Encrypted (6 page)

“
Stop gawking.” One the
guards shoved her.

“
I didn’t know there was a
minimum walking speed up here,” Tikaya muttered.

“
Exercise is for sweating,
not sightseeing.”

“
You’re a pithy people,
aren’t you?”

That earned another shove.

Tikaya picked up her speed. A heavy gun on
brass rails dominated the forecastle, but the area behind it lay
open, and a few bare-chested men boxed in a makeshift arena. Racks
contained practice weapons, dumbbells, and other exercise
equipment. Captain Bocrest and a lieutenant stood on the far side
where a temporary archery lane was set up with person-shaped paper
targets attached to bales of hay. They practiced with repeating
crossbows, though traditional bows also leaned in a rack.

“
You going to do anything,
woman?” a guard asked.

Feeling self-conscious beneath all the eyes
that swiveled to watch her, Tikaya walked over to a pile of
sand-filled balls with handles. After a few tries, she found a
small one she could lift. She maneuvered through a few exercises,
though no one had suggested baths were available, so she was not
sure how much of a sweat she wanted to encourage.

“
Awkward turtle, isn’t
she?” one of the guards said.

“
Fine by me,” the second
said. “Makes her melons bounce.”

“
Hah, and her ass. Bookly
thing but I’d mount that in a heartbeat.”

Jaw clenched and cheeks flaming, Tikaya
turned her back to them.

“
Nothing else to mount
around here,” the conversation continued, “unless you want to crawl
into Lieutenant Amn or Corporal Agarik’s bunks.”

“
I reckon they’d be the
ones wanting to do the mounting then.”

She supposed that explained why she was not
Agarik’s “type.” The marines went back to analyzing her, and, when
others joined in, the commentary grew cruder and more explicit.
Though the captain stood within earshot, he did nothing to stop the
lewd harassment. She wondered if the men would have treated a
Turgonian woman this way or if her status as
hated-enemy-of-the-empire made it acceptable.

Tikaya gave up the exercises in favor of
walking around the training area. She eyed the officers plunking
quarrels into the targets, surprised they bothered practicing
archery given the power of their rifles.

“
How’s the
thinking
going,
librarian?” Bocrest asked. “You figure anything out
yet?”

“
I’m working on it. I
doubt you have any idea as to the magnitude of the task. People
spend years working to translate a newly discovered language, and
that’s when they’re surrounded by libraries full of reference
materials.”

“
Uh huh. Take a few more
laps around the ring to inspire my men’s fantasies and then go back
to work.”

“
Double or nothing, sir?”
The lieutenant hefted his crossbow.

“
It’s your rum.” The
captain turned his back on her and loaded a fistful of bolts into
his own crossbow.

An idea tickled her mind. “You a betting
man, Captain?” she asked before she could talk herself out of
it.

Since he had already dismissed Tikaya, he
had to turn back to frown at her. “What?”

“
Care to make a
wager?”

“
Like what?”

“
I’ll bet you there’s a
weapon here I can best you with.”

The snorts and outright laughs around her
were no surprise.

“
Why would I make a wager
with my prisoner?” the captain asked. “What could you have to lose
that I would want?”

What indeed?

“
Before you offer to warm
my toes tonight, know I’m a married man.”

The fact that he had a wife—and was faithful
to her—left her speechless for a moment.

Bocrest tapped his foot. Tikaya considered
the bruises on his face. If she was right and Five had delivered
those, maybe she could use that.

“
I see Prisoner Five has
given you some trouble,” she said. “You must need him for
something, presumably related to what you need me for. If I lose,
I’ll persuade him to help you with your mission.”

Bocrest laughed. “Why would he listen to the
cryptomancer?”

Because Five did not yet
know she
was
the
cryptomancer. “Because we’ve established a rapport.” If one could
call a single shared conversation a rapport.

The laughter ceased, and Bocrest studied her
through narrowed eyes. Perhaps that had not been a wise claim to
make.

“
Fine. What if I lose?”
The captain’s mouth twisted, showing how unlikely he thought that.
“I’m not releasing you or promising anything that would involve
breaking orders.”

“
I want Five to share my
exercise periods, an hour each day.” The captain was shaking his
head before she made it halfway through the sentence, but she
pressed on. “I also want you to give him a bath, haircut, shave,
and fresh clothing to wear.” Tikaya smiled. “Actually, I’ll take a
bath and fresh clothing too.”

“
A bath!” the lieutenant
roared. “This is a steamer! Water is for pouring into the
boiler.”

“
Surely you could manage a
damp washcloth,” she said.

“
No,” the captain said.
“No to it all. That’s too much extra work for my men. He’s too
dangerous to have out.”

“
Why can’t these men watch
him?” She pointed to the onlookers. “I can’t imagine the emperor
pays them to stand around and gawk at me. Besides—” the captain’s
face had grown red, so she patted the air soothingly, “—you don’t
honestly believe you’ll lose our wager, do you?”

He snapped his mouth shut. “No.”

The captain stuck his palm out, edge toward
her, and she banged her hand against it in the Turgonian gesture
for a deal sealed.

“
Choose your weapon,” he
said.

She went straight to the bows. They were
designed for tall, burly men, so it took some experimentation to
find one she could string and draw. For once her long arms were
useful, and her months laboring on the plantation gave her strength
she had not possessed during her academic tenure.

“
Think she’ll even be able
to load that?” one man asked.

“
Probably shoot her toe
off.”

“
There’s no way she’ll hit
a target.”

“
Better tell the boys in
the rigging to watch out.”

“
Don’t know why my
languages instructor bothered teaching me the Turgonian word for
encouragement,” Tikaya muttered. “Not like they ever use
it.”

Bow strung, she joined Bocrest.

“
Challenger shoots first,”
he said.

“
No practice?”

“
No.”

“
Best of three
shots?”

“
One shot. Deal’s been
made. Shoot.”

The lieutenant handed her a single
arrow.

“
I see you’re a sporting
people.” She should have negotiated the rules of the game instead
of trying to finagle baths.

Tikaya nocked the arrow and turned sideways,
bow held loosely in her left hand as the fingertips of her right
curled about the string. Just like on the plantation back home, she
told herself.

Except it wasn’t. Even on the calm day, the
ship rose and fell with the swells, and activity on deck offered
distractions. The misty breeze licked her cheeks, and she closed
her eyes for a moment, considering the affect it would have on the
arrow’s flight. She locked her eyes on the red dot in the center of
the target and drew the bow, anchoring her fingers in her usual
spot against her cheek. The men’s ongoing comments disappeared and
focus came. She breathed in the tangy air, blew it out, and waited
for the quiet moment when her body and the deck were still.

She released the arrow.

It cut through the air and thudded into the
red dot. The surrounding men fell silent, mouths hanging open.
Tikaya resisted the urge to smile or make any triumphant
gesture.

“
Your turn,” was all she
said to the captain.

His expression was less stunned and more
dyspeptic. Too late, Tikaya wished she had found a way to make the
challenge private. If he did not make as fine a shot, he might lose
face in front of his men. And take it out on her.

Bocrest lowered his bow. “A shot that good
is worth the prize, for what little reward having that dour bear
around will be.”

The men grunted in agreement. Good. She
recognized the face-saving gesture, but in this case was relieved
he had found a solution. After eliciting a promise that Five would
join her the next day, she walked a few more laps.

The captain caught up as
her guards were about to lead her belowdecks. He clenched her elbow
and put his mouth near her ear. “I trust you and Five aren’t
plotting to escape. If you attempt something that foolish,
you
will
be
caught, and I’ll let Sergeant Ottotark deliver your punishment. He
enjoys that sort of work immensely.”

CHAPTER 4

Clouds blanketed the sky the next day when
Tikaya came out for her exercise session, but the darker weather
didn’t dampen the curiosity humming through her. Her ally—even if
he did not yet know she had dubbed him ally—would join her soon.
What would he look like without all that hair and dirt? Would the
guards give them enough space to talk privately?

She walked around the outside edge of the
exercise area, struggling for patience. The captain was out again,
this time trading sword blows with his navigator. Tikaya wondered
who ran the ship when these Turgonians spent so much time
exercising. Some prisoners of war were probably chained down in the
boiler rooms, shoveling coal into the furnaces day and night.

The clamor of crashing steel halted, and
Tikaya stopped walking to search for the reason.

If not for the guards surrounding him, she
would not have recognized Five. Now clean-shaven with
military-short hair, he wore the same boots and black uniform as
the marines, though no rank or insignia marked the collars. Taller
than the men accompanying him, he strode across the deck, hands
clasped behind his back, head up, alert eyes taking in every aspect
of the ship.

Tikaya’s stomach did an
anxious flip. Her putative ally had turned into someone who looked
every bit like one of the officers who had tried to take over her
islands during the war. Even with no rank on that collar, he seemed
more the captain than the sweaty bare-chested Bocrest, who was also
staring. A chilling thought gripped her. What if Five
had
been a captain
during the war? Someone who fired on her people? Took prisoners?
Tortured them.

Five’s gaze stopped on the sails nearest the
smokestack. A faint sooty black dulled the canvas, and he raised an
eyebrow at Captain Bocrest.

For a moment, Bocrest’s cheeks flushed, and
an excuse seemed on his lips, but he halted it with a scowl. He
stalked across the deck, bare chest puffed out, muscles flexed. He
barked at anyone foolish enough to cross his path and stopped in
front of Five. Bocrest gestured sharply while spitting words out in
a low voice.

Tikaya resumed walking, more briskly than
earlier, so she could steer close enough to eavesdrop. Before she
neared them, the captain thrust his arm out, pointing his index
finger at her. She stopped, feeling self-conscious when both men,
and everyone else in the area, turned to stare at her.

Only Five’s gaze was friendly. The right
side of his mouth quirked up in a bemused half smile, and she felt
the need to brace herself on a nearby weapons rack.

Bocrest growled, “Convince her,” just loud
enough for her to hear.

Though Five did not acknowledge the order,
those words drove wariness into Tikaya’s heart. Presuming Bocrest’s
relationship with Five was entirely antagonistic may have been a
mistake.

He left the captain’s side
and strolled toward her, his smile widening as he approached. A few
strands of silver threaded his black hair, laugh lines crinkled the
corners of his brown eyes, and a narrow scar bisected one eyebrow,
but Tikaya had no doubt women of all ages swooned at his feet.
Experience made her stifle her own urge to swoon. Handsome men did
not look at her and smile; they looked
through
her, usually not noticing
when they bumped her out of the way to close in on some buxom
damsel with cleavage like the Inarraska Canyon. Most likely, he had
an ulterior reason for that smile.

Tikaya folded her arms across her chest and
kept her face neutral as he closed the distance.

Five’s first words destroyed her attempt at
equanimity. “You’re the cryptomancer?”

“
What? I, uhm, no. I
mean—”

Tikaya winced. Even if he had no ulterior
motives, her almost-ally would surely turn against her if he knew.
Like the rest of the marines, he would resent her, hate her, glare
at her and...

He was staring, not glaring, at her, and not
with hatred. Was that—her eyebrows arched—awe?

“
It’s your people’s term,”
she said, “not what the name plaque on my desk says.”

Hoping for nonchalance, Tikaya stuck out a
hand to lean casually on the weapons rack, but her focus was on
him, and those gold flecks in his brown eyes, and she missed the
target. Her fingers clipped the corner and slid off, giving her no
support. She pitched sideways with a startled, “Errkt,” and would
have landed on the deck, but Five lunged and caught her.