Red Seas Under Red Skies

  “M’lord,” said Drakasha. “Have you finished your inspection?”

  “I have. And, as I said, fair. Not excellent, but hardly a deathtrap. I can see fifteen years in her, with a bit of luck.”

  “Who the fuck might you be?” The Shipbreaker regarded Kosta with eyes like a bird suddenly confronted by a rival’s beak just as it’s about to seize a worm.

  “Tavrin Callas,” said Kosta. “Lashain.”

  “A peer?” asked the Shipbreaker.

  “Of the Third. You don’t need to use my title.”

  “Nor will I. Why are you sniffing around this ship?”

  “Your skull must be softer than your belly. I’m angling to buy her from Captain Drakasha.”

  “I am the one who buys ships in Prodigal Bay.”

  “By what, the writ of the gods? I’m in funds and that’s all that signifies.”

  “Your funds won’t help you swim, boy—”

  “Enough,” said Drakasha. “Until one of you pays for it, this is my ship you’re standing on.”

  “You’re very far from home, pup, and you cross me at your—”

  “You want this ship, you pay full weight of metal for it,” Drakasha seethed, her irritation genuine. The Shipbreaker was powerful and useful, but in a contest of sheer force any Brass Sea captain could crush him beneath their heel. Lack of competition led him to presume too much upon the patience of others. “If Lord Callas tenders the best offer, I’ll take it from him. Are we through being foolish?”

  “I’m prepared to buy my ship,” said Kosta.

  “Now hold it, Captain,” said Delmastro on cue. “We know the Shipbreaker can pay. But we’ve yet to see the lordship’s coin.”

  “Del’s right,” said Drakasha. “We use letters of credit to wipe our asses down here, Lord Callas. You’d best have something heavy in those bags.”

  “Of course,” said Kosta, snapping his fingers. Jerome stepped forward and dropped one satchel on the deck at Drakasha’s feet. It landed with a jangling clink.

  “Gwillem,” she said, motioning him forward. He crouched over the satchel, unbound its clasps, and revealed a pile of gold coins—in actuality, a combination of Zamira’s ship’s purse and the funds Leocanto and Jerome had brought to sea. Gwillem lifted one, held it up to the sunlight, scratched it, and bit it. He nodded.

  “The real thing, Captain. Tal Verrar solari.”

  “Seven hundred in that bag,” said Kosta, which was the cue for Jerome to throw the second one down on the deck beside it. “Seven hundred more.”

  Gwillem unclasped the second satchel, allowing the Shipbreaker to see that it, too, was apparently brimming with gold. At least it was for five or six layers of solari above a silk pocket filled with silvers and coppers. The third satchel was as much a sham, but Zamira hoped that Kosta wouldn’t have to make his point again.

  “And from that,” said Leocanto, “I’ll give you one thousand to commence.”

  “The edges of his coins could be shaved,” said the Shipbreaker. “This is intolerable, Drakasha. Bring scales from your ship, and I’ll have mine fetched up.”

  “These coins are pristine,” said Kosta, gritting his teeth. “Every last one. I know you’ll check them, Captain, and I know what my life would be worth if you found any of them debased.”

  “But—”

  “Your deep concern for my welfare is noted, Shipbreaker,” said Drakasha. “But Lord Callas is entirely correct and I judge him sincere. He offers a thousand. Do you wish to better that?”

  “Legs are open, old man,” said Leocanto. “Can you really get it up?”

  “One thousand and ten,” said the Shipbreaker.

  “Eleven hundred,” said Kosta. “Gods, I feel like I’m playing cards with my stablehands.”

  “Eleven hundred,” wheezed the Shipbreaker, “and fifty.”

  “Twelve hundred.”

  “I have yet to even examine her timbers—”

  “Then you should have hauled yourself across the bay faster. Twelve hundred.”

  “Thirteen!”

  “That’s the spirit,” said Kosta. “Pretend you can keep up with me. Fourteen hundred.”

  “Fifteen,” said the Shipbreaker. “I warn you, Callas, if you push this price higher there will be consequences.”

  “Poor old lardbucket, forced to make do with a merely ridiculous profit rather than an obscene one. Sixteen hundred.”

  “Where did you come from, Callas?”

  “Booked passage on an independent trader.”

  “Which one?”

  “None of your gods-damned business. I’m good for sixteen. What are—”

  “Eighteen,” hissed the Shipbreaker. “Are you running out of purses, you Lashani pretender?”

  “Nineteen,” said Kosta, injecting a note of concern into his voice for the first time.

  “Two thousand solari.”

  Leocanto made a show of conferring briefly with Jerome. He looked down at his feet, muttered, “Fuck you, old man,” and gestured for Jerome to collect the satchels from the deck.

  “To the Shipbreaker,” said Zamira, suppressing a huge smile. “For two thousand.”

  “Ha!” The Shipbreaker’s face became contorted with triumph that looked nearly painful. “I could buy ten of you on a whim, whelp. If I ever felt the need to scabbard my cock in something foreign and useless.”

  “Well, you won,” said Leocanto. “Congratulations. I’m ever so chagrined.”

  “You should be,” said the Shipbreaker. “Since you’re suddenly standing on my ship. Now I’d like to hear what you’ll bid to keep me from having you spitted over a fire—”

  “Shipbreaker,” said Drakasha, “until I see two thousand solari in my hands, like all hells is this your ship.”

  “Ah,” said the old man. “A technicality.” He clapped his hands and his slaves sent the hoist-chair back to the barge, presumably to be loaded with gold.

  “Captain Drakasha,” said Kosta, “thank you for your indulgence, but I know when it’s time to withdraw—”

  “Del,” said Drakasha, “show Lord Callas and his man to one of our boats. Lord Callas, you’re welcome to stay for dinner in my cabin. After that we can…send you back where you belong.”

  “Indebted to you, Captain.” Kosta bowed more deeply than strictly necessary, and then vanished through the entry port with Delmastro and Jerome.

  “Gut the wet-eared little prick,” said the Shipbreaker, loudly. “Keep his money.”

  “I’m content with yours,” said Zamira. “Besides—I’m rather taken with the idea of having a genuine Lashani baron convinced that he owes me his life.”

  The Shipbreaker’s slaves transferred bag after bag of coins to the deck of the Messenger, silver and gold, until the agreed-upon price was heaped at Zamira’s feet. Gwillem would count it all at leisure, of course, but Zamira felt no anxiety about fraud or debasing. The sacks would contain exactly what they were supposed to, by the logic “Tavrin Callis” had espoused a few minutes earlier. The Shipbreaker kept a dozen well-equipped mercenaries at his fortified estate on the edge of town, but if he cheated a captain he’d have pirates after him in platoons, and his running days were a distant memory.

  Drakasha left the Messenger in the hands of the Shipbreaker’s guards and slaves, and was back aboard the Orchid within half an hour, feeling the contentment that always came with seeing a prize sold off. One less complication to plan around—now her entire crew would be back on one hull, shares would be made, the ship’s purse substantially enriched. The injured ex-Messengers who hadn’t been with them for the Kingfisher sacking presented a slight problem, but to a man they’d opted for the temporary indignity of the scrub watch, if the alternative was to be left in Prodigal in ill health.

  “Ravelle, Valora,” she said, finding the pair of them sitting in the undercastle shade, talking and grinning along with Del and a dozen crewfolk. “That went better than I expected.”

  “Seven or eight hundred more than what
we might have had otherwise,” said Gwillem with surprise.

  “That much more fat to marble everyone’s cut,” said Valora.

  “Until the bastard spends some money to check up on the independent traders,” said Del, one eyebrow raised in mingled admiration and disbelief. “When he discovers that nobody’s brought any Lashani noble anywhere near Prodigal recently—”

  “Of course he’ll figure out what happened, sooner or later.” Kosta waved a hand dismissively. “That’s the beauty of it. That sort of uptight, self-loving, threat-making little tyrant…well, you can play ’em like a piece of music. Never in a thousand years would he run around letting anyone else know that you suckered him in broad daylight with such a simple trick. And with the profit margin he scrapes out of every ship he takes from you, there’s just no way in hell he’ll hit back with anything but fussy words.”

  “He’s got no power to push, if pushing’s what comes to his mind,” said Zamira. “I call the deed well done. Doesn’t mean you can lounge around in those fancy clothes all evening, though. Get them stowed again.”

  “Of course…Captain.”

  “And whether or not the Shipbreaker bites his tongue, I think it best to keep you two out of sight for the rest of our time here. You’re both confined to the ship.”

  “What? But—”

  “I believe,” said Drakasha in an amused but firm tone of voice, “that it might not be wise to let a pair such as you off the leash too frequently. I’ll give you a little something extra from the ship’s purse for your trouble.”

  “Oh, fair enough.” Kosta began removing the more delicate components of his fine costume. “I suppose I’ve got no particular urge to get my throat slit in an alley, anyway.”

  “Wise lad.” Zamira turned to Delmastro. “Del, let’s get a list together for tonight’s Merry Watch. They can go ashore with us when we head in for the council. Let’s say…half the ship’s company. Make it fair.”

  “Right,” said Del. “And until we come back from that meeting, they can wait in the boats, conveniently watching for trouble, can’t they?”

  “Exactly,” said Zamira. “Same as all the other crews, I expect.”

  “Captain,” Del whispered almost into Zamira’s ear, “what the hell is this meeting about?”

  “Bad business, Ezri.” She glanced at Leocanto and Jerome, smiling and joking with one another, oblivious of her scrutiny. “Bad if it’s true. Bad if it’s not.”

  She put an arm on Ezri’s shoulder; this young woman who’d turned her back on life as a pampered Nicoran aristocrat, who’d risen from scrub watch to first mate, who’d nearly been killed a dozen times in half that many years to keep Zamira’s precious Orchid afloat. “Some of the things you’ll hear tonight concern Valora. I can’t guess what you two have spoken of in private…in those rare interludes where you two spend your private moments speaking—”

  Ezri thrust out her chin, smiled, and didn’t deign to blush.

  “—but what I have to say may not please you.”

  “If there’s anything to be settled between us,” said Ezri softly, “I trust him to settle it. And I’m not afraid to hear anything.”

  “My Ezri,” said Zamira. “Well then, let’s get dressed to go meet the relations. Armor and sabers. Oil your scabbards and whet your knives. We might need the tools to make some parting arguments if the conversation goes poorly.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  POINTS OF DECISION

  1

  A MILE OF LONELY BEACH separates Port Prodigal from the ruins of its fallen stone sentinel: Castana Voressa, Fort Glorious.

  Built to dominate the northern side of the bay serving Fort Glorious before a shift in the fortunes of the Ghostwinds brought an equivalent change to the city’s name, the fort would not now suffice to ward off an attack with vulgar language, let alone the blades and arrows of a hostile force.

  To say that it was constructed cheaply would be an injustice to skinflint stonemasons; several whole shiploads of Verrari granite blocks were diverted into the home-building trade for wine money by bored officials far from home. Grand plans for walls and towers became grand plans for a wall, and finally modest plans for a smaller wall with barracks, and as a capstone to the entire affair the garrison of soldiers intended for those barracks was lost in transit to a summer’s-end storm.

  The only useful remnant of the fort is a circular stone pavilion about fifty yards offshore, linked to the main ruins by a wide stone causeway. This was intended to be a platform for catapults, but none ever came. Nowadays, when the pirate captains of Port Prodigal call a council to discuss their affairs, this pavilion is always the place and dusk is always the time. Here the captains do business in private, standing on the stones of a Verrari empire that never was, atop the frustrated ambitions of a city-state that had nonetheless frustrated their own ambitions seven years before.

  2

  IT BEGAN as every such meeting Zamira could remember; under the purple-red sky of sunset, with lanterns set out atop the old stones, with the humid air thick as an animal’s breath and the biting insects out in force.

  There was no wine, no food, and no sitting when the council of captains was called. Sitting only made people more inclined to waste time. Discomfort stripped sentiment from everyone’s words and brought them to the heart of their problems with haste.

  To Zamira’s surprise, she and Ezri were the last to arrive. Zamira glanced around at her fellow captains, nodding cordially as she eyed them all in turn.

  First there was Rodanov, armed now, with his first mate Ydrena Koros, a trim blond woman only slightly taller than Ezri. She had the poise of a professional duelist and a reputation with the wide-bladed Jereshti scimitar.

  Beside them stood Pierro Strozzi, an amiable bald fellow pushing fifty, waited on by his lieutenant, called Eartaker Jack for what he liked to slice from the heads of his fallen foes. It was said that he tanned them and sewed them into elaborate necklaces, which he kept locked in his cabin.

  Rance was there, with Valterro at her shoulder as usual. The right side of Rance’s jaw was several wince-inducing shades of black and green, but she was standing on her own two feet, and at least had the courtesy not to glare at Zamira when she thought Zamira was watching.

  Last but not least was Jacquelaine Colvard, the so-called “Old Woman of the Ghostwinds,” still elegant in her midsixties, if gray-haired and sun-scorched like old leather. Her current protégé, and therefore lover, was Maressa Vicente, whose fighting and sailing qualities were not yet generally known. The young woman certainly looked capable enough.

  Until one of them walked away, then, they were effectively sealed off here from the rest of the world. Parties from their crews, about half a dozen from each ship, mingled uneasily at the end of the causeway. No one else would be permitted to walk upon it until they finished.

  So, Zamira thought, how will we do this?

  “Zamira,” said Rodanov, “you’re the one who called the council. Let’s hear what’s on your mind.”

  Straight to the action, then.

  “Not so much on my mind, Jaffrim, as on all of our heads. I have evidence that the archon of Tal Verrar may have inconvenient plans for us once again.”

  “Once again?” Rodanov made fists of his huge hands. “It was Bonaire who had the inconvenient plans, Zamira; we should have expected Stragos to do what any one of us would have done in his place—”

  “I haven’t forgotten so much as a day of that war, Jaffrim.” Zamira felt her hackles rise despite her determination to be patient. “You know very well that I’ve come to call it a mistake.”

  “The Lost Cause,” snorted Rodanov. “More like the Dumb Fucking Idea. Would that you’d seen it for folly at the time!”

  “Would that you’d done more than talk at the time,” said Strozzi mildly. “Talked and sailed away when the archon’s fleet darkened the horizon.”

  “I never joined your damned Armada, Pierro. I offered to try and draw some of hi
s ships off, and that much I did. Without my help you’d have lost the weather gauge sooner and been flanked from the north. Chavon and I would be the only captains standing here—”

  “Stand off,” shouted Zamira. “I called the council, and I have more to tell. I didn’t bring us here to salt old wounds.”

  “Speak on,” said Strozzi.

  “A month ago a brig left Tal Verrar. Her captain stole her from the Sword Marina.”

  There was a general outburst of muttering and head-shaking at that. Zamira smiled before continuing. “For crew, he stole into Windward Rock and emptied a vault full of prisoners. His intention, and theirs, was to sail south and join us in Port Prodigal. To fly the red flag.”

  “Who could steal one of the archon’s ships from a guarded harbor?” Rodanov spoke as if he only half believed the possibility. “I’d like to meet him.”

  “You have,” said Zamira. “His name is Orrin Ravelle.”

  Valterro, previously silent behind Captain Rance, sputtered. “That fucking little—”

  “Quiet,” said Zamira. “Lost your purse last night, didn’t you? Ravelle has fast hands. Fast hands, a quick mind, a talent for command, and a way with a blade. He earned his way onto my crew by killing four Jeremite Redeemers by himself.” Zamira felt vaguely amused to be talking Kosta up with the same half-truths he’d worked so hard to disabuse her of.

  “Yet you said he had his own ship,” said Rodanov.

  “Yes. The Red Messenger, sold off to the Shipbreaker just this afternoon. Pierro, you saw it off the Burning Reach a few days ago, didn’t you?”

  “Indeed.”

  “There I was, going about my business, innocently scooping up prizes here and there on the Sea of Brass,” said Zamira, “when I happened upon Ravelle’s Messenger. Interrupted his plans, to say the least. I poked holes in his story until I squeezed it all out of him, more or less.”

  “What story is that?” Rance sounded as though she had a collection of small rocks in her mouth, but she made herself understood.