The Fox (90 page)

Cocodu
and
Death
anchored alongside one another to oversee the unshackling of the oarsmen in the galleys. Most were locals, with hapless former traders and defeated pirates mixed in. By now Tcholan—who was by far the best fight team leader, his team the toughest—had become the expert at sorting them. When Dasta waved, pointing at the
Sable
’s flag, Tcholan promptly signaled he’d stay. He’d rather oversee the sorting than dodge more questions from that flint-eyed Sparrow.

So Dasta rowed himself through gray sea, the hard, cold rain damping down the waves. Lamps glowed like low-lying fireflies all over the bay as Eflis’ backup craft arrived and helped with the sorting. The galleys were stripped of usable timber as well as loot and anything else deemed worth saving, then they were sunk. The prisoners were sorted, some taken on as crew, most let go.

While all this work went on, Eflis and Sparrow had been busy. When Dasta arrived aboard the
Sable,
dripping wet, he was conducted down into the warm cabin, which was agreeably scented with hot wine mulled with orange, cinnamon, and cloves. The table had been folded up, and the floor spread with pillows and soft spreads of woven yeath fur.

Eflis beckoned with a smile and put a cup into his hands. “We thought we could celebrate another success while we chat,” she said.

She was dressed in a loose blouse with a low neck, and her usual deck trousers. Sparrow, present as always whenever he or Tcholan met with Eflis, gave him a broad smile. Dasta looked from one to the other and at the cabin, and thought,
Hoo, if this isn’t a plot of their own, then I’m a Venn
.

Tcholan had been up all night. Neither Dasta nor Gillor had returned, so he was forced to think ahead, relaying orders from Elgar the Fox.

He was hungry, thirsty, gritty, and more tired than all three put together when the dawn’s bitter wind brought Dasta rowing back. One look at the smirk on his face and Tcholan knew what had been happening all night. It didn’t help his temper any.

Dasta followed him into the
Death
’s cabin, where they shut the scuttles and windows. Dasta hadn’t missed the sour expression on Tcholan’s face, or the tired eyes, so he began with an apology.

“I didn’t know they had a plot going. And it was a plot.” Tcholan sighed. “Both women?”

“Yes.”

“All night?”

“Yes.” Dasta grinned again. “Not that I was the center. Eflis was. But hoola-loola, it was fun enough! I’ve heard of three people, but could never see how you could manage it. They managed!”

Tcholan sighed again; his temper was fading, but if Dasta started swaggering the details . . .

“Anyway, they got to the questions this morning. Ever so easy and casual, but it was clear they’d planned it. They’re more curious about Elgar than ever. If they don’t meet him before long, it’s gonna be all over. Listen. We got two problems, is the way I see it. It’s that curiosity about Elgar, and the change of the wind. Winter’s coming—I can smell it, can’t you?”

Tcholan made the difficult mental shift from imagining
Sable
’s cabin to the prospect of winter. It banished the rest of his temper. Fair was fair, after all—he could have gone over the day before, but he hadn’t wanted to. And it wasn’t like Eflis and Sparrow had been lying in wait for Dasta in particular. It could as easily have been him, or Gillor. In fact, Sparrow probably would have preferred Gillor.

Tcholan grunted. “Winter.”

“And word has to have gone out by now, since that trader we retook was on its way to Everon. Venn should know about it by now. And our orders were to winter at Freeport. If we sail for the Freedom Isles, Elgar can have ordered us there while he goes off scouting the strait. We buy the entire winter without him, and no more of this sneaking around. So here’s my idea. See what you think.”

Tcholan nodded. “Go on.”

“We both be Elgar for this last one, to take down Bendal. We’ll time it, see, and strike from opposite sides of the island. And then we go, whether we win or lose. Ah, assuming we survive. But I really think the entire island wants an excuse to rise against him. And if we get rid of ’em all, though there’s no telling how things will settle out here, it’ll sound good about Elgar, won’t it?”

Tcholan’s enthusiasm rekindled, faint but there. “Sure ’nuff, after all I heard all night on the galleys.”

“Then let’s see what Gillor says when she gets back from scouting. See, if we plan it exactly, I think we can bring this one off, and Eflis’ people won’t suspect . . .”

Chapter Twenty-seven

CHIEF Sea Dag Valda waited in Jaro’s Dag Hel. The few dags who came and went paid their respects. Valda was revered at least as much as Erkric was feared. Most were surprised to see her, for they’d known she had gone north to the homeland.

Now she was back, and as usual no one said why. But sea dags were trained to work and think independently, for they lived isolated for long periods on extended cruises.

The first snow had fallen the night before; it had not stuck, and the rooftops along the bowl of Jaro were wet, not white, but the air was cold. The Chief Dag sat near the fire, working patiently at recopying an old magic taeran she’d brought from the north.

At last the dag she had waited for arrived, so unobtrusive one wouldn’t notice her unless on the watch.

Valda beckoned, and Dag Signi saluted, her hands evoking not just grace but warmth in touch and then opening of palms, a gesture that was so stiff, so perfunctory in others. There were two other dags at work in the room, each absorbed in tasks. Valda said, “Come. I have news from your family.”

Dag Signi made the peace sign again and followed her chief into the next room.

Signi knew that was a lie. Her mother had not spoken to Signi since the day she was called before the Chief Skalt and told that she would not be in the last year’s nine in the hel-dance training. Seventeen years, their training group down to eleven. She and a young man were deemed not equal to the nearly impossible standard—and there was no gainsaying the decision.

They had treated her with the respect due to seventeen years of hard work. They had given her a choice of other paths to follow, and when she chose magery, they had cleared the way. But her mother, a hel dancer all her life, had turned her back on her daughter for her failure; her father had returned to Goerael when the war began ten years before that. She had not heard from him since, did not even know if he lived.

So her heartbeat raced.

Valda shut the door. “Did you perceive a change in atmosphere? ”

The Chief Dag never asked frivolous questions. Signi said, “I did indeed, as soon as I stepped off the ship. There are far more of the Guard about. The Ymarans are subdued, even fearful, much as it was many years ago, when I was first sent here. What has happened?”

Valda pressed her thin fingers together. “I do not know the truth. The first rumor said that the pirate Elgar the Fox was alive after all and led a horde against Beila Lana, then burned the entire east coast. Since I arrived, the rumors have dwindled—the damage was apparently confined to part of Limros Palace, and Ulaffa told me in a private interview this morning that the horde was two men.”

“Why would two men burn Limros Palace?”

“I do not know, and it matters little. What does matter is that people believe that the prince was under attack from this pirate on the direct order of the king of Iasca Leror.”

Signi gasped, then covered her mouth with her hand.

Valda’s old face mirrored the pain she felt. “Yes. Outwardly there has been a change: decadent, venal Ymaran custom is now deplored, and we are to return to the clean-living discipline of Venn life. But in command circles it is known that the invasion of Halia has been ordered at last.”

The inner room had no windows, yet Signi felt the instinctive urge to look out to the sea, as if to find the entire war fleet lined in battle array.

Valda was too sorrowful to smile. “It will happen the spring after next. That is a secret bound by heart and blood.”

Signi signified assent, the gesture deliberate with sincerity.

“Erkric was absent during the events that transpired. He says he was north, and I can attest to his presence before the king at the end of the time in question, for he was there when I was. And he secured the king’s order for the invasion, though I do not know what he said to convince the king to reverse his decision.”

Signi knew the king had been adamant about avoiding two major wars on different continents.

“This coming spring the army will march west and drill on the coast for invasion. The fleet is ordered to be readied for transport and defense, which means altering many ships.”

Signi steadied her heartbeat, then said, “Fulla Durasnir?”

Valda murmured, “He approves. It is clear to see.”

Signi thought,
We lost him; now the invasion will occur
. For a long time he had supported their wish for an end to invasions, the terrible cost in lives.

Valda added with indirect delicacy, “I suspect it seems an honorable solution to the growing problems here. He follows the king’s orders, as he swore to do.” She spoke in a whisper. “But, Signi, if we cannot win peace, then the time has come for the inner circle to act.”

Signi’s flesh roughened with chill. “You tell me because it is I who has been selected?”

“Yes. I had thought to be the one to go, but there is that variance in Erkric’s words about where he was during the trouble with this Elgar.”

Signi listened in worried silence. One of the dags’ first oaths was to always tell the truth to one another. They dealt with so much power that every decision must be examined, every action explained. It was far too easy for human beings to be seduced into craving and then using power for personal means, first in the small things and then in the great. That much they knew from history.

Valda said, “I sense . . .” She hesitated, then made a gesture that Signi interpreted: it was a blurred version of the hel dancer’s Rainorec posture, the ancient sign for the great doom that the Venn would face if pride and desire drew them off the golden path. And she said, “There has been too much talk about Ramis, and specifically about Norsunder. You know my fears that he will seek what he wants from them.”

Signi nodded. Then said, “I do not argue, query only, but should not Halvic or Finni be as good to send, if not better? I know Halvic learned some of the southern tongues when he was young, and Finni is a teacher, so she could make clear what must be taught.”

Even saying that much was dangerous.

Valda acknowledged. The mission she was sending loyal Signi on would probably mean death, and would definitely mean lifelong exile even if successful. The golden path to the Tree of Ydrasal required no less. “Halvic was sent to the northeast waters.”

“Ah.” He was the best Speaker to the Deeps.

“Finni has been attached by Erkric to speed along training of the new sea dags against this invasion. I dare not gainsay. We must make not a ripple in any water. Therefore you are to carry on as always, but you must sound every ship, and pick the one you think might be won to the cause. Even half to the cause,” Valda said unwillingly, and Signi’s heart squeezed at the thought of adding mutiny to her future oath-breakings. All to the greater good, alas.

There was nothing more to be said. She had known when she joined the conspiracy that it could mean her life. But the road to Ydrasal was golden in spirit, if hard and perilous in the world. Once you saw it, you must set your foot on it, and not flinch at risks.

They made the Ydrasal obeisance to one another, and departed without speaking again.

In the royal city of Iasca Leror, white and cold under the first big storm of winter, the Master of the Mint levered himself up onto his cane, frowning at the other guild counselors. His position as oldest—he’d now served under three kings—as well as his prestige as Master of the Mint quieted the others, as he intended it should.

They looked up. Jab of the invisible knife: there were now more gray heads than yellow or brown. They’d gotten old without him noticing. “It’s clear that Evred-Harvaldar isn’t coming to us today. Why argue about what it means?” he said.

“He didn’t even send a Runner,” protested the ironmongers’ guild master.

The irascible wheelwright guild chief huffed, “An insult, surely? His father always—”

The Master of the Mint turned his back on the florid wheelwright and stomped out. Voices rose behind him; he sighed. Apparently gabbling your own unanswerable guesses without listening to the others was preferable to getting back to business.

Well, considering how grim things were for business, maybe they had a point. He would not feel better returning to agonizing about when the magic spells protecting the royal treasury—and the coin-strikes—would vanish. Or speculating on why the mages had not come, despite word of the prospective new Adrani treaty.

On he shuffled; his old sword wound ached during winter these days almost as much as it had when he first got it fifty-five years ago.

His granddaughter waited inside the door to the visitors’ stable yard. The door opened and slammed five times as the master shuffled slowly down the hall; five times cold air blasted in, bringing the smell of wool and dog and horse, the sounds of shouts and clashes of steel from the Guard busy at work somewhere over the wall beyond the stable.

He reached her at last. “I visited Cousin Shel,” she whispered. “Posted right up there.” She pointed above their heads. “She says that Barend-Harskialdna arrived as the king was leaving breakfast.”

“Ah.” The master frowned at his granddaughter. “And?”

“And then a Rider appeared, and they all dropped everything. It was the king’s First Runner, Vedrid, who used to be Runner for the Sierlaef so long ago. That happened right before I came to you.” She gestured toward the stable yard and a swarm of young stable hands busy with the horses. Well, that explained where the king was, but not why.