But the longer Jeje had pursued it, the more convinced she’d become it was a bad idea. A stupid idea. Only her sense of fairness finally drove her to contact him, because he had the right to know. But she couldn’t bear to see what he decided to do about it, because it was too easy to picture—
A crack of a twig was all the warning she had. She looked up to find a group of shabby figures slowly ringing her, each brandishing a weapon.
“Let’s have your money,” a man snarled.
First her horse, then a decent bed, and now this.
She threw back her head. “Come and get it.”
“Hah! Mouthy, isn’t she? Let’s have some fun with this one.”
One laughed, but another cut across, saying in a weird kind of Iascan, “Stop yapping and slit her throat. We have to hide the body before those toffs get up the road.”
And they closed in.
She didn’t even count the figures looming out of the fog, just dropped her gear bag into the slush and whipped out her boot knives, sending one to land squarely into the chest of the leader and the second into the closest attacker.
The first dropped like a rock, the knife in his heart. The second one stumbled into the fellow next to him so they fell, thrashing and kicking. Jeje snapped her fighting knives out and sprang between two attackers whose sword arcs were just right to—
Clang! Right into one another. She ducked under the blades, right hand slashing open one’s gut, the other blade high, slicing across the man’s face, which was the only visible flesh. As they recoiled she leaped past, blocked a down-swinging blade, using shoulder and leg to redirect the fellow’s force toward the next nearest attacker. Smash, block, jab, whirl—it was just like fighting with Fox and the gang except she didn’t have to control her strikes.
The jolt of danger flared into angry joy as the mountain robbers whooped, cursed, and finally yelped in dismay and stampeded off, dragging their wounded. She retrieved her boot knives, cleaned them off on the fellows’ coats, and resheathed them.
Then looked around. Again. And kicked the snow, howling curses at the sky.
They’d retreated—with her gear bag.
She was yelling so loud at first she didn’t hear the jingling and clop ping of the royal cavalcade. So the newcomers were considerably startled to come on a short young woman stamping around in a circle, waving her arms and cursing. In the muddy snow lay three bodies. Surrounding them was a confusion of fresh prints and blood sprays.
“Is that Iascan invective?” A woman’s voice.
Jeje was startled to hear her home language—with an Adrani accent. Out of the mist walked a tall woman in a beautiful yeath-fur cloak whose hood did not conceal all her elegantly arranged grayish-brown hair.
“Iascan,” Jeje repeated, arms dropping to her sides. “You’re Iascan?”
“Not quite. May I assist you?” The woman stopped.
“Too late. The robbers got my stuff.”
“But they seem to have been driven off. Where is the rest of your escort? Chasing the miscreants, I trust?”
“I’m alone.”
“Alone?”
The woman—and the guards—looked around again at the dead robbers and the blood spatters. Then the newcomer caught the faint, red gleam of a ruby at Jeje’s ear and knew who this warlike young woman was.
“May I introduce myself?” She indicated a fine, well-sprung carriage behind six horses, which were stamping their feet and snorting. “My name is Wisthia Shagal, and I’m going north as the new Adrani ambassador to Bren. I haven’t heard Iascan for a year or two, and this journey is so slow and boring. Won’t you do me the favor of joining me?”
The snowy dawn silhouetted Bren Harbor and the city rising in gray-etched squares on either side of the river. It was just as large as Barend Montrei-Vayir remembered from his boyhood on the Iascan trade ships, before he’d been taken by pirates.
The choppy tide pushed the schooner past the islands in the bay. They signaled with the purple poppies of Idayago. The harbor signaled for them to tie up at the floating dock at the far end. By the time they rounded to, customs officials stamped back and forth in front of a small but doughty crowd eager for news out of the west.
It took all hands to secure the schooner fore and aft. Barend was one of the first up from the cramped crew’s quarters, gear bag over his shoulder.
When he passed the captain down in the relative shelter of the waist, the customs officials had already surrounded him. “Yes, the war’s over,” the captain shouted in Dock Talk. “The Venn are gone! Marlovans savaged ’em! Destroyed our harbors before the vinegar-eaters even showed up ...”
Barend jumped down onto the dock and walked away. A couple of the news-seekers tried to approach him, but he just shouldered past, letting the wind rip their words away. He’d heard far too much about the Kepri-Davans’ terrible rule to be too resentful of the captain’s attitude, but it hadn’t been easy, listening to anti-Marlovan slanders during that long journey, made by people in no doubt their opinion was shared.
Barend hopped up onto the stationary dock and stumped to the quay. Despite the rising wind he stopped before an exquisite yacht, admiring the graceful sweep of the bow, the fine scrollwork, the sheathed blocks and gilding and clean rope straight off a rope-walk.
Snow began to fall thick and fast, turning darting figures to gray silhouettes. Barend splashed into an icy puddle, and nearly ran into a fellow. They both started back, and Barend yelled, “Where’s the Five-Star office?”
The fellow roared directions, and Barend soon located the long, rambling building with the Fleet Guild banner painted on a sign. The wind wrenched the door from his numbing hands and smashed it into a wall.
He wrestled it shut and crossed to the inner door, which opened tamely into a warm damp fug that smelled like the crew’s quarters of a ship in winter, when everyone has been wearing the same clothes too long. Stale coffee and the lingering aromas of spiced rice and crispy pan flatbread added pungency. He joined the end of the slow-moving line.
By the time he thawed out he’d shuffled forward a few steps. Gradually the low murmur of voices resolved into individuals. The Fleet Guild had obviously become a mariners’ communications center. When he reached the front of the line, he had gone from grateful warmth to sweltering. He tried to ignore his discomfort, wondering how the messages people handed in so confidently were getting sent. Had the Fleet enough money to pay the scribes to send messages by magic, or had trade resumed?
“You in the red hat. Your turn.”
A drop of sweat stung Barend’s eyes, and for the first time in weeks he snatched his grimy cap off, enjoying a brief sense of coolness on his damp head.
Forgotten, Barend’s ruby earring swung down against his jaw.
The man tending the counter jerked upright, surprise lengthening his face. Conversation stopped as people flicked gazes from those round eyes and mouth to Barend’s earring.
“Fleet Master Chim?” Barend asked. “I’ve got a message for him.”
The man behind the counter pointed a gnarled finger. “You were with Elgar the Fox.”
Which one would that be? Barend tried not to laugh. “Yes,” he said, seeing no reason to hide the fact, now that he was away from the Idayagans.
Everyone began shouting questions at him, trying to be heard over everyone else.
A burly man gripped Barend by the shoulder. “Did Elgar the Fox take the Venn?”
Barend’s muscles tightened. He was about to throw the fellow off when an old voice, loud with deck-in-a-high-storm practice, silenced them all. “Clear off! Clear yez off, hear me?”
Barend swung around as everyone pressed back. This scrawny old geezer with the balding pate and the braided beard had to be Chim. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the stairs.
Barend gave in to another impulse. Keeping one’s peace for weeks in close quarters when everyone feels free to slang your language, your customs and culture, does have its effect. “Wh
at happened to the Venn?” he repeated. “We Marlovans drove ’em off, that’s what,” he said, and chuckled as questions, comments, and exclamations burst out behind him.
Two powerful sailors took a stance at the top of the stairs behind Chim, who led Barend to an office furnished with a cushioned chair, a table piled high with papers, and a bench. Barend dropped onto the bench.
“Zat true?” Chim asked as he plopped onto his chair with a creaking and popping of joints.
“Venn’re gone.” Barend jerked his thumb northward.
“How many yappin’ mouths between you and this battle?” Chim’s expression was shrewd.
“I was there.” Barend scratched his gritty scalp.
Funny, how little things can be gratifying. In this case the upward flick of Chim’s bushy brows. Then he sat back. “What’re you here for, boy?”
“Reopen Marlovan trade,” Barend began cautiously.
Chim snorted. “And?”
“We need some honest ships. To get started on that.”
Chim abruptly switched to Sartoran. “You’re a worse diplomat than I am. We don’t have much time. No, I didn’t send any message, but five or six of them downstairs are runnin’ full-sail for the hill right now. If they don’t have magic boxes. See, things’ve changed.”
Barend sighed. “Inda told me to expect something like that. I know Jeje’s pay fund must’ve run out in spring, but we were racing north to reach the pass before the Venn—”
Chim waved a hand. “Explain that later. First tell me what you’re here for.”
“To talk about trade, like I said. Now that Iasca Leror can trade.” Barend hesitated, then figured, may as well go another step into the whirl-pool, since it was already spinning. “I’m the king’s cousin, which is why I know everything firsthand. Name’s Barend Montrei-Vayir. I was ordered to contact the fleet Inda had in training. If they were here. On account of having not been paid since spring. Inda thought they might have gone out trading already, if news got out—”
Chim waved impatiently. “You want ’em for what?”
“Trade.” Barend opened his hands.
Chim snorted knowingly, and Barend wondered if someone had talked about that damn treasure after all. “Well, what you’re more likely to get is your butt thrown into a dungeon. Prince Kavna is on your side, but the Crown Princess isn’t. When Elgar slipped his cable at our meeting last winter—oh, you weren’t there—”
Barend said with a trace of impatience, “Inda told me about it. Just after he captured Signi the Venn navigator. Met you in some pirate cove west of here, just like you planned. He said he’d go spy out the Venn, send back word to you to relay to the fleet of volunteers Jeje had been training. But he had to slip his cable because there was some spy for your king alongside—”
It was Chim’s turn to interrupt. “Oh, but Inda doesn’t know what happened next, I dareswear. Nor do you. See, the king’s spy must’ve reported by magic. Mistress Perran and I got back here to the harbor to find guards on every deck in Jeje’s fleet. They had a choice, see: join the Bren navy or be hanged as pirates.”
Barend cursed under his breath. “Then Jeje’s fleet is gone?”
“It’s now part of Bren’s navy,” Chim said wryly. “So here I be, Fleet Master of no fleet, and your Elgar the Fox has a warrant out for when he steps on shore. I’m afraid right now that’s going to extend to you.” A loud clattering below caused Chim to cock his head. “Damn. Magic boxes it was. I’d hoped we’d have a bit more time. Sit down, boy.”
Barend leaned forward. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t go out that window behind you right now.”
“I know you could probably take most of ’em down.” Chim stroked the braids in his beard. “Maybe even some o’ ours will jump in and help. But are you going to want that fleet again? Because if you go killin’ our people, may’s well never come back.”
“Aren’t your guards coming to kill me?”
“Probably orders to kill if you fight,” Chim said rapidly as thumping up the stairs caused the windows to rattle. “If you’re dead the problem goes away. But see, she don’t know yet but she’s got a much bigger problem. Could say a weapon at the princess’s throat.”
“Talk.” Barend stood poised, thin hands gripping the black hilts of his wrist knives.
“New ambassador from Anaeran-Adrani is Princess Wisthia Shagal.”
“Aunt Wisthia?” Barend’s eyes widened. “She’s here?”
If Chim had needed proof that Barend was who he said he was, that would have convinced him. But he hadn’t. He had been collecting information, very slowly, on his own.
He laughed, and at the expected pounding on his old door, cried, “Come on in! I hope you’re bringing coffee.”
Five or six men armed for battle crowded into the office, with more blocking the door.
The leader spotted the ruby earring and motioned the two biggest men to either side of Barend, one fellow grim and the other nervous.
Chim said in Bren’s language, “Let me remind you this is Guild territory, and we made no complaints.”
The leader said, “We’re not attacking anyone.”
“Good.” Chim leaned back and his chair creaked. “So you can make yerselfs comfortable and lissen. Now. This here Prince Barend is on legitimate business. He’s related to the new ambassador from the Adranis, the former Queen Wisthia of Iasca Leror.”
The leader wavered as a third man came forward with rope. Barend’s mouth thinned. The leader’s gaze flicked from Chim to Barend’s hands and up. “He’s who?”
“This here’s Prince Barend o’ Iasca Leror. The Marlovan prince,” Chim added.
Hearing his name and the words Iasca Leror and Marlovan, Barend watched the guard for reactions. Widened eyes, uneasy stances, lowered weapons had taken the place of battle-readiness.
He slowly dropped his empty hands to his sides.
The leader grimaced, then waved off the one with the rope, and the guards sidled into position around Barend. “Let’s go.”
Down the stairs they thundered, ink bottles rattling on tables in the lower room. The mariners crowded back as the guards marched their prisoner past the counter, through the doors, and into the storm.
Two big hands in fighting gauntlets gripped Barend’s arms to make sure he didn’t slip away, and enormous men pressed up on all sides, non-threatening but not giving way and impossible to shift. Once when he was small, Barend had escaped his cousin Aldren’s ready fists by hiding among the castle dairy cows. Trying to move among them was just like this, except cows’ breath smelled sweetly of clover, and these fellows smelled of the pepper-spiced pan-bread and fried fish they’d had at midday. By now the snow was falling so thick and fast Barend couldn’t see much farther than the broad backs in front of him.
The guards couldn’t see, either. They tightened their circle, the Crown Princess’ orders fresh in memory: If the Marlovan pirate gets away, every one of you dies.
No one relaxed until they reached the king’s prison, divested the prisoner of his personal arsenal, and the iron-reinforced door slammed on him. The leader posted a double guard, and sent his orderly straight to the palace to dump the problem onto someone else.
Chapter Eleven
DOWAGER Queen Wisthia, now officially acknowledged as Ambassador of Anaeran-Adrani, stood at the window of her new domicile on Bren’s Risto Ridge. Servants labored around her to turn an empty shell into a suitably impressive but comfortable representation of Adrani art and style.
She knew the promptness with which she had been invited to the palace and granted her accreditation interview was entirely due to the wary respect the neighboring kings and queens were according her nephew Prince Valdon, who was slowly taking the reins of Anaeran-Adrani’s government that Wisthia’s brother had left slack far too long.
Wisthia rubbed her thumb gently over her lower lip, which had chapped in the icy winter winds crossing the mountains. She did not want to watch what would happen
to court life now that the fast, hard-living set around Lord Yaskandar Dei of Sartor had invaded.
Maybe she was too old, but while the hostesses of Nente were delighted to compete to attract the Sartorans, Wisthia had known immediately what had attracted that young predator’s wayward attention. Or rather, who. She loved her nephew—and his serious, beautiful new wife, Joret—too much to see it happen.
So here she was, empowered to tackle the matter of ruined sea trade and the problems it was causing all over the continent. When the old ambassador had requested permission to retire, she’d considered his request an opportunity to get away from Nente and to do something useful.
Politically, then, she was off to a very good start. Personally? She thought back to the trip through the mountain pass, and her conversations with her surprising guest, Jeje sa Jeje. In Wisthia’s long experience, people didn’t like being questioned, but were always ready and willing to brag.
So you saw Nente, my brother’s capital city? she had asked Jeje, who had given her name readily enough.
Yes. The glint of Jeje‘s ruby earring was a reminder of the fresh blood they’d just left behind beside the road, crimson against patches of snow. Jeje herself was no more than a dark shadow against the pale gray calendered cotton-flax lining of the coach. Came from there.
Jeje’s voice was deep, with an attractive husky edge that reminded Wisthia of a great purring feline. It was a difficult voice to sift for emotional clues.
I trust they made you welcome, whoever it was you saw.
A princess named Joret. Jeje slumped back, thumping her arms across her front. She—Joret Dei—treated me just fine. They all did.
Wisthia remembered some of the gossip from her elderly aunt the month before, about how the courtiers had made a fashion of quoting Jeje’s pungent commentary. They’d even competed to get her as a guest, the better to be entertained, except she’d refused to attend any court parties after one or two.
So you were not impressed with my homeland? But then you have traveled widely. Perhaps you have seen older and greater places than our city.