“The Flame Guard is . . . a little like a religious order, though we worship no gods or goddesses. Some of us hold to the old gods in their own way, and a few of us don’t really care. But our leader is called the prior, which means ‘first,’ as he’s the first among us, but we do not have the monks, priests, episkopos, and the rest of those offices you find in the Church of the One or other orders.
“We also have men like Denbe, experienced fighters who will kill or die if needed.” Catharian took a breath, adjusting the course slightly. “You’ll be told more when we get where we’re going.”
“And again, that’s . . . ?”
“An island that goes by several names. I’ve only been there in transit. I’m sure those who live there call it something else, but to those of us in the Flame Guard, we think of it as a stopping place, somewhere to refit and rest a bit while traveling from one side of this world to the other, since our home is on the other side of Garn.”
Hatu gave a smile of wry amusement. This island sounded like some of the ports in Coaltachin, known by many names to those who didn’t reside there, in order to mask the true nature of the place. Especially the main island, Coaltachin itself, upon which many not of the nation had trod without knowing where they actually were. He said, “So we’re only halfway there?”
“A bit more, but no worries. We shall leave this little vessel and as soon as possible be off on a larger ship, which is more comfortable and faster. Most of our journey will be over in half the time we’ve been at sea.”
Hatu had almost lost count of the days but realized from what had been said that this journey, wherever it led, was just beginning.
14
Reversals and the Unexpected
Hava was dozing, not allowing herself to fall into a deep sleep as a habit from years of learning to rest in dangerous situations. Muffled voices brought her fully awake, and she opened her eyes in the gloom to see two sailors standing in front of the ladder.
“You know what they said,” whispered one.
Hava judged it to be night, as everyone around her seemed to be asleep.
“Some of them are likely to be dead before we sail,” said the other. “No one’s going to notice if a girl was smothered before we toss her to the sharks. The ones who were sent ashore had all the fun; I haven’t dipped my cock since we sailed for this twice-damned coast, and those black-clad thugs don’t scare me!”
“Well, they scare me. If you’re going to take one of these girls, I’m off. I’ll come back when you’ve finished.” With that the second sailor climbed the ladder and vanished.
Hava quickly decided this might be her chance. Before the man intent on rape could pass out of earshot she said, “Hey!” in a whisper just loud enough to catch his attention without waking the sleepers.
The sailor glanced at her. Before he could speak, she said, “You don’t want some farm girl. I know things they can’t even dream of.”
He paused, his thick eyebrows forming a single dark line across his forehead. His beard was untrimmed and flying off in all directions as if he hadn’t washed it in weeks, and even in the stench of this hold she could smell his reek. “What do you know?” he hissed, moving toward her.
“I was trained to please a man,” she whispered, although ironically she had been a very poor student at that. “I can show you things,” she said, “in exchange for favors.”
His grin split his dark beard and he stood appraising her. “You don’t say?”
“Those girls will just lie there and some might scream.”
While he pondered her offer, she quickly took in everything she could see, hoping a detail would reveal itself so that she might gain an advantage. He wasn’t a particularly large man, but he was fat, big enough that if he got his weight on top of her she would be unable to push him off. She could see a bulge in his shirt that might be a weapon or perhaps a coin purse, and then she spied a tiny glint at the top of his right boot.
Before he could speak again, she asked, “What’s your name?”
“Cho,” he replied. “Cho of Erkkila. What do they call you?”
“Sabrina,” she improvised. Giving her real name was something she’d been trained to avoid all her life. “Sabrina of Patmiat.”
“Where’s that?”
“Where’s Erkkila?”
“Far from here,” he said with a widening smile and keen interest in his gaze. “Where’s Patmiat?”
“Far from here,” she echoed, struggling to make her tone sound playful. She glanced to either side to see if anyone was awake. If they were, thankfully they were staying silent.
He chuckled softly. “So, what is the favor? To set you free?”
She gave a genuine laugh. “I know better than that. First, you leave me alive after, and second, you make sure I stay well fed on the journey. I know how this goes. Do that and I can keep you . . . happy throughout the voyage. Can you keep me alive and fed?”
He moved a step closer—as she had hoped. “I can do both.”
She knew he was lying. He was a terrible liar, as his movements and shifty eyes betrayed. He might very well kill her if the word had been passed not to trouble the women, and he certainly wouldn’t put any effort into getting her extra food. He knew if she complained to anyone else after the fact, he simply had to avow that she had lied.
Hava’s mind raced. At worst she was going to have to endure unwelcome sex and perhaps an attempt on her life, but at best she might be able to create an opportunity to get off this ship before they lifted anchor on the next tide, which she assumed was only a few hours away.
He leaned forward slightly. “So, you going to be nice to old Cho?”
She sat up. “As if it was the last day of your life.”
He leaned farther to put his mouth on hers. Hava appeared to welcome him, but at the last moment she twisted her wrists, breaking the frayed bindings. Quickly shifting her weight as much as she could to the left, she reached around with her right hand and grabbed him by the neck, yanking downward with all her strength. As she had hoped, he overbalanced.
By twisting she avoided most of his weight landing on her, though her legs were trapped from the knees down. She ignored the pain that caused and with one lunge reached to the top of his right boot with her left hand and found the dagger she had seen glinting there. Within a moment, she had the tip of that small blade planted just below his rib cage, not enough to injure, but enough to make its presence clearly known. “Say anything,” she hissed into his ear, “and I’ll slice your liver. You’ll bleed out before a surgeon can heal you, if there’s one aboard.”
Cho started to pull back and she put more pressure on the blade, piercing his shirt to the skin beneath, and he froze.
“Good,” she whispered. “If you want to live I need these shackles off.”
“I can do that,” he said, his voice trembling. He started to pull away and she grabbed hard, pulling back, preventing him from freeing himself.
“Do you take me for an idiot?” she demanded, poking the point of the dagger a bit deeper, drawing blood. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“But how—”
“Is there a lock on that main chain?”
“No,” he whispered back, now almost quavering in fear. “A single eyelet with a lynchpin holds the chain. That’s why there’s a guard near it.”
“When does the next guard relieve you?”
“Not until dawn. I guard you until then, maybe an hour before we raise sails.”
“Roll to your left and get off my legs. Stay between me and the woman next to me, and if I feel you move in any other direction, I’ll drive home this blade before you can twitch.”
“All right,” said the man, and suddenly the strong, pungent aroma of urine struck Hava and she realized Cho had pissed himself. She would have thought it amusing if her leg wasn’t getting damp from it.
“Move,” she commanded, and jabbed again, eliciting a yelp of real pain from the man.
Cho d
id as instructed, and while he was moving Hava did a quick pat on his waist, and besides coming away with a wet hand, she found the lump in his shirt was another blade, not a coin pouch. She pulled it free and said, “Wise.”
“What?”
“Not trying to draw that second blade. I prefer you alive for the moment—it makes things simpler.”
Cho scuttled back to where Hava had indicated.
“I know you’re awake,” she said to the woman on the other side of the sailor.
“Yes,” said the women, her voice quavering.
Hava peered over Cho and said, “Who is closest to the lock anchoring the chain?”
When no answer was forthcoming, Hava shouted, “Who is closest to the end of the chain?”
A quiet voice answered, “I am.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m called Meggie, from Port Colos.”
“Can you reach the big pin holding this chain in place?”
“I can try.”
“Do so. Pull it out so we can free this chain.”
Hava heard the sound of rustling as Meggie tried to move toward the lynchpin, then the sound of metal on metal. “It’s hard,” Meggie said in a weak voice. “My hands . . .”
Hava felt her tension rise even higher: she hated the idea of her fate literally being in the hands of someone else. There were few people in her life she trusted, and a stranger who was struggling to lift a simple lynchpin wasn’t one of them.
Finally she heard a loud clunk and felt relief wash over her as she heard Meggie call, “It’s free.”
Poking Cho with the tip of the blade, Hava said, “Pull the chain through.”
Now voices were being raised as those nearby started to speak, those nearest asking to be freed. Hava shouted, “Quiet if you want to live!”
She cast her gaze to the bottom of the ladder in the companionway as Cho began to pull on the chain. Stout, but not so heavy as to require great effort, the links slid easily through the loops on the shackles and the iron rings in the supports. It was only a few moments before the chain had passed through the ring on Hava’s ankle shackles.
“Is there a key for these shackles?” she asked Cho. Should he not have it, she was prepared to pick the lock, but was fearful of the havoc that might ensue should she free herself and not the other prisoners.
“No,” said Cho. “I need to take them off.” He pointed to the shackle and motioned to ask to be allowed to touch it. Hava nodded. The man winced as he moved, and she realized that she had pressed harder on the dagger than she had meant to and that he was in real pain.
She withdrew the dagger point and he leaned over. Taking the ring through which the chain had passed, he turned it a half-turn and the shackles clicked open. “Clever,” said Hava, understanding that with the chain in place the ring could not turn and the shackle would not release; this bit of mechanical ingenuity saved a great deal of trouble with jammed locks or those rusted frozen by salt mist in the air.
Her ankles were finally free. She moved and heard her knees pop as she felt them unlock from the long period of being forced into one position. She wondered how many people unshackled after a long voyage were even able to walk.
She told Cho to free the woman next to her while Hava got to her feet, looking forward to that moment in the future when she could take a long bath and do her best to scrub away the dirty feeling that seemed to have seeped into her very bones.
With one hand on a support to steady herself, Hava stretched her legs, which were tingling and throbbing. She chided herself for allowing her preoccupation with escape to cause her to forget a lesson taught while she was a student: to constantly flex confined muscles in order to keep the blood circulating so as to stay limber and be ready to move as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Every lesson she had been taught was valuable, but one in particular: Master Bodai had repeated one message over and over, that fear was the worst enemy, driving all other thought from your mind, and he had been right. She vowed never again to let that happen.
The woman who had lain next to Hava got to her feet unsteadily. With a fearful look at Hava, she said, “Thank you. I heard every word and you were—”
Hava cut off the praise. She flipped the second dagger over and presented the hilt to the woman. “What’s your name?”
“Lydia.”
“If necessary can you stick this up under his ribs”—she indicated Cho with an inclination of her head—“and slice his liver?”
An unexpected smile crossed Lydia’s face. “I’m a farmer. I’ve gutted enough hogs in my day.”
Hava felt a surprising impulse to laugh but pushed it aside. Turning to all those who were watching, she said, “If you have a prayer of surviving, of living your life free, remain quiet. If you do something stupid, you’ll end up dead or in a brothel, a mine, or a fighting pit. Pass the word.” She lifted her chin toward the bow. “And make sure everyone knows our only hope is silence and the willingness to fight when needed.”
She stepped away from Cho and Lydia, crossed to the lynchpin on the opposite side of the walkway and quickly freed it. To the woman closest to the bulkhead she indicated she should start moving the chain forward, showed her how to twist the ring by feeling the shackles, and told her to pass instructions down the line.
Turning around, she was greeted by a round face with large, frightened eyes. The girl was barely more than a child, and she had tears running down her cheeks, though she was silent.
“Meggie?”
The girl nodded, and Hava inspected her. She felt a clutch in her chest when she saw blood across the lower half of the simple shift she wore and realized she had been raped before being brought here. Then she saw the girl’s hands. Several fingers on both hands were dislocated, either as she struggled against her rapist or out of cruelty. Hava felt her eyes fill and blinked away the tears that welled up. Now she understood why lifting the heavy iron pin had been so difficult for the girl.
Leaning forward, Hava put one hand on Meggie’s shoulder and said, “You are very brave.” Glancing again at her hands, she said, “I have to do something and it will be very painful for a moment, but if I don’t you will lose the use of those fingers.”
Before Meggie could say anything, Hava slipped the dagger into her boot, grabbed the girl’s wrist, and pulled on two dislocated fingers, popping them back into place. The girl gasped and then cried out, but it was a pitiful little wail rather than a full-throated scream. Hava knew the scream would not be heard two decks above and ignored it. She dropped that hand and gripped the other wrist, and quickly had three fingers back in place. The girl was gasping for breath and on the verge of passing out from the pain, and Hava pulled her close, holding her tight for a moment. When the child’s trembling stopped, Hava said, “The pain will pass, and you’ll regain the use of your hands.”
Then she held Meggie away, looked into her eyes, and repeated herself. “You are very brave.”
Meggie threw her arms around Hava as if holding on for life itself. Hava closed her eyes, breathing slowly and deeply as she calmed a rage that was building inside her. Someone would die for what happened to this child, just not yet.
After a while, Hava disentangled herself from the girl and said, “Sit here and rest.” She turned to a young woman and said softly, “Go free the men in the cages and get to the slave beds on the other side, show them how to undo their shackles and warn them to stay quiet.” The woman nodded and hurried off.
She walked back to Cho and said, “Remind me when the next guard is due?”
“As I said, at sunrise before we sail.”
“One more question, are either of those ‘black-clad thugs’ you spoke of still aboard?”
“One.”
Hava felt her stomach knot, but merely nodded. She had an hour or two to come up with a plan.
Others were now free and standing, and Hava said to those nearby, “If you can fight, stay here. If you can’t fight, go to the bow and tell those who can fi
ght to come to me.”
Most of the women moved quickly toward the bow. She noticed Lydia hadn’t moved and gave her a nod. The woman was perhaps middle-aged, stocky, and looked like no stranger to hard work. She smiled and said, “Now that I have my wits back, as I said, I’ve gutted more than one hog.”
“Good. We may have only two daggers, and perhaps something else around here to use as weapons, but we are now going to survive or die.”
“How?” asked Lydia.
With a grim smile, Hava said, “We’re going to seize this ship.”
The three boys had been attentive. Hatu judged them competent enough in their duties not to require constant supervision. They were briskly keeping the sails trimmed while Catharian manned the helm; they might turn out to be capable sailors.
In the days since Hatu had been on this small lugger he had rebuilt his stamina and strength despite the food being meager. His mood, however, was still close to explosive, his rage simmering just below the surface. Only a constant exercise of will—and a healthy respect for Denbe’s combat skills—kept him from attacking Catharian. He also found it doubly vexing that the rare tranquility he had found after years of constant anger, when sailing the Narrows with Hava, was now gone.
He took a deep breath and locked his frustration and anger in a place in his mind he now thought of as a “thought prison.” It was where he put those images and memories Hava chided him about as excuses to become enraged. They were, as she had taught him, things over which he had no control and dangerous to his well-being. He also pushed away his longing to see her again, as that was another fast way back to frustration and anger.
Taking another deep breath, he returned his attention to the present and took advantage of the rare quiet moment on this boat to study the false monk. The way Catharian watched the sails as he turned the ship’s wheel reinforced Hatu’s certainty that he was an experienced sailor and navigator. His guise might be false, but his skills were not. At least Catharian provided Hatu with a measure of how much he had come to master himself over the last few years; there had been a time nothing would have spared the false monk from his fury. Hatu thanked whatever gods might be paying attention for his “thought prison.”
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