Stealers' Sky

They were lined up along the wharf before the Beysib ship cleared the offshore current. A sharp-witted merchant hoped to make a fortune before noon. Walegrin and Thrusher mingled with the noisy throng to make sure those fortunes were honest-merchant honest.

The Beysib ship came into the harbor with her galley oars shipped and her rust-colored sails stretched tight. She rode low in the water, but her lines showed speed despite her heavy holds and metal-clad bow. A catapult rose from her stem; she'd bum the sails of anything foolhardy enough to chase her. The exiles insisted that the ship, and her sisters, were their homeland's cargo vessels-lumbering relations of their warships. It might be that the fish-folk were lying through their staring eyes, but no Sanctuary sailor felt the urge to challenge them.

"Pirates each and every one of them. Barbarians," Thrusher muttered as Beysib sailors swarmed over the rigging as the ship drew alongside the wharf. "They think we're animals," Thrush continued. "They think we've got no souls because we don't have fish eyes like them. Don't think they've made a square deal with us since their first ship put in here. Stealin' us blind is what they're doing. I'll bet they're selling us garbage."

Walegrin grunted noncommittally; he wouldn't take his friend's bet. For all that he'd been bom a thrall, Thrusher was a snob. As far as the commander could tell, the Beysib were getting insect egg cases, uncured pelts, and barrels of swamp beer for such goods as caught a mainland eye. The Beysib might be selling garbage-Walegrin couldn't be surethe Sanctuary merchants definitely were.

The two soldiers broke up a fistfight between Beysib sailors and Sanctuary laborers. They fished a careless merchant out of the harbor. A redhaired Ilbarsi offered them a bribe of pickled passion fruit. A Rankan offered them pearls if they'd guard a certain triple-locked chest against all comers. They took the fruit, and took the Rankan to the palace lockup for stealing. The carnival was still going strong when they returned to the wharf.

A woman with a donkey cart blocked their way. The wharf could support a three-horse dray, but there were drainage gaps between the diagonally laid planks. The donkey was sweating in its harness; the woman was pulling the donkey; and the wheels were wedged into the gaps.

Walegrin nudged Thrusher. The woman had to be new in town. Only a stranger would lead the donkey along the wharf rather than across it, much less own a cart that could get both wheels stuck.

'"I don't understand it," the woman explained as the two men made a barrier between her and the unamused crowd. She was almost as frantic as the donkey.

"We'll get you out of here," Walegrin muttered. He took the woman's shawl and wrapped it over the donkey's eyes. Donkeys were smarter than horses, but not by much. "Never done this before, have you?"

"Why, no ... When the other ships came in, my brother-in-law was home ..."

Walegrin walked away to exchange places with Thrusher. He got a firm grip on the single axle, then nodded his head, lifted, and scuttled sideways as Thrush got the donkey moving.

"No! No! Not that way. I've got to get out to where they're unloading."

The two men exchanged an evening's conversation in a glance. The cart settled back onto its axle, free now, but still blocking traffic.

"The length of an axle is set by the prince's decree," Walegrin recited to the woman, who was, by then, in tears. "It's matched to the width of these planks and the width of the gap between them." He handed the shawl back to her. "This cart gets stuck out there and I'll have to impound it. I'll have to take it to the palace and it'll go to firewood unless you pay a fine of two soldats."

The woman's tears ceased; she turned pale enough to frighten the commander, There was no fine for women fainting on the wharf, but he had no desire to have his arms full of drooping femininity. To his immense relief she squared her shoulders and started breathing normally again.

"Is it permitted to tie a cart here-by the cobblestones?"

Walegrin nodded.

"Then I shall carry my goods myself. I ca

It was the second time she'd referred to her brother-in-law, and both times she seemed to shrink as she uttered the words. She hadn't mentioned a father or a son, nor a brother or husband; not even a sister's husband. Walegrin looked at her with the begi

"I'll carry your goods back here for you."

For a moment it seemed she had been too broken by her misfortunes to take advantage of Walegrin's offer- Her eyes widened; they were blue. It was possible that, if she were not so thin and anxious, she'd be a handsome woman. It was hard to tell, and the commander was about to turn away when she made up her mind to accept his offer..

Since the Beysib traders and their mainland counterparts did not share a spoken language, bargaining was done with gestures. Factotums recorded the transaction in the appropriate languages on parchment, which was then torn and divided among the principals. In theory, there was no need for shouting, but the clamor along the wharf was guaranteed to give all but the deaf a headache.

Chests and bales were still coming off the ship, to be opened on the first empty patch of wharf the merchant encountered. There was no such thing as a clear path and the indigenous criminals were having a field day. Walegrin spotted a light-fingered youth in the act of lifting a sizable purse. Their eyes met, and the thief kept lifting. A half-dozen overflowing chest separated the law from the lawbreaker, and even if they hadn't, Walegrin had all he could do to keep up with the woman.

She strode past more gimcrack and gewgaw dealers than Walegrin cared to count. Personally, he saw nothing that would tempt him to crack his next egg. But he was a soldier; women were supposed to be different.

There was a hierarchy in the disorder. The frivolities which the fish judged most likely to please the natives were crammed together at the landward end of the wharf. The consignment goods destined for the exiles were more carefully displayed closer to the ship. Midway between them three silk sellers displayed bolts of cloth and finished garments.

Silk had been known since the Ilsigi Kingdom. Mainland silks were thick and brittle compared to the fiber the Beysib Empire produced in vast quantities. They took dye poorly and, in any event, not even the Ilsigi alchemists had conjured colors like those the Beysib set in their silks. They shimmered in the sunlight; any fool could see Beysib silks were worth their weight in gold.

Walegrin was not, therefore, surprised when the woman stopped to examine them, although how she thought she could buy silk when she was scared witless by a two-soldat fine was a question he couldn't answer. Why she would buy it was another puzzling question. For all its beauty, Beysib silk was not selling well in Sanctuary. It came in two equally impractical varieties: gossamer sheer that snagged and tore on a whisper and damasked over a horsehair foundation so stiff that the cloth supported itself.

Perhaps in the Beysib Empire, where it was both cool and dry the year around, such cloth could be made into wearable garments. In Sanctuary, a person could be noticed in Beysib silk, but never comfortable. It was comfort, more than any sense of propriety, that drew Shupansea and the other Beysib women out of their bare-breasted costumes and into traditional Rankene gowns.

The woman studied each length of fabric. She twisted it, and tugged it, and got down on her knees to examine the underside. The merchants began to get hopeful, then she started walking again.