Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [215]
As in Terre d'Ange, we got a lot of curious stares. How not? A lone D'Angeline travelling with a handful of tattooed Cruithne was out of place almost anywhere in the world. Still, no one troubled us.
By the second day, the landscape flattened. Despite its lack of variety, it was a pleasant land, laced with rivers, dotted with farms and villages. The weather was mostly clear and the summer sky seemed to hover low over the land, suffused with hazy golden light. It was a small territory, heavily domesticated, lacking the wild, untamed places the Maghuin Dhonn favored. Small wonder Berlik had chosen to travel as a man, if choice it was.
Somehow, I thought not. If he'd swum across the Straits in bear form, surely he could have forded the Rhenus. And there was enough unpopulated land along it that he could have managed the crossing unnoticed. No, he'd crossed the bridge as a man, on foot, out of necessity.
I was surprised to note that the farther north we went, the more travellers we encountered, including caravans with numerous wagons of goods. Many of them seemed bound for the western coast. Thinking about it, I remembered seeing Flatlander trade-ships in Bryn Gorrydum's harbor.
"Oh, aye," Urist said when I asked him about it. "More trade than ever, every year." He didn't sound pleased about it. "Not just Flatlanders. They've petitioned the Cruarch on the behalf of others. He's allowing a bit.”
There had been a Skaldic dragon-ship in the harbor, too. A recent development and a cautious one, Talorcan had said. "The Skaldi?" I said. "Well, there's naught to smooth over old quarrels like mutual profit. Mayhap it will help if we need to cross their border.”
Urist grunted. "Mayhap. Not deep inside Skaldia, I'll wager that much." He rode without comment for a few minutes, then added, "It's not just the Skaldi seeking trade, either.”
"Who?" I asked.
"Northerners. Wild folk." He shrugged. "Names I've never heard before. Too many to recall, speaking all manner of odd tongues. Some Flatlanders brought a shipment of goods a while back, I heard. Furs, amber. New markets and such. We're that, all right.”
"Interesting," I said.
"If you say so." Urist surveyed the landscape. "It's always the fellow in the middle takes the least risk and the biggest cut, isn't it? These Flatlanders aren't stupid.”
"Well, they don't look like they engage in cattle-raids for fun," I said, and he laughed.
On the third day of our journey through the Flatlands, we followed the Issel River and reached the town of Zoellen, which lay nestled alongside its banks, just south of a second river, the Voorwijk, that ran east to west. It looked to have been a small market-town that had found itself at a crossroads during a time of burgeoning trade, and grown accordingly. The narrow streets were laid out in a haphazard fashion, and we wasted a good deal of time wandering them on horseback until we found the inn the bridge-keeper had indicated, sporting a sign with a goose wearing a pointed crown.
Urist and I went inside.
After we had been outdoors, it was dark and close inside the inn. I was vaguely aware of a dim figure seated at a wooden table hopping down from a stool. "Gods and goddesses of Alba be thanked!" a voice said in Cruithne, somewhat drunkenly. "You're here.”
I squinted and made out a youthful face, bearing a single warriors mark on its brow. I knew him, he'd been one of Alais' favorites at Clunderry. "Selwin? Where are the others?”
"Hunting." His voice turned glum. "We lost the trail.”
"Doubt it's at the bottom of a tankard of ale," Urist observed dryly.
Selwin drew himself up with drunken dignity. "Kinadius left me here to wait for you or Talorcan," he said. "And it's very, very tedious."