Chapter 5Where the tides take us
It was close to 2 am on a Monday, actually a very early Tuesday, the city was quiet and dark. Natalie and Cara were sitting in the back of a large hydrogen driven carriage, easily recognised by the two large exhausts circled in golden script, blessing the water vapour produced by the engine as it left the car.
The driver was holding a varied monologue, complaining about the lack of clients at this time, but happy that there were no drunks during the week, wondering what two pretty young ladies wanted at the harbour at this unchristian time of day, then wondering even more that they were leaving Monasterian territory at all, and to go to the Confederated Cities of all places, if they didn’t worry about all the bandits in the law-less territories and why anyone would want to go to a place so secular. Natalie gave him the shortest answers possible, which always resulted in a new monologue.
Natalie herself was hardly listening, mostly murmuring to herself, pouring over her ‘plan’, which to Cara looked like a large piece of e-paper covered by several layers of doodles and notes that would someday become an artefact setting ablaze the heart of any archaeologist that found it. And its charger.
Cara, on the other hand, was looking out of the window. The talking of the cab driver and the murmuring of her new master nothing more than the voice equivalent of rain patter. She was mostly thinking about what in the world she could have done to be declared a traitor by her own school. She had wanted to go to master Manfred to talk to him. Surely that would resolve the misunderstanding they were having. She would also have wanted to warn him about the blonde man; he was obviously a cheat and a liar not worthy to hold a sword in his hands much less learn the secret techniques of the great Liechtenauer style. Natalie and Walter would have none of it though. And so here she was, feeling amorphously guilty looking at a city she had know her entire life, had grown up in, now all cold and dark. It felt as if her home itself had turned away from her. As she felt tears welling up in her eyes, something in the voice of the driver had changed enough to make her look up.
“… the harbour. The harbour never sleeps, eh. It truly is one of the beating hearts of the city.”
Cara wondered for a second what kind of beast the city had to be to have several hearts. Before she could follow that line of thought though, she saw the warm amber of the harbour lights. There, right ahead of her, was an island of life and activity surrounded by the darkness of the sleeping city.
As they moved closer, Natalie swore, redoubling her efforts of scribbling in her already overloaded ‘plan’, while Cara watched wide eyed: the cranes of the harbour were dancing their strange mechanical dance, carrying containers to and fro, guided by the dance of the human workers on the ground, scaffolds, containers and towers.
The cab turned into the harbour itself, moved its way through a canyon of containers until they could see ahead of them the row of freighters.
“Which one is yours?”, the driver asked.
“The ‘MHS Ruhig Blut’, it’s a Monasterian free-trader. It should be anchoring in the”, Natalie looked at her ‘plan’ and to Cara’s deep surprise, Natalie somehow instantly found what she was looking for, “Block D-1 to D-4”.
“’Ruhig Blut’?”, the driver laughed a loud laugh that would have qualified him to play Santa Clause, “the ‘Stay chill?’ I like that.” The car turned to the right, passing the white and gold church ships anchoring in the A blocks, that took more than half of the anchoring space. Past the sanctioned company ships of blocks B and C, towards the D block where the free-traders had their ships. All the ships up to this point had been following a certain uniform design, but with the free traders this radically changed. Now every ship was its own design, some grand, some deeply spartan, there were solar sail ships, steam driven ones, some of the smaller ones were even powered by human or animal power. And then there was the ‘MHS Ruhig Blut’.
It looked the most like a company ship, but instead of normal navigational lights, it had giant red glowing tube running along side the ship. On the back of the ship Cara could see that there was an equal tube on the other side this one glowing green. The cabin space in the aft was longer than on most other ships, while there was also a cabin complex on the fore of the ship, both of which sloped down into two green houses as they moved towards the ship’s centre, both of them dark, but with fogged up windows. It was only after these parts, that the open cargo space appeared, which right now was being loaded with the last containers. Some the white gold of the church, others in the colours and icons of large Monasterian companies and a few just the red-brownish colour of an unbranded cargo container.
The driver stopped next to the gangplank where a large thin man was looking over a list discussing it with a stevedore.
“Here you are”, the driver said. He got out himself and helped them get their luggage out of the transporter. While he was still piling backpacks on suitcases, Natalie was writing on an official looking and pre-sealed piece of velum. When the driver was done with the luggage and had closed the doors again, Natalie gave him the paper saying, “Here, you earned this. Especially if you forget that you ever saw us or where you drove tonight”. She smiled a surprisingly magnanimous smile. Cara couldn’t see what was written on the velum, but she could see the eyes of the driver widening. She also knew what a ecclesial pledge of recompense looked like.
“As you can see we, and with us the arch-bishop, are extremely pleased with your work and should we remain that pleased with it for the next month you will reap the goodwill that you sowed four fold, as the good Lord teaches us.”
The driver just nodded, then added, “The Lord is our shepherd and in his mercy he will provide…”, he then remembered that he wasn’t alone. “May the Lord bless you, my lady.”, he retreated bowing before Natalie and Cara until he had entered his wagon, where he crossed himself and stared at the velum for a little while longer before leaving.
While Cara was still captivated by the reaction of the driver -how much money had he received? Was that even OK? It looked like Natalie may have been a bit too generous with resources that weren’t hers to give?- Natalie had started talking to the tall man.
“…this is Cara over there. She is my new apprentice.”
“You have an apprentice?”, the man said, “wonders never cease!” He turned to Cara, “It is a pleasure to meet you Cara, I am captain Wolfram Hartmann Serafini.” He shook her hand, his grip was that of a very well mannered vice. “And somewhere over there,” he gestured towards where the last containers were being loaded, “you’ll find my wife Erika. Whatever you do, do not ask her about the engine or technical details of the ship. If you do it anyway, I warned you and may the Lord have mercy on your soul.” He smiled a last warning smile and turned back to Natalie.
“You are lucky, our grand passenger suite is still free”, he said to Natalie.
“Are we?”, Natalie scanned the ship and dock with a raised eyebrow, “to me it looks like it’s you who are lucky. Because it looks like we are your only passengers.”
“Bah… passengers are just a side hustle. As you can see,” he gestured towards the containers. “Business is going really well and we will probably be using some of the passenger cabins to get some more light cargo. Very lucrative light cargo. I am basically doing you a favour here.”
“Are you?”, now that thin smile that promised an explosion of gleeful violence appeared on Natalie’s lips. “To me it looks more like you really need some help, to get your precious cargo past the Purgatory Gap…”
Cara was following the spectacle, trying to find out what exactly was happening here. Both of them seemed to be friends… and they were haggling? Before they had even talked about the price?
“Bah, the “Ruhig Blut” is one of the fastest freighters in the entire region and we have some of the best anti-boarding weapons mankind can produce. We hardly need help to get past the Gap. At full speed will get through there in under an hour.”
“Really? That’s great, I hope the slowest attack crafts keep that in mind and don’t push their engines over half power and give you the right of way, then. Also this,” she pointed at the containers being moved. “, doesn’t look like last minute loading at all. As if someone,” she cast captain Wolfram a meaningful look, “had spontaneously decided of jumping the gap tonight…”
“Wolfram!”, a female voice flooded over them, “What are you doing? Stop pestering our guests!”
“What?”, Wolfram turned around towards a woman who was moving in long powerful strides towards them down the dock. “My love, I am just following tradition!”
“What tradition?”, Cara asked, curious about what exactly this spectacle was supposed to represent. To her it looked like the captain and master Natalie were arguing.
“Well, young Cara,”, captain Wolfram said, “the age old tradition of haggling over the price for services rendered.”
“That was haggling?”, she and Erika said at the same time, Cara confused, Erika exasperated.
“Really, caro mio?”, Erika said. “What is the price range we are talking about then?”
“Er…”, said captain Wolfram.
“We were about to come to that point.”, Natalie said raising a finger.
“Ah Natalie, what a pleasure it is to see you.”, Erika beamed, she embraced Natalie in a bear hug, and despite being almost a head shorter than Nat, she effortlessly lifted her of the ground moving her left and right. Natalie squeaked softly in protest.
“No need to kill me…”, Natalie gasped.
‘Cuddled to death…’, Cara thought, ‘Not the end I had expected for Natalie.’
“And who are you?”, Erika asked, turning, an unhappy Natalie sill dangling in her arms.
“I am Cara. I am master Natalie’s apprentice!”
“Apprentice?”, Erika glowed, she let go of Natalie who squawked as she made contact with the floor again.
“Look at you, aren’t you the cutest?”, Erika said moving towards Cara with a terrible pinch-in-the-cheek energy. Cara tensed, getting ready for the first contact, which turned out to be a warm embrace and two quick pecks on her cheeks. “Welcome to the family my dear. I am Erika. That over there is Wolfram my often wonderful husband and behind us is the Ruhig Blut, our pride and joy.”
“Er… thank you. Mrs. Erika…”
“Just Erika, sweety.”, she smiled. Then she turned back around to face Natalie and her husband, as she turned all her warmth into thorns. “So… about that haggling of yours...”
Both captain Wolfram and Natalie stood up straighter, none of them daring to say the first word.
“Nat, my dear, were do you need to go?”
“Dortmund at the very least. We need to go to the forge fortress Solingen. Cara needs training and equipment.”
Erika considered Natalie´s words for a second, rubbing her chin.
“Then we’d rather go at least to Düsseldorf… and there…”
“District 9, they have a private trade harbour there.”, Wolfram said, his eyes scanning over a map he was visualising, his voice now all business.
Erika nodded. “Good plan. How long are you going to stay at the forge fortress?”
“Depends,” Natalie said. “If we get a place to stay and train, for a couple of months…”
“What is your final destination?”, Wolfram asked.
“Vienna. In about six months.”
Erika and Wolfram exchanged looks. “It would be wiser to push further south,” Wolfram started. “And find a place to stay over the winter months.”, continued Erika, “and then push forward again as spring arrives.”
“Maybe.”, Natalie said. “But the most important part here is training Cara here. A Salle that will have us and let us do our thing would be the the best. Especially during winter.”
“Good point,”, Erika said. “So we can take you to Disrict 9 in Düsseldorf. You are going to get board and lodging and you will help in defending the ship. Especially in the Purgatory Gap.”
“That would be the deal.”, Natalie said. This confused Cara, wasn’t that what her master and the captain had been arguing about only a few minutes ago?
“So what’s your budget?”, Erika asked.
“Two Monasterian gold icons and not a cent more.”, Natalie said.
Cara had to pull her hand in front of her mouth so that the others wouldn’t notice her jaw dropping. One gold icon, a thin pressed gold plate in a steel frame was the highest denomination of money in Monasteria and was roughly the equivalent of a fourth of Cara’s pretty decent yearly income.
A smile flickered on Erika’s face but failed to fully manifest. She slowly turned towards captain Wolfram. “Caro mio… you have been haggling over two gold icons for taking two passengers to Dortmund?!”
“But my love… the tradition!”
“Don’t you ‘my love’ me right now. You are a disgrace to your profession and my family.”
Natalie tried to hide her smug smile, not very hard, she also failed spectacularly at it.
“And you Nat…”, Erika turned back her eyes burning away any sign of smugness from Natalie’s face. “You had to keep that fact to your self and indulge in this childish play? What would your parents say to such behaviour?”
“My parents are dead…?”, Natalie said.
“Good for them”, Erika said her voice now growing louder. “To imagine what they would have to go trough, if they heard about this! Or maybe worse, because now they are watching you from heaven”, she crossed herself as she said that, “with all your other ancestors. Just imagine how they need to excuse your behaviour to all your noble ancestors who came before you.”
Natalie shrank under the onslaught of Erika’s words. “It’s not their fault…”
“Maybe not,” Erika said, “but it is their responsibility…” Erika sighed and shook her head.
“Well what are we standing around wasting our time with empty talk, let’s get your luggage on board. We need to weigh anchor soon, so that we can pass through the Purgatory Gap during the day.”
