Becoming a prisoner was unthinkable for Karkron. He believed that Black Knight’s overwhelming forces would eventually crush the Free Alliance. If he were a prisoner of the latter, he would have no escape when Black Knight came for him. The only option was to desert, yet not in a way that would arouse too much suspicion.
“All crews make their way back to the creek entrance!” Karkron ordered as he started to climb down to his dragon boat. The Signals officer had already fled. The order was spread from officer to officer and rating to rating by word of mouth.
Fearing that the Free Alliance warsloops might return to capture prisoners, Karkron led his remaining dragon boats away, packed with survivors and drawing along others who clung to trailing cables. With thousands of survivors, some were inevitably drowned or taken by crocodiles, but even the crocodiles were so heavily outnumbered by the passing mass of humans that they could make little impact on the procession. The vast majority of the survivors managed to return to the six waiting quimals. Only half of them could be accommodated aboard and the rest had to remain in or cling to the dragon boats.
Karkron thought about capturing some of the Akrinan divers for ransom, to extract terms from the Free Alliance or as a peace offering to Black Knight, but he saw no further sign of them. They had already disappeared into a narrow waterway which bypassed the bend in the main channel and rejoined the deeper water where the Akrinan quimals were now being reloaded with their full crews and cargoes.
Karkron considered his future. He had lost his flagship along with the Geode installed in it. The crystals now sat broken and ruined on a submarine bank and would eventually be covered by shifting sands. He had been soundly defeated in battle. Before he had abandoned ship he had received beacon signals from the other squadron leader telling him that a Free Alliance fleet of fourteen warships was fast approaching them. Karkron had no confidence that his remaining fleet could defeat the combined force of the Akrinans with their terrible fire bombs as well as the approaching warships.
He instructed his second-in-command, “Take the six quimals from the creek entrance and tow the dragon boats. Go before the wind, under full sail. Escape and do not risk destruction by delaying. If you are wise, you will swear the sailors to secrecy about what happened here and head for another land, far from Black Knight’s power. Remember that we lost the Geode, so nobody in this fleet will be safe, especially senior officers. Make sure that any fanatics are left ashore somewhere before they know your ultimate destination, so Black Knight can’t send assassins after you.”
“What will you do?” the commodore asked.
“I will take my chances to find a way through the mangroves and into the jungle. If Black Knight does catch up with you, tell him that I am seeking a secret way through the forest into Proequa and its allies’ territory.”
The idea had just occurred to Karkron and it appealed to him. He might have hidden in the swamps until both his and the Alliance fleets were gone and then find his way back to the sea and along the coast. However, he feared that Black Knight would have all the coasts watched. The prospects would be brighter if he could find his way through the swamps and then the jungle. He would take a new name and make a new life where his maritime and management skills were of value in, say, trade or perhaps piracy.
When Karkron reached the first quimal at the entrance to the creek he requisitioned the smallest longboat available, a craft of just ten paces length with a single mast and sail. He also took ten of his most trusted sailors, fresh water and food for two weeks, and charts of the mangrove swamps (out-of-date but better than nothing). The edge of the jungle could be seen from the crow’s nest. If he could find a waterway through the swamp, he thought, he could then find a path through the jungle to more open land some sixteen leagues northeast. It would be a dangerous and arduous journey, but the one most likely to convince Black Knight that Karkron had perished. His announced ‘mission’ to find a secret way to Proequa also gave him the excuse he now needed to hand over command to his commodore and leave.
*
Equipped with a large supply of Kem’s fire bombs, Nargin believed that his fourteen smaller warships were a match for the dozen approaching quimals, especially since the enemy ships were making slow progress beating windward. Even though Nargin now had the wind behind him, he had rigged his ships fore-and-aft to give them more manoeuvrability in battle.
The commodore of Karkron’s coastal squadron watched helplessly as he saw fire bombs rain down on his admiral’s paralysed ships. Although the mangroves obscured the hulls, he could see the effect of the bombs on the rigging and decks, just one mile away yet beyond his reach. At the same time, he saw the masts of the ten Akrinan quimals; the ships all appeared to be undamaged and clearly had a large supply of these new bombs. He also saw the top of the masts of the warsloops, and he saw the fourteen approaching warships. If he came about now, the wind would be behind him and his squadron could outrun the approaching warships. There was nothing he could do for his admiral. Having followed his admiral’s orders and having been distant from the actual disaster, it was possible that he could avoid blame if he now showed his loyalty to Black Knight by returning to service, so he gave the command to come about and head southeast along the coast, to join the blockade of Proequa River. There he would ask for new orders.
Once the enemy ships had turned and fled, and Blan had confirmed that the Geode had not gone with it but seemed to have disintegrated in the swamp, Nargin and Azimath agreed that they would not go in pursuit. Whilst the remaining enemy quimals were now heading south with the wind, the most urgent business for Azimath and Nargin was to head north, to support Port Fandabbin where the final outcome of the war was likely to be decided.
120
Port Fandabbin – 10th December
A banquet had been planned for the evening of the full moon. The banquet had been postponed. That was five nights ago and the day of the banquet had at last arrived. The delay had been due to an enemy attack across Glorz River. It was only a test of the defences and it had been repelled. Tonight’s banquet was to celebrate the victory of Azimath and Nargin at Mangrove Creek. Duchess Parn was to attend. She rarely appeared in public, except on very special occasions. Blan had heard about Parn but had not been introduced, even though the Duchess had apparently been in residence in the citadel all the time Blan had been there.
Blan felt more relaxed now than she had felt for a long time. It had taken her a week to unwind the tensions of her most recent ordeals. Despite a massive migraine, which started the day after her arrival and lasted another five days, eased greatly by Arnapa’s concoctions, but disturbing nonetheless, she managed to press on with her studies and experiments with Control and Actio B. She also found time to go with Pel and Serunipa to inspect the river barrier. She still grieved for Telko, of course, but she threw herself into her work, partly because she needed to keep her mind off her loss and partly because she felt that she was really making some progress helpful to the war effort.
Memwin and Nellinar seemed to get along well together. There were other friendly children in the citadel. Blan wondered if they were the children of Carl’s concubines; although none of the children looked much like Carl. The harem was run by an office of female administrators, none of whom were concubines themselves, and was under the ultimate supervision of Duchess Parn. The concubines seemed to have no lack of money or free time. They went about the citadel and city like anyone else, though better dressed than most, and some ran their own very successful businesses. They all resided in the same lavish quarter of Silver Castle; that is, when they were not touring the countryside on business. Coming from a village where no woman would countenance the idea of a harem, and no man would dare admit a favourable thought on the subject, Blan now had mixed feelings. On principle, she frowned on the idea. However, she had to admit that Carl’s arrangement did not seem terribly oppressive to his concubines. If she could substitute Telko for Carl, she thought she would not mind joining such a
harem herself. She could carry on with her scientific investigations and leave domestic trivia to the administrators. In any case, she was pleased that Memwin now had other children to play with, even if their upbringing might have been in a harem.
Blan was looking forward to the banquet. She had discovered that she needed to take frequent breaks from her work with Actio B, to rest her eyes and to keep feeling in good physical condition. She would climb Silver Tower for exercise and look out at the port and its surroundings from the terrace above Capital Chamber. She was returning from just such an effort, breathing heavily, her mind switching between her latest discoveries from Control and thoughts of the coming banquet and how hungry she felt. Preoccupied, though she had come this way a dozen times before, she took a wrong turn. It now struck her that she was completely lost.
“Is anyone there?” she called. Hearing no answer except the echo of her own voice, she continued on her way. “Don’t worry!” she said aloud to an imaginary listener, “I’m still inside Silver Castle. Any of these turns should take me back to some place I recognise.”
The more she tried to find her way back, the more deeply lost she felt. After a while she found herself in a part of the castle where the corridors were narrower and no longer straight. She began to lose her sense of direction. She had been trying to get back to the western side, nearer the official entrance where she would recognise familiar features. Instead, she now found herself in a narrow, curved corridor lit poorly by a single lantern. She had no idea where she was or which direction she faced. Then she heard the faint sound of a door open and close, as if by stealth.
Blan took Actio B out of its bag and began the procedure for locking it. She heard footsteps approaching; not the footsteps of a person walking openly down a corridor. Someone was taking long, stealthy strides. In fact, two people were approaching. Only Blan with her exceptional aural powers could have heard the soft grinding of sand under the hard leather soles.
Blan had bare feet. She had felt a sensual pleasure walking over the polished marble floors of the castle in clean, bare feet. This floor, however, was slightly gritty. She noticed that the stone walls of the corridor were coarse, and imagined tiny amounts of sand falling to the floor between the times when the cleaners came through with their huge mops.
There was no time to lock the Actio, so she put it back in its sack, shrugged it over her shoulder, and stepped as quickly and quietly as she could away from the direction of the approaching footsteps.
These days, all the inhabitants of the duchy spoke and wrote in the common maritime language, yet Blan had become aware that there was a local language called Tan-Chay-Enn and many older signs were written in this language, known to all locally educated people albeit not particularly well. Locals would still speak in Tan-Chay-Enn (often corrupted) when they were saying something uncomplimentary about a foreigner. In the short time she had been in Port Fandabbin, Blan had already memorized a few hundred of the most common words and symbols of written Tan-Chay-Enn, so she was able to read the sign above the door to her left, ‘Ducal Harem – Secondary Entrance Number Five’, and the sign above the door to her right, ‘Private Quarters – Duchess of Dabbin’. She momentarily questioned herself as to whether it was prejudice (for which she would have felt ashamed) or the balance of curiosity that led her to try the lever on the door on her right.
As she closed the door behind her, she found herself in another narrow, dimly lit passage. After twenty paces, this opened out into a broader chamber from which she saw, to her right, a grand door more suited to the station of a duchess than the corridor onto which it opened. Nearly two fathomes high and three paces wide, it was inscribed with a multitude of symbols which Blan did not recognise. However, after a moment of consideration, it was clear to her that it was some kind of memorial. She felt a tremor of sorrow as she contemplated the symbols and somehow knew that it was an expression of great love and heart-rending loss.
The lever of the door by which she had entered the passage made a tiny squeak. Someone was following her, and they were stealthy. Did they know she was here? Were they stalking her, or someone else? No one she had come across in the castle would sneak around like that. Blan knew the sounds of everyone she had met: Carl’s bold, warrior footfalls commanded by strength and determination (Zeep’s were similar but distinctive); Arnapa’s feline tread which thrummed with sensual suppleness; Memwin’s patter which chattered with eager curiosity; Norsnette’s and Aransette’s who both seemed to be following in Arnapa’s footprints (as it were); even the cleaners and servants each had their distinctive walk or, as Blan liked to think of it, movement melody. She did not want these creepy strangers to find her until she knew who they were, and what they were after, so there was no choice but to try the memorial door. It opened easily and silently.
Blan entered and closed the door. The room was utterly dark. A hand clamped around her mouth.
“Silence, Blancapaw! I am Parn.” The whisper was strange and yet in some way familiar. The tone was urgent yet not aggressive.
Blan touched the hand at her mouth and it was released. A silent rapport had been reached. Parn guided Blan back away from the door to a wall. Then the two women stood side by side in the dark, waiting for the approach of assassins.
The door suddenly opened and light flooded in. Two men burst through, scimitars drawn. One was huge, the size and shape of Grentchnir, Jerkin’s bodyguard from Slave Island, but this was not Grentchnir. He had a mean, sneering face which oozed aggression. His companion was older, tall and cadaverous, but seeming tiny beside his giant henchman. The shimmer on his scimitar suggested that it had been dipped into some fluid (probably poison, Blan thought). Both men held lanterns which illuminated the room, almost painfully to Blan’s eyes which had become accustomed to the dark.
The room was revealed to be twenty paces square with a high ceiling, and it was lavishly furnished. There were several arches leading to other rooms around it. There was dust everywhere, the sight of which caused Blan to speculate that the room had not been used or cleaned for a long time. It seemed to her that it also looked like a memorial. However, the two intruders did not seem to notice what appeared obvious to Blan. They turned their attention to her and Parn.
Blan found it hard to describe Parn. She was attractive and dressed in the finest clothes, ready for the great banquet no doubt, but her face was strangely familiar. As she studied Parn carefully, an astounding realisation crept into her mind.
“I should have guessed it was you, Deputy Prime Minister Pikkin,” Parn said in that strange voice that Blan felt she should know.
“We missed you last time, Parn, but we won’t miss this time,” the cadaverous man said, and then, mockingly, “And, oh look, we get two birds with one poisoned thrust. Blancapaw is here. No wonder we missed her when we ransacked her room.” And then to Blan he said, “Be nice and hand over that bag you’re carrying and we won’t hurt you too much before we present you to Black Knight.” Seeing the look of contempt on Blan’s face, he added, “Perhaps you will be more compliant after you have watched us torture and kill Duchess Parn.”
The giant warrior suddenly leapt across the room and grabbed Blan around the waist. Parn produced a sword and thrust it at him, but he knocked it, and her, aside as if it was a toothpick and she was a paper doll. By the time she fell to the floor, Pikkin was standing over her with his scimitar to her throat.
“Before you kill me, tell me why Binpin isn’t here with you,” Parn asked through gritted teeth.
“Why should I give you the satisfaction of knowing anything?” Pikkin laughed.
“I see! You are so lowly that you just do his dirty work,” Parn said derisively.
This seemed to anger Pikkin.
“Binpin does what I say. I’m the one Black Knight trusts. Binpin’s job is to help me carry out the Great One’s orders. When I report that I have finally killed you and captured Blancapaw to boot, Black Knight will make me the new duke here. This place will be kno
wn as Port Pikkin; not Port Fandabbin.”
There was a sudden commotion and Pikkin screamed, spun around and fell to the floor, an arrow through his neck. As he lay writhing on the floor, his giant companion ran for the door, carrying Blan under one arm as he went. He hesitated as arrows punctured both of his legs. He dropped Blan to take his huge sword in both hands as he came face to face with two armoured soldiers at the door, each almost as large as himself. The soldiers shut the door against him. He turned and found himself facing Carlcan Fandabbin.
As the giant charged, Carl stepped aside so quickly that Blan wondered if she had seen it happen at all. The giant turned to swing his scimitar at Carl’s head but, as he did so, Carl seemed to make a rapid jabbing movement with his sword arm. The next thing Blan noticed was the sight of Carl standing calmly, looking into his adversary’s eyes as if he had just asked about the weather. The giant was standing up to his full height as though he wanted to touch the ceiling with his head, and he was clutching both hands to his neck. Blan then registered the loud clang of the scimitar striking the stone floor, muffled somewhat by the thick woollen carpet and layers of dust. The giant then crumpled to the floor and his head rolled away.
“Pikkin is still alive,” Carl announced after quickly kicking him over. “Attend to him and secure him for interrogation.”
Several medics and soldiers had appeared from the side doors and went to Pikkin. Two archers left the room. Both Blan and Parn scrambled to their feet.
“I think you two need to talk in private,” Carl said to Parn and Blan. “It’s time Blan knew our secrets. There may be other infiltrators in Binpin’s organisation, but I think we have dealt with the main threat, apart from Binpin himself.”
121
“Do I call you Parn or Arnapa?” Blan asked when she and the woman she knew as Arnapa, and now also as Parn, were secluded in Blan’s room, surrounded by the mess made by Pikkin when he ransacked it.
Grand Vizier of Krar Page 46