Kara raised an eyebrow. “Why thank you, Master Alderheart.”
Geran rolled his eyes. Hamil had never met a handsome woman he didn’t try to charm, regardless of race or station. It was simply Hamil’s nature. Geran had even known Hamil to court human women before, although the halfling preferred ladies not much more than five feet or so in height; Kara was really a little too tall for him. The swordmage cleared his throat and said, “Kara, I heard you were checking up on the border posts when we arrived. Is everything well?”
Kara shrugged. “It’s been surprisingly quiet. I spent three days prowling around the watchtowers, and I didn’t see or hear anything. Usually the tribes send out their scouts and hunters as soon as the snows melt. In any event, until the harmach names a new captain for the Shieldsworn, I’m standing in, so I wanted to take a good look for myself.”
“I’ve been doing some of that too over the last couple days. The town isn’t what I remember.”
“A lot’s changed in the last few years.” Kara started to say more but thought better of it. Instead, she asked, “So what are you doing today?”
“I’m going to drive out to Keldon Head and visit Jarad’s grave. I should’ve done it yesterday.”
Kara gave him a small nod. “I’ll ride with you, if you like. I can show you where it is.”
“I’ll be glad for your company,” Geran told her. He quickly finished his breakfast and said his goodbyes to Natali and Kirr. Then he, Hamil, and Kara threw on cloaks and headed down to the stable.
They harnessed a pair of horses to an old two-wheeled buggy they found in the musty carriage house. Hamil scrambled onto the quarter-bench behind Geran and Kara, since it would have been a tight fit with all three of them in the single full seat. Kara took the reins and drove out under Griffonwatch’s gates into the bright morning. It was another cold and cloudless day, with a brisk westerly breeze raising whitecaps on the Moonsea. The clip-clop of hooves on stone and jingle of the harness preceded them as they rode down the causeway winding around Griffonwatch’s crag.
Geran watched the town clatter past as Kara followed the same route he’d taken the previous day. The town seemed just as full as before. “What are all these people doing here?” he wondered aloud. “Is there a gold strike I haven’t heard about? A war somewhere that people are fleeing from? It must be something.”
Kara glanced sharply at him. “Mostly it’s the timber concessions,” she said. “My stepbrother’s idea. A few years ago he urged Harmach Grigor to rent logging rights in the Hulmaster forestland to foreign merchants. All the Moonsea cities are desperate for wood, especially since Myth Drannor put the woods of the Elven Court under its protection.”
“We deal in timber sometimes down in the Vast,” Hamil observed. “It doesn’t hurt that Sembia’s demand is driving up the prices everywhere.” Geran looked back to Hamil, and the halfling shrugged. “While you were strolling around the town, I spent my day talking to the clerks and superintendents of the merchant yards. I was curious about whether the Red Sails ought to do some business up this way. Sembia is ten times as big as the whole Moonsea together and just as hungry for wood-shades or no shades. We should think about it.”
“Which costers are here now?” Geran asked Kara.
“House Verunas of Mulmaster, the Double Moon Coster, House Jannarsk of Phlan, and a few others moved into town to handle the trade in timber,” said Kara. “They shipped in poor laborers from the larger cities to cut timber, drive wagons, work in the yards and on the docks. And of course those laborers bring others with them, tailors and grocers, smiths and wainwrights, brewers and cooks… In the last year or two the harmach’s let out some mining concessions too, and the big merchant houses and costers are taking advantage of those as fast as they can.”
“They seem to be doing well,” Hamil observed. “The harmach must be making a fortune on his rents.”
Kara shook her head. “Not as much as you might think. To pay off old debts the harmach borrowed heavily from the merchant guilds, and he had to rent out the concessions for a pittance by way of payment. The foreign merchants are keeping the better part of what they’re cutting down in our forests and digging out of our ground. Except, of course, for the so-called ‘licensing fees’ Sergen and his Merchant Council capture from the whole business.”
They came to the Burned Bridge and drove over the rickety wooden decking. It was covered by a dilapidated roof, and the hoofbeats echoed in the shadows of the bridge. Geran scratched at his jaw, thinking. He didn’t like the idea of using Hulmaster land in such a way, especially if the harmach saw little return on the rights he rented out, but it wasn’t really his place to say if it was a good idea or not. “What’s Sergen’s connection to the Merchant Council?”
“He’s the keeper of duties-the harmach’s representative on the council. Uncle Grigor put him in charge of releasing concessions, negotiating their prices, and administering the resulting trade.”
So your cousin decides which properties will be up for bidding, who can purchase a concession, how much they’ll pay the harmach, and how much they’ll pay the council he presides over? Hamil observed silently. If he were a corrupt man, that would be an awful temptation. I’m sure that isn’t the case, though.
Geran glanced back at his friend but didn’t reply. He was not at all sure that Sergen wasn’t corruptible. A younger, more vigorous harmach might have been vigilant enough to check any ignoble impulses someone in Sergen’s position could fall prey to… but Grigor was not a young man anymore, and it seemed he relied on Sergen to look after his interests for him.
They drove on in silence for a time and began to climb again. The road wound through the mournful Spires on the town’s western side, then followed the flanks of Keldon Head, the windswept promontory that sheltered Hulburg and its bay. The town’s cemetery was atop the long, bare hill. A long time ago the ruins surrounding Hulburg had been plagued by undead, and so the townsfolk chose to bury their dead in the safe ground of the hilltop, well outside any lingering influences from the days before the town’s refounding a hundred years ago. The cheerless stone markers and weathered mausoleums of the cemetery rose into view as the carriage neared the hilltop.
“Kara,” Geran said quietly, “what can you tell me about Jarad’s death? The harmach said that he was found alone in the Highfells, but that’s all I know.”
Kara briefly met his eyes, then sighed and returned her gaze to the road. “A shepherd found him by the door of a barrow mound up in the east Highfells, perhaps five or six miles from town. We’ve had a rash of crypt-breaking in the last few months-someone’s been opening barrows and tombs, looking for funereal treasure, I suppose. You know how dangerous that can be in Hulburg, so Jarad began to search for those responsible. We think he finally managed to catch the tomb robbers in the act, but he was overpowered and killed.”
“He took no one with him?” Hamil asked.
“No, he was alone. I don’t know if he just chanced upon the tomb robbers, decided to set watch on a barrow he thought they might visit, or heard some rumor that led him to that spot.”
The halfling nodded, thinking. Kara drove the carriage up to the cemetery gates and halted the team. She set the brake and hopped down; Geran and Hamil followed. “This way,” she said.
The sunshine was bright on top of the hill, and the wind rustled and hissed through the long grasses. They followed Kara through rows of plain stone markers, some crumbling beneath decades of moss and weathering, others bright and new. She stopped by a raised stone bier surmounted by a heavy sepulcher of new white stone, its lid inscribed with Amaunator’s sunburst emblem. Lettering chiseled carefully at the foot of the tomb read simply:
Jarad Erstenwold, Captain of the Shieldsworn. His valor, compassion, and faithfulnessshall not be forgotten.
“Uncle Grigor paid for the monument,” Kara said quietly. “He thought the world of Jarad. It’s been hard for him.”