“Hmm.” I wasn’t so sanguine. “Olret might have provoked him. Sow thistles and you’ll reap prickles after all.”

“You don’t trust him,” said ’Gren with eager curiosity.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I don’t know who we’re dealing with and that always makes me uneasy. Remember that business with Cordainer?”

“Our man’s certainly got something to hide,” agreed ’Gren. “Did you see that gate on the stair?”

“No.” What had I missed?

“This way.”

’Gren led me back to the main stair. A metal gate barred the turn on the next flight, mortared firmly into the stone and secured with the first half-decent lock I’d seen on these islands. ”What do you suppose he’s hiding up there?”

A liveried guard appeared on the stairs below and stared up at us with undisguised suspicion. I turned ’Gren with a firm hand and we went down past the guard. I favoured him with a reassuring smile but all I got back was a mistrustful glower.

“What now?” ’Gren demanded sulkily. “I’m not sitting around getting bored while they fuss over maps and tactics and all the rest of it.”

Not eager for more of Olret’s snubs, I’d already thought of a better use for my time. “Why don’t we see what these people reckon to our host? If his own folk like him, maybe we can trust him.”

“Where shall we start?” asked ’Gren obligingly.

“Shall we see what keeps everyone so busy?” I led the way out through the main hall. The yard around the keep was empty apart from a few guards practising with wooden staves bound with leather to save them from splintering. Scarce wood was well looked after around here.

“They move well.” ’Gren’s was an expert eye.

“They probably start training them in their leading strings,” I commented. Even without Artifice to back them, we’d have found any Elietimm fighting force formidable opponents.

We passed through the main gate without anyone raising a question.

“Let’s see what the boats have brought in,” ’Gren suggested with lively interest.

It was more basketfuls of glittering fish about the length of a man’s hand poured in silver torrents into long troughs where mothers and grandmothers ripped them open with practised knives. Lads barely higher than my shoulder dragged baskets of gutted fish to another set of troughs where girls of all ages washed them clean. Several whistled and hummed tunes with a compulsive lilt to put a spring in a step. I wondered idly if there was any Artifice in the music, to drive these people on beyond weariness and tedium. That would suit what I knew of Elietimm cold-heartedness. Beyond them, a square of sombre old men layered the cleaned fish into barrels, adding judicious handfuls of salt and spice. A cooper stood ready to seal them.

“Fish to eat all winter,” said ’Gren without enthusiasm.

“More than enough for the people hereabouts.” None of whom so much as paused in their work to glance at us.

“You heard them last night. There’s farms and holdings all over this island.” ’Gren shrugged. “They’ve all sent people to help with the glut.”

Such rural concerns never bothered me in Vanam where I bought fish, pickled or dried from those merchants my mother favoured with her master’s coin. Some of them made a tidy profit from the trade. Questions teased me as we watched the islanders work. Did Olret’s people truly eat all the fruits of their labours? Where did he get the spice to flavour the brine? I’d eat one of those little fish raw and unboned if pepper grew anywhere in these islands. Come to that, where did he get all the wood for these barrels? I reckoned he was being a little too coy about what trade he had with the world beyond these barren rocks. No wonder Olret was keen to see Ilkehan dead, if the bastard was sinking any ships but his own venturing on to the ocean. That was some reassurance; I’ll generally trust a motive that can be weighed in solid coin.

’Gren coughed. ”Let’s go somewhere fresher.”

Beyond the gutting and salting, men and women were carving bigger fish into long fillets with wickedly sharp knives. More lads were hanging them on racks set to catch the wind while a gang of smaller children gathered discarded heads and spread them out to dry. An earlier harvest of stockfish was stacked flat beneath heavy stones and the last moisture drained slowly into a fishy slick coating the beaten earth, lapped at by eager cats just waiting for a chance to sneak closer.

A young woman saw me looking at the fish heads and paused in her work, bending a wrist to brush back a blond lock straying from her close-tied headscarf. “For winter, for the goats.”

“Ah, I see.” Then they’d even have milk that tasted of fish.

“You are visiting?”

“From the west.”

’Gren beamed back blatant appreciation of the shapely figure beneath her coarse and salt-stained bodice.

She would have replied but froze at a sharp rebuke from an older woman further along the stone workbench. ’Gren swept a bow to the sour old hag but she was intent on her filleting.

“Maybe you’d better rein in the charm,” I suggested as we strolled towards the distant edge of the settlement.

“You can’t ask that, not with so many fine-looking women,” he protested. “And precious few men to go around.”

He was right. “They’re all out fishing?” I guessed.

“Not at this time of day.” ’Gren shook his head. “Let’s see if these beauties have any answers.” We’d reached a high-walled enclosure holding more of the elusive goats. I was surprised to see how patiently they stood as girls combed the winter’s growth from their thick coats, filling baskets with soft tangles of woolly hair.

A buxom lass stood upright to ease her back and smiled shyly at ’Gren. Two other lasses looked up from their work with ill-concealed interest. “Good day to you.” ’Gren rested his chin on his hands atop the wall. “Don’t let me disturb you.”

An older woman, possibly the girls’ mother, certainly looking out for their interests, assessed him in much the same way she was sorting the hanks of goat hair.

I smiled at her. “That makes wonderfully soft blankets, doesn’t it?”

If I’d been a goat, she wouldn’t have treated me to any fish heads. ’Gren on the other hand was winning covert approval from all of them.

“See what you can get out of them without me around.” I slapped ’Gren on the shoulder, speaking in the gutter slang of Selerima. “I’ll meet you back at the keep in a while.”

’Gren nodded, his eyes on one lass bending forward to tease leaves from a goat’s shaggy forelock and artlessly offering him a fine view of her cleavage.

“We’re here to make friends, not babies,” I reminded him.

“I’ll stay chaste as a dowerless maidservant — until I know what the penalty for flipping a girl’s frills might be,” he added with a sly smile.

I poked him in the chest. “I was a dowerless maidservant, so you’d better stay a cursed more chaste than that.”

“I’m hardly going to tumble the first girl who flutters her lashes at me,” he protested. “Not when there are so many to choose from.”

“I’ll see you later.” Given how much ’Gren enjoyed flirtation, I judged I’d be back before he was ready to risk all our necks for the sake of some lass’s white thighs.

As soon as I turned my back, the girls all started talking. As long as he kept his wits out of his breeches, he was well placed to find out a good deal about this place.

The only thing beyond the goat sheds was the pond and the causeway. A narrow-windowed building stood solid in the middle of the rocky dam and closer to, I realised it was a mill. All I’d find there would be busy men who wouldn’t welcome interruption. Where might I find something useful like bored guards ready to gamble and gossip?

I walked idly back towards the keep, passing a building both open-fronted laundry and bathing house. Women pounded coarse, unbleached cloth in tubs filled from a spring that steamed as it bubbled up from the ground. On balance, I’d rather heave wood to boil my water than risk the ground melting beneath me for the sake of easier laundry. Unself-conscious as they stripped, girls were washing themselves clean after their fish gutting, pouring water over each other and soaping themselves with what looked like lengths of fatty hide. ’Gren would be none too pleased to have missed this treat but, given how obsessive these people were about cleanliness, I imagined he’d get another opportunity.