Oathen (21 page)

She dropped onto his chest, making him
cough.”This is the best you dirtwalkers can do? Can you really
blame the Clans for feeling superior?”

Keep it together; we’re not done with her
yet
. Salvor looked up, past her spilling cleavage, to her face.
“This how you bested your six captains? By cheating?”

She gave him a brilliant smile. “Of course.
All I needed was to impress their crew, show them during the fight
that I was determined and capable. A well-timed kick in the back of
their captain’s knee, or a flying citrus to the head, and they all
but handed me the fight.”

“All for one, and one for herself?”

Rhona drew yet another dagger from inside her
boot. “That’s a good one. I’ll have to remember it for later. Right
now, though, I’m trying to decide where to maim you for your
arrogance.” She slid the dagger along his jaw, letting it rest
against his ear.

Though he bled from multiple wounds, his eyes
trailed along her rent shirt before looking overhead at her again.
“You won’t even let me beg for mercy, Rhona?”

A smile teased her lips. “Ooh, begging. But
you’d better make it good—”

He reached up and cupped the back of her head
with his free hand, pulling her down and kissing her. Her hands
slammed into the deck on either side of his head as she toppled
onto his chest. The watching sailors went silent.

He saw her pupils widen and heard her gasp
through her nose, but she didn’t pull away. He made a low sound of
approval in his throat and moved his tongue against hers, and one
of her hands slid over to tangle in his braided hair.

Finally, he let his lips slide from hers. Her
eyes were wide above his, and her mostly-bared bosom
heaved.

Meena whistled somewhere among the crowd,
starting high and descending in a rush. The cannonball imitation
was picked up by others, and soon the deck under Salvor’s back was
trembling with the pounding of boots.

Rhona leaned over and spoke smilingly into his
ear over the noise. “Well played, Vinten. You try this again,
though, and I will lop something off.” She jerked the dagger from
his wounded hand and cleaned it off against his shirt.

Though his hand was throbbing like mad, he
clambered to his feet and murmured, “You try to force Geret again,
and I’ll do more than kiss you.”

She frowned at him in apparent confusion. He
gave her a smug bow and made his way through the crowd to the
stairs that led below deck, accepting their back slaps wordlessly
though they made his shoulder burn with agony.

As Salvor opened the door to his cabin, Geret
hopped off his bunk, looking anxious.

“You all right? What happened?”

Salvor raised his unwounded hand and scrubbed
a knuckle along the corner of his mouth. “Let me know if she tries
that again. Please.”

Geret saw the gesture, read his smug
satisfaction. “You…you kissed her? And she didn’t kill
you?”

Salvor raised his eyebrows. “I’m a good
kisser.”

Geret rolled his eyes. “So, did you win or
lose?”

“Both. I let her beat me in the duel. I’m not
interested in controlling the ship. The kiss was just to distract
her from punishing me for starting it in the first
place.”

“And to distract her from me.”

Salvor looked pleased. “Hence my win.” He
stepped over to his bunk and sat down, gingerly working his shirt
off. He wrapped his hand in a sleeve and pressed the rest to his
shoulder wound.

“I’ll get Meena,” Geret said.

“Before you go, another thought for
you.”

“What’s that?”

“So far, you’re only
welcome
in Rhona’s
bed; you’re not required there. You might want to work on keeping
it that way, so I don’t have to keep proving how much more manly
than you I am.”

Geret opened the cabin door with a jerk. “You
just love to make it hard to say thanks, don’t you?”

~~~

The next morning, Sanych cornered Meena after
breakfast and demanded to learn some melee weapon skills. “In case
I need to hurt something,” she said, and Meena agreed without
needing to ask why. She handed the girl two signal flags from the
rail of the
Princeling
and told her to envision them as hand
axes.

“Why axes?” Sanych asked.

“They leave bigger scars.”

Sanych’s grin was incandescently
wicked.

“
I thought you said it was spring in the northern hemisphere,”
Rhona grumped to Meena after a dozen more chill, damp days of
tacking back and forth through constant and contrary winds. Though
they sat at the table in Rhona’s cabin, her hair was still damp
from her recent time on deck.

“It is spring.”

“I’d hate to see your autumn storms, then.
I’ve already lost two ships.” Rhona poured herself a cup of hot
tea, drinking it in time with the waves that rocked the
Princeling
.

“Spring is normally warm and mild in Shanal.
It’s likely that all that ash from Heren Garil Sa has disturbed the
planet’s normal weather patterns.”

“What?” Rhona asked, wrinkling her nose in
disbelief.

“Either that,” Meena continued, “or the cult
is just trying to sink the entire expedition again.”

“Oh, is that all?” Rhona asked, turning down
the corners of her mouth. “I’m looking forward to giving these
arrogant fools a good poking with my sword.”

“You’ll get your chance. Those eager for
bloodshed often leave healthy caution behind in battle.”

“It’s not bloodshed I’m after; it’s payback
for what they’ve done to Geret’s cousin! If it were Ruel under a
spell of madness—”

“Your generous support of Geret’s cause is
indeed admirable, as is your loyalty to your own blood,” Meena
said. “However, your treatment of him leads me to question your
motives.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,
Seamother. I’ve done nothing out of line with Clan custom.
Everything’s square.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your execution of
the claim. Its mere existence is what concerns me.”

Rhona’s brows lowered. “Is this the part where
you tell me that he was destined to go home and marry a certain
tiny blonde and now I’ve gone and ruined his life? Shall I wait
whilst you compose a
Lay
for me?”

Meena snorted. “Hardly. Your actions to date
aren’t nearly heroic enough to merit acceptance into the
Lays
.” She leaned forward across the table. “You got Geret
drunk and tricked him into accepting the first kiss of your claim,
then blackmailed him into agreement once he knew what you were
after…although I’m pretty sure you’ve still left some pertinent
facts out. He doesn’t know about Blood Loyalty yet, does he? Or the
Delay?”

Rhona looked away.

Meena sighed. “Now, I’m not saying your
actions weren’t clever and determined. They were. However, keep in
mind that Geret isn’t Clan. He’s from a culture whose respect for
clever, determined manipulation isn’t the same as yours. Worse, I
have to be the one to tell you this, because you didn’t care enough
about him to learn it for yourself.”

“You’re wrong; he and I are very alike! You
haven’t seen us together. He’s a trickster through and through, and
by the time we get to Shanal, he’ll be begging me to let him sail
away with us when we leave.”

Meena sat back and shook her head with a
smile. “Ah, Rhona. I see now why the Prime of Agonbloom sent you
out here.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” the
pirate grumbled.

“Everything. Just like the reason he hasn’t
bedded you. There’s more to it than you know. More than you’ve
bothered to learn, so intent on your own goals are you. How long
has it been since you claimed him? Five, six weeks now? Yet despite
all your kisses, all your traditional claim acts, and enough
gleaming swag to sink him straight to the deeps should he fall
overboard, he’s slept chastely in his own cabin every night since
you welcomed him to yours.”

Rhona’s jaw clenched for a moment. “Why do you
care? It’s not like you want to claim him.”

“I think the real question is, why don’t you
care? The Clans aren’t the only successful culture in the world. If
you have any feeling for Geret beyond what an alliance with him can
bring you, then you need to embrace a truth beyond your own
horizons, and deal with its implications for your plans. Talk to
the boy. He has reasons for his actions, just as you
do.”

“He’s not a boy.”

Meena gave her a knowing smirk. “The People of
the Frost in Gen Ka Bin would say otherwise.”

~~~

That night, Rhona had the galley prepare a
luscious supper for everyone at her table. Her feet flirted with
Geret’s under the table, and she plied him with sweet mead raided
from an outbound Byarran vessel several weeks before she’d reached
Salience. He spoke politely and easily with her, but there was no
smoldering passion in his eyes.

At the end of the evening, she bade him join
her in her cabin that night, in front of all her officers and
guests. He courteously agreed, as per their arrangement, and her
heart thrilled.

When they were alone in her cabin, Geret
prepared to curl up and go straight to sleep once again. As he
snuggled onto her lightly swinging bed, she eased one thigh over
its edge and stopped its motion.
Better to start with my
confession, then ask him why he’s avoiding his duty
, she
reasoned.

“Geret,” she began, “I haven’t been completely
honest with you about the claim.”

He rolled onto his back and looked at
her.

“It’s because you’re not Clan. I wanted to
ease you into it all. I can tell you’re not used to the same life
as I am. And I never figured you’d find me so horrible that you
wouldn’t bed me, so it didn’t seem like an issue.”

He started to protest. “That’s not it
at—”

“Just let me explain, please?” She waited
until he nodded. “A Clan claim doesn’t only require loyalty to the
woman’s bloodline. I mean, it asks exactly that; there’s just more
to it than that. Full loyalty to a bloodline includes giving it an
heir.”

Geret’s eyes widened.

“That’s what I’m—what everyone’s—expecting of
you. Blood Loyalty is the final result of a successful Clan claim.
I want to bring you into my bloodline, to make it stronger. To give
Agonbloom an even better future, and make us greater than we are
even now.”

“Rhona, I’m not sure you understand
my—”

“No, there’s no rush.” She smiled patiently.
“Clan women have a special ability called the Delay. After we’ve
been with our claimed man, we can choose whether or not to begin
pregnancy right away. Sometimes months pass if we’re engaged in a
clan war or a long-term raiding mission, before it’s safe enough to
begin pregnancy. When we decide it’s safe, we let the baby start
growing.”

“So you want a child…for later?” Geret
struggled to grasp the concept.

“I want your child, for later. After we’re
home from Shanal, things should be calm enough to have the baby.
Once I’ve established that I’m capable of producing an heir, then
I’ll gain a lot more support against my mother for my bid at Clan
Prime.” She let out a long sigh. “I never figured I’d have trouble
getting bedded. You seemed so eager when we started
this.”

Geret propped himself up on an elbow and met
her eyes. “I appreciate your honesty, even if it’s a little late.
If we’d had this conversation six weeks ago… But we didn’t. You
just assumed you knew everything you needed to about me. I’m not
going to bed you, Rhona, not now, and not ever. You’ve deceived and
tricked me, and where I come from, that’s no way to treat someone
you want children with. Keep making up whatever stories you need to
for your crew about the baby we’re not going to have. It sounds
like you’ve got several months leeway before anyone even gives it a
second thought. But we’re not doing this.
I’m
not doing
this.”

Her eyes blazed in the dimness. “You don’t
need to come with me back to Agonbloom. I’ll release you to return
home with your people after the
Tome
’s destroyed, if that’s
what you want. But your child can be a part of the most powerful
Sea Clan in all of history. Surely you won’t say no to
that!”

Geret sat up. After a long moment, he
swallowed and said, “I shouldn’t have agreed to stay here again.
I’ll go sleep in my own cabin.”

Rhona grasped his hand as he began to slip
over the bed’s edge. Disbelief edged her vision in pale, jerky
yellow. “You’re really turning me down. All of it: the power, the
legacy, the exciting life we could have together?”

He looked at her, brows lowered.

Rage pressed against the backs of her eyes,
but she clenched her teeth and waited for it to pass. Yelling at
him as if he were a common sailor would only make things worse. In
her confusion and hurt, she was at a loss for another persuasive
argument, but she knew that if he left the cabin, the crew would
notice.