“I set the szi nêre on the anchors and locked the helmsman in the aft cabin. The sailors are in the hold, anxious to a man. Halmar is outside your door. He won’t leave you. We’ve barely time to sort this before we set sail again on the morrow.” She gulped more ale and slammed the cup down. “Draken, damn you, what were you thinking?”
Thinking? He’d been identified, attacked, choked, and nearly tossed over the rail into the sea. Even Bruche had made an appearance … if he hadn’t imagined it out of the drink. There’d been no time to think. “I—”
“Didn’t. Obviously.”
“Aarin—”
“Fools all! Did you not study on Ghotze and his crew? He loves money more than a sea captain should—”
“Akhanar,” Tyrolean said. “He was a fleet Akhanar, Princess.”
Aarinnaie shot the Akrasian captain a glare, barely missing a beat in berating Draken. “—and he’s got more pirates on his crew than an island alehouse in Tradeseason. And he was hired on by Father. Didn’t that raise your hackles even a bit? I know you know; I amended the bloody scroll you read with the truth rather than that glossed over gullshit the bloodlords compiled for you. Or are you too good to read your own reports now, Khel Szi?”
Draken stared at her, realized his mouth hung open, and shut it. He set his mug aside with a tiny thump. It was the only noise for several deep breaths, during which he tried to marshal his comprehension of all she’d just thrown at him, not to mention his temper. He started with the smallest issue first. “I assumed I would be rather hard pressed to find a sailor for my crew who hadn’t dabbled in piracy. They are Brînians, after all.”
“That’s your Monoean blood talking. You are Khel Szi. You could have any sailor in Brîn.” She shook her head and wiped at rainwater dripping down her face from her hair, seemingly oblivious to mentioning his heritage out loud in front of Tyrolean. “This makes no sense. How did Ghotze come to the point of actually throwing you off?”
Draken stared at her, bewildered. “What do you mean, how did he come to it? He was abundantly clear in his disapproval of my lies and sundry blood, as anyone in our godsforsaken, uncivilized hinterland would be.”
“It seemed his intent all along,” Tyrolean added. “He rid himself of any threat immediately, and it took no time for them to subdue His Highness and drag him to the rail.”
Draken shot Tyrolean a sour look. Trust him to point out Draken’s incompetence right when Aarinnaie was on a tirade about the very subject. “It didn’t happen as quick as all that.”
Tyrolean bowed his head to him, quite serious. “Ghotze’s men subdued me quickly, Your Highness. You had no aid.”
Aarinnaie heaved a long suffering sigh and dropped down onto the bench. “Stick to the damned topic. Do you two recall the bit about Ghotze loving money?”
Draken shrugged. “Retired pirates come cheap and a fleet Akhanar is paid well. What of it?”
“Not that well. Did you notice how old that counterweight on your leg was? Rusty. Convenient they had it soldered to an ankle-ring.”
Draken shook his head; he was missing something. “What about it being old?”
“The ship is new. And another thing. Ghotze stuck us under this storm. Then when you finally get restless, the galleyboy totes ale to you unbidden all evening. Got you properly softened, I’d say.”
“I’m not as dense as all that. I thought of it.” Too late, but the idea had occurred.
Tyrolean narrowed his lined eyes. “You can’t scheme a storm.”
“I’d hate to insult Korde since you thought the storm is his fault.” A humorless, smug smile tugged on Aarinnaie’s lips. “If so, the Hungry God doesn’t know his business very well. We nearly came out of it two nights ago. Ghotze’s been dragging anchor since, letting the weather catch up with us.”
Draken stared at her. “How in Khellian’s name did you find all that out while you were hidden below?”
She shrugged.
Fools all, he should have known better than to trust someone his Father had relied upon. It meant going back over the entire staff and replacing it. Something to do when he got back. If I get back, he reminded himself. Dangerous, thinking of the future. He had a mountain to climb between here and there.
“So if not from Father, how did he make his money?”
She shrugged. “Bribery and smuggling. Any trader owing Father a favor used Ghotze and his fleet. After Akrasia started paying more attention to how many runs his ship made, Father raised him to fleet Akhanar. Not a bad plan, at first. Kept our lot protected. But between bribes, unloading fees, and sales levies in Brîn, Ghotze near destroyed wool trade between Akrasia and Brîn. That was when I was just a girl.”
“You listened in to conversations not meant for you even then, eh? Good fortune for me you developed the habit early.” What she was saying was starting to sink in. “It must be why Monoea starting breeding their own herds and developing their own loom shops. I recall some few minor Landless raised up during that time.”
“Aye, Ghotze bled wool trade dry and turned to other markets.”
“The Dragonstar Isles?” Tyrolean said.
She shrugged. Her eyes flitted between them and then rested on Draken as if he were the safer of the two. “Aye. It makes me think he worked it out you hadn’t been raised there. At least it would make him curious about you, see if he could find some leverage from your past. He knows bloodlords from the Isles. Bloodlords like that lot you killed the other night in the alley.”
“But Draken never did anything to Ghotze,” Tyrolean pointed out.
“Never did anything for him, either. The last thing Ghotze wanted was an honest Khel Szi.”
The truth was dawning. “No profit in it.”
Aarinnaie leaned her head back against the shutter behind her as if it were suddenly too heavy for her to hold it up. “But there is good profit to be had from a Prince who is not who he says he is.”
A chill weight settled between Draken’s shoulder blades. No coin in him dead, though. “I was meant to beg for my life and barter with him, then.”
“Aye, brother.” This time her voice carried weary affection. “I should have acted sooner but it was all suspicion. Truth, I didn’t put it all together until I saw you hanging over the rail. Ghotze didn’t count on your being suicidal.”
Draken leaned over his knees and rubbed his fingers over his face. They sat in silence until Tyrolean broke it. “Let the crew simmer in the hold for a bit, then?”
Draken turned this over and shook his head. “No. I think I should speak to them straightaway.”
Tyrolean leaned forward, his forearms on his knees, and shook his head. “Something about this is all off. I saw part of what Ghotze did. It didn’t look like a negotiation to me. It looked like a murder waiting to happen.” He glanced at Aarinnaie. Her head still rested against the shutter, eyes closed, back straight. “What if Her Highness is wrong? What if Ghotze was meant to kill you? What would happen then?”
Draken’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know. I admit I didn’t think much past my demise.”
Aarinnaie opened her eyes. “The negotiations between Monoea and Akrasia would have been ruined.”
“Especially if they really are rebelling and have some use for Draken.”
“Aarinnaie could have negotiated,” Draken said. “King Aissyth would respect your authority even if the Brînians do not.”
“But Ghotze didn’t know that. He didn’t know I was aboard.”
Tyrolean nodded. “So, beyond earning coin off your secret, which was a risky proposition at best, what did Ghotze stand to gain from your death?”
“Perhaps he worked for someone,” Draken said.
Tyrolean arched a brow. “Someone who paid well to see Quunin attacked from the sea?”
“King Aissyth said once the most honest coin is made off war.” The worst of the drunk had worn off, leaving him with a cracking headache. “I’d best go speak to the crew.”
Aarinnaie ro
se. “What will you tell them?”
Draken thought about what he would expect to hear in this circumstance. He shook his head and heaved himself to his feet. His knee screamed at bearing weight. He winced and eased his weight onto his other leg. At least he’d worked out what not to say. “The truth, I suppose. Or some of it.”
Getting down the ladder below took some doing. Halmar and Tyrolean insisted on going first as guards. They stood with bared blades, gazing impassively at the sailors around them. Ten in all, plus the lad. Six and the captain had died.
Draken’s entrance was painstaking and slow, his knee screaming at its turn on the rungs. Aarinnaie followed, closing the hatch behind her against the stinging rain. She stayed off the hull floor, hanging onto the ladder. She wore a short sword strapped to her hip and her arms and legs bristled with sheathed knives.
The sailors rolled from their tight bunks to their feet, staring at Draken. He had a tough time reading their expressions amid the lines of cut-lantern light swinging across their faces, save the galley lad who sniveled and wiped his eyes with his fists, his face full of unbridled hostility. None knelt or bowed their heads or murmured his title.
“I care not for the past. I care not for those who are dead, and make no mistake, your Akhanar and his closest cohorts are very dead, as well as their purpose to kill me.” He eyed them. “And I care for pirates least of all.”
He paused, but none denied it.
“From this moment forward, you are mercenaries who answer to me. If I command you to work the lines, scrub the deck, or kill someone, you get paid the same: three Rare per day each, to be paid upon mine and my sister’s safe arrival back at Brîn.”
Eyes blinked, a couple of mouths fell open, others shifted on their feet and exchanged glances. He heard Aarinnaie’s sharp breath. It was an exorbitant sum.
“But the King will kill you,” Ghotze’s grandboy said in a snuffly, weak voice. “I heard you say.”
“All the more reason to keep him from it,” Draken said. “You carry the royal house of Brîn on this ship. Our lives are in your very well paid hands.”
He climbed the ladder, concealing a wince each time his bad leg had to bear his weight. He limped toward the Akhanar’s cabin. Halmar followed close behind. “Are you with me, Halmar?”
“The sword chose you, Khel Szi,” Halmar replied, his voice flat, his gaze unwavering. The man had never revealed whether he respected Draken, or even liked him. He’d sworn to serve the House of Khel, and it had to be enough.
Brimlud got to his feet as Draken opened the door, dark eyes shadowed under his furrowed brow. “You’re alive, Khel Szi.”
“I need you at the helm when we raise anchor at dawn.”
“Who will captain the ship, if you don’t mind the asking?”
Good question. “Who would you have?”
“You know ships. Fair more than a Nêre or Szi ought.”
Draken had come by neither designation honestly, and everyone aboard ship knew his secret now. He shook his head. It couldn’t be him. “I’ve never captained before.”
Brimlud sighed, the old man’s weariness apparent. Draken highly doubted this was the first mutiny he’d seen, though gods willing, it’d be his last. “I’ll think on it.”
His choice turned out to be Joran, a strapping young man of no more than a quarter century of Sohalias with braids down his back and muscles as thick as rigging knots. He was quietly deferential to Draken, who cared little whether it was because of the coin or actual respect. Before dawn Joran examined the maps, drew anchor, and got the crew setting the sails. By the time Draken was filling his alesick stomach with breakfast, they emerged from the storm.
The quiet was oppressive after days of battering wind and stinging rain. Only the slap of waves, creaking lines and wood, the drip of rain off the booms, and Joran’s calm voice broke it as he strode about the deck seeing his orders were done.
The sea and sky lightened ahead. Behind lay the deep sucking grey of the storm. Seeing it at this distance locked the notion into Draken’s mind that it was Korde’s displeasure made manifest, no matter what Aarinnaie said of it. He stood at the rail on the quarterdeck, drizzle sparkling before his eyes as it dripped from his oiled cloak hood, and stared into that eerie, forbidding grey. His mind passed over the bodies of those who had tried to kill him, shredded into the bellies of great sea fish or yet drifting. And to Elena, who had escaped his thoughts for the better part of a day. Was she well? Cared for? Protected?
Aarinnaie joined him. “Joran has us in a tack toward course. Apparently Ghotze had us off, keeping to the storm.”
“I’m still curious who is behind it all.”
“Osias says he will quietly question the crew for more information. You know how the Mance are. Drag answers from you before you realize there’s a question.”
He nodded. “You’ve been on the sharp end of that.”
Aarinnaie laughed. The nearest sailor glanced back at her. Draken couldn’t read his expression. Somewhere between fear and admiration. “You as well, brother. For sevennight after sevennight, and you didn’t even know.”
He grunted. “I’d never even heard of the Mance until I got to Akrasia.”
“Right. Father mentioned Monoeans are prejudiced against magic.” She gave him a look. “A few thousand times.”
He refused to rise to the bait. “Monoea is a cultured country, and faithful. We do not—”
“We, Khel Szi?”
Gods, it was as if he’d inadvertently accepted his fate. Born low, die low, he thought. “I am half-Monoean by blood, and fair more that by heart.”
“And what of Brîn?”
He didn’t answer. Brîn was … duty. He was of Brîn, perhaps more than any other place. But he didn’t feel it the way he should. Except when it came to Elena, and she was Akrasia. Where that left him now, he had no idea. It probably would never matter.
“Will your royal Monoean blood save you from the King’s blade?”
“No.” A sail luffed overhead as the rain eased. The skies lightened to a cloudy white, like dull moonwrought. Finally. He slid his cloak hood back. “The King is the law.”
“Meaning his people live by his whims.”
“Truth, I’m likely to be thrown in his dungeon for a sevennight or more while he consults his lords over my fate. They will urge him to kill me.” They’d never much liked him, the enslaved bastard cousin of the King. When he’d found Lesle murdered, he had reckoned it had been some worried Landed who’d done it. The Black Guard had afforded Draken many secrets about Monoean nobility. “I think—I pray—he considers well this time.”
“This time?”
“It’s always a game to see who can persuade the King best. This time I think they will be in accord. It might buy us time; more likely it will cost us.”
“You should have told Elena who you are,” Aarinnaie said.
“I’d be dead for the telling and where would Brîn be, eh?”
“You don’t know that.”
He snorted. “I think I do. Elena’s lords hated me as well as King Aissyth’s lords do.” He thought of the flattering Ilumat, “watching” over his Queen and his child to be, and his stomach churned his breakfast. It wouldn’t be so difficult for Elena to push aside his child for one got in marriage. Or to reserve his child for the empty Brînian throne.
Aarinnaie tipped her head, considering. A breeze caught her narrow braids and lifted a few of them. She tucked them behind her ear. In that moment Draken could almost imagine her as a small girl. Before she’d been taught to kill. When she’d been a harmless child.
Foolish, he chided himself. Aarinnaie was many things, but he’d lay out good Rare that she’d never been harmless.
“I meant for you to stay and help Elena as my regent,” he said.
“A Szirin can’t be regent of Brîn.”
“Why not? Brin must live by my whim, aye?” His spirit felt a little lighter of a sudden. He decided not to wonder why.
/> A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “Did you just say something in jest, Khel Szi? Ring for a scribe so we can mark the occasion.”
His smile matched hers, slight but real. She reached out and wrapped her fingers around his wrist, then slid her narrow hand into his. Once again he was struck by how slight she was. So young. Yet strong. Powerful. Those little fingers had been bloodied many times.
“Tell me about your mother,” he said. “Do you resemble her?”
She nodded. “I think so by the paintings, though I don’t remember her. She died in childbirth when I was three. Our little brother barely lived a sevennight. Had he survived, he would be Szi, not you. The gods apparently did as they must to see you crowned at Brîn.”
Truth, he wouldn’t put killing a mother and child past the gods. They’d let Lesle die. He’d call it superstition if there hadn’t been too many coincidences to discount it.
“And what of yours, Draken?” Her tone gentled. “Does she yet live?”
“Last I heard. I’ve never met her.” He shook his head and stared out over the seas, searching for where the water met the skies. It was nearly seamless, but for a small shadowy bump. He frowned. “Is that land or another ship?”
“Looks like smoke,” Osias said, coming to the rail.
Aarinnaie nodded. “I saw the maps. We’re not due for land again until Monoea. We passed the Unmanned Islands. It must be a ship.”
Draken turned back and squinted. He wished he’d brought his glass, but it was too valuable to risk aboard ship. “Akhanar?”
Joran strode closer. “Khel Szi?”
“Steer for that smoke on the horizon. I want to see what it is.”
Joran gave the orders. The three sailors on deck went to tighten lines. Brimlud adjusted course at the wheel, and the sails swelled as a fresh wind filled them. Draken frowned as their speed increased.
“Almost as if the gods are blowing us there,” he muttered.
Aarinnaie shook her head. “Not everything is a portent from the gods, brother.”
He glanced at her. “Do you really believe that, knowing me?”
She laughed, but low and grim, her eyes locked on the smoke billowing into the quickly bluing sky.
Emissary Page 16
