by Kirby Crow
Scarlet just breathed, so angry that he did not trust himself to answer right away. “Your honor,” he said flatly. “Am I supposed to protect yours and forget mine?”
Liall’s expression softened. “No, of course not. But with your looks, surely you have dealt with this sort of thing before.”
“You have a short memory, Wolf.”
Liall looked immediately regretful and reached out to put a hand on Scarlet’s shoulder.
“Keep your hands off me,” Scarlet said deliberately.
Liall’s hand halted in mid-air and his expression went blank and emotionless. He turned on his heel so suddenly that the hem of his black cloak snapped behind him, and he left the cabin, closing the door firmly.
In the sudden silence, Scarlet sat on the floor and began going through his pack. If he could not go out, he might at least find something useful to do inside, and some of his clothes needed mending. His mind remained unsettled as he tried to work, and he began to wonder what he had gotten himself into by choosing to follow Liall. What did he know of the man, anyway? Only what Liall had told him and what he had personally observed from Liall's actions, which was a knot of contradictions so tangled that he despaired of unraveling it.
An hour passed before Liall returned. He entered with an apologetic look on his face and sat down on the floor next to Scarlet, his long legs sticking out.
“We both have sharp tempers,” Liall said carefully. “So, let us begin again. You must be careful how you behave, Scarlet. I do not want you to see you hurt, yet I cannot protect you from every man on board. That does not mean I would not try, but even I cannot prevail against so many.”
Scarlet nodded grudgingly, not looking at him. “All right.”
Liall tilted his head, trying to catch Scarlet’s eye. “Do you understand? I do not think you were wrong to strike him, but you would have been wiser not to, considering our situation.”
“Yes,” he sighed.
Liall patted Scarlet’s knee, and then withdrew his hand quickly. “I know it is not pleasant, but it is a necessity. You must realize that we are, in effect, in my lands now, and you must listen to me and heed my advice.”
“I know.” Then, because he knew that he would have died if Liall had not nursed him during his fever, Scarlet ducked his head in apology. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful.”
Liall made a rude noise. “I do not want your gratitude. It is a meager substitute for friendship.”
Scarlet remained silent. Liall turned and cupped Scarlet’s face in his hands.
“Look at me, pedlar. Your thrice-damned honesty is one of the things I admire most about you. Another is that you do not coldly calculate before you act, but follow your instincts, however foolish they may be. That is honesty, too, in a way. A man always knows where he stands with you, red-coat. I value that.” His thumb brushed Scarlet’s cheek. “Now that you know how impressed I am with your nature, please... would you try not to be yourself so much, at least for now? It is the only way either of us will reach Rshan.”
Scarlet nodded in reluctant assent, mollified by Liall’s words even as he detested what was being asked of him. It galled him that to be so out of his element. Liall knew these mariners and their language and their ways. Scarlet had no choice but to rely on him.
Liall released him. The timbers creaked and the silence of the sea closed back in, making him feel like a creature trapped in a cage.
It would be a mistake to care too much for this boy, Liall chided himself. He had left Scarlet brooding in the cabin and joined Qixa’s table for dinner, as the captain had requested. He drew wet rings on the scarred oak table with the moisture beading up and pooling down from his metal wine cup and gave each ring a name. The first was Foolish, the second Reckless. His index finger hovered over the table just before closing the ring, and he named the third one Wrong.
Scarlet was a fraction of his age. Not only that, but Scarlet had never had a lover before. That thought was both attractive and terrifying, for if he fell in love with the pedlar, it would be an attachment not easily broken for either of them. He recalled how unexpectedly difficult he had found it to leave Scarlet for the first time in Byzantur, and then again for the second. Now, the thought of losing him filled Liall with a cold dread that he feared had less to do with love than self-preservation. On the day he left Rshan so many years ago, he had vowed to himself that no one, man or woman, would ever find a place in his heart again. The events that led up to that vow had not only shattered his faith in himself and his will to live, but it had very nearly split the kingdom of Rshan asunder.
I do not deserve to love, he concluded, and then was disgusted with himself for entertaining such a mawkish opinion. Impatiently, he passed his hand over the table, erasing the marks, and forcibly turned his attention to his host.
Liall knew little of Captain Qixa, but already he was beginning to trust the man. He liked Qixa’s bluff manner, bordering on rudeness, and he observed that the crew obeyed him swiftly but without fear. This was a captain well-liked by his crew.
The common galley was ripe with the smell of the bilge and the air too close and warm. Liall had not been seasick in decades, but that night was the first time he came close to it since he was a boy. Dining at the captain’s table of a brigantine ship and dining among the crew was not too terribly different. The crew ate waybread and salted meat and fresh fish and onions. As far as Liall could see, that was identical to what the captain and his quartermaster and first mate dined on. The only difference was the wine: pale green anguisange wine for their table, ale and imbuo for the crew. It was decent vintage too. Liall told Qixa as much while seated at his right hand. Qixa had tried to give sway and vacate the captain’s chair, the place of honor, to Liall, but Liall had been able, with a stern look and a small shake of his head, to dissuade him. There were those on board who knew of his true identity, but he feared pushing his luck too far. The bounty-price to prevent him from ever reaching the shores of Rshan would naturally be very high, perhaps even high enough to tempt a captain of men to seek another career elsewhere. Nemerl was a very large world.
At the lower table, Oleksei, who had been shadowing Liall’s steps since he came aboard, raised his wooden cup to Liall in a small toast and grinned, displaying white teeth and comely, curved lips. Liall returned the gesture if not the expression, and was discomfited at the flash of pleasure on Oleksei’s face. He wondered what the young man thought of Scarlet. Though it was true that he had led the crew to think of Scarlet as his property, the crew also patently believed them to be lovers. He had not bothered to deny it, feeling that there might be some safety in the fiction for Scarlet. At least it would—or should—render him untouchable by the crew, who might not even see him as human: a pet, perhaps, or just a possession of his that they need not consider beyond that.
Mautan leaned across the table and refilled Liall’s cup. “He is better, the lenilyn?” he asked without real interest.
Lenilyn. Outlander. Non-person. “Much better. I thank you,” Liall answered tartly. The healer had been next to useless and had not seemed to care if Scarlet lived or died.
The mate grinned and shrugged and scratched under his arm. “Only my job. I was sure the little thing would die. Hilurin, is he? Must be made of tougher stuff than he looks.”
“He is,” Liall said, casting a look at Oleksei, whose eyes seemed to be stuck on him.
“I don’t see why you bother, myself. I would have pitched the scrawny git overboard just to stop him puking on me.”
Liall took a drink of the excellent wine. “That would not do at all.”
Qixa chuckled into his mug of wine. “Is he good between the sheets, your outlander?”
Liall realized he had gotten himself into a trap. If he said no, the crew would be even more curious, which might cause more trouble later. As it was, they seemed to be settling into the notion that Scarlet was Liall’s personal property, and must be tolerated to some extent. Discouraging that view might b
e disastrous. “He is... inventive,” he improvised, which was not a lie.
Mautan made an obscene gesture with his hand that invoked catcalls from the lower table. “I’ll bet he’s a tight piece, too. Where'd you find him?”
Liall was reluctant to relate the tale of the red-hooded pedlar and the wolf. For some reason, he wanted to keep it to himself, like it was a private moment between them, when it had been nothing of the sort.
Qixa put his mug down with a grave air and placed a sympathetic hand on Liall’s shoulder. “Tell me, were you his first? Did you break him in well? Poor lad, to go all your life looking at little Byzan twigs, then to tackle a Rshan oak!”
“We were suitably impressed with each other.”
Qixa laughed uproariously and pounded the table until he and Mautan had tears running from their eyes. Mautan was a humorous fellow who often laughed. He and Qixa had a comfortable relationship that reminded Liall of Peysho and Kio, and Liall was suddenly and unexpectedly struck with a pang of longing for his adopted home. Of all the strange things he had known in life, to be suddenly homesick for the Southern Continent, a country he had been raised to think of as barbaric and dirty, peopled with backward savages, took him utterly by surprise. He took a drink to cover it, and his eyes wandered the hall. Below him, he saw that Oleksei was giving Qixa a sour look for having mentioned Scarlet at all.
Liall sighed and looked away before Oleksei could flash his handsome smile again. There were other matters that begged his attention. Liall turned to Qixa and began to ask him, in carefully respectful tones, what he knew of the current situation in Rshan.
Qixa had gossip but no real news of the court, and it was that which Liall needed to hear. The captain knew that the old king-consort was dead, and that the crown prince, whose name was Cestimir, was too young to inherit and could not hold the support of the barons. Scant enough information, and the rest was rumor and fish-wife gossip, useless and probably years old. The food was tasteless and Liall was tired and wanted to lie down, but he could not quit the table until the captain did. Some traditions were courtesy everywhere. The good wine kept him occupied and he refilled his cup again and again, drinking until his headache went away and the stench of the bilge did not bother him so much.
As the night wore on, Scarlet dozed and woke fitfully. He got up several times to drink water and chew on the generous portions of hard waybread and smoked fish Liall had left for his dinner. Though he knew his acute hunger stemmed from his illness and his body’s attempt to recoup the weight he had lost, he found it difficult to work up an appetite for the taste of stale waybread and fish. Liall had also left the rose-scented che. Scarlet contemplated venturing out for hot water, and then thought better of it. If there was trouble, he would be blamed for it because he disobeyed Liall’s orders. That unfairness nettled him, and he settled uncomfortably in the bunk and tried to give his mind some occupation by going over the pedlar’s routes to Rusa from Nantua and Dorogi. They were much trickier than the straight routes down the Snakepath through the Nerit and the Bledlands.
He had planned, once upon a time, to hire a map-maker to sit down with him and illustrate the circuitous pathways, with their names and hazards and what a pedlar could expect to find on the way, but he supposed that was idle thought now. He had little use for a map of Byzantur at present.
For fun and because there was no one there to see or scold him, he kindled a withy-light in his hand and idly made it weave a dance in and out between the fingers of his left hand, the tiny blue flames very cool against his skin. He was surprised he could make the withy last as long as he did, far longer than he had ever done before. Perhaps his Gift was growing stronger, though he had never heard of anyone’s Gift suddenly getting better at his age.
The coals in the small brazier were turning dead gray and Scarlet was thinking about getting up and stoking it when Liall finally returned. The Northman smelled of wine at ten paces and was unsteady on his feet.
“Scarlet!” he exclaimed happily, and flung himself down on the bunk next to Scarlet, on the inside near the wall.
Scarlet did not mind that, except that Liall chose next to nuzzle his ear with a wet tongue. For an instant, Scarlet was incredulous, and then, as Liall began to shift over him, he was alarmed. He rolled quickly to one side and fell off the bunk, banging his knee.
“You’re drunk,” he accused.
Liall smiled lazily. “Perhaps a very little, yes.”
Scarlet knew too well how it could be when men drank. There were many tabernas in the Ankar souk. “I told you not to touch me,” he reminded Liall. “Whatever the crew thinks, I’m not your whore.”
Liall sat up. “Have I ever called you that?”
Scarlet rubbed his sore knee. “Throwing yourself on me makes me wonder.”
Liall looked down the length of his aristocratic nose, and his voice had the quelling tone of a man speaking to an inferior. “You are certainly behaving childishly at the moment.”
“Because I don’t care to have a drunken man paw at me?”
“Paw at you.” Both of Liall’s white eyebrows arched. “I’m gratified to know precisely how you feel, Scarlet. Pray enlighten me further.”
Scarlet wondered if all Liall’s words got longer when he drank. “You’ve been treating me like a child since we boarded this ship and I saved your life in Volkovoi.”
Liall examined a loose thread on his cuff. “I was briefly distracted in Volkovoi.”
“You were getting your skull beat in.”
Liall narrowed his eyes. “I will not linger and quarrel with a child,” he said haughtily, and rose unsteadily from the bunk. “Perhaps in the morning you will be clearer-headed.”
“One of us will be,” Scarlet snarled.
Liall ignored this and stalked out with less than his usual grace. The door snapped shut behind him. Scarlet stayed on the floor and dragged some of the blankets off the bunk with him. If Liall stumbled back in, let him wonder why he avoided the bed.
All he did was argue with this man. He was not even sure how he felt about Liall, and here he was, following the man across half the world.
And you want him, he concluded with a sigh, closing his eyes and snuggling deeper in the blankets. The boards of the floor were hard against his back. You want him, but damned if you’ll let him know it.
Though he knew it was unfair, Scarlet also realized he still blamed Liall for all the bad things that had happened since they met, as if Liall were the bird-messenger of Deva and had brought ruin riding on his wings. He did not understand the impulse that had prompted him to make that harrowing leap from the dock, but Liall could not be blamed for the fact that Scarlet was not resting at Shansi’s house with Annaya, eating spicy persa stew and talking to people in his own language. He could never go back to Annaya.
At least, he thought blackly, not until there was a new Flower Prince in the palace, and perhaps he could explain what Cadan and his soldiers had planned to do to him on that long and deserted stretch of road. He had still not confided everything to Liall.
The dawn came in gray and blustery, bringing a brisk wind that smelled of ice and felt like being buried in snow. Scarlet awoke stiff and freezing. When he’d been able to sleep at all, it had been on the thick pallet with the hard boards pressing his shoulder into numbness. Only a full bladder forced him out into the cold. When he returned, his skin was all goose-flesh and he noted with some astonishment that he could see his breath in the cabin. It was getting measurably colder every day they sailed north.
He was on his knees rolling the pallet up when Liall came in. He looked vaguely unwell.
“Scarlet,” he began, and sank down on the bunk with a groan.
“Yes?”
Scarlet heard him sigh. “I crave your pardon for my behavior last night. I’d had more wine than was wise.”
Scarlet began sorting through his pack, rearranging it.
“Scarlet.”
“Yes, I heard you. You were drunk. And?”
“And I know you are not a whore. Despite our bad beginning, I never intended to treat you like one. Now, will you for the sake of all the gods turn around and come here and not make me shout?”
Scarlet turned and sat on the cold floor, resting his back on the bulkhead. Liall was holding his forehead as if it pained him.
“I was feeling enthusiastic about your presence last night. I intended no insult or—” he groped for the correct word, “Impropriety.”
Scarlet said nothing as he regarded Liall, pulling his legs up and dangling one wrist over his knee.
“You really are a right little bastard,” Liall said conversationally. “I’m suffering here.”
“And I haven’t been?” Scarlet echoed. His voice turned strident as his temper wore thin, made worse by the cold and his own feeling of isolation, which was beginning to become constant. “I’ve been ill, I’ve been propositioned, I spent four days walking the soles of my boots thin, had to fight off murderous thieves on my crossing of the Channel—”
“What?” Liall roared and then held his head.
“—I’ve been sneered at and mocked and I’m sick to Deva’s hells of being cooped up in this stinking cabin!”
“Stinking or not,” Liall muttered, “you’ll stay in it.”
“That sounds like an order.”
Liall continued to rub his forehead. “Take it for what you will. You may be curious about the crew but they are not, beyond the basest of inquiries, curious about you.”
Scarlet gritted his teeth and banged the back of his head lightly against the bulkhead. “I don’t even know why I’m here,” he grumbled to the ceiling.
“You are here because you’ve made yourself a wanted man in three nations by killing a Byzan army captain,” Liall said deliberately. “Now... who tried to murder you?” He demanded too loudly and closed his eyes again, groaning.