Livak leaned over and I felt the weight of her breasts brush my back through the soft linen of her shirt. I wondered briefly if all we were going to be were bedmates, no ties binding us. As I started to speak, she kneaded a stubborn knot of muscle in my shoulder and the goose featherbed stifled my half-formed words.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.” I stretched out under her skillful hands and made appreciative noises as she carefully smoothed out the myriad aches.
“Still stiff?” she inquired after what seemed like half a season of pleasure.
“Only where I want to be.” Dragonsbreath has the same effect on me as most other men.
Livak giggled as I rolled over. “I was wondering what Viltred was doing asking the ale-wife for this.”
“Forget Viltred.” I reached up for her and drew her into a fierce embrace.
She was as eager as me and shivered in delicious delight as I stripped her shirt over her head. The sight of her soft breasts tightening in the lamplight drove any thoughts of conversation clean out of my head. I reached for her with rising desire. Her answering touch was sure and firm and burned me anew with the fiery thrill of a new lover’s hands and lips. She moved to my caresses eagerly, unhesitating pleasure given and received in the keen rapture of mutual exploration. For all the novelty of her body under my hands, we came together with the ease of a couple a generation wedded, moving with the fluid, instinctive rhythm that had come to us so naturally before. I drew on all the self-control I possessed until I felt the cadence of Livak’s movement stumble into ecstasy and then gave myself up to the sweeping waves of delight that came crashing down to overwhelm me. We finally rested, her heartbeat pounding against mine, and I knew that my pulse would be echoing hers for a long time to come, no matter what her feelings for me might be or the prospects for our futures. Our breath mingling, we drifted into deep and refreshing sleep together.
Chapter Three
Taken from the First Appendix to the Transactions of the
Merchant Venturers of Col,
Volume 8,
126th Year of the City’s Freedom.
My esteemed brothers in commerce,
This leaves me well and in hopeful spirits, and I hope it may find you in health and prosperity. You will be surprised at this, I do not doubt, given my last missile from the chaos of Triolle.
So, to business. In the debit columns, I will not disguise from you that we face heavy losses. The port at Triolle Bay has been comprehensively sacked by the troops of the Duke of Draximal. The goods and profits of this year’s trade between Triolle and Aldabreshi are now being gambled in the camps and sold to adorn the troopers’ grubby trollops. Moreover, this war of theirs is no mere summer storm; if anyone tells you it will all be settled by Solstice, insist on recording odds at a gaming-house and take that fool for every Mark he has in his strongbox. It may have started with ambition for the throne but it is turning into a struggle for the most fertile land, access to the rivers and the sea, say what you will. I cannot see how Parnilesse will escape being dragged in, and with that the last decent anchorage this side of Tormalin will be no safer than a nest of pirates. Commerce in Lescar is as dead as a man with a sword through his neck.
How then can I be hopeful? Let me explain. This finds me in a tillage called Relshaz, no more than a collection of muddy huts on the delta of the Rel itself. Thus far the place has but one thing to recommend it: its position. Consider the advantages of a port so situated; the Rel is navigable for sizeable vessels as far as Abray and barges could penetrate even further, virtually to Dalasor. A settlement here could draw trade from most of eastern Caladhria, if the word were circulated discreetly, and should commerce in Lescar revive at all such a port would be ideally placed to garner the business and the ensuing profits.
We must be bold and move fast or we will lose this chance to control the future of trade in the Caladhrian Gulf. My sources tell me Lord Metril of Attar Bay wants to extend his anchorage and Lord Sethel of Pinerin plans to build a series on jetties along the Ferl Roads. Both proposals will be put to the Parliament at the Equinox Sessions and in this instance I do not think we will see the interminable talking in circles that those gentry commonly excel in. Both Lords have been working hard to make sure they get the backing to vote them permission; a cunning stroke has been to cooperate. I will do what I can to loose a fox in their hen-run and, in the meantime, you must find the means to start construction of a harbor before the winter storms set in. I know it will go hard with us, to find such coin in this leanest of years, but we must look beyond short-term losses to the long-term gains.
Your partner in trade,
Jeram Gilthand
The Relshaz ferry, Caladhria,
27th of Aft-Spring
No one could decide what to make of Nyle’s interest in my sword, but I was soon confident we’d left that problem behind along with the mule train when we took the road west of Adrulle. This was partly to cut off a long curve of the river and partly to take in a stretch of the Linneyway, to see if we could get any scent of the second group of possible Elietimm. There was no word at any of the inns and we concluded they must have been heading for Ensaimin, if they had in fact been Ice Islanders. I didn’t forget them but I certainly reckoned I could put them to the back of my mind.
Our route took us through a succession of those tedious Caladhrian market towns that become hard to tell apart after a while. Shiv’s mood improved as the mages spent their evenings dabbling in their scrying bowl and determined the Elietimm that had robbed Viltred were still heading toward Relshaz. The weather grew steadily warmer as we moved south; we found ourselves riding through the heat of the days in shirt sleeves and Viltred’s mood improved markedly as the sun soothed his aches and pains. The recent generation’s trend for enclosure had started in southern Caladhria and the land was increasingly regulated and confined with hedges and walls, the stock sleeker and stronger as a result. We saw fewer cows and cornfields and more sheep and vineyards, the towns grew large enough to have slums and beggars and traffic on the road became more frequent. I could almost have convinced myself I was on the road running south down the lee of the mountains toward home.
My own mood improved as the weather and the countryside reminded me more and more of home. With Livak’s assistance I was sleeping more soundly but had no more idea of her feelings, both of us preferring good sex to any potentially unsatisfactory conversation about what the future might hold for us. Finally the dank, murky breath of the great mouth of the Rel was carried over a rise on the morning breeze, a blend of mud, rotting wood, weed and fish. We crested the line of hills that dominated the shore to look down on the glistening city of Relshaz, a dense accumulation of whitewashed buildings clustered securely on a delta between the broad black arms of the river. The silt-laden waters from the hills of Caladhria and the plains of Lescar swept around the city and carried a great dark stain out into the shimmering sea. In the late spring sun the Gulf of Lescar was blue as a bankfisher’s wing as the waves rolled in from the indistinct islands of the Aldabreshi hovering on the far horizon. I drew a deep breath and relished the tang of salt in the air; it didn’t have the clean sharpness of my own rugged ocean coast, but at least it was the scent of the sea.
I soon lost even that suggestion of open waters as we followed the track winding down from the hills. The Spice Road and the River Road meet here in a broad trampled marketplace where some traders opt to do their buying and selling rather than spending time and coin taking one of the ferries to the city. We pressed through the throng of men, mules, oxen and carts with some difficulty, a handful of languages clamoring around us, dust rising to catch in our throats, taking knocks from all sides.