Darvus reclined in his chair, a small pink tongue appearing between his lips for a moment. Janus was an owl, Vaelin thought. Seems this one’s a snake.
“Out!” the Fief Lord barked at his nephews who both bowed and exited the tent with such synchronised precision it seemed like a rehearsed dance step. “Not you, Marven,” Darvus added as the count started for the exit. “I’d like a reliable witness to this little accommodation.”
The old lord’s gaze swung to Dahrena before he continued. “One of my agents had occasion to meet a fellow from the Reaches recently. A factor from some frost-bitten mining town, seemed to think he’d been poorly treated during a recent difficulty.”
Vaelin heard Dahrena utter a soft sigh. Idiss.
“Sadly the fellow contrived to get drunk and fall into Frostport harbour,” Darvus went on. “But not before he related an interesting story.”
“As I said, my lord,” Vaelin said. “I have little time.”
“Gold,” the old man said slowly, his gaze still fixed on Dahrena. “You have been keeping secrets, my lady.” He leaned forward, small tongue darting over his lips once more. “One of the lessons taught by a long life is that the opportunity for enrichment comes and goes like an unpredictable tide, and Nilsael is always the last to catch a wave. Not this time. This time we get our share.”
“There are sound reasons for keeping such information secret,” Dahrena said. “For your fief as well as the Reaches.”
“Not any more,” the Fief Lord returned. “Not with so many wolves at our door, and Lord Vaelin so badly in need of troops.”
“What do you want?” Vaelin asked, his patience reaching its limit.
“My dear departed daughter, keen-minded mother to idiot twins, used to say that gold was like water, it slips through one’s fingers with such ease. It’s not the man who digs the gold that gets rich, it’s the man who sells him the pick.” The bony fingers drummed on the armrests for a moment. “All gold mined in the Northern Reaches must be landed and sold in a Nilsaelin port.”
“That’s all?” Dahrena asked.
The old man smiled and inclined his head. “Quite all my lady.”
Every ounce of gold sold within his own borders, Vaelin thought. Any merchant seeking to buy it will have to come here, along with all their clerks and ships, no doubt laden with goods to trade in kind. The snake will make his fief the richest in the Realm within a generation. Janus would have been impressed.
“Your terms are acceptable, my lord,” he told Darvus. “Subject to ratification by the Crown.”
“Crown, is it?” The old man gave another cackle, raising a skeletal hand to point a finger at Vaelin with no sign of any tremble. “There’s only one head left fit to wear it and it stands before me right now.”
CHAPTER TWO
Lyrna
Captain Belorath was a fine Keschet player, demonstrating a fundamental understanding of the game’s many nuances whilst employing the more subtle strategies that set the skilled opponent apart. Lyrna beat him in twenty moves. It would have been fifteen but she thought it best to allow him some dignity in front of his crew.
He glowered at her from across the board, hands moving in a blur as he removed the remaining pieces. “We go again.”
“As you wish,” Lyrna said, removing her own pieces. For all his skill the captain laboured against a basic misunderstanding of the most important element of Keschet: the placement of the pieces. Every move flowed from this seeming formality. She had already won when he failed to place sufficient spearmen on the left side of the board to counter the lancers she would launch six moves in. The game starts when you place your first piece, her father had instructed all those years ago when he first taught a five-year-old a game that baffled most adults. Within a year she had beaten him in an epic battle of one hundred and twenty-three moves that would have made a salient entry in the history of the game, if anyone else had been there to bear witness. They never played again and the board and pieces disappeared from her room soon after.
The captain slammed his emperor onto the third square from the left in the first row, a standard placement if one intended an aggressive strategy, or sought to conceal defence with offence. She responded by placing one of her archers in the middle of the second row, continuing to build a standard formation in response to his seemingly complex arrangement. The Emperor’s Gambit, she thought with an inward sigh as crewmen and Realm folk wagered around them. The odds seemed to be in her favour. Thirteen moves this time.
In the event she managed to string it out to seventeen, any more generosity would have been obvious.
“The Dark,” one of the crew whispered as she plucked the captain’s emperor from the board.
“Dark or not,” Harvin replied with a laugh. “You owe me two cups of rum, my friend.”
Lyrna cast her gaze at the placid sea as the increasingly red-faced captain set about removing his pieces once more. Three days and not a whisper of wind, she thought, straightening as a familiar sight came into view, the huge fin leaving an impressive wake in the becalmed waters before slipping under.
The captain had ordered the crew to the oars when the wind died, but the heat of these climes forced frequent halts lest the crew collapse from exhaustion. The Realm folk had taken their turn at the oars, Lyrna included, though their inexpert lack of rhythm often proved more of a hindrance. It was during the latest break from rowing that the captain had produced a Keschet board and commanded his first mate to play, beating him in only forty moves, apparently something of a record on the ship.
“Our lady can beat that,” Benten had said, his tone one of complete confidence.
“Is that the case?” The captain’s bushy brows knitted together as his gaze found her, rubbing her aching arms as she rested on her oar.
Lyrna gave the young fisherman a hard look. She hadn’t shared a single word with him about the game yet instinct seemed to tell him a great deal.
“I can play,” she replied with a shrug.
His third try was more impressive, abandoning long-established set attacks for a complex series of feints on the left, seemingly careless of losses, but masking the gradual approach of all three thieves towards the centre.
“Congratulations, Captain,” she said with a bow some thirty moves later.
“For what?” he growled, staring at the emperor in her hand.
“For providing me with a unique game.” She raised her head as a gentle breeze tickled the still-sensitive burns on her upper cheek. Strange to feel the wind and not have it tousle one’s hair, she mused. “I believe we’re about to resume our voyage.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The breeze built into a strong westerly wind, known to the Meldeneans as the Fruitful Vine as well-laden merchantmen were often to be found following its course. Now though the ocean seemed empty.
“Nothing makes for a clear sea like war,” the captain said, joining her at the prow during her customary evening vigil.
“I thought we might see some Alpiran ships at least,” she replied.
“They’ll all be in port for a good while yet, if they’re smart. War makes pirates of all sailors.” He moved to the figurehead carved into the prow, a snarling woman with improbably large breasts, extended fangs and clawlike hands reaching out towards the oncoming waves. “Know who this is?”
“I would guess it’s Skerva, stealer of souls, in her true form. She was sent by Margentis the Orca god to punish men for their crimes against the sea. It’s said she walks amongst us in the guise of a comely maiden, seeking out the most valiant of men so she can feast on their souls.”
He traced a hand over Skerva’s wooden shoulder. “Have you ever forgotten anything?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“You make my crew nervous, the more fanciful wonder if you aren’t her, trapped somehow between your two forms, waiting for the mo
ment to strike.”
“Wouldn’t that require the presence of valiant men upon whom to slake my unnatural hunger?”
She saw him conceal a smile beneath his beard before he looked out to sea. “Your friend doesn’t help.”
The swell was high but she could still make out the shark’s fin knifing through the waves off the port bow. “That is truly something I can’t explain,” she said honestly.
“The crew bring word of what those other land-bound whisper in the hold. They talk of a beast charmer.”
Fermin’s smile before the waters claimed him . . . Remember your promise, my Queen. “He died to free us,” she said. “Called the shark somehow. Perhaps that’s why it follows, an echo of that calling. Such things are outside my knowledge.”
The captain snorted. “Finally, a flaw.” His mirth subsided quickly, his expression completely serious. “The Isles are less than a week away.”
“Where the Ship Lords await. I’ll keep my bargain. They’ll find me very convincing, I promise.”
“The Ship Lords are one thing, the Shield is another.”
The Shield of the Isles. Her brother’s spies had brought ample word of him, famed swordsman and pirate, given charge of the defence of the Isles. “He’s unlikely to believe me?”
“It’s not whether he believes that matters, it’s whether he cares.” He gestured at the deck and the rigging. “The Sea Sabre is his. He oversaw her birth in the yards. Every plank, nail and rope has his hand upon it, and there’s plenty of his blood in the deck too. For years we hunted the waves with her, took more gold and cargo than any ship ever born in the Isles. Yet here I am in command of her whilst he skulks on a wave-blasted rock. If his hand had been on her tiller we should have been home by now. And I doubt you’d’ve taken him in twenty moves.”
“Fifteen, I was being kind. Why does he skulk, this great captain of yours?”
Belorath turned back to the sea, voice soft with regret. “Because it’s a hard thing for a great man to fail, even when the failure is in securing his own death.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“‘The predicted slave yield is estimated at twenty-five thousand,’” Lyrna recited. “‘This is low in ratio to the overall population, but the expected high cull rate must be considered. The true value of the Serpent’s Den lies in its ports and any ships our forces can capture, the islanders being uncivilised savages with surprisingly well developed skills in this area.’”
The assembled Ship Lords sat in silence as she spoke, most staring in dumb shock. Others, like the man seated in the middle of their line, with growing rage. A wiry man with the aspect of a fox, his gloved hands clenched repeatedly as she spoke on.
“‘The Serpent’s Den is known to retain a fleet in home waters for defensive purposes and resistance from this quarter can be expected to be fierce. A feinting strategy is therefore recommended, one division engaging the enemy to draw them away from the islands whilst another lands the invasion force. See table seven for suggestions on the makeup of the land forces . . .’”
The wiry man held up a hand and Lyrna fell silent. “Belorath,” the Ship Lord said to the captain. “You vouch for this woman’s veracity?”
“I do, Lord Ell-Nurin.”
The Ship Lord turned back to Lyrna. “You have prepared a full translation, I believe?”
“I have, my lord.” She came forward and handed him the bundle of parchment.
“What an accomplished hand you have,” Ell-Nurin observed, scanning the first page. “For a merchant’s daughter.”
“My father relied on me to pen his correspondence, his own hands being victim to the bone ague.”
“I am well acquainted with the merchants of Varinshold. Unlike most of my countrymen I was never a pirate and always found a welcome there, provided my hold was full of fresh tea of course. Tell me, what was your father’s name? Perhaps I knew him.”
“Traver Hultin, my lord. He dealt mostly in silks.” A real merchant with a real daughter, one of many to beg her father’s favour over the years.
“I’ve heard the name,” Ell-Nurin said. “And yours, lady?”
“Corla, my lord. Merely a mistress, not a lady.”
“Quite so. You wish to return to the Realm, I believe?”
“I do, my lord. As do those with whom I escaped.”
“The Isles has never welshed on a bargain.” He nodded at the captain. “See to it when we’re done here. For now, Mistress, please leave us to discuss these matters in private.”
She bowed and went to the chamber door, catching only a few words before they closed behind her. “You sent word to him?” Ell-Nurin asked.
“A boat was sent as soon as I arrived, my lord . . .”
◆ ◆ ◆
The others were waiting on the quay, all dressed in a mismatched variety of Meldenean clothing and looking much like the pirates who had brought them here. They all rose as she approached, hope and wary expectation bright in their eyes.
“The captain will arrange a ship for us,” she said. “We should be on our way come the next tide.”
Harvin gave a whoop of relief, hugging Benten about the shoulders whilst Orena gave the first smile Lyrna had seen on her lips. Even Iltis seemed on the verge of a grin.
“Why?” said a small voice, and Lyrna turned to find Murel standing apart from the group, eyes downcast.
“What?” Orena asked her.
“Why go back?”
“It’s our home,” Harvin said.
“My home burned down with my parents inside,” Murel responded. “What’s there for me now?”
“The Realm is invaded,” Lyrna said. “Our people need our help.”
“What help can I give?” the girl asked. “I can’t fight, have no skills beyond needlework, and I was never even much good at that.”
“I saw you claw a man’s eyes out on the ship,” Harvin pointed out. “Seems to me you fight well enough.”
“She has a point,” Orena said. “All that awaits us in the Realm is war and death, and I’ve seen more than enough of both.”
“So now what?” Iltis replied. “You’ll just wait here for the Volarian fleet to arrive?”
“There are other ports,” Murel said. “The Alpiran Empire, the Far West.”
“You forget something,” Iltis said in a harsh tone, his expression bordering on anger. “We owe this woman a debt. All of us would now be resting in the shark’s belly but for her.”
“And I’m grateful,” Murel said, voice slightly choked as she reached for Lyrna’s hand. “I really am. But I’m just a girl, and I’ve been hurt enough.”
Queen of the Unified Realm, Lyrna thought. Unable to persuade five beggared subjects to risk themselves in her service. Watching Murel’s sniffling, she remembered her first sight of her, the veil of hair over her face as they led her aloft, her whimpered sobs. “I’m sorry,” she said, squeezing the girl’s hand. “I will not ask any of you to come, you must all make your own choice. But I will sail for the Realm, alone or not.”
“Not without me,” Iltis stated. “I’ve not killed enough Volarians yet. Not by far.”
“I’m with you, my lady,” Benten said. “My father will be expecting me. Can’t handle the nets so well by himself any more.” From the catch in his voice she knew he was talking about a dead man.
Iltis turned to Harvin. “What about you, outlaw? Got guts enough to fight as well as steal?”
“You saw my guts on the ship, brother,” Harvin replied with a dark glower before turning to Lyrna with apologetic eyes, reaching for Orena’s hand. “But I have . . . a responsibility now.”
Seems I don’t see everything after all, Lyrna thought.
“You don’t have to go,” Murel said, still clutching Lyrna’s hand. “Come with us. With you we could do anything, go anywhere . . .” She trailed off, eyes wi
dening as she noticed something over Lyrna’s shoulder.
She turned, seeing Ship Lord Ell-Nurin approaching along the wharf with a purposeful stride, flanked by at least twenty armed sailors. He stopped a few yards short as the sailors fanned out on either side and the three men closed in protectively about the women.
“Belorath was slow in relating all details of your voyage,” the Ship Lord said. “Including your remarkable facility for Keschet. Traver Hultin liked Keschet too and he did deal mostly in silks, but he smuggled tea and his daughter was fat. Also he rarely shut up about his single visit to the palace, how he had met the King’s daughter and been greatly impressed with her knowledge of his favourite game, though he was a rather poor player as I recall.”
Ell-Nurin dropped to one knee, keeping his gaze fixed on her face. “On behalf of the Ship Lords’ Council, I bid you welcome to the Meldenean Isles, Highness.”
◆ ◆ ◆
They put her in a well-appointed room on the topmost floor of a tall building overlooking the harbour. Iltis had stepped forward to prevent her being taken, Harvin and Benten close behind, but she put a firm hand on his chest. “No, brother.”
“Is it true?” he asked her in a whisper, eyes tracking over her face. “Highness?”
She patted his broad chest and smiled. “Don’t linger here. Take the others and go, far away like Murel said. Think of it as my first and last royal command.”
They left her alone for four days. Servants brought food, bowing and leaving without a word. Later, equally silent maids brought dresses. They were fine but simple, the colours muted. Suitable for an execution? she wondered.
Ship Lord Ell-Nurin arrived on the evening of the fourth day as the harbour lights came to life below her, the multiple god-crowned towers of the city fading to dim grey spear-points. The Ship Lord came alone, bowing low once again, face absent of humour or false respect, something she found stirred her gratitude.
“You have everything you require, Highness?” he asked.