Part 12 (1/2)
” ”Tis said you can buy anything in Bandon,” said Marrget. He gestured with a wide sweep of his arm. ”The road from Bandon runs straight to Kingsbury, as it should. To east and to west the river is a road . . . that is, until it reaches the Great Dike that separates Gryylth from Dremord territory.”
”From Corrin?”
He lifted an eyebrow at the name. ”It is so. They call their country that.”
”So the Corrinians hold the seaport, then.”
”Aye, but that is of small consequence. We do not trade by sea.” Cvinthil had said that the world ended in mist. She had 112.
dismissed his words as superst.i.tion, but now she recalled them. ”What about ... uh ... other countries?”
”There is Gryylth, and . . . Corrin,” said Marrget. ”There is nothing else.”
His beliefs were a little too absurd. ”If there's nothing else, Marrget, then where did the Corrinians come from?”
”From . . .” He pursed his lips, stared oif into the east. ”From across the sea.”
”So there's got to be something on the other side of the ocean, right?''
”s.h.i.+ps, I think, were dispatched to find the Dremords' home. Once. They did not return.”
It did not make sense. Nothing did. ”So there's nothing out there?”
”Nothing.”
”So how can you-” She caught herself. She was pus.h.i.+ng again, and Marrget, though he did not meet her eyes, was frowning. ”Sorry, Marrget. I'm being rude.”
”It is well, Alouzon Dragonmaster. It takes a brave tongue to admit an error, and yours seems to be . . .” He glanced at Dythragor, who was giving orders to the wartroop regarding camp. ”... braver than most. I must tell you that I am but a soldier. My king gives me orders, and I obey them. It is not my place to ask questions about the land. Rather am I here to give advice regarding battle and war.” He smiled thinly. ”I am sure you understand.”
”Has anyone asked questions like these before?”
”No one.”
”Dythragor?”
He shrugged. ”No one.”
Crazier and crazier. ”What about to the north? What's up north? ”
”There is no road to the north, Dragonmaster. The Heath is there. No one goes to the Heath save fools.” Hi smile took the edge off his words, and he left her with a nod and went to supervise his men.
The wartroop camped outside the town walls, bivouacking on thin blankets that did not provide much of a 114.
cus.h.i.+on against the hard ground. Alouzon was philosophical as she unrolled her bundle: she was so tired that she could have slept on a slab of granite.
A short distance away, Marrget and Dythragor were talking to a man who had arrived from the town. Gravely clad in black, he would have seemed something of a cleric, or a judge, were his eyes not as hard and bright as a new-minted piece of money. His words did not carry to Alouzon, but his tone and gestures conveyed a sense of the official.
Exhausted, she paid little attention until she noticed that he was gesturing at her. Dythragor was scowling and shaking his head, but Marrget, as usual, seemed to be objective, as though whatever problem now lay before him was merely another question of proper tactics and the right kind of force.
In another minute, the captain was walking over to her. ”Will it please you to enter the town with us, Dragon-master?” ”What's up?”
”The Council of Bandon wishes to pay its respects to us.” He laughed. ”But I think that maybe the councilmen wish us to pay our respects to them. Either way ...” ”Dythragor doesn't want me along.” ”Has he changed?” The captain was in a good humor, as though he enjoyed seeing important people make themselves ridiculous over questions of status and protocol.
Despite her fatigue, Alouzon joined the others. Senon, the man from the Council, regarded her with a mixture of distaste and fort.i.tude. His expression was that of a man who had just bitten into a sour cherry-who had, in fact, expected it to be sour and had bitten anyway. Relys, who accompanied his captain, watched Aiouzon sardonically.
In Bandon, Alouzon was once again the object of interest, though, if there was hostility, it was a little more tempered than had been the case in Kingsbury. As a market town, Bandon was used to the unusual, and more concerned with commerce than with custom.
115.
”What do they trade in here?” she asked Marrget.
”Almost everything, lady. Grain from the towns to the east. Across the mountains, the men are fine metalworkers, and they bring their wares across the pa.s.ses once every six months or so. Gold, silver.” He eyed her. ”Slaves.”
”Female, right?”
”Aye, Dragonmaster. And male too. Though if a man cannot find a wife any other way he is ent.i.tled by law to buy one. And sometimes a troublesome woman is stripped of her legal protections and finds herself on the block.”
”That doesn't make me feel real good, Marrget.”
”You are ent.i.tled to know the truth, lady. I am sorry if it grieves you.”
Dythragor and Relys were speaking in low voices and laughing at something. Alouzon thought that she caught her name, but could not be sure. She s.h.i.+vered, but though the sun had dipped below the thick walls of the town, the air was warm.
Shadows were growing deeper when Senon brought them to a dark hall that was not made much brighter by a miserly use of torches. The ceiling was high and lost in echoes and the whispers of scuttling rats. At one end was a long table where the Council of Bandon was a.s.sembled, waiting for them.
Like Senon, the men were pale, their eyes hard and usurious. They glanced at Alouzon with suspicion, as though she were a contract with a blank left in it, but they ignored her for the most part. Relys they nodded to as though he were an underling. Only Dythragor and Marrget received any marked respect: the Council actually stood when they entered, and their murmured greetings blended with the indistinct scratching of the rats.
”They'd better be nice to us,” Dythragor whispered to Alouzon. ”We're the reason they're safe enough from the Dremords that they can concentrate on their gold.”
”I'm impressed. Are these the nice little bureaucrats you were telling me about at UCLA?''
He glanced at her, annoyed, then went forward to the 116.
Gael Baudlno .
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long, dark table and shook hands all around. Relys waited with Alouzon, plainly irritated that, in this case, he was considered no better than a woman.
”Did you and Dythragor have a good laugh?” she asked him under her breath.
He s.h.i.+fted uneasily. She decided to pry.
”Alouzon Dragonmaster sold as a slave,” she said. ”Hey, nice fantasy, huh? Betcha she's got a hot little body under that armor.”
His reaction told her that she had guessed right. ”I heard that you killed a Dremord your first night here,” he returned.
”Yeah.”