a much higher rank than he knew. He was somewhat more courteous as he showed us up two steep flights of stairs and into a chamber that looked out over the town and the harbour through a swirl of thick glass. By then I’d had enough of him. I gauged him as a lesser lackey to some minor Boar war-leader. As such, I dismissed him brusquely once we were inside, and shut the door even though he lingered in the hallway.
I sat Thick down on the bed and then assessed the room quickly. There was a door that connected to another, much grander chamber. I decided that we had been put in a servant’s room adjacent to the Prince’s quarters. The bed was adequate, the furnishings simple in Thick’s small room. Even so, it seemed a palace after his closet on the ship. ‘Sit there,’ I told Thick. ‘Don’t go to sleep yet.’
‘Where are we? I want to go home,’ he mumbled. I ignored him and stole through into the Prince’s chamber. There I helped myself to a pitcher of wash water and a basin and drying cloths. There was a platter of food on the table. I was not sure exactly what it was, but took several pieces of a dark, sticky stuff cut in squares, and an oily-looking cake covered with seed. I also took a bottle of what I thought was wine and a cup.
Thick had toppled over on his bed. Painstakingly I hauled him upright again. Despite his groaning protests I made him wash his face and hands. I wished that I had a tub to put him in, for he smelled strongly of his days of sickness. Then I forced food down him, and a glass of the wine. He complained and snivelled until he hiccupped. Once I felt him marshal his Skill-strength against me but it was a weak and childish swipe that did not even challenge my walls. I pulled off his tunic and shoes and put him to bed. ‘The room is still moving,’ he muttered petulantly. Then he closed his eyes and was still. A few moments later he gave a great sigh, stretched out in the bed and fell into a true sleep. I closed my own eyes and cautiously tiptoed into his dream. The kitten slept in a tiny curled ball upon the embroidered pillow. He felt safe. I opened my eyes, suddenly so weary that I could have cast myself down on the floor and slept where I fell.
I didn’t. Instead I used what was left of the clean water. I sampled the food, found it unpalatable and ate it anyway. The oily one was probably intended to be some sort of sweet; the other tasted strongly of fish paste. The ‘wine’ was something fermented from fruit; other than that, I had few ideas about it. It didn’t quite take away the fish taste from my mouth. Then, armed with the basin of soiled water, I left the chamber to venture out into our lodgings. If anyone questioned me, I was simply looking for a place to dump the slops.
The building was as much stronghold as clan residence. We were on the highest floor, and I heard no sounds of other occupants. The interior walls featured carved and painted boars and tusk motifs. The other doors on the hall were not locked. They seemed to alternate between small chambers such as Thick had and larger ones, more generously furnished. None of them met the Buckkeep standard for guest housing even for lesser nobles. I reserved judgment on that. I doubted they intended to insult us: I knew the Outislanders had different customs for hospitality than the Six Duchies did. Generally speaking, houseguests were expected to provide their own victuals and comforts. We had come here knowing that. The wine and food in the Prince’s room seemed to be a nod to the Six Duchies hospitality the Narcheska’s entourage had enjoyed at Buckkeep. There were no signs of any servants on this upper floor, and I doubted that any would be supplied to us.
The next floor down seemed much the same. These rooms smelled as if they had been recently used; odours of smoke, food and, in one case, wet dog lingered in them. I wondered if they had been vacated for our use. The chambers here were slightly smaller, and the windows were of oiled skin rather than glass. Heavy wooden shutters, some bearing the old scars of arrows, offered protection from any determined assault. Evidently the highest chambers were accorded to those of highest ranks; very different from the Six Duchies, where servants were given the upper rooms so that nobility need not climb too many flights of steps. I had just closed a door when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. An ant trail of servants suddenly appeared, bearing belongings, comforts and victuals for their Six Duchies masters. They halted in confusion, milling in the hallway, and one asked me, ‘How do we know which chamber is for who?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ I replied pleasantly. ‘I’m not even certain where we are to dump slops.’
I slipped away from them, leaving them to sort out the rooms, suspecting that the best ones would go to the nobles with the most aggressive servants. On the ground floor I found a back door that led out to a waste pit behind the privies and dumped my water there. Another door led down a corridor to a large kitchen where several young Outislander men were tending a large roast on a spit, chopping potatoes and onions, and kneading bread. They seemed intent on their tasks and all but ignored me as I peered in at them. A quick tour of the outside of the building showed me that a second, much grander door led to a large open hall that made up much of the ground floor of the building. These doors stood open to admit both light and air. Within, I glimpsed what was undoubtedly the welcome gathering for the Prince. I abandoned my basin in the deep grass at one end of the building, and hastily straightened my uniform and smoothed back my hair into a tail.
Unnoticed, I slipped into the back of the room. My fellow guardsmen were ranged against the wall. They looked as alert as men do when they are stiflingly bored and ignored. In truth, there seemed little for them to guard against.
The large room was long and low ceilinged. The main part of it was taken up with benches, all of a height and all full of seated men. There was no throne or dais of any kind. Nor were the benches oriented to focus attention on one person. Rather, they ringed the room, leaving the centre open. A bowed old kaempra, or war leader of the Fox Clan was speaking. His short jacket was fringed with the tips of fox tails, white as his unruly hair. He was missing three fingers on his sword hand, but wore a necklace of his enemies’ fingerbones to compensate. He tugged at them nervously as he spoke, glancing often at Bloodblade as if reluctant to give offence and yet too angry to keep silent. I only caught his closing words. ‘No one clan can speak for all of us! No one clan has the right to bring bad luck down on us all.’
As I watched, the Fox kaempra nodded gravely to each corner of the room and then retired to his bench. Another man stood and made his way to the centre and began speaking. I saw the Prince and Lord Chade seated amongst the nobles who attended him in one section of the benches. His Wit-coterie was ranged behind him. The Hetgurd, for so I recognized this assembly – the gathering of the warrior leaders of the clans – had accorded my prince no indication of his rank. Here, he was seated as a warrior leader among his warriors, just as the other clan warrior-leaders were. This was a gathering of equals, come together to discuss the Narcheska’s betrothal. Did they see him so? I tried not to scowl at the thought.
All this I grasped in the time it took my eyes to adjust to the dimness of the hall after the summer sunshine outside. I found a piece of wall to lean on next to Riddle in the back row of guardsmen. Riddle spoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘Not like us at all, my friend. No feast or gifts or songs to welcome our Prince. Just a how-d’ye-do greeting on the docks and then they brought him straight here and began discussing the betrothal. Right to business for these people. Some don’t like the idea of one of their women leaving her motherlands to go live in the Six Duchies. They think it’s unnatural and probably bad luck. But most don’t care much about that, one way or another. They seem to think that would be Clan Narwhal’s bad luck, not theirs. The real sticking point is the dragon-slaying bit.’
I nodded to his swift summary. Chade had a good man in Riddle. I wondered where he had recruited him and then focused my attention on the man who was speaking. I noticed now that he stood in the middle of a ring painted on the floor. It was intricate and stylized, and yet still recognizable as a serpent grasping its own tail. The man did not give his name before he began speaking. Perhaps he assumed that everyone knew it, or perhaps the only important part of his identity was the sea otter tattooed on his forehead. He spoke simply, without anger, as if explaining something obvious to rather stupid children.
‘Icefyre
