The Orphans of Raspay: A Penric and Desdemona novella in the World of the Five Gods (Penric & Desdemona Book 7)

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  A sound of gnawing, like rats at a wainscoting, filled the hold for a while as the two girls divided the dry bread. While they were working at it, he leaned his head back against the bulkhead, closed his eyes, and took a quick survey of the number of actual rats lurking aboard. Hm, only a few. Destroying vermin was an allowable and efficient sink for Des’s chaos when uphill magic, creating order, produced, as always, a greater amount of disorder to dump. Somewhere. Or he could pass out from the fever generated, usually not helpful. Downhill destructive magic was less costly. …Albeit not on a ship in the middle of a trackless sea. Pen opened his eyes to find both girls staring at him again, though no longer in fear. More like fascination.

  Seuka pointed to the patches of light falling on the deck, squaring up as the sun climbed toward noon and the sky turned blue. “Sit over there,” she commanded him.

  “I’m not cold,” he said, a trifle confused.

  “No, it’s…” She waved her hands around her head, and pointed to his. “Do it again.”

  His brief bafflement was alleviated when Des chuckled, It’s your hair, Pen. Works on females of all ages.

  Nikys likewise, he was reminded, who’d made him grow out his queue to twice its former length, so it wasn’t as if he could complain at this attention. He scooted over to a sun patch and sat cross-legged, wryly angling for the best backlight. It’s not magic, curse it.

  Hey, it enchanted us, the first time we ever looked up at you on that dismal roadside in the cantons. Where Ruchia, Des’s latest prior possessor, had lain dying.

  I thought it was mainly the decided lack of other volunteers, he grumbled. I was a skinny, spotty, awkward youth.

  Who took our hand and said Yes to us. And to our god.

  That had been an unexpected codicil. But the corners of his lips edged up in memory regardless.

  His stray smile emboldened the girls, or maybe they were revitalized by the food and water. In this better light, he saw their eyes were a bright coppery brown, suggesting a measure of Roknari blood. They inched closer to him across the boards. “Can I touch it?” said Seuka, already stretching out a small hand.

  “Yes, go ahead,” Pen sighed, wrapping his arms around his bent-up knees and propping his forehead on them. For his privacy and theirs, equally. Touching quickly turned to finger-combing, as one hand became two and then four, and his hair tie was made away with. Then, inevitably, braiding. And rebraiding, because of course everyone wanted a turn.

  Somewhere, there was an important boundary between calming their fears, and keeping enough respect that they would obey his orders in an emergency instantly and without question. He wished he knew where it fell. Though as pacification ploys went, letting them groom him like a pony cost only a little of his dignity.

  And it’s rather soothing, Des observed.

  Hush. But his eyes were slipping closed as his head grew heavier.

  He jerked upright before he started snoring, though not before he started drooling. Rubbing at the wet patch on his trouser knee, he said, “That’s enough, now,” and retreated to his propping bulkhead. His handmaids frowned at him in disappointment, but shuffled back to their own claimed corner.

  “When I was being dragged aboard,” he began again, “I caught a glimpse of another hold, aft.” And he needn’t mention that this survey had not been with his eyes. “It had six prisoners in it. Not sailors. Are they other passengers from your ship?”

  “Maybe?” said Lencia. “There was only our ship taken, and then yours.”

  “Are they all right?” asked Seuka, freshly apprehensive.

  “Alive, at least. There was an old couple, roughed up. A fellow who seemed to be with them had a broken arm.”

  Lencia nodded. “He’s their son. He tried to defend them, but the pirate hit him with his hammer. It made a horrible sound.”

  Ah, the war hammer again; it must be a favorite of its wielder. The son, himself middle-aged, was lucky it wasn’t his skull broken. In any case, not three people Pen could count on in a fight, or to help sail the ship.

  “Another middle-aged man, portly.”

  “That was the merchant from Adria,” said Seuka. “He was nice. We asked him if he’d ever met Papa, but he said no.” She vented a glum sigh.

  “Another older man, skinny. Dyspeptic… um, grouchy,” Pen amended his bookish vocabulary, and they brightened with recognition.

  Probably an effect of his worms, murmured Des.

  Well, there’s some more vermin for you, in a pinch.

  An impression of a tongue stuck out in disgust.

  “Oh, Pozeni,” said Lencia. “The captain told us he was a scribe from Carpagamo, but as the pirates were grabbing him he was crying that he was a divine of the Father, and they’d better watch out.”

  “So… which was the true tale? Do you know?”

  Lencia wrinkled her nose. “I think he was a scribe, and was just trying not to be murdered.”

  “Fair enough.” Pozeni might be fit enough to help sail the ship; probably not a hand for a brawl, if it came to that. “There was one other man. Cut up, feverish, weak from blood loss.”

  “Yes, he was the other Adriac merchant. Partner to the fat fellow, I think. He tried to fight.” Lencia hunched at the brutal memory. “He held them off for a little, but then they got him down and were really mad. I thought they’d killed him.”

  Pen had been disoriented in the moment, but his own quick surrender was beginning to seem a tad craven to his own eyes.

  Not to mine, put in Des. Even your lumpish army brother-in-law is in favor of living to fight another day.

  And it was a measure of… something, that Pen could actually wish for Adelis Arisaydia to hand. Though What would Adelis do? was likely not a very useful model for Pen.

  In any case, with the exception of the scribe it was plain the occupants of the other hold were mature persons of property, poor prospects as slaves but promising for ransom. No doubt why they were sequestered together. So they didn’t need rescuing exactly; they would be invited to rescue themselves, at a cost painful in purse rather than body.

  Pen considered whose name he might cry for ransom. Not Duke Jurgo; that would suggest too high a price. General Arisaydia likewise, besides being much too near to Nikys. His best bet was the archdivine of Orbas, who had sent him despite his protests on this ill-fated errand in the first place and thus deserved the debt. Well… all right, the archdivine of Trigonie’s request for the loan of Penric to examine a potential candidate for Temple sorcerer had been a legitimate call upon Pen’s skills. The dozen administrative chores both archdivines tacked on As long as you’re going to be there, eh? had been more irksome.

  Pen could easily feign to be a favored scribe in his home curia; his name should be enough to alert his superior to his ploy. Maybe? It was a delicate balance, to suggest a ransom high enough to outweigh his profit as a slave, without running up the total as high as it could go. …Which led him in turn to muse upon just what price would make his ransomers choke. What was his value to Orbas?

  Less than my value in Orbas.

  Besides, the Temple was always running on a tight budget.

  These Jokonan sisters lay outside all such calculations. Pen wondered if he could attach them to his own bill, One stray scribe, plus two orphan wards of my Order. It would be tricky to claim the three of them as a set to whatever middlemen bid on them, when the pirates knew very well they were not.

  The day dragged. Twice more scant provisions were dropped down: some hard barley bread, an oddly generous portion of dried apricots that Pen recognized as filched from his own former ship’s stores. The edges taken off their appetites, the girls thought to offer back a portion for their new holdmate, which due to the hungry ache in his head Pen now accepted. The leather bottle was raised and lowered refilled. In the dark bilges below, a stray rat quietly died as the price of Pen’s pure water shared around.

  When the light dwindled, Pen, in place of any too-revealing anecdotes about himself
, dredged up some dimly remembered nursery tales from the cantons, figuring that at least they might be new to his Jokonan audience. Translated into Roknari terms on the wing, some of them came out a little oddly, but they seemed to work nonetheless. The girls ended up creeping close to the cadences of his voice and finally falling asleep in a huddle with one head pillowed on each of his not-well-padded thighs. Which left Pen again leaning back propped by the bulkhead, speculating that with Des’s aid, rotting out some boards and breaking through the wall was possible, but pointless as long as they were still at sea.

  Children, he reflected as he shifted uncomfortably, trying not to dislodge them because surely sleep was a good restorative, attached themselves much too easily to any friendly-seeming adult. Though his persona as a timid scribe did not seem hard to maintain—for all that he walked through the world trailing a discreet cloud of destruction and death as the price of his magic, Pen had never felt less lethal. Tally: innocent rats, one; murderous slaver pirates, zero. He rolled his shoulders and tried to doze.

  * * *

  The sun was climbing toward noon next day when the shifting of the ship betrayed more frequent tacking. Feet thumped overhead, and calls. Pen added a few new terms of ship slang to his vocabulary in two tongues. A rattle of stays and lines, the whooshing thuds of folding canvas, odd groans as ropes and timbers took up slack. Docking, murmured Des, relieved. The ship rocked one last time and came to a halt too still to be a mere heaving-to, motionless, blessedly motionless.

  Port, five gods be thanked. Maybe.

  At length, the grid was heaved up, a rope ladder lowered, and the prisoners were invited to climb out of their noisome hole. Pen made sure the sisters went up safely first, then followed close. He squinted around in the hazy warm air.

  Their ship had been tied to a stone-and-piling pier, one of a pair jutting from a rambling shore settlement. Out in the tidy harbor created by a low headland, a few fishing boats were moored, and some larger vessels including, disturbingly, a galley with a long row of oar slots; too broad to be a war vessel, but certainly of Roknari build. The dry green slopes cradling the town rose up to rugged mountains, their spines not high enough to bear snow.

  The lay of the light told Pen they were on the eastern side of the sea from Cedonia, therefore on a Carpagamon island, or buffer island. As soon as he discovered the name of the place, he could affix it on the map in his head. But… it gave him some of the same problems of escape as a ship, except that Des couldn’t accidentally sink it.

  A couple of the crewmen were looking back out to the horizon, hands shading their eyes, scowling. “Where are the bloody fools?” muttered one. “I thought they’d got ahead of us.”

  They were one ship, Pen realized. Not two in convoy. His coaster appeared to be missing. Separated in the night, and then…? It didn’t look as though the pirates knew, either.

  The disheveled prisoners from the other hold were being prodded off across the gangplank. No one had bothered to chain them together, and little wonder. An elderly woman limped between two men scarcely steadier on their feet. A lanky, lugubrious fellow hobbled feverishly, held upright by his very stout companion—the Adriac merchant partners. A last skinny man, presumably the scribe-or-divine the girls had named Pozeni, whined in their wake, protesting to his supremely uninterested guards, one of whom poked at his backside with a short sword and grinned when he yelped.

  A pirate dubiously regarded Pen, fit by contrast. “You going to give us any trouble, pretty boy?”

  Pen shrugged. “Where’s the point? I can’t swim back to Orbas.”

  “True enough.” The man smirked, swinging his truncheon to his shoulder and tapping jauntily, then gestured him after the others.

  One Corva sister grabbed Pen’s hand fore and the other aft as they made their way over the unstable gangplank. He kept hold of them as they veered onto the dock, and they kept hold of him, though Seuka switched her tight grip to his tunic hem. The stout merchant glanced back at them in curiosity. In a few moments the echoing boards underfoot gave way to solid ground at last. Its vague rocking, Pen reassured himself, was an illusion fostered by his time at sea.

  Now? murmured Des. You promised.

  I did, Pen allowed. He’d diverted them both during the fitful night by working out the details, and this needed to be done before they were marched out of range.

  Under his guidance, Des ran a line of deep rot through the hull along the starboard side of the keel, bow to stern. On the port side nearest the dock, they unraveled slivers high up on all the stays that held the mainmast in place, leaving a few delicate threads pulled taut. To make sure, Pen ran a thin layer of rot half-through the mast itself, at what he hoped would be the most destructive height. The galley on this ship was rudimentary, a mere sand table under an awning, aft, with coals banked. The supports on one side of the table gave way, spilling sand and hot embers onto the deck. The awning puffed alight.

  Truly, nothing increased disorder as efficiently as fire. Pen bit his lip and did not look back.

  “Stay close to me if you can,” Pen told his small clinging companions. “Let me do the talking. If we do get separated, I’ll find you somehow.” He hoped this pledge would not turn out to be hollow.

  They trudged up the shore to what was obviously, despite this being a pirate haven, a customs shed. Did even pirates not escape taxation? It was a long, low building with a wooden roof, not the more usual stucco and tile, and Pen wondered if it was built of old ship timbers. As the party of prisoners was being chivvied through the door, the first cry of alarm rose from the dock behind.

  The man whom Pen took to be the captain, by his age and the way he’d been issuing orders, swiveled around, and he cursed in surprise. “Now what…!” He glared at the rising plume of smoke, calling, “Totch, get them recorded. Figure the port fees and the guild charges. You two, come with me,” and sprinted back down the slope, followed by two of the three guards.

  Which might have made a good opportunity for Pen to try a daring escape, except for his baggage. He grimaced and let himself and his charges be prodded by truncheon-man Totch into the shed, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the reduced light. The air inside was hot and close, with a faint reek of stale urine, old blood, and stressed sweat.

  The bare space had only a dirt floor, though a few benches were shoved up against one wall. The fat fellow escorted his injured comrade at once to one of these, helping him to gingerly sit, and the old woman was settled on another by her husband and son. A long table with a few stools occupied the other side of the room, though only one stool was currently in use. Despite his rough garb, the islander who sat there ordering his quills and paper had the air of every customs clerk Penric had ever encountered: middle-aged, ink-stained, underpaid and unimpressed. A couple of big armed men, flanking him, took in the new arrivals with experienced eyes, then drifted back to lean more comfortably against the wall.

  “Totch.” The clerk waved greeting at the pirate Pen guessed was the first mate. “Is this your whole catch? Falun is in port. He’ll be disappointed.”

  “Aye, I saw his galley.” Totch looked over his bedraggled prisoners. “This lot is mostly for ransom. We’ve two more prize ships coming later, with a fair number of fit men. We were separated from the first a week ago in a storm. The other… should be here. Soon.” Pen thought he sounded uneasy in this claim.

  “Well, let’s get started.” The clerk, whose rustic Adriac accent matched his beard, motioned Pen and his hangers-on forward. Pen moved without truncheon-prodding.

  The clerk poised his quill. “Name?”

  “Penric kin Jurald.”

  The clerk hesitated; Pen helpfully spelled it out for him. Because in case word did get back to Orbas, he wanted it to be recognized.

  “Age?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  The clerk snorted. “Good try, but it won’t save your tail if someone wants to buy it, Blue-eyes. What’s your real age?”

  “Thirty-two,” Pen
repeated patiently. “Many people misestimate me.” And let’s keep it that way.

  The clerk shook his head and wrote down twenty-two. Pen didn’t bother pursuing the argument.

  “Family?”

  “None to speak of. My parents died some time ago. Back in the cantons.” The latter part of which was perfectly true. The inquiry, of course, was to flush out some gauge of how much ransom might be squeezed out of relatives, so many captives lied. As he was doing, by omission.

  “Ah.” The clerk pursed his lips in satisfaction at the explanation of Pen’s alien name and coloring. “Profession?”

  “Scribe. I work for the curia of the archdivine of Orbas, in Vilnoc.” True in a sense. “I’ll be crying ransom to the curia. Also for my nieces.” He let his hands rest on the shoulders of the two girls, who, speaking no Adriac, had hunched closer to him in worry. He hoped this gave his new claim an authentic air. “Keep us together. My ransom will cover all.”

  “Not up to me. Though I’d think the curia of Orbas could buy a new clerk for a lot less than that.”

  “I’m very good at my job.”

  “Howsoever. And those two?” The clerk eyed the girls, who didn’t look much like Pen, in jaded suspicion.

  “Lencia and Seuka Corva.” They both looked up at the sounds of their names. “Daughters of my late half-sister.” Yes, as he and the dead prostitute were both children of the white god, perhaps siblings in faith. “She’d been lost to the family for a long time, then word of her fate turned up in Jokona. I’ve only just found her girls. They don’t speak any Adriac.”

  “Jokonan, are they?” The clerk raised his brows. “You speak Roknari?”

  “A little.”

  The clerk made a pleased note. “Anything else?”

  “Well, Wealdean, of course. My mother tongue.” Pen realized he might be inadvertently running up his price, but after giving his real birthplace he had to admit to that. Literate translators were much sought-after, slave or free, so the rest of his learning had best stay unmentioned.