The Fox (96 page)

Inda thought of the sad-eyed, patient woman spirited away to a hidden cell like Wafri’s—or worse—and what would inevitably happen there, where the scruples of those with merely a semblance of conscience could not be disturbed.

And he said, “I won’t.”

“What?” Chim squinted at him with an expression not unlike hope.

“I won’t lose anything if I refuse to hand her over. I’m a pirate, aren’t I? And she’s my prisoner. Aboard my ship. So they issue another warrant against me. I’m leaving. Taking this Venn mage with me. There isn’t going to be any torture.”

Chim narrowed his eyes. “We’ve got ’em, you know. Them gold things. We have ’em in a rucksack, on
Vixen
. We didn’t want Longnose to see and ask. That much stayed secret, seeing as Perran and me, well, we dealt with Angel ourselves. Your boy Angel knows what to do.”

Inda uttered a soft laugh: no need to ask who “Angel” was. “Can you get me a fleet? Assuming your king doesn’t decide I’m an outlaw after all, over this torture business.”

Chim fingered the braids in his beard, then said, “Half by next tidal flood, all the ones ’t Jeje trained. Rest, the ones ’t Perran and me been courting, and Prince Kavna on your behalf, if we send messengers. You could have a fleet by, say, next year. Might be longer, with the new rules about travel, and the vagaries of wind and weather.”

Inda flicked his hands up in agreement. “Any word on what the Venn war fleet is doing? All we’ve seen are a few raiders on patrol.”

Chim shrugged. “Nothing. Why we asked her. With us stuck in harbor, or hugging the coast, no fishing boats even get a glimpse of ’em. If anyone gets too close to the north shore I hear tell they take ’em, and no one knows what happens. Kavna says everyone thinks they went east to chase you, out Fire Islands’ way. But we don’t know.”

Inda opened a hand. “We haven’t seen a single warship. I’ve been hugging the north coast, and you’d think we would have spotted one on patrol if nothing else, but we haven’t. All we’ve seen in months is a handful of scouts. Including hers, and we only got it because of a mutiny already in progress.” He indicated the cabin, where Sea Dag Signi lay tied up. “Maybe they’re sailing out in the middle waters, sending the raiders to either side?”

Chim hesitated, then looked away again, at long-winged seabirds circling high in the air, almost obscured by the falling snow. Then he said in a low voice, returning to his accustomed dialect, “The Venn have begun raids against yer land. Idayago, mostly. Quick raids, fleets o’ three to six. Burning harbors, ships. Anything bigger than a smack.” He cleared his throat, then watched a pair of birds dive down toward one of the distant nests. “Angel has all the details— what little we know. He can also tell you what he learned from that spy about your homeland.”

“Spy?”

Chim’s low, raspy voice, his many glances over his shoulder, reminded Inda of the old childhood song about the piece of wool that was pulled from a tree that caused the tree to fall, which set off a flood, which wiped out a town—

“Year ago, autumn. Some fellow nosing around, asking not only for Elgar the Fox—we have a harbor full of spies asking that kind o’ question, the Venn being first—but he out and said yer name, what is it, Indrevet Ala-Grubber? Anyway, I tried to chase him off, but he came back. That time he ran athwart the hawse of our old Captain Wenald, him’t spent eight years chained to a galley by pirates— same pirates hired by the Venn—and he was near killt before your Angel saved him. Said later the jumble o’ speech from the spy was your Iascan.”

Inda felt that zing of alert again. His palms were wet, his heartbeat hammering. “And?”

“Softly, softly, now. That one down there beside young one-arm is another king’s spy, unless I miss me guess.” He indicated the
Vixen,
riding the green waves a coin toss to the lee. One of the brothers was watching birds through a glass. The other brother swept the ocean beyond the cove. A man stood between them, gaze on Inda’s ship. “Angel told me the spy said something about king’s orders—he was a, what was it, a Runner? Something, and he was to find ye.”

Inda drew a breath. “King’s orders.”

“This Vee-dritt bein’ sent last spring by this king—I remembered the name, as it happens, on account it is so close to me wife’s, which is Vyadrit, strange, that, about names—”

Inda did not hear the man’s low-voiced discursion into naming customs. He recognized the name Vedrid. The Sierlaef’s boy, back when the king’s heir was an academy horsetail and Inda a scrub. Inda and his fellow Tveis had known all their names, if only to avoid them, especially Nallan.

So the Sierlaef had to be king now—Aldren-Harvaldar, in Marlovan. The hope he’d begun to feel—and hated himself for feeling—had gone, leaving questions.
Why would the Sierlaef send a spy or assassin against me? Or is it the Harskialdna on behalf of his nephew?

But would the uncle still be Harskialdna, or had the heir gotten his way and made Buck Marlo-Vayir his Harskialdna? But why would Buck—

He felt his mind spinning into uncertainty, and made an effort to shove it back behind the old wall. Speculation was useless. Not enough information.

Chim had stopped talking and was eyeing Inda again.

Inda said, “And so?”

The older man sighed. “And so what Perran feared all along is probably going to come to pass: an embargo will kill the kingdom’s trade if we don’t obey the new orders. Nearly all the kingdom works either for the river trade comin’ up from the south, or else the sea trade. If the threats get worse, the king will take the Fleet for his own, for defense. Only reason he hasn’t squashed us is the Venn wouldn’t let him have a war fleet. Said they would protect us, that was the treaty ten years ago. So, see, the king pretends he doesn’t know about us, but if he needs our fleet, he orders it took over, and puts this young lord who’s courtin’ the crown princess in charge. If we refuse, we lose our charter—”

“I’ll have the prisoner shifted aboard our transport.”

The voice behind caused them to turn.

Longnose—Inda never did learn his name—might have been an honest man by his own lights, but Inda never left him enough time to prove it.

It had been a mistake to bring the dag here. But Inda did not have to compound the error. “Off my ship,” he said, and gestured to Fox, who straightened up from lounging against the rail far forward. Fox sauntered aft, hand on a knife hilt as Inda said, “See these people off my ship. We are setting sail.”

Fox did not speak, nor did his slow saunter alter, but somehow every line of his body, from slanted narrow green eyes to the ring of his boot heels, exuded menace.

Longnose flushed, glared at Fox, then back at Inda. “May I ask where you are bound?” he asked in Dock Talk.

“To scout the east,” Inda said.

Longnose gave him a look of comprehension. “Where the Venn happen to be looking for you?”

“I’m scouting for pirates.” Inda opened his hands wide. “There are always plenty of pirates.”

Chapter Thirty-two

AS the boats rowed away from the
Death
after the captains’ conference, Eflis leaned on her oars and glanced back at Sparrow in the bow. “Not saying anything to Dasta. Might get the wind up, like. But that Elgar sure is a strange one.”

Sparrow didn’t pause in her stroke. “Strange? What do you mean, strange in looks, in manner? Not his plans, surely.”

“Oh, not his looks. Right ordinary—until you catch him laughing, and then he’s, oh, he’s sun-bright, brighter than Tau. Gets that way when he talks plans, too.”

“Well, his plans make sense,” Sparrow admitted. She would never actually say it out loud, but she’d been impressed by Inda Elgar. On first meeting she’d thought there was more of the lying, that that tall redhead Fox was really Inda. Especially after rumor was whispered around the fleet that Elgar the Fox’d been caught spying in Ymar, and tortured—then not only escaped but set fire to half a city in retaliation. She could see that sarcastic Fox doing all that, maybe with short Inda following, until you actually spent time with Inda, heard him talk, heard him laugh. You didn’t notice anyone else, then—he suddenly became the sort of leader one could follow, if one was to follow anyone.

Eflis shrugged. “I like this new plan. Raiding the raiders! Ought to be fun. But Inda’s as short as a Delf. Dasta and Tcholan were much more dashing Elgar the Foxes at the Fire Islands. So tall, and those black duds.”

Inda himself had explained the ruse. Sparrow had been inclined to anger until Eflis laughed so hard she knocked over her glass of wine. She thought it great fun having been fooled, and she’d made Inda promise that at least once she’d get to wear the black outfit. When he said, “Of course! Didn’t Gillor wear it a few times on the island reconnaissances? ” and Gillor responded, “Mine is in the gig. Happy to share,” Sparrow’s perspective changed: instead of seeing herself and Eflis as having been duped, she perceived that they had been accepted into Elgar’s inner ring.

Eflis said, “I can see how it happened. That Fox looks about as sinister as Mad Marshig o’ the Brotherhood used to wish he looked. And Majarian did, the stinking shit. But Inda doesn’t even try. Dresses like an old dockhand.”

Sparrow said, “Practical, is all.”

Eflis picked up her oars again, and put some back into her stroke, sending the skiff bucketing over the little waves. Then she stopped again. “As for looks, yee-hoo, Tau is even prettier than I remembered when he was Coco’s toy.”

Sparrow snorted. Eflis did have a roving eye, but as long as it didn’t light on other women, it was fine with her. “And doesn’t he just know it.”

Eflis rounded her eyes. “You seen him prinking and prancing?”

“No, but he’s got about as much heart as a gold coin. If you want cold, arrogant males, for pref, give me Fox. Not in my cabin, but on my deck, fighting off all comers. Huh!”

Eflis chuckled as she flexed her arms. “
How
sore I was after he put us through that first drill. And I thought we were so tight!” She smacked a bicep. “Look at us now!”

“How about let’s feel it,” Sparrow retorted, “or we’re gonna sit on this water all night.”

Their laughter drifted over the water as they took oar again, and sped for
Sable
.

Neither Fox nor Tau paid the departing captains any heed.

Tau strolled on deck and breathed deeply of the ocean air: salt, kelp, fish, but no whiff of land. How good it was to be back at sea!

Yet he was restless. Was that because they were heading in the direction of home after all these years?

Inda had said to the captains just now, “Venn raiders are using Idayago as target practice. Shall we go practice on them?”

Jeje had cheered loudest of all. The urge to find Jeje and talk was so instant, so automatic, Tau had to laugh at himself. Of course she wasn’t here. There she was, slanting away on her
Vixen
again. And happy to be there.

He did not miss the Comet, or his perfumed life amid Bren’s aristocrats and those who kept them entertained. What he missed were the morning talks with Jeje during drill. He felt as thought one eye was missing, or part of his mind; he badly wanted to discuss the astonishing change in Inda, who somewhere, somehow, had learned to laugh. It was such an open laugh, a rushing chuckle that began deep in his chest and sounded so free, often bringing tears that Inda just shook away. Inda talked no more than he ever had, but somewhere, somehow he’d laid aside, or lost, the ability to hide his emotions—

Fox clapped his hands to summon the off-watch for yet another of the endless training workouts. With a sense of relief Tau ran to the forecastle and reached for a weapon.

Down below, Signi listened to the running feet, as she’d listened for carefully counted days.

She lay back, staring out the stern windows at the sea. Elgar the Fox had had the hammock turned, just so she could look out the window. She had only mentioned it to Fibi the Delf as a test of language, more than as a test of persons—or at least so she had thought.

Yes. The time had come to examine the truths in her own mind.

It was true that she was a failure. Chief Sea Dag Valda had entrusted her with the most important task in the world—to get to Sartor with the Venn secret of navigation— and she had failed.

She had failed because though most human beings could not lie to her without betraying the lies—few were aware that bodies often spoke more truly than lips—she could not descry all Dag Erkric’s safeguards. No, call them traps. And so her attempted peaceful mutiny ended in blood and death. And shortly thereafter the very safeguard that Valda had meant to protect her had betrayed her: they were isolated and alone, and thus ripe to fall into the hands of none other than Elgar the Fox.

That discovery had been almost as sharp a shock as had that stunning blow from the wooden block. Except Elgar the Fox had proved over the succeeding days to be nothing like what people said. Nothing at all. She had discovered the truth of Count Wafri’s plot by careful listening and putting together of clues when she had been scouting the likeliest ship to request. She knew that Elgar the Fox had destroyed Limros Palace in escaping; she knew he intended to make war on her people. She did not expect him to have such compassionate eyes, a body so eloquent with old hurt. Such scars in one so young! He had to be ten or twelve years younger than she.

He would not give her to the Brennish people to be put to the question.

He asked women to tend her, and to treat her with respect.

And he couldn’t bring himself to harm her, though she had long heard of the many deaths at his hands or at his command.

What did he see in her own face?

The cabin door opened, and she composed herself as best she could; she had reviewed the facts. It was now time to acknowledge the new path that the truths revealed.

Inda entered his cabin.

He knew it was ridiculous to leave his prisoner here, forcing himself onto the already crowded mates’ area. He sensed that they felt uncomfortable with him there, though he could not imagine why—he was careful to take no more space than anyone else. How could he, with only two changes of clothes? But every time he thought about putting Dag Signi down into the hold away from light and air his mind flinched from the idea.