The Fox (79 page)

“Indeed.” Durasnir’s tone was dry.

Fox’s vigilance was rewarded on the second day he cruised just beyond Beila Lana harbor in his gig. A fleet of fishing craft and a couple of small traders sailed out on the tide— the first in over a week to leave the harbor.

Fox tried to speak to the smallest of them; two wouldn’t answer his hail, kept going full sail, one’s captain yelling from the stern through cupped hands that Norsunder could have Ymar and everyone on the whole damned continent of Drael.

The next obligingly slackened its courses, and several men his own age and younger crowded to the side, many of them raising the wide-bottomed cups common to ships around the world.

“If yer crazy enough to be goin’ in, ye’d better have one of them necklaces,” a boy with red hair called, jerking his thumb toward his own bobbing throat-knuckle.

“Necklace?” Fox shouted back, remembering what Fibi’s captain had said.

“Them damned Venn have got every single Ymaran listed—and any that trade in Ymar—on their damned lists. If you don’t have a necklace, yer as good as signing over yer liberty to a cruise in the box.” He mimed being stuck behind bars.

“How do you get a necklace?” Fox asked.

“Ye stand all day in line, and then have to pay for the pleasure!” The redhead spat over the side. “If ye want it, ye can have mine. Save yerself some trouble. Not to mention a pocketful of good money wasted on those soul-eating Venn.” Back of the hand toward the shore. “We’re never comin’ north again. Ever.”

“Thanks,” Fox called. “I have to land and find one of our mates, got lost after the big storm. What can I expect?”

“I almost lost half me crew,” the oldest one shouted— the captain of the fisher boat. He snorted. “Last time I let these worthless rats ashore for liberty. Some fresh fruit! A little sex! And we’re stuck out on the drink for days with half the crew behind bars.”

“Well it was worse for us,” one of the young men bellowed, buffeting the fellows at either side of him.

“No, it was worst for me!” the redhead roared. “Grabbed the boys like me first—just because we got red hair!”

“But they let ye go first,” retorted the other, and the others hooted and crowed in enthusiastic agreement. He was short, blond—looked like he was probably the captain’s son. “ ‘A little sex?’ Penned up with fifty other men, no bath for a week. Nightland liberty, I call it! And for no reason, other than some shit about pirates. Like we’re a terrible pirate ship!” He pointed to his nets, and one of the others sang, unmusically, the chorus to an old pirate ballad, joined raggedly by his mates.

“But at least they did let ’em go,” the captain yelled over the buffoonery. “And we are, too. I won’t breathe free until I sink this accursed land behind us.”

“Here!” The redhead tossed something metallic down onto Fox’s deck. He laughed. “Yer name is Red Mendin out o’ Lands End if they ask. I’ll never be back there again. Hope ye find yer mate.”

They saluted one another, then the fisher—its crew singing—put before the wind and sailed off.

Fox hung the medallion round his neck and raised his own sail, cursing steadily as the craft picked up speed.

Redheads. Pirates. Inda had walked straight into a trap.

Prince Rajnir’s Dag, Abyarn Erkric, transferred to the Dag Hel just off the garrison terrace in the Port of Jaro. While the whoosh of displaced air ruffled round the room the dags rose and bowed, hands open.

The etiquette was dags waited until the transferred one recovered and spoke first. Especially a superior in rank.

Erkric thus had time to take in the wide chamber with its row of western windows. Every Venn seemed unconsciously to gather on the west of any building that had windows, where the long light of afternoon slowly turned gold before it faded; it was a luxury absolutely unknown at home. Even those who professed to be, and were, homesick displayed this weakness, he had discovered.

The light through those open windows painted bright rectangles down the long length of the worktable, illuminating the stacked lists of prisoners, the status of each neatly written in various colors of ink.

“You are finished,” he said. “Elgar the Fox is dead. You may return to your regular duties.”

Ulaffa, the Yaga Krona Dag, had been given charge of the sorting of reports and information. He folded his gnarled hands. “How did that come to pass? Our people were painstaking in following orders.”

“
Our
people were,” Erkric repeated, emphasizing “our.” “Count Wafri’s mage and men chanced upon the Marlovan, who apparently rose up and slew our observer. The Prince and I inspected the scene ourselves. It appears that all happened as Mage Penros reported, and the prince pronounced himself satisfied.” His opinion of Penros was conveyed with nicety through the title
Mage
instead of
Dag
—a nicety that only the Venn understood. “The Prince has ordered a day of celebration tomorrow.”

He paused. No one spoke, so he transferred away again.

“So much for my hunches,” Anchan said, laughing as she chucked her list into the empty fireplace. “I really thought that insolent redhead who said he was from Fal had to be their Elgar.”

“Oh, he was from Fal,” Byarin said, ripping his list before he threw it down after hers. “I’ve been in the south once.”

“The significance of that being?” Anchan prompted.

Byarin was never averse to lecturing his fellow dags. “Fal is a tiny country in the middle wastes down south. They habitually challenge you, or me, or each other, or the birds— not to mention the air itself—to a duel if they feel the whim. The babies go armed, the grandmothers fight so much the city squares are reserved for duels.”

Everyone laughed.

“Insolence,” Byarin said, waving as he headed toward the door, “is the proof you are a Faleth. Politeness will get you killed as a traitor.” And he was gone.

“So that’s why we’ve never heard of the place,” Egal boomed, towering over the others. “They must be dead before they get a day’s travel from their own border.” With a billowing of sun-touched blue, he whisked himself out.

Jazsha Signi Sofar took more time to gather her lists. As most of the others dropped their papers into the fireplace, she cast an eye down her neat columns. Across from her, old Ulaffa sat with his hands loosely laced together, his bushy eyebrows knit.

“Did you ever see Mage Penros’ reasons for keeping lists?” Signi addressed him in her quiet voice.

“No,” Ulaffa said. “I was told that I should not expect him to report through me, that the prince gave the count freedom to run his investigation as he saw fit, as long as we saw any results. As, apparently, we did.”

Apparently. Hint given, hint received.

Signi bowed, stooped to lay her papers on the others, and left. Ulaffa watched her go, and then took the Fire Stick down from the mantel, dropped it onto the pile of paper, and spelled it to flame.

Fox had never told anyone he spoke Venn.

It was a family secret. Though he despised secrets and despised his father, most of all he despised the treaty that had put his family in the inescapable prison of their own home.

The Montredavan-Ans all learned Venn because they believed that the easiest defense is to know your enemy. They had all read copies of the letters their great-father Savarend had written to the King of the Venn, and the replies: the last from old Savarend in effect giving the back of the hand to Venn’s offer to make the Marlovan plains a favored province if they aided the Venn in conquering the Iascans. Fox, by age ten, had memorized the last letter from the Venn King, promising that the Venn would come one day, in force, and there would be no favored family or province. Instead the Montredavan-Ans would be the first to die.

The morning Fox set foot on the quay at Beila Lana, bells were ringing carillons from all the towers.

The market was closed down. Groups of people in bright, festive dress moved briskly about setting up tables, benches, and a temporary stage—all the organized chaos of a celebration.

Fox searched around for someone young and inoffensive looking. A line of sturdy boys was busy unloading barrels of drink from a wagon, passing them from hand to hand, and stacking them beside a long table being set with cauldrons and huge plates of skewered fish. Fox sauntered up, and when the last barrel was passed down the line, he tapped the last boy, and asked him in Venn what was going on. The boy’s glance lit first on Fox’s chest, where the medallion hung, then lifted to his face.

The boy was relieved; Fox observed that relief, and his tension racked tighter.

The boy said in stilted Venn, “I do not well this language speak.” He shifted to Fer Sartoran, adding with a return of his initial wariness, “You’re a foreigner, I take it?”

“Not from too far,” Fox answered in the same tongue, with a fair try at matching accent. “Just returned from fishing up the coast. Got blown farther by a big storm.”

The boy’s brow cleared. “That storm,” he said, “brought Elgar the Fox. Prince Rajnir has declared a holiday to celebrate his death.”

Fox’s hands gripped together behind his back. “His death? I take it there was some kind of public execution?”

The boy patted the draft horse, then wiped his forehead on his sleeve. “No, not at all. My cousin in the guard says they were supposed to keep him alive. Something went wrong. Cousin said the others were talking about how he jumped the Venn noser.” He looked around furtively. “Killed him, wounded another guard. Unarmed, too! They said he was worlds fierce.”

“So . . . no one saw this attack?” Fox asked, unwilling to believe the obvious unless forced to.

The boy shrugged. “Just our count’s guard. The Venn Dag came and inspected, Prince Rajnir inspected, everyone inspected before the bodies were Disappeared yesterday. ”

“How did they know their prisoner was Elgar the Fox? Had they ever seen him?”

The boy laughed. “No one had, and you should’ve been here the day they dropped on us and searched.
Hundreds
of fellows. More. Most of ’em sailors blown in on that storm. Word is it was even worse down at Jaro. The Venn and our own guard come in all of a sudden, chased off all the female sailors, and in one swoop marched the men off to the cells.” He waved behind him at the stone garrison above the harbor. “And did they gripe! First the Venn wanted redheads, then it was every boy and man over ten and under fifty. Everyone’t didn’t have a medal.”

“Seems miraculous they found their man, if no one knew what he looked like.” Too sarcastic? At the boy’s questioning glance, he added with a fair assumption of regret, “Too bad I missed seeing the fun.”

“Word is, they had the entire fleet out and all, but they was down below Jaro, so we didn’t see ’em all take wing. It’s a fine sight! But they’re comin’ back. Business as usual after today.”

“So . . . did your cousin say that Elgar the Fox told everyone who he was?”

The boy rubbed his nose. “Some said kinthus was used, and they’d have his medal, I guess—they gave ’em all medals before they even questioned ’em, I hear. Only
they
didn’t have to pay!” He slapped his chest. “In any case, the important thing is, today’s no work, all fun—and yesterday Restday! Two days off work is no bad thing. And the word is, the Prince is only givin’ out drink in Jaro, but here the Count is payin’ for eats and musicians. All day as well as tonight! We’re goin’ to have dancing and contests—you arrived at the right time!”

Fox responded in kind, and after a little more conversation, he moved on down the quay, passing directly under the garrison tower ringing its merry carillon.

Fury burned cold through his veins. He walked for a time without seeing, as he struggled to come to grip with the impossible. Kinthus! No one lied under the influence of white kinthus. So Inda was dead, and his great plans blown like smoke. But . . . who inspected? People who didn’t know him . . . Fox recognized the fact that he did not want to believe what appeared to be the truth.

One thing Fox did know. He would find out who those guards were, Venn or Ymaran, and after getting the details of Inda’s murder he would choke the life out of them one by one.

Chapter Twenty

INDA lay on the narrow, wood-framed bed, gazing up at the window far above him. It was a square window, probably big enough to get through—if one happened to be as tall as a tree. He examined it in the clear light of the glowglobes set high on the stone walls at either side of the cell.

The sound of the lock clicking broke his thoughts.

“Listening to the bells?”

He recognized that voice.

He flipped up his legs and sat with his back to the wall. Acknowledged and then as swiftly forgot the distant ringing of the carillon. His attention shifted to the richly dressed young man who walked in. He appeared to be near Inda’s age. His skin was smooth, his cheeks and chin round. His fair hair was cut short, which made his head seem rounder than it was; his eyes were dark brown, wide with curiosity. His broad smile curved on the verge of laughter.

He had small, neat hands framed in turned-back velvet sleeves embroidered with golden clover leaves. Despite the long dark blue velvet fitted Colendi long-coat, Inda’s first impression was that he was short, but as the fellow came forward with a quick step, Inda realized they were about the same height. Despite the situation he couldn’t help a flutter of laughter—he never thought of himself as short.

“Those bells are celebrating your death,” the fellow said in a jolly voice, as though Inda would share the joke. “Hear them? Did you know those carillons are Sartoran-cast, and we play the same rings as they do in Eidervaen?” He spoke Fer Sartoran, but his accent was much less flat than what Inda had heard from the people and guards, and more like the Sartoran his mother had taught him. Court Sartoran is what the mage had said.

Betrayed by my knowledge, Inda thought, laughter gone.