The Fox

by Sherwood Smith

  The noise from the other cells seemed to encourage those who wanted to shout in protest, an escalation of yells that ended abruptly the third night when apparently someone in one of the last cells organized some kind of break-out attempt. Inda and his cell mates heard a sudden, violent fracas, the sharp, high voices of men, followed by thuds and the crash of an iron door being slammed.

  More guards came running.

  Five men were carried, some struggling, out of the garrison. A little later they were returned hanging limp in the hands of the guards, all of them bloody and moaning, their faces bruised. They were thrown back into the cell, all without a single word spoken.

  Things were quieter after that.

  The prisoners settled down; they arranged space with the practiced efficiency sailors learn on shipboard, sleeping head to foot as if they had hammocks. By day they mostly squatted, some gambling with wooden buttons pulled off their shirts. Most talked, a few slept, or sat staring at the iron-barred door. One man scrupulously kept count of the meals, offering guesses at the passage of days to anyone who would listen.

  Inda waited, watched, and listened.

  Gradually everyone in the cell learned everyone else’s name. Inda had thought out the most uninteresting story he could, choosing the name of a former shipmate, Fassun, because it was an Idayagan name. He hoped his accent would pass for Idayagan. A Khanerenth or Sartoran name and his western accent might raise suspicion. He had to convince them he was just another fisher, like most of the men around him. He listened to the way they spoke, what subjects they talked about, how they used words, sometimes repeating their phrasings. He practiced on the others the rare times they spoke to him. No one seemed suspicious—or even interested.

  Eventually the redheads were questioned. The ones they kept were housed separately. The others were let go, though Inda and the rest in the garrison prison did not know that, so tension stayed high.

  The interrogation of the non-redheads began. When the men from the first cell came back—no one from the non-redhead group was permitted to leave yet—people yelled in Dock Talk from the cell doors, “What’s going on?”

  “They’re lookin’ for someone,” a man yelled back.

  “Quiet,” the guard snarled. “In.”

  They only got through the other side of the corridor that day. One of the last men pushed back down the corridor to his cell said to the faces pressed against the iron-barred doors, “Word is, they’s lookin’ fer a pirate!”

  General laughter rose at this, and because the night guard didn’t understand Dock Talk, the sailor got thumped before he was shoved into his cell.

  The next day they came to Inda’s side of the corridor. Inda’s heartbeat sped up, but he kept his steps slow, his hands loose. He’d taken care to position himself in the middle of the group; some fought to go first to get it over with, others seemed to want to be last—the ones who talked least, probably thieves or the like, Inda guessed—as if that was any kind of protection.

  They were guarded closely as they marched up the corridor. Their destination was not through the front door, but deeper inside the garrison. Inda did his best to keep track of the turns, stairs, and halls.

  They were directed into an office and lined across the back. Guards in yellow—swinging cudgels—walked along their rows. Anyone who moved got a hard rap.

  They were summoned to the front two by two; there were two desks, two questioners, each attended by a herald busy with his quill. Between both groups stood a man dressed in a long blue robe whose purpose Inda couldn’t guess. This man observed, then did something on the desk that Inda couldn’t yet see.

  When the two rows of men in front of him had been processed, he realized that the robed one was a dag. After each prisoner had been questioned he muttered over coin-sized metal circles. The faint luminescence of magic glowed around the medal before it was clipped to a chain and hung round the prisoner’s neck.

  Then it was Inda’s turn. The guard was another of the ones in yellow, a young man roughly his own age, who looked weary and bored.

  “Name?” he asked, in Dock Talk.

  “Fassun.”

  “Family name?”

  “Son of Fassun the rope-maker.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Idayago.”

  “Town?”

  “Hot Springs. Village east o’ the pass,” Inda said, having made that up. He couldn’t remember any of the Idayagan names he’d seen so long ago when he’d studied his father’s maps.

  He watched the herald duly write it down, and hoped that there were too many prisoners for such details to be checked. Surely the Venn did not have detailed maps of Idayago?

  “How long you been out of Idayago?”

  “Six years. Horse boys took it, so I stayed east. Hired onto the Skimit-fisher, as an all-purpose hand, promoted to bosun-mate in charge o’ cordage.”

  The young man opened his mouth, but the dag touched his arm, bent down and whispered something, then straightened up, his pale blue eyes never wavering from Inda’s face. Inda tried not to stare back at the dag, who was a tall man, maybe thirty, with short fair hair.

  “Where’d you get all the scars?” the questioner asked.

  “Pirate attacks. Two. One five years ago, one a year ago. They played around with us, last time. Rescued by a warship out of Sarendan.”

  The questioner, the dag, and Inda watched as the scribe wrote all that down. Then the questioner glanced up at the dag, who made a very slight shake of the head.

  The scribe pushed forward a medallion, the dag looked down, whispered, touched it, and magic glittered around it.

  The scribe clipped a cheap chain on, handed it to Inda, who put it on. He saw a number on it that corresponded to a number on the paper.

  As he turned away, from the corner of his eye he saw the dag lean down, dip a pen into one of the inkwells, and draw a green line below the word scars.

  Chim and Jeje sat on the porch of his favorite eatery, a grilled fish place frequented by ship captains and officers on the street built along the foothills below what she thought of as merchant territory. They gazed out at the forest of masts out in the harbor, then he pointed at the one cleared space. “I know they talk rough about Prince Kavna’s yacht buildin’, but most of ’em don’t see that he did it to give ’em jobs.”

  Jeje nodded. “Thess said as much.” She peered out at the fabulous yacht recently launched alongside its own dock. It was twilight, so only the lines could be made out. The yacht was already graceful as a swan. Jeje had heard about the carving and scrollwork all over it, inside and out; it would be a dream ship. Something that also probably would never ride the sea, at least not until the problems of the strait were resolved, if ever. But many, many former sailors had been employed building it, and worked alongside skilled crafters carving, painting, making every aspect as artful as possible.

  Chim grunted. “So how yer classes goin’?”

  “They’re enthusiastic now,” Jeje said cautiously. “Funny, I was so careful to say only what we planned. That I could train defense if there was a convoy hiring as protection. Nothing definite. But they come every day, each day a couple more. They think there’s going to be hiring.”

  “Well, not so far off,” Chim admitted. “Word is, the prince is arguing with his father and sister about that. Thinks Bren ought to take the lead. Get the old trade line going again.”

  “The Venn can’t possibly forbid it,” Jeje said.

  “Not forbid. That’d catch the eye o’ kings for certain. But stop ’em, charge a stiff toll, so stiff the goods cost too much to sell again.”

  Jeje sighed. “I forgot that aspect.”

  Chim chuckled. “That cuz ye been a pirate too long, girl. Pirates don’t pay no toll.” He chuckled at his own joke.

  Jeje smiled perfunctorily. She was tired. Up early every day with Tau. She worked all day, then drilled her convoy defense hopefuls until it was too dark to see, in a square well guarded from n
osers, over behind the tavern.

  She was relieved today was Restday. For some of her people it meant family time, others a night for carousing. For her, a precious night of early sleep.

  Chim said, “Speaking of high places, how’s Angel doin’ with the Comet?”

  “She’s interested,” Jeje said. “That’s about all he’s said.”

  Chim chuckled again. “That boy o’ yez is as good as a play all by hisself.”

  “Not my boy,” Jeje retorted, but without heat.

  “Mebbe so, mebbe so. Leastways he’s out o’ our hair at Fleet. Less exciting w’ him gone. But I notice the others don’t treat ye like a horse turd on the street anymore.”

  “No, they actually talk to me once in a while,” Jeje said briskly. “Nothing like people pitying you for being thrown over by a beautiful fellow to get them to see you as human.”

  “Aw, they’re not so bad,” Chim said, chuckling wheezily. “Just, he never gave any o’ ’em a second look, and there he was, walkin’ out with ye every day.”

  “I know,” Jeje said. “Well, speaking of walking, it’s time for me to walk to bed. Tomorrow will be another long one.”

  Just about the time she sank gratefully onto her pillow, Tau examined himself in his mirror, and then trod lightly downstairs to begin the next phase of his campaign.

  He’d gone to the theater every night for a week to watch and listen to the performer known as the Comet. A nickname that some said was for the beauty of her voice—like a bright star arcing across the sky—others insisted it was for the brightness of her pale blond hair. A few thought the name was for her quick, birdlike movements, and in private a number of people had wryly told Tau it was really for her temper.

  Tau had found out at Wisteria House that she was courted by everyone of high status and low, that she was spoiled, moody, choosy, and difficult to please. She’d had diamonds given her by dukes. Poems written to and about her. Music written for and about her. Paintings of her and for her, by artists whose prices would buy an entire house on the lower hills. She’d radically changed the fashions twice, once by refusing to wear a style she’d gotten tired of and then by appearing at a court function in something she’d designed on a whim. Even the crown princess wore her fashions, though it was said she cordially hated the Comet. But if she really did say that, it was nowhere in public.

  Everyone knew the Comet’s tastes: she hated the Colendi (no one knew why), she hated current Sartoran plays and traditional music; there was a long list of foods (Sartoran) and colors (dark) and scents (floral) and songs (historical ballads) and places (Colend, Sartor, the west, the north, and any island) she disliked.

  So here was Tau, dressed in an elegantly tailored Colendi long-coat of the most severe black. At the high neck and the turned-back cuffs gleamed the snow-white complexity of the finest Colendi moth-gauze lace. His trousers were black, fitted at the hip and dropping in a long, gradually widening line called sea-mode after the sailors’ deck trousers—also Colendi. They, land-bound, seemed to have a penchant for things named for the sea, which suited Tau’s purpose. He wore fine-weave Colendi court dancing shoes, also in black. No ornaments whatever, except the discreet diamond in one ear replacing his piratical gold and ruby hoop, since there was no disguising the hole, and his hair, which had only grown to his shoulder blades, and was tied back with a narrow black ribbon in the Colendi manner.

  He picked up the forty-eight stringed tiranthe he’d been practicing with for days and took it downstairs.

  The moment Mistress Rosebud, the proprietor of the house, saw him, she gasped and made shooing motions at him. “Colendi! That’s Colendi courtier dress! Taumad, you don’t dare! Not in my front window, when she’s coming tonight—”

  “Please,” he said. “Let me try.”

  She fanned her plump face. “You’ll ruin me, if she gets angry.” Mistress Rosebud was as shrewd as she was good-humored. “I can see what you’re doing—a campaign of opposites. It might intrigue most. It will intrigue most,” she corrected, her gaze running down his length. “That line suits you beautifully, Angel, dear. But that’s others. Who knows with her? The one thing we can predict is her temper! No one has crossed her successfully. She’ll declare my house outside, and no one will dare to cross the threshold, and I’ll have to go back to baking pies . . .”

  Tau smiled. “I think—I really believe I know how to manage.”

  So far the campaign had worked: he had avoided her for a week. He’d been invited not only to theater parties, but a court affair, just so people could watch them meet, and he’d taken care to leave as she arrived.

  Two days ago the tide had reversed. She was now coming to places where he had agreed to perform, or had accepted invitations. And again he took care—employing friends as lookouts—to leave at her arrival. Not overtly. As friendly and smoothly as possible, but so far he and the Comet had not come face-to-face.

  His friends from the musicians’ gathering, who had willingly served as his lookouts, were all gathered in Madame Rosebud’s main room, where they’d volunteered to play background music to his tiranthe.

  Madame Rosebud sighed, her hands up in surrender. She shook her head slowly as she bustled away.

  Tau took up his chair in the front window, where someone was always on duty playing or singing or reading poetry. That was Wisteria House’s distinctive signature: musicians.

  He sat down, letting the fine coat fall open as it would. Put the tiranthe on his lap, and began strumming the difficult triple-beat chords of a Sartoran ballad, shifting from major to minor key.

  He heard a soft moan—“Not Colendi?”—followed by muffled laughter from his friends, who began playing a lovely air that ran counterpoint to his ballad so the two musical lines were distinct, but did not clash.

  The night watch-bells rang. If he was right about the Comet’s being by now thoroughly intrigued, she ought to for once be on time.

  He closed his eyes and concentrated. He would never be a great musician, but with care and practice he could make such showy pieces look effortless. Beyond the shimmering chord changes came the rustles and whispers of arrivals. A bustle that stilled into the almost hush of many people squeezed into a small space.

  He smelled the distinctive pepper-poppy scent she wore.

  “Colendi,” she exclaimed. “You were not aware of how tired I am of their haughty posturings, Boy-Named-Angel? ”

  While listening to her sing, Tau had amused himself trying to find words to describe her voice. He didn’t like anyone else’s effusions. To him her voice sounded like a wide ribbon of molten silver, though he knew others would consider that just as effusive.

  But he was not a poet. What he could do was quote poets . . . “I observe everything but the obvious,” he said, with his eyes closed. His hands strummed glissades in the minor alaf key.

  A little intake of breath, and the Comet said, “People did warn me you were arrogant.”

  Tau changed chords then said, “I ask myself why people waste time saying behind one’s back what is true?”

  She laughed. “So you admit to being arrogant?”

  “No. We’re never arrogant ourselves, nor are we out of fashion. Those qualities are purely reserved for others.” There, he thought, is your bait—

  “You appear to be,” she retorted, “less mystery than mode.”

  And Tau came back with the next line, “Whichever has the least influence.” Then he stopped, and smiled, and opened one eye.

  She stared, her dark blue eyes huge, her lips parted, then she finished the exchange in a somewhat breathless voice, “Oh, I so agree. Influence is terrible enough, but good influence is the worst of all.”

  As everyone around her made little noises of appreciation—one woman sighed, “How very clever she is!”—the Comet added, “Will you join me? We shall find a cozy place to talk. Just the two of us.”

  Tau waited until her admirers finished their sycophantic compliments: “Oh, but you must let us all hea
r!” and “How else shall we learn the art of conversation?”

  Tau drew his fingers down the tiranthe, then laid it aside, stood up, flicked his fingers down the faultless coat, and held out his hand.

  With dainty grace she placed hers on his, and they walked out, admirers trailing the Comet; from behind came the sound of Mistress Rosebud thumping into a chair and calling for her fan.

  The next morning he told the entire story to Jeje, who laughed appreciatively, then said, “So I suppose the rest of the time you gave her the old ‘night to remember,’ and no, I don’t want to hear any details.”

  “Not at all,” Tau said, ducking her knife, and whirling up to tap her on the collarbone—to find her beside him, her knife tip pressed lightly against his side. “Ooof!”

  “She gave you a night to remember?”

  “She tried. But I kept her at arm’s-length. Until dawn. Kiss on the fingertips. And a rosebud. She hates roses, remember.”

  Jeje chortled, then sidestepped and kicked at Tau’s kneecap.

  This time he was ready. He feinted, swooped, got behind Jeje and put his knife under her chin. “Oh, Inda. The things we do for you.”

  Jeje tromped Tau’s dance shoes with her bare feet and elbowed him efficiently in the ribs. He grunted and let go, and she said, “I hope he’s having more fun than we are.”

  “This isn’t fun?” Tau asked, lunging.

  Jeje skipped back, made a swipe at his belly, which he blocked. “It would be fun on the deck of Vixen.” She feinted low, struck high, and he tapped his neck below his ear, acknowledging the blow. “Here, everything’s work.”

  “Heh.” Tau grinned.

  And when Tau trudged to his current lair to sleep until the night’s campaign, and Jeje marched off to another day of tallies and lists, a lone, tired figure with short pale hair walked into town behind a row of market-bound wagons full of produce.

  Vedrid, Runner to the new king of Iasca Leror, Evred-Harvaldar, lifted his head, saw the harbor city at last, and let out a sigh. It had been a very long journey.