raucous seamen. His nose registered the usual smell of cheap drink and drunks, but also something else. A fragrance that seemed quite out of keeping, but that he couldn’t quite place. Califrax, he found, was a vicious brown ale. After what he’d grown used to in Kalda with Talon, it was cheap and vile; still, he felt better for a glass of it. Something he’d done for himself, at last. His choice, just his. When he was done, he raised the empty glass to all the sailors of his old ship and quietly hoped they were dead.
People were watching him. One tall man in particular, all elbows, bones sticking out of his wrists, long fingers that couldn’t stay still and with restless darting eyes, but what Berren noticed most were the tattoos on his cheeks and his neck that ran down under his shirt. Berren couldn’t see one, but he was quite sure the man was carrying a knife. People like this used to come to Master Hatchet with sacks full of things that weren’t theirs. Old times, old ways. They would never quite leave him.
Outside he asked directions to the market and then ambled towards it, taking time to let the town soak into him. As best he’d been able to tell from the longboat, Tethis was built around the mouth of a small river valley. Its poorer districts spread up and down the shore either side of the river, perched beside the sea and crowding into the notches in the cliffs beyond. The richer parts ran up and onto the higher land on its rim, and the market lay on the border between these two parts of the city, at the place where the river valley first widened out before it reached the sea. From the centre of its square, Berren looked up towards the back of the town, where the valley became a gorge too narrow for people to build their houses. At the top of the slopes there, overlooking everything, were the low walls of the castle where Talon would take Gelisya.
He wandered through the market, buying the things he needed. Some of them were easy. Salt. Powdered bone. Clove oil. Others he recognised when he saw them. A few earned him frowns and directions to another cart. Now and then he’d get a blank look, as if the person he was talking to had never heard of what he was asking for. Once, in an apothecary, he got a very different look, a look that showed him that the woman he was talking to
The sun began to sink and the streets started to empty. Carts full of farmers from outside the town made their tired way up the hill beside the river, heading for home. He still had plenty of Talon’s money left in his purse, so Berren found himself a tea house and sat down to wet his throat and rest his legs. He went through the list of what he needed in his mind and looked at all his packages and pouches. He had almost all of it now, only two things missing. The first would come from Tarn himself: blood. The other was the sap of a Funeral Tree, whatever that was. He hadn’t the first idea what it looked like or what it did; neither, it seemed, did anyone else around the market. Which left the apothecary who’d claimed ignorance but whose eyes had said otherwise. He drained his tea and stood up and made his way back through the alleys to her tiny shop.
‘Never heard of it.’ Just as she had the first time, the apothecary clamped her mouth shut when she’d spoken and her fingers curled into fists. She set about putting her potions and powders away for the day. ‘And now I’m shutting up. Goodbye.’
Berren didn’t move. ‘I don’t know what all this is for,’ he said. ‘All I know is that a man I know, a friend, is desperately ill.’
‘Well that won’t help him,’ said the apothecary, still taking care not to look at him.
‘So you
‘I don’t have any.’
‘But you know what it is.’
She took a deep breath and then she took the gold and leaned into Berren and whispered, ‘You come here asking me for poison? A drop of it will kill you. I know there’s some who use it in potions and the like, but you’d have to be a master to know what you were doing.’ She looked him up and down. ‘Sick friend? My arse. I doubt I should be selling you anything, but thankfully I don’t have any. There’s one who might. He says he’s a soap-maker, but everyone knows that’s not all he makes. Back when the warlocks were here, he came with them.’ She shuddered. ‘Likely as not he’d have some sap for you, if you’ve got more gold.’ She held up the piece he’d put on the counter and then closed her fingers around it. ‘A lot more than this, I’d say.’
Her last words passed Berren by. ‘What did you say about warlocks?’
The apothecary looked him up and down. ‘Not from here, are you? Bad luck they were, but they’re gone now. Took a while before we knew them for what they were. What brought them here was death. And then. .’ Berren found himself on the end of a long stare. ‘Don’t know what you’ll have heard, but the old king was a fool letting the likes of them settle here. His Majesty Meridian did us all a service.’
Berren thought about that for a moment. ‘This man. This soap-maker. Where will I find him? Who is he?’
Her voice dropped to a hiss. ‘Like I said, he came with the warlocks. Maybe he’s one of them, maybe he’s not, but he’s a wicked man. His heart decayed to nothing long ago. If you want to deal with people like that, on your own soul be it. There. I’ve told you what I know. Now get gone.’
‘Who is he?’ He was sure he already knew.
‘Name he used was Vallas.’ The apothecary backed away and stuffed Berren’s gold deep into a pocket. ‘He’ll probably have what you’re looking for. Over on the western edge of town in among the fishermen. Ask for the soap-maker, they’ll know who you mean. But if I were you I’d stay far away from that place.’
Vallas. Berren thanked her for her time and walked out into the street with his head spinning. He’d heard that name before, back in Deephaven, from Saffran Kuy.
13
He swore. Then he began to walk. The apothecary’s directions hadn’t been specific about the distance, and by time Berren reached the western edge of Tethis, the sun had set and night had fallen. By the smell and the nets strung out along the beaches, he’d reached the fishing quarter. What was someone who made soap doing living here?
A shiver ran through him and he stopped. Fish. It was as though Saffran Kuy had made all this happen simply to lure him back. He was doing exactly what was expected of him. And then what? Alone with a warlock? Maybe even two of them?
‘No, Kuy. I’m not your puppet.’ He turned round and began to walk back up the hill. Maybe if he came with Talon and a dozen armed men at his back, Vallas the soap-maker, or Saffran Kuy, or whoever was waiting for him, simply wouldn’t be there. There would be no sap of the Funeral Tree. Tarn would die, but if this was all simply an elaborate trap then Tarn was meant to die anyway, and there was nothing he could do about it.
By the time he reached the top of the gorge, the stars were up. He’d been walking since the middle of the day and his feet ached. The guards outside the castle took a long look at him and waved him in. When he found where the Hawks were quartered, Talon was still up, waiting for him, pacing.
‘Did you find everything you need?’
Berren shook his head. ‘There’s one thing left.’
‘There’s something you can’t find? I want this done and I want to be out of here.’
‘I don’t know if. .’ Berren stopped. The glare he got was like a slap in the face, and so he stood there and told Talon everything: the apothecary and what she’d said, the soap maker and who he really was, and how Berren feared it was a trap. By the time he’d finished, Talon was snarling like a wounded wolf.
‘They still have a warlock in their midst? I’d like to. .’ He shook his head and the disgust in his voice was obvious. ‘I’ll see to it. A soap maker in the fishing district. Sap of a Funeral Tree.’
Berren watched him go, too tired to argue. The mercenaries had been given an outhouse to rest in, a damp windy shed that was good for keeping the rain off and not much else. From the smell it had spent most of its time as a hanging shed for meat and fish. It was small and there wasn’t much space, but the others made room for him.
