Dangerous Waters

by Juliet E. McKenna

  Over the course of the winter, they had learned how completely the Aldabreshi allowed happenstance to govern their lives. The circle of the compass was divided into twelve arcs and each one conveyed special significance to any signs seen within it. Anything could be taken for a portent; a bird’s flight, a sea serpent in the distance, even some unusual cloud. Or bloodier signs like sharks devouring a half-dead rower thrown overboard.

  Contempt burned Corrain’s throat as the blind corsair drew a white shell token from a gourd. His faithful slave held it up and a hush fell over the hollow.

  None of the captives realised what lay ahead. They still wore the clothes of the mainland; linen shirts and woollen breeches, torn and stained. Some were watching the armed corsairs guarding the outer rim of the ditch. Others looked beyond their captors to the men sitting on the grassy slopes. A few tried ingratiating smiles, others squared belligerent shoulders. Most stood dazed and wretched in their soiled rags. The scented breeze of the island wilted beneath the stink of their despair.

  ‘The Sailfish.’ Hosh translated the Archipelagan’s shout.

  Halcarion’s Crown, according to the old sergeant-at-arms who’d taught Corrain his stars on night watches as a young trooper.

  A sword landed in the dust in front of the Sailfish stone, tossed by one of the men guarding the ditch. The newly arrived slaves looked at it before nervously eyeing each other.

  ‘The Spear.’

  Consternation stirred by that marker as a pole arm with the curved blade and recurved barbs of the islands was thrown down before the slaves.

  ‘Pick it up,’ Hosh murmured under his breath.

  Corrain’s stomach curdled with sour anticipation. Ducah had stepped over the ditch.

  Where everyone else ashore, slave or raider, wore the loose tunic and trews of the islands, Ducah invariably went bare-chested, however brutal the wind or rain. That left the vicious scourge scars criss-crossing his broad back plain for all to see, along with the shackle marks at wrist and ankle.

  Corrain didn’t know what had earned the man such scars or how he had survived, still less how had he escaped the oars to become Reef Eagle’s overseer ashore, guarding the galley captain’s house and the loot stowed in its capacious cellars. He’d warned Hosh off asking any stupid questions. Rouse the big man’s anger and he’d kill the lad without a second thought.

  Half a head taller and more heavily muscled than any of the dull-eyed slaves, Ducah scooped up the sword lying by the Sailfish stone. He hacked the nearest man’s head from his shoulders with a single murderous stroke.

  Spattered with the dead man’s blood, the closest captive fell to his knees, pleading for his life. Ducah grabbed him by his collar, hauled him to his feet and forced the bloodied sword into his hand. Kicking the corpse and its severed head into the ditch, the brute shoved the unwilling swordsman towards the Spear stone.

  All around the circle, Corrain could see men belatedly recognising the dark stains in the earth. Blood. This was a killing ground.

  Two men went for the pole arm. One yielded that dubious honour, a copper-haired lanky youth with sun-seared skin. Forest blood bequeathed such hair and a pale complexion.

  Corrain wondered what malign fate could bring a man so far. Travel the whole length of Caladhria, three hundred and fifty leagues from Attar on the southernmost rocky tip to the trading city of Peorle at the White River’s mouth, and a man would have the same distance to walk again across Ensaimin’s self-governing cities and fiefdoms to reach the Great Forest’s endless woodlands.

  The man who picked up the pole arm was the usual mongrel found in Caladhrian harbour towns. Did he know how to fight? What of the hapless swordsman?

  ‘Don’t fight the weapon. Fight the man,’ Corrain snarled under his breath.

  The swordsman couldn’t drag his eyes away from the pole arm’s lethal blade. He hacked vainly in hopes of splintering its wooden shaft. The mongrel made a few hesitant thrusts and then the shining steel darted forward, biting deep into the swordsman’s belly. Blood gushed onto the dusty ground as his intestines bulged from the wound. The spearman’s next wild swipe ripped out the swordsman’s throat but Corrain reckoned he was already dead before he hit the ground.

  Hosh watched the blind corsair’s slave hold up another token ‘He’s going to the Knot Serpent.’

  A corsair whip master muscled through the crowd and jumped across the ditch to drag the victorious spearman away.

  ‘That’s not the best of omens,’ Hosh said seriously. ‘The Sailfish stands in the heavenly arc of health. The Spear stands with home and family and these slaves are so far from either. The swordsman should have won.’

  How could Hosh cling to his faith in the uncaring gods and take these Aldabreshin superstitions to heart as well? It exasperated Corrain. But the lad’s credulity had its uses. Corrain valued Hosh’s warnings, when those imaginary patterns in the skies put Ducah in a fouler temper than usual.

  He sighed as the blind corsair drew a new token, the Vizail Blossom. A brawny youth with Tormalin features swiftly killed a luckless man thrown forward from the Winged Snake.

  ‘Pearl for calm and Opal for loyalty and both in the arc of fellowship with the Blossom. Nothing but the Topaz with the Winged Snake and that’s always an ambiguous gem,’ Hosh observed.

  ‘The Bloody Claw look pleased to have him.’ Corrain wanted to see who’d end up on the Reef Eagle.

  He needed allies who could handle a sword, whose outrage at being enslaved burned as hot as his own. He couldn’t escape with only Hosh to back him.

  The blind corsair drew the Sailfish again and this time that red-headed lad snatched up the pole arm. Perhaps he believed that longer reach could defeat the older man stepping forward from the Net. Or he just sought a quick death.

  Corrain noted raiders around the hollow offering each other wagers. These Archipelagans would gamble on anything but they liked life and death most of all.

  ‘The Diamond and the Amethyst stand with the Net in the arc of Life,’ Hosh murmured. ‘They think it’s a foregone conclusion.’

  Diamond for strength of purpose and Amethyst for calm. Corrain had learned that much of Aldabreshin superstition.

  The grim faced man advanced on the Forest-born youth. He thrust hard, straight at the younger man’s face. The Forest youth stepped back, knocking the blade aside with the pole arm. The grim faced man ducked below the pole arm’s back stroke with a low cut that could have shattered the Forest youth’s knee. The copper-headed lad blocked the blow, quickly stepping back once again.

  The grim faced man attacked, stepping in much closer. This time his free hand reached for the pole arm’s shaft, to deny the Forest lad his weapon as the sword swept towards his head.

  Quick as thought, the Forest youth slid the pole arm’s shaft back through his hands. Gripping right below the blade and half way along, he smacked the solid length of wood into the swordsman’s forearm. The crack of snapping bone echoed around the hollow.

  As the man dropped to his knees, the blade falling from his nerveless fingers, the Forest youth brought the pole arm’s razor sharp blade up, over and down to bite deep into the back of the swordsman’s neck. As the man collapsed, his life blood soaking the ground, the Forest youth walked back to the Sailfish stone, his face betraying no reaction.

  Hosh nudged Corrain in the ribs. ‘Look, over there!’

  The Reef Eagle’s whip master was coming forward to claim the red-head as the blind corsair’s slave waved a token.

  If Corrain believed in these Aldabreshin portents any more than he believed in his own gods, he could take that for a good omen. The red-head would have news from the mainland. Something that could help them plan an escape?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Halferan Manor, Caladhria

  Spring Equinox, Fifth Day, Afternoon

  STARRID THREW OPEN the withdrawing room’s door. ‘You have a visitor.’

  Zurenne longed to challenge his impudent intrusion but that woul
d be folly. As foolish as hurling her book of pious meditations at his head. She’d have liked to do that too. Instead she set the leather-bound volume on the table beside her upholstered settle.

  ‘Who is it, if you please?’

  ‘Lord Licanin.’ Starrid scowled. ‘Without a word of warning.’

  No wonder the rogue didn’t dare deny him. ‘He is naturally most welcome.’

  As welcome as he was unexpected. What could have prompted her eldest sister’s stolid, scholarly husband to come here? Abrupt apprehension tightened around Zurenne’s heart. Had some evil befallen Beresa? A six day journey wasn’t lightly undertaken even with spring breezes drying out the roads.

  ‘Zurenne?’ Licanin’s outrage echoed up the stairs leading from the great hall to the upper storey of the baronial tower. He didn’t sound like a man bereaved.

  Two sets of heavy footfalls followed him. Starrid’s men, unless Lord Licanin had brought sufficient force to rescue her and her children. But how could he know she needed help?

  ‘Ilysh. Esnina. Be ready to greet your aunt’s husband.

  The girls quickly put their pens away in their boxes. Ilysh screwed the inkwell’s cap tight while Esnina sanded her sheet of carefully copied letters. Zurenne spared a moment to regret the worn nap of her blue velvet gown. But there had been no reason to don any finery, festival or not. They hadn’t been allowed beyond the door leading to the stairs for eight days now.

  The girls’ russet wool dresses were shamefully short, their petticoats showing at the ankle and far too tight in the sleeve and the bodice. Zurenne had asked Starrid for a seamstress only days before. She’d even said she would sew their clothes herself, if he allowed her cloth and shears. He delighted in denying her, saying such matters must wait until their master returned.

  Licanin appeared in the hallway, flushed with annoyance. ‘I have no need of your assistance.’

  To Zurenne’s bitter disappointment, the armed men who accompanied him looked to Starrid for instruction. When the steward nodded, they went silently back down the stairs.

  ‘You may leave us.’ Licanin shrugged off his riding cloak and held it out.

  Zurenne recalled he always preferred the saddle to a carriage. If he had left his youth behind, he wasn’t yet in his dotage.

  Starrid made no move to take the heavy garment, offering only an insolent shrug. ‘Master Minelas left me to stand guardian to Lady Zurenne and her daughters while he’s away.’

  ‘I look forward to you rendering account of your service,’ Licanin said sternly. ‘Meantime you will see that I am provided with refreshment. This is scarcely a festival welcome!’

  For a moment, Zurenne truly thought that Starrid would refuse. The man’s impertinence broke new ground with the turn of every season, just as his tunics and breeches grew more costly.

  ‘Of course, my lord.’

  As Starrid took Licanin’s cloak, Zurenne saw the glint in his eye. He left the withdrawing room door open, walked the length of the hallway, opened the door to the stairs and shouted down to the great hall. ‘Cakes and wine for the baron. Hop to it, one of you!’

  Shutting the door, he leaned against it smiling smugly. No, he had no intention of letting them speak in private.

  Then to Zurenne’s surprise, Licanin raised a gloved finger to his lips before turning to address the steward.

  ‘Has your master gone all the way to Duryea for the Spring Parliament? I would not travel so far, not with unrest from Lescar spilling across the Rel,’ he remarked to Zurenne.

  She saw Starrid’s grip tightened on the baron’s cloak. ‘My master — that’s to say, my lord, we haven’t had word.’

  Licanin tugged each fingertip of his gloves loose. ‘I was hoping to discuss that unhappy realm’s prospects with Master Minelas,’ he explained to Zurenne. ‘Saedrin only knows what will come of this conclave of theirs. Landowners, townsfolk and peasants debating how to harness themselves together to agree on their laws and taxes.’ He shook his head dubiously. ‘When we face those cursed corsairs returning on the Aft-Spring tides.’

  ‘When will your master return?’ He looked at Starrid, expectant, as he tossed his gloves down on the table. ‘I have written three times since Aft-Winter turned to For-Spring and have had no courtesy of a reply. Have you sent my letters onwards?’ Licanin demanded.

  ‘No, that’s to say—’

  Zurenne couldn’t decide which delighted her more: Starrid’s impertinence sagging so utterly in the stocky baron’s presence or realising the steward had no notion where Minelas might be. She’d thought he refused to tell her purely out of malice. Now she saw that he truly didn’t know.

  ‘Hush!’ Licanin crossed to the window, mud-spattered top-boots noisy on the floorboards. He looked down and exclaimed, affronted. ‘Halferan offers insults instead of welcome, and at festival time? Get your household in order, steward!’

  Zurenne heard shouts rising up from the courtyard.

  ‘My lord—’ Starrid hesitated, threw the cloak to the hall floor and disappeared down the stairs.

  ‘Stay here,’ Licanin ordered Zurenne. ‘Can you lock that door behind me?’

  ‘I—’ She wanted to ask him a score of questions. She thrust them aside. ‘No, he took all my keys.’

  That was when she had known Minelas was no friend to Halferan. When he’d returned from the Summer Parliament and ripped the chain girdle from her waist, stealing the keys that were every wife’s honour and ornament, from the humblest cottage to the most opulent manor.

  The sound of strife below was mounting. Esnina began to grizzle, frightened. Ilysh put an arm round her sister’s shoulders. ‘Mama?’

  Zurenne saw a fearless spark in her elder daughter’s eye.

  ‘Who are these ruffians disgracing Halferan’s livery?’ Licanin demanded. ‘Where are your husband’s men?’

  ‘Dismissed, disgraced.’ Zurenne fluttered helpless hands. ‘Minelas replaced them with hirelings from the wharves of Attar, Claithe and worse.’

  ‘None too doughty then, with luck,’ Licanin said grimly. ‘Stay here, all of you, and bar the door with the table.’

  As he strode from the room, Zurenne hurried after him. ‘How did you know of our plight?

  Halting at the door to the stairs, Licanin shook his greying head. ‘I didn’t until last night. Then some of your tenants sought an audience at the village where we halted on the road. They said no one was allowed to see you!’ He was outraged. ‘Talagrin be thanked, my escort includes the finest warriors of my household troop for fear of Lescari bandits on the road.’

  ‘Ostrin bless our loyal vassals.’ Zurenne felt a pang of guilt for misjudging them.

  ‘How—?’ Licanin broke off. ‘Stay here.’

  As he hurried down the stairs, Zurenne ran back to the withdrawing room. ‘Neeny, clear the table. Lysha, help me move it.’

  Between them they dragged the polished oak to bar the door. Esnina managed to spill the blotting sand over the floorboards and she began to wail loudly.

  ‘Never mind that.’ Zurenne picked her up and sat her on the table. ‘You must be quiet and listen. Shout if you hear anyone coming up from the hall. Lysha!’ Zurenne nodded to the room’s second doorway, leading to her own bedchamber. ‘Tell me if you hear anyone on the secret stair.’

  Had Starrid betrayed that to those louts? The narrow stairway hidden behind the panelling to ensure no lady of Halferan could be trapped up here by fire or malice. Zurenne glanced at Esnina. Both girls had sworn before Saedrin’s statue that they’d tell no one of it but was it fair to ask that of such a little girl?

  In the darkness after midnight, Zurenne had wondered more than once about trying to escape that way. But Starrid had her keys and both of those hidden doors were locked. Even if she managed to force them open somehow, she couldn’t imagine they could sneak through the manor’s guarded outer gates unnoticed by Minelas’s brutes. The thought of his retribution once they were recaptured was too terrifying to contemplate.
/>   Ilysh yelped. ‘Mama!’

  Zurenne saw she was obeying, in that she had gone into her mother’s bedchamber. Only Ilysh was looking down into the courtyard instead of standing by the secret door.

  ‘Step back from the window,’ Zurenne ordered. But someone had to know what was going on. She steeled herself and went to see.

  The Licanin barony’s men were easily recognised by their livery. Forewarned, they had ridden through the gatehouse, alert, armed and armoured. Starrid’s hirelings were hurrying out of the manor’s guard hall, some still in their shirtsleeves.

  Even the mangiest cur barks on his own doorstep, Zurenne recalled her husband saying more than once. One thug ripped his blade into a Licanin man’s leg. The trooper collapsed, writhing in agony.

  The thug lunged at the man beside him. The Licanin trooper brought up his sword and the two hilts ground together. So deftly that Zurenne barely saw it, the Licanin swordsman let one hand slip free from his grip and seized the thug’s elbow.

  With a move more suited to the dance floor than to combat, he shoved hard enough to spin the unwary thug around. With the startled thug’s back exposed, the Licanin trooper smashed his sword’s pommel on the back of his neck. The thug collapsed.

  Stunned or dead? Zurenne found she didn’t care. She heard her elder daughter cheer. ‘Lysha!’

  ‘Mama, they’re winning!’ Ilysh crowed, unrepentant.

  ‘I can see that. No, Neeny, stay where you are!’ Zurenne could save one of her daughters from these horrors. Dead and wounded men sprawled on the cobbles. Amid her distress, Zurenne allowed herself a thrill of satisfaction at seeing most were her erstwhile captors.

  Half of the Licanin men had dismounted, swiftly cutting down those hirelings caught unawares in the guard hall. Now Zurenne could see some of the rest throwing down their swords in surrender.