Daughters of Ruin - K. D. Castner Page 0,54

peddlers and returning caravans at noon hour of a sweltering early summer.

“They’re certainly . . . boisterous,” said Iren, as a swarm of children surrounded their horses to beg and hawk and busk and cajole.

Cadis found she had forgotten such details as the smell of ripe fruit mixed with sweaty mules. The way in which old women winked to one another and the solicitous nod of the old men, a sort of rocking back and forth—as if the chin was a boat on the water—were distant memories to her. She had forgotten the murmur of the sea.

As they rode into the harbor and watched the fleets of merchant ships compete with the facing city for an audience, Cadis felt as much an outsider as Iren.

Jesper had tried to keep her informed of the constant ebb and flow of businesses that swept entire districts in and out of majority. He had mentioned the new amphitheater that towered above Cheapside, where the old fairgrounds used to be. And he had mentioned that the open-air market had been roofed, but he didn’t mention the color—was it orange on purpose?

On the whole, he had done his best. Cousin Denarius had tried to keep her close by sending her transcripts of the broadside news reports—that told her all the latest market gossip and show times to theater she couldn’t attend.

But neither could tell her the true happenings in the guildhalls for fear that Magister Hiram would steal the information. And none of it could have prepared her for the shock of returning.

“It’s so small,” she whispered to herself when they passed the rusted roof of the market. She had remembered it as a massive labyrinth to run through.

The streets were dirt in places.

No one made way for their horses.

The children didn’t fear the guards, and the guards smiled at customers as they held the doors open to the shops.

Cadis imagined every sight from Iren’s point of view and cringed a little. “Provincial” was the word that leaped to mind. “Provincial” and “frantic.”

All around, the noise of commerce had a tense undertone that Cadis had never heard before. Hawkers seemed to press their wares with a desperate manner. Shopkeepers stuck to their negotiated sums, even past the usual friendly haggling.

“Is it really so bad?” said Cadis.

“What?” said Iren.

“The market. Commerce. It seems depressed. Jesper said the trade agreements with Meridan were crippling, but I didn’t expect this.”

“This?” said Iren. “You mean the bustling harbor full of goods?”

“No, but you don’t understand. When I was a child, the traders were like dukes. You could find an elephant with diamond-studded ears if you wanted, fruits like you’d never seen, and some you did, but never so big or so sweet. I once saw a ship sail into the harbor with so much jade and silk and ambergris in its belly that it dredged the bottom.”

“You remember with advantages,” said Iren.

“What does that mean?”

“You were little.”

“Just look—the stalls sell basic goods. There’s no joy. People pay in copper.”

Cadis sighed. The differences were enormous to her but likely indistinct to Iren, who had no use for the great theater of the marketplace. Iren saw only a great hubbub of people and animals, all shouting at once. To Cadis, the chorus was out of tune.

“Cadis? Oh, dear gods, Cadis! Is that you?”

They both turned toward the voice. Cadis nearly fell from her horse.

Iren said, “Whoa.”

In the fourth cycle of The Bones of Pelgard symphony opera, the famed composer PilanPilan expresses the entrance of the legendary hero Khartik with an odd instrument. Not the lute, as he might have done if Khartik were a knavish flouncer on the stage. And not a dendo drum, as he would if Khartik were a gallant warrior. The genius PilanPilan signals the entrance of Khartik with a deep sultry tremor on the bass harp—a bawdy sound as the infamous rake enters the stage—and does as the liner notes specify in every performance of the symphony: he looks every woman in the audience in the eye with a hungry stare, as if she alone were his beloved Lia.

The casting for the part of Khartik was news for the broadsides. The role was more symbol than man—heat and youth and desire. Sex, even as it might live in the dreams of a virgin. A young man of endless appetite for Lia—lost Lia, whose witch mother hexed her into a lake flower and whose appearance magically shone onto the face of every woman Khartik met. This was the role