Corsair (6 page)

Pol Radnor and his wife greeted Gareth gladly, and hid him in a secluded bedroom. A day later, after Pol had a report from Kazala about Gareth’s performance: “Hardworking, very curious, completely honest, but doesn’t pay nearly enough attention to his sums,” they held a quiet celebration.

Pol apologized for not doing a full-scale party for Gareth and inviting all his friends, especially their daughters, since he was now to be considered an eligible man, but Lord Quindolphin had neither forgiven nor forgotten.

“I’m afraid, son, that you’ll have to go back to sea,” he told Gareth sadly. “Unless you want to chance staying ashore, and I’ll find a place for you on one of my estates, and there’ll be no marrying for you for a while.”

Gareth hid his sigh of relief about marriage, then noticed that the country estate was evidently one of several now. He happened to see a letter on Radnor’s desk.

“King’s Servant Pol it is now, Uncle?”

Radnor beamed. “Yes, yes. The King saw fit … the last list of honors … only a title, you know … but still …”

Gareth thought Pol’s chest might burst his tunic.

“Well, then, uncle,” he said, burying a laugh. “I don’t appear to have much choice, and it’s a rough life, sir. But I guess I’ll have to sign aboard again.”

He wondered what had happened to Cosyra, Fox, Labala, thought of slipping out and using the silver eagle he still kept hidden around his neck to track her, if the icon had indeed been given a spell.

But something stopped him, and so he took his second post aboard the trading hooker
Zarafshan,
two-masted, gaff-rigged, with two robinets, almost real cannon, and set out once more, this time voyaging to the frozen cities of the north, trading mostly for furs.

• • •

“Why,” Gareth asked, “don’t sailors use more magic than we do?”

The weathered boatswain nodded.

“Good question, lad, and the answer’ll teach you more than just what the answer gives.

“First is that sailors are rank superstitious, and dislike having any greater wizardry than they’re familiar with. You know how you don’t whistle aboard, you don’t talk about the land gods when you’re afloat, and like that.

“All that’s wizardry,” the bosun went on, “and it’s hard enough being afloat without extra magic. You ever sail with a magician aboard?”

Gareth remembered the two obnoxities on the
Idris
and nodded.

“Your skipper must’ve been braver, or more foolhardy, than most. Or maybe you were hurting for a cargo, eh? Still, not a good idea.

“Another reason is magic isn’t precise.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did you ever figure why every damned piece of string on this ship’s got a different name? It’s not to confuse lubbers, ‘though that’s not a bad accomplishment.

“Quick. Now, what’s that rope up there — sight along my finger.”

Gareth obeyed. “Why, one of the lower tops’l clewlines.”

“A real specific name, right? So if I holler at you in a blow to haul away on it, you know just what to do? Everything on a ship’s like that … got to be like that, or else there’s confusion and maybe disaster.

“Magic isn’t like that. I know. My sister’s married to a man with some of the Gift, and everything’s a pinch of this, and a beaker of that. How big’s a pinch? I’ve got big fingers, bigger than yours, so a pinch to me’s bigger, right?

“Not to mention that when a spell’s cast, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and nobody ever knows why.

“Our provender’s got stasis spells on it, so nothing spoils. But there’s still a good portion of it that’s just salt beef, pork, and dry crackers, like in olden times, in the event the spell doesn’t hold.”

“You’ve seen the captain pay for a fair weather spell already this voyage, and what did we get? Damned near dismasted. Now, when we make port, he’ll have words with that wizard, and get his gold back.

“But that’s magic. Vague, wiggly. And surely not to be depended on.”

• • •

Gareth asked the captain why he’d insisted on treble payment to carry a cargo of basics — salt, casks of beef, seed, rolls of canvas, bales of cloth.

“Let’s just say I’m not trying to turn a profit your uncle won’t know about,” the man answered shortly. “And I’m sure you’d like to know what’s in those cases I’ve got lashed to the foremast, getting in everyone’s way. Gods willing, you can ask that question in two weeks, and then I’ll have an answer.

“But more likely, you won’t have to ask.”

Gareth didn’t.

Their course led through a maze of small islands. Half a day after they entered the labyrinth, the first pirates, in craft almost as small as the
Zarafshan
’s boats, attacked. The captain ordered those mysterious crates opened by the watch on deck. Inside were muskets, powder, ball.

The watch below and all non-watchstanders like Gareth were turned to. Heavy cargo nets were draped loosely from the yards down to the deck, to entrap any boarders.

But they weren’t needed. A volley was enough to turn the pirates away, and, hooting and swearing, they disappeared in the ship’s wake.

The second attempt came the next day. Two larger boats, probably once fishing boats, tacked toward them. This time Gareth saw, with a thrill, the black flag cracking at mainmast of one of them.

Then he felt terribly sick to his stomach, worse than he had when the
Idris
first took spray over her bow.

Something strange was coiling up at them from the depths, some fabulous monster. A seaman screamed.

“Godsdammit, stand to your duties,” the bosun bellowed, and again the muskets were loaded and readied.

But this time the two mates loaded one of the two robinets, swung it out, and aimed carefully.

Gareth just had time to see a man in dark robes in the bow of the leading ship when the robinet fired. The ball skipped water past the first boat’s prow.

“Load grape, dammit!” the captain shouted, and the mates obeyed.

Gareth stared at the dark tentacles as they lifted from the water and reached toward him. Then he shouted in pain as the bosun’s rope end lashed across his shoulders.

“Eyes on your task, man,” and anger rushed through Gareth, vanished as he realized the bosun hadn’t even seen who he’d struck.

“Careful, careful,” the captain was chanting. “Make sure, gentlemen, be very sure.”

Gareth saw the tentacles pass through the shrouds, realized the horrid monster was a magical illusion, and the robinet went off with a thud.

There were shrieks from the first pirate ship, and the robed man threw up his hands, pivoted, and fell overside, where his boat passed over him. Other men where the wizard had stood were down, writhing in pain.

Muskets banged from the second ship, and a man beside Gareth said, “Oh shit,” in a very surprised manner, looked at the red seeping, just at his waistline, then screamed and fell, clutching himself.

The other cannon was loaded, and the
Zarafshan
came about and sailed down on the pirates. They tacked away frantically as both cannon went off. The single mast on the second ship cracked, broke, and sail and shrouds fell overside.

Again the robinets fired, and smoke curled from the stern of the first ship, flames pouring out as the fish-oil-soaked wood caught.

“Bring her about,” the captain ordered the man at the wheel, “and take our former course.”

“Former course, east by northeast, sir, aye.”

A third attempt was made on the
Zarafshan
— four small boats this time. The
Zarafshan
had just struck open water, and simply outsailed the pirates. But no one rejoiced.

The sailor who’d been shot had died.

• • •

Gareth had been out for a bit more than a year when he heard, in a smoky tavern, of the disappearance of the
Idris.
“Storm, maybe,” the man who told him about it said. “But one of their crew — he went overside before they lifted the hook in Ticao — told me they had orders for the far south. Too damned close to the Slavers’ land to suit him.”

When he returned to Ticao, he thought about rubbing the icon and thinking of Cosyra, but then thought better. By now Cosyra — assuming she’d been an apprentice bawd or even a seamstress — would certainly have forgotten about him, and would hardly want to play childish pranks again.

But he didn’t take the tiny eagle off the chain.

When the
Zarafshan
had a cargo lined up — worked fur robes Gareth might’ve traded for on his last voyage — he was very ready for the sea.

• • •

The woman was certainly not much better than a whore, for who but a harlot or a barmaid would chance the harbor quarter of Irtysh by night?

Still, whatever the three Linyati wanted with her, it should not have involved pushing, growled laughter, and the flashing hint of steel Gareth saw by the flickering taper over the taproom’s entrance.

There was no one about, rain drifting across the streets.

“Stop!” he shouted, and the three Slavers turned. Their laughter grew as they saw only one man, a slender youth, outlined against the night.

One carried a sword on a low hanger. It whispered from its sheath. The woman saw it, shrieked, and darted inside the taproom. Not that Gareth expected anyone to come out and help. Not in this part of the city.

The Linyati with the sword started toward Gareth, the other two flanking him. One had a long poignard, the third a brass knuckleduster in his right hand.

They no doubt expected him to run, and would chase him down for ruining their sport Gareth stood his ground, feeling his breathing quicken, his vision close until there was nothing but the three men. His hand went to his back, came out with a sheeps-foot mariner’s knife not a handspan long, without a point, but honed to a razor edge.

The swordsman laughed harder, closed on the fool. A lunge, the body tossed into the harbor, and they’d no doubt have a goodly tale when they returned to their ship.

He flicked a lunge, but Gareth wasn’t there. He’d side-jumped to the wall of the taproom, where a small bench sat for outside drinking in better weather.

He had the bench in one hand, and threw it hard into the face of the man with the sword. The man tried to block, was too late, and the heavy wood smashed his face. He shouted, stumbled, fell back, his sword clattering on the stones.

The Linyati with the knuckleduster made the mistake of looking away, reaching down for the sword, and Gareth booted him headfirst into the wall. Gareth heard the crack of breaking bones.

The Linyati slid down it bonelessly and lay still; Gareth closed on the man with the knife.

The poignard may have looked lethal, but its tapering V-shaped blade was only good for back stabbing. The Slaver knew a bit, but only a bit, about knife-fighting, sidling in on Gareth with his free hand open as a block, the knife held on his hip, point up.

Gareth obliged him by slashing the man’s palm open, leaping back before the poignard strike could land.

He circled toward the man’s weak side, saw an opening, cut hard into the man’s arm, saw blood drizzle down onto the wet stones.

Gareth stepped back, back again, as the Slaver came in on him. Then his foot slipped on some muck, and he fell backward, rolling left as the Linyati pounced. The poignard clashed against the paving stones, and Gareth was on his knees, cutting again, this time down the side of the man’s face and deeply into his neck.

The Slaver cried out, rolled on his back.

Gareth got up, breathing hard. He stared down at the semiconscious seaman, saw the blood drain from his body.

If I was a proper bastard, he thought, I’d save the maybes and cut his throat.

But he couldn’t bring himself to it.

He wiped the blood from his knife, sheathed it, and disappeared into the night, back toward the
Zarafshan.

This wasn’t the first time he’d fought the Linyati, always remembering his parents’ bodies, sprawled in their looted house.

A thin, almost invisible scar now ran from the corner of his mouth up his left cheek, disappearing in the hair above his ear, a souvenir of one encounter.

After that, he’d spent more time offwatch in the foc’sle, learning more than seamanship from the hardbitten sailors. He’d learned to swing a cutlass, fight with the unpointed knives seamen carried, to use a marlin spike, a broken wineglass, almost anything that could be found on a ship’s deck or — more often — in a tavern, for a weapon.

The Slavers were getting cockier, bolder. More and more, if a Linyati ship was in port, there’d be a brawl. None of these fights was ever friendly, and most Sarosians had taken to carrying some sort of weapon when they went ashore.

And there were more and more Slavers at sea. Not in Sarosian ports, where they were not met with friendliness, in spite of King Alfieri’s continued policy of peace. But they had a dozen or more countries allied with them, which Gareth couldn’t understand. Doing business with demons, or men little better than demons, would always end in disaster.

Gareth had been to enough lands now to learn where the Linyati traded their human cargoes. He’d even chanced, when he could, asking these slaves if they were from Saros, but so far all he’d been met with was uncomprehending looks, fear, and, occasionally, the muttered name of another country or city.

He remembered, long ago, a beggar telling him the only way to deal with the Linyati was at swordpoint. He wondered if, with this new round of raids against Saros and its neighbors, enough would finally be enough, and someone would declare war against the hated Slavers.

If anyone did, he thought, he’d find a way to join that expeditionary force.

He knew there was a time coming to stand and be counted, when the allies of the Linyati would also be forced to make a reckoning.

• • •

The
Zarafshan
rode the cresting title up the Nalta, through the center of Ticao. Gareth stood in the bows, feeling more tired than he thought possible.

It had been a good voyage, at least until the last port Some sort of disease had struck down the purser and both mates. Gareth had not only taken over the purser’s duties, managing the unloading and sale of the cargo, but negotiated for a new shipment for Ticao: ensorcelled trinkets he knew would go for a high price when Saros’s nobility saw these new toys.