Benecia. The Realm of Suros
The round-topped battlements of the castle were like golden mushrooms blooming over the eastern portion of the burgeoning city. Just beyond them, Hagar knew, was the infamous Distro Delle Sunnos, or the District of Dreams. Regular brothels could be found in most cities or towns in America, except perhaps in Dehn where they were banned by punishment of death, but the District of Dreams catered not just to those seeking company for an hour or a night, but to bizarre predilections, taboo fetishes and inventive fantasies of nearly any fathomable variety. Traditional brothels, in fact, were almost unheard of The District. Their plain and tame temptations were wasted space in a parish that catered to the otherwise impossible, illegal and unthinkable.
He doubted Benecia had a godhouse to mark time, but Hagar guessed it somewhere near the three-bell when he turned down the quiet and familiar graveled road that ended at the stone manse of Lord Fornes, who would be the equivalent of an earl in America but the Surosian hierarchy was more convoluted. Such titles were especially confusing in Benecia where Lord Montesso often forgot—sometimes intentionally—which families he'd promoted and which he'd demoted. People often said that even from day to day Gildar Montesso might give a different answer to who paid who up which ladder. All he could ever remember for sure was who sat on top.
The modest Fornes estate boasted only a low, crumbling wall topped with jagged iron spikes to deter anyone from climbing. A portly knight in tarnished armor stepped from the shadows as Hagar approached.
"Hoy there!" the knight called in Mekisan. "State your name, house, and purpose at the Garden of Fornes!"
Hagar inclined his head slightly. "Well met, sir. I am Hagar of House Ahnalli, captain of the sea ship Ghost, a registered merchant vessel of Dehn. My business is not with Lord Fornes, but I seek council with him and bring tidings from the far seas. And a gift."
"Wait here," the knight grumbled and retreated down a curving path. A few minutes later he returned looking flustered. "His lord will see you." He stepped aside to allow Hagar within but spat as he walked by. "But if my opinion mattered you'd die on this spot before passing any farther."
"Good thing your opinion is worth less than your spitting aim. Do that again and I'll carve you a new mouth to spit from."
The knight stood rigid.
Hagar sparred with a wave of déjà vu as he stepped along stone path through a brown garden and crossed a bridge over a dry streambed to the arched doorway of the two-story keep. He knocked heavily on the oak door. A moment later, a middle-aged woman a full head and a half shorter than Hagar opened it roughly. An intricate floral dress boasting many of the colors that were once found in her now-dead garden hung loosely from her bony shoulders.
"Hagar," she said gruffly. "You should not have returned." She spoke in American, which she always insisted on around him. Even when he addressed her in her native Mekisan, she'd always respond in what she so-frequently called "that bastard language of the north."
"I know," he responded truthfully. "But I am full of surprises. Even to myself."
She pierced him with a look of great disappointment. "Right this way," she allowed at last, beckoning to follow her and walking with a speed that belied her five-foot frame. Hagar had to push his bad leg to keep up.
The interior of Lord Fornes's manor was surprisingly elegant compared to the desiccated landscaping outside. His fondness of art was evidenced by the oil paintings, clay pottery and ornate glassware decorating the walls and furnishings. The walls were well-illuminated by abundant oil lamps and torches, and the cool stone kept the tropical heat from outside at bay. The pain in his leg intensifying, Hagar struggled just to keep within sight of Lady Fornes. At last, when it seemed impossible any more hallways could exist, she stopped before a decorative door and waited impatiently for Hagar to catch up. She did not bother to knock before pushing it open.
"My Lord," she said as they entered. "We have a guest." Two steps behind, Hagar Ahnalli laid eyes on the Lord of Fornes for the first time in eight years. The old man sat low in the chair, and his rounded belly preceded him. His kindly face transitioned into something unpleasant as he scrutinized Hagar's dirty accoutrements and unshaven face.
"Hagar Ahnalli," he started. "The Great Cartographer. Or so you like to be called." He addressed Hagar in High Mekisan. Lady Fornes gave her husband a tired look and backed out without a word.
"Aye, my lord, I have drawn some maps, but I don't know about 'great.' Perhaps an addition by others."
"I hate false modesty, Ahnalli. No one is better at fanning their own tinder than you." Hagar ground his teeth. "Let's get on with it, if we shall. To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?"
"I come with tidings from the north and a gift."
Lord Fornes hissed a laugh. "Gift? What gift could you possibly offer to offset the woes you have brought on my house? I rue the day when I first permitted you to cross my threshold. I pray to the True God I will not also rue today."
Hagar bowed slightly, feeling foolish standing before the lord still in his sea accoutrements. "I cannot undo the past and I'm not proud. All I can do is my best to make it right for the future."
"Right? There is no 'right' with you! Look at you? A bannerless what? Pirate?"
"My Lord!" Hagar exclaimed. "I am no pirate! A merchant from the far north is all, and a cartographer as you said. A simple man."
"Pfft! You're as much a merchant as I am a king! A truth in part since I am a lord, but mostly just a dream. I know the American word for what you are. Need I say it out loud? And in the Dehn, what is it? Tahjadoli? Did I pronounce that right?"
Hagar trembled with anger and—he could admit—a measure of fear too. Being convicted of beig that word was death in Dehn. "Believe what you will, but I am no smuggler. Just a merchant, trading mostly in spices."
Lord Fornes's mouth bent into a knowing smile. "You can't see her. Either of them."
"Don't you care to hear the tidings of the North?"
Lord Fornes shook his head. "I already regret allowing you passage through my gate."
"Gate is it? I am not sure one overweight knight counts as a gate."
"You might find Sir Gorda more formidable than you give him credit. He has a special talent when it comes to gimps."
The rounded man can strike when poked. Hagar let it pass. "The whole of the Americas, it seems, are flooding to either the White City or The Pike. It is the 300th anniversary of the birth of the great Union."
Lord Fornes laughed. "These are your tidings? News that every man, woman and child already knows?"
"Simultaneously, Rollo Calazar is mobilizing the Boshovo. They've been gathering at the soldier's field in Dehn in impressive numbers. There were rumors they were marching south."
Lord Fornes studied Hagar closely, perhaps scanning for symptoms of deception. "You are a man without honor, I have known that for years. Why tell me this information? You betray your own colors, your nation, your ruling house. I look at you, rough as a sea-battered cliff, and I wonder how you ever charmed my daughter from her purity." His face curled into a look of marked distaste. "It makes me sick." I deserved that. And more.
"I've never kept my aversion for House Calazar secret," Hagar said, not allowing himself to look lashed. "I give you this valuable information now in patriotic defiance. At your next council of lords, it may win you some favor."
A broad smile spread over Lord Fornes' face. "The last eight years have not been kind to you, Captain. Too many sleepless nights in salty air. But you're a mariner through and through. If I spilled your blood no doubt it would smell like fish." For a moment he looked pleased with himself, but quickly his smile dropped. "Favor, you say? This is what I will get from your 'information'? You know little of Benecia politics. Why do we care if ugly white people 5,000 miles away are gathering their armies?"
Hagar shook his head. "There hasn't been a true civil war in the Union for centuries. But something big is coming."
"Anytime a great leader is lost there is instability. But many have come and gone, and New America always looms..." He looked thoughtful, and for a moment Hagar almost thought he'd forgotten he was standing there. "How long does that journey take you? From Dehn to Benecia?"
"Maybe three months, Lord, depending on the winds."
"And I suspect this was not your first stop?"
"We were trading with the spicers."
"The spicers," Lord Fornes said simply. "So this information is already at least four months old. It could be worthless by now."
Hagar held his ground. "There is more."
The graying man raised an eyebrow. "Go on."
"We sailed the Gap six days past." He hesitated. "The armada had no presence. Just a few scouts that tried to run us down."
"Pity they were unsuccessful."
Hagar ignored the jab and went on. "There was no garrison. The soldier's field at Gap City also was empty."
"Soldier's marching south from the north and north from the south. Maybe trouble in the Americas is brewing."
"Your gift, my Lord," Hagar said. From the shoulder-bag he carried, he withdrew a large parchment, rolled and tied with a swatch of red ribbon. He handed it over to the confused lord with a smile. "It is a map, my lord, of the Gap and the Southern America Sea."
Hagar saw the greed in his eyes. "A map bearing your seal?"
"Yes, my Lord. Sell it, adorn your walls with it, or burn it; it is yours to do with what you will."
"Perhaps it can buy back the honor of my princess? Perhaps it is enough to compensate for eight years and counting of raising a bastard grandson?"
"Of course not!" Hagar said defensively but looked down at his feet. "I shall return, my lord, and compensate her fully for her troubles. And you for yours."
"Swear me nothing! The word of a smuggler is worth less than the foul lips from which they were uttered. When you return, if you return, I dearly hope you will bring more than a single map."
"When I return, I will be a wealthy man. Only death and the God of the Deep could stop me."
"You can keep your heathen 'God of the Deep'. There are many things that could keep you from your word!"
The two men stared at each other coldly, each as determined as the other not to look away first. Finally, it was Hagar who shrank backwards.
"Thank you, my lord, for the kindly reception and hospitality," he said. "I will leave your house in peace and with the promise of a more permanent return soon." He tried to smile. "And when I return, I shall be a wealthy man and a determined father." Lord Fornes gave only a cold scowl in return, and Hagar backtracked from the manor in conflicted turmoil. At the end of a long hallway, he made the mistake of peering through an open door and there, like a dream, sat his long-estranged love Corrina Fornes, talking with a young servant and smiling lightly.
For a strange moment Hagar was thrust into a dream. The world dissolved around her. The only thing that mattered were the crisp, handsome features of her face. Every curve, every nuance as perfect as it was years earlier when he'd fallen in love with her with such reckless intensity he'd been willing to risk everything—his honor, his life, even whatever immortal soul he might possess—just to bask in her radiance. She was laughing now, a young but blossoming boy scampering around her legs. He was lighter of skin but his hair was identically black and straight. There was something terribly familiar about his face.
Hagar was painfully slow to realize he was looking at his own son.
His blood iced over. He'd known Corrina Fornes had become pregnant, but he'd been forbidden by her overly proud father to ever meet his child. They boy's existence, however, had troubled him incalculably in his sleep even though never until this very moment had he seen his beautiful face.
Corrina noticed him standing there and their eyes met. His body trembled as they stared silently into each other's eyes. He raised his hand, perhaps to call out to her, but her face transitioned from surprise to anger and she threw the door firmly shut. Hagar stared at the closed door in regret.