Chapter XXX
The Crying Man
Infoduhû slammed the drawer on his desk shut with a kick, rattling the jars and bottles arrayed across its top. Sweat trickled down his brow, curving around his eyes and finding their way past the scars of his tears. He neither cried when his masters burned the gems into the flesh and bone of his face nor on their removal—he couldn’t remember ever crying—but a pang of humiliation struck whenever the heat reminded him of his past.
He swiped his brow with a kerchief, his gut twisting with worry like it did every harvest. “Mokên!” The young man’s head poked through the door, a mop of dirt-brown hair on his head. “Bring me Jôjô.”
The head whisked away and Infoduhû snorted at himself. Too easy to think of Mokên as a servant, a slave even, when he was more an enemy’s spy. He turned to the chest sitting against the wall and opened the little door. He grabbed a cup of water and chipped ice from the block inside with a pick; a cool sip chilled his throat and nerves. Anything with alcohol sounded better, but he needed his wits about him. Cold would need to suffice.
“You wanted to see me?” Jôjô was Koromun by birth with ruddy-brown skin and green eyes as sharp and curious as a newborn despite the black hair streaking with gray. Like so many around him, he didn’t know who she worked for despite her answering to him. The only thing he trusted was his distrust.
“When will we have samples of the crop?”
“Later this week. The harvest will be clean. Three thousand bricks, at least.”
Donu-Honêsh was both hardy and finicky; it didn’t die so much as it devolved into a weed as worthless as the ash it would burn into. Every year there was waste, and after losing a harvest to pirates he couldn’t afford an off-year until the new fields brought in a harvest. “Word’s been sent to Sûmukîl?” Since their lost cargo, Infoduhû figured it best to hire a pirate to avoid pirates.
“It has. No answer as yet, but he’ll be here.”
“He better.” Transporting Donu-Honêsh was a constant challenge: Too few guards and they were vulnerable to attack, too many and the Vitolêun or some other city’s navy would take notice. Either way, failure would fall on his head.
The door creaked open and Mokên’s head poked through again. “We’ve foreign sails offshore.”
Too soon to be Sûmukîl. “What nation?”
“No banners. Not a merchant ship. Big bastards with pale skin.”
His eyes widened as his lips puckered. “The northerners the Boboru are looking for?”
“I imagine so.”
Infoduhû laughed. Luck or irony or foreknowledge that wanted men would arrive here, the hub in the middle of nowhere, a place no one would want such attention drawn. “Strange coincidence.”
“I imagine not.”
“How many ships?”
“One. Our man in the trees says there’s a ship farther out. Way out. But they may not be related.”
Jôjô said, “It could be innocent.”
Trading for supplies, searching for freshwater, or looking for directions, were all possible in a normal time and place. Infoduhû rubbed his cheek, the knot of a tear’s scar bulging beneath his finger. “In the Gulf of Tomulok, no one is innocent. The question is whether they’re buying, selling, or stealing, and who they work for.”
Mokên said, “We should kill them. They can’t be here.”
Jôjô snorted. “Eager for blood are you? Stories say they summoned a dragon to destroy a Histê temple.”
“The squawk of gulls, no more.”
Infoduhû raised a hand. “Don’t pick a fight with an enemy you don’t know. I will greet them and decide if they are enemies at all. Nobody attacks unless I give the word, understood?”
Two blank stares, and he stepped from the building without either agreeing, knowing his command would slow but not stop whatever decision they might make. I’m a cynic. They wouldn’t defy him outright, so long as the treasure flowed. So long as they relied on his knowledge to keep the Donu-Honêsh growing. If ever they learned the secret, his life was forfeit, an ugly truth he accepted from the moment his Boborun master ripped the tears from his cheeks.
The day was steamy as any other and the sun baked the sand so that his feet burned as he strode into the street. It was a pain like so many he’d grown accustomed to over time, his soles hardening to leather after decades of booted slavery to the Boboru that had kept his feet soft. He swiped his brow and hung to the shade the scattered buildings and trees cast until setting eyes on the longship rowing to shore.
Mokên was right; the men were big, as tall as the Boboru but not so broad, nor did their guts hang over their belts like so many of his old masters. He trotted north, putting Jundên’s Boulder—named for the fisherman who sat its height every day—between him and the ship.
Jundên baited his hook as the foreigners approached, his lips puckering to spit into the surf. The old man greeted hundreds of ships in his days of fishing; he’d been the first to welcome Infoduhû to the village, and the old man took pleasure in mocking folks who he figured idiots.
Infoduhû slowed and strolled to the boulder as the ship’s hull beached. He edged up the side of the boulder, chiseled for a climb in a time forgotten, and peeped over the top, hiding his eyes behind Jundên the best he could. A man with two swords on his back leaped from the bow first, lifting a beautiful woman to the shore with the ease of lifting a child. She wasn’t one of them, perhaps a slave or lover. Three more pale-skinned men followed, and he was surprised they weren’t red as boiled lobster. They must slather their skin much as he did to protect his albino white from turning to fire.
Two Swords strolled toward Jundên with a cocksure stride worthy of a Boboru until he lost sight of them. He boosted higher, but eased back to the surf as Jundên gestured at him.“We sought man fodder vision Infoduhû, the Crying Man.” Someone spoke in horrible Gorô, confusing, but it left no doubt of who they looked for; his name was the only piece that made sense.
Jundên said, “Go. Piss on yourselves.”
Infoduhû suppressed a smirk as the foreigners babbled until another voice said, “Infoduhû.”
Jundên responded. “The outhouse is yonder behind the village, but better to piss in your trousers. The one you seek is behind this rock.”
The foreign babbling grew frustrated, and Infoduhû knew the old man could keep this going for a candle, but the longer it went on, the more apt Mokên might get antsy and try to kill these visitors. Rumor carried by sea spoke of these men sailing from Mulshahar, so he wagered they might share words in the trade tongue. “You people should hire better translators.”
A flicker of silence before a man responded. “What did he say then?”
“He said the one you seek sits behind the rock.”
He glanced from behind the boulder, guessing Two Swords was the leader as it was he who spoke. “You are Infudohû?”
“I am! And you men have a mighty price on your heads if I’m not mistaken.”
“We do, offered by the same people who gave you those tearful scars if I’m not mistaken.”
Infoduhû strolled from behind the boulder for a better look, chuckling. These foreigners knew him for the slave he once was. “Indeed. Why do you seek a humble fisherman like myself? A man who only wishes to live out his days in peace.”
“I heard rumor you do a little farming.”
He raised his brows in mock surprise. Not a soul who arrived on these shores wanted nothing. “I dabble in the garden, but wouldn’t go so far as to compare myself to those of such a noble profession.”
“A big garden.”
“A tiny garden. Full of weeds.”
“And beneath the weeds grows Honêsh.”
A circumspect road to reach the expected destination. “Why... I do not know. I am a very weak man, too poor to hire the weeds cleared.”
Two Swords reached into a pouch at his hip and fished out a gold Smeden, reflecting the sun straight into Infoduhû’s eye. This foreigner understood how to strike up a conversation. “The sun has grown scorching hot on my frail skin. Come, we shall talk inside.”
He strolled toward town with languid strides, giving his people time to gather warriors in case the conversation sprouted warts. It wouldn’t take long. While Montôltok held the appearance of a hundred villages along the Emerald Coast, its people were as handy with swords and axes as they were nets and fishing spears.
He led the foreigners past a dozen buildings cut from local trees and through a couple of unnecessary turns before reaching the middle of town, a lone stone building amid the log structures. The locals had taken to calling it The Anvil, as it was here where every trade deal was hammered out, from fish to lumber to sugar. Inside was a wide-open space with four desks and shelves filled with books. The room was neat and tidy, a place of business rather than a home. Infoduhû gestured to a table in the center with a dozen chairs. “Sit, please. Mokên!”
If the man wasn’t around, Infoduhû’s suspicions would burn, so he was pleased when he stepped through a doorway. “Yes, sir?”
“A pitcher of Okwên for our guests.” The advantage to foreign guests was to excuse drinking liquor so early.
The youth bowed and departed, but not before an annoying smirk meant for him.
Two Swords sat straight and propped his elbows on the table. “I need Donu-Honêsh, as much as I can haul, and I hear you’re the man to talk to.” He untied the pouch at his waist and tossed it across the table with a heavy thud and jangle. “Yours just for hearing me.”
Infoduhû grinned and slithered his hand to the pouch while judging the man’s face. He was either honest or a skilled liar. He loosened the strings and glanced at polished smedens, enough to live on for years in these backwaters. “That is a high price for words. This is a very dangerous thing you seek.”
“It can kill—“
“Not what I mean, no indeed. My buyers pay well and leave me only a brick or two to share with my friends.”
“The Compunêu Trade Consortium.”
This foreigner held more surprises than just his arrogance. Infoduhû’s awareness of the Consortium remained a rare gift, and a curse, as he believed every soul he met might answer to them. He suspected Mokên most of all, but could these foreigners be a test of his mettle? The Consortium was renowned for questioning the value of those who worked for them, as well as murdering those who answered wrong. The notion put a quiver to his bowel. “You’ve heard of them, and yet still here you sit asking for their promised crop.”
“I’m an ill-mannered barbarian who cares little for the hurt feelings of some Gorô shits.”
Mokên returned with a pitcher of golden Okwên jangling with chipped ice. He poured and served his guests drinks, but they stared at him rather than drinking. It was a caution he could respect. He raised his glass and drank, the fruity blend putting a smile on his face.
“Those Gorô shits, as you so vulgarly put it, purchase my every harvest four times a year and if I had more they would buy that as well. I can spare a brick...”
“I want a harvest.”
Infoduhû blinked. The notion was absurd, a humor maybe unworthy of even a Consortium trial. Two Swords might be crazy, but he might also be legitimate. “Friend... Your gold spends as well as theirs, but there is an agreement in place.”
“A ship sinks, some mishap... A quarter of the harvest.”
He chose to lie, to see if it might trigger some expression. “In a normal time, maybe... half the last harvest was lost when the ship was entangled in a Gorô-Boboru battle in the Gulf. If I am short again... It cannot be.” The man didn’t blink at the deceit; a reaction he could read, none could mean anything. He always wondered if they mightn’t suspect him involved in the theft.
“You’ve heard of the Smiling Men?”
Infoduhû clutched his glass, fingertips whitening. He’s testing me. “I am not an untraveled man. They do not allow Donu-Honêsh in their cities.”
“I didn’t stumble my way through the Monsoon Straits and I didn’t stumble my way to you, and angering the Boboru along the way was intentional. The Smiling Men want the Boborun city of Enepal flooded with Donu-Honêsh... I say this to you, a man who bears their scars on your face, and I say the Smiling Men will pay a market premium.”
The Smiling Men wanting to hurt the Boboru sniffed of a lie, part of their fame resided in their neutrality, but ships from Enepal, in particular, had grown aggressive in collections the past couple of years. “This is a proposal with ramifications reaching beyond our warring gulf, both large and small and unpredictable. But it can’t be done.”
“The Smiling Men show wisdom in all things; they are not in a hurry. The next harvest will suffice.”
Infodohû’s hands kneaded together and his brows scrunched. “It isn’t possible.” Even as he said it, his thoughts turned to his new fields; they weren’t ready, not yet, but if Two Swords wasn’t lying and showed patience… “Unless your smiling friends pay me upfront. For the harvest after this one.”
Two Sword’s blew bubbles in his drink and snort-laughed before plunking his glass on the table. “Upfront three months out isn’t going to happen.”
Curious, that the man knew they delivered Donu quarterly. No, I mentioned it earlier. But quick as he answered, did he know already? “Then it won’t happen at all. The Gorô must receive their shipment.”
“If they must then how do you supply the both of us?”
Infoduhû leaned back until his chair stood on two legs, measuring the man’s integrity. He flicked three fingers on the edge of his chair and caught Mokên’s gentle nod; the village would descend and slaughter the barbarians on a word if they proved false. What he planned was risky, but he still didn’t know who he was dealing with. He needed to know. “Let us walk, away from ears.” He made straight for the door and Two Swords followed him. “You trust your people?”
“I do. Not like they’ll go telling the Gorô anything, you see how well they speak the tongue.”
Infoduhû laughed, easing his own tension with this mysterious man. “Their Gorô is atrocious, but still, word of this cannot spread. And I’d need two hundred smeden per brick of Donu-Honêsh.”
“That’s twice what I heard whispered. How many bricks are you talking?”
“A thousand bricks. Enough to kill every Boboru in Enepal, the fates willing. And this way it would not starve the Gorô of their trade.” I should rejoice if this man’s plan is true, even if I don’t survive it. Why do I care for Enepal? He convinced himself he didn’t, that even a newborn babe feeding on its mother’s Donu-laced milk deserved to die. He convinced himself that the fear of his own death drove his hesitance.
“It’s expensive.”
If you aren’t lying, I need the gold to flee to Mulshahar and hide. “I’m the only supplier in the world and your employers can afford it.”
“They can at that, but how are you going to meet that demand?”
He swallowed, his next words committing him to striking a deal or killing these foreigners. “There is a sugarcane field I’ve been preparing, it isn’t ready to seed with Honêsh, but with the gold from the Smiling Men, it could be. Four months and you’d have the equivalent of a full harvest. No one can know about it, yes?”
“The Consortium will notice when Donu-Honêsh hits Enepal.”
“And it will be blamed on Boboru pirating during the war... the ship believed sunk was obviously taken. All explained away.”
Two Swords planted his feet and looked as if about to chuckle. “It’s too gods be damned convenient. You had me going, I admit. But my people have a saying, you don’t scratch a lead bar to find gold.”
“It’s all true. I swear on it.”
“Near a quarter-million smedên on a promise... I’m not sure what the Smiling Men would do to me, but I wager you’d live long and in agony if you failed them. No pirates, no storm, no infestation of insects would make for an excuse.”
“It’s no risk at all. The sugar cane will guard the Honêsh from the weather.“ Half a truth and half a lie; no lie at all if he’d mastered soil infusion the way he hoped.
“What you claim isn’t what I know. I need proof.”
“What proof have I?”
Two Swords reached into his pack and produced a sheet of paper bearing the hallmarks of a Mulshahar Writ, from the bank’s stamp to the city’s signatures of guarantee, but it was the red and gold inked sigil in the lower right corner that stopped his heart and numbed his fingers. “A blank writ, up to half a million smeden, but of course, I’d need sign it and supply the coded stamp.”
Infoduhû leaned close, disbelieving his eyes, but the Sigil of Valuation didn’t lie. Half a million indeed. His tongue dried in his mouth. “It seems I am undercharging.”
“They were prepared to purchase more. Now, my proof.”
For the first time, he entertained the man’s words more likely truthful than a trap. No one carried a Mulshahar Writ for such a sum without a great cause. “All right. All right. Kûlkuk! You and your men join us.” A dozen villagers in piecemeal armor coalesced to follow them as they walked, but the barbarian’s arrogance didn’t fade into fear. “If you’d prefer to leave the Smiling Men out, I’m sure those swords are worth more than enough to cover my expenses. Or we could split that writ between us?”
“I’ve seen enough of the Smiling Men to know their reach is as long as the grudges they keep. And get any ideas about these swords or that writ and you’ll learn how long it takes for twelve men in shit armor to die. Then I find out how long it takes you to go visiting your gods from a poke to your navel.”
The man’s arrogance was stupefying, but at the same time, no man carried such swords without being able to defend them. A simple truth hardened by the rumor of the Great Kî summoned by these people. “Gracious. Not what I was saying.”
They strode in silence several strides before the man said, “How does a Boborun slave come to such influence and riches?”
Infoduhû laughed and patted his ample belly that had gone hungry so many times that most meals he found it difficult to stop eating. “Pain and knowledge, my friend. You could argue which is more important, but pain and knowledge. I put two and two and two and two together and made sixteen instead of eight.”
“You figured out something anyone could figure out but hadn’t thought of in the right way?”
“Mmm! Sort of. Sort of not. Few folks will ever suffer enough to see the truth I found.” Blessed suffering brought by the gods to enlighten his mind and soul. He owed those gods his service, or did he owe them a plague of Donu upon their city, their entire island?
They walked inland maybe half a horizon along a winding trail through broad-leaved trees before climbing a hill to walk its ridge. Another half horizon later they descended a steep slope that opened to the sky above, and in the valley stood a field of blowing grass that would tickle his chest with bushy pink flowers. It was this sweet grass that would make Infoduhû wealthy, as his masters took the profits from the Donu, but all that could change with this man’s writ. He waved to the men and women wandering the field, tying the grasses into bundles.
He walked to stand beside swaying grass and stripped several leaves. “Sugarcane, sweet and tasty. We approach the harvest, as you see. Enough to make a man a bed of silver in itself.” He stuck the leaf in his mouth and gnawed its sweetness before reaching to sweep the grasses to the side. “Sugarcane grows tall, Honêsh grows about half the height. Any strong winds, hail... they damage the sugarcane. Insects? Insects love the sugarcane and ignore the Honêsh.”
“And it gets enough sun?”
“Ah! Honêsh in nature grows in forests, even in areas with dense canopies to block sun and rain.”
“You harvest the sugarcane then the Honêsh. Maybe I should invest with you instead of the banks of Mulshahar.”
Infoduhû laughed. He wished it was so easy, and that the cane could be harvested so often. “I am an honest man. You are more apt to die in doing business with me than the banks.” He prayed the foreigner didn’t take his words as a threat. Whether he let the man live or killed him, he needed Two Swords’ signature for validation.
“And the new field?”
“This way.” He led the barbarian over the western rise and down to another field where the sugarcane was yet being bundled. Instead of stripping a leaf he kneeled and stuck his fingers in the sandy soil, its grit between his fingers perfect, and the elemental tingle in his fingertips soothing as prescribed to turn Honêsh into Donu-Honêsh. “The soil is beautiful in these parts, holding water but not too much, and below is sand so no matter how much rain, it never becomes a bog. That is a key.” Critical, but not the final key in the equation.
“A hundred and fifty thousand smeden for the crop. Two hundred if you sell me the harvest coming in.”
“My life is worth more to me than the whole of your writ. One ninety, yes? It isn’t your treasure.”
The squint in the man’s eye suggested he held a stake in any profits the Smiling Men might realize. “But I earn more with a better deal.”
“One seventy-five and the pretty islander girl.”
“Minus the girl and you have yourself a deal.”
Infoduhû spat and ground it into the soil with the toe of his boot, and Two Swords did the same, albeit without gusto. “I suppose we should head back to your friends before they suspect I killed you.”
“They might suspect you tried.”
He led Solineus up the hill with a laugh he meant to ease both their nerves. “You are an arrogant barbarian. I like that.” Trouble was, he didn’t doubt the man. Killing this foreigner would prove troublesome, and that without a dragon sweeping to his rescue.
“And you are a very expensive yet free slave, I like that.”
The man’s words lacked sincerity, but it was only his signature and code on the writ that mattered. Infoduhû did his best to manage a smile as they walked, despite the heat of the sun and heavy air, and despite the decision needing made. Killing them here was too risky, in particular with an unknown ship sitting in the gulf. No, he had to remain the clever slave that made it this far to assure himself of wealth enough to survive any ill days ahead.
They arrived at Montôltok after a silent walk with smiles so broad that Infoduhû didn’t doubt the barbarian’s face ached as his did. They strode into The Anvil and Two Swords struck up immediate conversations with his people. Mokên stepped to his side. “Well?”
“How would you feel about fifty thousand smeden in your pouch?”
The man stood straight, face a blank, but Infoduhû knew his heart beat fast. If the writ was real and the Smiling Men came for their cargo, Mokên would need to die, but for the moment Infoduhû needed a peace only attainable with greed. He eased into his seat and stared at the foreign jibber-jabber, but it didn’t take long to reach its end. Two Swords signed the writ for the agreed amount then pressed his seal over the signature and the number. He slid the parchment across the table. “Don’t lose that.”
Infoduhû raised the new seal to the light; if it wasn’t real, the forgery was immaculate. “I’ve the stickiest fingers in the Gulf, rest assured. And you realize, if for some reason this writ isn’t honored, the Consortium is greeted with a happy surprise at the next harvest and the price on your head will double and come from two directions.”
“And if for any reason you fail the Smiling Men, you will find yourself a crying man again; the tears will be blood and they will flow for years.”
Infoduhû questioned this man’s connections but didn’t doubt for a flicker the legendary ire of the Smiling Men. “So long as we understand each other.”
“Then it was excellent doing business with you, but you’ll forgive our abrupt departure.” He stood, spat on the floor, ground it beneath his toe, and Infoduhû did the same.
“May the waters calm your sleep and your sails fill come morning, no matter where you travel next.”
Two Swords turned and strode through the door, nodding to Infoduhû’s guards with a grin. The man’s arrogance never faded, maybe that came from having a dragon at his beck and call.
He kicked the dirt-browned spit on the floor and eased back into his chair, awaiting the inevitable. It didn’t take long.
“Shall I call for their deaths?”
He grinned at Mokên’s predictable question. “No, it’d be bad for business.”
“They can’t be allowed to live.”
“No, they can’t.” The plan percolated and reached a boil in his brain. He slapped the writ on the edge of the table at his moment of decision. “Galortêu is in Nodoru. Sick that wind-shark on them, he’s never failed us before.”
Mokên relaxed. “It’ll be done. What of when the Smiling Men come looking for their Donu?”
“They won’t.”
“But if they do?”
The city of Enepal will be awash in Donu. But the truth was too precious to speak. “We will disappoint them and disappear wealthier than a Berjer. That work for you, Jôjô?” He didn’t need to see her to know she was there.
The woman skulked from behind Mokên and poured herself a drink. “It does indeed, so long as this is the retreat and not the goal.”
“The gold handed to us today will fund the new fields and make the three of us free, so long as you two keep your mouths shut as agreed. Far more than free, that’s the goal.”
Mokên sat and swirled the untouched drink the islander girl left behind. “We are three for a single cause: Treasury rich.”
Jôjô saluted and drank. “So long as you understand, if this plan pisses us into the ocean, I make sure you both drown first.”
Infoduhû smiled through a bitter heart. You’ll be dead before the bladder is full. “I’ve never shirked responsibility. But I’m not worried. The Donu-Honêsh will do its part, and Galortêu will take care of our nuisance.”
Mokên said, “Did you even learn the nuisance’s name?”
“Even if he gave us his real name, why bother? He’ll be dead soon.” Today was a good day. The best day. And one tomorrow soon, it’d be even better. He raised his drink in salute, knowing each would join his toast while plotting each others’ falls the same as he did. “To us.”
