The Quartered Sea (5 page)

"Benedikt!"

Jerked out of his search for a response by Kovar's summons, Benedikt realized it was time. He glanced down at the smaller man, who gracefully indicated that he should move toward the bow. Heart pounding, unsure of what he'd just gotten free of, he hurried gratefully to his place.

Carefully keeping his concern from his face, Bannon watched the younger man walk away. In eight years in Shkoder, he'd never met a bard so precariously balanced.
If he was a blade, I'd have him reforged
.

A product of Imperial Army training that many intended assassins didn't survive, Bannon'd often thought that the Bardic Hall, in insisting that bards were born not made, stupidly depended on talent at the expense of discipline. How they could justify sending this particular bard out into the world so ill prepared to face it, he had no idea. He couldn't decide if he was intrigued or appalled.

I am definitely going to have to keep an eye on him.

Benedikt felt the weight of Bannon's regard all the way to the bow.
It doesn't matter what he thinks
…

Except that it did.

The moment he opened his mouth, he would be responsible for the safety of the queen and her consort. He'd be taking on Bannon's responsibility, and Bannon clearly didn't believe it was good idea.

As he stared down into the gray-green water, Benedikt's fingers tightened around the rail. He should never have agreed to do this. Should never have risked…

"Any time, Benedikt."

He half turned, intending to make some kind of excuse to the Bardic Captain, but saw only the queen. Saw her smile at him, and nod.

"
I can't think of anyone I'd rather have Sing me across the strait
."

* * *

As Benedikt's Song rose over the myriad sounds of a ship at sea, the waves fell away until the boat rested in the center of a spreading circle of calm. The surface of the water gleamed like polished silver, and when Kovar leaned over the side, the reflection staring back at him was truer than he'd ever seen in any glass. Before he had time to wonder if Benedikt had misunderstood what he was to do, the boat rose gently up on the crest of a massive wave. The wave might have been made of a thousand kigh, or it might have been only one—although he, too, Sang water, Kovar couldn't tell.

With the boat cradled safely in the water's hold, Benedikt reached out with his Song and told the kigh what he needed them to do.

The wave began to move toward the opposite shore. Had it not been for the wind of their passage and the rapid approach of Fort Tunov, it would have been hard to believe they were moving at all, so perfectly still did the boat itself remain.

Wide-eyed, the boat's captain, who had made this journey a dozen times with a dozen bards, turned to stare at Benedikt, tracing the sign of the Circle on her breast.

Others in her crew hurried to follow her lead.

"You're astounded, aren't you?"

Kovar turned his head just enough to catch Magda in the corner of one eye, keeping most of his attention on Benedikt. "Yes, I am," he told her.

Standing at the rail, Jelena barely noticed the boat, let alone the kigh it rode. She had given reassurance when it was needed and now, one hand tightly gripping the polished wood, she stared westward out toward the Broken Islands listening to the voice of memory plan for the future.

"
When I'm Queen
…"

And she was queen. Not grief nor guilt nor anger could change that.

"…
I'm going to send ships as far west as they can go and see if they end up in the east again
."

Chapter Two

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"YOUR Majesty, Your Highness, this is Lajos i'Lajosne a'Ulrik, the sailor."

"Thank you, Ermi." As the page left her office, Jelena studied the old man straightening laboriously up from a deep bow. Wind and sun had etched a thousand fine lines into skin the color of tanned leather. He wore his thin, gray hair pulled back into a narrow braid with blue beads hanging from the tie and similar beads threaded onto the long ends of his mustache—a style she dimly remembered as popular back when she was very young. His clothes were worn but clean and, judging by the fit of the tunic, he'd probably borrowed someone else's best for this meeting.

When his head rose high enough that she could meet his eyes, she smiled and said, "Thank you for coming, Lajos."

He returned her smile, his few remaining teeth in surprisingly good condition. "Your wish, Majesty, is my command. Before he dipped too far forward into another bow, he thought better of it and nodded instead.

"Please, sit down." Jelena had no difficulty reading a startled, "
Sit in front of the queen?"
in the way he looked from her, to the chair, to Otavas, and back to her again. She masked her impatience with a smile. "It's all right; you may be here for some time."

"I may?" The beads on the ends of his mustache danced out away from his mouth as he exhaled. "Beggin' your pardon, Majesty, but why?"

"I… that is, we…" Turning slightly, she included Otavas in the request. "… want to hear the story of the dark sailor."

"The dark sailor? You don't say? I done gave that story to the bards when it happened." His forehead creased and he rubbed at the ridges with the side of a bent finger. "They even done a song about it. Not meanin' no disrespect, but you musta heard it."

"Yes, I've heard the song, and I've read the original report." Jelena's fingers closed around the edge of a leather-bound journal borrowed from the bardic library. "But you were there, and I want to hear the story from you."

Lajos snorted and lowered himself down onto the chair. "Well, them bards just mighta put a bit more in the song than was in the story I gave 'em, now I think on it. The dark sailor," he repeated again as he settled. "We musta picked him up twenty, twenty-one year ago… Twenty, that's it, 'cause it were the year Hanicka i'Gitka—she were our second mate—got herself a baby, and little Gitka's twenty next quarter. She's sailin' on the
Two Sisters
now, but she stops by to see what's left of her ma's old crew when she's in port." He sighed, caught sight of the queen's expression and, grinning unself-consciously, brought himself back on track. "But you wants to know about the old days on the
First Ashore
, back when we took up the dark sailor.

"Until we was half a day out from the Broken Islands, it were just another voyage. Then we got caught in a storm. I'm tellin' you, Majesty, I ain't never been in a storm so wild." Both hands rose to sketch the storm in the air between them. "The winds come down out of the northeast like demons, like demons howlin' around the edges of the Circle, tryin' ta get in. A normal wind don't come out of the northeast," he explained solemnly, looking first to the consort and then to the queen, making sure they understood this. "Prevailin' winds is out of the northwest and that'll take you to the south current, and if you don't wanna stop in the Empire, you can ride all the way to the Gates of Hamilkas—he were a pirate what sailed the Fienian Sea and since it were the Fienians what named the gates…" He shrugged and continued.

"This storm blew so bad the captain, she thought of headin' back to the Islands, but by that time it were too late. We run in front of those winds, sails ripped all to ratshit—beggin' Your Majesty's pardon—timbers creakin' and groanin' like they was gonna split and send us to the bottom for five full days. I still wakes up in the night, hearin' mem sounds and that sure I'm about to be drowned." The beads swung from side to side as he shook off the effect of the memories, then the intensity of the queen's attention locked his gaze back onto her face. "When the sky finally cleared, we was surrounded by more water than I ever seen before or since. No sight of land. No cloud that might tell a body where land was lyin'. And when it got dark, the stars was twisted all outa shape. We knew we was south, 'cause we knew some of the stars and it'd gotten right warm, but we had no idea how far west we'd been driven." The memory layered the slow, rocking cadence of a ship becalmed onto his voice. "We sat there, a day and another, all of us patchin' together what we could for a sail 'cause we knew if we didn't get a sheet to the wind, we'd never see home again. Late on the second day, a breeze come up from the south and, with it, what was left of a ship like I never seen before. It looked like it'd been caught in the bad-tempered twin of the storm what'd done us, and I'm tellin' you, Majesty, that boat were only half our size to begin with. Why it weren't bashed to bits I had no idea then nor none now. There was three dead on board—died of thirst we figured. They'd been out there longer than we had, that were for sure, and the storm had busted their water casks to kindlin'—three dead and one alive."

"The dark sailor."

Lajos nodded solemnly. "The dark sailor. Dark skin like in the south of the Empire." Pausing, he glanced toward Otavas. "Lot's darker than yours, if you don't mind me sayin', Highness. Dark as a Fienian's I'd say, but redder. And though his hair were black as a pirate's heart, it were straight and a Fienian's is mostly curly. Fact, it were so black that when the sun hit it, it were almost blue. His eyes was so dark they looked like they was all pupil and he had black designs on his chest—which didn't have a hair on it even given he were no boy—designs what were written right into his skin."

"These?" Forcing herself to show a calm she didn't feel, Jelena opened the journal to a faded sketch and turned it toward Lajos. Caught up in the story, Otavas leaned over for a closer look.

"If them's what I told the bards they looked like, then I guess they did." The old sailor shrugged apologetically. "Truth is, I don't exactly remember now."

"I thought the designs might be a map."

"A map?" The lines around his eyes deepened as he squinted at the page. "If you say so, Majesty. But I can't say that I see a map. Or ever did. But it were a long time ago," he added hurriedly as Jelena's face fell.

"Never mind, Lajos. Please, continue."

"Well, the dark sailor were ravin' when we found him. We didn't have no bard, so we couldn't figure what he was sayin', but we soon found that unless he were lookin' to the southwest, he wouldn't stay where we put him, so we made him a bed on deck. Me, I figured he had one of them fore-warnings that he'd never see his home again. He lay there, gettin' weaker and weaker spite of everything our old Jon could do—we didn't have no healer," he explained, "so old Jon, the cook, he done mosta the healin'—while the captain had us strip every bit of usable sail off the wreck. Next mornin', the dark sailor died. We put him back onto his ship with his friends, torched it, and pushed away. I seen the captain throw a handful of earth outa her personal altar onto it, givin' it all four quarters 'cause they was sailors, too, and there but for what the Circle enclosed was us.

"While we was watching the fire burn, a wind come up headin' east. We rode it all the way back to shores we knew. I always figured it was the dark sailor, thankin' us for not leavin' him and his shipmates for crab food."

"I am familiar with the song, Majesty. Slane—the bard who wrote it—and I were fledglings together." Kovar paused a moment to consider the most diplomatic way to continue, frowning down at a worn spot on the old carpet the queen refused to replace. "I just don't think you should base such an important decision on such a flimsy melody. Two full quarters passed before Lajos i'Lajosne even told the story to a bard, and that wouldn't have happened had he and Tadeus not met down in Dockside and ended up… uh…"

"In bed?" Magda offered helpfully. When Kovar shot her a black look, she smiled. "That
is
where Tadeus has always heard his best stories."

"And it is
not
something that should be discussed in front of the queen."

"I don't care where Tadeus first heard it," Jelena interjected, making it quite clear she expected both her advisers to behave. "According to the recalls I read, he offered the story to Slane because he thought it should go to a bard who Sang water, and Slane checked with the other crew in port at the time. They backed up everything Lajos said."

The Bardic Captain shook his head. "But to conclude that there's a whole new land to the southwest based on such a tale…"