Masquerades - Kate Novak [81]
The Gleason, Alias realized, was a galleass. She had heard that Sembia was building such ships, but the Dhostars' was the first she had seen. It was basically a larger and more heavily armed version of the great galley, one hundred sixty feet long and forty feet across the beam. The sails were lateen-rigged from three huge masts, though at the moment they were tightly furled, tied with cords of black and gold. Tonight the ship would be powered by oar. Alias counted fifty oars, painted bone white and so large that each could be manned by several
rowers. A twenty-foot iron-clad battering ram jutted out from the bow. Tarpaulins covered what Alias guessed was a pair of ballistae mounted on a massive turret on the top of the foc'sle. Both the foc's'le and the sterncastle, which towered two stories over the deck, featured narrow archers' slots.
While the fighting capabilities of the ship were not hidden, tonight the vessel was obviously decorated for festivities. The rowers' benches were curtained off, screening them from view of the guests, and vice versa. A giant banner emblazoned with the wagon wheel and three stars of House Dhostar draped down from the top storyof the sterncastle, reaching nearly to the waterline, while a smaller House Dhostar banner and the banners of the croamarkh and the city of Westgate fluttered from poles fore and aft. The stern lantern, fitted with magical light stone, was covered with a square of fine red silk, bathing the ship's deck and the dockside with a rosy glow.
The pier rattled, and Alias turned to see a chair on wheels, with an awning, like a miniature carriage, rolling toward her. The wheeled chair was white, with a green feather painted on the side panel, and pushed by six halflings. The passenger was an ancient human woman attended by a pale, blonde girl in her teens. The girl's main duty seemed to be to keep the halflings from pushing the chair into other guests in their zeal to move the device toward the gangplank. Several guests broke away from their constellations to chase after the chair, with as much dignity as they could muster, until the vehicle came to rest at the end of the pier. Then the followers paid their respects to the elderly passenger.
Someone brushed up against Alias, and the swordswoman turned quickly, expecting a pickpocket despite the standing of the crowd all about her. She faced the back of a woman in an elegant gown of yellow satin hemmed and edged with fox fur, with a tiny golden dagger dangling from her gold-link belt. Her dark hair, which hung down her back, was swept back from her face with a barrette fashioned like a basilisk. The woman turned and murmured an apology, which Alias accepted with a nod and a weak smile.
The woman smiled broadly. "You're new," she noted with a tone of delight and surprise.
"Yes," Alias admitted. "I feel like a fish out of water. I'm afraid I don't know anyone here."
As Alias spoke, the other woman took full stock of her, her gaze fixing at last on her right arm. The stranger's eyes became glassy, and her face seemed to petrify. "No," she replied frostily. "You wouldn't." She turned on her heel and made for the next little group over, leaving Alias staring at her retreating form and the eyes of her basilisk barrette.
Alias frowned. Obviously the woman had recognized her from her tattoo. She couldn't believe she'd been snubbed just for being a swordswoman. Surely Westgate merchants socialized with adventurers on other occasions. She continued moving toward the gangplank, scanning the crowd for a friendly face. As she passed the woman with the basilisk barrette, the group the woman now stood with broke into gales of laughter. At least