Sasharia en Garde

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “Lovely! So catch me up on the news.” She tipped her head and charmed him by plopping her elbows on the table.

  “Local news?” he asked, with some irony.

  “Oh, no. World news. What have I missed?”

  “You missed a couple of brushes with Norsunder.” He poured out perfectly steeped Sartoran tea for her, and then himself. “All the mages are yammering about a real strike one of these days. But they’ve been yammering for the past decade, and nothing has happened yet.”

  “That sounds nasty.” She cradled the fine porcelain cup in her fingers, sipped, and smiled over the gold rim of the cup. “Tell me something nice. What is the news in Sartor?”

  “From what I’ve heard, Shontande Lirendi is busy courting the young queen.”

  “If I knew that Carlael of Colend had a son, I had forgotten. I hope he is not as mad as his father,” Atanial said.

  “No. Not in the least. He is also a throwback to Matthias the Magnificent.” Canardan added sardonically, “Even my cloud-brained son noticed, when I sent him west to Alsais to get some diplomatic experience. Said every female within riding range is in love with him, and half the men as well. Certainly every princess of eligible age seems to be waiting for him to throw the rose, which leaves the rest, like my boy, out in the cold.”

  “If he’s that beautiful, what are his chances with the queen of Sartor?”

  “Well, no one knows. But there’s been some diplomatic fluttering about the fact that she’d never leave Sartor, and he’d never leave Colend, so the only solution is those two combining kingdoms into one of the biggest empires this world has ever known, even in the old empire days.”

  Atanial whistled as she set down the cup and lavishly piled crispy-edged oatcakes onto her plate.

  “But there are those who don’t think anything will come of it.” He helped himself, and for a short time there was no sound but the distant chatter of birds as they ate. Then he lifted his fork, watching appreciatively as she got a second helping. “You still have a splendid appetite, I see.”

  “Of course,” she said equably. “When the food is as good as this. And when I’ve gone without as many meals as I have.” She gave him a mocking salute with her teacup.

  He grinned. “Tell me about your girl. She a good eater as well?”

  “Yes.” Atanial added honey-butter to her oatcakes.

  “That’s not exactly informative.”

  “No.” She helped herself to some sliced peaches.

  “Will you at least listen to my suggestion?”

  “Talk away. It’s your palace, and your invitation.” She made a wry gesture indicating herself there on the chair in her splendid gown, and gave him a lovely smile. “We’ll call it an invitation, since you’ve been nice enough to include a scented walk-in bath and trunks of clothes and a fine room in your durance vile.”

  “Now, Atanial,” he chided. “I’d rather have you as an ally. Much rather.”

  “In what plans?”

  “Recover Khanerenth’s past glories.” He lifted his hand, taking in the palace. “That’s it without embroidery. We’re a sinking ship. Trade disrupted, neighboring kingdoms call the prices, and they don’t cut us any deals. Threat of war with Norsunder. Chwahirsland has Shnit Sonscarna back on the throne, which has been no good news to anyone.”

  “I hadn’t known he was gone.”

  “Oh, for a while. But he came back.”

  She remembered the horrible reports of the king of the Chwahir. Now that was a truly evil king, no ifs, ands, or buts.

  But he wasn’t the issue. Khanerenth was. “Recovering lost glories sounds nice, but what does that mean? Past artistic achievements? Past trade agreements? Surely not lands that have been settled by treaty.”

  “Negotiating with bad governments, trouble—” He held up a hand. “I know you’re about to come at me with some remark about my governing, but you don’t actually know anything except gossip from the Ebans. You can sit in on my interviews, talk to my treasury steward, and make up your own mind. At least I’ve held on. Locan Jora, the others northwards, they keep changing kings like foot warriors change their socks.”

  “That can’t be good.” She ran her fingertip round the gold edging on her cup. “So what do you want from me?”

  “An introduction to your daughter. Just an introduction. Let her meet my boy. See if they suit. Good diplomacy, join the families, promote peace. Heal the problems here.”

  Atanial laughed. “How can I arrange that when I am in your castle, surrounded by half a wing of good-looking young men and women brandishing spears?”

  “But you are free to go any time.” He opened his hands. “Go and find her, with my good will.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I woke up feeling sticky and hot. The ship wallowed like an old tub. There was no wind. Yet I heard a curious scraping sound, too rhythmic to be weather.

  I got up, grumpily wishing that they hadn’t seen fit to give me this fancy cabin with a (sweltering) bunk, when a hammock would have been so much airier. Second, I wished I’d warmed up before the swashbuckling of the day before. And how did I get that many bruises? I didn’t remember taking any of those hits, but they sure ached now.

  I peered out of the scuttle. Sun dazzle splashed off the water with eye-watering brightness. There was no hint of a breeze.

  A party of tired-looking sailors sat on the deck under the shade of a slack sail, honing the weapons. There were two or three kids about twelve or thirteen aboard. They had been hidden below during the fighting, on Zathdar’s orders, so they too seemed grumpy as they carried polished, sharpened weapons to the weapons locker and then brought another to each crew member holding a whetting stone. When I remembered how much drinking had gone on the night before, I suspected headaches were also part of the general malaise.

  With a total lack of energy I straightened the bunk. I couldn’t complain about a generous gesture—

  My thoughts fled like frightened birds when I opened the cupboard below my bunk to get out a change of clothes and saw my gear bag had been moved.

  Could that have been the ship? No, it couldn’t. I’d tucked it just so. And it hadn’t moved during that storm early in our journey.

  While I was down in the wardroom, someone had come in and searched my stuff.

  Elva was already gone from the cabin. I was alone. I yanked out the bag, ripped it open, and unfolded the exquisite embroidered coverlet. There were my things: my Earth clothes and sandals; a carved wooden box containing the jewels Mother and I had carried through the Gate; a child’s simple flute (called a recorder on Earth) that my father had given me, but hadn’t had time to teach me to play; and plainest, but by far the most important, a seashell wrapped in homespun cloth. Just the sort of memento a child would carry, Magister Glathan and my father had decided when they prepared this magical token, and taught me the spells . . .

  It was there. It was safe. I wrapped it back up and replaced the things, then replaced the bag.

  Nothing was gone, but there remained the fact that someone on board this ship had nosed through my stuff.

  I left the cabin, grimacing as the glare and heat hit me. The heavy summer air was thick with the scents of brine and wet wood, half-dried canvas, and sweaty people. I dodged around the work party and wandered to the shrouds, the heavy ropes attaching the foremast to the hull. These thick ropes smelled of sea and hemp and oils. The round wooden deadeyes showed the effect of wind and weather, but beneath, the stroke of adze remained.

  I held onto two of the shrouds, staring down at the water plashing gently against the side of the hull as I mentally reviewed the night before. Who had been at the wardroom table with me? I could pretty much remember them all, mostly by images of flushed faces as they deprogrammed, like after any kind of sudden big event, whether an earthquake or a big competition. Zathdar had been in the wardroom all the time I was there. Same with Owl and Robin. Okay. So . . .now what
I had to consider was why I suspected Zathdar first.

  Movement at my side broke my concentration. Elva held out some toasted bread with melted cheese. “Hungry?” she asked.

  I took it with a word of thanks, and she put her hands through the squares made by the shrouds and the horizontal ratlines, leaning her forehead against the twisted ropes. “I know better than to down that punch. I should have drunk the crew’s ale,” she said sourly. “He gave them the best. Ellir Gold.”

  “Well, if they’re going to raid, why not the best? I take it then you didn’t notice who came and went during the party?”

  She gave me a glance of quick concern. “What’s wrong?”

  “Someone went through my belongings last night.”

  She didn’t ask how I knew. She looked away, her shoulders tight, and I said, in blank surprise, “Devlaen?”

  She shrugged, her face pink with embarrassment and guilt. “He was gone for a while, and he seemed, oh, like a scolded pup, when he came back.”

  I let my breath out. So that’s why Elva had looked so miserable last night. “I didn’t think it of him.”

  “I suspect his magisters ordered him to. He says they think you have some kind of magical knowledge that you aren’t telling anyone.” Her tone expressed disbelief and disinterest. She was a navigator, knew nothing of magic, and cared less. “You suspected Zathdar,” she added with faint triumph.

  “Not because he’s done anything I consider particularly untrustworthy. Opposite.”

  She fingered the taut shroud. “I don’t understand.”

  “Because my distrust makes no sense. I don’t trust him because I like him more than not. I, um, grew up, let us say, hearing about handsome and untrustworthy men.”

  “You think him handsome? I don’t. Anyway, you mean kings.” She made a thumbs-down gesture.

  “Well, yes. Not only Canary, either. For a time when I was about thirteen my mother was angry with my father for not returning. She got past that, but I guess it had its effect.” I whooshed out my breath. “I really have to get over it as well. I mean, Zathdar was there all night. I saw him.”

  “He could have had someone search your things,” she said.

  “Yes, but is that really characteristic? From what little we’ve seen, if he wanted to, he would have searched it himself. Right in front of me.”

  “Yes, that’s more his style.” Her tone made it clear she did not think the better of him for it.

  I wiped my sweaty forehead against my sleeve. At home I would have jumped in the shower. Now I turned away, my braids swinging against my back, and finished the bread and cheese as I made my way below to the cleaning frame shared by the entire crew. It was made of wood, fitted into the door to the crew quarters, but laden with magic spells. I stepped through, enjoying the snap and tingle of magic whisking away dirt and grime and I guess bacteria.

  The air was hot and stuffy down there, the night crew swinging in their hammocks, their deep breathing audible. I paused in the companionway, listening to the thump of feet overhead, as I considered Elva’s words. I’d completely forgotten those two older men who’d first knocked on my door at my previous apartment, before Devli appeared at the new one and tricked me.

  Except those couldn’t be his tutors. They had to be Canardan’s mages.

  Again I’d overlooked the magical side of this struggle. I had to consider it now.

  Devli had magical communication, and he’d been sitting in that hold doing magical stuff. He might not have been making a communications device for Zathdar at all, whatever he’d told the privateer. What if he’d been secretly making a transfer token, like to get two of us off the ship and to his magisters?

  Also, I’d been seen by the navy guys. Did they have magical communications? I had to consider the fact that not only did Canardan know about my presence, but these magicians did as well. Magicians for and against Canardan, busy with their own purposes. And I did not really know what their goal was, once they’d brought me to this world.

  “Problem?”

  I lifted my head. Zathdar lounged on the ladder above, one arm lazily blocking the hatch so that no one else could come down. He was back to his scarlet shirt. A shaft of sunlight shimmered with a ruby glow down that extended arm, highlighting its latent strength.

  I said, “Devli seems to have received orders to search my stuff.”

  Zathdar made a slight grimace. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Here’s another thing to consider. He could, say, receive a transfer token in a note box. If he cannot perform a double transfer himself. He’s a nice kid, but I don’t want him anywhere near me anymore.”

  Zathdar looked up at the bright blue sky beyond the sagging mainsail, the light stippling the dark sweep of his lashes until he blinked. “I can keep him busy down below, if you stay on deck. We only have a few more days of travel as soon as the wind picks up.”

  “Will the wind pick up?”

  “It’s already beginning.” He tipped his chin behind me. “We’ll have to tack and tack eastward, but north should be a swift run.”

  “East?” I exclaimed. “I thought we were going west. Aloca Bay lies west, I know that much.”

  “But the king has Aloca guarded by too large a force to slip by.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “Ellir.”

  “What? Isn’t that one of the king’s strongholds?”

  “Well, it is. In a sense. But have you ever heard the old saying ‘hide in plain sight’?”

  “I think our version is ‘The safest place for the thief is under the sheriff’s bed.’”

  He grinned. “That’s it. I obtained the latest merchant codes from our friends aboard the Skate yesterday, and so it will be a sober trading vessel that makes landfall at Ellir, nice and law abiding. The muscle in Aloca will be searching every vessel. We land in Ellir and do nothing to draw attention.”

  He hoisted himself up, and I followed after. A faint coolness feathered my cheek. A breeze, just as he’d said. The water in the distance ruffled in little wavelets, whitecaps frothing, color more greenish than the deep and placid blue below us.

  “What about the blockade?” I watched one of the slack sails stir, then bell slightly.

  “Here comes,” someone called from above. Owl bawled out an order, and the sail party scrambled to make the most of the rising breeze.

  “The blockade is broken.” He gave me a quick grin, a long dimple flashing beside his mouth down to his jaw, and a corresponding flash of warmth kindled my innards. “They’re on their way to reinforce Aloca.”

  I took a deep breath. Pirate or privateer, there was no future here. Move along, I told myself, and I climbed past him. He did not try to stop me, but launched in the opposite direction, gazing upward and calling a command to the team shaking out the topsails to catch the rising wind.

  Chapter Fifteen

  By the watch change, the wind had risen steadily, blowing straight along the coast, and so we tacked in a dramatic zigzag back and forth, using the westward bend to propel us gradually northward. The whistle tweeted, feet thumped. Soon came the agreeable roar of voices from below as the day watch ate their meal and the next watch scrambled from the hatches, checking sea, sky, and sails and sniffing the air.

  Devli was nowhere in sight. Neither was his sister. I stayed at the rail, out of the way, enjoying the wind. When a hand struck my biceps in a friendly thump, I was startled to discover Gliss there, the wind combing through her blond hair.

  “Thanks for not blabbing,” she said gruffly.

  “No one’s business.”

  She brought one shoulder up, her smile surprisingly shy. “You off at Ellir?”

  I nodded, expecting her to express relief, even if covertly, but she said, even more gruffly, “If you change your mind. Till you’re—well, until. You could join our watch. Women are good in the tops because we’re fast.”

  “Thank you.” I was gratified and surprised. Not even the reminder of m
y assumed princessly duties implied in that “until” could upset me. I was just going to have to accept that everyone else had expectations of me. That didn’t mean I had to raise a banner and lead an army.

  I shoved that subject to the back of my brain, knowing it would sit there and leer at me. “May I ask you a question?” On her cautious nod of assent, “Did you set out to become a pirate—a privateer—or did it sort of happen?”

  “You didn’t know?” She looked surprised. “Everyone’s heard of Zathdar’s fleet. People want to sign on. But it’s tough, first to get an interview, then to pass their tests.”

  “No, I hadn’t any idea. Our invitation was the kind that you don’t refuse.” She gave my weak joke a perfunctory smile. She was a very serious person, I realized. “So why does he have such a small fleet?”

  “He trains people and then sends them out. Other ships’re glad to take us on. It’s the training, see. And he doesn’t keep people long. On account of the price on his head. Except for Owl and his captains and watch commanders.”

  Odd. Why would a privateer train people and send them away? Training costs money, at least on Earth. You don’t train people to be as fast and tough as these and then just send them off, unless . . .

  “We’ve got allies if we need ’em. They know a couple of signals, see. Like when we broke the navy’s threatened alliance with the Chwahir last winter. He says three is more maneuverable.” She shrugged. “But if he needs a fleet, well, they’re out there.”

  How do you build a fleet when you haven’t a king’s budget? You train them, send them out with a couple of signals . . .

  I forced my thoughts back to Gliss. “So you started with life on the sea?”

  She shook her head once. “Born in the hills between what they call Locan Jora and Khanerenth. Fighting all the time. Too much of it. Got tired of all the family alliances bickering, worse, the landholders versus the plains people who have always ignored borders, ignore them now, and will always ignore them. So. Ran away to sea. Fishing boat, ten years. Then got voted in here, a year ago.”