Page 14 of Among the Burning Flowers
‘Indeed it was. She paidverywell,’ Melaugo admitted. ‘Even without the lindworms, it would have been dangerous to enter a mine that old.’ She shoved another scrap of chicken into her mouth. ‘The other cullers died in that hole. Viterica gave me all of their coin, but it still wasn’t enough. I didn’t just want a bribe for the comptroller. I wanted some money for me.’
‘The curse of one who knows what it is to be truly poor,’ Harlowe said. ‘To be for ever shadowed by the memory and fear of need.’ He took a spill from his jerkin. ‘What then?’
‘An anonymous patron offered me a contract,’ Melaugo said, ‘but the meeting was an ambush. I escaped by the skin of my teeth. The Mayor of Aperio informed Lord GastaldoYelarigas, who ordered the Knights Defendant to hunt me down like a hound, so I could be thrown on a pyre. Liyat had told me about Triyenas, but … I didn’t really expect to find it, desperate though I was. I had nothing to offer or trade, so the villagers drove me into the trees to starve.’
‘Seems they almost succeeded.’ Harlowe looked around. ‘So why are you allowed here now?’
‘I offered them the one thing I can do. If I cull, they’ll give me food.’
‘Suylos would have shot you if you’d struck a deal that bad for him.’
That was true.
‘I can stay here now,’ Melaugo said mulishly. ‘I killed my first the other day. I can survive outside the law.’
‘If you don’t die in some vile lair.’ Harlowe held the spill over the candle on the table, so the end caught fire, and used it to light his pipe. ‘You’ll have your hands full very soon, Estina. I’ve heard of more and more sleepers coming out to hunt. There have even been wyverlings on the wing.’
‘Where?’
‘Lasia and Inys, so far.’ He puffed on his pipe. ‘A second Grief is inevitable. If the creatures are stirring… so are the wyverns. And so, in turn, aretheirmasters.’
Melaugo searched his face. ‘You really think the High Westerns are waking?’
‘Aye,’ he said, ‘and the highborn will soon need someone to accuse.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Sigoso Vetalda already blames the cullers, and the commons in general, for the stirrings. He claims people are disturbing the beasts for sport, and that’s why they’re coming out of their lairs.’
‘Sometimes thatisthe case, but not always.’
‘He’s armouring himself against any implication of fault. He knows that some would hold the monarch personally responsible, claiming he’d angered the Saint, or some such blether. Better to accuse the commons, so we only ever turn upon ourselves.’
‘Queen Sabran and King Raunus both allow culling. I assume the Ments do as well.’
‘Sigoso has his own ideas about justice and truth.’ He blew out smoke. ‘Such a pious man.’
His face hardened when he spoke of the king. It had interested Melaugo since she first noticed. For years, Harlowe had abetted the knaves of Yscalin. He had used his ship to transport smuggled goods, and even found new runners, like her. It was a great risk for a wealthy Inysh naval officer, trusted by the Queen of Inys, who called Sigoso her friend and ally.
If she found out that Harlowe was depriving him of taxes, she would not be pleased, yet he persisted. A perseverance that spoke of a grudge.
But what grudge could a smuggler have against a king?
‘You will have already realised,’ Harlowe said, ‘that Liyat and I are not leaving you here to be killed by a beast. I didn’t trudge up these mountains to walk down empty-handed. And I didn’t pull you from the cobblestones to see you reduced to this state again.’
‘I never asked you to save me.’
‘Don’t start, Estina.’
‘I am four and twenty, Harlowe. My decisions are my own,’ Melaugo said, ‘and I am staying here.’
‘Among people who almost let you starve, risking life and limb for your supper?’ Harlowe kept her pinned with thosecold orbs of his, stripping away her defences. It was irritating. ‘No. I’m going to make you a better offer, and you are going to accept it.’
‘Go on.’
‘I need a new boatswain.’
She blinked. ‘What?’
