Across the Long Sea (10 page)

Avani strangled an unexpected surge of fury. “Give it to me. There may be something—­”

“You know the rules as well as I, my lady. The book is between the vocent and his monarch only. I'm sorry, but I know my duty; I'm pledged to the throne.”

Avani made to rise, but Everin caught her by the wrist, tugging her back onto the grass.

“Let it be,” he said. “You're barking after the wrong fox, black eyes. Was the bay dredged?”

“Without luck. The currents are sluggish, but the depth drops off quickly.” Peter shrugged again. “If they were weighted down, it's not certain we'd know.”

Avani knocked away Everin's restraining hand. She surged to her feet.

“They're not dead,” she said. “
I
would know.”

“Would you?” Peter murmured. “Still dreaming him, are you, lass?”

Avani felt Everin's weighted stare. He'd asked the same thing of her a season earlier. Then she'd brushed the question off.

“Nay. Rather, it's not the same.” She spread her hands. “Not since early autumn. Mal . . .” Avani knew the vocent would dislike being the focus of such a personal discussion. “After Siobahn was banished, it was like a wound,
ai
. Mal had no boundaries left, and we were tangled, knotted. But he's grown strong again, and built up the wards around his mind. We don't bleed into each other, not anymore. But I would know, I would
know
if he were gone from the world.”

Peter opened his mouth. Avani whirled, turning her back on his doubt. She snarled at Everin's concern, then strode around the fire and into Everin's tent, overturning her supper bowl in the process. She yanked the tent curtain closed at her back, and threw herself onto Everin's bedding.

For a long while the two men didn't speak. The pop of flames died to the silence of embers.

“Taken by ship, then,” Everin suggested at last in hushed tones. “I assume you've come to the same conclusion?”

“Unless a corpse does indeed pop up from the depths of the bay,” Peter agreed. “All signs point to abduction.”

Avani heard Everin rise, the click of pottery as the man gathered up the remnants of supper, and then the hiss of smoke as he poured water on the last of the fire.

“The finest weapon in Renault's armory, and the man can't keep hold of it,” he said, condemnation clear. “He's grown too comfortable on his throne. Renault let his vocent wander, and lost him, in the middle of plague season.”

“Malachi is a man, not a broadsword,” Peter replied, sharp. “His Majesty is not going to deny his best friend the deathwatch rite.”

“Exactly. Affection got in the way of the kingdom, and now Wilhaiim's misplaced the last of our magi.”

“Not the last.”

Everin snorted. “Whether or not Avani has the makings of vocent, she hasn't the training. Renault is fooling himself if he hopes she will set his mistake right.”

“Mal and the king spoke at length on the subject. She's begun her training, albeit long distance.”

“Aye. She'll conjure you a witch light on a good day, and she's mastered a basic warding, but she's not likely to banish the Red Worm or defend Wilhaiim's walls against armed threat.”

“I said nothing of war,” Peter snapped.

“But you're thinking it. The Black Coast tribes have been making unfriendly noises for decades, and Gheislain pirates roam the Long Sea in packs. You're no fool. You thought of war the moment you realized the vocent was abducted. The trouble is, you've no idea from where it's coming. Avani's no scryer, she can't provide you with the answers Malachi might have managed.”

“Mayhap,” Peter retorted. “Or mayhap I came straight away in the direction of the Renault's greatest threat.”

“Me?” Everin laughed loudly. “More fool you. I've no interest in the crown.”

“You believe you're better suited to sit the throne.”

“I've no interest in the crown,” Everin repeated with emphasis. Then, “Best sleep, man. You'll want to start early tomorrow morning. Likely I'll still be abed. Give His Majesty my regards.”

If Peter had any reply, Avani didn't catch it.

S
HE
WAS
SCRUBBING
tears of frustration from her face with the rough wool of Everin's bedding when he slipped into the tent. He moved quietly for his bulk, setting the festival candle to light, and pouring himself a tankard of fresh water from the cistern he kept by his bedding.

“Jacob was with them,” Avani spoke when Everin didn't. “Jacob
is
with them. He'll look after Liam.”

Still Everin didn't speak. Avani brushed sweat-­damp strands of hair from her warm face, tucked them back into her braid. Everin settled on his heels on the floor of the tent, picked the volume of theist lore from the floor, and turned the book over and over in his hands.

“You think I'm wrong,” Avani challenged. She was no stranger to the shock of sudden loss, but never before had sharp grief made her want to pummel and strike out. She bit down hard on anger, and tried to speak calmly. “I'm not.”

“Jacob is a bird, Avani. Quick-­eyed and sharp-­beaked, but still only a bird.”

“Not just a bird.
Jhi.
The luck of my ancestors made solid and taken winged form.”

Everin smiled small, expression guarded. “For all of that, Jacob can't wield a sword or turn an arrow. Still, black eyes, I hope you're right.”

Avani lay on her side on the bedding.

“I wish you would come back with me,” she admitted.

“You're going, then.”

“Word of them will reach Renault far sooner than the Downs.”

Everin nodded. “Be careful. The city is not a safe place at the best of times; plague season brings madness, riots, fear.”

“You won't come.” She'd known, but still hoped otherwise.

“It would only make the situation worse.” He patted Avani's leg absently, gaze pinned to the flickering festival candle. “Don't fret yourself. I'll be in touch.”

The melting candle scented the small space with bayberry. Avani breathed deep of the soothing fragrance.

“Faolan, “ she guessed.

“He knows the way there and back.” Everin set the candle aside and opened his book, flipping through the pages. “Speaking of, what trouble were you up to in the barrows, Avani?”

“No trouble,” she said, thinking of the bit of fragment still in her pocket. “Nothing of import. Only, I found more pillars, more etchings. They'll wait.” She remembered the silver glint to her warding, and the flat stare of the
sidhe
from the shadows, and shuddered.

“They're not gone,” she warned. “I found . . . tools. Heard their sounds. They're still lurking just below, Everin. Be careful.”

“The barrows are their home,” the big man replied in gentle rebuke. “Best not incite them with intrusion.”

His fingers tapped a gentle rhythm on her shinbone, soothing. Avani sighed, and closed her eyes, seeking oblivion, hoping for dreams of Mal or Jacob, but sleep was elusive, and she was still restive and wakeful when the sun rose again behind the Downs.

 

Chapter Eight

T
HE
RIGGERS
WER
E
hunting Jacob, closing in like spiders against a fly, creeping carefully across rope and spar, clinging with fingers and toes. Mal watched the chase from the shade beneath the foremast. Two of the sailors held dirks clenched between their teeth. A third carried a square of fishing net.

“They'll not catch him with that,” Liam predicted, sniffing scorn. He wrinkled a nose burnt red by wind and sun. “And they'll not dare throw a knife for fear of loosing it overboard.”

“It's a ruse,” Mal said. His throat was gone raw from coughing. It hurt to speak, but he wouldn't let himself fall into the malaise threatening to drown him in the depths of dull despair.

Lately despair was the color of the sea, a brilliant, enticing blue disguising serpents and tentacles fathoms below.

“They mean to tire him,” he continued. “Eventually he'll fail. He won't last without fresh water.”

Overhead the riggers closed to within a stone's throw of the bird. Jacob watched, feathers ruffled, beak parted in derision. The seas were calm as they had been since the morning Liam and Mal had been forcefully transferred from the dark barge to an even less friendly ship.

“He's not the only one done without enough drink.” Liam rose and stretched, wincing. The rest of his body was burnt red as his face, the
sidhe
scars white against red. He still wore linen trousers, now stained and frayed, but his tunic had been taken for the first mate's pleasure, and his sandals distributed amongst the officers.

The lad had tied his hair back from his face with a bit of hempen twine, then further slicking it into place with whale oil, a practice he'd picked up from the swabs. Mal knew Liam likely smelled putrid, of sweat and salt and rotting whale fat, but the entire ship was rank with the stench of suffering. Mal's sensitive nose, overstimulated, rebelled. The air no longer carried information of any kind; food and drink was tasteless against his tongue.

He was deeply grateful for the failing.

Jacob launched himself from the top of the bowline. His wings spread large against the sky, briefly obscuring the sun. Then he dove toward the deck, calling mockery. Liam whooped.

“Hush,” Mal warned, watching as the raven wheeled, talons scraping the air above just beyond the first mate. The mate screamed obscenities. Jacob reversed midair, stroked back into the sky, and settled atop the foremast, wings hunched against his glossy head.

The three sailors clung to the rigging, indecisive, while the first mate continued to shout.

“Clever bird,” Liam praised, grinning. “He's not beat yet, my lord.”

Mal smiled.

“Not yet,” he agreed, wondering if Jacob was regretting the decision that had placed him far from dry land.

“Shade's moving, my lord,” Liam said. He bent, grasping Mal's elbow. “Let me help you.”

The lad seemed to be growing stronger on a diet of sea air and hard tack. He hauled Mal to his feet without effort. Mal staggered, thrown off balance as much by the slow roll of the horizon as by the ivory bracelets shackling his wrists and ankles. His stomach heaved in revolt, but it was long wrung empty, and Mal was able to ignore nausea.

He shuffled barefoot on the sticky deck, following Liam around the foremast. The spar must have started life as a gigantic conifer. Mal could see whorls and knots beneath the coatings of age and tar. He was glad of the mast's girth; it allowed for shade even when the sail was furled.

He crouched again out of the sun, grateful for the solid feel of the deck beneath his haunches. From his new seat he could see the butt of the ship's single gun, sleeping now, waiting upon the threat of pirates or other foe. Mal slumped onto his side, rested his head on the back of one hand, and considered the enormity of the canon.

Through the deck he thought he could hear the sigh and groan of the destroyer's living engine. The squeak and splash of oar in water was muffled, but ever present. Liam had taken his turn in the rowing cage, enduring stoically until Mal's increasing inability to eat or drink had convinced the captain to return the boy above and to his master.

“Rest, my lord.” Liam sat on his haunches. He looked up at the bright sky. “I'll keep watch.”

Mal wanted to laugh. He'd done nothing since they'd joined the ship but sprawl near helpless on the deck, hoping for an end to vertigo. He'd seen five sunrises from the ship's deck, four moonrises in a star-­filled sky. Sleep was elusive. The vertigo fooled his body into waking, caught mid-­cry on the edge of an imagined precipice.

“Bread, my lord?” Liam asked hopefully. “I've a bit of toast left, still?”

“Later,” Mal said, for the sake of the thing, although they both knew it was an empty promise.

He closed his eyes and listened to the slap of oars against the dead sea, and the cries of the sailors overhead.

J
UST
AFTER
THEIR
seventh sunrise on deck, while Liam peeled an orange stolen from the galley and Mal lay on his back watching streaks of violet and pink fade to white, the first mate approached the foremast. He'd buckled a saber to his belt. He rattled the hilt as he walked, caution or threat.

“My lord,” Liam hissed. He crammed the whole of the orange into his mouth.

The mate stopped beside the foremast. He bent over Mal, blocking out the morning. Mal blinked.

“You're wanted,” the first mate said in the royal lingua, brusque. “Captain's quarters.”

Liam shifted.

“My lord can't walk,” he said, still chewing. “Tell your captain my lord will see him here.”

Mal snorted. It hurt. His lips were cracked for want of moisture, and his tongue felt swollen in his mouth.

“Help me up,” he croaked.

For once Liam didn't argue. The lad stood, and extended a hand. Mal grasped the sticky fingers in his own and let Liam pull him upright. Vertigo struck. The deck tilted, the foremast spun. Mal found himself propped, one hand on Liam's shoulder, the other squeezing the mate's forearm.

“This way,” the mate said. He was an impressive specimen, roped with muscle, clad only in the trousers and sash that marked him as an officer on board. Tattoos covered his bald head. His brows were bushy and bleached white.

He supported Mal across the deck, speaking once to exhort a young sailor back to work. The swabs scattered as he approached, busily scrubbing the boards around the cannon. Mal resisted an urge to look skyward in search of Jacob.

As they passed the cannon, Liam touched a curious finger to the gun's gleaming snout.

“Looks heavy enough to sink the boat,” he said, awed. “Bigger than a cart horse, I think.”

“This
ship
is called
The Cutlass Wind
,” the mate said, gruff. “The cannon is
Queen Gwen
. Took twelve good men and an elephant to load her. Gwen's second only to
Red Mary
in kills. I'll ask you politely to keep your hands off.”

“What's an elephant?” Liam asked.

The first mate didn't bother to reply, and Mal was too busy trying to keep from falling to cobble together an explanation.

The captain's quarters were little more than a wide cubby beneath the bow. The mate went first, knocking twice before he slipped the door latch. He ducked his head, then half carried Mal down five shallow steps. Liam followed after.

The sway of the ship was more noticeable beneath the bow, but the room was cool, and dim, and pleasant compared to the open deck above. Mal dragged his gaze high enough to register a small table and two chairs bolted through a worn carpet to the boards, a single curtained window, and a bed built into a narrow cubby on the wall.

A large metal-­bound trunk occupied the space near the bed. A man sat on the curved lid, elbows propped on his knees. He wore captain's togs, complete with tails and badges, buttons, and ribbons, but his feet were bare and dirty, and the battered tricorn set atop greasy blond curls had seen batter days.

His skin was dark and sun chapped. His mouth quirked in mocking welcome. Mal took quiet note of the man's yellow eyes in a face too narrow to be of desert stock.

“My mother farmed green land,” the captain explained, noting Mal's stare. “My father took a fancy, kept her at his side until she died in childbed. He was a fox-­eyed desert man, through and through. Sit down,” he suggested, “my lord necromancer. Before you fall down.”

Mal did so, with as much dignity as he could muster. The wooden chair was made soft with velveteen cushions. The table was covered with half-­melted candles, empty tankards, and bits and pieces of what might once have been a sailor's compass. Mal picked up the compass's concave face, turning the glass over in his fingers, taking a moment to compose his stomach.

“I may owe you an apology,” the captain said. “I was warned the magi didn't well tolerate the sea, but I admit I didn't realize the extent of it. I was expecting a bit of the raw gut, surely, for a day or three. Instead you appear to be wasting to nothing on the calmest of waters, and we've yet to make the Sunken Islands.”

“These aren't helping.” Mal lifted an arm, shook the ivory bracelet around one wrist. “Whatever sorcery this is wars with my very nature.”

“They're meant to.” The captain shrugged his shoulders. “Can't have you summoning an army of keel-­hauled corpses from the bottom of the sea, or calling lightning down upon my ship.”

Mal laughed until he coughed. Liam fluttered about like a worried mother hen. The first mate scowled and muttered. The captain unfolded gracefully from his seat on the trunk, poured red wine from a pitcher, and pressed a brimming tankard into Mal's shaking hand.

“Breathe slowly and sip,” he ordered. “My father, he has bad lungs in winter. The wine helped. And the saunas.”

Mal sipped and breathed and sipped again. The wine tasted fruity, and cold. It stung his mouth and numbed his throat; a much higher alcohol content than he was used to.

“Thank you,” he said, when the spasm in his chest finally eased.

The captain nodded.

“Breakfast next.” He gestured at the mate, who immediately ducked out of the cabin. “Noel will bring you porridge. We've a few days yet to settle your stomach, before we hit the worst of it.”

“The Sunken Islands,” Mal said.

The captain nodded. “This time of year, I prefer to avoid them, but at the moment we are working against time, and that is the quickest way.”

Mal swallowed more wine. The captain wasn't wrong; the alcohol settled his stomach and dulled vertigo to a distant buzz. When Liam sat against Mal's knees, watchful, Mal was able to pat the lad's head in reassurance.

“Across the Long Sea,” he hazarded after a moment, meeting the captain's steady yellow stare. “Blois? Parsall? Nay, Roue. Aye?”

“Well done.” The captain clicked his tongue. He eyed Mal's signet, now dangerously loose around his finger. “I was promised the shackles would prevent that.”

“Not magic,” Mal said, as the cabin door burst open and the first mate tromped back in, balancing a heavy tray on his forearm. “A reasonable assumption, I think. You speak the king's tongue well, but accent is there, if one listens carefully. Then there are the slaves, the cannon, and the elephants.”

“Elephants?” The captain rose. He transferred steaming porridge, and apples, and a second pitcher of wine from the mate's tray, movements quick and efficient. “I said nothing of elephants.”

“Your man did. And the bracelets—­old ivory. I understand elephants roam wild across all of Sicambri, but only in and around Roue are they slaughtered for their tusks.”

“Not anymore,” replied the captain. “Not for many generations. Not since the Elephant Prince saved the Rani's first grandfather in the Third War, snatching the spear meant for the king in his great trunk, snapping it into two pieces. Your bracelets are very old indeed.”

“Impressive,” Mal said. He set an apple in Liam's hand, then eyed the porridge on the table with distaste.

“Eat, please,” the captain said. “I've promised the Rani a live magus. Noel will help you, if necessary.”

Mal picked up the spoon the first mate placed pointedly alongside the porridge bowl. “I'll warn you it's unlikely to stay down.”

“One can but try.” The captain bowed from the waist. “When we're on the water, my men call me Captain, or Baldebert. You may do the same.”

“What are you called off the water?” Liam asked through a mouthful of apple.

“On land I am Admiral Baldebert, supreme commander of Roue's most illustrious and royal navy.” He winked once at Liam and then smiled at Mal.

“Use the bed if you like, my lord. I've rounds to make, but Noel will stay.”

“To ensure I eat,” Mal said.

“Exactly,” the man said. He winked at Liam a second time, thumped the first mate on the back, and strode barefoot from the cabin.

Mal scooped clotted porridge up into his spoon, and began mechanically to eat.

Scraping through breakfast left Mal exhausted and weak. He allowed the first mate to help him across the cabin and into Baldebert's bunk. When he was satisfied Mal was wedged into the tight space, and Liam not likely to leave his master unattended, the mate gathered up the breakfast dishes and left them alone.

Mal pressed his face into worn blankets, grateful for the comfort. The ship was still but for the gentle rock of oars, and he'd swallowed enough wine to turn the world rosy and pleasant.

“Better, my lord?” Liam asked. The lad had taken Mal's place at the nailed-­down table, and was staring with morose concentration into an empty pitcher. Late morning light fell through the cabin's single window, pooling on the floor and part of the table, making Liam shine and shift and blur.