Servant of the Dragon (25 page)

"In a few months," Garric said. "Before the end of the sailing season, at least, I'll pay a friendly visit to Sandrakkan and Blaise in the new Royal Fleet. The Lady and the general contrariness of fate permitting, of course."

"Wildulf and Lerdoc can either one put more troops in the field than we'll have trained by then, your highness," Attaper warned. Even in private, where the other councillors said, "Garric," with Garric's full approval, the Blood Eagles' commander used formal address for his prince.

"So they can," Royhas said, entering the discussion as chancellor of the Kingdom of the Isles that he and Garric alone of this group foresaw. The others members of the council were Ornifal nobles first, last, and only. They visualized the kingdom as an extension of Ornifal power in the rare cases that they thought about the kingdom at all. "In a week, would you say, Lord Waldron?"

The old soldier snorted. "In two weeks they might have half the nobles' household troops gathered. The rest won't dribble in for two months, those who show up at all. As I know well."

He grinned wryly, obviously thinking of the struggle he'd had to raise support from his fellow northern landholders to garrison Erdin against the queen's return. "As for the local militias, anywhere from a month to never, not that they'd be much use except for skirmishers anyway."

"We're building a kingdom for every citizen of the Isles," Garric said. His voice filled and deepened, but without the harsh, hectoring tone of minutes before when he faced Waldron's disparagement of folk not of his own class. "Lerdoc of Blaise and Wildulf of Sandrakkan want to go their own ways, but that makes it harder for them to convince their own nobles to jump to what the count or the earl says."

"Many a local landholder would rather see a strong king off in Valles,"
King Carus noted. His grin widened into a broad smile.
"Or Carcosa, it may be once again—than they would their own baron a few hours away have all the power
he
wants.
And they're right to feel that way!"

The triremes had passed out of sight into the channel leading to the naval arsenal. Garric sighed, knowing it was time to return to the palace but enjoying the last of these moments of relative freedom.

The noblemen had come in their individual carriages. The vehicles waited on the margin of the highway, each driver grooming his pair of horses while the postillions polished brightwork or the leather seats. Garric had chosen to ride with Pterlion to get a feeling for how the fellow—a distant cousin of Tadai's—was doing in his post, and to make it clear to Royhas that the new treasurer was a full member of Garric's council. Like so many of the suggestions that guided Garric through political snares and deadfalls, this one had come from Liane.

The Blood Eagles' horses cropped coarse grass nearby. Normally cavalry operating dismounted would detail every fifth man as a horseholder. The bodyguards—who considered themselves mounted infantry rather than cavalry anyway—brought grooms for the purpose so that all of them were ready to protect the prince with their swords and their lives.

"I promised Liane I'd be back before midday to go over the petitions," Garric said aloud, "and it's almost that now. Royhas, if you don't mind I'll ride—"

A trim carriage trotted down the road from the city behind a handsome pair of mules. The only thing that made it different from a wealthy shopkeeper's vehicle on the way to a riverside picnic was its escort: four mounted Blood Eagles leading, and four more riding behind.

"As the Lady smiles on me!" Garric said. "That's Liane driving!"

And Tenoctris in the seat beside her, Garric saw. His councillors turned to peer beyond the backs of the guards around them.

Few but professional teamsters and the scions of wealthy households could drive with any skill. Liane had learned on the vast estates her father owned on Sandrakkan before wizardry led to his disgrace. Now that opportunity returned she was indulging her hobby with considerable panache. Tenoctris' lips pursed with concern as Liane drove the carriage over the paved drainage swale bordering the highway, bouncing first one wheel and then the other high in the process.

"My lords and Master Koprathu," Garric resumed, "I believe we're done here. I thought to share your coach on the trip back, Royhas, but it seems that other arrangements have been made."

"I regret losing the chance to discuss district assessors with you, your highness," Royhas said—smiling, but with an undertone of real dismay in his voice. "You'll certainly have more attractive company this way, however."

Waving his leave to the councillors, Garric walked to the carriage rather than ordering the guards to let Liane through their lines. The Blood Eagles took their orders very literally—and given that one King of the Isles had been murdered by his own mother, perhaps that careful literalness was as it should be.

Garric squeezed Liane's hand, then swung up onto the rear-facing seat paired back-to-back with the one on which she and Tenoctris sat. "To the palace?" he asked, turning so that he sat sideways on the bench. He leaned forward to put his head between those of the two women.

"If you're done here," Liane said as she clucked the mules around in a tight circle. She touched the ear of the inside beast with her whip, as lightly as the brush of a butterfly's wing.

The guards assigned to Liane and Tenoctris fell in before and behind. The rank which guarded Garric himself ran for its horses and would clop along at a gallop until it caught the carriage. Garric thought of suggesting to Liane that she take it easy, but driving fast was one of the few things that really relaxed her.

"I wanted to see how the new crews were shaping up," Garric said, shouting over the roar of the iron tires on the pavement. His seat behind the axle jounced significantly more than the front one did. Tenoctris had started to offer him hers, but the old woman needed the relative comfort much more than Garric did. "And I wanted my councillors to see them also. Traditionally the fleet has been crewed by fishermen and bargees, so the concept of using laborers is new to Ornifal nobles."

"They aren't sailors?" Tenoctris asked curiously. The practical questions of kingship were of no real concern to her, but she had an inquiring mind that found interest in any puzzle or seeming paradox.

"Not when they're hired," Garric agreed. "But they're used to work—and to hardship. And there's worse things we could do than show the poorest folk, day laborers from Valles and the countryside, that they too can serve the kingdom if they like."

He stretched, one arm and then the other so that he could keep a hand firmly on the seat's railing. Liane brought the mules along with pops of her whip. The tip never quite touched the beasts, but it left them in no doubt as to what would happen if they slacked. At each
snap
! the mules' ears twitched.

"Tenoctris has reached a temporary impasse with her researches," Liane said, giving the wizard the brief nod that was all that could be spared from the driving.

"Ah," Tenoctris said, taking up her cue. She turned toward Garric while continuing to cling to the seat with both hands. "I haven't been able to penetrate the barriers separating me from other the plane in which the bridge is anchored, Garric. That would take more power than I have, or better tools; and the tools at least are available. This evening I hope to visit a wizard who has a viewing crystal. I normally couldn't, but I hope the bridge will ease my task sufficiently."

"And I'm going with her, to carry her equipment," Liane said; pointedly
not
looking at Garric. "You and I can review the petitions first, of course."

Garric laughed. They'd reached the outskirts of Valles proper; even with the Blood Eagles for outriders, Liane was having to slow down. He for one was thankful.

"Of course I'll go with you," he said affectionately in answer to the implied question.

"But you're busy," Tenoctris said. "There shouldn't be danger in this. I trust you beside me as I could few others, but I know you have more important duties."

"I have to be king," Garric said, "and it may be that I'll have to be a general. But if I can't be Garric or-Reise part of the time, I'll get as addled as last year's egg."

He put a hand on the shoulder of either woman. They all three laughed together; and Carus, who'd never had even Garric's tolerance for the grinding
business
of kingship, guffawed in Garric's mind.

* * *

Ilna looked over the stern railing at the weeds and colorful fish as the vessel rocked at anchor in the clear water. On both ships the passengers stretched, gathered personal belongings they wanted to take ashore with them, and snarled at servants for clumsiness, stupidity or simply because the voyage was uncomfortable and folk of rank liked to snarl at their inferiors.

"Is something wrong, Ilna?" Merota asked with a note of worry. The girl had been cheerful most of the day, excited by the glimpses of unfamiliar birds and fish.

"Wrong with the world?" Ilna said, barking a laugh. "Yes, but it isn't a new problem. Nothing to do with you, Merota."

Ilna grinned with amusement, an expression very different from her laugh of a moment before. The problem didn't affect her either. Nobody was going to take his bad temper out on Ilna os-Kenset.

Lord Neyral had been lounging amidships in the shade of the embroidered awning with Tadai and his top aides. When Vonculo called that they'd made the day's landfall, it took the nominal captain more than a minute to get up and walk back to the stern.

"Surely we can go farther today, Vonculo?" Neyral said as he joined his sailing master. "There's half the afternoon left, and the weather's fine."

"I think it's best that we overnight here, milord," Vonculo said. "There's firewood and firm ground to stake your tents on. And I'm not so confident about good weather as you are, though your lordship is doubtless my superior in reading the sky."

His tone was dismissive rather than directly insulting. It was, Ilna recalled with a flash of anger, much like the tone Neyral himself had used when Ilna warned the commanders about the threat of mutiny.

"Is it really going to storm, Ilna?" Merota whispered. The warship's stern was very narrow, and much of the space was taken by the helmsman who stood holding the bar that worked the tillers of both steering oars together. The officers were close enough that Ilna could have touched them, but they were too focused on one another and their mutual anger to take note of what Merota or anyone else was saying.

Ilna glanced at the sky, clear except for high haze and cirrus clouds. Any countryman, let alone an experienced sailor like Vonculo, knew that there wouldn't be a storm this day or the next. "No, of course not," she said to the girl.

Mastyn watched the officers with an expression of sneering contempt from the trireme's bow. He held the line of the kedge anchor he'd cast over the side to hold the vessel while Neyral made a final decision about the landfall. The
Ravager
waited a bowshot away. Four oars bow and stern stroked slowly to keep the ship from drifting on the light current.

"Sister take it, man!" Neyral said. "How long are we to be bobbing hither and yon like this? I'd understood there was a good chance, a very good chance, that we'd be ashore in Erdin in three days sail. It seems it'll take a
week
at the rate you've been going!"

"Perhaps the fine gentlemen in Valles told you the voyage would take a few days, my
lord
," Vonculo said, looking down the bridge of his nose at his captain. "The same ones who calculated the headway we'd make using only one bank of oars on ships loaded like priests coming home from a temple banquet! A sailor with practical experience could have told them that the currents set wrong for sailing west at this time of year, of course."

Ilna's eyes narrowed. Vonculo was lying. She knew nothing about currents and winds, but she could hear the way words shaped and wove. Neyral knew as little of seamanship as she did, and unlike Ilna anger shut his mind off completely. Not that the captain was ever going to be praised as one of the great thinkers of this age.

Lord Neyral flushed. "Well, you know what I th-think?" he cried in a high voice. "I th-think you're a, you're a—you're no good, Vonculo. I think that's why it's taking us so long on these Sister-cursed ships that roll all over the sea!"

Vonculo folded his arms across his chest. "Well, milord, you can replace me as you choose," he said distantly. "Perhaps you'd be better acting as your own sailing master. I can only offer you my best opinion, and if you prefer not to take it—well, that is your lordship's option."

Merota kept her eyes on the frigate birds circling overhead, but her little hand squeezed Ilna's hard. Ilna found a certain beauty in the birds' red throat sacs and their wings—long, narrow, and as crooked as sickle blades—but she knew that the girl was really watching distant things because she was so afraid of what was happening close by.

Lord Tadai had risen from his couch and was making his way sternward with Roubos and the other five Blood Eagles aboard. Despite their care, the weight of so many men moving made the vessel's narrow hull roll violently. Tadai's complexion was greenish, and two of his bodyguards seemed in little better condition.

"What's the problem?" Tadai asked. "Are we landing or aren't we?"

"I think we should go on, Tadai," Neyral said, his brow ridged with frustration. "We'll never get to Erdin if we don't use the daylight we have!"

Vonculo continued to stand with his arms folded. "Whatever the captain wishes," he said. "If the captain will direct me, I will carry out his orders precisely—even if that means tearing the bottoms out of the ships and drowning every man of us!"

Tadai looked in bilious amazement from one man to the other. "For pity's sake, Neyral," he said. "What's wrong with this place? It looks better than the one we camped on last night. And I for one wouldn't mind having something under my feet that didn't move!"

The captain clenched his fist, though who or what he'd thought of striking wasn't clear. He was obviously furious with Tadai for taking the sailing master's part; but Vonculo, the ship itself, and the whole pattern of reality were equally frustrating to him.

Ilna looked over the island with the experience of someone who'd travelled more than she cared to and who had a good eye for details. The islet rose a dozen feet above the sea though the tide was scarcely past full. It had no large trees, but beach plums and holly covered everything down to the surf. When the sea withdrew between sweeps of curling foam, Ilna saw rocks rather than sand or even coarse shingle like that on the shore of Barca's Hamlet.

Still, if they could get ashore it looked like a solid place to overnight. There was no sign of permanent habitation, which probably meant there was no drinkable water save what pooled after rainstorms.

"Yes, all right," Neyral said abruptly. "Yes, this is probably best. Bring the ship up on the beach. And—"

He glanced toward the second trireme. It was drifting closer to theirs on wind pressure, though the slow oarstrokes kept it headed into the current.

"—signal Captain Perra to land also."

"Rather than beach the ships, milord...," the sailing master said quickly. Vonculo had trembled with relief when Neyral gave in; his tone now was feverishly cheerful instead of sneering. "We'll hold them against the shore on oars until the passengers have landed, then back off a cable's length and anchor. The beach is too rocky to bring the ships up it. Besides, so steep a slope would break their spines."

"What?" Neyral said in surprise. Lord Tadai stopped and turned; he'd started forward when it looked as though the matter was decided. "Come now, Vonculo, if it's not safe to land here, then surely we
must
find a better place."

Ilna smiled faintly as she saw how matters were tending. Being marooned on this islet was a survivable way out of the impasse caused by a mutinous crew and commanders whose response to difficulty was to wish it wasn't happening. They were in a well-travelled region. She'd seen several vessels close enough to hail on each day of the voyage, so it shouldn't be long before she and the rest of the passengers were rescued.

Ilna had only duty before her in Erdin; Merota had less than that to draw her. They could afford to spend a few days drinking brackish water and eating clams.

"It's quite safe, milord," Vonculo said. His voice had the quivering brightness of gnats circling in a shaft of sunlight. "We'll leave half the crew aboard as an anchor watch. None of the other islands within the distance we could sail before dark are high enough for our passengers."

"The men can sleep on board?" Neyral said in mild surprise. "Well, if you say so, Vonculo."

Neyral turned away from the sailing master, muttering as he did so, "I'll be thankful to see Erdin and have a proper roof over my head, that I can tell you!"

Vonculo cupped his hands to bellow directions to the
Ravager
. Mastyn was already ordering the
Terror
's crew into action.

Chalcus, the scarred sailor who'd watched with Ilna as the bosun preached mutiny, sat at the stroke oar on the starboard side. When he saw Ilna looking in his direction, he tapped the side of his nose with his index finger and grinned broadly.

Ilna glared back.
That one is far too full of his own cleverness!

"Ilna?" Merota said in a small voice. "Is everything going to be all right?"

Ilna put her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Yes," she said, speaking quietly but not whispering; if the mutineers heard her, they could think what they would. "Your uncle's plans are about to change, and I suppose we'll be spending a few days on this island; but it's probably better this way."

Ilna checked the silken noose she wore around her waist, then the hank of short cords she carried in her left sleeve, and almost as an afterthought the sharp, bone-cased paring knife stuck through her sash. "We'll be fine," she said to the girl.

Ten of the bow oarsmen began a slow stroke. The piper seated crosslegged beside Vonculo set the rhythm, blowing a stopped note for the pull and lifting his finger for a higher tone when the oars were to come out of the water. The trireme crunched slowly into the beach.

Mistress Kaline lay in the trireme's bow like a bundle of black rags. Merota's tutor didn't have enough status to claim a place under the awning amidships, and she'd been unwilling—or afraid—to come near Ilna since their first meeting.

Lord Tadai and many of his suite were bad sailors. Mistress Kaline was no sailor at all. She hadn't been able to eat since the ships left Valles, but she still lifted herself to the railing to retch every time a swell made the vessel pitch.

Ilna smiled harshly. At least the woman had learned to huddle by the lee rail after her first experience.

Under Mastyn's snarling direction, the ship's dozen deck crewmen hopped from the prow into the low surf. The bosun swung them the line of the light anchor he'd used to hold the vessel while Lord Neyral made up his mind to land here. The sailors ran well up the slope with it before hooking the flukes in the crevice of a weathered outcrop.

Oarsmen got up from their benches and unpinned a length of the extra decking that covered what had been the inner rows of benches on the port side. It had been fashioned to fit into mortises in the starboard bow, forming a gangplank for dignitaries who couldn't be expected to swarm down the sides of a warship.

Mistress Kaline had to move for the men to do their jobs. When she was slow getting to her feet, two sailors grabbed her like a roll of old sail and slung her onto the feet of the folk standing near the vessel's centerline.

Sailors on shore staked the gangplank's foot into the rocky soil. Foam washed the boards, but by now occasional waves had combed the vessel's deck often enough to soak the footgear of Lord Tadai and all his aides. A warship might be the surest method of travelling from one island to another, but no one would call it a comfortable one.

The first down the gangplank were servants, Mistress Kaline among them. The vessel shuddered side to side, but rowers kept it upright by thrusting the blades of their oars into the land.

Tadai's party moved forward behind a pair of Blood Eagles. The guards were armed with shields, helmets and body armor, and their spears were poised to thrust or throw. They were ready for any enemy who lurked among the twisted stems of the vegetation.

Ilna smiled; or sneered, it probably depended on the state of mind of whoever might be watching. "Let's go," she said to Merota, slinging her own modest bindle of effects. "The sooner this is over with, the sooner we can get on with our real business."

Empty and bleak though that prospect seemed for both of them. Well, Ilna hadn't designed the pattern into which the world had chosen to weave her.

Shepherding the girl carefully ahead of her, Ilna walked to the trireme's bow. A sailor more intent on his work than his surroundings blocked them. Merota shied away; Ilna cleared the human obstruction with a crisp, "Watch yourself!"

She didn't voice the rest of the sentence, "Or it'll be the worse for you!" but her tone commanded obedience.

She smiled. Perhaps she was wrong to believe the implied threat had anything to do with it: all these sailors might be decent fellows who leaped with embarrassment when reminded of their manners.

"Did you say something, Ilna?" Merota asked nervously.

"I was thinking," Ilna said truthfully, "that perhaps pigs would fly. But not, I think, in my lifetime."

They'd reached the gangplank. The trireme was lively, now. With so many of the passengers and crew ashore, the vessel was fully afloat except for the long bronze-sheathed ram driven hard into the slope. If the ship was being drawn on shore for the night, it would have had its curving sternpost to the land.