The Fox (35 page)

“No, no,” Barend said quickly, jolted by the extreme pallor of Inda’s face. “It’s not what you think. Though it’s bad enough,” he added in a rough voice very unlike his own. “Take it.”

Still numb—blood icy—Inda bent and scrutinized the ring. No, it wasn’t his mother’s—the carving around the big stone was more elaborate than the plain leaves bordering the emerald on the one his mother wore, seen every day for ten years. This was not his mother’s ring, but older by a generation.

He closed his fist around it, meeting Barend’s eyes as the waves of terror died away.

“Here is the proof that the Montrei-Vayirs, in the person of my father,” Barend stated in the words of someone who has planned what to say, “betrayed the Algara-Vayirs.” He now held out an old, worn, unfolded chart.

No, a
map
.

Inda took it. Chart notes marked the coast, but those were quick notations, smudged and fading, written in the silver-point of the chart keeper. Marks that could be erased. The map was drawn in age-browned, cheap traveling ink, by a distinctive hand, the words written in Iascan. It showed the way to Castle Tenthen, noted the roads around it, and listed probable defensive positions and numbers: it showed someone, in other words, exactly where and how to attack his father’s castle.

Inda’s tongue had gone dry, his throat tight. He worked his jaw, then forced himself to meet Barend’s bleak, unsmiling gaze. “You recognize the hand?”

“It’s my father’s, all right. I’ve seen a thousand orders written by him. Copied the boring ones for writing practice, before they decided to send me to sea.”

Inda let out his breath. His fist clenched so hard the metal of his father’s ring cut into the thick calluses on his palm. “This ring—the map. This was taken by the pirates who attacked our castle thirty years ago,” Inda said.

“Sent there by my father.” Barend lifted his head, his sharp, triangular face looking more ratlike than ever in the scouring wind, with his short-lipped mouth drawn down at the corners. “Only one thing I can do. Either get my father to face yours, or face him myself.”

They stood there on the edge of the road where it met the quay, moss growing between the bricks, the icy wind humming low in a weathervane atop a low storehouse building. Behind them the charthouse stood, shuttered against the rising weather; overhead thick bands of gray clouds were lowering. The air smelled of ice.

Inda sighed. Barend’s stance reminded him of the way he himself had stood that terrible day so long ago, on the parade ground before Dogpiss’ body on the bier. Barend knew he was in disgrace and nothing Inda could say would change that. The years, the distance, had all vanished, and both of them felt the weight of Iasca Leror over those mountains to the north, and the hand of Anderle-Harskialdna gripping their lives and flinging them once again to the winds.

He said, at last, “Speaking as an Algara-Vayir, I declare the matter must rest until we have finished dealing with the Brotherhood, who lie between us and home.”

Barend struck his fist against his heart, and Inda did the same before he realized his arm had moved.

In silence they walked back to the main street.

The two women looked at Fox in total incomprehension.

Fox frowned down at the table, grunted, then surprised Jeje by answering. “You may as well know.” His teeth showed in an unpleasant smile. “And I may as well spare him questions he obviously doesn’t want to answer, since he hasn’t told you before now.”

Jeje’s heart thumped. “Go on.”

“You do know that Inda is the son of a prince—in Marlovan his father is Adaluin of Choraed Elgaer, right?” Fox asked, lounging back in his chair, arms crossed.

“Right. His real name is Indevan Alga—blah-dee-blah. So?” Jeje said, since Thog wouldn’t speak.

“The Algara-Vayir device is an owl in flight. They wear it here on their formal clothes.” He unfolded one arm long enough to touch his chest. “And on their shields. And the stone on the ring is carved with the owl so that when you press it into a seal, it leaves an owl impression. Rather like a sved, but the owl sign is bound by honor, not magic.”

“I know what you mean,” Jeje said. “Go ahead.”

Fox sighed. “Well, you don’t, really, if you have to ask. You see, years and years ago Inda’s father’s family, his first family, were all killed in a pirate raid on their castle. This man was there. He told me all about it. He was young then, and set to have adventure, though it turned out he didn’t have a taste for slaughtering civs. So he took his skills as a chart maker and set up shop here decades ago.” Fox looked out the window at the ghost-lit snow falling softly. “He was a cheery, gabby fellow. Told me about the attack, showed me their map, which he kept as a reminder of his pirate days, and then showed us the ring, which their leader had taken off a beautiful young woman after he killed her.”

Jeje sensed there was something missing, that Fox was avoiding it. Though he was difficult to comprehend, and always prickly, that change she’d seen in Inda’s face when Fox said those words in Marlovan emboldened her to speak. “And?”

Fox glanced her way. His eyes had gone narrow and nasty again. “It was Barend’s father, the king’s brother, who hired these pirates—a secret their leader was paid to keep.” Fox made a derisive gesture. “But he died of drink not long ago. And before he died, he paid his debt to our chart maker by giving him the owl ring.”

“Barend’s
father
hired them?” Jeje repeated. “Weren’t they all Marlovans together?”

“Marlovans, yes. But not together,” Fox said, his smile really nasty now. “You could probably say that we’re a little like Delfs: we band together best when attacked from the outside. Otherwise we make do with one another. So, the king’s brother provided them with a map to find the Algara-Vayir castle. Said they could take anything, they just had to kill the family. The leader surprised the beautiful princess carousing in a tower room with the prince’s brother and their favorites among the castle guards, whom we call Riders. All drunk as pirates, when they should have been guarding the castle. Said he would rather have taken the princess along with him—she offered to go, begging for her life—but business was business. They were paid to kill them all.”

Jeje glowered. “All right, it was bad, but it was also thirty years ago. So what? That happened before Inda and Barend were born. So why did Inda look like someone had ripped his heart out?”

“It is a matter of honor.” Fox opened a hand. “Which is, you will probably observe, about as definable as the weather, to which I will have to reply that it is also as powerful. ”

Thog whispered, “I understand.”

Jeje glared at them, half rising from her seat. “Wait! Wait! Understand what? Are they going to do something stupid? I’m going to personally wring their necks if they try fighting a duel or some idiocy like that!”

Fox patted the air in a languid gesture. “Calm down, calm down. They won’t lay a hand on each other. But unless I miss my guess, they won’t speak to each other either, until the matter is resolved, unless it relates to the battle we face before they can get home to resolve it.”

Thog nodded in slow agreement.

Jeje smacked her hands on the table. She saw people at the other tables glance her way; she fumed, leaning forward and forcing her voice down to a whisper when she wanted to yell and stomp at the unutterable madness of Marlovans, of the world. “The only
resolve
that makes
sense
is for them to go together and
kick
this father of Barend’s off the
highest
tower of his
castle
.”

Fox grinned. “If only it were that easy.”
If it were that easy I would be on a throne right now.

Jeje eyed that grin, recognized the self-mockery in it. “Marlovans,” she stated. “You’re all crazy.”

Chapter Twenty-two

"THERE’S only one I’d trust to stick it with us and not stab us in the back if the fighting gets hot,” Tau said the next day. "Or to refrain from looting all over the countryside if we do manage to win.” He turned his thumb up, indicating the building behind him, but Inda still saw it as the Marlovan gesture of approval, and had to make that unsettling mental sidestep. “Little private room top of the stairs. Name is Swift. Says he will bring us a fleet of three: his son’s raffee and a couple of fast, tight trysails.”

They stood outside the Dancing Sun, a long, low inn that, from the looks of it, had managed to stay prosperous despite Pirate Island’s violent changes of ownership. The porch was long with sturdy posts; during the summer it was probably quite pleasant to sit out here and watch the sea crashing on the rocks below and the ships sailing in and out of the harbor. Now a row of scrub-aged children stood at the mossy stone wall, their gender indistinguishable in their sturdy winter coats and boots and mittens. They tossed pebbles into the sea down below, their laughter sounding like the cry of gulls.

Inda’s brow furrowed as he watched them.

“You don’t like the idea?” Tau asked, always quick to catch changes in mood.

Inda snorted as he surveyed the harbor town below, its jumble of roofs wearing a light coating of snow. Ice definitely on the way. They would have to sail soon, before the wind shifted north for the winter and the Narrows closed up with ice for months. The weather and wind were holding steady now, but that could change any day.

His breath clouded as he said, “Children. Below. Reminded me. I meant to get the small ones to stay here, if it was safe—”

Tau’s watchful gaze eased into irony. “I heard about that. You apparently made a fine speech about safety.”

“Which no one listened to,” Inda admitted.

He grimaced, remembering Nugget holding hands with another scrawny tube of a twelve-year-old girl, this one with vaguely Chwahir features, who—Nugget explained with passionate accusation—had been forced to be a cabin girl on Sharl’s flagship. And though it
wasn’t her fault,
no one wanted her here. So
of course
Inda would take her,
wouldn’t
he,
wouldn’t
he, her
very own age
—

And when he delivered his carefully thought out speech, Nugget wailed, “You
promised
Woof you’d
never
leave me
behind!
” Her wail so loud that people poked heads out of doors down the hall at the inn where they’d stayed.

And Mutt appeared, scowling in accusation. “How old were
you
in your first battle?”

Inda wanted to say much older, thought back, then realized in surprise he’d been about their age. “But that was different—it was a mutiny, not facing the entire Brotherhood of Blood.”

“But the marines were right after. And you could have fought them—”

“Yes! You would have, if they hadn’t gone west!” Nugget shrilled, bouncing on her toes, Pilvig bouncing with her, black eyes wide.

“And you can’t make Uslar stay,” Mutt added. “Thog would never allow that.”

“The idea is to give you all a choice to stay—”

“But we want to be with yoooooooou!” Nugget wailed.

And so he’d given in. And still felt guilty.

So he shook his head. “What’s this Swift want?”

Tau opened his hands wide. “Revenge.”

“Don’t they all,” Inda retorted, rubbing his mittened hands together. His wrist ached. He’d been practicing hard that morning with the new barbed wrist guard, before Nugget and her new friend had confronted him.

“Yes, but this is personal. There’s bad history between him and Marshig. And he’s got probably the best information of any on this island. We’re not sailing clear—they will outnumber us by two to one, at least—but Swift seems to think we can bring it off. Come listen to him.”

Tau led the way inside and up a narrow staircase to a private room built like a captain’s cabin—same dimensions, smooth wooden floor, low ceiling, windows across the back shaped like stern windows. Four people awaited Inda, who studied each one. First was an older man, balding, with a thin fringe of white-streaked black hair. He was the only one seated, near the fire; behind him stood a tall, strong young man some years older than Inda, and to his right a young woman Inda’s age. They both bore a distinct resemblance to the seated man with their brown skin, narrow cheeks below watchful dark eyes, and high-bridged noses. The fourth, leaning against the window, was a very young man, also dark of hair, but with pale eyes and a challenging smile.

At the same time they scrutinized him, this short young fellow about whom so many surprising stories were spreading: he won all his fights, and he used fire not only to attack—like the Brotherhood—but to punish. Like kings.

“I’m Swift of the
Swift
,” said the older man. “And these are the captains of my consorts,
Silverdog
and
Moon
.”

Inda said, “You say we’re outnumbered. But you want to join us. Why?”

Captain Swift leaned forward. “We sift the news of you as carefully as you do of us.” His accent brought Testhy to mind; he had to have originated on the Toaran continent, northwest of the Land Bridge. “Marshig and I began in service together. Mids in the Damondaen navy. But he was thrown out before half a year. You probably heard about his crimes, and his rise to captaincy and to command. In the Brotherhood that’s done by treachery and being faster and more vicious than anyone else. But I can tell you this: he still does not understand that in the end treachery and viciousness will only carry you so far. In a battle when it be not predator chasing prey, fear seldom stands against discipline.”

“Ah,” Inda said, leaning forward. “Ah.”

Three days of mad labor, day and night under a canopy of lamps, and Inda’s fleet set sail. When they had sunk Pirate Island behind them, and the purple-black juts of the Narrows loomed on the horizon, Inda signaled for
All captains
.

By noon they were on board. Inda bent over the big map in his cabin, tracing the last dogleg before the open sea of the west, the Toaran continent curving out toward the setting sun, and Halia jutting northward, giving way to the great Iascan plains. “According to Captain Swift here, they have upward of thirty ships. Tell them?”