The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Do you listen to everything you hear?” asked Wolfhere with a laugh.

“I hear many strange things, and I’ve found it unwise not to listen to them.” Robert was a westerner from the borderlands between Varingia and Salia. He had never explained how he had come into the service of marchland nobles, far to the east of his birthplace, and Zacharias did not choose to ask, considering that he had once glimpsed a slave brand on Robert’s right shoulder. He’d met a few Salians sold into slavery among the Quman tribes, cast out of their homes by debt or poverty. Those whom hunger or abuse hadn’t killed had died of despair.

They soon came to the sprawling borderlands of the town, gardens, corrals, orchards, and the hovels and houses of those who could not afford a space to live inside the wall. Children trotted alongside, shouting in their gibberish tongues. They had all sorts of faces; they might be kin to Quman horseman or Aostan merchant, to Arethousan sailor and Jinna priest, to dark Kartiakans or to the sly and powerful Sazdakh warrior women with their broad faces and green eyes. Yet there were no blond heads among this pack. Wolfhere stood out like a proud silver wolf among mangy, mongrel dogs.

The guards at the gate did not wish to admit them into town, but Robert had a few Ungrian coppers for bribes.

They crossed through a tunnel cut into the wide turf wall and emerged into the streets. The lanes stank alarmingly, strewn with refuse baking in the heat, and yet even so they were crowded with folk busy about their errands and mindful of where they set their feet.

“Beware pickpockets,” said Zacharias. A few heads turned to look at him, hearing an unfamiliar language. Wolfhere’s hair caught attention, too, but mostly they were left alone. Too many travelers came into a port like Sordaia for three scruffy visitors to create lasting wonder.

They passed windowless walled compounds, all locked away, a dozen of the distinctive octagonal Arethousan churches, and once a circular Jinna temple with its stair-stepped roof and central pillar jutting up toward the heavens, tattered streamers of red cloth flapping idly from the exposed portion of the pillar as a lazy wind out of the north teased them into motion. The barest ribbon of smoke spun up along the pillar’s length, suggesting the fire within.

“Is it true they burn worshipers alive?” whispered Robert as soon as the temple was lost to view. “That their priestesses copulate with any man brave enough to walk into the fire?”

Wolfhere snorted.

“I don’t know.” Zacharias glanced around nervously. “But it’s death for any person who has witnessed those rites to speak of them. Be careful what you say lest you hit on something true, and find a knife between your ribs.”

“Can anyone here understand us?” asked Robert. “I haven’t heard a single soul speaking Wendish.”

It was more obvious still once they reached the marketplace that sprawled in a semicircle around the harbor with its docks and warehouses. Zacharias heard a dozen languages thrown one upon the other and melding together into a babble, but he never heard one clear Wendish word out of that stew. Here, in the port of Sordaia, the north traded with the south but they had journeyed so far into the east that the west, their own land, seemed only a tale told to children. Ships unloaded cloth and spices and precious jade trinkets for the rich beghs of the grasslands, those who cared to trade rather than rob. Timber floated down the river from the northern forests lay stacked, ready for loading, beside fenced yards heaped with fox and bear furs and soft marten pelts. Open sheds sheltered amphorae of grain destined to feed the great city where the Arethousan emperors reigned supreme over their country of heretics.

The slave market was always open.

Even Robert stopped to stare at a line of fair-skinned, redheaded, and entirely naked young women who, roped together, were prodded up onto a platform so buyers could examine them. Jinna merchants with their hair covered, Hessi women with their faces veiled, Arethousan eunuchs with beardless chins, and other folk whose faces and apparel Zacharias did not recognize fondled legs for strength and breasts for firmness, tapped teeth, and studied the lines of palms.

“Must we watch?” demanded Zacharias, sweating heavily, seeing the tears on their faces as their bodies were sold away to new masters. If he stood here any longer, he would have to recall the day it had happened to him. “They don’t need onlookers staring at them in their misery!”

They moved on to the wharves where two ships were just mooring as the noon sun began its fall westward. The ships that had ferried Sanglant’s army here were already taking on cargo, eager to depart. Robert and Wolfhere went to find the ship-master who had sailed with Sanglant, since the man knew Sordaia well and had promised to recommend honest merchants. Zacharias did not follow them at once, his attention caught by the interplay between a groom and the magnificent gray stallion the man was trying to coax down the gangplank of a newly arrived merchant ship. A step forward was followed by a nervous shy back, while meanwhile a traveler waited impatiently on the deck, eager to disembark but impeded by the skittish horse. The man hopped aside to avoid being kicked.

A westerner, Zacharias thought, noting the light cloak and broadbrimmed hat worn by the waiting traveler. Although not a particularly tall man, his arrogant stance marked him as a person of noble birth, and his robes and the carved ebony staff he leaned on suggested a man of clerical vocation. He had a servant with him, a stocky, stoop-shouldered fellow whose torso was slung about with rolled-up bundles and a small sealed wooden chest, almost too much for a single person to carry. The groom coaxed the stallion forward again. It took a step, snorted, and shied back.

That was enough for the westerner. He made some comment to the groom, and the man, sweating profusely, bobbed his head as though a thousand apologies would not suffice and reined the stallion aside with an effort, the horse sidestepping and tossing its head, restless and unhappy. It was a beautiful beast, not unlike Prince Sanglant in its fierce, masculine beauty, alive to the touch of the wind and the pitch of the ship on the waters as it rubbed up against the pilings. Others had come to watch; such superb creatures were not seen every day. No doubt it was for this reason that women admired Prince Sanglant so very much.

A person bumped into him; it was the heavyset servant from the ship clearing a way through the gathered crowd for his master. Dressed in clerical robes, the nobleman passed next to Zacharias, the brim of his hat tilted in such a way that the frater got a look at his face: a dark-haired man, cleanshaven like a churchman, with a pursed, judgmental mouth. His gaze swept the crowd, skipping past Zacharias as he moved briskly after his servant.

Was there something familiar about him? Or was it only that any westerner looked familiar in a land filled with barbarians?

The press of the crowd had cut him off from Wolfhere and Robert. He was alone. Ai, God, it was in a place like this that he had been taken by slavers. The shaking hit so suddenly that he thought his feet would drop out from under him. His throat closed tightly and he couldn’t draw breath. He swayed, dizzy, and his palms became clammy.

No one else was troubled by the shaking ground. It was only him. Frantically, he plunged through the crowd and, glancing beyond the turbaned heads of Arethousan market-wives and the red caps and ponytails of Jinna merchants, saw Wolfhere pushing his way through the crowd. Robert was nowhere in sight.

Zacharias raised a trembling hand, meaning to call out, but no words came.

Wolfhere’s expression changed as abruptly as an avalanche alters the side of a hill. His eyes widened in surprise, eyebrows lifting. His seamed face opened with a glimpse of panic, or joy, before closing tight into a stony mask as he turned, saw Zacharias, and shoved through the crowd toward him.

Zacharias’ heart was pounding so hard he was out of breath. He could not fight against the crowd as it shoved him away from Wolfhere. The stallion trumpeted in fury and fear, and he was half spun about by the force of a man knocking into him in time to see the horse break away from the hapless groom. With a graceful leap, the stallion plunged down the gangplank and landed in the midst of the crowd, trampling a hapless bystander. People screamed and scattered.

Zacharias yelped out loud, too terrified to move. The crowd surged around him as people fought to get out of the way of the frenzied horse, now bucking and kicking like a demon.

lave market was always open.

Even Robert stopped to stare at a line of fair-skinned, redheaded, and entirely naked young women who, roped together, were prodded up onto a platform so buyers could examine them. Jinna merchants with their hair covered, Hessi women with their faces veiled, Arethousan eunuchs with beardless chins, and other folk whose faces and apparel Zacharias did not recognize fondled legs for strength and breasts for firmness, tapped teeth, and studied the lines of palms.

“Must we watch?” demanded Zacharias, sweating heavily, seeing the tears on their faces as their bodies were sold away to new masters. If he stood here any longer, he would have to recall the day it had happened to him. “They don’t need onlookers staring at them in their misery!”

They moved on to the wharves where two ships were just mooring as the noon sun began its fall westward. The ships that had ferried Sanglant’s army here were already taking on cargo, eager to depart. Robert and Wolfhere went to find the ship-master who had sailed with Sanglant, since the man knew Sordaia well and had promised to recommend honest merchants. Zacharias did not follow them at once, his attention caught by the interplay between a groom and the magnificent gray stallion the man was trying to coax down the gangplank of a newly arrived merchant ship. A step forward was followed by a nervous shy back, while meanwhile a traveler waited impatiently on the deck, eager to disembark but impeded by the skittish horse. The man hopped aside to avoid being kicked.