The Assassin's Curse (18 page)

  I pulled out my knife. Marjani glanced at me like she wasn't too concerned. "The crew doesn't know," she said. "They wouldn't recognize you. They're all Free Country, and we've got our own monsters to worry about. I only know because I studied Empire politics at university." She dropped Naji's arm.

  "You went to university?" I asked. I'd talked to a scholar once, after we'd commandeered the ship he'd been on. He hadn't been nothing like Marjani.

  "Are you going to tell them?" Naji asked.

  Marjani set her mouth in this hard straight line. I was sure we were about to get kicked off the boat or killed or probably both.

  "Why are you here?" she asked. She stuck her hand out at me. "Don't you answer. I want to see him say it."

  Naji stared at her.

  Don't screw this up, I thought.

  "Revenge," he said. "As Ananna told you." His lips curled into this sort of twisted-up sneer. "Even the Jadorr'a fall in love sometimes."

  A long pause while we all watched each other and the boat rocked against the sea. And then Marjani laughed.

  "That's not what I heard," she said.

  "Yes, I can imagine the sorts of things you heard, and I doubt very many of them have much bearing in reality."

  Marjani laughed again, and shook her head. "Of all the things I thought I'd see. And no, I'm not going to tell the crew about you." She turned away from Naji, who immediately slumped back against the hammock, pressing his hand against his forehead. When she walked past me, she grabbed my arm and leaned into my ear.

  "You should keep a close watch on him," she said in a lowered voice. "Once we get out to sea."

  "I'm right here," Naji said. "I can hear everything you're saying."

  "Good," Marjani told him. "You can get used to it. These sorts of whispers'll happen a lot more once we've been on the water a few weeks."

  "Pirates gossip like old women," I said.

  "When they get bored, they stir up trouble," Marjani said. "And you look like you'd be trouble if you got stirred up."

  Naji didn't say nothing, but his face got real hard and stony.

  "We'll be fine," I told her. "I'll keep 'em off him."

  "I'm willing to help, but I can only do so much. I've got my business to attend to."

  "You don't gotta do that." I paused. "But I'd – we'd both – appreciate it. Anything you can spare."

  "I can take care of myself," Naji said.

  "I'm sure you can." Marjani walked to the ladder and stopped there, turning to look at him. "But don't you dare cast blood magic on this ship. They may not recognize you, but they'll recognize that. Trust me. It'll get you and your friend killed. And probably me for bringing you on board."

  Naji glared at her for a second or two, but then he nodded. "Thank you."

  "Don't," Marjani said. "Just keep to yourself till we get to Port Idai. That's all the thanks I need."

  She gave me a quick, businesslike nod and crawled up on deck.

• • • •

We set sail that evening, off into the sunset like a damned story. Naji came out on deck and leaned against the railing. I was up in the rigging, yanking at the rope to line up the sails properly when I spotted him down there, his black robes fluttering in the sea breeze. He didn't look happy.

  We made it out to the open ocean not long after that, and the water was smooth and calm as glass, bright with the reflections of stars. The captain and the first mate brought out a few bottles of rum and everybody sat around drinking and telling stories and singing old songs. Some of 'em I knew, and some were Confederation standards that'd had the words changed, and some I'd never heard before. Like this story Marjani told, about an ancient tree spirit who fell in love with a princess. He turned her into a bird, so they could be together, but then the princess flew away, cause she didn't much love him back, and she flew all the way out across the sea, to an island where there wasn't nothing but birds, and she was happier there than she'd been as a princess. I liked it.

  Then one of the crewmen started talking about the Isles of the Sky. He leaned in close to the fire so that his face didn't look human no more, and he told a story about an old captain of his who'd had a friend who got blown off course and winded up in the Isles. That friend had sailed between the different islands, his crew growing gaunter and gaunter until they were nothing but moonlight and old bones. The friend escaped cause he made a deal with the Isles themselves, but after he came back to Anjare all his thoughts were wrapped up in the Isles, cause the spirits were far trickier than he was.

  Naji sat off in the sidelines all this time, shadows crowding dark around him. I got a couple of shots of rum in me after listening to that Isles story, to try and forget that was where we were headed to, and I slunk over to him and sat down. Everything was bright from the rum and the music, though Naji managed to swallow up some of the brightness just by sitting there. I thought of his pitch feather quill.

  "You know any stories?" I asked him.

  "No."

  "Really? None at all?" I wanted to press up against him the way Leila did, but not even rum gave me that much courage. "Don't they tell stories back at the Order?"

  Naji's hair blew across his forehead. "You aren't allowed to hear those stories." He pushed at his hair like it was some kind of spider crawling on him in his sleep.

  "Why not?"

  "Because they're sacred. Darkest night, do I really have to explain this to you?"

  That stung me, and I slid away from him, and drew my knees up under my chin. Somebody brought out this old falling-apart violin and took to playing one of the old sea-dances, the one that asks for good fortune on a voyage.

  We sat side by side for a few minutes while the crew spun out music and light in the center of the deck.

  "Ananna," Naji said. "I have actually done this sort of thing before. With alarming regularity, in fact."

  "I know." I said it real soft, and he leaned over to me like he cared what I was saying. "I just want to help you is all."

  His eyes got soft and bright. I wanted him to smile.

  "That's very kind," he said. "I don't have a lot of experience with kindness, but I… I do appreciate it."

  I blushed. "And I wish you wouldn't be so sore with me all the time."

  He blinked. The music vibrated around us, all shimmery and soft. Nobody was dancing.

  "I'm not sore with you," he said.

  I guess it shoulda made me feel better, but it didn't. The song ended and another started up. Another seadance, and still nobody was dancing. Maybe since they weren't part of the Confederation, they didn't know the steps. Or maybe they just didn't care. It took me a few seconds to recognize the melody without the dancing, and I realized it was the song asking for luck in love. On Papa's ship the crew had interpreted it as a prayer against brothel sickness.

  "This ain't right," I said. "Nobody dancing."

  Naji glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. His brow was furrowed up like he'd been thinking real hard about something, and I hoped it was me but knew it probably wasn't.

  I jumped up and bounded back into the light. It took me a few seconds to remember the steps: a lot of kicks and jumps and twirls, but once I got it down the crew started hooting and hollering and clapping out the rhythm. Then this big burly fellow got up and started following along, and damn if he wasn't lighter on his feet than me. And the next sea-dance started up, asking for victory in battle, and I was laughing and spinning and any darkness Naji might've slipped into me disappeared – at least for a time.

 

Things fell into a routine quick enough; they always do, once you're out at sea and the novelty of departure wears off. I got all caught up in the routine, though, cause it'd been so long since I'd been on the open ocean – the movement of the boat beneath my feet, and the smell of rotted wood and old seawater and sweet rum. You don't realize how much you miss something till it comes back to you, and then you wonder how you went so long without it.

  I tried not to think on Naji's curse too much. Didn't want to remind myself of the overwhelming possibility that it really was just impossible and my time on the Revenge would be my last time on a ship at all.

  Captain put me on rigging duty cause I could scamper up the ropes easier than a lot of the men, even though by lady standards I ain't exactly small. By the end of the first week my palms had their calluses back, and I'd gotten to know some of the crew. I liked 'em well enough, even though they teased me and tried to embarrass me with crude stories and the like. Course, I had a few stories up my sleeve that made them blush.

  One afternoon, when we'd been out on the water for about a week and some days, a couple of the crew told me about Marjani.

  "Some big-shot noble's daughter down in Jokja," Chari said. He was old and weathered and knew the ropes. "Ran off when her father wanted her to marry some second-rate Qilari courtier. Went to university, too."

  It was noon and we were eating lunch up in the rigging, some hardboiled eggs and goat's milk cheese and honey bread, all the fresh stuff that only lasts a few weeks.

  "She don't like people to know," Chari went on. "Afraid they'll hold it against her, or somebody'll find out and send her back."

  I didn't say nothing, cause I figured it's none of my business what parts of their past people want to leave behind.

  "Nah, she just don't want people thinking she's a stuck-up bitch. Too bad it didn't work none," said Ataño, who wasn't much younger than me and always out to prove something. Chari threw a handful of crushed-up eggshells at him and told him to shut up. That set me to laughing, and Ataño gave me a look that might have melted glass had I not gotten used to Naji's constant scowling.

  "What about you, sweetheart?" Chari asked. "You got a story?"

  I knew he really wanted to hear Naji's story. I wasn't giving it to him, not the fake one and sure as hell not the real one.

  "Born under deck and grew up like you'd expect," I said. "Don't need a story to know that."

  Chari leaned back thoughtfully while Ataño glowered and picked eggshells out of his hair.

  "Ananna!"

  It was a woman's voice, and there was only one other woman on board that boat. Marjani.

  "What we get for talking about her," Chari muttered.

  I leaned over the rigging and waved, wondering what she wanted with me.

  "I need to speak with you!" she called out.

  Ataño made this kind of grunting noise under his breath. I ignored him and swung down, going through the possibilities in my head: Naji had screwed something up. Marjani was gonna blackmail us. The captain was gonna toss us in the open ocean.

  "You said you'd done some navigation before?" she asked soon as my feet landed on the deck.

  I stared at her. "A little." It was the truth: Mama'd showed me once or twice, but Papa liked to do most of the navigation himself. He kept saying he'd teach me once I was older, but then they tried to marry me off.

  "Good enough. Come on."

  I followed her down below, even though I still wondered why she needed my help.

  We passed some crewmen sitting around telling fortunes with the coffee dregs. Marjani kept her head up high, the way Mama used to, and nobody said nothing to her. She had that same don't-mess-with-me expression Mama used to take on, the one I practiced in the mirror when I was younger and sure I'd get a ship of my own someday.

  The captain's quarters on the Ayel's Revenge were nicer than what I was used to, brocades and silks hanging from the ceiling, with big glass windows that let in streams of sunlight. Flecks of dust drifted in the air, glinting gold. Marjani walked right through them.

  "I'm having some trouble with a rough patch on the map," she said, stopping in front of a table. The map showed the whole world, the ocean parts criss-crossed with lines and measurements. Marjani pointed to a little brooch pin stuck in a patch of ocean right where we needed to go. The jewels glittered in the sunlight.

  "Sirens," she said. "They move around, but I threw some divinations last night and it looks like they're staying put for the time being."

  She looked up at me expectantly.

  "Sirens?" I blinked. "You mean this really is just about the navigation?"

  She stared at me for a moment before collapsing into laughter. "What, did you think I was dragging you down here to chase rats?" She laughed again.

  "I thought you'd told on me and Naji."

  Her face turned serious. She shook her head. "I told you I wouldn't. No, I just…" She looked down at the map. "Nobody on this ship knows anything. Well, the captain does, but he spends all his time on deck swapping rum with the crew." She rubbed at her forehead. "I feel like a wife."

  "Well, I don't know much, just the bit Papa taught me…"

  She waved her hand. "I know. All I wanted was someone who'd understand when I tried to talk my way through it."

  "Oh." I frowned. "I guess I can do that." In truth I was excited, though I tried not to show her. Knowing navigation gets you one step closer to being a captain.

  She smiled at me, and I wondered how I ever thought she was gonna toss me and Naji overboard.

  "So," I said. "Sirens."

  "Have you ever dealt with them before?"

  I shook my head. "Papa would always make a wide berth."

  She gave me a weird look then, and I added, "Same with my last captain. Liable to lose your whole crew."

  "That's what I was afraid of. But over here's Confederation territory, the Uloi and the Tanisia," she tapped a spot on the map, "and they've both got a major beef with the captain. And this direction," another tap on the map, "will take us too far out of our way." She looked up at me. "Suggestions?"