The Fox

by Sherwood Smith

He descended into the waiting gig then, and the dags departed without a look back. But his mood had eased.

  Inda watched for an opportunity to break away during the long trudge up a smooth brick road that led up behind the harbor to a garrison.

  There was no chance. They were conducted in tightly controlled groups by mounted guards, all armed with bows, swords, knives. They were taken to the stone garrison, and down a few steps—

  And Inda was unprepared for the blow that caught him by surprise: the smell of the prison.

  The other men all looked fearfully around at the narrow stonework corridors and cells. Inda breathed that cold, moist air that smelled of stone and mold, and he was cast right back to his feverish, grief-stricken days in the garrison prison after Dogpiss’ death. Before the king unaccountably sent Captain Sindan to whisk him away to the coast and aboard a ship.

  The memory was so vivid Inda—who had meant to watch for a chance to escape until there was no possibility left—walked without noticing down the few steps, through a massive iron reinforced door, and into a cell along with twenty or thirty others.

  When the door clanged shut he jumped, irritated that he’d managed not to notice the route in. How could he escape if he didn’t remember what was on the other side of that wooden door, how many guards there were, where the entrance was?

  Several men jostled him, all wanting to look through the barred door to the corridor. A few shouted questions at the guards busy herding other prisoners to the cells farther down. Clang. Clang. Clang. Three more clangs, and those cells were filled.

  Inda sat on the mossy stone floor with his back to a wall, listening past the useless speculation of the men around him. A pair of passing guards were talking in that distinctive flat Sartoran as they clattered past the cells: “How many more?”

  “At least two hundred, but some said we’ll be sorting for redheads first...” And then their voices merged in the general hubbub.

  Redheads. So that rumor persisted on this side of the strait as well. Inda lifted his head, hopeful. All right. He had time to get a good story figured out.

  When the lookouts on the two schooners first spotted each other, Fibi and Fox ran to the bows and raised their glasses.

  As they drew near, Fox stood on the bow with his glass, leaning out with one hand gripping a stay. Fibi knew he was searching for Inda beside her on the Skimit. She’d been doing the same in hopes Inda had ended up on the Rippler.

  She shook her head. Saw Fox’s hand drop, the violence in his abrupt turn, his leap to his deck matching her own mood.

  The two ships met where Inda had told them to meet— on the eastward side of the northernmost islet above the little cluster north of Beila Lana. Fox was too impatient to wait until they’d drawn alongside; as soon as the Rippler’s bow passed the Skimit’s he used a line and swung himself over, dropping onto the deck.

  “Where is he?”

  “Not here,” Fibi retorted, crossing her arms.

  Fox’s eyes narrowed, he tensed, then stilled and wiped a hand up over his face, his expression changing from anger to bleakness. “You did check.”

  “Every day, three days,” Fibi answered. “Like he ordered. Then us voted, and did another three days, though by then they knew who us was. Could see ’em marking us, along o’ the other fisher craft waitin’ on someone ashore. Then night of the third us was takin’ another vote when one of them Ymaran fishers hailed us.” She paused, looked around.

  The crew had all gathered aft on both schooners, which bobbed up and down, sails slack. No one made a pretence of not listening.

  Fibi sighed. “She—captain-owner o’ the Lark—sez word is, they rounded up pipple. No. Men. With no identification medals. Got magic sveds on ’em.” She made a motion, like tugging something around her neck. “She sez, starting ’s morning, any craft left out in the water was bein’ pulled in by the warships. Captains questioned. So us voted. Came here.” She frowned. “Thing is, us don’ know what story Inda be tellin’ ’em on shore. Or even what name he’d give.”

  “Right,” Fox said. “You did right.” He gazed westward, as if he could see through the empty islet and beyond the sea haze to the Beila Lana harbor.

  Fibi snorted. “So. Inda’s orders is: you command. What’s yer command?”

  Fox did not mistake her tone for either friendly or obedient. For a long time they stood there on deck, neither giving way. The crew watched. The only sound was the plash-plash of water against the sides fo the ship and the creak of wood.

  “Let’s go below,” Fox said abruptly.

  “Yes,” Fibi said. “Let’s.”

  Those on deck tiptoed so there wouldn’t be a thunder of bare feet right above the captain’s tiny cabin. But they hadn’t gone more than a few steps before the scuttles slammed shut on both sides of the hull below the rail. Clack! Clack! Followed smartly by the thunk of the stern windows.

  So much for nosing in; the snoops gave up and returned to their duties.

  Below, Fibi plopped back in one of the two wooden chairs on either side of the small plank table that had been let down and eyed the younger man.

  Fox said derisively, “You can spare me the speech. I already know you don’t trust me, and don’t know why Inda does, and you’re going to argue with every order that doesn’t match exactly what you think Inda would want. But before I have to hear it all, let me ask you if you’ve considered why Inda’s plans have always been conditional?”

  “Already know that,” Fibi said, tipping back in her chair in a way that would be dangerous for anyone but a Delf. Their balance was too good for that. “He’s trying to convince you while he’s convincin’ hisself. Easy enough to see.”

  Fox’s brows lifted in surprise. “It’s not at all easy to see,” he replied. “I didn’t see it myself until more recently than I’d like to admit.”

  Fibi pursed her lips. Because he’d been honest, she refrained from the far more pungent reply she’d been readying next. She said, “You been too busy thinkin’ on yer own plans. So let me ask you. Why’s his cabin on Death’s well as here got nothing personal in it?” She indicated the bare cabin, to which she’d not added anything visible.

  Fox shifted to the bench below the stern windows. The bed had been neatly folded back so the table could be let down at need.

  He stretched an arm along the planed sill below the windows, tapping his fingers in one of those distinctive rhythms Fibi had heard from time to time—from both Fox and Inda.

  All the arrogance had gone out of his manner, though she couldn’t have defined how. He was long and well-shaped, the loose cotton trousers and the vest accentuating his lean, hard-muscled contours. His skin, once pale, was now uniformly honey-colored.

  She turned her attention outward, listening to the water splashing. Judging from the roll of the schooner, the west wind was gradually picking up. Feet thumped back and forth overhead, everyone doing what they were supposed to do.

  “Same reason as mine, I expect,” he said at last, facing her again. “Some day—assuming I’m alive—I will weaken and go home. Maybe he will, too, despite all that foolery about honor.”

  Fibi looked disgusted. “If he goes home, it won’t be because he’s gone weak,” she stated, and Fox wished he hadn’t said as much as he had.

  She saw at once that she’d made a mistake; the derision was back in his face, the arrogance in his shoulders and the way he held his head. “The others is going to want to run a rescue. Ye’ll have trouble with any orders that run counter.”

  Fox got to his feet, bending slightly under the low deck above. “But I want Inda back as much as you do. More,” he said sardonically. “He’s an important part of my plans.”

  She knew better than to ask what those were; she’d brought on that irritating manner, and so she just sat there stolidly.

  Seeing no reaction, Fox flicked the islets chart closed and reached for the bigger one showing what they had of the southeast corner of the continent Drael, with Ymar most
ly blank. “We’ll take your fishers at their word and assume that the Venn will be investigating any suspicious craft. So we’re going to go on being fishing boats. But what we’ll do is set up a series of rendezvous on different dates, Skimit on the south coast, Rippler under Spark’s command on the north.” He tapped the chart. “As you search, may’s well complete the chart as you can.”

  “So where’s you gonna be?” she asked.

  “Rescuing Inda,” he said, “is my affair. I am going in alone.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE first couple of weeks were the worst, Jeje thought at the end of her first month.

  Not that the boring days since had been much improvement. At least she no longer woke thinking the ship was still because the wind had died.

  The harbor bells rang the watch change. Inside the Guild Fleet office everyone begin chattering, stretching, yawning, preparatory to leaving. Jeje finished counting up the hash marks on the tablet, wrote the number under the column marked off for beckets, blew on the ink until it didn’t shine, then laid down the pen. She was going to close the book, then remembered she had another load of supplies to count up and enter for that ship before she could move on to the next, so she left it open for tomorrow’s first chore.

  A sudden silence caused Jeje to look up, and sure enough, it was Tau coming down the stairs from where he’d been put to work writing letters and updating accounts, his handwriting being clear and fine.

  Tau wove through the other workers, all of whom watched him, some openly, some surreptitiously. As usual he seemed oblivious.

  In silence she fell in step beside him. Her shoulder blades twitched. She knew the others were watching her now. And she knew what they said among themselves, which wasn’t very flattering.

  As soon as they were out on the street, he asked, “How are the supply lists?”

  “Boring,” she stated. She’d found it mildly interesting, how the Guild Fleet kept record of everything the convoys they arranged started out with and came back in with. Her interest hadn’t lasted long.

  Tau said, “Can you bear it here?”

  Jeje didn’t look up at him, but at the crowded street, everyone coming out of shops, some of which closed, others that traded watches. Noise everywhere.

  “We have to, don’t we?” she mumbled.

  Tau sighed. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”

  Jeje shrugged. What was there to say? She hated living in the harbor. She hated the smell of mud and horses and rotting vegetation in the summer heat, especially after a huge storm like the one last week.

  She missed her friends, Vixen, the freedom of the sea. Chim was funny and full of interesting stories, but she saw him rarely now.

  No. Think of the good things. Well, the bearable things. She was learning the language fast. Actually, she discovered that except for Sartoran, most words in Dock Talk were Brennish—which made sense, seeing as how this was the biggest harbor on the strait. Harbor folk switched between the two languages a lot, depending on what they were talking about; inland people stayed with Brennish, but she could pretty well follow most of what they said now.

  She did have Tau’s company, at least in the mornings for drill and for some meals. But nothing else, since he’d taken to going out at nights and staying out later—she supposed at the pleasure houses. Though every morning before dawn there he was outside her room, waiting for their morning drill.

  Yes, that time was good, when they ran through Inda’s and Fox’s drills up on the roof directly over her room.

  She snorted. Everyone at the Fleet House thought she and Tau were lovers, and here they’d never even kissed. All they did was practice fighting.

  “Problem?” Tau asked.

  She was so used to being ignored all day that she had forgotten how to carry on a conversation. It was too easy to get lost inside her head for an entire watch.

  She wasn’t about to tell him what she’d been thinking. “I hate being stuck on shore,” she said—so obvious there was no answer.

  And Tau did not answer. He knew when he was being deflected.

  He also had a good guess why, so instead he indicated they turn left, where a lane led off the main street and curved up onto one of the low hills. Jeje followed reluctantly. The nicer places were on the hills, leading gradually to the long ridge overlooking the harbor where the king and his nobles all had their fine houses. Jeje hadn’t ventured that far inland, though sometimes she looked up at them in the morning light, when the line of the ridge stood out sharply.

  The lower hills were where prosperous merchants and ship captains or owners could be seen eating at little tables set in carefully nurtured little gardens. Flowering trees dotted the hills and clustered thickly between the buildings on the ridge: everyone who could have them seemed to like garden plots.

  Tau navigated without hesitation, which didn’t surprise Jeje. “Here,” he said presently, indicating a pretty intersection of two curving lanes. Delicious smells filled the air; the four corners all had different kinds of eating establishments, one Sartoran—or so the sign said—one Colendi, one Ymaran, and the last local, its sign a name, not a place. All low buildings with lots of windows half obscured by flowering shrubs.

  “What’s Ymaran food like?” Jeje asked, glancing at the blue-walled building as he led her into the cream-yellow Colendi one.

  “Not much different than anything you get along the coast,” he said. “Their claim to fame is a kind of baked apple dish that the old queen supposedly liked, with hot cream whipped with honey poured over it.”

  “Yum,” she said, but did not dispute his choice.

  The proprietor, a young man their age, gave Tau the smile of intimates and waved toward the terrace. Tau gestured his thanks, and soon they had a secluded little table, flowering shrubs on two sides, one side open onto the lane, the other a narrow view of the rest of the terrace.

  “I don’t really like Colendi food,” she admitted.

  “How often have you had it?” Tau responded, leaning his elbows on the table, chin on his hands. He did not stare directly at her—which she hated—but turned his head slightly, ostensibly to watch the other tables.

  “Just in Freeport. Inda and I went once together, when we came back with our first big pay. Called Taste of Alsayas—”

  “That place,” Tau stated, “ought to be burned down. Colendi food! It’s leftovers smothered with over-flavored sauces so you won’t notice that the chicken has been twice-boiled. ”

  “Oh.”

  He grinned. “Some of our brethren at Freeport like spicy food—for them good taste means spices so hot you can’t actually taste the food, only the burn.”

  Jeje snickered. “All right. But what should I try?”

  “Kerrem will bring the best. Don’t worry about the food. Let’s get back to our situation.”

  “Which is a big nothing,” she said. “How am I supposed to be finding people to train when I can’t even get anyone at Fleet to talk to me, much less strangers?”

  “I’m about to take care of part of the problem, if you agree with my idea,” he said. “It’s certainly easy for me to be upstairs writing out records and second-copying convoy letters for Chim, but it’s a waste because I only learn what he learns. I believe we can rely on him to tell us any news we need to know.”

  Jeje nodded.

  “And so, if you agree, I’m going to head farther up the hill,” Tau said, with a flick of his chin over his shoulder. “The kind of information I think Inda really needs—to say nothing of my own need—is to be found in court circles.”

  Jeje blew her breath out. “Do the nobles even have bawdy houses? I thought they summoned their own favorites.”

  Tau chuckled. “Some do, some don’t. There are very discreet, very exclusive places, but that world is bounded by strict laws of confidentiality. I don’t actually plan to confine myself to those.”

  “So how else can you get anywhere near court people? You might be able to get the fancy
clothes, but what about the rest?”

  “You mean I haven’t birth, wealth, or position?” Tau asked with a pretence of affront, and when she chortled, he said, “Not a problem—if I am quick, clever, decorative, and connected with the world of the theater.”

  Jeje pursed her lips in a soundless whistle. “That’s something I’ve never even seen.”

  “You will, if you like,” Tau promised. “As soon as I get myself ensconced where I think I need to be.”

  “Never mind. I heard a couple of people talking once. You can’t even get past the doors if you don’t wear fancy duds. Can you see me in a big dress with a lot of lace and feathers?” She dusted her fingers over her neck and head.

  “You would be charming,” Tau said, grinning again. “In any case, feathers are not in fashion. Nor for that matter is lace. It’s unpatriotic right now to wear lace, which mostly comes from western Colend, as there have been disputes in high places—most notably, the new King Lael of Colend unaccountably does not favor the crown princess’ suit.” He said it with a mocking air. “Braid and embroidery are now what everyone who wishes to be thought in style wears.”

  Jeje sighed, falling quiet as the young man brought plates and set them down. He gave Jeje a perfunctory smile, then addressed Tau: “Spring vintage?”

  “Just a glass apiece,” Tau said, knowing Jeje never drank more.

  The food was fresh fish, perfectly grilled. The sauce was light, with complicated flavors of sweet and tart; she could identify no single ingredient.

  “Hoo,” she said.

  “Told you!” Tau’s smile was completely unchallenging.

  Jeje put her fork down. “I feel stupid,” she admitted. “I don’t know the half of what seems necessary.”

  Tau also set his fork down, and then he did something he never had before: stretched out his hand and lightly touched hers. “Not stupid. Never that. Inexperienced in these matters, yes. But your strengths lie in other directions. ”

  “Counting up blocks and beckets?” Jeje fought the impulse to let her hand lie in case he’d do it again. She pressed her fingers to her forehead and rubbed. “I would have believed that about inexperience when we were small, but I’ve been in enough bawdy houses by now to know that most of those people don’t know half what you know. But your mother’s place was only a harbor house like any along Rosebud Row.”