wallow in melancholy. ‘I left Swift helping Thick get his shoes on. He’ll be glad to be ashore again, though he doesn’t admit it. He’s not even really seasick any more. It’s his lung ailment that weakens him now. That, and homesickness.’
‘I know. And little I can do about either on this ship. Once we’re ashore, I hope to find him a comfortable place and offer him quiet, rest and good food. They’re usually the best hope one has for such illness.’
Web nodded in companionable silence as we drew closer to the shore. A single figure, a girl in blowing russet skirts, stood on a headland watching us approach. Sheep and goats grazed the rocky pasturage around her and on the rolling hillsides behind her. Inland, we glimpsed threads of rising smoke from cottages that snuggled tight amongst the furze. A single dock on stone pilings reached out into the tiny bay to greet us. I saw no sign of a town. As I watched, the girl on the headland lifted her arms over her head and waved them three times. I thought she was greeting us, but perhaps she signalled folk at the settlement, for a short time later people came down the path to the shore. Some stood on the dock, awaiting us. Others, youngsters, ran along the beach, shouting excitedly to one another.
Our crew sailed the ship right up to the dock in a brash display of seamanship. The tossed lines were caught and made fast, checking our motion. In a matter of moments, it seemed, our canvas was taken down and stowed. On the deck, Peottre surprised me by offering gruff thanks to the Boar crew who had sailed the ship. It made me aware yet again that we were dealing with an alliance of two clans, not one. Obviously, both Peottre and the crewmen regarded this as a great favour and possible debt between the clans.
That was made even clearer to me in the manner in which we disembarked. Peottre went first, and as he stepped onto the dock, he made a grave obeisance to the women gathered to greet him. There were men there as well, but they stood behind the women, and it was only after Peottre had been warmly received by the older women of his clan that he walked past them to the men to exchange greetings. Few of them, I noted, were of warrior age, and those who were bore the disabling scars of that trade. There were a few oldsters, and a milling group of boys in their early teens. I frowned to myself, and then tried to pass my thought to Chade. Either their men don’t see fit to greet us, or they are concealed from us somewhere.
His returned thought was thin as a thread of smoke. Or they were decimated in the Red Ship War. Some clans took heavy losses.
I could sense that he strained to reach me and let the contact lapse. He had other things on his mind just now. It was more my Wit than my Skill that picked up the Prince’s restlessness and disappointment. The reason for that was plain. Elliania was not among those who had come to meet us. Don’t let it bother you, I counselled him. We don’t know enough of their customs in this regard to know what her absence means. Don’t assume it is a slight.
Bother me? I’d hardly noticed. This is about the alliance, Fitz, not about some girl and her ploys. The sharpness of his retort betrayed his lie. I sighed to myself. Fifteen. All I could do was thank Eda that I’d never have to be that age again.
Peottre must have advised Chade of their custom in this regard, for he and all our party remained standing on the deck until a young woman in her early twenties lifted her clear voice and invited the son of the Buck Clan of the Farseer Holdings to descend from the ship with his folk.
‘That’s our signal,’ Web said quietly. ‘Swift will have Thick ready to leave. Shall we go?’
I nodded, and then asked, as if I had a right to, ‘What does Risk show you? Does she see armed men anywhere about?’
He smiled a tight smile. ‘If she had, don’t you think I would have told you? My neck would be in as much danger as yours. No, all she sees is what we ourselves have noted. A quiet orderly settlement in the peace of the early day. And a very fruitful valley, just beyond those hills.’
So we joined the others and trooped off the boat to stand a respectful distance behind our prince as he was welcomed to Elliania Blackwater’s mothershouse and holdings. The words of the greeting were simple, and in their simplicity I heard ritual. By this act of greeting and granting permission to come ashore, the women asserted both their ownership over the land and their authority over any people who set foot in Wuislington. Despite this, I was still surprised when a similar ritual of welcoming was offered to the Boar Clan members who disembarked behind us. As they replied to the welcome, I heard what had eluded me before. In accepting the welcome, they also pledged on the honour of their mothershouse that each man would be responsible for the good conduct of all the others. The penalty for violating the hospitality was not specifically spoken. A moment later, the sense of such a ritual came to me. In a nation of sea raiders, there must be some safeguard that made their own homes inviolable to other raiders in their absence. I suspected some ancient alliance of the women of the various clans was at work here, and wondered what punishment a man’s own mothershouse would mete out to him for transgressing the welcome of another clan’s.
Greetings finished, the women of the Narwhal mothershouse led the Prince and his party away. His guard followed them, and then came Web, Swift and me with Thick. The lad walked before us while Web and I supported Thick. Behind us came the Boar crew, talking of beer and women and making jests about the four of us. Above us, Risk wheeled in the clear blue sky. Beach gravel crunched under our feet on the well-tended road.
I had expected Wuislington to be larger and closer to the water. As the Boar sailors, impatient with our plodding progress, passed us, Web engaged one in conversation. The man was plainly eager to hasten on with his fellows, and just as obviously reluctant to be seen in the company of the half-wit and his keepers. So his response was brief but courteous, as Web always seemed to bring out courtesy in those he spoke to. He explained that the harbour was good but not excellent. There was little current to worry about, but when the prevailing winds blew they were strong and cold enough ‘to scour the flesh from a man’s bones!’ Wuislington was built in a sheltered dip of the land, just beyond the next rise, where the wind blew over it rather than through it.
So we found it to be. The town was cupped in a sheltering palm of land. We followed the road down into it, and the day seemed to grow stiller and warmer as we descended. The town below us was well planned. The wood-and-stone mothershouse was the largest structure, towering as stronghouse over the simpler cottages and huts of the town. An immense painted narwhal decorated the slated roof of the house. Behind the mothershouse was a cultivated green that reminded me of the Women’s Garden at Buckkeep Castle. The streets of the town were laid out in concentric rings around it, with most of the markets and tradesmen’s homes at the section nearest to the sea-road. All this we saw before our closeness to it hid it from us.
The Prince’s party had long vanished from our sight, but Riddle came back to us, puffing slightly from trotting. ‘I’m to show you to your lodging,’ he explained.
‘We won’t be housed with the Prince, then?’ I asked uneasily.
‘They’ll be housed as guests in the mothershouse, along with his minstrel and companions. There is special housing for warriors of visiting clans, outside the stronghouse. Men of other clans may be guests there during the day, but warriors are not permitted to spend the night within the stronghouse. The Prince’s guard will be housed away from him. We don’t like it, but Lord Chade has told Captain Longwick to accept it. And a cottage has been arranged for Thick. The Prince orders that you take lodging with him.’ Riddle looked uncomfortable. In a quieter voice, as if offering apology, he added, ‘I’ll make sure your sea chest is brought there. And his things as well.’
‘Thanks.’
I didn’t have to ask. Thick’s difference made him unacceptable as a guest in the mothershouse. Well, at least they had been wise enough not to put us in with the
