The Fox (70 page)

Whispers started up. Some explained but most cursed and commented as they were marched back through the gate and up onto the quay. There Inda saw Venn and the men in yellow deployed along the quay. There were patrols on horse, all armed with bows, and others walking as a third group stopped every man and checked his necklace.

Inda looked around for any chance of escape.

None. Whoever had ordered the search knew how to do it right. No one could even hide in the tents. A patrol emerged from one and marched directly into the next: the walls poofed out—batted by hands—and the proprietors scurried around trying to right upset tables and displays.

So it was time to be quiet, stupid, dull. A sailor on leave. And watch for his moment.

Someone said, “I don’ know any more than you do! Obviously they’s looking for a man.”

Sick with certainty, Inda thought.
They’re looking for me
.

Durasnir walked out onto what the Ymarans had called the Royal Dock. It was now reserved strictly for the barges of the other eight Oneli—Venn sea lords—capital ships out in the bay now, and for Durasnir’s own
Cormorant,
the royal flagship.

He found eight lieutenants waiting for him, as he’d expected: ever since the green flag had been hoisted atop the tower up on the ridge, his fleet had been readying for sail, though they’d only returned the day before. Behind them, apparently impervious to sun or wind, stood old Valda, Chief Sea Dag—also as he’d expected. Chief Sea Dag Valda gazed out to sea so all he saw was her aged profile and her iron-gray hair.

What he did not expect to see was the small, spare, sandy-haired woman at Valda’s side.

He made no sign he was aware of either of them as he issued orders to each lieutenant. The plan, as he explained, was to spread the fleet to keep the search as quick and efficient as possible.

Midway through the line, he felt the tap of his communication case: it was Rajnir’s signal.

He held up two fingers, and everyone backed out of sight range. Those with orders departed in their barges to their ships to relay the orders; the four remaining lieutenants and the two sea dags waited in silence.

He pulled the golden scroll-case from his belt pouch and removed the little scroll.

Rajnir’s sprawling hand, instantly recognizable, covered the little square of paper:

Durasnir stared down at the paper until he knew he had a grip on his temper. Then he crumpled it, threw it into the sea, and watched the rice paper disintegrate.

When it had vanished he resumed giving the orders, and at last turned his attention to Chief Sea Dag Valda.

Ydrasal: no word without honor
. “You are aware of the prince’s orders with respect to the dags?” he said.

Valda inclined her head. “I received orders from Dag Erkric. We are to assist in the questioning when called upon, under the direction of Yaga Krona Dag Ulaffa.”

Durasnir’s gaze flicked to the sandy-haired Dag Signi, whose still body conveyed tension and denial in every line.

“I asked Prince Rajnir to contact me if he did find this Elgar the Fox,” he said. “Dag Erkric now deems that unnecessary, according to the prince.” He touched the belt pouch where his scroll-case lay. “The Dag will preside. We—that is the military—will have this person, assuming they do find him, after Erkric and the Yaga finish.”

“Ah,” Chief Sea Dag Valda said, and addressed a few remarks in the dags’ version of Sartoran to her companion. Then she faced him. “I am assigning Dag Signi to the land search here in Jaro,” she said, an open hand to the sandy-haired mage. “To assist Dag Ulaffa.”

Signi was long known to Durasnir, from the days when she was Jazsha Signi Sofar, the dancer-in-training. Known and once loved, and Valda knew it as well.

Signi had not moved, but now her posture was different: one shoulder down, her attitude cooperative. Strange, how she did that—Durasnir had never gotten used to the way she communicated without word, almost without moving. Though the heat had died many years ago, he carried tenderness for her in his heart.

“Very well,” he said, understanding what could not be said. And they both understood him: Signi would be watching out for his interests as much as possible.

He descended into the waiting gig then, and the dags departed without a look back. But his mood had eased.

Inda watched for an opportunity to break away during the long trudge up a smooth brick road that led up behind the harbor to a garrison.

There was no chance. They were conducted in tightly controlled groups by mounted guards, all armed with bows, swords, knives. They were taken to the stone garrison, and down a few steps—

And Inda was unprepared for the blow that caught him by surprise: the smell of the prison.

The other men all looked fearfully around at the narrow stonework corridors and cells. Inda breathed that cold, moist air that smelled of stone and mold, and he was cast right back to his feverish, grief-stricken days in the garrison prison after Dogpiss’ death. Before the king unaccountably sent Captain Sindan to whisk him away to the coast and aboard a ship.

The memory was so vivid Inda—who had meant to watch for a chance to escape until there was no possibility left—walked without noticing down the few steps, through a massive iron reinforced door, and into a cell along with twenty or thirty others.

When the door clanged shut he jumped, irritated that he’d managed not to notice the route in. How could he escape if he didn’t remember what was on the other side of that wooden door, how many guards there were, where the entrance was?

Several men jostled him, all wanting to look through the barred door to the corridor. A few shouted questions at the guards busy herding other prisoners to the cells farther down.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Three more clangs, and those cells were filled.

Inda sat on the mossy stone floor with his back to a wall, listening past the useless speculation of the men around him. A pair of passing guards were talking in that distinctive flat Sartoran as they clattered past the cells: “How many more?”

“At least two hundred, but some said we’ll be sorting for redheads first...” And then their voices merged in the general hubbub.

Redheads. So that rumor persisted on this side of the strait as well. Inda lifted his head, hopeful. All right. He had time to get a good story figured out.

When the lookouts on the two schooners first spotted each other, Fibi and Fox ran to the bows and raised their glasses.

As they drew near, Fox stood on the bow with his glass, leaning out with one hand gripping a stay. Fibi knew he was searching for Inda beside her on the
Skimit
. She’d been doing the same in hopes Inda had ended up on the
Rippler
.

She shook her head. Saw Fox’s hand drop, the violence in his abrupt turn, his leap to his deck matching her own mood.

The two ships met where Inda had told them to meet— on the eastward side of the northernmost islet above the little cluster north of Beila Lana. Fox was too impatient to wait until they’d drawn alongside; as soon as the
Rippler
’s bow passed the
Skimit
’s he used a line and swung himself over, dropping onto the deck.

“Where is he?”

“Not here,” Fibi retorted, crossing her arms.

Fox’s eyes narrowed, he tensed, then stilled and wiped a hand up over his face, his expression changing from anger to bleakness. “You did check.”

“Every day, three days,” Fibi answered. “Like he ordered. Then us voted, and did another three days, though by then they knew who us was. Could see ’em marking us, along o’ the other fisher craft waitin’ on someone ashore. Then night of the third us was takin’ another vote when one of them Ymaran fishers hailed us.” She paused, looked around.

The crew had all gathered aft on both schooners, which bobbed up and down, sails slack. No one made a pretence of not listening.

Fibi sighed. “She—captain-owner o’ the
Lark
—sez word is, they rounded up pipple. No. Men. With no identification medals. Got magic sveds on ’em.” She made a motion, like tugging something around her neck. “She sez, starting ’s morning, any craft left out in the water was bein’ pulled in by the warships. Captains questioned. So us voted. Came here.” She frowned. “Thing is, us don’ know what story Inda be tellin’ ’em on shore. Or even what name he’d give.”

“Right,” Fox said. “You did right.” He gazed westward, as if he could see through the empty islet and beyond the sea haze to the Beila Lana harbor.

Fibi snorted. “So. Inda’s orders is: you command. What’s yer command?”

Fox did not mistake her tone for either friendly or obedient. For a long time they stood there on deck, neither giving way. The crew watched. The only sound was the
plash-plash
of water against the sides fo the ship and the creak of wood.

“Let’s go below,” Fox said abruptly.

“Yes,” Fibi said. “Let’s.”

Those on deck tiptoed so there wouldn’t be a thunder of bare feet right above the captain’s tiny cabin. But they hadn’t gone more than a few steps before the scuttles slammed shut on both sides of the hull below the rail.
Clack! Clack!
Followed smartly by the thunk of the stern windows.

So much for nosing in; the snoops gave up and returned to their duties.

Below, Fibi plopped back in one of the two wooden chairs on either side of the small plank table that had been let down and eyed the younger man.

Fox said derisively, “You can spare me the speech. I already know you don’t trust me, and don’t know why Inda does, and you’re going to argue with every order that doesn’t match exactly what you think Inda would want. But before I have to hear it all, let me ask you if you’ve considered why Inda’s plans have always been conditional?”

“Already know that,” Fibi said, tipping back in her chair in a way that would be dangerous for anyone but a Delf. Their balance was too good for that. “He’s trying to convince you while he’s convincin’ hisself. Easy enough to see.”

Fox’s brows lifted in surprise. “It’s not at all easy to see,” he replied. “I didn’t see it myself until more recently than I’d like to admit.”

Fibi pursed her lips. Because he’d been honest, she refrained from the far more pungent reply she’d been readying next. She said, “You been too busy thinkin’ on yer own plans. So let me ask you. Why’s his cabin on
Death
’s well as here got nothing personal in it?” She indicated the bare cabin, to which she’d not added anything visible.

Fox shifted to the bench below the stern windows. The bed had been neatly folded back so the table could be let down at need.

He stretched an arm along the planed sill below the windows, tapping his fingers in one of those distinctive rhythms Fibi had heard from time to time—from both Fox and Inda.

All the arrogance had gone out of his manner, though she couldn’t have defined how. He was long and well-shaped, the loose cotton trousers and the vest accentuating his lean, hard-muscled contours. His skin, once pale, was now uniformly honey-colored.

She turned her attention outward, listening to the water splashing. Judging from the roll of the schooner, the west wind was gradually picking up. Feet thumped back and forth overhead, everyone doing what they were supposed to do.

“Same reason as mine, I expect,” he said at last, facing her again. “Some day—assuming I’m alive—I will weaken and go home. Maybe he will, too, despite all that foolery about honor.”

Fibi looked disgusted. “If
he
goes home, it won’t be because he’s gone weak,” she stated, and Fox wished he hadn’t said as much as he had.

She saw at once that she’d made a mistake; the derision was back in his face, the arrogance in his shoulders and the way he held his head. “The others is going to want to run a rescue. Ye’ll have trouble with any orders that run counter.”

Fox got to his feet, bending slightly under the low deck above. “But I want Inda back as much as you do. More,” he said sardonically. “He’s an important part of my plans.”

She knew better than to ask what those were; she’d brought on that irritating manner, and so she just sat there stolidly.

Seeing no reaction, Fox flicked the islets chart closed and reached for the bigger one showing what they had of the southeast corner of the continent Drael, with Ymar mostly blank. “We’ll take your fishers at their word and assume that the Venn will be investigating any suspicious craft. So we’re going to go on being fishing boats. But what we’ll do is set up a series of rendezvous on different dates,
Skimit
on the south coast,
Rippler
under Spark’s command on the north.” He tapped the chart. “As you search, may’s well complete the chart as you can.”

“So where’s you gonna be?” she asked.

“Rescuing Inda,” he said, “is my affair. I am going in alone.”

Chapter Fourteen

THE first couple of weeks were the worst, Jeje thought at the end of her first month.

Not that the boring days since had been much improvement. At least she no longer woke thinking the ship was still because the wind had died.

The harbor bells rang the watch change. Inside the Guild Fleet office everyone begin chattering, stretching, yawning, preparatory to leaving. Jeje finished counting up the hash marks on the tablet, wrote the number under the column marked off for beckets, blew on the ink until it didn’t shine, then laid down the pen. She was going to close the book, then remembered she had another load of supplies to count up and enter for that ship before she could move on to the next, so she left it open for tomorrow’s first chore.