Читать книгу: «Witchsign Book 2», страница 4

‘Hard to disagree with that,’ replied Marozvolk. The further they ventured away from the docks the more people watched them pass. Eyes filled with suspicion followed their passing, or was it merely curiosity?

‘I imagine most sailors from Shanisrond or Yamal stay near the docks,’ said Marozvolk.

‘We’re not sailors,’ replied Kimi. She looked at the shingles hanging outside each of the shops. Each bore an illustration of the profession practised inside. They appeared to be on a street of scribes, judging by the depictions of quills, scrolls and even the odd book. ‘We just need to find a …’ Kimi turned into an alley and pressed on before coming to an abrupt stop. Marozvolk walked into the back of her, apologising in hushed tones until she spotted what Kimi had seen moments before. Three dockers waited at the end of the crooked cobbled alley. All were heavy-set men with deep frowns and mouths set in flat lines. The largest of them clutched a cudgel in a scarred fist.

‘It’s a shame Romola didn’t have a few weapons to spare for us to come ashore with,’ said Marozvolk under her breath. She clenched her fists and a silvery glimmer of arcane power moved across her skin. Her fists began to turn the colour of granite.

‘You can’t use the arcane here,’ said Kimi just as quietly, grasping her arm quickly. ‘It will attract too much attention. Come on.’ She took Marozvolk by the hand and led her through a door.

The tailor was a gentleman who had not seen fit to die despite his great age. The elderly man’s spotted pate and rounded shoulders stood in stark contrast to his sharp eyes and firm jaw, and Kimi doubted she had ever met anyone so old. Even Sundra and Mistress Kamalov demonstrated a blush of youth compared to the tailor. Weak light filtered into the shop through the uneven windows at the front. It smelled of dust and sandalwood, stewed tea and quiet desperation. A fire snapped and popped in the hearth, lending the shop a reprieve from the dismal chill outside.

‘I do not make clothes for women,’ said the tailor slowly, first in his own tongue, then in Solska when it was clear he had not been understood.

‘I don’t want clothes for women,’ replied Kimi with a lift of her chin. ‘I want britches, a shirt, a good coat and some boots that just happen to fit my friend.’

‘And how do you propose to pay for all of this?’ replied the tailor, pursing his lips. He had a sour look about him, but Kimi imagined she’d be sour too if she’d lived a long life in Virag. She unfastened her thick leather belt and laid it across the counter, then slipped a few coins out of a false lining on the reverse side. Each was solid gold and bore the profile of the Emperor.

‘Given you speak their language, I assume you’ll take their coin?’

‘Solmindre crowns are very welcome here.’ The tailor attempted a smile but the expression might have easily been constipation.

‘Half now, half on completion,’ said Kimi.

‘As you wish,’ replied the tailor, smooth as silk. ‘Will there be anything else?’

‘Make the three shirts and as fast as you can. I don’t know how long we’re going to be in town.’ She cast an eye over his bony hands. ‘You have assistants to help you, I hope?’

The tailor rolled his eyes, then held up one forbidding finger and shook his head. It took Kimi a moment to realise the gesture was not for her but the three thugs waiting in the alley outside. They looked even more brutish through the uneven glass.

‘Friends of yours?’ asked Kimi.

The tailor took up a measuring tape and bade Marozvolk stand on a low stool. ‘They are not even friends to each other,’ said the tailor. ‘And they are only friendly to me when they come to collect their due.’

Kimi eyed the thugs in the alley. They stared back with dead-eyed indifference. ‘Is there somewhere close by that I can buy a weapon?’ asked Kimi in an idle tone. She held up four fingers in an obscene gesture at the thugs outside.

‘There is always somewhere to buy a weapon in Virag,’ muttered the tailor. ‘Which is entirely the problem.’

The tailor ignored the women in his shop once the measurements had been taken. A young girl was sent to round up seamstresses to begin the work. Kimi and Marozvolk left the shop and headed back to the main thoroughfare. They had barely walked a hundred feet when they spotted an Imperial Envoy, dressed in the customary blue robes of his office, with a soldier’s black cloak across his broad shoulders. His hair and beard were close-cropped, and he could not have looked more different to the men of the Scorched Republics, who wore their beards long and their hair longer still.

‘Frøya save us,’ hissed Marozvolk as Kimi pulled her behind a stationary wagon. The Envoy was escorted by four soldiers, looming over the crowd in black enamelled armour. Each helm bore the red star of the Solmindre Empire proudly on the brow. The soldiers were led by a sergeant carrying a two-handed maul, while his subordinates carried maces and shields.

‘What are they doing here?’ breathed Marozvolk, barely daring to peek around the corner of the wagon.

‘I think we’re about to find out,’ replied Kimi as the Envoy mounted the steps of an impressive but dilapidated building.

‘Citizens of fair Svingettevei!’

‘I loathe Envoys,’ muttered Marozvolk. ‘What is this place?’ she added, looking up at the building.

‘An old temple to Frejna if I had to guess,’ said Kimi. ‘Look at the crow sculptures over the windows, and the tree motif above the door.’

‘I speak to you today on behalf of the Emperor himself,’ called the Envoy in a booming voice. ‘I bring you warning of a terrible danger growing in the south.’ A crowd was starting to form around him. ‘As many of you know, the cities of Shanisrond are teeming with pirates!’

‘We should go,’ said Marozvolk, still remaining out of sight behind the wagon. ‘It’s not safe.’

‘I just want to hear what he’s going to say,’ replied Kimi.

‘Envoys are failed Vigilants that are too useful to kill,’ hissed Marozvolk. ‘If he has the sight then I could be in a lot of danger.’

‘These thieves have harassed Imperial shipping for many months,’ continued the Envoy. ‘And now we suspect they will come north.’

‘What do you mean, “sight”?’ Kimi frowned.

‘It’s how Vigilants detect witchsign. They can see the arcane about you. Some say they can smell it but it’s usually called the sight.’

‘You head back to the ship,’ said Kimi. ‘I just want to hear him out.’

‘Their agents may even be among you as I speak,’ added the Envoy. ‘And you will know them by their dark skins.’ At this, several of the people turned to glare at Marozvolk and Kimi.

‘I’m not leaving without you,’ said Marozvolk through gritted teeth. ‘Can we go now?’

Kimi stared at the crowd with a frosty look, then turned on her heel and slipped away into the next street.

‘I think it’s best I listen to you a bit more in future,’ said Kimi when they were safely away.

‘I’m not just trying to protect myself,’ replied Marozvolk, her words clipped with frustration. ‘I’m looking out for you too, Your Highness.’

CHAPTER THREE
Kjellrunn

Kjellrunn had stayed in her cabin all morning. She had no wish to be among the press and clamour of bodies as they vied for position on deck, no wish to squeeze past pirates and novices for the chance to sight land. Kjellrunn had never left Nordvlast before, never gone more than a dozen leagues from Cinderfell in any direction, and now the Watcher’s Wait approached Svingettevei with all its wonders and dangers but she felt nothing.

She had endured three weeks of nightmares, endlessly seeing her Uncle Verner killed by the Okhrana, and feeling her powers swell again with murderous fury. Over and over she dreamed of smashed corpses and the desolation she visited on the Imperial agents sent to hunt down Mistress Kamalov.

‘Kjellrunn. Do not tell me you are still in bed?’

Kjellrunn groaned and squeezed her eyes shut at the sound of Mistress Kamalov’s voice. She turned over in her bunk as the door creaked open and the renegade Vigilant pushed into the room. The old woman shook Kjellrunn firmly by the shoulder.

‘Up! There is much to do. We have made port at last.’ Kjellrunn pulled the blankets higher, as if they might fend off the day’s problems.

‘Come. I know you are dressed.’ Mistress Kamalov spoke Nordspråk with a harsh Solmindre accent that left no one in any doubt where she hailed from. ‘It’s time for you to get off this ship. We will have meat and wine and conversation with someone other than pirates and children.’

Kjellrunn rose from the bed without a word. It wasn’t wise to disobey the old woman once she’d set her mind to something.

‘I suppose Steiner has already gone ashore?’ Her voice was a sleepy mumble as she pulled a comb through the tangle of her blonde hair.

‘Of course,’ replied Mistress Kamalov as she fixed her headscarf. ‘But Kimi went first. She could barely wait for the boarding ramp to fall.’

‘Wouldn’t it be wiser to wait until they come back? We don’t know what we may run into.’

‘Wise? Yes. But ship’s biscuit and dried meat are no good for children already half-starved from Vladibogdan. We must eat! And you most of all. Like a bag of bones, you are.’

Kjellrunn’s stomach rumbled as if on cue and she smiled with reluctance. ‘I’d just rather avoid running into the Okhrana again.’

‘This is good. It means you have some sense, but sense is no good if you starve to death on this stinking ship! Come on now, out of this cabin.’

They made their way through the dark confines of the Watcher’s Wait and up creaking steps to the main deck, where the escaped novices of Vladibogdan waited. The children were pale and slender in the main and numbered around two dozen.

‘Never much food on Vladibogdan,’ Mistress Kamalov had explained. Steiner had been little more than sinew and scars when he’d returned. The novices’ clothes were ragged and threadbare and many had naked feet. The faraway look that so often haunted the children’s eyes during the journey had been replaced by the fervour of excitement. The cadre of children fell silent as Mistress Kamalov crossed the deck. That she had escaped the Empire and lived as a renegade Vigilant had imbued the old woman with a legendary status among the children. But none had been told about the day a dozen Okhrana came for Marek and Verner in the woods north of Cinderfell. None knew that Kjellrunn had defended her father and the old woman. Not a single novice would be able to imagine Kjellrunn’s fury, manifested in such a display of arcane power that she had almost destroyed the old woodcutter’s chalet. Kjellrunn still saw the faces of the men she had killed when she slept, swept up in a storm of her vengeance, dashed against the trees and ground until they were bloody pulp.