“She needs work,” Sasha retorted. “So do you. Girls in this city don't have access to male umans, and they're usually the ones who can fight. And, what a surprise, I find girls aren't made to feel welcome in the courtyards, either. No wonder they fall behind the boys when fools like you try to break their arms whenever they try to learn!”
“Bah!” said Liam, with a dismissive wave. “You make excuses like all the others.”
“You truly think women can't fight the svaalverd?” Sasha asked dangerously.
“Sure! Serrin can! And you can, you're a wild, crazy highlander, they fed you raw sheep's bladders in the crib and you grew up strangling wild wolves with your bare hands!” There was laughter from watching men. Many had stopped their sparring to observe the confrontation. “But it's not our culture! And you, you should know better than to come into Petrodor from your mountain kingdom and try to turn all our women into wild amazons like yourself-”
“Ha, you're just scared of women.” She could see Uman Torshai circling behind to her left, tapping his stanch with one hand, appearing to watch the argument.
“Scared of women!” Liam thought that hysterical. “Truly, do I look scared?”
“Most of you Verenthanes are scared of women. Your entire world revolves around controlling women: make them marry, make them cook, make them make babies until they burst…”
“You're crazy!” Liam retorted.
“And all sin comes from women,” Sasha continued, “and all lust, and adultery's always a woman's fault, and husbands’ tempers…all your faults! All your faults, but don't take responsibility, oh no! Just blame your mother, your wife, your daughter. You're just a spoiled little brat who never had his ears boxed and thinks the stars all circle his arse. You couldn't take responsibility for your own fart. And you can't let your women do what they want, because then who'll you have to blame all your failures on?”
It was too much. Liam levelled his stanch at her, his face flushed red. “You watch your mouth.”
Sasha snorted. She'd been putting up with this for weeks now, and she was finally sick of it. “Did your mama not raise you properly, or do you just have a really small cock?”
Uman Torshai's stanch whistled at her knees from behind, to Sasha's little surprise. She swivelled, deflecting, and smacked Torshai viciously hard across the banda. The older man staggered and fell.
“Hey!” Liam yelled in fury and swung at her. Sasha performed a simple deflection, which flowed into a sidestep and strike, hitting him across the shoulder. Another attacker aimed angrily for her head and Sasha overbalanced him with an angled parry, twisted for maximum power through the same motion of feet-through-shoulders, with a crack that sent him flying.
Torshai came back to his feet and at her, but his timing was off and predictable with anger. Sasha crushed it, sending his stanch flying and neighbours ducking for cover, then took an arm with a downward strike. Liam stood bewildered, wondering what to do. Sasha jabbed, dancing forward. Provoked the awkward parry, and disarmed him with a flick to the wrist, then stabbed hard to the midriff with her full weight of momentum behind it. Liam fell hard on his backside, clutching his wrist and stomach.
About her, all was silent. Men stared. Torshai was on his knees, holding his forearm and grimacing. The third man was half sitting some distance away, feeling his ribs. Little Yulia stood wide-eyed and aghast. Sasha held her final pose, stanch poised, and glared at them all.
“I am the uma of Kessligh Cronenverdt!” she announced, in case there was any doubt. “I am not just his plaything, whatever some may say! You call yourself Nasi-Keth, and enlightened, but I see nothing but superstition and prejudice here! If I find one amongst you who is even half my standard with a blade, I'll let you know!”
She turned to leave, tugging the straps of her banda…and found Errollyn, leaning against a post regarding her.
“Oh, very subtle,” he said in Lenay, apparently very amused. “Kessligh shall be pleased.”
From the end of the longest pier on the fishermen's dock, Sasha could see all along North Pier, where the big ships moored and cargo moved from their holds to the warehouses and back. In the other direction, Sharptooth jutted into the water, blocking all view of Angel Bay-the southernmost half of Petrodor Harbour-save for Alaster Promontory, further beyond.
“Randel Ragini was one of Rhillian's?” Sasha asked Errollyn incredulously.
Errollyn nodded. He sat with his back to the pier's corner post, facing away from the ocean's glare. Partly, Sasha thought, so that he could keep an eye on the docks, and partly because a serrin's sensitive eyes were no friends of the bright sun. He carried no bow today-it would have been too conspicuous in the daytime.
“They're not all bad, the families,” he said tiredly. He looked dishevelled, dark grey hair falling haphazardly about his face. Sasha wondered how much sleep he'd had. “Randel Ragini had a taste for serrin things. Probably if he were poor, he'd have become a Nasi-Keth. But, being wealthy, he confined himself to trading curious artworks.”
“Patachi Steiner killed him for that?”
Errollyn shook his head. “No. Rhillian offered him things. Probably the patachi found out. I don't know how…I only just found out.”
“Offered him things?” Sasha squinted at him. There were men clambering on nearby boats, preparing to set sail. They were barely within earshot and unlikely to know Saalsi even if they heard. A swell rose beneath the pier as mooring ropes creaked and groaned. Wooden hulls clunked. “What things?”
“I wouldn't tell you if I knew,” Errollyn said with a faint smile. “I'm in enough trouble with Rhillian as it stands. If she finds out we talked, anyhow.”
“Things.” Sasha gazed past Errollyn to the North Pier. Heavy loads dangled in webbing from rope pulleys. Men and mules pulled carts loaded with more freight. Trade from Saalshen. Trade from Ameryn. Trade from the Bacosh, the Lisan Empire and far distant Xaldia. Trade made power. Trade made Petrodor, and the families. No move was made in Petrodor, and no blood was spilt, without it. “Rhillian offered Ragini good terms of trade with Saalshen,” Sasha ventured. “Didn't she?”
Errollyn shrugged. “It's possible.”
“But good terms to do what? Side with Saalshen against Patachi Steiner? It would be suicide. Surely Randel Ragini did not love Saalshen so much?”
“You're asking the wrong man,” said Errollyn. “Rhillian is my friend but, on some things, she trusts me little.”
“Well you're here talking to me,” Sasha observed, “so I suppose that's logical.”
Errollyn smiled, and gazed away at North Pier. “We didn't know what it would do, you know.”
“I'm sorry?”
“Trade,” he said. “Two hundred years ago, Saalshen left humans alone. We thought it unwise to interfere. Then King Leyvaan invaded and we realised we had no choice.
“And so we began trading. Petrodor seemed a good place to start-only a sleepy village back then, but well positioned on the mouth of the Sarna River with access to inland Torovan and Lenayin beyond. Saalshen knew many skills and crafts that humans did not. Our medicines were in great demand, and our steel even more so. For a while, Saalshen was influential. There was so much wealth in the trade, and every human was desperate to please us lest we stop the supply. The great serrin thinkers who led the push for trade with humans were commended. This way, it was reasoned, we could control humans without having to resort to human concepts of empire and conquest. Empire and conquest sits with us very ill. Even today, much of Saalshen remains vastly uncomfortable with our role in the Saalshen Bacosh. Despite all the good we've done, still many wonder if we did the right thing in occupying those lands and changing them as we did.