Dangerous Waters

by Juliet E. McKenna

  Spill this water and what might happen to him? Hosh was trying to look in all directions, for fear of some passerby intent on slyly tripping him or an openly malicious shove. He’d learned the hard way that too many slaves resented the favour that Nifai showed him. Not that Nifai cared. Hosh had learned to keep such bruises to himself.

  The corsairs were even more dangerous. Plenty of them were looking at mainland rowers with hate-filled eyes. The wealth that Grewa had promised on these recent raids had largely failed to materialise. Pickings ashore were lean, with deserted villages stripped of anything worth stealing. The only raiders to return with full holds were those who’d been prowling the sea lanes to catch fat merchants sailing from Col or Peorle to Relshaz.

  Struggling on with the heavy bucket, Hosh could only be thankful that those not seeking some shade from the noon sun were watching the horizon for any sign of the missing vessels.

  So much for the blind corsair’s envoy declaring that the current skies promised death to the mainlanders, with the Ruby for strength of arms and the Opal talisman for truth in that very arc of the sky. In some other significant alignment which Hosh couldn’t quite fathom, the Pearl apparently led the Winged Snake against their foes.

  Half a season ago, as far as Hosh could reckon with no hope of an almanac, no one would have questioned Grewa’s interpretations. Since then though, even with so many newcomers to the anchorage, these losses couldn’t be denied.

  Whispers mingled with the breezes among the fringe trees. Was some new nest of mainland pirates preying on their galleys? But Grewa himself had led the attacks leaving those barbarians dead in the surf a handful of years ago. Perhaps one of his own galley captains had ignored the blind corsair’s strictures against attacking Aldabreshin merchants. Some outraged warlord could have sent his own triremes to safeguard Archipelagan trade.

  Hosh paused and set the bucket down to ease his aching shoulders. A splash over the rim slopped welcome coolness on his feet. Even the breeze from the sea was a furnace blast these days.

  Presumably some tide would wash up the answers. For now Hosh could breathe a sigh of relief as he reached his destination without incident. He showed the bucket to a bored-looking swordsman sitting under a tree. ‘Water for the captives.’

  He couldn’t take much comfort from the corsairs’ losses. Those galleys that had returned had done so with both booty and slaves. The men had already been subjected to their ordeal in the ring of stones, the survivors hauled off in chains to the waiting galleys. Now the women and children were loosely penned some way along the shore, a prudent distance from the pavilions and the encampment.

  The galley masters weren’t concerned with preventing escape. They merely wanted to keep their goods from further soiling before the slave traders of the southern and eastern reaches arrived to take their pick. Then the corsairs would get their leavings, to be plucked for a night’s passing pleasure and discarded. Women and children who survived that degradation and any diseases that followed would be kept in servitude until, sooner or later, they were traded away.

  The swordsman nodded absently. Then he looked up at Hosh with more interest. ‘What say you to the news, mainland man?’

  ‘What news?’ Hosh asked warily.

  ‘You know the Red Heron rode the tide into shore in the north?’ The swordsman studied his face. ‘They found one of our missing galleys as a black and broken skeleton. They’re saying those craven mainlanders burned it.’

  ‘More likely some fool dropped a pot of sticky fire.’ Hosh managed a half-hearted shrug even though his heart twisted with hope almost too painful to bear. If the Caladhrians were finally fighting back, that could that be the answer to the puzzle of the corsairs’ lost ships.

  Corrain had sworn he’d rally the barons to avenge Lord Halferan. His return with Kusint would prove that the Aldabreshi weren’t so great a foe, if they could be outwitted by mere slaves. More fool them, to underestimate a free man of Caladhria and a Soluran mercenary. So Corrain had said. Could he have possibly have found a way home to make good on his words?

  No, Hosh couldn’t allow himself to hope that Corrain had escaped Khusro Rina’s isle, still less that he’d managed to make good on his oath. Not until he had some better reason.

  He looked along the paltry fence of laths and woven vines. Women sat desolate within, not even trying to escape. They knew full well how much worse they would fare beyond that illusory defence.

  ‘Shall I share out the water?’ Hosh offered as casually as he could. ‘I hear these cats claw at each other if they’re not kept in check. Grewa won’t want too many dying of thirst.’

  ‘True enough.’ Unsurprisingly the swordsman was content to let Hosh take on that task in this punishing heat.

  Hosh carried the heavy bucket as far along the fence as he dared, in hopes of getting beyond earshot of the swordsman. The women within watched him with dull and lifeless eyes. What little shade they could contrive with sacrificed clothes and boughs torn from the trees had been given over to the children.

  Hosh dipped a nut husk cup into the water. He offered it over the fence. One woman forced herself to her feet.

  ‘Where are you from?’ His heart sank as she looked at him, uncomprehending. Not Caladhrian then. He repeated himself in Tormalin.

  ‘Relshaz,’ she mumbled, her tongue thick with thirst. ‘Sailing for Ensaimin.’

  Hosh’s hopes fell further. ‘You’re Lescari?’ He thought he recognised her accent, like some beggars whom his mother had once fed at her scullery door. She scorned Steward Starrid’s order that vagabonds must not be encouraged to linger in Halferan. Let him answer to Ostrin for scorning such unfortunates, she had said. Let him discover too late that he’d spurned the god of hospitality travelling in human disguise.

  Corrain had said that any mainlanders enslaved in the Archipelago would be thieves or debtors fallen foul of the Relshazri magistrates. Hosh had been troubled by that. His mother had always warned that debts could as easily mount up from misfortune as they could from folly. She always kept a pot of coin buried beneath a pantry flagstone against the day when Raeponin was looking elsewhere.

  The woman had gulped down the water. She looked longingly at the bucket, clutching the nut shell with dirt-encrusted hands. ‘Parnilesse,’ she said more clearly.

  Hosh recalled Corrain saying that any Lescari’s first loyalty was to their dukedom. Well, to their purse and to their own self-interest and then to their dukedom. That was why the realm’s festering divisions so often burst into bloody strife. That and tolerating rulers too arrogant and selfish to yield to a parliament’s collective wisdom. As Hosh’s mother always said, thank Saedrin we were born Caladhrian.

  ‘Lost my home and my husband to the war,’ the woman said, desolate.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hosh said helplessly.

  The woman merely shrugged, handed back the husk cup and stepped aside so that another could drink. So much for Lescari selfishness.

  Hosh refilled the cup and handed it over. His hand trembled as he saw one girl urging another to get up and join the silently patient line. The girl on the ground shook her head, scraping up dust and cramming handfuls into her mouth.

  ‘What is she doing?’ Hosh protested.

  The next woman in line shrugged. ‘Eating dirt so she’ll die the sooner.’

  Before Hosh could respond, a harsh voice hailed him.

  ‘Hosh!’ It was Nifai.

  ‘Can you reach the bucket if I leave it here?’ He looked along the fence line. The swordsman on guard wasn’t about to leave his shade to come and dole out the water.

  He thrust the cup into the Parnilesse woman’s hands and hurried over to Nifai.

  ‘Carry this.’ Impatient, the overseer thrust a bundle at him; a rug wrapped around a sunshade and a crackling frond of fringed leaves dried to the colour of salt fish. ‘I am summoned.’

  Nifai was speaking in the Tormalin tongue which he’d asked Hosh to teach him of late. There wasn’t any s
ound of whip masters’ silver whistles, so whatever was stirring, Hosh realised, the overseer didn’t want this gathering noised among the swirling whispers.

  He ducked his head, obsequious, and followed Nifai back towards the dusty expanse by the shore, through the driftwood huts and then past the ragged stumps of the ironwood trees that had previously separated the pavilions from the killing ground. They had all been felled and hauled away for firewood. Now the far slopes beyond the grisly hollow were being laid bare to feed the rapacious hearths.

  This definitely wasn’t an open meeting. Swordsmen sat on the tree stumps, warning off those who hadn’t been summoned. Head humbly ducked, Hosh looked through his eyelashes to see who had come. They were all galley masters and slave overseers.

  Grewa’s personal slaves were setting up a silken canopy on hardwood poles on the far side of the constellation stones. The blind corsair had yet to arrive.

  Hosh could see the dark stain by the fringe trees where a slave had been disembowelled for daring to raise a hacking blade to those sacrosanct branches. Had the man been merely ignorant or calculatedly suicidal? Hosh couldn’t decide.

  ‘Here is honour enough for me.’ Nifai gestured to the ground.

  Hosh wasn’t deceived by this show of self-effacement. The canny Aldabreshin wanted to be close enough to hear while sitting sufficiently far away not to have his reactions scrutinised by the blind corsair’s slaves. They were always their master’s eyes and ears.

  The overseer settled on the rug and accepted the sunshade that Hosh offered. Hosh stood behind him and began fanning the fringed frond to cool Nifai’s sweating brow. He kept up a steady rhythm even when a stir heralded Grewa’s arrival.

  Then Hosh saw who accompanied the blind corsair. Despite his efforts, he shuddered like a man struck with palsy. Nifai looked up as the dried frond rattled, curious as well as annoyed.

  Hosh feigned a stifled fit of coughing. Surely there was enough dust in the air to make that convincing? If the gods and stars were merciful, he must be far enough away to escape being noticed by those beside the canopy. If not, he was a dead man.

  Thankfully, Grewa began speaking, drawing every eye. Shunning the silken shade, he stood before the assembled corsair masters. Turning his head this way and that, it almost seemed he could see the gathering before him.

  ‘Six sunsets from now we will see the highest and swiftest tides to carry us to the northern barbarians’ shores. As the Mirror Bird spreads its starry wings on the eastern horizon, so the stars of the Bowl will cup the Ruby for valour and victory where the sky promises death to our foes. Opposite, the Spear lends us strength, promising wealth under the unifying light of the heavenly Opal.’

  The blind corsair nodded with satisfaction. ‘Caught half way between these two portents of our victory, we see the Amethyst for meekness with the Pearl for compliance with the stars of the Hoe below the horizon, a tool for farmers, no weapon for warriors, in that arc of the sky where we look for omens of childhood. These northern barbarians will prove as weak as infants as they face our attack.’

  Hosh had to fight to contain his misery. If he’d kept his count of the days right, Grewa was talking about an attack during the summer solstice festival. A truly wretched celebration lay in store for some poor villagers.

  ‘Honoured commander?’

  Hearing Grewa interrupted was as startling as hearing a horse burst into song. Hosh turned with everyone else to see who had spoken. He didn’t recognise him; an Aldabreshin with a shaven scalp, wearing plain blue tunic and trews.

  Those sitting near were already drawing away, to shun such effrontery or to avoid being splattered with blood when this fool lost his head.

  ‘What of the Diamond, honoured commander?’ Though the man’s voice shook, he pressed on. ‘That token of strength sits alongside the Amethyst and the Pearl with the stars of the Hoe?’

  One of Grewa’s attendant warriors was already advancing, naked blade in hand. The old raider lifted a hand and the swordsman halted.

  Could that old bastard really see? Hosh had wondered more than once what lay beneath that cloth hiding Grewa’s eyes. Regardless, the fabric alone looked thick enough to blind a man.

  ‘The Diamond does betoken strength,’ the old corsair said calmly. ‘It will strengthen the influence of other heavenly jewels. So the northern barbarians will be left all the more enfeebled.’

  Most of the galley masters nodded hasty agreement. Then another voice called out.

  ‘These northern barbarians are not be so bereft of fighting skills.’ This light-skinned man was bold enough to stand up. ‘What of our lost ships? Did any omens warn against sailing inshore? Is there no word of their fate?’

  ‘By your leave, Grewa.’ A man stepped forward from the group of corsairs, slyly claiming the shade which their blind master scorned.

  Hosh had to summon all his strength and will to keep steadily fanning Nifai. He dared not risk a single faltering stroke that might draw anyone’s eyes towards him, least of all this vile brute’s.

  This newcomer was head and shoulders taller than any man here and massively muscled beneath a faded brown tunic in the Aldabreshin style. He might have been of mixed blood or a mainlander deeply tanned by the sun. His flowing black hair was swept back and his long beard was plaited with gold chains. One broad hand on his sword hilt asserted that no enemy would ever get close enough to seize hold of those braids.

  ‘Some of these northern barbarians have finally found their manhood.’ He shrugged, unconcerned. ‘I know where to find them. Cut the head off a snake and it dies. I will avenge our lost allies while the heavens look so favourably upon us.’ He smiled with cruel anticipation. ‘Let us plan our attack.’

  As the galley and trireme masters seized on this, eager to show their loyalty to Grewa, Hosh bit his lip so hard that he tasted blood. He could have sobbed aloud with the horror of it, if he hadn’t known the outburst would be the death of him.

  This was the bearded raider who’d captured him and Corrain. He’d commanded the Aldabreshin warriors who’d ambushed them in the marshes, when that traitor Minelas had led so many good men to their deaths. This very corsair had killed Lord Halferan, stabbing him in the back as he lay face down in the mud, unable to defend himself. Hosh remembered Minelas gloating as the baron sprawled helpless at his feet.

  Then he remembered something else which nearly made him drop the frond. This bearded brute hadn’t turned a hair when a mage-spawned lightning bolt had killed Captain Gefren, desperately fighting to save his lord. As Hosh and Corrain had lain unheeded in chains, they’d heard Minelas and this very corsair remind each other of the bargain they’d struck.

  The raider had killed Lord Halferan so that Minelas could steal his fiefdom. That debt would be repaid by the wizard granting the corsairs a safe haven on the Caladhrian coast. As long as the raiders shared their loot, his magecraft would keep them hidden from view.

  But the Aldabreshi detested wizardry. Corrain had always said so and everything Hosh had learned since only went to confirm that. Imais had once told him that even the humblest mageborn must be skinned alive, his hide nailed up on a doorpost. She couldn’t explain why but Hosh had seen enough cruelty to believe anything of the Aldabreshi.

  Hosh forced himself to count slow, measured strokes as he fanned Nifai. What would the overseer make of this knowledge, if Hosh chose to share it with him? What might Nifai win by way of reward if he told Grewa the truth? Would Hosh see the bearded raider killed, Lord Halferan finally avenged?

  Or did the blind corsair know that this galley master consorted with wizards? How swiftly would Nifai be killed, so the old man’s deceit wouldn’t be revealed? Would Nifai die quickly enough, before anyone thought to ask who had told him?

  If not, Hosh would be the next to die. Despair beat down on his head, as relentless as the hot sun.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Port Issbesk, Kisbeksar Province, in the Kingdom of Solura

  30th of Lytelar (S
oluran calendar)

  SO MUCH FOR getting home by Solstice. ‘It is midsummer day tomorrow, isn’t it?’ Corrain had tried to keep track, marking off each dawn with a notch on the galley’s prow post.

  Once again, Kusint was intent on one of the Aldabreshin compasses. He looked up, triumphant. ‘It is indeed.’ He held up the instrument. ‘See?’

  ‘You said those are valuable enough to sell?’ Corrain had no objection to Kusint indulging his fascination on their voyage but now they had reached Solura, they needed to turn the galley and its contents into sound coin.

  ‘Indeed.’ Kusint sounded regretful all the same, still absorbed in reading the device.

  ‘How far will we have to travel to find—’ Corrain checked himself, looking around the people idling outside this dockside tavern. ‘An ally?’

  These streets were thronged with more people than he had ever seen, even in Trebin or Ferl when Caladhria’s nobility gathered for the seasonal parliaments. It was a surprise, given everything he’d ever heard about Solura’s remote and scattered villages.

  This was a port to rival Relshaz, as Kusint had promised. Wagons and coaches rattled along, unloading at warehouses and inns. Many of those arriving would soon be embarking on the substantial ships moored at the broad stone quays where the river met the sea. Tall, many-masted vessels would carry goods and passengers further west along the Soluran coast to other ports where the realm’s great rivers carried water from the northern mountains down to the boundless sea.

  Meantime, everyone was revelling for the two days their king granted for Solstice celebrations. Songs, laughter and incomprehensible conversation bounced back and forth between the wooden-walled buildings as folk enjoyed the cool of the lingering twilight now that the day’s sultry heaviness had passed.

  Corrain couldn’t even read the letters that formed the angular writing above the shop fronts, never mind the words of the handbills pasted on the buildings’ walls.