She stopped his heart, and he dropped to the ground like a felled bull.
The young redhead looked around the carnage. “We’re saved!” His face had gone pale, which made his freckles even more prominent. He gaped at the three dead men lying in the garbage in the alley. “You killed them! Sweet Sea Mother, you—you killed them. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Maybe not,” Nicci said, “but that was the most convenient solution. They made the decision for me. Those men would have preyed on others, robbed others—and eventually they would have been caught. I was saving time and effort for the magistrate and the hangman.”
The distraught redhead couldn’t decide what to do. His lip was bloody, his face puffy and bruised. “It’s just—they took my money, but I doubt they were going to kill me.”
Nicci ran her gaze up and down his lanky form. The young man wore a loose homespun shirt dyed brown and sturdy canvas pants of the kind worn by sailors. He didn’t have any weapons she could see, not even a knife at his side. “You don’t think they were going to kill you? That is not a gamble I’d choose to make.”
He swallowed hard, and she was struck by how innocent and foolish he seemed. If even the bruises and the loss of his money purse had not taught him the necessary lesson, then Nicci would not waste further time on him. “If you keep walking these alleys, unarmed and unaware, you will soon have another opportunity to learn whether or not the thieves around here intend to kill you.” She turned to walk away. “Don’t count on me being here to help next time.”
The young man hurried after her. “Thank you! Sorry I didn’t say that soon enough—thank you. I was raised to show gratitude to those who do good things for me. I appreciate it. My name is Bannon … Bannon—” He paused as if embarrassed. “Bannon Farmer. I’m from Chiriya Island. This is my first time in Tanimura.”
Nicci kept walking. “I guessed that much, and it may be your last time in Tanimura if you don’t stop being such a fool.”
Bannon followed, still talking. “I used to be a cabbage farmer, but I wanted to see the world, so I signed aboard a sailing ship. This is my first time in port—and I came to buy a sword of my own.” He frowned, and patted his hips again, as if he somehow thought he had only imagined the robbery. “They took my money. That boy—”
Nicci showed neither surprise nor sympathy. “He bolted off. You’ll never find him. That child is lucky he ran, though—I would have disliked killing a little boy, even if he was a thief.”
Bannon’s shoulders slumped. “I was looking for a swordsmith. Those men seemed nice, and they told me to follow them, led me down here.” He shook his head. “I guess I should have been more suspicious.” He brightened. “But you were there. You saved me. Are you a sorceress? I’ve never seen anything like that. Thank you for rescuing me.”
She turned to face him. “And shame on you for needing to be rescued. You should possess more common sense than to let yourself become a victim. I have no mercy for thugs and thieves, but there would be no thieves if there weren’t fools like you to prey upon.”
Bannon’s face turned a bright red. “I’m sorry. I’ll know better next time.” He wiped at the blood coming from his lip and nose, then smeared it on his pants. “But if I had my own sword I could’ve defended myself.”
He leaned against the alley wall and struggled to pull off his left boot. “Maybe I have enough coins left, though.” When he upended the boot, several coins rained out, two silvers and five coppers. He held them in his palm. “I learned this trick from my father. He taught me never to keep all your money in one place, in case you get robbed.” He looked forlornly down at the coins in his hand. “It isn’t enough to buy much of a sword. I had hoped for a fine blade with a golden hilt and pommel, intricate workings. The coins might be enough, though. Just enough…”
“A sword doesn’t have to be pretty to be effective at killing,” Nicci said.
“I suppose it doesn’t,” Bannon replied as he replaced the coins in his boot, and stomped his foot back into place. He looked back down the alley at the bodies of the three thugs. “You didn’t need a sword at all.”
“No, I don’t,” Nicci said. “But what I do need is a ship sailing south.” She began to walk back out of the alley. “I was on my way to the harbor.”
“A ship?” Bannon hurried after her, still trying to adjust his boot. “I’m from a ship—the Wavewalker, a three-masted carrack out of Serrimundi. Captain Eli is due to set sail again as soon as his cargo is loaded. Probably with the outgoing tide tonight. He’d take passengers. I could put in a good word for you.”
“I can find him myself,” Nicci said, then softened her voice, realizing that the young man was just trying to help. “Thank you for the recommendation.”
Bannon beamed. “It’s the least I could do. You saved me. The Wavewalker is a good ship. It’ll serve your needs.”
“I will ask,” Nicci said.
The young man brushed himself off. “And I’m going to buy my own sword so I won’t be helpless next time I get in trouble.” With an inappropriate display of conscience, he stared at the dead thugs in the alley shadows. “But what shall we do about them?”
Nicci didn’t bother to look back over her shoulder. “The rats will find them soon enough.”
CHAPTER 6
After the sorceress went on her way, Bannon wiped blood from his lip and felt the bruise. He tried to fashion a smile, which only made the pain worse, but he smiled anyway. He had to smile, or his fragile world would fall apart.
His canvas trousers were scuffed and stained, but they were durable work pants, a farmer’s garment made to last, and they had served him well aboard the ship. His homespun shirt was now torn in two places, but he would have time to mend it once the Wavewalker set sail. There would be quiet listless days adrift on the water as they voyaged south, and Bannon was handy enough with a needle and thread. He could make it right again.
Someday, he would have a pretty wife to make new clothes and do the mending, as his mother had done on Chiriya Island. They would have spunky, bright-eyed children—five of them, he decided. He and his wife would laugh together … unlike his mother, who had not laughed often. It would be different with him, because he would be different from his father, so very different.
The young man shuddered, took a breath, and forced his mind back to the bright and colorful picture he liked to hold in his mind. Yes. A warm cottage, a loving family, a life well lived …
He habitually brushed himself off again, and the smile felt real this time. He pretended he didn’t even notice the bruises on his face and leg. It would be all right. It had to be.
He walked out into the bright and open city streets. The sky was clear and blue, and the salt air smelled fresh, blowing in from the harbor. Tanimura was a city of marvels, just as he had dreamed it would be.
During his voyage from Chiriya Island, he had asked the other sailors to tell him stories about Tanimura. The things they had described seemed impossible, but Bannon’s dreams were not impossible, and so he believed them—or at least gave them the benefit of the doubt.
As soon as the Wavewalker had come into port and tied up to the pier, Bannon had bounded down the gangplank, enthusiastic to find the city—at least something in hi
s life—to be the way he wanted it to be. The rest of the crew took their pay and headed for the dockside taverns, where they would eat food that wasn’t fish, pickled cabbage, or salt-preserved meat, and they would drink themselves into a stupor. Or they would pay the price asked by the … special ladies who were willing to spread their legs for any man. Such women did not exist in the bucolic villages on Chiriya—or if they did, Bannon had never seen them (not that he had ever looked).
When he was deep in drink, Bannon’s father had often called his mother a whore, usually before he beat her, but the Wavewalker sailors seemed delighted by the prospect of whores, and they didn’t seem interested at all in beating such women, so Bannon didn’t understand the comparison.
He gritted his teeth and concentrated on the sunshine and the fresh air.
Absently, he pulled back his long ginger hair to keep it out of his way. The other sailors could have their alehouses and their lusty women. Since this was his first time here, Bannon wanted to get drunk on the sights of Tanimura, on the wonder of it all. He had always imagined that the world would be like this.
This was the way the world was supposed to be.
The white tile-roofed buildings were tall, with flower boxes under the open windows. Colorful laundry hung on ropes strung from window to window. Laughing children ran through the streets chasing a ball that they kicked and threw while running, a game that seemed to have no set rules. A mop-headed boy bumped into him, then rebounded and ran off. Bannon felt his trousers, his pocket—the boy had brushed against him there, possibly in an attempt to pick his pocket, but Bannon had no more coins for the would-be thief, since he’d already been robbed. The last of his money was safely tucked in the bottom of his boot, and he hoped it would be enough to buy a reasonable sword.