< Isn’t it?>
Jineva had trouble keeping the worry out of her thoughts.
< That would probably be a very good idea.>
“Before we can plan anything there are four things we need.” Jineva and her father were sitting on a long balcony to her bedroom, overlooking the harbor. The sky was an ominous gray, and the air smelled of thunder. “A military assessment, an economic assessment, an assessment of your uncle’s international and strategic affairs, and finally a geologic assessment to find out if there are any features of the landscape or terrain we can use to our advantage.”
Jineva felt totally out of her depth and lost. She was, however, a quick study. “What will we be doing on our little trip?”
Diego smiled at his daughter. “We will be checking the number and disposition of his troops. We know about how many naval vessels your father had, and it looked as though a good many were in port the last time we were there. We’ll check to see how many are still there. Finally, we can check on the condition of the local population: are they well fed, are they happy, will they fight for or against your uncle?” Jineva nodded slowly, amazed at her father’s forethought and thoroughness. “Some of the others will have to come up with the rest of the information.”
“When do we leave?” In the distance lightning flickered, and a moment later a rumble of thunder echoed across the bay. The far shore was already obscured by a line of rain.
Diego stood, opening the door to her bedroom. “Sometime after the storm, I think.” The first cold drops of rain hit their faces, and the gust of wind that ruffled Jineva’s hair held the feel of lightning.
She laughed and darted inside just as the deluge hit. Diego slammed the door behind him, wiping water from his face. “If there is fog after the storm we might be able to slip away in it, to confuse any possibly spies in Prosperidad.”
“I’ll see if we can use Mateo’s boat. It’s smaller and less well recognized than ours.” Despite the danger, she felt a growing sense of excitement at the thought of a new adventure, but when she recalled just how she left Isla Rivero last time, a sinking feeling welled up in her stomach.
She found Mateo sitting in front of a roaring fire in the drawing room of the manor, sipping a tall leather mug of ale while rain pounded the windows. He listened to her story seriously for about a minute. “Of course I’ll let you use my father’s boat.” He gave her a slightly condescending look. “When do we leave?”
Jineva blinked. “We?”
The young man actually looked surprised. “You didn’t think I’d let you take my father’s boat by yourself, did you?”
“I’ll have my...uncle with me.” She’d almost said father, and she didn’t trust Mateo worth a damn.
Mateo looked at his fingernails. “It’s the same thing, really. I go or the boat stays.”
Jineva fumed.
“All right.” Her voice was all sweetness and light, and Mateo looked at her sharply. “Whatever you say. We leave as soon as the storm stops and the fog sets in.”
“There is no way you can be sure there will be fog after the storm.” He gave her a hard look, at which she just smiled.
“I’m sure.” Standing, she turned her back on him and left the room.
Chapter 10
Fog rolled across the bay, great billows of white mixing with the sooty smoke of a thousand chimneys in the port city of Prosperidad. The fusioned miasma squeezed under doors and through cracked windows, leaving the residents blinded and coughing. Children cried, and cats clawed their ways to the top of bookcases, where they crouched wild-eyed and hissing. Cold and clammy against the bare skin, the mist smelled of death—or worse. It was the perfect day to start an adventure.
“Are you insane?” Mateo was shouting. “You can’t go out in this! You can’t see more than three paces before you. How...”
Jineva tossed her small bag onto the deck of the Viajero del Alba and stepped aboard. In the bow she could see the dim shape of Diego leaning against a mast, smoking his long-stemmed clay pipe. She could faintly smell the sweet smoke from the tobacco. Despite the fact that it was noon, the sounds around her were dull and muted. Reaching down, she slipped the stern line from its mooring stanchion.
“Cast off the bow line, and then raise the jib, Uncle.”
“Aye.” Came the muffled reply.
Jineva took hold of the wheel, and looked over at Mateo, standing dumbfounded on the dock. “You had better step aboard, or we’ll leave you behind.”
The young man blinked, and tossed his bag onto the deck of the moving boat, and then jumped aboard himself. “You really are insane, you silly girl. You’ll run into another boat and...”
There was a muffled splash at the stern of the schooner, and Jineva looked down. “Hello, Azzktullua.”
“Hi, Jineva.” The young Krathaa said brightly, and then wrinkled her almost flush nose flaps. “What stinks?”
Jineva sniffed, wrinkling her own nose. “It’s the soot from all the chimneys, dead fish, and chamberpots. Welcome to human civilization little one.” Azzktullua shuddered. “We can’t see through it, but I know you just swam here, and know where all the moored boats are. Can you guide us out?”
Azzktullua walked to the starboard rail, looking forward. “Sure. No problem. You have a fishing boat on your left, so steer to the right a little.” Jineva turned the wheel. “There. Good. Most of the fishing boats have drawn right up to the beach because of the storm, so once you pass the boat on your left you can make more sail and go right on out of the harbor.”
Jineva gave Mateo a cold look. “You were saying something about a silly girl, Mateo?”
He growled an unprintable word, and slipped down the companionway stairs, slamming the door behind him. In the bow she heard Diego chuckle.
For some strange reason, Mateo was taken with seasickness for the entire voyage, and spent most of his time groaning, or throwing up, in his tiny cabin. The one time she checked on him, his usually brown weathered face was green and pasty looking, and his eyes looked as if they had been poached in bacon grease. Jineva closed his door softly, vowing to herself never to make Thallia mad at her.
Lethe was casting a dim gray light on the world, and the Thalassian rings were barely visible when the small schooner arrived in Soledad harbor late at night, fifteen days since they had departed the fog-shrouded bay in Isla Lemuy. Mateo had made a miraculous, but scarcely surprising recovery the previous day, and stood slightly weak-kneed but
well, soundlessly watching the lights of the city.
“We’ll anchor on the far side of those other small schooners.” Jineva called in a soft voice to her uncle. She turned the wheel. “Standby to lower the sail... now!” There was a muffled creak and the jib sail slithered to the deck. Momentum carried the schooner a few more yards. “Drop the anchor.” A muffled splash just reached her ears as the heavy ceramic anchor plunged to the sandy harbor bottom. The boat drifted a few feet before the anchor flukes dug in, stopping the craft with a sudden jerk. A bird squawked in the darkness, and then silence settled around the harbor again. Diego touched her softly on a shoulder, and she jumped.
“Half the navy vessels are still at anchor.” His voice and body appeared younger—Mateo’s age, but his brown eyes still held the weight of his years. “I don’t understand it. What is your uncle playing at? All the naval vessels should be out. The traders are all out, which is as it should be, but the navy should be out too.”
“I don’t know, Uncle, but we can find out tomorrow.” She ran a hand through her short brown hair, amazed at how cold the back of her neck felt. Thallia had improved on Diego’s original idea, hardening Jineva’s face, hiding her growing curves and widening her shoulders just a little to make her look like any other skinny young man. The brown curly hair was an added touch Jineva thought she could well have done without, but who was she to argue? She remembered all too well what Thallia had done to Mateo.
Jineva sat in the stern of the small rowboat the next morning, and watched Mateo’s shoulders as he helped Diego row to shore. Despite what his own eyes were telling him about Diego and Jineva’s disguises, he still couldn’t or wouldn’t admit to anything out of the ordinary. She wasn’t sure if he was as dumb as a box of rocks, or as stubborn as a mule. Either way, it made her want to scream.
“Did you notice that there are no pilot boats in the harbor?” Mateo asked quietly over his shoulder. “No docking controls of any kind that I can see.”
“No, I hadn’t.” Jineva replied, just as quietly. “But I did notice all the longshoremen just lounging around the docks, idle. If the trade ships are out, then not many have returned with goods to be unloaded.”
“Ssstt!” Diego made a sharp noise. “Company.”
Jineva looked up to see that they had already reached the public dock in the poorer end of town. The man waiting for them on the wharf was tall and thin, with lank greasy hair that he kept pushed over the balding area on his head. His clothes looked as if he had slept in them for a week. He did, however, have a gold painted medallion hanging about his neck, identifying him as some sort of minor official. The man waited until the boat had just touched the dock before he spoke.
“What ship?”
Diego gave the man a befuddled look. “This ain’t no ship, guv’ner. She be a rowboat an don’t av no name.”
The man on the dock turned red, while Jineva studied the bottom of the rowboat, trying not to laugh out loud. In front of her Mateo was making gasping noises.
“I know that, you idiot. What is the name of the boat you came from?”
“Ohhhh, er. She be the Buena Suerte, out of Isla del Gato.”
“And what is your business here?” The official’s voice was nasally and pompous, and Jineva suspected that it was all an act to make up for his earlier embarrassment.
Diego rubbed a long youthful jaw that hadn’t been shaved in several days. “We’re ear te see the city yer honor, and mebby pick up a cargo fer home.”
The official seemed disappointed at the lackluster answer. “Cargo is sparse right now, but you’re welcome to look, if you can pay.” He gave Diego a hard look. “The Broken Beggar is over there.” He pointed a long thin hand with dirty untrimmed nails at a ramshackle building they guessed was an inn. “It should be good enough for the likes of you. Don’t leave yer boat here overnight.” He turned on his heel and stomped off down the dock.
Diego helped Jineva step out of the wobbling boat and up onto the rickety wharf. “That was pleasant. But I think that we should select different accommodations. “I wouldn’t feel safe staying anywhere ‘that’ man recommended.”
Jineva nodded, and then turned back to Mateo, who was sitting in the rowboat, scowling like thunder. “Please, Mateo. Take the rowboat back to the schooner and wait for us. We should only be a few days. I’ll let you know where we are staying.”
“And how will you do that, if I have the rowboat?” His tone was surly, his blue eyes hard as he glared at her. Jineva returned a flat emotionless look, and finally he dropped his eyes. “Don’t be too long.” His voice was subdued now. “I don’t like the feel of this place.”
Jineva looked around, an involuntary shudder running through her. “I don’t like it either. We’ll be as fast as we can.” He nodded once and pushed away from the dock. Jineva stood silently and watched him row away, thinking of the last time she stood on a Soledad dock, watching the rowboat move away. Things hadn’t turned out too well that time, and she fervently hoped this time would be better.
The Dancing Cat Inn was a full quarter mile from the public docks, and a quarter mile made a world of difference with the smell. Taking a deep breath, Jineva actually caught the scent of baking pastries. The steep-roofed building had once been painted a bright blue, but the color was faded now, leaving mostly gray wood showing on cracked and weathered clapboards. The sign hanging above the heavy scarred door was fairly new, and showed a cat on its hind legs, wearing a top hat and dancing. It was so silly it made her laugh right out loud.
Smiling, Diego looked down at his daughter. “It’s good to hear you laugh. A fourteen year old,” he stopped, counting on his fingers, “a fifteen-year-old girl should laugh more. Time enough for stern resolve when you get older.”
“I’ll laugh when Uncle Carlos and his merry men are destroyed, and the Barillo family name given the honor it deserves.” Her jaws were clenched.
Diego returned her a sad, experienced look. “Perhaps.”
The innkeeper, a fat man in a fairly clean white apron, was standing at the bar, looking bored when they entered. His brown eyes looked up, took in their worn working clothes, and immediately lost interest. “We don’t give no andouts.” His voice had a deep, sandpaper quality.
“Two rooms and meals for a week.” Diego slapped a coin on the counter, and the innkeeper suddenly looked much less bored.
“T’ain’t enough fer a week.” He tried to frown at Diego.
“If the food and rooms are good, you’ll get more midweek.” The innkeeper took a step back at Diego’s intense glare.
“Don’t git yerself in a twist, mate. It’ll work fer me.” He fumbled under the counter and removed two keys. “Third floor. Adjoining rooms overlooking the ‘arbor. Dinner be at sundown.” The coin disappeared.
Jineva and Diego shouldered their own bags, and began to climb the stairs. Diego checked out both rooms before he nodded his approval. “Clean enough.” He tossed his bag on an unsoiled, if well used bed. “Far enough above the streets to be fairly safe.”
“Why this hotel, Uncle?” Jineva asked, as she watched the traffic on the street below.
“I remember that a lot of the naval officers used to drink here in the evenings. We might be able to pick up some useful information by just listening.” He gave her a wink. “Jes don’t drink too much, Pedro. Ye remember the León del Mar, back in Desafortunado?” Jineva shuddered, recalling the foul taste in her mouth the next morning after she drank that mead. Diego saw her reaction and simply nodded.
They had just finished their dinners and sat sipping mugs of weak ale, when Diego looked up. “Well, well, well.”
“Who is it?” Jineva seemed to look intently into her tankard, but was really concentrating on her father’s reply.
“Admiral Para, I believe.” Diego studied the man at the adjacent table over the top of his own tankard. “He looks a bit the worse for wear.”
Jineva dropped a coin on the floor and bent to pick it up, studying the man as sh
e reached. Admiral Hernando Para was a man in his mid-fifties but looked older, of average build with thinning gray hair and a weathered wrinkled face. His hazel eyes were bloodshot and the hand that took a tankard of beer from a serving girl shook like it had the palsy. His uniform was crumpled and soiled, and he hadn’t shaved for several days. She could smell him from where she sat. Putting the coin back in her pocket, she turned casually to her father.
“He looks like hell.” She whispered. “And he stinks.”
Diego’s smile was grim. “Ahhh, a perfect candidate.” Picking up his tankard and standing, he indicated that Jineva should do the same. He turned to the other man’s table. “Well, if’n it ain’t Admiral Hernando Para.” He set his tankard down with a thump on the Admiral’s table. The older man looked up. “Do yer mind if’n me nephew an I join yer?”
“Yes, I mind.” The man’s voice was low, cultured and full of despair.
Diego pulled out a chair and sat. “Good. Thanks fer the invite.” Jineva frowned and sat. This was a side of her father she’d never seen before, but should have suspected. “Let me buy yer a drink er three.” Diego waved for a barmaid, and when she came laid a coin on her tray and whispered into her ear. She looked up, puzzled, but nodded. “That’s a good girl.” He gave her bottom a familiar pat as she left. His eyes, however, were on the man sitting in front of him.
The admiral drained his leather tankard in one long pull, set it down and glared at Diego. “What do you want?”
“Jes te talk a bit, yer admiralship.” It made Jineva’s jaws ache to listen to her father’s fractured dialect. The barmaid returned with three tankards, and Jineva was surprised to find hers filled with sweet cider. The admiral picked his up and, like the first, drained it in a single pull. His eyes were beginning to glaze.
“And what shall we talk about?”
Diego looked at the ceiling. “Mebby, why ye be sitting here drinkin’, when alf yer fleet is out.”
Hernando Para barked out a bitter laugh. “I drink because tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, the new mad king will have me executed, along with half the men in my fleet. That’s why I drink. I, along with half the fleet refused to go out to slaughter sealkies. They weren’t harming us. We didn’t bother them and they didn’t bother us. That’s all over now. Carlos is planning on exterminating every single sealkie in the entire archipelago. After that... who knows what he will do?” Jineva looked up at her father with stunned, sick eyes. “I and my men were loyal to the Barillo family, not this maniac but now, since Vitor and his family abdicated, we have nowhere left to go. I wouldn’t have thought that...”
Vale of Tears: A Thalassia novel Page 13
