Conspirator

  The boats rocked to the light movement of the water, which sucked and slapped noisily against the pilings—pilings was a word Cajeiri knew, from reading. Pilings held up the dock, and went down under the water, and when he got down on his knees and looked down, Antaro and Jegari beside him, he saw streamers of weed there, and they wondered together whether one could see any fish. He thought he had, but the others failed to see it, so he was not sure.

  There was a little short ladder down from the dock. He and Antaro and Jegari took turns climbing a little down it to look under the dock, risking getting their feet wet, he was sure—the boards of the ladder were a little wetter higher up than the rung they could stand on, showing how high the water could reach. There were, they all concluded, no fish in view.

  But all around them were interesting smells that made Cajeiri remember their trip across the straits on nand’ Toby’s boat, and when they all sat on the edge of the dock—it must be an hour by now—and looked at the boats, he told them about his trip, and how Toby’s boat was on the inside, and about the sails.

  And they amused themselves seeing how far they could shoot a stone across the harbor, and then they tried trying to hit a particular rock on the curve of the shore, with the abundance of pebbles the shore provided.

  But after all this time there was still nobody down from the house to get them closer to the boat.

  And one was tired of shooting stones.

  There was, however, back along the strip of sand, a small boat dragged up on shore, and it probably belonged to the estate—which meant it was nand’ Bren’s.

  And then he had an idea. They probably could sail it out to Toby’s boat and he could show Antaro and Jegari the boat, and when the staff did come down, they could just sail the little boat back to the shore and surprise everybody. They would look very grand and very accomplished on the water, and nand’ Bren would be surprised and relieved they were so competent . . . which might mean they could get repeated permission to use the boat.

  “Come with me,” he said, and ran back along the straight-back part of the dock and back onto the rock, then scampered down the rocks, surefooted as Antaro and Jegari themselves, who had grown up in the forests and the hills. This was all new territory, this sandy stretch—sand was harder to run in, much harder, so he strode along, looking very confident, leading, as a young lord should. He reached the boat, assessed the situation with the sail at a glance, and pulled the rope to raise it to the top of the little mast as if he had done it every day of his life. It blew lazily sideways in the light breeze, sending the boom out over the side, but he took the little rope and tied it to the open place in the trim near the tiller. Then it was safe.

  “Is this nand’ Bren’s boat?” Jegari asked. “Nandi, perhaps we should wait.”

  “Oh, we shall just sail out a little way.” The tiller was up. The boat was secured by a knot that was easy to pull loose. “Push it out.”

  “Are you sure, nandi?” Antaro asked. “Do you know how to manage it? We have never been in a boat.”

  “I have,” he said, and went to the stern and moved the tiller the little it would move. “See. This steers it. See the rope there—that pulls on the sail so you can catch the wind. The oars in the bottom are for emergency, to move the boat if there is no wind. The board that sticks up in the bottom of the boat—that goes down into the water when we push off.”

  “Nandi, surely we should wait!”

  “We shall go out to nand’ Toby’s boat, and when nand’ Bren’s staff comes down, we shall come right back to shore. They will need this boat to get aboard. Come. Push!”

  They looked doubtful, but they heaved and pushed until the stern was in the water, and then he got in, and they all got in.

  They weighed the boat down, and it only rocked, but they could not rock it off the shore.

  “Shove with the oars,” Cajeiri said, picking up one himself, and put it over the side and pushed and shoved until they were out of breath. “No good,” he said. “One of us has to get out and push and then jump in.”

  “I will,” Jegari said, and got up to the bow and stepped out and shoved.

  Then it went very fast, the board went down, the boom came around, bang! and the boat, tilting a little, began to move off, but Jegari ran and grabbed it, and got aboard, wet to the waist and nearly spilling water into the boat.

  That was bad. But Jegari did get aboard. They had dry clothes, but the servants were bringing those down. Meanwhile nobody was steering and Antaro had gotten her oar overside to row, and because of it, they were going around. A stronger breeze caught the sail, and it popped and snapped against the mast, tugging at the rope.

  “Take the oar out,” Cajeiri said, settling and tugging at the rope to bring the sail around. Increasingly the tiller was taking hold. “Just sit still, one on a side, and watch out for the boom. It will go back and forth as we go—you have to let it: just duck; and I shall steer with the tiller.”

  It was all going much better, except Jegari being wet. He steered, but there was something wrong with the tiller, Cajeiri thought in a little dismay, since he was steering for nand’ Toby’s boat, but they kept going sideways nearly as much as they were going forward.

  He steered sharply, and they made it right up alongside nand’ Toby’s boat, and he tried to come in behind it, where there was a ladder, but he ran into a problem, then, and the wind blew them up against Toby’s boat, scraping the hull.

  “Get the oars,” he said, “and push off before we scratch the hull.”

  They did, and just then they came around the side of the hull to the end and the boom came over, catching Antaro hard in the back, and nearly threw her in. He hauled on the little rope to try to control the boom, but then the wind was in their faces and the boat was coming around.

  That was a problem.

  Meanwhile Antaro was leaning overside, trying to reach something in the water.

  “Keep in the boat, nadi!” Cajeiri cried, making a reach for her, just as Jegari did, all on the same side of the boat, and for a moment he was sure they were going over, but he leaned the other way, and Jegari did, but now they were entirely past nand’ Toby’s boat, so he turned the bow to face it, and the wind blew and they just kept getting farther and farther from the boat.

  “You must be doing it wrong, nandi-ji,” Jegari said.

  “There is a way to go upwind,” he said. “One is just having a little difficulty.”

  “Nandi,” Antaro said, “I have lost an oar off the side.”

  “We do still have the other, however,” Jegari said.

  “I am going to try going fast, and then turning,” he said. “Maybe we need more speed.”

  “Shall I row?” Jegari asked.

  “The wind will take us,” Cajeiri said, and turned the bow. The tiller took hold again as the boat gathered speed. More and more speed, as the wind gusted and strained the sail.

  “Surely this is fast enough,” Jegari said.

  He thought it was, too: the ropes were singing, the way Toby’s big boat could sing when the wind was behind it. He turned, keeping tight control of the boom. But the wind hit the sail, and all that speed faded, so that they were no longer going forward. They had turned, in fact, halfway too far, and the water was even going backward relative to the boat.

  Or they were going backward.

  “Damn!” he said, one of Bren’s words.

  “Are we in trouble, nandi?” Antaro asked.

  “I think we are in trouble,” he said. “Jegari, one greatly regrets it, but we need to row: you need to get into the bow and row one side and the other so we do not go in a circle. I shall steer.”

  “I shall try, nandi.”

  By now nand’ Toby’s boat was much farther away. Worse, nand’ Bren’s boat and the dock looked quite small now.

  “The water is all moving,” Jegari said from the stern. “Nandi, one is rowing hard, but the water is taking us with it.”

  “Row!” he said to Antaro. “H
elp Jegari!”

  He held to the tiller and tried it this way and that, but it made very little difference—more, when they went sideways in respect to nand’ Toby’s boat; and he began to think that things were getting worse and that if they could steer in any direction at all, they should go that way, so he did, or tried to, but mostly they were going crooked, because of there being only one oar.

  They were in serious trouble.

  “I am going to try to gather speed again!” he cried. “Give up rowing! I cannot take it straight into the wind! I am going to try to gather speed and angle it to reach the Najida shore. At this point one hardly cares where!”

  “Do so, nandi!” Jegari cried, and the two of them settled themselves again, tipping the boat this way and that, and then he brought the bow around and hauled hard on the rope, so that the wind caught them.

  At some point, when he had the most speed, they had to turn; and they did. They were closer, now, to the opening of the bay, and in front of them, there was no land.

  He turned. He did his best. But it was like magic. Even though the wind was pushing them straight ahead, something else was going on with the boat, and they were moving sideways, too.

  Ahead was all blue sky and gray water and it just went on and on, out where the shoreline quit.

  That was the sea out there. And they were moving toward it.

  Something was very wrong with everything he had read about boats. Something was very, very wrong.

  Barb was crying again, and the door had the security lock thrown, which meant Toby was locked out in the suite’s sitting room, and not happy about it. He’d gotten mad enough to hit the door—so Algini said—and Barb had shouted back at him that, Jago’s report, accurately rendered in Mosphei’, he should go to hell.

  That was just tolerably lovely, was it not?

  But it was useless sorting it out at this point. There was weather moving in, so the report was . . . it was going to shorten their fishing trip as was, they were missing the tide; and Bren sighed and asked himself whether he should not just leave the situation, take all his staff with him, and go keep his promise to the youngsters, leaving Toby and Barb to scream at each other in front of the servants.

  Damn it all, they still might have to get Toby to the plane. Or Barb, if things went on as they were going, and that relationship foundered. He’d happily buy the oneway ticket.

  And hell, Bren said to himself, and when he had that last report from Jago, that was enough. They’d wasted enough time. He knocked on Toby’s door—Toby had the outer door locked, and, with Toby not answering, he hailed him aloud, then indecorously, and in front of at least one embarrassed servant, declared his business from outside the door.

  “Toby? It’s Bren. Do you hear me?”

  Silence.

  “Look, Toby. I have the aiji’s son, who is in my care, to whom I have made certain promises and I have responsibility for his welfare. Let her stew. Just let it go. Weather’s turning. We’ve already lost time. If we need to get you to the mainland we can do that. We can get you to the airport, if we need to.”

  Silence.

  “At least answer me, Toby, dammit. I don’t like to conduct business through the door.”

  He heard steps, finally, approaching the door.

  “Sorry,” Toby said icily, from the other side.

  “Look. Just let her blow. I know this mode, forgive me. She’ll have her temper. It’ll run its course.”

  “Don’t tell me what she’s like! I know her better than you ever did.”

  “Fine. I’m sure you do. And if you do, get your coat and come on and let’s go fishing for a few hours until the weather turns. My staff can manage. We can put back in tonight and pick her up and she’ll be fine, whole thing forgotten.”

  “No.”

  “Toby.”

  “Don’t tell me how to handle this! I’ve got a kid in the hospital and Barb’s throwing a fit. You’ve got the aiji’s son in your care. I understand. Just go ahead, take the boat out, I’ll get Barb back on this planet, we’ll talk it out, and we’ll all be fine. See you when you get back.”

  “Got it,” he said, unhappy—deeply unhappy. He moved away from the door, addressed one of the staff, who had stood by worriedly during that exchange. “Kindly advise the aiji’s son that we are finally ready to leave, nadi-ji. Just that.”

  “Yes, nandi.”

  He went to his own quarters, back to his bodyguard, to advise them they were finally going, without Toby and Barb. He asked himself whether he ought to trust Toby to keep Barb out of trouble or whether he ought to deprive Tano and Algini yet again of what ought to be a pleasurable outing, to stay behind and keep track of his houseguests.

  Hell, no, he said to himself as he passed the door. His staff deserved a little relaxation, and Barb’s vicinity . . .

  He didn’t quite close the door. He heard running in the hall. Servants didn’t run in the halls.

  This one did. And bowed, distressedly, out of breath. “Nandi. No one is there.”

  “The young lord, and his companions?”

  “We have no idea where they are, nandi. But no one remembers seeing them out and about since breakfast.”

  “Go down to the dock, nadi-ji. Immediately. Find them and tell them stay where they are. We shall be right down.” He didn’t panic; he calmed himself with the expectation that, yes, bored youngsters had found a way out of the house, had escaped adult notice, and simply gone down to the dock to wait for the promised trip. All that was safe to do, perfectly safe.

  The question was how long they had been waiting. Cajeiri’s capacity for tedium was very, very small.

  He went immediately to his bodyguard’s room—they were set up with sound equipment over by the wall—“Nadiin-ji, the young gentleman has gotten bored and gone to the dock.”

  Banichi, Jago, and Tano immediately stood up, and Banichi headed for the door without a word said. Algini removed his earpiece and laid it down, then got up.

  “Nand’ Toby and his lady are still arguing,” Algini said.

  “Let them,” he said. Algini wasn’t fluent in Mosphei’, that Algini had ever let on. Jago was the one who could interpret. Or deliver an emergency message to his brother. Hell with it, he thought. Toby was no help at the moment, having his mind on his fight with Barb. Let Toby worry about him this round. “We shall just go down to the boat, and if the young gentleman is ready, we shall leave on the last of the tide.”

  Algini picked up his sidearm as he moved, and they all five went out together. Ramaso was waiting anxiously at the door.

  “The young gentleman has eluded us,” he said equably to Ramaso, “but is probably at the boat. This is nothing new. Are we provisioned?”

  “Yes, nandi, provisioned last night, and ready to sail. Only the boat is not at the dock.”

  “We shall manage. We shall go straight down, bring the boat in, and likely shall sail out immediately. If nand’ Toby asks questions or seems upset, say the name of my boat, and that should advise him where we are. He knows a very little Ragi. Barb-daja likely knows none but the word yes, and the word no. Use either, as you wish with her. Address yourself to nand’ Toby, who is much more reasonable, and should he wish to go to the airport and fly to the mainland, assist him. I will pay the ticket.”

  “Nandi.” The servant who had slipped in behind Ramaso had gotten Bren’s outdoor coat from the closet and offered it. Bren exchanged coats, then with a parting courtesy to the old man, took Algini and left, calmly, in good order, and leaving the troubles of the day behind him.

  Left them, that was, until he saw Tano sprinting back up the terraced walk toward them, out of breath by the time he reached them, and needing to bend to breathe.

  “Nandi,” Tano said. “There is no sign of the youngsters and the boat is gone.”

  “My boat?”

  “The tender, nandi, that the staff uses. The boat was dragged out—marks are clear in the sand.”

  His thoughts leapt all over t
he place—the youngsters had gotten to his boat, or Toby’s, let the little sailboat drift away, which could happen—an inconvenience. They might lose it, or it could be battered against rocks along some segment of the shore in the coming weather.

  But there were much, much worse ideas.

  “Is there another boat, nadi-ji? Can we signal my boat?”

  “Jago has swum out to your boat, nandi, to bring it in to dock.”

  God, the water would be cold as ice. He started down, taking the atevi-sized terraces with bone-jarring steps, and ran, as Algini and Tano ran behind him. He was almost in as bad shape on the downhill as Tano had been on the uphill by the time he reached the dock at the last, and had a view of Banichi standing out on the sand, looking out toward the water.

  He ran down the steps from the dock, ran across the shingle out to where Banichi stood, Tano and Algini right with him.

  Banichi looked in his direction.

  “Is she aboard, Banichi-ji?” Jeishan had a stern ladder, so it was possible for Jago to get aboard. He was relieved when Banichi said, “Yes, nandi.” And a moment later he saw the slight puff of smoke above the water as the engine started. The bow power winch went into action, hauling one anchor cable up. Then the other started up, and hauled away.

  It was bad news. If the youngsters had been aboard, Jago would just have gone to the rail and signaled. Taking in cable took forever. He stood in the chill wind, waiting, watching as Jeishan began slowly to move, her anchors still dripping . . . not back to the dock—but over within hail of the Brighter Days.

  He waited, shivering in the wind, and waited. He heard the loudspeaker clear to the dockside, as Jago queried whether anybody was aboard.

  No answer. Nobody came to the rail of that boat. And the last of the tide was moving, rocks standing bare that at high tide were well-submerged along the margin, with far more beach than showed at high tide. Bren’s gaze drifted to the mouth of the bay, all that vast wooded shoreline, where, one could still hope, three youngsters, having realized they were no match for the tide, might have turned back to shore and gotten stranded. Not a one of them had ever handled a sailboat. But all they had to do was let the wind blow them straight across. There were fishing docks across the bay. There were boats out. They could get help.