Page 39 of Fate of the Argosi

A thousand different ways things could go wrong. So how was it possible that no one – not even the Argosi – had stumbled upon the secret Mahdek enclave?

As I gazed up at the tall grey stone arch practically inviting us into the luscious orchard beyond which lay a towering palace, my thoughts turned back to the seventeenth principle of arta precis, as elucidated by one Durral Brown:‘Keys are overrated.’

I know, I know – what the hells does that mean? I’d asked my incomprehensible maetri the same question, and in return, got a riddle.‘A door with a thousand locks opens without a key. A door without any locks at all is easier to keep closed.’

The solution to this particular riddle is pretty simple: if your door has a thousand locks, you’re telling the whole world you’ve got something valuable inside. Sooner or later someone’s going to break it down, no key required. If your door hasnolocks, most folks will assume there’s nothing worth stealing inside and leave it alone.

Mostfolks. Not all.

What you need then, if you want to conceal the last remnants of a dying civilisation on your property without anyone noticing, is to build a door without locks that nobody dares open. Be the sort of person of whom no one asks any questions because the answer’s never going to be worth the trouble.

Someone poor and unassuming? Nope. The poor get robbed a lot more often than the rich. Less reward but hardly any risk.

A king or queen perhaps? Show me a royal palace that isn’t packed with foreign spies and corrupt courtiers and then we’ll talk.

How about the abbot or abbess of some distant monastery? High walls, plenty of room, hardly any outsiders snooping around. Don’t know what sorts of monks or nuns you’ve been hanging around with, but the ones I’ve met gossip more than drunken chaperones at a debutantes’ ball.

A criminal overlord mending a guilty conscience by spending the spoils of their nefarious endeavours on a few hundred long-suffering exiles? Forgetting for a moment that crime lords aren’t the most generous of souls, you can bet their lackeys aren’t troubled by bouts of excessive charity.

A military general might be able to pull it off with enough loyal troops. Problem is, housing hundreds of illegal settlers without your sovereign’s permission is an act of treason that would surely turn even your most devoted soldiers against you.

So here’s what you need to house and feed all those refugees without anyone catching on: wealth, influence, a small army of loyal retainers and a reputation for being the sort of person nobody wants to cross. All of that, yet without any of the encumbrances of political or criminal allegiances. Someone upon whom a vast estate might be bestowed by a grateful monarch who no longer expects anything from them.

Yeah, that’s what I figured too: the legendary captain of the Royal Daroman Marshals Service. Retired.

Lucallo Colfax – or ‘Luke’ as his followers called him – stood with his legs wide, hands relaxed by his sides. He still wore the customary grey frontier hat and matching long leather marshal’s coat over a pair of dusky riding trousers and black boots. Thick hair, white as the alabaster dunes north of the Seven Sands, hung down to his shoulders. His trademark moustache curved like a pair of bull horns down past his jaw. Placid as a butterfly on a marigold or a crocodile about to snap its jaws on an unwary rabbit, he gazed up at the galleon we’d left half-buried in a slope of grass outside the walls of his estate.

‘You won’t be leaving that out in the open,’ he said in a deep baritone full of grit but without an ounce of concern over the five Jan’Tep mages whose bands glinted through the fabric of their sleeves. None of us failed to notice the absence of either a question or a request in his tone.

Jir’dan and a couple of the other mages were none too pleased by that tone, but Ala’tris settled them with a look before twitching her fingers and uttering a quiet spell. Beneath a cheerful early morning sun, the huge sails billowed in a wind that came out of nowhere to whirl around the ship, leaving first a shimmer in the air and then nothing at all as the spellship disappeared from view.

Without so much as an approving nod, Colfax then cast an appraising eye across each of the twelve runaways. Methodical, unhurried, no more concerned with any threat Ala’tris and her coven might pose than he was with social niceties like welcoming visitors or even asking their names.

He’s examining their injuries, I realised, watching his gaze sweep over every inch of the runaways in turn.He’s trying to determine whether any of their bruises or scars might’ve come from us.

Ala’tris attempted to open diplomatic relations, but before she’d spoken the first syllable of her greeting, Colfax was already holding up a finger to quiet her. Hadn’t even looked in her direction: just heard that first intake of breath before someone speaks and cut her off.

Conch was nestled close to me, his little goat stare never leaving Colfax. Periodically he made a little huffing sound that generally precedes him belching into oblivion anyone he suspected of being a predator.

‘Stay easy,’ I said quietly. ‘Guy like that never risks trouble ’less he’s got a plan to deal with any that comes his way.’

Personally I’d never spent much time around Daroman marshals, but even I’d heard of the famed Captain Colfax: finest fugitive hunter on the continent and the only man the previous King of Darome ever entrusted with the safety of his wife and son. Three years after that king had died and his son had ascended the throne, the marshal had finally tendered his resignation. Rumour had it the new monarch refused to let him retire, pleading that no one else could equal the old man’s skill and devotion for protecting the crown. The matter was only settled when Luke Colfax finally convinced the only lawman tougher than himself to take over the marshals: his brother, Jed.

Standing there, outside those walls, with the marshal’s grey eyes peering right through me, noting every scuff on my trousers and stain on my shirt as if they were mounting evidence in some case he was putting together against me without bothering to ask a single question . . . well, let’s just say, I hope I never meet his brother.

‘Okay,’ he said at last.

From most people, ‘okay’ sounds like acquiescence. With Colfax, I would’ve sworn he’d just passed sentence on us.

‘Revered Marshal,’ Ala’tris began again, this time hitting him with that warm, graceful smile of hers that could turn a horde of cannibals into vegetarians, ‘we come on a mission not only of mercy, but of hope for a brighter—’

This time he cut her off with a shake of his head, slow, never taking his eyes off her yet somehow seeming to keep watch on all of us. ‘Got work waiting for me in the orchards,’ he said with a gravelly rumble. ‘More chores than hours in the day.’ He started walking along the line of twelve runaways like he was inspecting fresh recruits. He never smiled or offered up a kind word, yet the Mahdek kids grinned up at him as he passed like he’d just ruffled their hair and grabbed them in a bear hug. ‘When your aim is to keep a people alive, there’s nothing more precious than their children. Lot of dangers outside these walls. Feared we might never get these unruly brats back to their kin.’

He paused a moment to stand in front of Kievan. Her shoulders slumped as if the weight of the world had fallen on them.

Colfax curled his forefinger and lifted her chin. ‘You brought them back alive and unhurt,’ he said quietly. ‘Take pride in that.’

Kievan’s back straightened and you could see the glow come to her cheeks. ‘I . . . I had help, Luke.’

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