Dangerous Waters (9 page)

The manor’s guardsmen would draw lots to see who would whip drunkards and disturbers of the peace from the manor’s shrine to Saedrin’s statue in the village, to remind them they’d answer for their selfishness when death finally brought them to the mightiest god’s threshold. The priests said only true repentance would persuade Saedrin to unlock the door to the Otherworld.

What was going on without him, was Master Minelas sitting at Lord Halferan’s high table? A year and more and Corrain still couldn’t believe the murdering scum’s villainy in forging that grant of guardianship to steal the barony’s revenues. Corrain still felt the urge to crush the blond wizard’s throat with his bare hands.

But Captain Gefren had tried that when they’d been taken prisoner in the marsh, when the bastard had gloated over his plans, taunting their helplessly pinioned lord with an ensorcelled parchment. A bolt of wizardly lightning had struck Gefren down before he could get within ten strides of Minelas. If Corrain was going to kill the treacherous mage, he’d have to find some way to attack him unseen.

He stared up at the empty sky, struggling with insidious despair. He had to get back to the mainland before he could avenge his murdered lord. Meantime, he was here, hungry and filthy, surrounded by carousing corsairs. These scum didn’t fear Raeponin’s justice or Saedrin’s judgement. They didn’t fear Poldrion’s demons, their talons and teeth waiting to rend those whom the Keyholder turned away.

So Corrain didn’t believe in the gods either, not anymore. Not since they had abandoned him to this fate.

At least the weather was turning warmer. The nights through both halves of winter had been as cold as any Corrain remembered at home. Here he had no roof, no blanket and any slave lighting a fire risked being thrust face down into the flames.

He glowered at the grey beach mottled with debris. Caladhrian tales of the Aldabreshin Archipelago praised the gleaming white sands of these lushly forested isles where a man might pluck all the ripe fruit he could eat, idling in endless sunshine.

No tavern songs mentioned the relentless rains of Aft-Summer and For-Autumn when the clothes on your back turned mouldy. When anyone foolish enough to wear boots would soon find his feet rotting inside them. Nor of the winter storms that hurled seaweed, driftwood and drowned corpses onto these rock-strewn shores.

But now it was spring and that meant open water voyaging, not merely prowling the backwaters of this maze of reefs and islands. Corrain contemplated the ships beyond the beach, gently rocking in this sheltered anchorage between two thrusting headlands.

That ochre pennant with a tangled black design signified the
Reef Eagle
, the galley they had been sold to. When would their galley master order a venture north across the seas dividing the Archipelago from the mainland, for the richer pickings of the coast?

Would there be any chance of escape? There hadn’t been even the sniff of such an opportunity on the
Reef Eagle’s
handful of raids the year before. They’d only made landfall twice, encountering merchant ships in the sea lanes on their other voyages. When they had drawn into the coast, Corrain hadn’t been able to see anything he recognised. He was used to seeing the shore from horseback, a Halferan trooper. Everything looked utterly different when he was chained to an oar bench.

Where was Hosh? Corrain hauled himself to his feet. He could wish him a fair festival for what little that was worth. The fool boy was sure to be moping and thinking of his mother so far away.

They could not afford despair. They were oath-bound not to give in. They were Caladhrians, not cowards like those slaves who had killed themselves over the winter; eating berries which they knew to be poison, wading into the surf to let the currents take them, grinding a shell shard into a blade to open a vein.

Corrain looked across the grassy expanse between the ragged and twisted trees fringing the shore and the long low houses built from the island’s coarse black rock. There was Hosh, lurking in a side doorway beneath the jutting eaves that shaded every side of the spacious dwelling.

Ever since they’d first been brought here Corrain had wondered who’d built those houses. Craftsmen who knew this island, that was clear. The ruddy oiled wood staunchly resisted the nameless insects gnawing at the more recently built driftwood huts.

He guessed the builders had fallen victim to the corsairs, their corpses slung into the brushwood now tattered by hacking blades greedy for firewood. Corrain had found bones and skulls when he’d been searching there for food, for shelter, for whatever might keep him alive until they were chained aboard the galley once more.

He had to stay alive. If he died, or was injured, and injured was as good as dead here, Hosh would have no one to defend him. Then none of Lord Halferan’s men would survive to see that bastard Minelas pay for his treachery.

Hosh raised a discreet hand and walked down the steps. All the houses had been built on raised platforms, to entice any passing breeze into their wide, slatted windows. He strolled casually towards a solitary nut palm.

Corrain joined him a few moments later. He didn’t go near the house, not after that first beating to warn him that the galley master didn’t allow any slave rower within arm’s length. Not one as well-muscled as him. Hosh was clearly far less of a threat and had other uses besides.

‘I have a festival gift for you.’ With a twisted smile, Hosh offered Corrain a crude cup.

It had been shaped from a nut palm husk. Such woody shells were harvested once the rains had come and gone, packed with nuts shaped like citrus segments. Naturally slaves only got the hardest, bitterest nuts or those softened with mould. These husk cups were sought after and prized.

‘Thank you, and fair festival.’ Corrain swallowed his irritation. How did the fool boy imagine he’d be able to find a festival gift for him?

‘The
Red Heron
has anchored.’ Hosh spoke quickly, in the coastal Caladhrian dialect. There was no one left alive on the island to share it with them.

‘How far did it sail?’ Corrain demanded.

‘To Relshaz and back,’ Hosh assured him.

Who would have thought it? This lad, never travelling more than twenty leagues from the village of his birth, had discovered a ready ear and a swifter tongue for unknown languages. Hosh gave thanks to Trimon, god of travellers, the divine harpist whose music transcended all tongues. Corrain would have done the same, if he still believed in the gods.

‘They’ve landed a fresh cargo of slaves.’ Hosh’s face tightened with misery. ‘They’re to be put to the test and the survivors shared out to crew the galleys. They’re planning the first raids of the season.’

The first attacks on helpless Caladhrians. Coastal hamlets looted for whatever coin or treasures the early spring trading had already secured, in return for wares and ornaments painstakingly crafted through winter’s enforced idleness. Whatever stores had outlasted the winter would be stolen away and those too slow or foolishly unwilling to flee risked murder, rape or enslavement.

‘Have you heard when the
Reef Eagle
will haul anchor?’ Corrain demanded.

Then they’d be burdened with chains again. The only good thing about being ashore was being unshackled. After all, where could a slave run on this island?

Hosh shook his head. ‘Not yet. Now, come on, you know we have to witness the test. And don’t raise anyone’s hackles by curling your lip,’ he added anxiously.

Corrain swallowed his anger. Hosh had a point. Too often, Corrain’s height and heft prompted challenges from a slave out to beat down someone taller and stronger to deter other predators.

Corrain had to fight back and win. Shirking a challenge or being defeated would bring greedy hands to steal his food, jostling shoulders to deny him shelter, until hunger or disease killed him.

Not that Hosh was much safer. Bullies were drawn to weakness here like anywhere else. Always skinny, now cruelly undernourished, Hosh looked pathetic. Over the winter, half the teeth in his upper jaw had followed those knocked out by the blow that had broken his nose. It was a wonder the lad’s spirit was unbroken.

Well, Corrain hoped it was. In depths of winter, some rheum in Hosh’s damaged nose had turned to corruption, swelling the whole side of his face. In agony and delirium, Hosh had begged for death’s release.

Corrain had cursed the boy for a coward. He’d pinned him bodily to the ground to strip him and sluice him with rags soaked in sea water to curb his burning fever. He’d traded his food for days for herbs that an Aldabreshin whore promised would cool Hosh’s blood.

Mercifully the boy had recovered with no apparent recollection of that piteous plea. Regardless, Corrain stayed alert for any hint he was losing hope. Lose Hosh and how could he sustain his own resolve?

As he followed the lad through the driftwood huts built between the galley masters’ houses, Corrain scraped a hand through his matted hair, dragging dirty locks out of his eyes. Yet again, he wished fruitlessly for shears, for a razor to be rid of this straggling beard.

The brushwood soon yielded to taller trees, thrusting straight up, their wood as hard as iron, unlike the twisted spongy trees of the shoreline. Spice plants bruised underfoot sweetened the air. So valuable on the mainland, they grew wild here, disregarded. In days gone by, Corrain had paid good silver to perfume his linen with their essence. Never again, he vowed. When he got home, he’d buy orris root instead.

Men were gathering from all over the island. Slave or raider, no one ignored such a summons. Only the few women whom the corsairs kept for themselves stayed secluded in the houses and huts. The galley master’s favourites would be preening and adorning themselves while those who traded their cooking skills for some control over the abuse of their bodies would be cooking a sumptuous feast, to celebrate the
Red Heron’s
return with a cargo of slaves.

Corrain’s mouth watered despite himself. Once the galley master, the whip master and their fellow brigands had stuffed their bellies, they’d retire behind the window shutters and drink themselves senseless on stolen liquor. Then the slaves could have their masters’ leavings and there would be plenty to go around. This Aldabreshin custom was another degradation that Corrain had to swallow if he ever wanted to sleep with a full stomach.

He was forced to admit that the Archipelagan food was tasty, especially the fish and goat meat stews spiced with unknown potherbs. As long as he avoided those little red pods floating in the broth. Biting one of those was like chewing a wasp.

Corrain and Hosh obediently followed the crowd to a hollow some distance from the camp. Far enough for the stench of dead bodies to be carried away on the breeze. Not too far for the ship masters to stagger back to their stolen homes after swilling plundered liquor and laying wagers on men forced to slaughter each other.

Archipelagans would lay bets on anything. Except, to Corrain’s bemusement, on throws of the runes. He’d not seen a single set of the three-sided bones, as they were named whatever substance they might have been carved from.

Corrain had spent endless evenings in Halferan’s guard hall, casting three triangular bones drawn at random from a cloth or leather pouch. Throw them onto the table and the bottommost side was hidden as they landed, leaving two runes showing on the sloping faces, one upright and one reversed. With twenty seven symbols for chance to favour, the permutations were endless. So fat purses were won or lost on wagers over who might throw the combination of the strongest upright runes. Would the Water quench the Fire or the Wolf consume the Deer? Would the Drum drown out the Chime or the cold Mountain Wind overwhelm the warm Sea Breeze?

Hosh’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘This is good enough.’

They sat down on the grassy slope. Oar slaves couldn’t hope for shade. Further down, beneath the leafiest trees, trusted slaves were settling earthenware bowls beside heaps of cushions. Bottles of searing liquor stood in water cool from the island’s jealously guarded wells. The ship masters were arriving.

Corrain was still thinking about runes. He’d have thought the Archipelagans would have relished the game and with so many Aldabreshi merchants trading with the mainland, they must surely have come across it. Come to that, not all these thieves and murderers were even Archipelagans.

He had come to realise that tawny heads and clean-shaven chins indicated mainlanders here and there, even if the sun and wind had tanned their skins like old leather. That had been merely one of the winter’s unpleasant revelations, as a double handful of galleys had returned to wait out the season’s storms among allies.

Corrain watched the oldest and most feared of the corsairs being guided to a seat by a faithful slave. A black silk scarf around the corsair’s eyes hid whatever ruin lay beneath. His loose tunic and trews were scarlet silk and he wore sapphire studded gold bracelets as fine as any warlord’s adornments.

What manner of man must this blind corsair be? Not merely to survive being blinded by Aldabreshin cruelty but to remain in unquestioned command of his ferocious trireme, as well as the raiding galleys that followed him for the sake of the warship’s protection?

‘No women.’ Hosh’s voice cracked with relief. ‘Nor children.’

The
Red Heron’s
miserable cargo was being herded towards a hollow in the ground, an arena of sorts, around which gathered the corsairs. Corrain watched armed raiders separate the bemused and bedraggled men. One by one they were shoved towards the twelve stones set around the ditch that ringed the floor of the hollow. Each stone was carved with a symbol.

Hosh had explained these indicated the constellations that the Aldabreshin followed around the heavens. Their movements conveyed potent omens, as did the wandering courses of the individual coloured stars, so bright and solitary in the night sky. Archipelagans named each of those for a gem while the Greater Moon was called the Opal and the Lesser Moon the Pearl.

Over the course of the winter, they had learned how completely the Aldabreshi allowed happenstance to govern their lives. The circle of the compass was divided into twelve arcs and each one conveyed special significance to any signs seen within it. Anything could be taken for a portent; a bird’s flight, a sea serpent in the distance, even some unusual cloud. Or bloodier signs like sharks devouring a half-dead rower thrown overboard.