The Fox (40 page)

The Cassads worked hard to hide their dismay at this surprise encounter.

Joret frowned straight ahead between the hairy ears of her mare.

“Well, this is a surprise,” Cassad said, struggling for ease of manner. “Though I suppose anyone out will have to meet on the king’s roads, as you can’t find any of the others. ” He indicated the smooth expanse of snow to either side of the road.

Only his wife laughed, her voice sounding to the Sierlaef like the caw of a crow.

“The surprise,” Cassad continued, with the familiarity of the old companion days, “is in finding you here.”

“War,” the Sierlaef stated. “Sea.” For an exhilarating moment he pondered riding off with her. No, he had to get her the right way. He couldn’t even claim the honor of escort, not with only nine of the Royal Guard and a handful of his own Runners at his back. Impatience and frustration made him shift in his saddle, causing his mount to sidle and whisk his tail.

“Ah,” Cassad said, after a covert glace of appeal at his wife and her friend—which both stonily ignored. “Well, we won’t hinder the king’s business—”

“Where?” the Sierlaef cut in, with a circle of his hand.

Cassad turned his face up at the cloudy sky.

Disgusted with her spouse’s weak attempt to thwart the prince, Carleas said, “Joret has received an invitation to spend some time with Shendan Montredavan-An in Darchelde. We wished for news of the west, so we came along as her Honor Guard. At the Jarl’s request we are accompanying her as far as the border.”

Darchelde. As he’d figured. Where he couldn’t go—the treaty that kept the Montredavan-Ans inside kept him outside.

“Well,” Cassad tried again. “We all want to avoid being stranded by any coming snow—”

“Camp,” the Sierlaef stated. It was a command.

They all heard it. So despite the fact that he had no claim whatsoever on Joret, he had issued a direct order.

He would be king, he had the right.

And they had to obey, or be in the wrong.

The thought of being mired in a tent with the Sierlaef made Joret angry: there was no semblance of choice left anymore. The king’s son was using his rank to force them to comply with his wishes. Whatever it was he thought, the truth was that she’d just lost her freedom. Embarrassment and regret were swept away by rage.

Her color was high, her straight gaze intense with repressed emotion when at last the four of them sat around the fire in the royal tent. Carleas kept her expression strictly controlled. Poor Joret! One look at her glare helped quell that flutter of laughter behind her ribs.

It fell to Carleas to maintain conversation, a semblance of friendship and ease, but all the rest of her life she’d insist she knew what it must be like to push boulders up a mountain with your hands tied behind your back.

It began all right, with Cassad and the royal heir exchanging war news, but the name Elgar the Fox brought the talk to a halt. The Sierlaef, misreading a quick look between the women, was stunned by a horrible idea: that they knew about Indevan, that Joret was being saved for him.

He could scarcely contain his fury. As he poked at the food his Runners brought he thought he’d figured out the Algara-Vayirs’ secret plans. They had to know that Indevan was masquerading as a pirate, and once he defeated the red sails, he could return in triumph and until then, Joret would be hidden with the Montredavan-Ans, where the Sierlaef couldn’t get at her unless he broke the old treaty. And wouldn’t they love that! They were all allied against him,
all
of them!

He set aside his plate and stood up. Carleas almost dropped her knife, she was so startled by the sudden slit-eyed anger in the heir’s pale face. She stuttered to a stop— no one was listening to her anyway—and the Sierlaef took hold of Joret’s arm. “Talk.”

The others labored to think of something to say, but he jerked his thumb at the tent flaps. “Out.”

The Cassad pair withdrew, grim and silent until they reached their own tent.

The Sierlaef had already forgotten them. He was alone, at last,
at last,
with the one thing he’d ever wanted in his life that hadn’t been his for the asking. He reached for her other arm, which hardened under his fingers. Her whole body had tightened to rigidity. Lust seared through him; his grip turned to a trembling caress, moving up her shoulders toward her face.

She jerked away. “You dishonor me,” she whispered.

Astonishment made his mind reel. As always words galloped through his thoughts, too fast for his tongue to catch and form, making him more angry and frustrated. "Q-q-queen,” he managed, choking in his efforts to force his tongue not to stutter. “Marry.”

“Then you dishonor Hadand, she I call sister.”

“Marry a prince. C-c-colend. Bren. Fuh-fla-Fal.” He clenched his jaw, waved eastward. “Make ’em allies.”

“Iasca Leror wants her as queen,” Joret said, her color high, her breasts rising and falling beneath the thick wool of her robe. The thought of her body under those clothes nearly killed him. “We need her, especially during war.”

“You.” He held his hands out to her. “Queen.”

She struck his hands away. He felt the spark of her touch, brief as it was.

Would it have been any different if she had flung herself into his arms, as had Dannor Tya-Vayir last time he stayed in the Yvana-Vayir castle? But then he’d never found Dannor attractive, only convenient, and finally not even that when she started hinting around about becoming a royal favorite, and how she might “help” him by finding out who his enemies were.

Perhaps the question could not be answered. He certainly would have denied it. The one thing he was certain of was that as future king, he could not possibly dishonor Joret with his love. Not if he did everything right. “Marry,” he said again. “Make things g-g-good with Hadand. Come back. You be ready,” he added, mentally assembling a mighty force in the royal city and riding to the Montredavan-An border. To damnation with pirates and rumor-chasing. His strength lay at home.

He was the future king and no one could stop him.

She heard the determination in his voice and vowed, eyes stinging with anger and repressed tears, “I will fight you every day of my life.”

And saw the corresponding tightening of desire all through his body. Her threat was a horrible mistake, his reaction made that clear. And it was too late to take it back. She saw her error now, how her steadfast denial had made her more desirable. His hunt had made her into a prize he would do anything to win. So either she dishonored the Algara-Vayirs by obligating them to fight over her, or she dishonored herself by surrender.

She could not fix her error, but at least she could save lives. She shifted her gaze: surrender.

He took hold of her shoulders, and she forced herself to stand unmoving under his touch, while the sweetness of desire, the anticipation of fulfillment rushed through him. “Agreed? Say it.”

She clenched her fists at her sides. “Yes.”

While Joret wept silent tears of fury in her bedroll and Carleas sat beside her stroking her head in wordless sympathy, far to the south, Jeje sa Jeje reduced sail on
Vixen
as they slid into Parayid Harbor. As Mutt and Viac brought the scout craft to, Jeje grimaced at the destruction that was plain even under starlight.

She docked where the capital ships used to, back when trade was permitted, then helped Mutt secure the cable fore as Viac and Barend secured aft. The harbor was nearly empty, a strange sight.

Torches bobbed at the far end of the dock. A crowd coming as fast as they could.

“Well that looks bad,” Barend said, his breath clouding.

“If they’re pirates, we can lie,” Jeje said. “Tide’s about to turn—we can get away. Nothing around that can chase us.”

Tired as she was, she’d forgotten until now about the possibility that remnants of the Brotherhood might still hold various ports.

Someone in the approaching crowd shouted in a masthead bellow, “What news?”

Not a lynch mob, then, or pirates. So, what news to tell them?

Jeje and Barend stood wearily, lost in memory. The unhurt Fisher brother sat by
Vixen
’s tiller, tired and despondent.

They’d spent a long, tense day in the lee of
Cocodu,
repairing her after sending up their wounded and getting in some supplies. Dasta had called down that Loos breathed, though he had not woken, had not even stirred. Then the scout ship from
Silverdog
arrived with Tau and half of his band, the rest either lost, wounded, or dead.

Nugget was in that second group, having launched herself into a fight armed only with a knife.

Tau says he saw her last curled in a ball, the side of her clothes dark with blood, but still alive. Despite hot fighting around them he’d handed her down into a pinnace with the other injured and told them to go ashore,
Dasta reported, his voice cracking on the last word.

Inda sent Tau to the shore to find out where that pinnace had landed. He was turned away. Treated with distrust and fear by an armed mob guarding the beach. To them, Elgar the Fox and his crew were Marlovan pirates, scarcely less sinister than Marshig the Murderer: what would they do in their triumph, and who could stop them?

And so Tau had thrown to the beach the gold Inda had sent and begged that it be used to take care of the wounded; then he’d rowed back to sea, watched from the shoreline by tight-faced villagers gripping weapons.

The rest of the day had been even more bleak as they tried to find out who lived, who died, who was badly hurt. Watching Inda try to comfort the sobbing Pilvig, and poor Mutt, hunched into a knotted ball of grief as he summoned together the remains of the fleet, lit a bonfire for their dead—a bonfire that glowed to life from ship to ship, all except the Chwahir.

Finally, as the tide shifted, the remaining Chwahir ships drew together, diminished crews already busy repairing the terrible damage, as they risked the Narrows to sail back to their homeland. Jeje’s eyes stung when she remembered her last glimpse of Thog and Uslar at the stern of the flagship, standing there so still.

“Did you see the battle?”

The crowd had reached them without either realizing it. Jeje’s neck twinged as she straightened up, eyes blurry and body aching with exhaustion.

“What happened? Who won, the red sails?”

Iascan! After all this time, to hear Iascan again spoken by someone besides themselves! Barend and Jeje turned to each other for clues, each overwhelmed with emotional reaction as the crowd closed the distance, their faces curious, intent, wary—but not threatening.

“We won.” Jeje’s voice cracked. “Red sails lost.”

“Elgar the Fox, it was Elgar the Fox?” someone cried.

“Yes—”

“Did he duel Marshig?”

“What happened?”

“How many did ye sink?”

“Did the red sails get any of you?”

Pressed on all sides, she began to talk about the battle, warming to the subject when she saw the eagerness, the delight, even admiration in the surrounding torchlit eyes. Admiration! From Iascans! She permitted herself to be swept along, her tired body briefly refreshed by the tide of goodwill. Viac and Mutt stayed behind, each too exhausted, too grief-stricken even for bragging—or eating. All they craved was the oblivion of sleep.

The Parayid Harbor folk took Jeje to one of the few standing inns, plying her with food and drink as the growing crowd competed against each other demanding battle details and trying to impress upon her how terrible it had been there. Burnings, stealing, no trade, sudden attacks, and the Marlovan king’s men always at least a week away—evil Marlovans—no, at least they did send warriors as promised, but just to the harbors, angering the fisher folk along the shores—“Is Elgar the Fox really a Marlovan?”

She vaguely noticed Barend stiffening at the sight of a tall man on the periphery, an ordinary man with short, pale hair and tradesman clothing.

Jeje shrugged them away. She was trying to explain that Elgar the Fox was
not
a real pirate—though, yes, a Marlovan—when Barend drifted back a step or two out of her sight, then wove through the crowd to confront his cousin’s man. “Vedrid. Why are you here, and dressed civ? If the Sierlaef sent you—”

Vedrid looked both ways, then said in Marlovan, “I am Evred-Varlaef’s man now. And I came south in a fishing smack when I heard of the impending battle. You were there?”

Astonishment silenced Barend. He opened his hand. Vedrid paused, uncertain. Then: “Is Indevan-Laef with you?” He indicated the sea.

“His brother is dead and he is now the heir.”

“Oh.” Barend did not know what to make of that, so he just went on. “Yes. That is, he’s with the fleet, trying to— well, never mind that. Why?” Barend’s voice hardened with threat.

“Because Evred-Varlaef sent me to locate him,” Vedrid said. “It is his command that I find him. Take him to Evred-Varlaef, who will himself bring him back to the king.”

“Inda is on his way north,” Barend said in a low voice. “You can’t possibly catch him—no one around here will dare set sail, not after what happened. What we saw. Inda is going north to Lindeth Harbor to refit, and then back out to sea.”

Vedrid hesitated. When last he’d seen Barend Montrei-Vayir, he’d been a skinny little rat of a boy watching the summer academy games from the castle windows and covering expensive paper with drawings of horses. Now he was tall, thin, and hard as a beech, his bony triangular face scarred above one eye and along his jaw, his hair tied in a sailor’s queue. He wore pirate gold at his ear—a bloodred ruby dangling from it—and his clothing under his open coat was covered by the loose, embroidered, and exotic long vest of the east, only he bore at least as many weapons as a warrior of the plains riding to battle. “Do you go northeast?” Vedrid asked.

“Yes. But not to the royal city. I ride on a matter of honor to Tenthen, castle of the Algara-Vayirs,” Barend said formally, and Vedrid saw starlight flicker in an emerald on Barend’s gloved left hand: a silver signet ring. A prince’s ring.