Lyn
ESHARAEYN WORDBEARER. It was the Coast-people whose word she bore: her amphibious kin who had, since time immemorial, passed through the waterways of whatever land they chose.
Daimlesse Regent was not the first to try to curtail them, nor the first to forget the lessons of history.
They were not martial, fierce or numerous, but neither could they be fought with soldiers, ferocity or numbers.
And where they ebbed, so did trade, for the word that Esharaeyn bore was that any who gave good prices to Lannesite would see none from the barges of the Coast. Meaning every piece of produce not grown within Lannesite’s borders only crossed them through a chain of profiteering middlemen, to reach the markets at three times the old price.
Meaning everything Lannesite made for outside trade spoiled on the dock, or was sold for a pittance to opportunists.
Lannesite was strong but it was being strangled by a hundred mooring lines whilst trying to assert control of its near neighbours and rattle sabres against farther powers.
None of those neighbours, nor yet the Coasters, had stirred when Lannesite had marched on Aenterland, where that rebellious sister raised her banners.
Matters familial or political, it had been understood as the business of those two states only.
No protest had been raised when Aenterland had ceased to exist as an independent state.
They’d reaped what they’d sown, had been the consensus.
“Will she take it, do you think?” the Coast woman said. Her own gaggle had gone belowdecks or onto their own boats. Just the three of them stranded at the high tide mark of the negotiations.
“Come to our boats then,” Esha said. “Bring the sprat. We’ll find work for you.”
“Then it really would be war,” Lyn said soberly. A young Coast boy came up with warm flower tea for them all, and then another two of Esha’s kin, and a sullen-looking man between them. Someone who looked oddly familiar, to Lyn’s eye.
“New recruit?” she asked.
“Not one that we’ll be keeping long,” Esha said. “But we picked him up within your borders.”
Lyn frowned. “Wait, he’s one of Sendroth’s?” The man who’d had his fingers burned from being over-familiar with her.
“And on his way to find his sorcerer, after the showdown you and Nyr had.”
Lyn frowned. “You picked him up within our borders?”
“And will carry him out again, rather than hand him over to your justice,” Esha said firmly.
“In exchange for which, he tells me readily that the sorcerer is in Lannesite, and his witch, too. Word is out, amongst the outlaws. Sendroth has new sorceries and seeks new followers.” She looked from Lyn to her daughter.
“I don’t tell you this as Wordbearer, and I don’t tell you so it can find its way to the ear of the Regent.
But so it can find its way to Nyr, whom I owe. ”
Lyn nodded. “I understand.”
“Nyrgoth Elder beat the witch and the sorcerer,” Sara piped up. “He had better magic.” Loyally proud of her teacher.
“That he did, and I saw it myself, Sprat,” Esha agreed. “Must be good, to know what whatever comes into the world, your own magic’s stronger.”
Lyn thought of the witch, though, and how she’d spoken to Nyr in his own words, and wondered.