by Glenda Larke
Sorrel winced, remembering the screams of men when a galleon had burned in Kotabanta harbour. Saker said nothing. Cranald and Mate Finch exchanged looks. Forrest, at the helm, waited for instructions as Golden Petrel continued on its way up the estuary.
“Va, but you bilge rats have a lot to say without even opening your mouths,” Juster growled. “Do you think I like the idea of blowing another ship – and all its company – to smithereens? I served under the man who later went on to captain that vessel over there, and who probably still does. You remember Orrin Parkett, Finch? Distant relative of the Earl of Yarrow.”
“Aye. A good sailor, a fair officer. A poor provider as a sire, though, as I remember.”
“That’s because he had to support so many small fry. Sailors used to say he had a family in every port up and down the coast.”
Ardhi called down from the crow’s nest just then, to say signal flags were being raised on the sloop. A moment later, a cannon on the deck of Dragonfly boomed, and Sorrel jumped.
“Only a signal cannon,” Juster said, “to get us to look at whatever the message is. Nothing to worry about.” But as the distant line of flags unfurled to flap in the breeze, his face tightened in a way which did not bode well for Dragonfly and its captain.
“What do they say?” Saker asked.
Juster grimly snapped out the order to heave to. “They’re ordering me to pay Dragonfly a visit. Arrogant lubbers. And damn King Edwayn to a Va-less hell for putting us in this position.”
No one said anything in answer to that.
“Launch the pinnace when we’re ready, Cranald,” Juster said. “Saker, if I wrote a message for Prince Ryce, could you get that bird of yours inside the holdfast with it?”
Inwardly, he shuddered. “No. If they see a bird of prey coming down to land on their walls, they’ll loose an arrow at it. Especially if they’re starving.” He was by no means certain what would happen to him if the eagle died while the two of them were twinned.
Juster frowned and conceded the point. “All right then, keep it up high in the sky and see what else you can find out from what it sees. Finch, you’re in command of the vessel. Grig, you come with me. We’re going over to that sloop to see what we can do to put a hole in the hull of the captain’s intentions.”
As they watched Lord Juster being ferried over to Dragonfly, Saker said to Sorrel, “I’m going to lie down in the captain’s cabin.” She nodded, her face grave.
He glanced at her. “You don’t much like it when I do this, do you?”
“I hate it.” The venom in her tone surprised him.
“That much?”
“Saker, linking to a bird to the extent of twinning with it – I can’t believe it’s a good idea. You’re crossing a boundary. It’s an unnatural kind of magic that doesn’t belong in the Va-cherished Hemisphere.”
It was the first time she had voiced such a strong dislike of his connection to the eagle. “This link has saved us several times already. Would you have me reject it?”
He saw a tear at the corner of her eye as she looked away. “I’m not sure you could. In fact, I’m not sure about anything any more. How did we become so important to half a world?”
The anguish in her voice tore at him. When she turned back to look at him, he read misery in her gaze. “I just want this to be over,” she said. “I want it to end. I want to be with Piper again. And… and I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.”
“Trust in Va. All will be well—”
“Don’t you dare offer me religious platitudes when you don’t even believe them yourself!”
He stared at her, shocked.
“Don’t look at me like that! I know you too well, Saker. Your Shenat beliefs may be strong and true, but you don’t think Va answers prayers.” She gave a small laugh. “That’s our problem, isn’t it? We know too much about each other, you and I.” She sighed. “Off you go. I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.”
“Welcome aboard Dragonfly, my lord,” Captain Parkett said. “I’m glad to see you again after all these years.”
“Captain.” Juster inclined his head in acknowledgement. “A lot of water has passed under the keel since we last met. You’re looking well.” It was a lie; Orrin Parkett had lost a lot of weight, to the point of gauntness. His hair had receded until he was almost bald, his beard was sparse, and his fingers were so swollen at the joints that they had twisted this way and that like broken twigs.
“This is my second mate, Grig Cranald,” he added, by way of introduction.
“Perhaps you would like to stay on deck, Master Mate,” Parkett said, “while I show your captain below.”
Grig bowed, and Juster followed Parkett, confident that Grig would do his best to find out as much as he could above decks.
Below, the ship was cramped and dark, smelling of gunpowder, rancid oil and the mustiness of cockroaches. Remembering his own apprenticeship on a similar dank vessel, Juster had to stop himself from shuddering.
“A fine looking man, your mate,” Parkett said. “Been sailing with you a while, has he?”
“Long enough. He has many skills.” Knowing the remark had been barbed with innuendo, he added a barb of his own. “And may one enquire after your family? All those children of yours doing well?”
“Damning me to beggary with their needs, the little squeakers. Make yourself comfortable. Brandy?”
“That would be very welcome.” He accepted the drink, served in a battered regulation naval mug, and just managed to stop himself from pulling a face as he took the first sip. “And now that we have the pleasantries out of the way, can we perhaps get down to business? What possible reason could one of His Majesty’s sloops have for halting my passage to Twite?”
“Come now. I’m sure you know the situation at Gromwell Holdfast. My orders are to prevent Prince Ryce and his misguided henchmen and vassals from having contact with anyone. In particular, to prevent supplies being brought to the holdfast by sea.”
“Ah, yes, I do believe I heard something about Prince Ryce refusing to give up his son to the custody of the king. I could say that none of that is my concern. I am merely sailing past to Twite.”
“And I would guffaw. One of the prince’s stalwarts, yet you intend passing by to Twite?”
“Are you accusing me of lying, captain?” He smiled in a friendly fashion.
“Va forbid! But mayhap… trying to flimflam me.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know whether you are aware, but I have been to the Spicerie in the Summer Seas and have only just returned with my Petrel and two Lowmian prize ships. All with their holds stuffed to the seams with nutmeg and mace, cinnamon, cloves, pepper and cardamom. A veritable treasure, in fact, considering the price of spices at the moment. Most of it is already sold, but I kept back a selection for my… friends.”
“How exceptional for you. And your friends, of course.”
“Let us return to the question of this siege. I must say, captain, I do admire your extraordinary bravery.”
“You mock me, my lord? Unworthy of you. I follow the orders of my liege, and it is not meet that you should deride me for it.”
“Indeed, sir, that was not my intention. It is merely that when you obey the dictates of a sick old man who may die any moment, thereby annoying intensely his appointed heir, well, I cannot help but admire your courage.”
“The king’s acknowledged heir is his grandson Prince Garred.”
“Come now, captain! Surely you have been told how ill King Edwayn is! Why, I saw him but two sennights ago, in Throssel. He was frail in body and, alas, frail in mind. It grieved me to see him thus.” He heaved a theatrical sigh. “If Edwayn passes into the keeping of Va’s afterlife soon, Prince Garred will not even have reached his third birthday. I find it hard to contemplate that men of power – the nobility, the clergy, the merchants – will countenance a boy less than three years old on the throne, when he has a hale and princely father. Such a situation would be fraught with op
portunity for the unscrupulous.”
Orrin looked worried, but said nothing.
“For that reason,” Juster continued, “when King Edwayn dies, thinking men and women will support Prince Ryce’s claim because they want stable governance. Prince Ryce will be king. Where would that leave you? I do not think your position will be enviable then, Orrin. Your loyalty to Edwayn is to be commended, but I tend to think it is unwise.”
Orrin Parkett sat very still, his brandy untouched. “What choice do I have? I am one of His Majesty’s naval commanders, and I do his bidding. I cannot promote treason.”
“I rather think that, when he comes to the throne, Prince Ryce will consider your actions here now as treasonous to him. Prince Ryce is young and his reign will be long. Your career will soon be over and the new king could cancel your pension.”
There was a long silence.
Finally, Parkett asked, “What would you do if you walked this deck?”
“There is one way I can see for you to wriggle out of this,” he replied, swirling the atrocious brandy in his mug. “Resign your commission now and make your last order to your crew to sail to Twite to put you ashore. Disappear for a while until Prince Ryce gains his throne and you can claim your pension.”
“And what would I live on in the meanwhile?”
He tilted his head thoughtfully. “I might have an answer to your problem.” He dug the fingers of his right hand into his waistcoat fob pocket and withdrew a little packet of spices. “Smell those, Orrin.” He dropped it into Parkett’s palm.
Orrin raised it to his nostrils and inhaled.
When he went to hand it back, Juster waved it away. “No, no, it’s yours! Keep it. I could deliver enough spices to you today that would keep your crew and yourself living in comfort for several years.”
There was another long silence.
“And what would I have to do to earn such bounty?” Orrin asked finally, and Juster knew the man was hooked.
“For a start you would have to be wise. Wise enough to accept my offer and to sail up to Twite. Because otherwise Golden Petrel blasts you out of the water, and of course you might well drown. Or end up looking like a skinned and headless carcass in a butcher’s shop.”
“Right now, may I remind you, you are on my ship and in my power, Lord Juster.”
“True, but my ship is out of range of your cannon, whereas your ship is well within the range of mine – and I have this.” He flicked back his coat and pulled out the pistol that had been thrust into his belt. “Have you seen one of these new-fangled wheel-locks before? I bought this one in Javenka. Truly, Pashali gunsmiths are remarkable artisans. Isn’t it beautiful, and so small! I loaded and primed it before I left my ship. All I have to do is to rotate the cock like this –” he demonstrated what he meant “– and that releases the safety catch. If I were to pull the trigger…”
He looked over the top of the pistol he was now pointing at Parkett and smiled. “Very effective.”
“You are threatening me, Lord Juster? Do you think you’d get off this ship alive, if you were to harm me?”
“Probably not. But my objective right now is more to stop the siege.” He shrugged. “If I die doing it, I’ll look on that as a worthwhile demise. If I don’t leave Dragonfly safely in the pinnace in the next few minutes, my crew have their orders to blow you out of the water. We could have done that anyway, but, well, given that I once served under you…”
Parkett said nothing.
“I think I will leave the ship now and I suspect you will let me. You could blast my pinnace to pieces as I sailed back to my ship, or you can send your own boat across after me to pick up the spices I promised, and then you could sail away. We will be watching. When Prince Ryce is king, I will personally see to it that your pension is paid as well. Now doesn’t that sound like a pleasant retirement?”
20
The Biting Gadfly
“I know something that might help,” said the nameless bearded man. He was sitting next to Perie, at the table in the kitchen of Proctor House, but it was Gerelda he addressed.
She cocked her head, ready to listen. They had been discussing plans and suggesting ways to disguise themselves for over an hour, as often as not discarding an idea as impractical or too dangerous. She was inclined to trust the fellow, although apparently even he could not be certain of his own loyalties.
Fiddle-me-witless, I’m not usually this accepting after a mere day’s acquaintance. It was muckle-headed, but she liked the man.
“Sailors firing off the cannons say the noise on a gundeck blisters their eardrums,” he said, “so they make themselves a pair o’ plugs. Softened candle wax, bunged in the earhole. If a man can’t hear, then he can’t be coerced. Right?”
She brightened. “Wax, that’s an idea. Sometimes you remember the darnedest things, Sir Nameless. I doubt wax would stop Valerian, but his sons? Worth a try.”
“Be plenty of candles here, Mister,” Perie said. He pulled a face. “I can’t call you Mister all the time! Not if we’re comrades.”
“He’s right. We have to think of a name for you,” she said.
Perie grinned. “We get to choose?” From the mischievous look on his face, he was about to suggest something inappropriate, and a pang of guilt racked her. He was still so young, and he so seldom had fun, or even smiled. Sweet Va, what have we done to this lad?
“You don’t get to choose,” she said, tapping him on the wrist. “Sir Nameless chooses.”
The man thought for a moment and then said, “Gadfly.”
“Why that?” Perie asked.
“Because gadflies are obnoxious biting bastards that annoy every man and his horse into apoplexy. And I feel like being a gadfly to them Grey Lancers. Fact is, I’m fobbing angry with something. Or someone. Or maybe the whole world, if only I knew why.”
“I hope you’re not going to bite us,” Perie said.
“I’ll settle for tormenting sorcerers instead. This fellow you’ve been after, he can be the first.”
“You carry the black smudge on you,” Perie warned. “The one that tells sorcerers to know you for an enemy.”
Blistering grubbery, she thought. How are we ever going to get out of this city alive, let alone rescue a woman and child who might possibly be the future of this land? Her next stray thought was that Ardrone might be better off without a king.
Oh, fiddle. I’m becoming a revolutionary like the Primordials. She tried to imagine lawyers doing a better job of governing, and failed. She laughed inwardly, sure that writ-wrights would be a barrow-load more unpopular than even nobles, and went to find a quiet spot to decipher the Pontifect’s letter. She had already perused it, but reading a page of crossed lines was never easy, and this one was written in code as well, so she needed to ensure she’d understood it properly. In the end, Peregrine came looking for her, and found her sitting on the servants’ stairs in the dark.
“I’m pondering,” she explained. “The letter was from the Pontifect.”
“Reckon you don’t like what was in it, then.”
“She asks us to kill any Vavala sorcerer sons here, and then stay on. She needs us to find out as much as we can about Princess Bealina and her son.”
“So that really be the princess who Gadfly saw?”
“Probably. Fritillary was here a day or two back. We just missed her. She wants us to wait for her return.” She crumpled up the letter and began to walk downstairs to the common room so she could throw it in the fire. She wasn’t about to leave it lying around, code or no code.
“Delivery from the Pontifect,” Perie said to the maid who answered the door to the servants’ quarters. He offered her the small sack he held, raising it in front of his face so she couldn’t see him properly. The sack contained nothing more than unshelled and mouldy walnuts bought cheaply in the local street market, but she wasn’t to know that.
“For a, um, Master Endor Fox,” he added. They’d asked around until they discovered the name of t
he man they had been following.
As a delivery boy, he’d used the area steps down to the servants’ quarters of the sorcerer’s house, and he was hopeful that no one in the street above would notice him – or see Gadfly and Gerelda where they waited pressed to the house wall out of the maid’s line of sight. They had their hair tucked up under knitted caps and their faces muffled in unseasonably warm scarves. Both of them had wax stuffed into their ears.
He took a pace forward towards the maid, stepping up on to the doorstep. Surprised, she backed away, and when he thrust the sack towards her, she took it in self-defence, clutching it to her chest. All he noticed about her was that she was scrawny, no older than he was, with rough, red hands and grease-spattered clothing.
He leaned against the inward-opening door so she could not close it.
She glared at him around the side of the sack. “Very well. I shall see he gets it.” Pointedly she grabbed the door edge with one hand and jerked it to dislodge him.
He didn’t move, but Gadfly and Gerelda did. They barged into the house, brushing past him and the maid, to plunge down the passage towards the kitchen. The maid squealed and tried to stop them, but what with juggling the sack and trying to close the door on Perie, she failed even to slow them down.
They left her yelling after them. “Wait! You can’t go in there! Git outta it. Master Corncrake! Help!”
Perie closed the door, and tapped her on the arm. “Do be quiet. Naught will hurt you, if you do what we tell you.”
Her mouth dropped open.
Loathing himself for being the cause of the fear in her eyes, he tried to smile at her, but that only made things worse. She scudded away from him, running after Gadfly and Gerelda, squealing. He pulled his own muffler up over his face.
