He knew Kendrik’s type from his gambling days; the man was obviously convinced that he was smarter than anybody else and only needed the right opportunity to make himself rich, famous, and powerful. Semma certainly didn’t provide many such opportunities, Sterren had to admit, but he suspected that Kendrik wouldn’t find them in Ethshar, either, because he wasn’t anywhere near as clever as he thought he was.
People like Kendrik had been among the most generous suppliers of Sterren’s funds before his abrupt departure from Ethshar’s taverns, but they were also bad losers and very likely to accuse him of cheating. Sterren didn’t like Kendrik any better than he had liked those old opponents.
Alar appeared to have volunteered just because somebody asked him. He was easygoing, not too bright, and highly suggestible. Sterren suspected that he had wound up a soldier at somebody else’s suggestion, and that he might well desert along with one of the others because he wouldn’t see any reason not to, until it was too late.
Sterren might have suggested it to Alar himself, if Alder and Dogal hadn’t been present. Once they were ashore he might well make a few suggestive comments in Alar’s hearing. For now, though, he was keeping Alar close at hand. He didn’t really like the poor fool, but such people could be useful to have around, they could be talked into doing all the unpleasant tasks one inevitably encountered.
Zander had joined the army to get away from a boring life as a peasant farmer. He had volunteered for this trip to get away from a boring life as a soldier in Semma Castle. Ethshar, whatever its flaws, certainly wouldn’t look boring to him, and he could easily decide against returning to his boring old homeland.
Sterren thought Zander was pretty boring, himself.
Bern was a mystery; he had said nothing beyond the necessary minimum for politeness ever since he answered the call for volunteers. Sterren had absolutely no idea what to expect from Bern, desertion, loyalty, insanity, anything might be possible.
Alder and Dogal, of course, had not volunteered. Alder might have, given a choice, but Dogal was clearly fed up with travel after his previous journey and would greatly have preferred to have stayed home, where he had a friendly understanding with one of the cook’s more attractive female assistants, and where he didn’t have to worry about seasickness or foreign languages and customs.
Alder was a bit more adventurous and seemed genuinely, if inexplicably, fond of Sterren. Sterren suspected it might be an emotion similar to what one might feel toward a stray puppy one had taken in; after all, Alder had found Sterren, taught him Semmat, and helped him settle into his job as warlord.
Lady Kalira would never have volunteered; on her previous journey she had discovered, to her surprise, that she hated travel and hated Ethshar. Neither one fit her romantic preconceptions; the stories never mentioned seasickness, rude sailors, smelly crowds, and all the other inconveniences she had encountered. Furthermore, she thought the whole idea of using magic to fight a war was revolting. She did, however, have a powerful sense of duty, which accounted for her cooperation, such as it was. The king had sent her, and she did as her sovereign ordered.
She had surely heard the call from the lookout when the city came into view, but she was ignoring it, staying in her cabin below.
To some extent, Sterren thought he could sympathize with her, but at the sight of the city spreading across the World before him, with its smell in his nostrils, he found his eyes filling with tears and felt a swelling in his chest as if he were about to burst.
He swallowed and, to distract himself, he called to a sailor who was hanging from the forestay, “Hey, there! Where will we tie up?” The sailor glanced at him, but shook his head.
Sterren realized he had spoken in Semmat, since Alder and Dogal had been speaking it.
“Where will we tie up?” he called in Ethsharitic.
“The Tea Wharves,” the sailor called back, “near the New Canal!”
Sterren was unsure exactly where the Tea Wharves were, but he knew the New Canal, which, despite its name, was about four hundred years old; it was new only in comparison to the Grand Canal, which was no longer particularly grand, but had been there for centuries before the New Canal was dug.
The New Canal divided Spicetown from Shiphaven, in the northwest corner of the city. The Wizards’ Quarter was near the southeastern corner. Sterren’s party would need to do some walking, it appeared.
That was no problem; it might provide more opportunities to escape from his escort. If there was a crowd at the Arena, for example, he could easily become separated “accidentally.” The Arena was directly on the way, too; Arena Street was certainly the best route to the Wizards’ Quarter from either Shiphaven or Spicetown.
That assumed that he actually wanted to slip away. After a month of debating that with himself, he still hadn’t really decided.
It would seem an easy enough decision to make, really, life as a fugitive in his homeland, or near-certain death in a nasty little kingdom in the middle of nowhere, but whenever he thought he had settled on escape he kept finding himself reconsidering, thinking of what might happen to the people he had come to know in Semma. Would Princess Lura wind up starving somewhere? Might Nissitha and Shirrin be raped by their victorious enemies? Would Alder and Dogal and all the soldiers he had diced with get themselves killed in a futile defense?
None of this, he told himself, really ought to be any responsibility of his, he hadn’t volunteered to be warlord.
Still, he was the warlord, like it or not, and abandoning Semma to its fate seemed wrong.
Of course, not abandoning Semma might get him killed, and that seemed even worse.
Perhaps, he thought with sudden inspiration, he could hire his magicians, then disappear into the city streets. Semma could still win its stupid war, but he would be free and home. True, he would be guilty of treason under Semman law, but surely nobody would go to all that much trouble looking for him under those circumstances. The Semman nobility would have no very strong reason to hold a grudge against him, if he won their war for them, whether he was present at the time or not.
And if his magicians didn’t win, and given his estimate of the purchasing power of his available funds, that seemed likely, at least he would have made an honest effort and would be no worse off than if he had deserted before recruiting anybody.
He would have tried, and if the Semman princesses were still raped or murdered, if the Semman army was still slaughtered, he would have done the best he could.
He liked that approach. He would carry through on his promise, hire the best magicians he could, and then, if the opportunity arose, he would escape on the way back to the ship.
That shouldn’t be too difficult, he thought. He smiled and blinked away the tears of homesickness.
He would hire magicians, but how did one go about hiring magicians for something like this?
His smile vanished again as he realized that he had no idea at all.
To buy a love spell or a curse, to cure warts or foresee the future, he knew exactly what to do. He would take his money to the Wizards’ Quarter and pick a likely magician by reading the signboards.
None of the signboards had ever advertised “Wars won,” though. How would he know which magicians to approach? Trial and error would not work; there were hundreds of magicians in the Wizards’ Quarter, and asking each one in turn would take years. Most of them surely wouldn’t be interested.