by CJ Brightley
“And,” he said, when he saw I was not going to amplify, “I wanted to have a chance to talk to you alone. I have a proposition for you.”
“Prop—” I coughed on a wad of bread.
“—osition,” he finished encouragingly. “Business. For which you’ll be paid. Well, I might add.” His voice changed to question, his gaze narrow and watchful. Whatever was about to come out was clearly important to him.
I scowled at him. “What.”
“There is an ancient book of spells I would like more than anything to have in my possession. I need someone who knows a bit about magic as well as about the, ah, mechanics of stealing.”
Relief whooshed through me. Now, at last, he made some kind of sense. “So you nobbled me because you need a thief,” I said.
He smiled a little. “Well, yes. In part. The main part,” he hastened to add.
“But a book? Books don’t bring any kind of price.”
“A book of spells,” he repeated. “Very powerful ones. And I would reward you with six crowns. Uh, empire-struck gold crowns, not the silver-mixed ones used in the islands.”
I calculated rapidly. “Six? But I can’t read. What if I find the wrong one? I never go back to a house, especially some magician. I don’t want to end up as a footstool.”
“Ah yes, I’d forgotten that you can’t read.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “Then I will teach you.”
I frowned, aware that he’d offered those golden crowns mightily easily. Whole houses were bought and sold in Thesreve for about that price, and to look at him there in his plain clothes one would have assumed he hadn’t ever seen two together.
Setting aside this incongruity for later mulling, I went into bargaining mode. “Six . . .” I said, letting the word stretch out doubtfully. “That’s not much when you add in all that sweat-work and time wasted learning a thing I won’t have any use for in the future . . .”
“Double, then,” he said promptly. “To cover the time you waste learning to read.”
“Done,” I said, before he could back out, and I actually felt a brief twinge of remorse. He was too honest to be a good bargainer, and I figured he’d regret this bargain when he’d had time to think it out. Well, let him learn a lesson now. Maybe it’ll save him some real grief later.
“Good,” he said, dropping his hands to his knees, and looking well pleased with himself. “We will be sailing into Letarj in the morning. We will leave from there straight for Imbradi, where we will form our plot. Our lessons shall begin on the way. Right now I’ll tell Rajanas that you’ll be accompanying us to his capital.”
I snorted a laugh. “Better you than me,” I said. Irritating as the thought of more of Rajanas’s company was, it was cheery to reflect that his disgust on hearing the news would be at least as strong as mine. And in his capital, I would feel no compunction whatever about embarking on a strenuous quest to increase my wealth.
Hlanan left. I wandered back to the scuttle, pleased—and somewhat relieved—to have a plan of action. The sight of the mountains woke up that old yearning, and daydreams? Memories? Images flooded my mind, strong currents of air over deep, shadow-hidden valleys. Snow gleaming on rocky peaks in pale light. Gliding, high and wide . . .
That bird-voice sheared into my thoughts. Hrethan, hear me! I would rather die than harm you. Hrethan spared our kind again and again in the past. They alone of your kind share the skies with us. Any aid I can give you I will, now and until breath is still, and all time stands before the Maker-of-Life. Command, and I hear.
What’s Hrethan? I cried back.
You, the bird returned.
Are there others? I asked cautiously.
Yes. Far and far. And then, to my surprise, the bird caused me to see again those mountain peaks and valleys.
I turned away, my heart hammering with fear, wonder, and questions, the foremost being: if these were memories, when, where, and how did I end up where I was?
You are like, and yet different, Tir amended.
And so I was forced out, is that it? To wander about on my own, to guard my own life or lose it, and no one to watch or care? Is that it?
The bird had no answer.
Old grief lay right under the memory-stirrings. I squashed it down again, and busied myself with rearranging my stash, and recounting my coins. Those, at least, were solid. Understandable. Real.
5
That night they had a party. The quiet, efficient servants strung lanterns along the standing rigging. The night being balmy, food was brought forth and laid on folding tables on the deck. Musicians gathered around the binnacle, Thianra in their midst, wearing her bard’s robes of blue, her hair shining with coppery highlights in the lantern-light.
About twelve people comprised Rajanas’s company, not counting servants. (And they wouldn’t count the servants.) Most of them were male, and all of them were young. Four young ladies, including that obnoxious Princess Kressanthe, vied with laughter and flirty fans for the notice of one of the young lords. All had dressed in their best finery, floaty panels and velvets, with ribbons and lace and jewels glittering and gleaming in the candlelight. I caught the random, blood-glow flickers of two rubies braided into Rajanas’s long black hair.
The one who was the focus of the most attention was tall and slender, slightly older than the others, and marvelously dressed with moon-sapphires shining in his apricot locks. He was exactly the type to arouse admiration and desire; once even mine, but I rejected the impulse to linger, and I looked only to despise.
They laughed and talked, switching back and forth between two or three languages. I could understand all the words, of course, but I sure didn’t catch many of the references, and the laughter sounded more heartless than humorous. I noticed Hlanan, plainly dressed as always, standing on the perimeter looking pensive.
Taking my cue from him, I stayed up on the masthead, out of sight. Battles and chases I could handle with little thought, but there was a cruel edge to that laughter, especially when Kressanthe led it, that I deeply misliked, especially since what they said rarely made sense. I knew I could think up insults as quickly as any, but that was defense. Little as I wished to find attraction in Prince Copper or his smooth-faced, glittering friends, still less did I wish to serve as target for their wit.
So I stayed only to nab some of the eats, and when the music started, stirring up old emotions and half-buried memories without much sense, I retreated to skulk in my cabin.
Not that I could entirely escape. Over the next watch occasional breezes wafted scraps of music into my cabin—which, I discovered, actually belonged to the yacht’s first mate, who was now housed down below where the toffs stayed. The music played on and on, often blending with the sweet, silvery rise and fall of Thianra’s voice.
I had worked hard to build a stone wall around my heart, but music always seemed to put cracks between the stones, through which useless emotions leaked out. I resented this weapon. I wanted hurtful emotions locked safely away so they couldn’t, well, hurt.
I stayed high up until one by one the instruments and voices fell silent, and all I heard were the occasional calls of the night watch, the creak of rope and wood, and the endless wash-slap of the sea against the hull.
o0o
Next morning, I discovered the yacht swarming with activity. At first I saw none of the toffs, just their servants. Then I spotted Hlanan moving quietly among the soberly dressed men and women laboring to bring up big trunks and bulky receptacles of various sorts. He spotted me at the same time, and his thoughtful expression lightened to a smile.
“Lhind,” he said. “Just the person I need. Would you take this box down to Thianra?” He gestured toward the other hatchway, dropping a small wooden cask into my hands at the same time.
I looked down at it, surprised that my hands had taken it. When I looked up again, he was deep in conversation with several toffs, all looking off at the coast.
The cask was heavy, and it smelled like one of those good w
oods—rose, cedar, taurein. Twining figures of animals and flowers carved at either end. Heavy. It made a chinking sound as I moved it in my hands, and I wondered if it was loaded with coins. Maybe those gold crowns he’d offered me so easily?
He gave it to me? I stared down at it as I worked through a succession of reactions: amazement at his lack of forethought in handing coins to a thief; scorn for his neglecting to think I wouldn’t lighten the load first; last, a twinge of discomfort when I recollected his words about how even a thief has a sense of dignity.
Then I remembered my easy promise before they first untied me. I could break that promise, but I found that I was reluctant to.
Here I was, divided between two instincts: the first, to take what I could while I could, the second to . . . not.
I didn’t like this dilemma. It was unsettling, like I’d been bound by some invisible rope. But then practicality reasserted itself: they’d have only to check the cask and they’d know I’d messed with the contents long before we came into port. Of course they would count! At least once. I certainly would.
And so, as I had no desire to see how Rajanas carried out his threats, I continued down into the middle deck, where I found Thianra bustling about a tiny cabin strewn with clothing before two heavy chests, and a helpless-looking lady wringing her hands as she glanced about in despair.
Giving me a quick, preoccupied smile, Thianra bent to cram an armload of lace and silk into one of the boxes. “Lhind,” she cried breathlessly. “Would you kindly sit upon the baroness’s trunk so I can do the latch?”
“Hlanan sent me with this.” I held out the cask.
“Just set it on the bunk there.” She waved a hand, standing expectantly next to the trunk.
I climbed on it and crouched down. She shook her head and I hopped off. After much shoving and grunting and finding corners of flounces and frills hanging out the side, we finally got the latch to thunk into place. She straightened up, wiped a strand of hair from her brow, and began moving purposefully toward another chest. I slunk out.
Retreating to the masthead, where no one could see me and load me with their chores, I bestowed a moment’s brief pity on those people with all their chests and boxes and dunnage to be dragged about. The only way that made sense was to have one set of clothes, and when they either wore through or itched one beyond bearing, one snaffled some new.
A strong breeze blew the yacht right down the center of the harbor. The yawing bow rolled and pitched in the deep blue of the sea like a horse galloping for home, sending sprays of saltwater high into the air. The river sparkled a lighter blue under the brilliant sky, marking where brine ended and fresh water began.
Even from our distance, Letarj appeared different from Stormborn Harbor back in Thesreve. It was built along the mouth of a wide river. The shoreline angled inward until we sailed into the river itself. On hills rising to each side the whitewashed and golden-brick buildings of the harbor city gleamed. A very rich city, this. But the thief gangs were tough and numerous and did not look kindly on independents, Thesreve rumor had it.
I sighed as we sailed past all that wasted wealth. And what a variety! I saw everything from beautifully decorated, fast yachts like the one we were on, to big old weather-beaten round-hulled trade three-masters. Twice we were passed by exotic and sinister-looking red-sailed Shinjan galleys moving out to sea. The slaves in the galleys dipped and raised the long oars in a matched rhythm one would have thought impossible to achieve, and the red sails looked like stains of fresh blood against the sky. I remembered some of the stories I’d heard about Shinja, and shivered in the strengthening breeze.
Farther and farther in we sailed, past anchored ships of all kinds, from all over the world. There was a long line of piers, next to which lay big traders or very fancy ships obviously belonging to royalty. Along the wharves lay goods from all over the world: gigantic wine barrels from the inland hills, crates of blood oranges from the islands, their aroma sweet above the brine; bales of wool from the high mountains, cloth, wood, even baskets of almonds, islanders in fringed vests bargaining loudly with dock merchants with their counting beads.
As we sailed slowly along, little rowboats fast splashing out of our way, it became apparent from the various flags that went up and down the foremast rope on the yacht, and at the harbormaster’s on the hill, that we were to get a pier to ourselves.
Then I heard noise below. A shrill, sarcastic voice: “. . . if you think you can manage this without further damage—”
Princess Kressanthe stalked the length of the deck, yelling the while at a string of heavily burdened servants. She was gowned in some kind of shiny silk and so many diamonds hung round her neck, on her wrists, and in her hair, that it hurt the eyes when the jewels caught the strong sunlight and flung it back in shards of liquid light.
She halted in the middle of the deck, and tossed her hair back with an angry gesture, then ran her fingers through the curls flagging in the strong breeze. My scalp itched anew as I watched.
Nobody seemed to be paying attention to her. The princess scanned the deck, her eyes narrowing when she spotted Rajanas and the captain standing aft behind the wheel, talking.
Kressanthe turned her head sharply and shrieked at someone right behind her, “MUST you be so SLOW?”
The men remained at the taffrail, gazing at the shoreline.
The maidservant she snarled at ducked her head and ran back for another load, stumbling among the sailors heaving on sails as the yacht drifted up to the pier.
Thianra appeared, her face anxious and her hair loose. It flew about her in the wind as she rushed straight to Kressanthe and began talking very earnestly.
The ship shuddered and wallowed; the yards braced round, tight as the sailors could get them. The crowd of servants milling about staggered after one violent surge. One skinny maidservant burdened with a bulky receptacle of some kind lost her balance and lurched against the princess, who turned and slapped her ringingly across the face. The servant girl fell back, dropping her burden, which smashed on the deck and spilled its contents: jewels, rings, brooches, and necklaces.
We’re now in port, I thought as I slid down a backstay. Here’s my chance.
Snaking into the group of reaching, grabbing, exclaiming servitors, I went to work: a foot behind another foot here, a shove there, and a yank on a skirt—and the off-balance group fell down in a satisfying tangle of thrashing cloth and flailing limbs.
This kind of thing is an art, and I’d gotten mighty good at it.
Kressanthe was on the bottom. She lay there without moving, shrieking for her maids. I eeled out from the pile, snagging take as I went. A package got thrust into my nose and someone’s elbow caught me hard in the stomach, but still I managed to nip three rings and two bracelets. My big prize was going to be the long string of faceted diamonds, right from Kressanthe’s perfect neck, but I was distracted by sharp fleering light at the edge of my vision. I took a look, and gasped when I saw more diamonds, much bigger, better diamonds, half-spilled from an embroidered cloth bag. The light didn’t just reflect and refract, it seemed to gather in them, radiating pinpoints of ferocious sun.
I bent, whisked them up, and retreated to my cabin where I stashed them hastily in my knickers.
Then, gloating inwardly, I reflected that the best thing was that Rajanas, in ignoring the princess, could not possibly have spotted me making the pinch.
The instant my clothes were straight I strolled innocently out to watch the servants picking up scattered belongings and disentangling Kressanthe from the mess.
Her rising voice caused Rajanas to cross the deck. He bent to give the princess a hand up. As he pulled her to her feet, he glanced about, giving me a narrow-eyed glance. I edged discreetly back, and gazed off at the shoreline as if nothing was amiss. But I peeked sideways to keep an eye on things.
The sails were brailed up by now, the ship tied fore and aft. The crew extended a gangplank to the dock, which dropped with a bang, to be in
stantly tied down by dock workers.
Kressanthe snatched her hand away from Rajanas’s arm, and marched toward the gangplank with her nose high in the air. I didn’t hear her parting shot toward him, but it must have been a good one, as his brows rose in mild surprise, and Thianra turned away, her hand covering her face to hide laughter. My heart warmed toward Kressanthe—too late.
Kressanthe was the first to sweep down to the dock. Hlanan appeared at Thianra’s side, both of their faces wearing twin expressions of concern. Rajanas, smiling faintly, moved to talk to them. I would have kept my distance, but Hlanan looked about, spotted me, and gestured for me to join them.
I took my time, catching the end of Hlanan’s murmured words; he was talking in one of those languages I’d heard once or twice on in the southeastern reaches of the empire. “. . . I wish it hadn’t happened because it will only sound the worse by the time the story reaches Court.”
Rajanas shrugged. “If you believe for a moment she’ll tell a story on herself, then by all means worry.”
“It will not be the truth that her father hears, but the emotions propelling her words will be genuine,” Thianra responded softly.
“You’re right.” Rajanas brought his chin down in a definitive jerk. “No time for our errands in Letarj. We’ll make straight for Imbradi.” He turned away, beckoned to one of his stewards, and began giving orders.
Below us on the dock, Kressanthe had dispatched harbor runners to fetch vehicles for hire. As I watched, three pair-drawn coaches rolled up and the harassed maidservants began loading trunks and cases into one coach. The servants then climbed into the smallest one, and from the largest—into which Kressanthe had stepped the moment they rolled up—a few coins spun, glinting, from the doorway to land at the runners’ feet. Then the same imperious hand that had flung the silvers waved with another imperious gesture and the coaches rolled from the dockside with a great cracking of whips and pounding of hooves.