The next day they came to a crossroad, and Pepe turned south in the direction of Yaktesh.
"What are you doing?" shouted George. "Pavol is east!"
"You plan on riding through a war zone?" Pepe shouted back. "We have to go around by ship, we cannot go that way!"
War! Please tell me it isn't the politicians stirring up trouble again, thought George as he spurred his war-horse ahead to catch up with the squire. "What's this about a war zone?"
Pepe rolled his eyes impatiently. "About a hundred lords and nobles have revolted against the throne. They've built literally hundreds of underground fortresses, with a wild maze of natural caves connecting them all. the imperial army has almost given up on the campaign, because they keep losing troops to ambushes," he explained.
"Does this have anything to do with my summoning?" George asked instinctually.
Pepe didn't answer, instead he looked away. Finally he mumbled a "sort of."
His curiousity subsided, George clicked his tongue and the horse rode at a gallop towards Yaktesh.
They slept that night in an inn instead of the leaky tent George had misplaced, or rather thrown into the ditch deliberately. Tomorrow they would pay for passage on a ship going to Pavol, and George would try again to wheedle a story out of Pepe.
There were no male sailors, which George felt to be a huge change. All of them were women, as Pepe had explained that a group of females had challenged a crew of some of the best sailors, and won. They had also proved to be better swimmers by beating the sailors across a harbour in a race. Now the word had got around and people insisted on female sailors over men, making a lot of out of work male sailors.
After Pepe explained this, George, of course, insisted on an all female crew, just to be safe during hurricane season. George couldn't swim and figured that if he fell overboard, that he'd want a good strong swimmer to fetch him out of the water.
So Pepe led George to a tavern so recently built that it still didn't have a sign and smelled of spruce and pine wood than side pork. It was the side pork however that drew George and he headed straight for the kitchen.
"And what would you like?" asked a young bearded man, intercepting George.
"All the side pork I can eat, so out of my way," growled George, taking a confident step forward.
"I'm sorry your Lordship, but only practiced chefs may enter my kitchen," said the young man flatly.
"Good, I'll give you some tips then," grinned George, slipping past the young man with deft ease. The young man stood there staring after George, wondering how the old man had got past him so damn easily.
"Don't worry about him," Pepe said to the slack jawed man. "He's had twenty years experience in an inn of his own." Still the man stared after George. "So," he said conversationally. "Do you know where I could find a ship captain heading for Pavol?"
The young man blinked. "Try the booth in the corner," he mumbled.
"Good, let us go find my friend before he starts insulting your chefs."
They found George discussing sauces with one of the proprietor's chefs. "Tis not hard ta see why ye b'came an innkeeper," the chef was saying. "You's have a great fondness for food, am I not right?"
"Aye," agreed George, sticking a finger in his mouth to test the sauce. "Needs less salt," he commented.
"Tis not my fault, da water, tis filled with salt and I can do naught about it," explained the chef.
"Try rain water," George suggested. "Up in Windpeak there's so much iron in the water that it makes my ale taste stale and bitter, so I tried using rain water to make my ale and I'm now known for the freshness of my ale."
"Now der's an idea! Why hadn't I's a think of that! Tank ye, George!" cried the chef with the sudden revelation. "We's chefs shoulda trade recipes more often!"
"Come on," said Pepe. "We can eat in a booth. I thought you were hungry?"
"Aye, that's mighty true. Farewell Rene," George waved to the chef and followed Pepe.
"What's wrong with a table?" George asked when they were out in the barroom again.
"There's a ship captain going to Pavol in the booth," Pepe explained, leading George across the room.
The captain was strikingly beautiful, and she batted her eyelashes at Pepe. George still couldn't understand what it was women admired about Pepe. They'd been ogling him all the way from Windpeak. She was wearing a brown kidskin tunic, a kilt and a headband to prevent her brown hair from falling down in front of her face. She was armed with a scimitar, George noted.
"May we join you?" asked Pepe politely. Pavolians! George would have just sat down without a second thought.
"I don't eat with strangers," she smiled. "D'arcy of Glendown."
"Pepe of Pavol," replied the squire. "And this is Sir George Waycot of...Ó
"Gorestain, lately of Windpeak," George supplied. The name of his home town came from a famous battle where the ground had been flooded with dead bodies piled one on top of the other. He always managed he chuckle at the stupidity of it's name.
"Well, take a load off," D'arcy said, waving them into the booth. Always the gentleman, Pepe let George into the booth first and then sat down beside him with utmost delicacy.
But before Pepe could start the usual formalities, George asked, "How much to take us to Pavol?"
"Eight golds per person," D'arcy replied.
"Done," George wasn't going to barter, eight golds was almost a steal. "When do we sail?"
"As soon as I'm done eating," she replied. "Which will be a while , since I haven't got my meal yet," D'arcy pointed at the empty table.
Pepe had the look of someone who'd just been insulted, what with all this informality, but he didn't say anything because that would be rude. George grinned, ordered two platters of side pork and ate his meal in peace.
George knew ships well enough to know this was a pirate ship, and it's crew undoubtedly pirates. The beam was too narrow for lots of cargo and the masts were reinforced for increased speed, to say nothing of the weapons arsenal stored along the gunwale. He had been right, this was a steal.
D'arcy led them to their cabin, winked at Pepe, spun away with a revealing glimpse of flesh under her kilt, and began shouting orders. Pepe didn't give her a second glance, and went into his cabin. George smiled briefly. Pepe would stay true to his noble lady that he'd never marry. Unless Pepe became a knight, which might explain why Pepe became a squire, which is a stepping stone towards knighthood.
"I don't get it. I know he's Pavolian, but this is crazy," D'arcy was explaining to George. "He doesn't even notice me."
"I'm afraid he's taken. Whenever he looks at a woman, he compares her to the one he loves, and you just can't win against love. You might as well forget about him, he's hopelessly in love with another," George explained to her in a soothing voice.
But D'arcy only became more determined, and in the next few days she and her crew tried almost everything to get his undivided attention, but to no avail. Finally George decided to inquire about Pepe's mysterious lady. "So...Pepe did you know what the crews been saying about you?"
Pepe looked up from his hammock and turned around to face George. "What's this?" he asked.
"They're saying you must be very picky when it comes to women, is that true?"
"I wouldn't know," Pepe said with a shrug, turning back to look out the window.
"Why not?"
"Because there's only one woman for me," he replied.
"Describe her, what's she like?" George insisted.
"She's not like other women, like Telina or Captain D'arcy who go all mushy for some reason," Pepe said sourly.
"Ah! Now we're getting somewhere! "You mean you're as baffled as I am as to why women go all la-dee-da when you're around?" George asked.
"Yes."
"So what else is special about your lady, besides her la-dee-da-nessless?"
"She's a warrior."
"So is D'arcy. Did you not see that huge scimitar she war carrying?"
"Except she's had world class training."
"So have I," said George. This was leading nowhere.
"She's beautiful."
"So is D'arcy and Telina," said George. "And all the crew on board for that matter."
"But she's different," protested Pepe, turning to face George.
"How?"
"It's too hard and complicated to explain and I don't think there's an exact word for it," Pepe snarled, standing up and stalking away.
"I wonder if I pushed too far," George mumbled to himself quietly.
"I'd say you did," agreed D'arcy, coming up behind him and leaning against the door frame of Pepe's cabin.
"Aye," George said. "So what's it like being a pirate?" he asked quickly in order to change the subject.
D'arcy turned red and her hair seemed to bristle like a cat's. "I don't know what you're talking about?"
"Don't try it, you're a lousy liar. But don't worry about it, I won't turn you in, just like I won't turn Pepe in for being a burglar," smiled George. "Unless you try throwing me overboard, and taking all my money."
D'arcy grinned, her hand going to her scimitar. "How'd you know?" she demanded suspiciously with a mocking grin.
"The ship is built for speed, not for cargo, any one who's been on a ship before should be able to tell once aboard," George explained, not the least bit frightened. the captain had forgotten to take the strap off.
"Not that, I mean Pepe."
"Lucky guess, he scaled a wall in the time it took me to blink. Pavolians are too formal to be assassins, so that left burglars."
D'arcy laughed. "I'm surprised you're not dead yet, what with your mouth, and nosiness," she said.
"Any trouble my mouth gets me into, my mouth can also get me out of, and if it can't, my sword can," boasted George modestly. "Shall I play something for your crew? I feel a tune coming on." D'arcy started to ask what the knight meant, but he was already gone.
He returned a moment later bearing his violin, and instantly began to play a roguish sea shanty with a lively beat. There was no lyrics, George's music wasn't meant to be sung to. It was merely a tune or pattern that came to him and he slowly adjusted it into something that suited his mood.
The canal, as Pepe called it was about two hundred yards across and more than sixty yards deep in the centre, The building of it had taken three years and thousands of men, but from George's point of view they should have made it bigger. the canal was so jammed full of ships they could barely move.
"If I knew how to swim, I'd swim to the side and beat you all there," he said, looking wistfully at the murky water.
"At this speed, I could probably teach you how before we even got to the half way point," replied D'arcy, her feet were still tapping to the beat of the tune George had played last night. George glanced at her in shock. She laughed. "Don't worry, it speeds up, and we'll still be there in no time at all," she said.
She was right too, and in no time at all they were inside the city walls, the new city walls. Pepe had explained how in the last twenty years another set of walls had been built around the city, because, simply put, they had ran out of room. So now the city now had three sets of walls, the richer class of people lived in the inner core, the main populace in the inner city, and the merchants, inns, taverns, slums, docks and marketplace were in the outer city. At the very centre of it all was the imperial palace with its own set of walls yet.
The great city itself had a huge grey cloud of smoke directly above it and the tops of buildings were the charcoal colour of soot. It was about five times the size than when he had last been here and three times noisier. Then again, how could it have possibly gotten quieter?
Ahead an officer in a dinghy called out to D'arcy, and shouted, "Gate two!" In response the helmsman steered to the right, and followed a smaller canal which ran along side the wall to the northeastern corner of the city. George looked up and guessed the walls to be about eighty feet high, to say nothing of the spiraled towers.
Since the city walls were made up of a triangle inside a triangle inside a triangle, a typically Pavolian setup, they had to pass through part of the inner city in order to get to the north eastern corner of the outer city's triangle. D'arcy explained that they could get off at the passenger dock in the inner city while they passed through there if they liked.
Pepe agreed anxiously. He seemed rather impatient to reach the core.