The Shamer's War

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  I didn’t mention it. He already looked… I wasn’t sure. As if he was hurt somewhere but had decided not to show it. And at the same time, the very first time I saw him, I had been told that he had killed three people—an old man, a woman, and a child. Only my mother believed in his innocence. Yet I hadn’t been afraid of him. Not really. Now something had happened. And this new Nico, him I might fear.

  “Let go,” he said. “Give me that flute.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve boarded this ship without permission,” he said. “That’s what they call a stowaway. And the first thing you do when you discover stowaways, Dina, you disarm them.”

  “It’s just a flute!”

  “You and I both know that flute is a weapon. In the hands of someone who knows how to use it, at least. And it seems you do.”

  I had to force my fingers to let go. It was almost as if my hands loved the flute better than the rest of me did.

  “Now get up.”

  I looked at him uncertainly. “What are you going to do?”

  “What one does with stowaways.”

  “Which is?”

  “Lock them in a safe place to make sure they make no trouble. This way, Medamina.”

  He took my arm, not roughly; Nico was never rough. But all the same his hand was firm enough that I knew he meant to make sure of me. And the flute… he held it as if it really was a weapon that could stab or cut. Cautiously, with respect. And out of my reach.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The Crow regarded me with displeasure.

  “What kind of witchling have you caught us now?”

  “Dina Tonerre,” said Nico briefly. “Davin’s sister.”

  “Yes, I can see that. But what the devil is she doing here? We left her on the beach with the others, didn’t we?”

  I could feel Nico’s hesitation.

  “It seems not,” he said, and failed to mention my father and the serpent gift.

  The Crow glared at me. His eyes were like lumps of coal.

  “How did you get aboard?”

  If only I could make him think of something else, if only I could make him look away for a moment… but Nico had the flute, and he had not let go of my arm.

  I stood there without speaking because I couldn’t think of a single explanation that wouldn’t sound like lies or witchcraft or both.

  “Well?”

  “I just climbed the rope ladder.”

  “The rope ladder. But that is no longer—” He glanced quickly down the side of the ship. And there it was, right enough, the ladder they themselves had used as they climbed aboard.

  “Enoch,” shouted the Crow. “What is this?”

  One of the sailors put down his mug to come and see what the Crow meant. He stared at the ladder swaying gently with the motions of the ship, dipping into the brine every time the Sea Wolf listed to port.

  “Sorry, Skipper,” he muttered, looking puzzled. “I must have forgot.”

  The Crow’s hand shot out, fetching the man a thumping blow across the back of the neck.

  “You must have forgot. I see. And at home, do you leave the door open to every man and his brother? Look what your forgetfulness brought us.” He pointed at me with a sharp, accusing finger.

  It was as if the sailor hadn’t noticed me before.

  “That’s a girl!” he said.

  “Damn right, it’s a girl. We only just got rid of the brother, and here’s the sister come to haunt us. Now, get that ladder up before the rest of the family decides to join us!”

  “Aye aye, Skipper.” The sailor began hauling on the wet ladder right away. He looked confused, and small wonder. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to spare any pity for him, otherwise I might have felt a twinge of bad conscience. If not for me and my father’s flute, he would never have “forgot” the ladder.

  But I had my own worries. The deck was moving queasily beneath my feet. And the Crow was looking at me as if he was thinking that dumping me over the side might be the easiest way to solve his problem.

  “What do you want here?” he said.

  I wasn’t sure I could explain it to him. I shrugged, staring at the deck.

  “I just wanted to come,” I muttered.

  “You just wanted to come,” repeated the Crow in a disbelieving tone of voice. “What the hell do you think this is, girl? A picnic?”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  “Is she worth anything?” The Crow glanced at Nico.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. Is she good for anything? Or can we sell her to anyone?”

  Nico’s face stiffened. “We do not sell people,” he said flatly. “It hasn’t yet come to that.” And then he added in a peculiarly harsh voice: “Or at least, we do not sell people who haven’t asked to be sold.”

  It was my turn to frown. What did he mean by that? Surely no one asked to be sold?

  “Now, you listen,” said the Crow. “I just dumped cargo worth nearly seventy silver marks because of you. So if I can get a bit of ransom for this lassie, I will. Whether or not His Over-Righteousness approves.”

  Nico stood stock-still for a little while. I could feel the anger in him. It made him tense as a bowstring. But he did not release it.

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “She is worth something. Quite a lot, actually. So much, in fact, that if you try anything like that, anything at all, then our agreement ends right here, right now. See if you can figure out how much that would cost you.”

  The Crow narrowed his eyes. “Is that the way of it?”

  “I said so, didn’t I?”

  “The Young Lord owes me a considerable sum by now. Quite considerable.”

  “You’ll get your money.”

  The Crow slowly nodded. “That I will. One way or the other.”

  I glanced uneasily from one to the other. All this talk of money. The Crow was a man who counted everything in silver, that I knew already. And Nico had none. So what would he do when the Crow demanded his pay?

  Nico shrugged as if that was of no importance.

  “One way or the other,” he said, with a short, sharp nod. “Those were the terms, yes. But until then—”

  “Very well, then. If she really means so much to you. But keep her belowdecks and see to it that she makes no trouble.”

  “Carmian can keep an eye on her. She won’t get past her in a hurry.”

  The Crow gave an unexpected bark of laughter.

  “No. I’ll grant you that.”

  Carmian? Who on earth was Carmian?

  DINA

  Carmian

  There was only a rough drape across the entryway, no proper door, but Nico knocked politely anyway by tapping his knuckles against the low ceiling.

  “Carmian?”

  We had to wait awhile for an answer.

  “What do you want?”

  “I just want to talk to you.”

  “Oh, so we are now on speaking terms again?”

  “Carmian, please. I have no time for these games. I want you to do something for me.”

  The drape was jerked aside. In the doorway stood a woman who—Well, the first thing you noticed was the hair. Copper gold, like the autumn leaves when they were at their finest, and long and ripply like—Of course I’d never actually seen a mermaid, but I felt sure they had hair just like Carmian’s.

  The next thing I noticed were the trousers.

  It wasn’t that I had never seen a woman wearing trousers before. Sometimes, when there was hard work or hard riding to be done, the Highland women borrowed a pair off their menfolk. But those were usually rough work trousers so big they had to be held up by a belt or a bit of string.

  Carmian’s pair had clearly been made for her. And they weren’t the least bit big on her. They fitted smoothly along her slim legs and hips and ended at the top in a sort of bodicelike lacing that came nearly up to her breasts. And those breasts showed quite a bit, because she hadn’t laced up her shirt very tightly.
>
  She leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms.

  “And how may I serve the honored gentleman?” she said. But it was clear from her tone that she didn’t honor him at all. On the contrary, she was mad at him. So mad that her gray-green eyes were as narrow as a spitting cat’s.

  Nico looked at her for a moment. He could hardly miss her anger, but he chose to pretend there was nothing wrong.

  “This is Dina. She has embarked on a career as a stowaway, so you’ll have to share the cabin with her. And I’d like you to keep an eye on her. Keep her belowdecks. The Crow doesn’t want her getting in the way.”

  Carmian gave me the same narrow-eyed stare she had just nailed Nico with.

  “Oh, so now I’m a nursemaid?”

  Her voice was venomous, but again Nico appeared not to notice.

  “Yes, please,” was all he said. “It’s only for a day or two.” He turned to me. “Do as Carmian tells you, Dina. Stay with her. I don’t want to see your face above deck, is that clear?”

  No. Actually not much was clear to me. Who were these people Nico had chosen to befriend? The Crow and his men who had wounded Callan so that I wasn’t sure he would survive. And now Carmian, in her trousers that weren’t men’s trousers, with her mermaid hair and those breasts that she clearly wanted Nico to look at, even though she was furious with him.

  I looked straight at Nico.

  “What will you do if Callan dies?” I said. And I could see that the blow went home, straight to the heart, as if I had stabbed him with a knife, even though I had neither Shamer’s eyes nor Shamer’s voice at the moment.

  But Nico hardly ever hit back. Not even when he was like this, alien and miserable-looking all at once, and smelling as if he had drunk more than he ought to.

  “Take care of her,” he said. “Keep her here, even if you have to tie her up like a dog. I don’t want anything to happen to her.” He gave me a small shove so that I ended up closer to Carmian than I liked. And then he went away—and took my father’s flute with him.

  Carmian looked at me with a mixture of irritation and curiosity.

  “Dina,” she said. “Davin’s sister, I presume. And what manner of beast are you? Why is it that he cares so much?”

  All of a sudden I felt so exhausted my legs would hardly hold me up. The rolling motion of the ship made me nauseated, and if I didn’t get some sleep soon, real sleep, then I thought I might be sick.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Is there somewhere I can lie down?”

  All day I lay in Carmian’s quarters, but I felt so sick I couldn’t sleep. Carmian gave me a cool, measuring look and fetched a bucket, which she placed next to the bunk. She wasn’t wrong. I soon had to use it.

  “I hope for your sake that it’s worth it,” she said when I puked up my insides for the third time.

  “What do you mean?” I muttered tiredly.

  “Whatever it is you think you’ll get out of this.”

  “I’m not getting anything out of it.” At least, not in the way she probably meant. If Nico was alive and more or less himself when this was all over, then I would be satisfied. But achieving that seemed a mountain of a task right now.

  Once more she gave me that look, as if she noticed everything and measured it all and calculated the results until she knew exactly where she was with me.

  “There has to be a reason why you cling to him like some kind of climbing plant,” she said. “People always have their reasons.”

  “How about if you simply happen to like somebody?” I asked. “Doesn’t that count?”

  “In my experience, not very often,” she said. “Not so you’d notice. And usually not for very long.”

  Actually, she wasn’t beautiful, I thought. Not ugly either, not by a long shot, just a little sharp-featured, a little too much nose. It was just that at first one didn’t notice that because of the hair and the breasts and… and her ability to make you think she was beautiful even though she wasn’t. It was a trick almost worthy of a Blackmaster.

  “I don’t have a reason,” I said. “Or at least, not a reason that someone like you would understand.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Watch the claws, little darling,” she said. “I don’t mind a catfight, but I don’t think you would like it.”

  Probably not. Right now raising my arms seemed too much effort.

  “I’m not looking for a fight,” I said.

  “Smart girl,” she said. With a couple of quick tugs on the lacings, she closed her shirt a bit more so that the breasts were less noticeable. Then she stuck her head through the door and called up through the hatch. “Mats!”

  It wasn’t long before a sailor appeared in the door, a young man with fair hair and beard and curious blue eyes. Even though she had closed her shirt, there was little doubt what he was curious about.

  “Take the bucket,” she said. “Empty it over the side and rinse it properly. The whole place stinks of child puke.”

  “At your service,” he said and tried a wide grin on her. A bit of one front tooth was missing.

  Carmian didn’t return his smile. Yet he still took the bucket uncomplainingly, disappeared up the ladder, and brought back the clean and empty bucket a little later.

  “As requested,” he said, and even bowed, saints help us.

  “Thank you,” she said. And then, when he showed no signs of leaving on his own, “That will be all, Mats.”

  He left, looking a little browbeaten.

  It did clear the air a bit. The ship’s movements seemed gentler now too. I closed my eyes for a minute. And slept.

  When I woke up, the whole day had passed. What sky I could see through the porthole was gold and pink with sunset, and Carmian’s hair was glowing so much that it almost seemed to be on fire.

  What was she doing?

  She was standing with her back to me, on one leg, one hand resting lightly against the doorframe for balance. The other leg stretched out behind her as straight as was possible in the narrow confines of the cabin. Slowly she sank down until she was squatting on one leg, the other still stretched behind her, then just as slowly she rose to stand again. It looked extremely strenuous, and her neck and shoulders were damp with sweat. When she had repeated the exercise a couple of times, she switched legs. And then she lay down on her stomach and did push-ups, just like Davin sometimes did.

  I had never seen a woman act like that before. She was training! Davin did it because he wanted to be strong and good with a sword. But why did Carmian do it? She didn’t carry a sword, did she? Or maybe she did? She certainly wasn’t like any other woman I had ever seen.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, even though I was afraid I knew the answer already.

  She jerked a little. I suppose she had forgotten I was there.

  “Dunark.”

  This was what I had expected. All the same, a sharp jolt of fear went through my stomach. If there was one place in the world more dangerous to Nico than all the others put together, it was Dunark. Dangerous to me, too, come to think of it.

  “Why? What are we going to do when we get there?”

  There was a glint in her gray-green eyes, and she pushed a damp lock of hair off her forehead.

  “What do you think?”

  “But it’s dangerous to Nico!”

  “Is that so, little darling? Perhaps you’d better run and tell him, he may have forgotten.”

  Easy for her to mock. She wasn’t the one lying here with a lump of ice where her belly used to be. Probably she didn’t care one way or the other. If she had a lump of ice anywhere, it was where her heart should have been.

  “When—” I had to stop and clear my throat. “When will we get there?”

  “Tomorrow. Just before noon, probably.”

  Tomorrow. My heart missed a beat. Tomorrow. And here I was, flat on my back, having slept the day away when I ought to have been—

  “Where is Nico?” I struggled upright and swung my feet over the side of the bunk.
/>   “Somewhere above,” she said. “But where do you think you’re going?”

  “I have to talk to him.”

  “No you don’t. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “But—”

  “You heard him, little darling. Even if I have to tie you up like a dog.”

  There wasn’t much I could do. She was probably stronger than me, and a fight would only mean that the Crow or some of his men would come running. And even though I tried, I couldn’t make her not see me. Not without the flute, and Nico had taken the flute away from me. To disarm me, like he said. And it seemed to work, at least where Carmian was concerned. I thought she might be hard to fool in any case.

  She was deaf to other pleas. I said I thought I would be sick again if I didn’t get some fresh air, and she said that was tough, but we had been through that already, hadn’t we? I said I needed to pee, and she said do it in the bucket. No, Nico was right. It wasn’t easy to get past Carmian.

  In the end, Nico came below. As it grew darker and darker, I was lying on the bunk trying not to fall asleep, because sleep would eat up all the time we had left in one gulp; when I woke up again, it would be the next day, and Dunark would be in sight, and everything would be almost too late.

  There was a quiet knocking on the other side of the drape.

  “Carmian?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I come in?”

  “If you must.”

  This time she did not arrange her shirt one way or the other. She merely stretched and shook back the mermaid hair so that it cascaded down her back like a… no, not a waterfall; a firefall, perhaps.

  “Is she asleep?” he asked, low-voiced.

  “No,” I said. “She isn’t.”

  He looked at me. The light from our lone lantern fell unevenly across his face, making him look older. Like an old man, almost.