The Golden Cage (44 page)

‘You said you saw a settlement a way off, just before we landed.'

‘To the east, yes,' Benfro said. ‘And there's a road not much more than a mile from here. I'm going to have to be careful from now on. I don't want to escape Inquisitor
Melyn just to be hunted down by men from a different country.'

‘Right. But I can speak their language, and I look like them. So tomorrow I'll walk to this town and ask a few questions. If a dragon came through this way, even fifteen years ago, someone's bound to remember.'

The road was narrow, dusty and straight as it cut a swathe through the endless long grass. Errol had been walking since dawn, and the sun was now well on its way to the top of the vast sky. His ankles hurt, his throat was dry and the makeshift cloth bag hanging over his shoulder weighed him down, its strap beginning to chafe through the thin fabric of his tunic.

He had seen no one all day, heard nothing but the soft
rustling of the wind as it played through the grass. Distant herds of the shaggy black cattle roamed across the plain, and now and then he would come across a small clump of trees, usually clustered around a spring or a dry gully. It was an empty landscape, but a strangely peaceful one too. The mountains rose at his back, distant and sharp, as if magnified by the clear air. They separated him from Inquisitor Melyn, and while Llanwennog was not much safer than the Twin Kingdoms, this remote, empty corner seemed to hold no threat for him.

Evidence of the town began a good couple of miles before he saw the first buildings. Stone cairns marked field boundaries, the grass much shorter here and grazed by goats. Closer in, drystone walls protected fields of vegetables from livestock, and here Errol spotted the first people he had seen since fleeing from Captain Osgal. None spoke to him as they laboured at their rows of carrots and cabbages, instead just pausing long enough from their toil to give him a suspicious stare. He tried to wish them a good morning, but got nothing in return.

As he trudged past the first few ramshackle houses, Errol thought that he had come upon a small village, a crossroads and staging post, perhaps, between larger settlements. But the seemingly flat plain held many surprises, and as he crested a low rise, following the road between rough wooden barns, he was suddenly confronted by the sight of a medium-sized town, certainly far larger than Pwllpeiran.

The bulk of the place was built on the gently sloping sides of a wide gully. There were no houses at its bottom, presumably because it flooded regularly, but a long stone
bridge spanned the wide river that cut through a flat expanse of shingle and larger boulders. A few scrubby trees clung to the rocks, marking a recent high-water line. The bridge would have comfortably spanned even a swollen meltwater flow.

Errol followed the road past two-storey wooden houses that, while faded and perhaps in need of a little maintenance, were nonetheless substantial homes. Halfway down the slope the ground levelled out into a wide flat area that formed the town centre, and here the buildings were of stone. He wondered what local enterprise could support such wealth; there was no sign of any industry here, and neither were there holding pens for animals.

There were few people about, though at least here they responded to his greetings with polite if suspicious nods. He eventually managed to extract directions to an inn from an old lady washing her front step. Her accent was thick, and Errol hoped that his grasp of the Llanwennog language had not faded in the months since he had last heard it. He walked on to a central square, where the road he had been following met another travelling north and south. The inn was a large building on the west corner, and it was the only place in town showing any signs of life.

Errol entered a bar where about twenty men sat drinking, clustered around tables in groups of four or five. For a moment the buzz of conversation dropped away, but it soon picked up again as the townsfolk decided he was of little interest. The barman eyed him with the same suspicion he had seen from everyone else, not rude but wary.

‘I'd be grateful for a pot of ale. And perhaps some
food,' Errol said. Behind him a half-dozen conversations tailed off again.

‘You've coin to pay for it?' The barman's accent was thick, like the old lady's, but understandable. Errol reached into his bag, rummaging around for one of the smallest gold coins he had sorted out of Benfro's hoard earlier. Now was the difficult part. This wasn't Llanwennog money, and it was probably worth a year's salary to a labourer.

‘After a fashion.' Errol put the yellow disc down on the counter. ‘And I'd be looking for a place where I might change this. I used my last sovereign getting here.'

The barman picked up the coin, weighed it in his hand, then peered closely at the markings stamped into it. He stared back at Errol with quizzical piggy eyes, as if trying to make a decision. Then he put the coin down on the bar, pushing it back.

‘You'll need to see Querel, the gold merchant. He should be in his offices right now. You can't miss them – it's the big building on the other side of the square. Come back when you're done with him and I'll have a meal ready for you.'

Slightly bemused, Errol thanked the man and headed back out of the inn. Sure enough, directly across the square stood the tallest building in the town. A short line of people sat outside, but they seemed more intent on basking in the sun than waiting for anything to happen. A set of large double doors lay open, and a brass plaque let into the stone architrave read:
Mertimus Querel, gold merchant – by licence of the office of the royal house
. The letters were etched in a flowing script that Errol doubted most
of the men loafing about the square could read. He nodded briefly to those who looked at him, then quickly darted up the steps and into the building.

It was dark in the hall after the brightness of the sun outside. Errol waited a moment in the entrance, letting his eyes accustom themselves to the gloom. Dark wooden panelling framed numerous doors leading off the hall, which was floored with polished stone that made the air echo to every small sound. A staircase climbed the back wall of the hall to a gallery above. As he stood there uncertainly, a slight cough caught his attention.

It came from a small man in spectacles who sat at an enormous desk a few paces back from the door.

‘May I help you, young … erm, man?' After the thick accents he had heard since entering the town, Errol was surprised to find this man addressing him in the language he had grown used to in Tynhelyg, the Llanwennog of high society and the court. The man who had addressed him was considerably older than Errol. He had thin dark hair with grey beginning to show at the temples, and wore a loose gown of what looked like heavy silk, embroidered with interweaving abstract patterns. His hands were long-fingered and sported many heavy rings.

‘I was looking to sell some gold. Are you Master Querel?'

‘Oh dear me, no. No, no.' The small man laughed with a wheezing sound as if he were out of breath. ‘Master Querel. Ha ha. No. I am Tibbits, Master Querel's secretary. I deal with the day-to-day running of things. Gold, you say?'

Errol pulled out the coin. It seemed very small and
insignificant in the richly furnished reception hall. ‘It's not much. A family heirloom. My grandfather gave it to me when I was a lad. Truth is I'd rather not part with it. But I've got no choice, really.'

Tibbits took the coin, scarcely looking at it as he pulled open a drawer in his desk and took out a small set of scales. He was slow and meticulous in his weighing, making a note in the ledger open on his desk. Then he brought out a glass beaker and poured a clear liquid into it from a flask, peering through his thick-lensed spectacles as he made sure of the level.

‘To see how pure it is, don't you know. I put this in here.' He dropped the coin into the beaker. ‘And read off how much the level rises … So.' With a flourish he noted down something more in his ledger, then picked up the beaker and gave it a swirl. ‘If there're any impurities, the acid will eat them away. But it leaves gold untouched. Clever, eh?'

Errol flinched at the mention of acid. He had assumed the liquid was water, but now he could smell a faintly acrid odour. There were chairs in front of the desk, he noticed, but Tibbits had not offered him one. Instead the small man carefully poured the acid back into the flask, leaving the coin at the bottom of the empty beaker. He tipped it into a small bowl, poured another liquid on top of it, then picked the coin out, wiping it dry on a cloth. Still without really looking at the coin, he returned to his notes, making swift calculations in his ledger. Errol waited patiently, trying to read the numbers upside down as Tibbits crossed his first answer out and recalculated it three times. Only then did the man actually look at the coin.

‘It's
not pure,' he said. And somehow Errol knew he was lying. ‘I've never seen the design before. Old, I take it? Pre-King Ballah, no doubt. Possibly even foreign. You might get more for it from a collector. Master Querel would only be interested in its value melted down. And as I say, it's not pure.'

‘Would I find a collector in this town?'

Tibbits laughed again, and once more Errol wondered if the man was going to expire. ‘I can tell from your manner of speaking that you're an educated man, Mister … ?'

Errol hesitated. He couldn't very well give his real name, which was recognizably from the Twin Kingdoms. For an instant, perhaps too long, he could think of nothing at all. Then he remembered Princess Iolwen up in her tower, and the name she had uttered when first she had seen him.

‘Balch,' he said. ‘Errol Balch.'

‘Well, Mr Balch, there aren't any collectors of ancient coins in Cerdys. There aren't any collectors of very much at all any more. Not since the last gold seam gave out. But Master Querel is always open to a business opportunity. Tell me, do you have any more of these?' Tibbits picked up the coin, which gleamed after its acid bath and polish. Errol revised his opinion of the man's accent. It was city Llanwennog, that much was true, but the refinement was a sham, put on to fool the locals, no doubt.

‘No. I've only the one coin,' he said, and for a moment he thought Tibbits might have believed him. Right up until the point where the man stared down at the bag hanging from Errol's shoulder and made a little ‘Hmph' through his nose.

‘Well,
as I said, it's not pure gold. But there's enough to make it worth melting down and refining. I could give you … let's see … seventy-five sovereigns for it?'

Errol tried not to laugh. From what little he knew of Llanwennog money, he knew that seventy-five sovereigns was a derisory sum. The coin might well be worth ten times that. But he didn't want to raise too many questions, didn't want to be noticed at all. And he could live a long time on less money than that. Still, he realized that if he took the first offer he would seem desperate, and that would make him just as memorable.

‘Is that all? Grandpa always said it was worth a king's ransom. Surely it must be worth a hundred sovereigns.'

‘Well, grandparents like to exaggerate, don't they? Let me see.' Tibbits made another note in his ledger, crossed it out and scrawled some more numbers. Every so often he would mutter, ‘Let me see, let me see,' under his breath as he made a great pretence of coming to a difficult decision.

‘Master Querel might be able to give you a little more; he's sometimes willing to dabble in antiquities. But he's away right now. Perhaps if you came back next week?'

‘I can't. I have to move on. If my horse hadn't died on me, I'd probably not need to sell the thing at all. It makes me sad to have to part with it.' Errol didn't know why he was making up such a woeful story. It seemed like the right thing to do, as if he was supplying answers to questions that Tibbits wanted to ask, but before he could ask them. The man was very transparent, his greed obvious as well as his suspicion. Errol just wished that he had Inquisitor Melyn's skill at manipulation. Then Tibbits would pay
a good price for certain. A hundred and fifty sovereigns, and no need to make any more notes in his ledger.

‘I like you, Mr Balch. You have an honest face. And I can see that you're in a situation that's, how shall I put it, a bit delicate?' Tibbits smiled a humourless grimace. His spectacles reflected the light coming in from the door, making his eyes look like two great burning orbs. Errol said nothing, letting the man make his play.

‘I've been in a spot of bother myself before. I know what it's like when the world's out to get you. So I tell you what. I'll do you a bit of a favour. I'm heading to Tynhelyg myself next month, for the King's Festival, and I reckon I might be able to make a bit on an artefact like this. So here's the deal. I'll give you a hundred sovereigns of my own money. It'll be just between the two of us. No need to involve Master Querel, see. No need for anything to go in the ledger. You get a better price for your coin, and I might just be able to turn a small profit at the end of the day. Everyone wins, eh?'