His mirth faded for the first time. He said, “You actually mean to win. All the way around Zoviya and back, just like that? In a boat?”
“I do. Enhedu and its markets are closer to you than Bessradi. I will prove it, and you will sign your name to the agreement Master Nace and your men draft while you are on holiday aboard my ship.”
“You shall make this long summer one to remember. A race it is!” he cried with a smile.
The work began at once. We tied onto the pier, unloaded our cargo, and worked through the night checking masts, sails, and the damage done by our collision. One hull plank had been gouged but would not slow us, nor were we taking on any more water than usual.
Arilas Oenry Kiel put out a call for the finest horses and riders in Aneth. He offered as prize half of the slaves they would take if they won. Every noble family and horsemaster put his best forward.
It began at dawn on the 35th of Summer, 1196. Thirty-six riders waited at the top of the pier for their arilas to set foot aboard my ship. All of his city’s thousands looked on. He waved to the crowds, walked up the gangway, and it began. The tide and wind was right. We carried away from the pier quickly as the horses raced down the pier and through the streets of Sesmundi. Oenry cheered them on with the rest of his city. We could see the dust they stirred upon the tithe road as the waking sun bathed the valley and the long slow rise of hills. The hazy Jivillion Mountains upon the horizon were their only real obstacle. The tithe road ran otherwise flat and straight through southern Thanin before making the turn south toward Bessradi. Nine days each way—one of them would manage it.
I tried not to remember that it had taken me sixteen days to reach Sesmundi.
Oenry tapped me on the elbow. “I know better than to disturb an admiral, but I grow concerned. You have not made the turn.”
“We are not following the coast,” I said. “Our course is north by west and straight out to sea.”
The crew gave me the same look as the arilas. I ignored them, ordered the watch bell struck, and called for measures. Oenry wore out his welcome upon the aftcastle by looking over my shoulder as I marked our course and speed upon the board and chart. I considered knocking him on the head and stowing him below.
The people of Sesmundi stopped cheering. They must have thought me mad. We lost sight of land, and the crew hung about restlessly and paid the anxious arilas more attention than they did their duties.
I could not explain my plan to them. It was no more than a theory—something my gut told me must be true. The tides followed rules. Mercanfur and the greencoats knew how to predict the rise and fall of the tide based upon the proven logic that the sea chased after the sun and the moon. Such rules must also apply to the wind. Nine times I had sailed around Enhedu. Each time the winds above the horn blew westerly, same as they did above the horn of Khrim. To the north there was a point after which some force took hold of the wind and shot it west like an arrow. I would find this westerly, and it would carry us straight to Enhedu. If it did not, we would perish.
“No bottom,” called the leadsman then, and silence gripped them all. This was not the waters of the Gulf of Temptir or the Oreol Coast, where a line could always find the bottom. We were above the great depths of the Pinnion—bottomless some said—a place where souls would fall into endless and icy blackness—the gateway to hell.
The roll of the ship became more fluid, and my stomach dropped. The waves were the kind that killed the ships Oenry had grown up with—that all of us had grown up with.
The prideful arilas went below.
I studied the traverse board as we drove farther out to sea and took measures every half peg the rest of that day. I took only a half watch below, trusting my boatswain to keep our course steady by the stars.
The dawn of the next day saw the same. I kept us quarter into the wind upon the Whittle’s best line, constantly adjusting course and sail to keep her moving north as fast as she would go. The stars that night told me we were as far north as Urnedi. How far east we’d gone, I could not rightly judge.
I was asleep when the change I was waiting on came. The Whittle leaned slowly over onto her port side and Rindsfar called the sail crews up. I came awake with a happy laugh and rushed up to see it for myself. It was going to be a day like no other. The winds had shifted to the west. The dawn was creeping when I started across the deck. The watch bell was due to ring, and I reached the aftcastle in time to watch Rindsfar correctly mark the board and the chart. He rang the bell and I sent him below with my compliments.
The waves no longer played an irregular rhythm. The bounce of them off the coast was gone. They were long, slow, and powerful. Upon the horizon, they grew ever more monstrous.
Throughout the morning, the winds became more urgent and unruffled, like a long steady breath upon the palm of your hand.
I kept us north by northeast in and out of the deep troughs of the waves. Our speed was the best the Whittle had ever given me. I gulped down my rising nervousness and focused upon my ship.
There was no leeward shore, shoals, or tides. This was not a river, with its endless complexities of ebbs, flotsam, sandbars, and shifting banks. This was the open sea, and it had but three things: wind, waves, ship.
Easier. So much easier somehow. I relaxed. I felt her take a wave, her deep keel pushing against the lever of the thick masts.
We were too far forward in the water. I studied the problem with all my faculties while we moved ever out toward the taller and taller waves.
“Trim the foresail,” I hollered. The men jumped to, and the sail was brought in. The weight of the Whittle shifted back, and we leapt forward as though I’d sent a third canvas aloft.
“Measures,” I called and made them take it twice. Our speed was greater than any horse upon a straight road. I marked the peg and judged at last that we were not only east of the coast of Aneth, we were north of the tip of Enhedu.
“All hands, make ready to tack,” I called. The men streamed up the gangways and found their places. The Whittle cried out to be aimed down downwind.
“Tack!” I called. The helmsmen leaned upon both tillers, and the deep-set blades did their work. Like the swoop of a gull, our nose broke effortlessly across the wind. The crews brought the sails around, and they caught. We shot forward, almost due west now, along our best line with waves and wind all pushing us with perfect unity.
We raced almost as fast as the waves. We stayed down between two of them until our wind was fouled by the wall of water rising behind us. The wave pushed slowly up under us, and every man gasped as we pitched steadily forward. The crest of the wave rose up behind us.
A roar and a spray. The great wave came over the aftcastle rail, and we were flung forward. The Whittle seemed to revel in the speed, and her crew cheered madly at our fantastic pace. The feel of it took hold, and they came alive. Men got to the braces, and the sail crews made all ready.
Oenry appeared upon deck and wept as though his head was in the noose. He tore his blue cap from his head and prayed to Bayen for deliverance. We ignored him.
The Whittle’s long solid keel was a knife beneath us. Every man could feel it now. All the power of the wind and countervailing water was balanced upon the fulcrum of the ship—center keel, three paces forward of the mainmast.
The wind shifted a bit farther to the west, we rebalanced our grand lady, and one wave after another thrust us forward. The view atop the next wave stole my breath. A hundred waves of deep green rose fore and aft—the endless ocean a throne upon which we sat.
This was the Whittle’s true home.
I caught a whiff of smoke—a caustic bite of burning flax. The strain upon the ropes was pulling them apart.
“Wet the yards!” I cried savagely. “Back her down—before we break a line!”
The crew was to it at once. Buckets splashed upon the ropes, and the sails were taken in. Our pace diminished. The Whittle would need much better cordage before she could maintain such majestic speeds.
It could not be true.
I measured twice and a third time. If the wind held, we’d make it from Sesmundi to Urnedi in just six days. I took my first calm breath since our departure, and went below to finish my letter to Dia.
Back on deck, I found the arilas at the rail. His eyes were closed, and he relaxed there in the wash of the sun and warm winds.
“Slept well?” I asked.
“She’s solid straight through, isn’t she?” he asked, and gripped the rail as though he would wake from a dream if he let go.
“She is, and only the first of her kind. The sea belongs to us now.”
“All the east would partner with your prince if he were to share this skill of the sea. Those fools in Eril and Kuet would be within our reach. The whole of the world … my lord, you own it all.”
“I could use another hand on the forecastle crew,” I said to him. “The watch is about to change. Care to join us?”
He smiled then and laughed, bright and happy. The last of the lingering feeling of dread fell away, and the crew jibed him lightly for his days of laziness. Oenry quickly proved he knew how to work a rope, however, and earned applause from the entire crew when he climbed the yard to help with the sail.
The work of the ship continued unbroken after that—on through the evening and straight on through the dark of night. Every man paid the Whittle their full mind, and she loved us right back.
I slept peacefully that night, and we continued on for three days in this fashion. It was more like a stroll upon the lawn with an old friend.
“How will you know when to make the turn south?” Oenry asked that evening as he was coming off his watch.
I very nearly laughed at him, but pointed instead at the slowly appearing stars. “I don’t have to turn south. We are right in line with the tip of Enhedu. We’ll sight her sometime tomorrow morning.”
“Sorry? In the morning?”
“Perhaps sooner. It is a clear enough night for us to run toward the coast without fear of missing the signal fires. We’ll be around the horn by midday whatever the case.”
He clearly did not believe me until the lookout cried long and loud, “Land ho!”
“Astonishing,” Oenry said but was unable to find more words than that.
He got to watch us dive toward the tall forests of Enhedu before the sun set. The return to chaotic coastal waters was almost disheartening. The winds fell to their usual squabbling as we neared the coast, and we fought once again with all the hazards and complexities of shifting tides and a rocky bottom.
We spotted the Kingfisher the next morning working nets in close to the shore near the town of Sjolandi. Mercanfur was in command and signaled a greeting. I was able to signal back that all was well before we lost sight of her. It was the best I could do with the pennants I had aboard without being forced to stop and explain. He did outrank me.
We put into Urnedi Bay near midday on the 42nd, and a crowd of hundreds had gathered in the very little time since they’d sighted us. Pennants waved high. The families of the crew were upon the beach, and I felt a pang of regret—no one was going ashore.
Erom and the harbormaster were the first forward when we tied on. The mayor began a long and cheerful hello and seemed ready to speechify our homecoming until the sun set. I interrupted him mid-anecdote by presenting him with the letter I’d written to Dia and handing to the harbormaster the list of provisions we so desperately needed.
“What do you have of it?” I asked him.
He shook his head at me. “Some. No rope to give you, though. We’ve not seen any from the new ropeworks. It all went to the Kingfisher.”
“Back aboard,” I said to Rindsfar and his men. They raced back up the gangway, and I hollered at the men to untie and cast off.
“Soma?” called Mayor Oklas. “You can’t just go. Too many people—”
“No time to explain, Erom. Please do say hello to Arilas Oenry Kiel of Aneth. Arilas, this is Mayor Erom Oklas, brother to Regent-Arilas Erd Oklas of Trace.”
“Aneth?” Erom said with the worst kind of impropriety and foolishness. He multiplied it, saying, “You’ve been all the way to Aneth? Whatever for?”
If I could have shot him through his big fat mouth with an arrow, I would have.
Oenry gave me a long hard look. I had lied to him, but my lie was not one of the ones we’d wagered on.
In an effort to prevent our visit to the harbor from being a complete ruin, I turned away from Erom and asked of the harbormaster, “We saw the Kingfisher off the horn. Where is she bound with her catch?”
“Her first is bound for Almidi,” he said, and I ground my teeth together to keep from cursing.
I waved off all other conversation and got us back out to sea, against the tide and into bad wind. It was only the 42nd, so none of Oenry’s riders could have made it to Bessradi yet, but none of them had to detour the full length of Enhedu in hopes of pirating supplies.
The Whittle’s ropes groaned hoarsely that night as we rounded the horn and crawled back south toward Almidi.
66
Crown Prince Evand Yentif
The 44th Day of Summer, 1996
“Get up, love,” Liv said to me.
I rolled away from her. There was no reason at all to go down and hear Kalyn’s report. It would be the same as every day before it. Bessradi hated me, and you couldn’t walk down the street without running into a half-dozen upstart nobles from the victorious East or one of the new Sten’s revivalist priests selling the healing services of the church. The 5th was just as dead.
Liv punched me on the ribs, and when I sat up with a yell, she grabbed me by the hair with both hands and pulled me onto the floor.
“Akal-Tak races today,” she said, “and you’re not going to miss them.”
I scratched my sore scalp and ribs. “Races?”
“A horse arrived this morning from Sesmundi. There is a grand race going on, and today is the last day you’re lying in bed. You have mourned your men and your defeat long enough. Besides, you are boring when you are asleep. Get dressed.”
Colonel Grano’s armor lay in piles along the far wall. A tray of food and a water basin has taken their place upon the table.
“I was repairing those,” I said.
“No. You were not,” she laughed, and splashed water from the basin on me. ”Did you hear what I said? Races. Akal-Tak. Today.”
Before I knew it, we were to the horses and on our way east through the web of Merchants’ Quarter streets. We reached the east gate and found crowds like I’d never seen. Liv wasn’t interested in seeing the event from afar.
“Race official coming through,” she yelled, and encouraged her Akal-Tak to prance and stamp. I felt a true dullard watching the show she put on. She’s spent the season learning to care for the horses while I stared at old maps and empty armor.
I could just hear Okel saying it, “Horses first. Women can wait.”
I’d seen to neither, and Liv had chosen to see to my horses for me.
I scratched at my beard and encouraged Marrow after her. My good horse was frustrated with me, and let me know it with a dark glance back at me. I sat up, got my feet right and my hands where they were supposed to be. I did my very best to be her good rider once more. I found my balance, and we pranced our way to the front of the crowd.
The sudden roar of the mob smacked me, and I stood up in the stirrups. A rider was just coming through the gates—a young man upon one of the most beautiful black Akal-Taks ever sired. The boy’s sunburned faced was wrapped with a white cloth, and he rode in as though all the world would fall into the ice if he failed.
He pulled to a halt at the immense intersection of streets and raised a thin satchel. His voice was thin and scratchy. “Nolumari. Tanayon. Where?”
The crowd hollered, pointed, and then roared anew as two more riders galloped in. The
first was far less prepared. His sun- and wind-tortured face had stained his once fine silk tunica with blood. The third rider took a gulp from a fat skin and cried poetic encouragements to a golden mare who could be Marrow’s sister.
“They love you, Clover, great queen of your kind. Sing a song of iron shoes for them, so they may know the sound of our God’s laughter!”
The first lad saw the pair, cried out, and his black beast sprang forward with all four legs. The trio vanished north into Bessradi’s streets while the mob roared their approval.
“Go, Clover, go!” I shouted, and with a tap and lean Marrow knew well, my own great mare reared up, screamed, and showed her teeth to the world. I managed the long lean forward along her neck as she hopped a slow circle upon her hind legs. Her long frame reached up twice the height of the tallest men in the crowd, and she loved the applause as much as the battlefield. She managed two full circles, screaming like an eagle the whole time.
When she came down, I laughed from the discovery of tears upon my face, and I gave Marrow such a scratch, she pranced in place and laughed with me.
“What race is this?” I asked Liv.
Liv rode close, grabbed my face, and kissed me to further delight of the crowd. “Does it matter?”
67
Admiral Soma O’Nropeel
The 44th of Summer, 1196
All hands were at stations when the lookout called down, “They aren’t ships at all, ma’am. It is a roof and the walls of a house.”
This made no sense, and my heart would not stop racing. The bobbing shapes had me and every member of the crew convinced that Thanin had some trick up her sleeve. Almidi was upon the horizon, and the shapes looked like a squadron of ships swooping in to snatch unsuspecting traders.
“A roof?”
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