Sasharia en Garde

by Sherwood Smith

  I grinned, rubbing my fingers with my thumb. “Buy. Much gold!”

  “Oh yes, I’d say. You must have used half a year’s pay, unless sailors make ten times what we do. Phew, either you really love your family or you’ve got one handsome fellow waiting at home. Marda, come here, see this.”

  “What? You got the foreigner in there?”

  Three women entered, all of them exclaiming. “That’s a Zhavalieshin firebird! Aren’t those against the law?”

  “Naw, only banners.”

  “That is a banner.”

  “And someone who knows it’s against the law obviously sold it off. Very sensible. She probably got it for a fraction of the real value. Hey! What’s this?”

  As they spread the firebird coverlet out with careful fingers the innkeeper’s letter slid out and landed on the clean-swept wooden floor.

  Another woman picked it up and looked at the address. “Three Falls Inn. Zhavlir. She must be running as a courier, to save the scribe-runner cost.”

  “I would,” someone else spoke up. “You run letters, especially for inns, they almost always give you at least a meal, sometimes a free bed.”

  “Wonder how they got the idea across.”

  My auburn companion grinned. “They probably do the same in Tser Mearsies. Just because she lacks our language doesn’t mean she’s ignorant about regular life.” She turned to me. “What’s your name?” She thumbed the front of her tunic, saying, “Britki. That’s Marda.” She poked one of her friends. “Name! Britki. Marda.”

  I was ready for that one. “Lasva.” I patted my soggy clothes, which made a wet smacking sound.

  “Poor thing, she’s got to be icy in that stuff. Let’s get her before the fire.”

  “Cleaning frame first.” Marda laid my coverlet out on the bed.

  The third one put the letter next to it and they led me to the cleaning frame, which zapped away sweat and mud. The women took me downstairs, chattering past me as they decided between them that because of the wicked Zathdar my ship had been raided and the sailors set ashore.

  As we gathered round a long plank table, they happily cursed Zathdar, whose raids had kept a lot of their friends on double-duty patrolling along the coast all during the summer, until the fleet recently set sail.

  Then out came dinner: fresh cornbread, a thick pepper soup with cheese crumbled on top, and three kinds of layered fruit tarts. They got tired of shouting questions at me while I shrugged and smiled. Gradually they fell into their own conversations.

  They reminded me of armed-services people at home—most of them big and buff, cheerful, neat either by inclination or by habit after years of inspections, full of jokes told in their own particular slang, jokes aimed at one another as well as their daily routine. The atmosphere was one of friendly rivalry, but the really creative commentary was reserved for the upper command.

  “Didn’t I say? Didn’t I say?” one guy demanded, waving his fork, after someone commented about the storm. “We’re going to end up way out in the field up to our butt cheeks in snow before the rankers wake up and notice winter’s here.”

  “No they won’t,” a woman retorted, arms crossed. “Because they’ll be kipped out inside the castle, whooping it up in disgusting luxury. It’s only us who’ll be frozen.”

  Everyone laughed except the big guy, who shook his head. “Too late in the season for a big war game. Autumn’s gonna be short this year. You can smell it in the air. Crazy. Why not in spring, like it used to be? We’re gonna end up stuck in the snow.”

  Bets were exchanged with brisk efficiency while others griped. Not revolutionary stuff. Nobody as much as looked over a shoulder. If anyone questioned the right of the Randarts to order what sounded like a massive siege war game involving nearly the entire army, they didn’t do it here. The griping was entirely confined to what seemed foolish timing, and what it would mean down at grunt level.

  After the meal most of them vanished on various night duties; those off duty did the usual things people do when there is no television. They talked, mended uniforms, played card games. A couple of people played instruments—a kind of flute-recorder that did not need a reed and a stringed instrument—and one fellow with a good voice sang either love songs or funny marching songs with jokes I did not understand.

  Their cards are all hand painted, and though I could see a kind of relation to our deck, it was different. Six suits, for one thing. The most popular game was with cards and markers, reminding me of bridge and chess at the same time. They did invite me in. From their manner, they believed a sailor would know this game so it had to be universal. I hunkered down by the fire, indicating I would sit there and dry out my clothes as I watched them play.

  I was forgotten. I meant to listen more, hoping to find out something useful, but as a spy I was worthless. If anything of import was discussed, I wouldn’t know how to identify it. Canardan’s name had never come up, much less Jehan’s or my mother’s, or even anything about me. All I got glimpses of were their personal lives.

  When I was dry, I was so tired I gave up the spy game and retreated upstairs to sleep. I didn’t even waken when the midnight watch changed.

  I woke with the others at the dawn bell. After breakfast, two of the women led me to the stable, where my mare had obviously had a good night. She was freshly curried, fed and ready to go. Even my weapon in the saddle sheath, which I’d stupidly left to rust forgotten, had been taken out, cleaned and oiled for me. I thanked everyone in sight.

  We rode out into the cool morning air, frost lying lightly on grass and stippling the edges of leaves, drifts of vapor rendering the farmland countryside into a kind of etching. The military road was hard-packed dirt kept by magic as smooth as asphalt. It cut straight through property. But military roads were forbidden to civilians, and so we crossed a couple of meadows, riding under dripping trees, to the regular road—pot-holed, soggy and winding.

  The women pointed to the northwest, saying loudly, “Zhavlir that way.” I nodded, thanked them, they wished me well in words of one syllable, and I departed, delighted that I’d managed to get out of what could have been major danger. It had not only been easy, it hadn’t cost anything!

  While behind me, as part of the routine, my hosts wrote me into the daily watch report: Civilian sailor strayed off the civilian road during storm, female, tall, blond, hazel eyes, name Lasva, from Tser Mearsies. Carrying only personal gear plus a letter from one inn to another, the only item of interest a silken banner in the old Zhavalieshin style.

  Chapter Ten

  The next stretch of time brought bands of rain, nothing as spectacular as the storm that broke the summer. The air cooled gradually, and all over the kingdom, harvesters labored madly to get the crops in before another storm came, maybe a worse one, to destroy everything.

  So while people concentrated on harvest and storage, and the military were converging on the castle chosen for the siege game, out on the ocean, War Commander Randart’s navy chased elusive ships while the war commander cursed.

  For several days he’d mostly caught up on his sleep. But after that, time seemed to wear with excruciating slowness. Though he had his magical message case, he hated using it because he was convinced the mages read his messages, though they swore they didn’t. It was, after all, what he’d do if he possibly could. Including lie.

  That was the worst of it. He didn’t really know what magic could and could not do. Even if he asked, he wouldn’t believe the answer. Yet Canardan insisted he cooperate with the mages, and even include one on the flagship. “Show good faith,” the king had written in a final order. “Who knows? They might even be useful. By whatever means it takes, I want that pirate hanged!”

  Randart had obeyed because he must, privately resolving that he would call upon the mage only if there was no other way around it.

  That was before several weeks of frustration and incompetence from everyone around him. The merchant ship he’d chosen as the flag seemed incapable of runnin
g with proper military order, and the second fleet was always reporting sightings of possible pirates, but no catches. If Bragail wasn’t lying, that had to mean the pirates were playing catch-me-if-you-can.

  Finally Randart issued the order for the entire fleet to converge. He would stretch the fleet in a net and sweep the entire coast of Khanerenth, as far out into the sea as they could reach, and burn everything that had no proper papers.

  At dawn a few days later, a scout craft appeared with crowded sail, signals flying. The pirate was on the horizon. Not one of his many underlings, but the Zathdar, bold as the sun, riding just within view of the spyglass.

  The pirate matched the fleet’s speed, keeping the same distance between them.

  Randart summoned the merchant captain and ordered him to catch the Zathdar, packing on as many sails as needed.

  The captain said shortly, “He has the wind. Sir.”

  “Which means what?”

  “Which means he can sheer off any time he wants to, or he can sail down and engage us. He’s faster. We can only catch him if the wind shifts.”

  “Is it likely to do that?”

  A shrug was the answer. Irritated, Randart waved him off of his own captain’s deck as he stared through his glass at the pirate vessel etched against the morning sky. At last he said without losing sight of the ship, “Get the mage.”

  Rapid footsteps thumped down the stairs to the companionway and below. Randart watched sailors form a line along the companionway, holding long ropes in order to do something with the sails. He listened to the patter of bare feet around him, the creak of rope and wood, and the whappita-whap of sails being lowered or raised or changed. Somewhere on the other side of the ship, the sailors talked incomprehensible slang as they prepared for an approaching boat. His orders were to chase and close. The sailors were doing the best they could, he could see it, but ships were so slow. With a horse under you, you at least moved, and even better was . . .

  A quiet step behind and he looked down at the short, stout woman the mages had sent him. She was probably thirty or forty, her expertise was in preserving wood (useful on a ship) and if she’d ever expressed the slightest interest in political power, no one within Randart’s extensive spy net had heard it.

  He had forgotten her name. “Do you see the pirate?”

  She narrowed her gray eyes, pursed her lips so her double chin tripled, and gazed out to sea. He did not offer his glass, nor did she ask for it. They stood there in silence for a moment as the ship rose on a swell, then thumped down, and behind, cries and knocks indicated the approaching boat was hooking on.

  The mage finally said, “Just barely.”

  “Tell me in plain language why I cannot transfer my force to it by magic, since we can see it. I know that magic requires a clear destination. That ship seems clear enough to me.”

  “First, we can only transfer one or two at most, and the transfer spells must be prepared for. Second, yon ship is not clear enough for transfer,” she said.

  “Then I’ll give you my glass, which I assure you brings details close. I can make out the damned pirates doing whatever it is they do to sails. I can see the planking along the side of the pirate ship. I can see the ropes at either side of each mast.”

  “But that does not constitute a proper Destination.”

  “Plain language,” he snapped. “I want a concise field report. And if you don’t know what that is, I am going to suggest that Perran and Zhavic include basic skills in whatever it is they teach you people before they let you out in the world.”

  Her cheeks flushed, but her tone was steady, and her gaze stayed on the pirate ship. “You can see the details of the sides of the ship. You can see sails. You can see masts. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you cannot see the details of the deck.”

  “No.”

  “If you wish to be transferred”—her tone totally devoid of irony—“you would wish to appear on the deck. And not halfway through a mast, a sail or the side.”

  Randart thought of the tiled Destination chambers, and nodded. Now he remembered something of an explanation Mathias Zhavalieshin had given him many years ago. Mages memorized the pattern of the tiles, or you could get lost in whatever-it-was between physical spaces. Forever.

  “So either you need Destination tiles, or the equivalent on that deck, or you need transfer tokens. And I remember what transfer tokens do: act as a beacon.”

  “We call it a focus, but yes. However, there is another very important consideration. Destinations must be kept empty. If someone, or something, is already in the space where you transfer, bad things happen. Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.”

  Randart grimaced. He’d never been able to bring himself to ask Zhavic these questions, and give Zhavic the pleasure of exposing his ignorance. “They don’t . . . melt together, do they?”

  “No. That would call for a very strange magic indeed. Transfers are just that, but between spaces, so the newly arrived thing impels itself into the new space. It is the impact with air that hurts so much. If the arrival collides with any object it is thrown aside at violent speed. Things break, people are killed.”

  “It’s the same with transfer tokens?”

  “Yes, pretty much. They must always be left on floors or open spaces, or on tables next to open spaces.”

  So much for salting ships with transfer tokens and sending a force by surprise, Randart thought. And, with a brief spurt of self-mockery, I wonder how many kings thought they invented that idea first, to find themselves at this same impasse.

  He collapsed the glass with a smack. “Back to the crawling pace of the chase.” And, because he had to work with the woman and she’d been prompt and informative, “Thank you, Magister.” He still couldn’t remember her name.

  She bowed and withdrew; at once the aide-de-camp on duty stepped to his side. “Commander, Patrol Leader Samdan is here to report.”

  Samdan. Randart remembered that name. Samdan was the idiot whose entire patrol couldn’t stop a pirate, a girl, and a couple of brats belonging to that traitor Kreki Eban. Randart had wanted Samdan and his fools put up against a wall and shot as an example of what to expect for incompetence, but the king himself had pardoned them, reminding Randart that they were a scratch troop, scarcely trained, culled from road-patrol duty when the best warriors had all been shifted to the coast against pirate raids.

  Randart remembered quite clearly that he’d concurred on the orders to reinforce Prince Jehan’s small honor guard when he was sent to the old World Gate tower. Randart had also agreed to send the prince to the old castle as he himself was busy hunting the pirate, and hadn’t those two fool mages made the world transfer once before, to return empty handed?

  But that did not excuse the sheer incompetence of an entire troop, however badly trained, defeated or driven off by four people.

  By two, really: the pirate Zathdar and the Zhavalieshin girl.

  Randart turned back to glare at that distant ship, now a silhouette against the rising sun. On that thing Zathdar now stood, presumably with Atanial’s girl. He also knew Bragail of the Skate’s secrets, all of them on Randart’s orders. Why hadn’t the pirate brandished either the girl or the threat of Bragail’s exposure yet? No one could accuse him of lacking in arrogant boldness. What did he want, this pirate bestirring himself in the matters of kings? The very idea of pirates and politics did not make sense.

  Randart became aware of the aide still standing there. “Well? Cannot Samdan report to his captain on his own ship?”

  The aide lowered his voice slightly. “Said he ought to speak directly to you.”

  Sharpened interest caused him to nod. “Very well.”

  Samdan, meanwhile, stood against the rail on the weather side of the ship, watching Randart’s back. He’d been living with disgrace for weeks, all the more telling because it was unspoken since the king himself had ordered pardons all round.

  The loo
ks and whispers and avoidances resulting were, he’d decided bleakly, far worse than the floggings War Commander Randart handed out. At least those, if you lived through them, were then over. And people didn’t hold your mistake against you.

  Now he limped forward. His knee where the pirate had stabbed him still hurt. As it should.

  Maybe he could retrieve some of his old standing, so easily taken for granted before most of his old cronies began turning their backs or not being around when he slipped away from his mother’s place in Ellir, where he’d been sent to convalesce. Ever since the king’s pardon, he didn’t feel welcome in any of the guards’ regular haunts.

  That lack of welcome as well as the wish to retrieve his honor had caused him to volunteer when the word went out for supply duty on this pirate expedition.

  Now the war commander’s dark eyes flicked from his bound knee to his face, his lips curled in contempt. “You had a report you thought I should hear?”

  Samdan’s heart thudded against his ribs. This was it. He licked his lips. “The navigator. On our boat. I’ve seen her before. She was one of those with the pirate and the princess, in the old tower.”

  And watched the contempt in Randart’s face clear to surprise, then question. “Are you certain of that?”

  Samdan licked his lips again. “I made sure of it. They’ve had her on night duty, see, or I’d have noticed before. But yesterday she had to do a day rotation, I don’t know why. And so when Captain Dembic had us out on deck doing our morning drill, well, there she was behind the wheel, and I knew I’d seen her before. It wasn’t until I heard her speak to one of the sailors I got it. She was in the court that day, along with the mage-boy who transferred ’em out.”

  “Did you say anything to anyone?”

  “Only Captain Dembic. She said by rights I should report to you myself.”

  Randart turned around. Captain Dembic stood at the rail. He beckoned her over, and watched the sturdy, gray-haired woman tromp across the deck. She was his head of supply on the coast. She’d been trustworthy for decades, and also close lipped.