The Fox (10 page)

Any sail on the horizon caused them to spill wind and bowse their sail up tight, making them effectively invisible from a distance; the cost of staying unseen added to the sailing time.

Relieved when they finally spotted the familiar hump of Freedom Islands on the southeast horizon, Jeje and Nugget fell asleep not long after, leaving the brothers to beat southward against the steady winds, at last entering the harbor on the morning tide.

The water was smooth, the sky mild with wispy, curved featherings of white as Jeje lifted her glass to scan the harbor. The ache gripped her heart with the strength of regret and grief and worry and remorse. She swept the glass over the familiar octagonal building jutting above the King’s Saunter. It was foolish to hope, but she searched for Inda in the colorful crowd on the boardwalk, scrutinized the ships in harbor, and glared at every figure as if agonizing strength of will could force one of those strangers to be Kodl walking up to the cordage shop to see his sweetheart, or Thog drifting about searching the newcomers for Chwahir outcasts.

Willing was as useless as wishing: not a glimpse of any of them.

“Signal! We can moor at the north dock,” the oldest boy said.

Jeje lowered the glass. “We get a dock mooring?” she asked, amazed at the unheard of privilege.

Nugget bounced up and down. “That’s because of Woof,” she said confidently. “My brother won’t stick us in the bay.”

Jeje lifted a shoulder, repressing a comment that Nugget’s brother, who was the harbormaster’s chief assistant, had had no problem with the
Vixen
being anchored out in the bay before they left. That they’d now rate a mooring because Woof wanted to see his sister returning from her first voyage made as much sense as anything else did these days.

Nugget waved violently, shrilling false alarm at that distinct pitch recognizable to anyone familiar with the shrieks of young girls: there was Woof himself, moving down the dock more quickly than his customary elegant stride.

He halted at the edge while the
Vixen
was moored. Jeje folded her charts under her arm and clambered up onto the deck, followed by Nugget, who leaped up and dashed to her brother, gaining her land legs in half a heartbeat.

She flung herself onto him, wrapping her gangling legs around him as he hugged her and pressed a kiss into her tangled, salt-grimy hair. “Woofie! There was a pirate attack! ”

Woof set her down, his grin tightening to a wince. “I know. Word’s coming in from everyone running south.” He patted his sister’s salt-spiky curls and turned to Jeje. “Walic or Boruin? I can’t believe anyone but those two would be strong enough to take your marine defenders.”

Jeje forced herself not to start with her own questions. “Walic. According to the harbormaster at Tchorchin. You heard? Who? How?”

Woof sighed, tipping a hand back and forth, then sweeping it down toward the harbor. “Word went out Walic was hunting in the same area your convoy had been last seen, and not long after there was a smoke cloud that carried to the coast when the wind shifted. A couple of privateers in the area saw the smoke and tacked in to investigate.”

Look for hulks and scavenge,
Jeje translated. It was typical of certain types of privateers.

“Both came in here. Reported your convoy’s being stripped and left to burn, but the fire was doused by rain, leaving the wrecks drifting.”

“Wrecks?” Jeje whispered. “No survivors?”

Woof shook his head. “Kodl was spotted among the dead. Fangras of the
Blue Star
recognized his body. Dun the Carpenter as well, and Scalis. He and his crew Disappeared them. The rest of the convoy had either been taken or sunk, so we have no idea who lived and who died.” He hesitated, then said, “Thank you for getting Nugget away.”

Jeje opened her mouth to explain that Nugget hadn’t been their first thought. Inda had ordered Jeje away to get aid when Nugget happened to be serving a watch on
Vixen.

No one is going to ask about Uslar.
Who was the same age as Nugget, Jeje thought with that painful heart-twist of grief. Clues she’d missed before coalesced into conviction: Woof’s fine clothes, the way he moved, his assumption that his little sister would be first on anyone’s mind. He was a toff.

That is, he had been born one. He obviously didn’t own any land now and what’s more, he worked as hard as anyone.

So she said nothing.

She was not aware of her scowl.

After another hesitation, Woof shifted his gaze away, then said, “Come upstairs, will you? Dhalshev wants to talk to you, if you’ve a mind.”

Jeje waved a hand, again making an effort not to hammer him with questions.
Kodl dead! Dun, too. But they didn’t mention Inda or Tau. Everyone knew Tau.

Her throat hurt and her eyes burned, though she tried fiercely to control her emotions.
I will believe they live until I hear something else.

Woof led her to the eight-sided tower that served as headquarters for the harbormaster. She had never seen Dhalshev before, though everyone knew who he was. He’d been fleet commander of the Khanerenth navy before the civil war. Though Jeje had little interest in—and no sympathy for—the problems of kings, it was impossible to sail the eastern waters and not hear that Dhalshev’s defection had finally brought the old king down and enabled the new one to settle the kingdom.

Woof walked fast, his lips pressed together as though he, too, was deliberately not asking questions. They trotted up the stairs around and around until they reached the weather-beaten balcony outside the octagon, where a couple of staffers were on duty with field glasses, a flag hand standing by the huge trunk of signal flags waiting for her next order. Nugget ran up to these, greeting them all by name, then crowing proudly, with the heartlessness of the young who only glimpsed danger from a distance, “
We
were attacked by
pirates!
They chased us. Even shot a million arrows at us! Fire arrows! But we were
much
too fast!”

Woof led Jeje inside and shut the door. The front half of the octagon had enormous windows overlooking the harbor. The back half, tucked against the hillside, was covered with mural-sized charts. Two of them matched the charts under Jeje’s arm; they were just bigger and more detailed, dotted with little colored pins. The third was a huge map of the island with charting and fleet marks along the west coast. The fourth showed the coast of the north continent, which she ignored, turning back to the map of the island.

Before she could study any of those markers Dhalshev spoke from behind her. “What can you tell me?”

Jeje turned. The tall gray-haired man looked like a Fleet Commander, somehow, even though she’d never seen one in her life. It wasn’t his size, though he was taller than Kodl had been, or his trim build. It was his attitude of awareness, of command. He reminded her of Inda running war games on their hill up behind the harbor, or standing on the deck of a hire in the middle of a battle, right before Kodl gave up trying to run the defense and Inda took over.

Her hand moved, doffing an invisible hat, as if she had just stepped aboard the deck of his flagship. The severity of Dhalshev’s expression eased for a moment as he returned the gesture.

Jeje gave her report in the manner Inda had trained them to use: outcome, general survey, details.

Dhalshev and Woof were impressed with Jeje’s succinct descriptions of Walic’s vessels, what she’d seen of their tactics. She then repeated her conversation in Tchorchin Harbor. They exchanged a glance, remembering the harbormaster there.

Dhalshev said, “What do you intend to do now?”

Jeje drew in a deep breath, studying Woof’s scrupulously blank expression and the harbormaster’s grim one. The fact Jeje was up here, where no one but Dhalshev’s own people were allowed, testified to the importance of this conversation to him, though as yet she did not know why.

So talk about what you do know, Jeje sa Jeje!
As she had with Testhy, she felt that sense of the wind, or the world, changing. “I want to try to rescue them,” she said firmly. “If they are still alive.”

Woof knuckled his chin during the silence that followed her words. Dhalshev’s face didn’t alter, and Jeje discovered she’d been holding her breath. She was braced for what? Scoffing? Disbelief? Dhalshev said, “In the old days I could have sent a fleet in the time it took to write the orders. Those days are gone. Khanerenth couldn’t send anyone. I didn’t leave them enough ships to do more than guard the coast.”

A pang of disappointment forced Jeje to realize she’d unconsciously expected him to take her problem as his own, to tell her what to do. Maybe give her the means to do it.

So command yourself, Jeje. What would Inda do? “I need volunteers. Supplies.”

The harbormaster lifted his hand toward the south window. “If you go down to Anki’s, you’ll find a list of those who have been waiting for Kodl’s return.”

“Those are recruits,” Jeje said, fighting back the cloud of questions. “I need supplies, if not ships.”

“You won’t get a fleet,” Dhalshev warned. “Everyone on the island knows that there will be an attack here, that it’s only a matter of time. The pirates lost this harbor to me, and they want it back. They no longer have a good base here in the east, and they want the independent trade I’ve been building up.”

So that explained their tension!

Woof put in, “Walic wants Brotherhood alliance. Boruin is already Brotherhood. She wants command of the Brotherhood’s eastern arm, which has been up for grabs ever since Captain Ramis of the
Knife
sent the last fleet commander to Nightland.”

That name was like a jab. “Is Ramis coming back?”

Dhalshev said grimly, “No idea what his plans are. I only had one conversation with him, and it was the strangest one I have ever had.”

“Did you ask him his plans?”

Dhalshev’s mouth tightened in a bleak almost-smile. “He answered every question with a question. He exhorted me to treat fairly with trade, which I have done, but that was a promise I’d made before he arrived. Not all of our traders want to keep it.”

“Will Boruin and Walic ally, you think?”

“No. They did once, then argued over the division of spoils. Or rather, she denied him his share, he complained about her up and down the coast, and word got back to her. Both know the other will double-cross them in a heartbeat. That’s one advantage to us. The other benefit is the massing of the Brotherhood under Marshig the Murderer, out west. It’s inevitable that they will be back when the Iascan war is over, whoever wins, but at least that war buys us time.”

Jeje scowled at her brown feet on Dhalshev’s patterned tile floor. His distant, convenient war was her family fighting for their homes.

Dhalshev waved a hand toward the window. “You can spend a lifetime resenting the orders of a bad king, but when that king is gone and no one is issuing orders, once the first sense of freedom fades into everyday matters, you’ll find that someone or other wants to step into that gap.”

Jeje moved to the window. The entirety of the King’s Saunter was visible from this vantage: a broad semicircle paved with pale stone, colorful shops vying with banners and brightly painted shutters and awnings to catch the eye of privateers and sailors strolling by in their best shore-going rig. Everyone was armed. The mistress at the Lark Ascendant pleasure house had been open about how much she liked the marines living there, because if there was trouble she expected them to defend her house.

Jeje realized what it meant to have no king or queen ruling from a distance. Whose law prevailed? One could say the harbormaster’s, except who was to enforce his law if his fleet was out defending the harbor and someone decided to make other laws?

Jeje swung around, staring at the map of the main island. “You sent all your fleet out to guard the harbor against a pirate attack?”

Dhalshev stepped forward, raising an arm to block his island map, then as abruptly stepped back. “What do you mean?”

Jeje remembered how he’d deflected her on her entry. Ah! “You’re not defending the entire island,” she said.

Dhalshev said slowly, “I thought I was. But I admit that I have always fought at sea. I know little about land battles. What do you see that I don’t?”

Jeje scanned those markers on the mountaintops: a few at the northern and southern ends of the island, heavy along the west above and below the harbor, but nothing on the east. The detailed chart symbols showed tall cliffs on the east, a lethally rocky coast, riptides, and a nasty current. There were even dated red marks for big wrecks. People trained to sea would consider that coast a natural barrier; she remembered Inda saying after the
Toola
attack,
What
we’ve learned is where we think we’re strongest—and loosen our watch—that’s where the smart ones will infiltrate.

Boruin, Walic, all the worst pirates are smart,
she thought, and easily imagined them landing not ships along that lethal rocky coast, but lots of smaller boats. And climbing up the cliffs to attack from behind . . .

The fog had lifted, the wind was on the beam. Jeje knew where she was. Hooking her thumbs in her sash and rocking back and forth on her bare feet, she said, “How about this. You give me supplies. Crew. And I tell you how Inda would defend your island.”

Dhalshev frowned at Woof, who just whistled.

Dhalshev hesitated for five heartbeats—Jeje counted. Then he said, “Talk.”

When she was done, the harbormaster said, “Woltjen, see that she gets what she needs.”

Jeje and Woof left. As soon as the door was shut, Woof grimaced like a boy. “When he uses my real name, I know he’s . . .” Woof waggled his hand beside his head.

Jeje gestured. “Why? It’s just something Inda’s taught us. You don’t think it’s a fair trade?”

Woof shook his head. “You don’t realize. I guess that’s a good thing. But if you wanted you could have taken away the knowledge of the map and used your pirate plan yourself. Taken the island.”