Sasharia En Garde (43 page)

“. . . the grit of the deck boards feels like
sand. Sand at sea, I can’t smell it past this kinthus nobody told me it smells
like chid-weed. We call chidder-weed chid or . . .” Elva
whispered.

The mage looked up at Randart. “The kinthus has taken hold.”

o0o

On board the
Zathdar
,
Robin, temporary captain, received Tham’s note. She carefully slid her magic
case deep into a pocket. None of her current crew knew the captain’s real
identity, though they knew he sometimes had access to transfer magic. Anyone
who had enough money could buy transfer tokens.

She placed the one Owl had given her on the table in the
captain’s cabin, then backed hastily out, closing the door and staring upward,
ostensibly watching the set of the sail.

She was wondering how long she’d have to stand there looking
stupid when she heard a muffled thump and thud in the cabin behind her. She
opened to door to find Prince Jehan getting up from the deck, his complexion
the familiar greenish-tinged mask of nausea and pain.

She waited while he leaned on the table, hands gripping the
edge of it, as he recovered his balance. Two deep, shuddering breaths, his face
flushed red, and he gave the sheen on his forehead a swipe with an exquisitely
made cambric shirt sleeve. That and his white hair were proof he was really a
prince in disguise. She always had trouble believing it. She’d always known him
as a privateer, until very recently.

“I’m here,” he said. “And awake. Status?”

“Fleet downwind, on station in two columns. The
Skate
had been leading the Aloca fleet.
They’re tacking straight out to sea. They have to be trying to get upwind and
close on us, so we’ve hauled east to keep the wind.”

While she spoke, he flung off his clothes, rolling up the
expensive linen and cambric. She glimpsed his long, muscular back and shifted
her gaze out the stern windows, where she could see the
Jumping Bug
rising on the swell, sails taut. Funny, how when she
was small the older men changed in front of everyone, as did the women. You
didn’t get much privacy on a ship. But when they were little they didn’t pay
any attention, and Zathdar had always seemed one of the grownups, Owl’s
generation. Then suddenly—she hadn’t really noticed when—he was closer to
her
generation, and, well, you couldn’t
help
looking
.

So she scowled at the
Jumping
Bug
, forcing her mind to shift to the crisis. Attack. Bad enough of a
crisis, yes. There’s the
Bug
with
fighting sail ready, and probably passing out weapons to the fire crews. Ready,
waiting for orders to . . . Could even Zathdar take three ships
in against half the entire navy?

She swung around, forgetting irrelevancies like personal
privacy.

“We’re really going to attack Randart’s whole
fleet
?”

“Are you ready?” He was pulling on a shirt, brilliant pink,
she noted, a flicker of laughter appearing and vanishing back in her mind like
a stray sunbeam during a rainstorm. Brilliant pink except for the orange
peonies embroidered all over it. The trousers were striped blue and white. “I
signaled to prepare for action before I got out the transfer coin. You know how
many of them there are?” Strange, how when he was Prince Jehan his eyes were so
blue under that white hair. Blue and vague. When he put on the pirate clothes,
his face changed. Intense, it became.

“Are we really going to rescue Elva Eban?” Robin asked. “She
acted like a worse snot than you’d have expected of the princess. And
she
wasn’t a snot at all.”

“Elva Eban was crew.”

The subject was ended, Robin knew. Even if Elva only
actually helped serve a day or so, he’d decided she was crew, and they all knew
his first rule:
We never abandon crew to
the enemy
.

He yanked a green-striped bandana from the chest, flung his
old clothes in and slammed the lid. A few quick, practiced twists and his hair
was bound up, the yellow fringes dancing against the horrible pink shirt. Last,
he unfastened the diamond in his ear, moved to the little carved box on the
shelf above the bed, and she heard the clatter as he tossed it in. “Let’s take
a look.” He grabbed his spyglass with one hand and snapped the clasp on his
gold hoop with the other.

Together they strode out on deck, she aware of the waiting
tension, the watching eyes, he seemingly unaware as he tucked his glass under
one arm and scrambled up to the masthead.

She was right behind him with her own glass.

No sound, no voices, only the endless wash of the sea, and
the creak of wood as he eyed the fleet. Then he smiled and lowered the glass.
He spoke in a pitched voice, carrying to the waiting crew. “He doesn’t have
half the navy, he only has part of it.”

Everyone was listening.

“Another thing. What we see here is not one fleet, but two.
Randart thinks he has one. But one look at those ill-kept columns and it’s clear
to anyone used to the sea he’s got his dozen or so of the Ellir Fleet,
beautifully on station, plus a lot of craft that seem to be having trouble
staying more or less in a line. Which one is he on? Fleet flagship doesn’t seem
to be flying the king’s banner.”

“That’s because he’s on the biggest merch,” Robin said.

“He’s what?” Zathdar looked askance, and there was some
subdued laughter from the tops. “He isn’t that stupid.”

“According to the orders relayed among the merches via Tham,
he’s been there to see that they learn their place. He
says
he’s training them navy-style.”

“But he doesn’t know anything about the navy.”

“That’s the word.”

Zathdar murmured so softly the wind almost took his words
away, “Chain of command forged by fear.” He nodded. “Then that gives us a bit
more time. Even better, my rescue attempt might even work.”

“Two fleets . . .” “Two
fleets . . .” The whisper susurrated through the crew.

He lifted his voice. “Set sail now, right down the middle.
Fire-arrow barrage from both sides. Aim for sails, no human targets. I want
every single sail in that fleet on fire. As soon as we draw nigh Tham, tell him
to be ready with the sugar bricks.”

o0o

Randart crouched over his prisoner, who stared upward, a
slight frown between her eyes. The rest of her dirty, blood-smeared face was
impossible to read, but her bruised lips kept moving as she whispered.

“You were taken by the pirate Zathdar,” he said clearly.
“Where did he take you?”

“. . . and what is that smell? I smell sweat.
Old sweat, some mud. Mud on a ship—you don’t get mud on a ship—from the swell
I’d say the wind is out of the northwest . . .”

Randart raised a hand, then hesitated, not wanting her blood
dirtying his hands. So he gripped her hair and yanked her head so she faced
him.

Tears filled her eyes.

“Hurts! Pain—stab of needles, hot needles, not on the scalp
but down my neck my stomach boils I might puke I don’t want to puke I had
nothing to eat my head aches feels like a cloth tied around it—”

Randart sighed in exasperation.

“Zathdar!” he said sharply.

“Pirate,” Elva responded. “Those colors ugly colors brown,
brown, brown all around am I wearing my blue tunic I need a cleaning frame
don’t want it ruined—”

Thumping and yells on the deck distracted Randart, who bent
closer to hear the continuous stream of whispered words.

“Where. Is. Zathdar’s. Land. Base?” he enunciated
distinctly.

“. . . different pain from my arms, that’s
red pain, white pain is the sudden sharp one maybe it’s like the glow of a
dying fire . . .”

“Atanial! Zathdar!”

“Princess. Pirate name.” Elva blinked, her eyes losing
focus. “Ugly—my clothes are never ugly I don’t like choosing clothes blood on
my sleeve I can feel the wet against my arm it smells like sweet salt but with
iron rust—”

The rumble of feet overhead caused Randart to glare at one
of his aides. “Tell them to stay quiet on the ceiling. Whatever they are doing
can wait until I am done.”

The door whisked open. The noise from outside the cabin was
briefly louder.

“Voices,” Elva babbled on. “Do I know anyone I don’t think I
know them my head does hurt so—”

Randart cursed, irritated by the increase in noise from the
sailors above. Were they possibly making it on purpose? He’d have them all
flogged as mutineers. He was also irritated by this fool of a girl, who should,
by rights, be spewing memory, not inanities about whatever she saw right in
front of her nose.

His aide returned and took up his position beside the door
as Randart glared at the mage. “I thought you people were supposed to be
experts with kinthus. I can do better. Have done better my very first
interrogation.”

She opened her hand as if to say
Be my guest
, but said only, “I am not trained in interrogation. My
expertise is wood. However, it appears she’s caught in an immediate thought
stream. It can happen to some, with green kinthus.”

She sat back, hands folded. She had been ordered to
cooperate with the war commander, and her oath to the king required that she
strictly obey orders. But he made her so angry she would not offer him a single
breath of aid beyond what he’d ordered.

So if he didn’t know that the girl had managed to shutter
off her memory, Magister Lorat wasn’t going to offer the information.

For a time the magister watched, impassive, as Randart shook
the girl, slapped her again and barked words at her, but all she did was talk
about what she was seeing, hearing. Feeling. Especially feeling. When she
started commenting on the revulsion she felt at the commander’s proximity, and
there was a revealing scrape somewhere behind them—probably someone trying hard
not to laugh or even to breathe—he flung her down.

“Is there any use in continuing? How about giving her more?”

“She is on the verge of falling asleep as it is,” the mage
replied tonelessly. “Any more will probably kill her.”

“Save the herb.” He looked up at his aide and the day
captain of his personal guard. “Take her out and hang her.”

The guards were in the act of picking up Elva by the arms
when there came a rap at the door.

“What,” Randart shouted over his shoulder.

“Pardon, Commander,” came the voice of the ship’s captain.
“But I felt you should be informed that we are under attack.”

o0o

“Lower the cutter,” Zathdar ordered.

Robin frowned. “You’re not going to board the flagship?”

Zathdar paused on his way to the weapons locker, and glanced
back. “Who else?”

“Anyone else. How did that fool get herself caught anyway?”

“I’m afraid it’s our fault,” Zathdar said.

Robin scowled, for she hadn’t liked that Elva Eban, always
grumping about on the deck with her sniffy attitude. As if
she
were the princess, whereas Prince Math’s daughter had been
instant mates with everyone, without a hint of swank. And she could have
swanked, not only because she was a prince’s daughter, but because she was one
of the best fighters in the fleet.

Zathdar could see Robin’s thoughts fairly clearly, and so he
stepped close and murmured apologetically, “Owl’s mistake, actually.”

Leaving her nothing more to say on the matter.

That is, until he drew out a fine Colendi dueling blade,
long, thin, edged but not as strong as a saber. She gasped. “Take the cavalry
sword. You can’t defend yourself with that!”

“It has an edge, and a point, which is all I ask. Remember,
Randart has seen my fighting style with the cavalry sword. But not with this.”
He swung it, making it whistle. “That might be the only disguise left to me,
besides these absurd clothes, so I’ll take what I can.”

You shouldn’t go at
all.
She kept her teeth gritted as she lent a hand lowering his boat. After
he called for volunteers and chose among the forest of hands that instantly
shot up, she said, “Orders?”

“As much chaos as possible.”

He leaped down into the cutter, which was really a
one-masted pinnace, but made to his own design on the lines of larger cutters,
lean and fast, its sides painted a camouflaging bluish gray.

They raised the sail, tacking directly in the lee of the
Zathdar
, hidden from view of the
oncoming fleet.

Robin returned to the wheel and took over. They were nearly
in bowshot. On the enemy ships, naval crews scrambled aloft to the tops, taking
up their stations on the mastheads, drilled and waiting. On the merchant ships,
sailors scurried about and warriors ran around, all getting in one another’s
way. She laughed, watching the glint of sun on swords being waved, sails
jerking as their unprepared crews tried to figure out how they were going to
fight and sail at the same time.

Chaos he wants, chaos
we will give him. I’ll buy myself a new silk shirt if I can get two of these
stinkers to crash bow over stern.
She spun the wheel and lifted her voice.
“Sail crews, let’s make
Zathdar
dance. Bow teams? Prepare for attack!”

The smell of rancid oil drifted down, whipping away on the
wind, as the fire crews above dipped their arrows.

o0o

Randart shoved his way to the forecastle. All the sailors
scrambled back. He had his glass, but didn’t need it to see the three pirates
bearing down, sails taut against the wind.

“They’re moving faster than we,” he snapped.

The captain was an old man, weathered from years of sun and
sea. “They have the wind. As we reported to you before, War Commander.”

Randart gritted his teeth against snapping back a futile
question. Obviously the fleet couldn’t regain the wind, whatever that meant,
not under strict orders to give chase.

But one question he could ask. He glared in narrow-eyed fury
into the dark eyes of the waiting captain. “Why did you not report this attack
at once?”