“You’re getting too big for your boots, Prescot,” said Strom Erclan. I glanced down. I was, of course, barefoot. Erclan snarled at me. He managed his snarl as well as a leem. “Insolent cramph!”
I said, “I understood you wished to see me, Viridia. Do you allow a kleesh like this to mock your authority in your own cabin?”
Before Viridia could answer Erclan’s rapier hissed from the scabbard and he was around Viridia’s table at me. I drew, parried, twisted, and halted my blade at his throat. I glared into his eyes. Almost, almost but not quite, I lost control and thrust him through.
“Kleesh, I said, Strom. Do you die now?”
Viridia shouted: “Hold, you fool, Prescot. If you slay him you’ll never leave this cabin alive.”
Then I saw, through the aft bulkhead partition, the sudden movement and the shadow of a Womox grasping a bent bow, the arrow nocked and drawn back to the pile.
I whipped my blade away and struck Strom Erclan across the face, open-handed with my left, toppled him squalling into a corner where he put his face into a great bowl of some nauseous ointment Viridia used to iron out the wrinkles on her skin.
Viridia — she shocked me, then — Viridia laughed.
“Oh, Strom Erclan, you onker! Leave this wild man and me to talk a mur or two.”
Although the words bubbled through with laughter and Viridia clearly had abruptly snapped into a playful mood, Erclan was less than happy. Ointment smearing his face, he took himself off, glowering. Viridia lifted her left hand and the shadow of the bowman eased the bow and moved back out of sight.
“Don’t try to toy with me, Viridia,” I said. I remembered some of the vainglorious boasting the corsairs of the inner sea employed when promising King Zo what they would do to Magdag. “I’ve eaten bigger fish than that fool for breakfast, and spat out the bones. If he’s the best you can do, forget him. And that horned Womox of yours — I can get to him and spit him long before his addled brains add up what’s going on.”
She bit her lip. Had she been what she pretended to be she’d have snapped her fingers to her Womox bodyguard and made me prove my words. So I finished: “Anyway, Viridia, I’d as lief stick you through as a Womox.”
She rallied. She refused. She said, “I think I shall have you killed, at the end, Dray Prescot.”
“But, until then, you wanted to ask me something.”
“Not ask!” she flashed. “I ordered you to report to me so that I could tell you I want you to take command of the varters. Valka tells me you have some skill with them.”
I nodded. But I did not answer.
“Well, Dray Prescot?” She was surprised and not a little mortified. “Have you no word of thanks?”
“For what? For being given the thankless task of drumming varter drill into the blockheads of your crew?”
Her bosom rose and fell, but with the constriction I had noticed before, as though armor cased her.
“Take care, man! Viridia the Render is known through all the islands! My swordships take and burn and sink — we are feared wherever argenters sail-”
“Aye! And by ramming and boarding. I’ve seen your catapult and varter work. You’re hopeless. If I am to train your calsanys, then I demand absolute obedience. Any man who argues back will be knocked down instantly. Is that clear?”
About to reply she was interrupted by a Fristle messenger who put his head in at the door and squeaked rather than shouted his news, his whiskers quivering.
“Venus is alongside and she’s sinking!”
I give the name Venus to the swordship. I could not give her real name without causing offense. She was the ship in which, in company with a crew of oldsters and weird beings without interest in what they carried, the host of maidens of Viridia’s renders was carried. They were female pirates, true; but I had already seen how their talents were best exercised in the delicate business of extracting largesse from the shipping of the islands.
We all raced on deck and there was Venus already shipping water and the lithe agile forms of her girls leaping aboard Viridia’s flagship. I believe I have not given the name of Viridia’s personal swordship, the flagship of her little fleet of eight craft. Seven, now that poor old Venus was sinking. I know why I have not given it, for it displeased me. She had called her pirate craft Viridia Jikai. It made sense, of course; but I had been trained into a different school of thought where Jikai was concerned.
When all the pandemonium had subsided and Venus had sunk and Viridia started her court of inquiry, I was left to seek out Valka. He looked at me with a most ferocious grin, the while sharpening a nasty-looking boarding-pike.
I said, “You got me into giving drill to these calsanys. Hauling and winding and loosing varters, Valka. Well?”
He laughed and went on sharpening. “Certainly, Dray. I heard about you when they dumped you aboard the old Nemo.” He looked up, suddenly. “Anyway, it gets us out of the rowing benches, does it not, dom?”
Well, there was that to be said for it — indubitably.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The fight on the beach
During this period of my sojourn on Kregen many incidents occurred, but I feel that my purpose will best be served by pressing on. I am, I fondly believe, a man tolerant of other people until they prove themselves unworthy of trust; perhaps I am tolerant to a fault. But when a task has been put into my hands I am intolerant — decidedly and sometimes cruelly so — of every phase of the task until it is completed. I made those renders of the islands aboard the swordships sweat blood over the varters and the catapults. I have previously told you of my attitude to gunnery; discipline and absolute efficiency alone count. Eagerness and willingness to work are excellent; indeed I welcome them as bonuses; but a gang of calsanys, given my methods, will stand to their weapons whether varters or thirty-two pounders, and fight a ship.
And, as I know from experience, by the time I have finished with a crew, no matter how recalcitrant and unusable they were at the start, by the end they are as keen and eager and willing in all genuine fervor to excel, as the best volunteer crew afloat.
As it happened I was afforded not enough time to turn Viridia’s pack of sea-leems into gunners — if you will pardon the expression. We met one of the strange ships which sail up out of the southern oceans from whence no man knew, and fought her, and only a storm coming on saved us all from sinking. We ran with the gale and by the time we could shake a little more canvas out, the southerner had gone. I will talk more of these strange and terrible ships later.
The days floated by, and Valka and I hammered at the varter crews. We transferred from swordship to swordship, and when I rotated back to one I had given some instruction, and found the calsanys had forgotten it all, there were many bruised lips and black eyes. I was not popular. And yet, despite that, Valka told me that the men respected me, for they could understand my purpose.
“They know the risks involved in ramming and boarding. If you can force an argenter to surrender without their having to risk their hides, that will please them.”
Valka, indeed, was a tower of strength to me in those days.
It was mainly through his instigation that I picked up, one from here, another from there, a tight little crew of men and halflings who in addition to their expertise with varters and catapults showed — again according to Valka — respect and loyalty to me personally. I was aware of the dangers. I handled these men carefully. The idea, simple, of course, of welding them into a crew, of obtaining a ship and of sailing away, occurred to me without any deep cogitation.
The deep cogitation lay in where I would direct the course of the ship. Tomboram?
Vallia?
My duty to Tilda and Pando seemed to me to have been discharged.
I could, in all honor, sail for Vallia.
Valka, as a Vallian, would be invaluable.
I am a loner. I walk singly. And yet, I am constantly aware of this strange — power, attribute, thing? -
call it what y
ou will, this uncanny phenomenon I possess of attracting the utmost loyalty and devotion from men. It is passing strange. I do not seek it. Sometimes I am embarrassed by it. I notice that men look to me for leadership. Only can it be explained, in part, by the fact that I will never let a fellow down if it is humanly possible. Perhaps some of that personality trait is responsible. I do not know. But, there it is.
In tandem with this charisma there goes, I believe, its opposite. But you who listen to this narrative will already be aware of where that leads to. .
The dangers to which I alluded were simply that if Viridia or any of her lieutenants got wind of a knot of men devoted to me they would smell mutiny on the instant, and the steel would flicker red. So, in pursuance of plans, I must tread warily.
Despite all you may think of me as a hotheaded barbarian warrior who flings himself into action before thinking, this is not so. The first lieutenant of a seventy-four never stops thinking and planning, believe me. This habit of thinking ahead and, in the night watches, of planning how to react to every foreseeable disaster must have been the root cause of my decision not to attempt to seize the ship. She was surrounded by six of her consorts. Even if I captured Viridia and threatened to kill her unless we were given free passage, I had the hunch that the captains of the other swordships, Viridia’s lieutenants all, would still attack and let Viridia take her chances.
One fine morning we espied a sail on the eastern horizon and bore up in chase. The swordships did not sail well on any point; but, as Viridia observed, they sailed well enough for the renders’ purposes, and they could row at top speed when it mattered, which an argenter could not do. We gained on this chase with a rapidity which led me to believe her bottom must be fouler than most. The cut of her sails was strange to me. She bore away but ever and anon kept trying to edge to the west and so reach the islands. Valka came up beside me at the fore starboard varter platform and stared across the tumbling sea. The weather was fine and the smartish breeze cooled the air gratifyingly.
“What do you make of her, Valka?”
He looked surprised. I had given him very little of my history, as he had given me none of his; our friendship, fragile as it was, was based in its entirety on our mutual slavery at the oars and now our positions as varterists. That varterist I had shot from Dram Constant in his passing had, weirdly, left the way open for me now.
“You don’t recognize her, Dray?”
Incautiously, I said: “Should I? She has two masts, rigged square, and a bowsprit, and she looks a trifle unhandy. Her stern looks high but narrow. I fancy I’d redistribute the stepping of her masts had I the need to sail her any distance.”
“She is from Zenicce.”
“Oh,” I said, and could say no more.
Zenicce! That great enclave city of a million souls, threaded by canals and boulevards, where Delia and I had been slave, where Princess Natema lived, happily married now to Prince Varden! Where I had met Gloag, my comrade who, although not a man, was all the more human for that. Where I had slaved in the black marble quarries. And where now my own powerful enclave of Strombor no doubt wondered what had happened to their Lord. I hoped that Great-Aunt Shusha — who was not my great-aunt — ran Strombor in my stead, as was her right. Then I saw the colors of the banners. They flaunted there, purple and ocher, blazing in the streaming light of the twin Suns of Scorpio.
“Ponthieu,” I said. “She is of the House of Ponthieu.”
Well, Prince Pracek had led my Delia to the altar to wed her, although his plans had tumbled at that point Ponthieu was an enclave aligned with the foes of Strombor. So. . Valka said, “Now how can you tell that, Dray? You must have visited Zenicce, to know the colors of the houses-”
“Not so, Valka. Any sea-leem knows the colors of his victims.”
“True. Still, it is passing strange. All the Zeniccean colors are alike to me.”
So Valka had not heard of me all he might that night I had been dumped down into the slave benches of the old Nemo.
We took her without trouble. I must give her name, for it was, having regard to her speed, ludicrous on two counts. Her name was Splash Zorca.
She was clinker-built. Swifters and swordships and argenters were all carvel-built. This made me ponder.
That same day we made the island of Careless Repose where lay our renders’ nest. We had made a good cruise and the men were in the mood for relaxation. Viridia wanted to negotiate with another pirate captain for a new swordship to replace the ill-fated Venus. From this island with its entrance hidden by a small and unsuspected vegetation-clothed islet and with its beach of white sand and its village of comfortable houses we would sally forth on our roving raids against the sea commerce of the area. So far, no King’s Swordship had discovered the anchorage.
The pirates, like any good Kregan given half a chance, started in carousing. I went for a stroll along the white sand of the beach by the light of She of the Veils, brooding to myself. As was my custom I wore my scarlet breechclout and my weapons slung about me. In the warm weather of these latitudes that was ample clothing, even at night. By the pinkish light of the moons — for a lesser moon hurtled past above — I walked on with bent head, pondering.
Strom Erclan almost caught me.
He leaped on me from a boulder beside the vegetation’s edge and I saw the wicked flash of his dagger. I got his wrist in my fist and jerked him back; but he kicked me low down and sprang away, ripping out his rapier as he saw he would have to fight me for real.
I drew.
“You stinking cramph!” This Strom was reputed good with a rapier and main-gauche. I had seen him in action when we boarded and he showed no fear. I put myself in a position for fighting and waited, for I had no wish to kill him — then. “You mildewed rast! You lump of offal!” He went on shouting for a space, hoping, no doubt, to enrage me.
After a bit, I said, “Kleesh. Walk away quietly, or you are a dead man.”
Whether his breeding goaded him into madness, then, whether he was simply mad clear through with jealousy, matters little. He threw himself on me, his blades whirling and thrusting in a positive flurry of action and a fury of venom. I parried, caught him, twisted; but he eluded that one, having been caught once before. A swordsman need only see a fighting trick once to know it again. If he doesn’t, he is dead, of course.
Our blades crossed and slithered with that teeth-vibrating screech of metal. He leaped, I forced him back, I thrust, he took my blade on his dagger and held and thrust for me to take his blade on my dagger in turn. For a space the four slivers of steel slanted up in the pink moonglow, evil and slick and lethal, smooth and unbloodied.
Then, quick as a striking leem, he withdrew his dagger and thrust low. I swayed sideways, recovered and once more we fell into our fighting stances.
He was good. There was no doubt of that. I thought of Galna, whom I had fought in that corridor in what was now my own palace of Strombor; yes, it is all a long time ago, now; but I can still feel the jar of steel on steel and I can hear yet again the ring of blades as they met and crossed. Then he essayed a complicated passage, and I took him, and in the pink wash of moonlight from She of the Veils, Strom Erclan slumped with my rapier through his heart.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I give an opinion at Careless Repose
Raucous shouts and good-humored arguments broke the stillness of the night as the renders of the islands caroused in the wooden houses of the pirates’ lair.
In the fringe of the vegetation back along the beach lay the skewered body of Strom Erclan. Very soon the creeping crawling denizens of those woods would convert his body to bones and then these, too, would rot away until all that remained to show a man had existed would be the memory other men might carry in their minds.
I knew no one would mourn Strom Erclan for very long.
In the wooden barn-like house where most of the higher ranks in Viridia’s confidence were carousing, the atmosphere billowed thick with the fumes of wines culled from
the freight holds of a hundred ships. Heaping platters of food loaded the heavily-timbered tables. Disheveled wenches darted in and out avoiding clutching hands in giggles or shrieks or abuse, each according to her nature. Food appeared on the tables in bounteous abundance, and disappeared down gullets with fascinating speed. The wine that was drunk! Men would suddenly screech and leap up and dance a wild jig, or leap head-over-heels across the floor, or two would fall into a deadly dagger fight that ended with one coughing his guts out bloodily across the floor, the other ready to face the render court of inquiry. Other half-men half-beasts drank and caroused in their own ways, and all were equal here, under the captains. To this select company Viridia had bidden me, Dray Prescot.
As I approached where she sat at the head of a long table, quaffing her wine and roaring like any jack-booted man of the sea, I noticed Valka sitting at the lower end of the table, his nose in a blackjack. He looked up as I passed, and winked. Shades of Inch, I said to myself, and planted my feet down on a clear space among the litter of bones and discarded meats on the floor. One blessing there was in all that pandemonium and guzzling and drinking and wenching, one evil we were spared; the only smoke in the room came wafting in from the glowing cook fires or rose from the succulent dishes covering the tables.
“Dray Prescot!” shouted Viridia, lolling back. Her blue eyes were not clouded with wine and I saw in their depths a deep and shrewd intelligence; yet her body lolled and her head jerked and she laughed shrilly, as though she were drunk. Near her a Chulik captain sat, a mass of gold lace and crimson silk, his tusks gleaming and — a fashion I had noticed before — tipped with gold. He was plying Viridia with wine. She laughed and drained the cup, and thrust it forward for replenishment. In general Chuliks can be trained into seamen; of the halflings the Hobolings are unquestionably the finest top-men in the business, and I wouldn’t give berth space to a Fristle, be wary of an Och, and detesting Rapas as I then did, would haul up the gangplank before letting one aboard my command. I knew that the Relts, those more gentle cousins of the Rapas, went to sea as supercargoes and clerks, but I doubted even them.
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