Treason's Shore (94 page)

Vividly remembering his own mid days, and Norsh’s heavy hand with a rope’s end, Tau said kindly, “Here, let me show you some tricks I learned back in my laundry duty days. Makes it so much easier . . .”

Caught flat, the boy was morally obliged to listen, so for the third time, Tau explained snapping, airing, and shaping clothes before they were quite dry, and the best way to hot-press, ending with a hint about fresh herbs in the trunk. Then he took mercy on the mids, left them to their press below, and climbed up to the galley.

The harassed cook welcomed him with relief. “Take these in?” Nilat wiped her brow. “They’re eating like a pack of wolves in the wardroom.”

Holding the tray of freshly-baked shrimp biscuits, Tau eased past the lashed-down barrels in the companionway, and paused when he heard Fox’s drawl.

“. . . when I was on board with Thog daughter of Pirog. Discipline is tight. She gives a command—no more than a few words—and everything’s carried out without talk. No yelling. Threats. No negotiation and backchat, like our indies and you Khanerenth bravos.”

Laughter and jibes followed, the sharp, hard, too-loud laughter that had little to do with hilarity, and everything to do with tension.

“Captain through fear! That’s the way,” an independent roared.

Then Mutt said, “Oh, Thog isn’t so bad. Just a little strange.”

“Not so bad!” the independent shouted, with an eye to his audience. “Not so bad! Why, she only awards fifty lashes instead of five hundred if you forget to salute!”

“I’ve heard that about those Chwahir,” declared a young Sarendan captain dressed in purple with antique lace. She rolled her eyes. “Flogging’s their idea of deck-rec.”

“I don’t believe that,” Gillor said. “Not about Thog. I shared a cabin with her for a year. She never once talked about floggings.”

Tau carried the food into the crowded wardroom, its heavy, humid air thick with the scents of ale, wine, food, and too many people.

“Believe it.” Taz-Enja was older, but he enjoyed the younger set. Now, however, his tone was sober. “Every village in Chwahirsland has a whipping post. Floggings seem to be the main entertainment. Either that or flayings.”

“That’s what they do to pirates.”

“And it’s the sentence for treason.” Taz-Enja raised his glass, drank off the last of the cold spice punch, and plunked the glass onto the tray that Tau carried around to collect the dirty dishes. “They’ve got books full of laws under the heading of ‘treason.’ I can’t tell you how many runaways from Chwahirsland end up on our shores. Better a life as a beggar or work slub, no family or connections, then flayed at the post.”

When the expressions of disgust died down, peg-legged Swift protested, “They say that about the Marlovans, too. But I’ve met a few of ’em since The Narrows opened up. Told me it’s all exaggeration. Only floggings you get are in the army, and that’s just a touch-up, what we in Toar call My Lord’s Decorum, to remind you of duty. That was our way in the old days, before the takeover at home.”

Fox drawled, “For Iasca Leror, the truly entertaining floggings are mostly confined to the upper ranks.”

“Upper ranks?” Gillor asked, then turned her head and smiled. “Oh, thanks, Tau. Here’s my cup. I’m done.”

Fox lifted a shoulder. “Bigger responsibility, bigger sticks. Er, stakes.” He mimed snapping a stick over someone’s back.

Amid the guffaws Gillor yelped, “Why, if I lived
there
and they tried to promote
me,
I’d skip to the hills!”

After the laughter, Fox said, “They only do it for cowardice, treason, or not obeying orders. Do not imagine I approve of their government. Far from it. But if you make yourself familiar with our history, you’ll find that flogging to death the commander who does not obey orders is how the recent kings forced hierarchy and a semblance of order onto notoriously independent clans.”

Fox drawled when he was angry, or with intent. Tau lifted his tray. Their gazes met over the beaten silver.

Tau kept turning, and walked out to dunk the dirty dishes in the magic bucket and hang the cups on the hooks to dry. The plates got stacked on the rack. He performed these tasks mechanically; when he left again, he was not surprised to find Fox waiting in the lee with the
Death
’s gig.

Tau sighed as he leaped over the rail and dropped into the gig. He settled to the tiller as Fox stepped the mast and raised the sail.

The breeze was hot and fitful, the low, uniform ceiling of cotton-puff clouds like a lid on the humid heat. Thunder was on the way again.

Tau’s head ached a little; he’d been avoiding Fox’s hints, but he could not deny the persistent sense of dread. So it was time to address the matter. “And then what?”

Fox did not ask what Tau was talking about, which was in itself an answer. He sat against the high rail, rope in hand, as the gig heeled hard. His profile was grim. “You really think Inda is going to win?” he asked at last.

Tau braced, the tiller shuddering faintly. The wind had risen to wet gusts, churning up the water. Clouds fast obscured the emerging stars. “I think people so desperately want to believe Inda will lead us to success that they’ll strive to make it happen. I’ve gone from ship to ship, I’ve watched him with them. I think his secret plan—which is madness— makes him feel he has an edge. He sounds convinced, and if he’s convinced, they’re convinced.
He’s never lost a battle
. That’s what they say to one another. I’ve tried to count up how many versions I’ve heard. Had to stop because of how word order works in different tongues.” Tau lifted his hand in the Marlovan manner, signifying,
it could be
. Then dropped it. “Say he wins. And then what?”

Fox hauled the sail taut, sending them bumping over the cresting waves. “You tell me.”

“If he carries out Evred’s orders to take the strait and enforce peace and order, will your fleet follow him? They like their independence, it seems to me.”

Fox snorted. “If Inda wins, they’ll do anything for him. Even the new ones.”

Tau regripped the vibrating tiller as the surging sea sucked at it, and raised his voice. “What about you? Going to follow Inda to carry forth Marlovan glory?”

Fox spat over the side.

Tau waited. He’d guessed about his connection to the Deis when in Bren, after hearing gossip about the Sartoran branch of the family. But the connection to the Montredavan-Ans had taken him by surprise.

He’d sensed Fox had figured pretty much from the beginning who Tau was, having known more of the old story. That would explain a good deal of his instant antipathy, besides his teenage jealousy of Tau’s influence with Inda: he and Fox were both in some wise outcasts, but Tau’s was of a sort easier to bear than the deliberate cruelty of the treaty forced on Fox’s family. Nobody had exiled the Deis—far from it. Fox surely had to be hearing the “Lord Taumad Dei” foolery that the diplomats were slinging around in order to bolster their own prestige, as it established his. Tau had not expected the slightest change in Fox’s attitude when they met again, but in subtle ways something fundamental
had
changed with Fox. Tau knew better than to assume it had anything whatsoever to do with him. But it was there, or they never would have been actually conversing for the first time.

So he waited.

They neared the
Death,
which was surging on the rolling sea, curses rising from the painting party suspended over the side. They’d been in the process of repainting the weather-worn black halfway down the larboard side, working fast as the weather began to change. But not fast enough. As rain splotched the wet paint, they hoisted themselves to the deck and helped the sail crew double-reef the topsail.

Fox peered at the swinging lanterns, the sails, and then turned back to Tau, who was barely visible in the rapidly closing dark. Fox loosened the sail, so the way came instantly off the boat, and they sat there on the rising sea, plunging and tossing.

Fox stepped aft and crouched down within an arm’s length of Tau, ignoring the packets of spray washing over the rail. “If he loses, then we’re done with the question. But if he wins . . . he’s still under orders. If Inda doesn’t carry out those orders, do you think he’ll do the smart thing, like Dhalshev did, and avoid the legal grief?”

“Legal grief”—a horrific understatement, if Fox had told the truth to the merrymakers on
Cocodu
. Tau knew it was true: it took no more than a dozen heartbeats to look back over his memories of his time as a personal Runner and all the wry references to what happened if a Marlovan did not obey orders.

Fox moved away to tighten the sail; the conversation was over.

A huge wave crashed over the gunwale as Tau steered them under the
Death
’s lee. The boom crew was at hand, ready to pull up the gig.

Fox went to the cabin to change, and Tau, soaked to the skin, climbed to the masthead to watch the storm and think. The air was warm, and he did not mind the wind and water; in a sense they kept him anchored to reality as he considered Fox’s words, which he knew were not a gift. Or a confidence. They were a responsibility—more like a burden. Fox had figured out Inda’s orders, but for whatever reason had decided he could do nothing about them.

Tau was still at the masthead when the storm blew past, leaving the rigging to drip unmusically as stars glittered overhead. He was still there at the midnight watch change, as a new young mate tramped assiduously around the deck, clapping his arms to his sides and singing tunelessly.

He was still there when the sun rose and the new watch emerged from below, relaxed and sleep-heavy as they began, one by one, dousing the deck lanterns.

He went below to find an unused hammock, and get some sleep. He had a plan. If “Lord Taumad Dei” actually had any prestige, it was time to use that, and his skills, to fashion a peace treaty. If he got all the coastal governments to agree, that would remove the necessity for Evred’s orders. Inda is released, Evred gets his order and trade—everybody wins.

Right?

Chapter Twenty-two

W
HILE Fox and Tau took the boat from
Cocodu
to
Death,
Inda stood in Thog’s austere cabin. Inda had just called off the drill, but not because of the coming storm in spite of what everyone thought.

For a moment they faced one another, Thog braced, and Inda regarded her stiff, slight figure, her intense black gaze. Just so had she regarded him the last time they had faced each other alone, after she had set fire to a ship full of pirates in order to burn them alive.

All right, easy things first,
Inda thought. “Thog, you’re not going to be grabbing any of our crew, are you? Pilvig—usually so steady—won’t take a day watch, and we’ve got others who are afraid you’ll send a party over at night to snatch ’em off the decks and drag ’em back to Chwahirsland to be put to death for running.”

He hadn’t expected a smile. Thog never smiled. But he had expected reasonable assurance.

He did not get it. “Actually, I am under orders to retrieve our people.”

“And beat them to death? What use is that?”

“Warning to our own, mostly, but as it happens, we would not have to do that. A flogging, certainly. Laws must be seen to be obeyed and consequences dealt out impartially. But nothing more than a week’s stiff back and then they have a place. We need trained people, in truth.”

“How do I protect my crew from being taken against their will?”

Thog studied Inda from her dense black eyes, then said slowly, “If we do not see a Chwahir we have no reason to act.”

Pilvig and the others will have to wear kerchiefs
, Inda thought.
Dress like Brens or Ymarans. Don’t let Thog see Chwahir
. He could see the effort Thog made, and he knew he would not get that much from her peers. “Thog, I don’t understand your customs, and I need to. Or it’s no use. This alliance isn’t going to work unless you can be straight with me.”

He’d thought her pale and tense, but her face blanched to the color of paper. “I just conceded. Though we need the people back. And I obey your orders,” she said.

“Sure.” Inda kicked his bare toes against the back of a bench bolted to the deck. “You do. I know that. And I know you can’t tell me where the rest of your navy is. I’m glad to have you and the ships you did bring. But you aren’t telling me why your ships are slow. Riding low. Why you have to hide the fact that you have the equivalent of three or four crews stuffed down there. Everyone’s speculating—they’re too experienced not to notice—and they assume bad faith, that you aren’t hiding fighting crew from the Venn, but from
us
. Like you mean to take some ally ships. How can I counter that when I don’t know your reasons?”

“I’m under orders—” Thog began.

“We’re all under orders. And some of the rulers are so worried about their people obeying orders that they’re here in various guises.” A tangential thought flickered—
Evred’s orders
—and Inda’s chin came up. But he remembered that Evred had no stake whatever except peaceful trade. He certainly did not want more land.