The Slime Farmer

Chapter 95: This Day is Not For Firsts

The peaks of far mountains upriver held the last vestiges of golden light and the walls of Ecthys were bathed in the blood of the setting sun, reflecting that gory color onto the pale sails of the ships gently swaying in the harbor.

"A beautiful sight."

His companion only sent one glance in the direction of the ships. She nodded in disinterested agreement, looking around in small jittery movements. "This has already taken too long."

"Has it?"

He sighed. Not everyone can appreciate the sight of a beautiful boat, her sails sharp and her lines graceful. Her sails soaked in blood and bone.

To sail openly under red and white, wouldn't that be just grand?

"Bluzand is already investigating. You should stop, mestre Ramad."

Stop? Eh, this cowardly old woman. 

He shook his head. 

This drylander, has she even stepped on the deck of a boat before? No, she would not understand.

"My dear madame, if I cowered at every attempt to catch me, would I be me?" He spread his arms with a grin and winked. "Besides, are you satisfied with this?"

"What?"

"You have lost a son to thesepeople." He waved his arm in simulated disgust. "You have lost a husband. Does the world not owe you, does not Bluzand owe you? You have two daughters, yeah? Is it enough for them, these few measly cargoes? Your daughters have grown up without their brother, their father. A pity, a pity."

He watched her waver, and smiled so widely that his eyes curved pleasantly.

"The older one is about to be married, isn't she? She should have a good dowry, the best. If not for fate, and those people."

"Yes."

He leaned close, patted her arm like he was her closest friend, and lowered his voice. "All that we are taking, we are both owed."

"Yes," she said again, her voice more resolved. She smiled at him, grasped his hand. "I am glad you are here with me, that you understand. It's just, those river pirates"

He clicked his tongue, a disapproving sound. "Those greedy honorless fools. They do not understand justice. But they are only led astray. I'm sure that with what we are paying them, they will love a better life."

She nodded. "Those poor boys. I hope you're right."

"Worry not, we are in the right and the Seven-colored God watches over us. I will give you justice, dear madame. Count on my word." His lips curled upward sharply. "Now, there is a new shipment?"

"I have the details here." She slipped a piece of paper out from her sleeve.

An anticipating and bloody light in his eyes flashed as he took it.

She quailed, but then his eyes curved and she only saw his friendly visage. "Thank you! Soon, we'll be free of this."

She shook her head. It was only the sunset reflecting in his eyes.

"Yes. I think I need a rest after all of this."

He chuckled. "I am with you on this, madame. To the very end."

*

"The Kings and the Garden are both part of the Rosefort. They were opened to the public just twenty years ago. I spent many of my rest days relaxing in the Garden and many of my school days cursing the Kings."

Defi nodded sympathetically. "They made you write so many history tests on kings and successions too?"

She groaned with an expression of pained reminiscence. "So many"

Vesia's belated attempt at cool professionalism fell through nearly immediately as her enthusiasm for showing Defi her home city leaked into her words and actions.

They were already going through Termorance Street. Compared to the market streets, Termorance had no street-cart merchants, and carriages more stately than their own hired conveyance was the norm. The people were better dressed, for the most part. It was a shopping street full of carefully designed shop-fronts, made to attract those with higher income.

The street-lamps, something the last emperor ordered installed in all the popular streets in the empire's cities to help against crime, were starting to be lit. The lamp-lighters chatted while ambling from pole to pole, sparking light to battle the darkness as the last vestiges of the day lingered in the sky.

"That's the only bookshop on Termorance. Unfortunately, it only sells premium copies." Vesia saw him studying a shop that had books carefully on display. She pointed at a short stair between a haberdashery and a milliner.

"If you go into that alley, there are three bookshops with affordable prices. The other end of the alley comes out at Venter you can find glyphmaking supplies there. The street after that is where the circulary offices are." She huffed, faintly embarrassed. "Just don't speak to anyone but the office clerk, or you'll be there for hours. Gossips, all of them."

A street full of gossips? Defi wondered if they sold information privately. 

He discarded the thought of approaching for information. No doubt Ymirin had already scouted the place. Who knew what traps she had left behind?

"Do they sell trace-tables at the apothecary guild?" 

Defi hadn't placed the item on the list because the price was too high. With the advance payment from the contract, he wasn't worried about not buying a good one.

"No, that would be"

Vesia trailed off and an odd expression flickered on her face. She leaned to one side for a moment, as if avoiding something.

"Miss Vesia?"

"It is the head clerk's" There was a stunned look on her face. She looked at Defi. "I just saw Madame Caria with Gylen Dahall."

"Head Clerk Vodren's assistant." Defi clarified, confused.

She nodded. "With the vice-manager of Amberlon's grandson."

Amberlon was one of Bluzand's fiercest competitors. Defi learned that by hearing casual conversations around the Bluzand building.

And from less than casual conversations that he may or may have not eavesdropped on, he knew that the company had problems. He had still signed because Sarel wasn't someone to give her guarantee easily.

As he was now a partner, it would be nice if the business didn't collapse just as he signed the papers. This was his first venture in this world, too. Creator, he couldn't fail now.

"Follow them." His words overlapped with Vesia's spoken: "We should follow them."

They met each other's eyes in understanding.

Vesia tapped the roof of the carriage.

The driver leaned over, with a questioning grunt.

"Follow that carriage, if you would." Vesia pointed at one of the fancy wheeled conveyances that had passed them by. "Oh! Um, don't let on that we are! Following them, I mean."

Defi hid a smile.

There was a silence from the driver, and Defi could feel his eyes studying them. He narrowed his gaze on the shadowed area under the driver's hat brim.

"Why not?" The driver straightened. 

It was fortunate that Termorance at this hour had fewer traffic. Their one-horse carriage turned quite easily to the other lane of the road.

The driver's head showed again. "Your givvy if my rig gets shot."

Defi blinked. "Ah?"

Vesia smiled. "He says we're paying if the carriage gets damaged."

The driver nodded. "Or if old Lili's cracked."

"I'm assuming that means if the horse gets hurt." Defi nodded when the driver acknowledged. "Yes, of course."

"Top luck to us then, brud." The silhouette of the hat disappeared.

"Yes?" 

Vesia stifled a giggle at the look on his face.

He tipped a smile at her. "And I thought I knew Ascharonian."

"He's turning on Erly."

The driver's voice sobered them. Before either could speak, the carriage horse moved to enter another street and sped up until it was in a fast trot.

"Oh, clever." Vesia nodded.

Defi lamented his lack of knowledge. If this city was Egorau or Ilarad, he would know the alleys in the central districts like the back of his hand.

Even if it were the Lowpool, he was familiar with most of the streets and turns in the northern area.

Here, he was uneasy at not knowing where the paths led to.

"This is one of the more expensive residential areas in Ecthys. Not a lot of bunkreys like this one here. This street parallel's Ely, and we can see the other carriage in the gaps between houses. Well, if there aren't high fences and trees."

"Bunkreys?"

"They call this lovely conveyance a bunkrey." She patted the carriage wall fondly.

Bunkrey? Defi couldn't have thought up a less graceful name.

"Because," Vesia continued. "If you bump it, you cry."

Defi stared at her. "Because it breaks and I have to pay for it?"

"You got it."

He didn't know if he should laugh. "You said this thing was safe."

"If you're not stupid, it is."

Defi tilted his head. "How stupid is it to chase a three-horse carriage down a street at night?"

"Oh, that depends on the speed."

Defi considered the fact that their speed had again slowed to nearly a walk. 

He looked with all the admiring earnestness he could muster at his account manager. "You daredevil, you."

She fanned herself with a fluttering hand, pretending to be flustered and proud. "I am, I am."

Then she glanced out of the carriage and her joking manner turned into a complicated expression. "It really is Madame Caria"

Between the houses, streetlamps flared, already lit. The sight of another carriage on the street parallel to them was still evident. It was nearly close enough to see the faces of the occupants.

But Vesia had recognized one of them. 

"You are friends?" If Defi remembered correctly, the head clerk's assistant was over twice Vesia's age.

"She likes to mentor a few of the apprentices every year. I was one of them, when I started at Bluzand. Madame Caria, she was very kind. But these few years, since she became assistant to mestre Vodren, I suppose she was too busy. We haven't had a long talk in some time now."

"That's because she likes us better now."

Defi's head whipped around at the unexpected voice, and he half-lunged from his seat as the Current swirled in warning. He cursed silently as they were surrounded. 

He had thought the uneasiness he felt to be because of unfamiliar streets. Some of it had been, but not all of it.

What an idiot he was.

"Out of that stupid cart, quickly. And you, driver, get down."

"Who are you?" Vesia shot the demand at the speaker.

"The one with a sword."

Defi hid a grimace as he saw that two of them had readied bows, too far away to attack unarmed.

"What are you doing? Why are you doing this?" Vesia looked around at the armed people.

"Hm." The leader pretended to think, mockingly. "How about, it's punishment for trespassing on private property?"

"Oh, yes, that's fine," Defi answered. "It's not like it's the first time today."

Vesia snorted a laugh, slightly hysterical.