by Mel Odom
“Unhand the woman,” the bartender growled.
Jherek glanced at the big man and saw the oaken club he rested easily across the bar top. Reluctantly, the young sailor complied, stepping back again out of the woman’s easy reach.
She closed on him at once and a fresh wave of braying laughter filled the bar.
Nimbly, Jherek pulled out a nearby chair and placed it between them, creating a momentary barrier against the woman’s unwelcome attention.
Without hesitation, she stepped up into the chair. The tavern patrons hooted and shouted their support. She flung her arms wide, preparing to throw herself at Jherek, sensing that the young sailor wouldn’t let her hit the floor.
“Essme!” the bartender called in his thunderous voice.
The waitress hesitated.
“It’s enough,” the bartender told her. “You’ve had your fun. Get back to work.”
Reluctantly, the serving girl stepped down, away from Jherek. “Another time,” she promised throatily, and blew Jherek a kiss.
Face flaming with humiliation, Jherek almost turned and fled the tavern. Only a recognized voice stilled him.
“What’s wrong with you, boy?” a man gruffly demanded.
Jherek turned toward the man stepping out of the shadows behind him. He recognized Aysel from Breezerunner’s crew, and the three men that stood behind him as the sailor’s cronies.
“You too good for women a regular sailor has to bed down with if he’s to know something warm and willing?”
The small daggers hanging from Aysel’s ears glinted in the dim light. His thick mane of black hair was held back in a rawhide thong, but his beard was unkempt, frosted with ale foam. His open shirt revealed the pelt of dark hair that coiled on his massive chest and covered his big belly.
Jherek guessed at once that Aysel and his companions had put the waitress up to her performance. He felt shamed that he’d reacted as he had, letting the deceit get to him. He should have thought more clearly and found a way to stop the serving girl without obviously rebuffing her. Malorrie, he knew, wouldn’t have reacted in the same fashion, but the woman’s advances had been too bold, too blatant, and somehow Aysel had sensed what effect they would have on him.
“You stand in a tavern filled with seafaring men who know how to appreciate a real woman’s charms,” Aysel stated. “Every manjack here probably feels insulted at the way you disrespected that woman.” He glanced around and got the support, halfhearted as it was, of the rest of the sailors in the tavern.
“No disrespect was meant,” Jherek replied. His voice sounded tighter and higher than he’d intended. He glanced at the serving wench, watching her move easily through the tables, back to business as usual. “Nor do I think any was taken.”
Aysel raised his voice. “How about that, Essme? Do you wish to let bygones be bygones? I stand ready to take up arms in your defense.”
He shifted, revealing the battle-axe at his side. The haft was four feet long, and the double-bitted head rested on the spur jutting from the top on the sawdust strewn floor, in a position to be easily swept up into action.
Jherek altered his stance, taking in air as Malorrie had instructed. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew that Aysel had borne him enmity since their first meeting on Breezerunner at the water barrel when Tynnel had called the man down for his behavior.
“I’m here on business,” the young sailor stated easily.
“What business is that?” Aysel demanded.
“I need to speak with the captain.”
“Cap’n’s not here,” Aysel said. His eyes remained flinty hard with challenge and anger. He raised his voice even louder. “Essme!”
The serving girl looked back at the broad sailor, and every head in the tavern snapped around to watch what was going on.
“What?” she asked.
“I asked if you wanted me to stand up for you in this matter of ill charity. A man should not be so cavalier as to spurn a woman’s offered charms.”
The serving girl appeared hesitant, then finally waved the offer away. Jherek got the impression she wasn’t sure how much of the action was still play.
“It’s no bother,” she replied. “I claim no foul. After all, he’s just a boy, not like one of the real men that fill this room.”
The tavern goers shouted in glee, banging their empty and not-so-empty tankards down on their tables. A number of jests and curses filled the air at Jherek’s expense.
Clamping his jaw tight, Jherek struggled to rein in his anger. Since being driven from Velen, having his identity and home stripped from him by circumstance, he’d been aware of the dark anger that had filled him, but it had been mixed in equal parts with the sense that he’d somehow deserved every bad thing that had happened to him. Evil clung to blood. That was believed by most people, and even Jherek admitted there was some truth to it.
Maybe he didn’t deserve a home as other people did, and maybe one of the most feared and hated pirates of Faerûn was all the family he’d ever had, but he didn’t deserve Aysel’s treatment. The man was more on his level. Jherek rested his hand on the worn hilt of his cutlass.
“Is Captain Tynnel here?” Jherek asked, pushing himself above the anger that swirled within him.
“Why?” Aysel demanded.
“I was sent to get a message to him.”
“By who?” the big man asked. “Sabyna? She seems to be the only one you talk to these days. Always running after her with your nose up her skirts.”
A tremor filled Jherek’s arm and he barely stilled himself from drawing steel against the man. “Have a care,” he said softly. “I’ll not have her honor trampled while I’m standing nearby.”
“Her honor?” Aysel guffawed, seeming genuinely amused. “She’s a damned ship’s mage, boy. She’s used to men of the sea, and their ways. You jump on deck with your manners and your baby face and think she’s just as virginal as you?”
Thunder crackled ominously in the back of Jherek’s mind. He felt the precious control Malorrie had trained into him coming unhinged. His fingers felt like wire meshed around the cutlass’s hilt. He tried to ignore Aysel’s coarse words.
“If you see the captain, let him know I was looking for him.”
He took three steps back, out of reach of the big man’s battle-axe, stepping around a table to put between them as well, then turned and walked away. He made himself release the cutlass.
“She’s known men before, boy,” Aysel called after him, “better men than you.”
Every word cut into Jherek. He tried to force them from his mind.
“These past few days,” Aysel continued, “I’ve tried to understand what it was she sees in you besides that courtly manner and those smooth features, but damn me if I’ve been able.”
Jherek walked, breathing deeply, searching desperately for the control that Malorrie’s training had given him.
“One thing I want to know, boy,” Aysel roared.
Jherek was almost to the door, but not out of earshot.
“I want to know if she’s as good looking naked as I’ve thought she was,” Aysel said.
Anger took Jherek then, snapping to life the way a candle wick took to flame. He made himself reach for the door as his breath tightened and turned cool in his throat.
“I look at her,” Aysel said, “sometimes with the sun behind her and you can just about see through some of those clothes she wears. I see enough, then I go back to my hammock and think about her.”
The tavern crowd urged him on, asking rude questions and making ribald statements.
“I imagine how she looks,” Aysel croaked, “all sweaty from being used hard, and the way she smells. Like a woman instead of those fragrances she wears. And then I—”
The sailor got no further.
Jherek turned, slipping through the distance separating him from Aysel like a barracuda. He left the cutlass sheathed because he didn’t think the big sailor would have time to bring the battle-axe up
to defend himself. In fact, Aysel seemed stunned, barely beginning to react as Jherek vaulted to the tabletop and threw himself at the man. He flung his arms wide, taking in all of Aysel’s broad frame. The bigger man wrapped his meaty arms around the young sailor as they slammed backward.
Aysel’s breath whooshed out of him when he hit the floor, and his grip on Jherek broke. The young sailor pushed himself up and drew back a fist. Raw emotion burned through him. He seized Aysel by the hair with his free hand, knotting his fingers securely.
“Poke your fun at me, Aysel, and talk of me without respect, but not the lady. A lady’s honor is her own, and I won’t stand by while you defile it with your words.” He hammered the man in the face, putting all his strength into the blow.
Aysel’s head snapped to the side and blood gushed from his split lip. He roared with inarticulate rage, shoving against the floor with his hands and feet in an effort to dislodge Jherek.
Drawing his arm back, Jherek set himself to strike again. Before he could, rough hands wrapped around his arms and face, pulling him off Aysel. Jherek struggled against the three men that held him, tearing free of their grip. He turned to face Aysel again.
Aysel recovered quickly, pushing himself to his feet and fisting the haft of the battle-axe. Blood dripped down his swelling lips, turning his smile crimson. He wiped them with the back of his free hand and looked at the bloody smear.
“By the gods, you little bastard,” the big man declared, “now that you’re going to die for!”
XXVI
8 Tarsakh, the Year of the Gauntlet
“Your song is beautiful.”
Turning from the westering sea spreading out from Waterdeep, Pacys looked down at the speaker.
The priest Hroman looked up at him. A sling held his right arm, broken in the raid on the city. A healing potion would have quickly righted it, but even Waterdeep’s vast stores had been hard pressed trying to save lives. Even Hroman’s own abilities to heal himself through prayer had been given to the makeshift hospitals scattered throughout the city.
“Thank you for your kindness,” the bard replied. His fingers caressed the yarting’s strings, making bridges and notes soundlessly, though his ear could hear every one through the touch of his fingers. “It’s only one of the many songs that will be sung about the battle for Waterdeep … nothing unique.” He felt bad about sounding so bitter. “Forgive me, my friend. I must sound very selfish in light of all that these people have been through.”
The streets around the Dock Ward teamed with a number of extra wagons pressed into service on behalf of the Dungsweepers’ Guild. Debris filled several of the big carts, and their drivers headed them toward the Rat Hills while others came back for more. Their wheels clattered across the cobblestones, a constant undercurrent to all of the other activity filling the dock.
Out in the harbor, fishing vessels plied the waters with nets, sieving in the dead and the wreckage left from broken and burned ships. Not as many of the ships as had at first been feared had been lost during the attack. Even the damage to the waterfront along Dock Ward was reparable once new wood was brought in.
Most of the city’s dead had been reclaimed, but a large knot of people still gathered at Arnagus the Shipwright’s where the watch brought any corpses they recovered. So many were still missing, and many more than that were gone.
Hroman shook his head. “After something like this, it’s only natural to start acting human again. It makes the world small again, and you only have to think about your own troubles—which don’t seem too large for a time.”
Pacys nodded. “You’ve grown wise, like your father. He’d be proud.”
“I hope so.”
The bard sat at the edge of a badly listing dock. Over half of it had broken off during the attack and rough splinters shoved out from the end. He noticed the dark circles under the priest’s eyes. “Have you eaten?”
“Not yet. I’ve been working the night shift at the hospital, giving aid where I could, and last rites for those that needed them.” Tears of frustration and near-exhaustion glittered in Hroman’s haunted gaze. “We seem to lose so many more of the weak ones during the night.”
“Yes,” Pacys replied. “I think it’s because the night is more tender, more accepting. A dying man doesn’t seem to fight quite so hard when death is disguised as sleep.”
“It’s still death.”
“Each man has his own race to run, Hroman. Even you can’t stop that.”
“No, but Oghma willing, I’ll interfere with it whenever possible.”
“Come,” Pacys said gently, gesturing to the dock beside him. “Sit and share morningfeast with me. Several of the festhalls and taverns have remained opened night and day since they were able. Piergeiron, Khelben, Maskar, and several others of the city’s officials and wealthy have opened their own larders to stock the kitchens of every establishment willing to serve a meal to those who are helping clear the city.”
“I suspect a lot of graft is going on through the city while such generosity is being shown,” Hroman said sourly. Still, he sat beside the old bard, stretching out awkwardly as he struggled to find comfort.
“The guard is policing the streets with a heavy hand, and even the most arrogant of nobles and merchants are rumored to be helping keep the distribution paths open and safe,” Pacys said, removing the cloth that covered the basket he’d been given a few minutes ago. He’d played the yarting, trying to soften all the destruction and sadness that he’d toiled in for the last few days.
On the first day he’d helped remove most of the debris that clogged Ship Street and the nearby streets fronting the harbor. On the second day, since he was one of the eldest and suffered wounds of his own from the battle, he’d helped wash the corpses that had been recovered, getting them ready for burial. Most funerals were small things handled in the other wards. In the days since, the tasks had alternated between clearing away and recovering the dead.
“And how are you?” Hroman asked. “I’m forgetting my manners.”
“Well.”
“What about the wound in your side?”
Pacys stretched gingerly. A sahuagin trident had gouged his side, requiring a number of stitches, and there was the wound in his arm. Still, he appeared to be mending, though slowly.
“Troubling,” the old bard admitted, “but not disabling.”
Hroman glanced around at the battered and broken shops and taverns. “So many people lost everything they had.”
“At least they live,” Pacys pointed out, “that those material losses may be grieved over. They’ll rebuild.”
“In time,” Hroman agreed. He scratched at a dried blood stain on his shirt. “So is this the song that you believed you were called for to sing?”
Pacys hesitated, searching his feelings again for the answer himself, finding mostly a brittle, hollow ache left over from the raid. He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I listened for a time just now,” Hroman admitted, “before you knew I was there.”
Pacys didn’t refute the statement. He’d known the priest was there. A man living on the road, singing for his meals and lodging, such a man learned more than just pretty words and a lively tune.
“Your song truly is beautiful, old friend,” Hroman said honestly. “I felt the pain of this city and the people who live here, and I felt the fear that still hangs about in the shadows.”
“There are too many songs like it already, and more coming.”
Pacys drew a knife from his boot and cut slices from the small half loaf of bread he’d been given in the food basket. He covered the slices with ham spread made fresh that morning, then passed a sandwich to the priest.
Hroman accepted it with thanks.
“On every street corner,” Pacys said, “you’ll find a bard. They’re all composing songs about the raid, even those who weren’t in Waterdeep that night. They’ve come from far and wide, trailing word of the story back.”
“This is
what you believed you were called for?”
“Yes,” Pacys said, “and I still believe that, but there is something missing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve worked on the song about the raid for days,” the old bard replied, “and have it shaped much as I want it, but there’s more.”
“More? You’re sure of that?”
“Yes. Even as much work as I’ve done on it, the song yet remains unfinished.”
“How do you know?”
Pacys smiled at the younger man. “How do you know a prayer is left unfinished?”
“Every priest is trained on the elements of a prayer,” Hroman replied. “There’s the invitational, the declaration, the body of the message, and the closing.”
“Sadly,” Pacys said, “many bards believe it’s the same with a song or a tale. Jokes, however, may be so mechanically inclined, but even within that art there are a number of allowances. In your vocation, my friend, the mind trains the ear, but in mine it’s the ear that trains the mind.”
“You remain hopeful, then.”
Pacys smiled. “I yet live, and my song is undone. I’ve been following it for fourteen years. I can’t allow myself to believe that I’ve been led this far and there will be no crescendo.”
Quietly and efficiently, Hroman bowed his head and asked a blessing on the meal. Pacys joined him, finding his spirits even further lifted by the sincere belief in Hroman’s words as he asked for peace and healing to descend on the city.
When the priest finished, the bard glanced up and out at the harbor. The morning sun was nearer to noon now, and the water glinted with diamond-bright highlights. He watched as a small group of mermen surfaced beside a large fishing boat with a boom arm hanging out over the water. Ropes led down into the harbor, letting the bard know they were going to attempt another underwater salvage.
“We’re missing so many things,” Pacys mused.