The Fox (69 page)

Rajnir pointed down below. “See the game those children play? We’ve been watching them. I cannot comprehend what the rules are. Wafri says they change little from generation to generation. Is that not astonishing?”

Rajnir beckoned, and Durasnir joined them at the window, which was warm from the morning sun. He gazed down onto one of the broader terraces, where a scattering of Ymaran children played a game involving ropes being swung in circling arcs. Children ran and jumped back and forth through the arcs, tossing wooden balls to one another through the ropes in complicated patterns. Their mouths opened and closed in unison, suggesting a chant, as around them Venn children watched from one side and a few Ymarans from the other.

“Their children do not mix with ours,” Rajnir observed.

“They will,” Wafri promised.

Rajnir rounded again, his gilt-edged tunic skirts swinging. “I won’t declare myself king of Ymar.”

It was an old argument. To Rajnir kingship was meaningful only in one place: the Land of the Venn.

Wafri bowed, hands spread, palms up in the Venn style. He gave his quick, characteristically cheery smile. “I should take my leave,” he said. “Will not my search be more efficient if I am seen supervising?”

He almost always phrased his opinions as questions. Durasnir had noted this the few times he’d been in Wafri’s presence.

“Ah! Yes, yes, yes,” Rajnir replied, shooing with his hands. “Go. Find him. If you find him, I’ll make you a, what, a duke?”

Wafri’s lips parted. He gave a happy chuckle, then said, “We counts always held that we were as good as dukes. Our titles are oldest, not borrowed. Most meaning.” He chuckled again.

“But meaning changes,” Rajnir said, smiling.

"Well spoken, O Prince!” Wafri bowed. “We no longer count everything, though
counting is knowing what you have
, as it says in Old Sartoran over our arms. The wise old sayings are ever true.”

“Go count every stranger who landed on our coast,” Rajnir said, making his quick motions again. “See if the medallions were worth the expense.”

Wafri bowed elaborately, and, still chuckling, moved onto the gold and white tiles of the transfer square. A flick, a puff of air, and he was gone.

Rajnir smiled at Durasnir. “I know you think Wafri only plays about, but he’s educated. And smart. He is never boring, and oh, I do get so bored, sometimes, waiting to go home.” Rajnir paced to the wall and back to the window. “Waiting for Hyarl my Commander Talkar of the Hilda to say the army is ready. Waiting for the Dag Erkric to say his magical mysteries are ready. You are the only one who does not tell me to wait for what amounts to personal reasons. ”

“You know what I think, my prince. It is for the king to decide when and where we move next.”

Rajnir raised a hand. “I know. And I know that you are in some ways right. But since my goal is the same as the king’s, is it not right that I choose the time, the place, the means? Is that not the action of a king?”

Durasnir hesitated. The answer was obvious, but the consequences so fraught. So he sidestepped. “If Count Wafri does find someone he suspects is Elgar the Fox, I wish to be there when he is questioned.”

Rajnir hesitated, then turned to the window again, a restless, jerky movement. “Erkric thinks each is most effective when wholly bent on his task.”

Durasnir hid his flare of anger. “I appreciate your Dag’s insight,” he said. “His observation matches mine. But perhaps he has not considered my orders from the king.”

Rajnir gripped the windowsill, his back tense. “I hate it when you two disagree. Hate it!” When he turned around, he was anxious again. “And I always come back to this: I am disinherited. The Dag keeps telling me it’s a test. You think it is a test?”

“I never thought it a test,” Durasnir reminded him. “That does not mean you cannot win back the regard he once gave you, the regard of a father toward a chosen son.”

Rajnir’s eyes, pale blue as a dawn sky, flickered at the word
son
. Then widened, and for a moment his face spasmed in bewilderment, even fear. And cleared. “Yes, yes.” He breathed. “Yes, the Dag also says that. And so you do agree. Do you?”

They’d had this same exact conversation a year ago. Durasnir said, “The king has not written to me directly. You must remember, you went to war against his orders.”

“Ten years,” the prince whispered on an exhaled sigh. “A mistake ten years ago, or very near! Vatta—your own son—and the others all agreed it would be fun to surprise you with a win against the Chwahir. Even Wafri wanted to go because he’d never seen a battle, wanted to see Venn might in action. But we were sixteen!” Rajnir shook his head. “No, no, we’ve been in this place too many times. It is my disgrace to remove, my decision. So it shall be.”

And Durasnir had to respond, “So it shall be.”

He had one thought now. “My prince. You will contact me if it transpires Elgar is found here?”

Rajnir’s expression altered and Durasnir saw the old habit of trust, almost of relief. “You’ll know what to do,” he said. “Yes. Yes.”

Durasnir let his breath out only when he reached the stairs and began the long trip down.

Inda’s schooner joined the others at the long, floating dock whose smell indicated it was for fish selling and unloading. While the locals and Fibi were busy, Inda quietly and unobtrusively slipped away in the small boat, soon to be lost in the boat traffic around the main wharf.

While the locals counted out their earnings, Fibi stretched, then paused when she discovered Fox standing at her side. “It’s all reasonable, his plan,” she said.

“Reasonable,” Fox repeated with slow derision. “That’s why I hate it.” Unsmiling, he vaulted over the rail into his boat and rowed to the
Rippler,
which was soon unloaded, and sailed away.

Chapter Thirteen

BY the time Inda reached the end of the dock he’d intercepted some strange looks.

When he reached the broad brick-tiled quay the looks followed a pattern: a glance at his chest, and then his face. Their expressions puzzled, wary, or even suspicious.

He scrutinized the front of his shirt. Nothing amiss.

On the other side of the quay stretched a long row of market stalls, some tents, others fold-up stands. He headed to a hitching post with a half-barrel trough between a couple of tented fruit stands. Four horses were tethered at the post.

The smell of horse made him homesick, but for once he did not get lost in memory. His sense of danger was far too heightened. When one of the horses lifted his head and snorted, Inda gentled him, letting him sniff all over him as he peered over the animal’s broad back—

Necklaces. They wore round silver medals on chains. Everyone, down to children of maybe ten or twelve. It could be a fashion, but he didn’t think so. There was no art to those plain chains, the hammered discs, only utility.

There were the Venn guards, dressed the same way the Venn marines had been when they boarded the
Ryala Pim
on Inda’s second cruise: heavy V-fronted, slit-sided tunics, as long as the Marlovans’ coats but not open in the front, belted instead of sashed, with long, straight swords in sheaths at their sides attached to baldrics. They wore helms and high boots, but not with the high heels made for standing in stirrups; Inda risked another glance, wondering if the Venn were mostly foot warriors, not mounted.

They were big, most of them fair-haired, vigilant as they walked down the street, eyes busy everywhere.

Inda turned his back as they drew abreast of him, and bent down, easing the horse’s foreleg so he’d shift his weight and lift his foot. Inda inspected his shoe and used his finger to clean around the frog of the animal’s foot as the footsteps passed up the street.

He took his time, then moved to the other foot, in order to give the warriors time to—

“What are you doing?”

It was a woman’s voice, brisk, wary.

And she spoke in Fer Sartoran—“New” Sartoran. Inda had heard Ymar’s language called that, and relief flooded through him. It was recognizable Sartoran, only . . . flatter.

He indicated the horse’s forefoot. “Standing funny, he was.” He strove to match her accent, but he knew he sounded foreign. He wished he could do accents like Tau. “I work with horses.”

She shrugged, hefting her basket. “He is newly shod. But if there is something wrong, I do thank you. I will have it seen to.”

Inda bobbed his head the way he’d seen a couple of the sellers on the dock do. Then he backed away, hunching slightly to close the gap in his shirt.

The woman mounted and he forced himself not to look after her. He had to get one of those necklaces.

Why hadn’t anyone known about them? He remembered Chim’s words about no one landing this side of the strait. But surely not every fishing smack, every boat—

Worthless questions. He had to hide his front until he could get one.

The market stalls sold a wide variety of things. Farther down were at least four rug makers, and he remembered being told Venn sat on platforms before low tables. Good. Something everyday—and big. He’d buy a rug.

He yanked at his vest to pull the front of his shirt together, tightened his rope-sash, then ambled to the first rug stall. The proprietor looked surly; the next one was tended by a girl. He’d separated from the treasure some northern coinage; now he brought it out of his pocket, frowned as if choosing between two rugs, and then pointed to one. “That’ll do.”

The girl named a figure. Inda held out his coins, and she lifted her brows in surprise, then said, looking at him with more interest, “You have lots of money, I see.”

Then he remembered being in a similar market in Sartor when he was twelve, and how you were expected to negotiate prices. That was not the case in Freeport, or anywhere he had been dealing.

So he grinned. “Not mine. I was ordered to buy it. By the steward,” he added, when she seemed to be waiting. The word came to mind from his long-ago days at Tenthen Castle. He could pretend to be Fiam, or have a similar job, but did he remember all the household terms in Sartoran?

“Your master must be rich,” she said, grinning. “Here. Take this one. It has a far better nap. Real worth closer to the price, and near the same color. Better, it has the Water Spell on it.”

“Water Spell?”

“For your ship?” she said, her voice now slow and kind: she’d figured him out; he was stupid.

Well, he’d been stupid before. Of course she’d peg him as a sailor—his queue and earrings. So much for the castle steward!

“Thank you,” Inda said, setting the coins on the counter as he felt the rug. He had no idea the worth of the coins there.

The girl took what she needed. Inda pocketed the remainder, then rolled the rug and hefted it over his shoulder so it draped in front of him, and with a smile that the girl returned, he walked down the quay, staying behind a clump of sailors as he neared the modest building with the ubiquitous white flag that marked it out as the harbormaster’s.

He slowed at the sight of a long line leading down from one side. The people in the line, mostly men, of all ages, looked uniformly scruffy.

He walked parallel to the line until he reached the end, where there was a boy about Mutt’s age.

“Which line is this?” he asked in Dock Talk.

The boy looked up glumly. “Identification.” His hand gestured toward his neck. “And we have to pay for it! Talk about thieves! But they put you into prison if you don’t have one.” He frowned at Inda’s rug, then said, “What, did you get swamped by the storm too?”

So they were refugees from the big storm, blown north—exactly as Inda had expected! He got in line behind the boy, figuring he had plenty of time to fabricate a good story. Yes, this was going to work out after all, he thought.

“Here, who wants a roller?”

The boy called, “What’s that?”

Someone farther up the line called back in Khanerenth-accented Dock Talk, “Round-breads, spiced cheese with tomato bits. Grilled fish extra.”

Hands went up, people offering a mixture of coins. Inda paid—saw the boy looking wistful, and without asking ordered two, then got back in the slowly shuffling line.

They’d passed inside the gates when, without warning, the twenty or so people who’d gotten into line behind Inda were shoved violently forward, a protest turning into shouting and shoving.

The ring of steel blades being pulled from sheaths ended the shouts. The mail-coated men who entered, shields up, swords out, were not Venn. They were mostly shorter than the Venn, mostly dark-haired, wearing yellow surcoats. On their chests was emblazoned a stylized clover leaf in intersecting circles.

“Against the wall!” the first one shouted, and when everyone in line looked bewildered, he started using the flat of his blade to whack people on arms and heads.

The line merged—some trying to hold their places—into a mass against the inside fence as the newcomers spread out, watching everywhere. Inda let his rug slide to the ground as the boy in front of him kept saying over and over, “Who are they? What’s happening?”

Inda stood poised to run—leap the wall—but from beyond it came the sound of a fracas.

“Women out,” the leader said, the sword point indicating girls and women in line.

Most departed, some cursing, others looking wooden, the last ones casting worried looks back.

One older woman stopped before the leader. “Can’t I wait with m’brother?”

“Get out.”

“What is this, an arrest? We’re not thieves!” a big, brawny redhead demanded.

“March!” the leader said.

“But we didn’t—”

The leader flipped up his blade and used the hilt to club the man down. Stepped over him. Said in flat-voweled Fer Sartoran, “You are all under arrest by my lord, the Count of Wafri, under direct order of Rajnir, Prince of the Venn. You have anything to say, say it to them.” He stepped aside and kicked the unconscious man. “If anyone here thinks his life worth sparing, bring him along. Anyone not in line, and quiet, gets killed. Now move.” He started away, then said, “Repeat it in your sailor lingo, but as you move. And if I see a single weapon, you die right then. No question, no comment.”