Chapter 9- The Callianis

(If you prefer Wattpad to read, you can find the novel here : https://www.wattpad.com/story/78722854-the-songs-of-loss-book-one-armanth )

Abba strode down the sloping terrace leading to the Radia Granateo shipyards, forced to weave in and out of the crowds massed in front of market stalls and onlookers in stroll. Even if his build cautiously encouraged people to try and dodge him, his same colossal build made him an obstacle often collided with  « ho sorry » and polite, annoyed grumbles.

Jawaad, following in his old friend’s footsteps, took advantage of his wake to move forward without too much trouble; with his hands in his pockets for good measure, he seemed unconcerned about the crowd. All he had to do was dodge the occasional tote bag, elbow or shoulder. The difficulties of the giant, who was also his right-hand man and who was vigorously trying to keep up with him in the flow of the human tide, drew amused glance from his friend. After yet another stroller impact, Abba barked in annoyance:

“Can you tell me why we’re going through this terrace, when it’s market day and it’s always packed? We could have taken the horses and gone round by the canals to the south!”

Jawaad let out a smile.

“I love this crowd. There’s my tea store down the road.”

The master merchant nonchalantly pointed to a coquettish shopfront squeezed between two other food shops. A few customers were crowded in front of a large stall laden with colorful jars and jars of spices of all kinds.

The street was crowded with a motley mix of lossyans from all walks of life. The tan skinned Athémaïs dominated, followed by the blacks of the Fringes from Abba’s ethnic group, the proud, haughty Eteoclians and the Teranchens, recognizable by their light brown hair and tanned skin. Armanth welcomed diversity and, simply by turning his head among all these faces, it was easy to spot tall, massive Northmen, even a few imposing-looking Dragensmanns and caramel-skinned, slant-eyed Hemlaris; and the list of peoples, ethnicities and exotic finery went on and on.

When he reached the stall, the young saleswoman spotted Jawaad and, abandoning the two customers with whom she was discussing the price of peppers, poked her head into the store’s entrance:

“Daddy! It’s for you!”

Abba was knocked down again as he tried to join his friend, restraining herself from catching the lout who was walking with his head down and shoulders hunched and had just bumped into him without a word of apology. His restraint was not so much motivated by fear of the constabulary. Armanth has no police force to speak of: security is provided for the most part, except around the Elegio palace and the Council of Peers, by mercenary guards hired by the merchants and craftsmen of each district gathered into guilds, but also financed by donations from master merchants according to their interest in supporting the town’s businesses and congregations. The result is that, on the one hand, each district interprets the local application of laws and security in its own way, and on the other, apart from the city’s aristocracy, who are not bothered in any case, the guards tend to be very lenient towards influential members of the Merchants’ Guild, which was Abba’s case. He could probably have killed someone in the street and got away with a fine for daytime disturbance…

But Jawaad was reluctant to have his tranquility disturbed, so the slaver refrained from provoking the scandal that nevertheless tickled him so. Not everyone in Armanth was armed, although few people didn’t have at least one dagger in their belt for safety’s sake. A slap in the face to punish an imbecile would be highly unlikely to end in a duel, not in the middle of a crowded market.

A wise old Oriental-looking man, turban and thinning goatee included, emerged from the cluttered store and readjusted his glasses as he caught sight of the master merchant, calling out to him in a friendly voice:

“Ha, Jawaad. I wasn’t expecting you for another week! Have you run out of your stash so quickly?”

“I was in the neighborhood, old man.”

Jawaad smiled a brief but friendly smile, his dark gaze settling on old Athémaïs with surprising warmth.

“Your daughter is as beautiful as ever. Do you have my order?”

“You’re in luck, it arrived on time, so you didn’t come here for nothing. Yes, Janeel is growing in both beauty and intelligence! It’ll soon be time to marry her off. And you, still single?”

Jawaad gave another barely visible, somewhat amused smile as he stood on the stoop of the store. Abba joined him, gazing at the spices and teas on display, greeting Janeel in turn. He unashamedly admired the young woman, whom he estimated to be perhaps sixteen or seventeen, with her tanned complexion and raven-black hair, curled to perfection. She had resumed her negotiation with her customers after a slightly annoyed glance at her father, who was, of course, looking for a good match for her. According to Athemaïs customs, she should have been married a year, maybe two. Jawaad knew he was a prime candidate for the old spice merchant.

“Still single, yes; and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

Abba intervened in his strong voice, his huge arms crossed over his chest:

“We’ve already tried to set him up; in fact, I’ve been trying for almost ten years, but who knows what would suit him! He’s more difficult than a woman choosing lace for her wedding day!”

Jawaad only reacted with a look of appreciation for the joke, while the old man laughed outright.

“Oh, I think I know something. If he’s as difficult with the rest as he is with tea, I sympathize! Jassif El’haraad, I’m honored to meet a friend of Jawaad.”

“Abba Yebut, so am I.” The giant extended a warm handshake, but was careful to keep it supple. If he squeezed hard, he could have broken every bone in the old man’s body. “Glad to know the man who suffers my boss’s whims concerning his tea mania; and your daughter is very beautiful, I wish her a good match.”

The slaver turned briefly on his words to Janeel to greet her again with a polite nod. He may have had the build of a frankly unreassuring brute, but he had manners with women; at least a minimum.

The old man replied in warm accents:

“You’re always welcome in my store, Abba Yebut, friend of Jawaad! Thank you for your good wishes. I’ll go and pick up the order, and I’ll be right back.”

On the stoop, a small haven of calm in the flow of market onlookers, Abba glanced again at Jassif’s daughter. Ha, you’d have to be difficult or in bad taste to be insensitive. Part of his professional deformity was gauging the price she would have been worth as a slave; and it would have been high, with a good application of the High Art in which the giant was a master. But, although his tendency to see women as commodities somewhat impaired his judgment of them, Abba could see that the merchant’s daughter, as much for her looks, beauty and smiles as for her obvious wit, was quite attractive. She negotiated with admirable, pleasant stubbornness against her two customers, pot-bellied, over-confident middle-class men in appalling finery of colourful, boisterous luxury, apparently wanting to buy pepper of rare quality in large quantities, but paying the price of the ordinary. She stood up to them without letting up or losing her composure.

Abba distractedly wondered, while the thought came and went, what this merchant would say if a slave trader asked his daughter’s hand; after all, he too was a bachelor and not a bad match; but the idea faded into the back of his mind and he returned to Jawaad.

“Well, now I know where you get your teas. What’s so special about him anyway?”

Jawaad shrugged slightly.

“You don’t like tea, how would you know what’s special about it? But his other products are good; and yes, you have a good idea.”

Abba furrowed his brow at the remark, puzzled.

“What kind of idea are you talking about?”

“His daughter would make you a good wife…”

Jawaad said nothing more, for he had dropped the sentence just before the old spice merchant returned, already handing him the coins for payment. Abba simply glared at his boss, letting out a low swearword before wondering if father and daughter had heard.

For the sum Jawaad gave him, the order seemed ridiculous. A small leather purse that, at a glance, couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred grams, that’s what Jassif carefully handed him in exchange for five bars of silver. A small fortune, even if on Loss precious metals – gold, silver, platinum – were more common and easier to find than on Earth.

The Merchants’ Guild had imposed a monetary standard throughout the southern Seas of Separation, stopping only where the domination of the Anqimenès Hegemony began. Currency came in three forms: for everyday expenses, bronze and silver coins known as andris were used; one silver andri was worth ten bronze ones. Bronze andris were sometimes cut into quarters, known as quadrans, with which one could afford little more than a loaf of bread, and which Armanthians nicknamed « scrap metal ». It was rarer to find silver quadrans, a habit rather reserved for the Fringes or remote islands, where money circulated little and was often remelted for jewelry and ornaments. Silver and gold bars, on the other hand, were used for major expenditures. Each was stamped with the seal of the noble house that had issued it, bearing its coat of arms, the date of issue and its batch number, which did not prevent counterfeiting. Minting remained a privilege of the aristocracy, who kept a tight rein on the circulation of coins and promissory bills, by virtue of agreements bitterly negotiated with the Church authorities and the major guilds, which were always difficult to respect, at the cost of a few bloody wars.

A silver bar is worth twenty silver andris, a gold one ten times as much. Five silver bars represent half the annual income of a humble craftsman; the monthly wage of a manual worker is half a dozen silver andris at best. The last and rarest currency is the Loss-metal bar, the treasure of each city-state, which is worth twenty gold; but it is systematically preferred to use promissory bills that can be exchanged at trading posts or palaces, for Loss-metal or its currency equivalent. This vital metal is rarely allowed to circulate for commercial exchanges, except to pay the most expensive tributes. Promissory bills are therefore the norm for large expenditures, and each merchant guild and corporation has its own version, and its own exchange rate, under the control of city-state aristocratic bailiffs, a privilege that has been hotly contested for decades with the Merchants’ Guild.

Five bars of silver against the ridiculous parcel Jassif had brought; Abba sighed and shared his doubtful expression with Jawaad. That would have been enough to pay for a sumptuous banquet and rent an entire bathing inn for two whole days, including pleasure slaves and devoted servants, for a good twenty people; and all he’d bought was a small purse of tea.

Jawaad understood, but his reply was even more playful, although his face remained as unexpressive as ever:

“I’ve bought more expensive ones. Thanks, old man, see you in a month.”

Abba followed in his friend’s footsteps, a little taken aback, but not without greeting the merchant and his daughter with a loud « May you keep your water! « the traditional greeting of nomads on the desert plains of the Fringes. The master merchant was already heading back towards the docks, tucking his purse into the pockets of his kilt.

“More expensive? More expensive than this? Are you pissing nuggets of Loss? Ha, by the High Lords, sometimes I just don’t understand your habits.”

Jawaad shoved his hands into his pockets again, frowning in amusement at the exchange with his second-in-command as they joined the Radia Granateo.

“I know.”

 

 

***

The shipyard was built on one of the many artificial islets in Armanth Bay. All of what was commonly known as the lower town had been reclaimed entirely from the water, and the city continued to create artificial islands by planting palisades of pickets in the shoal areas and then filling the spaces delimited in this way with its own rubble. The city grew on the bay, recycling its garbage to form the foundation of its new streets and houses.

There was no choice. The city had stretched as far as it could into the hills, then north, even pushing up against the cliffs, but the river Argas, whose estuary Armanth occupied, was the other bulwark preventing it from expanding eastwards. The immense city had virtually no need of walls, as the cliffs, the meandering Argas, the marshes that extended them and the sea were all obstacles that only levitating ships could hope to overcome.

Armanth, which disdained walls and fortifications, had no shortage of vessels of all kinds; many of them, belonging to all the city’s merchant houses, guilds and noble families, were capable of levitating, armed and formidable. It was, if not a true navy, the largest fleet in the Seas of Separation.

The Radia Granateo was one of those islands stolen from the bay, one of the city’s seven great arsenals. Thousands of builders worked tirelessly on the island, near the huge drifts of driftwood that came down the river from the forests over three hundred milles away, waiting for the sawmills to prepare them to become the raw material for ships of all sizes.

There were more than a dozen shipyards on the island, potentially enough to build twenty ships at a time. Carpenters and cabinetmakers weren’t the only trades: there were blacksmiths, sailmakers, tailors, dyers, resin and cement works, engineers, foundrymen, architects and master builders, as well as their families living on the nearby islands and shores, and the huge number of food and service trades to feed and maintain all these workers. Jawaad had its own dock and shipyards, usually occupied by three or four ships undergoing refit. For the past year, a new prototype vessel had been under construction, the future personal vessel of the master merchant.

Theobos, the general foreman, joined the duo amid the bustle and noise of the nearby shipyards. All it took to spot them was a glimpse of the black giant; Abba couldn’t go unnoticed.

“Hi Jawaad, » he said, sweating and covered in soot. He dispensed with further politeness, just extending a calloused, dirty hand that the master merchant shook without hesitation. “We’re ahead of schedule on the building site; your financial boost has helped us a lot. Would you like a tour? I should warn you, the interior fittings have just begun.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

A bellowing sound was heard, followed by swearing and exclamations of all kinds. Several men began to run along the overcrowded quay towards a pile of lacquered panelling that was in serious danger of collapsing, its ropes ready to break. Theobos turned onto the stage with a resounding roar. He knew how to be heard.

“What in Neptune’s guts did you idiots do? No! Not from underneath, it’ll land on your noggin!”

The powerful foreman was in his fifties. Dressed in a braided leather kilt over wide canvas pants, he wore a scuffed black leather apron over his top, overflowing with full pockets. His face was eaten by a beard hesitating between light chestnut and old yellowish-grey, his head as bald as an egg, and above the nape of his neck was a discreet symbiote, appearing as little more than an arabesque tattoo around a small central core. He could almost have competed with Abba for muscularity, had he not been so small compared to the giant. He turned back to Jawaad.

“I’ll have to check it out. These boards cost a fortune, and they’ll ruin them if I let them.”

The master merchant nodded in barely visible agreement, but Theobos was already running, belching out orders to his men in a language that blossomed with various swear words, causing Jawaad to raise a curious eyebrow. There were two or three that he found rather original and that he had rarely heard.

As for Abba, he hadn’t moved a finger. Granted, if he’d put his mind to it, he’d have single-handedly moved what five of those workers would have struggled to move, but that wasn’t his job and there was no way he’d stoop to that sort of thing if he didn’t have to. In any case, it was all about the sea and boats, and the giant had a holy horror of anything that floated or levitated. He suffered not only from vertigo, but also from seasickness. He preferred to approach the ship, which was almost complete, to get a closer look at the masterpiece his friend had commissioned.

“So, this is your next ship?… It’s rather… small…”

Jawaad followed the giant and nodded, barely visible.

“It’s fast.”

“How fast?”

“Very fast.”

The ship’s design was revolutionary by Lossyan maritime standards. It had the allure of a real sailing ship, and would have been in its general form comparable to a clipper ship; there couldn’t have been more than a dozen such vessels ever built, and this was one of the first to be completed. Very slender, built for racing, it sacrificed volume for a tapering hull. She could carry far less cargo than the usual caravel or galleon, but it was obvious that on the sea she would go like the wind. And yet, when you saw her like this, despite her abundantly complex masts, she was rather modest compared to the huge merchant ships built in these shipyards.

“It’s still looks quite… small and fragile. Are you even going to arm it? And… it’ll levitate, I suppose?”

Jawaad puckered his lips into a brief smile. He knew Abba’s horror at finding himself several meters above the ground, in a ship held aloft only by the repulsive force of the Loss engines.

“Twice twelve lateral pulse cannons, plus two forward and two aft; and, yes, it will levitate, higher than all the others.”

“Higher, you say? How much higher?”

“Over twenty meters.”

Abba moved forward again to detail the ship; there was room for a substantial sail. The most notable feature, in addition to the three main masts, was the steerable masts on each side, which was deployed to catch and channel the wind when sailing over land. These were mounted on impressive steel pivots, where more often than not, reinforced wood and ropes were used. Many of the fragile mobile structures had been replaced by steel and resin cement, a recent invention ensuring a strong, but above all flexible and very light material; a material that was very expensive. This ship was among the first to benefit from this ruinous innovation.

“You didn’t skimp. I admit, it’s magnificent, but, well, it’s still a boat; and a small one…”

Jawaad wasn’t surprised by the remark and didn’t comment, as the two men walked to the edge of the quay, inspecting the ship while awaiting the return of Theobos, whose curses could be heard from here to no doubt the other end of the shipyard.

“And you chose its name?”

The master merchant nodded:

“Callianis.”

“You mean « the », don’t you? Anyway, nice name.”

“Callianis. Callianis is a sea nymph; the oceans welcome a woman to their waves more generously than a man.”

“I thought you weren’t superstitious? And everybody names their ships after men, don’t they?”

Jawaad smiled in amusement. Abba was far more fussy about beliefs, legends and good and bad signs than the master merchant.

“Everyone thinks that a ship should dominate the sea; everyone’s wrong, it can’t be tamed. Callianis will sail there like a nymph in her element.”

As the two men neared the bridge, Abba changed the subject. He hadn’t brought it up for the last three days, which had been mainly taken up by his work at his own House of Slaves.

“So, by the way, you didn’t tell me about the redhead at Priscius?”

Jawaad turned his head towards his second-in-command, without letting on, as always.

“Ha… yes. I saw her with her older sister, by the way. She’s just what I’ve been looking for, I think.”

“Haaa! You mean we’ve finally found that barbarian you’ve been on about for so long?”

The master merchant, returning his gaze to his future ship, barely nodded in confirmation, as always without really showing any other legible sign on his face. Abba continued:

“I must admit, from what little I’ve seen of her, I wonder what you find so special about her. She didn’t look like much; on the other hand, she was a complete mess when I saw her in the Batsu cages.”

“You’ll soon find out…”

“For a change… Reassure me, she’s a lot less wrecked than when I first saw her, hm? And you say she has a sister?”

“She’s less so; and yes, she does have a sister, a very beautiful one. I’m not interested in her, I only need one.”

For a change, Jawaad remained laconic. Abba was about to point this out to him when a shout rang out. He had the idea of looking up, at a movement he caught sight of: three meters above him, a whole bundle of lintels had just broken its ties as a crane lifted it up, and collapsed. The man who had screamed, a worker in charge of directing the maneuver for the crane operator, was several paces away. Even running, he had no chance of intervening; he’d be crushed by the mass of wood.

No one could survive such a weight; Abba realized this in an instant. Reaching out with his arm, he pushed his boss to propel him as far as possible. The master merchant was no match for the giant’s tenfold strength, and valided over three meters. Behind him, the huge, poorly secured mass tumbled in an unstable mass that was about to crush his second-in-command.

Jawaad didn’t reach out to Abba when he hit the ground. He didn’t try to move – it was too late – but began to Chant. A low, muffled sound, powerful and low. The « hoooooommm » that emerged from his throat seemed to vibrate the air.

What happened just then was hard to grasp for anyone who wasn’t right next to the scene: the dust on the ground began to levitate. A sort of shiver of static electricity ran through the death-ready colossus. Anything metallic in the vicinity immediately ionized, producing a faint bluish aura; but above all, things that were supposed to fall according to the laws of gravity slowed down, as if they wished to lazily finish their inexorable course.

Abba had only his strength to avoid being crushed by the mass. His arms were outstretched above his head as the bundle of lintels struck him; he knew he was going to die. He let out a howl of all his rage, coming from the depths of his being; a last primal plea for survival and a ton of planks and wooden beams flew away from him under his desperate thrust, suddenly determined to respect the laws of physics once again. The sound Jawaad had made fell silent. In any case, all that could be heard was the crash of the lintels as they crashed to the ground, taking the gangway with them and some falling into the water.

There was a great silence as the dust settled. Jawaad got up a little sore, while Abba stood, slowly letting his arms fall to his sides; he was the first to be surprised to be alive, but he turned his head to stare at Jawaad as workers ran towards them in a panic, wanting to know who was hurt and what had happened. Amidst the rush of men coming to help the duo, Theobos joined the crowd, shouting another volley of curses in his thundering voice. Abba, whose only injury was a good-sized wound on each wood-abraded forearm, asked his boss:

“Is that you? I really don’t think I’m that strong.”

Jawaad contented himself with a barely visible nod but continued, gently pushing aside the worker who had arrived in a hurry with a medical bag to inspect him, pointing instead to his friend:

“In my opinion, you’re strong enough for this, but you were lucky.”

The master merchant didn’t elaborate. He headed for the bulk of the package smashed on the quay, leaving Abba who was also vainly trying to escape the attention of the woman who had rushed to tend to the wounded. He turned his attention to the broken ropes and bent down to pick one up.

“Theobos, how old are these batches of beams?”

The foreman also approached, crouching down beside his boss.

“They were delivered from the joinery a week ago…”

The man stopped his sentence to stare at the piece of rope Jawaad was holding. The fibers appeared frayed, as if abraded by heavy wear.

“That’s not normal.”

Jawaad nodded, adding nothing more. He let go of the rope to look at his twin, which had undergone the same treatment; they had clearly been filed down to make them more fragile, in such a way as to suggest an accident. The only question was: how had this plan been devised to ensure that they would break at the right moment, i.e. when he passed? Straightening up, he looked at Abba, who, all in all, was doing well, then turned back to Theobos:

“Send back all the men working today on the cranes and pallet loading, and give me a list of their names.”

The foreman confirmed:

“Of course, Jawaad. Do you want me to find out who’s responsible for this?”

“No, just call it an accident. I’ll handle  the rest.”

Theobos didn’t insist; he knew the master-merchant well enough to know that, on the one hand, he never explained anything and, on the other, that these simple words meant that those responsible and their sponsor were going to have big things to worry about from now on.

 

***

Abba ended up being dragged into the workers’ barracks and, despite his vehement protests, which eventually even drew a laugh from Jawaad, he was cared for, pampered and inspected from every angle by the improvised nurse who had come to his rescue. The giant could have sent her packing with ease, but the tough-minded nurse didn’t let up. Given her age, she must have grown sons, and she knew how to handle them; the slaver didn’t stand a chance, except to appear rude.

“No, but, well, this is good. Come on, woman, it’s nothing; a little water to wash off the blood and you’re done!”

“Tût tût tût! You could have been killed, and I’m not about to let one of my bosses leave with a wound that could become infected.”

“But…. Ouch! But it hurts! Woman, stop that right now, I’m fine!”

“Ha, well, it’s normal for it to sting a bit, it’s sterilized aquavit; it’ll pass very quickly, don’t tell me that a man built like you is wimpy?”

“What? Ouch! No, but… I’m NOT wimpy, by my ancestors!”

Jawaad, leaning against the entrance to the barracks, decided to take in another laugh, leaving his second-in-command to deal with his carer. He turned to his ship, which was proudly pointing its masts skyward. His gaze darkened, he returned to his reflections while, further away, Theobos chatted in his rough, thundering voice with the shipyard handlers who had all been more or less involved in the accident.

There were so many reasons to want to kill a master merchant that the list could never be exhaustive. It wasn’t the first time an attempt had been made on Jawaad’s life, and it wouldn’t be the last; but it was the first time it had been so cleverly disguised as an accident.

Infighting between major merchants is commonplace in Armanth. The Council of Peers, the city’s legislative body, has thirty members; that’s the only number it needs to have, even if in the course of history it has fluctuated from just over twenty to almost forty. Any master merchant can be elected, but the only way to join is to be nominated by his peers. So, every five years, a short list of new eligible members is announced, serving to replace deceased, resigned or deposed consuls. For more than ten years, one of the city’s most famous merchant masters had been given a name and a place, and Jawaad had refused to sit on it. Twice.

For many people, this was unheard of; but to be eligible, according to the laws of the Council, meant that this place was devolved solely to whoever was chosen. For ten years, therefore, the Council had had only twenty-nine members, as no other candidate had been approached. This had given rise to stormy debates, whose most notable moments were relayed by heralds and criers in the town squares. Everyone in the city was interested in politics, and everyone had heard of the man who refused Armanth’s second greatest honor. The first was to be elected Elegio, Armanth’s supreme judge and chief executive.

A common way to settle these succession and eligibility issues among the city’s leading families was to eliminate competition. The most widespread legal method was to try to ruin the most accessible rival or to discredit him publicly. Tricks, lies, deception and political traps were commonplace to topple a head of a large family from his pedestal and thus take his place as an eligible member of the Council; but this technique had its limits, it could take time and the rival could employ the same methods, with all the more weight the richer or more influential he was.

The other, less popular method was assassination. Only adult men with a proven track record, i.e. already middle-aged and master merchants, could be elected; the target was therefore easy to identify and, once eliminated, one was safe for a few years. The downside was that this led to terrible vendettas, some of which ended in civil war within the city walls and the slaughter of entire families. Only the Elegio’s arbitration – sometimes muscular – could stop this kind of vengeance before it spread between allied families and brought ruin to whole districts of Armanth. On one or two occasions, the town had been reduced to a score of consuls before the reprisals finally came to an end.

Assassinating Jawaad was the most logical course of action. The master merchant had no family and no heirs. His few close friends and allies were all staunchly loyal to him, so there was not the slightest chance of bribing them; and as he protected his private life with the fierceness of a draekya protecting its brood, there was no direct means of pressure to effectively discredit him.

But Jawaad could think of a few. It was known that he imported rare products and artifacts from the Rift and thus traded with the Jemmaïs, which was in theory formally forbidden and even punishable by death for ordinatorii; and if Armanth didn’t care much about Church laws, there was a limit to his religious disrespect. The master merchant was suspected of having contacts with certain pirates, which on the other hand was not surprising, as many merchants maintained this kind of relationship, even paying a few bribes, to protect their ships; but here again, the laws of the city were merciless with anyone accused, with evidence, of financing or encouraging the plundering of ships or caravans. He was also reputed to be arrogant and haughty with his peers, and to have entered into controversial agreements bordering on insult with certain customers and suppliers; here too, Armanth had particularly brutal judicial codes with no concessions for commercial fraud. One could also easily invent dubious, even sulfurous relationships for him. After all, one of Armanth’s most trusted men was suspected of being an assassin, not shying away from deceit and poison.

Anyone with the patience to delve into Jawaad’s past and delve into the administrative archives, which would have been a mammoth task, would have found ample reason to attack him seriously; but to do so, they would have had to be far more convincing than the merchant had been in protecting these documents from all curiosity. Jawaad had had the most incriminating papers about his past destroyed, and had the archives that indirectly contained information about his personal history guarded and sealed.

Last but not least, he possessed a rare talent: he was a Singer of Loss. A power whose heresy was such that, if it became known, neither his fortune nor his power could save him. In short, the tools to bring him down were numerous; but the evidence was lacking or simply no longer existed. That hadn’t stopped some from trying, only to find that without any real resources to fall back on, slander and rumors slid over the merchant and his network like water over a slate. Assassination was ultimately more effective and less random; but something had changed this time.

Usually, attempted murders involved a handful of armed henchmen in a dark corner, as had clumsily happened three weeks earlier; more rarely, a skilled killer equipped with a crossbow or an pulse-gun waiting for the right moment, which again had happened. Or sometimes poison, which had cost the master merchant one of his old friends and servants and his personal slave. In short, direct methods, or at the very least classic ones, that Jawaad knew very well and knew how to guard against; but here it had taken meticulous organization and long planning to simulate an accident at the right moment, which would have left no trace and could have pointed to no one as the culprit for his death.

It was a cunning plan, carefully constructed. The taciturn merchant smiled grimly for a brief moment, despite his preoccupation: somewhere out there was an adversary worthy of his interest, though he would be merciless if he were to identify him. Whoever wished him dead was putting in the effort, and it would give him all the more satisfaction to have to use all his means and intelligence to unmask and eliminate him.

Jawaad’s smile struck Abba, who had finally managed to extricate himself from his carer’s attentions. His forearms were now covered with strips of white gauze, which he found a little exaggerated for just a few nasty abrasions. He joined his friend in front of the barracks stoop.

“When you smile like that, it’s because you have one of those ideas that don’t bode well.”

“I have an interesting opponent.”

“Didn’t you think you had enough already? Not a week goes by without you alienating someone. You know this because you do it on purpose, most of the time!”

“They’re rivals, they’re insignificant; not the one who came up with this plan. He knows what he wants and how to get it.”

Abba let out a huge sigh, staring out over the docks at the pile of wood that had nearly killed him. Which should, in fact, have killed him.

“Yeah, I can see that. A real adversary, intelligent and devious, stubborn and patient. A bit like you, in fact. A dangerous guy whose traps you’re going to have to anticipate and outwit; and you enjoy it. Sometimes, I don’t understand you. But… by the way, you shouldn’t have done that…”

Jawaad knew immediately what his second-in-command was talking about. On his last sentence, he had lowered his tone to speak in a low voice. The master merchant replied in kind, after a quick glance around. There was no one close enough to hear.

“Do what?”

“You know very well! You used the Song of Loss.”

“Did you hear me sing?”

“No, but I felt it, up close, even. And there was a ton of wood; I should be dead, I know you can do that, but you know very well what you risk if anyone ever finds out you’re a Singer.”

Jawaad nodded, barely visible. His voice remained detached, his gaze on his ship.

“Yes. Enslavement, stalking, ruin. Escape. In conclusion: death. That’s what you risked.”

“But I’m your second in command, by the High Lords. It’s not as if I haven’t already risked my life for you! It’s my job too.”

“And me to save my friend. Nobody’s heard; there’s no point talking about it anymore.”

Abba didn’t insist any further. He just turned his enormous head to his boss, the man to whom he owed his life far more than on that occasion, and gave him a long bow.

“Thank you for taking the risk. Now, let’s go and find a way of unmasking your famous adversary; if you don’t mind, once we know who he is, I reserve the pleasure of settling accounts with him face-to-face.”

Abba’s reflection drew a smile from Jawaad.

“As long as I get rid of him, I don’t give a damn by whom.”

Abba nodded, satisfied. It was a strange turn of phrase, but Jawaad always spoke this way; it was part of his talent for annoying his interlocutors, but the slaver took it as he knew he could. If they ever found the person who had attempted this assassination, Jawaad would arrange for the giant to have the pleasure of killing him himself.