I wondered how he made a living, if this was his idea of negotiation. Sadly, he was essentially correct. “Where could you take me?” I demanded, no smile to answer his as yet.
“Close enough to the mainland for you to get a passage with a Caladhrian port, to Attar or Claithe, choose how you will.”
I considered this. The most northerly Aldabreshi Warlord had pushed the Caladhrians out of the coastal islands nearly a generation previously and, from all I’d heard, reasonably peaceful trade had resumed a handful or so years ago. Attar or Claithe were entirely the wrong end of the Gulf of Lescar, as far as I was concerned, but did I really want to try and cross the width of the Archipelago in this haphazard fashion and then hunt around for one of the few ships that risked the perilous, if profitable crossing to Zyoutessela, beating against the winds and currents that coiled around the Cape? If I reached Caladhria it would be a long way home, especially now the fighting season in Lescar would be in full bloody flow. Still, I would at least be able to send a letter to Messire via the Despatch and there was always the chance of a direct passage across the Gulf from Relshaz to Toremal. I remembered the haul of gems I had found at the bottom of my kit bag, a parting gift from Laio. I could buy my own cursed galley if only I wanted to, if I could only get back to somewhere civilized.
I looked at the little man and wondered what his idea of me paying handsomely might be. “What’s your name?” I asked, relaxing my stance a little.
“Dev,” he held out his hand palm up, an unmistakably Lescari gesture, that being a country where proving you’ve not got a dagger up your sleeve is reckoned a courtesy.
I shook his hand. “Glad to meet you, Dev. I’m Ryshad.” I looked around the beach, thronged with people and goods as the little skiffs ferried cargo and passengers to and from the waiting galleys. The scent of cooking came from little fires and braziers set up at intervals along the tree line and my stomach rumbled.
“I’m also hungry, that bastard of a captain insisted on putting me ashore before the crew ate.” That had happened to me all too often on this uncomfortable trip, and, with no one in this benighted society understanding the notion of simply paying for a service, I had had no way of purchasing a meal, no matter how much food was being prepared around me, the wealth in my bag a taunting irrelevance.
“Come on then, you can eat with me.” Dev led the way to a shelter woven of tree fronds where a fat woman was deftly pouring batter on a sizzling skillet, folding the resulting pancakes around a spoonful of whatever mixture was requested from a row of pots bubbling on the rim of her broad brazier.
“Which is least spiced?” I asked Dev cautiously, watching as he asked for a helping of meat laced with what I now knew to be scorching red pods. Wherever he’d come from, he’d obviously been in and around the Archipelago long enough to have his tongue tanned like old leather.
“The fish, I’d say.” Dev laughed, not unkindly. He told the woman the name of his ship and she nodded with satisfaction as she noted the pennants at the masthead.
“So what’s an amigal?” I asked, biting cautiously into my meal and finding it reasonably edible to my relief, though I still couldn’t understand why the Aldabreshi couldn’t just eat fish plain.
“It’s a bird of the islands,” replied Dev, mouth full as he ate in rapid bites. “Spends half the year heading south and the rest of the time coming back again, daft creature.”
“Is that what you do?”
“Pretty much, though I don’t go much beyond the domain of Neku Riss.” Dev swallowed his last mouthful and signalled to the woman for another pancake. “So, how did you end up solving Shek Kul’s oldest problem for him then?”
That raised heads all around us, people recognizing the name and enough having sufficient Tormalin to get the gist of Dev’s enquiry. Leaves on the ground rustled as those closest edged away, a reaction I was also well used to by now. I started to give him a concise account of events, thinking it would be no bad thing to spread as much suspicion and fear of the Elietimm throughout the Archipelago as I could. As I mentioned Kaeska for the first time, Dev laid a hand on my wrist.
“Wipe the taint from your lips when you mention that name,” he warned me in an undertone, “and never call her Kaeska Shek; she has no link to any domain now.”
I nodded and complied, wondering angrily how much additional offense and suspicion had gathered around me on my journey so far simply because I hadn’t known any of this. That made up my mind for me; whatever Dev wanted by way of payment, if I had it, it was his. I wanted to be free of these unholy islands and their merciless people as soon as I could.
“So how did you end up in a Relshazri slave auction any-way?” inquired Dev, eyes keen as I finished my tale.
“I was in Relshaz on business for my patron,” I replied with a shrug of bemusement. “I was set upon, street robbers I suppose they must have been. One of them managed to fell me from behind and I woke up in the lock-up, witnesses all swearing to Saedrin that I’d robbed some poxed merchant I’d never even seen. The greedy bastards can’t have been satisfied with what I had in my purse and thought they’d see what my hide would fetch.”
“I wouldn’t have thought a sworn man would get caught like that,” Dev shook his head with a chuckle.
“You’re not the only one.” I had no difficulty feigning disgust with myself. “The patron might be prepared to overlook it but the rest of the barracks will be reminding me about it till I’m old and gray.”
“Come on.” Dev got to his feet and we headed for a little boat drawn up on the shore, a lad leaning on its single oar, rammed into the sand to hold it fast. Dev turned to me and shoved his hands through the frayed length of rope that was serving him for a belt.
“What are you offering for your passage then, Tormalin man?” he asked, head cocked to one side.
“What are you asking?” I countered.
“What about that little bauble?” His eyes fixed greedily on the gold and emerald token that Shek Kul had given me, prominently displayed on my chest as I had soon discovered was only prudent if I wanted to keep my hide intact.
I scowled and hissed sharply through my teeth. “This is my only safeguard as long as I’m in the islands,” I protested. “My life’s not worth a spent candle without it.”
“You’ll be safe enough with me,” insisted Dev, his eyes not wavering from the gleaming gemstone.
“How about I give it to you once I’m safely ashore or aboard a Caladhrian ship?” I offered reluctantly after a lengthy pause.
Dev grimaced as he considered this. “Your word on it?” he demanded eventually.
“My word on it, Dastennin drown me if I break it,” I confirmed. “And if Dastennin doesn’t work his vengeance on me, my patron is Messire D’Olbriot. You know of him, don’t you? I’m hardly going to risk playing you false and having to answer to him, am I?”
Dev’s expression cleared. “True enough. Come on then.”
I was glad that we were both satisfied; Dev that he would get what he assumed was my only possession of value, myself that I had not had to reveal the existence of the random trawl through her jewel cases that Laio had rolled inside an old tunic when she’d been packing my kit-bag for me. We reached Dev’s ship and I followed him over the rail, looking around in vain for any other crew.
Dev laughed. “It’s just you and me, Tormalin man. My partner got himself knifed in a fight a while back. You’ll be working your passage home; you must know your way around a boat if you’re from Zyoutessela.”
“Doesn’t that mean you should be paying me?” I protested with a half-smile.
“The deal’s done now, no going back on it.”