Red Seas Under Red Skies (65 page)

“Oh, fair enough.” Kosta began removing the more delicate components of his fine costume. “I suppose I've got no particular urge to get my throat slit in an alley, anyway.”

“Wise lad.” Zamira turned to Delmastro. “Del, let's get a list together for tonight's Merry Watch. They can go ashore with us when we head in for the council. Let's say…half the ship's company. Make it fair.”

“Right,” said Del. “And until we come back from that meeting, they can wait in the boats, conveniently watching for trouble, can't they?”

“Exactly,” said Zamira. “Same as all the other crews, I expect.”

“Captain,” Del whispered almost into Zamira's ear, “what the hell is this meeting about?”

“Bad business, Ezri.” She glanced at Leocanto and Jerome, smiling and joking with one another, oblivious of her scrutiny. “Bad if it's true. Bad if it's not.”

She put an arm on Ezri's shoulder; this young woman who'd turned her back on life as a pampered Nicoran aristocrat, who'd risen from scrub watch to first mate, who'd nearly been killed a dozen times in half that many years to keep Zamira's precious
Orchid
afloat. “Some of the things you'll hear tonight concern Valora. I can't guess what you two have spoken of in private…in those rare interludes where you two spend your private moments
speaking
—”

Ezri thrust out her chin, smiled, and didn't deign to blush.

“—but what I have to say may not please you.”

“If there's anything to be settled between us,” said Ezri softly, “I trust him to settle it. And I'm not afraid to hear anything.”

“My Ezri,” said Zamira. “Well then, let's get dressed to go meet the relations. Armor and sabers. Oil your scabbards and whet your knives. We might need the tools to make some parting arguments if the conversation goes poorly.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

POINTS OF DECISION

1

A MILE OF LONELY BEACH
separates Port Prodigal from the ruins of its fallen stone sentinel: Castana Voressa, Fort Glorious.

Built to dominate the northern side of the bay serving Fort Glorious before a shift in the fortunes of the Ghostwinds brought an equivalent change to the city's name, the fort would not now suffice to ward off an attack with vulgar language, let alone the blades and arrows of a hostile force.

To say that it was constructed cheaply would be an injustice to skinflint stonemasons; several whole shiploads of Verrari granite blocks were diverted into the home-building trade for wine money by bored officials far from home. Grand plans for walls and towers became grand plans for a wall, and finally modest plans for a smaller wall with barracks, and as a capstone to the entire affair the garrison of soldiers intended for those barracks was lost in transit to a summer's-end storm.

The only useful remnant of the fort is a circular stone pavilion about fifty yards offshore, linked to the main ruins by a wide stone causeway. This was intended to be a platform for catapults, but none ever came. Nowadays, when the pirate captains of Port Prodigal call a council to discuss their affairs, this pavilion is always the place and dusk is always the time. Here the captains do business in private, standing on the stones of a Verrari empire that never was, atop the frustrated ambitions of a city-state that had nonetheless frustrated their own ambitions seven years before.

2

IT BEGAN
as every such meeting Zamira could remember; under the purple-red sky of sunset, with lanterns set out atop the old stones, with the humid air thick as an animal's breath and the biting insects out in force.

There was no wine, no food, and no sitting when the council of captains was called. Sitting only made people more inclined to waste time. Discomfort stripped sentiment from everyone's words and brought them to the heart of their problems with haste.

To Zamira's surprise, she and Ezri were the last to arrive. Zamira glanced around at her fellow captains, nodding cordially as she eyed them all in turn.

First there was Rodanov, armed now, with his first mate Ydrena Koros, a trim blond woman only slightly taller than Ezri. She had the poise of a professional duelist and a reputation with the wide-bladed Jereshti scimitar.

Beside them stood Pierro Strozzi, an amiable bald fellow pushing fifty, waited on by his lieutenant, called Eartaker Jack for what he liked to slice from the heads of his fallen foes. It was said that he tanned them and sewed them into elaborate necklaces, which he kept locked in his cabin.

Rance was there, with Valterro at her shoulder as usual. The right side of Rance's jaw was several wince-inducing shades of black and green, but she was standing on her own two feet, and at least had the courtesy not to glare at Zamira when she thought Zamira was watching.

Last but not least was Jacquelaine Colvard, the so-called “Old Woman of the Ghostwinds,” still elegant in her midsixties, if gray-haired and sun-scorched like old leather. Her current protégé, and therefore lover, was Maressa Vicente, whose fighting and sailing qualities were not yet generally known. The young woman certainly looked capable enough.

Until one of them walked away, then, they were effectively sealed off here from the rest of the world. Parties from their crews, about half a dozen from each ship, mingled uneasily at the end of the causeway. No one else would be permitted to walk upon it until they finished.

So, Zamira thought, how will we do this?

“Zamira,” said Rodanov, “you're the one who called the council. Let's hear what's on your mind.”

Straight to the action, then.

“Not so much on my mind, Jaffrim, as on all of our heads. I have evidence that the archon of Tal Verrar may have inconvenient plans for us once again.”

“Once again?” Rodanov made fists of his huge hands. “It was
Bonaire
who had the inconvenient plans, Zamira; we should have expected Stragos to do what any one of us would have done in his place—”

“I haven't forgotten so much as a day of that war, Jaffrim.” Zamira felt her hackles rise despite her determination to be patient. “You know very well that I've come to call it a mistake.”

“The Lost Cause,” snorted Rodanov. “More like the Dumb Fucking Idea. Would that you'd seen it for folly at the time!”

“Would that you'd done more than
talk
at the time,” said Strozzi mildly. “Talked and sailed away when the archon's fleet darkened the horizon.”

“I never joined your damned Armada, Pierro. I offered to try and draw some of his ships off, and that much I did. Without my help you'd have lost the weather gauge sooner and been flanked from the north. Chavon and I would be the only captains standing here—”

“Stand off,”
shouted Zamira. “I called the council, and I have more to tell. I didn't bring us here to salt old wounds.”

“Speak on,” said Strozzi.

“A month ago a brig left Tal Verrar. Her captain stole her from the Sword Marina.”

There was a general outburst of muttering and head-shaking at that. Zamira smiled before continuing. “For crew, he stole into Windward Rock and emptied a vault full of prisoners. His intention, and theirs, was to sail south and join us in Port Prodigal. To fly the red flag.”

“Who could steal one of the archon's ships from a guarded harbor?” Rodanov spoke as if he only half believed the possibility. “I'd like to meet him.”

“You have,” said Zamira. “His name is Orrin Ravelle.”

Valterro, previously silent behind Captain Rance, sputtered. “
That
fucking little—”

“Quiet,” said Zamira. “Lost your purse last night, didn't you? Ravelle has fast hands. Fast hands, a quick mind, a talent for command, and a way with a blade. He earned his way onto my crew by killing four Jeremite Redeemers by himself.” Zamira felt vaguely amused to be talking Kosta up with the same half-truths he'd worked so hard to disabuse her of.

“Yet you said he had his own ship,” said Rodanov.

“Yes. The
Red Messenger
, sold off to the Shipbreaker just this afternoon. Pierro, you saw it off the Burning Reach a few days ago, didn't you?”

“Indeed.”

“There I was, going about my business, innocently scooping up prizes here and there on the Sea of Brass,” said Zamira, “when I happened upon Ravelle's
Messenger
. Interrupted his plans, to say the least. I poked holes in his story until I squeezed it all out of him, more or less.”

“What story is that?” Rance sounded as though she had a collection of small rocks in her mouth, but she made herself understood.

“Think about it, Rance. Who is Ravelle? One man—a thief, clearly. Trained to do many unusual things. But could one man sail a brig out of the gated harbors in the Sword Marina? Could one man break into Windward Rock, overcome every guard there, free an entire vault full of prisoners, and pack them off in his brig, conveniently stolen the very same night?”

“Uh,” said Rance. “Well, possibly—”

“He didn't do it alone.” Colvard spoke for the first time, quietly, but her voice drew the eyes of everyone on the pavilion. “Stragos must have let him escape.”

“Precisely,” said Zamira. “Stragos let him escape. Stragos gave him a crew of prisoners eager for any sort of freedom. Stragos gave him a ship. And he did all this knowing full well that Ravelle would sail south. Come down to join us in our trade.”

“He wanted an agent among us,” said Strozzi, uncharacteristically excited.

“Yes. More than that.” Zamira gazed around the circle of pirates, ensuring that she had their undivided attention before she continued. “He
has
an agent among us. Aboard my ship. Orrin Ravelle and his companion Jerome Valora are currently in the archon's service.”

Ezri whipped her head around to stare at Zamira, mouth open. Zamira squeezed her arm unobtrusively.

“Kill them,” said Colvard.

“The situation is more complicated and more grave than that,” said Zamira.

“Grave indeed, for these two men you speak of. I find it best to make corpses of complications.”

“Had I discovered their deceit on my own, it would already be done. But Ravelle is the one who confessed these things to me. He and Valora are, by his claim, entirely unwilling agents. Stragos gave them a latent poison, to which he alone supposedly holds the antidote. Another month will bring them due for their next dose.”

“Death would be a favor, then,” mumbled Rance. “That bastard will never let them be anything but puppets.”

Rodanov waved for her to pipe down. “What, to hear it from Ravelle's lips, was their mission? To spy on us, I presume?”

“No, Jaffrim.” Zamira put her hands behind her back and began to slowly pace the center of the pavilion. “Stragos wants us to do him the favor of flying the red flag in sight of Tal Verrar again.”

“That makes
no
sense,” said Strozzi.

“It does when you consider the archon's needs,” said Colvard.

“How?” Rance and Strozzi spoke in unison.

“I hear that things are brittle between the archon and the Priori,” said Colvard. “If something were to come along and put a fright into the fine citizens of Tal Verrar, their regard for the army and navy would rise.”

“Stragos needs a foe from outside Tal Verrar,” said Zamira. “He needs it with all haste, and he needs to be assured that his forces can kick it around with a will.” She spread her arms wide, toward her fellow captains and their mates. “We might as well be painted like archery butts.”

“There's no profit,” said Strozzi, “in bringing a fight to us—”

“For those that take their profit in coin, you're right. But for Stragos, it means everything. He gambled a ship, a crew of prisoners, and his very reputation on Ravelle's mission. You don't think he's serious? He made a laughingstock of himself by allowing a ‘pirate' to escape from his secure harbors, all so he could wait to redeem himself by crushing us later.” Zamira brought her fists together. “That was Ravelle's task—convince us, trick us, lie to us, bribe us. And if we couldn't be made to serve, his plan was to do it himself, in the
Messenger
.”

“Then our course is obvious,” said Rodanov. “We don't give Stragos a damn thing. We don't dance around his noose. We keep five hundred miles between ourselves and Tal Verrar, as we have since the war. If need be, we play meek for a few months.” He reached over and gave Strozzi's paunch a hearty slap. “We live off our fat.”

“If we do that much,” said Ydrena Koros, “begging your pardon, Captain. This evidence of yours, Captain Drakasha—the word of these two men seems thinner than—”

“Not just their word,” said Zamira. “Think, Koros. They had the
Red Messenger
. Its crew, the survivors of which are now
my
crew, did indeed come from Windward Rock. The archon sent them, all right.”

“I concur,” said Colvard, “though I also agree with Jaffrim that standing down from provocation is the wisest—”

“
Would
be wisest,” interrupted Zamira, “if Stragos was doing this on a whim. But he's not, is he? He's in the fight of his life. His very position is at stake. He needs us.”

She paced the center of the pavilion again, reminded of the “arguments” she'd put forth over the years in her pretend turns as a magistrate for initiation rituals. Were these theatrics any more convincing? She hoped to the gods they were.

“If we tip Ravelle and Valora over the side and ignore them,” she said, “or shy away from Tal Verrar, Stragos will try something else. Some other scheme to trick us into a fight, or to convince his people that we're bringing one. Only next time, the gods may not see fit to allow the instruments of his design to fall into our hands. We'll be blind.”

“There's more hypothesis here,” said Rodanov, “than just about anything I ever heard at the collegium.”

“The
Red Messenger
and the prisoners do indicate that Stragos took a gamble,” said Colvard. “That he took a gamble indicates that he can't move openly or with confidence. Knowing what we do of the situation in Tal Verrar…I'd say this threat is real. If Stragos requires an enemy, we are the only suitor at this dance that fits his need. What else can he do? Pick a fight with Balinel? Camorr? Lashain?
Karthain?
I hardly think so.”

“What would you have us do, Zamira?” Rodanov folded his arms and scowled.

“We possess the means to strike back at the archon.”

“We
can't
fight the Verrari navy,” said Rodanov. “Nor can we storm the damn city, summon lightning from the sky, or ask the gods to politely dispose of Stragos for us. So by what means may we ‘strike back'? Wound his feelings with vicious letters?”

“Ravelle and Valora are expected to report directly to him when they receive their antidote.”

“They have access to him,” said Colvard. “An assassination!”

“For which they suffer the blame, assuming they live,” mused Strozzi.

“Good for them,” said Rodanov. “And what, you wished our consent to take them back to Tal Verrar and let them loose? By all means let fly. I'd be happy to lend them a pair of knives.”

“There is, from the perspective of Ravelle and Valora, only one minor complication. That they would prefer to acquire a permanent antidote, and
then
do away with Stragos.”

“Alas,” said Rance, “we so rarely realize our desires in life—”

“Tell them that we have an antidote,” said Colvard. “Convince them that we have the means to free them from their condition. Then set them loose upon the archon…. Whether they survive the assassination or not will be of no consequence.”