The Red Wolf Conspiracy (37 page)

A lump swelled in Thasha's throat. This old man had protected them her whole life, and never asked for a thank-you. “But why did you stop guarding us?” she said.

“I received new orders,” he said. “When you get to be as old as I am, your Emperor must consider how he will replace you. I was given the honor of training a new generation of the Imperial Guard. You were but five or six. Now that training is complete, and in his generosity the Emperor has allowed me to protect his favorite admiral—and new ambassador—one last time.”

“Was it you who shot that man in my garden, then?”

Ott shook his head, pursing his lips with regret. “Merely a man who works for me. The intruder should have been kept alive, and questioned. But my man feared for your safety.”

How could he, Thasha wondered, with Jorl and Suzyt holding that ragged stranger in their teeth? But before she could ask, she noticed Ott glancing up and down the passage. Certain they were alone, he reached into his pocket and drew out—

“My necklace!” Thasha cried. “Commander! How in the world did you get it?”

“I'm old, Lady, but still quick.” Ott grinned and raised a sleeve: there was a fresh, deep scratch on his forearm. “That Sniraga is a hell-cat, but I caught her tail and spanked her till she howled, and made her let go of this pretty thing. I knew it from your mother's neck, you see. Won't you let me fasten it anew?”

Thasha turned and lifted her hair. “I'll never let it out of my sight again,” she said as Ott sealed the clasp. “Oh, Commander, thank you! My father said you were a good man, but I had no idea.”

“You flatter me, Lady. But I should prefer your trust. For your father's sake, tell me all that troubles you about the Lady Syrarys. Hold nothing back, I beseech you.”

So Thasha did. Once she began to speak, she realized how little she actually knew for certain. Syrarys had pretended to love Thasha as a girl, and discarded her once her place in the household was secure. She had pretended to miss Thasha when she vanished into the Lorg, pretended to be worried about her father's health (why had no doctor besides Chadfallow ever come to see him?), pretended to want nothing from life but a place at his side.

“But it's not true. She wants
much
more. And now she pretends to visit the powder room each night after dinner, but doesn't. She's going somewhere else.”

“Tonight, for instance?” said Ott.

“Tonight she did go,” admitted Thasha unhappily.

“Ah,” said Ott.

“You think I'm a fool.”

Ott shook his head. “On the contrary. I am humbled by your insight.”

“Don't say that unless you mean it,” she pleaded. “Commander Nagan, this isn't the babble of a jealous daughter. Promise me you'll take this seriously!”

Sandor Ott took her hand. “Forty-eight years have I served the Ametrine Throne,” he said. “I was just your age when I took the oath, at the feet of His Supremacy's grandfather.
Mind and marrow, bone and blood, to strive till my hand drop the sword and my soul leave the flesh. For Arqual, her glory and gain
. Believe me, Lady Thasha: I take nothing more seriously than that.”

The Miracle of Tears

5 Modoli 941

53rd day from Etherhorde

A gray dawn came, and rain soon after. Thunderheads brooded on Cape Ultu; Firecracker Frix watched them nervously through a telescope. Beyond that cape lay Uturphe, but Mr. Elkstem took no chances and steered a wide course around its rocky point. A hundred sailors sighed at his orders, but no one cursed him. Elkstem's nose for safety was legendary.

Once around the cape the rain grew stronger. Hatches were battened down; frantic tarboys swabbed rainwater off the deck. The town when it appeared was less than heartwarming: behind its green granite wall, iron towers and pointed rooftops stood like files of teeth. From his cabin window, Eberzam Isiq studied cold, closed Uturphe and thought,
No place to look for doctors
.

The town lacked a deepwater channel, so at a distance of two miles the order came to furl sails and drop anchor. Around the mainmast a handful of men in oilskin coats roared their disapproval. These were whiskey and brass merchants, desperate to buy as much as they could for resale in the west. Before the anchor struck bottom they were clustered about Mr. Fiffengurt. When might the boats be launched? How bad would the storm be? How many men could he spare for rowers? How long would they stay?

“Stand off, gentlemen!” he growled. “We've a life to save if we can.”

Hercól was carried out by Isiq's honor guard. Rain battered his face, and Thasha held his cold hand, weeping: he looked dead already. For the first time, Fiffengurt thought he might like one of the noble-born youths. Most were ninnies who wailed if their soup wasn't salted or their jackets brushed. One day of tarboy labor and galley grub would teach them to appreciate good fortune. But Lady Thasha was a different sort. She was crying, yes, but silently, and she made no complaints. The quartermaster cocked his head sideways, to see her better.

“You be brave now, Lady,” he said. “Everything possible will be done for Mr. Hercól.”

“That it will be,” said Sandor Ott.

The boat was lowered, with Ott and Fiffengurt side by side in the bow, and the men pulled for shore. Thasha felt suddenly that she would never lay eyes on Hercól again, and not wanting her last memory of him to be that white, deathly face, she turned away. If she had not, she might have noticed that one of the honor guards did not row with his right arm, but only moved it stiffly, even painfully, in time with the oar.

Merchants were crowding, jostling to be next into a boat. One cackled beside her: “No one will eat crayfish in Uturphe tonight—no one! I bought them all. I can sell them on Rukmast for four times what I pay these beggars. A few didn't want to sell, but the duke of Uturphe persuaded them—fishermen's huts are quite flammable, you know, and the duke only asked ten percent for his services.”

“Very reasonable,” said another.

“Very! Oh, when will that fool let us land? I tell you I bought them
all.”

Disgusted, Thasha turned—and nearly collided with Pazel Pathkendle.

He was being hustled aft by two enormous soldiers. He had a soggy bundle in his arms and wore an old coat with a red patch at the elbow. No hat, no shoes. His brown hair was plastered flat by the rain.

He offered a weary smile. “You got your necklace back.”

The soldiers appeared ready to cuff him for his familiar tone, but one look at Thasha changed their minds.

“I tried to make Prahba keep you,” she said. “He just wouldn't listen.”

Pazel shrugged. “I didn't listen either, did I? Where's Neeps, do you know?”

Thasha nodded. “He's working the pumps. Six hours—a punishment from Swellows. For fighting, I think.”

“Tell him I said to cut that out,” said Pazel, shaking his head. Then he looked at her and switched to Opaltik. “Don't forget what Ramachni said. There's an evil mage aboard, and someone else coming soon—someone even worse. Be careful, Thasha. And try to remember me, will you?”

Thasha could barely summon her school-taught Opaltik.
What's wrong with me?
she thought, blinking.

“Someone worse, yes,” she muttered.

“I'm sorry about all this, Thasha,” he said.

“Sorry you?” She shook her head, furious with her clumsy tongue. “Why are you feeling it? I have no ideas.”

Shivering and drenched, Pazel laughed. “You have too many.”

The soldiers pushed him forward. Merchants and sailors were crowding into the second boat, but one bench was empty still.

“I have to tell you something,” said Pazel. “Get closer.”

“I have to tell
you
something,” Thasha mimicked. But she could not say it in Opaltik, and when he looked her in the eye she found she could not say it at all.

“Hold that man! I want to see him!”

The voice was Uskins'. He emerged from the wheelhouse, his blond hair flattened by the rain, and shoved his way toward the boats. Thasha followed his gaze and saw another prisoner beside the rail: a scruffy, hungry-looking man from third class. His face was sallow and bruised, and his hands were chained behind his back.

“Wrong man! Wrong man!” he shouted as Uskins neared. The first mate raised a hand for silence, then reached out and stretched one of the man's eyes wide open. He gave a satisfied nod.

“A deathsmoker, to be sure.”

“Lies!” shrieked the man. “They put a gooney sack on my head! Filled it with deathsmoke!”

“Who did?” said Uskins.

“Don't know—they come at night, took me someplace dark, alone. Made me breathe that blary drug till I fainted. Now look how I shake! But I never used it before! I'm a tea picker is all!”

Uskins laughed aloud. “You should have picked a milder tea.”

“I never touched that poor Mr. Hercól! I swear on the Milk of the Tree!”

Uskins slapped him. “Save your blasphemy for the court, you wretch! Load him in!”

As the man screamed and struggled, Thasha found herself beginning to doubt Nagan's story all over again. But before she could work out a way to intervene, Pazel leaned close to her and spoke very quietly through his teeth.

“There's another prisoner aboard.”

“What are you talking about?” Thasha whispered back.

“You've got to find Diadrelu. Tell her Rose has him. In his right-hand desk-drawer.”

“What, a key?”

“The prisoner!”

“Pazel,” said Thasha, “have you lost your mind?”

“They'll kill you if you talk,” he whispered. “They're ixchel, Thasha.”

“Ay! Ormali dog! How dare you touch the Lady?”

He hadn't, in fact, although his lips had nearly brushed her ear. But touch or no touch, Pazel's guards were embarrassed at their oversight and struck him so hard he fell to the deck. Almost blind with pain, Pazel felt someone lifting him again. Uskins' leering face swam into view.

“Allow me,” said the first mate. “Some ballast is a pleasure to drop.”

He tossed Pazel into the waiting boat with a crash. Thasha shouted,
“No! No! No!”
and Uskins turned to her and said not to worry, the filthy boy would never bother her again.

Pazel found his seat beside the presumed murderer, who was still shouting,
“Wrong man!”
Pazel looked for Thasha, wondering what she had wanted to tell him, but the rail was crowded, and then his boat was lowered to the sea.

“You saw it,” said Talag Tammaruk ap Ixhxchr.

“Saw what?” asked Diadrelu.

“Do not fence with me, sister,” said Talag. “The boy whispered in the bridal girl's ear. And shocked her. Now do you see why we must never take chances? What good are your threats, once he is safe ashore? Taliktrum was right. You should have killed him.”

The two ixchel were wedged in the solid oak of the quarterdeck, half choked with fresh sawdust, peering through drill holes no human eye could locate. Their spying ledge was scarcely big enough for them to lie side by side. It had taken their people four days' labor, burrowing like termites through the ancient wood, pausing with every lull in the wind lest their chisels and hammers be overheard. But it was worth it: they now had a splendid view of the mizzen topdeck, where boats disembarked and officers clustered, the very crossroads of the ship.

Dri pulled back from her spy-hole and looked at Talag. “Thasha was scared, true enough. But what did Pathkendle whisper? That is something we cannot presume.”

“Can't we?” said Talag. “Do you mean to say the freak tarboy might possess
another
secret as awful as the fact that we're aboard?”

“There are such secrets,” said Dri. “Last night we saw the ambassador's own guard torment an innocent man with deathsmoke and demand that he confess to the murder we prevented.”

“You take the lot of them for
innocent men,”
said Talag derisively. “And
you
prevented that murder, not the clan. You fired the quill into the murderer's leg and made him stumble, even though that fat soap merchant might have seen you—”

“He saw
nothing,”
said Diadrelu.

“—and the killer himself may find your quill later and expose us all.”

“He will not find my quill, Talag. It is deep in his skin. And should he dig it out, he will find a splinter, half dissolved, and never know it for ixchel work.”

“Who is presuming now?” Talag asked.

“What would you have done?” she demanded. “Let the valet die?” She knew Talag was goading her (who but a brother could do it so well?), but knowing did not make his taunts any more bearable. “I am not a fool, Talag! I presume no goodness among giants. But neither do I presume that they are all identical, mere strands in a single rope destined to be the hangman's noose for the
innocent
race of ixchel. The world is full of wickedness, yes. But none of it is simple.”

“They stole us from Sanctuary-Beyond-the-Sea. They exhibited us like insects in their museums, colleges, zoos. And like insects they have killed us, ever since we escaped to infest their ships and houses. Simple, Dri. And true.”