With Blood Upon the Sand by Bradley Beaulieu

Author:Bradley Beaulieu [Beaulieu, Bradley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 2017-01-17T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 34

On an overcast day, with a chill wind blowing in from the northwest, a two-masted dhow sailed from the desert toward the entrance to Sharakhai’s southern harbor. The ship’s approach was noted by the two towering lighthouses, which stood on either side of the natural channel that led from the desert to the harbor proper. From the upper deck of the easternmost lighthouse, signals were passed to the ship via crimson and yellow flags. A brief exchange followed from ship to lighthouse and lighthouse to ship in which the Emerald Ibis, owned by Lord Aziz of Ishmantep, requesting berth overnight to offload goods, identified itself and the lighthouse replied that the harbor was open and that the Ibis could sail on for its berth assignment. The lighthouse then passed another message to a squat keep halfway along the channel’s considerable length, a message that was immediately relayed to the harbormaster’s tower, an octagonal monstrosity that stood at the rough center of the harbor’s haphazard cluster of outer docks.

In little time, the harbormaster, sitting at her desk, her massive harbor log sprawled before her, received the news of the incoming ship, already the twenty-fifth to arrive that day. Normally she wouldn’t think twice about routing such a small ship to the outer docks, a position that necessitated the offloading and ferrying of the ship’s goods quayside by sleigh, an operation that cost time and, occasionally, money. The captains rarely liked it, but she had precious few berths quayside, and the day was only going to get worse. The lighthouses had reported over a dozen more sails on the horizon, surely a caravan, perhaps more than one.

She knew giving the Emerald Ibis a berth quayside would cause her grief later, yet she paused. The Ibis came to Sharakhai nine times a year, as predictable as the passing of the seasons. It was not a ship that would be carrying much cargo, small as it was, but its owner was not a man to be trifled with. She’d never met Lord Aziz, but she’d held her position long enough to know what was good for her. Aziz was high enough in the city’s pecking order to make her life miserable if he was annoyed about how his ship was being treated. And rumor had it he’d come only recently to the city himself. He might still be in Sharakhai. So after a moment’s pause, she made a note in her log that it would be given a berth that would be opening up in a quarter of an hour.

She passed her decision on to her master flagman, who relayed the news to the squat keep with a series of sharp signals. Normally the flagman would stand vigilant, waiting for more signals to make their way to the tower, but in this case he set his flags down, wrote a number on a flat stone and tossed it down from the deck. The flagman watched as the stone spun in the wind and splashed against the amber sand in a sailing lane in the outer docks.

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