Little Bow proved to be a small, wiry man who looked Alban. He had a ready smile and a firm handshake.
Turkos listed Alban among his dozen languages, and he offered to buy the hunter a cup of wine.
‘That’s neighbourly of you,’ Little Bow said, and sat on a stool.
‘I’m interested in the fur trade,’ Turkos said.
‘You’re a riding officer for the Emperor,’ Little Bow said. ‘We all know what you do, Morean.’
Turkos shrugged.
Little Bow nodded. ‘I’m half Alban and half Outwaller, and neither half of me has any quarrel with the Empire,’ he said. ‘I took my wife and all my furs downriver to Osawa because I heard a rumour that it was the best money this year. There was a big fight down on the Cohocton – the Wild against Alba-’ He looked at Turkos, who nodded.
‘I hear the same,’ he said. ‘You may know more about it than I do.’
Little Bow nodded. ‘I met some Sossags who fought there. They said that the Wild took a fair lickin’. No matter – but the Alban merchants were stung pretty bad. You know that the Alban trade goes up to Lissen Carrak for the fair, and then the fur merchants take caravans over the mountains to Ticondaga-’
Turkos was now scribbling furiously on his wax tablets.
‘You didn’t know that?’ asked the hunter.
Turkos smiled. ‘I did and I didn’t,’ he admitted.
The man accepted wine from Big Trout. Morning Porcupine, her surly older husband, poured himself a tankard of heavy ale and sat with them.
Little Bow was obviously a man who liked an audience. His gestures grew, and his voice lowered. ‘So there’s no trade to be had at Ticondaga now, and anyway, the Earl, who is a cantankerous old cuss at the best of times, is getting ready to make war.’
Turkos nodded. ‘I know. I was just there.’
Little Bow nodded. ‘So I went to Osawa. On the way back, we landed at Mont Reale. There’s Gallish ships there – three big round ships and an Etruscan war galley.’
Turkos began writing again. ‘You said there was no Etruscan trade this year,’ he said.
Big Trout nodded. ‘I said that,’ she admitted.
‘Nor is there,’ Little Bow said in a know-it-all tone of voice. ‘There wasn’t an Etruscan to be seen. The scuttlebutt around the trading beach said the Galles had killed the Etruscans, but a Galle merchant who was decent enough to my wife told her they’d found three Etruscan ships all taken by silkies.’
The temperature in the longhouse seemed to plummet.
‘Silkies is a myth,’ Turkos said.
Big Trout had a pipe out. She took a taper over to the hearth and lit it, used it to light a heavy candle in a finely made bronze stick – Alban work – and used the big candle to light her pipe. She cradled the pipe bowl in her left hand and used her right to cup the first smoke and pull it back over her head. The smoke made signs in the air.
‘Silkies ain’t no myth,’ she said, in a matter-of-fact tone. She handed the lit pipe to her husband. He puffed silently. ‘They come every twenty years. This ain’t their year. Next year is their year.’
Little Bow pursed his lips. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know that, either.’
‘Nor I,’ said Turkos. He took a flask out of his shoulder bag and poured some malmsey for each person at the table. ‘In fact, this is a summer’s worth of information in a single dinner.’
‘I’m not to the good part yet,’ said the hunter. ‘Them Galles has one hell of a lot of soldiers. My wife’s pretty. Soldiers talk.’ He nodded. ‘They claim they want to take Ticondaga.’ He paused for effect. ‘For Galle.’
‘Holy Mary mother of God,’ muttered Turkos.
‘That’s after they smack the Southern Huran around a bit,’ the man added, and took the pipe.
Turkos had to fight the urge to stand up and head for the door.
‘Relax – I only heard that three days back. They ain’t left yet,’ said the man. ‘But it’s a big force. More’n a hundred canoes. A lot more armour than we’re used to seeing here.’
Turkos shook his head. ‘And I’m here.’
‘You can get around Mont Reale fast enough,’ the hunter said. ‘Get ahead of ’em on the river and they’ll never catch you.’
‘I’ve always coasted the Great River,’ Turkos admitted. ‘I don’t know a route around the town.’
Little Bow smiled, showing a mouth remarkably free of teeth. ‘Well – for a small fee-’
Turkos nodded. ‘Can you leave in the morning?’
Little Bow nodded back. ‘Money first. No offence, partner – but the wife likes to see the colour of the silver.’
Turkos leaned back. ‘I don’t carry silver in the Wild,’ he said. He counted down three heavy Morean gold byzants. He gave a fourth to Big Trout, who nodded her appreciation. Even her husband grunted.
Come morning, the water was warmer than the air, and the Great River was hidden in mist. Little Bow met him in the yard of the longhouse. He had a string of pack animals, all loaded with furs.
Turkos had purchased two more pack horses, and he was booted and spurred. He raised an eyebrow at the furs. ‘I thought you sold yours?’ he asked the hunter.
The man nodded soberly. ‘Took your money and bought every hide in the village, and paid a good rate for them,’ he admitted. ‘If I’m guiding you to Osawa, I might as well make a profit.’
Turkos laughed and showed the small man his two pack horses – loaded with buffalo robes and white bears and one great wolf hide. They laughed together.
‘Let’s get going,’ Turkos said.
They rode off into the northern woods, at the edge of winter. The wind cut across open ground like a great sword, and nights were so cold that the warmth of a fire could only be felt from an arm’s length, but no snow had fallen yet and the ground was hard, and they travelled fast. They could ride across a marsh, and the lack of leaves on the trees or undergrowth in the deep woods gave them a security that would have been absent in summer. They saw Ruk to the north on the first day, but they were going too fast to be worried. On the third day they spotted ustenoch mixed with moose in a swamp, breaking the ice with their great antlers, but they stayed on a knife-edge ridge and the great beasts didn’t bother with them.
The days were short but they rode hard, changing horses at every stop. After three days, Turkos stopped changing his clothes. The little hunter was one of the toughest men Turkos had met – his saddle endurance was incredible, and he could make camp as fast as any Outwaller Turkos had known.
He admired Turkos’ little oilskin tent. ‘Cute,’ he said, but after a night in it, he helped fold it and said, ‘Not bad. You have all the best toys,’ he added, admiring the Morean’s matching sword and pipe-axe.
They were three days to Mont Reale, which they passed on the north bank.
‘Pull your cloak over all your metal,’ Little Bow said. Then they tethered their horses and crawled to the edge of a bluff.
‘That was all canoes and row-galleys a week ago,’ Little Bow said softly. ‘They’ve moved on.’
Turkos also noted that the ship reports were accurate – he drew sketches of the three great round ships, and of the new fortification being built on the headland of the island where the ships were moored.
‘Come on, partner,’ Little Bow said. ‘Lots of daylight left.’
Two days later, they came up with the fleet of canoes just turning out of the Great River for the Morean posts along the lakes.
‘He could be going for Ticondaga,’ Turkos said, but he didn’t believe it himself. There were far more than a hundred canoes – in fact, he counted almost three hundred. It was the largest force he’d seen in the north country since he became a riding officer, and it was aimed at his people and his trading posts. He felt an overwhelming sense of failure. He’d read the signs incorrectly.