Chapter Five

With Koamalu looking at him, Ryland shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t expect to get through, I was just trying the direct way first.” Then he gestured at their travel-stained clothes. “Even if we got through the Upper Town guards, the household guards weren’t likely to let us through.”

Koamalu cocked his head. “If you didn’t expect to get in, uso. Then why try?”

“It would have a lot of time and trouble.” Ryland explained. “But don’t worry about it, we’re still where we need to be.”

Then Ryland led his companion down a set of streets he vaguely remembered from his youth, leaving the main route with its painted shops and homes and making their way over to a more run-down area. Here there were also street sellers and stalls, similar to the ones outside the city walls, but with higher quality foods and customers.

As they stopped to ask a stall owner for directions, Koamalu’s stomach rumbled, and Ryland gave him a smile.

“Don’t worry. I feel the same way. We’ll eat soon enough.”

Then they were leaving the strip with the sellers and into a more advanced commercial area where the friendly signs of daily goods were replaced with the more complex sigils of guild houses and advanced imagery that took more work to understand. A few were obvious, like a book and pen representing a publishing house, or a ship representing a boat shipping office, but others like a coiling purple snake were up to the viewer’s imagination.

Eventually, they reached a row of buildings which each had an image accompanied by a pair of crossed spears on their signs - a wolf’s head howling against a full moon, a crimson snake reared to strike, a fox looking over its shoulder, two men crossing long spears, and a large curled up sleeping dog could all be seen. Each had a large front window with open shutters, and men and women could be seen working and talking inside at tables and desks.

Ryland stopped at the one with the sleeping dog and went inside.

Koamalu had to duck because the top of the door was too low for his height, and when he entered the six men and women working there all stopped what they were doing to look at him. It was a small office space that was large enough for four or five desks, plus a table and chairs to meet with clients. At the back there was a door and to their right was a staircase which led up to the next level.

“Excuse me,” Ryland said to get their attention back to him. “This the office of the Watchdog Armed Escort Agency, is it not?”

A stout middle aged woman with red cheeks came forward, looking a little annoyed at the raggedy pair. “It is. If you’re looking to hire on, we do that down at the docks. This is a place of letters and numbers.”

Ryland’s face took on a stern expression. “Then this is exactly the place where I need to be. I am owed a great deal of money by the master of the business, and I aim to collect.Tell him I want to see him immediately.” He said it in an angry tone that surprised Koamalu, who hadn’t known Ryland was so annoyed.

“I…” The woman was taken aback, but only for a moment. “The master of the business isn’t in the habit of seeing men who he’s hired. You’d best see Mr. Standish down at the docks.”

Ryland grabbed one of the chairs next to the table and promptly sat down in it. “I don’t think so.” Then he added in a loud voice. “Tell him I’m here, and I’m not leaving until I see him. I know he’s up there, probably counting his money like the miser he is.”

The woman just stared at Ryland, “Young man. Do you know who you’re referring to? Mister Lester…”

But then there was a loud thump as a door opened upstairs, and a series of heavy footsteps could be heard that made the workers nervously glance at each other. All except the woman Ryland who had been speaking to, who smiled sweetly as if to say “Well boy, you asked for it. I hope you like your sour tea.”

Then a man came down the stairs, a huge, wide man wearing blue silk robes and a stern expression. The lack of hair on his head was made up for by the long white beard he had, and it was tied off with a blue ribbon to match his robes. There was a sense of power and purpose to the man, and despite his age and fine clothes, he looked like he could still hold his own against several men in a fight with ease.

His sharp brown eyes locked onto Ryland right away, and he raised a questioning eyebrow. Then he saw Koamalu, and his other eyebrow went up.

“Sir, these boys…” The woman started, but the big main just raised his hand to stop her.

“Stand up,” he told Ryland, waving his big hand in an upwards motion.

Ryland saw Koamalu tense out of the corner of his eye, but raised a hand to stop his companion as well, then stood up.

Once he did, the big man threw out his arms and embraced Ryland in a huge bear hug. Ryland returned the embrace.

“I’m so sorry, boy.” Then to the shock of all the observers, the big man began to weep. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“There’s nothing you could have done, Uncle.” Ryland said in a hoarse voice. “There’s nothing any of us could have done…”

After a time, the big man took a step back. “It warms my heart to see you. I sent people to check on you, but hadn’t heard back.”

“We had to flee, Delmar Swailes has dissolved the company.” Ryland answered. “He tried to do the same to me.”

The big man snorted. “That slick little bastard! I told your father not to hire him. Now look at where we are…” Then he shook his head and turned to Koamalu. “You Ryland’s man?”

Koamalu nodded.

The two shook hands, “I’m Dunstand Fiske, head of this company. Thanks for seeing him here.” Then he looked down at his hand and nodded. “Good grip you’ve got there. You a south islander? I had an islander working for me for a while named Kiuga Falagi. Good man, you know him?”

Koamalu shook his head. “That clan’s on another island.”

“Too bad, I’d have liked to hear about how he’s doing.” Then the older man forced a smile. “Still, good to have you here. Let’s both of you upstairs. Meeks, bring some tea up! And send for dinner for the three of us as well.”

As the office boy got to work, Fiske led them away.

Later, after they’d eaten and discussed many things, Fiske excused himself and left the two of them in his posh upstairs office. He had fine carved furniture, with silk hangings on the walls and carved scentwood decorations. Behind his desk on the wall between two windows hung an embroidered image of the sleeping dog that was on the sign out front.

“I like your uncle, he’s a good man.” Koamalu said. “Your father was very admired.”

“He worked for my family when he was younger- he and my father were very close.”

“Now he’s a rich man. This another banner company?”

Ryland shook his head. “Armed escort agency.”

Koamalu cocked an eyebrow. “There a difference?”

“Ah.” Ryland looked surprised, then gave a wan smile. “I guess you’re still pretty new here, so that wouldn’t have come up.” Then he nodded. “A pretty big difference...How to explain... So, if you and I were to start offering our services escorting, we’d be called ‘freelancers’ - which is what we call small groups of people who do escort work. Mostly guarding things in the city or between towns. Freelancers usually just work by the job, and then move on to where the work is. Got it?”

Koamalu grunted that he did.

“Sometimes freelanders get together and form permanent groups doing guard work between towns and cities, we call those ‘armed escort agencies.’ They’re professional escorts, and the bigger ones like this have a headquarters and sometimes offices in different cities. They have to register with the government, and pay a special tax, but they can do pretty well if there’s a lot of work for them. There’s hundreds, maybe thousands of armed escort agencies in the empire doing all kinds of guarding.”

“Sounds like what banner companies do. What’s the difference?”

Ryland gave an ironic smile. “How many people did the Crimson Hawk Banner Company have working for it?”

Koamalu shrugged. “I dunno, maybe sixty or seventy?”

“Three hundred and twenty. At least, there were.”

Ryland could see Koamalu processing that number, and then his eyes bugged out. “Really? That’s like a whole island of people! I didn’t see that many at your keep.”

“That’s because a lot of them were out working. What you saw were the ones who were close enough to come back for the funerals. Most of the company is probably still finding out what happened.”

“Is the empire that big?”

“Sixteen provinces and twelve territories, last time I checked. I read it takes three weeks to go from Bogrihm on the outer edge of Kahlim Territory to the imperial capital by fast mount. It can take months by caravan.”

Koamalu let out a low whistle. “That’s a long time.”

“The Third Glacian Emperor was pretty busy,” Ryland said dryly. “But, let’s get back to your question. The government was worried that the armed escort agencies could turn into mercenary armies or warlords who might threaten the government. Letting so many soldiers gather together could be dangerous, so they made a rule - armed escort agencies can’t be bigger than thirty people, soldiers and supporters. Enough to guard against bandits, or fight bigger enemies, but not enough to take over a city or start a rebellion.”

“Alright.”

“But some jobs, like guarding caravans with a hundred carts or more, are too much for thirty men and women, especially in the outer territories. Sure, you could put a couple of them together, but how could they trust each other? So, when the last big war was on, the twentieth emperor gave a special document called the Writ of Company to thirteen of the most trustworthy armed escort agencies that said they could have as many people as they wanted.”

“And Ryland’s grandfather,” came a deep voice from behind them as Fiske returned to join them. “Was one of those thirteen people. He used it to make the Crimson Hawks so big that he could buy a valley and build his own keep. The cheeky wretch.”

The big man walked past them and sat down at the desk across from them.

“Uncle Dunstan is the master of the Watchdog Armed Escort Agency,” Ryland gestured to the embroidery. “He started it when he got tired of listening to my father’s orders.”

“More like I got tired of holes in my boots.” Fiske grinned. “Your father, heaven bless him, was as cheap as they come. D’you know he once made us eat our own belts on a run rather than spend the money to buy grain from a local seller?”

“The way I heard it,” Ryland said dryly. “The seller was in league with the local warlord, and he was afraid the food would be poisoned. Would you prefer to be dead?”

Fiske waved that away. “That was just an excuse. You had to pry coins from that man’s hands to get paid. I loved him like a brother, but I wanted to make my own coin and not have to ask another man for my livelihood.”

“So, that’s why,” Ryland said, returning to the original topic. “There are only thirteen banner companies, and will continue to only be thirteen unless the emperor changes his mind. Which I doubt will happen, because the government is already worried enough about just thirteen of them to force them to stay in the outer provinces and territories.”

“It pains me to say it,” Fiske said. “But don’t you mean twelve? The Crimson Hawks are gone, and the sooner you accept that boy, the sooner you’ll be able to find your own way.”

Ryland shook his head. “Thirteen.” Then he placed the box containing his Writ of Company on the desk in front of his uncle. “I still have the writ.”

Dunstand Fiske started at it for a moment, then shook his head. “You have the writ, but do you have the tax money it takes to keep it? Banner companies pay a tax of sixty thousand gold every five years to keep their status, and Swailes dissolved the company before they had to pay it at the end of this summer. If nobody pays it, that writ won’t be worth the paper it’s written on. How much do you have now?”

“Sixteen silver, twenty copper.” Ryland said, then looked at Koamalu. “You?”

“Eighteen silver coins, five copper.”

“Thirty-four silver, twenty-five isn’t going to let you keep that writ,” Fiske told them. “And, sorry boy, I don’t have the money to help you. This whole business isn’t worth sixty-thousand, much as I’ve tried.”

“That’s fine, uncle.” Ryland waved the thought away. “I didn’t expect to get the money from you.”

“I’m sorry,” Fiske said, but looked a little relieved.

“I’m going to get it from the richest man in Northport.”

“Sinclaire Eaton?” Fiske looked surprised. “Do you know him?”

“No,” Ryland shook his head. “But I have something he wants.”

All eyes fell on the writ case.