Chapter 7

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and closed my eyes again for a moment before opening my eyes. I hoped that I had learned enough from Birgit in order to safely navigate this smaller boat down the Slow River. In a way it should be quite simple, even if it really wasn’t. At least I now had a map of the river downstream from Towell. Still, I would need to have enough speed from the sails to keep the boat controllable. The other possibility was to use a drogue. I also needed to keep in mind that the shallows also moved with time and any map of this river was outdated the day it was drawn.

At least business had been easy after Sigmund’s death. The man who had been first on the list Elise had provided me had been more than happy to do business with me and everything had gone smoothly. No eyebrows were raised when Sigmund had gone missing and when I had made sure that his widow would be taken care of. Olle - the merchant I was now working with - most likely believed that Elise had sent me to ‘take care’ of him. At least he didn’t ask any questions but was very happy to use the contracts I had written as basis of our new agreement. Except that he didn’t want as big share of the profits as had been offered to Sigmund. What was more, Olle was immediately ready to invest some money for another barge - and for some barrels with false bottoms. After some sampling, he noticed that he really liked the benefits of that business.

Which reminded me that there was one barrel I needed to get rid of, preferably in the middle of the night and after making a few small holes in it. Sigmund had had five more empty, dirty barrels in his storage. I didn’t want to think why those barrels were there - or how many barrels he had already used.

“I knew that several people were afraid of my grandfather, but I didn’t know why. I guess that I didn’t really want to know. I was just happy because of the extra power that gave to me against my fellow students. I guess I can never go back there, can I?” Kara had moved next to me to the back of the boat where I was holding the tiller bar. At the moment, there was just enough wind to keep us in the right direction without making the steering difficult. The puppy that had been given to Kara as a parting gift was sleeping in a folded cloth on the deck. I had been told by Olle that if we wanted to be traders here on the Slow River we needed a guard dog or two for each of our barges and boats. Well, that sleeping puppy didn’t really look like a guard dog yet. I turned my head and looked back to Kara’s amber eyes which again looked almost golden. I reminded myself that she still was an issue.

“I cannot see any way how you could. But I’m sure that you can continue studying, if you want that.”

“Yeah, right - and what exactly should I study?”

I shrugged but kept my gaze on the widening river in front of us, ignoring the sarcasm in her voice. “Whatever you would like to study. Unfortunately higher mathematics can be something where there’s not much help available now, but I hope that it will change sometime in the future. Remember that now you should have much more time available for studying.”

Kara let out a little laugh and from the corner of my eye I was able to see that she shook her head. “You really are something else. I should hate you for all the things you have done, but day by day it becomes more and more difficult ... I’d like to think that it has nothing to do with the way you ravished and ruined me.”

The tone of Kara’s voice didn’t give away what she was feeling.

“Thank you, I guess. I’d consider it progress if you will not try to kill me if you have the opportunity.”

Kara let out a short laugh. “What good would that do to me now? No, I guess I’ll wait and see what will happen. If I take your word that now I’ll have all those extra years, I probably can afford that.”

I know that I could have been faster on our trip down the river, but at this point of our journey one day or even a few days didn’t really matter that much. Even though a part of me would have liked me to hurry, to push our boat to its limits so that I could make it to the valley sooner. Patience. I was still learning it.

“This part of pier is reserved. The open part is further away, you need to go there.”

The voice of the older woman was strict and it was clear that this wasn’t the first time she was steering others away from this place. Being a woman in business probably meant that she needed to be extra tough in order to get the message across - especially to the sailors.

“Good afternoon. I was hoping to see Birgit here or at least to be able to deliver a message to her and tell that Arne is here.”

“Look kid ... wait a moment. Are you Arne?”

“Arne Holth, Ma’am. Been away for a while, but now back and hoping to start some new business.”

The woman at the pier was probably only in her forties, but the stern look in her face when she had told us to move away had made her look years older. Now I was able to feel those gray eyes evaluating me and suddenly a smile broke on her face.

“Mother Earth, now I understand her whining that one night a whole lot better.”

When my face froze, the woman hurried to continue. “Hey, do not worry - I won’t blab. I owe my life and the lives of my children to Birgit...”

Suddenly the look on the older woman’s face turned ashen and I felt Kara moving next to me and taking my hand in hers. She had been partly hidden behind the boat rail petting our guard dog, Nanna. When I had complained to Kara that Nanna was not really a name for a believable guard dog she had just shrugged... ‘But it was the name of a girl who used to lord it over me when I was young.’ Then Kara had smiled a bit too sweetly and turned to pat Nanna again. I guessed that she still had her issues with me - or she expected to get some payback someday.

However, now she took a hold on my arm like I was her property when she turned to look up to the pier. I felt Kara’s fingernails in my arm when she smiled at the woman.

“I probably should have guessed that he didn’t learn those things he’s capable of doing alone. My name is Kara and I’m his fiancée.”

I had absolutely no idea what Kara was now up to, but without any doubt, she was now claiming me has hers. I shrugged internally. Whatever, as long as it would keep her away from trouble here. I already felt that I was among friends here and nobody was able to remember when a Magician was last seen here. Some Guardians passed through the city all the time, but these Guardians were ‘real’ Guardians who had nothing to do with the Shinies from Aston. Still, I had no reason to meet them, and neither did they have any reason to meet some minor merchants. I have no idea what Hanna said to Birgit, but we didn’t have any issues during our stay in this little town, Eldham. It was almost funny to think that when I first came here, I’d had issues with the huge number of people close to each other. Those years in Aston had taught me what it was really like to be close to a huge amount of people.

It would be quite an understatement to mention that Kara was surprised when we suddenly started sailing up the river again very early in the morning, with the first of the barrels with us. There was no way of getting all of them to the valley at once, since the boat we used in this final part of the trip needed to have that retractable keel. Hey, I was learning this sailing business.