“Have you tried our sister’s cooking?” Paul said. “You should be glad you’re getting out of here.”
The young men were pushed forward by those boarding behind them. Kids, Dane thought. They're sending us out there with a crew half full of kids.
Dane’s attention was drawn from the young soldiers back to the dock by an all-too-familiar laugh. He turned to see Baxter Hullman ambling down the dock. Ever the good old boy, Bax was shouldering his way through the press of onlookers good-naturedly. Smiling, slapping people on the shoulder, shaking hands, returning a loud “thank you” and a smile that was almost a laugh in itself to everyone who shook his hand and wished him luck. The show, the bravado, the charm was nothing new to Dane; it’s what he’d expect of Bax on a night like this. What surprised Dane was that Bax was followed by the last person on earth Dane had expected to see at the docks that night – his young female captive from Alistar. Olive skin, almond eyes, hair with the sheen of dark silk, the girl would have stood out anywhere in the Hallander towns. But something about the way she carried herself, the poise, the calm, the utter un-slavishness of her, held Dane’s eyes. He could already feel the rage roiling inside him before Bax jumped down into the boat. Dane knew what was going to happen, but he watched it anyway. The girl followed. From the dock, she placed one foot on the Bloodwake’s gunwale, pivoted on it, and stepped lightly down onto the deck. As he moved towards Bax, Dane registered and squared all this somewhere in the back of his mind. The ease of her movements. Alistarian. Island born. She was used to ships.
Bax was continuing his glad-handing routine down the deck of the ship. Dane stepped right into his path. Bax turned to him and for a moment the smile dropped from his face. Then one corner of his mouth twisted up into a half-hearted sneer. “What do you think you’re doing?” Dane asked.
Bax gave a mockery of a bow. “Dutifully reporting for duty, your highness.”
“And what is she doing here?”
Bax looked over his shoulder as if he didn’t know who Dane was referring to. “Oh, her.” He shrugged. “You know how it is with me and the ladies. I just can’t shake her.” He smiled and nodded to someone over Dane’s shoulder and moved to step around him.
Dane stepped into his path once more. “Is it true what they say about her?”
“What, that she’s a barbarian witch? Every word of it.”
“You know what I meant. Is she pregnant?”
Bax grinned. “Did you expect anything less of me?”
“Go to hell,” Dane said.
“Oh, I will soon enough,” said Bax, shouldering his way past him. “Your old man’s seen to that.”
Dane grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. Their faces were inches apart. Dane was vaguely aware of the rest of the crew staring at them. “Then what do you think you’re doing endangering the lives of two noncombatants?”
Bax shrugged. “They’re my lives to risk.”
He turned away and Dane jerked him back by his shoulder. “Well this isn’t your mission and it’s not your ship.”
Bax glanced at Dane’s hand which still gripped his shoulder and then turned to Dane. “And just whose are they, your highness? Are they yours?”
Bax gave a tug with his shoulder and Dane released him. Dane turned to the girl. He didn’t even know her name. But why should he? It bothered him that that bothered him. “You shouldn’t be here.” His voice sounded far gruffer than he had meant it to. The girl did not even look up at him. She stepped around him and followed Bax. “You should go home,” he said, trying to control his voice.
She turned to him. She looked him in the eyes. “Home, Captain?” Her tone was a slap in the face. “Are you sending me back to Alistar?” She turned and continued making her way along the deck.
“If you have a problem with her…” Bax began, his voice betraying how much he was enjoying all this.
“I don’t have a problem with her,” Dane said. “I have a problem with you.”
“Take it up with your old man,” Bax said, turning his back on him. “You don’t think I’d do something like this without clearing it with him, do you?”
Dane felt the anger that had been boiling inside of him spread across his face in hot, prickly patches. Wasn’t this just like Bax? To use this poor girl in a power play on the eve of a mission like this. To do it in front of all the men Dane was supposed to lead, who were supposed to follow his orders. To remind Dane who was in control and why he, Dane Hallander, was on this ship. Not to lead it. But to learn a lesson and to teach one. And maybe, just maybe, to have another chance to prove himself to his father. His father. He wondered if this whole thing of Bax’s was not his father’s idea. Wasn’t Bax the kind of son he would want to leave a throne to? The bravado, the deadly, deceptive charm, the scars and brawn earned from pointless (and nigh countless) bloody brawls, and now the culmination, the pregnant slave girl in tow. It was as though, when his father handed him the list of the men who would be accompanying him, the list topped by Bax’s name, he was saying, make your peaces with this man, become his brother again, or at least his pupil. Or don’t bother coming back at all.
Dane shook his head. He still had a job to do. It may have been the most hopeless, damnable job in the world – but these men, not just his father, these men, were depending on him to do it the best he could. And he couldn’t let Bax or the girl or his father or anything else distract him. He glanced about him, registering faces, running down the list in his head. All the soldiers and crew had made their way aboard. All except one. Dane made his way to the prow and climbed back onto the dock at the point where one of his father’s officials stood with the roster. “All aboard I suspect?” Dane said, smiling and nodding toward the roster.
The man looked at him drily as if he saw through the attempt. “All but one.”
Why couldn’t he charm people like Bax?
Dane took the man by the arm to lead him away from the ship. It would not do to excuse Joseph’s absence in front of the men who had showed up. It would only be fuel for a mutiny. But he wanted to pull one good thing out of this mess. And the men hadn’t seen the list; they didn’t need to know. Dane leaned close to the man. “We’re enough here for a good sad song when this suicide business is over.”
“I’m afraid I don’t catch your meaning, Master Dane,” and the man’s voice was drier than before.
Dane dug in his pocket and came up with several coins. He pressed them into the man’s hand. “My father doesn’t need to know.” The man pulled his hand away and wiped it on his tunic. He fixed his gaze over Dane’s shoulder. “Dammit, man,” Dane said, fighting to keep his voice low. “What’s the point of sending one more of these kids out there to die?”
But Dane had lost the man’s attention completely. His gaze was held by something at the other end of the dock. Dane turned to see Joseph moving towards them. Joseph slipped past without even acknowledging them and down into the boat. Dane released his grip on the man’s arm. The man took a step back and made a tick on his roster. “I’ll be sure to let your father know he made it.” Dane climbed back down into the Bloodwake without another word.
Someone called his name and he turned to see Leech on the edge of the dock above him holding a large canvas bag. “There are quicker ways to kill yourself than sailing to Haven, you know,” Leech said.
“You come down here to gloat?”
“No. Hold this for me.” He tossed Dane his bag, nearly knocking him over.
“What the hell is this?”
“We can hardly blame your father, with his militaristic preoccupations, for giving you a ship full of soldiers and not a single surgeon. But I’ll do what I can to remedy his oversight.”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” Dane said. Not after what you did for me.
“On the contrary, I should be begging you for the opportunity. An entire colony in the throes of plague or starvation or all-out war. Death and danger at every turn. I can’t think of a better way to make a name for
my practice.”
Dane hefted the bag. “You pack like a woman. Did you expect me to give you your own ship?”
“I don’t remember you complaining about the last bag I threw at you.”
“You want to do the same for every man here that you did for me? You know what it will cost you?”
Leech jumped onto the deck. “I don’t want to do anything for anybody. I just want a place with the rest of you vultures.”
Dane tossed his bag back to him. “Then make yourself comfortable.”
Soon the only people left on the dock were the well-wishers. Some of them undid the mooring lines from the pier and tossed them into the ship. Dane assigned men to the oars, all younger men, Paul and Rawl and Fletch and several others. He chose younger men for a reason – he knew leaving them idle would only allow them to spin stupid stories about where they were going. The Bloodwake began to move and the sails came down and Dane stepped to the stern to get his last glimpse of home. There was a string of lights along the coast, the fishermen's shacks and the greater signal light at the Seat of Kran, the cliff-like outcropping that towered over the northern end of the harbor. Above the coastal lights, up on the hills, there were more lights; some of them he knew. He could see the lights still burning at the feasting hall on the hilltop, bigger and brighter than the others. To the right, he could see what he guessed was the temple torch, a light that would burn all night, continuing its constant vigil, silent and faithful as Elias Wick. Using the lights of the temple and the hall as guide points, he thought he could name a few of the houses, Leech's place and Bailus’s, at least.
As the ship gained distance from the shore, the lights seemed to converge into an individual, united thing, like the stars that shown over some small and lonely world. His world. The only world he had ever known. Home. And beyond it, on land and at sea and in the sky, their boundaries now blended for the darkness so that they were all one great frontier, lay the unknown. And Dane’s small crew was sailing right into the heart of that bleak mystery. He listened to the soft splashes as the oars rose and fell and he watched these beacons of the familiar fade into obscurity.
IV
Stowaway
"Let go of me, you big brute," the girl shouted.
"Stop struggling and it won't hurt so bad," Bailus Conley said. He was pulling her by the ear across the length of the deck.
The Bloodwake had been at sea for a night and half a day. Bailus had been below gathering things for the noon meal when he heard a sneeze from back in the further reaches of the hold. He’d crawled back to investigate and had found the girl hiding behind a pile of packs. He’d grabbed her by the wrist and strong-armed her up and out of the hold. Once on deck, he’d shifted his grip to her ear.
"I haven't done anything wrong," she said.
"We'll let the Captain decide that," Bailus said, continuing to pull the girl along behind him. "The Captain and your father when we boot you back onto land."
"What's the problem, Bailus?" Dane said, stepping in front of him.
Bailus halted and pulled the girl up alongside him. He did not loosen his grip on her ear. "Captain, we have a stowaway."
"So I see," said Dane, forcing down a smile.
"And she's a woman."
"That hadn't escaped me either," Dane said.
"Shall I give the order to swing us around?"
“What for?" Dane asked.
Bailus looked at him for a moment as if the question made no sense. "Why, to hand this brat over to her father so he can beat some discipline into her."
"Take it easy, Bailus," Paul said. "If we're short on beds she can bunk with me."
"Shut up, Paul," Rawl said.
“If she wants to be here so bad, she can take my place,” Vick Crane said.
“Sir,” Bailus said, drawing the girl back and leaning towards Dane, “You cannot allow this kind of thing. It’ll destroy our discipline.”
“Get rid of her,” Edric Embries shouted. “Does she think this is a joke? She’s only going to get in our way and put all our lives at greater risk.”
“We don’t have time to turn around,” Will Thatcher said.
“Who said anything about turning around?” Edric said. “Throw her over the side and let her swim home.”
“I agree,” Markis Evans said. “She’ll be nothing but a cursed nuisance. Worse than useless.”
“I’m sure I could find a way to make use of her, sir,” Rundal Tillman said.
Dane turned to face the crew. "How many of you volunteered for this?" he shouted.
No one spoke.
"I asked, how many of you men volunteered for this?"
Everyone looked at the deck, except Elias and Leech, who were watching Dane keenly.
Paul Johnson half raised his hand and half cleared his throat. He was staring out the starboard side of the ship as though he had found something there of great interest.
"Paul volunteered," Dane said.
"Well, not exactly, sir," Paul said. "Except I might have if I'd gotten half a chance before I got my orders."
"So, in a different world and another life you might have possibly volunteered if you'd had ample time to consider the pros and cons?"
"More or less I'd say you've got it, sir," Paul said. He had turned from watching the sea and his eyes were flitting back and forth from Dane's knees to something about two feet to the left of them.
Rawl rolled his eyes.
“Thank you, Crossbowman Johnson the Older," Dane said.
Paul turned to his brother with a self-satisfied little grin and then back to Dane's knees and shrugged as if to say, "It was nothing, sir."
"Anyone else kind of sort of maybe half-way consider volunteering?" Dane asked.
No one else half raised their hands or half cleared their throats. "Then what do you want me to punish her for?” Dane said. “For having more guts than the rest of you put together?"
He turned to the girl. “Walk with me to the bow.”
"Why, so you can push me over the edge?"
Dane lowered his voice. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm trying to help you here." He nodded towards the front of the ship. "Come on, this way."
"I'm not an idiot," the girl said. “I know where the bow is.”
"What are you doing here?" he said when they reached the bow. The ship’s ballista, a giant mounted crossbow, stood between them and the rest of the crew.
“Why’s it your business?”
“This might have escaped you,” Dane said. “But I happen to be the captain. Which means I have the power to let you stay or to throw you overboard with our anchor tied to your ankles.”
"Your men aren't here for any better reason than that they were told to. Why should I have to have a reason?"
"Well if you look at it that way, these men were invited to be on this ship and you weren't. So why are you here?"
The girl looked past him out to sea in the direction of their bearing. "My sister's on Haven. My sister and my two nieces."
Dane sighed. It was as good a reason as any and better than most. "And what do you expect to be able to do when we get there?"
She turned from the sea to look into Dane's face. "What do any of you expect to be able to do when we get there?"
"Have you thought about what we're heading towards? You think you know what you're getting into?"
"None of you know what you're getting into. But you're going. Why shouldn't I be able to go?"
“Think of what you’re doing to your parents.”
“I left a note.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure it eases their minds to know you’re sailing straight into a warzone with nothing but a bunch of oversexed killers for company.”
“You sound scared.”
"How old are you?" Dane asked.
"Eighteen."
"What's your name?"
"Josie."
"Josie what?"
"Tailor."
Dane almost started. "Tailor? You’re not Gwen Tailor’
s sister, are you?" He hoped she wouldn’t know what that meant to him.
"She's Gwen Aldine now."
"Married. Right. Of course. I'm sorry."
“That’s right. She found a man who wasn't afraid of commitment.”
Great, Dane thought, here it comes.
"Does that surprise you?” Josie said. “That someone actually thought she was worth it?”
Gwen Aldine, formerly Gwen Tailor, had been Dane’s first kiss. She'd been his first in a lot of ways. They had been together when he first went to war for his father. She had had all kinds of plans about their future. Dane hadn't had a one. It wasn't that he didn't like her, or even that he didn't love her, or at least thought he had. It was that he was never sure he'd have a future. He was going into every fight dreading it would be his last. For some of his friends, it was. Live it fast, ‘cause today could be your last. That had been his motto. His and Bax’s. And they’d lived by it. He’d just wanted to do the things that felt good today and not think about what they meant for tomorrow. He’d thought Gwen had enjoyed doing those things with him. He’d never realized how much destruction that detached form of living created.
“You know, this would be more fun if you’d try to defend yourself,” Josie said.
Dane looked at her. “What do you want me to say?”
“You don’t need to say anything to me. But I can think of plenty of things you should have told my sister a long time ago.”
“She’s better off without me,” Dane said.
“Try something I don’t already know.”
Dane figured his only hope was to change the subject. He turned slightly and put a hand on the arm of the ballista, hoping to signal he meant to end the conversation. "Don't mind Bailus. He's a good man, but he’s been a widower a long time now and I think he’s forgotten how to handle women."
"A problem my sister said you never had."
He turned back to her. "You don't know when to quit and make friends, do you?"
"But you sure seem to know when to quit and cut 'em loose."
Dane swore under his breath. "Look, you don't have to like me. But if you're coming with us we're going to have to set up some kind of working relationship."
The Silent Isle Page 4