The Fox (93 page)

Chim and Perran saw their question mirrored. She said, “I know what you mean, but I’ve never actually seen them. Only aristocrats can afford them. The harbormaster has one, but it goes with the job, not with the person. Maybe in Sartor they are common, but that is a long journey, as you know.”

“And costly. Damn costly,” Chim scolded, his worries about vanishing funds goading him.

For an answer Inda stuck his hand inside his vest, brought out a heavy cloth bag, and tossed it into Chim’s lap with a flick as though getting rid of something repugnant.

The gnarled old fingers stiffly undid the tie, and the contents spilled out onto the worn wooden floor. The Bren officials gasped when they saw the rich glitter of gemstones. Not ordinary gemstones, they saw at once. These were rare, rich, first quality in color, purity, and cut. A king’s ransom. A kingdom’s.

Perran looked up accusingly. “You
are
a pirate.”

“They came from . . . a pirate,” Inda said.

Jeje wondered what he had been about to say; Chim and Perran were too busy gauging the gems to notice the pause.

“Ah.” Perran glanced up, with a knowing air. “Then you did clear the Fire Islands of pirates? All the eastern traders have complained about how bold they’d gotten since the disappearance of the Brotherhood. Rumor put you there, but no one knew for certain.”

Inda turned up a hand. “Needed clearing. Now. The Venn always know where their fleets are, so in effect they are twice as fast as us. We have to send a messenger and then wait for response. Their messages go instantly.”

“You are sure.”

“Saw one used.” Inda touched the new scar with absent fingers, then leaned back. “Any news here?” He glanced Jeje’s way, and she knew he was thinking about Tau’s absence.

“The Venn sniffed something out, somewhere,” Chim said. “We’re not blamin’ ye—and if they blame yez for clearin’ the Fire Islands, they are stupider than we thought. But still. Threats to us—we can only travel down the strait within close sight o’ land, and only in singles, doubles if small craft. Threats t’ the guilds. Spies. Which is why we’re here, and not at Fleet House. Thank ye for sending a messenger, ” he added.

“It’s not news that they’re after me,” Inda said.

Perran said, “We hoped you would be ready. Clear orders for action would resolve a lot of the problems that have beset us since winter and the resumption of the drills with no launch prospect in sight.”

Inda said, “If we go now, we’ll be slaughtered. We’re going to need a hundred capital ships. Their core fleet is eighty-one warships, and each of those has attendant scouts and raiders. And that’s just Rajnir’s fleet. The king has far more up north and could send them at any time.”

Chim whistled.

Perran glanced his way, kneaded her fingers, then said as briskly as she could, “I understand. Perhaps the magic communications, if they are something that we can locate and learn to use, would aid us now. The magic would summon our trade ships when needed.”

Chim fingered his beard. “Hm. So. Yes.”

Jeje, who knew him pretty well, recognized when he was serious and when he was trying to provoke by the language he spoke in. When he mixed his serious Sartoran with his broken Dock Talk, he was in a muddle. Like now. “We could in fact send out the ships we’ve collected, with our trained ‘defenders’ hired to actually defend. Make some money. Keep our owners happy. Get experience on Jeje’s trainees. Guild-owned ships bein’, ye might say, one thing, and owner-run ships another. Hum. Hum! Yes.” He nodded.

“Then I’ll get back to sea while the winds are good,” Inda said. “And, short of a message, you’ll hear from me again in a year.”

Another
year
. Jeje clenched her jaw against complaint. She followed the others out of the hot little room and down the worn stairs.

While Chim’s and Perran’s voices faded into the distance, she became aware of a step at her side.

Inda said, “Where’s Tau?”

“At the theater.”

Inda frowned. “The what?”

“It’s a building where they act out plays.”

Inda wiped his brow, then shook his head. “Oh, yes. I heard about those last summer.”

“I saw my first one here. I guess it’s common enough in Sartor’s royal city and Alsayas in Colend. Maybe other places. The players don’t travel about. Instead, people come to them. Anyone who has the door price can come, once the court has seen each new thing.”

Inda waggled a hand. “Tau?”

“I’m getting there. See, they don’t only perform old ones, they write new ones, and furthermore, they put sneaky things in. Jokes about foreign rulers, or current unpopular people in court, and the like. You go to the playhouse to hear all the real news,” she finished. “Tau, being Tau, is the favorite of the first-ranking woman player. She holds a kind of court after the new plays—there’s one a month during the winter season—and everybody of any importance, land or sea, tries to get invited. They go, they drink, and they talk. Especially to the prince, who’s on our side. So we get all the news, while Tau hands ’round the wine and makes them all laugh.”

Inda whistled.

“So first thing: Tau hasn’t heard anything but rumor about Ramis of the
Knife
. Anyone who’s heard of him has nothing but rumor to pass on. Each wilder than the last.” She added dryly, “Apparently the crown princess had decided he doesn’t exist, and that Prince Kavna cannot spend any more money sending messengers to discover anything about him.”

Inda grunted. “Go on.”

“We train every morning, he and I. We do Fox’s hand drills, which we haven’t taught the others. But he went to sleep a few moments before your messenger came, and we’re used to trading news, so I didn’t want to wake him. I’ll tell him anything you want me to say.”

“Tell him that Dasta and Mutt were more successful than I’d thought. They met me at Smugglers’ Cove with a good size fleet, but it’s not nearly enough. Dhalshev is also recruiting for us, Dasta said—but again it’s not enough, not to face the entire Venn fleet. It’s going to take at least a year—more—everyone working together to build the kind of fleet that can take on the Venn.”

Inda stopped right there in the street, forcing annoyed pedestrians to thread around them, and looked into her face. “You’re unhappy.”

“Not just me. Tau is as well, despite all the things I told you. We were hoping to soon be at sea,” she finished in a rush.

Inda sighed, looked down, then up. “I’m sorry. But we can’t be careless. I was. And got myself caught once, up north of The Fangs on the Ymar side. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for Fox.” A brief grin. “Escaped and made a mess of things.”

Jeje made a face, uncomfortable, though she could not define why. “I hope that means you made the mess on them.”

“Yes. But they did for me first.” Inda went on before she could ask any questions. “There’s a big war going on much farther north. Kingdoms allied against the Venn. My immediate goal now is to finish charting the north coast of the strait. Which has little travel on it. Now I know why, if the Venn are handing out orders against sailing down the middle like we used to. My other immediate goal is to capture one of those mages, which means taking a Venn ship,” he finished. “Not a capital ship. Don’t think I could. They rarely sail alone, and they’re bigger than our biggest ships. With their magic connections, they can sail far ahead or behind, out of sight of any others—but one magic message and they sail fast to one another’s aid. They have mages, and the mages have those communications as well as their navigation spells.” His expression was bleak.

Jeje said gruffly, “It’s that bad, eh?”

“But I’ve got one thing in my favor: I’ve got good charts of the northeastern coast of the strait. I need to chart the west, if I can—and find me a sea dag.” Then he did a surprising thing—he bent and kissed her softly on the brow. “You could have been gone, and I would not have blamed either of you. But you were here.” His voice went husky; to Jeje’s surprise—and discomfort—Inda’s eyes gleamed with a liquid sheen. He scrubbed his knuckles over his eyelids. “I don’t know why I do that. It happened when I saw Mutt and the others, too.” He stuck his hand in his vest and pulled out another, thinner bag. “That’s for you two—it’s the last of my take from Ghost Island. I won’t need it now. I figured you had to be low, if you’ve been hiring ships and people. Use it however you see fit.”

“We were indeed getting low. We have a huge pay list now.” Then she had to ask. “That new scar. Ship action?”

A shake of the head. “I mentioned I was caught. By a local lord, supposedly an ally of Prince Rajnir. The little shit liked playing with his prisoners.” When she flipped up the back of her hand in the general direction of Ymar he chuckled. “Fox came for me. On our way out, we decided we might as well make a suitable gesture—that mess I mentioned.” He cocked his head, listening.

The noises around them were nothing more than the usual people on business or pleasure, many eyes turned skyward in hope of rain. But he sensed something, perhaps a change in the air, or even the tidal pull, some sea sense, perhaps, that a year on land had dulled her to. And then he was off, walking away rapidly, leaving her to wonder what that “gesture” had entailed.

Chapter Twenty-nine

"ICE floes,” Mutt whispered into the speaking tube.

It was six, almost seven months later. Seven very long months, most of them spent running, sometimes chasing.

Now they were chasing, and had been for three days, a Venn scout ship.

About their size, it had separated off from the raider pack it had been sailing with, whether inadvertently or not. Inda had learned through rough experience to watch them for at least two days, his fleet strung out within mast-sight of one another, as they searched for consorts. They’d discovered that raiders systematically sent out the scouts in all directions, regrouping after a time.

This one had broken the pattern by continuing on to the west after its raider and the other scouts had swung back to the east on their regular route.

And so far, because they were drifting along the island-dotted, treacherous northern coast of the strait—fogbound and moving under a single course due to ice—the scout seemed as yet unaware of their presence.

But they’d lost it in the fog.

Inda motioned to the waiting forecastle hands. “Booms.”

In silence the crew got their long wooden booms and stood along the rail, watching for ice to shove away from the hull. On the jib two sounders tossed their weighted rocks, over and over again, counting the knots in the rope as they pulled them up, and flashing depth measure in finger signs.

They had learned long ago that rocks and fog made strange and unpredictable play with even the quietest voices, so no one spoke above a whisper. The business of guiding the ship through perilous waters was done by sign as much as possible.

Inda stood on the captain’s deck of the
Death,
chin tucked into his silk scarf, nose numb, gloved hands shoved into jacket pockets for desperately needed warmth. Gillor was the mate on deck, her masses of curling black hair escaping from a knit sock-cap twin to his own—knitted for them by Lorenda in Freeport Harbor.

The heatless sun glinted coldly off metal and glass, riding above the northern rim of mountains way in the distance as they cruised off the coast of Llyenthur, across the strait from Bren.

“Lee-yin-thur . . . Lya-shee-in-thur . . . Lyah-
hin
-thur . . .” Mutt whispered softly an arm’s length above Inda, in an effort to get his tongue around the pronunciation. Should he shush him? No: Mutt’s voiceless whisper made less noise than the rustle of water down the sides of the hull. To restrain his own impatience—the merciless grip of tension— Inda forced himself to consider the word and its roots. Sartoran had a lot of those “yah” sounds, but not with “l” and a hint of “sh” mixed in; that was the local accent.

They drifted under a cliff that looked startlingly like a melted castle tower, with its rough sediment layers and corrugated sea holes. On a high ridge behind the palisade a real castle stood, a shaft of sunlight emerging from the fog and glinting off highlights in the dull gray stone.

Inda tipped his head back. A private game he played inside his head, left over from his academy days: assessment of that castle’s weak points and assembling a defense. Butterfly flickers on the extreme edge of his vision brought his head around, and for a moment he stared up into the intent faces of a trio of young ladies, aristocrats all, with their tight-fitting, embroidered coats, fine-woven cotton-wool skirts, their pretty hats, and ribbons streaming from one wrist. They walked along the edge of the high palisade not two ship lengths above him, outlined by the castle on the ridge behind them.

To the young ladies, the black-hulled, low-riding, rake-masted pirate ship below was something out of a dream. They stared in delight from one handsome male face to another, hungry gazes lingering on the molding of strong arms against jackets, long legs in high boots, the wild variety in dress that paid no heed to fashion but signified a life of utter freedom.

Then a fog drift obscured them, and when the swirling cloud passed the ship had vanished around a thin finger of rocky cliff thrusting into the sea. The ship was gone, carried seaward by the tide; they watched the towering masts swinging their way westward through the dangerous rocky spires, until fog shrouded them forever.

“Voices.”

Inda had already forgotten the ladies. He, too, heard the bounced reverberations of angry argument; Mutt had abruptly ceased his soft whisper. There was no sound except the creak of wood, and the plash of water along the hull.

“Venn,” Fox whispered, appearing next to him. “Knew it.”

The helmsman pulled hard to the lee, and they rounded a sheer knife of stone reaching high into the air, water booming and splashing on one side. As they safely passed the rocky spire, the fog thinned and they glimpsed
Cocodu
farther out to sea. Inda grabbed the glass and swept the deck. There was Mutt, pointing up at the green flag, which dipped twice: nothing in
Cocodu
’s view, either around them as seen from the sea, or on the sea itself.