Barefoot Pirate (17 page)

“Great,” Tarsen exclaimed.

Sarilda whistled a long note.

Warron grunted, a corner of his mouth lifting.

Blackeye rubbed her hands. “That’s the news I like to hear.
How about Elan?”

Bron stuck his thumb in the air. “They haven’t been able to
get near her. She got herself promoted to the prince’s staff, and Olucar keeps
them locked away from everyone else. But I got a note the usual way. She’s waiting
for us.”

“Then that part of the plan is finished.” Blackeye rubbed
her chin. “And Noss?”

“Still talking to the others. Slow going.”

“Any word about Averann returning, or anything else?”

Bron shook his head. “Rumors only.”

Blackeye tapped her finger on her knees, then looked up at
Warron. “One more spy trip,” she said. “Before we can make the final plans.”

Final plans. Joe felt his insides squeeze.

Warron gave a slight shrug. “What do you want me to find
out?”

Blackeye stretched out her hands. “Here’s what we need:
you’ll have to take a couple of others—”

“I’ll go!” Tarsen yelped. He smacked Joe. “Me’n Joe—”

“You can go,” Blackeye said with a grin. “But Joe stays. We’re
not letting our other off-worlder out of our sight, not until we are ready to
rescue the prince.”

Tarsen grimaced. “I wanted to have some fun in Fortanya. We
hardly had time to pull any good ones on the warts last trip.”

“We’ll be harassing the warts plenty when we go into
action,” Warron said.

Blackeye nodded. “For now, keep your nose low. Warron, you
need to check on Mursid and the
Falcon
, as always. But also, I want to
know where all the toffs are. All of them.”

She turned to Tarsen. “This is serious, now. You have to
find Noss, stay with him, and set up a meeting time and place. The plan will
launch from there. Tell Noss that recruitment has to be done by each
person—that the meeting place will be guarded, and there have to be two things
given, a pass word, plus the name of the person who recruited the newcomer. I
hope this will lessen the chance of spies among us.”

Tarsen nodded soberly.

Blackeye turned to Sarilda. “You have to check on the magic.
Find out if that sorcerer is arrived, and if there’s been any magic done.”

Sarilda grinned. “That part is easy enough. I can feel it
when magic has been done. I still can’t tell you what kind of spells, though—”

“I know. If we have to, we’ll send Kevriac over first to
find out what he can. But I’d rather keep him here with Joe. He’s the only
magical protection we’ll have.”

Kevriac dropped his head forward as if he was reading
something on his hands. Joe couldn’t see his face.

Bron said, “Then we’ll have to unload the skimmer this
moment if you want to sail out with the tide.”

Most of the gang ran up the tunnel. Joe started after. He
liked running across the sand to the spit of rock where they kept the narrow
sailboat that Bron used for his supply trips. When he’d first arrived, that run
made him breathless, but now he hardly noticed it—and he was a lot faster. In
fact, he was a better runner than the other boys, except of course for Warron.

Blackeye put out a hand to stop him from following the
others.

Joe turned, surprised. “Shouldn’t I go lend a hand with the
unloading?”

“Talk first.” Blackeye’s gaze narrowed, as if he was a
column of numbers and she was adding him up. “You wanting to go back to your
world?”

Joe looked at her in surprise. “What?”

Blackeye opened her hands, callused from all those steady
hours of sword work and rope-pulling. “Your expression,” she said. “You’re not
good at hiding your feelings, even if you don’t tell us your thoughts.”

Joe’s ears burned. “What do you mean?”

“Every time I mention the final plan you do this.” She made
a pained face. “Like you just swallowed a rock. Don’t trust us? Or is it just
my plans?”

Joe rubbed his hands on his pants. “I—well, it’s not any of
that. I guess I’m just a little...chicken.”

“Chicken,” she repeated.

Joe’s whole body felt hot. “Scared. Coward. I mean, I’ll do
it,” he added in a rush. “That’s what I came for, right? It’s just that on my
world, kids don’t do much of anything.” He remembered stories about kids in the
Middle East and Africa where war was a part of life, kids twelve and thirteen
toting rifles and killing people. “Kids in my country—” He stopped, thinking of
gangs killing each other as well as innocent bystanders. “Oh, some kids are
violent,” he said finally, “but we can’t do anything about bad governments. We
can destroy things, but we can’t really change anything. I guess I’m hoping
your plan will work, but it’s hard to believe it will, because at home kids
just...I dunno, mess around. Go to school.” Joe sighed. “No one listens to
us—but then most kids I know are only interested in games, and clothes, and
music, and maybe sports. I guess I sound stupid, huh?”

Blackeye shook her head. “I have a lot of reactions to what
you say, but I don’t think you sound stupid.”

Joe sighed again, and plopped down onto one of the big
pillows. “Why is it us? Kids? Why aren’t the adults doing something about
Todan, if he’s so bad?”

“They did, at first. My parents tried,” Blackeye said
grimly.

“Oh. Yeah. Right. Uh, sorry.”

She waved a hand. “Speak freely. The past is past. But there
were attempts, and all failed, because no one knew the nature of the spells on
the prince. By the time we found out, Todan had set his current policy. Every
single family among the common folks has had to give up a young man or woman to
be in his service. Everyone. No one wants to attack the soldiers now, because
the army’s full of friends and relatives. And if there are problems, Todan is
fast with reprisals—not just against a person, but against his or her family. None
of the adults wanted to organize, not at the risk of their families. Since
then, they seem to have adjusted to the new life. As for the toffs...I don’t
know.”

“So it’s up to people like you and Noss who don’t have
families.”

“Right.” Her head lifted sharply.

Footsteps pounded in the tunnel, and Sarilda and Tarsen
emerged ahead of the others, Tarsen breathless with laughter. “Ship...”

“Warship on the horizon,” Sarilda said.

“Everything hidden?” Blackeye asked, as the rest of the gang
put the supplies in the larder.

“We’re clear.” Sarilda grinned, and send magical sparks
flying through the air, to wink out. “No signs of us anywhere. Warron thinks
they’re going to the Lorjee outpost. He’s going to make certain.”

Blackeye nodded. “Good. You three better wait until dark to
leave. We need to know who’s in that ship and why, if we can.”

“Well, then!” Sarilda looked around, her eyes wide, her grin
challenging. “Looks like we can’t play any night games, so what shall it be? An
inside game or a song?”

Joe sat down, fighting against a distinct feeling of
disappointment. That first week or so, it was all he could do to stay awake
after supper, but now that he was used to running around and practicing all
day, he had plenty of energy at night. Since their return from Fortanya, while
the weather was nice, they’d played a complicated hide-and-seek game called Spy
Versus Spy. It was great fun. Now they couldn’t.

Tarsen started singing a long song about the adventures of a
very stupid thief who kept disguising himself as various things like a
barrel-maker, an inn-keeper, a soldier, and finally as a king. Each disguise
led to disasters, the king one being the worst of all. The others all loved
that song. They thought it incredibly funny. Joe had liked it all right the
first few times he heard it, but now he found it kind of boring.

He sat down, clapping with the others to keep time as Tarsen
sang, acting out bits from time to time. Joe smiled, but inside he wished
strongly for his computer. It’d be great to kill time with a good battle game. Heck,
even TV would be better than sitting around and singing. But of course he’d
never say it out loud.

When Tarsen finished his song, Sarilda sang one, a ballad
about magic and adventure. She had a beautiful voice. Joe liked listening to
that. After her, though, they sang group songs, and he listened, not knowing
the words. Then they did another silly one—but this time everyone had to make up
a verse. Joe was sweating hard when it came to his turn. He hated making up
poems and stuff for school. He knew his idea was dumb, but at least it rhymed,
and the others didn’t laugh. Neither did they clap like crazy, as they did
after everything Kevriac made up. His were obviously the best.

It was a relief when they decided to go to bed. Joe lay in
his hammock, staring up at the roots in the ceiling. It was a weird life, he
decided. If only Benny was there. He’d love those songs—

Joe winced. What a dweeb! Here he was, on a real magic
adventure, probably the only kid in America—except for Nan—and he had to whine
to himself about one dull evening, and even worse, miss his kid brother.

He turned on his side and tried to go to sleep.

o0o

“She had a mangal-berry pie just three nights ago.”

“It’s her favorite.”

“But she didn’t ask for any yesterday. I think you’d better
see if you can stretch the last of the preserved peaches into a pie. Cinnamon,
lots of cinnamon.”

In the kitchen-wing of Castle Rotha, Nan listened to the two
older girls talking in the quick half-whisper that just about everyone used. No
one ever knew if someone was listening, and the bond-girls could get into
trouble for ‘needless conversation.’ What constituted ‘needless’ conversation
seemed to depend entirely on the mood of whoever was listening.

Only one thing was always a certainty: the bond girls were
always wrong.

“But that’s the last of the peaches, and what if she asks
for peach?”

“We’re supposed to have a shipment of peaches from the southern
islands—”

“Better wait until it comes.”

“So what about her sweet?”

‘She’ and ‘her’ was always Lady Olucar. Nan had noticed
early something she’d remembered from her first foster home: all the servants,
bond and free, spent more time talking about Lady Olucar than about anything
else. Food, clothes, young men, nothing held their interest more than
discussing everything their mistress wore, said, ate, did.

They even talked for hours about the repulsive bird the
woman kept as a pet. Big and scruffy and pinkish-yellow, its name was LuLu. Nan
stayed away from it, sure it spied on them; something like a parrot, it
squawked a lot of words, and they weren’t random. It seemed to love calling
various girls by name and yelling “Shut up!” or “Get to work, lazy!” And if
anyone said anything back, or even looked at it angrily, it flapped off to find
its mistress, squawking. Nan stayed away from it as much as she could, and when
she couldn’t avoid it, she pretended it wasn’t in the room, never looking at
it, which seemed to confuse the bird. Some of the older girls risked beatings
to steal pik-nuts from the kitchen to feed to the disgusting bird in hopes of
buttering it up, but it never acted nicely toward anyone.

“...she likes the T-stitch best for mending. Told Rica that
her handiwork ought to last longer than the cloth would.”

“High praise!”

“Shh—here she comes!”

At once the kitchen was silent, except for the cook, who
went right on talking to two of the stewards on the far side of the kitchen. The
cook alone didn’t seem to be afraid of Lady Olucar—or of anyone else. A big,
unsmiling woman, she was queen in the kitchen, and though she bowed and said
“Yes, your ladyship” to Olucar, just as did everyone else, Nan had noticed that
the mistress was far less nasty to Cook than she was to the workers.

The girls were now busy, each scraping or mixing or
scrubbing as hard as she could. Even Giula, who Nan had realized within two
days was the laziest and sneakiest of all the girls. She talked a lot about her
own friendliness, but she was also a big tattle-tale. Nan still smiled and
nodded whenever Giula talked to her, which was less each day. Giula obviously
thought she was boring and stupid, which was just what Nan wanted her to think.
Giula didn’t ask a million questions of boring girls.

Lady Olucar swept in, her pearl-beaded gown dragging behind
her. One of her maids trailed desperately after, swooping down to disentangle
the train from furniture; her face was red and sweaty. Apparently her ladyship
had been stomping around a lot today.

“You there!” Her voice was that angry kind that had a shrill
edge. “What’s your name? Telin. You’ve been making the pie crusts too thin. Lord
Averann was complaining last night that his meat-pie was soggy at the bottom,
and I didn’t know where to look. Are you hoarding flour? Speak!”

“No, your ladyship.”

“Well, then, why are the crusts so thin? You’re cheating
us!”

“No, your ladyship!”

Slap!
Nan winced, but kept working. If the woman
looked around and saw anyone not working, that would be her next victim.

“Did I ask you to speak? A week of the stairs ought to curb
your impertinence. Starting tonight. And tomorrow’s pies had better hold!”

“The pies are thin on my orders, your ladyship,” came Cook’s
voice from behind.

Olucar whipped around. Her maid dashed desperately after,
catching the train before the lady stepped on it, which would have earned her
an instant beating. Nan glanced sideways, saw beaky nose and thin, hard lips in
profile. She looks just like LuLu, she thought. Except uglier.

“What’s that, Cook?”

“Thin because the flour is low,” the cook said. “The supply
deliverers said that pirates got the last shipment bound for the castle. Next
isn’t due for three days. I always order with a four day overlap in case, but
we have to make it last a week.”

“Pirates!” Olucar squawked. “Again? What are those idiots
down the mountain doing, sleeping? Why aren’t they guarding the deliveries
better? Don’t they know we won’t eat until the next? I’d better send a message
down to Commander Nitre.”