The world had gone mad.
Hest stood in the centre of the captives, his head bowed, the hood of his cloak up. On the final leg of the journey up the river he had asserted his rights to his stateroom and his possessions, such as they remained. Most of the Chalcedeans had gone onto the other ship, and no one else had the will to challenge him. It had been a relief to don different clothing and throw his worn-out rags over the side. The foods and wine Redding had brought aboard for them had largely been consumed by their Chalcedean captors, but the bed and bedding had seemed an exotic luxury after his days of sleeping in the hold. He had still had to help work the deck and labour in the galley, but he had managed not to have to take an oar. Between what remained of his own clothing and Redding’s, he was warmly and almost stylishly attired again, and he had found time enough to shave and to trim his own hair. He had not known what to expect when they docked in Kelsingra but had fallen back on one of his father’s old axioms: a man who bears himself with authority will often have authority ceded to him. And so he had locked himself in his room and readied himself for the city and all it might hold, emerging only when he knew docking was under way and thus avoiding most of the work. And when the order had come to disembark, he had taken care to blend with the others until he knew what sort of welcome awaited them.
Yet he had not been prepared for the reality he confronted. He had expected a muddy excavation, or vine-draped ruins. When they had come around the final bend in the river and seen Kelsingra spilled out across the hillsides, he had been just as shocked as the rest. To see a vast city flung wide across low-rolling hills had been astonishing. How could such a place have ever existed, let alone withstood the ravages of time, weather and nature?
And how much treasure did it hold?
However Kelsingra had survived, here it was. Yes, the docks were gone, replaced by makeshift planks, logs and crude pilings, but they functioned. And when a small committee of Elderlings had come down to meet the ships, he had decided they were the ones he must impress with his importance. Shock and horror had numbed him when the scarlet man condemned some to death and others to slavery. It was only now, as the denizens of the place squabbled with one another and shouted over the top of one another, that he pieced together the puzzle. They were not truly Elderlings. These were the banished Changed ones, sent off with the dragons. They had dressed themselves in Elderling finery and for a time he had been deceived. There was the old Tarman, the ugliest liveship ever built, as evidence. So, if this was where the ship had ended its voyage and these were the survivors … He lifted his head but kept the hood of his cloak pulled well forward as he surveyed the gathered ‘Elderlings’.
After seeing the ferocity of the dragons and enduring his own journey up the river, he had doubted if either Alise or Sedric had survived. Both of them lacked his adventurous nature, and Alise especially was a creature of drawing-rooms and teashops. If he found himself a widower, as Alise’s heir he would—
And then he recognized her. The incongruity of her gleaming garments with her plain features almost broke a guffaw of laughter from him. Her freckles were more obvious than ever, and if possible, the red of her hair was redder. Contrasted with the slender and youthful ‘Elderlings’ in their bright garb, she looked short and stout. Her hair hung in ropes, and the snug trousers she wore showed every curve of her calves. Scandalous attire for any Bingtown woman, it was even more shocking on a woman of her years. She chose to stand with the rough-cut ship’s crew; did she think their crude company made her look superior? If so, she was mistaken; the contrast was even more laughable.
Then, as he watched in abhorrence, the weathered ship’s captain who had first dared to countermand the execution order put an arm around Alise and pulled her to his side. Did she struggle? No. She leaned into his familiarity, letting her head drop onto his shoulder. It was when she set her open hand to his chest that he realized with affront that she was intimate with the man. A common river-man, coarse and ignorant, was bedding the wife of one of Bingtown’s most eminent Traders? The insult was unthinkable, to him and to his family. He could not, would not take her back into his home and bed. Dirtied as she was, how could she bear him an heir worthy of the Finbok name? He would disown her and dissolve the marriage!
But not before he had asserted his right to half of her claim to the city. As his eyes roved over Kelsingra, the magnitude of that fortune stunned him. He almost laughed over his earlier fears. There were his ‘captors’, probably less than two dozen people. Why, their captives outnumbered them! He tried quickly to count the clustered keepers, to work out Alise’s approximate percentage of claim to the city, but they were milling and clustering tightly around the scarlet man who had condemned the Chalcedeans. One of them shouted something about judging the ‘foreigners’. Ridiculous. They had no authority! Tall they might be, but their scaled faces were still young, almost childish.