by Shannon Page
At first, Sian just looked confused. Then she turned to Rothkin, startled. “Is this true?”
“Is what true, Our Lady?” Rothkin wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“I won’t have people hurt just because they’re in my way.”
“Bartolo!” Rothkin snapped, looking frustrated. “Go tell them be more careful.”
Not to hurt people, Arian wondered, or not to leave them where Sian will find them?
The boy ran off into the dark, as Rothkin looked apologetically back at Sian, now rising from the ground beside her latest beneficiary.
Stoke came immediately to place a supportive hand under her shoulder. “Now what we do with him?” he asked Rothkin, nodding at the guardsman who still lay upon the ground, perhaps not yet quite trusting his leg — or his luck.
“His house fighteen the Factor all day, Our Lady,” Rothkin told Sian. “He an enemy of yours for certain.”
“But I’m not, my lady!” said the soldier, crawling hesitantly up onto his knees at last. “I did serve Orlon’s guard. It’s true. But Orlon never gave me … what I have received from you. I serve you, my lady! Only you now. Truly.”
“He say that to save his life,” Rothkin sneered. “I say the same if I am him.”
“I don’t think that matters either … anymore,” said Sian, turning almost vacantly to continue walking, with Stoke’s assistance, toward the hilltop just ahead of them. She hardly seemed to care where she was now; who was watching, or what they thought.
What are we doing to her? Arian wondered anxiously. What will this world do to her?
Rothkin shrugged unhappily, and turned to Orlon’s one-time guardsman. “You go ahead of us, and stay where I can see. Do exactly what I tell you, or I put you back where Our Lady find you, only both legs this time, yes?”
The man nodded, hurrying to get ahead of them as he’d been ordered.
Just shy of the crest, they came upon a fourth man lying in the street. His swollen face and hands were red, raw and blistered by fire. He too wore armor — this time of House Alkattha. Some member of the Factorate’s contingent, Arian saw, not the Census Taker’s. He keened pitifully as they approached, staring blindly at the sky, seeming unaware of them entirely.
“Please, Our Lady, no,” groaned Rothkin as Sian walked stolidly toward the man. “Let … let me take away this misery from him.” To Arian’s alarm, he drew the machete from his belt. “He don’t wanna be here anymore, Our Lady. I can promise you. He don’t.” He walked toward her, crooning, as if to a small child too innocent to understand such evil in the world.
You still don’t see, thought Arian. She already knows far better than you or I ever will.
“He been gone a long time now already,” Rothkin went on, placing himself in Sian’s path just steps away from where the burned man lay. “His body just too dumb to know it yet.”
“Your mother didn’t know that I was there when I first touched her.” Sian walked around him as his eyes began to glimmer in the pale light. With tears again, unshed this time.
A moment later, Sian lay atop the burned man, keening just as he had keened when they’d first arrived. Arian forced herself to watch now. It seemed the one brave thing that she could do. The only way not to abandon Sian as they writhed together, dancing horribly upon the ground. The soldier’s face began to blur and soften as the angry welts and swollen, waxy mats of burned skin vanished. Sian grimaced as if suffering every burn, though her skin remained unblemished.
Arian looked back at the guardsman’s nearly healed face, and gasped. “Oh! … Oh no, Joreth!” She ran to kneel beside him, and took his healed hands, blurred again, by tears this time. Joreth was a member of her husband’s personal guard — a trusted friend of many years. She had not recognized him behind such awful scars, but the face before her was now more familiar than Sian’s. “Oh, my dear Joreth, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry we have done this to you!” She laid her head down on his chest and cried.
“My … Lady Consort?” he whispered. “Am I dreaming? … Am I dead?”
She looked up, startled that he could have recognized her, given both their states.
“No, no,” she wept. “You’re fine now, Joreth. You’ve been healed.”
“How?” He looked back over at Sian, and Arian saw understanding dawn across his recovered face. He was likely to have been among the very few told where Viktor’s consort had disappeared to, and whom she’d gone to rescue. “Thank the gods,” he murmured. “My lady …” He looked back at Arian. “The Factor is half mad with grief. He’s feared you dead for days.”
For a moment, she could find no voice to answer him, so great was her own grief at what she must have put her husband through, before … “Is he … Have you seen him?”
“Just this morning, my lady, before I …” Joreth looked confused. “What night is this?”
“Factora Lady,” Rothkin said. “I don’t like to break this talk up, but if you want to see the Factor House before dawn come …”
“Yes. Of course. I’m sorry.” She wiped quickly at her eyes, and stood.
Stoke now sat with Sian’s head cradled against his chest, a stoic sadness on his weathered face. With a long, unsteady breath, Sian let him help her to her feet as well.
“Our Lady,” Rothkin told Sian softly. “This gonna kill you soon, I worry. Please.” His eyes drifted up the street ahead. “If we find any …” He seemed to freeze, staring at something.
Arian followed his gaze, but saw only more rubble and ruined shopfronts.
Rothkin blinked and turned back to stare curiously at Sian, then down at Joreth. “You can stand now?” he asked brusquely.
Joreth climbed unsteadily to his feet. “What do you need of me, sir?”
Rothkin turned to the other three men Sian had healed, huddled together like skittish ponies now. “You three, go with this one. Bring Our Lady that.” Rothkin pointed up the street, and only then did Arian realize what he’d been staring at amidst the wreckage there.
The bedraggled remains of a once-elegant curtained litter lay on its side, where some wealthy merchant had likely abandoned it when overtaken by the fighting.
The three men glanced at one another, then went as ordered, with Joreth right behind them, to turn the litter over, lift its poles onto their shoulders, and bring it back to set beside the woman who had given each of them their lives back.
“Nothing the god do get wasted,” Rothkin said, grinning strangely at Sian. “I have to learn this many times.” He gestured grandly at the litter. “The way to take you, Lady, and four men to carry it. The god provides.”
She looked mortified at the conveyance, and shook her head. “That’s not why I healed them. I can walk as well as anyone. Why else have you given me these sandals?”
Rothkin shook his head. “No, Our Lady. You are weak from all these things you do. We get you there to heal the Factora Lady’s son much faster this way. That is best, no?”
“He’s right, Sian,” said Arian. “Reikos and Pino have given so much to help us get there. Please, just listen to him.”
“Thank you, Factora Lady.” Rothkin gave Arian an almost courtly little bow. “I think there room for two in there. You keep Our Lady company, please.”
His tone was not that of a man just trying to be nice. She bowed her head in acquiescence and went to help Sian into the litter’s dusty, silk-lined interior. When they had been lifted back onto the four men’s shoulders, Rothkin came to pull the curtains closed around them.
Sian raised a hand to stop him. “I wish to see.”
“No, Our Lady. It not safe. The curtain make sure others don’t see who we got here.” He swept the last one closed. “And you don’t see them either,” he added through the gauzy fabric.
Clever, Arian conceded silently. “He’s right, again, I fear. We’re wanted women, Sian. It’s not fair of us to put these men in extra danger either. Let it go.”
Sian closed her eyes, and leaned back into the cushions sewn onto their bench, clearly
far too tired to argue anymore. And just as well.
The trip went much more quickly after that. The litter’s creaking frame and swishing curtains made just enough noise to hide the sounds of any other little accidents that might be happening in the distance — though Arian dared hope there wouldn’t be as many of them now. One could not control the world. That much, she had always known — if not as vividly as the past few days had taught her to.
She was nearly asleep herself when something at the edges of her awareness roused her. She startled awake to the sounds of many voices lifted up in … distant chanting. “What is happening out there?” she asked. When no one answered, she asked again more loudly, reaching to pull one of the curtains back. The streets ahead of them were filled with firelight, she thought at first. But then, she realized that it was cast by candles, carried by a streaming crowd.
“It’s a prayer line, my lady,” came Joreth’s voice from his position at the pole just behind her. “The second one we’ve seen.”
Rothkin came to close her curtain. “Now, for certain, you stay hidden, Factora Lady. My people say these prayer lines everywhere tonight. They go all up to the Factor House, like us. We got to join one soon, I think. No other way left open, and we maybe even safer in a crowd with them. I hear they very happy about something. But we want nobody see you, yes?”
“Yes,” she said. “We don’t. Sian’s asleep, but if she wakens, I’ll explain to her.”
“Thank you, Factora Lady. You not so bad as I think once. I hope your son get well.”
“Thank you, Rothkin. I am very grateful for all you’ve done tonight. If my husband’s government should win this war, I hope we’ll have the chance to talk again, perhaps. About a lot of things that should have been discussed a great deal earlier, I think. Agreed?”
“Oh yes, Factora Lady.” Though she could not see his face now, she was certain she could hear him grin. “I think we talk about a lot of things when this is over. Right now, keep the curtains shut. You do that, and we keep Our Lady safe.”
“Is Alkattha with them?” Reikos asked, already heading past Sellas toward the ladder.
“No, sir. He’s long gone. They’re small boats, mostly. Nothing half as fast. Sloop-rigged fishing boats, I think, and a yacht or two.”
“Whose colors do they fly?”
“Too far away to tell yet, Captain.”
“Eagent, I’m afraid those stitches will have to wait. The starboard cannon is a loss for now, but you and Molian go move the other two back sternward, please.”
“Aye, sir.” They went trotting off.
“Kyrios, let’s go see if we’re still fit to sail.”
His first mate groaned. “We’re at full stop, sir. They’ll be on us before we get Fair Passage moving.”
“How far back did you say they are, Sellas?”
“Clear back on the other side still, Captain. With a lot less canvas, once we’re underway.”
“There, Kyrios. It sounds worth a try. What better option have we got? The tide’s still high, and we seemed to be doing pretty well before those cats showed up.”
They arrived on deck to find the crew already scurrying in preparation — carefully avoiding the big hole in Fair Passage’s quarter deck, of course. Reikos and Kyrios went straight there to stare down into the raggedly latticed gap, perhaps ten feet across. “Deck beams still seem fairly sound. Must have come up straight between them.”
“Damn lucky shot,” Kyrios agreed. “For us, at least.”
“See anything else down there that looks like it should stop us?”
“All of this should stop us, Captain. But we came out here to wreck your ship, I guess.”
“That’s the spirit. Go up and take command again then, will you? You’ve still got those charts far better mapped out in your head than I do. I’ll continue helping Jak out at the main.”
Moments later, Kyrios called out from the helm, “All hands prepare to fall off the wind, fifty degrees to starboard! On my mark … Now!”
The winches ratcheted away, the sails turned into the wind again, and Fair Passage started moving ponderously to starboard. A few minutes more, and the ship had gained some real speed. The pursuing flotilla of fishing boats was still quite a ways away, off the port side now, allowing Reikos a clear look. They’d closed the gap enough for him to see that, as he’d feared, they were the same small swarm of lightly armed House Sark vessels he’d spotted trailing them beyond the bridge to Apricot. Where in this fight had House Sark come down? Not that there was room to wait and find out now.
“Prepare to come about!” Kyrios called down. “Ninety degrees from starboard!”
That was going to slow them down, Reikos thought sadly, hoping there wouldn’t be a lot of turns like this before they’d put some extra distance between themselves and Sark.
There was no warning when they ran aground. Not the briefest scrape along their keel to let them find a grip on something. The ship simply slammed to a full stop, sending nearly everyone and everything not nailed down flying forward with terrific force. Watching the deck sweep past below him, Reikos had sufficient time to think, This is really going to hurt. Then his shoulder hit the breastwork, and he bounced perhaps six feet onto the forward hatch’s grating, still too numb with shock to feel the impact very clearly.
Above him, the top halves of both masts bounced forward and broke off, leaving him just time to roll out of the way as the main topgallant mast careened toward him, taking out at least half the stays and other tackle as it came crashing down. Toward the stern, he heard the mizzen crack, and men cry out in terror as the rest of that mast fell — across the starboard rail, by some good fortune. The deck slid into a lean, weighed down now by the dragging mizzen.
Others were crying out in pain now, as the lancing knives in Reikos’s own shoulder began to register. For a while, he was too faint to do much more than lie there, waiting for his thoughts to catch up with his body. Then he struggled, moaning, to his feet to gaze back at his ruined ship. At least three of his seven men still lay where they had fallen, though none so still as to be dead yet, groaning and clutching at sprained or broken limbs. Kyrios was one of these. He’d been thrown from the helm, over the rail onto the deck below, and now lay twisting in some agony underneath a tangle of fallen rope and tackle draped across his torso. Reikos staggered toward him across the slanting deck, clutching his left shoulder, fearful it was broken, but too concerned for his first mate to care. “Kyrios!” he yelled. “I’m coming!”
He reached the man, and bent to lift the tackle with his good hand, gasping an obscenity at what this small effort did to his bad shoulder. Happily, the two fallen blocks seemed to have missed Kyrios by inches. What lay on top of him was only rope and small shards of wood.
“Sorry, Captain. Sorry, sorry, sorry …” Kyrios moaned, his eyes still barely open.
“Shhhh now … This was my fault, none of yours.” Oh, the gods. It is. It is. We could have just surrendered. “How badly are you hurt?”
“My ribs … sir,” Kyrios groaned. “A few of’em … did not much like … goin’ through the rail.”
“Blood and ashes. I am sorry, Kyrios. I’ve been so much a fool. Can you breathe?”
“Hurts, sir … Pretty bad. … But … I don’t think there’s … any fluid in’em …” A bit more light and focus seemed to reach his eyes. “We’re listing, sir.”
“We are. The mizzen’s hanging in the water off our starboard rail.”
“Captain!” Eagent called from somewhere near the aft hatchway. “We’re taking water, sir! Molian and me can hear it below decks! I think the bow’s gone this time.”
“The boats,” moaned Kyrios. “The lifeboats. … Better get them … in the water …”
“Yes,” said Reikos, standing. “Or they’ll get too fouled to launch.” He stood and shouted, “All able crew, report to me, right now!”
He was relieved to see everyone coming but Jak, who still lay moaning near the starboard brea
stwork, and Dannos, who leaned against the poop deck railing above them clutching at what looked to be a badly broken arm.
“We need two lifeboats launched!” he said. “My shoulder’s broken, I’m afraid, or I’d be on it. Sellas, get Kyrios here strapped to a board, and careful of his broken ribs. We don’t need a punctured lung to go with them. Molian, get Jak strapped to another. Eagent, help him not to twist Jak any more than we can help it ’til we know what’s broken in him. Get them and Dannos into the boats first, then … we go.” He turned to Molian and Eagent. “How bad is it down there?”
“Sounds like a river in the holds, sir. Pretty bad, I think.”
“Then let’s hop to it, lads. Dolous, cut me off some rope and a big patch of that netting there. Then help me bind this arm up. I’m useless with it hanging here.”
“Aye, sir!” All his men rushed off to start their tasks.
As Dolous sawed at the indicated rigging, Reikos struggled up the slanting deck toward the port rail, to see how far away Sark’s fishing boats might be. Still a good twenty minutes off, he guessed — for all that mattered anymore. They’d likely all be seeing dawn inside a prison somewhere now — if they were that lucky. What an ass I was to run, he thought miserably. We’d not be going to jail with broken bones if I’d just had the sense a captain ought to … What’s happened to my brain? Too much. That was what. He knew it. Far too much had happened to keep up with in there these past weeks. Not that he’d forgive himself the sooner for having this or any other excuse so handy. He had failed his crew, and badly. What he’d not have given now to go back and change it all. He could feel the deck list further underneath him. They might not have much longer to get off this boat.
“Captain?” said Dolous behind him. “I’ve got what you asked for, sir.”
“Let’s get this over with then, shall we?”
Reikos tried very hard not to cry out while Dolous bound the arm against his side and chest, and failed at that as well. By the time the deed was finished, the rest of his crew were ready at the lifeboats on the starboard side. Thank the gods they only needed two for such a tiny crew. The portside boats were nigh on useless now already.