Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

Lemior really came through for us. Less than an hour later we’re settling into a lovely little boarding house with a courtyard. It’s even got a proper bathroom, for Jeodine values of. There are no other boarders. Lemior introduced the middle-aged woman who seemed to own the place as his aunt Jalsone, which was immediately reassuring, especially as it also meant he was happy to stay and keep her company while he waited for us to get ourselves settled in.

I open the shutters in the room I’ve been given. I’ll close them again shortly to keep the sun and the heat out, but I want to take a look. We’re a little way up the valley, and I get a view over rooftops and the harbour itself, the water glittering in the sun. “It’s perfect,” I say to Sam. “Can we afford this.”

“For a while. It’s surprisingly cheap.” She joins me by the window and hitches herself up to sit on the wide windowsill. I can hear the children running around already, happy to be on land and with room to go a little wild. Beni’s pretty much taken charge, being the one of us most used to living shoreside. “And we’re marketeers. We’ve got enough currency to keep us going for a month or two, I reckon.”

“It’s funny,” I say suddenly, surprising myself with the thought.

“What?”

I point at the water in the harbour in the middle distance. “I think this is the furthest I’ve been from the sea since we got here.” For the large value of ‘here’. “Feels weird.”

Sam turns on the windowsill-seat to look where I pointed. “Yeah, me too. Got your land-legs yet?”

“Not really.” It always takes me ages to stop thinking the ground is moving. I look down at the street we’re overlooking. It’s quiet, off the main routes through the city. It looks clean, if a little dilapidated, rather like the boarding house itself, and the whole city: like it had seen more prosperous days.

“Chi said there aren’t enough ships,” Sam says, almost as if following my thoughts. “Well, she was only here when Market was, of course, but she said it was more than that.”

“This harbour’s big enough Market wouldn’t fill it,” I agree.

“She said it’s quieter than she remembers, like there’s not as many people. She says she doesn’t remember there being people living on the streets. I don’t know, she was just a kid…”

I shrug. “And a place like this going empty and cheap. In a capital.”

Sam nods. “Would Fareis dropping this place from her route affect it that much? This is a big city.”

“Maybe she wasn’t the only Satthei who dropped it.” It stood to reason a city like this should be on the routes of several Satthei-led marketeer fleets in any given year.

“Jesus, what did they do to piss them off?”

“Well, it’s supposition,” I say. “Shall we see if Lemior wants to tell us more?”

We go downstairs, and find Lemior in a talkative mood, helped a little by his aunt’s tea, I wonder. “Will the Sattheis be coming back here?” he asks, right off.

Well, that’s one question answered. “What do you know about why they left in the first place?” Sam asks.

“Nothing. Nobody knows. They just… One by one they stopped coming back.”

“Who was the first?” I ask.

He looks right at me. “Encelion, Mistress. Excuse me, but you look like you might be old enough to remember why.”

I shake my head. “How long ago?”

“Twenty three years, I think? I was only a boy—”

He stops, seeing the way Sam and I are looking at each other. We don’t say it in front of him. It looks like Encelion didn’t come back because she was destroyed, but Fareis and the others? Fareis stopped coming thirteen or so years ago.

Does he even realise Encelion was destroyed, I wonder.

“On an unrelated matter,” I say carefully, “have you ever heard of someone who calls himself ‘the Gyrefalcon?’”

Lemior looks at me blankly.

“He was involved with the conflict with Kaleshha, a few years ago,” Sam prompts.

“Oh I don’t know, that was years ago, wasn’t it?”

“He married the princess Hanima,” Sam adds. “I understand she came from here.”

“Ohhhh. The Lady Hanima,” Lemior says. I can feel my pulse quickening. “We don’t have…”

“No monarchy. Of course, my mistake. We’ve been following stories, you know how things get exaggerated.” Sam smiles disarmingly. “Is she still married?”

“Yes of course. Lord Hajarean—”

“Hajarean! Of course!” Sam exclaims, snapping her fingers. I’m not sure if she’s pretending, or if she’s remembering something from that game played so long ago. Thinking about it, it must only be a couple of years ago in her memory. “He used the name Gyrefalcon on his adventures. They say he helped save the world. You didn’t know?”

Lemior shakes his head.

“A little bird told us we might find him here,” Sam continues. “How long ago did they marry, do you know?”

“Oh it was before I was born. Aunt?”

“It was more than thirty years ago, I’m sure.” Lemior’s aunt says.

It takes Sam and I a little while to get past that. Thirty years. More than thirty years.

Gyre Falcon is going to be an old man.

“Hey, let’s get down to the office and pay the harbour fees, shall we?” Sam offers.