Children of Earth and Sky (18 page)

It had happened before, hadn't it? When the doctor and the raider died? Both women had been on deck.

Drago was prepared to treat this as a baseless superstition, but mariners were
always
superstitious. There was too much to fear on the water, and he didn't want his seamen frightened as they approached land, which had its perils.

He was bringing them in running south and carefully, even on a mild morning. So many ships wrecked right outside their home ports, too anxious to get back, careless of the sea as they left it behind.

There were rocks around Dubrava, both sides of the isles that sheltered the harbour. And even a sunny morning like this one could find and summon a wind in no time at all. He had seen it happen, had been part of desperate efforts to save cargo and drowning men. Had attended rites after amid the sound of weeping for those they hadn't taken ashore, or had brought home dead from the sea.

The women emerged from the forward hatchway just as prayers ended. The first time for Signora Miucci since the raid. She was elegant, composed. The other one was . . . a raider from Senjan, a bow and quiver and a dog at her side.

Drago liked the look of the dog, that was as far as he'd go in that.

The women were coming over to him. He cleared his throat, turned to await them, spreading his legs as if to ready himself for something. For whatever this was. He clasped his hands behind his back in what he hoped was a dignified pose.

“Gosparko,” he said to the doctor's wife. He bowed. Had to unclasp his hands to do that, then he put them behind him again. He offered a nod to the other one, which was enough for what she was.

They were both young, both yellow-haired, otherwise nothing linked these two, by appearance or background, he thought. The Senjani was tall, moved lightly on her feet. Knew how to kill. The other one, the widow, was . . . well, Drago didn't use the word
delicate
often, but it seemed to fit. She was well-born, Marin had declared the first time they saw her. He was remembering her at the railing, her husband's blood soaking the lower part of her robe.

“Captain,” said the Senjani, “I just realized something. I'm truly sorry. I'll go below. You don't need two women on deck making your men nervous before landfall.”

Drago blinked. How did she know to say that? He saw Marin coming over. He glanced up at his sails. There was nothing there, at least, to stir alarm.

He said, dismissively, “That old tale? Do you pirates believe that in Senjan?”

She smiled a little. “No, but I know mariners do elsewhere. I wouldn't want to cause distress.”

“I think,” said Marin, coming up, “that you prevented more than distress. You are both welcome to watch us approach Dubrava. It is a beautiful harbour, if I am allowed to say so.”

The Senjani woman smiled briefly. She was very young, Drago was thinking. And likely to never see her home again. Well, he himself had been younger, fleeing the Osmanlis here, and he would never see
his
village again, either. The world owed you nothing, Drago Ostaja believed.

“With the captain's permission,” Danica Gradek said, “I'll go aloft then, and not down below. I can watch for weather west of us, if you like.”

He'd been about to send a man up, of course.

“You know how to handle yourself above?” he asked.

She wasn't a member of his crew. She was a passenger on his ship, soon to appear before the Rector's Council. He was responsible for her.

She didn't answer. She unslung her bow and quiver, placed them out of anyone's way, behind ropes. She spoke to her dog. The animal lay down by the ropes. The woman walked to the mainmast and began to climb. They lived on boats in Senjan, of course, but none nearly this big, Drago knew, none with a mast and sails this high. It didn't seem to matter. She went up the mast, not the rigging; she'd have noticed the spikes, then, earlier.

He saw the artist emerge from below. That one, at least, was no trouble. Villani nodded politely, bowed from a distance to the doctor's widow, and made his way to the stern, to piss over the rail back there.

He'd done it into the wind and spray the first afternoon, trying to be modest, his back to the crew, occasioning mirth as he returned along the deck after, red-faced, clothing stained with his own piss. (It was common enough, they really should warn passengers but they never did.) Drago had no experience with artists, but he did understand the need for them, had admired some work in sanctuaries, and this one had no airs or pretensions to him. He would be carrying on east, apparently, all the way to Asharias, to paint the grand khalif. Better a man put a knife in Gurçu, Drago thought. In memory of Sarantium.

He looked at Marin. He was watching the girl climb, against the pale-blue morning sky. Drago looked around. The crew were gazing up at her as well. It could have been amusing, but it wasn't.

“Eyes on tasks, damn you!” he roared, captain of the
Blessed Ingacia
, bringing her safe home.

“I don't have a task,” the other woman said softly at his side. She glanced at Drago, and then at Marin. “You will have to give me one, I'm afraid.”

Marin smiled, Drago didn't. Two women on a ship's deck, he was thinking. And also about how many different forms trouble could take.

—

SHE HAD NEVE
R CLIMBED
anything like this, the mast swaying as the ship did, and more, of course, as you went higher, gripping and stepping on spikes in the pine wood. But it wasn't difficult if heights didn't bother you, and they didn't.

It was wonderful up here, Danica thought, standing on the small platform near the top. You were still in the world, could see it spread below you, but from enough distance that no one could do anything to you for a little while.

Those on the deck looked small as a child's toys. She saw Tico lying patiently beside her bow and quiver. Voices drifted up. The Seressini artist (a slight, good-looking, gentle-seeming man) proceeded to the stern to piss at the rail, but she was too high to see anything interesting.

The captain and the owner (an even more handsome man, in truth) were still with Leonora Miucci. But she wasn't Leonora Miucci, she had just told Danica. Her name was Valeri, and her marriage had been a contrivance, leaving her no real choice but to take the next ship to Seressa, or have that unmasked.

“I won't go back,” she'd said, before they'd gone up on deck. “I'll go into the sea first.”

“Why didn't you, before?”

She hadn't known she was going to ask that until she did.

“I don't know,” Leonora Valeri had said. “I intended to.”

Danica had expected her grandfather to speak to her then, but he'd kept silent. She hadn't heard him since he'd woken her with the news about Neven.

Her brother was alive, and in the Osmanli army, among the djannis. And he had killed someone last night.

It was interesting: that she didn't doubt this for a moment. How could you doubt these things, when a man dead almost a year now was telling them to you?

Are you there?
she asked, far above the deck.

I am. What do you need?

Just for you to be here
, she said.

Look, Dani,
he said.
Dubrava.

She was facing the east but she'd been thinking hard, not seeing, until he spoke. Now she did look, and so saw that harbour and city for the first time, distant yet, but visible from where she was, as they came around a big, fortified island that sheltered it, the way Hrak sheltered Senjan.

But the city of Dubrava wasn't the town of Senjan.

Red roofs, sunlit, climbing steeply to north and south from the harbour, where a commanding structure stood beyond the moored boats. There was a large sanctuary north of it, twin domes. A wide street went east from the harbour. The city walls were massive, running all the way around. There was a guard walk along the top, curved towers at intervals, with cannons, and turrets for guns or arrows.

She knew Seressa was far bigger than this city, and Obravic, where the emperor reigned, and Rhodias. So many cities were bigger than this. She knew Asharias, which had been Sarantium, was even larger than these, had been called the City of Cities, glory of the world.

There was a line of islands, spring green vineyards, stone towers, stone fences, and nearest to the city a very small islet, almost in the harbour's mouth, a religious retreat visible from here. Then she was looking at the city again, and out of youthful pride (and she knew it was that) Danica tried not to be daunted, and failed.

Dubrava, approached from the sea on a springtime morning,
the sun rising behind it, was a glory. She shivered, felt a sudden strangeness. She might never go home, Danica thought, it was true, but there was a world out here to be found.

She realized something else. Belatedly, she cried, “There it is! City walls!” She was the one up top, the alert was hers to cry.

Responding cries below, the joyous sound of mariners after crossing open sea and coming home. Danica turned to look back west. That was why someone was always posted up here, to watch for changing weather from seaward as a ship approached land.

Blue sky, mild breeze. You could forgive yourself for feeling happy for a moment.

Did you ever see it, zadek?

Dubrava? No.

Look at the roofs in the sun.

I see them. Dani. The people living under those roofs will want you dead.

Not all. Surely not all of them?

Perhaps
, he said.

—

HE IS BESIDE THE MAST
as she descends. She is easy doing so. Mannish trousers and tunic, salt-stained boots to the knee, bright hair under a wide hat. They are past the nearest islands—Gjadina, Sinan—are in the harbour's mouth, their glorious harbour under the towers with their cannons. He can see a crowd on the quayside. There is always a crowd when a ship comes home, even if only from across the narrow sea. People are waving.

The sea is an interlude, Marin Djivo thinks, a space between life and life. The Senjani girl steps down to the deck beside him. She is flushed for some reason, he notes.

He says, “We should have a word.”

She looks at him warily. Her dog comes over. A big dog. Nuzzles his head against her thigh. She rubs its ears absently.

“I'm better listening,” she says with another of those brief smiles. “I would prefer to not be killed. Will I be?”

They can hear voices calling across the water now and their mariners are shouting back. Dubrava will begin to know that the
Blessed Ingacia
has been boarded by pirates, goods were taken, and the doctor they were bringing is dead. And they'll learn that one of the raiders is on the ship, delivered to them.

“I have a thought about that,” Marin says.

—

DON'T TRUST HIM
just because he's a pretty man
, her grandfather said, as she made her way down to where Marin Djivo was waiting.

Danica felt herself blushing. She refused to reply. She thought of closing off her grandfather, as a punishment, but she needed him just now. Tico came over, wagging his tail as if he were some courtesan's pet dog, not a fierce and fearless hunter.

The shipowner nodded as she stepped down, his expression grave, which made her uneasy.

“We should have a word,” he said.

Danica felt herself grimace. She said, “I'm better listening. I'd prefer not to be killed. Will I be?”

He looked at her as she patted Tico. A very tall man, quick on his feet. Her grandfather had said, before she'd put an arrow in Kukar Miho, that this one might kill a Senjani in a fair fight. Kukar didn't do fair fights, mind you. Or he hadn't done.

Djivo said, “I have a proposal about that.”

She stared, trying to read his face. It was difficult. She didn't know these people, their world.

Careful!
her zadek said.

I have to trust someone
.

So she said, “Yes, I will accept employment as a guard to the Djivo family. Can you really protect me that way?”

She smiled, seeing his eyes widen. Enjoyed it a moment, then
added, “It seemed obvious, gospodar. There is no other role I could readily take in any proposal you might make. I am . . . trusting your goodwill.”

She was pleased to see him laugh. “Well,” he said, “given that much quickness, we could use you as a business adviser.”

“I doubt it,” Danica said.

“Don't doubt till you meet my brother,” he said. Then, “But the goodwill is real, Danica Gradek. You saved lives.”

“Well, one life I ended. Which is why—”

“Why you aren't going home. You will be sheltered to a degree as one of our retainers. Drago will tell the same story I will.”

“What do I do as a guard for the Djivo family?”

He grinned. He really was good-looking, she thought.

“Stay close to me,” he said.

She couldn't think of a reply. Then she did remember something.

“What happens to the signora? The doctor's widow?”

He looked puzzled. “I imagine she'll be anxious to go home. The council will arrange it. I suspect they will authorize a payment, recompense. Her husband died coming to serve us.”

“You are,” Danica said, composure regained, “imagining and suspecting a great deal, aren't you?”

He said, “Is there something I need to know?”

He was, she reminded herself, a clever man. She felt uneasy again under his scrutiny. He was someone who lived in this world: balancing and withholding information. Hints, clues, guile. Senjan didn't prepare you for that. Senjan trained men (and one woman) to use a bow and sword and knives. To handle small boats at sea and perhaps, one day, to go through the mountain passes in search of Asharites, maybe even hadjuk raiders—and begin a long-desired vengeance.