The Fox

by Sherwood Smith

  Barend brought his parents’ effects, and Hadand the Sierlaef’s. They and their personal Runners stood in silence watching them burn until their smoke rose and mingled, leaving only ash.

  The queen did not attend this private ceremony.

  That was the last private ritual; it was then time for the public displays of justice, beginning with the personal Runners of all four dead. It turned out to be easier than expected. Retren Waldan, the Harskialdna’s chief castle spy, had died by many knife wounds half a day’s journey away, which indicated two things: one, he’d abandoned his master, and two, someone had hunted him down. Probably several someones.

  The Harskialdna’s surviving Runners revealed under kinthus that they had not been in on their master’s secrets. They rambled on about rumors that worried them, but their duties had been unexceptionable, carried out scrupulously, for the Harskialdna had worked others as hard as he had worked himself.

  Farnid, the Harskialdna’s personal Runner, was still stunned and distraught. He barely seemed to comprehend the offer of a life pension, which was given to all the others with the exception of Ndara-Harandviar’s Ranet, whom Hadand had taken onto her own staff.

  And so Evred and Hadand worked through all the rest, ending with the Runners and armsmen belonging to the so-called Conspirators of Hesea Spring. Most of them were shot. Last of all was the execution of the Jarl of Yvana-Vayir, who neither conveniently died nor accepted the opportunity of a quick, quiet suicide.

  And so they had to execute him. Evred forbade the ancient tortures. The flogging was grim enough, a disgusting spectacle at which he and the Jarls, or their representatives, had to be present: he left Hawkeye in prison to spare him. Why had the old man not accepted the offered escape from this horror? Had he perhaps thought that his fellow Jarls would rise against the young king and put him, or his son, on the throne? If he did, he was disappointed. No Jarl came except for Hasta Marlo-Vayir. They all sent a representative, silent testimony to their rejection of the actions of Yvana-Vayir. If they had respected him, they would have come to watch him die, then given him the accolade of the Hymn, and songs over drums. There were no songs.

  After that Evred was closeted a long time with Hawkeye Yvana-Vayir, who emerged not only with his title and holdings intact, but as the interim Royal Shield Arm, until Barend could be trained to take over.

  Once that happened, he would go home at last as the Jarl of Yvana-Vayir. His father’s cousin (who had strenuously resisted and resented Yvana-Vayir’s pretensions; thus the Jarl had never included him in any of his private plans) would serve on as Randael until the twins could finish their training and take his place, leaving him to honorable retirement. The Jarls would thus see that the new king gave justice to his liege men rather than vengeance.

  Cama and Cherry-Stripe and Noddy returned to their homes—Cama to marry Starand Ola-Vayir as duty required.

  Spring was coming, and what would that mean in the north and along the coast? No one believed the pirates were gone. Barend had reported to Evred what the mysterious Ramis had said about the Venn watching the battle. They decided that Barend would go to the coast after he recovered and organize what defense he could.

  Those were Evred’s greatest worries. His greatest joy came on the quiet nights after the first day of spring, when the first warm rain pushed in from the sea. By then Barend was beginning to hobble around; meanwhile he’d become an unexpectedly deft aid with the unending paperwork. The three sat together, Barend, Evred, and Hadand, in the old schoolroom, comfortable with one another as they always had been when the Sierlaef was not present. They often worked late into the night, and then, when the mulled wine was served, usually it was Hadand who asked questions about Barend’s life at sea, and especially about Inda.

  Barend did not try to hide his sorrow at being land-bound. He never tired of talking about his sea adventures, responding to the unfeigned interest the other two expressed. The only reticence he privately decided on was talking much about Fox, because of the ancient enmity between the Montredavan-Ans and the Montrei-Vayirs. Not that he thought Evred would make trouble . . . but Barend had learned early in life that the least said on some subjects, soonest mended.

  Besides, it was clear to Barend that Evred didn’t want to hear about Fox—or Walic, Coco, or Barend’s time aboard the pirate ship before Inda was taken. Evred wanted to hear about his old academy friend from boyhood.

  So Barend talked a lot about Inda.

  Evred seldom spoke, but he listened. Hadand, sensitive to his every mood, saw in his relaxed face how much he enjoyed these stories. She prompted Barend to remember the smallest details about Inda’s words and actions on the ships, with the people, in the battles. They listened to all the details of the surprise mutiny against Walic. The horrifying fight against Boruin. The Sartoran Sea battle on New Year’s Firstday.

  And finally they talked about the Brotherhood battle, and the mysterious rip between sky and sea. They went over every aspect until Evred, watching Barend shove bits of paper about on their old, scuffed nursery table, began to comprehend a little about the ships and their movement. He began to recognize Inda’s style in battle planning; it reminded him in subtle ways of Inda’s boyhood plans, though he could hardly define the resemblance. But they discussed that last battle endlessly as the fire crackled softly on the grate, speculating about what lay beyond that rip from sky to sea.

  It wasn’t much, Hadand thought wistfully. These quiet evenings of talk seemed the only pleasure she could give Evred, who worked so hard and so willingly, cognizant always of others’ needs but asking nothing in return.

  Nor did she ask anything for herself. When she entered a room and Evred looked up and smiled his quick, unguarded smile, and Barend made an easy joke as they settled into companionable work—warm and safe and content despite the icy winds outside—she hoarded the moment in her heart. And resolutely, consciously grateful, thought: I am happy. I am. I am.

  PART TWO

  Chapter One

  EVERY hand aboard Elgar the Fox’s fleet scrutinized the jagged circlet of rocks that surrounded the Ghost Isles, but few of them were watching for ghosts.

  Vixen, sailing ahead of the rest, ran up a signal flag.

  From the foremasthead of Death, the lookout hailed the deck. “No sign of attack!”

  Mutt—suddenly grown tall and gangly—flung Inda’s cabin door open to report, “No attack in sight.”

  Their first sighting of the Ghost Isles caused universal relief. All they had to navigate by in deep waters were the stars and the sun. And when the sun was behind clouds, which happened often this time of year, their lives depended on the magic-made sun-tracker guarded in the binnacle from watch to watch. It showed with a tiny dot of light the sun’s position on a mirror-black piece of concave magic-bespelled glass.

  But relief did not last. Not with their destination being a notorious pirate base.

  The Death heeled hard, sending water foaming over the railing; the approach was treacherous with hidden rocks.

  Inda braced himself absently against the table as he bent over his chart. To Mutt Inda looked almost old, his face sun-browned and scarred, sinister golden hoops at his ears, glinting with the blood-bright rubies. When his face wore that expression—brown eyes narrowed, mouth a thin line, jaw taut—he seemed not old but curiously ageless to the rest of his crew, none of whom knew that his eighteenth birthday had passed last fall.

  Inda studied the chart he’d been given in the Delfin Islands. The Delfs, though ferociously independent, had been open in expressing their gratitude for Inda’s defeat of the Brotherhood by offering refitting, supplies, and these charts.

  Inda said, “Mutt, tell ’em to prepare for attack.”

  Mutt whooped, spun about, and scrambled up the ladder to the long, narrow flush deck, yelling “Prepare for attack! ” with the same joy he would have yelled “Prepare for liberty!”

  He flung open the signal box and snatched up the flag that would soon have
the rest of the fleet falling into attack formation, fighting sail set, the tops full of archers, weapons out, all watches ready to handle the ship, repel boarders, or board, on Inda’s command.

  The journey northward between winter storms had been spent in drill, because Inda had not known what to expect at its end. These islands had been pirate-held for more than a generation. Supposedly the Ghost Isles, like Pirate Island down south of the Narrows, had been liberated by Captain Ramis of the Knife. But that news was at least four months old.

  “We’ll make a night landing,” Inda said when he reached the deck.

  Gillor, the mate on watch, laughed in anticipation, her curly black hair blowing in the wind.

  Some of the crew covertly watched Fox, who turned away, his expression caustic. But he said nothing.

  They reduced sail, tacking steadily westward as the current tried to carry them north. When the sun touched the horizon, lighting up a pathway of broken golden light over the western sea, they hauled their wind once more, sailing with care between the two sets of tall, green-spotted volcanic rock-fangs that cut the waters directly south of Ghost Island. Moon Island, their actual destination, lay directly to the north, but was unreachable by any other route, surrounded as it was by a deadly barrier reef just below the ocean’s surface.

  Quietly they drifted northward, the deck watch constantly trimming sail against the variable island winds. Hands posted on either side of the bow alternately swung out their leads and called the depths. Everyone else stood or sat or crouched motionless at their stations on deck, silent, wary of a trap.

  The sun vanished below the western horizon. They glided slowly through more rock clusters. Ghost Island itself was a tall mountain ringed by dense greenery, its heights lost in cloud. As they slid by, many watched the island from their battle stations, though nothing spectral could be seen. But they had grown up hearing stories of the ghosts who supposedly gathered there.

  Inda saw no ghosts, a matter of indifference to him. There was enough danger from the living.

  Ghost Island passed gradually behind them, revealing the main island, now fast darkening to a silhouette against the starlit sky. Lights glowed into existence all along the harbor—the warm yellow of lamps, the glistening white of glowglobes—a silver and gold necklace that looked peaceful enough. But then so would a trap.

  There were no estuaries. Halfmoon Harbor was a natural bay, a socket for the finger of Ghost Island. The bay and the island it belonged to, like Freedom Isles far away in the eastern seas, wore a different name with every new power that claimed it. Moon Island was the name inscribed on the Delf chart Inda had bought from the Delfin Islanders, Skull Cove on an old chart he’d found aboard his trysail, and a hundred years ago it had been named after some king or other who’d sent a troublesome son there to get rid of him.

  Inda and his small fleet eased in on the tide under bright stars, the wind soft but steady. The faint smell of smoke rose from the oil-soaked twists of old canvas in the clay pots on the yards for the bow crews. Shields lay tight along the rails, ready to be grabbed on signal. Halyards had been laid along for an instant flash of sail, the defense crews standing silently by, weapons to hand.

  As they rolled in on the easy waters, torches dotted the far end of the bay, jogging together into a row of points.

  “Spill wind,” Inda said, and the deckhands on duty silently loosened sail. The way came off Death; the scout Vixen slanted round, glasses trained on the bay. They saw small fishing craft, masts bare, but no sign of the tall, three-masted, square-rigged Venn warships with their distinctive curved prows.

  Or Ramis’ Venn ship with its night-black sails.

  The row of points resolved into a longboat, oars rising and falling with ritual precision.

  On the deck of Cocodu a cable’s-length away, Dasta stood on the rail, watching Inda for a sign, one calloused thumb rubbing absently up and down the outer leg seam of his old drawstring trousers, the other gripping a shroud.

  The longboat drew up on the lee of the Death; the rowers lifted their oars in one motion. Torches held upright down the middle of the longboat cast red light on upturned faces. An old woman stood in the stern sheets. “Elgar the Fox?”

  “Yes.”

  She spoke a curiously singsong version of Dock Talk. “Captain Ramis, who cleaned out the last of the pirate vermin, bade us invite you in. Your crews are free of us for a full moon-cycle, during which time he says he comes back.”

  Ramis is not here. Silent faces turned Inda’s way, most of them remembering their last glimpse of Captain Ramis casually ripping a sky-high rift out of the world, then sending the six of Marshig’s fleet sailing into the black and timeless damnation called Norsunder.

  Inda said, “How do we know your words are his message?”

  “Captain Ramis said you’d be asking that. He said to surrender to you this . . . thing.”

  Inda motioned and two of his crew boomed out a basket suspended on a rope, into which the object was put. Up it came, everyone watching as it was brought to Inda. He took out—a book. A heavy one, with thick linen pages. He moved to the binnacle light, opened the book, and glanced down at the thick brown writing. It was in many languages, some of them incomprehensible. Then this must be the infamous oath-book of the Brotherhood, each crew member’s name signed in his or her own blood.

  The Brotherhood would never let that out of their hands by choice.

  “Prepare to anchor,” Inda said to Fox; then he hand-signaled to Dasta on the Cocodu, a cable’s-length away.

  The woman sat down in the stern sheets and the launch returned to the bay.

  Inda looked down at the world-famous book everyone had heard about. Left here by Ramis—more like discarded by Ramis, who smote Marshig out of the world. And then said to Inda, “Meet me at Halfmoon Harbor above the Ghost Isles.”

  “We’ll stay here the night,” Inda said, and returned to his cabin below, not hearing the sighs of relief, the questions, the muffled laughs, and ribald comments of his crew who, now that danger had been averted, anticipated pleasure. Not seeing the tension in Fox’s lounging posture, his considering gaze—and Tau watching them both.

  Chapter Two

  WHEN the rising sun began to spread glorious color over the eastern sky, Inda emerged from his cabin. "I’ll go ashore first, with a picked band. If all is as they say, we’ll have general liberty, rotating back to the ships watch by watch at three-day intervals.”

  He paused, and the sailors, young and old, looked out at the peaceful jumble of houses, all whitewashed, with wide arched windows and flower boxes and pretty little balconies.

  Inda and his picked crew dropped down into the Vixen. They landed without incident and were led to a main street lined by those whitewashed houses made of formed brick with open shutters painted in bright colors. Flowers grew everywhere. The houses were mostly small, two stories only, and many of the windows had no glass in them at all. The tile roofs projected outward into awnings to ward the ferocious sunlight here on the belt of the world.

  Inda glimpsed balconies and broad windows, most of them open; enticing food smells drifted out, fragrant with complicated scents of fruits, spices, and above all, the heady scent of fresh-roasted coffee drifting on the breezes from the hilltop plantations.

  Inda walked up a narrow redbrick street, off which opened tiny courts containing fountains and bordered by equally tiny gardens. The zigzagging street of tiled houses and colorful gardens made a pleasing patchwork leading the eye upward to a long, low building on the highest hill that overlooked the inner bay. Not one of the curious people of all ages who came out to look at them was armed.

  “Up there be Pirate House,” a young man said to Inda in a distinctive, singsong Dock Talk, indicating the imposing building atop the hill. “You stay there.”

  His faint emphasis on you and his tone made it plain that no one else wanted that house.

  Inda sent Mutt to signal general liberty, hooked the book under his arm, and walk
ed the rest of the way up the hill, many of the unseen watchers muttering variations on “He’s so young!”

  Including a girl whose admiring tone caused her grandmother to retort, “Young? Yes. So was Marshig of the Brotherhood of Blood thirty years ago when he had half the city torched as a result of a bad bet.”

  The third morning after their arrival Fox found Inda lounging on the highest balcony at Pirate House, watching the low-flying birds skim the placid waters of the bay as the noise of people going about their business rose on the soft air, punctuated by laughter. The breeze drifting lazily through the open windows was perfumed by the thick growth of sugar stalks all over the island—the main trade item.

  The little town was extraordinarily beautiful, as you’d expect in a place warmed by direct sun all year round. On land, the equator was marked by high, nearly uncrossable mountains full of magic that distorted both distance and time; at sea, the weather was warm, the winds changeable, bringing different scents from all directions.

  “You don’t look like someone who’s had two days of liberty without having to pay a flim,” Fox observed, dropping into a woven basket-chair.

  Flowers were everywhere: growing, patterned into the furnishings. The houses had little shaded balconies off nearly every room, overlooking the bay, the hills behind the house with their lush greenery and unseen waterfalls, or the rooftops of the town interlocking in a complicated pattern down the hillside.

  “That’s because liberty, so far, hasn’t included much sleep,” Inda said.

  Fox’s mocking mouth deepened at the corners in amusement, but his gaze was steady and acute. “Is it possible you’ve finally recovered your wits? Realized it was stone stupid to come here?”

  Inda retorted unheatedly, “You can’t really think Ramis appointed this as a meeting place for a duel or a trap. If he’d wanted me he could have taken me easily enough when I was bleeding out my life on that scout in the middle of our wrecked fleet.”