The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, Book 1: Embers, Deluxe Illustrated Edition (9 page)

“What makes you think we have enough extra
victuals for these mouths,” asked Silveo, “useful as they
appear.”

“I sent a messenger early this morning,” said
Gerard stiffly.
Don’t even try to tell me you don’t have enough
food.
Silveo and his crew ate like kings aboard ship. It was
one of the things the sailors liked about him. “The Priestess
ordered us to come,” he added, in case that helped.

Silveo looked doubtful. “She may have ordered
you
to come. These fine specimens, on the other hand—”

“They will do their part aboard ship,”
snapped Gerard. “I know you can always use more deckhands.”

His wardens looked alarmed. Gerard guessed
they had not served on a ship in a very long time, if ever.

“Deckhands,” repeated Silveo. “Why not?
They’re breathing and everything. Farell, give them assignments.”
He turned back to Gerard, his pale blue eyes bright with scorn
against his black kohl. “And yourself, Captain? What do you intend
to do aboard ship?”

“‘Myself’ would rather be employed than
idle,” retorted Gerard.
What are you going to do? Make me mend
sails like a seamstress?

Silveo must have taken Gerard’s words to
heart, for he proceeded to make certain that Gerard was, indeed,
idle. No one would let him help with anything. He was housed in one
of the guest cabins, away from the regular sailors with whom he’d
served the last year. His new position, combined with Silveo’s
apparent orders, made his old comrades shy and awkward around him,
and his placement on the ship isolated him.

Gerard should have been taking his meals with
Silveo and Farrell, but they did not invite him, and he did not
ask. Instead, he dined alone in his cabin with Alsair. Without the
griffin’s company, he would have been lonely indeed. They made long
forays away from the ship, hunting on nearby islands and visiting
small towns. Alsair seemed entirely pleased with the arrangement,
but Gerard was not. He had spent half his life sailing, rowing, and
fishing. None of his previous vessels had been as large as the
Fang,
but he’d certainly not come aboard her ignorant of
ropes, sails, knots, or navigation. Gerard was a good sailor. He
was willing to be useful, even to Silveo, and the waste of his time
and talents chafed him.

Late on the night of the tenth day, he came
out of his cabin (lack of activity made it difficult for him to
sleep), and found Silveo alone on the quarterdeck. The rail was
about the right height for him to cross his arms and rest his chin
there. In keeping with his new policy, Silveo completely ignored
Gerard when he rested his elbows on the railing a few paces
away.

“Do you want a public apology?” demanded
Gerard. He was tired of this. Besides, he had a direct order.
Priestess, I am trying to get along with him.

Silveo sniffed. “Would that make you feel
better? Appeals to your honor, eh?”

“In this case, it’s what appeals to yours
that matters.”

Silveo made a face. “
My
honor?” He
looked down at the churning wake. “Do you have any idea how hard I
worked to get here?”

We’re having a conversation,
thought
Gerard in surprise. This had never happened before. “No,” he said
truthfully. “But I know it can’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t,” said Silveo, almost in a
whisper. “You, who’s had everything handed to you—shelts like you
can afford honor. Shelts like me—” He shook his head, his turquoise
earrings flashing in the moonlight. “Holovar, I’m going to give you
some advice. You may not trust most of what I say to you—and you
shouldn’t—but this, at least, is well-meant: take that apology you
want to give me, and give it to your father. Get down on your hands
and knees and beg him for forgiveness. Foreswear your minstrel
girl; trust me, there will be others. Do whatever it takes, and go
home. Your place, princeling, is back on your island.”

Gerard could feel a knot of anger in his
belly. “Never!”

Silveo’s lip curled. “What I just told you to
do is
nothing
to what I’ve had to do to get here. You have
wealth and power at your fingertips, and for the sake of your
absurd ideas of honor, you come into
my
place and try to
usurp it. Well, I won’t let you! I
will
kill you if you
persist.”

Gerard stared at him.
He thinks I’m a
threat to his position.

And why shouldn’t he?
asked another
voice in his head.
The Priestess obviously likes you. You’ve
been promoted with great speed. You’re the first son of a royal
house, with all the training that entails. Temple service rarely
sees a shelt like you, and when they do, they put him in
charge.

He remembered a conversation with Thessalyn.
“And you are intimidating, especially to someone like that.”
Always wiser than I credit her.

“I don’t want your job, Silveo.”

“Want has nothing to do with it. I don’t
think you wanted the Police, but there you are. Now, I’ve given my
advice and my warning. Don’t expect to hear it again. Goodnight,
Holovar.”

“Wait,” growled Gerard. “Personal differences
aside, I need to talk to you about this trip. That smuggler was not
the sort of person to willingly die for a cause.”

Silveo turned back to him with his usual
sneer. “No, thank the gods. He was bleating like a sheep before we
finished.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Gerard. “He
was the sort of person who would say anything he thought you wanted
to hear. He would especially delight in leading you into a trap. It
would not matter to him if some Resistance died as a result, so
long as his tormenter suffered.”

Silveo quirked an eyebrow. “I’m touched by
your concern.”

“I am concerned for the organization I
serve,” said Gerard, willing himself to patience.

Silveo examined his fingernails. “I find that
in general, the first things a shelt throws out during an
interrogation are the truest. After that—” He shrugged. “You take
what you hear with a stiff dose of reservations.”

“I’m glad to know it. Because that smuggler
struck me as devious and cunning—”

“So am I,” interrupted Silveo, “and I’m sure
he thought there was something in a particular warehouse in Ocelon
Town. He suspected weapons. Of course, our smuggler might have been
mistaken, or the Resistance might have moved, or the materials
might not turn out to be very impressive. I’m not actually stupid,
Holovar; I know these things. But I think there’s an excellent
chance we’ll find
something
in that warehouse if we move
fast enough. Of course, your bellowing and parading the night
before we left didn’t do much in the way of keeping things quiet.
Rumors may already have reached the Resistance, and they may have
moved their stash.”

“Thank you for telling me that,” said
Gerard.

“Don’t thank me,” growled Silveo. “I am not
doing you any favors. I’m not your friend, Holovar. I have given
you my one and only piece of good advice: go home.”

Chapter 11. Ocelon
Town

One might think, after visiting an island
like Lecklock, that Wefrivain is utterly hostile to all
non-grishnard species. This is not the case. Wefrivain is not a
nation. It is a loose confederation of highly autonomous island
kingdoms, frequently at odds and occasionally at war with each
other. They are held together not by a central government, but by a
central religion. Attitudes towards non-grishnards vary widely.
Haplag is probably the most tolerant of the Great Islands. There,
free shavier born on the islands receive a brand at birth. They are
permitted to own property and some are successful business shelts.
A skilled non-grishnard sailor may find employment on merchant
vessels everywhere, and most harbors in Wefrivain have laws against
violence to sailors of any species in port. Some kingdoms afford
the rarer faun species, such as gazumelle and zeds, the same
treatment as the more populous shavier. The rare panaun species,
such as foxlings and ocelons, are frequently treated like lower
class grishnards. Nauns do not fare so well. Grishnards consider
cowry catchers to be little more than beasts. Selkies (seal shelts)
are often treated like cowry catchers if they can be caught.

—Gwain,
The Non-grishnards of
Wefrivain

They reached Sern two days later and docked
in Slag harbor. Sern was the westernmost of the great isles and the
closest to the Lawless Lands beyond Wefrivain. If Silveo was uneasy
about revisiting the place, he never showed it. He sent a messenger
to notify the city magister of his arrival, left Farell in charge
of the ship, and started off to the warehouse district with fifty
armed sailors. Gerard’s wardens were left aboard ship and Gerard
was, as usual, ignored.

Gerard did not feel like fighting for the
company of his wardens. Silveo’s estimation of them had been
unfortunately correct, although Gerard thought that actual work was
doing them good. However, he did not intend to be left behind
himself. Alsair was determined to come, but Gerard shook his
head.

“I don’t want you in a situation where an
arrow could be said to have fired wildly.” Before he could protest,
Gerard continued. “Fly over the city. Look for suspicious
activity—shelts running from the area where we’re going, large
groups of fauns, that sort of thing. You can watch me and come down
if it looks like I’m in trouble.” The griffin reluctantly agreed,
so Gerard followed Silveo’s party alone.

They were heading for the warehouse district,
which bordered Ocelon Town. Gerard had been on Sern only once
before during his coming of age tour of the islands, but he had
retained strong memories of the area. Ocelons were ocelot shelts—a
rare breed of panaun indigenous to Sern. They were protected by
law, but tended to fill the lower ranks of employment on the
island. Sern had the largest wineries in Wefrivain, powered
primarily by ocelon labor, and the brothels loved them almost as
much as foxlings. They were good sailors—small and agile, with an
innate sense of balance on a rolling deck.

Ocelons stood a little taller than foxlings
and, like zeds, some of their fur patterns continued onto their
skin. They frequently had markings on their arms and faces. Their
eyes were striking—faintly almond-shaped, slitted, and often an
arresting shade of green or gold. They were exotic, beautiful
creatures. Perhaps their beauty had saved them from the fate of
other non-grishnards in Wefrivain, but it could not save them from
the poverty in which they lived. Their animal counterparts lived
with them—small cats about thigh-high to most grishnards, whose
spotted pelts were as gorgeous as their masters’. Only an ocelon
could legally sell an ocelot pelt on Sern, the claim being such a
cat had died a natural death. However, desperate or indebted
ocelons were frequently pressured into killing their own animal
blood kin for the expensive pelts. Silveo had been joking to Farell
that morning about whether he could get away with wearing ocelot
fur into Ocelon Town—an idea that Gerard found perfectly
revolting.

Now as they left the harbor, the buildings
changed from the wooden sheds to shacks and finally to
semi-permanent tents of leather and sailcloth. The tents were
clumped so closely together as to seem like one mammoth structure,
and the dirt streets between grew narrower as they went deeper into
the shantytown. They passed open dung pits buzzing with flies. The
stench mingled with odors of wine, cheap perfume, food, sweat,
rotting meat, and unwashed bodies. Gerard didn’t remember coming to
this part of the shanty town on his coming of age tour. He felt
sick.

The place seemed eerily quiet, with only the
occasional golden eye peering from behind a leather flap or skinny
spotted cat darting down an alley. Yet Gerard saw evidence of
recent activity. A children’s jumping game had been scrawled in the
dirt, with small pawprints all around. A table stood outside what
must have been a restaurant, cups of tea still steaming beside the
plates. He guessed that Alsair was seeing a wave of ocelons
retreating from the area occupied by the Sea Watch. Curiosity made
him wish he’d flown with the griffin.
Are these shelts guilty
about something? Or are they just frightened of the Watch?
He
knew that several kings of Sern had taken it into their heads to
eliminate the eyesore of Ocelon Town, and Gerard suspected that the
ocelons were wary of grishnards in general.

Wooden shingles with a meaningless scrawl of
lines hung above some tent doors. Gerard stared at the shingles.
Ocelons have a different language,
he remembered. His father
had mentioned it briefly in their tour of Sern. Looking closely, he
saw that many tents had small signs in the strange, sparse writing.
He even thought he saw street signs.
It’s a world unto itself, a
world grishnards can’t even understand—a perfect place for the
Resistance!