The Fox (62 page)

Three people grieved in secret.

Cama and Joret on opposite sides of the throne room avoided so much as a glance at the other though they could feel each other’s presence as a fire more intense than summer heat. But they had promised, and each knew that to come together again would make the parting just that much worse.

The third was Barend, bracing himself against the heat, the rhythmic shouting. He forced a grin, trying to kindle joy in his heart for Evred and Hadand, who had been dear to him since their shared childhood in the schoolroom upstairs. But the joy would not come, though they looked so happy. Nor could he admit it, not when he stood at Evred’s left as Harskialdna, Royal Shield Arm, the position most coveted in the land besides kingship. He knew Evred meant it as an honor, and he knew that Cama and Hawkeye and all the others would strive to help him to learn what he needed to learn, but the truth was that he would never learn it. Nor did he want to.

While Evred and Cama and his friends were boys at the academy learning the land warfare he was now supposed to command, he had already been long at sea, and that was where his heart lay. Not in this hot, stuffy castle, smelling of sweat and stone and the pungent, sun-dried grass of the plains. He longed to pace the deck of a fast ship, out in the free winds and the ever-changing ocean, a longing so unbearable he could not fight it as the sound of the drums that accompanied the Jarls out of the throne room thundered in his teeth and bones. Inside his ringing skull his mind rode the wind, seeking the rake-masted trysail
Death
that had to be sailing, sailing, somewhere in the world, and on its deck Inda and Fox, Jeje guiding the
Vixen,
Dasta’s
Cocodu
within hail . . . oh, how he wished he were there!

Chapter Nine

"DAMNATION!” Inda smacked the taffrail. A summer storm had tumbled up the river valley bisecting Bren, throwing about spectacular lightning and thunder. Just as the fleet entered Bren’s harbor the rain sheeted down with the density of a poured pitcher, warm as the humid air. This coincided with the sliding of
Death
past Bren Harbor’s inner island, making it even more difficult for the lookouts to see if the Venn, or pirates, or anybody, lay in wait to attack.

But that is not why Inda cursed. Fox was in charge of the defense, if defense was needed.

Inda dropped from the companionway into the waist and glared at the three youngsters before him. All three gangling, unprepossessing, beginning to grow out of the roundness of childhood.

Mutt surreptitiously flipped up the back of his hand at the other two, the girl hired at Pirate Island, the boy at Ghost Island. “What’s the problem here?” Inda asked. “No. Let’s be specific. Which one of you little walking turds greased that rope?”

The looks back and forth, furtive, feet shuffling on the wet deck, reminded Inda so forcibly of his scrub days the urge to laugh was almost overpowering.

But he couldn’t laugh. So he did his best to look stern. “Never mind. No one wants to squeak. I can understand that. But you have to understand this. The Venn might be lying in wait somewhere nearby, out of sight.”

Mutt sent a look at the others. “So? Then we smash ’em.”

“With ropes greased?”

“Storm’d loosen it,” Pilvig said—then clapped a hand over her mouth.

“I see. So you planned it carefully, then,” Inda said to the red-faced girl. She was quick and clever, round-faced, dark-haired—she was half Chwahir. Had been Nugget’s hire, and her best friend. “A storm is coming—you grease the rope with leddas oil, Mutt comes off watch, falls to the deck, everyone laughs—and the water cleans the rope.”

Pilvig’s eyes rounded, making it clear she thought Inda was a mind reader.

Again the impulse to laugh.

Jug, the new boy (whose ears made the nickname obvious and inevitable) jerked a thumb at Mutt. “He struts. Just ’cause he was on Walic’s ship.”

“I do not!” Mutt retorted. “
You
strut, with your stupid uncle bein’ a mage, as if we believed any of those stories—”

Pilvig’s higher voice cut through the boys’. “You think you’re so sharp a blade, with your uncle and your ghosts on Ghost Island. Nobody sees ghosts. And you can’t take the place of
anyone
.” She blinked rapidly, flushing.

Still grieving for Nugget, that much was clear. He remembered how long he’d grieved for Dogpiss, but he had to either bridle them or lose them. “Peppered spud-gruff. Itch weed in the hammocks. Missing trousers. What else has made the trip from Ghost Island memorable?”

Three pairs of eyes found the deck full of hidden meaning.

Inda sighed. “Orders. Every sting is going to net you a full day as lookouts. All three of you. Starting now. One on each mast. You can come down when the sun sets.”

“But—” Mutt began.

Inda waited, doing his best to emulate Master Gand’s expression from his scrub days. Mutt decided that pointing out dawn was half a watch away was not a good idea after all.

"Get.”

They scrambled out and by the time Inda reached the deck, none of the three were visible. As Inda finished a circuit of the deck the rain lifted momentarily.

“Barge away from the dock,” came the lookout’s voice from above.

Mutt leaned out, his sailor’s queue sending drops down into Inda’s face, and added, “Someone thinks he’s a king.”

“Your lookout duty,” Inda informed the three mastheads in a carrying voice, “includes silence. Except for sightings.”

Cackles and hoots sounded around the ship as the rain started again, hissing against the sails as they rode the last way into the estuary on the height of the tidal flood.

When the lookout reported the barge clear of the ships anchored in the harbor, Inda picked up the glass from the binnacle and snapped it out. The Guild Fleet barge leaped into existence, silhouetted against the rain-dimmed glow of harbor lights, lamps swinging from its grand canopy. Oars rose and fell, all manned by burly fellows who were probably warriors in guild colors.

Inda lowered the glass. The rain was heavy but warm, but his crew waited in expectation; he knew—could almost feel—the spyglasses trained on them from just about every capital ship in the harbor, and probably most of the traders as well.

“Flash,” Inda said.

Fibi the Delf, the new hire who had already been promoted to captain of the tops, took over in her unlovely crow squawk. “Halyards! Downhaul! Sheets!”

Inda glanced up at the wizened, bandy-legged Delf. Fibi stood on a boom watching the hands at the sails.

Since the day Fibi had come aboard talking of his plan, which had apparently been debated in family councils on the Delfin Islands—a plan hardly a day old, and spoken of only to his captains—Inda had been thinking about the nature of news. He’d come to the unsurprising conclusion that news spreads the faster when it affects you. He hadn’t heard anything at all about home for a couple of years because whatever happened in Iasca Leror held no interest for anyone else. It was as if the Venn blockade had made the entire kingdom vanish from current time, if not from the physical world.

Thuddud!
With a whooshing whump the sails flashed, all at once.

A royal yacht couldn’t have done better, and his crew knew it, for they’d drilled often enough, first under Walic’s cruel first mate, then under Barend, and now under Fibi. Flashing sails during action meant tight maneuvering, and you could manage it if you had enough crew to fight and sail. Inda’s proprieties had been shaped by the scrupulous first mate of a trader, so he rarely gave in to his crew’s taste for flamboyant approaches outside of battle. Today was an exception: flashing sails was also a demonstration of power, of control, even a threat.

Approving looks came Inda’s way for this indulgence. None of them but Tau guessed that he was apprehensive at his first encounter with mainland officialdom, an apprehension the more severe since he’d sent
Vixen
in ahead with a message to warn the Guild Fleet of their arrival. He did not know if that had been a bad decision.

Fox stood on the bowsprit, oblivious to the rain, one elbow casually crooked around a taut stay, his glass sweeping the low hills constantly for any sign of danger whenever there was a brief lull in the rain. Bren was built at the mouth of the Ban, a broad flat river that flowed northward onto the many little islands reaching into the strait. Fox knew the hills could be hiding full wings of warriors waiting to attack—but not before the trysail could escape, once the tide began to ebb. Nothing he’d seen in the water was faster than his ships.

He swept his glass around again, knowing he wanted treachery to be awaiting them: threats, even an attack. Anything that would drive them back into freedom so they were not trapped in this meaningless obligation. But there was no sign of treachery. Not when you needed it.
Can
treachery ever be convenient? Or was that expedient? He laughed softly to himself, and blinked rain from his lashes before looking into the glass again.

At the same moment, far to the west, Hadand walked beside Evred up to the newly furbished royal suites, directly across from one another now. The new door to the queen’s rooms had been hinged and set during the previous watch. It smelled of the fresh coat of linseed oil and rosin varnish the carpenters had put over it to protect the old carved wood.

They stopped in the hallway.

Evred said, “I think it went well enough, don’t you?” He reached for her hands, kissing each on the palm.

“Neither of us dropped a sword,” she said, trying to match his light tone. “And no one tripped, fainted, or challenged anyone to a duel. I would call that a success.”

He gave a soft, appreciative laugh, then said, “Get good rest. You’ve earned it.” He opened his door, the light within reflecting in his eyes, on his smile, then the door closed behind him and the light was gone.

She unlatched her door and stood on the threshold looking in. There were her familiar furnishings, trying bravely to fill too large a space. She could hear female voices: Tesar supervising something in the far room.

From behind, in the king’s rooms, came the rumble of male talk, punctuated by laughter. Oh, nothing intimate. If she listened hard she could pick out individual voices: Cherry-Stripe, Noddy, Tuft Sindan-An, Rattooth Cassad, and Barend. His cousin Hawkeye, here as the new Jarl of Yvana-Vayir. All the voices of Evred’s inner circle, joining him for a private celebration. No doubt planned long ago.

She turned away at last, and discovered her mother waiting patiently and alone in the archway leading to the bed chamber. Impossible to hide her tears from her mother.

Fareas-Iofre held out her arms, and Hadand walked into them. A hard squeeze, and then Fareas-Iofre softly shut the door on the laboring servants, and held Hadand by the shoulders. “How long have you been yearning after him, my darling child?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think since he turned sixteen.” Hadand sniffed.

“Does he have a favorite?”

“No. It’s all friends in there. But one day he’ll find one, and maybe he’ll even fall in love, and it’s too much to hope he’ll be a Jened Sindan.”

“He,” Fareas said, and sighed.

“Right.” Hadand sniffed, wiping her eyes on her crimson velvet sleeve. “No hope for me. Meanwhile I have to worry that if he does find someone, and it’s for life like the rest of his family, it will be a—a Branid.”

Fareas chuckled. “Do you think Evred so blind, then?”

“No. But love is blind. And cruel.”

“So speaks the wisdom of old age,” her mother teased, and hugged her again.

“Oh, Mama.”

“Love is also sensible, if you let it be. A love that is not returned does not flourish.”

Hadand wiped her eyes. “So what do I do until then?”

Fareas smiled. “You find another kind of love.”

“You told me on my last visit home to never form a bond with the pleasure house men, and so I’ve been scrupulous about never seeing one longer than a month or so.”

Fareas opened her hands. “It’s good advice if one also has a relationship with one’s husband. But if there will not be one—as I didn’t have one—if you find yourself cleaving to someone, as long as he has no ambition to interfere with your duty, keep him.”

“You have one, then?”

They hadn’t seen one another since Hadand was fifteen, and their last conversation had encompassed the dangers of lovers, sex, and duty. But because Hadand had not reached the age of interest, her mother had said little about her own private life; Hadand only knew that once or twice a week her mother had gone with some of the women to the pleasure house in the nearest town.

Fareas said, “I had one. I always visited him, he never came to the castle. It was a good relationship for nearly fifteen years. He retired to marry the spring before last.” She stroked her daughter’s hot forehead, and brushed a tear off her lashes. “So find a favorite, if you can, with whom you share laughter and affection. You and Evred will have children eventually, and that will bring another love, one both vast and deep.”

Hadand wiped her eyes against her mother’s breast and gave a watery chuckle. “Sensible advice. I wish it wasn’t so hard to be sensible!”

“It will be easier come morning,” the princess promised. “When you begin your travels to a new kingdom and the discoveries that await you there.” And mentally she saluted Wisthia for long vision indeed.

Oars rose and fell, bringing the Guild closer with every stroke. On board the
Death
Jeje stood in the waist, looking up at Inda on the captain’s deck. She knew it made sense for him to keep Kodl’s original crewmates safely aboard, in case the warrants the Pims had issued all over the continent against him had additions of their names as well, but she’d hated to see
Vixen
shoot ahead the day before.

She knew the Fisher brothers were competent to command it. But somehow it had, even if only in her own mind, become
her
scout.