Across the Long Sea (16 page)

“Also in one piece. Cajoling the hired oxen with turnips, while we wait for you to wake. Can you sit?”

Mal rolled again and managed to scramble onto his knees. His ankles were blessedly unfettered. “Dry land?” he asked, even as the sandy ground rocked gently. Not the vertigo, he thought, but a more reasonable affliction of the inner ear: sailor's legs.

Baldebert nodded, brisk. “And glad to see it.” He sighed, sheathed his dirk, and stood, joints popping. “Will you walk into Roue as befits your honor, necromancer, or will you ride, as my prisoner?”

“I am your prisoner.”

Baldebert's lips twitched. “And also an honorable man.”

“You decided that very quickly.”

“You've been aboard my ship for near two cyles of the moon,” Baldebert said simply. He tilted his head in regret. “I'm afraid I can't release you entire, but I can give you a cape for the sun and wet, and your dignity.”

Mal glanced down at his torn trousers, bare feet, and ragged tunic.

“Do so. First, help me up.”

Baldebert was taller by a handspan, and far stronger than he appeared. He grasped Mal's elbow with one hand, hoisted him upright, onto his feet, held him until Mal found his balance. The warmth of the sand felt lovely on Mal's bare feet; the fall of the sun on his face and neck was a pleasant weight. He stretched his neck and shoulders as best he could, then stared about.

Roue Province had a bustling port city—­Mal knew that much from broth trade and court gossip. He'd seen the maps, read firsthand accounts, expressed vague interest in Roue's long-­standing land war. But the ocean was wide, the Long Sea dangerous even to those without innate magic in their blood. And Mal's duty was to Wilhaiim; until now he'd never supposed he'd set foot on such distinctly foreign soil, never bothered to memorize Roue's cultural or topographical intricacies.

Even so, it didn't take an expert to see that Baldebert hadn't dropped anchor in formal port.
The Cutlass Wind
bobbed out far beyond shallow breakers, a silhouette against the horizon. Two of the warship's scout boats wallowed in the fingerling waves, rust-­covered anchors visible on the edge of water and sand. If another vessel had indeed towed the ship into harbor, Mal saw no sign of it.

A wagon and two large red cattle, as long of horn as the steer Mal remembered from Gerald Doyle's fields, waited on the beach. The cattle were harnessed, apparently meant to pull the wagon. True-­gold bells the size of Mal's thumb hung from the animals' leather kit, and rang when the cattle turned their heads, seeking the root vegetables Liam dangled before their damp black noses in offering.

A narrow pennant flew from the wagon, yellow crescent on green. A dark man in matching livery sat on a high bench in the cart, harness reins lax on his knee. Tracks from the wagon's large spindled wheels ran parallel along the water.

“Ready?” Baldebert asked. “Or shall I tie you to the wagon?”

“No need.” Mal shook off the other man's grip. “I choose dignity, though I may need a hand up and
in.
”

He strode toward the wagon, ignoring the perceived shift and roll of solid land. He supposed he appeared still in his cups, and was ready to recognize honest amusement, until Liam turned in welcome and Mal caught sight of the purpling flesh beneath the lad's eye.

Mal straightened in outrage, angry magic surging to the very tips of his fingers, tingling unpleasantly as inscrolled ivory reversed the flow, making Mal shudder.

“Lad jumped to your defense,” Baldebert said softly, into Mal's ear. “Noel accidentally caught him with the back of his hand. Noel's scrubbing the bilge for the offense, and your Liam's wearing the bruise like a badge. Don't cluck over him; let the lad be a man.”

Because Mal had said a similar thing to Avani not long past, he swallowed back frustration, nodded sharply.

“They're called oxen,” Liam said, patting one of the cattle as Mal approached. “They like turnips and apples, and the admiral says they're strong enough to haul ten grown men in a wagon, need be.”

“Lovely.” Mal eyed the horns, three times as long as his forearm, with distaste and interest. The tip of each horn was capped in more true gold, sharp as a sword point, dangerous. “Give me a hand up, lad.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The wagon wasn't quite large enough to haul the ten men Liam imagined, but it was comfortable. The benches were padded, and sprung with clever coil, presumably to absorb shocks and bumps. Blankets were stowed under the first bench, and what appeared to be pieces of a very large parasol were strapped to the bottom of the second.

Liam settled on the bench beside Mal.

“Nice,” the lad sighed, poking at the soft cushion. “Mite better than a tarred deck, ain't it, my lord?”

“Isn't it.”

Baldebert clamored into the wagon, nodded at the driver, and settled on the empty bench. The driver clucked and shook the reins, and the cattle surged forward, drawing the wagon through white sand. Baldebert tossed a bundle of green silk at Liam's lap. The lad caught the fabric in the air, unwound it with quick hands. The silk spread and became twin cloaks, tiny half-­moons intricately embroidered over hem and hood in yellow thread. The fabric and the slanting embroidery caught Mal's attention.

“
Salwar
?” He asked, pronouncing the foreign word as Avani had taught him. The driver turned his head slightly in reaction.

“
Barasati
,” Baldebert corrected. “You've a fine accent. Speak the common language, do you? We didn't expect that, I admit, but it makes things easier.” His smile didn't quite reach his yellow eyes.

“Only a handful of phrases,” Mal replied as Liam settled the cloak over his aching shoulders, wrapping the folds firmly about Mal's torso. The fabric was heavier than it appeared, soft where it brushed his skin, and it smelled heavily of sandalwood and amber. Mal shifted uncomfortably beneath it, met Baldebert's watchful stare.

“How long am I expected to wear your shackles?” Mal asked. “We're on dry land, I'm as sane as any other man in this wagon.”

Baldebert laughed, a low purr in the back of his throat. “The Rani will have them removed once you've given her your word.”

“Honor again,” Mal said, feigning boredom. “You're very sure of my word, Captain.”

“Admiral,” Baldebert corrected. “When we're on dry land. Best remember that. The ­people of Roue are very . . . precise . . . when it comes to titles.” He squinted past Mal at the ocean. “And also, yes, honor. I've no fear you'll break your word once given, not in Roue, and not with young Liam here by your side. You'll make sure your master keeps any promises he makes, won't you, lad?” Baldebert shifted, yellow eyes once again meeting Mal's, widening slightly in silent implication.

“Threats,” Mal said, as Liam scowled.

“Threats and promises,” Baldebert agreed. “Welcome to Roue, my lord. It's been a very, very long war.”

 

Chapter Fourteen

F
A
RTHER
ALONG
THE
curve of beach, strange sculptural forms rose out of the white sand, glinting gray and gold beneath the beating midmorning sun. The reflected light made Mal blink several times, and wish he could shade his face to be sure of what he was seeing. As the oxen pulled the wagon close, the sculptures turned into a scattering of eight wide boulders, each taller than a man, each topped with a single elaborate spire. The spires were gold and sharp as the points on the oxen's horns, long as a kingsman's pike, multifaceted, and hung with long strands of faceted red stones.

“God's balls,” Liam breathed, half rising from the bench. “My lord, is all that
true
gold? I didn't know there was so much in the world, no matter one beach.”

Mal shook his head, baffled and awed. The golden spires were lovely, eight shining spears in the heart of the sky, while their granite pedestals were rough and sand-­pocked, tangled about the base with dried seaweed and shards of old shell.

“Memory keepers,” Baldebert said. He'd folded himself into a green cloak, pulled the hood over his dirty hair. “The largest, there, that one's Shellshale, the other seven are of a size, for the most part.”

“Monuments,” Liam translated. “For the lost islanders?” He looked pleased. “The Serranos have one, too, on their beach. It's a bit of a ship, isn't it? And not so very . . . gold.”

“The Serranos?”

Mal tipped his head in dry acknowledgement.

“My family burned the bodies what washed ashore,” he said. “And placed a marker. Liam's correct, I'm afraid. Our monument has much less gold.”

Baldebert pursed his lips in an almost smile. Mal didn't miss the driver's second surprised glance.

“In Roue we've almost as much gold as we've memory keepers,” Baldebert said. “I expect you'll grow used to both, in time.”

The wagon turned away from the water, weaving between two boulders, creeping up the sand toward rolling green hills. The cattle strained as they left sand behind, hauling their burden up over a lip of shale and onto grass. Not a well-­defined road, but a stretch of field showing signs of regular travel. The wagon bumped over half-­buried planks set on spots of marshy ground. The hills rose gently on either side, thick with vegetation, striated with lazy waterfalls. As they traveled away from the sea, the air grew moist and verdant, the track narrowed until the sides of the wagon threatened to snag on tall grass and vine. Wide-­leafed branches made a low roof overhead, and the heat eased considerably.

“
Oud
,” Baldebert said. Mal wasn't sure whether he meant the forest or the trees. Fat spheres of water fell from above, shedding rainbow droplets as they burst apart on the wagon and its passengers. The water rolled harmlessly off the
barasati.
Mal was glad of the protection, even as his exposed wrists and hands grew slick and his feet uncomfortably wet.

“It's like standing in a river,” Liam said. “I'm afraid to take a breath.”

Mal, watching over the driver's shoulder, noted that the road ran unnaturally straight, the planks now set one after another, seamless and solid in the ground. It wasn't an act of nature; the road had been somehow cut into the hills. In those scant places where no vegetation grew, he could see the stone beneath the soil, and the stone was scarred with long furrows, as though some gigantic clawed monster had raked it top to bottom.

He frowned, recalling the unlikely but worrisome eastern legend of taloned fire-­breathing serpents. Then he stiffened, catching a glimpse of a more mundane threat.

“There are soldiers in the hills and trees,” he murmured, soft. “Armed, hidden amongst the green.”

Liam reached for a sword no longer there, then clenched his fists. The driver clucked at the cattle, urging more speed, but Baldebert only smiled.

“Did you think the Rani would entrust your safety to a single bodyguard?” Baldebert chided. “The last magus in all the world? Tajit”—­he tilted his cloaked head at the impassive driver—­“is impressive, I admit, and worth his weight in rubies, but I'm afraid even he can't be expected to keep you secure. You're a very popular man.”

“Your men, then.” Mal tried to guess at their number, but the helmed forms in the shining green were as insubstantial as ghosts. If not for the ivory cuffs, he might have assumed they were indeed lingering spirits.

“The Rani's personal army,” Baldebert said. “And I can promise, they're very glad to see you.”

“What is it you want?” Mal asked, finally voicing the question he'd kept locked for days behind his teeth, because to ask was to admit weakness, and uncertainty, and fear. And Wilhaiim's vocent was allowed no room in his heart for weakness or uncertainty, and especially no room for fear.

Baldebert brushed back his hood, letting water drip on his brow and cheeks.

“Victory,” he said. “An end to the endless war.”

T
HE
R
ANI
'
S
PERSONAL
army stayed hidden in the hills when the road dipped and the wagon followed it out of the trees. Plank road cut vibrant green pastures cut into near-­perfect rectangles. Squat, sharply peaked huts rose out of the green on dark stilts. The huts had red roofs and red doors. Narrow chimneys in the roofs spat cook-­smoke into the sky, gray puffs of rising cloud.

Beyond the smoke, in the very middle of patchwork green fields, a mountain loomed, an island of sharp gray edges above smooth emerald. Gold glinted here and there amongst the shadows; memory keepers sprouting like wildflowers at the base of the peak.

The road slanted at such an abrupt angle that the wheels slipped on wet plank, skidding. Mal rocked on the bench, leaning against Liam for support. The cattle, undeterred, trod on. Tajit shook his reins, then turned to look over his shoulder at Baldebert. For the first time Mal got a good look at the driver. A scar bisected the man's face from scalp to chin, and his nose was broken at such an angle as to be almost grotesque. His mouth was creased in secret amusement.

“Very quiet, Admiral,” Tajit said. “The
oryza
is lonely.”

Without the broad-­leafed trees providing shelter, rain fell in a steady patter. It wasn't the cold rain Mal was used to, nor the warm spit of the sea storms, but somewhere in between. The cattle were sodden gold points, dripping, and Liam was beginning look like a drowned cat. The lad sneezed, shifted closer to Mal, and sniffled.

Baldebert grunted. He stood, swaying against the wagon's tilt and shift. He reached under his bench, deftly unbuckling leather straps. In a matter of minutes he had the umbrella fitted together and spread over their heads, shaft fitted into a previously unremarkable hatch in the center of the wagon's floor. Curved wooden ribs stretched fabric over almost the entirety of the wagon. Only Tajit was left to battle the warm rain.

“We've a way to go, yet,” Baldebert said. “They say the first
chatai—­
umbrella—­was invented by a man who could speak to field mice.”

Liam scoffed, but leaned in, elbows propped on thighs, curious. “No man can speak to mice.”

Baldebert fisted his long hair in one hand, squeezed water from the ringlets. “Not even your master?” he inquired, smiling sidelong at Mal.

“The average mouse has little of interest to say,” Mal replied. He was busy studying the fields past the edge of the umbrella, studying the stilted huts, and the reflection of the sky on the ground, and the mounded dikes between road and field.

“Your crop is flooded,” he said.

“It's been a good spring,” Baldebert agreed. “After a winter too dry for comfort.”

Mal twisted on his bench, trying to ease the pull in his shoulders. A flooded crop was baffling, and the stilted huts, and the cattle undisturbed by the splash of water against their hairy bellies. A land of too-­bright green and high, clear water, he thought, and wondered how he'd ever thought Wilhaiim unpleasantly wet.

Deep water brought madness, and though the marshy land to either side was not deep water, he couldn't suppress a shiver. He disguised the tremor with a sneeze, but Baldebert was too canny, sharp-­eyed, and clever.

“The Broken Palace is well above sea level,” he said, indicating the spread of the mountain ahead. As they grew nearer, the paler ribbon of a road was visible between dark crags and golden spires. “Above even the morning fog.”

“There are fish in the fields!” Liam said, delighted. “Can you see them, my lord? Swimming about, all bright and orange? Look, there, along the road?”

“Very old fish. Many travelers feed them, for luck. They've learned to beg.” Baldebert patted his pockets, came up empty. “I've nothing, I'm afraid. Tajit?”

The driver, unfazed, swiveled around. He dropped a handful of crusted bread into Liam's eager hand.

“Make a wish, young lord,” the driver said, in the royal lingua, heavily accented but exceedingly precise. “The old
koi
, they're greedy. Toss them a nice crust, and they'll grant you your heart's desire.”

Liam squeezed head and shoulders between wagon and umbrella. He tossed the crusts into the water edging the road. The fish, lacy-­finned and bug-­eyed, swam up through the crop, eagerly swallowing down the lad's offering.

“Did you make a wish?” Baldebert asked.

“Aye.” Liam slid back into place on the bench. “For my sword back, so I could take you through the heart.”

Baldebert grunted in surprise. “Do you hate me so much, then?”

“Nay.” Apparently unconcerned, Liam peered over the driver's shoulder at the road ahead. “You seem a good sort, sir. But I am meant to serve my lord, and my lord is meant to serve His Majesty, and it seems to me you've put the sea between them.”

Baldebert tapped the fingers of one hand on his knee. “Have you killed a man before, lad?”

Liam shook his head. “But it's not difficult, I think. Naught but meat and bones and the killing places in between. My lord's very good at it. Once I heard him laugh when he beat a dead kingsman to naught but crushed limbs and gristle with the flat of his sword.”

This time Baldebert's startled glance was for Mal. Mal schooled his expression to innocence, and let the blond man see his teeth.

“It's not too late,” he said. “Set us free now and I'll kill you cleanly.”

“I believe you,” Baldebert said. “I've the salt on my ship to prove your sorceries. We know you brew poisons for murder. I didn't realize you could look after yourself with a blade.” He shrugged. “All the better for Roue, I'm afraid.”

Mal forced his wrists against ivory until the etchings bruised his skin. Baldebert didn't move to stop him, only slouched on his bench and pulled the hood back up over his face. The man's confident unconcern made Mal grit his teeth and press harder, until he felt the trickle of blood from scraped flesh. The ivory shackles didn't give.

The mountain seemed forever out of reach, the fields endless as the sea they'd just escaped. The oxen grew wet with more than rain, shedding a frothy sweat between their legs and beneath their tails. Exhaustion finally caught up with Liam. The lad dozed, nodding against Mal's side. The driver, Tajit, hummed under his breath. Baldebert sat quietly, studying the underside of the umbrella with detached interest.

The fire in Mal's shoulders had dulled to ice and he was close to dozing himself, when the wagon jerked and dropped, bouncing umbrella and benches. Liam gasped and lurched upright. Baldebert stood and began dismantling rib and canvas.

The rain had stopped. The road widened and became white sand again. Pine and wide-­leafed trees grew now to either side of the wagon. The oxen caught needles and vines on their long horns, dragging the vegetation behind, unnoticed until it dropped. Memory keepers gleamed amongst the trees, nearly obscured by forest.

The oxen set their hooves in the sand, straining and heaving as they began the pull up the mountain.

“
B
ūṛ
h
ē
Adam
Ä«
,” Baldebert said, meaning the gray crags. “ ‘Old Man Mountain.' Before there was Roue, there was
B
ūṛ
h
ē
Adam
Ä«
, and he was but a small island, a home to fisher-­folk who lived on his warm sands and hunted surrounding tide pools for food. The fisher-­folk were meant to take only the oyster and ray and the small fish from his shoals, just enough to feed their families and use for medicine.”

The oxen sighed and pulled. A small army of lithe, dark-­haired men and women separated themselves from the dense forest and fell into place behind the wagon, stern-­faced and heavy-­footed; their boots struck the sand with military precision. They wore enameled caps and carried matching shields, all in green and gold, and their long tunics were detailed with Roue's delicate half-­moon.

“But the fisher-­folk grew greedy,” Baldebert continued. “They wanted leather from the porpoise to line their shields, and the tooth of a lion shark to wear in their ears. They hunted the deep waters, taking what was forbidden, until the porpoise families fled, and the pods of lion shark went elsewhere to rear their young. Then Old Man Mountain roared and shook, and he rose from the depths, dislodging the greedy fisher-­folk from his bones. And he grew until he touched the moon, and the sea ran away from his feet. And in time the
oryza
sprouted where the tide oyster and ray and small fish once swam, and then the jungle where the porpoise and lion shark thrived.”

“Cataclysm,” Mal said, as he quietly counted heads in the escort growing behind the wagon. He'd reached thirty soldiers, and still more slipped silently onto the road. Liam elbowed Mal in the side. Mal turned. The road ahead of the wagon was filling with men and women in green. “Quakes in the earth. Every culture has a similar story, and you've only to look at the Sunken Islands to see legends at work.”