by Jean Johnson
She came back after a few moments. His turn, he rose and braced himself beside the bed for a few heartbeats, then crossed the room once he felt his sea legs returning. Using the same door she had, Ellett relieved himself at the refresher, then used a dribble of water on a clean scrap of cloth, scrubbing the sleep from his face and the evidence of their lovemaking from his skin. A muttered spell scrubbed and dried the fabric, which he tucked back over its hanging rod under the small square of mirror fastened to the bulkhead.
The silvered glass, he noted, had been carved along the edge of its wooden frame with anti-scrying wards. It reminded him of the small palm-mirror in his bag of belongings, and the fact that he really should contact someone back in Aurul about having found the pirates, and having found a more serious problem than just some disgruntled Jettan sailors playing restitutions games.
Later in the day, he promised himself. None of my contacts back at the palace would be awake this early. Well, maybe Leftenant Rahina, he corrected himself, rubbing his hand over his stubble-dusted chin. She’s an early riser.
His musings from last night came back to him. If Ruul thinks we’re meant to be together ... then either Captain Mita or Mage-Captain Ellett will have to give up their career. I love my work, and I am proud to serve my king ... but she loves her own as well, and is proud to sail for her people. And I’m not sure how I would decide, let alone her.
Not one to keep fighting an opponent that hadn’t yet materialized, Ellett murmured a shaving spell. His hair needed tending, too, since little wisps of brown were escaping its braid, but that would have to wait until he could dig his brush out of his bag. With nothing left to tidy, he returned to the sleeping cabin.
His half-formed thoughts of getting dressed and starting the day vanished at the sight of his hostess. She had redonned her nightshirt and crawled back into her bed, cuddling one of her overstuffed pillows with a contented smile. Amused, Ellett approached her. “Permission to climb aboard, Captain?”
FIVE
She quirked a brow, though she kept her eyes shut. “Me, or the bed?”
“The bed,” he clarified. Then couldn’t resist adding, “For now.”
“Permission granted—but be careful,” she added as he eased through the transition from moving ship to unmoving bed. “I take prisoners.”
“So do I.” Shifting so that he spooned up behind her, he allowed himself to cuddle her. This was something he hadn’t done in a very long time: snuggled in bed with a woman without it being a prelude to a session of lovemaking. There was something of a post-lovemaking feel lingering in the air, but not by much. That thought did prompt him to speak, however. “Thank you for making love with me. I enjoyed it very much. I hope you did, too.”
Mita chuckled. “Oh, I did. You’re quite good. Unless you think you can do better, of course?”
“Naturally. But later.” Honesty prompted him to gently squeeze her, adding, “I like this. I don’t get to do this very often.”
“Neither do I.” A bell off at the prow of the ship rang, counting the hour. She sighed. “Fifth bell. Breakfast will be ready in an hour. I usually eat with the second watch at the end of the meal, but if you’re hungry, we could cadge something early.”
“I can wait. What do you do after you eat breakfast?” Ellett asked.
“After that, I usually spend a little time going over the course and the charts with my First Officer, discussing what happened during the night watch, and then I spend about two hours overseeing the off-duty crew in their weapons practice. We’re not quite a full-time warship, since we do occasionally take on cargo—legitimate cargo,” Mita clarified, “—but we’re as close as any ship in the fleet ever gets, considering how all Jettan vessels and their crews are expected to serve in the defense of our isles.
“Once that’s done, it’s usually ten bells of the morning, and I take over the day watch from Peany, my First Officer, until ten bells of the evening. He’s nicer than Jukol ... to a point. You may have noticed he wasn’t entirely friendly toward you last night, but neither was he rude.”
“I noticed. My mornings are a little different,” he offered. “But not too different from yours.”
“Oh.”
“Well, when I’m not chasing down mad Jettan pirates,” he teased, squeezing her again with the arm he had wrapped around her waist, “I rise early, break my fast and dress, then look over my correspondence until I receive word His Majesty is awake. Then I hold a brief consultation with the Master of the Royal Retreat—the man who schedules His Majesty’s day and oversees the doings in the royal wing of the palace—and both of us report to His Majesty over his breakfast.
“Then, depending upon that schedule, I either spend a couple hours at the salle, practicing weapons and spells with my fellow Royal Guards, or I oversee His Majesty’s defense practice, or I arrange escort for His Majesty if the Seer King needs to travel anywhere. And of course I do these things now for Her Highness, too. Or I would, if I weren’t busy chasing down angry Jettans.”
“And later in the day?” Mita asked, squirming onto her back so that she could look at him. “What does the Mage-Captain of the Royal Guard do?”
“Stand around looking pretty,” he quipped, and laughed at her confusion. “From tenth hour—your tenth bell—to noon, His Majesty attends to the days’ prayer-petitions and leads services in one of the glass chapels attached to every royal residence. Then there is lunch, followed by petitions for prophecies. It’s a custom for parents to bring their children to the capital for a blessing between the ages of twelve and fourteen. At least, those who can afford to travel. Otherwise His Majesty makes a royal tour twice a year, circumnavigating the kingdom as he travels between the winter and summer palaces. More serious petitions are heard in the later afternoon, along with council sessions attended by the various heads of governance and the Prime Minister. Supper is followed by early evening prayers.
“And all the time these things are happening, I’m either organizing things in the background, or serving alongside my fellow guards, ‘looking pretty’ as bits of background decoration,” Ellett said. “Our uniforms aren’t designed for subtlety, but we do our best to be forgotten by everyone. That way we can spend our time looking for whatever potential danger might lurk in the royal court.”
“Danger? I thought everyone in Aurul loves your king,” Mita offered, frowning at him.
“Most citizens do, but sometimes certain people take exception to him. Either they’re angry with our God for prophesying something unhappy, or for not prophesying it, or they’re angry at their king for agreeing with the Prime Minister that taxes needed to be raised, or that funds had to be shifted from road repair to bridge building after a sudden flood ... or they’re enemies of the nation. Before Mekhana fell, the agents of their False God would try to sneak the occasional assassin among us, and the Keketites in decades past haven’t always cared for certain Aurulan trade taxation policies.” Propping his head on his hand, Ellett gave her a wry smile. “Since every Royal Guardsman and Guardswoman is a highly skilled battle-mage, we’re also sometimes sent into areas of conflict to quell them more directly, whether they’re internal or external.
“Most recently, it was the new kingdom to the west, Guildara. I was sent with an escort of thirty guards to secure peace for our neighbors, and fetch back Her Highness.” He smiled. “Unless you count being ordered onto a ship to go hunt down a bunch of wily Jettan pirates.”
“Technically we’re privateers. We’re not in this for our own profit, but rather, for the welfare of our people,” Mita countered mock-primly.
“So what do you do when you’re not privateering?” Ellett asked.
“We patrol the waters around the isles, and occasionally take on very expensive cargo that needs to be run swiftly and safely to its destination port. Because I’m such a strong mage, we can get away with just the healer on board as backup,” she told him. “Normally our ships run with two mages and a healer, if not three. There are too ma
ny lucrative jobs on land, which is where most of our more powerful mages tend to be employed, so we use the lesser ones at sea.”
“It’s the same with Aurulan ships’ mages,” he agreed. “The worst part about auditioning for the post on the Parrot’s Ride was memorizing and displaying all the necessary spells to prove my competence. I had the power, just not the practice.”
“Mmm. You’re certainly stronger than almost any other ship’s mage out there, excluding myself—and for the record,” Mita added, the corners of her mobile mouth curling up, “I hadn’t reached my peak strength when you disarmed me with that kiss.”
Ellett smirked back. “Neither had I. Not that I’d care to get into a Duel Arcane in earnest with you, but ... if you like, I could teach you how to move during a duel. Once you learn how to move, you’re far less likely to let a physical collapse lead to a magical failure.”
“Isn’t that some sort of arcane secret of the Aurulan Royal Guard?” Mita drawled, twisting onto her side so that she could plant her elbow on the bedding and her cheek on her palm, mirroring his position. “Wouldn’t you get in trouble with your government if you taught it to me?”
“As I said yesterday, a physical attack nullifies the results of a Duel Arcane,” he reminded her. “But a distraction doesn’t count. Many a duel has been won or lost based on distractions. Most mages train themselves to ignore anything outside the Dueling shield, but very few are prepared for troubles inside its circumference. As for any ‘secret’ to the trick, there isn’t one. It just takes concentration and practice.”
“If physical attacks aren’t allowed, then why bother doing it?” Mita asked.
Ellett wrinkled his nose. “Because while they aren’t allowed ... they aren’t unknown, either. It was a good ... two hundred and thirty years ago? Somewhere back then. A mage from Haida snuck into Aurul, pretending to be a native. He hung around the royal court for a few years, ingratiating himself, then challenged a Royal Guardsman for his position. Back then, it was easier to get into the Guard. He was known, supposedly trusted, and if you were known and trusted, and powerful enough, you could challenge a Guardsman to a Duel Arcane. If you won, you became a Guardsman yourself.
“This fellow cheated. Naturally the Royal Guard screened all applicants under truth-spell, but the fellow wore a special talisman that allowed him to lie and get away with it,” Ellett told her. “Then, once he was a member of the Royal Guard, he started challenging the other members to private duels. ‘Practice duels,’ he called them. Held without witnesses, he was able to move while they were trapped in the effort of the duel, and killed them with a needle dipped in a very toxic poison. Three Guards were declared dead of a heart attack before we grew suspicious.”
“So how did you catch him?” Mita asked.
“My predecessor quietly rounded up a small army of lower-ranked mages and had them scry upon each and every one of his fellow Guards. This man was very clever, though. Very skillful and well prepared, as well as powerful. He had cast spells against scryings to make it look as if he was somewhere else—usually in the gardens—while he killed three more Guards, with the intent of infiltrating even more secret Haidans into the Royal Guard. His targets simply seemed to be walking around, meditating, reading, whatever, before they keeled over.”
She frowned. “It’s said the Eyes of Ruul see all. Why didn’t He warn your ancestors?”
“Because the Gods gave us free will. These were things we could notice, and could handle on our own,” Ellett pointed out. “Aurul was also embroiled in a border war with Keket at the time, if I remember right, which was probably why the Haidans saw fit to attempt their infiltrations during our distraction.”
“So if his spells were so good, how did they catch him?” she asked.
“The only child of the Seer King, a very young daughter, escaped her nurse and ran right through the illusion of the Guardsman. Naturally, the girl didn’t see anything, because the illusion was only in the scrying mirrors of the Mage-Captain’s spies. But the spies saw it happen, and quickly accounted for every single Guardsman that was both alone and far enough from possible witnesses, and who had recently come in contact with the illusion-Guard. There was just one,” he said. “The real Haidan Guardsman was off trying to kill his seventh victim down by the beach, east of the winter palace. My predecessor raced down there with several of the Guards he trusted, caught the man, and ... well, after a bit of rather unpleasant trial and error, found and destroyed the talisman, and extracted a full confession.
“That confession included the means he had used to deceive everyone, and the Haidan identities of four of the new Guards he’d managed to get into place. The others were Aurulans who had beat out the other applicants.” Ellett rubbed at his face, glad such ancient headaches weren’t his. “I thank Ruul that none of them had been assigned all as a group to escort duty, yet, since they were all still being paired with more experienced Guards. If they had been the only ones on duty, the moment they got His Majesty all alone ...”
“Without a son to take up the Seership of the kingdom, the confidence of the kingdom would have faltered and the Haidans would have poured in over the border. I haven’t been too happy with the current version of Haidan expediency, either,” Mita offered wryly. “They’ve toned down in the last year or so, but even a law-sayer would have a hard time pinning them down, unless it was to word the law in such a way that benefitted them the most. Theirs is not an altruistic deity, and the ways of Hai-shu, Patron Goddess of Diligence, are not always moral.
“Exacting, but not always moral,” Mita agreed. “Not to throw stones at our own windows, of course, but with that for an example, is it any wonder my people have shied away from picking out a Patron of our own?” she quipped dryly.
“When you put it that way, no,” Ellett agreed. He started to say something more, then stopped and frowned. “Wait ... you said the Haidans have grown quiet over the last year, correct?”
“Yes. They’ve given up testing our defenses for now,” Mita repeated.
He sat up, frowning. “The Haidans don’t give up easily. They’re always searching for something to do. When they have a good king or queen on the throne, they’re a joy to deal with. When they don’t, they’re a pain in the neck. They haven’t bothered Aurul during this reign, let alone in the last year. Yet they still have the same king as before. I can’t imagine his attention would have faded so easily from your people, unless he had something else to focus his attention on ... but I haven’t heard any rumors among the ports that the Haidans have turned their attentions south or west, either.”
Mita sat up next to him, wrapping her arms around her blanket-draped knees. “So the Haidans are up to something. The question is, what?”
“They can be very subtle,” Ellett muttered. He lifted a brow at her. “Maybe they’re the ones behind the impostor Lord Stelled and the fake Aurulan warships?”
“Or they could be from another country, or they could be independents working together, or they could be independents working separate agendas ... though considering some of the things ‘Lord Stelled’ has said could be construed as subtle threats, they’re probably working together,” Mita said. She picked a nub of lint off of the top blanket and flicked it away. Her tanned brow furrowed. “The more I think about it, the more everything seems to be coming to a head, like he’s planning on ‘encouraging’ us to pay high import/export taxes permanently, in order to ensure our ships are never attacked by Aurulan vessels again.”
“Either that, or it’s an encouragement to get Jetta Freeport and the Aurulan government embroiled in a war, which could be politically advantageous for another country,” Ellett pointed out. He placed his hand on her linen-draped back and rubbed gently. She leaned into him, making him feel good. Making his rod twitch and regain some life to it, too. Sighing, he focused his mind on the problem at hand and continued. “The good thing is that your prior attacks have been remarkably polite. Very few injuries, very few lost lives. And you d
on’t scuttle the ships or seize them, sending the crews out in longboats to try to make it to some shore. You just round everyone up, transfer the cargo, damage the rigging so they cannot pursue quickly, then set them free as you sail away.”
“We’re vengeful, not stupid,” she muttered, nudging him with her elbow. “Besides, ever since we turned to trading for our main source of income, we’ve always known it hurts worse to hit someone in their wallet than to hit them in their stomach.”
A mischievous thought crossed his mind. Ellett eyed the woman at his side. “Oh, really?”
She lifted her chin from the arms clasped around her knees, loosening her grip on them. “Yes, really.”
“Even when you attack them like this?” Pushing her back onto the bed, Ellett raised her nightshirt and wormed his head down between her arms and legs, raspberrying her belly. She shrieked, laughed, and fought back.
Somewhere in there, his night trousers got torn at the hip and her shirt pushed up over her head. When Ellett finally managed to pin her to the mattress, fabric-tangled arms secured in place over her head, his rod had wound up pressed against the warm, slick folds of her loins. From the warmth in her eyes and the way her hips flexed, rubbing herself against him, he knew she wouldn’t protest. But he had to ask.
“May I ... ?” he inquired politely, nudging her gently.
Mita smiled. “Be my guest.”
More mischief made him grin. Prodding carefully, he sank in the tiniest bit and said, “My, what a lovely, warm entry hall you have. So very welcoming.”
