The Fox (57 page)

Chapter Five

LONG, low, rake-masted, and black-hulled, the
Death
rode in the midst of Inda’s small fleet out in Halfmoon Harbor, the raffee
Cocodu
on one side, the two schooners on the other, the sketch crews battening down against the coming storm.

Gillor checked forward and aft to see that everything was bowsed down and furled except for the storm sail on the foremast, ready for the blow swiftly devouring the northwestern sky.

“Sail hai!” called someone from the foremast.

Gillor peered toward the harbor. The clouds seemed to touch the top of the hills; at least the wind would not drive them into land, she reflected, but safely seaward. “Bearing where?”

“Direct astern.
Vixen
.”

Gillor leaped to the shrouds, impatiently raking back the black curls that had escaped from her queue. Her scalp and her neck were sticky from the breathless heat. She’d wanted to signal for more crew, but Inda had been definite last night when he put her in charge of the ship.
Pick a crew you can trust, the fewer the better, and hold the
Death
until the
Vixen
returns,
he had said.

Vixen
—usually as swift and graceful as a reed skimmer— wallowed up on the lee, so low the choppy seas kicking up ahead of the storm winds were washing down the deck.

The
Vixen
hove to, its sails brailed swiftly by the captains who’d taken it away.

Inda vaulted over the side a moment later, his face gold-lit, then shadowed by the light of the swinging binnacle lantern. “Dismiss the rest of your watch below. Ride out the storm,” he ordered. “Let’s get relieving tackle to the helm before the wind rises. We have some fast unloading to do.”

The small crew, on watch since the night before, did not question—they seemed glad to vanish below, leaving the storm for the new watch to deal with.

Curiosity spiked yet again at the promising chink of metal in the little bags that Jeje, Tau, Fox, Dasta, and Inda brought aboard as swiftly as they could, staggering with the heavy weight while waves dashed against the railing, kicking high surges of water that the wind then poured, hissing white, down the deck. The wind shrieked on a higher and higher note through the rigging.

But the heavy little bags came on, until Gillor, her jaw locked with tension, feared that the
Vixen
would smash against the
Death
. But she said nothing, only stood at the helm, hands gripped tight, her body set against the groaning, shuddering wood.

Inda judged his mysterious unloading to a nicety.

Just as Gillor was ready to despair, Jeje’s regular crew were brought out of
Death
’s wardroom and dispatched to help Jeje sail
Vixen
around to the lee of
Cocodu
to drop Dasta there, Tau going with them. Fox brought up two more of the crew to take station at the foremast.

The lightened
Vixen
raced over the waves, vanishing in the silver-gleaming spears of rain that momentarily flattened the sea, lit by blue-white lightning.

Gillor was soaked to the skin within about three breaths. Inda joined her at the helm, tested the tension of the relieving tackle with one palm, and took up station on the weather side, Gillor shifting gladly to the lee. Together they fought to keep the ship pointed up into the wind, bracing themselves, tired as they were, for an all-night fight; summer squalls frequently lasted that long in the southern waters. Here on the belt of the world they were usually short, coming in waves; though one wouldn’t last long, you wouldn’t know if another squall, and even a third, was following rapidly after.

The storm passed swiftly after dropping showers so thick and warm they’d had to turn their faces leeward so they could breathe, and they could not see Fox and his hands at the foremast.

At least this storm was alone. Rumbles and flashes moved southeast, leaving a pure, rain-washed sky filled with the jeweled gleam of multicolored stars and a thin sliver of moon rising, and they’d only made a little headway.

“West wind,” Inda said, his voice husky with tiredness. “Spring is really here, and we have the wind right where we want it. If it stays steady we could reach the middle of the strait by midsummer. Two months at the outside.”

Gillor said, “We’re leaving?”

Inda said, “Soon as we can. Listen, Gillor. I ask that you keep to yourself what you saw and heard.”

She realized then that she’d been the only one he’d trusted to see that unloading. She swallowed. Even after all this time, she wasn’t used to trust, did not know how to respond to it.

But Inda went right on, as if he didn’t expect her to speak—or swear an oath. “We’re going to find the Guild Fleet. I’ll give everyone a choice, whether or not they want to fight the Venn.” And when she hesitated, he smiled. “You don’t have to decide now. We’ve got until summer before we reach Bren. Meanwhile, I’ll send Tau to pay our shots and see to last supplies.”

Gillor laughed. “That one, he could talk Norsunder into peace and plenty.”

The swinging lamp made it difficult to see Inda’s expression before he turned away, stopped, then turned back. “When did you sleep last?”

“Night before. We came aboard just after the midnight watch. I stayed on deck. Thought that was your order.”

“Go below. I’ll take the helm until the change.” And, seeing her hesitate, Inda added, “I need the time to think.”

She raised a hand as she trotted down the still-streaming gangway. He watched her hip-swinging stride, a privateer’s stride. Such a conversation after an order would never have happened in the Marlovan military and he suspected it was the same for any navy. Could he successfully use the shifting nature of authority common to the pirate life to defeat the tradition of hard-drilled obedience of the Venn military?

Fox’s voice rose above the hissing of the diminishing waves, ordering the green flag hoisted to the top of the mainmast. The watch-change bell tinged; the lookout lanterns were hung once again, and the remainder of Gillor’s scant crew emerged, most refreshed from sleep. They began setting sail so they could beat back into the inner harbor and opened the hatches to air the hot, stuffy cabins below.

Inda watched idly as Fox oversaw the work. He knew he could not take independents and privateers against the Venn—arguing, fighting, side-switching independents, owing allegiance to no one, their goal usually confined to immediate wealth and the prospect of squandering it. Sometimes the division between independents and pirates was a very narrow one indeed.

So he needed discipline, but that required consent first. So how did one get the consent of pirates?

Inda felt the wind dying and knew he could tie the helm down and slacken sail, but it felt good, tired as he was, to lean against the polished wood, feel the ship creaking sleepily underfoot, sniff the clean air with its tang of the sea. The treasure stowed below in the captain’s private, locked hold had stiffened the
Death
slightly, setting it by the stern so that the masts raked even more sharply back. Big as it was, it would handle like a scout in most winds, and he would need speed and agility.

He would need speed.

“I’m going ashore.” Fox leaned against the rail, Gillor’s tired crew standing by to boom down the launch. “I can name those who’ll stay with us and those who’ll run. Let ’em run with my goodwill. Most of them are worthless. But some of those who’ll ship out with us might see fit to kick up some trouble before the morning tide. I want to be able to return to this island without getting my throat cut, so I might have to break a few heads to remind them of their manners.”

Fox would only take a couple of crew to handle the launch; he was capable of doing his reminding on his own. Everyone in the fleet—probably on the island, by now— knew that nobody outfought him and his Marlovan steel.

“There were also a few possible hires,” Fox added.

Inda heard the question in his statement. “Tell them the new plan. If they still want on, find out their experience.”

Fox lifted a hand, and presently the launch splashed down, raised a sail, and eased away toward the shore, faster in the variable breezes than the
Death
making its way at a stately pace back toward the harbor.

Inda remembered he was going to send Tau, and ran up a signal so that
Cocodu
would come up on the lee.

Then he leaned his arms between the spokes of the helm. Either his fleet followed him or not. Either Fox challenged him or not. No use worrying. Just go on.

So what was first in “on”? Supplies to be seen to. Weapons. Then drills. A mage to be found, new tactics to be designed and practiced.

He thought of these things as little threads stretching across the empty loom of the future, a loom built like the ones he’d seen every day in Tenthen Castle at home, before he was sent to the academy to train in military command, with Sponge and Noddy and Cama and Cherry-Stripe.

And Dogpiss—

Look to the future. Which ships to send where. Crew, training. What he’d say to the Guild Fleet organizers when he reached Bren. Where to seek what he needed to know about the Venn. Whom to trust to what task. Warp. Weft.

He picked up the glass and swept the harbor, more for something to do than anything else. To his surprise he saw one of the little hired boats set out into the choppy seas. He straightened up as it sped toward them, slanting with the wind.

The lookout yelled, “Boat ahoy!”

“Hire!” came a woman’s voice.

Inda looked down at the battered hired coracle bumping up against the trysail’s smooth hull.

“Come aboard,” he called.

A short, bandy-legged, weathered woman scrambled aboard and swung her patched, worn sailor bag to thump on the captain’s deck. Even in the darkness there was no mistaking a Delf. Impossible or not, he seemed to be getting a Delf as a volunteer.

She faced Inda. “Fibi Rumm by mother relation of Fussef, cousin-second to Niz Findl.”

Inda grimaced. “If you are looking for Niz, I am sorry to have to tell you that he died by pirates’ hands. I told his family when we stopped at the Delfin Islands a couple months ago.”

Fibi poked her beaky nose forward, a gesture that brought Niz strongly to mind. “So the word is,” she replied without any hint of sentiment. “The Fussefs decided to send another o’ us. Me you’ll be needin’, especially if you take on one o’ them square-sail Venn shits.”

Inda stared into pale eyes in a face whose age was impossible to guess. “How did you know that?” he asked.

She shrugged one shoulder. “Figured us Delfs, Venn’s next. Makes reason, ye’d finish what ye start.”

Inda smiled. “Welcome aboard. We sail on the ebb tide tomorrow.”

“What’s a Harskialdna? Besides a war king’s Shield Arm, whatever that means?”

In the
Vixen
’s tiny cabin Jeje, Tau, and Dasta crowded around the little table, now that the worst of the storm was over, and they were no longer needed on deck.

The two scuttles were closed, the cabin door shut tight.

Tau sat back tiredly, his long hands open and loose, golden eyes reflecting the fiery lamplight overhead as it swung to and fro. “I haven’t told anyone this—didn’t seem to be a point. But the night before we took on the Brotherhood, I found Barend on deck. It was after that sword dance exhibition. He was alone—remember how isolated he kept himself? Just sitting there drinking and staring up at the fox banner on the
Death
. I asked its origin, and Barend was drunk enough to actually answer, instead of bowsing up like they usually do.”

Dasta sighed and Jeje snickered. “Go on.”

“He told me it used to be the personal banner of the Montredavan-An heirs to kingship but now they use it at some academy where they train their commanders up from boys. The one Inda was apparently in before he came to us.”

Jeje shrugged. Her people, fishers for generations, had no interest in the plains-riding Marlovan warriors, their kings, or their academies. To the coastal folk the Marlovans’ single virtue was that they avoided the sea.

Dasta ran his thumbnail back and forth along the wood grain as though it helped him plumb his memory. He said, frowning, “Aren’t their kings called something else by way of family name?”

“Barend’s name is Montrei-Vayir.”

Dasta grunted. “Fox. Banner.
Our
Fox, you mean.”

Tau laughed softly. “That’s right. Anyway, Fox, our Fox, is the descendant of the displaced kings.”

“So that’s what Inda meant,” Jeje said. “I think. He said Fox is haunted by his ancestors. Something like that.”

“I won’t pretend to know Fox’s mind, because he’s as close as Inda. Closer, in many ways. But what we have topside are a son of disgraced kings and a disgraced son of a prince.”

Dasta dug harder into the wood grain.

Jeje groaned. “So what? So
what?
Who cares about a bunch of dead kings, or even living ones?”

“Patience,” Tau said, raising a mock-admonitory finger. “When we overheard Fox accusing Inda of attempting to become Iasca Leror’s Shield Arm, you can perceive some of the scope of the insult, perhaps.”

Jeje hated this kind of talk; she didn’t know why. On second thought, yes, she did. It was because she loathed the idea of kings. In her view, they were no better than anyone else. Underneath all the jewels and velvets and so forth was skin and bone, they ate, they farted, they snored like anyone else. But their passions didn’t affect just one or two people, they affected whole kingdoms of people—people who might never see a king in their lifetime—a concept so fire-scorchingly unfair it made her itch all over.

“Inda’s not doing any such thing,” she said crossly. “Inda’s going up against the Venn because they’ve all but destroyed ship trade. We all know that.”

Dasta glanced from one to the other, his nails working away at the grooves in the grain.