Treason's Shore (89 page)

“What we have is all under Deliyeth.” Jeje made a spitting motion toward the rail and laughed in surprise. “Heyo, here come all the easterners, looks like in a bunch.”

“Who are they?”

“First ones first. I see the Sarendan flag in the front boat. You probably remember Taz-Enja—”

“Who?”

“Nugget remembers.” Jeje ducked out of the way as a sail party clattered by, carrying rolls of lighter summer sail to the shrouds to be handed up to the masthead.

From over
Cocodu
a cable’s length away came Nugget’s angry voice, “What’s this
Lady
Waki this,
Lady
Waki that? Mutt! When have I ever called myself Lady Waki, you rat-faced bun-stuffer?”

Jeje raised her voice. “When we first left Freedom to go after Boruin. Taz-Enja was captain of a Sarendan warship chasing that pirate, I forget his name, had the big barrel of distilled liquor in the cabin. Gave us the fire-ship idea. Taz-Enja remembers you and Nugget.”

“All I remember is a cabin boy sticking his tongue out at Nugget, and she wanted to wave her knives to threaten the entire warship.”

“Well, that cabin boy’s a chief lieutenant—next thing to a captain—and Taz-Enja’s an admiral of their navy now. But they’re not here as a navy.”

“They’re not?” Inda turned from Jeje to
Cocodu,
where one high female and one young man’s cracking voice exchanged insults in at least three languages.

“No. Inda, don’t pay any attention to Mutt and Nugget, they always argue like that. Then they’ll end up in his hammock, or hers. Listen! The Sarendan king married the daughter of the Venn prince who used to rule Geranda. This was before the old geezer died and the Venn took off for home. But for whatever reason makes sense to kings and their like, Sarendan can’t officially get into this battle, so he let Taz-Enja raise a volunteer fleet for what they’re calling maneuvers.” Jeje snorted. “Bren’s sent a high admiral, Dhalshev is called a
flag
admiral, but Taz-Enja is to be called just ‘commander.’ Their people aren’t wearing their green navy tunics, since it’s volunteer duty. They got themselves what they think is pirate clothes. You’re gonna laugh, but don’t do it in front of them. We’ve got almost their entire fleet. Saving the most senior warships, which are staying close to their coast on patrol.”

“I don’t care if they’re naked,” Inda said. “They’ll know something of fleet maneuvers.”

“So do the Chwahir. That is, they know how to read a signal and stay on station. But they are slow as logs. Anyway, I think you’ll like Mehayan of Khanerenth. I’ve only talked to him twice, but Dhalshev and Chim both like him—”

“Chim!”

“He’s sailing with the Brens, and, um, he’s got a surprise. But he’ll tell you that, and I promised—well, see that brigantine with the raked masts just brailing up abaft the Chwahir? That’s High Admiral Brasvac. I think he might be some kind of cousin of Prince Kavna. They talk a lot alike.”

“Boat ho!”

Jeje faded back as the newcomer’s crew hooked on.

The rest of the day, Inda received a succession of captains. First the higher ranks, but as the
Death
did not signal a desist, several other captains had themselves rowed over so they could meet the infamous Elgar the Fox in person. Both Foxes, because there was the tall redhead as well as the short one with the scars.

Inda welcomed them all and patiently explained his line-with-inverted-arrowhead idea over and over, figuring the word would pass the faster.

At the end of a long day the last of the boats rowed back, the three captains sharing it filled with Lorm’s good whiskey-laced punch as they talked over their conversation (and the good advice they’d bestowed on Inda Elgar) before returning to tell it all over again to their crews.

Just after sunset, Inda, tired and hungry (he had not drunk a drop of the punch) left the cabin to walk on deck with Jeje. She’d stayed to furnish names and backgrounds. Tau remained in the background, listening.

Inda said, “So that just leaves Chim, and whatever his surprise is, and I still haven’t seen these Ymarans and Everoneth—”

“On deck. Signal!”

Inda poked his had out the cabin door, peering upward. “Who?”

“ ‘Captain Deliyeth invites Elgar alone, or requests permission to bring party.’ ”

Jeje snorted. “It’s an insult! She’s all but saying she doesn’t trust you. What can one of her parties do if we really wanted to kill her?”

“Jeje, if you’re going to make that face around her—and by the way, does she get a special title? High, or flag, or crown, or—”

“She’s their commander, but she expected
us
to only call her captain. Tau says it’s reverse snobbery.” Jeje grinned unrepentantly. “I’m leaving. Sun’s about gone. My guess is this is your last visit of the day, and you don’t need me for it. Eflis and I worked up some night drills for the schooners and scouts while we were waiting for you. It’s your idea, only smaller. For taking on raiders.”

Inda lifted a hand, and she left. He yelled for the watch mid and they both began neatening up the cabin, which still had a few cups lying around. As the girl carefully carried away a tray full of crockery, Inda cast a look around, satisfied that things looked shipshape.

Captain Deliyeth had waited all afternoon for the Fox Banner Fleet to signal her. They’d held court instead, like the pirate emperors she suspected them to be.

When the sun had slid most of the way down the western sky she decided that sitting around waiting for a signal and asking herself questions was even more useless than cadging thirdhand gossip from others. She had never shirked her duty, no matter how unpleasant.

It was time to go call on the pirate king.

She chose her biggest, strongest, toughest marines. She knew they could hardly take a stand against the entire crew of the pirate ship, but she wanted visual evidence of just how much she distrusted the chosen leader of the alliance.

She had her gig crew row her over as she sat in the stern-sheets, straight-backed and silent, perforce requiring her company to remain silent.

She eyed the long, low trysail as they neared, not admitting even to herself how interested she was to set foot on board the infamous black-sided
Death
.

The ship was clean, everything neat, in fact neater than the ships of some of their allies. She glimpsed that sneering redhead Fox at the wheel, but she did not acknowledge him, nor did he do anything but lean his arms between the spokes and smile that hateful smile of his.

The cabin was surprisingly beautiful—but of course pirates would have their pick of the world’s treasures, since they never actually paid for anything.

Inda Elgar was younger than she’d thought, though scarred, the top of his head even with her eyes. Unlike his red-haired captain, he dressed like a deckhand. He even had bare feet, though they were far lighter a brown than the rest of his visible skin. “Sit down, please,” he said.

She took her time motioning her marines into place, sat down on a carved bench that had probably been looted from a monarch, and said without any preamble, “You are the one who murdered Count Wafri.”

Inda Elgar’s face blanched, then flushed a deep red that made his scars stand out palely. At first she thought that a reaction of guilt, except for the downward turn to his mouth. That was pain.

Inda had expected trouble, but not that. “I didn’t kill him,” Inda said finally, when he knew his voice wouldn’t bleat. But he was unsettled enough to burst out, “Why don’t you people believe that? And would you blame me if I had? He used to torture your people for sport! He assassinated your queen—he-he-he bragged about it to me.”

He sounded outraged! Deliyeth jerked her hand up, waving aside his words. “So you say, so you say. But his lordship was well loved in Ymar. He was the new king’s own cousin, from a long-respected family. Whereas about you, what do we hear? Everywhere, blood and death. Burning and destruction. With my own eyes I saw what you did to Limros Palace.”

Inda gritted his teeth.

“We’re told you even allied with Norsunder to get rid of your rivals in the Brotherhood of Blood! Who can stand against you?”

Inda twisted away and worked to calm down, wiping his sweaty face. Just the thought of Wafri made his joints flare in memory-echo. “I did not ally with Norsunder. And I didn’t make that rift.”

“The
Venn
all believed you made it!” She pressed her hands against her forehead. “They said so in the hearing of—”

“Damn the Venn! Ramis made that rift.”

“How can you expect me to believe you? We’ve heard witnesses who saw your fire ships, saw you burn pirates. Heard from traders about you walking about Ghost Island like old friends with the Norsundrian Ramis—”

Inda resolutely stayed silent. No one had ever called him a liar before; there was a disturbing sense that every word he spoke somehow twisted in the air, turning into some other word before it reached her ears.

She hesitated, unsettled by his glumness. Fox’s insolence, his sarcastic drawl, that she expected from pirates. Of course, Elgar’s reaction could be a sham, or maybe even guilt to have his crimes spoken out loud. Obviously none of those other bootlicks had dared.

She squared herself to duty. “And next thing we hear, you’ve made yourself the Marlovan king’s right-hand man, though you’d been exiled for killing a boy ten years before. How many of your countrymen did you also kill to make that jump in rank? Not that I care anything about the horse barbarians. You can kill all of them you like, since that seems to be what they like doing to other people. Here’s my question, what is to stop you from taking all our ships and people, and once the Venn are gone forever, just stepping in and taking their place yourself?” She thumped the bench she sat on. “Is this going to be your throne, Emperor Inda Elgar the First?”

Inda stared back at her. “You don’t know the truth about me. But I’ve also learned that people who don’t want to see the truth won’t.” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, then flung out his hands. “I promised people I would lead an alliance against the Venn. If you don’t want an alliance, then there’s nothing to talk about. If you do, let’s just lay out the conditions and proceed from there.” And when she did not get up to leave, “How many ships do you have, and what types?”

When she departed a short time later, Fox was waiting. He’d positioned himself at the wheel, where he could keep an eye on the comings and goings, and hear everything in the cabin below through the open scuttles.

He summoned the mate of the watch to take his place, and went down to the cabin, where he found Inda alone, prowling around from object to object, touching them sightlessly the way he did when he was thinking, or upset.

“I heard that,” Fox said. “She’s a damned fool.”

Inda looked up, and for a moment all the old pain was there, bleak and stark. “Wafri.” He expelled the word like a curse. Then rubbed his hands over his head. “How can they see escaping from a torturer as being destructive?”

“Probably has to do with setting the treasure room at Limros Palace on fire.”

“I did not!”

“Inda,
you and I
nearly caught fire, we stood there so long, watching Wafri’s stuff burn.”

“I did not burn anyone’s treasures. I remember that damned day clear as—” Inda’s voice tightened. “I remember the rope—and you pulling me up. I remember walking. My ribs hurt, I remember that much.”

Fox studied Inda uneasily. “You don’t remember the eggs in the boots?”

“That wasn’t us, that was a story from when I was a boy. Dogpiss Noth and Dancing Nderga. I must have told you that story, and you mixed it up with—” Inda frowned. “Wait. Wait. I remember the stairs. I slipped on some water somebody threw. There was fire. We were laughing. Did I have a basket of eggs, or is that a dream?” He shook his head. “I do remember shooting from the wall. But not burning anybody’s treasure.”

Inda had hunched over in the old way, as if he was seventeen again, and Fox reflected on how physical scars might heal, but the emotional ones could linger through one’s life. “I remember you nailed more of those Limros guards in knees and elbows than I did,” he said easily.

Inda’s face eased. “I was always a better shot than you, even if I couldn’t beat you on the deck. Did you ever lose a fight?”

Fox laughed soundlessly. “Once,” he said. “Once.”

Inda scarcely heard. He got up and roamed restlessly about the cabin, touching things in absent pattern. “Fox, listen. She was the last of them. I asked everybody how many ships they had on hand, and I’ve kept a running tally in my head. We don’t have enough.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Since the Venn are coming, we don’t really have a choice, do we? Well, we were outnumbered in Andahi, too. And I do have my plan. So I’m going to start right in working.”

“How do you want to do that?”

“I’m going to put ’em through maneuvers until they’re tight, fast, know how to watch one another, and don’t have to be sitting on signals. You drill ’em on their decks. If you can get some of their boarding crews trained to our composite bows, good, because they’re so much handier in the tops. But if you can’t, train ’em to use what they’ve got.”

“Done.”