Grant tapped the side of his head, smiling a humorless smile.His horse idled behind him, lipping at the first green flush of grass at the foot of the wall lining the road.“The beastie knows things, ostensibly.Adalia told him a great deal, though he seems to understand little of it.”
“Understanding will come with time,” Mary soothed, though something about her cadence had shifted, and I sensed Tane in her words.
Turning my focus back to the city, I marked how, beyond its limits to the east, west, and south, farms and rocky pastures for goats, sheep and rugged cattle occupied the heights of the low mountains.There were few trees—all was open and exposed, and ill-suited to an overland escape, if the need arose.
North along the bay, just on the edge of the fog bank and below the walls of a lording, star-shaped fort, several ships-of-the-line were anchored, including a massive second-rater with uncommon red sails furled and likely a hundred guns stowed behind her black-painted gunports.
“That is a fine ship,” Ben commented covetously.
“And the bay must be deep,” I added, studying her.“Deep and large enough for the bulk of the Mereish Fleet.So where is it?They cannot all be cruising.”
“In that fog, I presume.”Ben’s gaze swept into the miasma.“Which inclines me to believe either the Mereish coast possesses some very tactful fog in the spring, or the fleet is intentionally concealed.”
“Why conceal your fleet from your own people?”I muttered.
“Spies?”Mary stepped in closer, her cheeks flushed with cool sea air and her gaze distracted.Backed by the grey sky and the stony hills, she looked lovely in a raw, wild kind of way.
“Regardless, we have no idea how many ships are in that fog,” I said to the company.“Hartmay be among them, or he may be at the city dock.If I entered the Other, I might be able to sense something of him and the Uknaras, but Hae may be able to sight me or at least sense what direction we have gone.”
“A last resort, then,” Grant observed.“We follow the plan.Sell the horses, put our ears to the ground and search forHartthe traditional way.”
“We could search for a High Cleric, too.”Ben sent me a lingering look as he mounted again.He offered his hand to Grant.“Ride with me.Those two need to talk.”
Grant handed over his reins with a shrug and took Ben’s arm, mounting behind the saddle.Ben immediately set off, leaving his suggestion hanging in the air.
“Talk about what?Does he know about the healing?”Mary inquired quietly.
“Yes,” I said, mounting up and freeing a stirrup for her.“But he is not willing.And there is no possibility of finding the cure now, regardless.”
Mary swung up and settled behind me, closer than Grant had been to Ben.Her arms laced around my middle, her welcome warmth seeping through me.
“So you keep telling us,” she said resignedly.“Let’s move along, before those two get us into trouble.”
Sprawling farms soon became networks of houses and shops, which ran all the way up to the outer wall.The stone barrier’swatchtowers were clad with brightly painted shutters, and laundry criss-crossed the street to the neighboring newer buildings— wood with shingles or thatch roofs and lovingly decorated façades.Children played and splashed through puddles, carts rumbled and adults milled about, shopping and chatting and going about their labors.
We found a livestock market before long, where Ben and Grant went about selling the horses and tack for a mildly exorbitant sum.We divided the money as discreetly as possible and embarked on our next task: finding our way through the hellish press of the city to the city docks.
“You visiting?If you’re looking for an inn, you won’t find one tonight,” a hawker told us an hour later as we sheltered in the mouth of an alley.The gangly young man had a crate of broadsheets at his feet and sold them for small, tin dette coins to passersby.“Not with the tides and the refugees.”
A parade of red-cloaked monks forced their way down the center of the street, chanting and leading a gilded palanquin.Briefly, the crowd grew so loud that even the hawker was drowned out.
He scowled at the commotion and bent, riffling down through his crate of papers.He pulled an older, crumpled one out and held out the opposite hand, palm up.“You’ll want this,” he said, directly in my ear.
I pulled back but handed him a dette in exchange for the paper and rejoined my companions in the relative privacy of the alley, which here meant we were alone except for three whores, wrapped in blankets and smoking pipes on a balcony several stories above, and a sleeping drunk under a pile of equally somnolent dogs.
I smoothed the creases from the paper and held it up so we could read together.I heard Mary murmuring the words under her breath, and Ben gave up almost immediately.He leaned against the wall, lacing his arms over his chest and looking up at the whores.One eyed him dispassionately, one smiled falsely, and the last cameover to lean on the balcony rail and stare down at him in wordless assessment.Ben stared right back.
“‘Soon we will see the second-highest Black Tide of the last centuries, surpassed only by next month’s.The lower city has already been evacuated, and upper Ostchen now hosts many thousands of refugees from coastal villages,’” Grant read, seemingly for Benedict’s benefit.
Mary contemplated the broadsheet.“The Aeadine know how difficult this spring will be, right?All our coastal villages and ports will be prepared?Tithe?”
I shook my head.“They will not be prepared for it to bethishigh.Ostchen is bursting because even the Mereish villages are not equipped, and they knew it was coming.”
“Good thing we do not intend to stay long,” Ben muttered.He and the whore still watched one another, though he spoke low enough only we could hear his Aeadine.
“Did that word come from Adalia Day?”Grant asked.“Or is this all common knowledge in Mere?”
“If the Oruse had an observatory, others will too,” Mary said.“Like the Ess Noti.”
