Corsair

by Chris Bunch

  “Even if you hadn’t been so down on serving the king,” Knoll said, “there were enough time-served men in the village with their tales of shipwreck, wormy biscuit, and battle to discourage us.”

  “ ‘Twasn’t the wreck and battle so much,” Thom put in. “ ‘Twas that when they were used up and washed up, the king’s service threw them out without a coin, without a pension, without anything except the clothes on their back, to make their way back home, and sit damned near begging at the door. Not like pirating, where, if you’re lucky, you can walk away from the sea with gold and jewels, eh?”

  “Naturally,” Gareth said, “you two being outsiders, the minute you got old enough for the king, you were the target.”

  “You’ve lost none of your quickness of wit,” Knoll said. “And so we ran, ran to Ticao, figuring there’d be chance enough here for everyone.

  “There’s chance, for certain,” he said, a bit gloomily. “Just enough to keep you from starving, not enough to make you rich, and there seems to always be someone in the way.”

  “Like the godsdamned Waterman’s Guild,” Thom said. “It’s not satisfying to them for us to learn the landings, and the river, and the current, and find a boat that somebody’ll sell you at ruinous rates, and then make it pretty so men and women with gold’ll sit on your cushions and let you row ‘em back and forth and up and down.

  “No. You apply to the Guild, and in their own good time, perhaps they let you in. Or perhaps not. In the meantime, you can starve for all of them. Or work the downriver landings, where there’s never any custom.”

  “If they find you pushing your way in at a landing where good fares await,” Knoll put in, “they’re not above stoving your boat in, or pushing you overside, or even tapping you along the head with a pig of iron and seeing if you can float all the way downriver to the ocean. Facedown.”

  “Not that they’ve ever tried any of that shit on us,” Thom said grimly. “A couple thought they could, back six months, when we first went on the river, and found themselves wet and overturned. And then, when they thought all was settled, somebody waited on them at their slip and wanted to carry on the discussion.”

  “But that didn’t make us any better loved by the Guild,” Knoll agreed. “So we’re keeping ourselves fed … but look at our clothes. Hardly the finest, which is what attracts the big custom. And our boat could do with a haul out and re-caulking, which we can’t afford either.”

  “And we sure aren’t living in a mansion, either,” Thom said, then brightened as he upended his jack of ale, and signaled for another. “But if there’s beer in the cask, all can’t be bad.”

  “Still, Ticao is far better than being in that damned village,” Knoll said, “hauling fish from now to the grave.”

  Tehidy turned somber.

  “Perhaps. Perhaps. But I’ll still never forget what drove us out of our homes.”

  “Of course not,” Knoll said. “Once, maybe twice, I thought I could sneak up on one of those damned Slavers and give him swimming lessons. But once the man got away, and the next time there were too many of them, even though Thom said once we got among them they’d think we were a throng.”

  “I’ve done a little good in that direction,” Gareth said, and, without heroics, told them of his crusade. At the end of his story Tehidy, good humor restored, roared laughter.

  “Good, good, Gareth. And it’s better seeing you, and seeing how things are going so well for you.”

  Gareth started to say something that, now he knew where his friends were, things’d be better for them, as well. He had more than a sufficiency of gold saved, and thought N’b’ry-Tehidy Water Ferrymen might benefit from a silent partner.

  But that could wait until later.

  They talked of other things, including the specifics of what had driven Gareth into his odd form of semi-exile, and Gareth found himself telling them of Cosyra and the charm.

  “Damn me,” Tehidy said. “That’s romantic. And you haven’t used the spell?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?” Knoll said.

  “I’m … not sure,” Gareth said. “Maybe I’m afraid it won’t work … or that it will, and I won’t like what it shows me.”

  “Reach down,” Thom said, “below your belt. Between your legs.”

  “Why?” Gareth said.

  “Just do as I say, dammit!”

  Gareth obeyed.

  “And what do you feel?”

  “Why … my balls, of course.”

  “Good!” Tehidy said. “Thought you’d lost them for a minute. Don’t you think it’s best to bang ‘em together and see what happens?”

  Gareth drank water, and nodded slowly, twice.

  “It is,” he said. “It surely is.”

  • • •

  It took Gareth a time to discover how the sea eagle charm worked. At first, he thought Cosyra’s wizard had tricked her, and taken her money without providing any service. But then he realized when the eagle’s beak was pointed in a certain direction, the amulet warmed. Turned away, it grew instantly cold.

  Gareth had waited to make the test for two days, while his body finally wreaked revenge, and he did nothing but eat and sleep.

  After sunset on the fourth night, he put on a dark cloak and started out. Then he’d stopped, remembering his enemy — who, most ironically, he’d never even seen — and borrowed from his uncle’s extensive armory a short-barreled pistol with a bore almost as big as two of his fingers together. He loaded it, lit the slow match and covered it, and went out into the windy night.

  He assumed his quest would lead him toward the river, and possibly even across, into the slums. Instead, the eagle’s beak led north and slightly west, toward the great hill which was crowned by the king’s castle.

  Gareth lost his way twice, following the eagle instead of the twisting alleys and ending against solid stone walls. He retraced his steps, and then the eagle grew warm, warmer.

  He looked about, realized he was in a wealthy district.

  If the charm is working, and is real he thought, Cosyra is not a whore. Perhaps a scullery maid, or even the daughter of a servant.

  A single lane turned off the road, and the eagle “pointed” in that direction. He followed, until he was stopped by a wrought-iron gate, cast with odd animals and plants climbing up it.

  On the other side was a cobbled yard, a gatehouse, and an imposing mansion four stories high, with turrets and a glassed widow’s walk atop it that would give a view of the entire city, save what the royal castle above blocked.

  There were lights on inside, and lamps flickering in the wind, stronger at this height.

  It was quite a house, something a great lord might own.

  Of course Gareth wouldn’t disturb the household at this hour. But by the gods, he would not give up, and would return on the morrow and ask the head of the household’s servants about Cosyra.

  Quite a house indeed, he thought, and turned, when a voice came from the shadows beyond the gate:

  “It took you long enough.”

  He jolted, and a slight, cloaked figure came out.

  “Cosyra? How did you know I was coming?”

  “When I had the charm magicked,” she said, “of course I had a small ring linked to it.

  “But you didn’t answer my accusation, Gareth Radnor. What took you so long?”

  “I, uh, was at sea.”

  “Not all the time,” she said.

  Gareth decided the only option he had was to tell the truth. There was a silence when he was through, then a tinkling laugh.

  “You really thought that I’d be a staggering doxy, or else a married barmaid with a dozen lovers?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  She stepped into the lamplight, shed her cloak. Cosyra had been a beautiful girl, now she was a woman. She still wore her dark hair short, she hadn’t grown more than an inch or so, and she was still small-figured. But she was very, very lovely
, lips soft, inviting, eyes smiling.

  Gareth noticed all this … and something as important. Cosyra wore a multicolored blouse that looked like heavy, raw silk, and black pantaloons. At her wrist were bracelets, each reflecting the lamplight in a different color. No servant could ever afford such clothing or baubles.

  “As long as you’re listing my stupidities,” he said, “add in that I’ve just figured out that you’re not a maid or a servant’s daughter here.”

  “No,” she agreed. “This house is mine, or rather held in a trust from my mother until I reach adulthood. Would you care to come in for a glass of mulled wine? I assume, you being a sailor now, you’re still not a slave to that vile habit of drinking water.”

  “Actually … yes. I still am.”

  “I thought you would have learned its evil by now,” Cosyra said, as she touched the gate here, there, another place, none of them specially marked, and the gate swung open. “Fish piss in it.

  “But come on. I think there’s some water about. It rained night before last, and I don’t suppose all of it’s run off yet.”

  • • •

  Gareth told Cosyra of his voyages and asked what she’d been doing.

  “Not much,” she said. “Being noble, going to horsy events, masked balls and such. Which takes up all your time, even if it uses none of your mind.

  “I’ve not,” she said with a sigh, “been pranking or doing anything useful since that night.”

  Gareth stirred his tea with a cinnamon stick, chanced asking of their friends.

  Cosyra made a face.

  “Of that great hulk Labala, I know nothing, although I’ve searched the waterfront for him. As for Fox, he was taken by the watch for theft and had his hand cut off, that being the third time he’d been found out.

  “The wound didn’t heal quickly, and he decided his life as a thief was over, which meant life itself was done. I found out the inn he was staying at two days after he died. At least I could pay for proper burial ceremonies, although I’m not one of those who believes the gods give a broken nail about their creations.”

  “Damn,” Gareth said sadly, then caught himself for uttering a rare profanity. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Why?” Cosyra said. “There was worse said when the watch was chasing us. What should have changed now that you see my proper circumstances, which you must know I had nothing in arranging. I am still Cosyra, gods damn it!”

  Gareth looked about the huge dining hall once again, at the portraits of stern men in armor holding swords, of women, some young and pretty, some older and imperious, the paintings of land and sea between them, swords, spears, daggers here and there. On the far wall was a great, constantly turning Wheel of Life. Those who could afford it, and the incantations that made it spin, swore it brought the best of luck.

  They were the only two in the room. A servant had listened to Cosyra’s commands, nodded without speaking, and, in a few minutes, returned with a goblet of wine and Gareth’s tea.

  “Five years ago,” Gareth said, still recovering from the surprise of Cosyra’s station, “I would have never thought I’d ever see a manse such as this, although I’d dreamed of it.”

  Cosyra sipped her wine without lifting her gaze.

  “It must be nice to have dreams,” she said softly. “Instead of knowing your life is quite planned.”

  Gareth waited.

  “That was why I went out on the streets,” she said. “It was — is — very clear to me that my fate is graven in stone. I’m to be a perfect maiden, stay a virgin, and one of the noble bees that swarm about me — or rather, swarm about what my dowry is expected to be — will take me to wife.

  “I’ll then have how ever many children he wants, stay close at home, save when we go out for important occasions, while he’s allowed to do as he pleases, with mistresses, battles, travel to strange lands … whatever.

  “Marriage … marriage … phaf!”

  Gareth decided to change the subject.

  “You said you and your mother live here.”

  “Lived. My mother passed on three years ago.”

  “So there’s just you in this monstrous heap of stones?”

  “Except for eighty-seven servants of various callings. I have an executor of the estate, a certain elderly lord, who keeps me from harm, especially self-intended. Some of the servants are, of course, his agents, so I can get away with little mischief.

  “But friends of mine call, and we go out. They all, of course, are noble, but some have a bit of spirit, and we’re able to get into trouble.

  “Not any as exciting as you led me into,” she added.

  “You’ve made no mention of your father.”

  Cosyra reddened a little, and her lips tightened.

  “I’m sorry,” Gareth said hastily.

  “No, no,” Cosyra said. “You had no way of knowing. My mother was even more a free spirit than I am. She chose not to marry.”

  “Oh.”

  “She had lovers. Ten, maybe twenty. She kept no diary that I’ve been able to find. One of those lovers, I know not whether he was noble like she was, was my father. I know nothing of him, and my lord the estate manager swears he knows nothing either.

  “All of these noble beards and growing ladies,” she said, motioning to the pictures, “are of her relatives. Her line went far back in the history of Saros, supposedly to the first man with a piece of jagged flint who held it at his fellow’s throat and announced he was better, and the other had best acknowledge it if he didn’t want two smiles.

  “The story has it we built on this hill even before the king of Saros did. So of course it’s expected of me to marry and carry on the tradition. Perhaps one day I’ll get my portrait hung on one of these walls, looking properly pissed.”

  “Well … do you have to do just what’s expected?” Gareth asked. “I mean, you slipped out with us. Couldn’t you, if you wanted, go out of Ticao, into the country?”

  “And not have anyone follow me? Not have anyone name me as Lady Cosyra of the Mount, whereupon I’d have to deal with all the tintibullations as my executor huffed and puffed and dragged me back to my proper station?”

  “You could try.”

  Cosyra looked at him thoughtfully.

  “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I could at least attempt something like that, instead of sitting here feeling sorry for myself.”

  “I didn’t mean to be critical.”

  “Why not?” Cosyra said. “Everybody else seems like they know how to live my life better than I do.”

  Gareth, uncomfortable, stood, reaching for his cloak.

  “I’m sorry,” Cosyra said. “That was an unwarrantedly bitchy thing to say.

  “Gareth, I’m very glad that you’re doing so well with your uncle, and glad that your voyages have been successful. Believe me, I’ve kept track.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m just tired,” Cosyra said. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Cosyra shrugged.

  “It was a long, deadly dull night to begin with. Too much of it spent with someone who, by the way, is not your friend.”

  Gareth waited.

  “Anthon, Lord Quindolphin’s youngest son, fancies himself a great one for courting.” Cosyra hid a yawn. “I’ve not told him, of course, that the highest I think of him and his family is what we did to his sister’s wedding. Which, naturally, I’ve made no mention of.”

  Gareth slowly shook his head. This damned Quindolphin family seemed hells-bent to weasel into his life from every direction.

  Cosyra seemed to read his thoughts.

  “I’d rather marry that sister — or, for that matter, one of those pigs — than him.”

  “I’m truly glad of that,” Gareth said, and put his cloak on. “I really must go. But may I see you again?”

  “Any time you wish,” Cosyra said, leading him to the door and opening it. The night wind … no, early morning now … whipped
around her. Gareth went past her to the steps.

  “Gareth.”

  He turned, thought for an instant her green eyes were glowing in the night.

  “It is very nice to see you again.”

  He started to smile, and she leaned toward him. On a step higher, she was just at eye-level.

  “Very nice, indeed,” she said softly, and her lips brushed across his.

  Then the door closed, and the gate stood open. He went through it, and as he did, the lamps guttered down into darkness.

  Gareth Radnor went down the cobbled streets, not feeling the wind, or the chill.

  He knew there could be nothing, of course, between a merchant’s nephew — a seagoing clerk — and someone like Cosyra. And of course, as young as he was, he hardly wanted complications and ties.

  But he slept well that night, and woke with a smile on his lips.

  • • •

  “Have you considered your next undertaking?” Pol Radnor asked politely over breakfast.

  “No, Uncle,” Gareth said, buttering a roll over a yawn. He’d been late again at Cosyra’s — talking, no more. She’d kissed him that first night, but not again in the three times they’d seen each other.

  Occasionally he caught her looking at him with a slightly puzzled expression, which vanished when he turned to her.

  He took a bite of the roll, added relish to the slice of ham, cut a fragment.

  “I suppose I’ll go to sea again in the next few weeks, after I’ve finished eating your larder bare.”

  “You’ll never manage that,” his aunt said.

  “Any ideas on what ships, or what ports you’d prefer?”

  “Something warm, I think,” Gareth said. “That one trip buying furs still freezes my blood. But nothing more specific’s occurred to me.”

  He didn’t say that he was thinking of Knoll and Thom, wondering if they’d be interested in going out, wondering how he’d manage to find a berth for them on the same ship, since he still wasn’t exactly a hero of the seas, someone a captain would make any concession to sign aboard his ship.

  “I find this discussion interesting,” Pol said, his face as bland as if he were negotiating for a cargo. “Perhaps we should continue in my study.”

  • • •