The House of the Four Winds: Book One of One Dozen Daughters

by Mercedes Lackey

  Gregale didn’t move.

  “Fine! I will see you in hell then. Clarence, does it please you to sail to hell?”

  “Absolutely,” Clarice said with a wolfish smile.

  “Then let us go there. My dear friend,” Dominick said to Gregale, “I wish you a very happy life, for as long as it lasts.”

  Just as he turned to go, the door swung open. “There’s no need for such dramatics, dear Dominick,” Shamal purred. “Enter.”

  Freely and of our own will? Clarice gibed mentally. She was sure Shamal had been listening to the whole thing. Why? To judge Gregale’s loyalty? Dominick’s temper? Or was she simply bored? It would be nice to know which it is, since our lives are in her hands.

  Gregale stepped aside, and Dominick and Clarice entered. Gregale did not follow, and a moment later Clarice realized why. Large as the cabin was, Gregale could not possibly have fit in here with the three of them. Not now.

  Shamal had redecorated.

  The desk had been replaced with an ornate dressing table with a gatefold mirror, and a number of ormolu tables were scattered around, covered with expensive—and fragile—knickknacks. Folding screens, their panels covered with painted and embroidered silk, obscured the walls. The floor was covered in thick, jewel-toned rugs, the oil lamps replaced with others that were far more exotic. New curtains hung at the transom windows—which stood open—and the bed had received a coverlet of silk brocade and velvet and was heaped with tiny, bright-colored pillows. It was the most expensive, luxurious, and tasteless thing Clarice had ever seen. If sorcery had an odor, I’d say this place reeks of it.

  Shamal stood in front of the opulent bed. She had put off all pretense of Wauloisene fashion. Her sole article of dress was a many-layered skirt, but the bracelets, anklets, rings, and the heavy garland of beaded necklaces she wore compensated for her lack of clothing by their sheer quantity. Clarice didn’t doubt that each of them was a spell waiting to be cast.

  “Where is my chart table?” Dominick asked levelly, ignoring Shamal’s nakedness.

  The luridly hyperreal clutter of the cabin had been so distracting that it took Clarice a moment to realize it was gone. When Dominick had vacated his cabin, he’d left it in place; it was too large to get through the doorway in one piece.

  “It was in my way,” Shamal answered coolly.

  “I didn’t ask you why it wasn’t here,” Dominick said. “I asked you where it was.”

  “Oh … somewhere,” Shamal said airily. “Gregale will show you. But first: I will have the talisman you stole, Mr. Swann.”

  “You can’t steal from the dead.” Clarice worked the chain off over her head and hefted the medallion in her palm.

  Shamal held out her hand.

  Clarice walked forward, smiling. And threw.

  The medallion sailed through the open transom.

  “I seem to have dropped it,” Clarice said blandly. “You’re welcome to retrieve it, of course. But surely you won’t need it—once we retrieve the Heart of Light?” And if you think I am handing you an item of thaumaturgy that I have worn next to my skin for a fortnight …

  For an instant Shamal’s face was transformed by rage. In that moment, only for a heartbeat, she didn’t look human at all. Then her face smoothed to mildness once more. “Your clumsiness will cause you harm someday.”

  “That day is not today.”

  “You will discipline your man, of course?” Shamal said, turning to Dominick.

  The pit of Clarice’s stomach turned to ice. Dominick would have to obey any order Shamal gave.

  “If he breaks my laws,” Dominick answered. “Throwing his own property overboard is not a crime.”

  “And if I should order you to flog him to death?” From the tone of Shamal’s voice, the question was prompted by nothing more than innocent curiosity.

  “Then you would have to force me by sorcery,” Dominick answered evenly. “As we both know you could. But it is not something that could be kept a secret, and the last master of Asesino who beat men to death is dead.”

  “A threat?”

  “A fact. Call it friendly advice.”

  “And have you other advice for me?”

  “No, Lady Shamal. Only questions. If I am to sail due north from our present location, we will run aground within the week. And so I must ask you, how am I to proceed?”

  “You are angry with me, my Dominick! That was never my wish.” Now Shamal pouted at him, looking contrite and penitent. It was certainly another act.

  “Any chance of friendship between us ended when you bespelled me,” Dominick said flatly. “You may have what you compel. Nothing more. But I cannot follow your orders if I do not know what they are.”

  Clarice gazed fixedly at the floor. She would have liked to watch Shamal’s face, but she was afraid her own would give too much away. Dominick was playing a dangerous game, confronting Shamal directly with his knowledge of the power she held. Shamal apparently preferred to pretend it did not exist. Why else would she have tangled him in spells of illusion to get him to keep her company? She could have ordered him directly.

  But the orders she gave would have told us something she does not want us to know, I think.

  “Sail north!” Shamal said, irritated now. “Do so without sinking the ship, or running it aground, or bringing it to the attention of any other vessel. Surely you can do that?”

  “Of course, madame.” Dominick bowed stiffly. “It would be easier to plot a course if I knew our destination, but I am certain you will remedy that matter in your own good time.”

  “Get out.”

  * * *

  The chart table had been moved to the first mate’s cabin—in pieces. The solid mahogany frame had been snapped like kindling, the legs ripped from the top. The charts it had contained were nothing more than carefully shredded scraps. Useless.

  “Mr. Emerson will be glad of the additional firewood, at least,” Dominick said quietly.

  “You play a dangerous game with Shamal.”

  “I have little choice, Clarence. It was one thing when I was being spellbound to sail on a mad errand. I might have saved the ship and the crew. But Shamal is with us, and the sailors she’s presented us with are former prisoners, men who were—who are—never meant to make landfall.”

  “Except back in Dorado. I’d like to think she means us to survive the voyage and return.”

  “So would I. I have a hard time thinking Shamal has chosen a complicated method of committing suicide.”

  “When she could just jump into Fuego del Lago any time she wanted,” Clarice answered, striving for lightness.

  “As we both wish she had.” Dominick smiled at her. “But at least I have directions now, such as they are. We’ll sail eastward for a couple of days, so as to have plenty of sea room when we turn north.”

  “And after that?”

  “God knows. If we’re to be more than a month at sea, we’ll need to put in somewhere to take on freshwater and more supplies, and … we have no charts. I have the captain’s log, and I can take some counsel from that, but if we sail compass north for a month, I cannot say where we will be. The Arktikos, it is said, is a realm of ice. And we cannot sail over ice.”

  Unless Shamal wants us to. Clarice did not say so aloud. It was gratuitous cruelty to remind Dominick of Shamal’s power. “We’re in trouble,” she said instead.

  “You have a gift for understatement.”

  “I have a gift for seeing danger and not being able to do anything about it,” Clarice answered bitterly. “And right now, I see a lot of it. Your crew trusts you. All most of them know is that you sailed into a pirate haven and sailed out again. What the prisoners are telling them now is anyone’s guess, but that doesn’t matter. What matters, what no one knows but I, is that your crew cannot look to you…” She found she could not go on.

  “They cannot look to me for protection. Because my will is not my own.”

  Only one thing could change that. Clarice could
no longer afford to wait for some perfect time—which might never come—to tell Dominick the truth.

  “Dominick,” Clarice said urgently, “there is something you must know. You know that I come from the east, from the Borogynian Principalities, as an adventurer. I took passage on Asesino by sheerest chance, but … But I am glad I did, because you see—”

  A shadow fell across the table. Clarice looked up to see Gregale standing in the doorway. Watching them. Listening.

  The words Clarice had been about to say died in her throat. She had always thought she was willing to die for what was right. But that wasn’t the same as speaking the words that would cause your own death as inevitably as the fall of a headsman’s ax. Worse was the thought of dying for nothing. She thought she might manage to bring about her own death if she could believe it would save Dominick and his crew.

  But she couldn’t, and it wouldn’t, so she ducked her head and said nothing.

  “Ah, there you are, Gregale,” Dominick said brightly. “Someone seems to have dumped a bunch of kindling in my cabin. Be a useful fellow and carry it up on deck, won’t you? And now, I think Dickon will be happier if I go and give him a heading, don’t you think?”

  “I think I shall go back to the surgery. I must speak to Dr. Chapman,” Clarice answered.

  The flicker of Dominick’s expression said he understood her perfectly. He’d agreed; the officers must be told once they were at sea, and she thought it best to begin with Dr. Chapman.

  * * *

  Dr. Chapman, predictably, was not enthusiastic about the news she brought.

  “Insolent puppy! We’d be more than justified in hanging the pair of you. What the devil did you think to gain by hiding young Moryet’s enchantment?”

  “I don’t know,” Clarice said wearily. “I suppose we thought that by pretending cooperation…”

  “… you would be let to sail away and tell your story to the closest authorities,” Dr. Chapman concluded with a snort. “D’you think the Brotherhood wants word of its little haven reaching the words of any authorities?”

  “But the island is protected—Shamal is a powerful sorceress…” Clarice’s protest died to silence at Chapman’s glare.

  “And I do not doubt Dorado’s thaumaturgical defenses would baffle an ordinary man-o’-war, and even the first of the Queen’s own thaumaturgical marines that followed. It might well be a long, bloody, messy campaign. But Albion would win, and the pirates would not.”

  “Which they knew all along…,” Clarice said slowly.

  “Which is why they handled you and Moryet so carefully. If you showed any sign of understanding the, shall we say, delicacy of their situation, you’d be unlikely to go along with them on the chance of making a run for it. On the other hand, it meant they didn’t just execute all of us outright.”

  “You make it sound as if Dominick and I did the right thing after all.”

  Dr. Chapman shrugged. “There’s hardly a right thing in any of this. We had some luck on Dorado. Let’s see if we can stretch it. I don’t suppose she told you what breaks the spell? Even a Compulsion spell can be broken.”

  Clarice glanced at Dr. Chapman in surprise. He was the last man aboard Asesino she would have suspected of knowing anything about thaumaturgy.

  “She boasted of it. True love.”

  Dr. Chapman grunted sourly. “Something he’s as likely to find on this voyage as unicorn’s milk. Pity. How many aboard know what you’ve told me?”

  “You’re the only one. Dominick meant to tell you all once we were under sail, but that was before we knew Shamal was to sail with us. Half the crew already knows she’s a thaumaturge, so the other half soon will. There must be … some explanation made.”

  Dr. Chapman nodded. “The fewer who know about Moryet’s delicate condition, the more likely it is Shamal will believe no one knows, and I expect she’ll want to keep it that way. I’ve never met a sorcerer yet who wasn’t arrogant and mysterious in equal measure. Tell Dominick he should say only that she is a sorceress who has commandeered the ship to sail in search of—of whatever this damned thing is she’s after.”

  “I wish I knew,” Clarice said mournfully. “You know as much as I.”

  “That it’s all she needs to cast a new set of those medallions? A magical treasure, then. That will be enough for them. You could tell them we were after the north wind’s daughter; that part won’t matter.”

  “What does?”

  “The fact Shamal means to see us all dead, one way or another. There are too many unanswered questions here for this to fall out any other way. Why would someone with her power need to trick Moryet into sailing after this treasure? If the voyage is deadly, why has she come with us? No, there is something more to this, and whatever it is, it does not end well for us. So the question I have for you is, are you willing to strike a blow for our freedom?”

  “Of course,” Clarice said with a certainty she was far from feeling.

  Dr. Chapman nodded and turned to his medicine cabinet. He unlocked it and withdrew a small brown bottle, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.

  “All we need to hope for now is that the woman eats and drinks like we mere mortals, but I’ve never known a thaumaturge who didn’t. When she calls for her supper, see that you’re the one who takes it to her. Pour the contents of this bottle into anything you like—soup, gravy, wine. Don’t get any on you—or in you—and throw the bottle overboard afterward.”

  He held out the bottle. Clarice’s hand was steady as she took it from him. It is poison, she thought distantly. It will kill her. She tried to be horrified at the thought, but she couldn’t manage it.

  “What will happen to Dominick when she dies?”

  “Whatever it is, it will be a kinder fate than what that sea hag has planned,” Dr. Chapman answered simply.

  * * *

  Mr. Emerson was grateful for her offer to deliver the tray, for young Jerrold was terrified of Shamal and her servant. It was easy to duck out of sight and find a quiet place to take the tiny bottle from her pocket and pour most of its contents into the wine. Clarice poured the last third of the bottle over the chicken. As she did, the sharp smell of bitter almonds filled the air. Too late to worry about that now. She replaced the napkin and tossed the bottle out a porthole.

  Gregale was waiting in the corridor outside his mistress’s cabin. He stepped forward and silently held out his hand for the tray.

  It was harder than Clarice had imagined it would be to hand it to him. Poison. This was as much a murder as if she’d held a pistol to Shamal’s head and pulled the trigger. And she was not a murderer.

  But a fighter … that I am. Papa always said that anyone who is born to rule must accept the need to fight. For their land, for their people, for what is right. And that is what I was born to do.

  For a moment she missed her parents, her sisters, baby Dantan, her home, so fiercely it was hard to breathe. But she forced herself to turn and walk away as if nothing had happened at all. She stopped in her cabin to wash her hands thoroughly—first in brandy, then with soap and water—before proceeding to the common room.

  Jerrold was setting the table for supper. He was pinch-faced with fear and kept glancing back at the door that led to the corridor in front of Shamal’s cabin.

  “Hello, Jerrold,” Clarice said as warmly as she could. “It’s good to be at sea again, isn’t it?”

  Some of the pinched look left Jerrold’s face. “That it is, Mr. Swann. And better if … if we were the only ones aboard,” he said carefully.

  “None of us is happy to sail with a thaumaturge. She gave us no choice, as you saw.” Clarice thought of Dr. Chapman’s words. “She has commandeered our ship to sail after treasure, and for the moment we are in her power. But Dominick will do all he can to keep us safe.” It wasn’t quite a lie.

  “But where are we going? What treasure?”

  “We sail north at Shamal’s direction. What the treasure is … that is knowledge she has not sh
ared.” Clarice knew this should have come from Dominick, but the opportunity was here, and better not to make the story seem like the unveiling of a great mystery.

  “Well, if it’s treasure, I guess she wouldn’t,” Jerrold said thoughtfully. “But the captain will have a plan, won’t he?”

  Clarice wasn’t sure whether to laugh hysterically or howl with despair. First Geordie, now Jerrold—and while it was nice that they had so much faith in Dominick’s powers, it did make her doubt their common sense. But the point was to keep everybody calm, not to make them aware of how desperate their situation was. “Of course he will,” Clarice said firmly.

  The door opened, and Dominick entered, followed by Dr. Chapman.

  “Oh, there you are,” Clarice said brightly. “I hope you will forgive me, but I have just been telling Jerrold that we are sailing north on Shamal’s business.”

  “To seek a treasure!” Jerrold said. “You … you don’t think she means to share it out with us, do you, Cap’n? On account of us being the crew and all?”

  Dominick’s face was utterly unreadable. Clarice could not tell what he was thinking, or whether Dr. Chapman had gotten the chance to speak with him privately. She hoped desperately that he wasn’t about to blurt out the one fact Dr. Chapman had wanted kept concealed—that Dominick was enthralled to Shamal’s will.

  “I doubt it,” Dr. Chapman said quellingly. “But I’m sure the tale will be something you can dine out on for the rest of your days. And speaking of dining, what has Mr. Emerson got for us tonight?”

  “I’ll go and see right now, Dr. Chapman!” Leaving the table only half-set, Jerrold hurried from the room.

  “We’ll probably starve before he gets back.” Dr. Chapman walked to the table to take his accustomed seat. “He’ll have to stop and tell his story to every member of the crew.”

  “And that story would be?” Dominick said, not moving from where he stood.

  “Why, only what you mean to tell us here tonight,” Dr. Chapman said easily. “That Shamal, a powerful sorceress, has commandeered our vessel to sail north in search of treasure. And as she’s such a powerful sorceress, and possessed of an imposing bodyguard as well, you have little choice but to do her bidding. For now.”