by Roland Green
In that fashion the ship rode out the rest of the storm, with no more rigging lost and no more leaking than manning the pumps every other hour could handle. The raft even made a second trip, bringing jugs of hot tea (as Pirvan had hoped, laced with brandy) and porridge loaded with raisins and salt pork.
The food was even more welcome than hot drinks; Haimya and Pirvan both awoke ready to slaughter and cook one of their comrades on the rock. By the time the pots were empty, the wind was dropping so fast that even Pirvan could notice it. Soon afterward, the flag signal for everyone to return aboard rose on the stump of the foremast.
“I wager we’ll be upanchoring and heading for Karthay the moment they’ve rigged a foremast,” Grimsoar said. He pointed at a crowd on the forecastle. “They’ve got a spare bowsprit already out, ready to be lashed in place.”
Pirvan’s curiosity about the whys and wherefores of this operation was not easily answered. Grimsoar was explaining a process that he understood tolerably well (two years at sea teaches a man much about the sailor’s arts), but his listener not at all.
About Tarothin and the naga, Grimsoar was able to offer more to satisfy Pirvan’s curiosity. At least he was, after he’d led the smaller man farther up the rock and out of earshot of both the wakeful Haimya and the other sailors preparing to cast off the lines.
“What he said he did-and all this was to the lady, and I was overhearing-”
“Without being seen?”
“Am I invisible?”
Pirvan smiled. “You will be, if you’ve offended either of them. I will push you off the rocks.”
“You and which regiment?”
“So what did Tarothin say?”
It seemed that he had used a single spell, potent and thoroughly neutral, to reverse the paralysis of Haimya and Pirvan and inflict the same on the naga. It would not die unless something large and hungry came along before it regained its senses enough to flee.
Meanwhile, it was sending out cries of distress, inaudible to human or most other ears, but painful to its fellow water nagas. Any such who heard the cry would flee the area of the Flower Rocks as if the sea had begun to boil.
“Nagas have a place in the gods’ balancing of things,” Grimsoar said. “Or at least that’s what neutrality makes our friend believe.”
“I don’t dispute that,” Pirvan said. “As long as that place is some ways from where I am.”
“He said that, too,” Grimsoar replied. “Just before he fell to the deck.”
“He is-”
“Sleeping it off, I judge. So does the ship’s herbalist and the merchant princess, who know a deal more of this than I do. I reckon casting the spells left him in worse shape than you or Haimya.”
There was a bright side to that, Pirvan realized. Tarothin would be some while recovering his strength. During that time he could hardly teach Eskaia much about magic. He had won the goodwill of Golden Cup’s crew, but if he had the plans Haimya had mentioned, he might lose that of Josclyn Encuintras. What might come of that looked no more encouraging now than the first time Pirvan had heard of the games of the lady and the wizard.
With no fitting reply ready to hand, Pirvan scrambled down the rocks to join the raft party.
* * * * *
A slow voyage from the Flower Rocks (if one was unfortunate enough to enter those waters at all) was normally three to four days. Golden Cup took seven and the better part of the eighth.
It was sailing through contrary winds, with two and a half masts, rigging that was more knots and splices than rope, and sails that looked like garments a beggar would have scorned. The hull was strained, the leaks seemed to be gaining, and between repairs, pumping, and the ordinary duties of a large ship at sea, the crew got little rest and less sleep.
The one consolation was generous rations. No one could doubt they were going to have to put in at Karthay, to repair and replenish. Stores that had been intended for the whole voyage to the Crater Gulf and back were now distributed at every meal, and often at other times and less formally as well. (“It would only spoil if we don’t finish it off,” Grimsoar said one night, speaking of a large jar of pickled and spiced vegetables.)
The generous diet helped bring back the strength of the hurt and the weary, Tarothin among them. When he walked the deck now to take the air, men who had crossed to the other side now crowded around him, asking his advice or simply kneeling in thanks before him.
He was polite about the counsel but, to Pirvan’s eye, seemed sorely tried by the worship. The thief wondered if it was genuine modesty (something not unheard of in wizards, but rare) or merely the good sense to realize that adulation could turn into blazing hostility the moment he disappointed one of his worshipers.
There was also little enough that Pirvan could do if Tarothin was wanting in judgment. Readily taking the advice of commonfolk was almost unheard of, even in the most moderate of magic-workers.
There was even less he could do about Haimya’s moodiness, which disturbed him rather more than anything that could have come to Tarothin. The guard-maid kept her distance even more than she had before the storm, and not only from Pirvan. Any man who approached her, even to thank her for saving him, met a glare and sometimes words that nailed his feet to the deck and his tongue to the roof of his mouth.
Pirvan’s only consolation was that no one thought he and Haimya were lovers, and he was not, therefore, in any measure responsible for her mood. As to learning what kept her so uneasy, he could as well have learned the landscape of the Abyss. It would not have been harder, and it might have been less perilous.
Before he forced himself to feign indifference to Haimya’s mood (from which she suffered as much as anyone, he could not help noticing), Pirvan had seriously contemplated asking Lady Eskaia. But the contemplation was brief and ended in silence. The mistress was as protective of her maid’s secrets as the maid was of hers; Pirvan would be on the shore in Karthay when the ship sailed if he even hinted at such a breach of confidence.
Thus matters stood, when on the eighth day, toward sunset, Golden Cup crept into the west harbor of Karthay.
* * * * *
Like the greater part of Ansalon, Karthay, city and surrounding lands alike, owed nominal allegiance to Istar the Mighty. Like more than a few of the more notable lands, states, and powers, the word “nominal” spoke louder and more truly than the word “allegiance.”
It was a rebellion or at least a manifesto of pinpricks, rather than any overt acts of defiance. But there was a long history of fraudulent money changings, shoddy merchandise (though not where it would endanger life, merely digestion, marriage, chastity, or profit), and suspiciously well-timed tavern brawls.
“One of these days,” Kurulus confided to Pirvan, “Istar’s going to pull together a decent fleet of her own. Then we’ll sit across the mouth of the gulf, get our own ships in and out, and lock up Karthay’s like a lot of temple virgins.”
“Um,” Pirvan said, or something like it. This was the third day in Karthay, and apart from two visits from port officials, they’d had no contact with the shore. The harbor seemed as busy as he’d been promised it would be, even more colorful than Istar’s with a good strength of sea barbarian ships, but not at all welcoming.
They hadn’t even been allowed to refill their water casks, and that threatened to become serious. A number of casks in the bottom tiers had sprung leaks or been ruined by sea water. Golden Cup had to not only replenish the sound casks but repair the damaged ones before it was fit for the open ocean. The prospect of dying of thirst two miles from Karthay’s bustling waterfront would have been ludicrous had it been less real.
Indeed, the prospect of anything unpleasant seemed absurd on a day like this, when they were snug in harbor after their ordeal in the storm. The sky was a patchwork of shimmering blue and fleecy white, a light breeze cooled the skin and filled the sails of small craft, and the white walls of the port fortresses and warehouses blazed brighter than the foam on the waves. (Farther
north than Istar, Karthay was hotter and mostly whitewashed its buildings to repel the heat.)
But dark undercurrents flowed beneath the still more splendid facade of Istar the Mighty. Pirvan knew that well-and like any wise thief, knew that no one man’s knowledge reached far. Doubtless the same flowed in Karthay-but here he was as ignorant as a newborn babe.
He could only wait, swallowing his frustration, until either Golden Cup’s folk were allowed ashore or the Karthayan axe fell.
The Karthayan axe fell two days later, after a water barge met the ship’s most urgent need. The hammering of carpenters at work repairing or replacing the water casks crept even into the captain’s cabin, as the Mate of the Hold (who acted as the captain’s deputy in matters of business) explained the situation.
“Thirteen thousand castles!” Lady Eskaia exclaimed.
“To be precise, twelve thousand, eight hundred eighty four, seven towers, nine staves,” the mate said. “This is exclusive of the cost of ship repairs.”
“Be quiet,” the captain said.
“No,” Eskaia said. “I want to hear the worst.”
“You already have,” the mate said. “There’s the consolation that we won’t have to pay for the repairs until after we’ve paid for the rest. They won’t allow us anywhere near the dockyards until-”
The captain muttered something rude, loudly enough for everyone to hear, not so loudly that anyone had to take notice. Eskaia’s face hardened. Pirvan risked a quick look at Haimya.
The guard-maid seemed to be trying to do the same as Pirvan-imitate a statue, with neither power of movement nor any senses. The captain had not been happy about Eskaia bringing her guards to this private conference. If they called themselves to the captain’s notice, they would find themselves out the door even at the price of a quarrel between Eskaia and the captain.
They had always agreed on the importance of avoiding that. Even though Haimya was still marching in silence across her private battlefield, she seemed to believe that still.
“Captain, the gold is there,” Eskaia said. “Even to pay Karthayan prices for repairing Istarian ships. But it is the principle of the matter, not the price. They seek to shame Istar through shaming one of the great merchant houses.
“Allow them to do this, and who knows what they will try next? It would be a sorry day for both cities, if Istar must subdue Karthay and garrison its lands, citadels, and ports.”
“Also a costly one,” the mate of the hold muttered. “The taxes we’d have to pay-”
This time the captain imposed silence with no more than a rude gesture of his left hand.
“Very well, my lady,” he said. “This voyage is your conception. I but serve to execute it. If you will suffer no harm through a few days’ waiting, neither will I or my men. Perhaps the Karthay ans will relent.”
“Perhaps sea trolls will become priests of Paladine, too,” Eskaia said. “I was thinking more of finding ways to repair Golden Cup for the remainder of the voyage without Karthayan help.”
“You ask much of me and my crew-”
Eskaia held up a small hand, which now showed a few calluses of its own. “Only patience. Not facing needless danger. Patience-oh, and any knowledge of Karthayans who may not honor their rulers’ writs in such matters.”
“Such wouldn’t come for’ard without a pledge of secrecy,” the mate said. “No sailor likes to be shipbound in a port like Karthay, for fear of a flogging or a work camp.”
“No one will be leaving the ship before this matter is settled anyway,” Eskaia said. She looked at the captain, and he nodded reluctantly. “So no one’s secrets will reach Karthayan ears except by treachery, and I judge the sailors can deal with that themselves.”
The two mates exchanged looks which Pirvan had no trouble translating: If the traitor’s friends don’t do the job, we will.
Chapter 9
Night over the West Port-a cloudy night, moon and stars alike invisible, and the air so still and heavy that Pirvan feared another storm. And Golden Cup without so much as a spare anchor-although the mates had improvised one, from old barrels filled with stone ballast and strapped with scraps of iron, rope, and leather.
Forward, the blacksmith’s forge glowed and his hammer rang as he worked on more fittings bent or twisted by the force of the storm. Pirvan turned to look at the more distant, silent lights of the shore, as a familiar, massive shape loomed out of the darkness beside him.
“Come with me, Brother,” Grimsoar said.
“I’m allowed here.”
“I’m not, save on duty.”
“Isn’t this duty?”
“Some folk wouldn’t call it such. Not if they heard what I want to say.”
“If they’re not going to hear it, is it important?”
“What’s your itch, Brother? Haimya?”
Pirvan sighed. “She’s eating herself alive from within over that broken rope. Does she want to die in the next fight?”
Grimsoar shrugged. “I’ve seen both men and women with that itch. But I don’t think it’s Haimya’s problem.”
“Then perhaps you should tell me what you think it is, instead of offering riddles.”
“Remember, you asked.”
“Remember, Brother, I also have a short temper.”
“So be it. She’s betrothed to one man, a gentleman who may have turned pirate. She’s falling in love with another, a thief who’s turned honorable comrade.”
Pirvan could never afterward recall how long he was silent. Finally Grimsoar laughed softly.
“If you let your jaw drop like that again, you’ll punch a hole in the deck right over Haimya’s cabin. That might douse her affection for you, the next time we take green water-”
Pirvan mimed thrusting a dagger into Grimsoar’s ribs. “If I go with you and listen, will you be silent on the matter of Haimya?”
“Unless I see you making a fool of yourself, yes.”
This promise did not much console Pirvan. He remembered that Grimsoar One-Eye often had a rather broad definition of “fool.”
* * * * *
Outside Synsaga’s hut, a moderate Crater Gulf rain was falling. That was to say, it looked like a heavy rain in more civilized parts of Ansalon, instead of a waterfall.
Gerik Ginfrayson resolved that if he ever attained servants here, he would have one to do nothing but dry, scrape, and oil his possessions. Otherwise the moist heat would eat them like ogres in a pigsty, and a man could be unarmed and in rags between one voyage and the next.
“You’ve been asked for by name, for hard but important work,” Synsaga said.
Ginfrayson returned his attention to his chief. The pirate was as dark as most sea barbarians, but shorter, and with a black beard so splendid that it seemed to have leeched all vitality from his scalp, which was entirely bald. The beeswax candle in a polished coral holder (the one loot, the other made in the camp) set amber light dancing across Synsaga’s bare skull.
“May I inquire who asked me?”
That awkward phrasing killed deader than Vinas Solamnus any hope of concealing his unease. But a summons to Synsaga at this hour of the night usually meant something worth being uneasy about. Men had been known to disappear after such meetings, if they were lucky; if they were not, they left the camp chained in a slave gang.
“You may. I do not promise to answer.”
“Is it honorable work?”
“By the customs of our band, yes. Do you presume to put forward any other customs as binding you? That violates your oath, and you know the punishment for oath breaking.”
It was neither a quick death nor slavery, but beyond that there were many variations, depending on the offense, the offender, and Synsaga’s mood at the time he handed down the punishment. From the chief’s language, Ginfrayson decided to err on the side of caution.
“I make no such presumption. If it is honorable work by our customs, then it shall be done. But if it is honorable, my honor demands that it be done well. The m
ore I know, the better my work.”
“You will learn soon enough.” The pirate chief leaned back in his chair. It creaked under his weight, which it had not done a year ago. Good living was taking its toll of Synsaga.
“Swear to silence, even in your prayers, and I will tell you,” the chief added.
Gerik swore a rolling oath on Synsaga’s belaying pin, the man’s favorite weapon. Then he waited.
“You will be working under Fustiar,” the chief said, after an uneasily long silence. “Do not ask how,” he added, “for I do not know myself.”
The unwisdom of asking about Fustiar’s right to keep secrets from his chief was evident. Gerik merely put his fist to his heart. “I will serve him as I have served you.”
“I am glad.” Synsaga seemed genuinely relieved. “I can tell you that your being Istarian, with knowledge of its great houses-that spoke in your favor.”
Gerik frowned. This threatened to become embarrassing, to say the least. “My mother served as nurse and attendant to Lady Eskaia of House Encuintras until her death. I never served the house myself. Their bounty to me was sending me into the fleet.”
Synsaga looked bemused. “Surely your mother must have spoken of her service in your presence?”
“Never.”
“You speak the truth?”
“I do. I will swear to it, and also that she took a potent oath of secrecy, perhaps strengthened by magic.”
Synsaga made a fly-shooing gesture, as if such details annoyed him. “Why did you not mention this before?”
“No one asked me. My oath was to answer all questions truthfully, not to tell everything I knew or thought with no regard for the honor of others or the needs of our band.”
“You have the soul of a counselor at law.”
“Are you sure that is so different from a pirate’s?” Gerik dared to ask.
Synsaga barked laughter. “Well spoken. But further questions may come your way, and they had best be answered fully and truthfully. Fustiar has been known to punish those who disappointed him without speaking to me first, or indeed at all.”
