Dreamspinner (6 page)

Sgioba was the farthest point on the north side of the island where she could make port. If she could find a fast ship, she could make the journey in three days, leaving her ample time to reach Weger’s gates, get herself inside, then negotiate with him for the sort of lad she would need.

She pushed herself back to her feet and spared a thought for what sort of decent bread might be purchased at dawn in a port town. Perhaps the leftovers from the day before. They couldn’t be any worse than what she’d had at the Guild.

She brushed her filthy hands on her leggings and was grateful that at least the front of her was fairly clean. She reached down for her pack—

And found herself suddenly sprawled face down in the muck.

It took a moment or two to get far enough past the shock of that assault to catch her breath—and that she had to do carefully. She lifted her face out of the mud and tried to blink away the layer of slime that was now covering not only her back but her front. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, but that did nothing but smear more unidentifiable substances all over her face.

She blinked enough to see a circle of lads surrounding her, pointing and laughing at her. She could hardly blame them, though she didn’t care to endure any more of their sport than necessary. She pushed herself to her knees and looked around her quickly for her pack. No sense in losing that to the giggling fools continuing to mock her.

She blinked, but her surroundings were the same: smelly and empty of her pack.

She scrambled to her feet and spun around, looking for the rucksack that contained everything she owned save her book, which she had kept tucked into the waistband of her trousers. She could scarce believe her eyes. All her food, her spare clothes, her gold, everything gifted her by the peddler was gone.

One of the lads gestured back over his shoulder. “He went that way with your gear,” he said helpfully. “Don’t think you’ll catch him, but you might try.”

Or words to that effect. Aisling realized that her life—however long that life might be—was going to be made substantially more difficult by the fact that it was a struggle to make out what was being said. Perhaps Bruadair was less provincial than she’d imagined, for the speech there was rather more refined than what she was hearing at present. The accented common tongue she was listening to currently sounded as if the speakers were attempting it with pebbles in their mouths. Then again, they were a rough-looking lot, so perhaps they simply didn’t know any better.

She pushed through the small crowd gathered there, then realized immediately there was no point in attempting to run after what was rightly hers. The press of humanity, some of whom smelled even worse than she did, was too thick. She pulled her cloak more closely around her and looked at one of the least grinning of the lads standing there.

“Docks?” she asked.

He waved expansively. “You’re there, my lad. You might be overdressed, though. Perhaps we can relieve you of your very fine cloak—”

“Oy, there’ll be none of that,” said a loud voice from behind her.

Aisling found herself taken by the scruff of her neck. She didn’t have time to protest that before the possessor of that gruff voice had dealt out several hearty shoves and a cuff or two. Lads dispersed without hesitation. She opened her mouth to offer thanks, then got a good look at the man who had rescued her. Her jaw continued on its way to her chest.

She had never seen anyone that large before in the entirety of her life. Perhaps her life that consisted of the society of women at the Guild and the odd lad down at the pub had ill prepared her for anything else. The Guildmistress might have been almost as tall as the man before her, but she was half his weight. Aisling was profoundly grateful he seemed to be friendly.

“Where’re you off to, la—” He paused, then frowned. “I mean, er…lad?”

Aisling shut her mouth before untoward substances found their way inside. “Sgioba,” she mumbled.

Then she froze. Aye, she had business in Sgioba that consisted of getting off her ship and beginning a frantic run to Gobhann, but given that all her funds had just been stolen from her along with every other item of value she possessed save the book of Scrymgeour Weger’s strictures hiding in her trousers, she wasn’t going to be indulging in that journey as quickly as she would have liked. She didn’t even have anything to sell. She couldn’t imagine anyone would even care about her book.

She was beginning to wonder, not for the first time, if she’d made a terrible mistake leaving her homeland.

She was currently friendless, fund-less, and covered in the muck of scores of horses and heaven only knew what else. Even if she could find work she was capable of doing—which would consist of weaving cloth and sewing the most rudimentary of straight seams—it would likely take her several fortnights to earn enough for her passage. She didn’t have that much time. In fact, she had less than a se’nnight before she was dead.

And at the moment, she realized she wasn’t feeling very well, so perhaps the peddler had overestimated the time left her.

“Sgioba, eh?” her rescuer said, looking at her with a thoughtful frown. “Nothing sails there but cargo ships and ruffians.”

Aisling wasn’t a very good weaver, all her years at it aside, but she was rather skilled with a map. At least she was in theory, and theory told her that even if she managed to sneak aboard a ship that would take her in a direct line across the strait to Bere, it was still a se’nnight’s journey on foot to Gobhann. That was time she didn’t have. Sgioba was where she would have to go.

She looked at the man. “I have no choice.”

He considered. “You’ve no gear, I see,” he noted. “Nothing to be done about that, I suppose. Perhaps you would welcome a wee wash, though. Then we’ll see what a bit of pretty speech does for your passage.”

Aisling could hardly believe she’d found a friendly face in a sea of faces that didn’t look particularly friendly. She took a deep breath, then coughed out what she’d ingested. “Thank you,” she wheezed.

The man winked at her. “My good deed for the day. What’s your name?”

“Aisling.”

“Interesting name,” he said. “Where’re you from?”

The peddler’s warnings were uppermost in her mind at present, which left her even more unwilling than she usually was to divulge details. “Too obscure to mention,” she said, gesturing vaguely behind her. “My village is, I mean.”

“Many are, my lad,” the man said with a smile. “Let’s be off, shall we?”

Aisling nodded and followed him, trying to ignore her smell and pay attention instead to her surroundings. A sentence of death hung over her, true, but still she couldn’t help but marvel that she was walking down a street half a world away from where she’d recently been, as freely as if she were simply out for an afternoon stroll. She was aware of the undesirables her companion pushed out of their way as they walked down a long, worn dock, but for the most part she simply walked and breathed air that was full of things she’d never smelled before.

“In a bit of a hurry, are you?” the man asked, taking a rather persistent lad and tossing him into the water without apology.

“Aye,” she said, hearing the words come out of her mouth with less haste than desperation.

“Then you will certainly need a very fast ship.”

“Is there such a thing?” she managed.

He glanced at her. “If you don’t mind a bit of something added to the sails, as it were, aye, there is a particular ship fast enough to see you where you are going.”

She had no idea what that extra bit of something might be, but as long as it didn’t consist of her flapping her arms, she was all for it. “I don’t mind, sir.”

“Then we’ll see what we can find. Clean up a bit here, lad, and we’ll carry on.”

Aisling paused in front of a wooden barrel and didn’t dare ask where the water had come from. It was cold and mostly clean, something for which she was very grateful. She was happy to use it to wash the grime from her skin, but not her clothing. It was cold, so she thought it best to smell rather than freeze to death. She dried her face on the inside of her cloak, then looked up at her rescuer.

“Thank you.”

“No need to, little one.” He pointed toward the end of the dock. “Keep going until you can’t go any farther. Ask for Captain Burke. Tell him Paien of Allerdale sent you. I’ve a bit of business back in town—buying pretties for my lady wife, you see—else I would come with you. Tell him I’m sorry to forgo the pleasures of his ship, but I’ve sent you instead.” He laughed a little. “I’m sure he’ll thank me.”

Aisling had no idea why he found the thought so amusing, but she wasn’t going to ask. That might have been because there was a sudden and quite annoying lump in her throat at the sight of the gold coin Master Paien was holding out toward her. She met his eyes quickly.

“I couldn’t—”

“Of course you can.” He smiled, a warm smile that left her unaccountably comforted. “Do a good turn for someone else when you’re able. I’ve had more than my share done to me of late. And some passing fine victuals at places I thought only existed in—” He paused, then laughed a little. “Never mind my ramblings. Be off with ye, little one, and catch yer ship.”

“Thank you, good sir.”

He patted her shoulder again with one of his great paws, then walked off, whistling a cheery tune and shoving a few more lads out of his way. Aisling would have watched him go, but she decided immediately that the best thing she could do was hurry to the end of the dock. Whilst Paien of Allerdale might have been of a friendly mien, the rest of the men on the dock were not. If she gained the ship without losing her coin, it would be a miracle.

Unfortunately miracles were apparently not hers to claim that day. By the time she had reached the ship Master Paien had
indicated, all the while trying to avoid seedy-looking men and even a pair of women dressed in red silks who looked as dangerous as the men, she was missing not only her coin but her cloak and her boots. She wasn’t entirely sure her eye wouldn’t swell shut soon, and she was fairly convinced her lip was bleeding. Whatever else might be said about her, one could certainly say that brawling was not an occupation she should be considering anytime soon.

Things were just not going her way. She shouldn’t have been surprised, she knew. The journey there had been terrible: uncomfortable, unpleasant, and with absolutely no privacy in the coach. That, added to her constant fear every time they paused that she had been followed and caught, had made for a horrendous journey indeed. She hadn’t spent very much time doing anything but hiding behind the hood of the peddler’s cloak and wishing she could ignore the sensation of the carriage standing still and the world spinning endlessly beneath her…

She stumbled to an ungainly halt behind a stocky man who directed other less burly lads to carry things to a ship bobbing not-so-gently against the wood of the dock.

“Excuse me, sir,” she began.

He elbowed her aside. “No time, lad.”

“Are you Captain Burke?”

“If you have to ask, lad, you should be back at home, hiding behind your mama’s skirts, now
move
.”

“Paien of Allerdale sent me,” she blurted out.

Captain Burke swung around, almost taking her head off with his arm. He frowned. “Did he, now?”

“He gave me a coin as well,” Aisling said, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Where is it?”

There was the rub, truly. She took a deep breath and looked up at him with as much courage as possible. “I lost it.”

“Had it stolen from you, no doubt,” Captain Burke said with a grunt. “And no wonder, what with you being such a wisp of a thing. What are you thinking to be out in the world?”

“I have no choice,” she said, trying not to sound as desperate as
she was. “I must reach Sgioba as quickly as possible.” She took a deep breath. “I could work on your ship.”

“Doing what?” he asked with a snort. “Looking for your beard? Lad, you’re about to find yourself in the bay if you don’t leave me be.”

“I can sew your—” She gestured at the canvas bits hanging from the crossbars of the mast of his ship. “Well, whatever those things are.”

“Sails,” the captain said, blowing out his breath. “You useless landlubber, begone!”

Aisling caught him by the sleeve. “Please,” she said quickly. “
Please
. I need to get to Sgioba.”

He raised his hand. She realized he intended to strike her only because another hand caught his wrist and stopped it from coming any farther toward her. The captain started to swear, then shut his mouth abruptly around his words. He shook off the restraining hand, then schooled his features.

“Just a lesson in manners,” he said gruffly.

A male voice spoke from behind her, the words pronounced in an elegant way she could understand perfectly. “Not taught by you, I don’t think.”

“Of course, my lord.”

Aisling looked over her shoulder. A man stood there, cloaked and hooded. He was quite a bit taller than she was, though she didn’t consider herself particularly diminutive. Hadn’t the Guildmistress complained endlessly about the space her legs took up in order for her to weave in the workroom?

The man reached out and handed the captain two gold sovereigns.

“That should suffice for his passage and mine,” he said, his voice sounding as hoarse as if he’d been shouting for weeks on end. “And I am no lord.”

“Of course, my l—” The captain bit his tongue around what he obviously intended to say. He shot Aisling a look. “Best polish his boots for him, boy, lest he humors me by allowing me to pitch you over the side.”

Aisling managed to nod, only half heeding what he had said. She was too busy looking at the man’s hand. It was horribly scarred, as if it had been…well, she supposed she couldn’t say in truth what the scars were from. If the scars troubled him, he didn’t show it. He simply tucked his hand back in his sleeve and stood there, silent and unmoving. Aisling looked up at his face but could see nothing of his features save a rather handsomely fashioned nose that protruded slightly from his hood.

“Thank you,” she said, feeling that was somehow woefully inadequate. “I will of course repay you—”