Corsair Princess

by Hausladen, Blake;

  The arilas looked drunk. His skin was healed, and the crowd marveled at this unexpected event. They all clapped and congratulated the arilas—all of them except for one man who was still staring at the commotion behind the shrubbery. The one selected to marry her, perhaps. His jaw worked furiously—his teeth at risk of breaking. He turned his eyes on me.

  Selt stepped in next to me. His eyes were fixed upon this man.

  I’d spent my last healer.

  My heart began to pound against my ribs. I was risking everything—again.

  “I’ve got you covered, brother,” Selt said and stepped in next to me.

  My flank so protected, I focused all my attention upon the teetering arilas.

  “My father spoke to me of your father once,” I said to him as I recalled what my tutors had told me of the Hooak.

  This mention brought his eyes into focus, and a bit of anger bent his lip. He suspected me of my lie. “Did he,” was all he said.

  “A builder and dreamer, my father said of him, plagued by men who were neither.”

  “And you think he dreamt too big?”

  “No. His dream was the right one—the swamps of Central Thanin drained to a second great lake, a second jewel in the crown of Thanin as bright as Lake Oraut.”

  “You mean to complete my father’s work in Thanin,” he said. “And what could you possibly offer that I do not already have?”

  “My College of Healers can provide twenty men of skill to preserve the workers. I can also provide the expertise of my bank and its facilitators to keep the effort capitalized.”

  “And what is it you expect from me in return?”

  “A license to build a bank in Kormandi.”

  “And the Pormes?” he asked with a bit of a laugh, knowing what I would say.

  “They will put all of their gold and silver on account with me and provide the manpower.”

  A chortling noise issued from the Pormes men, which served as very odd accompaniment for the gasps and grunts of General and Madam Oklas.

  “An industrious plan, Prince Barok. I have heard tell of the swiftness of your endeavors. Allowing for all these many things, tell me, how will you succeed where my father failed?”

  I had no idea.

  “A river,” Selt said, like he was giving an order to attack.

  Aldus Hooak scoffed, while I hoped an explanation would follow.

  A river?

  But the arilas shut his mouth and took a step toward us. “What did you say?”

  Selt bowed politely, and said, “Your father—begging your pardon, my lord—he tried to turn a swamp into a lake. He did everything he could to contain the waters with dams and canals. Our plan does the opposite—lets it all go. We reuse the canals to turn the water toward the sea. We tear down the dams. We tear down the berms. We drain the swamps. You grow flax on the wetlands and make rope.”

  He laughed. “Rope. All the thousands of men and seasons this work would take—all the risk—and you mean for me to make rope. For who?”

  “For me,” I said and pulled my heavy pack of notes free of the satchel. “My need for cordage is endless. I am building a fleet and can buy all you produce and more. I have notes prepared to get things started—if you approve of my proposal.”

  He looked across the distraught faces of the Pormes whose plot had been snatched from them. He seemed relieved beyond the soothing of his skin. My estimation of Aldus Hooak rose immeasurably with that single glance. He found the Pormes as unsavory as I did and was glad to step away from his deal with them.

  “The Pormes will be happy, I am sure, to capitalize the Bank of the Pinnion. I cannot allow you to build a bank in Kormandi, but quality engineers are within my power to provide. Agreed?”

  I addressed the Pormes standing nearby for the first time. “You can begin delivering your monies to Almidi today. We will want to begin the work at once.”

  Erd and his wife rose from behind the greenery. Her badly torn dress was bound up by the uniform overcoat held across her large bosom. Her hair was wild. Regent Oklas was out of breath and flushed.

  “Sister,” Kuren protested loudly.

  “Oh, shut up,” she said. “Your voice is very ugly in my ears just now. Could you please keep quiet? Do as the prince says. He is a very sensible lad.”

  The pair stumbled arm-in-arm toward the manor house.

  Arilas Hooak had already retrieved his baton from an attendant. He said to me, “We will be at the guest house. Please send the particulars over first thing, and I’ll add my signature and stamp to yours.”

  “I wish you a good night,” I said with a royal bow.

  He bowed as low, saluted Selt thinly with his baton, and departed us.

  Sleep was not something Selt or I saw that night. We finished the work—seven sheets-worth of legal niceties that demonstrated once and for all that Selt had the superior legal mind. It read simply without any traps or ploys. The financials, though, were all mine.

  The dawn came, and Arilas Hooak departed after leaving his mark upon the agreement.

  I sent orders to Urnedi that same day for greencoat healers to come to Almidi. My bank became the place where all able-bodied men could sign up. The Pormes were late delivering their coins to the bank but did not offend the project by refusing again to recognize my notes.

  It was twenty days later when Selt invited the Pormes to an estate far up the Kogan Valley to see a dam opened. We met at a small manner house atop a ridge with a wide front porch. It turned out to be the same place where his wife had stayed those hectic days, and it seemed a comfortable place to have had to spend the time. I’d not left the bank, and Selt—wherever he had been for that same score of days—was so wretched with fleabites I worried for his life. Our healers, I learned, only saw to the really bad cases. I did not ask what worse would look like. I doubted Selt would take advantage of the magic, but I did not think there was a man alive who could begrudge him if he did.

  “Why today?” I asked him.

  Selt pointed downstream. “We need as long and sustained a flow as we can get. We want a deeper river channel, not one big flood.”

  The Pormes men whose land he pointed at looked particularly horrified.

  Selt went on, saying, “It’s been raining in Thanin for three days now. Going today will save us a tremendous amount of dredging later.”

  The regent asked, “How will you control the path of the river?”

  “Oh, can’t control that. It might not even go through Almidi after today.”

  “What?” he asked. The entire room was paying attention now.

  “It is a risk I made clear in the proposal. We’ve sapped all the dams and have cut every canal to empty downstream. We finished trenching the widest and deepest section of swamp three days ago. It’s been dumping downriver ever since. All of the pent up water of central Thanin is arriving here presently. Should run fast for two or three days before it levels off again.”

  I’d not considered the results of his efforts. None of us had. And it did not seem possible he’d finished it so quickly. The great many things that would be altered began to stampede through my mind.

  “Selt,” I shouted, “people will be swept away by the flood. You have to stop this.”

  “Ohh, too late to stop it now,” he said and pointed at the disintegrating face of the dam. “I’ve got men all along the river warning people back. It should be fine.”

  The water blasted through, and the lazy river became a seething brown rapids. It leapt its banks at the first sharp bend and started to dig into the low hillside beyond. It took only moments for it to push far across the broad fold of earth. The fences and fields there were swept away while we watched.

  The man who owned the land began to beg that we do something. Selt handed him a thin stack of notes.

  “Your lands will feel it the worst of those in the valley. This is the compensation due to you for your loss. You’ll be quite pleased with the sum and the result. Perhaps you’d prefer n
ot to watch? My lovely wife will be delivering a side of glazed pork to the dining room presently, and you will find your fill of wine and beer. You should find yourself a comfortable chair and count the notes.”

  The regent and I were as wide-eyed as the rest of the Pormes men who owned the valley.

  “Ohh,” said the man holding the stack of notes. They were not the usual fives and tens. Each was worth a thousand silver standards. He started counting and made his way toward the wine. Selt then handed each man a ready stack from his satchel, checking the names off a list as he went. One man after another departed until only Erd and I remained with him.

  Selt went back to the rail to watch, and all we could do was follow. The hill had already been eaten, and the seething water was flooding the land beyond. He pulled a sheet from his satchel and handed it to me. “My best guess on the new course.”

  The regent swore rather poetically as he examined it over my shoulder.

  “Quite a thing to reveal to us now,” I said. “A hundred landowners will be affected by this … devastation.”

  “Temporary,” he said, quite unperturbed. “All the meddling of the Hooak is what truly devastated Trace. The last four generations of them have worked quite tirelessly to steal all the water from the valleys. The great fortress at Almidi was not there by accident. The river has been getting slower and lower as they bottled it up.” The breadth of Selt’s knowledge humbled me. He did not stop there, however. “Their plan would have been a useful enterprise, too, if they’d had a destination for all of the water. When you flood a wide plain, you do not get a golden lake. You get a festering swamp of black fleas. The Hooak won’t realize what we have done for a decade until all the lands we open up for him begin to dry out. It is the Tracian interior that will enjoy the wealth of the river, not the men astride its headwaters. He’ll get no more than a dozen crops of flax before it dries out completely.”

  “But … Selt …” the regent said and pointed at Almidi. “Your line runs right through my city. What will happen to it?”

  “You tell me.”

  The regent and I contemplated his unkind riddle. Selt could tell he was risking a beating.

  He said, “The east side of the city is much lower.”

  The regent could not find words. He hated the low and dirty places of his city as much as any man. “The people there …”

  “Those from the east side of town that can work are here, earning a living reclaiming Traces’ wealth for their sons and daughters. The rest have been evacuated. Those that could not be convinced to take employment and refused the offer of shelter are not fit for the enterprise of life.”

  “You planned all of this,” I said. “Since I first sent you to Almidi you’ve been working toward this.”

  “I missed the reason for the divide between our good regent and his wife, but yes, this is what I’ve had in mind. I purchased this estate last season.”

  The rest of the dam was torn away then, and the full weight of the water burst free. I took a step back and grabbed Selt’s arm.

  The shock faded in stages, until the event’s importance took hold. Selt had remade the entire province. It was only then that I noticed the shape in the middle of the map. Selt’s estate, no doubt. Scoundrel.

  I tapped on the unlabeled trapezoid. He shrugged and handed me a glass of wine.

  65

  Admiral Soma O’Nropeel

  The three square-rigged ships putting out of Sesmundi were crowded with armed men and rowed straight for us.

  That was, until they got close enough to learn our size. I aimed us at the lead ship as their drums stalled and their sails banked. The captain tried to wave me off.

  I ignored the fool and scraped his port side clean. Oars, rudder, and yards were smashed away, and the sail was snatched from the mast.

  The Whittle swung around nimbly as the stricken ship’s cohorts fled.

  I had twenty archers upon my high forecastle with me when we glided in.

  “I’m taking on water,” he cried. “Mercy.”

  “And? You meant to take my ship. I’m fresh out of mercy.”

  “Tow me in. Please!”

  “Who ordered you out here to take my ship?”

  “What? No one. We saw your pennant. You’re a Yentif ship. Your armies invade our land. You were expecting a parade?”

  “You fool, we are from Enhedu, not the Kaaryon. Throw us a line. I’d prefer not to explain how stupidly you died.”

  We started into the harbor with their listing ship in tow. His crew did little to keep their ship floating other than pray and yell at us.

  Another ship of twenty oars came out only to flee back to the piers.

  It was a crowded place. The two long piers reached out from a collection of crowded warehouses, and several dozen small ships were tied onto each. Some were unloading the morning’s catch, others were taking on or discharging sizable cargo. We had seen no such ships to the north. The Gulf of Havish must be a lively place.

  I closed within earshot of the end of the pier and dropped anchor while the stricken ship limped the rest of the way in. The captain was the first ashore, and the rest of his crew abandoned her as well. They were stopped there by a group of officious men. One in particular stood out, and I guessed him to be the arilas of the province by the way he yelled at the captain, nearby officers, and the rest with impunity. He was tall for an easterner and kept his short hair beneath a blue wool cap. He was not an unattractive man, for someone clean-shaven.

  “Good afternoon,” I shouted. “Lord Arilas Oenry Kiel, I presume?”

  He hushed the crowd with a wave and stepped to the end of the pier. “You have the advantage of me, milady. Who would you be?”

  “Admiral Soma O’Nropeel, here with representatives of Arilas Barok Yentif. He seeks to open an avenue of trade with your province.”

  The arilas and his men laughed. “The Yentif armies were sent crawling back to the Kaaryon. What need do we have for your Yentif boats?”

  “My boat scattered your three best ships like driftwood and can make it to Enhedu faster than you can reach Bessradi by horse. My hold is filled with wares from the finest craftsmen in all of Zoviya, and the purchasing power of the Bank of the Pinnion is at my disposal.”

  “That is quite a tale, corsair princess, but I believe you are a liar.”

  “What have I said that you do not believe?”

  “All of it. You are either the latest Yudyith corsair or some Yentif trick.”

  “And if I can prove all of what I have said is true, what then?”

  “You make a sport of it?” Oenry asked.

  “As you will, but I cannot say if you are fit enough for the competition.”

  “Very well, princess,” he said with a wide smile. “If you can prove all your claims, the market of my city is open to your prince. If not, I take your ship as prize and you and your crew as slaves. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “Ha!” he laughed and rubbed his hands together. “Proceed then.”

  “The first you cannot deny. Your captain’s ship is sinking before your eyes, and the rest have fled.”

  The ship began to noisily vent air and seawater and forced the arilas to wait before he could be heard. The ship gave up, rolled away from the pier, and sank all at once.

  “This one I grant you, corsair princess. What of these goods you claim to bear and the men who made them?”

  I ordered our longboat swayed out, and Nace and his men went ashore with a selection of their goods. They were not pleased with my wager or the adventure of crossing to the pier, but they did not refuse me.

  Nace presented their credentials, and while one of Kiel’s men inspected them, the arilas opened the crates. It was our best: gold-brocaded silk, painted vases, a chair fit for a prince, spices from Heneur, Enhedu beer, and Oreol wine. A cask of the cocoa stout was tapped, and the arilas tossed back a cup of it. Then he had a second.

  “Would you like to come aboard and see the r
est for yourself?”

  Oenry’s guards and mine eyed each other.

  The arilas laughed, stopped up the cask, and climbed unceremoniously down in the longboat with a handful of his men. Nace and his were left upon the pier.

  “Welcome aboard,” I said as he climbed over the rail. My thirty ready yellowcoats did not seem to trouble him, though he stayed along the rail while my boatswain showed one of his men the rest of my cargo.

  The man returned. “It is as she claims. Her cargo is more of the same.”

  “Hmm,” Oenry said. “Two truths of four, corsair princess. What of this bank and your power to purchase whatever you desire?”

  I withdrew Barok’s seal and handed it to him. “I can call upon Enhedu’s treasury as I see fit.”

  “Authority is one thing. What proof do you have that there is anything in this treasury of yours?” he asked.

  “Prince Barok paid a sanction of 50,000 gold weights to the Council you sit upon, did he not?”

  “He did.”

  “And you must concede that I am here with goods and ship worth again as much.”

  “Fair enough,” he said and laughed. “You win those three. Tell me, though, how do you intend to prove the speed of your ship?”

  I’d forgotten the claim. It had been a terrible boast, but I was committed, and there was only one way to prove it.

  “A race,” I said, “begun at dawn. I sail to Enhedu and back. You send riders to Bessradi and back. The first back wins.”

  “Fantastic notion,” he said. “Very sporting, indeed. How to trust the results, though?”

  “I put Barok’s mark on documents for your men to carry to the capital and have it signed and stamped by a Tanayon nolumari. As for my voyage, it only makes sense that you would travel with me.”

  “Me, travel with you halfway around the world and back? A clever way to make a prisoner of me, corsair princess.”

  “I will leave my passengers ashore with my cargo. They can work out the details of the trade agreement between Aneth and Enhedu while you enjoy the race firsthand. Besides, who else would you trust as a witness? Your captain here who let his ship sink?”