"Even with Irrylian dice, apparently," one of them said bitterly.
"Especially with Irrylian dice," Xanthippus quickly corrected him. "For the Irrylian loses either way--either his coin or something even more precious."
The man simply shook his head and walked off.
After the first day gambling with the crew, Xanthippus had procured a pair of honest dice. He had palmed the Irrylian ones on the first throw of the second day and secretly dropped them into the sea. It was a wonder they even floated.
Xanthippus chuckled as he watched the men disperse across the deck. It felt good to have a full coin purse once again, even if it would be another day before they could spend any of it. They were sailing among the green isles of Gyriece and the mainland was already in sight. Still, they would be another day at sea, for they were not bound for the southern ports, but for Irrylia, in the north. Xanthippus and Nydeon were just happy to have gotten out of Tygetia alive.
It was cruelly hot on the deck of the Mighty Quill, a two-masted merchant galley of a hundred oars. Even the tailwind that made billowing crescents of the square-rigged sails was like a blast from a furnace. During the heat of the day, the crew, who quartered on deck, lay under sunscreens they had made of their bedding, while the captain and Asander and his party retreated to their spacious cabins in the raised afterdeck. Unlike most merchant galleys, the Mighty Quill was not expected to double as a warship. It was designed to carry diplomatic missions quickly from one port to another so had many luxuries unheard of in any other ship Xanthippus had ever known.
Certainly the luxuries surpassed those he had known on the giant Rycassan cargo vessel that had taken him from Isala as a boy. Of course, stowed away fugitive murderers were not known for the luxuriousness of their accommodations. Far from it, his lot had been horror scarcely less than he had been fleeing.
The ship was one of the huge Rycassan merchantmen that still ply the Middle Sea today. It was like a floating city, its hold bulging with grain, olives, wine, timber, ivory and fine linens. The life of a twelve-year-old stow-away deckhand was not a happy one, even among the enlightened Rycassans. He was not able to escape until well after he had turned thirteen when he became the scourge of Serusi. By then, he understood the mechanics of survival, and had even pioneered a few new ones. It bothered him little that the people would call him a 'wharf rat', a boy who made his living rolling drunks, dicing with sailors, picking pockets, and killing when he had to. There was little these Irrylian deckhands could put over on him now. In fact, their efforts at cheating had been laughably amateurish. It was good that Xanthippus had taken their money before the wharf rats of Cumyra had a go at them.
Still, Xanthippus couldn't help feeling that he was living in circles. It seemed that every time he boarded a ship it was with hounds snapping at his heels. Once they had met Asander, however, he had to admit that it had been easier leaving Tygetia than Isala.
"I'm here to save you," Asander had said. No one had been there to save him when he fled Isala. Perhaps things were looking up, after all.
"Here, put these on. Quickly."
The Prathians changed into the slave tunics Asander gave them, leaving their own sopping clothes in the black alley.
"Kerraunus sent me," Asander told them. That, alone, might have been enough to get the man killed, but it was obvious by that time that they were not leaving Tygetia without help. Xanthippus was exhausted enough to set his suspicions aside. In addition, he had spied Asander's dagger sheathed harmlessly at his belt, an encouraging sign of the man's good intentions.
"Our winehouse is right at the end of this alley," Nydeon said suddenly. Xanthippus did not need him to repeat it.
He grabbed Asander's dagger before the man could say another word. The Gyriecian's eyes went wide as Xanthippus flashed the blade under his nose.
"You wait here," he said.
"What in the names of all the gods are you doing?" Asander asked.
"We accept you saving us," Xanthippus said, not wanting Asander to think that they meant him harm, as clearly he did. "But right now we have some business to conclude. We'll be right back. We left something…"
"There is not time," Asander began, but the Prathians had already vanished into the night.
A man standing in the middle of the alley could stretch out his arms and lay his palms flat on the buildings on either side. Of necessity, then, the men crept one before the other to the cross street. The intersection was illuminated by torches, one guttering in a wall sconce, the other held in the hand of a tall man. A tall blue man.
Their luck could not have been better. Not only did the Mejadym have his back to them, but he was talking to the very smugglers they sought, Ledios and Short-squat. As the Prathians had hoped, the deceitful smugglers had returned to the place where they no doubt conducted most of their business. The blue man held the torch in one hand, and a yellowwood staff in the other. A short sword was sheathed in his belt. Arms enough for the Prathians. The alarm bell continued to clang and they could see men running in the streets, but the commotion seemed a part of a distant world. The Prathians were alone with the two smugglers and the solitary Mejadym, doomed men all.
"Nydeon, do you think you can handle that blue man?" Xanthippus asked. Nydeon grasped his injured ribs and nodded. Xanthippus handed him Asander's dagger. "Put this in his back. I'll take the smugglers."
Xanthippus gave the signal and the two rushed silently across the narrow street. Nydeon slipped the dagger into the Mejadym man's back. At the same instant, Xanthippus drew his short sword and had it at Short-squat's throat before the Mejadym had hit the pavement. Short-squat was the one to be careful of. Ledios had fallen into a terror-stricken paralysis from the first instant of the attack. He began to blubber when he finally recognized the assailants, but Nydeon clapped a hand over his mouth before he had a chance to cry out. His good eye bulged above Nydeon's clenched fingers. Short-squat's face was hidden inside his cowl, his mouth a rigid line.
"Do I get my money back?" Xanthippus asked.
Ledios reached down and removed the coin pouch from his belt. He held it out, his hand shaking.
Xanthippus took it from him. "I remember how many coins were in there when I gave it to you," he said, jiggling the pouch. "Shortages come out of your hide. Perhaps the ugly one loses another ear." Xanthippus realized that they were both ugly, but only one of them had a hole in his head where an ear should have been.
Short-squat lunged and knocked the sword from Xanthippus' hand with a blow from his fist. He was a massive bull of a man with fists like hams. Massively thick, but slow. Xanthippus whirled and had him down on the ground in an instant. He could feel the man's strength as he gripped Xanthippus' restraining arm. In Short-squat's other hand Xanthippus saw the glint of steel flashing toward him, a concealed dagger. He dove and rolled, found where he had dropped the short sword and plunged it into Short-squat's thick stomach before he was half-risen from the ground. He fell back silently on the pavement.
Xanthippus stood. What he was thinking, he could not have said, not at the time and not afterward. He saw tears in Ledios' eyes. He strode over to the fallen blue man, already dead and forgotten, and began cutting strips from his blue cloak.
"Tie him," he said to Nydeon, handing him one of the strips. Ledios started whimpering.
"Xanthippus..." Nydeon began, but did not continue. He merely took the strip and bound Ledios' hands with it.
Xanthippus picked up the yellowwood staff and tied the end of a long cloth strip to it.
"Don't beat me," Ledios said. "I gave you your money. I'll make good any shortfall. I have more." His eyes brightened as he believed he had landed on the strategy that would save him. "I will bring it to you. How much do you want?"
Xanthippus looped the cloth around Ledios' neck and secured the other end to the yellowwood. Then he began turning the staff. The cloth strip tightened around Ledios' throat. He threatened, he cajoled, he begged... Then he sputtered until he could sputter n
o more. Xanthippus continued turning the staff until it felt like the strip would snap.
"Xanthippus, it is done," Nydeon said.
Xanthippus felt Ledios' dead weight in his arms. He let the body fall to the pavement, the long yellowwood staff bound to the back of his neck. It was an ugly way to die. Ugly, but quick and certain.
"The blue men will find their yellowwood to have been put to good use on this one," Xanthippus said.
They gave Asander his dagger back and less than an hour later, dressed as slaves, boarded the Mighty Quill, bound for Irrylia, away from Tygetia and away from blue men.
It wasn't until after the two smugglers were dead that Xanthippus and Nydeon truly felt the peril they had been in.
"The Mejadym are snakes," Asander had told them once they were safely on board the ship. "These men, these smugglers... They are Mejadym no less than the ones wearing the blue."
"They said they were going to smuggle us out of the country, but they smuggled us into the hands of the blue men."
"Half of Tygetia are Mejadym. Only the ones who wish to make themselves known wear the blue. Truly, it is an evil place," Asander said.
"Not so evil that the guilty do not pay a price," Xanthippus replied.
The next day, with nothing but the blue of the Middle Sea reaching to every horizon and canvas snapping overhead, Asander invited the Prathians into his cabin to dine with him.
"Ah, the food is excellent," Asander told the captain, whose name was Diokles. In salute, he raised a morsel of boiled fish he had speared on his fork. The fish had been smothered in butter, garlic and exotic spices Xanthippus could not name, some so hot his nose began to run.
"Tygetians eat well," Diokles said. His skin was dark and leathery, with deep creases in the corners of his eyes. Xanthippus soon found him to be an amiable man, quick with a smile and prone to laughter. "I always have cook stock up when we go there. The fish is called cherpi, found only in one of the Darkmen's rivers, prepared as the Darkmen eat it. How do you boys like it?"
Xanthippus nodded appreciatively but with difficulty through a mouthful of fish. He was famished. What he had a harder time with were the plates, cups and silver that kept shifting whenever the ship rose and fell into a trough between waves. Nydeon forked a bit of cherpi into his mouth and immediately reached for his wine cup, fire on his tongue. Diokles laughed uproariously.
"A poor Darkman you would make!" he exclaimed.
"The Darkmen must have tongues of leather!" Nydeon said.
The other two men at table were a different matter. Asander, it seemed to Xanthippus, was closed and cunning. It was hard not to trust a man who was in the midst of saving you from certain death, but Xanthippus couldn't help but wonder what they were being saved for. While they ate, he more than once caught Asander staring at them. The other, the captain of Asander's guard detail, a lad named Thalen, spoke not a word and seemed to sniff contemptuously at the Prathians whenever he caught their eye. Xanthippus thought he seemed too young to be a captain of any guard, even one on a friendly diplomatic mission. He didn't like the lad's demeanor, but that was nothing new. He wrote it off to youth.
Xanthippus tore off a chunk of bread and dipped it in melted butter. From the corner of his eye, he saw Asander watching him.
"And what is your role in this?" Xanthippus asked, slowly turning his eyes from his plate to meet Asander's.
"My role?" Asander seemed surprised at the question. "I am the Irrylian Foreign Minister--"
"The Irrylian Foreign Minister has as one of his duties the rescue of doomed assassins?" Xanthippus paused for an answer, noticing that neither Diokles nor Thalen batted an eyelash at his admission. Asander began laughing.
"Prathian scum!" Thalen exclaimed. "How dare you question an Irrylian nobleman? Look at you!"
Asander raised a hand, and Thalen, who had seemed about to rise, settled back in his chair. "Don't mistake these men for slaves due to their garb," Asander cautioned. "And don't take their word for fact, Captain. Doomed he may say, but I have my doubts. I tracked them by the trail of dead men that littered their path. Mejadym men, Thalen. Not Epirian farm boys and sticky fingered wharf rats. You think on that!"
"Assassins!" Thalen scoffed and fell silent, sulking like a scolded schoolboy.
"This is mere flattery," Xanthippus said, biting into his butter-drenched bread. "We actually considered leaving the country by the way we entered. We would have tracked easily, believe me." He contemplated young Thalen while he chewed.
"I thought of that," Asander said with a smile, his little triangle of beard rising on his chin. "No, that's not exactly true. Prince Kerraunus thought of that, but I didn't believe you suicidal. I found you where any sane man would have gone. The only thing harder than getting into Tygetia is getting out again."
"Nydeon, make a note: Our sanity made us easy to follow."
"Betrayed by sound minds," Nydeon said. "It is our curse."
Diokles roared with laughter. "It is true!" he bellowed, slapping the table. "How much better to be a fool in this life!"
Asander smiled humorlessly. "I have news for you. It was not your sound minds that caused you to make yourselves known to Kerraunus. That was very unsound, indeed--and very dangerous..."
"It was the Mejadym who led us to him," Xanthippus said. "I suppose you will tell us that he is Mejadym also?"
"Kerraunus Mejadym? Oh, doubtful...doubtful. That would imply some form of humanity, feelings of loyalty to a cause greater than oneself, perhaps even friendship. No, not Kerraunus. Whatever else he may be, he is at least a simple man. I have known him for fifteen years now, and he is easy to understand. He is evil to the core."
"And yet you treat with him? As this Foreign Minister?"
"As far as Irrylia is concerned, Kerraunus is Tygetia. No one's happy about it, least of all me." Asander spooned some more steamed carrots and onions onto his plate. "King Myletos hates Demetrius. His right arm Bellog is pure Tygetian and therefore wholly unapproachable -- an unimaginative oaf, anyway -- and Prince Garon does only what Myletos tells him. Kerraunus is the only one of the bunch clever enough to avail himself to all comers. He leans towards Sethaly, though, because of his sister, but I can still deal with him. He speaks for me to his king."
"And he had you save us," Xanthippus said, remembering Asander's words.
"In exchange for one less squadron of Tygetian warships to be brought against Demetrius. Or so he promises." Asander's teeth scraped the tines of his fork as he slipped a sliced carrot, dripping with honey, into his mouth.
"Just one squadron?"
"That's all I could get in the short time I had to work. The Mejadym were hunting you, remember. They arrived just after you left, as I hear it."
"It's pleasant to know our lives have value."
"Apparently, your deaths as well," Thalen put in.
"You would not profit in the attempt," Nydeon said without looking up from his plate.
Near to bursting, Thalen pursed his lips and fell silent. Nydeon's own lips secretly curled into a smile.
"The only death that would have had any real value is Hurrus', I'm afraid. He will now be impossible to kill."
"We had no chance to kill this prince," Xanthippus began. He remembered the bull man and the crone, the Mejadym in the tunnel and those slaughtered by the river and said no more. Who knew who this Asander was, truly? He would speak no more of Hurrus. "The Irrylians want this prince dead?" he asked instead.
"We have no wish to kill him," Asander said, unconvincingly if Xanthippus were to judge the truth of it. "But I will tell you this. You will see him in Gyriece someday, and you will wish you had killed him."
"But there is hatred between your kings--"
"Demetrius hates the Mejadym," Asander interrupted with passion, "and he will not be happy to know that they are involved in this."
"But what does a king in Irrylia care of these Tygetian cutthroats?"
"They killed his son," Asander said. "His heir, Thilemon. He
was found in his bed one morning, poisoned. It was the slow-acting venom of the Tygetian asp. They had gotten to his food somehow. Pylia found out through the cook, a man named Aegin, that it was one of the servers. Aegin suspected him and Pylia uncovered his suspicion. The Mejadym were very clever. The killer was just a boy, just a waif of a beggar boy who had shown up at the kitchen door, as Gyriecian as any of us. A true Mejadym convert from Tygetia, a brainwashed zealot. At first, the beggar boys would show up at the kitchen door for scraps, but Aegin was a kindly man and he would put them to work, practically adopting them. His kitchen was like something out of a children's storybook, full of laughter and joy. Always enough room for one more. There has been no laughter and joy since that day. Thilemon was a surprisingly decent young man. The venom of the Tygetian asp is no good way to die."
Xanthippus knew all about young beggar boys. He stared at Asander without comment.
"It was a sorry business," Diokles said, shaking his head. "A sorry business indeed."
"Everyone knows the Mejadym do not operate outside of Tygetia. But this time they did." Asander sighed at the memory, and then resumed in a brighter tone. "But that is why they needed bodies to show their king, Prathian bodies. You. The Mejadym would never treat with Prathians. Or so it is believed. Kerraunus, however…"
"But what of Kerraunus?"
"Kerraunus' motivations are his own. Certainly nothing so crude as self-preservation. I suspect he is looking to purge the Mejadym, as is his occasional wont. An ugly, family dispute. But I merely speculate…"
We have stepped into a nest of vipers, Xanthippus remembered telling Nydeon. He felt vaguely ill, but consoled himself with the idea that in a matter of days they would be back on Gyriecian soil. He wasn't sure what he had expected. Assassination, by its nature, was a nasty business and the more powerful the target, the messier the affair must be. Still, he had expected something far simpler, far cleaner. He had expected simple faceless murder, and a fat coin purse waiting for him at the end. What he found instead were layers upon layers of deceit and betrayal. The Prathians had been as much a target as this Hurrus.
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