The Orphans of Raspay

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Good, murmured Des. Keep that view.

  Marle had looked annoyed at being walled off from this dickering by the language barrier, but Pen thought he had followed the play well enough.

  They all shuffled back to the main room. The Corva girls looked up anxiously. Pen rejoined them on their bench.

  Falun wheeled to study Pen one more time, pursing his lips, then said to Valbyn in trade Adriac, “I’ll take him.” He named a price in Rathnatta silver ryols that caused the pirate to break into a broad smile, and Marle to frown.

  “Master Marle…?” said Valbyn in a leading tone. “Do you care to bid again?”

  Marle groused, “The curia of Orbas won’t match that for a scribe, no matter how dainty his hands.”

  Pen cleared his throat. “They might go up a little,” he offered. “For the three of us.”

  “I already calculated for that.” Marle eyed the trio on the bench. “And what price are those girls without him? I misdoubt Orbas will ransom them. I daresay his curia has never even heard of them. Subtract the scribe, and the girls become near-worthless.”

  “Not so,” said Falun equably. “One can always sell girls somewhere. Though if you don’t want them, as a matter of piety I’ll take them along and spare them a Quintarian fate.”

  The two bidders regarded each other, Marle scowling, Falun smiling faintly.

  Valbyn gritted his teeth at the impasse, clearly not wishing to displease either customer, then brightened. “A compromise, then. Why don’t you each take one. At a slave-girl’s price.”

  Falun’s brows flicked up. “That suits me well enough.”

  “Mm…” said Marle at this lesser consolation. “Not ideal, but it will do.”

  Valbyn nodded in satisfaction. “Done.”

  Pen shot to his feet. “No! We have to stay together!” I promised…

  Totch advanced, truncheon brandished. Valbyn, still in a pleased mood, waved him back. “Now, don’t damage Captain Falun’s merchandise.” While Pen stood fuming, trying to think, he added, “So which of you wants which?”

  “The elder,” both men said together.

  Valbyn vented a long-suffering sigh, and drew a coin from his pocket. He motioned the port clerk over, saying, “Toss it.”

  The port clerk, who looked like a man who wanted to get home to his dinner, took it without comment, flipped it in the air and caught it, and slapped his other hand down over it.

  “Call it,” Valbyn said, gesturing to Marle.

  After a slight hesitation, Marle said, “Heads.”

  The port clerk lifted his hand, revealing the reverse of the coin. Marle grimaced.

  “Very good, hearty sirs,” said Valbyn, retrieving his coin before the port clerk could pocket it. “Shall we settle up?”

  Pen stood stiff and fuming. Des murmured uneasily, Now, don’t start a scene here that we can’t finish. We aren’t leaving harbor on that galley anyway, are we?

  If I have my way, that galley’s not leaving this harbor.

  Unusual, that his chaos demon should be the one restraining him. It was normally the other way around. More than one battle had been started by mistake, to no one’s plan, but yes, if he was declaring a one-sorcerer-war on a pirate haven, it would likely go better with a little advance thought.

  “When will you be taking them?” the port clerk asked Falun.

  The Rathnattan waved a hand expansively. “They may as well stay here for tonight. I’ll wait to sail with a full load, for my profit. What else do you think will make port this week besides Valbyn’s prizes?”

  “Captain Garnasvik may send back something. He left here a few days before Valbyn.”

  “Mm. Let’s hope he finds fair winds.”

  Let’s not, thought Pen. He sank back on the bench between the sisters.

  Lencia tugged at him in worry. “What just happened?”

  He didn’t want to induce panic and tears, but he daren’t lie. He lowered his head and voice. “Nothing is going to happen right away. We’ll all be staying here together for tonight, maybe for several days. The Rathnattan slave-trader thinks he’s bought me and you. The Darthacan ransom-broker thinks he’s bought Seuka. They’re both wrong. We’re going to do something else.”

  “What?” said Seuka, looking at him big-eyed.

  “It’s a secret,” he managed after a choked moment. Even from me, apparently.

  Des, charitably, refrained from laughing at him, but he sensed it was a struggle.

  The bargaining conclave broke up. After a final accounting consultation with the port clerk, Falun took his leave, as did Valbyn. Marle and his scribe ushered the folk to be ransomed to the trestle table, settling them down for a more detailed examination of their hopes and resources. The port clerk lingered for this, evidently with an eye to collecting accurate head fees in due course.

  Pen and the Jokonan girls were left to their own devices. The armed port guard who’d sat himself on a stool by the door discouraged any premature attempts to exit. Pen, swaying on his feet after several nights of disrupted sleep, not to mention his disrupted life, took the girls upstairs to seek bunks in the dormitories. They discovered two long rooms lined with sailors’ hammocks, and also a smaller chamber with actual beds. The slit windows were too narrow even for Pen to turn sideways and slip through, but they overlooked the harbor.

  The girls, even more exhausted than he was after their long ordeal, went straight for one straw-stuffed mattress and flopped down together. Pen kept them awake just long enough to divest their sandals. Another bed, motionless and so much more enticing than a bare hold despite the stiff straw-bits poking through the not-very-clean cloth, called to him, but he returned to the window to stare out into the evening light for a few minutes.

  Every tactical plan needed to start with an accurate survey of the terrain, or so Adelis had remarked. And a keen evaluation of the physically possible. Some poetic epics extolled heroism in warriors; Adelis the actual soldier put his faith in logistics, Pen had noted. Not that Pen could see much terrain from here, the bulk of the town being in the opposite direction, but by shifting back and forth he was able to take in most of the waterfront. Out on the headland, a ruined fortress was in process of being rebuilt. Pen wasn’t sure of the rationale for this, since plainly the stronghold had not held before.

  He was about to give up seeking inspiration from the view and also flop down, when Des said, Ooh, look. Something’s finally happening down there. Pen glanced back to the harbor.

  At the long dock, Valbyn’s ship was starting to list sideways. The slow creep, stretching the mooring lines, converted to a sudden lunge as the first big patch of the hull near the keel gave way. The water pouring into the bilges overstressed the rest of the weakened boards—Pen could hear the muffled cracking propagating even from here. As yet more water roared in, a mooring line pulled its cleat out of the dock, then another did the same. The mainmast snapped abruptly, taking boom, furled sails, and a mess of ropes over the side. The ship rolled and sank till it hit the rocky sand of the harbor bottom with a peculiar grinding noise. Screams and cries wafted up faintly from the shore.

  Pen’s lips peeled back in something like a grin, only not so nice.

  Oh, my, said Des, preening. Isn’t that lovely.

  Yes, there go all Valbyn’s profits. And for an added bonus, the wreck would take out a quarter of the port’s docking capacity for quite some time to come. Removing that hopeless carcass was going to be a costly undertaking for someone. His glee was muted by the reflection that it would likely be done with slave labor.

  This moment of great, admittedly great, personal satisfaction did not exactly solve the underlying problems. Sinking every ship in the harbor would leave no way for Pen to get off this benighted island.

  Still… and Pen wasn’t sure if the thought was his or Des’s, who here should next be gifted with an amazing run of bad luck?

  * * *

  Pen rolled over in the night on his lumpy mattress, reaching muzzily f
or the warm softness of Nikys. Ah. No. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest, wanting her in his embrace but assuredly not wishing her here. Wishing himself there was a separate matter.

  His wife didn’t know when he’d left Trigonie, nor on what ship. He’d sent no message because he’d expected to be home before it could arrive. So she couldn’t yet be worried about him, he told himself, couldn’t be in distress, for all that he hoped she missed him in a more general way.

  And me, Des put in, diverted by this upwelling of pining.

  And you, Pen conceded. After a rocky beginning, Nikys had come to enjoy his resident demon. His mother-in-law even seemed to take Des as a crony, which had led to some very odd conversations of a sort Pen was sure few husbands were privy to.

  So Nikys was safe in Vilnoc. She sallied forth daily the short distance to Duke Jurgo’s household as lady-in-waiting to his daughter, which, since the girl was eight, combined the duties of companion and governess. The palace always sent a sturdy page to escort her home in the evening, there to enjoy the protection of her mother, their few servants, and at present her brother Adelis, back after the Grabyat expedition and also in attendance upon the duke.

  …Pen still thought Nikys’s garrisoning would be improved by the addition of one Temple sorcerer.

  He suspected she thought so, too. Although she bit back any complaints, Nikys had grown tenser at the increasing frequency of Pen’s outlying errands, for all that each success had raised his standing in Temple and court.

  Well, of course, said Des. She thinks the reason she never got a child from her first husband was because he was kept so long away from her bed on his military assignments. …Or at least, she hopes that’s the reason. Naturally she’s afraid of the same thing happening with you.

  Right down to the tragic conclusion? Pen certainly meant to spare her a second premature widowhood. As for making the other lapse up to her, pursuing it was the pleasantest task imaginable. …He trusted his demon’s leaking chaos magic wasn’t interfering in conception.

  It can, but I promise you it’s not, Des soothed him. You haven’t been married that long. You merely need a few more months. You should know that, physician.

  Not a physician. I set down that calling.

  Hah. Once she is with child, the duke will do her a favor by sending you off to do his bidding. You are going to be just like all those medical students who diagnose themselves with every rare fatal malady they’ve just learned about. When the time comes, mark you, I am not going to let you terrorize her with all your lurid worries.

  He had to smile at the vision. Des was probably just being optimistic in order to buoy him, here in this dark near-prison so far from home, but he granted he was a little heartened.

  A rustling and a sigh came from the cot next to his, and a whisper in Roknari, “Are you awake?”

  Not meant for Pen’s ears, he realized as Lencia mumbled in irritation to her sister, “I am now. Go back to sleep.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Well, stop wriggling around. And quit kicking me.”

  “M’not.”

  “Are too.”

  A sigh. Then, “I miss Mama. I want to go home. I want Mama.”

  “Don’t talk about it,” chided Lencia, hunching as if hit. “It just makes it worse.”

  “It wasn’t s’pposed to be like this. Why didn’t Papa come?”

  “You saw he never got the letter. He probably doesn’t even know about Mama yet.”

  “Maybe… maybe he came to Raspay after we left. And is following us.”

  “Well, if he did, he won’t find us now. We aren’t anywhere we meant to be.”

  A brooding silence, and a defeated whisper, of, “Yes, I know… I just… don’t want it to be so.”

  A reluctant, conceding hum. “Me, too, Seuka.”

  After a while, another whisper: “So what are we going to do? Mama died, Papa didn’t come, Taspeig left us… that poor sea captain was killed…” A shudder.

  Had that slaughter happened in front of the girls’ eyes?

  “I don’t know. Stop wanting grownups to fix things, maybe. It hasn’t worked so far.”

  “Should we try to run away together?”

  “I… maybe. I don’t know. That might be worse. If anyone on this island caught us, they’d probably give us back, and then we’d be beaten. Or maybe they’d just make us be slaves in a poorer house.”

  “At least we’d be with each other.”

  “Only until one of us was sold. Or both of us.”

  A voiceless mm, like a dog’s plaint. “What about Master Penric? He said… uh, I’m not really sure what he said.”

  A shifting of attention to the nearby cot where Pen lay. He kept his eyes closed and his breathing steady, and refrained from moving.

  “I couldn’t figure it out either. I suppose he was just blustering, the way fellows do.”

  “But he seems kind. And smart. He keeps trying to help people.”

  “I don’t think kind is much help against pirates.”

  “He’s pretty enough to be a crow-boy.” Seuka considered this. “Or maybe when he was younger, before he became a scribe.”

  “It looked like that Rathnattan captain who bought him thought so too.”

  “Does… do you think Master Penric realized? Should we warn him?”

  “Don’t know. Mama says”—a hiccough—“said, crow-boys are worse-treated than street whores. I’m not so sure about scribes.” A hesitation. “Anyway, what could he do if we did? He doesn’t look very strong.”

  “The captain was plenty strong, and the pirates still hacked him to bits.” A gulp. No, two gulps, confirming Pen’s speculation. “Maybe smart would work better. If it was on our side.”

  “No one is on our side, Seuka.”

  A long exhalation. “I s’ppose not.”

  “Go to sleep.” Lencia started to turn over, but then, reluctantly, rolled back and hugged her sister close like some bony, awkward, unhappy cloth doll.

  The two fell back to sleep before Pen did.

  * * *

  Pen woke at dawn and slipped quietly out of their room, careful not to rouse the girls or the old couple and the injured Aloro, who’d taken the other two beds last night while the less crippled were delegated to the dormitory hammocks. Pen drifted down to the kitchen just in time to intercept the house servants arriving to prepare breakfast.

  There, for the price of some volunteer labor and charm, he deftly extracted a deal of potentially useful information. The older woman in charge, her lame brother, and a niece proved chatty, interested in the friendly scribe from far away over icy mountains they would likely never see. Pen paid for their tales with a few vivid word-pictures of his birthplace that left him a trifle homesick.

  The island, he’d learned yesterday, was Lantihera, an Old Cedonian name hinting at its deeper history; it had once been a possession of the empire, which explained the antique remnant of water system in the back court. More immediately useful, the name had finally placed it on Pen’s mental map of the region. The servants’ recent personal and local anecdotes were also revealing.

  This unprisonlike building was dedicated to ransom candidates, the injured, and the meek. The port—meaning the town, Lanti Harbor or just Lanti for short—was its owner and the little clan’s employers. Their work here was seasonal; both pirates and their prey were driven from the sea by the storms that plagued it in winter, the tempest Pen’s ship had suffered being an untimely fluke.

  Summer was actually, the cook explained to Pen, the quiet time in town, when most of the ships and their crews were out. The rowdies drank and gamed and whored their way through winter, arriving at spring dead broke, if not just plain dead, and ready to raid again. Given the hazards of their trade, Pen was not entirely sure this approach to life was irrational, though the cook spared a nod of admiration for the few notable sailors prudent or successful enough to retire rich, at least by local standards.

  A more secure prison for
the able-bodied men slated for slavery lay at the other end of the harbor, owned by the guild of fifteen pirate captains who divided control of the port uneasily with the town council. In either location, captives were kept for as short a time as possible before shifting their risks to the flesh-merchants who carried them away. Making Lanti less a slave market than a wholesale warehouse, with people shuffled off in bulk shiploads.

  Really, Pen mused, if the Lanti pirates only captured people and goods for their own use, the island would soon be saturated, and the trade would dwindle. It was the middlemen buying the booty and the captives for coin who made the demand bottomless. Pen wasn’t sure which half of the traffic he disliked most. Perhaps he didn’t have to choose a hierarchy. Lowerarchy?

  Slavery was not practiced in the austere cantons, though there remained the question of the continuous export of its men in the mercenary companies, so railed against by the Temple. At least such fellows bartered themselves. During a few historical famines, starving farmers had sold their children to the merchants who came over the mountains from the north for the purpose, events long remembered and resented. Pen wondered what lives the young starvelings had all found in the warmer countries, and if he’d ever met any of their descendants unawares.

  All very fascinating, scholar-man, said Des, but if you want more of the gruesome details, ask Umelan. I don’t see need to repeat her experiences in this life. Pray attend to the practical. I can’t get off this island without you.

  Yes, yes. Pen smiled as he lifted a tray of bread and olives to carry into the main room, which made the startled cook smile back in quizzical echo.

  * * *

  After settling the girls—who had been thrown into a brief panic by awakening to his absence, and Pen wasn’t entirely sure if they’d worried for themselves or for him—overseeing their breakfasts, and working up a little more goodwill in the kitchen, Pen explored the building. An armed guard who seemed more a dozing porter sat outside the front door; even less picket impeded Pen from going out the back way, though he refrained for the moment. The only reading matter he found was an abandoned sheaf of old accounts, which even he was not desperate enough to secure for later. At the end of the upstairs corridor, he discovered a ladder leading to the flat roof, and ascended.