Chapter Sixty-Nine: Sea Legs

Osmund,

I thank you for your reply, and for putting aside your grudge long enough to write it. I smile to hear that the two of you are well at home. Tell me of Emre, too. Have you seen much of him in the last few days? Has he been a help to you?

In your letter, you assured me many times that the work isn’t dangerous, that you conceal yourself well going back to the manor, and that your coworkers are simple men with no direct involvement with the Guild, apart from the pay they receive and the gossip they hear. If the situation changes, I hope you’ll keep me informed, and prioritize your own safety. I trust you to exercise your good judgment.

The lodge in Elmaluk is crowded with men, and I’m learning a great deal of their statecraft. Most, including my father and his retinue, have known each other for decades, and speak of business from the capital of which I am largely ignorant. I don’t mind it, though I can think of finer company. A pleasant surprise has been my brother Yücel, who you remember. He is my younger by only a month, but has lived a sheltered life inside the palace owing to his disabilities. We did not speak much as children, as he was often kept separate from us others. However, now that I have occasion to know him, I find him to be highly mannered and intelligent. And he’s asked after you, Osmund, to say he was sorry you could not accompany us. I told him that if I knew you at all, you have spent the time since our parting riding with faithful Banu from sunup to sundown. That was before I read your letter.

By all means, continue your work as you like. But do not neglect my old horse, whom I entrusted to you. Be sure she gets an uninterrupted hour of your time every day. Two would be even better.

Your humble servant,

Cemil

The morning was very young, with a bitter chill hanging in the air. Osmund, in the shabby trousers, loose shirt, and threadbare vest which over the last few days had become his “costume”, wished he’d opted for another layer.

Fishermen pushed from the shadowed shore in their light skiffs, but the docks were quiet. Osmund stopped in his tracks. Leaning against the storehouse wall was Mylo, smoking a pipe.

“Been waiting for you,” he said, puffing. “You and your poncy accent.”

Had he been discovered somehow?! Osmund went stiff with fear. But Mylo just lowered his pipe and glared. Surprisingly, his next words were, “Can you do sums, fancy lad?”

That was all the warning he got before Mylo was marching him through a door off the side of the storehouse and eventually to a chamber that smelled of dust, where he was practically shoved into a chair. On the table in front of him, Mylo dropped a voluminous ledger, the bound leather groaning with effort. The pages swam with marks and tallies, all chickenscratch, and Osmund’s head throbbed.

“These are your accounts?” he babbled, overwhelmed. “What—who’s managing these?”

“You are. Our boy left town and the Meskato dock authorities are breathing down our asshole. I’m losing hair finding his replacement,” said the utterly bald man. “This mess make any sense to you?”

Osmund squinted cautiously at the scribbles on the page. “I think so,” he decided. “But—”

“Then you’ve got your work cut out for you. Pay is ten aspers daily. Sort this out by end of month, I’ll double it.”

“Um,” Osmund said urgently before Mylo could disappear. “Wait, I’m just going to sit in here and—?”

The door had already shut. Osmund was alone, listening as Mylo’s footsteps reverberated on the cobbles outside before fading to nothing.

He looked around the tomblike office in which he’d been abandoned. Lined on dusty shelves stood a number of cracked volumes, each looking (and smelling) like they’d been dredged up after an unhappy stint on the seafloor. To his left was a little window barred with iron, the glass practically opaque with a caked-on layer of salt and grime.

Most notably, he felt certain of what had driven the previous accountant from his post: a sore posterior after too close an acquaintance with this insidious chair!

He waited a moment more, for safety. The room was so still, he could pick out the distant cries of gulls over the ocean, thus he wasted no further time in exploring, picking up the various books of records lining the walls with delicate fingers. He had no idea what constituted important information; his head hurt to try and contain it. Slowly he crept back into the hallway. There was the door to the outside, and one leading into the storeroom. It was dark. He felt certain the others were not in yet.

Then from that direction: “Ow!” he heard, a girl’s yelp. “Blast!”

“Ken?” Osmund called, forgetting stealth. And he pushed open the door.

It was indeed Kenadie. She froze on the storeroom floor, one finger in her mouth to soothe an injury, and goggled up at him as if he’d caught her in the bath. Osmund’s first instinct was to apologize.

“Sorry, sorry to frighten you!” he blathered. Then he took in the rest of the scene.

At Ken’s hip there was an open pouch, and at her knees, a cracked clay vessel. Inside both he spotted layers of resinous flakes: the valuable shellac that the dyers used in their trade. Coupled with Ken’s guilt-ridden expression, there was only one thing this looked like.

They sized each other up for a long moment. “Well, what do you want?” Her tone was small and controlled, almost meek. She scooped up some of the waxy substance and offered it to him. “I’ll cut you in, if you like. Stuff’s valuable, even this much.”

“No,” Osmund said faintly, cursing his bad timing. “I—don’t want a part in this, thank you.”

Ken nibbled her lip again. Then, wordlessly, her fingers went to her shirt collar, and she began unbuttoning her blouse from the top.

“Wh-what are you doing?!”

“Don’t play dumb. I’ll only do this once. My brother gets here soon, so you have to be quick.”

“You’re just a child!” Osmund protested, horrified. “And I’m a stick-rider, though that’s beside the—cover yourself right now! I’m not going to turn you in.”

Ken’s demeanor finally changed. Her unsteady fingers paused over the buttons of her half-open shirt. “You’re like Ry?” she asked, almost hopeful.

It took him a second to catch on to her meaning. “Like I said, it’s beside the point!” Osmund repeated, facing the wall so she could have privacy. “You’re still too young to be doing—that, with anyone. Heavens. Who’s taught you such things?!”

“I’m fourteen, old enough to know what men want.” He heard a shuffle and sigh. “You can turn ’round.”

Osmund turned. Ken was fully decent, trying to put the cracked vessel of lac back together before hoisting it back on the shelf with its fellows. “Rats musta done it,” she said with a shrug.

He was at a loss on how to impress upon her the dangers of the game she was playing, though he felt like he should. She knelt down and picked up her tiny drawstring purse, and before she could cinch it shut he caught a glint of something golden. “Is it wise to carry theckerils on you?” he admonished, unable to help himself. “It’s not exactly a common man’s coin. What if Mylo notices and catches on to what you’ve been doing in here?”

“Here, then. A tip for your silence.”

Ken tossed him the coin, and Osmund realized the opportunity. He scrutinized it with the keen eye of a Tolmish prince who had handled gold theckerils all his life, trying in vain to take its measure against all the others that had passed through his hands. If it was a forgery, it wasn’t a careless one. Everything was in its proper place: the castle, the falcon, the stars which were Ocens’ precious relics. The inscription: Valcrest Beloved, Beneath His Grace.

“It’s fake. I’ll tell you that for free.”

“You mean it’s a counterfeit?” Osmund blabbed, betraying his interest too openly. “Where did you get it?!”

It was at that inconvenient moment that Rylan pushed through the door. His brows raised to see them chatting, but he only nodded in greeting, then retreated to the back of the storehouse.

“Thinks I get up early to feed pigeons,” Ken whispered.

Osmund folded his arms. As good as it felt to enter another person’s confidence, he didn’t love being the keeper of yet another explosive secret. Rylan surely had the right to know his sister was stealing from their employer’s clients and putting them both at risk.

Ken took up a broom and began to sweep the mats with broad gestures while Osmund mulled this dilemma. “Thanks for not ratting me out,” she said, after another furtive look over at where her brother had begun unspooling twine and securing boxes to a handcart. “I’ll make it worth your while, I promise. Not like that, you priss. I mean I’ll help you to survive here while you get your ‘sea legs’.”

She hesitated for a moment, then said in a hush,

“If you’re interested in seeing more shiny stuff, there’s a lot more where that came from.”

Osmund’s ears perked like a hunting hound’s. Rylan meanwhile had begun looking over his shoulder at them, not suspicious, not yet, but too curious. “Now scram, I’m sick of your ugly mug,” Ken declared, loud for her brother’s benefit. “We’ve all got work to be doing, yeah?”

Osmund sat himself back down in the horrible chair, flung open the ledger, and tried to focus. The first twenty minutes were like beating his head against the wall. The next ten, once he’d begun to work out a pattern to these awful scribbles, were better. Before he knew it he’d torn out a sheaf of paper and was scrawling his own notes industriously. An hour flew by. Then another.

“Brought you lunch.”

There stood Ansley in the doorway, holding a grilled fish on a skewer like a kebab. “So it’s true Mylo stuck you in here,” the man mused, taking stock of the little office like it were a dungeon. “Well? Percy rob us blind before he took off?”

It was apparent exactly when their man had quit; the ledger was fairly coherent up until a point about a month prior, though the handwriting left something to be desired. Osmund rubbed his aching neck, whose complaints he had not noticed until now. “I haven’t found any discrepancies so far. Who’s responsible for the rest?”

“All of us have taken turns at the book,” Ansley said. “Well, those that can read a little. Sorry for the headache.”

The ache traveled to Osmund’s temples. If he had become Valcrest’s king, he’d gladly have invested his country’s fortunes in a literacy program, and maybe some maths education. Too bad that ship had sailed, so to speak. “It’s alright. Just missing the outdoors today.”

“Then you’re in luck. I’ve come to take you away.” Ansley beckoned him. “We’ve got something incredible for you to see, and we could use the help. It’s going to haunt your dreams at night!”