moss, with the stars shining through the leaves overhead, and the trees surrounding him like the walls of a home, he knew the world beyond the forest was diminishing in his mind, its troubles and conflicts no longer his own. He was at peace at last in this quiet, lonely place of his mother’s people. He wished never to leave it.
On the fourth morning of his convalescence, Bull was wakened by a sharp stab to his side, and he sat up to find a group of male Contrarè gaping down at him. Warriors, by the looks of their painted faces, striped green and black from ear to ear, and the crow feathers and bone charms adorning their long dark hair.
‘Chushon! Tekanari!’ One of the men demanded as he jabbed his spear at him again. The warrior seemed the youngest of them all.
Bull grabbed the shaft of it and plucked it out of his grip.
At once, a dozen spear-tips were pressing against his flesh.
‘Whoah,’ Bull told them as he held up a hand. He tossed the spear back into the hand of the startled warrior.
‘Calm down. I’m one of you, see?’ And he gestured to his face as though it was obvious.
The men glanced at the young warrior. They wanted to kill Bull here and now, he could see.
With graceful movements the young warrior planted the end of his spear in the earth and plucked at the knees of his trousers to bend down before him. Tentatively, he grasped Bull’s face and turned it one way and then the other. He studied the sharpness of his cheeks, the swarthy complexion of his skin. He peered closely at the horns tattooed on his temples, and nodded his head in appreciation.
‘Then welcome home, brother of the tribes,’ the young man said in rough Trade, and helped him to his feet.
Ash wandered through the rain, lost and aimless. His mind had sunk into his feet, and he released himself to the feel of the hard rounded cobbles against the soles of his boots, letting them take him wherever they would.
Hermes the agent had offered him a room to stay in for as long as he needed it. Numbly, Ash had thanked him but declined, and had left the man standing at the front door with the birds shrieking behind him.
‘I’m not certain what I do now, Ash. Are we finished then? Is it over?’
Ash had only waved a silent farewell.
He didn’t realize he’d been walking south towards the Shield until he sniffed the scents of fish and seaweed and brine, and looked up from beneath the brim of his dripping hat, and saw the Sargassi Sea and the calmer waters of the east harbour before him. The countless ships that sheltered there bobbed and rocked in the gentle swell, while gulls wailed forlorn and hungry, sweeping back and forth through the sheets of rain. Men with fishing rods sat on stools along the waterfront, clad in hooded ponchos to protect themselves from the weather. Their demeanours were calm and patient as they chewed on tarweed or smoked from clay pipes.
To Ash, just then, they looked like the most contented men in the world.
The Shield was visible from here above the huddle of All Fools. The Lansway it stood upon stretched out across the water into a dull obscurity. He could see little of the ongoing assault itself out there; just plumes of smoke rising from the outermost wall, and the occasional flash of fire. The scene was muted, the sea breeze carrying the sounds elsewhere into the city.
Pressing onwards, he came to a busy junction overlooked by inns and merchants’ storehouses. The junction was the scene of a vagabond street market. Fancy carriages attempted to force their way through the crowds, which were mostly street vendors, brash prostitutes, the occasional gang of roaming urchins. A hill rose steeply ahead of him into leafy streets and high, marble mansions fronted by spike-topped walls, an enclave of Michinè and wealthy common-born. The Congress of the council could be found up there, he recalled.
Ash saw little point in going that way. He carried on along the seafront, the road curving out to skirt the base of the hill. After a row of rowdy taverns and sleep-easies, the road eventually petered out into a shingle track, with the hill on his left fronted by limestone cliffs.
The coastline here was a narrow, windswept strip of rock between the cliffs and the sea. Shanties had been erected amongst pools of