Treason's Shore (92 page)

Despite the heavy, splatting drops, and the low, uneven crashes of thunder, Chim drew Inda out to the forecastle.

There, he pointed to a large, smiling second mate dressed in the light brown and burnt orange of Bren’s navy. “That there’s Prince Kavna, who insisted on being with us. Only reason Princess Kliessin agreed is that she wants an eye she can trust watching me as well as their cousin Brasvac.”

“I thought the admiral looked familiar.” Inda grinned.

“I didn’t know you ever saw Prince Kavna.”

“Not to talk to. But he was on his yacht the day I rowed in to report to you and Mistress Perran, before we sailed west. We went a stone’s toss away from the yacht, so I could see all the gild work. The rowers were proud of it, and proud of him. Where’s that yacht, is it here?”

“Oh, I’m sure Venn’ve got it. We didn’t bring it. Thought it would be a target. Listen, Inda, Brasvac and the captains were forbidden by the princess to tell you who Kavna was. But he’s doing well. Serves a watch. Messes with the mates, eats what they eat. Knows a sheet from a line, so don’t think he’d go buy a chart o’ Sartor from a Venn.”

Inda grunted a laugh. He hadn’t heard that expression since his Freeport Harbor days. On the surface it had meant someone stupid enough to buy a detailed chart of one shore on another continent, instead of getting it local—and cheaper. It was the “cheaper” aspect that Tau had explained once while they were sitting in the rigging, fletching arrows. Only the rich were arrogant enough (and stupid enough) to wave off cost if they wanted something right away, instead of waiting like anyone else.

“If he’s doing well, then why is he pretending to be a second mate?” Inda asked, hating what he knew would be the answer. Better to get it said. He hated all the sidled looks and sneaking around worse.

They used Sartoran, which Chim spoke better than Dock Talk. A gust of bitter wind made Inda’s right shoulder feel as if someone was sticking cold icicles into it; Chim’s hip felt the same, but they both were too experienced with shipboard lack of privacy, and so they moved all the way to the bow as tiny missiles of hail bombarded them.

They hunched their backs to the wind, pulling their collars up to protect their ears from the hail. Chim said, “You oughta know how it is with lords and princes. I hear it’s the same everywhere. If they got power, they get cosseted. If they don’t, they get scragged. Seldom the fair start the ordinary hand gets. He said he doesn’t have real experience, so he didn’t want to be a captain. Not and have everyone double-checking every order behind his back.”

“And so you told me about him to protect him? Or scrag him? Or leave him alone?”

“He’s always been on the side o’ the sailors.”

Inda knew that already, and he knew that Chim knew. So he’d asked the wrong question. Ah. “Nothing was official because . . . they think I might take him hostage? Is what you’re saying related to that message Princess Kliessin sent about me making some treaty or they’ll shoot me on sight?”

“Mmm.” Chim squinted out at the gray-green rollers stretching away to the steel-gray sky. A flicker had caught his eye. As he and Inda watched, three silver porpoises and three mers shot up out of the water, the silver-skinned mers clapping hail with their hands. For a moment the six were suspended against the gray of sea and sky, porpoise mouths grinning, mer mouths open in silent laughter. “Do they even have voices?” Chim asked.

“You’re asking if they’re human. Sometimes I wonder what being human means,” Inda responded.

Six graceful arcs, six dives and they were gone. The waves chopped and foamed, hiding where they’d been.

Inda turned his head, still waiting for an answer.

“You Marlovans have a rep,” Chim said slowly.

“Yes, or you wouldn’t have sent Ryala Pim to get me, and I wouldn’t be here talking to you. I’d be at home, getting ready to ride out with the boys to the banner game.”

Chim turned his way, his old eyes acute. “That was me who sent Mistress Pim, and you might say my own rep rests on my decision. Oh, they know you’re good. None better. But the fact is, some are uneasy, and I don’t just mean old Bitterweed Deliyeth. They afear they might fight alongside you to get rid of the Venn, just to find that they’ve been replaced by another tyrant.”

“Tyrant!” Inda snorted. “I don’t want to—” He frowned. “Do you mean Evred-Harvaldar, our king? Evred is no Erkric.”

“He’s a distant king, and people want him to stay distant,” Chim said.

Inda stared. “But we’re here because your kings all along the strait, both sides, were never strong enough to keep out either the Venn or pirates. I’m here to do both, and ensure peaceful trade.”

“Good. Peaceful trade is good.” Chim thumped Inda on the shoulder. “But first we have to win.”

Erkric stared down at the paper.
Delfs?
This far east? It was a direct flouting of the orders he’d had Rajnir issue to the islanders two years before:
No trade with Sartor
. Well, they’d pay for their temerity, but it would have to wait.

Erkric waved the paper gently in the hot, still air, and forced himself to relax. His stomach griped all the time, his blood rushed in his ears. So much treachery all around him! Proof over and over, that nobody could be trusted. All people were thralls, they just did not know it. All of humanity required an iron collar for its own good. So when he chose his thralls to carry out his will, he limited their access to knowledge, he assigned tasks according to ability, he used weakness to determine his thralls’ reward.

He needed
time
. But when one did not have it, one was forced to number tasks in order of need. Twelve Towers and the vanishing wards could sink down the list: good as it would be to arrive home triumphant to a fortress he knew was utterly secure, it would have to wait on the victory.

A victory achieved after Durasnir’s glorious death—and the rescue of the fleet by magic. These Delfs might make it unnecessary to have to plan that on top of all else . . . number your tasks . . .

He smiled. It was wonderful when human greed and ambition could serve him without his having to exert himself.

He methodically shredded the dispatch and flung it out the stern window to tumble in the foaming wake. Once again, proving that thoroughness always paid off, tedious as it was to deflect every military dispatch to his desk first.

When Halvir was smaller, one midsummer the bigger boys asked him to be the dead hero on a shield for a ballad enactment. It was strange to shut his eyes and pretend he was dead while others picked him up and posed his hands and feet and twitched his clothes into place.

It was like that when the Dag came in and whispered words that made Halvir tingle from magic, then said, “Eat. Drink.” The only thing they left him able to do for himself was to use the Waste Spell. Otherwise, they moved him around, then put him down on the bed, or sometimes back in the chair.

And then came the whispering again, and that feeling like snow falling inside his head, covering everything. Even his thoughts.

But he submitted, because it was a test. He never moved, or made a noise, or even opened his eyes. He knew he was being tested, and that meant he could pretend it was a game, like the big boys played. Then everything was bearable. So he did a good job, just like when he was the hero on the shield, and Rigi Hafnir and the others gave him berry tarts with extra sweetened cream afterward.

The snow piled and piled until he fell into dreams again, falling and falling . . .

“Halvir.”

This time when he woke up, he only panicked a little. He lay flat on a bunk. He had a light blanket holding him down, not sashes. They had not tied him up again!

“Halvir, can you rise?”

Halvir sat up slowly. His head pounded, forcing him back down. When the pounding and nausea died away, he sat up more slowly, trying to sneak upright before the hammer inside his head noticed. It only tapped.

“I’m sitting up,” Halvir whispered at last. “But I don’t know where I am. I can’t see. Where are you?”

“Other side of the room. I can’t get up, not without difficulty.”

“Who are you?”

“Rajnir.”

The sun exploded behind Halvir’s eyes. He almost yelled, but controlled himself, then whispered, “You can’t be. You said we’re prisoners. The king can’t be a prisoner.”

The voice made a noise that sounded kind of like a bleat, and the hairs prickled on the back of Halvir’s neck. Was that a laugh or a cry? “Yet I am. Now, I need you to do something for me. I order it.” The voice changed on the command word, and then came what almost sounded like a real laugh, but angry.

“Command me, O my king,” Halvir said, just like in ballads. At least he knew what he was supposed to say!

“Feel your way to the trunk below and behind where you lie.”

Halvir got to his hands and knees. He waited until the pounding his rising caused died away again. Then he got a sense of the roll of the ship. Somebody had taken away his shoes and socks. He slid his legs over and felt for the deck with his toes. He eased down until he crouched on the deck, which smelled of brine and old wood. The smell was comforting.

He felt his way. Bunk. Chair bolted down. Bulkhead. Little table. Oh, was this it? His fingers encountered an enormous trunk, metal at the corners, the surface deeply carved. He ran his fingers over it, finding runes, and a long, undulating dragon. Ships, a sun . . .

“Find it?”

Halvir jerked guiltily. “I think so, O my king.” He scrabbled for the latch. The lid did not want to come up. He braced himself against the side of the lid, and muscled it up. “It’s heavy.”

“That’s the one. Feel down inside. Should be in the front. Wrapped in silk, and then velvet, are my weapons. There is a long knife. It has a
drakan
-head hilt. Bring me that knife.”

Weapons? Halvir’s eager fingers touched, felt, sorted, wormed down until they encountered the right shape.

He took the knife in its wrappings—the steel was horribly sharp—to the deck, and he felt his way back along his bunk. “Where are you, O my king?”

“This way. This way. This way.” The slow words guided him past a huge table, more trunks, another table, benches, a big chair. Beyond that, another bunk. It smelled sharp, like old sweat and stale food. Halvir wrinkled his nose, then breathed through his mouth as he felt his way up. When his spidering fingers encountered a warm shape in silk, he snatched his hand back.

“There you are. Now, give me the knife.”

The velvet came away, the silk slithered to the deck with a soft chuff. Halvir felt with one hand until he encountered a man’s hand, warm, damp. The king’s hand! He guided the knife into it.

“You had better get back to your bunk, because when they find me, I do not want you blamed.”

“I don’t understand, o my king.”

The king did not answer, because he was determined to act fast. He’d thought it all out. The single choice he had left was death and through that, and only that, could he defeat the enemy, which was not the Marlovans, nor Norsunder, nor the greedy Houses. Erkric had become The Enemy, and Rajnir would deny him the kingship.

But . . . his arms wouldn’t hold him.

He grunted, his heart beating hard from the unaccustomed effort and from the knowledge of what his mind willed. The heart wanted to beat, but was helpless to save itself.
I will
. . .

But at last will was denied him, or the physical act of will. “Halvir,” he gasped, falling back. “Halvir. Take the knife.”

Halvir knelt on the deck. By the sounds the king was struggling, like in wrestling, but nobody else was in the cabin with them. Halvir reached with tentative fingers, fumbling in the disordered bedding until he found the knife lying loose in the king’s fingers, as the king lay panting, his breath rasping in his throat.