Kalyxis watched me for long moments, with the sort of interest a hunting bird would pay some speck on the horizon that might or might not be prey. When she spoke, her tone was imperious, and almost devoid of any northern accent. “Who are you and what are you doing in Shoan?”
“My name’s Easie Damasco, the giant there is Saltlick and… wait… this is Shoan?”
I’d heard the name in reference to Moaradrid — “Moaradrid of Shoan” — and assumed it must be his home town. I’d imagined a few filthy tents and half a dozen horses, in so much as I’d considered it at all. Moaradrid had been impressive enough, it was true, but I’d taken that as a rarity achieved only by dint of much effort and pillaging. Yet what I was seeing here wasn’t so far from my idea of civilisation; rough and ready, no doubt, erring towards the savage in its decor, but for all that not so basically different from the average Castovalian town.
Kalyxis extended an arm in a sweeping gesture, fingers caressing the distant landscape as though it were the hide of some great and half-tamed beast. “All this… all of this is Shoan. The free lands of the north.”
In fairness, I thought, you could hardly expect anyone to pay for them — and the thought made it dangerously close to my tongue. Instead, I said, “You’ll have to excuse my ignorance. I don’t get up this way very often. Or, now that I think about it, ever.”
“Which, I believe,” said Kalyxis, “brings us back to my question. Though with time and much of my patience wasted.”
“Ah.” I struggled to marshal my thoughts into something like working order. “Well, you got our message, of course? I mean Castilio Mounteban’s message.”
Kalyxis’s eyes narrowed. “That? An obvious trick… though the messenger would not be persuaded to admit as much.” Her gaze unfocused for the smallest moment, and I tried not to wonder what qualified for persuasion here in Shoan. “Even if it weren’t,” she continued, “it’s hard to credit that this Mounteban would send two such as you: a skinny wretch and a monster. More likely you’re spies, or else a pair of swindlers. We will need time to deliberate.”
Biting my tongue once more, this time against the urge to point out that at least one of us wasn’t a swindler, I said, “Well, there’s the thing. We could really do with your help sooner rather than later. At this very moment, King Panchessa is marching his armies on the Castoval. As it happens, though, that’s actually our least urgent worry right now. The reason we’re a few envoys short of a delegation is that we were shipwrecked further down the coast… and the rest of our party are in trouble with some very dangerous people… so, what I was hoping, is-”
“Chain them up,” said Kalyxis, to no one in particular. “We will consider.”
I wondered if I dared argue — and, given what was at stake, if I dared not to. Yet just as I’d decided that, for once, nothing I said could make matters significantly worse, I realised Kalyxis’s gaze had left me and fixed on Saltlick.
“First,” she said, “tell me, what is that?”
I assumed at first that she meant Saltlick, and it took me a moment to realise she was pointing not at him but at the crown around his neck. I’d grown so used to seeing it there, to its fresh function as the giant badge of leadership, that I hardly noticed it anymore. Now, however, with Kalyxis’s finger beginning a line that ended in that circle of glittering metal, I found my blood had suddenly turned cold.
“That…?”
I could lie. I was good at lying.
Only, nothing would come. A dozen untruths flitted through my mind, each more absurd than the last. But there was no getting past the fact that she was pointing at a crown, and there were only two crowns of note that I knew of. Since this wasn’t Panchessa’s, it stood to obvious reason that it was the crown of the princedom of Altapasaeda.
Perhaps it was fortunate that Kalyxis’s patience ran out then — though it hardly felt it. “The crown of Altapasaeda,” she said. “If nothing else, this Castilio Mounteban keeps his promises.”
I froze.
How could Mounteban have promised her the crown? He couldn’t have known where it was, not when he’d written all those days ago. Maybe he’d meant it metaphorically, then, or else intended some scam, for if he believed the true crown lost it would have been easy enough to craft a fake. What better present to offer a woman with delusions of royalty?
Then, of course, Mounteban had seen the opportunity to deliver the real crown into Kalyxis’s hands — and he’d manoeuvred us accordingly. I’d been played; betrayed yet again by Castilio Mounteban. Even two countries away, he was still pulling my strings.
“The thing is…” I started, for no other reason than that my mouth felt like it should be doing something.
Kalyxis, ignoring me, merely pointed.
One of her men moved forward. “On your knees,” he told Saltlick.
Saltlick looked at me questioningly. I gave him the slightest nod; we had nothing to bargain with, nothing to offer or threaten. He crumpled to his haunches and bent forward. The Shoanan didn’t even have the decency to appear nervous as he reached, cut the crown loose with a swift stroke and caught it in his free hand. Without once glancing up, he crossed to Kalyxis and held it to her.
Kalyxis took the crown, turned it thoughtfully in her hands. When she looked up, her eyes on me were merciless as any hawk’s; if there’d ever been any doubt as to whether I was prey, it had vanished.
“Good,” she said, “now chain those two up. We’ve much to think upon this night.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Like many a ruler before her, Kalyxis wasn’t one to think through the finer points of her orders.
Thus it was that the actual logistics of chaining up a giant without said giant’s permission were left to a hastily gathered contingent made up from a dozen of the more savage-looking Shoanish warriors. For all their conspicuous muscle and their scars and their clothing made of animals they’d likely killed with their own bare hands, it was obviously a function that nothing in their previous experience had prepared them for.
Had time not been a factor, it would have entertaining enough to watch. The Shoanish brought long spears and circled around Saltlick, regardless of the fact that he’d moved not a finger against them and had followed all their orders with his usual polite good nature. That done, much pointing and unnecessary threatening conveyed us as far as a large tent on the west of town, close to the harbour.
Inside, I saw that six large metal rings protruded from the ground, presumably secured to posts beneath the dirt. Two chains ran from each, to end in leather straps. The moment we entered I was forced to my knees, and my wrists and ankles efficiently strapped behind my back.
Securing dashing thieves was one thing, though; doing the same to giants quite another. There was much muttering back and forth, as if they imagined Saltlick hadn’t yet worked out their intentions. However, with every man only able to communicate with his neighbours without breaking the circle, it was impossible for any real discussion to take place. No one seemed to be in charge, and as each minute passed without any sign of unanimity, so tensions in the enclosed space rose like the heat before a summer storm.
With as much reason as anyone to desire a swift outcome and my extremities already growing numb, I was ready to cheer when one particularly rough and ugly Shoanan finally broke ranks. My gratitude evaporated quickly when he paced to me, drew a knife from his belt and put the curved blade to my throat.
“Do you hear me, monster?” he barked at Saltlick. “Twitch a hair on your head and I’ll show you what the inside of your friend’s throat looks like.”