Dangerous Waters (31 page)

Mersed looked at Corrain for a long moment. His troopers were gleefully heaving the dead Aldabreshi over the galley’s side to bob clumsily in the inlet.

Corrain winced as one corpse struck the oar blades with a potentially damaging thud. ‘Make sure you net those bodies when you clear the inlet, if you want to spring this trap again. If corpses float out to sea, raider ships in these waters will know that something’s amiss.’

‘That’s what the Archmage says, is it?’ Mersed chewed his lip. ‘We should lay this snare again while you’re about his business?’

Corrain gestured at the dead Aldabreshi ashore now being kicked and abused by the exultant Tallats. ‘Won’t your lord want more of the same, once you tell him how you’ve avenged his losses? But you won’t lure any more raiders in here if they see a galley already moored. How else will you be rid of it if we don’t take it away?’

Mersed looked at the cowering rowers, whip scars cutting across their protruding ribs, crusted sores beneath their fetters and manacles. ‘You don’t let those vermin loose, not anywhere in Caladhria. I want your oath on that.’

‘You’re rid of them, I swear it,’ Corrain assured him.

‘You’ve some way to be sure they won’t cut your throat as soon as you’re out of sight of land?’ Mersed looked unconvinced. ‘What’s to stop them raiding on their own account when they’ve fed you to the fish?’

‘The Archmage doesn’t leave us unprotected.’ Corrain smiled with a confidence he didn’t feel in the slightest.

He could already see some of the apparently craven oar slaves watching this conversation, ominously intent. He and Kusint knew they would have to sleep turn and turn about on the voyage to Solura, for fear of a knife in the night. Always assuming they could get these slaves to co-operate in the first place.

‘Captain Corrain?’ It was Reven, running up the walkway. Gaping at the chained men on either side, he nearly tripped and fell headlong. ‘For you,’ he gasped, offering a folded and sealed letter.

‘What’s this?’ Corrain turned it over, to see only his name written in elegant strokes.

‘Captain Arigo gave it to me.’ Reven shrugged.

Corrain looked ashore but could see no sign of the fat old man. As he snapped the seals he noticed Lady Zurenne’s rune sigil stamped in the wax. The nobility liked to use their birth runes thus, to distinguish private business from their barony’s affairs.

If you have received this, you have succeeded. So I will hold you to your offer of protection for me and mine before you depart. Come at once and make good on your oath.

Corrain read and reread the curt words with growing disbelief. How could he go? He had no time to waste on this. The galley had to catch the ebbing tide, to avoid any other corsairs heading this way to refill their water casks. How long would it take to ride to Halferan and back? What would happen to these rowers left here undefended against the menace of Tallat’s troopers? This was ridiculous.

He read the note again. How could he not go?

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

Halferan Manor, Caladhria

1st of For-Summer

Z
URENNE LOOKED UP
at the faint silvery
ting
of the timepiece on the mantel shelf. Was it still so early? But of course, it had been turned to show the summer faceplate; the graduated scale spaced more widely as the sliding arrow counted off the day’s ten chimes, before the ten shorter divisions of the night.

Since the days of the Old Tormalin Empire, everyone had seen the sense of dividing darkness and daylight as evenly as possible, adjusting for the season. Zurenne wasn’t about to deny the wisdom of it but the turn of the seasons did always catch her unawares for a few days.

Time to ring for Raselle, for a night tisane before she made ready for bed. Even with a full branch of candles lit, Zurenne’s eyes were too tired for more embroidery. She couldn’t concentrate on reading any book. What was happening out on the coast?

Hooves sounded loud on the cobbles beneath her window. Zurenne sprang to her feet so fast that she knocked the table, the candles shedding hot wax to mar the polished surface. She didn’t care, running to the window to pull back curtains drawn against the dusk.

It was him. It had to be. Alone? Through the window she could see two horses in the light of the gatehouse lamp, but neither of the crop-headed lads tending them could be Corrain, and she had thought his Forest-born ally was taller.

Voices below told her he was at the great hall’s door. Taking a single candle, Zurenne hurried out into the hallway. She blessed Drianon in passing that she hadn’t already shed her own gown to go to bed.

‘Lysha, my love.’ Zurenne opened the bedchamber door as quietly as she could. The last thing they needed was Esnina waking.

Ilysh was deeply asleep behind light summer curtains hung to foil insects rather than drafts. Zurenne stuck the candle which she carried in the empty stick by the bed.

She drew the curtain aside and knelt, her mouth so close to her daughter’s ear that the girl’s curls tickled her cheek. ‘Lysha, wake up.’

‘Mam—’

Zurenne stifled Ilysh’s exclamation with a gentle hand, her other forefinger raised to her lips. ‘Hush, my love.’

Ilysh stared at her, uncomprehending. ‘Corsairs?’ Terror strangled her whisper. ‘Neeny—’

‘No, no.’ Zurenne reached for her daughter’s hand. She could have slapped herself for a fool, not thinking of Ilysh’s fear, startled out of a sound sleep. She drew a determined breath.

‘I have decided you were right. Seeing you wed will safeguard Halferan.’

‘What?’ Ilysh sat up, astounded. ‘Now?’

‘Hush!’ Zurenne gave her hand a warning squeeze. ‘We mustn’t wake Neeny!’

Thankfully that dire prospect silenced Ilysh, giving Zurenne a chance to summon up her resolve. ‘Corrain is here. That means he must have captured a galley. If he is to sail to Solura, we must do this tonight. Now, we must dress you quickly, and don’t make a noise.’

As Ilysh threw back her satin coverlet and the linen sheet beneath, Zurenne allowed herself a measure of relief. Having to wake Ilysh like this was no bad thing if the undoubted need for silence meant she couldn’t ask awkward questions.

Zurenne hadn’t yet decided how she might explain what she was about to do. But she had this first half of summer before Lord Licanin proposed his guardianship to the Solstice Parliament. She need not dismay him with this sham of marriage before any grant was approved. When she should have some idea if Corrain could make good on his promises to rescue them from the corsairs with unsanctioned magic.

If so, Zurenne would defy the outrage that her actions tonight would undoubtedly cause, for the sake of seeing Halferan and its people safe. And as long as Corrain was Ilysh’s husband in a correctly witnessed ceremony, the parchments signed and sealed, no one could punish Zurenne by taking her children away, for letting him bring a Soluran wizard here.

Ilysh’s husband only in name. As Ilysh went to her washstand, Zurenne saw her daughter’s budding breasts through the gossamer-fine fabric of her summer chemise, and the first swell of her hips.

Corrain wouldn’t see a hint of such nubile allure. Zurenne took one of Ilysh’s festival gowns from its chest and shook fragrant snakestraw from its velvet folds.

Ilysh hurriedly donned a clean shift and stockings. ‘Mama, my hair?’ She tugged agonised at her tousled night plait.

‘Sit.’ Zurenne took up brush and comb and quickly unbraided the girl’s long locks. ‘Now, dress.’

‘Mama?’ Ilysh looked puzzled at the high-necked violet gown, ill-suited to these humid nights on the cusp between spring and summer.

‘Hurry up.’ As Ilysh stepped into the violet gown, Zurenne’s hands were shaking so badly it took all her concentration to lace the back securely.

What if Corrain simply vanished from their lives after tonight? They would never know if he were to end up dead in some Soluran ditch or at the bottom of the sea, his throat cut by a corsair’s blade.

Zurenne’s hands grew steadier. She would hardly be any worse off. As long as Corrain’s fate remained unknown, provided she was armed with legally binding documents to shield her daughters in his name, she could resist any attempts by Licanin or anyone else to impose their will upon her.

That might even be preferable until Ilysh was old enough to wed in name as well as on paper. By then Zurenne could have found some noble protector whom they could trust.

‘My lady?’ Raselle peered around the bedchamber door, at a loss to understand what she saw.

Zurenne very nearly dismissed her, but changed her mind. ‘Fetch my writing box from my bedchamber.’

When she had decided to do this, she had drawn up the marriage contracts, referring time and again to the parchments binding her to Halferan. If the legalities weren’t correctly detailed, signed and sealed then this wedding wouldn’t be valid. Zurenne would have no defence against Lord Licanin’s wrath.

Then her nerve had failed her and she had called Raselle to light the fire, burning the heavy paper and smashing the ashes into oblivion with the poker. Before thinking it through again and drawing up a second set of contracts.

‘Ilysh.’ She took hold of her daughter’s shoulders, looking deep into her eyes. ‘This night’s work is to remain a secret, as far as anyone else is concerned. Corrain will only stand as your guardian until you’re of an age to wed by your own choice.’

When Ilysh would wed as a virgin, Zurenne was absolutely determined. She had a knife purloined from the carving platter when they had last dined on roast lamb, to make sure that Corrain kept to that part of this scandalous bargain.

‘He will not lay a finger upon you. He leaves tonight, to fight the corsairs, as soon as you are wed. Lord Licanin may never need to know what’s transpired,’ Zurenne added hastily. ‘We’ll only have to tell him if he insists we agree to something untoward.’

‘Until Corrain returns.’ As Ilysh looked back with equal determination, Zurenne was startled to realise her daughter had grown almost as tall as she was.

‘My lady?’ Raselle hesitated in the doorway, the ornamented writing box in her hands. ‘The captain, that’s to say, Corrain, he’s waiting below.’

‘I know.’

Zurenne ushered Ilysh into the hallway. The door to the stair was open, where Raselle had answered the summons of the bell below. The door to the maids’ room was closed and she could hear Jora snoring. So much for the nursemaid waking at any hint of mischief by her noble charges. That would be yet another pennyweight in the balance of Zurenne’s dislike for the girl, if it wasn’t such a relief not to have to order her back to bed, to stay dumb and blind about whatever she might see tonight.

‘Downstairs.’ Zurenne waited for Ilysh to follow Raselle and then locked the door after herself. Whatever else, Neeny couldn’t follow them now. No secret could survive that.

At the bottom of the stairs, she saw Corrain waiting by the high table, beside the only lamp burning in the entire great hall. For a man who’d ridden all day and into the night, he didn’t look too badly dishevelled. He had not shed that broken manacle nor cut his disreputable mane but his hair was brushed back and neatly bound at the nape of his neck. Zurenne winced at the thought of wrenching a comb through those knots and tangles.

‘You came.’ She hadn’t entirely believed that he would.

As he stepped forward and the lamplight struck him, she saw his face was tight with emotion. ‘And near killed two good horses riding them without a break.’

Zurenne refused to contemplate that. ‘Have you gathered a force from the coastal baronies? Have you captured the ship you sought?

‘I have.’ He nodded. ‘That’s to say, I have the ship and Tallat’s men are ready to snare as many corsairs as they can after this victory, and to set the rest of the coast hunting them as well.’ He took a step forward. ‘If I am to make use of that ship, my lady, we cannot afford any more delay.’

Zurenne heard desperation as well as exasperation in his warning. She spoke quickly before her nerve could fail her again.