'It's astonishing, he said. 'I didn't know people could create something like this. He couldn't imagine anything like it in Ashwell, nor any of the towns he'd passed through on his way to the city.
'Two hundred and eighty years in the growing, the lodge keeper said proudly. 'It was my great-grandfather who originally planted the trees. Our family have tended them for the Culverits ever since; and my son will take over when I pass on.
'Two hundred and eighty years to grow, Edeard repeated, impressed.
'Makkathran makes us lazy, Kristabel said. 'It provides us with so much. We can get things right by ourselves.
Inside, the lodge was divided up into seven rooms by ancient wooden panelling. The central room, under the knot of trunks, was the bedroom, with a big circular bed in the middle. An ingenious array of pulleys and twine allowed slatted blinds to be opened or closed against the overhead windows. A thick slab of stone in the living room acted as a hearth for a tall brazier. It already had a fire crackling away, its smoke slithering up through an iron chimney cone.
Edeard and Kristabel sat on the long settee, staring out at the sea a couple of hundred yards away. He wished it was slightly later in the year, when it would be warm enough to swim. A big twin-masted trading ship sailed slowly past, en route to the ports in the south. The servants and ge-monkeys bustled round, setting out their luggage while the lodge keeper lit the iron stove in the kitchen to boil some tea. Kristabel's fingers laced through Edeard's. 'Don't worry, she said dryly. 'They'll all stay in the cottages behind the bluff. Out of farsight range. I wouldn't want to shock them tonight; some have been with the family for decades.
Edeard grinned, remembering Ranalee saying more or less the same thing. He turned back to the sea.
By coincidence, the Culverit family's beach lodge was only a couple of miles south of the cove where Ivarl's body had washed up. Edeard remembered that morning quite clearly. A week after the Festival of Guidance he'd received the message from the coastal warden asking him to identify the body. He borrowed a terrestrial horse from the militia stables, and rode out through the south gate.
The sea and the rocks had not been kind to Ivarl. Edeard had never seen what water did to a corpse before. The bloating surprised him, as did the sallow colour of the skin. Even so, there was no doubt it was the gang lord.
'Never seen anything like this, the old coastal warden said.
Edeard's farsight probed at the cords which still bound Ivarl's wrists and ankles. There was something appallingly elegant about the perfectly wound cords, the complicated knots — so inconsistent with the ugliness of death, especially this one. He'd counted nine deep puncture wounds before giving up. Ivarl had not been allowed to die quickly or peacefully.
His adversary's killing bothered Edeard a great deal more than the kidnapping did. If for no other reason than it demonstrated there was some kind of organization stirring in the city of which he had no clear understanding. Despite investigating Ivarl's closest lieutenants, they'd never managed to determine who'd killed him. Then again, Edeard found himself wondering about Ivarl's soul. Had it fled the body in the same fashion he'd sensed down in the cellar when Mirnatha's kidnapper had died? That souls were real disturbed him more than he cared to consciously admit.
That night Kristabel banished all his doubts and concerns.
The family servants might have been outside farsight range, but he was convinced they'd be woken by his cries of joy.
In the morning they dressed in plain white robes and ate breakfast on the little deck which ringed the main lodge. A warm breeze swirled around them, making Kristabel's wild hair sway about. After she'd finished her bluegrape segments, she called her maid over to brush the tangles out and arrange it for the day. Edeard settled back as the girl began her task, and told the ge-chimps to clear his plates. Out to sea, three sets of sails were passing between the rock wings of the cove. He envied the sailors their freedom. 'I'd like to do that one day, he declared. 'When the gangs are no more, and the bandits have vanished back into the wilderness, we should take a ship and sail around the world.
'Nobody has ever found a way through the southern ice flows.
'Then we go north.
'Through the atolls of the Auguste Sea? Lady, Edeard, they have reefs which stretch for hundreds of miles. The whole sea is a treacherous maze that can rip the hull off any unfortunate ship that drifts too close to the coral.
'Then we use a strong third hand to break the reef; or farsight and ge-eagles to find a way out of the maze. That's my point, no one has ever really tried. We don't know what else is on this world other than bandits. What if other ships fell here on a different continent or island? What if they kept the science which built those ships?
'Then they would have probably found us by now, she said as her maid finished applying jewelled clips.
'Oh. Yes. But still, what fun it would be to explore properly.
'I suppose it would be. I never really have time to think such things.
'I can't believe no one in Makkathran has attempted to do this. The families have such money as could build the most wonderful ships, and there are so many bored sons. Don't any of them look beyond the horizon?
'Many do, but all they're looking for are girls with suitable dowries. Nobody thinks in those terms, Edeard, not any more. The last person to attempt such a voyage was Captain Allard, and that was over a thousand years ago. He was the Havane family's second son, who built exactly the kind of ship you talk about, the Majestic Marie. Makkathran had never seen its like before, nor have we since. It was a real galleon, over two hundred feet long, and had three masts. Eighty men set sail on her, all of them experienced sailors, with the best equipment Makkathran's Guilds could produce. They never came back. Allard's wife went on to live past her two hundredth birthday; every day she went down to the docks to ask the newly arrived ships if they'd seen her husband. The watching widow, they called her. They say her soul still haunts the docks even today.
Edeard gave the sea another longing look. 'I never got to know history like that when I grew up, not real history. It was all about who built which farmhouse or Guild centre, and when their families arrived in the province. Lady it was so dull.
'You poor thing. She reached out and gripped his arm. 'So where did you learn to sail?
Edeard flushed slightly. 'I haven't. Not yet.
Kristabel burst out laughing. 'You can't sail, and you want to voyage around the world? Oh Edeard, this is why I love you so. You have such wild visions. You make it sound like anything can happen.
He grinned sheepishly. 'I have to deal with the gangs first. Then when I've time, I'll learn to sail.
'Well, be careful of pirates, she eyed the ships offshore suspiciously. 'Our captains are reporting more sightings. They don't pick on the larger ships yet, but small vessels have started to disappear.
'At least no one can blame me for that.
'Why should they?
'The highwaymen are mostly gang members driven out of the city by the exclusion warrants. They're very difficult to catch.
'Let the town sheriffs and the militia deal with them. It's about time other people started to help deal with criminals instead of looking to Makkathran to do everything for them. That's one attitude I'd like to see changed.
Edeard gave her a proud smile. 'The Grand Council won't know what hit it when you arrive.
'And that's another thing. Why should the families practise primogeniture? In this day and age! Do they think I'm not good enough?