The Fox (63 page)

Tau drifted up next to her, the swinging lamplight hiding, revealing, hiding his amusement. “Why the frown? You think the Fisher boys have sneaked off with the
Vixen
?”

She looked at his face, and knew he was aware of the real reason for her gloom. And because he would share her exile, she continued the joke. “Well, either that or they’ve been arrested, and I’ll have to go rescue them,” she grumped. “
And
get my—the
Vixen
back.”

Tau laughed softly at the fumble. She felt heat in her cheeks, thought of the long separation ahead, and sighed.

Tau said only, “Here come the Guild Fleet people.”

They had been standing out of the rain, which slanted across the deck so hard the droplets splashed back up again, brief golden flickers in the reflected lamplight.

“Barge ho!” the lookout yelled.

Fox and Inda met on the gangway above Tau and Jeje, both rain-sodden. “Be prepared to slip the cable and sail on the ebb,” Inda said in a low voice.

“Everything’s laid along,” Fox responded, unsmiling. “I take it the three mids are mastheaded for the duration?”

“Till sunset,” Inda said.

“You don’t want me to thrash them?”

Inda grimaced in disgust. “Save that for the enemy. If it doesn’t work to masthead ’em—” He waggled a hand. “Extra work will steady ’em down.”

“A thrashing would be faster,” Fox retorted, but Inda had already turned away, the matter forgotten.

The ship gave a slight lurch at the thump of the barge on the lee side. Inda and Fox fell silent as the arrivals hooked on. No one else spoke as the visitors climbed up.

Inda raised his glass. No
Vixen
following the barge.

The first one up was Perran, the Cooperage Guild Mistress for Bren. Tall, attractively stout, with a pair of intelligent, handsome gray eyes, she was at thirty newly come to her position as head of all those who made the barrels, boxes, and trunks with which ships were fitted. The Coopers were one of the five guilds banded together to form this fleet.

She had insisted on going first, though once she was on the deck of what everyone claimed was a pirate ship, her attitude was wary, even defensive as she studied the pirates for their leader Elgar the Fox.

Her gaze passed the shorter one with the old clothes and the unruly brown hair and stopped on the tall, black-clad one leaning negligently against the rail. That one had to be the captain. She felt her throat constrict as she stared at that hard, sardonic expression, its blade-sharp bones dramatized by the sharp yellow light of a swinging lantern. She clasped her hands tightly together.

Guild Fleet Master Chim stumped forward, squinted up into Fox’s face, and said in heavily accented Dock Talk, “Ye could’ve saved me bad leg an’ come ashore.”

Perran gasped. Such direct speech never happened in meetings between the Guild and the city, where delicacy and the appearance of compromise were vital. But Chim was an actual sailor, a retired captain.

She endured another pang of shock when the formidable captain stepped back, making an ironic gesture toward the short, scruffy one standing next to him that she’d dismissed before. Now she studied him. He was her height, scarred face, broad chest and shoulders, sodden deck trousers, bare feet, a rough old shirt with no laces that looked like this rain was the only washing it was likely to get.

This young man in his turn assessed her from unexpectedly mild-looking wide-set brown eyes. Then he turned his gaze onto Chim as he said in old-fashioned court Sartoran, “And be arrested and dragged off to the local dungeon?”

Chim cackled, shooting a triumphant look at Perran, who had believed that someone with a reputation half as formidable as Elgar the Fox’s would never deign to acknowledge inconsequential impediments such as laws.

Chim then rubbed his jaw. This short, scruffy one, despite the reports, appeared to be Elgar the Fox—either that or the pirates were running a little ruse of their own. He knew how to test it.

He said, “I thought as much. No, no. Well, maybe the king woulda pretended to arrest ye, but the prince wouldn’t have none o’ it. Not the hero sank the Brotherhood. Now, that brings us, so to speak, to ye. We know ye as Elgar the Fox, but d’ye be this young lord out o’ the west, what was it, Indovin Ala-Grubber?”

Inda said in a hard voice that his crew usually only heard when they were in action, “That was my name at birth. Elgar will do for now.”

Chim had guessed right and all the rumors about a mysterious red-haired leader were wrong. Interesting. “And I, me boy, am Guild Fleet Master Chim. Fleet Master though we never actually did put out a fleet, thanks be t’ ye.” He chuckled, noticed no one else laughing, which made him chuckle the more. “Well, well. I brought this here paper.” And from his tunic Chim pulled a flattened scroll, which he held out. “She paid for a sved and all.” When Inda took it, he touched the seal that glittered faintly with magic.

Inda ducked under the binnacle housing to ward the rain and examined the paper, which was written in both badly copied Iascan and the Brennish script, with a Sartoran abstract below. Ryala Pim had rescinded her charges of piracy, the date the year before.

The year
before
. So why hadn’t they told him that when he was getting his supplies last winter in Lindeth Harbor?

Because it didn’t matter to them. He was a Marlovan pirate, to be gotten rid of as fast as possible.

Fleet Master Chim added, “City nosers in the guilds voted to keep yer boys off the scout hostage, but they’ll be freed in a trice soon’s we step safe back ashore.”

Inda handed back the paper. “Whatever we decide, you’re safe enough with me, as I promised in the message they brought you yesterday.”

Guild Mistress Perran felt words forming about the validity of pirate promises, but (though they had been spoken at length and in heat all the previous night) she now kept her lips closed.

“Come into my cabin, where it’s at least dry,” Inda said, and they followed him, the Fleet Master looking around with open appreciation, the Guild Mistress not hiding her fearful expectation of seeing bloody weapons or other hideous sights. Her gaze caught, and lingered, on that tall, striking redhead who lounged with casual menace just off the companionway.

He smiled slightly. She flicked her gaze away then back again, and counted at least four knife hilts in plain view. She wondered if he really was the pirate captain pretending for some reason not to be, then forced herself to turn her back.

She heard soft laughter behind her.

The cabin was low, clean, almost barren of furniture.

They sat at the table, clothes squelching. On it rested a splendid chart of the strait. Elgar did not seem to mind everyone dripping onto his clean deck, but no one leaned over the elegantly detailed chart—they had too much respect for such beautiful work.

Chim thumped his hands onto his thighs with a liquid smack. “Will ye be usin’ your name again?”

Inda flipped his hand over, palm down. “I’m Inda Elgar.”

Chim grunted with approval, then said in Sartoran, which was easier understood than his Dock Talk, “As well. None of us said aught to anyone in the city about that.” Pointing to the paper. “Fleet business. Handled strictly by Mistress Perran here. Nobody but the two of us and one clerk, she being even more close-mouthed, know. We don’t want that damned Prince Rajnir siccing Durasnir onto us.”

“Hyarl Durasnir, Commander of the Oneli,” Inda repeated, remembering Ramis’ words about the three Venn most dangerous to him. Now to test Ramis’ words a little. “Didn’t Durasnir lose a big battle at the east end of the strait almost ten years ago?”

“In oh three, yes. But Durasnir wasn’t in command, him being away north. Came in at the end, too late to clean ’em all up. Word is, he kept young Rajnir—who was a boy at the time—from total annihilation, though that might be rumor. But we do know this much—Rajnir lost the battle himself.”

“Ah.”

Chim made a spitting motion toward the north. “Then he contacted the pirates.” He switched to Dock Talk, addressing them all. “They’ll come after ye if they sniff out ye bein’ Iascan. Embargo’s tight. More tight, after what ye did to their red sail bully boys out west. They demanded we disband the fleet. We’s arguin’ that, on account of the fact that not all the pirates been there. Whichever way they decide, the facts is, the western sea’s full of Venn now, we hear. We know the strait is—we saw Durasnir’s big fleet runnin’ west right before the summer winds came.”

Inda thought,
Just as Ramis said: coming for me.

Perran turned her attention to Elgar the Fox and saw a smile brief and frightening. For the first time, she believed he was who he said he was.

He said, “The Venn are in the strait because they’re looking for me.”

“Yes.” Chim nodded vigorously. “Reports from the west are he’s comin’ back down the strait. Maybe a month behind ye. Maybe faster.” He bobbed. “Always expect ’em to be faster than ye’d think. Another reason I hope yez setting sail soon’s we finish talking.”

Inda turned his palm up, a peculiar gesture Chim could not read. “That’s my plan.”

“Good. Officially, see, the king’s throwing ye out of the harbor on account of yez bein’ a pirate. But not clapping ye in irons on account of ye defeatin’ the Brotherhood, long’s ye don’t set toe on land. But official, d’ye see, ye cannot land in Bren. All them Venn spies out there with their glasses trained on us now just got to report seein’ ye go, soon’s our barge unhooks.”

Chim paused, saw Inda open his hand again, his expression unsurprised. Relieved at how reasonable this young pirate was, he leaned forward, elbows on the edge of the table, chin up to keep his dripping hair away from the chart. “So, to yez plans. Goin’ pirate again, or against the Venn?”

Inda’s smile sharpened at the corners—resembling that of the black-clad young man lounging just within view. “I want to clear the strait for free trade.”

Chim cackled, slapping his knee. “Don’t I know solid gold when I sniffs it!”

Jeje and Tau exchanged looks, Jeje wondering how you could sniff gold, but she didn’t speak. She liked this Chim more by the moment, and felt a corresponding easing of the pain bound tightly around her heart at the prospect of what was coming next.

Chim said, “As to our fleet. We’ve ships promised us. Many good ships. Spoken out loud as promised for a fight against pirates, but in secret, d’ye see, for rising against the Venn. What we don’t have is a leader. Some want t’ be boss. But none of ’em know fighting, not well enough. I don’t, and I beat off pirates four times during me years takin’ goods down to Sartor and around.” He squinted at Inda as the lamps swung back and forth. “Yez kinda young, yes?”

“I started early.”

Fleet Master Chim gave a bark of amusement. Mistress Perran jumped.

Tau lifted his brows. She obviously believed the rumors— and would pass them on unless Inda convinced her they were not bloodthirsty pirates.

“Yes, ye did, if half the stories be true,” Chim said. “Now, here’s what. We lost seventeen ships last year. Seventeen! In me young days, we didn’t lost seven in as many years. Seventeen, ten to the Brotherhood, but yez took care o’ that. The rest vanished, and we think it’s been the Venn. And here’s why we’s getting volunteer ships. One at a time, but getting ’em! That damn Prince Rajnir keeps upping the tolls, and worse, far worse, there’s rumors east and west that he’s formin’ up for a second try.”

Inda leaned forward, his gaze steady. “A second try at taking land? If so, where?”

Fleet Master Chim raised his hands. “Ye know rumors. About as shaped as water. Some say he’s goin’ after Chwahirsland, bein’ so close to the eastern thumb o’ the strait. And some say no, he wants land in the west.”

“Like in Iasca Leror?” Inda’s eyes narrowed.

Chim flapped a hand. “Some say that, some say here, others say north. What we do know is he’s been taking ships into his fleet, mostly up around Ymar and Everon, above where the Chwahir thumped him hard in oh three.”

“Hearing, you keep saying. Do you have any who have been along the coast themselves?”

“No.” Chim shrugged. “No one wants to land. They have ways of knowin’ ye, everyone keeps sayin’. Maybe on account of them cursed sea dags, though our contact in the Mage Guild says no. Anyway.” He bent forward. “D’ye think we can clear the strait of ’em, and if so, how many ships ye need?”

“At the moment I don’t need ships as much as I need information. I must be the one to get it. I’ve got to watch them, find out how many, learn how they move, how they attack. And if he’s training warriors, where and how many.”

The Fleet Master shook his head. “So said Berda Lham last year, fast privateer out o’ the eastern islands—and she been the first to vanish.”

Inda waved a hand. “Which is why I don’t ask any of your people to do that. I’m seeing to it myself. What I need from you are the best charts of the other side of the strait that you can get. Look here.” He pointed down at his chart. “We have every inlet on the south side, every river, most shoals and reefs, with all the notes on what birds fly where, what color the water is, and so forth. But the notes on the north side are sparse.”

The contrast matched their own charts: the north side largely unknown along the crucial harbors, where the Venn forbade any but their own ships to anchor.

“We’ll be doing some of our own charting as we cruise, but anything you have that can help would be most welcome. ”

Chim thought of privateers, smugglers, and independents. He still had some contacts among the older ones. “How long ye need?”

“I don’t know. Let’s say we meet here in a year, and meanwhile you raise the biggest fleet you can.”

Chim smacked the table again. “That I can do, like I told ye. We’ll get a rumor goin’ o’ the guilds building a trade fleet, one that can withstand pirates. So when word gets out, what the Venn hear is ‘trade.’ If ye hear different, I need to know.”