Once a Princess

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

  “That’s not exactly informative.”

  “No,” she helped herself to some sliced peaches.

  “Will you 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, talking 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 Shit 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, 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 anytime.” 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, to rhythmic to be weather.

  I got up grumpily whishing what they hadn’t seen fit to give me this fancy cabin with a (sweltering) bunk, when a hommock 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 even 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 of three kinds 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 felt 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 oils. The rounded 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 splashing gently against the side of the hell 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 even, 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 shrounds and the horizontal ratlines, leaning her forehead against the twisted ropes. “I know better than to down that punch. I should have drunk the crews 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 hten 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 condiser 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 thumbsdown gesture.

  “Well yes. Not only Canary, either. For the first 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 dvli 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? What I had to consider now was 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 lunged 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 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 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 a 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, colour 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 was blowing hard straight along the coast, and so we tacked in 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, looking around and sniffing the air.

  Devli was nowhere in sight, neither he nor 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 my 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 “Didyou set out to become a pirate...a privateer or did it sort of happen?”

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

  “No I hadn’t any idea. Our invitation was the kind you don’t refuse.” She gave the 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 on 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 manoeuvrable.” 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, then years. Then got voted in here, a year ago.”

  I whistled, “Now that I know what your invitation is worth, I thank you.”

  She squinted upward, frowned at something going on with one of the upper sails and pushed away without another word, swarming up the shrouds like she was flying.

  By nightfall we were skimming northward at exhilarating speed. The sky was clear, the air balmy. Three of the day crew brought out i
nstruments, sat on the railing of the forecastle half deck and began to play. Some of the crew sang songs in round, in which I could hear the difficult but distinctive Sartoran triplicate chord changes and beats. The teenaged crew members started dancing in twos and threes on the forecastle, one boy alone on the capstan, blithely ignoring jeers and even a couple of metal ale cans potted at him, which he dodged without missing a step.

  Owl stumped up beside me. “c’mon, princess give us a dance.”

  “Not much of a dancer.” I grinned. “I’m afraid if I get up there and swing my hips around like people my age do at home, every single ale pot would be tossed at me.”

  “You get up there and swing them hips, and they won’t be tossing ale pots.” He wiggled his slanting brows.

  That made me laugh, but I (easily) resisted the temptation to make a fool of myself.

  Zathdar appeared at my other side. I was leaning against the rail with my elbows propped behind me. He leaned next to me, his profile etched against the taut foresail as he watched the dancers jig and twirl round and round the capstan. But I could feel his attention on me. He asked in his mild voice, “no dancing?”

  “I’m afraid of what it says about my upbringing that I wouldn’t know what to do at a grand ball, but put me on a dojo floor and I’m ready to rock and roll.”

  Dojo and rock and roll did not translate but he didn’t question either of them.

  I said, “so did you have a pirate mom or dad?”

  He looked up in mock exasperation. “How often do I have to remind you that I am a privateer.”

  “Who dresses like a pirate.”

  He angled that quick grin again, the dimple accentuated by golden light of the swinging lams overhead. I was vaguely aware that Owl had gone from my other side.

  “A pirate,” I added firmly, “who has no sense of colour.”

  He put his hand to his bandana which was the long green and gold one hanging down his back,the fringes blowing around his slim waist. “who says green and red is not eminently sensible? Why in the worst rainstorm in the thickest action, Owl and Robin only have to look round once and find me anywhere.”