Dragonspell: The Southern Sea. Katharine Kerr

come now, you don’t expect to find some rare dweomer book right out in the Myleton market, do you?’

      ‘Of course not, but we don’t want one. What we need is the sort of thing a merchant’s wife would have in her reception chamber to amuse a guest, a little scroll with four or five coloured drawings on it, maybe pictures of famous temples, maybe sea-coast views – that sort of mundane thing. Trained slaves copy them out by the hundreds, so we should be able to find one with little trouble. You need a complicated thing to keep your mind alive while you do the wretched exercises.’

      ‘Whatever you say. What comes after learning to hold pictures in your mind?’

      ‘Oh, extensions of the basic work. You start by maybe changing some details of the picture you’re seeing mentally – adding clouds in the sky, say, or putting in a tree. Then, let’s see … uh well … eventually you have to pretend you’re in the picture yourself and looking around at all its various parts … I know we did that …’ His voice trailed away.

      ‘You don’t really remember it all, do you?’

      ‘You may berate me for a wretched and most frivolous elf, if you wish, because, alas, alack, well-a-day, and so on and so forth, you speak the truth. I do remember the beginning banishing ritual, though, and that’s truly important for someone in your state of mind.’

      ‘Well and good then. What is it?’

      ‘There’s no time to go into it right now. If we’re going to buy horses, we have to get to the market before it closes for the mid-day heat, so let’s wait till we’re out on the road. But don’t let me forget to show it to you.’

      It occurred to Jill that as harsh ordeals went, learning dweomer from Salamander was going to have its moments.

      Before they went to the market, Salamander did his usual morning’s scrying. His face all narrow-eyed concentration, the gerthddyn bent over the glowing embers in the charcoal brazier and watched as strange images moved among them. All at once he smiled and began to speak in a whisper.

      ‘Finally! He’s riding up to a city, my turtledove, so we can – now wait, what’s this? Hell-ice and foul humours! Rhodry’s been sold again! Curse it all! I can see him riding behind some new master.’ He paused for a long moment. ‘Ah finally! They’re going into the city gates. I can see the crest, oh joy, oh rapture, the glorious city crest! Daradion down on the south coast … Oh ye gods! Curse them, curse me, a pox and the vapours upon us all! They’re going down to the harbour! Oh dear, dearest gods, not on to a ship!’ He made a gargling noise deep in his throat, then watched in silence for a long while. ‘May the Lord of Hell’s balls atrophy and fall off! This wretched fool is dickering with a ship owner for some kind of passage!’ With a toss of his head he looked up, sweeping away the vision. ‘At least I got a chance to read the ship’s name. It’s the Grey Kestrel, so we can ask the harbour master where it was going.’

      ‘When we get there. Ye gods, how far away is this place?’

      ‘Well over a fortnight’s ride, alas. We have the lovely choice of travelling straight and slowly through the mountains, or round-about but at a more rapid pace along the coast. I can’t scry while they’re crossing the sea because of the …’

      ‘The blasted elemental what’s it … veils of astral force.’

      ‘Where did you learn that?’

      ‘You told me yourself, lackwit.’

      ‘You needn’t be so nasty. Look, at least we’ll know we’re on the right track. We might have been rambling, roaming, and generally trampling about to no purpose at all.’

      ‘True spoken, and I’m sorry I snapped at you. It’s just that this new owner could be taking him anywhere at all … I mean, hundreds and hundreds of miles for all we know.’

      Salamander’s face sank like warm wax into despair.

      ‘Alas ’tis true, little eaglet. Fortunately, ships sail all year long across the nicely sheltered Inner Sea, and so we shall be able to follow them wherever they go. We have tarried long enough. Let us pack up our gear and head for the marketplace, so we may bend our course for glorious Daradion, winged with sails and so on and so forth. Myleton has enjoyed the pleasure of our presence long enough.’

      During the slow trip across the Inner Sea to the island of Surtinna, Rhodry was quartered down in the hold in a stall next to the horses and mules, although he was allowed above-decks to eat his meals with the other slaves. The arrangement suited him well enough, giving him the privacy to think a good distance away from Pommaeo’s ill-temper. Or at least he tried to think; most of the time he slept, drowsing in the warm straw with Wildfolk heaped around him like a pack of dogs. It did occur to him once that he probably had been a soldier if his body would insist on taking every chance it got to stock up on sleep, but try as he might, he never had another flash of insight like the drugged dream that had given him back his real name.

      They left the ship at Ronaton and spent another two days riding northwest to the hill-town of Wylinth, where the widow Alaena lived. Pommaeo was so arrogant and demanding that by the time they finally arrived, Rhodry had decided that the shame of being a courting-gift was a small thing compared to the joy of getting away from him. All white stucco and flowering trees, Wylinth spread out over clustered hill-tops behind walls of pink sand-stone. After he paid the toll at the city gates, Pommaeo led his miniature caravan to a long, sprawling inn in the centre of town and hired a suite. The main chamber had a floor tiled in blue and green, and a marble fountain splashed lazily in the centre of the room. The two slaves carried up the mounds of luggage; then Pommaeo gave Miko a string of orders while Rhodry spread Pommaeo’s embroidered blankets on the bed instead of the innkeep’s plain ones.

      ‘I’m going to the market,’ the master said. ‘Rhodry, do what the boy tells you.’

      Miko’s orders were welcome enough. Apparently the master was going to give Rhodry away that very night, and he wanted him presentable. Rhodry was more than willing to go down to the slave’s corner of the bathhouse and get truly clean for the first time in weeks. He even let the boy cut his hair for him with only a minimum of grumbling. Pommaeo returned from the market shortly after, and in a few minutes, when a slave arrived with an armful of purchases, Rhodry noticed with some interest that Pommaeo did indeed tip the man a couple of coppers. The master pawed through the bundles and tossed one to Rhodry.

      ‘Put these on. You won’t be much of a gift with horse-sweat all over your clothes.’

      Inside was a plain but good-quality white tunic and a new pair of sandals, a hair-comb, and – much to Rhodry’s surprise – a good bronze razor in a plain sheath.

      ‘Well, you’ll need to shave every day,’ the master said; he’d apparently noticed Rhodry’s surprise even if he seemed to think nothing of handing a slave a potential weapon. ‘You’re a house slave now, and you’ll be expected to keep yourself clean, not wallow with the animals like a barbarian. Speak humbly at all times, and do exactly what the chamberlain tells you. If you do one wrong thing, and I’m not here to flog you, then her brother-in-law will. And try to do something about those Deverry table-manners, will you? Her other slaves are civilized people, and they’ll have to share a table with you.’

      They left the inn just after sundown. Carrying a lantern, Miko went a few paces ahead as they walked through the wide, straight-running streets, lined with palm trees and jasmine. They passed the market square, where tiny oil-lamps were flickering into life like the evening stars, then climbed a hill to a neighbourhood where enormous houses stood in their compounds behind stucco walls. Although it was hard to see clearly in the lantern light, Rhodry could make out elaborate frescoes painted on every one of them. Eventually they came to a wall painted with a rural scene; set in a painted cottage was a real wooden door. When Pommaeo called out, an elderly slave opened it and ushered them inside.

      In the midst of tangled jasmine and spent roses a fountain leapt and splashed in a courtyard, which was lined with the tall wooden statues of the clan’s ancestors. The longhouse itself, with a pair