"Returning to Ghulam, I asked how he knew this outcome beforehand. He replied: 'In any sizable group, there will be at least one faint of heart, who will flee any wight who rushes upon him. When this one flees, the sight strikes the others with fear; and they, too, run. But attempt not this jape with a single bull. He may not be a coward, in which case thou wilt await thy next incarnation!'
"And then there was that crocodile that proved immune to spells and illusions. . . ."
Kerin felt his nose a little out of joint, since both Akkandrines gave their attention to Rao while ignoring Kerin. He blamed this partiality on Rao's richer appearance, since Kerin had not donned his best clothes.
His twinge of resentment in turn aroused in Kerin a twitch of suspicion. The girls, he was sure, were local whores. Perhaps this was a good chance to get rid of his long-resented virginity. But again, Jorian had warned him that taking up with chance-met locals might get the traveler more than he bargained for. Besides, Kerin was too embarrassable to ask right out: How much? Still, if either girl turned her charm upon him. . . .
Surya asked: "Have you handsome gentlemen ordered yet?"
"Nay," said Rao. "The hosh—host told us the cook be off on an errand but will soon return. Then the mighty Ghulam—"
"Then," continued Surya, "why go we not to my little house, where we can eat, drink, and amuse ourselves without the presence of others?"
"Very kind of you," began Kerin, "but—"
"A splendid idea!" crowed Rao. "Lesh go, Kerin old boy!"
"We shall have a wonderful party!" said Yakshi. "Surya shall sing whilst I play the plong."
"Beware, Master Kerin!" buzzed Belinka in Kerin's ear.
"Now wait!" said Kerin. He eyed Surya and said in careful Mulvani: "How much will this party cost?" When the girl looked blank, he repeated the sentence to Surya, who said in her own dialect—Kerin thought exaggerated—"I am sorry, but I understand not."
Kerin then spoke in Novarian to Rao: "Look, we know these damsels not. They may have their pimp waiting to knife us."
"Oh, nonsense!" said Rao. "They're jush a couple of shweet little whores who wouldn't hurt a fly. Besides, I hate going back to that damnable ship, which bounces me about like a cork—"
"Well, I'm not going with them, and that's that. You do as you wish."
"Scared?"
"Being careful, that's all. You wouldn't want to risk that thing around your neck, would you?"
"Oh. Now that you mention it. . . ." Rao fumbled inside his jacket, pulled out the little sack of oiled silk, and hoisted the chain over his head. He had to doff his turban to get it off. Handing the package to Kerin and replacing the turban, he said:
"All right, you go back to the ship whilsh I make merry with these little lovelies. Take good care of that document! Here's where I prove my manhood—with both, shee if I don't!"
They rose. Rao slapped down on the counter a gold piece worth, Kerin guessed, many times the value of the drinks they had drunk. Rao's penurious master, Kerin thought, would have been horrified. Without asking for change, Rao wavered out between the two girls, one supporting his staggering steps on either side.
Kerin turned back towards the waterfront. As he walked, he wondered if he had not, through timidity, lost out on a pleasurable experience. If only he had some magical device to tell him how far it was safe to go in such situations. . . .
As, under a twilit sky, Kerin walked down the gangplank of the Dragonet, Belinka buzzed: "Well done, Master Kerin! I was watching. Had you not refused that invitation, I should have made someone smart for it! Now beware the witch Janji, who hath nefarious plans!"
"I'll try to govern my evil passions."
Janji appeared from the deckhouse. "Master Kerin, where is your shipmate Rao?"
"Still ashore, trying to prove his manhood on a couple of harlots."
"Akkander is not the safest town for such adventures. He may be knocked on the head and robbed."
"I tried to warn him, but . . ." Kerin spread his hands.
"Hast dined?"
"Nay; the party broke up ere we reached that stage. Couldst—ah . . ."
"Certes; I'll put another portion on the stove. When you're cleaned up, I shall see you in the captain's cabin."
When Janji had cleared away the monotonously vegetarian repast, she said: "I am pouring you another, yes?"
"Thankee, but nay," said Kerin, remembering how liquor had loosened his tongue before.
"Oh, pray do take one more!"
"Nay!" said Kerin emphatically, placing his hand over the goblet.
She put away the bottle. "Captain Huvraka will not come aboard again until morn. He is busy proving his love for both his wives. He says he can prove it all night long, but I have not the wives' side of the story. Anyway, he is sleeping late." She gave Kerin a level stare. "So, if you will tell me of your secret mission . . ."
Kerin thought frantically. "I—the fact is—'tis nought much; merely a commission from my brothers' general practitioner of iatric magic, Doctor Uller. He would fain discover the Kuromonians' spell for smiting one's foe with emerods."
"Forsooth?" said Janji in a skeptical tone. She leaned to one side as if listening, then said: "That is not true, Master Kerin. I can tell."
In Kerin's ear he heard a tiny voice: "Her bir hath told her the tale be a lie."
"I do assure you—" began Kerin.
"Oh, go futter yourself!" cried Janji, rising. "You think to deceive me, foolish boy? You are spending your next incarnation as earthworm!" She marched out.
Kerin sighed. "Belinka, if you Second Plane sprites are so skilled at detecting Prime Planers' lies, why do we Kortolians not employ you in our courts, to tell which defender or accuser is telling the truth?"
Belinka gave a silvery laugh. "That hath been proposed, Master Kerin. But all the lawyers opposed it so vehemently that the idea was abandoned. They feared it would reduce them to beggary."
Rao did not return to the Dragonet that night, nor did he appear next morning. Captain Huvraka snorted: "The young fool should have known better."
Kerin asked: "Is there no authority in this town to trace down the missing man and, if he's been murdered, bring his slayers to justice?"
"As well try to spit on the moon as bring any local to justice here," said Huvraka. "If by some remote chance they caught the miscreant, he'd divide his loot with the magistrate and be let off with a scolding."
Nonetheless, the captain sent two of his sailors ashore to look for the missing passenger. Hours later they returned, saying the man seemed to have utterly vanished. Huvraka said:
"Belike the turtles and crabs in the swamps are devouring his corpse. We should have sailed at midday, since Akkander gives us no very bulky cargo. I'll hold the ship for a couple of hours more; but if he appear not, off we go."
Still without Rao, the Dragonet sailed in midafternoon and plowed into the Eastern Ocean. For several days, Kerin resumed his shipboard routine. He smote the rats and cockroaches that invaded his cabin; he watched Huvraka and Mota flog a sailor for some nautical malfeasance. He and Janji exchanged a few amenities but otherwise ignored each other.
The third day out, a storm blew up. Kerin, who had been preening himself on being a much better sailor than Rao, learned the pains of seasickness. Gripping the weather rail, barefoot and breechclouted like the sailors, he miserably looked up at the crest of a wave bearing down upon the Dragonet and, as the ship climbed, down into the watery valley yawning precipitously below. From the lowering, leaden sky, lukewarm rainwater sluiced over his body. As Huvraka, for once without his turban, hurried past, Kerin shouted over the roar of wind and wave:
"Is this a bad storm?"
"Ha!" the captain shouted back. "This is good weather! This is no storm at all! We are sailing through some that make this look like a flat calm! And next time you are puking, you are please using lee rail!"
Kerin started for his cabin when an exceptionally violent lurch sent him spinning down the slopi
ng deck to the lee rail and into the net that had been rigged along it. Without the net, he was sure he would have gone over the side. When he finally struggled back to his cabin, he took off his money belt and hid it in his bag. He feared that, if he slipped on the rain-lashed decks and fell overboard, the weight of the coins would speedily drown him.
By the next morning the rain had ceased, though the ship still leaped and lurched like a stallion with a burr beneath its saddle. Kerin's healthy young frame adapted quickly, so that by noon he was able to eat and keep it down.
Ten days after leaving Akkander, Kerin was leaning on the port rail, enjoying the hypnotic effect of the endless procession of wave crests. He watched the occasional silvery flash of a flying fish as it sculled along the surface until it reached airborne speed and skimmed away over the crests on glassy wing-fins. He had learned to walk with a nautical roll, to forestall a loss of balance when the deck abruptly changed its slant.
He looked sharply at the horizon. Yes, unless he was suffering hallucinations, there was a stretch of land. A touch on his arm made him start; Janji had glided up beside him.
"Is that land?" He pointed.
"Yea; that is first of the islands we call the Peppercorns."
"Means it we near Salimor?"
"Nay, not yet. The Salimor Archipelago is farther east; but we are more than halfway from Akkander. I must be taking ship south of the Peppercorns, to stay away from rocks. If this westerly holds, this will be our fastest passage. Coming back is harder; we must tack against the westerlies or sail much farther south to pick up easterly trades."
She pressed her bare arm against Kerin, then turned to bring a breast in contact. Kerin felt a familiar surge. Down, dog! he sternly told himself.
"Are you still keeping secret of mission?" she purred.
"Aye, you st—" he began but choked off the word "strumpet." "I'm under a vow."
"Oh," said Janji. "People are all the time taking such vows in Mulvan; but I am thinking all Novarians are monsters of lust."
Kerin shrugged. "Tales grow in telling. Isn't that another island?" He pointed.
"Aye; it is the biggest of the Peppercorns. It takes half the night to sail past. We call it Kinungung."
"Does anyone live there?"
She shrugged. "They say there be a holy hermit, clept Pwana; but no tribes or villages." She glanced back at the wake, which the setting sun had turned into a furnace of molten gold. "Time for dinner is coming. I shall see you soon!"
At dinner, the normally jovial Huvraka seemed dour and preoccupied. Later Kerin, preparing for bed, was roused by angry voices through the bulkhead between his cabin and the captain's. He put his ear against the planking but could catch no more than an occasional word.
"Belinka!" he called softly.
"Aye, Master Kerin?" The little blue light twinkled round the compartment.
"Couldst eavesdrop on what goes on there?"
"Drop an eave—is not that part of a roof? How can one?"
"I mean, listen in and report back to me."
"I will try, but her bir may chase me out."
The uproar continued for another quarter-hour. Then Belinka's light flickered into view, and her voice buzzed: "Oh, Master Kerin, you must leave the ship ere Captain Huvraka kills you!"
"What? How? Why should—"
"They quarreled, and the bir took a pull at the tari and now lies drunk in a corner. The captain is jealous of the navigator, whom he accuses of granting you her favors, as you Prime Planers say. He says he watched you and her on deck. She says, she will futter whomsoever she wishes; and Huvraka like it not, he can get another navigator. He says he will cut you in pieces for fish bait, and methinks he mean it."
"I fear him not. My brother taught me how to oppose those curved swords with my straight one."
"But he will bring sailors to help him, and they will seize you from behind. So please, please go like a man of sense! I am supposed to keep you safe, and I cannot let you get into a fight where you would have no chance. So go!"
"How? I cannot walk on waves."
"Use that little boat atop the deckhouse. Hasten, and be as quiet as you can!"
"Oh, very well." Kerin crammed his belongings into his bag, donned his sword, and stepped out into velvety darkness. He looked aft and was relieved to see that the man at the tiller was out of sight behind the deckhouse. By getting a toehold on his cabin porthole, he climbed to the roof and examined the boat. With his dagger he cut the lashings.
The boat took all his strength to move, but he managed to slew it around so that one end overhung the deck between the deckhouse and the rail. He feared that any instant Captain Huvraka, aroused by the noise, would come boiling out of his cabin, scimitar in hand.
Kerin inspected the boat more closely. A pair of oars were lashed down lengthwise in the hull. One more good heave would send the boat tobogganing down to the rail and into the Eastern Ocean. But the Dragonet's speed would leave the boat behind before Kerin could board the little craft.
As his eyes adjusted to the starlit dark, Kerin examined the painter, coiled in the bow and eye-spliced to a ring at the top of the stem. In the stern lay a small bucket. Could he slide the boat overboard stern-first and seize the painter before it went? That would probably not work. Unless he released the boat and grabbed the line in one lightning-swift motion, the craft would get away, leaving him without means of escape.
Could he grip the end of the rope in his teeth, freeing his hands to wrestle with the weight? Perhaps; but then the boat would come to the end of its tether and either jerk the painter out of Kerin's mouth or pull him overboard. Kerin did not much mind a ducking; but what then? Would he capsize the little boat in trying to climb aboard? That would leave him in another hopeless predicament, clinging to an overturned hull with his gear at the bottom of the sea.
"Tie the rope to the ship, stupid!" squeaked the tiny voice.
Half grateful and half resentful, Kerin climbed down from the deckhouse and belayed the painter to a shroud. Moving quietly, he ascended again and heaved on the hull until the outboard end overbalanced the rest and the hull tipped down. Another heave, and the keel struck the rail. Then the hull slid down off the deckhouse, off the rail, and into the sea.
The splash aroused the helmsman, who appeared around the deckhouse corner. "Ho!" cried this man. "What do you? Who—ah, 'tis the passenger! What—"
Kerin grabbed the painter and hauled the line forward. When the boat stood abreast of the Dragonet and directly below Kerin, he tossed in his duffel bag with his free hand. The money belt clanked as the bag struck the floorboards.
"Hold!" cried the helmsman, starting towards Kerin. "You are not making off with the boat! It is the captain's property!"
"Keep clear!" grated Kerin, drawing his sword. "Stand back!"
The helmsman checked but cried: "Captain! We are being robbed! The foreigner is stealing the boat! Help! All hands on deck!''
The door of the captain's cabin banged open and Huvraka emerged, tulwar in hand. "By Ashaka the Destroyer!" he shouted. "What are you doing, miscreant?"
Kerin dropped into the boat, making the vessel rock and bounce. The bilgewater that the boat had shipped sloshed about the hull.
With one hand on the ship's gunwale to steady himself and to keep the boat from drifting astern, Kerin sawed through the painter with his sword where he had tied the line to the shroud. Huvraka loomed above him, leaning over the rail and raising his scimitar, when the line parted. Kerin fell back into the boat, and the sword swished harmlessly past his head.
The speed of the Dragonet took the ship swiftly away. Kerin gathered himself up, his rump sore from his tumble and his trews soaked with bilgewater. Sitting on the middle thwart, he worked on the knots that secured the oars.
Aboard the Dragonet, now receding into the dark, sounds of furious argument wafted. From a few shouted words Kerin, straining at knots, gathered that they were debating whether to bring the ship about to try to recover their b
oat. Tacking properly with lateen sails, Kerin had learned, was a laborious business, involving shifting the long, heavy yards and their triangular sails from one side of the masts to the other.
As he finally freed the oars and placed them in the oarlocks, a glance towards the Dragonet disturbed him. The ship was barely visible save for her stern light bobbing above the waves like a fading star. But Kerin could see that the striped sails were luffing, showing that the ship was coming about. In such an emergency they might do a "bastard tack"—that is, tack without shifting the yards around the masts. Huvraka had explained to him that this would make for slower, less efficient sailing; but if they took the time to shift the yards, Kerin might be out of sight when they took up the search again.
"Are you there, Belinka?" he asked the starlit night.
"Here, Master Kerin!" The blue light twinkled on the after thwart.
"Steady on," he said, and bent his back to the oars. Although the sea was moderate, with a slight swell, Kerin found ocean rowing quite different from that on a lake or pond. He caught crabs, and the butt of an oar hit him under the chin and almost knocked him off the thwart.
"I think," said Belinka, "that you must needs take short, quick strokes, lifting the oars on high on each return stroke."
With a grunt, Kerin yielded to her advice and found the going easier if more fatiguing than the rowing he was used to. He paid no heed to direction, reasoning that his best chance of escaping the Dragonet lay in a random, unpredictable path. The main point was to get as far as possible from where he had left the ship before the moon, then in its first quarter, rose. He expected this in an hour or two. When he paused for breath, he asked:
"Belinka, how didst know about rowing?"
"I watched the sailors at the ports we stopped at."
"Clever little girl," said Kerin.
"I do but my duty, to return you intact to Adeliza."
Kerin grunted and bent to the oars again. The Dragonet was still afar. As Kerin continued rowing, he glimpsed the ship's stern light less and less and finally not at all. He supposed they were sailing back and forth in the area where he had absconded.
The Honorable Barbarian Page 5