Owl hunched over his wine. “Really good with his hands? Lean? Eyes a strange shade of pale brown almost orange in the right light?”
“That’s the one.”
“Didn’t use a name, as I recall. Initials MV? I think they were MV. Robin was the same age. She said she and the other sprats used to try to guess what they stood for. I remember him during that tangle with the chwahir and those pirates out of Ghanthur, our very first cruise. Knew nothing about boats when he came aboard us, but he could fight. Don’t you remember?”
Jehan leaned tiredly back in his chair, staring out at the sea. “we’ve had so many brushes with the Chawahir...Ghanthur...Not to mention crew coming and going. That goes way back. Why it must have been when I met you.”
Owl grinned. “Just about. Yes.”
They exchanged one of those looks people use when they are thinking about past history, but before anyone could say anything the Colendi cook appeared, and with a flourish set out the dishes, delicate poached fish with fresh herbs and a dash of wine sauce, steamed carrots with a dash of another herb, and roasted little potatoes, so savoury and tasty I could have eaten a plate of them.
Kaelande served more wine. His style of serving was like I’d been taught, I noticed idly, in the more hotsy-totsy dinner houses I’d worked at, back in L.A. the same even pouring the flick of the wrist when bring the bottle up so there were no splashes.
———
I was beginging to feel a slight buzz, so I shook my head. I really did not know who was friend and who enemy, or how both could mange to be embodied in the same person. I didn’t need a wine glow to further befuddle me.
Jehan said, “that was splendid Kaelande.” He sighed. “I ate well at the tent, but the rowing seems to have woken my appetite.”
“You were a few meals behind,” Owl commented.
“So what now?”
Good question, I thought. And that goes for me too.
Jehan frowned into his wine. “Those questions Randart asked me. I am trusting to the overwhelming number of tasks that launching a fleet entails to keep him from the barracks window. You had better vanish all of you..”
“Wait!” I slapped my hands flat on the table. “what exactly does that mean? I’m a prisoner?”
Kaelande flicked me a look from under straight brows.
Jehan pressed his thubs into his eyelids under his brow ridge. “you are. Not. A prisoner. But...”
Zel, Kelande’s wife, appeared in the door, her short wispy reddish curls flying. “Biski says the fleet’s getting signals.”
Jehan was out of his chair fast, pausing only to pluck his spyglass from a holder. By the time I made it out the door behind Owl and Kaelande, Jahan’s white hair had already vanished behind the long, elegant curve of the main sail, what we on earth would call a Bermuda sail. He reappeared in the top next to the younger of the two men whose names I hadn’t heard.
They exchanged a few quick words, snapped their glasses out, training them west on the glimmering lights barely visible to us at sea level.
Then Jehan slid down a backstay and landed lightly near us. “there flanking us. Boats. It’s got to be Randart, and he’s got some excuse.”
“We run?” Owl asked, but almost immediately he sniffed, looked into the direction of the breeze and shook his head.
“We fight?” Kaelande asked, and Zel rubbed her knuckles against her lips. She was a bit older than I, small, weathered the yachts bosun. Everyone worked the sails when needed, and obviously fought when needed as well.
Jehan sighed. “I would rather avoid loss of life, he despises the first blood rule. If he commences a fight it’s going to be to the finish. He won’t want any witnesses to tell my father the truth.”
Owl grimaced. “so you think he’s sprung us at last?”
“Possible. Not for certain. If he’s suspicious, he will be looking for the mystery thief the boys have described that means the fisher’s hat and the forest green tunic. The cadets saw your encounter from the barracks window, and I said I’d tried to catch a thief. Randart brought that up at the games.”
Attention zapped my way.
Jehan said to me, “well? If you want to fall into his hands here is your chance.”
“No. The only thing I am very sure of is this. I do not and never will, trust Dannath Randart. Especially now that I know he caused Magister Glathan’s death.”
Jehan let out his breath in relief. “Get out of those clothes. I have to be in livery.”
“Hers are wet.” Owl said. “And the green will have to go over the side. “If any of us wear it we might be taken as the thief.”
Zel measured me with her eyes, and slowly shook her head.
“She’s a size one in the juniors, and I’m a size twelve in the tall department.” I pointed to Zel, then myself. “I can’t borrow hers.”
Kaelande dusted his fingers together. “But you are close to my size. Very close.”
Jehan snapped his fingers. “I’ll have that Zhavalieshin banner on my own bed. I don’t care how wet it is, it won’t look wet. The rest of whatever it is you have in the bag is innocuous enough right?”
My heartbeat had gone into sprint mode. “Mementos collected when I was little.”
Owl said to Jehan, “what’s the excuse for you being here?”
“Two hot to sleep on land?”
“Stupid,” two voices said at once, and Owl shook his head.
Zel sighed dramatically. “Oh, come along, I always wanted to be the girl. Can’t I be the girl?”
“When’s the last time there was a real girl?” Owl asked the sky.
Jehan laughed. “It seems a thousand years ago. Zel do whatever you can to become the girl. But you have to be a painter. I told him I was visiting a painter...something with Lava Sky Child. I don’t know if he’ll remember that.”
Zel turned to her husband and said cryptically, but in a triumphant voice, “Told you they’d someday be useful.”
“They?” came from three directions.
“Painted fans from Colend. How I met him.” She patted her husband on his shoulder, sped by and vanished down the companionway to the lower deck.
Jehan faced me. “Sasha. Do you mind being a cook?”
I shrugged, feeling about five steps behind. I couldn’t find the words to say I knew zip about cooking.
But he took my hapless shrug as agreement.
“Let’s get ready to be taken by surprise,” Jehan said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
War commander Randart stood with one boot propped on the rail of the lead boat’s bow, elbow steadied on his knee, his glass trained on the lonely craft its elegant lines emerged from the darkness and resolved into the familiar Dolphin.
“That’s his yacht. Close in,” he said with the first evidence of satisfaction he’d shown since his arrival. His personal guard, kept on short sleep and shorter meal breaks, put their backs into their rowing, the outer boats circling outward to surround the yacht as ordered.
Not that anyone expected anything like a good fight. Not on a yacht crewed by a half dozen, if that. And captained by a prince who chased rare butterflies ones with good figures.
The commander went back to watching through his glass. He would learn a lot by how they reacted when they discovered they were being...met.
Mentally veering between suspicion and disbelief, he’d figured that a trained military scramble after the lookout spotted the boats would at least be cause for investigation. The Prince Jehan he knew, he assumed he knew, would never remember to give that kind of order.
However that possibility diminished with every silent lift of the oars. He could distinctly make out a couple of sailors standing at the help, drinking from elegant goblets as they chatted. No one else in view, though there was a jerking at the single upper sail, no doubt deployed to keep the yacht pointing up into the wind instead of rolling. Randart applied his glass to the masthead. He saw starlight glinting on red hair, the silhouette a scrawny m
ale. Sailor, nothing military. He certainly wasn’t alert.
A movement below caught Randarts attention and he brought down his glass. One of the two at the helm shook an empty wine bottle, actually peered into it. Then he lurched drunkenly around and started. Was that the lookout instead? Probably, the one up on the mast was probably asleep.
Randart smacked his glass against his thigh as the now tiny figures ran about on the deck of the yacht in a manner no proper captain would ever tolerate, as gradually, lights glowed to life in th open scuttles along the side, revealing a figure or two bobbing about to no apparent purpose.
No white heads in view.
His boat hooked onto the yacht, his guards not even touching weapons. Damedran sat in the sternsheets scowling. Randart turned his way, gave him a sharp flick of the hand in command and his nephew rose wincing. He was probably sore, but mere physical discomfort didn’t matter in command. He was also tired, but so were they all.
The important thing was, if Jehan turned out to be a traitor, it had to be Damedran to defeat him.
Randart climbed up, followed by Damedran, whose breath wheezed with his effort. The war commander stepped over the rail just as the idiot emerged from the main cabin, his clothes awry, his arm around a petite red-haired woman whose clothes were also awry.
Disgust wrung Randarts innards followed by anger. He clamped down on a reminder of the orders he’d given this brainless fool not two watches ago. But then one couldn’t order a prince. Everyone here knew it.
He must not misstep. He could not be in the wrong in the eyes of the men. The cost was not lives. All except Damedran were expendable. The cost was the kingdom.
“Commander Randart?” The idiot said with his usual vagueness. “did you want a fan too?”
Randart fought against the headache he had refused to acknowledge. The pang increased to a hammer. “Fan?” he repeated, striving to keep his voice even. “What are you blathering... that is, I fear I do not understand. Honour me with an explanation your highness?”
Prince Jehan waved a hand around, then indicated the woman at his side. “Artist paints fans. Needed one it’s so hot. Decided to buy one for my stepmother. Aren’t we going back to Vanais now that the games are done? I want to take a present to Queen Ananda.”
There was Randart’s cue. “I am going to sea. The king wanted you to stay put. Remember, your highness? I did tell you the king’s wishes. Directly after the games.”
“Of course. I remember. But we’re in the harbour. Not going anywhere. I thought I might pick out a nice fan, return to shore on the morning tide. Be ready for my father’s summons. Have a gift for Queen Ananda. Everything in order.”
It actually indicated a thought process.
Randart turned his head, summoned his personal aide with a glance, and flicked his gaze fore and aft. The man sketched a salute, beckoned to his handpicked searchers, and they began strolling the length of the yacht, not quite making their search obvious.
Jehan lifted a hand. “Come! Have a drink. Hungry?”
Randart remembered that he had not eaten since morning. And the fool, for all his lack of brains, did supposedly have good taste in food, wine and comforts. “Yes. As it happens, I am. Damedran?” he turned to his nephew.
Damedran stood there on the deck glowering. He ached from skull to heals. His gut was indeed empty because why? Because by the time he’d limped his way into the mess hall after the day’s disaster otherwise known as the games, there’d been the summons to come up to the command tower and repeat everything the seniors had said about prince Jehan’s attempted arrest of the cutpurse the day before.
He hadn’t remembered anything but the barest fact that it had happened, and so, by the time they’d sent someone to fetch Ban... being the most serious and trustworthy of the seniors in his group and by the time he’d stood by while his uncle and father had asked Ban about a million stupid questions about what he’d actually seen(and from above! Why not ask people who’d actually been there?) it was already late. Then came the astonishing news that Wolfie, Red and the other two were all in the lazarette. Wolfie the strongest boy in the entire academy, had a broken leg. Given to him when he’d tried to jump a nine-year old.
Damedran had been trying to reconcile those bones with his own experience when he became aware of his uncle ranting on about the fact that prince Jehan was missing as was the royal boat from the dock.
Come on, his uncle had said. If it’s necessary to act, you are going to need to be there.
Well, here they were. So what kind of “act” was expected of someone who probably couldn’t even grip a sword? Damedran tried to flex his stiff hands.
For all his uncle complained about the sheep’s stupidity, Damedran had discovered during a private challenge a couple of years ago that the training the idiot had gotten out west was very effective even for idiots. Damedran knew he wasn’t going to win any duel, no matter what his uncle wanted. He could barely walk.
“Come,” a voice said directly above Damedran, as a wine goblet was pressed into his hand. “Come sit down, you’ve had a rough day. I know. I’ve been through much the same.”
Damedran looked up uncomprehending into Prince Jehan’s face.
“I was hoping to talk to you,” the sheep went on, not sounding like a sheep at all, though it was exactly the same calm, vague voice. “we really need some changes to the training and who better to help me figure that out than you?”
“Who worse,” Damedran said. Or he tried to say it his voice was too hoarse.
“Now now. One thing I learned in Marloven Hess was you planned better after a thumping then if you win. And I had enough thumpings to prove it. Let’s get some food and drink into you, first. Come into the cabin.”
Damedran heard his uncle’s voice, his forced joviality as he asked to be introduced to the crew, and followed the sheep down into the cabin, gulping wine as he did so. Life had turned into a dream. No a nightmare. A place where suddenly nothing made sense.
———
First thing Jehan had said was, “hide that hair!” before he sped to make ready and Zel had taken him at his word.
The floppy hat had vanished unnoticed, and my braids were frizzing like the bride of Frankenstein, after the time in the quilt followed by my salt water conditioning treatment.
First I changed out of Jehan’s clothes and into her husband’s cooking outfit. At least Kaelande’s clothes were roomy, as he was a stocky man. Over them I wore his apron. While I sat on an upturned bucket, Zel’s small fingers undid all my braids with lightning speed. She twisted my hair (which would make the most flagrant neo pre Raphaelite maiden look bald) into a knot, skewered it with a nail making tool of some kind then yanked Jehan’s knit sailor cap over it all. It hurt my scalp enough to make my head throb, but it held.
Jehan appeared at the galley door. I straightened up carefully as my topknot brushed the ceiling and his face changed expression. It was the most serious I’d ever seen him.
“What? What?” Zel and I exclaimed together.
“You look just like Mathias.” And before anyone could speak, Jehan yanked open one of the cupboards pulled out a wooden container, lifted the lid. He grabbed a handful of flour and threw it in my face.
I gasped, coughing.
“They’re here,” Owl’s voice had carried softly from the deck.
“Don’t touch it,” Jehan flung over his shoulder at me. To Kaelande, she’s drunk make it look real.”
He grabbed Zel’s hand and the two of them scrambled up the companionway and ducked down low, almost crawling into the cabin as I stood there blinking ground wheat off my eyelashes.
And while Randarts were busy hooking on, their boats thudding against the Dolphin’s hull, their boots loud as they clambered up, Kaelande explained in a running whisper what everything was in the galley and where the food was stored, his hands gesturing so fast I was retaining maybe one thing in six.
Meanwhile he splashed wine lightly down my, his
summer shirt of blue cotton and more on the apron. He filled two goblets, pushed one into my hand. “drink we need wine breath.”
We each took a good swallow, then stood at either side of the galley door and peered up through the hatch.
The war commander tromped past, followed by a half dozen hulking guards. Though I’d never seen any of the Randarts up close before, I recognised them immediately: huge guys, buff as all get out, bony faces with tough guy cheekbones. Thick black hair. The commanders was streaked with gray in a way that any Hollywood hairdresser would charge a thousand bucks to arrange. As for his expression, his armed to the teeth, I’m in command here walk sinister? That I remembered.
Damedran looked like a high school aged edition of his uncle, with long and glossy hair. But he wasn’t moving like his uncle at least not now. I knew what had happened to him, but it was quite shocking to see his blackened eye, bruised jaw, one swollen ear and his slow, painful step. He might strut all over the academy like Mr. I’m too sexy for my war tunic but right now he looked like he longed for a week’s r and r a thousand miles away.
A touch on my shoulder. “let’s get some listerblossom into that one,” Kaelande murmured, and spoke the soft words that made fire flare up on the little galley stove.
He set a kettle over that to boil and pointed at a cupboard to my right.
Everything was beautifully fitted together like the most complicated puzzle box ever invented. The cupboard door slid up revealing a row of tiny boxes, each neatly labelled with the name of an herb. He touched the listerblossom, and indicated the tea strainer.
Light from the lantern hanging over the companion way ladder was blocked. We turned around to face Randart himself.
He was tall, husky, and absolutely exuded menace, at least standing there in the galley door, a naked knife stuck through his sash, a sword at his side eyes narrow slits of suspicion.
It seemed to me he gave Kaelande the briefest of glances and focused all his attention on me.
I heard the sound of the water change to a boil. Yes! It gave me something to do, and maybe even within my limited cooking ability. With shaking fingers, I tried to pinch my listerblossom into the tea strainer the yacht lurched I dropped some of the listerblossom. Kaelande’s fingers twitched as if to take over, but he reached for his wine instead, and I took the hint, swooping up my goblet took a swig.
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