The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [188]
“What did you get?” asks Megaera.
“Wish I could have brought more of the staples.” Freigr gestures at the barrels being lifted from the deck. “Mostly cornmeal and barley from a wet corner of Suthya. Still, only about fifty barrels. The White Wizards are buying up what they can.”
“What are they doing with it?”
“Doling it out in Montgren, Kyphros, and Certis. According to the traders, every time they do, they tell how you destroyed the crops in revenge for the wizards’ not accepting you and the Legend.”
“What does sister dear say about this?” Megaera looks from the last of the barrels to Freigr.
“Sister dear?”
“Ryessa . . . Tyrant of Sarronnyn,” Creslin explains.
“Nothing, except that Westwind was a stalking horse for the wizards.”
“I suppose the White Wizards are claiming Westwind was going to unleash the Legend upon the innocent people of Candar?”
“Pretty much,” admits Freigr.
“What else did you get?”
“Some gold. More than I’d like.”
“Oh?” Megaera looks puzzled.
“They’ll buy, but not sell?” Creslin asks.
“Some of them—those few I got to before the guild discovered who we were. I didn’t exactly boast of our origins. We even flew the Montgren ensign. A lot of them had nothing to sell. There’s not even the Kyphran dried fruit, and there’s always dried fruit. I did pick up nearly a dozen barrels of oatcakes for the horses. Don’t know whether you needed them, but they were cheap and I figured the barrels might be worth it alone.
“Then, I did pick up a couple of chunks of iron. Some cast-off timbers, mostly short birch, too brittle, and it rots too easily. Some odd lots of canvas—figured that would always come in useful. Plus another family, paid for passage in gold, Yerrtl’s cousin. He’s a cooper. Don’t have any, but I warned him we didn’t have much wood . . . said he could make baskets from rushes and seaweed, if need be. His daughter’s already showing Black traits, and the Whites have been watching.”
In the end, while the cargo is useful, Creslin knows there is not enough, particularly of flour and other staples.
As they walk back down the pier toward the inn and their mounts, Megaera brushes her hair back over her ears. “It could have been worse.”
“Not much.”
“Why are you always looking at the White side of things? Freigr did get us more staples, and forty-some barrels of cornmeal will last a little while.”
“Not that long. You figure that a barrel of meal is maybe four hundred loaves, and we’re running almost five hundred people now, or more. That’s . . . what? Maybe a half-barrel a day, three to four eight-days’ worth.”
“It could be a lot worse, and it has been.”
“I know. But sayings don’t bring coins or food. And with no one trading with us, where do we go next? Your dear sister has yet to come up with the aid she pledged.”
“You worried about housing, but we’ve managed,” Megaera snaps back.
“What about food? We still don’t have enough supplies to last the winter, and there’s no coin to buy enough.”
“Would you stop it!” Megaera gestures at the clear, greenish-blue sky and the bright noon sunlight. “It’s a beautiful day, and there will always be problems. At least let’s enjoy the respite. Everyone can stop worrying for a while about where the next meal—besides fish—will come from. And you can even have some barrels for your green brandy.”
“Well—”
“Best-loved, I know that we have problems still. You know that. We can discuss them later. It’s a beautiful day, and you are a good-looking man, if you’d stop being such a sourpuss.”
Creslin laughs. It is a short laugh, but that does not matter after the full-bodied hug she gives him in the inn stable. He almost feels like singing as they mount and begin the short ride to the keep.
Above the road, past the inn and between two of the older and weathered fisher cots, a pit has been dug into the sand and lined with stone. A man and a woman struggle with a length of patched canvas