May 29, 2025 9:06 am
It was raining. A soft grey haze descending lazily from the lead sky, so timidly that the biting sea breeze threatened to drive the rain back to the heavens. Out at the horizon sea and sky merged inseparably in a sweep of dirty white that curled overhead. Half rain, half mist, the wet of the place made the cold all the deeper.
The docks of Abbadiel were half bare. Here at the river mouth, in the shadow of stout piers that jutted out to sea, men whose skin and clothes were dark with mud - so dark that sleeve and arm or collar and chest were blended into one - dragged ancient fishing boats, their timbers bleached monochrome with age, down the slippery shore to the brackish water.
A lone gull, startlingly white against the weathered and gnarled timbers and puffed fat against the cold, perched on the pier above. The rest
would come when the men dragged in their catch, eager to claim their unearned share.
Favour.
A favour could be done, favour could be won, earned, hoarded, granted, carried. Favour might be a service, a debt, a state. To the godly it was divine, to the commoner neighbourly, to the lover a sign, to the gambler a force of nature. But the brokers of power throughout Anuire knew the truth: Favour was a currency. There was not enough coin in the world to buy what favour could - favour was the one true pathway to notoriety, to influence, to power.
It was favour that brought together a quartet of the more astute political aspirants of Roesone's modest court, favour that brought them to that pavilion a week or more past, favour that put them on a river boat down the Spider River to the fog-hazed port, and favour that saw them on the seaward docks in the grey hours of morning. A favour to be done, and favour to be won.
The task was a simple one, if important. The Sensechal, Gaered Biersen had been as candid as might be expected - perhaps more. A foreign power, one whose own favour the Baroness Marlae Roesone was eager to court but who would go unnamed, was bringing a man named Adalric Salien by boat from distant Khinasi aboard a merchant zebec called the Golden Prowl. Debarking in Abbadiel, the first and last minor port before the Free City of Ilien and more prominent lands beyond, they were to meet with this foreigner and guide him by whatever path they deemed most discrete, to the tradehouse called the Lorn Wastrel outside the town of Halfday in the mercantile County Endier. There they would turn Salien over to parties who would identify themselves with sign and countersign, and thereafter return swiftly (but not conspicuously) to Proudglaive to report their success.
Biersen had made each of them repeat the code over and over. They were to remark that they had heard that 'the price of barley out of Ghoere is going to be high this season' and their contact would reply 'then Sarimie smiles, I favour Tuor barley for my beer in any case.'
"These precise words and no others" Biersen had said more than once. It was true, Tuornen was a competitor to Ghoere for their grains and any heartland merchant might chance to say similar.
If the task seemed likely to take longer than five days they were to send word back to Proudglaive. Beyond that they were at their liberty to go as they pleased. Their party would be too esteemed to be stopped by officials and self-important guardsmen, not esteemed enough that anyone would remember them passing.
Around the eastern point a sleek foreign ship, its faded black sail (emblazoned with a crude claw that might once have been yellow) as sharply angular as its hull, slid into view. The first of the day, it must have sailed through the night to arrive so early in the pre-dawn. Khinasi ships were no uncommon sight in the ports of the Southern Coast of course. The merchant prince el-Hadid and his Port of Call Exchange had sponsored trade routes to Binsada and Ariya and beyond for more than a decade. No one would remark on such a vessel as it glided over the becalmed Straits of Aerele, skimming past the darkly forested coast toward the port.
The docks of Abbadiel were half bare. Here at the river mouth, in the shadow of stout piers that jutted out to sea, men whose skin and clothes were dark with mud - so dark that sleeve and arm or collar and chest were blended into one - dragged ancient fishing boats, their timbers bleached monochrome with age, down the slippery shore to the brackish water.
A lone gull, startlingly white against the weathered and gnarled timbers and puffed fat against the cold, perched on the pier above. The rest
would come when the men dragged in their catch, eager to claim their unearned share.
Favour.
A favour could be done, favour could be won, earned, hoarded, granted, carried. Favour might be a service, a debt, a state. To the godly it was divine, to the commoner neighbourly, to the lover a sign, to the gambler a force of nature. But the brokers of power throughout Anuire knew the truth: Favour was a currency. There was not enough coin in the world to buy what favour could - favour was the one true pathway to notoriety, to influence, to power.
It was favour that brought together a quartet of the more astute political aspirants of Roesone's modest court, favour that brought them to that pavilion a week or more past, favour that put them on a river boat down the Spider River to the fog-hazed port, and favour that saw them on the seaward docks in the grey hours of morning. A favour to be done, and favour to be won.
The task was a simple one, if important. The Sensechal, Gaered Biersen had been as candid as might be expected - perhaps more. A foreign power, one whose own favour the Baroness Marlae Roesone was eager to court but who would go unnamed, was bringing a man named Adalric Salien by boat from distant Khinasi aboard a merchant zebec called the Golden Prowl. Debarking in Abbadiel, the first and last minor port before the Free City of Ilien and more prominent lands beyond, they were to meet with this foreigner and guide him by whatever path they deemed most discrete, to the tradehouse called the Lorn Wastrel outside the town of Halfday in the mercantile County Endier. There they would turn Salien over to parties who would identify themselves with sign and countersign, and thereafter return swiftly (but not conspicuously) to Proudglaive to report their success.
Biersen had made each of them repeat the code over and over. They were to remark that they had heard that 'the price of barley out of Ghoere is going to be high this season' and their contact would reply 'then Sarimie smiles, I favour Tuor barley for my beer in any case.'
"These precise words and no others" Biersen had said more than once. It was true, Tuornen was a competitor to Ghoere for their grains and any heartland merchant might chance to say similar.
If the task seemed likely to take longer than five days they were to send word back to Proudglaive. Beyond that they were at their liberty to go as they pleased. Their party would be too esteemed to be stopped by officials and self-important guardsmen, not esteemed enough that anyone would remember them passing.
Around the eastern point a sleek foreign ship, its faded black sail (emblazoned with a crude claw that might once have been yellow) as sharply angular as its hull, slid into view. The first of the day, it must have sailed through the night to arrive so early in the pre-dawn. Khinasi ships were no uncommon sight in the ports of the Southern Coast of course. The merchant prince el-Hadid and his Port of Call Exchange had sponsored trade routes to Binsada and Ariya and beyond for more than a decade. No one would remark on such a vessel as it glided over the becalmed Straits of Aerele, skimming past the darkly forested coast toward the port.
