The Fox (97 page)

She lay, as before, in his hammock. He studied her faint, crooked smile, the shadow of the dimple in her cheek.

“We run away from Bren folk,” she observed. In Iascan. Her accent was strongly Venn, not Delf. “Why?”

“Because the Brens wanted to keep you, and force me to stay. I think your Venn are going to attack my homeland, and I intend to fight them.”

Her brow furrowed as she sorted his words. And she said, finally, “If I give parole.”

Inda’s head jerked up. Had he heard that right? “Parole? ”

She nodded once, a firm nod. “If you attack north side of strait, my people there, parole ends.”

She’d practiced that, he sensed. “We are not attacking the north side,” he said slowly and clearly. “I was only there to find you. And to chart. But we will be attacking your people who are raiding on the Idayago side.”

“You burn people on ships?”

He flushed with guilt and made a warding gesture as he looked away. Then he said, “I’ll burn their ships so they can’t use ’em, but nobody on them. We won’t let ’em land on Idayago, but they can use their longboats and go north with my goodwill.”

She nodded. “It is good. I stay.”

He tipped his head a little, studying her. “Why?”

She gave a rueful smile. “It hurts.”

His entire body was expressive of relief as he flicked his fingers to the knife he wore along his forearm. He pulled the long knife out, but kept the point away from her, his gaze at her elbow, his attitude patient and unthreatening. He was waiting to cut her bonds!

She obligingly scrunched to one side, the hammock jiggling warningly, as he sawed the silk binding her wrists.

“I’ll send Fibi down,” he said. And did, moving up to the captain’s deck, where he stood watching the drill on the forecastle, his mind struggling to comprehend what the mage’s parole might mean.

When Signi appeared on deck, she was considerably cleaner, her sandy hair severely pulled back into a short braid, and the grubby blue robe gone, no doubt drying below after a couple of dunks in one of the ensorcelled buckets. He recognized the shirt, green-dyed wool jacket, and sailor’s trousers from Gillor’s seabag. The two women were about the same height, though this Venn mage was a little more spare than Gillor.

Her movements were peculiarly fluid as she rubbed slowly at her wrists in gentle circles. Though the season was winter the low northern sun was warm on deck, and many went barefoot. The prisoner did also, and Inda could see that she was used to it. Her feet were brown and as tough as his own.

She moved soundlessly, unobtrusively, stopping near the mainmast. Inda suspected her post aboard Venn ships was there. She watched the drill forward, pursing her lips when Fox threw Tau to the deck, gold hair flashing. Grunt, scramble, and the two jumped up, breathing hard, Fox laughing; the old competition was back, but some of the bitter sting had vanished.

It was then that the rest of the crew noticed that they had been joined. Surprise, even shock, riffled through them all at the sight of the mage on deck, her hands free.

Fox raised his knife in ironic salute. Tau said something that Inda could not hear, as the wind came from behind him. The prisoner met his gaze then looked away, her face relaxing a fraction only when she spotted Fibi. She brought her hands up, palms together—a gesture Fibi mirrored with a brisk and graceless clap.

Inda felt a tingling prod over his ribs—his vest pocket. He remembered the new golden scroll-case. It wasn’t a round scroll-shape like the Venn one he’d seen in Wafri’s hands. Apparently Sartoran ones were square, flat cases that better fit the style of clothes aristocrats wore.

Inda moved aft and opened the case. There was a tiny paper from Jeje, in her round, uneven hand—

The lookout yelled, “Six sail, hull down, lee-bow!”

And on the paper:
6 sail hull up. Venn
.

Hull up: the entire ship visible, hull down: only the masts.

Inda moved to the binnacle, laying his hand on the gold cases there, each paired to one on another of his ships. He got that same magical tingle-poke from two; the third tingled as he touched it, and when he opened them, bits of paper showed variations of the same news.

His first experiment was a disappointment.

“They’re worthless,” he exclaimed in disgust. And as Gillor stepped close, head cocked in question, “Use the signal flags. I want this as we practiced: we’ll maneuver upwind of them. Two to each warship, the scouts to keep circling and keep up the fire-arrows until they strike their flag and go over the side.” The Venn had battle flags like most military ships, Inda had discovered, which were used to signal intent to attack, neutrality, or surrender.

Pirates had no such custom, though some mimed military action at whim, but who would believe their signals?

The Venn masts appeared, and soon they were hull up.

The exquisitely beautiful tall-masted square-sail ships were designed for deep waters, which Inda’s smaller fore-and-aft ships were not. But the Venn square sails could not sail into the eye of the wind nearly as closely as Inda’s fleet. That was their single weakness, he had watched it again and again over the last year, and he would use it against them now.

“And after they go over the side?”

“Drive ’em north. I don’t want them landing on the south shore. North, it’s none of our affair. And burn the ships after we loot ’em.”

“Prisoner?” Gillor’s dark-fringed eyes were wide with interest.

“Gave parole. But when their masts heave up on the horizon put her below, in the purser’s cabin. Lum can shift his flour barrels somewhere else for storage. Bar it but let her free inside, with a lamp. I don’t want to risk the Venn spotting her—this raider pack could be a search for the scout—and she doesn’t need to see her own people fought against.”

Gillor nodded, then strode forward, issuing orders to the flag hands and to Fox, who listened, head slightly bent. For a moment he observed the two: the woman gesturing, her attitude evocative of intensity and appeal—it was her watch, and she wanted to command—the man listening, remote and intense before the lift of the hand that turned the ship over to her. He moved to the weapons box and took up position with one of the newer defense teams.

With Gillor Inda had relaxed his rule about not sleeping with crew because he enjoyed her laughing abandon, and because she showed him no favor over Tcholan or a couple of the other hands. Her gaze had strayed most often toward Fox—not that that got her anywhere. Like Tau he never slept with crew. Now Gillor’s mind was on the attack. If she carries this one, Inda thought, she’s got the next ship we capture.

Ship. Mage.

Signi’s expression was intent, inscrutable. Her body poised, evocative of deference and question. How did she do that? He had never seen anyone move like she did. She stood so quietly, without any unnecessary motion, yet it was impossible to look away.

But needs drew his attention; she, sensing his attention elsewhere, began to watch him.

On the deck of his ship he wore authority naturally, as comfortably as he exhibited his strength and the resilience of youth. How beautiful he was! Emotions clear to see as a stream in spring, yet as complex as the knotwork tapestries at home.

Signi let her gaze stray to the two young men on the forecastle, the redheaded one watching the last of his drill crew turning to new tasks, the golden-haired one at a halyard. Those two were startlingly alike, both hiding their natures in similar fashion, the one with trained habit, the other with trained grace.

She was so intent on her observations she was surprised to discover Gillor at her shoulder.

“Come,” Gillor said. “They’re hull down on the horizon. We need to lock you below.”

Interest—joy—doused.

But Signi had given her word. The path lay before her. She had chosen it. She must walk it, and accept what it would bring.

She did feel better when Gillor brought her a lamp, water, and a biscuit she’d stuffed with cheese before she barred the cabin door.

And it was Gillor who let her out just as dawn began to lift the darkness from sky and sea.

Inda leaned on the rail despite a cold, wet wind that smelled of imminent snow, watching the last of the Venn ships slip below the green waves, billows of smoke drifting toward the sky.

The long barges were filled with Venn, all heading north. Through the glass Inda could see mostly yellow heads and broad backs, the oars dipping and rising, as the small craft harried them northward.

He turned, sparks of pain lancing through his temple, his bad wrist, one knee. New wounds or old, he didn’t care; he wanted only sleep.

The door to his cabin was ajar. He slipped inside and leaned on the table, frowning down at one of the charts, when he became aware of Signi’s scent. It reminded him of roses right before they bloom.

A quiet step beside him. She was carrying a candle, the flame a golden flicker over her face.

“You did not kill them.”

“No.”

“Why?” She poured a little wax on the table and then set the candle into it. Inda watched her fingers: short, capable, blunt-nailed. There were red welts on her wrists, evidence of silent, futile struggle at some point during her long incarceration. He glanced at his own wrists and was startled to see his barbed wrist guards there. He fumbled them off, feeling uneasy, though he was too tired to figure out why.

“They will seek you.” She used Sartoran verbs when Iascan failed her.

“They already seek me,” he retorted. “They have for over a year. The ‘seek’ has probably became a hunt since I took you.”

She looked up, her pupils enormous. “They might not know where I am.”

“Oh, I suspect they know. Your Venn spies in Bren Harbor would have winnowed out the news by now, if not from Chim’s Longnose, certainly from some other rat. And though I lied and said I was going east, it’s inevitable these will report I’ve gone west. Though it may be a week or two before they reach the north shore—oh, yes! I’m thinking of our own communication times. The sea dags on the ships must have transferred at the beginning of our attack and reported before tucking up in bed for the night.” He threw down the golden case onto the table, where it clattered, sending the candle flame dancing, then streaming. “I see what I missed before. It’s the positioning that makes communication with other warships possible. I have to keep my ships in line of sight, or how do we identify our positions? We might as well use the flags. You Venn have some method of marking position without landmarks.”

She made no answer, yet her lack of denial was, in itself, an answer.

Weak blue light glowed in the stern windows. The candle flame touched with tiny golden sparks of light the contours of her arms, the fine hairs drifting around her face, having escaped her braid. The flame erased lines, making her curiously ageless, both young and old.

“They will try to kill you,” she repeated, with that steady gaze.

“And I will fight back,” Inda replied, sweeping a hand over the chart; his fleet had reached the eastern end of Idayago.

He frowned down at the coastline as though words of import had been written there. It kept his hands busy, it kept his gaze away from the dip in her shirt that exposed the little hollow in her neck, and the vein beating there, counterpoint to her beating heart. She was alive, she was Venn. They were all alive, Iascan, Venn, Bren, Delf, pirate—alive, with busy hearts and minds and hands, desires, aspirations, fears, hatreds. It was so easy to make them dead; it was his only skill.

He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to press back the throbbing in his temple, the swoop and soar of strong emotion that he could barely control, and sometimes could not control since his escape from Wafri.

Her voice came again, closer. “Who is he?”

Surprise brought down his hands, banished the flood of remorse. “Who?”

“He who walks at your shoulder. The man so like Venn and Marlovan. How do you say in Yaskani? Spirit-being?”

Shock struck him cold. “Ghost?”

“He is there. Sometimes a shadow. Sometimes less than shadow. I see him now, so very clear. He looks at me.” Her eyes focused at a point above and beyond Inda’s shoulder.

The hairs prickled on Inda’s neck, and he stepped back as he turned, hands up in a defensive block, but he saw nothing. He dropped his hands and uttered a semblance of a laugh.

The woman did not laugh. She gazed and gazed, then said, “He is distinctest one ever I see.”

“Blond? Hair long like mine? Tall?” Because Inda strongly suspected who it was.

“Yes,” she said, her gaze focused steadily on the air beyond his shoulder.

“His name is—was—is Dun, that’s all I know,” Inda said, shaking his head in wonder.

Her brows lifted. “You see him, then?”

“No. But I . . . think once I have. Ramis showed me, or tried to. And since then, once or twice I had a sense of someone there.” Disbelief had been banished when he stood with Ramis on the deck of the
Knife
and watched the spirit-shades flow in and out of time on Ghost Island.

“Your friend? Brother? Kin?” She shifted her attention from his shoulder at last, met his gaze, then dropped hers. Her posture changed subtly and he struggled against the urge to stare at her body the way she had been staring over his shoulder.

He swallowed. “None of those. Friend, maybe. Crew. He was on my first ship, when I was first sent to sea.”

For a time they stood there on either side of the table, both looking down at the candle, which had burned halfway to the table in a puddle of beeswax, but by now the light coming in had strengthened, revealing the bruised look of exhaustion and old pain under his eyes, and the desperate attempt to comprehend—to grasp the truth— narrowing hers.

He brought his hand down on the weak little flame, snuffing it, and shook his head. “Never mind.”