“We find we need your help in working a spell.” Usara pulled a chair over from a nearby table and sat astride it.

Shiv waited until the maid had delivered more cups. “But please reconsider sailing with us after that. This whole voyage promises to be extremely dangerous.”

Larissa studied her cup, prodding the metal ball of steeping herbs with a spoon. Her hazel eyes were reddened and she clutched a handkerchief that Shiv recognised as Pered’s. “What do you need me to do?”

“Join us in a translocation.” Usara looked to see the maid was out of earshot. “We need to bring two people from Solura.”

“Solura?” Larissa looked up, startled.

“Western Solura,” Shiv offered, adding cold water to the tisane Pered handed him.

“It’s still a cursed long way.” Larissa wrinkled her nose in thought. “We need as much air around us as possible, somewhere outside, high up for preference.”

Pered passed a crystal pot of honey to Usara as the bearded mage grimaced at the taste of his drink. “You can take a carriage up to the top of the portage way. Everyone goes to see the views.”

“As long as we can find a reasonably discreet corner.” Usara looked at him.

Pered nodded. “There’s a park full of monuments off to the side of the square on the actual crest. Sieurs Den This and Tor That have spent coffers of coin to get themselves noticed, without realising no one gives them a second thought once they’re a generation dead.”

Shiv grinned. “Have you drawn everything in Hadrumal by now?”

“At least three times,” Pered assured him.

“Let’s get on, shall we?” Usara stood up.

Larissa drained her cup and raised an expectant brow at Shiv who sighed and set down his half-finished drink.

The bright sun outside was warm enough for Larissa to fan herself and unbutton her high collar. Swathed in silks and layers of muslins rather than wool, the ladies of southern Tormalin swept past, elegant in more unstructured styles than the formal tailoring of Hadrumal.

“Here!” Pered raised a hand as a hireling carriage deposited a flurry of giggling girls at a milliner’s opposite. “Up to the vantage point, if you please,” he told the driver.

Usara handed Larissa in beside Shiv who looked silently out of the window. The sound of iron-bound wheels on cobbles filled the coach.

“I wonder if Ryshad’s family built any of these?” Pered mused as the shops and inns of the commerce quarter yielded to sprawling houses; hollow squares of ruddy-tiled roofs above whitewashed walls shaded by trees fragrant with blossom. Stout walls encircled such dwellings, occasional open gates offering glimpses of busy households within. On the flagway either side of the road efficient servants delivered sacks and barrels, workmen carried tools and materials. Nursemaids gathered little ones skipping with delight safely away from rumbling carts and carriages while footmen escorted youths sullen at the prospect of lessons and maidens impatient at such chaperoning.

Usara studied the passing city. “Ryshad’s brothers live on the other side of the isthmus, don’t they?” he said at length. “Anyway, these houses would be five, six generations old, before the Inglis trade really started bringing in the coin. When would you say these were built, Shiv? Aleonne the Gallant’s reign or Inshol the Curt?”

Shiv didn’t reply. Larissa was studying her hands again so Pered and Usara exchanged a shrug and sat in silence.

The horses leaned into their collars to pull the carriage up the road that snaked ever higher towards the pass cutting a deep cleft in the saw-edged mountains north and south of the isthmus. Houses became smaller and more closely packed and the cobbles gave way to hard-packed earth. Each frontage showed three or four rows of windows and garret rooms besides beneath the brown and ochre tiles. Hurrying out from behind a loaded dray, a girl with a scarlet fan startled a saddle horse, which whinnied its indignation as it shied away and startled their coach’s team. The driver’s rebukes and the girl’s defiance added sharp notes to the murmur and bustle all around. Within the carriage, the silence persisted.

“Here we are,” Pered announced with determined cheerfulness when the coach drew to a halt. He paid off the driver as Usara got out and offered Larissa a courteous hand. She waved it away with a tight smile.

“So where are we?” Shiv surveyed the broad square that had been hacked out of the rock to flatten the crest of the pass. On either side jagged cliffs fell back towards the ocean, broken by uncertain slabs and screes, doughty herbs and flowers scrabbling to maintain a foothold on the sparse, sun-scorched soil.

“The princes who built the road joining the two harbours made sure that the Emperor granted them the dues in perpetuity. This is where they collect them.” Pered nodded towards several heavy wagons plodding across the flagstoned expanse, just arrived up the wide road that led to the unseen port of the city’s larger, older half that faced the calmer waters of Caladhrian Gulf rather than the uncertain currents of the ocean. Galleys looking little larger than a child’s playthings dotted brilliant blue waters that reached to the horizon.

Usara watched a liveried man wearing the badge of some Tormalin princes stroll up to a laden cart’s driver. He produced an amulet that won him a nod but those that followed were waved towards a long row of water troughs beneath wind-tossed shade trees. “It must be worth the cost, to avoid the time and risks of a voyage around the cape.”

“Mind your backs!” Pered pulled Larissa aside as toiling horses snorted behind her, sides heaving as their driver slackened their reins. “Ferd, get that manifest to Den Rannion’s clerk! Jump to it, lad!” A child leapt from the back of the cart and ran off as the driver urged his reluctant team towards a space beside a gang of men dividing the cargo they had just carried up here between two wagons waiting impatiently for goods from Caladhria, Lescar and countries beyond.

Shiv surveyed the constant activity all around. “They must have paid for the road ten times over by now”

“More like a hundred times,” Pered opined. “But a Sieur can always find a use for more coin.” He nodded at the detachment of armed men relaxing around the base of a massive statue of Dastennin. Crowned with seaweed, the god of the sea’s robe broke into roiling foam around his feet, his weathered bronze hands green with age, outstretched in benediction towards both seas.

Larissa closed her eyes and turned her face to the steady breeze, face rapt. “I feel I could touch the sky up here.”

“It’s a splendid place to work with the air,” agreed Usara with hopeful anticipation. “Even I can feel that.”

Shiv turned to Pered. “Working magic in the open isn’t exactly against the Emperor’s writ but I don’t relish debating the point with Den Rannion’s sworn men. You said there were more private places up here?”

“This way.” Pered led them towards a mighty tower on the southerly side of the square. With its flared base of tightly fitted stones seamlessly married to the rock beneath, it looked like some marvellous tree grown of living stone.

“Wasn’t the Sieur Den Rannion one of the original patrons of the Kellarin colony?” Larissa queried, nodding towards the men with silver eagle’s head badges bright on their copper-coloured jerkins who shielded the tower’s door with crossed pikes.

“That was his brother, Messire Ancel.” Shiv glanced up at the broad balcony circling the slender waist of the tower. “The present Sieur is no friend to Temar.”

Excited voices floated out across the great square, exclaiming over the views. Above, where the tower was capped with a sturdily built watch-room, sworn men kept vigil to east and west. A great eagle spread vast bronze wings over them, poised eternally on the moment of flight.

Larissa tilted her head to one side. “If you can get mages with the right affinities working together, we could well bring ships safely around the Cape of Winds. Then D’Alsennin wouldn’t have to pay for the privilege of this rigmarole of portage across the isthmus.”