Across the Long Sea (15 page)

A branch of thick white candles burned in one corner. One of the maids must have set match to wick. A plate of cheese and bread and a pitcher of sweet wine sat on a low table. A small jar of dried herbs smoldered atop her old clothes chest. She sniffed, and identified tansy, and more lavender. Still, the combination made her sneeze. She set the snuff lid over the jar.

Sleep was calling, but Avani had one last task before she could burrow beneath cushions and quilts. The knots of her journey bag were water swollen and tight. She retrieved her blade and used the tip to slice the bag open. Her small box of teas tumbled out, still sealed. Her expensive threads in their silk pouch, all ruined. Her tins of healing salves and herbal compotes appeared salvageable.

Her Goddess was wedged at the very bottom of the split bag, swathed in fabric and bound with cord. The top layer of fabric was ruined, the cord wet, but beneath her wrappings the idol was dry as bone. Avani breathed a sigh of relief, and placed the gold-­skinned statue on the hearth. She added a twist of bread and a square of cheese for offering, then snuffed the candles and climbed into bed, pulling the coverlet up past her chin.

The wind rattled against the sill, and the embers on the hearth burned low, and Avani could still smell the Maiden in her hair. She slept deeply, and dreamlessly, and woke to the sound of wings outside her window, and sat upright thinking it was Jacob knocking against the panes.

But when she sprang out of bed and threw the casement open, it was only sparrows nesting on a nearby buttress. The early morning was still, the breeze died again to nothing. ­People moved about in the courtyard below, wreathed in scented smoke. She heard temple bells and the breathing of the blacksmith's bellows, but couldn't see either the temple or the blacksmith's corner for the fog of incense rolling about the bailey. A cart rattled by directly beneath the window, the driver slouched low behind his horse, a plague mask tied securely about his nose and mouth. There were corpses in this cart, four small bodies, partially shrouded.

The dead children sat in the cart alongside their stiffening corpses, impassive. Their eyes burned blue as they watched the courtyard roll by. One, a little lad with a snub nose and a perfectly bow-­shaped mouth, looked up at Avani as they passed.

“Can I have a sweet, mum?” he asked, plaintive. “One of them red-­and-­green jelly sweets? Please, mum?”

The carter stared forward, unaware, and clucked impatiently at his horses.

Avani closed the window. She ate some bread and drank a little of the sweet wine, and then she went to see the king.

T
HE
KINGSMEN
ON
duty outside the throne room let Avani in without hesitation. The heavy double doors slid soundlessly open and shut again. It was cold in the large room, in spite of the warm day dawning outside. Renault was not on his throne, but lingering by the hearth, warming gloved hands over the fire. His secretary lingered at his side, and a man in priest's robes stood a few strides away, watching. The rest of the hall was empty, but for the guards standing in pairs along the walls.

“Avani.” Renault turned at the sound of her footsteps. He smiled. “Up early, I see. I remember that about you, the eagerness to greet the day, and waste not a slip of sunlight.”

The gleam in his brown eyes was cautionary, his wide smile a warning. Avani didn't know Wilhaiim's king well, but she'd seen the very same twitch of expression on Mal's face when she was meant to hold her tongue.

“Tea?” His Majesty asked. He nodded at the pot resting on the hearth, and at the two delicate porcelain cups alongside. “You won't be surprised to hear, I think, that the court's developed a taste for island spices. Your doing, and Friend Deval's.”

“Thank you,” Avani replied. The scribe set aside his portable desk, and poured out the tea. The young man's hands were steady, fingers ink stained. “I wasn't aware you knew Deval, Your Majesty.” The tea infused the porcelain with warmth. Avani cradled the cup in both hands.

“The man's grown quite popular. Your influence, I think. He's a small home inside the city walls, now. And a shop front. You must visit him, Avani. He'll be pleased to see you.”

The scribe bowed as he offered Renault tea. The yellow-­eyed priest was not included in the quiet ritual.

“Michael,” the king said. “Go and fetch me the book, will you?”

The scribe bowed again, and took himself off to the edge of the hall. Renault watched the young man depart, then took a careful swallow of his tea.

“That one,” the king said, a quiet murmur, “was trained up well in the temple dormitories. Both as a scribe, and a telltale. He's been trying to steal a peek at Malachi's journal since midnight. Now he's his chance, and so have we.”

Avani arched a brow at Renault. This time, when he smiled, it was in honest amusement.

“Brother Orat is trustworthy. As he was trained up well in
my
dormitories.”

“This,” said Avani, “is only one of the reasons I've no desire to serve you, Majesty. As far as I can tell, near everyone in this castle popped out of the womb with two faces.”

“Crude,” Renault replied. “And in general, apt. Honest men and women are more precious than true gold. Which is why I
do
need you here, in Mal's laboratory, at least until the Red Worm is vanquished.”

“I've a pot of salve and ser­viceable herb knowledge. If it's a hedge-­witch you require, I'll give you my help gladly. If it's prohibitive magics you require, or cold-­room lore, you'd best wait for Malachi. Or, at the very least, mend whatever rift's developed between throne and temple. Brother Orat's kind have more than a few pots of salve, and, I'm led to believe, a few healing sorceries.”

Renault finished his tea, then wiped amber droplets from his mustache with the back of his hand.

“The Masterhealer's methods are failing. And Mal is aboard a ship bound across the Long Sea, closer now to Roue than our Low Port.”

Avani realized she'd been holding her breath. She let it out in a long sigh. “You've found them, then. They're well, the both of them?”

“For the nonce, although I understand it's been a bit of a close thing. Roue's a far older kingdom than my own, centuries older and yet still suffering growing pangs. I'm told they're in desperate need of a magus, and although I've denied them—­several times—­still they came after mine.”

Avani set her porcelain cup, untouched, back on the hearth. “Mayhap I can spend some time in the cold room, mix up more salve, walk amongst the sick with drink and bandages until Mal returns.”

“Returns? Avani, I said I've found them, not that I have them. Brother Orat is only one of a legion of my eyes and ears.”

“Majesty,” Brother Orat said, a warning. The scribe was making his way back across the hall, leather book held in front of him in both hands.

“
Ai
, but surely you've sent your best ships after?” Avani hissed.

Renault looked long at Avani. She felt herself shrink, just a little, beneath his steady regard. The scribe passed between them and offered the book he carried to the king, bowing once more.

“Leave the waging of diplomacy to me.” Renault took the book, turned it about, and placed it in Avani's hands. She took it eagerly, hugged the familiar weight against her chest. “Take the day, go and visit your friend, doubtless he'll want to share his good fortune. Come back to me, after. Bring me a pouch of his best spices.”

Avani opened her mouth on disagreement, then shut it again, nearly biting her tongue in the process. If Renault, who Avani would wager had little or no part in the salting of his daily meat, insisted she go visit an island tradesman with just as little interest in His Majesty's supper, then both king and spice merchant possibly had good reason.

“Well done,” His Majesty said, dry. “You'll need an escort. One will do; the city's been relatively subdued, what with the dying off of an entire generation.” Renault's teeth flashed white and dangerous beneath his beard. He beckoned, and a kingsman detached from the wall, flamboyant in red and black heraldry.

“Russel, accompany Lady Avani on her errand. See that she doesn't lose her turning in the smoke.”

Russel, scrubbed clean of the Maiden and looking for all the world as if she hadn't spent most of the previous night near unconscious, bowed neatly before the king. He dismissed her with a wave, did the same with Avani.

“No later than this evening,” he said, turning already to his scribe. “Bring my spices.”

“Y
OU SHOULD BE
abed,” Avani scolded Russel when they stood outside the throne room, double doors swinging shut at their backs. “Well dosed with parsley and turmeric, both.”

Russel ran hands through her curls. “Aye? What's that for? Parsley, and . . . ?”

“Turmeric.” Avani couldn't help but grin. The woman dressed up well in the king's fine uniform; she wore the sword on her belt with admirable ease and confidence. “Cleanses the blood, of poisons and gasses.”

“Both of which we swallowed in spades, last night.” Russel grimaced. “Three hot baths, enough tansy to choke a horse, and half a bottle of red put me well to rights, my lady, but thank you.”

“Oh. Am I ‘my lady' now?” Avani's grin stretched.

“Of a certainty,” Russel replied. “When you're dressed like that.”

Avani glanced down at her own uniform of unrelieved black. Andrew's ring on its chain glittered against midnight silk, while the blacksmith's key and Kate's gift of rubies almost disappeared in the deep color. She'd used the thin silver pins to twist her hair from her face. Malachi's journal was heavy in her grip.

“That color black's reserved for the magus,” Russel said, pragmatic. “I admit I was doubtful, when first I laid eyes on you. But you did well enough with the temple mark, didn't you? And His Majesty's given you the old vocent's book of spells. So it's ‘my lady' you are, even if you did squeal like a stuck sow when you first fell into the Maiden.”

“You
cursed
like a stable lad,” Avani returned, smiling small. “My mother would have whipped you for such language.
Ai
,” she sighed. “If His Majesty wants me to see Deval, we'd best be about it. Down into the city, then?”

Russel nodded.

“Tie on your mask,” she said. “You're likely too old for the Worm, but the tonsured brothers will toss you into the temple infirmary and hold you there, they see you without it.”

“Infirmary?” Avani tried the unfamiliar word.

“You'll see,” Russel promised, face somber. “The infirmary is where we'll find your friend.”

 

Chapter Thirteen

T
HE
C
UTLASS
W
IND
listed drunkenly across the Long Sea, sails finally open, chased along the water by healthy wind.

The wind was of Mal's making. The Long Sea was flat as glass and green as pasture, the blue sky above quiet. The engine was broken to almost nothing; more than one quarter of the indentured oarsmen had drowned below deck as the ship sank. The surviving men and women refused to take up oar even as Baldebert threatened and chided and pleaded. Mal thought the oarsmen were suffering from shock as well as malnourishment and exhaustion.

“These ­people need more than bread and thin stew,” Mal told Baldebert. They stood together, watching as Liam and the redheaded officer moved amongst huddled survivors, offering fresh water and hard tack. The sailors and swabs ignored the oars as they rushed about, tending to the needs of their struggling ship.

“They won't take anything more,” Baldebert replied. The ivory cuffs dangled from a catch on his belt. The captain hadn't threatened Mal with the suffocating magic, not since he'd decided a magus wind was their last chance at Roue. “The bread and stew is in their contract, and they won't take a morsel more, for fear of breaking it.”

When Mal arched both brows in inquiry, Baldebert tossed his head, greasy yellow curls bouncing.

“They're prisoners of war,” he explained, impatient. “They've two choices when taken: ten years of servitude and then freedom, or execution. If they break contract, I've a right to throw them overboard with the rest of the corpses.”

Mal flexed his hands, shedding green sparks. Jacob, perched on his left shoulder, shifted from foot to foot. The wind in the sails gusted angrily. Baldebert grimaced at the implied threat.

“Cook may have an extra wheel of cheese put away,” the captain said. “I promise you, they won't eat it.”

“Try,” Mal ordered.

Baldebert shrugged and nodded, and strode away. The first mate, standing behind Mal at the wheel, cleared his throat.

“Captain's right about the oars. Now it's the rest of us'll be eating naught but cheese until port.”

Mal walked past the large man to portside and looked out over the gunwale. He gripped the wide ledge with both hands, and spread his feet for balance. Without the ivory cuffs around his wrists and ankles, the vertigo had retreated to near nothing, but his head pulsed with every beat of his heart, and his senses were heightened, acutely aware. Twenty-­five other heartbeats whispered against his own, twenty-­five sources of life in a ship now devoid of ghosts.

He'd snuffed corpse-­spirits to sustain his magic. And he knew that now, with deep water roiling beneath his feet, he could easily do it again, this time devouring the living, making their strength his own, just as he'd once accidentally used Avani.

It had been sweet, that joining. The power and essence of her had filled the chinks in his mind and heart, bolstered the core of him, unbearably tender and dangerously addictive at the same time.

Forbidden.

A weakness, and a crutch. He'd used his dead wife in much the same way, all unknowing, and could do the same now, pulling corpse spirit from a living swab, or sailor, or the first mate, and Baldebert. Not tender, not that, but a rush of fire and delight, the taking, and with it surely he could send
The Cutlass Wind
speeding back across the sea, all the way to Selkirk.

“And wouldn't that be impressive?” he said, watching green sparks fall from the tips of his fingers into the water beneath. “The failed son, returned home all of a piece, dragging a lovely warship all his own. Not such a failure in the end, I think.”

A hand landed hard on Mal's shoulder, making Jacob grumble and take flight. If Mal closed his eyes he could rise with the raven, climb up past the rigging and the foremast and the ripping sail, until the sea was a flat plain the same color as the reflected sky.

“Don't do that,” Baldebert said sharply. He pressed the tips of his fingers into Mal's shoulder, causing flesh already bruised by Jacob's claws to twinge. “Temptation is naught but the quickest way to madness.”

Mal opened his eyes. He turned from the water, accepting the wineskin Baldebert offered. Sparks continued to drip from his hands, snuffing harmlessly on the tarred deck. He'd discovered he couldn't quench the shedding flares entirely.

“What do you know of it?” He pulled the cork with his teeth, swallowed sweet red wine. He might no longer suffer the vertigo, but Baldebert seemed to think the liquor was still a necessity. Mayhap Baldebert believed a properly sodden magus couldn't unwind his pretty bright spirit, use it to take flight as a raven indeed, return to Wilhaiim feathered and feared.

Baldebert's spirit was as gold as his dirty hair, the thread of life now connecting him to Mal gorgeous to look upon.

Mal's hungry stare was reflected in Baldebert's yellow irises. Mal blinked. Baldebert didn't. The captain's hand was light and easy on his dirk.

“We're nearly home,” Baldebert said, soft. “Can you hang on until morning, or shall I cuff you now?”

“You could knock me over the head,” Mal said. “Even unconscious, the wind cant would still hold. But I do believe I'd snuff you to nothing but the sweet sing of power on my tongue before you managed to connect.”

Baldebert sighed. His hand didn't leave the hilt of his weapon.

“There's a good reason the gods let your kind die out, magus. Drink it all,” he said. “To the dregs. Then maybe you'll sleep, and the rest of us will survive this night.”

Jacob, riding high on Mal's unnatural air currents, laughed without sound. Mal grinned at the raven's amusement, then upended the skin and let the wine run down his chin and into his throat. He drank until the skin was flaccid in his fist.

M
AL
D
IDN
'
T
SLEEP
, but a steady supply of wine made him boneless and muzzy-­headed, and dulled temptation. He was able to think sensibly again, even if the thinking was done sitting on the deck against the bulwark because he was quite possibly too drunk to stand.

“Sorry,” he said, when Liam joined him. The sky was purple with sunset. Baldebert was minding the wheel, while the first mate climbed about overhead on the rigging.

“It's fine, my lord,” Liam said. “You rest. Most of them didn't want my help, anyway.”

Mal was late cottoning on. He blinked at the lad, noting for the first time that Liam's scars shone a pretty silver if he snuck a sideways look. Head-­on, they tried to hide themselves from Mal's intrusive magic, but with the deep water filling Mal to brimming, the
sidhe
residue left behind on Liam's flesh was impossible to miss.

“They've written a history on you, Liam. Or a promise.”

“My lord?” Liam folded his hands away behind his back, away from Mal's inspection. “I meant the desert folk, my lord. They didn't want my help.”

Mal looked across the deck at the huddle of men and women. They were clustered together in the shelter of the mainmast, limbs entwined, speaking softly amongst themselves as they watched the darkening sky. Most still wore collars about their necks, hasps hanging open where chain and lock had once been.

“You've a nasty habit o' shacklin' ­people,” Mal pitched his complaint in the direction of the ship's wheel.

“It's only business,” Baldebert replied easily. “A man makes a living.”

“Not a living I'd want,” Liam said, loud against the flapping of the sales. “Abduction, slavery, and murder. I'd not sleep at night. Better to raise a good herd or defend a good man.”

“Murder?” the captain replied, baffled. “What murder?”

“Why, the oars what drowned,” Liam answered, while Mal tried to read secrets in the marks across the boy's brow. “Supreme commander of Roue's most illustrious and royal navy, you said. Everin says it's a titled man's duty to protect those who serve him—­and you didn't even try.”

Baldebert considered the lad, brow furrowed. Then he turned on his heel and strode away, leaving Liam to scowl after.

M
AL'S COUGH CAME
back with the rising stars. It hurt, a constriction like pebbles in his lungs, exacerbated by the sea spray and the cold. If he closed his eyes and followed the throb of his heartbeat down through his bones and muscle he could see the damage in his lungs, the scarred tissue left behind by the
agraine
poison. The Masterhealer hadn't been able to repair compromised tissue, nor reinforce the bits of heart wall etched thin by the same affliction.

It might kill him, Mal thought, the less than adequate air flow, the heart muscle that might fail at any time. It probably would, and he wasn't yet ready to die. There were so many things he needed still to do.

It would be easy, simple, to smooth away the damage, put heart and lungs to right. He could borrow just a little of the spirit warmth on the deck beside him, the golden glow of youth. Mal was himself young still, and deserved a young man's health, needed to be strong and whole and able to guard king and city and family.

He tugged, unraveling a bit of stolen spirit, and used it to ease away the ache in his right lung, reached for more to smooth away the scarring in his left  . . .

Liam, curled against Mal's side, moaned in his sleep, then keened, a high infant's cry of fear and loss. Mal bolted upright, wide awake and suddenly sober, eyes wide in horror.

Baldebert turned from the wheel, considered Mal in the flicker of a single shielded lantern and the steady white glow of a spring moon high above the foremast.

“Put them back on,” Mal said. “It's no' the sea that's the danger, it's me.”

Baldebert's hands were steady on the spokes of his wheel.

“A few more dark hours,” he promised, “and then your magic wind's nothing to me. The Rani will shackle you if she wills.”

“It'll be an empty gunship arrives, if any at all,” Mal said, near enough to raving. Liam stirred in his sleep, and sat up. “I'll bleed you dry for the joy o' it. I want to. Blood of the Virgin, I
want
to.”

Liam gaped.
The Cutlass Wind
creaked and groaned and rode Mal's conjured wind. The first mate appeared from out of the darkness, hand on the hilt of his sword. Baldebert waved him back.

“It was a man I abducted, not a beast,” the captain replied, calm. “A beast ruts and rapes and takes what was never offered, and pleasures himself until he's sick with the rush of it. A man restrains himself, because he can, and there's power in control. Understand?”

“Aye,” said Mal, a whisper, as Liam clung hard to the leg of his trousers, crushing fabric in his fist.

“Good.” Baldebert nodded toward the first mate. The mate stood as he was, guarding Mal, or guarding the wheel. Baldebert began to whistle a mournful, skirling tune. Two sailors, up in the rigging and the moonlight, sang a wordless, booming accompaniment.

Mal lay back again, the music of living voices in his ears, Liam's fingers twisted still in his trousers.

But by dawn they had to sit on him, the first mate and Liam and the redheaded officer from the engine. Mal thrashed and screamed and shed green sparks and begged for protection of old ivory because he was a man and not a beast, but he wanted nothing more than to take
The Cutlass Wind
apart, smash it to sliver and rag, sup on the meat and bones and glow of the warship's captain and crew and yellow-­eyed cargo and Liam—­
Liam—­
and walk across the remaining expanse of sea, a ripple of threat on still water. Feast upon the near-­ports and villages, grow feathered wings, ebony black, and fly on to the next.

“Devils take us,” the mate swore. Mal was small and quick with his fists, and even with the redheaded sailor sitting on his chest he managed to clock the mate solidly across the nose. Blood burst bright on the deck. “Captain!”

“Roue's pennant flies welcome,” Baldebert said from where he stood balanced on the bowsprit, spyglass in hand. “They're prepared, and we're still amongst the living. Which means the magus is still more man than monster, and I'm about to discharge my debt.”

Mal snarled at the blond man's insolence, and took the smallest taste of his essence in retaliation. Baldebert's spirit was light and sweet as honey, and strong, very strong. Mal laughed, reaching for more.

Baldebert swayed, and swore, and grabbed at lines.

“Strike him over the head,” the captain ordered, even as Liam squeaked protest. “Hard. I'll not lose this gamble now.”

The mate's fist rose, and fell, and the rising sun exploded, taking Mal with it. He reached for Avani as he shattered, a reflexive grab at safety, but the distance was too great. He felt her grasp, and miss. Her panic followed him down into the darkness.

H
E
WOKE
TO
a mouth full of blood and sand, hands manacled again, now tightly at his back, so his shoulders ached. He lay on his stomach, cheek pressed into warm, dry sand. His magic was once more dim, muffled, useless. The absence of rushing, raw power left him hollow and angry, a man abruptly shed of hope.

He squirmed onto his side, spat blood and grit from between his teeth, caught a sliver of blue sky. His head ached, not from the first mate's fist, but from too much wine.

Baldebert crouched down, bootheels leaving tiny dunes in white sand, the tip of his dirk drawing idle patterns alongside.

“The wind failed when you did,” he said. “At the last we had to accept tow into the bay. Bloody embarrassing.”

“I'd apologize for the error.” Mal rolled an eye, trying to see past boot and blade to the captain's face. “But I see you're in one piece. My lad?”