The Fox (74 page)

She laughed. “So you admit to being arrogant?”

“No. We’re never arrogant ourselves, nor are we out of fashion. Those qualities are purely reserved for others.”
There,
he thought, i
s your bait—

“You appear to be,” she retorted, “less mystery than mode.”

And Tau came back with the next line, “Whichever has the least influence.” Then he stopped, and smiled, and opened one eye.

She stared, her dark blue eyes huge, her lips parted, then she finished the exchange in a somewhat breathless voice, “Oh, I so agree. Influence is terrible enough, but good influence is the worst of all.”

As everyone around her made little noises of appreciation—one woman sighed, “How very clever she is!”—the Comet added, “Will you join me? We shall find a cozy place to talk. Just the two of us.”

Tau waited until her admirers finished their sycophantic compliments: “Oh, but you must let us all hear!” and “How else shall we learn the art of conversation?”

Tau drew his fingers down the tiranthe, then laid it aside, stood up, flicked his fingers down the faultless coat, and held out his hand.

With dainty grace she placed hers on his, and they walked out, admirers trailing the Comet; from behind came the sound of Mistress Rosebud thumping into a chair and calling for her fan.

The next morning he told the entire story to Jeje, who laughed appreciatively, then said, “So I suppose the rest of the time you gave her the old ‘night to remember,’ and no, I don’t want to hear any details.”

“Not at all,” Tau said, ducking her knife, and whirling up to tap her on the collarbone—to find her beside him, her knife tip pressed lightly against his side. “Ooof!”

“She gave you a night to remember?”

“She tried. But I kept her at arm’s-length. Until dawn. Kiss on the fingertips. And a rosebud. She hates roses, remember.”

Jeje chortled, then sidestepped and kicked at Tau’s kneecap.

This time he was ready. He feinted, swooped, got behind Jeje and put his knife under her chin. “Oh, Inda. The things we do for you.”

Jeje tromped Tau’s dance shoes with her bare feet and elbowed him efficiently in the ribs. He grunted and let go, and she said, “I hope he’s having more fun than we are.”

“This isn’t fun?” Tau asked, lunging.

Jeje skipped back, made a swipe at his belly, which he blocked. “It would be fun on the deck of
Vixen
.” She feinted low, struck high, and he tapped his neck below his ear, acknowledging the blow. “Here, everything’s work.”

“Heh.” Tau grinned.

And when Tau trudged to his current lair to sleep until the night’s campaign, and Jeje marched off to another day of tallies and lists, a lone, tired figure with short pale hair walked into town behind a row of market-bound wagons full of produce.

Vedrid, Runner to the new king of Iasca Leror, Evred-Harvaldar, lifted his head, saw the harbor city at last, and let out a sigh. It had been a very long journey.

Chapter Sixteen

ON Inglenook Island, the lookout slammed the newly hammered door open. He stood on the threshold of the southern room, trying to get control of his breathing. He’d run all the way to the old ruin, now half transformed into a house.

Eflis yelled, “Careful with the damn door, I just hung it myself!”

The boy waved a hand violently. “Two capital ships hull down, comin’ in!”

“Where?”

“South-southwest.”

“On the wind.” Eflis dropped the chart she’d been copying, grabbed her glass, and strode through to the wide bank of windows—the main reason she’d chosen this room for her own, despite it being only half roofed. She stopped at the westernmost window. Snapped open the glass. Looked—and jumped. “Shit!”

The hammering above ceased, and an upside down head appeared in the narrowing gap.

“That’s
Coco
back, and I’ll give my oath it’s Boruin Death-Hand’s trysail with it!”

Two hammers clattered to the wood planking overhead, and footsteps retreated rapidly.

Eflis ran back into the other room, grabbed up her weapons belt, and pounded out, yelling for everyone to get aboard the
Sable
.

Halliff met her halfway down the trail. His face was drawn and old with fear.

“Boruin’s
Spear,
” she said. “And
Coco
.”

“But Walic’s dead,” Halliff said hoarsely. “We know that.”

“So’s Boruin,” Eflis reminded him. “Torched by Elgar the Fox. If he’s comin’ to torch us, it’s not going to be without a fight.”

The bells were ringing on the
Sable
and the
Sea-King
. Pirates ran down on either side of the two captains, who stood on a little outcropping, Eflis with her glass. “He can’t attack us with two ships.”

Halliff exclaimed, “Eflis. This madman took a
single ship
against Boruin’s fleet. And he
burned them all to death
.”

Eflis sighed as the small boats launched out into the bay. Between the two of them they had twenty small craft, ten sloops, seven schooners including Eflis’ large schooner
Sable,
and Halliff’s raffee, the
Sea-King
. Surely that would be enough even for a fire-slinging madman with only two ships, capital ships though they were.

If, that is, he only had two capital ships. What might he have beyond the horizon, or sneaking around to the north side of Inglenook?

She beckoned to one of the carpenter’s mates and issued some quick orders. Halliff stood there, a tall, stooped figure with lank gray hair, his narrow face tight with fear.

Supposedly he and she were equals. But she’d realized soon after reaching Inglenook, limping precariously after that grandmother of a storm two years before, that Halliff had lasted so long under Walic because he was unimaginative and unambitious. He was the perfect sailing master— he took excellent care of his ship. He did not come close to her idea of a real captain.

“Let’s get out into the bay,” she said. “Get some fighting room.”

Neither of them thought of trying to defend the island— they never fought on land.

When she reached the rudimentary dock—which was nothing more than some old boats lashed together with planking hammered over them—she found her first mate, Sparrow, waiting.

Sparrow held up her hand. “He’s got a parley flag out,” she said, hooking her thumb over her shoulder.

Eflis whipped up her glass as one of the schooners drifted across her field of vision. She exclaimed in disgust, then jumped down into the gig. Sparrow snapped her fingers and the gig crew bent to the oars, soon skimming them over the water to the
Sable
, where the two women clambered up and ran to the foredeck.

This time the two ships were clear, running parallel, stripped to fighting sail, but both flew the single white flag that offered parley.

Eflis cast an exasperated look toward the
Sea-King,
but it didn’t really matter how slow Halliff was. She knew she ought to wait for him and discuss their next move, but she also knew he was not going to do anything but worry and the final decision would be hers.

She lowered her glass. Sparrow waited, so still the chimes braided into her black hair did not ring. “We’ll answer, but I want the blue
above
the white.”

Sparrow whistled, and now the chimes rang sweetly. “You think Elgar the Fox is going to come aboard us? If that’s really Elgar the Fox.”

Eflis shrugged. “He came here. I want to know why, but not enough to hand him my head aboard his ship. It was bad enough before.” She grinned. “The days are over when the Brotherhood, or those who wanted to join ’em, forced you to come aboard them, eh?”

Sparrow smiled, then said, “Yes, but you’ll remember it was this fellow who tromped ’em.”

Eflis wavered, then stiffened her resolve. “I don’t care. So far, I don’t see anything else with him. Blue over white.” She smiled, remembering that it was supposed to be Elgar the Fox who’d rid the world of Walic—and Coco the Monster in Human Form. “Make the cabin nice, will you, Sparrow? If he really does come aboard us, I want him to sit and chat, and maybe tell me how they killed Coco.”

Sparrow snorted. “Long and lingering, I hope. It was her favorite kind o’ game, after all.”

Aboard
Death,
Dasta and Tcholan watched through their glasses. The fight crews waited, armed and ready. The sail crews kept the sails loose, their progress slow. Presently the answering signal went up not on Halliff’s raffee, as they’d expected, but on the biggest of the schooners, the one with the spiky five-fingered black leaf on the foresail.

Dasta turned his head. “Gillor?”

She came forward, took a glance. “That’s Eflis of the
Sable,
” she said. “Word is, her family was on the wrong side in the Khanerenth War and she ended up turnin’ pirate. Walic used to try to recruit her, but she said she would join the Brotherhood on her own.”

“Brotherhood-style pirate, then?”

Gillor shook her head. “Not the way I heard. Oh, in the beginning she talked wild. Took risks, and Emis Chaul o’ the
Widowmaker
took some interest in her. She talked the talk w’ him, but most said she was doing it to keep him thinkin’ she was an ally. She really only was interested in Khanerenth navy and trade. Revenge, like.” She grinned, then added with satisfaction, “Coco hated her because she’s young and pretty.”

Gillor laughed to herself at the sharpened interest Tcholan and Dasta revealed. She waved the glass. “Blue over white—they want you to go aboard them.”

Tcholan whistled. “So they’re interested. You were right.”

Dasta rubbed his beak of a nose, wondering if the pretty Eflis was planning a trap. But this was his idea. “Unless you want to, I’ll go. You stay here and be Elgar.”

Tcholan said, “You go. You talk better with strangers.”

“Remember the fighting scarf.” Dasta motioned for his coxswain, who waited a few paces away. “One rumor we don’t want going out is that Elgar now has black hair and skin the color of chocolate.”

“Face away and fighting scarf, hai,” Tcholan promised, and Dasta signaled for the ship to be anchored as the coxswain got his crew together to lower the gig.

“Here he comes,” Sparrow said, peering through the scuttle. She rose on tiptoe, then frowned. “ ‘He’ as in a man, but if that’s Elgar the Fox, then all the rumors are wrong.”

Splashing, voices, and then the gentle thump of a gig nudging the hull, and the women sat down on the pillows before the low table.

Shortly thereafter the cabin door opened and one of the hands motioned in a tall fellow who was brown of skin, hair, eyes. Hawk-nosed, long-bodied, he moved with an easy slouch. He wore just a vest and wide-legged blue and white striped deck trousers. A knife at his belt. Bare feet.

“You can’t be Elgar the Fox,” Eflis exclaimed in disappointment—though she rather liked his looks.

He was a little taller than she, and despite the slouch he had the muscle expected of anyone who was fighting under a captain as famous as Elgar the Fox, but there was no arrogance in his face. Instead, the curve of his mouth, the shape of his brown eyes, hinted at a sense of humor. She remembered that beautiful golden-haired fellow Coco had kept as a pet, and wondered if they knew one another.

Dasta gave a comical shrug. “What can I say? I follow orders—he stays on board in case there are problems.”

Eflis snorted. “Well, it does make sense, seeing there are forty of us all told, and two of you,” she said, more sharply then she really felt. But it was good to try to take the lead here, since the infamous Elgar wasn’t actually on board her ship. “Or do you have a trap awaiting us over the other side of the island? My scout will report on that soon,” she added, as Sparrow, standing behind Eflis, silently indicated one of the pillows.

Dasta dropped down cross-legged with the ease of one used to sitting on the floor. “Your scout won’t have anything to report. There are just two of us. But the Fox remembered Halliff from before, wondered if he was looking to rejoin another fleet, and wanted to see a little action.”

Eflis and Sparrow expressed surprise.

Dasta felt the atmosphere change. He’d seen at once that they were not only disappointed but annoyed to see him instead of the expected mysterious black-clad Elgar the Fox.

The tall blonde regarded him thoughtfully. The short curvy one with the dark, braided hair silently poured out spiced wine into three cups, let him pick one, and then took one and sipped—all long-established pirate custom.

Dasta hoped that he hadn’t managed to pick a poisoned one, and sipped at the same time she did to indicate goodwill.

The gesture had been futile at least as often as it had really been an indication of good faith. Everyone knew that. But the women accepted it anyway, and when Eflis took her glass they raised theirs in salute. They all drank.

“I’m Eflis,” the blonde said. And with a tip of her head, “Sparrow, my mate.” Sparrow gestured, which made the chimes in her braids ring.

“Dasta,” he said. “First mate on the
Death
.”

Sparrow plopped down next to Eflis. “Is that what he calls Boruin’s trysail? Kinda swag, no?”

Dasta grinned. “We couldn’t decide whether to rename it
Boruin’s Death, Majarian’s Death
, or
Pirates’ Death
— then Fox ended it by telling us it’s
Death
and to stop yapping and get it cleaned up.” His voice hitched at “Fox” but then he was clear. Whew. Whatever it was about that banner that got Fox and Inda crossing names was just as well, but he’d have to watch himself.

The women misconstrued the slight hesitation in his voice. “He must be worse than Walic,” Eflis observed.

Dasta knew a hint when he heard it. “Not at all like Walic. For one thing, he never leaves anyone behind unless they are too wounded to sail. Or I’d be aboard the
Sea-King,
” he said, his smile vanishing. His voice took on that timbre, hard to describe, that convinces one the speaker believes what he says.