chapter xix

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    Sabriel had expected Belisaere to be a ruined city, devoid of life, but i<bdi>?</bdi>t was not so. By the time they saw its towers, and the truly impressive walls that rihe peninsula on which the city stood, they also saw fishing boats, of a size with their own. People were fishing from them—normal, friendly people, who waved and shouted as they passed. Only their greeting was telling of how things might be in Belisaere. “Good sun and swift water” was not the typical greeting in Touchstoime.

    The city’s main harbor was reached from the west. A wide, buoyed el raween two hulking defeworks, leading into a vast pool, easily as big as twenty or thirty playing fields. Wharves lihree sides of the pool, but most were deserted. To the north and south, warehouses rotted behind the empty wharves, broken walls and holed roofs testimony to long abando.

    Only the eastern dock looked lively. There were none of the big trading vessels of bygone days, but many small coastal craft, loading and unloading. Derricks swung in and out; longshoremen humped packages along gangplanks; small children dived and swam iween the boats. No warehouses stood behind these wharves—instead, there were hundreds of open-topped booths, little more than brightly decorated frameworks deliing a patch of space, with tables for the wares, and stools for the vendors and favored ers. There seemed to be no she of ers in general, Sabriel noted, as Touchstoeered for a vat berth. People were swarming everywhere, hurrying about as if their time was sadly limited.

    Touchstohe mai go slack, and brought the boat into the wind just in time for them to lose way and glide at an oblique ao the fehat lihe wharf. Sabriel threw up a line, but before she could leap ashore  and secure it to a bollard, a street ur did it for her.

    “Penny for the knot,” he cried, shrill voice pierg through the hubbub f<dfn>.9９lib.</dfn>rom the crowd.

    “Penny for the knot, lady?”

    Sabriel smiled, with effort, and flicked a silver penny at the boy. He caught it, grinned and disappeared into the stream of people moving along the dock. Sabriel’s smile faded. She could feel many, many Dead here . . . or not precisely here, but further up iy. Belisaere was built upon four low hills, surrounding a tral valley, which lay open to the sea at this harbor. As far as Sabriel’s senses could tell, only the valley was free of the Dead—why, she didn’t know. The hills, which made up at least two-thirds of the city’s area, were ied with them.

    This part of the city, oher hand, could truly be said to be ied with life. Sabriel had fotten how noisy a city could be. Even in Aierre, she had rarely visited anything larger than Bain, a town of no more thahousand people. Of course, Belisaere wasn’t a big city by Aierran standards, and it didn’t have the noisy omnibuses and private cars that had been signifitly adding to Aierran  noise for the last ten years, but Belisaere made up for it with the people. People hurrying, arguing, shouting, selling, buying, singing . . .

    “Was it like this before?” she shouted at Touchstone, as they climbed up onto the wharf, making sure they had all their possessions with them.

    “Not really,” answered Touchstohe Pool was normally full, with bigger ships—and there were warehouses here, not a market. It was quieter, too, and people were in less of a rush.”

    They stood on the edge of the dock, watg the stream of humanity and goods, hearing the tumult, and smelling all the new odors of the city replag the freshness of the sea breeze.

    Cooking food, wood smoke, inse, oil, the occasional disgusting whiff of what could only be sewage . . .

    “It was also a lot er,” added Touchstone.

    “Look, I think we’d best find an inn or hostelry. Somewhere to stay for the night.”

    “Yes,” replied Sabriel. She was relut to ehe human tide. There were no Dead among them, as far as she could sense, but they must have some kind of aodatireement with the Dead and that stank to  her far more than sewage.

    Touchstone snagged a passing boy by the shoulder as Sabriel tio eye the crowd, nose wrinkling. They spoke together for a moment, a silver penny ged hands, then the boy slid into the rush, Touchstone following. He looked back, saw Sabriel staring absently, and grabbed her by the hand, dragging both her and the lazy, fox-fur-positioned Mogget after him.

    It was the first time Sabriel had touched him since he’d been revived and she was surprised by the shock it gave her. Certainly, her mind had been wandering, and it was a sudden grab . . .

    his ha larger than it should, and iingly calloused aured. Quickly, she slipped her hand out of his, and trated on following both him and the boy, weaving across the main dire of the crowd.

    They went through the middle of the opentopped market, along oreet of little booths—obviously the street of fish and fowl.

    The harbor end was alive with boxes and boxes of fresh-caught fish, clear-eyed and wriggling.

    Vendors yelled their prices, or their best buy, and buyers shouted offers or amazement at the  price. Baskets, bags and boxes ged hands, empty oo be filled with fish or lobster, squid or shellfish. s went from palm to palm, or, occasionally, whole purses disged their shining tents into the belt-pouches of the stallholders.

    Towards the other end it grew a little quieter.

    The stalls here had cages upon cages of chis, but their trade was slower, and many of the chis looked old and stunted. Sabriel, seeing an expert knife-man beheading row after row of chis and dropping them to flop headless in a box, trated on shutting out their bewildered featherbrained experience of death.

    Beyond the market there was a wide swath of empty ground. It had obviously been iionally cleared, first with fire, then with mattock, shovel and bar. Sabriel wondered why, till she saw the aqueduct that ran beyond and parallel to this strip of wasteland. The city folk who lived in the valley didn’t have an agreement with the Dead—their part of the city was bounded by aqueducts, and the Dead could no more walk under running water tha.

    The cleared ground recaution, allowing the aqueducts to be guarded—and sure  enough, Sabriel saatrol of archers marg atop it, their regularly moving shapes silhouetted, shadow puppets against the sky. The boy was leading them to a tral arch, which rose up through two of the aqueduct’s four tiers, and there were more archers there.

    Smaller arches tinued on each side, supp the aqueduct’s main el, but these were heavily rown with thornbushes, to prevent unauthorized entry by the living, while the swift water overhead held back the Dead.

    Sabriel drew her boat cloak tight as they passed uhe arch, but the guards paid them no more attention than was required to extort a silver penny from Touchstohey seemed very third-rate—even fourth-rate— soldiers, who were probably more stables and watchkeepers than anything else. None bore the Charter mark, or had any trace of Free Magic.

    Beyond the aqueduct, streets wound chaotically from an unevenly paved square, plete with an etrically spouting fountaier jetted from the ears of a statue, a statue of an impressively ed man.

    “King Anstyr the Third,” said Touchstone, pointing at the fountain. “He had a strange sense of humor, by all ats. I’m glad it’s still there.”

    “Where are we going?” asked Sabriel. She felt better now that she khe citizenry weren’t in league with the Dead.

    “This boy says he knows a good inn,” replied Touchstone, indig the ragged ur who was grinning just out of reach of the alwaysexpected blow.

    “Sign of Three Lemons,” said the boy. “Best iy, lord, lady.”

    He had just turned back from them to go on, when a loud, badly cast bell sounded from somewhere towards the harbor. It rang three times, the sound sending pigeons racketing into flight from the square.

    “What’s that?” asked Sabriel. The boy looked at her, open-mouthed. “The bell.”

    “Sunfall,” replied the boy, once he knew what she was asking. He said it as if stating the blindingly obvious. “Early, I reust be cloud ing, or somefing.”

    “Everyone es ihe sunfall bell sounds?” asked Sabriel.

    “Course!” she boy. “Otherwise the haunts or the ghlims get you.”

    “I see,” replied Sabriel. “Lead on.”

    Surprisingly, the Sign of Three Lemons was quite a pleasant inn. A whitewashed building of four storys, it fronted onto a smaller square some two hundred yards from King Anstyr’s Fountain Square. There were three enormous lemon trees in the middle of the square, somehow thick with pleasant-smelling leaves and copious amounts of fruit, despite the season. Charter Magic, thought Sabriel, and sure enough, there was a Charter Stone hidden amongst the trees, and a number of a spells of fertility, warmth and bountitude. Sabriel she lemoed air gratefully, thankful that her room had a window fronting the square.

    Behind her, a maid was filling a tin bath with hot water. Several large buckets had already gone in—this would be the last. Sabriel closed the window and came over to look at the stillsteaming water in anticipation.

    “Will that be all, miss?” asked the maid, halfcurtseying.

    “Yes, thank you,” replied Sabriel. The maid edged out the door, and Sabriel slid the bar across, before divesting herself of her cloak, and theinking, sweat- and salt-encrusted armor and garments that had virtually stuck to her after almost a week at sea. Naked, she rested her swainst the bath’s rim—in easy reach—then sank gratefully into the water, taking up the lump of lemoed soap to begin removing the caked grime and sweat.

    Through the wall, she could hear a man’s— Touchstone’s—voice. Then water gurgling, that maid giggling. Sabriel stopped soaping and trated on the sound. It was hard to hear, but there was miggling, a deep, indistinct male voice, then a loud splash. Like two bodies in a bath rather than one.

    There was silence for a while, then more splashing, gasps, giggles—was that Touchstone laughing? Then a series of short, sharp, moans.

    Womanly ones. Sabriel flushed and gritted her teeth at the same time, then quickly lowered her head into the water so she couldn’t hear, leaving only her nose and mouth exposed. Uer, all was silent, save for the dull booming of her heart, eg in her flooded ears.

    What did it matter? She didn’t think of Touchstone in that way. Sex was the last thing  on her mind. Just another plication— traception—messiness—emotions. There were enough problems. trate on planning.

    Think ahead. It was just because Touchstone was the first young man she’d met out of school, that was all. It was none of her business. She didn’t even know his real name . . .

    A dull tapping noise on the side of the bath made her raise her head out of the water, just in time to hear a very self-satisfied, mase and drawn-out moan from the other side of the wall.

    She was about to stick her head bader, when Mogget’s pink nose appeared on the rim.

    So she sat up, water casg down her face, hiding the tears she told herself weren’t there.

    Angrily, she crossed her arms across her breasts and said, “What do you want?”

    “I just thought that you might like to know that Touchstone’s room is that way,” said Mogget, indig the silent room opposite the oh the noisy couple. “It hasn’t got a bathtub, so he’d like to know if he  use yours when you’re finished. He’s waiting downstairs in the meantime, getting the loews.”

    “Oh,” replied Sabriel. She looked across at the far, silent wall, then back to the close wall, where  the human noises were now largely lost in the groaning of bedsprings. “Well, tell him I won’t be long.”

    Twenty minutes later, a  Sabriel, garbed in a borrowed dress made ingruous by her sword-belt (the bell-bandolier lay under her bed, with Mogget asleep on top of it), crept on slippered feet through the largely empty on room and tapped the salty, begrimed Touchstone on the back, making him spill his beer.

    “Your turn for the bath,” Sabriel said cheerily, “my evil-smelling swordsman. I’ve just had it refilled. Mogget’s in the room, by the way. I hope you don’t mind.”

    “Why would I mind?” asked Touchstone, as much puzzled by her manner as the question. “I just want to get , that’s all.”

    “Good,” replied Sabriel, obscurely. “I’ll anize for dio be served in your room, so lan as we eat.”

    In the event, the planning didn’t take long, nor was it slow in dampening what was otherwise a relatively festive occasion. They were safe for the moment, , well-fed—and able tet past troubles and future fears for a little while.

    But, as soon as the last dish—a squid stew,  with garlic, barley, yellow squash and tarragon vinegar—was cleared, the present reasserted itself, plete with cares and woe.

    “I think the most likely place to find my father’s body will be at . . . that place, where the Queen was slain,” Sabriel said slowly. “The reservoir. Where is it, by the way?”

    “Uhe Palace Hill,” replied Touchstone.

    “There are several different ways to enter. All lie beyond this aqueduct-guarded valley.”

    “You are probably right about your father,”

    Mogget ented from his  of blas in the middle of Touchstone’s bed. “But that is also the most dangerous place for us to go.

    Charter Magic will be greatly ed, including various bindings—and there is a ce that our enemy . . .”

    “Kerrigor,” interrupted Sabriel. “But he may not be there. Even if he is, we may be able to sneak in—”

    “We might be able to sneak around the edges,”

    said Touchstohe reservoir is enormous, and there are hundreds of ns. But wading is noisy, and the water is very still—sound carries.

    And the six . . . you know . . . they are in the very ter.”

    “If I  find my father and bring his spirit back to his body,” Sabriel said stubbornly, “then we  deal with whatever fronts us. That is the first thing. My father. Everything else is just a plication that’s followed on.”

    “Or preceded it,” said Mogget. “So, I take it your master plan is to sneak in, as far as we , find your father’s body, which will hopefully be tucked away in some safe er, and then see what happens?”

    “We’ll go in the middle of a clear, sunny day . . .” Sabriel began.

    “It’s underground,” interrupted Mogget.

    “So we have sunlight to retreat to<u>?9９lｉｂ?</u>,” Sabriel tinued in a quelling tone.

    “And there are light shafts,” added Touchstone.

    “At noon, it’s a sort of dim twilight down there, with patches of faint sun oer.”

    “So, we’ll find Father’s body, bring it back to safety here,” said Sabriel, “and . . . and take things from there.”

    “It sounds like a terribly brilliant plan to me,”

    muttered Mogget. “The genius of simplicity . . .”

    ‘‘ you think of anything else?” snapped Sabriel. “I’ve tried, and I ’t. I wish I could go home to Aierre and fet the whole  thing—but then I’d never see Father again, and the Dead would <tt></tt>just eat up everything living in this whole rotten Kingdom. Maybe it won’t work, but at least I’ll be trying something, like the Abhorsen I’m supposed to be and you’re always telling me I’m not!”

    Silence greeted this sally. Touchstone looked away, embarrassed. Mogget looked at her, yawned and shrugged.

    “As it happens, I ’t think of anything else.

    I’ve grown stupid over the millennia—even stupider than the Abhorsens I serve.”

    “I think it’s as good a plan as any,” Touchstone said, uedly. He hesitated, then added, “Though I am afraid.”

    “So am I,” whispered Sabriel. “But if it’s a sunny day tomorroill go there.”

    “Yes,” said Touchstone. “Before we grow too afraid.”

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