Chapter 4
The cold made Sebastiano glad for the coat his mother Letha had sent last week for his birthday. Even blue wool, the cobalt of burning sulfur rather than more fashionable undyed fur, was warmer than his old coat.
He tucked his gloved hands in his pockets, flexing his fingers. Standing under the gleam of the aetheric lights, which cast knife-edged shadows around him and made the bits of snow in the air sparkle, he watched the boat as it docked. The Eloquent Swan was never late, which was why Sebastiano always tried to commission its captain, Urdo, for his employer’s, the College of Mages, errands.
Sebastiano rolled his eyes, seeing the sailors and crew, Urdo among them, lined up along the railing and gawping, wide-mouthed, at the fireworks arching overhead. A few days in Tabat, a few days of being accosted by political electioneers, vendors, and public criers, leaflets littering the streets, he thought, and they’ll be as weary of it as I.
The Merchant Mage touched his collar. He’d forgotten his own party’s purple and silver symbol when he’d switched from threadbare coat to new, and on his trip to the river docks, the absence had drawn cockade vendors for the Jateigarkist Party, the Dockworkers, and even the Rights for the Northerners vendor. The last had readily identified Sebastiano’s blue eyes and pale skin as showing a Northern affiliation, despite the respectable darkness of his hair. He glanced around, but no one seemed to be paying much attention to him, regardless of Merchant coat or Magely demeanor. Most hurried about, readying themselves to meet the Swan.
Sebastiano was in no hurry. Looking impatient would, he knew full well, just slow things down. Still, he stepped forward and waved to Captain Urdo, who nodded back at him and held up a full hand’s worth of fingers twice before turning to shout something back towards the Pilot. Ten logs.
Sebastiano checked the harness of the small wagon he’d brought, his breath puffing out into the air like smoke into the cold air, glittering with pinpoint-fine snowflakes. Ten logs wouldn’t overstrain the mount pulling it at all. Stepping to its shoulder, he slapped the side where feathers gave way to coarse fur and said, “A little while longer, Fewk.”
The Gryphon huddled his damp wings around himself and gave him an indignant glare.
Sebastiano laughed. “I have no more control over the weather than the Moons, my friend! And you’re the one who begged to come, making me risk another reprimand, just so you could see the city.” He felt through his pockets and took out a crumpled paper sack half full of dried apricots.
Fewk’s ears twitched at the paper’s rustle. He stepped forward to pick leathery fruit from between Sebastiano’s fingers as they waited.
More fireworks overhead, mop-headed blooms of purple and red and white.
Sebastiano grimaced. A month of this nonsense already, he thought. Another two to go before the actual elections! Assuming the elections took place, since the Duke and the Council seemed incapable of agreeing on the form that they should take. Even the College of Mages had been infected by the political fever, and sponsored their own Order of the Rune. I might have bowed to pressure to wear their pin, but it is ridiculous for respectable people to take part in this nonsense, trying to appeal to the uneducated voters, incapable of knowing who they should choose. The mass of people will pick whoever produced the brightest fireworks, the prettiest words, the juiciest sausages, or, most likely, the strongest beer.
Sebastiano had more important matters to attend to.
As a rare—if undervalued—Merchant Mage, he was qualified to do business on the College’s behalf, and he didn’t mind that the College made him pay for the privilege for now. He was still learning to become a Mage. If he could master that, if he could shed the Merchant part of his title, he could join the College as a paid, rather than paying, member.
Wouldn’t that be a blow for his father? Sebastiano smiled.
He could see the silvery trunks stacked on the aft deck, their stumps like ringed eyes, sacks of Dryad hair piled near them, gathered from the imprisoned Beasts on the trip. Ten trunks wasn’t bad. Twenty years ago, though, when he was only a youth, the ships had come in with nothing but Dryad trunks, great floating rafts of them, because the silvery, magic-rich wood was so plentiful that it didn’t matter if a few floated out to sea.
He and Urdo spoke on the dock as the Minotaurs loaded the lengths of half-living wood, long enough to be awkward, on the cart. Brown leaves scattered across the snow like moldering cards, broken edges picked out by the streetlights.
“College know you’re using their Honor Mount for pulling lumber again?” Urdo said with a squint towards the Gryphon. The larger Gryphons, sacred symbols of Tabat, were forbidden to most owners; the College held Fewk by special dispensation.
“Gryphons need exercise, more than just flying,” Sebastiano said. “What the College doesn’t know won’t hurt anyone.”
“It’s twelve galleons and seven schooners for the wood. Two and seven for the search and one per trunk.”
“I can’t give it to you,” Sebastiano said. “You’ll have to come round and talk to the Treasurer.”
Urdo spat into the water. “Last time you said that, Toj had mooned half a dozen times before I saw a copper skiff! I had to submit invoices and tallies and receipts and a thousand other paper cantrips.”
Sebastiano shrugged uncomfortably, looking at the water’s icy glitter. “Believe me, I wish I had it for you.” This is always the worst part of dealing for the College.
Urdo snorted. “I don’t blame you for your masters’ stinginess. Although, I will say that for people who claim they will be contaminated by financial dealings …”
“It’s not that, precisely.” Sebastiano flexed his hands inside his gloves, trying to warm them as he spoke. “Coins and currents of finance affect magic, just as lines of magnetism or Dragon bone or Zombie flesh does. So most of the Mages there cannot handle business dealings except through a Merchant Mage, someone trained in both traditions who does not have much magic to be distorted.”
“They usually cloak it up in more words than that,” Urdo said.
Sebastiano shrugged again, feeling the comforting warmth of the coat around him. “It wastes time to talk around things.”
Urdo clapped him on the shoulder. “Well enough, I’ll not argue with you too long. Will you come and have some fish tea with me?”
“I need to get Fewk back to the stables, else I would,” Sebastiano said. “Will you be in Tabat long?”
“A few weeks,” Urdo said. “Till the politicking drives me away. But I want to time my travels so I’m back for the vote.”
“You can do it before time, if you intend to travel,” Sebastiano said.
“I know, I know.” The captain’s calloused hand wavered in the air as to forestall further argument. “But it feels a moment of such significance that I would rather be here to witness it, to be able to tell my children’s children I cast my vote along with the rest.”
Sebastiano was surprised at the depth of romanticism to the usually stolid captain. He cast about for something to say. “Certainly a time of change,” he said.
Urdo grunted and turned away as a syrup cask splintered on the snowy wharf. Sticky brown liquid splattered the planks underfoot, the cart, the startled sailor who had dropped it, the Minotaurs standing waiting. They snorted steam out of their massive nostrils, icy condensation forming on the brass rings fastened there, big enough to serve as a Human bracelet.
One surreptitiously licked his ungloved hands, the backs pied with black and white fur.
“Travel safe,” Urdo flung over his shoulder as he strode off to berate the sailor.
A sharp-featured man with a boy in tow approached Sebastiano. “Bound for the College of Mages, are you?” He had a flat, workingman’s twang to his voice, as though emphasizing his origins pugnaciously.
“Aye,” Sebastiano said, putting away his purse. He couldn’t say what it was, but he disliked this man on sight. Months of river travel had left the sailor unkempt, shaggy haired and bearded. His faded wool coat, once red with the touches of purple and white that marked him a follower of the Moon Temples, was much mended and at least a decade out of date. He didn’t wear a political cockade.
Sebastiano drew himself up, fingering the rich, bright fur lining the edges of his pockets, conscious of his own shaved and lotioned cheeks, and the Merchant Mage’s chain, not quite as large or gilded as a full Mage’s but still signifying years of labor at learning, strung across his chest.
The other man seemed unimpressed. “Then you can take this boy along to the Moon Temples and drop him there.” He fished a packet from inside his coat and held it out. “Give them this, it’s his moon coin.”
“That’s the other side of town!” Sebastiano said.
“Not if you take Spray Avenue. Though it’s longer, it’ll be easier on your Beast, surely?”
The man was, unfortunately, right, as both Sebastiano and Fewk knew. The Gryphon shifted in his harness, but said nothing for once. Sebastiano took the coin and put it in his pocket, scowling.
Stirring from the Pilot’s grasp, the boy approached the Gryphon, face bright with wonder. Fewk lowered his great beak, allowed the boy to stroke the fine feathers around his glistening eyes. The boy’s fingers ventured into the feathers around the uptilted ears, and the traitorous Gryphon’s eyes lidded with pleasure as he leaned into the caress.
“The boy’s new and the eve’s cold,” the irritating man persisted. “Surely you’ll not begrudge him a ride on the way to a Temple life. It’d walk him clean off his feet.”
Poor little wretch, Sebastiano thought. “Very well,” he said. “Stand by that wheel, boy, and don’t get in the way.”
He turned back to the Captain. There were still three tuns of spring water unaccounted for.
Fireworks barked again as Fewk shrieked warning. A weight struck Sebastiano’s back, clung there, clawing at the thick cloth—the layers of felt almost as good as armor—as the Dryad tore at his shoulders.