“I had thought we were to meet you at dawn,” Rudolfo said as he took the lead and moved toward the staircase. “Has something changed?”
“Only my heart,” Rafe Merrique said. He moved toward the stairs as well and glanced to Gregoric. “I was unkind to your first captain and owe amends. I thought I would apologize in person and escort you myself.”
They clasped hands at the foot of the stairs. Then Rafe offered Gregoric his hand as well. “I apologize, First Captain.”
Gregoric nodded and shook the hand briefly, then moved aside. Jasper joined him.
She tipped her head toward Merrique and lowered her voice. “He reread the Hyrum book last night over a bit of rum,” she said.
Gregoric glanced to her before nodding toward Rudolfo. “He retold bits of it from memory last night, and there was chilled peach wine involved.”
The two were complimenting one another’s boots now, their voices becoming louder as they sought to out-grace each other. “This is going to be an insufferable day,” Jasper whispered.
“Aye,” Gregoric agreed.
They left the tavern, Rudolfo and Rafe in the lead as they strode into the predawn gloom. As they walked, the two continued their upbeat chat and pulled ahead, a few members of the crew falling in behind them. Gregoric tried to move past them, but Jasper was at his side with a question.
“So have you sailed before, First Captain?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been on lakes but nothing like an ocean. Our ocean is grass.”
“I’ve always wanted to see the Prairie Sea and visit the forests,” Jasper said.
“It’s a long way from the Ghosting Crests.”
His half squad moved in behind them, carrying Gregoric’s and Rudolfo’s packs along with their own.
“One day,” she said, “I’ll get there.”
They left the main avenue and slipped into an alley. Rafe and Rudolfo stopped at the door, and the others gathered around. The pirate gestured to the door. “Welcome to my home, Lord Rudolfo. We will breakfast and then board, if you concur?”
Rudolfo smiled. “I look forward to both, Captain Merrique.”
Rafe opened the door. “After you,” he said.
Gregoric glanced at Jasper. The expectant look on her face brought his mouth open, but he closed it when Rudolfo spoke.
“Oh no, Captain Merrique, after you.”
“I insist,” the pirate said, extending a hand toward the door.
Rudolfo seized the hand. “We’ll go together then,” he said and then tugged Rafe toward him as he tipped himself back and through the doorway.
Rafe howled all the way down even as Rudolfo laughed, and Gregoric found a second reason to smile on a pre-chai morning. The splash followed by more splashing, the spluttering, the cursing—it was all music to Gregoric’s ears, especially mixed with the raucous laughter of his closest friend.
“You ridiculous fop,” Rafe yelled below.
“You damnable pirate,” Rudolfo yelled back.
Music indeed, Gregoric thought.
Three vessels that might or might not have been Merrique’s Kinshark sailed out of Dandylo Terrace that morning, and between the decoys, the bribes, and the administrative fees, Merrique’s actual crew slipped quietly out of the harbor in a ship that no one would’ve suspected carried a pirate or a king. It looked like a fishing schooner, and it ran low and sleek in the water, most of the crew hidden below deck as they put the Delta behind them.
Once they’d stowed their gear and toured the ship in Jasper’s care, Rudolfo and Gregoric met Rafe in his stateroom. The room had a small wardrobe and a narrow bed, and those were the only evidence that anyone lived in it. Otherwise, it held a table strewn with papers and shelves crammed with books and charts in no order whatsoever. A long iron tube fixed to a wooden stock—some kind of weaponry Gregoric didn’t recognize—hung above one of the room’s portholes. A telescope hung over the other.
Rafe gestured to stools that waited and unrolled a map over the scattered pages of his worktable. He pointed to an area that Gregoric didn’t recognize. “We are here,” he said. Then he drew his finger south and east slowly until it stopped at the far end of the parchment. “We need to be here in two weeks, but we are already four days ahead of schedule.”
Rudolfo glanced at Gregoric then back to the map. “Then we arrive early?”
Rafe shook his head. “It doesn’t serve to be early with the Androfrancines. Their caravans are never early . . . sometimes late . . . and those aren’t waters to lay anchor in for long.”
Rudolfo leaned over the map. Gregoric was gradually orienting to it from where he sat. Windwir was at the center of most Named Lands maps, which helped, but in this case the world’s largest city wasn’t noted. But the Keeper’s Wall, that north-south border of impassable mountains, stood out, and that gave him some perspective.
“So what do you propose then, Captain Merrique?” Rudolfo asked.
Merrique pointed to a large island south of them that seemed to have been split in half. “A pit of piracy,” he said. “Down here. An estate that needs breaking into.”
Gregoric sat up. This wasn’t what they’d planned, and he already saw a dozen reasons why this was a bad idea. First, Rafe was from the Divided Isle, and no longer welcome there. Second, there was an awfully big leap between setting sail in service to Androfrancine light and robbing a manor. Rudolfo noticed the look on Gregoric’s face and raised an eyebrow, but looked back to Rafe. “Please continue, Captain.”
Rafe smiled. “These hauls around the horn are nothing. There and back quickly without incident nearly every time.” The smile widened. “If you want to experience the life of a pirate lord, you won’t get it running crates and robes. That’s the least pirate-like thing I do, sir.”
Rudolfo glanced at Gregoric again before speaking. “And you think we can do this with the spare time we have?”
Rafe nodded. “I do, Rudolfo. Though it may involve a bit of running under magicks. But I’m told that’s something your people are quite good at.” The pirate looked at Gregoric this time. “Is that true, Gregoric?”
Clever now to use our first names and not our titles. Gregoric found himself answering, “Rudolfo’s Gypsy Scouts are the best of the best.”
“I’m counting on that,” Rafe said. He looked at them, and in that moment, Gregoric thought the older man almost seemed fatherly. It evoked a kind of trust that was unexpected—something else for Gregoric to keep his eye on. “We change course, do a bit of piracy, make haste around the horn, and have you back with the Order’s trinkets, hale and whole, in no time at all. What say you? Shall we?”
Gregoric’s hand found Rudolfo’s shoulder and pressed scout code into it with fumbling fingers. This is ill-advised.
But before Gregoric finished, Rudolfo grinned. “Aye, Captain,” he said. “We shall indeed.”
That night, after a much better dinner than he would’ve expected on a ship, Gregoric found a quiet place above deck and settled in to watch the sky at sea.
He and Rudolfo were sharing a small room, and the three scouts were in a similar room directly across the passageway and near the galley. Two of them had spent most of the day vomiting in pails and sleeping against the seasickness that gripped them. Even Gregoric had felt twinges of nausea those first few hours, but by dinnertime, he was ready for the salmon steaks served in a bed of chilled, pickled sea vegetables he couldn’t possibly name, with warm black bread and cold rice wine.
And now this sky.
It was painted in colors he had no adequate words to describe and against a horizon that defied his comprehension. He’d thought the line of horizon over the Prairie Sea was vast, but it was nothing compared to this.
He sat and watched the sky deepen toward dark and didn’t notice Rudolfo until the Gypsy King was already seated beside him. “What do you think, Gregoric?”
Gregoric saw concern and curiosity on his friend’s face. “I think we violate a dozen articles of kin-clav
e with the Independent Counties of the Divided Isle and risk war if the Lord of the Ninefold Forest Houses is caught in a criminal act,” he said. He could hear the matter-of-fact nature of his own tone.
Rudolfo grinned. “Getting caught is definitely not optimal, so I’m recommending that we not.” He dangled his scout powders from their string around his neck.
Gregoric felt his eyebrow twitch. Use of magicks during a time of peace was one of those violations he had anticipated.
“But,” Rudolfo continued, “that’s not what I meant.” His eyebrows furrowed. “I mean about becoming a father. That was a bit . . . unexpected.”
Gregoric shrugged. It was the thought he didn’t want to have but kept having regardless. “It happened to my father. It happened to your father, too. It doesn’t seem so very unexpected.”
“Yes, but not so young.”
Gregoric could tell Rudolfo wanted to ask, thought he shouldn’t, and then moved forward with his next question anyway. “Weren’t you using the powders? Your father and Kember both have been pretty insistent about them with me of late.”
Gregoric sighed. No, he’d not used them, and neither had she. But they’d also been clear-eyed on the possibilities no matter how rare. And it was none of Rudolfo’s concern. Deflecting was easy here. “I think they’ve good cause for their concern of late,” he said.
Rudolfo smiled. “Regardless. I’ve no heir, and you’ve one on the way. I meant what I said about the Firstborn Feast. But how do you feel about becoming a father, Gregoric?”
It was a serious question. Gregoric smiled. “I feel like I’m meant to.”
“And how is that?”
“A mix of fear and delight, a stuttering and stammering heart full of love,” he said. “And like I’m meant to . . . like I’m meant to be a father.” He looked back at the sky. Pregnancy was rare enough in the Named Lands—a leftover of the Age of Laughing Madness studied and unsolved by millennia of Androfrancine research—that most couples did not marry until after their first child was born. “And I don’t feel like starting a war over a bit of piracy here in the shadow of my impending fatherhood.”
Rudolfo smiled. “Then we must stick to the plan of not getting caught.” He stood. “I think fatherhood will suit you well, Gregoric.”
Gregoric inclined his head, and Rudolfo did the same before he slipped aft and below deck.
He’d always assumed he’d have a family just as he’d always assumed he’d be Rudolfo’s first captain. It was all starting sooner than he’d thought, but then again, Adela had also surprised him when she’d shown up. She’d fit into his life easily and quickly, with grace, sass, and ferocity. And those big brown eyes.
She drew out aspects of him that Gregoric wouldn’t let others see, and he could only imagine what their child would draw from him.
He took in a great breath and held it, watching the faintest stars grow brighter against the falling night. The wind in the sails and the sound of the water against the hull were a driving pulse in a refrain that declared this journey and the salt air more intoxicating than any rum.
Gregoric sat there for a goodly while taking comfort from a wide-open sky at sea and wondering how his life would unfold.
He was still wondering when the moon rose blue and green and full of promise.
Piracy, Gregoric decided, was nothing at all like Hyrum described it in his book. A day and a half after his first night at sea and he’d exchanged the rocking of a ship for the jostling of a wagon. And hours of bumping along rutted County roads had left him bruised and brooding.
Merrique had been vague about their target, but during the hours they’d spent planning the heist, he’d talked them through his plans.
Three parties, all magicked, would approach from three entry points onto the property, would make their anticipated acquisitions, and would then retreat. That was all well and good, but Gregoric had flinched when he’d first heard the words.
“And no weapons,” the pirate had said. “We’re going in magicked; we’re not fighting.”
Jasper and Merrique’s own men had nodded. Rudolfo, Gregoric, and the half squad did the same.
And now we’re about our piracy, Gregoric thought as the wagon jerked.
They were stretched out beneath a false bottom in the wagon, side by side like felled timber at the river’s edge. For the first few hours, he’d fussed at the powerlessness he felt, then made a reluctant peace with it.
Closing his eyes, he turned his focus back to the plan and to his and Rudolfo’s part in it. “Your room is here,” Merrique had said, pointing to a map of the manor. “The window will be open. There is a book—leather bound and without a title—and a jade statue of a long-finned kinshark.” His eyes were fierce for his next words, and Gregoric sensed a quiet threat in their tone. “Touch nothing else.”
“It seems quite specific,” Rudolfo said. “Is it always so?”
Rafe had shrugged. “Not always. But sometimes it is better to sip than to gulp.”
Gregoric heard something in those words that resonated and he noted it.
Rafe continued. “In this case, the dividends of this venture will be invaluable.”
The wagon, after so many hours at a steady straight-ahead pace, now slowed as they navigated a series of turns. They came to a stop, and a few minutes later, he heard voices and felt the creaking of the wagon as men unloaded the cargo. It had been quiet for maybe thirty minutes when Gregoric heard a low whistle that someone in his wagon returned. Then, fingers from outside unlatched the false floor and swung it up and open.
Gregoric sat up slowly along with the others.
Moonlight, blue and green, washed the yard where the three empty wagons sat. Beside them stood a barn, its doors closed against the night. Beyond it, a scattering of trees and, farther away, the lights of a large town.
“We’re close,” Rafe said. “We’ll run from here.”
They wore dark clothes now along with their scout boots. Gregoric felt naked without his knives. He’d strongly resisted this decision to forgo weapons, and his attempt to change Rudolfo’s mind had left him with an ache in the pit of his stomach. Still, Merrique had been most insistent, and even now, he raised the point again.
“We are in and out without touching a hair on anyone’s head,” he said.
Gregoric couldn’t resist his question. “And what if something goes wrong?”
A voice cleared to his left. “I see no reason,” Rudolfo offered, “for anything to go wrong.”
Rafe’s face was sober. “No matter what might go wrong,” he said. He held up a handful of small silk pouches from their slender cords. “You’ll be wanting fresh magicks, I’ll wager.”
Rudolfo reached for them, and Gregoric spoke up. “We have magicks, Captain Merrique.”
“You do,” Rafe said, “but they are from the north through one of your medicine makers. They don’t always work well after being in the salt air.”
Rudolfo shrugged and took the pouches, handing them out.
Gregoric slipped the cord around his neck with the other.
“You know your window and your target,” Rafe said. “Keep your men in the garden. I’ll take the vault; I have the Rufello cipher for it. Jasper and Uke have the library. We meet back here and run for the coast with a bird off to the Kinshark for our rendezvous.”
Then he held up his pouch, opened it and sprinkled it into his hand, and licked it. Rafe vanished even as he sprinkled the powders onto his shoulders. “Let’s run.”
Rudolfo and the scouts followed the forest ritual, touching the powders to their foreheads and shoulders, tossing some to their feet, before licking the palms of their hands.
Gregoric watched them fade from sight and then followed the same steps. Only instead of using the new powders, Gregoric used his own powders. He was far from home, far off course from their Androfrancine-sanctioned mission, getting ready to violate their kin-clave . . . and without his knives. And Rafe Merrique, the prankster pirate, was
the common denominator here. Gregoric had given over as much control as he was going to and would use the magicks he knew and trusted and trained under his entire life.
Gregoric felt them take hold, felt the strength surge through him as his stomach twisted into a knot and his head began to pound. The smell of the horses in the barn, the maple trees beyond, rushed his nostrils as the night became less dark.
And as he ran after Rudolfo and Rafe Merrique, his hands bereft for knives he did not have, Gregoric thought this bit of piracy felt much like the forest run of a Gypsy Scout.
They left the forest for the stone-walled fields that marked the lands and delineated the various manors on the outskirts of the city. So far, the maps and the hours spent poring over them were paying off, and whoever was in the lead knew exactly where they were going. Gregoric heard the low clicking of a tongue ahead and adjusted his course and pace as they crossed a road and approached a gated wall.
He heard the softest scrabble ahead of him as someone—Rudolfo, he suspected—scaled the wall. Gregoric followed after, dropping lightly to the ground on the other side.
A cobblestone drive nestled in the midst of fruit trees went perhaps a quarter league ahead to end in front of a large, two-story building. They stayed to the trees, skirting the large courtyard and moving into the gardens at the rear of the main house. Once they were on the other side, Gregoric saw their window on the second floor and the trellis beside it that they were to climb. And thanks to the magicks, he could also pick out the guards—two of them—both by scent and by their hazy outline in the dark.
He and Rudolfo broke away from the others now and moved in closer to the house. Gregoric was approaching the trellis, now ahead of Rudolfo, when he felt the first muscle spasm in his left calf. It slowed him, but he checked the trellis and then climbed it to the windowsill.
Another cramp, this time in his forearm. Gregoric winced and could’ve sworn he saw his hand and arm before him for just a moment. He blinked at it and felt a wave of nausea as yet another cramp seized his stomach.
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