The Riddle Read Online Free PDF Page A

and attack by a maze of reefs and currents, and by the arms of its encircling cliffs. These had been extended by tall crenelated breakwaters that ended in two harbor towers.
    As the
White Owl
neared the towers, Maerad began to feel apprehensive. The entrance was very narrow, and the tower walls loomed over their small craft and cast a chilly shadow over the water. The echoes of the waves slapping on stone seemed unnaturally loud, even threatening. The ancient stone, green with slime and encrusted with barnacles and limpets, was uncomfortably close. She wondered if anyone watched their approach through the slits she saw high up in the walls.
    She breathed out heavily when they sailed through into the sunlight again and entered the bustling haven of Busk. The buildings on the harborside were plain and whitewashed, casting back the bright summer sunshine with a blinding glare, but any sense of austerity was offset by the activity going on around. The quay was crowded with rough woven baskets full of blue-and-silver fish packed in salt, giant coils of rope, piles of round cheeses coated in blue-and-red wax, lobster pots, barrels of wine and oil, huge bolts of raw silk, and dozens of people.
    As she stepped onto the stone quay, it seemed to Maerad’s startled perception that everyone was arguing. Many traders were bargaining, scoffing in disbelief at the prices offered, talking up the inimitable value of their wares. Elsewhere fishers were bringing in their catch, shouting orders at each other, and sailors were working on their boats or greeting friends, laughing and swearing. The teeming, noisy harborside was a shock after the silence and solitude of their days at sea, and she glanced back at her two companions, momentarily discomfited.
    Cadvan and Maerad fondly took their leave of Owan, promising to meet him soon, and headed up the steep streets to the School of Busk. Cadvan picked his way through the tangle of tiny streets and alleys, and Maerad looked around eagerly, her tiredness forgotten.
    The people of Busk seemed to live outside on their vine-shaded balconies; it afforded them the pleasures of chaffing passing friends, minding each other’s business, and exchanging gossip. She saw them washing, eating, dressing children, and cooking, all in the open air. Cadvan noticed her staring.
    “Thoroldians are a people apart,” he said, smiling. “They think Annarens are cold and snobbish. Annarens, on the other hand, think Thoroldians are impertinent and have no sense of privacy.”
    “I think I like it,” said Maerad. “It seems very . . . lively. But I don’t know that I’d like to live like that all the time.”
    “Perhaps not,” said Cadvan. “But, of course, it’s different in winter: everybody moves inside.”
    The School of Busk was set above the main town, surrounded by a low wall that served as a demarcation rather than a barrier. Here the ubiquitous whitewashed houses and twisting alleys gave way to wide streets lined with stately cypresses and olive trees. The road, like the roads in the town, was flagged with stone and threw back the sunlight blindingly. Behind the trees were Bardhouses built of marble and the local pink granite, fronted by wide porticos with columns ornately decorated in bright colors and leafed with gold; many were entwined with ancient vines, their fat fruit purpling in the sun. Maerad glimpsed the dark tops of conifers behind high walls and thought longingly of cool private gardens.
    Unlike Innail and Norloch, the only Schools Maerad knew, Busk was not planned in concentric circles — the geography of the island, steep and irregular, made this impossible. And, as Cadvan said, the Thoroldians liked to do things their own way in any case. The streets were laid in terraces, with flights of broad steps to connect the different levels, and it was very easy to get lost until you knew your way about, because they seemed to follow no rational order. There were no towers in Busk, apart from