Corsair (26 page)

“He informed me there are five ships lying in Lyrawise waiting for clearance, and those ships are laden beyond riches.”

“This is true,” Gareth said. “I thought — quite correctly as it happened — it might be overly easy for certain royal personages to seize them if they wished, as they’ve seized me, after having listened to those” — and Gareth almost broke his practice and used profanity, but caught himself in time — “Slavers and that Quindolphin.”

“Tut,” Pol said. “All things work themselves out, given a sufficiency of common sense, some gold, and a bit more of silver, which I’ll no doubt be recompensed for, with appropriate interest, when I become your agent and dispose of your acquisitions.”

“Which means?”

“Which means I’m most impressed with you, Gareth, for your caution as well as your evident success. I’m truly saddened you didn’t choose to become my heir apparent.”

“At the moment,” Gareth said, “considering my present situation, so am I.” He paced to the barred window, stared out at the Sarosian fall, and the river flowing away to the lands of dreams, then turned back.

“But I will admit,” he said, “prison becomes easier the more familiar I become with it.”

“Try not to let it become
too
familiar,” Pol said. “For we know what familiarity breeds, and such carelessness could serve to introduce you to that man with the ax we were referring to earlier.”

“Which means, even though I’m charged with high treason, I’m not to face death?” Gareth asked.

“I don’t know precisely what the king is thinking about you,” Pol said. “But I anticipate your men will be freed within a day or more.

“And there’s already been a petition put forth in your name that if you are condemned you be allowed to die not in these gray stone walls, but near the river you so love.”

“The river I so love?” Gareth was a bit slow, then got it. “Oh.”

“Exactly,” Pol said. “It’s very hard for someone to make an escape from this dungeon. But out in the open, along the Nalta, where there might be some boats lurking nearby, with desperate men aboard who care little about the King’s Guards.”

Gareth smiled at that. “Which would truly make me a pirate in these lands.”

“To the last degree,” Pol agreed, standing. “I merely came to cheer you, my nephew, and to say that tailors will be visiting you shortly for some new garments, suitable for your presentation at court.”

Gareth’s eyes widened.

“At present,” Pol continued, “they won’t be the sort some men are unfortunate enough to need, with easily unbuttoned collars and front so the cloth can be pulled back to give the axman good aim.”

“That’s my uncle, always full of good cheer.”

“That is me,” Pol agreed, going to the door. “Warder! Open this up!” He turned back. “One final thing I just remembered that no doubt will sadden you, as it does me.

“Poor Lord Quindolphin has a terrible case of boils.”

“So I heard.”

“They are not improving,” Pol said, his voice most sorrowful. “In spite of the best chirurgeons and wizards, who swear the plague might have come from distant shores for all they’re capable of curing him.

“The plague seems to have centered on his lower regions, so he’s unable to ride or even sit comfortably, and as a man who loves the hunt that distresses him utterly.

“The second home for these carbuncles is his face, so that even his mistresses are too appalled by his features to keep him company. A pity,” Pol said, as Aharah opened the cell door.

“A pity indeed,” Gareth agreed.

• • •

They came for Gareth just at dawn. There were six of the King’s Guards, Aharah, and a mousy little man who said he was named Quish, one of King Alfieri’s chamberlains.

“And what would you have of me?” Gareth demanded.

“Your presence is demanded at court,” Quish said. “You have a chance to bathe and put on proper clothing. But make no moves of resistance, I warn you.”

Gareth quickly washed from his basin, noticing the other men turned away to give him a semblance of privacy, but Quish kept casting interested looks at him.

He thought of tucking the shorter of his knives somewhere, but thought better of it. He was a pirate, not a regicide, and would take his fate as it was offered.

When he was dressed in a sober black suit Pol’s tailor had made up for him, he was told to extend his hands. A thin silver chain was fastened about them, and a spell whispered by Quish.

“Do not attempt to escape,” he said solemnly, patting a small ceremonial dagger at his waist. “For I am armed, and will have no hesitation in using this if necessary.”

Gareth nodded solemnly. “You have my vow, and I quite realize what a dangerous man you are.”

They went down the endless stone stairs into the courtyard, where a coach in the royal colors waited.

Gareth was put in the back, and Quish sat across from him.

The coach moved off, the Guardsmen mounted beside, and Gareth saw through its window the gates to the prison clang open, and felt hope building.

The streets were packed. Gareth thought at first it was normal midday traffic, then he heard the shouting:

“Damn the Linyati!”

“Death to the Slavers!”

“Free our Pirate!”

And:

“Gareth … Gareth … Gareth …”

The throng was for him, and Gareth wondered who’d organized the demonstration.

The mounted Guards drew closer to the carriage, and Gareth overheard their words through the open window:

“Looks like more damned trouble,” the first said.

“Mebbe,” the second said. “But not likely. Don’t see any staves or clubs or knives on the ends of sticks being waved about.”

“You’re right. But I don’t trust crowds.”

“They can turn ugly on you, can’t they?” the second agreed. “Especially when there’s some justice to what they’re raving on about.”

There was a boil of noise, and Gareth couldn’t make out what they were saying, then:

“… again and again, till our villages are stripped bare. Is that what the king wants?”

“Hells if I know,” the other one said. “But the army’ll send out an expeditionary force, I heard, to patrol the coasts and wait for another raid.”

“Shit,” the first said. “That’s no response, riding here, there, and everywhere, always late, always missing their damned smash-and-grabs. The only proper thing is to put the navy out in strength after the Linyati, not here, but down in their damned homeland.

“Burn some of
their
villages, cities, a hundred for the dozen of ours they’ve ruined, and let them see what it’s like to be on the sharp end of the sword. For all I care, sell ‘em to any demons looking for fresh meat. I’m against slavery, but I’m willing to make exceptions.”

“There’d be few object to that,” the second said. “Hells, I’d likely volunteer myself to go down amongst them, if I were a sailor. Especially since I hear they’re arse-deep in gold.”

The coach creaked on once more and the horsemen moved away.

Gareth looked at Quish.

“Have the Linyati been raiding our coasts again?”

“I’m instructed to have no conversation beyond the necessary with you,” Quish said, and Gareth was fairly sure he knew the answer to his question.

• • •

The palace held the top of the Mount, its stone walls elaborately worked, parapets with ready cannon, gold and white banners flowing, and, over them all, the great black, green, and white flag of Saros, the royal crest embroidered on it, showing the king was in residence.

The central courtyard was full of milling courtiers, and a double line of King’s Guards, their weapons ready.

Gareth saw Cosyra, didn’t think he should wave, was hustled down the line and into the palace.

There were a scattering of guards here and there, but the halls were almost vacant otherwise.

Gareth was taken to the hall’s end, past the tattered banners of battles fought and won over the centuries. A huge double door opened silently in front of him, and Gareth entered a huge chamber, whose vaulted ceiling was high overhead.

“Unloose him,” a voice said.

The only person in the room, besides Quish, Gareth, and two Guards, was a thin, fretful man in his late fifties. His beard was graying, rather tattered, hardly fitted to the rich ermines he wore and the jeweled crown on his head.

Gareth ignored Quish’s fumblings at the chain and knelt, awe surging through him.

The chain came away.

“You may rise,” King Alfieri said. At least his voice was deep, sonorous. “And you may approach us.

“Guards, Lord Quish, leave us.”

“But — ”

“Such is our command. This man is our faithful subject, and we shall come to no harm.”

Quish and the Guards scuttled out.

“You are the famous Gareth Radnor,” Alfieri said.

“I thank your Majesty, but don’t know if I’m famous.”

“Oh, you’re famous all right. Famous for having pirated all over the Linyati realm, famous for having put us in a quandary, with that double-damned ambassador of theirs threatening what might happen to our truce if you weren’t brought to the proper justice and all.

“It should have been most simple,” Alfieri grumbled. “We should have been able to seize your loot as a proper penalty, have our best executioner give you a nice, painless death, put your ever so obstreperous men into the coastal guard or navy, explain to the Linyati there had been some misunderstanding, and peace would continue to reign.

“Don’t think we’re a weakling, Radnor. But we swore to our father, when we returned from fighting in Juterbog as a young man, we’d allow no war to take our subjects’ lives, and we’ve kept that vow for thirty years.

“You don’t know what war’s like, Radnor. Anything is better than that.”

Gareth said nothing.

“You don’t agree, of course. Go ahead. We’ll not kill you just for speaking. It was in the olden days when we could do that,” Alfieri said, a bit forlornly. “When kings had
real
power. Go ahead,” he said once more. “Tell us why we’re wrong.”

“I can’t say you’re wrong, Sire,” Gareth said. “But I do think there’re things that are worse than war, and must be stood against. Slavery being one.”

Alfieri’s lips went thin, and he looked down. “The Linyati bastards do not make keeping the peace easy,” he said. “Particularly when they want a certain corsair pulled limb from limb, and then have the temerity to raze a dozen leagues of coast, taking away our people into chains and leaving nothing but wasteland behind.”

Gareth remembered what the two Guardsmen had been talking about, thought about giving thanks to some god he’d have to pick out later.

“The
damned
Linyati,” Alfieri went on. “Plus there are petitions from a certain noblewoman in our favor, a Merchant Prince, some of his friends, and even some of the firebreathers in our own navy. And then that son of a bitch Quindolphin.

“And now our own people are running here and there, shouting your name and calling for us to do something about those Slavers.

“Let me ask you this, Radnor. We said you are our faithful servant.”

“That is true, Sire,” Gareth said.

“Then let us talk about this treasure you seem to have acquired from the Linyati. I don’t suppose there’s any hope you’d make life easy for us, and simply arrange for it to be transported from whatever hiding place you’ve got it hidden in, is there?”

Gareth didn’t answer.

“Hmmph,” King Alfieri growled. “We didn’t think so. But let us ask. How much is there?”

“In gold, Sire, enough to build a palace, half a dozen palaces. Gold and jewels such as no one in Saros has ever seen, enough to fill the holds of two ships to foundering.

“There’s enough other goods — silks, spices, and such — to fill the holds of three prize ships I sent north before attacking the Linyati treasure fleet.”

Alfieri stared at Gareth, licked his lips.

“We understand you pirates have your own covenants and such.”

“Yes, Sire. We call them Articles.”

“When you were setting up these ‘Articles,’ did you consider your monarch?”

Gareth gladly remembered the section he’d forced down his crew’s throat.

“Of course, your Majesty. We unanimously decided to grant you six full shares, more than anyone else.”

“You decided?” Alfieri said. “But you were captain, correct? Couldn’t you just dictate the terms you wished?”

“No, Sire. As with everything else, what we did was decided by proper vote.”

Alfieri stared at him closely.

“No wonder they say pirates are more dangerous even than they appear,” he said. “Now, as to this share, we were thinking that a quarter of your booty would be more appropriate.”

Gareth had one tiny moment of objecting, then remembered three quarters of something to a free man is far more valuable than everything to a corpse. He bowed.

“We would be honored to make such an arrangement.”

Alfieri smiled.

“You don’t seem to think it is necessary to consult with your crew about the matter?”

“I think,” Gareth said, “considering the circumstances, there’s no need for that formality.”

Alfieri nodded, paced back and forth.

“Crowds in the streets … gold concealed on some distant shore … those arrogant bastards the Slavers … Damn, but we hate to be manipulated!”

Alfieri didn’t seem to be talking to Gareth at the last.

“But we’ve been proud that we always know what to do and when to do it.”

He walked to a stand of halberds, took one out, and Gareth felt a moment of alarm. Alfieri crashed the halberd’s butt on the flagstones three times.

Gareth, who knew better than to turn his back on his ruler, heard a door open, and Quish’s voice: “Sire?”

“You may allow our court to return.”

“Sire!”

“As we said before, we don’t like to be manipulated, and we dislike even more when we have to admit to being … not fully apprised of a situation.

“We hope that damned Quindolphin’s boils suppurate him to death!

“Come here, Radnor, and let’s get this over with. We have more than enough other work than to concern ourselves over a single pirate.”

Gareth, completely perplexed, followed Alfieri to the end of the room, where a high-backed, jewel-inlaid throne sat atop low steps. Alfieri went up the risers and turned.