The Exile and the Sorcerer Page 9

  “He wouldn’t need to borrow money; he’s got his mother’s.”

  “But in the Protectorate, he wouldn’t have inherited the money.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, strictly speaking, it wouldn’t have been hers in the first place.”

  “Who would it belong to? The Coven?”

  “No, the guild, of course.” Kimal’s tone implied that the answer was obvious.

  “Your parents have got money...haven’t they?”

  “Not really. When they finished their apprenticeship, the guild licensed them and gave them their advance to set up in business. They could do what they liked with the money, within reason, though they have to pay tithes. But when they die, the guild will take everything back.”

  “You and Derry won’t get to share it?”

  “No.”

  The prospect clearly did not bother Kimal in the slightest, but Tevi was confused, not so much about the thought of losing money as the complete disregard for family and inheritance. She remembered being told that there were no hereditary leaders in the Protectorate.

  Kimal carried on. “Hopefully, we’ll be in guilds for ourselves long before our parents die. I mean, it must be awful, having to wait until your parents peg it before you can start your own career.”

  “Don’t your parents want you to take over their business?”

  “Why should they?” Kimal seemed as confused as Tevi. “We might not want to be traders.”

  “You told me that you did.”

  “I want to be a mercenary,” Derry cut in loudly.

  Kimal ignored his brother. “True, but when I’m ready I can get my own advance, if the guild think I’m good enough.”

  “And if you’re not good enough?”

  “Then there’d be no point in my parents giving me their business, would there?” Kimal said reasonably. “It makes sense. Protectorate traders always come out best, ‘cause we don’t let fools make a mess of things just because of who their parents were.”

  Tevi did not answer. It seemed a strange way to organise things, but how much simpler it would have been if her family had simply accepted that she was not cut out to be queen and had chosen someone more suited for the job, such as Laff. The corners of Tevi’s mouth turned down as she realised that this was exactly what they had done.

  The wagons were waiting in the courtyard. Yarle watched sullenly as Tevi unloaded the cargo. The others helped with lighter items and soon the party was ready to depart. Yarle had counted the load into his storeroom but seemed unsure what to do next. He still had not shaved. To Tevi’s eyes, it made him even more pathetically vulnerable.

  “Is everything all right?” She had to try to help him.

  “Why shouldn’t it be?”

  “It’s a lot of responsibility, running a business.”

  Yarle looked her up and down. “I can cope.”

  “Isn’t there someone who can help you? A cousin or an aunt? People might take advantage of a young man.”

  “I don’t need help.” A surly note entered Yarle’s voice.

  “But it’s not fair to expect you to run your own finances.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “I wasn’t saying you were. I just think you could do with a woman to look after you. It’s too much to expect a boy to take care of himself.”

  “What are you going on about?” Yarle’s voice rose. “I’m not a child. I’m probably older than you.”

  “Yes, but...” Tevi stopped herself before she finished the sentence; it’s not the same for a woman. It was the island’s way of thinking and, rightly or wrongly, would not be understood on the mainland. She drew a deep breath and tried to forget she was talking to a man. “It’s just...losing your mother must have been a shock and...I thought you might need advice, or...”

  “I don’t need anyone’s advice,” Yarle snarled. He marched into his storeroom, slamming the door behind him. Tevi glanced over her shoulder at the others.

  “I didn’t mean to insult him.”

  Verron’s face held a perplexed frown. “If you don’t mind me saying so, you sometimes have a problem taking men seriously.”

  Tevi sighed and raised her eyes to the sky. “I know, but I’m working on it. Believe me, I’m working on it.”

  *

  The line of wagons rolled out of Scathberg, accompanied by the crunch of stones, the shouts of riders and the crack of whips. Hired guards flanked the caravan as outriders. Tevi was halfway down the line with the reins in her hands and Verron beside her.

  Hills rose on either side, striped with rows of grapevines—the source of the famed red Scathberg wine. Between the neat lines, the ground was dry and bare except for tufts of yellow grass. Greystone farmhouses dotted the vineyards. High above, the sun shone through wisps of cirrus cloud. A light morning breeze carried dust, stirred up by the horses ahead.

  “How far will we go with these people?” Tevi asked.

  “Through the desert to Kradja,” Verron replied. “Then we’ll join another caravan for the journey to Limori.”

  “Do you travel with groups for protection?”

  “Partly. It’s also a way to share resources. The desert is unpredictable; landmarks shift. If we were on our own and we missed a water hole, it could be fatal. The nomads are friendly, but you can’t rely on them coming to your rescue.”

  “How long till we get to Kradja?”

  “Twenty-three days, twenty-five at most,” Verron estimated.

  “Kimal said there’s an enormous temple there.”

  “There certainly is.”

  “We had a shrine in the middle of our village. I’ve been trying to imagine it scaled up, but I guess the temple won’t be quite like that.”

  “I doubt it. Unless your people confuse brooding with meditation and have a liking for cryptic images and overblown dramatics.”

  Tevi grinned and flicked the reins to encourage the horses to keep up. Behind them, the walls of Scathberg shrank into the distance and soon were lost among the farmlands.

  *

  As they moved southwards, the landscape became ever more arid. Trees gave way to waxy-leafed shrubs. On the nineteenth day out of Scathberg, they reached the edge of a plateau. An eroded escarpment overlooked a plain of dust and rock beneath a turquoise sky. Isolated cacti were the only things growing on the parched landscape.

  That night, they pitched camp in a gully where clumps of greenery indicated underground water. This was confirmed once they swept windblown sand from the well cover. A guide told Tevi that during the autumn rains, the gully was a riverbed. It was strange to think of water flowing through this dry land. The sun sank low, and after the heat of the day, the wind was chill as it whispered across the desert.

  When the evening meal was over, Tevi took a thick cloak and left the fireside. From the top of the gully, she watched the sunset turn the sky to fire. The heavens flamed gold first, then blazed with fierce red that smouldered to purple and finally blackness, strewn with white sparks of stars. Tevi stared across the barren land in awe at the harsh, inhuman beauty. She returned to the camp with tears in her eyes. She had not wanted to leave Storenseg and wished with all her heart that she could return, yet to have lived her life without ever seeing a desert sunset would have been an unbearable loss.

  Five days later, they reached the oasis town of Kradja, a sprawling mass of mud-brick houses, the same colour as the ground, so that the town seemed to be growing from the desert. Without transition, the rough trail became a dusty street crowded with workers, children, merchants, and servants. The air was filled with shouts and the jingle of horses’ harnesses. Robed nomads led strings of improbable gangling beasts with sinuous necks and a wobbling lump on their backs.

  “Camels,” Verron told her, seeing Tevi’s eyes follow the animals in amazement.

  Closer to the town centre, the walls became higher, blank except for wide gateways guarded by sentries with barbed pikes. Through them, Tevi caught glimpses of ga
rdens rich in lavish blooms. The scent of flowers mixed with the dust and sweat of the street. Tevi raised her eyes. The soaring crowns of palms pierced the blue sky, and towering over all was the green copper dome of the temple.

  *

  Later that afternoon, she stood in the cavernous interior. The echoing void was filled with murmuring. Through a haze of incense, light filtered down on groups of chanting priests, wild-eyed prophets, and praying supplicants. Alcoves held grotesque statues. Some idols were bedecked with garlands of flowers. Before the more warlike were bloodstained altars.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Kimal observed.

  “I should say so. Is this a very holy place?” Tevi whispered in reply.

  “There’s a legend among the locals that this is an auspicious spot to make money out of visitors. For a price, they’ll tell your future or bless anything you feel needs blessing.”

  “Are the prophecies accurate?”

  “If you’ve got money to waste, you could find out.”

  The question rose in Tevi’s mind, Will I ever return to Storenseg? But it required no oracle to know the answer.

  A fresh burst of chanting began nearby; voices rose and fell in wavering cadences. Tevi watched a robed priest throw fistfuls of incense into a crucible while an entranced seer swayed and shuddered. The oracle’s eyes were glazed, but then they seemed to fasten on Tevi, and the head wobbled up and down as if nodding in answer.

  Tevi’s breath caught in her throat. Then she sighed and dismissed the taunting fantasy. The oracle twitched into a shuffling circular dance. Coughing from the incense, Tevi and Kimal moved on. It was time to go. They squeezed through the crowds blocking the main entrance. The open air was refreshing after the scented darkness, although the heat hit them like a blow.

  The temple was set in gardens. Fountains splashed into geometrically shaped pools of dark green water. Birds sang from rooftops, the sound floating lazily on the hot air.

  “What gods do the people in the Protectorate worship?” Tevi asked.

  “It varies. A lot of places have their own local deities.”

  “Are there no temples like this?”

  Kimal shook his head. “Oh, no. It’s all very unorganised and informal.”

  “Who do the sorcerers worship?”

  “No one in particular, although some of them have very elaborate ideas about the meaning of life and how we all came to be here.”

  “On the islands we worship Rangir, goddess of the sea.”

  “I shouldn’t think anyone would mind if you want to keep practising your faith. But your goddess is almost certainly the folk memory of an ancient sorcerer. That’s what most turn out to be.”

  “You sound as if you don’t believe in any of them.” Tevi was not sure if she did, either.

  “The sorcerers can’t find any proof, and they’re the experts in unseen powers. So it’s a bit silly for any ordinary mortal, like the priests in there, to claim they know the gods’ names, what songs they’d like sung, or which style of headdress they normally wear.”

  Tevi smiled at his irreverent tone. “Still, it’s a very impressive temple.”

  “Oh, yes, and their religion is as good as anyone else’s.”

  Verron, Marith, and Derry were waiting at the appointed rendezvous. Together, they left the temple garden and wandered through the marketplace, full of noise and the tang of strange spices. The sight of a row of camels caught Tevi’s attention.

  The rubbery mouths moved in continuous chewing, and to judge from the peeling fur, they were all in the middle of a major moult. Tevi reached out to touch a shaggy haunch, but stopped as a nomad spotted her and jabbered harshly. She frowned. The nomad repeated a string of similar incomprehensible syllables.

  “Pardon, I didn’t catch that,” Tevi said politely.

  “I only know a few words of their language, but I think it’s a warning that the camels bite,” Marith said at her shoulder.

  “Their language?”

  “Not everyone speaks the same language as us.”

  “There’s more than one language?” Tevi was dumbfounded. The idea had never occurred to her before. It felt as if it should be impossible.

  Verron smiled at her surprise. “There are dozens of languages, maybe hundreds. The lands around the Middle Seas have a common tongue due to a sorcerer’s experiment six hundred years ago. I think he had some naive idea that if everyone understood each other, there’d be no conflict. Of course, all that happened was everyone could argue much more effectively.”

  “How do people with different languages communicate?”

  “With great difficulty. Although I think Marith can haggle in every language in existence.”

  “It’s not me; it’s money that can talk any language,” Marith asserted.

  Kimal joined in. “Even where languages start out the same, they drift apart. The Coven keeps the Protectorate constant, but you hear some strange accents from time to time—like yours. Another few centuries of isolation, and no one will be able to understand a word you islanders say.” He spoke the last sentence in a fair imitation of Tevi’s soft drawl, and then he elbowed her in the ribs.

  The playful scuffle that followed ended quickly when Tevi caught Kimal around the waist, flipped him over, and effortlessly held him upside-down by his ankles. Kimal yelped, his arms flailing and hair brushing the ground.

  “I think, my son, the moral is that if ever you meet a woman with an accent like Tevi’s, you should treat her with respect,” Marith said, laughing.

  Tevi returned the boy to his feet, and they continued strolling through the streets. Yet she could not help thinking that there was little chance of Kimal’s meeting anyone else with her accent. She alone was exiled forever.

  *

  The traders’ route went from town to town, with the value of their merchandise growing steadily. Autumn was approaching as they returned north. A last caravan took them to the city of Villenes, within sight of where the Aldraks trailed away into the Merlieu hills. On the other side were Serac and the Protectorate.

  Over the months, a genuine affection had grown between Tevi and the traders, as if she were a favourite niece. She felt more accepted than had ever been the case with her own family, although there were things about herself she dared not reveal. Tevi was also aware she could not stay with them forever. She would have to find a way to make her own living.

  While Verron and Marith completed arrangements for the next stage, Tevi wandered through the market with the two boys. The shops were piled high with clothes and rolls of material. Villenes was famous for its textiles. At one stall, the beaming owner extracted a crimson shirt from the nearest pile and held it against Tevi. She shook her head, abashed. On the islands, bright colours, particularly red, were reserved for men. Women wore neutral tones. It took little to imagine her family’s comments if they saw her wearing anything the colour of the shirt—but there was no chance of them seeing her again, and trying to fit in had never stopped them talking. In a mood of defiance, Tevi commenced bartering and shortly walked away carrying the shirt. She felt like a naughty child.

  The traders were lodging with an old friend. Tevi was assured that the woman had been a little wild in her youth, although she was now a highly respectable merchant. Her home was a rambling building set among gardens by the river. At the door, Tevi and the boys were greeted by servants who took their parcels and offered the traditional soft slippers. They found Marith in the central courtyard, surrounded by potted ferns and talking to two unfamiliar men.

  One was about thirty, strongly muscled, with a bull-like neck and a round, good-natured face. His older, taller, and leaner companion had weathered skin and close-cropped grey hair. Both men wore mail-reinforced jackets. Swords hung at their sides and on their hands were tattooed red and gold crossed swords—the mark of the Protectorate Guild of Mercenary Warriors.

  The men glanced around as Tevi and the two boys approached. Marith performed the introductions. “These are my
sons, Kimal and Derry, and this is a friend of ours, Tevi.” She gestured to the mercenaries. “This is Cade.” The younger nodded. “And this is Alentris. They’ll be escorting us to Serac.”

  Both men’s eyes fastened on the sword hanging by Tevi’s side.

  “Do you know how to use that?” the mercenary called Alentris asked.

  “A little,” Tevi said diffidently.

  Derry piped in, “We met Tevi in Torhafn when she rescued Mama and Papa from a gang of footpads.”

  The mercenaries looked satisfied. Evidently, their concern was solely with assessing the party’s defensive capability. Only Tevi caught the relief that flitted across Marith’s face.

  “It never hurts to have—” Alentris was interrupted by Derry tugging his jerkin.

  “I’m going to be a mercenary when I’m older.” Derry’s defiant tone made the adults laugh.

  Cade grinned at Marith. “Don’t worry. They grow out of it—most of them.”

  *

  The road to Serac led over a dusty plain of low-lying shrubs and windblown yellow grass. After travelling so long in large caravans, it was strange for them to be on their own again. The monotony of the landscape also subdued the traders. Only the two mercenaries were unaffected. They rode ahead of the wagons, swapping anecdotes and laughing.

  On the third day, they left the plain. That night, they pitched camp beside a weathered rocky outcrop crowning a low hill. The ground was dotted with the same coarse bushes as the lowlands, but at the bottom of the hill were a small stream and the first greenery they had seen since leaving the irrigated fields around Villenes.

  While the others arranged the campsite, Tevi and Cade went down to replenish their water supply. In the wet mud was a single row of footsteps. The pair examined the track.

  Cade spoke first. “We’re on a reasonably well-used route.”

  “We haven’t seen anyone all day, and they’re very fresh.”

  Cade shrugged and knelt to fill the water container. “It’s probably a fur trapper or goatherd. And it should help sharpen the concentration of whoever’s on watch tonight.”