Everyone laughed, Dhalshev included, though ruefully. He had been caught napping; sometime, somewhere, he’d been selected. Now they were waiting for him to realize it.
“Here’s my question about altruistic claims of peace and goodwill.” Mehayan stirred his forefinger around the top of his wine, then licked the spices off. “How do you enforce goodwill?”
“I don’t know, but as soon as this damn snowstorm lifts, I mean to row myself over and find out,” Dhalshev said, capitulating. At least they hadn’t brought up his social familiarity with pirates.
Between two storms, a grand captain’s barge rowed over to the Death from the Khanerenth flag and up climbed Dhalshev, Harbormaster of Freedom Islands.
The ice-numbing wind made Dhalshev feel his age. He was going to retire soon, now that he’d survived what he’d expected to be a spectacularly bloody end. But he had two missions: the one he’d been sent on and his own. Altruism, he thought, laughing to himself as he climbed aboard the black-sided pirate ship.
He’d half expected to be turned away, or at most to gain the ear of one or the other of their Elgars. He did not expect to find himself shut into that splendid, kingly cabin with all three of the Marlovans, though he could see in Barend’s averted face, his purposeless sketching on a tutor’s slate, how reluctant he was to be there.
So they had expected him, then. Dhalshev abandoned the careful chain of conversational gambits, and said, “Where are you going next? I’ve two purposes. My first is a thought to Freedom Islands’ future. Even a bricklayer wants to hand off his domain, small as it is, to someone who will build the way he did.”
Inda turned over his good hand, and Fox said, “Though she’d kill me if she heard me say it, you could not do better than Jeje sa Jeje.”
“I had been thinking of her.” Dhalshev sat back, pleased to find agreement so far. “If she weren’t so fierce in her antipathy to any type of authority, I would have asked her the year Woof vanished.”
“Keep at her. She’ll settle to it.” Fox was amused at the patent relief in Dhalshev’s face. No use in reminding him that if Fox had wanted to run the Freedom Islands federation, he would have been doing so by now. They both knew it. “Freeport is her home. She’d fight to keep it safe, and if you put it that way to her—harbormaster is one way of fighting to keep it safe—she might even listen. Eventually.”
Dhalshev signed his agreement, then said in the same affable tone, “The talk of peace and harmony and guaranteed trade is all good, but the question you’ve been avoiding is, whose peace?”
“Mine,” Inda said, thinking, Here it is at last. And then, quoting Evred, “The same way I came to Bren’s rescue last year. When no one else would.”
Dhalshev said, “You came because you were asked.” He got to his feet. “We’ve had a good relationship, and you are owed a debt of gratitude. The thing about gratitude is, when one tries to convert it into either money or blood it vanishes.”
Inda leaned forward, his expression earnest, his shoulders tense. “What if I don’t want money, or blood, just guaranteed peace?”
Dhalshev looked around the cabin, then back at Inda. “Did Idayago and Olara and Telaer Cassadas down in the south of Halia a couple centuries ago ever ask the Marlovans to come in and guarantee peace, once the dead were Disappeared? For that matter, did the Iascans?”
He opened the cabin door and left.
Inda rubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
Barend was drawing a battle between two ships, rapping the chalk against the slate as he made fire arrows arcing back and forth. He did not look up.
Fox gave him an exasperated glance. “You’re going to have to figure out what to say, because we’re going to spot Chwahirsland on the horizon soon. Thog’s going to want to know if you’re going to pass them by . . . or not.”
“I wouldn’t attack the Chwahir even if I was ready to attack anybody,” Inda said crossly, circling the cabin, fist pounding lightly on the chair back, table, bulkheads. “They’d have to come last. Bren first, and the rest would follow. Bren won’t want to fight—you held them off with five ships I remember Jeje telling me.”
“They had almost no navy then, just the ten capital ships the Venn had left them from the old days,” Fox reminded him. “And most of them weren’t in the harbor. But even so, we can take ’em. If that’s what you really want.”
“I don’t want to take anybody! Except maybe the pirates Evred said are nosing around our coast. That’s where we should be, is protecting our own . . .” Inda stopped. Those words were treason.
He saw in Fox’s derisive gaze, and Barend’s sober face, that they were thinking the same thing.
From outside came a muffled “Boat ho!”
Fox moved to the cabin door, then looked back. “Since the weather has briefly lifted, they might all be on the way over. Listen, Inda, I’ll back you, whatever you decide. I don’t mind being a Marlovan navy, especially if my hypothetical son will get outside Darchelde for a time. But if you take the strait, it’s going to mean a lifetime of keeping it.”
Fox opened the door as footsteps approached, and in walked Thog. Barend picked up his chalk and slate and slunk out. Fox closed the door behind them both.
“No, I’m not going to attack Chwahirsland,” Inda said irritably.
A corner of Thog’s mouth lifted faintly. “I did not think you would do that. Not you.” She tipped her head toward the stern, indicating the rest of the alliance. “They seem to think I will attack them.”
“They don’t understand you,” Inda mumbled, his face going hot and cold.
Thog turned over her calloused hand. “I don’t understand Pilvig, who hides even now if she sees me, though she must know she will not be taken back. I understand dressing by others’ custom—that was our agreement—but those purple trousers, and all those ribbons! Is this piratical dress the back of the hand to me?”
“She likes dressing that way. The brighter the better, she said. Do all Chwahir dress in the colors of rock and mud?”
Thog turned to face the stern windows, through which the snow fell softly, making lacy patterns on the pale sea before melting. “At home, you do not want to stand out.”
“It’s amazing anyone stays,” Inda said. “All I hear is bad rumors.”
“They say the same about your people. Yet we have good times. Our music is not like anything you have ever heard. They liken it to what the morvende do, with chords and complicated beats, underground. Echoes. We . . . hum, because words are not always safe.”
Inda had never heard that much from Thog. “Go on.”
She seemed to withdraw again, and turned her back on the window. “We want to perform a work that people will point to, and say our name. A thing we make, or a thing we do.”
Inda was fascinated by her wide, blinkless stare. “What will you do?”
“Be a great commander,” she said in a whisper.
Inda’s perceptions swooped, as if a hatch had opened below him. She’s going to fight a war.
Maybe conflict between the Chwahir and their neighbors was inescapable—ineluctable. But that might not happen for years. Decades. Much as he’d love the expediency, Thog was not a justification for Evred’s war. Evred’s war. Even those thoughts were treason.
“Fare well,” she said. And left as quietly as she had come.
Not long after the Chwahir sailed off, Lord Hamazhav arrived in his most formal clothing to offer to sign Lord Taumad Dei’s treaty in the name of his king.
Prince Kavna was present, as well as Captain Deliyeth, as representative for Everon, Ymar, and the north shore Fleet Guild. Tau hosted a magnificent party aboard the Knife, and on the surface everyone was full of goodwill and laughter . . . but they all knew that Inda had not signed.
Nevertheless, the Khanerenth navy tacked back toward The Fangs and southward, Dhalshev and some of the independents with him. Most of the rest had chosen to follow Elgar the Fox, in hopes of advent
ure or treasure—maybe both.
By the end of the two months it took to ride the east winds up the strait to Bren, Kavna had met with Inda a dozen times, mostly aboard the Knife, a setting resonant with gravitas. Kavna was friendly, smiling, appreciative, full of questions about all of Inda’s experiences—but he would not agree to anything but the Dei Treaty, which declared that no one had sovereignty over the strait.
And so, at this impasse, they neared Bren’s cluster of islands. Inda knew he was watched as he continued to conduct drills. On the surface, friendliness and ship visits . . . underneath, covert ship visits to find out what he’d said, what orders he might have given in secret, to avoid surprise.
The last couple of days, Inda prowled around the deck of the Death restlessly. There was no avoiding the truth: all the questions had come down to a conflict of will. Not between nations, but between Evred-Harvaldar and his Harskialdna.
Inda understood that in Evred’s mind, the matter was simple: the Harvaldar had issued orders. Inda had sworn to obey them.
For Inda, nothing was simple—if it ever had been. He’d always made his own orders, until he met Evred again and swore to become Harskialdna because of course they would want the same thing: the good of Iasca Leror.
Inda had lost the conviction that these orders were for anyone’s good. But he’d sworn to obey them.
The day before the island cluster of Bren was expected to rise on the horizon, Tau hunted over the ship for Inda, and found him out on the bow again, shivering and staring into the wintry green sea, as snow clouds sailed overhead toward the west. And home.
“Inda.”
Inda turned.
Tau gestured aft. “Chim is here. Insists on talking to you. And the rest are awaiting orders.”
Inda started down the gangway.
“Fox and Barend are holding him on the captain’s deck, and I have food coming into the cabin. You are to eat, if necessary at knifepoint. The demands can wait.”
“They can’t.” That’s why I can’t eat.
Inda did not remember walking into the cabin, or sitting down. He was going over another conversation with Evred in his head, one he’d had a thousand times already when he jumped at a knock. Tau opened the door, took a tray away from someone. He set the tray down and then stood with his back to the cabin door. “Eat.”
Inda wearily picked up his knife. “You may as well tell Chim for me that I can’t sign your treaty. Evred has given as far as he will.”
“Eat.”
Tau waited until Inda had reluctantly shoved a few bites of rice into his mouth. It was well-cooked food, rice balls with spiced cabbage and fish braised in wine, but Inda didn’t taste it, he wasn’t even aware of it; as Tau watched in silent comprehension, Inda’s gaze went diffuse, and there he was, isolated again.
Tau would not presume to claim kinship. His sense of failure was acute but it was entirely personal. And he was not going to be called upon to pay the price of that failure. Inda was, if the Harskialdna did not carry out Evred’s will.
Tau suspected Inda was not aware of how every time that locket signaled a new message from Evred asking for report on his progress, he jerked as if jabbed with a knife.
Inda rocked gently on his chair, spoon halfway to his lips. “The Chwahir were angry that I didn’t take Rajnir,” he said, gazing down at the fast-congealing food. “Did you know that? Kavna told me yesterday. Thog never told me. He said Deliyeth was also angry. If we had cut Rajnir into pieces, would that resolve anything?”
“No. They all wanted to see him suffer, preferably in some protracted execution. As if that would make restitution for the past twenty years.”
Inda dropped his spoon, and reached with his left hand to massage his right wrist. After weeks of cautious effort and Tau’s kneadings, he’d regained some feeling and limited movement, but if he twisted certain ways, his shoulder tingled and the limb went numb.
“I can work on that after you eat.”
Inda sighed. “Before or after I talk to whoever’s waiting?”
“Inda, I failed to explain the allies’ reasoning to Evred, so I’ve tried to stay out of what I believe is the unconscionable decision facing you. But I think . . . I think I have to explain to you their viewpoint, just once. First, what do you want to do?”
What do you want? Inda heard not his friend Taumad, but Ramis of the Knife, and he looked up, quick, wary, to meet Tau’s steady gaze. Light glowed in patterns up the cabin walls, and across Tau’s face, revealing the tension Tau would rather have hidden.
I want to go home.
The memory faded; Inda shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what I want. I am honor-bound to speak with the King’s Voice. But they don’t want what I am ordered to give.”
“From you, they want one thing: freedom.”
Inda sat back. “Freedom. They say it, but I don’t understand. What kind of freedom is it if Durasnir turns around and comes back? Or if Nelsaiam decides they want both sides of the strait? Or some new pirate appears? My presence here is proof they can’t protect themselves.”
Tau waved a hand in dismissal. “But none of those are real threats right now. The real threat that they see before them is embodied in you: your unbeatable Marlovans. They are very ready to be afraid of you.”
“Me?” Inda thumbed his temples, though that did nothing for the headache that never went away. “Tau, I don’t want to fight them.” The words burst out of him. “When we started, we fought pirates. Then the Venn. Until I saw them face-to-face, they were an easy enemy—”
Tau said quickly, “—and then you see them as individuals. Someone’s brother. Cousin. Mate. But they’re trying to kill you, so you carry on because you want to stay alive.”
Inda pressed his hands over his eyes. “But these are my allies. My friends,” he whispered.
Tap of the locket.
Inda dropped his hands and thumbed the locket open, the old pain and weariness back in his face. He read the note in silence, then crushed it in his good hand, murmuring, “He’s waiting for me to take Bren Harbor. And I speak with his Voice.”
Tau sighed. “You’re about to mouth out all his arguments again, like a loyal Shield Arm. Barend and even Fox are Marlovan enough to shrug and abide by Evred’s orders, whatever they think of them. Maybe Barend regards them as reasonable, understandable, practical.” Tau held out his hands. “To these people you are about to see—or to conquer—you speak with your own voice. You won the battle, you have their respect. You have their ear. Your king is nothing but a far figure. A threat.”
Inda winced, as though in pain. “You don’t understand.”
“I think I do. A little. But I do not face your choice. Listen, Inda, I promised them I’d present their words so you’d understand them, because it all comes down to how people make sense of the world. The way they do, and the Marlovan way, are fundamentally different.”
Inda sat back. “The evil empire, that’s what Deliyeth said. But they all see us that way, right?” He hit his chest. “Now that’s the way they see me.”
“No—”
“But they do.” His voice was high and raw. “I don’t blame them for not trusting me. All I’m good at is killing. Maybe it’s true, and I am evil.”
“Inda—”
“But it’s true. They think Evred is evil. So I must be too. Isn’t it so, Tau? Then I have to be evil, or else I agree with them, and what does that leave me, sworn to obey an evil king who’s been my friend all my life? But he’s not evil. He’s not.”
Tau thought bitterly, As well I’m getting used to failure. Because I’ve failed Evred, and I’ve failed Inda, too. But even under the deluge, he would try to fashion a roof. “Finish up those rice balls, will you? I want to work on that shoulder.”
“No.” Inda stared down at the knife on the table, rocking; Tau wondered if the rhythm was Inda’s heartbeat. “No,” Inda said, almost inaudible. “Send Chim down.”
Tau left to find Chim, angrier with himself
than with Inda’s obduracy.
Moments later, Inda was still rocking and staring down at his knife when the old man limped in, his gimpy gait expertly timed to the roll of the ship.
Chim rubbed his jaw. Inda looked like someone had gutted him, and he’d only now found it out. But not far off was an angry queen, and business was business. “Well, Inda, we’ll be landing soon. What’s going to happen?”
Inda looked up. Evil chooses to do evil. I won’t choose evil, I won’t rip the net. “First, tell me in your own words why they won’t accept me guaranteeing peace, as I’ve been ordered.”
“Free strait,” Chim said. “Means we guarantee peace as a group, sorry and sodden as we are as an alliance. We have to learn sometime. But one thing we all agree on: no more overlords.” Chim pointed through the scuttle. “What that means right now is, I go off this here vessel either with a piece o’ paper, in which case everybody smiles and breaks out the eats, or else I go off and pick up me boarding blade.” He switched from Sartoran to Dock Talk. “And yez loose yer boys and girls against us. Yez haveta cut me down first, and Kavna next. Cuz I ain’t gonna stand aside.”
Chim wiped his sweaty hands down his trousers, acutely aware of the creak of wood, the wash of water down the hull, the distant cry of the mate on watch demanding an adjustment to sail trim, as he watched Inda hunched there, elbows on the table, forehead bumping his clasped fists.
Then Inda gave a long sigh, straightened up, and pulled a copy of the treaty from among the charts on the table. He read slowly, “There shall be no power dominant in the strait. Any who claim dominance will be declared treaty-breakers, and the rest of the signatories have the right to rise against said treaty-breakers. That’s really aimed at me, isn’t it?”
Chim’s mouth worked, his chin lifted. “Or the Chwahir. Or Nelsaiam, across the way. Deliyeth is supposed to go north to them, everyone agreed. Did you know that?”
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