Even after all these months, it felt strange being “one of the muscle.” He lounged against the railing of the footbridge and tried not to imagine everyone watching him. He imagined the passersby thinking, “What is Lord Gallendris doing here?” A part of him wanted to shout the truth at them—the truth that the Matriarchs wanted him dead for no other reason than greed, even in the face of the coming war.
Instead, Farek stayed silent. He stood between Ralla and Oakeb, pretending to watch the lapping waves beneath the bridge, while at the same time glaring up at the Three Castles of Noress-That-Was, scraping the clouds overhead with their bleak silhouettes.
Matek was the one doing the work today—he was in the bar across the footbridge, filling a captain’s ears with sob stories of wartime terror. It was the third such captain they had sought, but ships leaving the harbour of Noress were rare these days. Only necessary cargo vessels and military charters frequented those waters now. At least today’s captain was the subject of the Cobblestone Bog rumour mill. He was a crooked man, allegedly—a smuggler. If enough passengers could fill his deck, then stashes of soma and worse would fill its hold and they would be off.
Two years ago, Farek would have broken such a man’s nose and dragged him back to face the law.
“Lighten up,” Ralla said, after eyeing Farek for a good long time. “Matek’s done far riskier deeds than contact a smug—”
Farek hushed her aggressively, then rolled his eyes. Of course, the layabouts in Cobblestone Bog cared more about their damp boots than another smuggler. Farek looked down the street past the footbridge and wondered what his odds were of flicking one of his few remaining Gallendris coins and hitting a cutthroat on the shoulder.
“I’m just saying, one less thing for you to worry about, right?” Ralla insisted.
“Right,” Farek muttered, dryly. His spirits had lifted over the days of their stay in Sheld, and the voyage forth—but none of them had planned to spend this long sitting beneath the Matriarchs’ powerful thrones. Farek’s paranoia had started to creep back in. Everyone who came too close got his wary eye—to see if a blade between the ribs was about to be given.
At last, they spotted Matek departing the tavern room. The man’s hair had grown out a little longer, but his eyepatch distinguished him, even from a distance. He marched down the road, and onto the rickety footbridge over the flooded old road below. Farek fell into step beside him—just one of the muscle.
“We’ll sail in three days,” Matek said, with authority. Then he added, “Pay is a little steep, but reasonable given the times.”
“Any word of Soros?” Farek asked. He had asked the question a dozen times already…enough times to raise suspicions, he worried.
Matek shook his head. “No news.”
Farek grimaced and said nothing. He staggered along after Matek, trying not to fret. He longed to know how his sisters fared.
“No news is good news, right?” Ralla asked, looking over at Farek with a raise of her scarred eyebrow, as they followed Matek on opposite sides.
“Right…” Farek muttered, dryly.
They walked onward, through the drowning slum on the sunken waterfront of Noress-That-Was. The setting sun finally cut through the distant clouds and cast a halo of gold and red above the Matriarchs’ castles—gilt adorning a den of liars and murderers.