“We believed it,” Loren said, grimly.
“You heard me—fools. All right, all right,” he said in answer to Loren’s hard look. “It’s true he made a show of letting people into the city and back out again—the Plainsfolk who trade in the market, a farmer or two who wanted to sell his produce. But now that he has his own supply lines the only choice a farmer gets is to hand over the harvest to the knights or die for it. They did the same thing in Qualinesti. I don’t know what made me think they wouldn’t do it here.”
“Qualinesti didn’t have the trade routes we have, or the trading partners. They traded some, here and there and mostly down in the south where the knights could control it. We have the sea lanes, Havelock, and our captains know every port from here south to Ice Wall, from here north over Nordmaar and down to the Blood Sea.” He sat back and took a drink from his wine goblet. “And, to boot, our traders know most of the caravan routes across the Plains of Dust. They can’t keep us prisoners forever. They’ll have to let the fleet go soon. Let them put a knight at the elbow every captain. Let them replace half the crew from their own rabble. They still have to let the fleet go.”
“Some,” Havelock Gance said very quietly, “some think we should resist.”
Loren’s face looked pale. Usha thought it looked like the skin was suddenly drawn tight over his bones. “The time for that was weeks ago, cousin. The Lord Mayor chose otherwise and hasn’t been heard from about the matter since. And I think he was right. If we’d resisted, we would have lost far more than we already have. We are not warriors. We are merchants.”
“Merchants who bought a lie and wait for passes that will not come.” Gance, who had not agreed with the Lord Mayor, growled something into his wine goblet and looked up to see Usha’s doubtful expression. Eyebrow cocked, he said, “Mistress Usha, it seems you have an opinion.”
“Several,” Usha said, smiling to soften the reply. “But on this matter, I agree with Loren. Solace is a wealthier city than Haven these days.”
Gance bristled, and Usha shook her head gently.
“You know it’s true, but Haven has one thing Solace will never have—a merchant fleet. The fleet is the reason the knights took Haven first when they came for the Free Realms. But I agree with you, sir, that Sir Radulf isn’t going to be issuing passes.” Her heart dropped a little as a long held hope leeched away. “He won’t take a chance of letting any of the wealth out of this city. And you know people would bolt with their jewels and silver as soon as they could.”
“Some,” said Loren grimly, “have already decided to do that, and they’re not taking more than the clothes on their backs.”
“That, I think, is the danger the knights most fear,” Usha said. “However unfounded the idea, they don’t want to take the chance that the refugees who leave will return with a liberating army.” Thinking of Dez, of Aline and Qui’thonas, she said, “It will only get harder from here.”
None of the three spoke of the second executions, the five men and three women found hanged on crude gallows erected in the middle of the night at one of the major crossroads, well within the city walls. They’d born a painted placard with the same message as the first: Swift Judgment. Swift Justice. Beneath a sigil shaped like a sword was neatly printed the one, stark detail of their crimes: they had been caught trying to leave the city. Like the first, news of this execution was a horror that ran through the city on wings, then vanished away from public talk almost as quickly. As though, Usha thought, people couldn’t bear to admit too much darkness into their lives for very long.
Conversation drifted away from grim realities. As the day grew cooler and the sky deeper, there had been a rowdiness of boys, and as Lorelia kept mentioning by way of apology for her reduced staff, “a defection of servants throughout the quarter.” They did not indenture servants in Haven. None were vassals of a manor. They were free folk, and many servants did not think it satisfactory to accept meal and bed for compensation until things returned to normal in Haven. There were other jobs to be had, ones that paid at the end of the day. One of the defectors was the tutor of the Gance sons, who’d claimed she was not too proud to find work in a tavern where at least she’d be paid something as server and cook.
There had been all of that, and there had been, since Usha first arrived at Lorelia’s home, a pull and a tug she could not ignore. Loren Halgard had his eye on her more often than on whatever person he was speaking with. When he asked to escort her into the house, Usha put her hand on his arm and allowed it. It was a pleasant sensation, a man’s arm under her hand again. His skin was brown and warm, and when he leaned close to whisper his congratulations on finishing the portrait, Usha smelled the river breeze on him, fresh and cool.
“My dear!” Lorelia Gance fluttered between the painting and the artist. “It’s wonderful! Have you named it?”
All eyes turned to Usha, waiting to learn the answer in various attitudes of interest—politeness, and in the case of Tamara, barely concealed boredom.
“I call it ‘Pride and Promise.’ ”
Lorelia beamed, her husband Havelock made a comfortable sound of approval.
“Pride and Promise.” It sat in a broad oak frame, for the moment resting upon a stout easel until it could be lifted and mounted above the hearth. There, it would become the focus of all who entered. Pleased, Usha admitted the painting showed well. However, she kept private her puzzlement that no one but she seemed to see the faint image of a Solamnic knight standing behind the gangly boy of the portrait. Puzzlement and, she had to admit, a certain amount of relief. She did not doubt her work. She had perfect faith that the magic in her muse would reveal its purpose when that became necessary. Sometimes, though, she wished she could know what the magic was thinking when it chose to express itself.
Usha glanced uneasily at Tamara who peered at the canvas as though looking for faults. If she found any, the image of a Solamnic knight hovering ghostly on the canvas was not one. If she’d seen it, Usha wondered, studying the girl as keenly as Tamara had studied the painting, would she have gone to Sir Radulf with the news?
Tamara moved away. Thelan and his brother, Kalend the knight-to-be, stood restlessly before the portrait of themselves, already bored by the company of their elders. Kalend elbowed his brother, and Thelan poked him hard between the ribs. Their father clamped a hand on each boy’s shoulder.
Tamara returned to the easel, peering even more closely. Watching her while appearing not to, Usha held her breath. She let it go softly when the girl murmured, “I don’t think Kalend’s eyes are quite that far apart.”
Loren, standing beside Havelock, quietly cleared his throat. Tamara lifted her head as though to defy something implicit in the sound, then she sighed.
“But the colors are quite lovely,” she said, not to Usha but to Lorelia.
“And you, Loren,” his cousin said. “You’ve not spoken a word about the portrait. Are these not the exact images of my boys?”
Gravely, Loren agreed that the painting might well be a mirror for the two boys to stand before. He inclined his head in a small bow to Usha. “And I’m delighted that Tamara is improving her understanding of how colors work to make a pleasing whole.”
His guests tended, his own cup full again, Havelock Gance toasted the portrait by pledging the health of both artist and subjects.