The Dagger's Path

by Glenda Larke

  Finch guffawed. “They not be in any state to sail with anyone again.”

  “We will be sneaky about this. No one will know we are to blame,” Juster continued. “We sink Sentinel in Kotabanta, which will give us a better chance of seizing their fluyts later when they are laden with spices. It’s the galleon that has all the firepower, you see. Besides, if we sink it while it’s in port, the sailors will have a better chance of survival.”

  “And just how do you intend to do that,” Saker asked, “without the Raja and the Lowmians knowing we are to blame?”

  “Who will tell them?” Juster replied.

  Everyone immediately looked at Iska. The old lascar grinned. “Cap’n and me, we make bargain already. He take me my island, give gold. Iska rich, island rich. My people, we not like Raja. Much tax.”

  Juster continued, “Iska’s island will supply the boats, we dress as fishermen, we sneak into the harbour and sink Sentinel. We escape back to Iska’s village where we’ve anchored Golden Petrel. We then sail away under cover of night to Chenderawasi, without paying our respects to the Raja. If he doesn’t know we’ve been here, he won’t be upset with us.”

  Saker glanced to where Ardhi was standing. The lascar’s face was blank of expression. Behind him Sorrel had blanched, her arms wrapped protectively around Piper.

  “I doubt anyone thinks that’s a good idea, cap’n,” Finch said, stroking his chin through his beard.

  “It will rely a lot on Iska,” Juster admitted.

  “The regalia is probably on board Sentinel,” Ardhi said, his voice as without inflexion as his face was without expression.

  “Exactly,” Juster said. “And you want them back.”

  There was a long silence while everyone considered the bargain Lord Juster implied: We’ll get the plumes back for you, if you help us sneak into the harbour and sink the ship.

  “Rot it, Juster,” Saker said, “this is madness! Do you think no one will know we are here?” He pointed at the shore. “Those villagers there have already seen us!”

  “They are simple farmers and fishermen, not the Raja’s men! Do you think they can differentiate between us and a Lowmian fluyt? Am I right, Iska? And you may not have noticed, Saker, but the flag we’ve been flying from the masthead since land was sighted is a Lowmian one.”

  Of one accord, everyone looked up. Fluttering half-heartedly from the cross-trees, as if it was ashamed to proclaim itself, was the standard of the Vollendorns.

  Saker was appalled. “You can’t do that!”

  “I just have. In fact, as a privateer, that is considered perfectly acceptable behaviour. Rules of conflict apply. If someone reports our presence, it will be Lowmeer that is blamed.”

  He continued his protests. “What if Iska’s people are blamed for sinking Sentinel? We’d be using their boats.”

  “Hundreds of such boats here,” Ardhi remarked. “Every island got fishing villages, and fishing boats all look alike in the dark. Just which islanders will Lustgrader–or the Raja–blame?”

  “Ardhi right,” Iska agreed. “Raja not know who. Maybe he not care who. Not his ship sinking. Not his men die. Right?”

  “All the same, I can’t be a party to this,” Saker said, horror seeping through him as he remembered that the only reason Juster had legitimate letters of marque was because–while imprisoned in Throssel–he had warned the privateer to leave the city before they were revoked by King Edwayn.

  The wheel turns, he thought, and sooner or later it runs over you. He tried to be reasonable. “Juster, you’d be sinking a ship in a neutral port, one King Edwayn sold his daughter for as if she was a commodity. The price paid for this port was horrendous, and you want to risk everything achieved by the Princess’s sacrifice?”

  “Sacrifice? She’s now a Regala! A queen. It’s what she was born to be. I think we’ve had this conversation before, Saker.”

  He turned to Ardhi, seeking support. “Are you prepared to go along with this insane idea?”

  “Yes. If the captain says we get the plumes from Sentinel before sinking her.”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but Ardhi interrupted. “I know how to do this. Difficult, but we can.” He folded his arms, a gesture that made his next words a clear challenge to Juster. “I go on board first. Get plumes before you blow hole in ship.”

  “Agreed,” Juster said amiably.

  Saker looked at Sorrel again. She’d heard every word. Her gaze was steady, but he saw contempt written there, contempt for a man she thought couldn’t rid himself of his infatuation for a Princess who’d used and discarded him.

  You’re doing me an injustice, Sorrel.

  It was shame that made him want to defend Mathilda, not affection.

  The land smelled unfamiliar to Saker. He inhaled, tried to name the aromas and had to admit defeat. “What can I smell?” he asked.

  Ardhi didn’t even have to think, but rattled off a list. “Charcoal kiln burning mangrove wood. Red hot peppers stirred in pan. Coconut milk, simmering hot, with belachan–dried shrimp paste. Crushed pandan leaves; we use those in cooking. Chempaka flowers…” His voice caught and died away to a whisper. “Lastri used to put them in her hair.”

  He put a hand on Ardhi’s bare shoulder. “The aromas of home, then.”

  “Yes.”

  Ardhi, with Iska’s help, had piloted Golden Petrel into a secluded bay, hidden from all passing vessels. A small fishing village, Iska’s birthplace, was ranged along the banks of a tidal stream. Open boats, short-masted and squat, were tied up at a ramshackle wooden jetty, while canoes with a strange extra piece on one side were hauled up on the sandy beach of the bay.

  Iska had already gone ashore, alone, and had not yet returned to tell them what his village thought of Juster’s plan to borrow a boat from them.

  Villagers had, however, lined up along the shore to stare at the strangers come to visit. Several boys had already swum out to the ship, as naked as the day they were born, their wet brown faces split with huge grins as they clung to the anchor rope and flicked the hair out of their eyes.

  Bare to the waist, barefoot and wearing an islander’s sarong he had procured in Javenka, Ardhi could have been their older brother. He waved and spoke to them in the trading tongue of the islands, a polyglot mix of Pashali and local words.

  “You know these waters that well?” Juster asked with a tinge of disbelief.

  “All Chenderawasi boys learn to sail to Serinaga with our traders. Part of growing up.” He pointed to the sailing boats on the island. “Our boats like that. Two masts, two rectangle sails. Called prau. We bring nutmeg, mother-of-pearl shells and pearls to Kotabanta. Take back cloth and metals. I sail here many times from when I was twelve until I leave for Javenka.”

  “You are full of surprises,” Juster said sourly and went below to wait. Ardhi just grinned.

  “Damn it, how the pox do you manage to keep smiling?” Saker asked in Pashali.

  He shrugged and replied in the same language. “Either that, or howl to the winds. I’m as good as dead, Saker. I may as well laugh as cry.”

  “You’re almost home now. If we get the plumes back tomorrow or the day after, your troubles will be over.”

  “The Raja will still be dead, no matter what I do, and I have yet to pay the full price.” Saker thought he wasn’t going to add anything more, but then he said, “My mistake was not just telling the Lowmians about the paradise birds, you know. It was to bring the ship to Chenderawasi in the first place. I didn’t know what they were like. We’d dealt with Pashalin sailors, and they respected us. There are customary laws in place which regulate the way we interact.”

  “So you thought the Lowmians would be like them?”

  “My studies at the Javenka Library led me to believe our insularity was both stupid and dangerous now that other ships were coming from your hemisphere to ours, when in truth it was I who was both stupid and a danger.” He snorted. “I thought if we allowed the Lowmians access to our islands, we wou
ld have more wealth. Then with that wealth, we could have more control of our own destiny.” He shrugged. “I was so wrong. I didn’t understand the first thing about how your world works and yet I trusted your traders.”

  “We can’t bring the Raja back, but we can try to fix the rest.”

  “Not for me.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Ah, but I do, Saker. I do.” The catch was back in his voice, and it brought a lump to Saker’s throat. He’s become my brother, and I care. Remembering the day they’d first encountered one another, he shook his head in wonder. Who would have thought?

  When Iska returned, it was with a proposal from the villagers, and to Juster’s amusement, it was the village women who had determined the terms. Apparently they objected to spending much of their time weaving new palm-leaf sails for fishermen’s boats. They wanted canvas sails for the village’s three fishing prau.

  When Iska relayed this offer back to Golden Petrel, Lord Juster grumbled. They carried spare canvas for a reason: it could be needed for their own repairs or replacement sails at any time. In the end, he capitulated, saying, “Tell them we accept. New sails and extra canvas. Get some measurements and we’ll get the sailmakers on to it. We can replace the canvas we use by stealing more from Sentinel before we burn her.”

  “A pox on you, Juster!” Saker said, thoroughly exasperated. “Ardhi and I just want to sneak in and sneak out with the plumes before you burn the ship–but there’s no way we can sneak carrying canvas. You’re making things more difficult for us.”

  “That’s your problem. If it hadn’t been for you and Ardhi, getting rid of the galleon could have been done much more easily. I would have been quietly waiting for it near Karradar when it finally limped up like a sick cow. Your problem, you fix it, Master Witan!”

  “How the beggary are we going to get sails out of their sail locker without raising the alarm?” he asked Ardhi when they were alone.

  “I know the layout of Sentinel. I helped with the stowing of cargo. There’s a platform amidships that can be winched up with a capstan. They use it to bring cannonballs up from the armoury to the gun decks, as well as heavy things like new sails or butts of water.”

  “And you found all this out when you were stowing cargo?”

  “Of course. We used the same capstan.”

  “Hmm. If we winched sails up, we could bring them as far as the main gun deck?”

  Ardhi grinned. “Yes. And guess what’s on the gun decks.”

  “Gun ports.” He started to smile. “Which can be opened.”

  “Noisy things, capstans, though.”

  “Especially in the middle of the night in an anchored ship.”

  “Crew sleep in the bow, officers aft,” Ardhi said. “But we might need one of your diversions. And we’ll need more men. You try lifting a sail and shoving it out of a gunport.”

  Exasperated, he ran a hand through his hair. “Pox on’t, we need to think about this.”

  The following day, Sorrel, Saker and Ardhi discussed Juster’s decision in the officers’ mess. Ardhi, with the aid of a chart of Kotabanta on the table, had just described the anchorage in some detail when Sorrel said, looking at Saker, “I’m going with you.”

  “Where?”

  “To Sentinel.”

  He stared at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “I would have thought that was clear enough. I-am-going-with-you-when-you-board-the-Sentinel. Ardhi agrees I should.”

  “To do what?”

  “To use my glamour to steal the plumes, of course. And stop glowering at Ardhi.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Your job is to stay here and look after Piper.”

  “No, it’s not. Anyone can do that. Surgeon Barklee, for example.”

  “You can’t be serious. You aren’t a fighter!”

  “Well, I might dispute that. Ask Banstel to tell you what happened to Fels. However, it’s not my intention to fight anyone. That’s the whole point of having a glamour. I can avoid trouble, and not be seen doing nefarious things like stealing feathers. Of course I’m going with you. It’s a logical solution.”

  They stared across the table at each other, and it was he who was at a loss. The idea seemed so hare-brained he couldn’t believe he had to argue her out of it. “This is a man’s job.”

  “What is?”

  “Fighting!”

  “I just told you. I don’t intend to fight anyone. I’m going to use my glamour. It should be easy enough: I’m going to take Ardhi’s dagger, which will lead me to the plumes, just as it did for you once, I believe? I will steal them, bring them back to the prau and wait for you men to finish fighting everyone. I can’t see that I’ll be in any danger. You might be, though. Shall I object to that?”

  “Please, Sorrel, don’t be silly.”

  “No, you stop being lack-witted! If you used your head instead of clinging to your ideas about who fights and who doesn’t, you might ask yourself why I am here in the first place–if not to use my glamour!” She folded her arms and pursed her lips.

  “You could be here because of Piper,” he pointed out.

  “She could be here because of me. And that makes a lot more sense than the other way around. Piper is either a perfectly ordinary baby, or she’s a devil-kin; either way she’s no use to anyone!” She paused, then added softly, “Except to those of us who love her.”

  For a moment they just stared at each other, unable to speak. Loving a child is easy, he thought, but loving her so much you want to protect her from everything…

  “I can’t afford to be worried about you while we’re on board Sentinel,” he said at last, only realising after the words were out of his mouth that they weren’t anywhere near the ones she wanted to hear.

  “Then don’t be,” she snapped.

  “For crying out loud, you’d have to climb up a rope on to the deck from a boat bobbing in the water—”

  “I once climbed out of an upstairs window on to the limb of an oak tree high above the ground, lashed by rain on a wild and windy night, all the while wearing a dress! How many men could do that, I wonder? And thanks to Ardhi’s training, I can do anything that you can, Saker Rampion.”

  She turned on her heel and left the room.

  Ardhi peeled himself away from where he’d been leaning with his back to the wall. “She’s right. You’re wrong.”

  “You do have a precise way with words sometimes, Ardhi. Don’t you care about her? She’s here because of your confounded sakti magic.”

  “I care enough to allow her to make her own decisions.”

  “I care enough to want to protect her! How will you feel if she is hurt in this attack on Sentinel?”

  “How do you think? But I also believe that everyone has the right to their own decisions.”

  “That’s ludicrous coming from you. It’s your sakti preventing us from making our own decisions!”

  “If there is one thing I understand, Saker, it’s that the contamination is coming from your half of the world, not ours. Things went wrong for us when the Lowmians came and killed our Raja and stole the plumes of his regalia. The regalia of his line is what holds the sakti. And it is the sakti that protects us.”

  “And that sakti could very well hurt us Ardronese because of what the Lowmians did. It hardly has our interests at heart. After all, it has dragged us to this side of the world against our will!”

  “How do you know that is not in your interest?”

  “You can’t think your witcheries are concerned about our welfare! Tell me, are you of the Raja’s line, Ardhi?”

  The lascar gave a strange smile, part amusement and part something else he couldn’t put his finger on. “No. But I do know our sakti is not evil. And you do have evil in your hemisphere, for I felt it, several times. A deep and dark… thing that has been growing and biding its time.”

  Saker gave an exasperated grunt. “I hate it when people speak in riddles. What thing?”

  “If I kn
ew, I’d tell you. All I know is that both you and Sorrel and Piper have all touched this evil in your lives. It endangers you all.”

  He involuntarily closed the fist on his right hand, as if that could hide the black smutch that was probably still in the centre of his palm, even though he could not see it. He felt the blood drain from his face. Sweet Va, what if the sakti of Chenderawasi could sense that and wanted to destroy the three of them because it thought they were contaminated?

  His next thought was no happier. He knew he was besmirched, but how could Sorrel and Piper be involved?

  Oh, pox on’t.

  What if Piper is Fox’s child?

  No, not that. Anything but that!

  32

  Thieves in the Night

  Nudged by a gentle breeze, the prau crept across the bay, prow cleaving an ocean as dark as the cloud-thick night sky. Somewhere out there was the treaty port of Kotabanta, safe haven for Ardronese ships because Mathilda had paid the price for it, but it was well after midnight and the town slept, wrapped in darkness. If there were wharves or jetties, Saker couldn’t see them.

  He glanced around at the others in the boat, but there was nothing to see there, either; they were all no more than dusky shadows on a slate-grey background. He knew the six sailors from Golden Petrel now resembled local fishermen, just as he did. They all wore clothes borrowed from Iska’s village. Ardhi had showed them all how to fashion twists of cloth into headbands to keep their long hair tidy. Everyone was barefoot. They’d all been chosen for their dark hair and eyes and the deep honey-coloured skin common among the Shenat. They might not have been quite as dark-skinned as the islanders, or as short in stature, but he suspected no one would notice that at night. All were under orders not to speak except in a whisper. There must be no hint that they were from an Ardronese vessel. Striving to have their boat appear to be a local fishing vessel, they had not even used the new canvas sails.

  Juster, fair-skinned and tall, with long hair the colour of ripe barley, could never be anything except what he was: a man of the Va-cherished Hemisphere. After long argument, he had pulled a black knitted cap onto his head and agreed to stay seated in the prau with the helmsman, Forrest.