“Why? What’s happened?” Embarrassment turned her voice surly. She looked like a banshee most mornings, hair tangled and wild around her.
“Come see” was all he said before closing the door.
A stubbed toe resulted from stumbling around, trying to put herself in order. Muttering her uncle’s favorite curses, she threw on her clothes, braided her hair, washed her face, and hurried up to the deck. What would she see? Samuel and Hamish had been assigned the night’s watch. They stood by Levi at the railing, pointing and exclaiming. She followed their gaze. Seconds passed before she realized that what she saw was real. Not part of any dream. She ran up to the rail beside Levi and gawked, provoking chuckles from the men.
There were three mountains, beyond the riverbank and across a rolling expanse of foliage. The center mountain stood taller than its sisters. And at the peak of that mountain was a ship. She did not need to squint or rub her eyes to be sure. The day was clear and the mountains were not so far away as that. It was a ship perched dead center on a mountaintop.
Levi was grinning, immensely pleased by her reaction. “I was in the ropes and I looked over and there it was! It came right out of nowhere!”
“Nearly fell off the ropes,” Hamish commented, shaking his head. “Thought I was going to have to catch him.”
From Samuel: “Not something you see every day, eh, Master Reyna?”
“A ship, Reyna!” Levi exclaimed. “Look at it!”
She found her voice at last. “I see it! How is it possible? It looks like it dropped right out of the sky!”
The four of them fell silent, considering the possibilities.
“The Great Floods?” Levi offered.
“Those were eight hundred years ago,” Reyna said. The brothers looked dubious, but she thought about it. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. But how could no one have seen . . . ?” She craned her neck this way and that, trying to get a better look. “It’s so high up—perhaps the clouds have been hiding it . . . or the landscape has shifted. I’ve never heard of this ship. It’s not on any map—” Her heart seized at the thought. She whirled around and grabbed Levi’s shirtfront with both hands, startling a laugh from him. “Will you anchor?” she begged him. “Please? Or sail slower? I’ll be quick, I promise—”
Levi covered her hands with both of his. He spoke over her babbling. “We can wait a little. Go.”
Releasing his shirt, she raced back to her cabin and grabbed everything she would need as quickly as she could. Parchment and charcoal, quill and ink, a wooden tablet to write on. Her clattering woke Blaise and Benjamin, who slept in the cabins nearest hers. They stumbled to her doorway and watched.
“What are you drawing? What time is it?” Blaise’s question ended on a yawn.
“A ship, Blaise! A ship on a mountain!” Reyna cried, and bowled past them.
She worked like a dervish. Drawing sketches of the ship and its mountains, noting markers of the surrounding area. Levi had ordered the anchor dropped, but she knew they could not remain here for long. They were not here to survey. That was not their mission. All her work was completed on deck with others crowding around to watch. Her notes piled up beside her, the parchment weighted by ballast stones Benjamin brought up from the hold. She did not have the time or equipment to climb the mountain herself, but with these maps, others could follow.
Or she could come back.
Much later, Levi ordered the anchor raised. It was time to go. Reyna took great care with her final sketch, done in ink with a simple ivy border. She drew the mountains in the background, the river in the foreground, and the Truthsayer in the river, which garnered approval from the men. The cartouche came last. Within its square borders she wrote: Mapmaker: Lady Reyna, Tower of Winds, Kingdom of St. John del Mar. Above that she wrote Explorer. She looked around for Levi and found him near. He and Caleb stood with their shoulders propped against the mainmast as they watched her work. She offered him the quill.
Levi crouched beside her. He didn’t take the quill, only looked at her with his brows raised in question.
She said, “Captain. This is not my find.”
All around them, silence fell.
“Are you sure?” Levi spoke under his breath.
Only then did she understand that he had meant for her to have it. This discovery, and the glory that went with it. Moments passed before she could trust her voice.
“Levi.” It was all she could think to say.
He took the quill, signed Prince Levi, Captain of the Truthsayer, Kingdom of Lunes in firm, bold strokes. And then he just looked at her.
Behind them, Caleb whistled. “I wonder what the queen will think about that.”
No chance for Levi to respond. The arrow struck the mainmast an inch above Caleb’s head. Levi shouted, “Down!” and, together, they hit wooden planking. Reyna pressed against the floorboards, Levi a shield on top of her, his heart beating hard and fast against her back. She went still and listened. To the arrows flying overhead and the men shouting. Not just Levi’s men, but those on land, speaking a language she had heard once before on a dark, terrifying night in the Sea of Magdalen. Coarse and guttural. Coronad but not Coronad.
They had come looking for Miramar. Miramar had found them first.
* * *
“Stay down.”
The order came from Levi. Loud enough to be heard by those on deck even as the Miranese shouted and threatened from the riverbank. Reyna assumed they were threats. She could not understand them.
“Are you all right?” Levi spoke near her ear.
No. She could not breathe. “Get off.”
Levi rolled from her into a low crouch. Cautiously, Reyna lifted her head.
Blaise was safe, hunkered down by the railing with Samuel. Not one person appeared hurt. A glance at the mainmast showed her this was deliberate. At least twenty arrows had lodged in the pole, a perfect, straight line that ended beneath the lookout. A warning, then, as well as proof the Miranese trained excellent archers.
Levi had moved to the railing. He called out in Caffeesh, “Listen here!” And, when the Miranese fell abruptly silent: “I am Prince Levi of Lunes. Captain of this ship. We’re here by personal invitation of your prince, Jian-so.”
Silence, followed by one word in heavily accented Caffeesh.
“Stand.”
A man’s voice. All eyes turned to Levi, who shook his head. They were to stay as they were. But he was not. Reyna’s heart stuck in her throat as he stood, arms extended to show he held no weapons. He posed no threat.
Another order. “All people. Stand.”
This time Levi turned his head to the side and nodded. Everyone rose.
Three men on the riverbank. They might as well have numbered a thousand, for each pointed an arrow directly at the Truthsayer, the arrowhead alight with flame.
Reyna nearly forgot to breathe. A hull carved from oak and sealed with tar. Wooden barrels, canvas sails. There was no greater threat to a ship than fire.
Reyna inched her way to Levi’s side. The archers’ shared ancestry with the Coronads was unmistakable, though these men were rangier, not as large and hulking as their Coronad cousins. She noted other differences: the topknots, of course; also, they cared for their appearance in a way the Coronads did not. They wore leather tunics the color of freshly turned earth. A wide amber sash served as a belt. She could see the polished gleam of their boots from where she stood.
The Miranese on the right spoke. “Drop your anchor.”
Levi had lowered his arms. His eyes never strayed from the arrows. His words were terse. “We’re here by invit—”
An arrow twitched. Levi clamped his mouth shut. Reyna counted ten distinctive pops as he cracked the knuckles on one hand and then the other. He looked to the prow and saw Caleb nearest the anchor. “Drop it,” he ordered. Caleb did his bidding.
Reyna said, “There’s some sort of protectant on those arrowheads.”
“I see it,” Levi said. The flames
remained on the tips, not extending along the shaft to burn flesh.
“Captain,” Samuel said. “There’s only three of them. I’ll slip off the back, circle around, and tzzzt—” Here, he sliced a hand against his throat. “Simple.”
Beside him, Blaise’s eyes grew round.
Levi said, “We can’t leave the ship, Sam. Look in the water.”
A quick glance was all that was needed. Samuel groaned. Beyond the prow, a school of piranha churned up the water. Orange-and-gray scales, snapping teeth. Reyna had never seen a school so large.
A fourth man appeared beside the three, holding not a bow and arrow, but a horn nearly as tall as he was. It looked like a pipe: the mouthpiece at the man’s lips, the bowl resting on the ground. The sound that emerged was reminiscent of a ship’s horn, deep and melodic, rippling the water’s surface. Before it died away completely, another horn sounded from afar, in the direction of Miramar. And another. And another. It was their version of beacon fire.
“Why are there only four of them?” Levi asked.
“Four’s enough,” Samuel said. “Only takes one of those arrows.”
“True,” Levi said. “Still, this is the main waterway to Miramar. You’d think there would be more men.”
The grumbling began after an hour had passed and nothing had changed. Except the position of the sun, which lay directly above them, blazing hot. Levi called out once, “My men are thirsty. I’d like to bring fresh water from below.”
The Miranese refused. “Wait.”
Levi’s lips tightened, the only sign of his growing anger.
At last, after three hours had passed, and Reyna thought she might die of thirst, she heard riders approach.
At least thirty men in full armor. One carried something Reyna recognized. She had seen a drawing in her book. The Miranese flag: a chrysanthemum in full bloom, orange petals blazing against a background of solid, ominous black.
Nineteen
“IT’S HIM?” Levi murmured.
Reyna’s chin dipped in the barest fraction of a nod. She had recognized the sea raider the moment she saw him. He rode ahead of the approaching riders dressed in bronze chain mail. Of similar age to Levi. The knot above his head as perfectly round as she remembered. Pits and scars covered his face. If there had been a sliver of doubt in her mind, it was gone now. Her raider and Prince Jian-so were one and the same. “It’s him.”
A young woman rode among them. She wore a white robe with an amber sash. Her hair, black as the animal she rode upon, was cut in a severe line below her ears. As far as Reyna could tell, she was the only female in the entourage, which fanned out behind Jian-so.
The prince led his horse dangerously close to the edge of the embankment. Raising a hand in greeting, he called over in Caffeesh, “Levi, my friend! My friend! Welcome to Miramar!”
But Levi had been left to simmer in the heat for hours. Sweat soaked his white shirt, and what looked to be the beginning of a vicious sunburn marred his neck and ears. His response was not so cordial. “Am I a friend, Jian-so? This was not the welcome I had expected.”
“What is this?” Jian-so no longer smiled. “What has happened?”
“Your man there has aimed arrows at my ship since we arrived. Fire arrows. We’ve not been allowed to move about. We’ve not been allowed water.”
“Is this true?” Jian-so demanded, his question aimed not at Levi, but at the Miranese who had kept them in the broiling, rolling heat. The man’s expression, only moments before one of cold competence, shifted to unease. He answered in rapid Miranese. Jian-so held up a gloved hand, cutting him off.
“Prince Levi,” Jian-so said formally. “Your treatment in my home dishonors me. I beg you to consider this a sincere reflection of my regret.” Before Reyna could fully register his intent, Jian-so had removed the axe at his back and swung it through the air in a wide, graceful arc. The man toppled off the embankment and into the water, his head in one direction, his body in the other. A deathly silence fell.
The crew moved as one to the railing and looked into the river. An unlucky day for the Miranese who had lost his head. Not so for the piranha offered an unexpected treat. Like a marionette, the body thrashed as it was nipped and bitten to the bone.
Swallowing hard, Reyna grabbed for Levi’s hand beneath the railing. Her nails dug trenches into his palm. He did not flinch, only shifted so that his fingers intertwined with hers. Offering reassurance. All the while, he looked impassively into the water, then at Jian-so, who waited for a response.
Levi said, “I accept your apology. Jian-so. My friend.”
“Good! Very good!” Jian-so’s grin returned. All was well. Without bothering to clean his axe, he returned it to his back. “Follow that boat there.” A galley had appeared at the river’s bend. “It will show you the way. Welcome!”
Levi gave a small bow in response. Jian-so rode off with a final wave, and the rest followed on horseback and on foot. In the water, the body performed its macabre dance. Its severed head floated downstream, mouth gaping up at the heavens, pulled along by some unseen creature beneath the water.
Reyna could not bear to look any longer. Releasing Levi’s hand, she spun around, fist pressed against her stomach.
Blaise had sidled over. She patted Reyna’s shoulder absently and kept on watching, eyes wide in horrified fascination. “He just chopped off that man’s head. Chopped it right off! What is this place?”
“We’re about to find out,” Levi said. Now that the Miranese had gone, his carefully controlled expression melted away. He looked flummoxed. Facing his equally burned and wilted crew, he said, “Listen here. Once we arrive, Benjamin, Samuel, Hamish, and Reyna will come with me. Benjamin will go back and forth with messages. Until I return, this is Master Caleb’s ship. Understood?”
There was a round of nods and ayes.
Except from Caleb, who said, “Will you take more men, Captain?” He pointed to the body in the river. “That prince is not right in the head.”
There were murmurs of agreement all around. Levi refused. “More men and it will look like we’re nervous—”
“We are nervous,” Caleb pointed out.
“There’s no reason to be. Remember, this is a trading visit, nothing more. That is how we will conduct ourselves.” To Reyna Levi said, “I’ve changed my mind. Blaise is coming with us.”
Blaise, still watching the piranha, looked around at that.
“What? Why?” Reyna demanded.
“Because I don’t want you alone in the women’s quarters.”
“But—”
“She’s coming.” The look on Levi’s face said this was not an argument she would win. “Blaise, you’ll be her . . . her . . .”
Swallowing a defeated sigh, Reyna said, “We should stick as close to the truth as possible. Otherwise we’ll get caught out. Blaise is a terrible liar.”
“Thank you, Reyna,” Blaise said. Several of the men snickered.
“So, what?” Levi looked dubious. “A lady scribe and a lady barber? You don’t think they’d find that odd?”
“You’re a foreign prince,” Reyna answered. “You can be as odd as you want. They’ll say you’re eccentric.”
Grim humor sliced across Levi’s face. “Fine. Once we dock, neither of you will speak del Marian. We can’t risk anyone overhearing you.” When Reyna and Blaise agreed, he continued. “Some of you might be asked to deliver the clay. Fine. Otherwise, if you must disembark, you don’t go alone and you don’t go far. We might have to leave here in a hurry.” The Miranese galley they were to follow had begun to sail off. Levi looked into the water, said quietly, “I didn’t mean for this; I am sorry,” and turned away. “Caleb, Samuel, Hamish. With me.”
* * *
Great iron chains blocked entry into the harbor. As the Truthsayer approached, escorted by the smaller, elegant galley, the chains fell away. This was a river port. Ships anchored here in a single row. Fewer than Reyna had imagined, but then, how many did one need in
a kingdom kept so isolated? The sight of two carracks in particular sent a deep anger rolling over her. Both ships were painted black. Neither bore a flag or a name along the prow. These were the carracks that had attacked the Simona. She pressed fingers against one eye to stop the tic threatening to form there.
According to her book, this was Ota, the capital city of Miramar. It sprawled among dense foliage. White stone walls and black-tiled roofs, each roof swooping upward at the tips like a precisely twirled mustache. There were no grand cathedrals here, no pointed spires reaching for the heavens. Ota felt low and hidden and watchful. And everywhere, the flowers bloomed. One color only.
“What are those?” Blaise leaned forward, squinting. “Orange roses?”
“Chrysanthemums.”
Reyna and Blaise wore crisp blue dresses. Simple, practical, and—thank every saint who’d ever lived—made of cotton, not wool. Before Reyna had locked her sea chest, she had been careful to remove anything suspicious. The book on Miranese history, written in del Marian. The drawings and charts of the magnificent ship on a mountain. All of it was now buried beneath a floorboard.
Levi stood atop the forecastle. Polished and shined in his captain’s uniform. Anyone who did not know him would think him remote—cold, even. She knew better. He would be worrying greatly behind his captain’s mask. Thinking through every possible obstacle. Weighed down by the lives—so many of them—that depended upon him.
Blaise might have read her thoughts. “Does the captain have any sort of plan?”
“We keep our eyes and ears open, I suppose. Try to find out what they might have done with the men.”
A small silence. “That’s it? That’s our plan?”
“That’s it. They might not even be here. There are a hundred slave markets between Miramar and Lunes.” She would not think of it. Taking Blaise’s hand in hers, she said urgently, “Do you remember how to make a compass?”
Song of the Abyss Page 16
