The Lion of Senet (7 page)

Chapter 9

Johan Thorn woke to unbelievable pain. He opened his eyes slowly, taking in the solid four-poster bed, the granite walls, the warm yellow light filling the room and the fact that every limb he owned seemed to be bound and splinted, and tried to figure out where he was. His last clear recollection was of sailing the Bandera Straits on a mission to rescue two of his people who had been apprehended in the mainland port of Paislee.

The pirates had made good time from their hidden settlement, deep in the delta of the Baenlands, and had been anchored off the coast of Senet for three days, fine-tuning their rescue plans, when the world had begun to shake. Johan vaguely remembered a sky blotted dark and ominous with clouds of volcanic ash.

Not long afterward, the sea had begun to heave violently beneath them, the swell rising to impossible heights. Johan’s last coherent memory was screaming at his crew to pull up the anchor and try to turn the ship into the waves.

Johan realized that it must have been a tidal wave caused by the eruption and the quakes that followed.
And somehow I
survived it. But where is the rest of the crew? And where am I?

Johan had trouble focusing his thoughts. He recognized the slightly bitter aftertaste of poppy-dust on his tongue and wondered who had tended his wounds. He also realized, with a touch of alarm, that if he hurt this much while doped up on poppy-dust, the pain was going to be well nigh unbearable when the drug wore off.

So where am I?
he asked himself, trying to ignore the agony to better concentrate on the problem.
There is nothing due
south of the Senet coast until . . .

Johan closed his eyes. Not Elcast. Please . . . let me be any
wherebut Elcast.

Hearing the door open, Johan turned his head toward the sound. His worst fears were realized as soon as the figure silhouetted in the doorway stepped into the room. He caught a glimpse of armed guards standing by the door outside, before the old man closed it behind him.

“Helgin . . . Master Helgin . . .” he sighed, closing his eyes. The irony of his situation suddenly struck him.
I have survived a
tidal wave, only to be washed up on the shore of the one place on
Ranadon I could be sure of a dangerous reception.
He suddenly realized how parched he was. “I . . . I’d like some water.”

The physician walked to the bed and looked down on him. “It’s good to see you again, your highness.”

“Much as I’ve . . . missed your company, Helgin, you’ll... understand . . . when I say the last person . . . on Ranadon . . . that I expected to see... when I woke was... you.”

Helgin smiled and held his head for him as he drank the water. “It’s good to see that you’ve not lost your sense of humor, your highness.”

The physician let Johan’s head drop back onto the pillow, which sent a wave of white-hot pain through his left shoulder. Johan let out an involuntary cry, then turned his head to study the old man when the pain abated a little. “I appear . . . to have lost . . . everything else. And don’t call me... highness. I gave up . . . the right to that title . . . a long time ago.”

“There are still those who consider you the true king, sire.”

“Then they’d be wise . . . to keep their opinions to themselves.” He didn’t want to listen to such patriotic nonsense. It was hard enough to speak coherently, without getting involved in a political discussion with an old diehard like Helgin. “The . . . guards outside?”

“Tovin Rill’s men. Antonov appointed him governor to Elcast a few months back.”

Johan smiled faintly. The drug was making him foolish. He should be in a blind panic on hearing that news. Instead he just smiled serenely. “There’s no chance... he hasn’t...”

“Informed the Lion of Senet of your capture?” Helgin finished for him. “No chance at all, I’m afraid. Tovin sent a pigeon to Avacas as soon as he discovered your identity. We’ve already received word that Antonov is on his way here for the Landfall Feast. He’s bringing the whole family, I hear.”

“Well, I knew . . . had to end . . . sometime,” he sighed, closing his eyes. The pain was like a pulse, beating in time with his heart. “Ironic, don’t you think . . . that it will end . . . where it all began.”

Helgin glanced over his shoulder at the closed door and lowered his voice. “You mustn’t give up hope, your highness. You still have friends here on Elcast. Even as far away as Kalarada. If we got a message to the queen, perhaps, or maybe if we can get word to your people . . .”

“My
people
?” Johan laughed bitterly, which was a very stupid thing to do, he discovered, as his whole body convulsed with pain. “My people are a ragtag band . . . of exiles . . . and pirates. They’d have no chance against the might of Senet. I learned that the hard way . . . the last time I tried to take on Antonov . . . and I had an army at my back in those days . . .”

“Then the queen . . .”

“No!” The exclamation sent another jolt of pain ripping through his body. “You are not... to involve Rainan in this. My sister has enough trouble . . . of her own to deal with.”

“But, sire...”

“Forget it, Helgin. We all know... I’ve been living on borrowed time.” He closed his eyes again and tried to concentrate. There was so much to think about, so much to consider. So many people...

His eyes snapped open. “Is Morna here?”

“Yes.”

“Is she in danger?”

“Not at the moment. Tovin tried to have her arrested, until young Dir—” The old man hesitated for a moment. “Until someone pointed out that it was he who ordered you rescued.”

“And Wallin? What... was his reaction?”

“Who can tell with Wallin?” the physician shrugged. “It’s no secret he has little love for you, your highness, but he won’t let Morna come to any harm.”

“It would be better, I think . . . if I had died in that wave.”

“Nonsense!” the physician scoffed. “You are alive and damn lucky to be so.”

“
Lucky?
I’m a dead man walking, Helgin.” He glanced down at his splinted legs and smiled. “Or should that be dead man lying down . . .”

“I’ll hear no more of that sort of talk,” the physician declared, suddenly all business. “I refuse to believe you were spared just so the Lion of Senet can hang you. You must rest and get well again. I’ll come back in an hour or so and give you more poppy-dust. I’d like to ease your pain now, but too much of the dust and you’ll develop a taste for it that will be hard to deny.”

Helgin began to bustle about the room, refusing to meet his eye. Johan didn’t have the strength to argue with him. Helgin was an optimistic fool. He’d been spared so that the Lion of Senet
could
hang him. The Goddess was Senetian, after all, wasn’t she? It was just the sort of thing a Senetian would do.

“Helgin?”

“Yes, sire?”

“I’m going to die.”

“Now you listen to me...”

“If you have any . . . feelings left for me, you’d help me die.”

“Johan . . .”

“No, Helgin. I’ll have none of your . . . bedside optimism. I am dead already. If my injuries don’t kill me . . . Antonov will. Help me . . . cheat him. Give me something.”

“I’m sworn to do no harm, your highness.”

“Then help me . . . end my own life. If I live, and Antonov breaks me . . . the harm will be... immeasurable.”

“I can’t, Johan.”

He sighed, not really expecting any other answer. “Then . . . answer one question for me.”

“Anything, your highness.”

“When Morna . . . when she left me . . . when she returned to Elcast . . . she was with child. What... happened to it?”

Master Helgin took a long time to answer. “She suffered a miscarriage, your highness.”

Johan wasn’t sure what he was expecting to hear, but in a way, the news was a relief. It was bad enough that he was here on Elcast. Bad enough that old wounds were about to be reopened; old enemies about to be faced. He wasn’t sure he could deal with the added burden of a child he could never claim.

“It’s probably... for the best. I wonder if it was a boy or... a girl? I would have liked . . . another daughter.”

“You should rest, your highness.”

“Stop calling me that, Helgin. It annoys me . . . and Tovin would probably hang you for saying it.”

“I’m not afraid of Tovin Rill,” the old man announced defiantly. “Or the Lion of Senet.”

“Then more fool... you,” Johan muttered drowsily. “They scare the hell out of me.”

Chapter 10

It was several days before Tia was satisfied that Neris was in no further danger, from himself or anything else. In that time she had kept a close watch over him, sometimes alone, sometimes with Reithan or Mellie for company. Even Lexie had dropped by for a time, to see how her father fared. She appreciated their concern, but hated the look of pity in their eyes.

Neris lived in a cave across the bay, high above the settlement, and nobody had ever been able to convince him that he should move down into the town with everyone else. “I can see the Deathbringer closer here,” he would claim, and then put his fingers in his ears and sing loudly to himself to drown out the voices of reason that surrounded him.

His cave was surprisingly well furnished. They had gone to a great deal of trouble to see that Neris was comfortable. There was a proper bed with a down mattress covered by a hand-knitted quilt. A table was pushed against the roughly curved wall opposite the bed, and a hearth had been built under a fissure in the ceiling to take advantage of the natural chimney.
At least this isn’t the rude habitation of an insane wretch,
Tia consoled herself.
He is well looked after
.

Neris was snoring contentedly, sleeping off his last dose of poppy-dust. Tia approached the hearth and poked around, looking for even a glimmer of heat from the coals, but they were long dead. She gathered up some of the kindling that was stacked neatly next to the hearth and began to build a fire, using the flint that she found on a shelf near the table to light it. Before long she had a small blaze going, so she sat on the floor of the cave and began feeding slightly larger sticks into the fire.

Once she was satisfied with the flames, Tia moved the small black kettle over the heat and turned to examine the cave more closely. She knew this place so well, yet it frightened her a little. This was Neris’s private sanctuary. In this cave the tortured workings of his drug-addled mind seemed to come alive. As she looked around, something else caught her eye and she moved closer to the wall to examine it.

Neris had sketched a diagram in charcoal on the wall of the cave since yesterday. It looked like an eye, drawn by the hand of a drunkard. On closer inspection, she realized it was a series of concentric circles. The inner circle was quite large, while the one surrounding it was elongated and distorted. Superimposed on that one was a much smaller disk. Encompassing the whole diagram was another elongated circle that Neris had written over. Tia curiously traced the word with her finger.

Scrawled across that circle was the word
death
.

Mellie came to visit for the afternoon, full of bright chatter. She kept both Tia and Neris entertained for hours with her hopelessly romantic plans for the future. Neris adored Mellie. Tia often wondered if in Mellie, her father had the daughter he wanted, rather than the one nature had burdened him with. In the end, it didn’t really matter. Neris’s mind was gone. Belagren and Ella Geon had destroyed the father she might have had before she was even born.

Neris was sleeping again when she left him, snoring softly on the bed as Tia pulled the knitted quilt over him. They had cooked him a meal of stewed vegetables and goat meat, and stood over the madman while he ate. Mellie was of the opinion that a bath wouldn’t hurt, but Tia was more concerned about her father’s eating habits than his personal hygiene.

“We can go now,” she said, in a voice barely above a whisper.

Mellie’s young brow was creased with worry. Johan’s daughter was always worrying about Neris. He was like her favorite uncle, in much the same way that Mellie’s father, Johan, was Tia’s favorite uncle.

Except Johan isn’t a wasted shell of a man with nothing to live
for but his next dose of poppy-dust,
she reminded herself.

Tia envied Mellie her father. It didn’t seem fair that one man could be so strong and another so weak. She envied Mellie’s long dark curls and her dark Thorn eyes, and her happy nature, too. Tia could never recall being so optimistic, even when she was Mellie’s age.
Perhaps the cynicism doesn’t come on
you until you’re older. But was I ever so damn cheerful? Even when
I was twelve?

“Will he be all right when he wakes up?”

“He’ll be fine, Mel. He’ll probably sleep for a day or more.”

Tia checked the cave once more to satisfy herself that everything was as it should be, then led Mellie outside. She was surprised to find the second sun quite low on the horizon and the eastern sky beginning to redden with the coming evening sunrise. As she looked down toward the delta she saw something that made her forget all about Neris.

There was a new ship rocking gently in the muddy waters of the bay. The shallow-drafted
Makuan
was anchored below, her deck swarming with tiny figures unloading netted cargo with block and tackle and lowering it into the longboats tied up alongside. The ship was painted a dark shade of blue above the waterline, her masthead carved into an elaborate, demonic creature that Tia was certain had never seen the light of day on Ranadon.

“Porl Isingrin’s back,” Tia told Mellie, slapping her back so hard she staggered. “Now you’ll be able to stop fretting about your father.”

Mellie smiled uncertainly. Tia thought she might be a little scared of Porl. He was a brusque, unforgiving man who had no tolerance for young girls with stupid questions. Tia pushed Mellie ahead of her down the treacherous path to the beach, wondering for the thousandth time why Johan had not yet returned to Mil.

After they rowed back across the bay, Tia and Mellie walked along the sand beside the muddy water that lapped the damp black sand, calling out to familiar faces as they passed under the bowsprit of the ship. A number of sailors called down to them, a few making lewd suggestions to Tia that made Mellie blush.

Although she acted as if she was offended, Tia had been raised here in the Baenlands and was intensely proud of the fact that she was treated just like one of the boys, despite her sex and her dubious ancestry. Tia didn’t know if boys thought her pretty and didn’t care, although Gaven Greybrook had told her earlier this year that she was the most beautiful girl on Ranadon. But he’d been drunk at the time, so his opinion didn’t count for much. One of the sailors yelled something complimentary about her legs that she didn’t quite catch as they passed the longboat. She scowled and made a crude gesture with her finger at the sailor without looking up, and continued on up the beach.

Grinning broadly at her friend’s obvious irritation, Mellie followed Tia to the thatched longhouse that was the closest thing the pirates had to a community hall. There was a steady stream of people going in and out as they climbed the wooden steps of the stilted house. It was crowded with villagers who, unlike the sailors on the beach, paid them no mind as they pushed their way inside. The press of people gave Tia a chance to calm her growing apprehension.

There should have been two ships in the harbor. Porl Isingrin—the man sent to discover why Johan was so long overdue—had returned alone.

Mellie grabbed Tia’s wrist impatiently and pulled her toward the other end of the building. An impromptu market of sorts was going on inside the longhouse as the pirates sorted through the haul coming off the ship. There were barrels of salted pork, bolts of cloth, cases of silverware packed in straw and piles of other loot that Tia did not get a chance to examine closely. The pirates’ last foray had obviously been a successful one.

The women of the settlement were going through the haul with practiced efficiency. Some of the goods were earmarked for consumption by their small community; others were put aside for disposal in the markets of the smaller islands where the source of the goods was unlikely to be questioned. Some of the more valuable items were set aside for sale to their contacts in the Brotherhood, the organization that controlled most of the criminal activity in both Dhevyn and Senet. Dealing with the Brotherhood made Tia nervous. Their assistance came at a high price and they were not to be trusted. But as fugitives, the people of Mil had little choice about who they could trade with.

Mellie dragged her forward until they reached a cluster of women involved in an animated discussion regarding the disposal of a trunk containing a number of books, all bound in dark, stiff leather, with their titles inlaid with gilt. One of the women seemed determined to claim the books for the schoolhouse, while another couple was arguing about the price such a haul would bring on Grannon Rock. Mellie shoved her way into the discussion. The women surrounding Porl fell silent and stood back to let her in.

As they made room, a solid, dark-haired man turned his eyes on them and smiled at Tia with genuine warmth. It was a fleeting smile, though, and it faded to reluctance as his eyes flickered over Mellie. The man might have been handsome enough once, Tia supposed, until the Lion of Senet had tried to burn him alive. Now the right side of his face was a mass of scar tissue. His right eye was little more than a slit in the puckered skin of his ruined face, and the skin on his arms was shiny and red, stretched taut across his forearms.

“Where have you two been? The ship’s damn near unloaded.”

“I’m well, thanks, Captain,” Tia replied with a smile. “It’s good to see you, too.”

Porl shook his head and another glimmer of a smile flickered over his face, so quickly that Tia thought she might have imagined it.

“Here, make yourselves useful,” he said. “Help Alasun take these books down to the schoolhouse. She can sort them out there.”

Alasun was the tall woman with gray hair standing next to Porl. She seemed rather pleased that she had won her point about the books. The other couple, who had been advocating selling the books on Grannon Rock, muttered their disapproval and walked off.

Tia sighed as she saw the pile Alasun had already unpacked from the trunk.
Why couldn’t she just leave them packed
and take the whole damn trunk down to the schoolhouse?
It was as if Alasun wanted to handle every book first. To assure herself they were real.

“Captain Isingrin?”

“Hold your arms out, lass, and we’ll load you up,” Porl said with a rather pained expression, obviously thinking the same thing Tia was.

Mellie did as she was ordered. She held out her arms to Porl and the pirate bent down to pick up a stack of books. “Captain Isingrin?”

Porl straightened up, ready to pile them onto Mellie’s outstretched arms.

“Captain, where’s Papa?” Mellie asked. “Why didn’t he come back with you?”

The books clattered to the floor. Porl muttered a curse and bent down to pick them up. With a knot of apprehension growing in her stomach, Tia realized how much he’d been dreading the question.

The captain took a deep breath before speaking, his eyes fixed determinedly on the books he had dropped. “Ask your mother, lass. Can’t you see we’re busy?”

“Why can’t you tell me?” Mellie asked suspiciously.

“I’ve not the time,” he scowled. It made his face even more distorted. “Now for once in your life, do as you’re told, child.”

Mellie glared at the pirate for a moment, then ran off, pushing her way back through the longhouse to the front door.

“You’d best go after her. She’s going to need a shoulder to cry on after she speaks to Lexie.”

“Is Johan? . . .” Her heart was pounding. She didn’t even want to give voice to her fear.

“Dead?” Porl shook his head. “No, it’s worse than that.”

“How could it be
worse
than that?”

He glanced over his shoulder to make certain they would not be overheard, before leaning forward to whisper in her ear.

“We think the Lion of Senet has him.”