The Prisoner of Limnos

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Two ex-army widows are not going to make for easy victims, Des pointed out. I doubt Bosha would end up doing all the work himself.

  That was not quite reassuring. Although Pen was subtly impressed with what little he’d seen of Idrene’s cool head so far. And Ikos, who knew her better, had plainly believed she’d handle his vile machine without panicking. Or puking. (Des growled.) If it was true that women turned into their mothers as they aged, Pen’s future with Nikys might prove even better than he’d hoped.

  If they both lived to see it. Or even start it.

  The women couldn’t yet have been overtaken by official pursuit, more dangerous than bandits, he persuaded himself. At this hour, Idrene’s gaolers should still be searching Limnos. As the boat tacked southward to parallel the coast, he leaned up to watch as the island fell behind them.

  And so he was the first to spot the slim, speedy patrol galley, ten oars on a side and sail set as well, as it rounded Limnos’s rocky, surf-splashed curve. No fishing or cargo vessel, that. It reeked of military purpose. A distant figure in its prow pointed an arm at them and shouted something, and the galley began to angle in their direction.

  Pen crept over and shook Ikos by the shoulder. “We seem to have company. Might be trouble.”

  Ikos stood up on his knees by the thwart, scowled, and swore.

  I could take care of them if you wanted, Des suggested. Just like pirates. An unsettling sense of the chaos demon licking her nonexistent lips. Ripped sails. Snapped stays. Fouled oars. Popped pegs. Opened seams in the hull. Fires in the galley. So many amusing things to be done…

  No wonder captains didn’t want sorcerers aboard.

  Ruchia was the only part of Des to protest. Stay calm. If they’ve anything to do with us, they are looking for an escaped woman. No women on this boat. Let them search, and then go away.

  Yes, Pen agreed with Ruchia. He offered a sop. And should things go badly, there might be an opportunity later for even more chaos.

  Not at all fooled, Des gave way, grumbling.

  Ikos’s crewmates didn’t look any happier than he did at this visitor. Pen had heard that Cedonian islanders sometimes supplemented fishing with less benign sources of income. Smuggling. Or even piracy. But—he glanced around their lightly laden vessel—they didn’t seem to be carrying any obvious contraband today.

  And no escaped prisoners, either.

  “Where did that thing come from?” Pen asked Ikos. The galley looked all-business, and they clearly stood no chance of outrunning it in this mild weather.

  “Imperial navy keeps a station around the other side of the island,” Ikos replied. “Not a full garrison. Couriers, mainly, and vessels to carry the alarm to the mainland if a threat should heave over the horizon.” He added after a moment, “I checked. Didn’t you?”

  Pen let that poke pass.

  When the galley drew close enough for shouts of Heave-to! to carry across the water, Ikos’s crew reluctantly did so. Oars were raised, and some officers clustered at the rail, looking down into their open boat. A young sailor in an imperial uniform climbed along a rope net and made a daring leap aboard.

  “We’re searching for a woman.” He gave a brief, tolerably accurate description of Idrene. His first close look around verified there was no one of that sex aboard, although he stared hard at Pen, distracted for a moment by his foreign eyes. Which were not the brown of his quarry, so he went on, “She might be drowned by this time. If you find her body, bring it to the officers at the Limnos cove. There’s a reward. Pass the word.”

  Ikos’s crew mumbled some interest in that last, and the sailor caught the rope tossed from his galley and managed the harder trick of returning upward, without even dipping himself in the waves. Ikos pushed off with one of their own oars, and, as soon as they were clear, the galley’s oar bank came down and bit the water once more. Going who-knew-where, but, as Ruchia had predicted, away.

  And not ahead of them toward Akylaxio, or at least, not yet.

  Penric exhaled and sat, bonelessly.

  Ikos sank down beside him. Judging by his wheezing, Pen was not the only one with his heart thumping in his ears.

  “Word will reach the mainland by nightfall, then,” said Ikos.

  “Yes. Although word of what is an open question. It looks as though they bit on my suicide lure, at least in part.” But not conclusively. Still, the pursuers would have to search everywhere, and Idrene and Nikys were in just one place. Would they imagine Idrene had fled inland, or realize that she sought a ship?

  “If m’mother had been aboard with me just now,” Ikos observed after a distant minute, “that would not have gone well.”

  “Quite,” agreed Pen. “I plan to dedicate a hymn to the white god, when I get a chance to breathe.”

  Ikos cocked his head. “The Bastard your god, too?” And answered his own question, “Yes, of course, must be. If you’re His divine. So, having His ear, so to speak, can you ask Him to bless this voyage?”

  Pen gestured the tally of the gods, and tapped his lips twice with this thumb. “By every sign,” he said, “He already has.”

  “…Aye.”

  They sat together in reflective silence as the boat tacked south.

  XVI

  Nikys snapped awake at a rap on the chamber door, her sleep-slurry washed away by alarm. Thankfully, it was Bosha. She snared a quick look out the window to check the time as Idrene sat up on the edge of the bed, yawning, and Bosha took off his hat and settled on a stool. Late afternoon; they’d slept a good stretch. Perhaps two more hours till sunset?

  “What did you find?” asked Idrene.

  Bosha grimaced. “Nothing good yet. Of the ships now at dock, three are headed the wrong way, one is not suitable for unescorted women, and the last is a Xarre-owned vessel. You will understand if I’d prefer not to place you there, but in any case, its next port of call is Thasalon, which you’d best avoid.”

  Idrene nodded. Nikys couldn’t decide whether to be worried or relieved. Sooner away was better, but a delay might allow Penric to catch up with them. …If nothing awful had befallen him.

  “How long, do you think,” said Idrene, “should we wait for a better chance before giving up and heading east overland? Could you drive us to a coach road?”

  “Maybe,” said Bosha, obviously not liking this much better than putting them on a Xarre ship. “But your description will certainly reach any border before you. This whole scheme depends on speed.”

  Indeed, outrunning pursuit was all their hope. Resisting it, should it catch them, was out of the question without Penric, and even more terrifying to contemplate with him.

  “Three ships are putting out on this tide,” said Bosha. “I’m told Akylaxio gets half-a-dozen seagoing merchanters a day docking to load or offload. A couple of day-coasters call regularly”—local ships that passed to and from the smaller towns and islands—“but that’s not a first choice.”

  Not a good choice at all. They would repeat the same risks at every port, and accumulate delays.

  Idrene rubbed her sleep-creased cheeks. “Let’s give it till tomorrow morning to see what else arrives. Then take counsel and decide.” She rose to splash her face at the basin, and went to peer out the window. “I confess, I’m growing mortally tired of being trapped in small rooms.”

  Bosha gave her a sympathetic nod, and with the women’s collaboration turned to filling out as much of their documents as he could. It seemed he could alter his handwriting at will, Nikys noticed. He put down his quill and looked up at a fresh tap on the chamber door. “That may be dinner.” He rose to open it, though his other hand hovered on the hilt at his belt.

  But it wasn’t the maidservant who stumbled through. It was Penric. And…

  “Ikos!” Idrene shrieked, dashing across the room and falling upon him.

  He seized her back, huffing relief. “So it was all true…!”

  “Keep your voices down,” Penric and Bosha chorused.

  Bosha glanced at
this new man and opened his hand in pressing query to Penric, who shrugged and closed the door firmly behind them. “Brother,” he muttered. “The other brother.”

  “Oh. The bridgebuilder? But what…?”

  “He was a surprise to me, too.”

  Penric was altered in coloration yet again, his hair now a sandy brown, sticky with salt, and his head and arms and feet paler, but mottled, like a peculiar tan or a mild skin disorder. He was back in his tunic and trousers, noticeably grubbier.

  Ikos looked, and smelled, as if he were home from a very bad, very long day at work, stubbled and sunburned, clothes crusty with dried sweat. Nikys hugged him anyway. Pen looked on as if… envious? Breaking away from Ikos because Idrene was elbowing in again, Nikys’s fingers stretched and closed. She didn’t need her hands to assure herself of Pen’s reality; her eyes were enough, in this company. For a moment she wished her company anywhere but here.

  Idrene’s anxious questions tumbled over one another. “What are you doing here, you shouldn’t be within a hundred miles of me, whatever are you two doing together, how did you get here?”

  “Fishing boat,” said Ikos, choosing the simplest from this spate. “From Limnos.”

  “I was worried how we’d get into Akylaxio discreetly,” Penric put in, “but it turns out that a brace of those big tuna fish make an excuse to dock at any harbor, no questions asked. We picked them up along the way. Ye gods, they’re huge in a small boat. For a moment I thought they’d sink us. I’d only seen them laid out flat in the markets at Lodi, before.”

  “You stopped to go fishing?” said Idrene, sounding bewildered.

  “No,” said Ikos distantly, “we didn’t stop. They leaped into the boat all on their own, and died at our feet. Smiling. Apparently.”

  That… ah, that wasn’t a joke. Or sarcasm. Nikys had seen that round-eyed look on people before, and what did it say that she recognized it? He wasn’t poleaxed, just Penric’d. Her lips stretched up unwilled.

  “We left the lads to sell the fish,” Ikos went on, “and strolled around at random till he found you.”

  “It wasn’t random,” Pen protested, “it was logic. Mostly. But tell me everything that’s happened to you!”

  They ended up with Idrene and Nikys seated on the edge of the bed, Penric on the stool, and Ikos at Idrene’s feet, her hand fondling his hair, urgently swapping tales. Bosha leaned silently against the wall with his arms folded, taking in, Nikys thought, everything, although even his set face screwed up with consternation at parts. He did not look best pleased when he learned about the encounter with his sister Hekat, nor Pen’s promise that her brother would tell her all about it on his next visit. “All that seems safe,” Pen temporized, which did not improve matters.

  Bosha broke off to answer the door and receive the dinner tray from the maid, and order more food, very necessary as the two men fell upon the offering like starved wolves.

  The second round of dinner was delivered and consumed before they came to the end of Penric’s and Ikos’s intertwined and often clashing explanations, frequently dislocated by Idrene’s many questions. “You do make me wish I’d been able to ride in your machine,” Idrene told Ikos. “It sounds splendid. Perhaps, at some happier time, you might get a chance to demonstrate it for me.” Ikos smiled. Penric rubbed his jaw, squeezing some remark to unintelligibility.

  Nikys left out from her account only her strange experience in the court of the sacred well, and Pen did not press her on it, to her silent gratitude. She turned at last to Ikos.

  “But you say you have a boat?”

  He shook his head. “Not my boat, and nothing that could take you to Orbas.”

  Pen scratched his scalp and grimaced. “I’m thinking I want to find a bathhouse before I board anything. I’ll circle back through the harbor and see what’s come in since the last check, after.”

  Idrene was clearly torn between sending Ikos with him, or keeping her son at her side for every possible moment before they had to part. But Ikos stretched, his joints making disturbing muffled crunching noises, sniffed his armpit without prompting, and chose to depart with Penric.

  Nikys fell backward on the bed, floating between elation and new terror. The latter hardly seemed fair. Given how she’d fretted at Penric’s absence, surely his presence should be the cure? Perhaps this was what a gambler felt when he laid his whole stake on one last throw of the dice. Not a thrill she relished, it seemed.

  * * *

  It was nearly dark, Nikys was anxious, Idrene was pacing from wall to wall, and Bosha was staying out of her way, when the two men returned, much cleaner.

  And triumphant. Penric barely closed the door behind him before he blurted, “Two more ships have docked. One is Roknari—”

  A general flinch.

  “—but the other is Saonese. Heading homeward, near full-laden. It’s not going to Orbas, but it is planning a stop at the Carpagamon islands, and from there it should be no challenge to double back to the duchy.”

  “Do you speak Saonese?” asked Nikys. A difficult dialect of Darthacan; she had a working command of the latter.

  “Oh, yes, it’s practically my father-tongue. Jurald is a Saonese name, you know. And there was Learned Amberein, one of Des’s riders before me. The purser thought I was an expatriate fellow-countryman. I didn’t correct him. Time for that later. Anyway, they keep a few cabins aboard for independent merchants transshipping cargo. Only one free, but I booked it. More space than a coach, at least. Another may open up later in the voyage. They sail on the morning tide.”

  “Should we go there now?” asked Idrene, looking ready to dive for their baggage.

  Pen shook his head. “The Customs shed closes at dark. We’re supposed to board in the morning.”

  Bosha drummed his pale fingers on his thigh. “That could be cutting things fine.”

  “Yes.” Pen bit his lip. “Though it would be the usual course for passengers.”

  “Mm,” said Bosha. There seemed no choice but to accept this delay. Nikys wondered if she’d sleep at all tonight.

  Pen had secured a chamber across the hall for the two men and Bosha, though Ikos lingered with Idrene and Nikys. He’d been supposed to be at his next worksite two weeks ago, although he claimed his crew could begin surveying without him. They would say their goodbyes indoors in private tomorrow; he planned to watch over their departure from a distance with Bosha till they were safely away.

  They talked in low tones until his head was nodding, and his mother sent him to bed with a kiss the like of which he’d probably not had from her since he was four. It seemed to please them both. It often felt to Nikys that her elder brother’s relationship with their mother was less, not more, complicated than her own for its long gap, but she could not begrudge it.

  XVII

  Pen followed his fellows into the women’s chamber at dawn, for breakfast and for Bosha to put the finishing touches on their papers. There was nothing more to pack, but Nikys pulled Pen’s Temple braids from his medical case and held them up in doubt.

  “The customs officers may search our baggage. Is there some better way to hide these, Pen?”

  Pen sighed and took them from her. “I suppose I’d better abandon them. They can be replaced when we get home.” And when had he started thinking of Orbas, of all places, as home? “It’s more imperative just now to hide that I’m a Temple sorcerer than to prove I am.”

  The other side of Bosha’s lip curled. “Give them to me for a moment.” A bit reluctantly, Pen handed them over, and Bosha examined the knot holding the loops. A few moves of those deft, pale fingers, and the cord fell into one long length. “Madame Khatai, might you sit here?” He gestured to the stool.

  Her eyes rolling in curiosity, Nikys sat as instructed. Bosha plucked her hairbrush from her valise and busied himself about her head. Idrene drifted over to watch. Within a few minutes, he had somehow turned her hair into a raised confection with the braids visible as no more than a few fashionable gl
ints holding the black curls.

  “Oh, that’s charming!” exclaimed Idrene. Pen had to agree.

  Nikys smiled, reaching up for an uncertain prod. The arrangement held firm. “Very clever, Master Bosha. Thank you!”

  “Do encourage General Arisaydia in his quest for Lady Tanar’s hand, Madame Khatai.”

  “Do you favor him for her, then?” Nikys’s smile didn’t alter, but Pen thought she was listening for every nuance in the answer. Because Bosha would have them. And Bosha’s opinion in this affair mattered far more than was obvious.

  “She’s had much worse, sniffing about her.” He rubbed his neck beneath his white braid. “You know, her latest interest is in going up onto the roof to learn celestial navigation. She conscripts one of Lady Xarre’s captains for her lessons, when he stops in to give his reports. If she’s not married to your brother, or some man of like merit, with her vast vitality diverted to children, I’m afraid she will insist on apprenticing as an officer on one of Lady Xarre’s ships. And if denied, would run off to become a pirate queen.”

  This was probably a joke, Pen thought. Probably. Hard to tell with Bosha. Or with Tanar, for that matter.

  Nikys dimpled. “Do pirate queens keep secretaries?”

  “I dread finding out.” His smile faded altogether. “Although childbed is the one place even I cannot go to defend her. Perhaps the high seas would be better after all.”

  Idrene said gently, “We cannot protect anyone from being alive, Master Bosha. No matter how much we might wish to.” Her eyes fell on her own children.

  His lips stretched in an expression Pen would hesitate to call amused. “I can try.”

  And then it was time for final farewells, teary when Idrene and Nikys embraced the sheepish, but gratified, Ikos. Pen stifled his jealousy. He, after all, would be the one getting to keep the women.

  If I can. He hoisted the baggage and shuffled after them to the stairs.