes. Children ran through the narrow alleys between the commoners' huts, chasing goats and chickens, shrieking and giggling. Knots of women sat in scattered groups grinding flour, kneading dough, scraping roots and sorting through baskets of vegetables and fruit bought at the market or foraged from the hills around the harbour town.
They seemed happy enough to Ullsaard, chattering away in their odd, guttural Okharan dialect. Just like the fishermen, he thought, content with what they have. No dreams, no grand desires. Perhaps is it better to have low expectations fulfilled than loftier goals thwarted.
Now and then one of the women would see the pair riding past and look up with broad, broken-toothed smiles. A few waved. Ullsaard hesitantly waved back, while Noran ignored them.
"What are you doing?" Noran asked.
"Saying hello," replied Ullsaard.
"Why?"
The question caused Ullsaard to pause. He glanced at the women and looked at Noran.
"Why not?"
"You shouldn't encourage them. They'll become over-familiar. First it's a wave and a smile. Next time, you stop and ask how they are, what they're doing, if the harvest has been good or if their man has come back from his voyage upriver. The next thing you know, there's a bunch of them at your villa asking you to represent their complaints to the governor…"
"Speaking from experience?"
Noran nodded sourly.
"Not here, but up in Parmia. I spent a summer on my farms around there and thought it would be good to get to know a few of the locals living on my land. They wouldn't go away until I'd promised to speak to Adral about drainage ditches being blocked on Crown land, drowning their crops."
"What did Adral have to say about that? Did you get the problem sorted out?"
"Never mentioned it to him. Would have been a bit churlish, considering I was trying to negotiate for that land at the time."
"You said you promised your tenants…"
"It's not a real promise though, is it? Not like I'd promised you something, or my father, or a prince."
Ullsaard grunted with disappointment and shook his head.
"And what do your tenants think of you now?"
"No different, I guess. They don't know I didn't say anything to Adral. For all they care, he heard their case and then told me to piss off; which is what he probably would have done if I had spoken to him. Anyway, all got sorted. I bought the land from him and those whingers ended up clearing it themselves. Problem solved. For all I know, they're eternally grateful to me for buying the land and resolving the situation." "So you haven't been back since?"
"Yes, a couple of times. But, like I say, I don't talk to underlings any more, it just causes trouble."
The path forked ahead, the right-hand trail leading up towards the hills that heaped upon each other until they stopped abruptly at the coast of the Nemurian Strait. The other fork continued ahead, with rutted branches leading off to the farm buildings dotted about the fields and pastures. Goats were everywhere, freely wandering the heathery slopes, the young boys responsible for them following their charges aimlessly dragging their long switches along the ground.
"There it is!" declared Noran. He pointed to the right, at a low white building on a hotward-facing slope half-hidden amongst the vine terraces. The pair split from the main road onto a narrower path that wound up the hill through half a dozen switchbacks, until they came to a walled courtyard. The wooden gates were open, a handful of Noran's servants waiting for them just inside.
"You can see down to the bottom from the kitchens," explained Noran, nodding towards a long, narrow wing of the villa that ran along the outer wall to the right. "Gives them plenty of warning when someone is coming."
Ullsaard looked around and nodded appreciatively.
"Pretty defensible position. Not bad." Ullsaard swung off Blackfang and a young stableman trotted across the courtyard, head bowed, and took the chain from him. Noran laughed as he dismounted and handed Thunderbolt's reins to a waiting attendant.
"Doesn't count for much these days, nobody's wanted to attack the Astaans for at least three generations. But yes, you're right. This place started out as a marching fort when my greatgrandfather Asoniu was a general subjugating the Okharans. He didn't bother pulling it down when they capitulated and instead it grew into this lovely place."
The whole front of the villa was open, a semicircle of ten pillars holding up the front of a domed stone roof in the shade of which lay storerooms and stabling on one side and reception chambers on the other. Noran led Ullsaard between them into a grassed garden, also circular, in the middle of which there was a square pool. Colourful waterfowl floated casually on the pond, bobbing their heads to feed on fronds of weed just below the surface. Wooden benches surrounded the pool and white gravel paths cut across the lawn to the three main parts of the villa.
"Dining and entertaining over there," said Noran, pointing to the right-hand stretch of the arcing building. "Next to the kitchens, obviously. On the left are the bedrooms and lounges. I suggest we head to the baths, get rid of this travel-dust."
"I live in the king's palaces and I don't have my own baths!" complained Ullsaard. "How do you get your own all the way out here?"
"I told you, this used to be a marching fort… My great-grandfather was a clever fellow, built the whole villa around the baths the legionnaires dug! Actually, they aren't as good as the real thing, wood-heated you see; the Brotherhood refuses to sell us lava."
"It's a pain in the arse to transport, anyway," said Ullsaard. "Well, not just a pain in the arse; it's dangerous stuff. You'd be better off having one of the Brotherhood on hand to keep an eye on it, and I'm sure you would love that."
Noran's lip wrinkled in distaste at the suggestion. Servants waited to take their clothes as they entered the steam-filled bathrooms. There were only two baths, in fact; one cold, one warm. Despite Noran's modesty it was a rare civility to find in a private house outside Askh. Ullsaard lowered himself into the water with a groan of pleasure. He splashed around for a while before he noticed Noran had not joined him.
"Better than washing in river water, eh?" he said.
There was no reply and he turned to see that Noran had left. A blank-faced functionary stood by the door, holding a fresh robe for Ullsaard.