‘Well, that’s a stroke of luck,’ Steven said, ‘unless of course he tells the Malakasians we’re here.’
‘I don’t think he will,’ Mark said. ‘Did you get a look at him? He doesn’t look like he’s doing especially well under Malakasian rule. He probably fishes at night to keep from handing over half his catch to the customs officers.’
‘There are people like him throughout the Eastlands,’ Garec said. ‘The silver I gave him is probably more money than he makes in a Twinmoon. If we have anything to fear, it’s that he comes back with a small army of his own to rob and murder us in our sleep.’
‘Grand,’ Brynne commented dryly. ‘So now we have to keep watch for the Malakasian soldiers and the Falkan fishermen as well.’
Garec laughed for the first time in two days.
At dawn the following morning, Steven watched the old man return, pulling hard on the oars against the outgoing tide. He moored his skiff in shallow water and began lugging boxes of fish up the beach to one of the smokehouses. Steven left the staff leaning against the wall and went down to help; he was rewarded with a huge fish, large enough to feed the four of them for a couple of days.
‘Thank you,’ Steven said graciously, wrestling with the slippery corpse. ‘What kind of fish is it?’ He thought it looked something like a yellowfin tuna.
‘Jemma,’ the old man answered, ‘best you can get. It’s good smoked, or you can cut it into steaks and cook it over your fire.’
‘Jemma,’ Steven echoed. ‘Thank you again.’
‘You are here to kill the prince, right?’ The tanned leathery face looked inquisitively up at Steven. ‘You killed those soldiers on the beach, too, right?’
Steven was speechless.
‘It’s all right,’ he waved a wet hand in a gesture of reassurance, ‘I’ll keep quiet, but you must know the prince cannot be killed here.’
Steven still didn’t know how to react, so he just thanked the man again for the fish. ‘We are grateful,’ he said quietly.
The old man spent most of the day in the smokehouse; the scent filled the air and made Steven nearly insane with hunger. He cut hearty steaks from the thick jemma and cooked them on a flat rock in the fire, the same way Lahp had cooked grettan steaks in the Blackstones.
They revelled in the succulent flavour. ‘We need wine and potatoes with this,’ Mark said through a mouthful of flaky fish.
‘We’ve got some of Gita’s wine left, but I’m afraid we’re fresh out of potatoes.’
‘We’ll have to go into town for those,’ Mark said. ‘And if we went, we could get some tomatoes, maybe some bananas and a whole gallon of chocolate-chip ice cream.’ He lapsed into English for the dessert course.
‘Ice cream?’ Brynne asked.
‘One of the world’s most perfect foods,’ Mark replied, licking his lips at the memory.
‘Let’s go then.’ Garec stood suddenly.
‘What?’ the others echoed in unison.
‘We can’t just walk into town!’
‘Actually, we can,’ Garec assured them. ‘Mark, come on, lose that dreadful red tunic you wear and borrow Brynne’s cloak. We’ve been here too long. We need to get our bearings and move on. Hiding’s doing us no good and eventually someone will come along who can’t be bought.’ He leaned his longbow against the shanty wall. ‘I can’t take that, and you need to leave your weapons. We’re a long way from Estrad Village.’
Mark looked dumbstruck for a moment, then he started pulling his red sweater off. ‘Right, let’s go. Steven, I need some money. I want to get some more of that fennaroot, if I can find any. That’s powerful stuff; it makes caffeine look like baby formula.’
Steven flipped him the pouch of silver pieces they had stolen in Rona.
‘Take just one,’ Brynne suggested, ‘you’ve enough silver there to buy a corner of the city. Carrying too much will make you a target.’
‘Or worse,’ Garec agreed, ‘it’ll bring unwanted company back here.’
Mark donned Brynne’s cloak. ‘Any special requests?’
‘Bread and cheese,’ Steven replied. ‘And maybe some fresh vegetables, something green. We have been pretty bad about our diet recently, my friend.’
‘And bring some- some ice cream,’ Brynne added excitedly. ‘It is not often one gets to try the world’s most perfect food.’
‘If they make it in the city and we can find some, I promise we will.’ Mark kissed her lightly.
‘And see what you can find out,’ Steven ordered. ‘See if that soldier was telling the truth about Malagon and the old Falkan palace. And be careful!’
‘Will do. We’ll be back.’ Mark followed Garec out into the forest behind the southernmost warehouse.
Over the next few days, they each visited the city, although never all together. Steven finally abandoned his tweed jacket and Mark gave up his red sweater. Sharing the two woollen cloaks, they travelled in pairs, shopping for supplies, eating hot food in warm taverns and even bringing back bottles of wine, freshly baked bread and blocks of cheese. Although there was no sign of Sallax, and Brynne remained concerned for her brother, Mark and Steven revelled in the novelty of an Eldarni city.
Their experience in Estrad had been so limited that they’d had no idea such an array of goods and services would be available: tailors and cobblers, breweries and bakeries, butchers and pastry shops lined the narrow streets and the wider, tree-lined avenues. There were tobacconists, craftspeople, leather-workers… whatever they had been expecting, it wasn’t this.
They made dozens of purchases, mostly food and supplies, paraffin candles and wine. Steven enjoyed walking along the wide plank sidewalks that flanked the broad muddy avenues and narrow side streets. He chatted with artisans and merchants, sampled stews and sweets and even tried his hand at a popular gambling game that involved several smooth stones, a scarf and an empty goblet. He tossed the stones onto the multi-coloured kerchief stretched across a flat tabletop and depending on where they fell, his bet was doubled, tripled or forfeited to a gaunt but friendly old woman with a pockmarked face. Having lost three tosses in rapid succession, Steven moved away, despite the encouragement of the elderly woman and the small crowd that had gathered to watch the game.
Mark handed him a piece of wheat bread. ‘How much did you lose?’
‘I don’t know – twenty-five bucks? Twenty-five thousand? I haven’t been able to figure out this system of currency yet. All the coins have Malagon’s ugly pinched snout on them and I can’t tell the difference.’
‘Well, from the crowd you drew, I’m guessing you’re a high roller.’ Mark paused to tear a fruit pastry in half, then said, ‘Maybe you can get us a comp room at the Stardust.’
‘Monopoly money,’ Steven shrugged. ‘You know, I thought it would have been more-’
‘Depressed?’
‘Right.’ He gestured along the busy street. ‘I mean, these people don’t act as though they’re living in the shadow of an occupation army.’
‘Look closer.’ Mark pointed to a group of men unloading lumber from a cart. ‘Look at their shoes, their clothing. Notice how few of them are overweight. They don’t look terrified because they’ve been occupied for five generations; they’re used to it. But these people are not prospering, despite the diversity of shops, goods and services.’ He gnawed thoughtfully on a corner of the pastry. ‘I can’t imagine what the tax rates are. Seventy, maybe eighty per cent? We rarely see this at home because we live in a place where – generally – people help the oppressed, and it doesn’t take five generations for that help to come. So we never see this.’