People ran past Bayle Domon in masks and costumes bizarre and fanciful, many showing too much flesh. Shouting and singing they ran, a half dozen together, then scattered pairs giggling and clutching each other, then twenty in a raucous knot. Fireworks crackled in the sky, gold and silver bursts against the black. There were almost as many Illuminators in the city as there were gleemen.
Domon spared little thought for fireworks, or for the Hunt. He was on his way to meet men he thought might be trying to kill him.
He crossed the Bridge of Flowers, over one of the city's many canals, into the Perfumed Quarter, the port district of Illian. The canal smelled of too many chamber pots, with never a sign that there had ever been flowers near the bridge. The quarter smelled of hemp and pitch from the shipyards and docks, and sour harbor mud, all of it made fiercer by heated air that seemed nearly damp enough to drink. Domon breathed heavily; every time he returned from the northcountry he found himself surprised, for all he had been born there, at the early summer heat in Illian.
In one hand he carried a stout cudgel, and the other hand rested on the hilt of the short sword he had often used in defending the decks of his river trader from brigands. No few footpads stalked these nights of revelry, where the pickings were rich and most were deep in wine.
Yet he was a broad, muscular man, and none of those out for a catch of gold thought him rich enough, in his plaincut coat, to risk his size and his cudgel. The few who caught a clear glimpse of him, when he passed through light spilling from a window, edged back till he was well past. Dark hair that hung to his shoulders and a long beard that left his upper lip bare framed a round face, but that face had never been soft, and now it was set as grimly as if he meant to batter his way through a wall. He had men to meet, and he was not happy about it.
More revelers ran past singing offkey, wine mangling their words. “The Horn of Valere,” my aged grandmother! Domon thought glumly. It be my ship I do want to hang on to. And my life, Fortune prick me.
He pushed into an inn, under a sign of a big, whitestriped badger dancing on its hind legs with a man carrying a silver shovel. Easing the Badger, it was called, though not even Nieda Sidoro, the innkeeper, knew what the name meant; there had always been an inn of the name in Illian.
The common room, with sawdust on the floor and a musician softly strumming a twelvestringed bittern in one of the Sea Folk's sad songs, was well lighted and quiet. Nieda allowed no commotion in her place, and her nephew, Bili, was big enough to carry a man out with either hand. Sailors, dockworkers, and warehousemen came to the Badger for a drink and maybe a little talk, for a game of stones or darts. The room was half full now; even men who liked quiet had been lured out by carnival. The talk was soft, but Domon caught mentions of the Hunt, and of the false Dragon the Murandians had taken, and of the one the Tarens were chasing through Haddon Mirk. There seemed to be some question whether it would be preferable to see the false Dragon die, or the Tairens.
Domon grimaced. False Dragons! Fortune prick me, there be no place safe these days. But he had no real care for false Dragons, any more than for the Hunt.
The stout proprietress, with her hair rolled at the back of her head, was wiping a mug, keeping a sharp eye on her establishment. She did not stop what she was doing, or even look at him, really, but, her left eyelid drooped, and her eyes slanted toward three men at a table in the corner. They were quiet even for the Badger, almost somber, and their bellshaped velvet caps and dark coats, embroidered across the chest in bars of silver and scarlet and gold, stood out among the plain dress of the other patrons.
Domon sighed and took a table in a corner by himself. Cairhienin, this time. He took a mug of brown ale from a serving girl and drew a long swallow. When he lowered the mug, the three men in striped coats were standing beside his table. He made an unobtrusive gesture, to let Nieda know that he did not need Bili.
“Captain Domon?” They were all three nondescript, but there was an air about the speaker that made Domon take him for their leader. They did not appear to be armed; despite their fine clothes, they looked as if they did not need to be. There were hard eyes in those so very ordinary faces. “Captain Bayle Domon, of the Spray?”
Domon gave a short nod, and the three sat down without waiting for an invitation. The same man did the talking; the other two just watched, hardly blinking. Guards, Domon thought, for all their fine clothes. Who do he be to have a pair of guards to look over him?
“Captain Domon, we have a personage who must be brought from Mayene to Illian.”
“Spray be a river craft,” Domon cut him off. “Her draft be shallow, and she has no the keel for deep water.” It was not exactly true, but close enough for landsmen. At least it be a change from Tear. They be getting smarter.
The man seemed unperturbed at the interruption. “We had heard you were giving up the river trade.”
“Maybe I do, and maybe no. I have no decided.” He had, though. He would not go back upriver, back to the Borderlands, for all the silk shipped in Tairen bottoms. Saldaean furs and ice peppers were not worth it, and it had nothing to do with the false Dragon he had heard of there. But he wondered again how anyone knew. He had not spoken of it to anyone, yet the others had known, too.
“You can coast to Mayene easily enough. Surely, Captain, you would be willing to sail along the shoreline for a thousand gold marks.”
Despite himself, Domon goggled. It was four times the last offer, and that had been enough to make a man's jaw drop. “Who do you want me to fetch for that? The First of Mayene herself? Has Tear finally forced her all the way out, then?”
“You need no names, Captain.” The man set a large leather pouch on the table, and a sealed parchment. The pouch clinked heavily as he pushed them across the table. The big red wax circle holding the folded parchment shut bore the manyrayed Rising Sun of Cairhien. “Two hundred on account. For a thousand marks, I think you need no names. Give that, seal unbroken, to the Port Captain of Mayene, and he will give you three hundred more, and your passenger. I will hand over the remainder when your passenger is delivered here. So long as you have made no effort to discover that personage's identity.”
Domon drew a deep breath. Fortune, it be worth the voyage if there be never another penny beyond what be in that sack. And a thousand was more money than he would clear in three years. He suspected that if he probed a little more, there would be other hints, just hints, that the voyage involved hidden dealings between Illian's Council of Nine and the First of Mayene. The First's citystate was a province of Tear in all but name, and she would no doubt like Illian's aid. And there were many in Illian who said it was time for another war, that Tear was taking more than a fair share of the trade on the Sea of Storms. A likely net to snare him, if he had not seen three