Prince of the Blood, the King's Buccaneer

by Raymond E. Feist

At first the conversation was a welcome diversion from the sameness of each minute. The cabin might be more comfortable than the previous accommodation, but it was still a cell. Then the girls went through a period of being difficult, giving him meaningless answers to his questions, or purposely contradicting themselves. He seemed equally indifferent to either tack, merely absorbing whatever they said.

  Every once in a while he was accompanied by another man, one they had met the first day called Saji, who said little. He would occasionally pause to write something down on a tablet of parchment he carried, but otherwise he just observed.

  ‘Today I would ask you to tell me more of your uncle, this Prince Arutha,’ said Arjuna.

  ‘Why, so you can better prepare to make war on him?’

  The man showed neither irritation at the accusation nor amusement, saying, ‘To conduct a war across so vast a sea is difficult.’ He provided no further comment on her question, but said. ‘Do you know Prince Arutha well?’

  ‘Not well,’ she answered.

  He was not a man to show the girls any emotion, but something about the way he moved forward slightly gave Margaret the feeling he was pleased at that answer.

  ‘You have met him, though?’

  ‘When I was a small child,’ answered Margaret.

  To Abigail he said, ‘What of you? Have you met this Prince Arutha?’

  Abigail shook her head. ‘My father has never taken me to court.’

  Arjuna whispered something to Saji in an alien language, and the small man made a note on his tablet.

  The interview wore on. The questions were seemingly unrelated to those asked at previous interviews. After most of the morning was past, the girls were bored, tired, and frustrated, but Arjuna never seemed to tire during these interviews. At midday, a small meal was provided the girls, but he did not eat, merely slowing the interview so that they could consume the simple meal of biscuits, dried meat, dried fruit, and a cup of wine. They had learned early to eat all the food brought them, for Abigail had refused to touch her meal one day. Two of the silent men had entered and one had held her in place while the other had force-fed her. All Arjuna had said was ‘You must keep up your strength and be well.’

  After the meal, he excused himself, and they heard him enter the cabin next door. Margaret hurried to the bulkhead that separated the cabins and tried to listen, as she did each time he entered that cabin. There was a mysterious passenger whom Arjuna consulted with from time to time, but no one else ever entered the cabin. Margaret had once boldly asked who was in there, but Arjuna had ignored the question and countered with one of his own.

  A low murmur of voices could barely be made out, but no words were intelligible. Then suddenly Margaret was again visited by that strange tingling sensation, this time stronger than ever. At the same moment, a voice was raised in alarm in the next cabin, and the sound of feet moving toward its rear came through the bulkhead.

  Margaret glanced out the small window to the left, and there she saw a hooded figure half leaning out of the window. The figure extended an arm, pointing behind the ship, and exclaimed, ‘She-cha! Ja-nisht souk Svadjian!’

  Margaret pulled back inside the cabin, her face ashen and her eyes wide.

  Seeing her expression, Abigail whispered, ‘What is it?’

  Margaret reached over and took Abigail’s hand. Gripping it tightly, she said, ‘I saw our neighbor. He … it stuck its hand out. It was covered with green scales.’

  Abigail’s eyes widened and her eyes brimmed with tears. Margaret warned, ‘If you begin crying again, I’ll slap you so hard you’ll really have something to cry about.’

  Voice trembling, Abigail said, ‘I’m frightened, Margaret.’

  And you think I’m not?’ asked the other girl. ‘We can’t let them know we know.’

  Abigail said, ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘There’s something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re being followed.’

  Abigail’s eyes widened again and she looked hopeful for the first time since they had been captured. ‘How do you know? Who is it?’

  Margaret said, ‘That thing in the next compartment felt whatever it is I’ve been feeling lately, and he complained that someone was overtaking us.’

  ‘You heard that?’

  ‘I heard the tone, and it wasn’t pleased. And there’s something in that sensation I’ve been feeling that finally makes sense to me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know who’s following us.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Anthony.’

  Abigail said, ‘Anthony?’ in a disappointed tone.

  ‘He’s not alone, I promise you,’ said Margaret. ‘It must be some magic of his that I’m feeling.’ Her expression turned reflective. ‘I wonder why I can feel it and you can’t. ’

  Abigail shrugged. ‘Who understands magic?’

  ‘Do you think you could squeeze through that window?’

  Abigail glanced at it and said, ‘I might if I wasn’t wearing this gown.’

  ‘Then we’ll take our gowns off,’ said Margaret.

  Abigail said, ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘The second I see a ship behind us, I plan on getting off this one. Are you a good swimmer?’

  Abigail shook her head and looked afraid to answer.

  ‘Can you swim at all?’ asked Margaret incredulously.

  Abigail said, ‘I can paddle some if the water’s not too difficult.’

  Margaret said, ‘Lives by the sea her entire life and she can padde some.’ Looking hard at her friend, she said, ‘You’ll paddle, and I’ll keep you out of trouble if I must. If a ship’s coming after us, we won’t be in the water that long.’

  ‘What if they don’t see us?’

  ‘Worry about that at the time’ was Margaret’s answer.

  Then Margaret again felt the strange tingle and she said, ‘They’re coming.’

  Anthony pointed, and Amos sighted along his arm and said, ‘Two points to port, Mr Rhodes.’

  Nicholas, Harry, and Marcus watched the magician for a minute, then Harry said, ‘I don’t know how he can be certain. Everyone at Crydee said he wasn’t a very good magician.’

  Nicholas said, ‘He may not be a good magician, but Nakor says he just knows where’ – he was about to say ‘Margaret’, but knowing of Harry’s infatuation with her, he changed it to – ‘the girls are. Nakor’s pretty certain Anthony’s on the right track. And Pug said to follow Nakor’s advice.’ Amos had Anthony use his magic three times a day, at sunrise, noon, and sunset, to correct his course.

  Nakor was up at the bow of the ship, talking to Calis. Ghuda was off by himself, a short distance away from the little Isalani, lost in his own thoughts.

  Harry glanced around the horizon. ‘How anybody can know anything about where they are on this endless expanse of water is beyond me,’ he said.

  Nicholas was forced to agree. Save for some white clouds to the north of them, the sky was empty, as was the ocean. There was nothing to break up the constantly moving surface of the water. For the first three weeks of the journey, they had seen islands here and there, all part of the Sunset Islands chain, and it broke up the monotony of the journey.

  Once the excitement of being in relatively close pursuit had worn off, the ship had fallen into a routine. The tension remained, for Marcus paced the deck, when weather permitted, like a caged animal, and when the weather was inclement, he sat brooding. Nicholas and Harry lent a hand wherever possible, trying to relieve the boredom, and were becoming fair deep-water sailors in the process. The constant work and meager food had given Nicholas and Harry a rangy, lean appearance, and the time spent aloft or on deck had turned Nicholas a deep tan. Harry’s fair skin had burned badly until Anthony had soothed it with salve, and now he was as brown as if he had lived all his life upon the beach. Nicholas had shaved his beard, while Marcus had let his grow, so while there was still a resemblance, it wasn’t as obvious.

  T
he others had fallen into their own routine. Nakor and Anthony spent much of the time discussing magic, or ‘tricks’, as Nakor insisted on calling it, and Ghuda seemed content to keep his own company, though from time to time he could be seen in deep conversation with Calis.

  The progress of the ship matched the deepening of concern in all aboard the vessel, for Amos had ordered rations cut. He had felt they were reasonably provisioned when they had set out, but not knowing if land was only moments beyond the horizon or still weeks off, he felt it better to stretch them out. And with the hunger that came with the rationing came the realization that they were truly sailing into unknown waters.

  For the last month they had sailed out of sight of any land, their final contact with the Sunset Islands being a pitiful little series of sandbars and coral outcroppings that could hardly be called islands. Once they had fallen behind, there was nothing but the sea.

  Nicholas knew that there was another land across the water. He had accepted it as a fact, because that’s what his father had told him. But here he stood on the decks of a ship, sailing into what was commonly called the Endless Sea, to a land where no man of the Kingdom had ever ventured, and no matter how he tried, he could not leave aside the little nagging doubt, a small voice that said, ‘Perhaps the sailors are right; perhaps the map is a hoax.’

  Only two things kept the sailors calm and going about their business as usual: their training in the Kingdom Navy and Amos’s firm command. They might not believe the magician could tell where the black ship was on the water ahead of them, but they could believe that if any man could sail them across the Endless Sea and back it was Admiral Trask.

  Nicholas glanced up at the top of the main mast, where a lookout was stationed, against hope that they might catch sight of the ship they followed. Amos speculated from the girl’s description that the ship was a galleon, a design used occasionally in Queg in days past, sometimes with rowing banks, sometimes without. If so, he judged it a far slower ship than his own, and that despite its ten or more days’ lead time, he might even overtake it before it reached its far port.

  Nicholas hoped so, for as he grew bored and restless aboard the Raptor, he found his mind drifting more and more to fanciful reunion with Abigail. The sour memory of killing Render continued to intrude on him from time to time, and no matter how he tried, the feel of the saber in his hand as it drove hard into Render’s stomach still clung to him. Even when he practiced with the sword with Marcus, Harry, or Ghuda, dueling across a pitching deck, he anticipated that sudden difference, that oddly soft feeling of a sharp blade cutting flesh as opposed to ringing off an opponent’s blade. And thinking of the blood and death made him feel ill.

  He had talked about it with Harry and Ghuda, and neither could help him cope with the feeling of somehow being dirty. No matter how much Nicholas tried to justify killing Render, no matter how much he told himself that this had been the man who had killed his aunt, destroyed hundreds of lives, and reduced a thriving town to a burned-out collection of ruins, he couldn’t bring himself to feel that he had acted correctly.

  Nicholas knew better than to bring up the subject with Marcus, for how could he express regret over killing one of the men who had murdered Marcus’s mother and kidnapped his sister?

  And Nicholas had spoken with no one about his deepest fear: that if need be, he couldn’t bring himself to kill again.

  Brisa came up on deck and Nicholas was forced to smile. The girl was like no one he had ever encountered before, and she amused him. In one fashion, she reminded him a little of ‘Uncle James’, one of the King’s advisers in Rillanon, and a former companion of his father. Now he was a Baron of the King’s court, and he and his wife and children visited Krondor on a regular basis. There was something wild and daring in him just below the surface, and Nicholas had heard tales that when he was a boy, James had been a thief in Krondor. There was that same wildness in Brisa, though it wasn’t hidden very deep below the surface. And it came out with alarming regularity when she was around Marcus.

  Nicholas and Harry exchanged glances, and Nicholas found Harry grinning as the girl started straight for them, her eyes fixed on Marcus. For reasons none of them could fathom, she had taken a clear liking to the often dour son of the Duke. At least, she delighted in teasing him at every opportunity, and often Nicholas couldn’t be sure if her provocative invitations were teasing. She could become quite scandalous at times. She was at home with the sailors, for while she was female, and several held to the odd superstition regarding women on ships, she could swear with the best of them, climb the rigging like a monkey, and tell the foulest jokes of anyone on the ship. Where Amos had worried that some of the younger sailors might try to take advantage of her presence on the ship, causing conflicts among the crew, his worry had been baseless. The slender girl with the ragged hair and large eyes had managed to turn almost the entire ship’s company into surrogate big brothers, any of whom would be happy to thrash any other member of the crew who grew abusive of their Brisa. And they all seemed to take equal delight in watching her make Marcus blush.

  Coming to where Marcus stood, a resigned expression on his face, she said, ‘Hello, handsome. Want to go below and learn a few things?’

  Marcus shook his head, his color rising, as he said, ‘No. But I do need to go below. I’ve not had my midday meal yet.’ She took a step after him as he turned, adding, ‘Alone!’ He left the girl who feigned a pout, and Harry and Nicholas grinned as he went below.

  Harry said, ‘Why must you tease him so?’

  Shrugging, the girl said, ‘Oh, it gives me something to do. It’s pretty boring around here otherwise. Besides, there’s something about him that appeals to me. I think it’s his total lack of a sense of humor. It’s a challenge.’

  Nicholas considered himself fortunate that she had singled out Marcus instead of himself. He found himself sympathizing with his cousin: the street girl from Freeport was a force of nature. He studied her and found himself conceding that she was pretty in a boyish, uncomplicated fashion. A few days after the voyage began, he decided her ragged clothing and dirty appearance had been more a product of guile than of carelessness; being a pretty girl in a town like Freeport was dangerous enough, but without a protector, it was an open invitation to rape and bondage. With shapeless clothing several sizes too large, and dirt on every exposed inch of skin, she looked far less inviting and often could pass as a boy.

  Putting her hands behind her back, she whistled a nameless tune as she sauntered down to the companion-way. Nicholas laughed.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ asked Harry, already knowing the answer.

  ‘Just considering how fast we’ll find Marcus back up here on deck.’

  One of these days she may be surprised.’

  Nicholas said, ‘I doubt much catches our street girl by surprise.’

  ‘Wonder what she’d look like in some proper clothing,’ said Harry.

  Nicholas said, ‘I was just thinking the same thing myself. She’s rather pretty under all that ragged hair and has lovely eyes.’

  Harry said, ‘Forgetting Abigail already, are we?’

  Nicholas’s mood instantly turned dark. ‘No,’ he said coldly.

  ‘Sorry. I was making a joke.’

  ‘It was a bad one,’ said Nicholas.

  Harry sighed. ‘I’m sorry.’ Then his mood lightened. ‘I was thinking how she’d look in one of those gowns Margaret and Abigail wore to that last reception, the ones that had all that lace down the front.’

  Nicholas couldn’t help but grin. ‘You mean the low-cut ones that my mother thinks are so scandalous.’

  Harry grinned in return. ‘Well, Brisa has that long, slender neck, and her arms are really graceful.’

  ‘Looks like I’m not the only one who’s forgetting whom we’re looking for,’ chided Nicholas.

  Harry sighed. ‘Guess you’re right. Perhaps it’s the boredom. But except for Brisa, I haven’t paid attention to a girl, pretty or otherwise, since
the last night we spoke with Margaret and Abigail. There may have been a few around since then, but I was a little too busy to notice.

  Nicholas nodded.

  ‘One thing,’ said Harry.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I wonder why she picked Marcus and not me?’

  Nicholas glanced at his friend and saw that the question was only half-joking.

  The lookout cried, ‘Captain! I see men in the water!’

  Amos shouted back, ‘Where away?’

  ‘Three points off the starboard bow!’

  Amos hurried to the bow, and by the time he had gotten there, Nicholas, Harry, and half the crew were behind him. In the water, small figures could be seen floating. Amos nearly spat. ‘Slavers,’ he said with murderous fury, barely controlled. ‘Those that die are thrown to the sharks.’

  ‘One of them is alive!’ shouted the lookout.

  Amos turned and shouted, ‘I want a boat lowered. Make ready to pick up the survivor! Put her into the wind, Mr Rhodes!’

  The ship was turned to slow her movement while a boat was lowered. The men started rowing toward the floating bodies and the one survivor, when the lookout shouted, ‘Sharks!’

  Amos looked to where he pointed and saw a fin cutting the water. ‘Brown tip; he’s a man-eater.’

  ‘There’s another,’ said Harry, pointing a little farther off.

  Nicholas asked, ‘Can your men get to the survivor first?’

  ‘No,’ said Amos. ‘If the sharks grab one of the dead men first, maybe there’s a chance. Sharks are funny that way. They can swim around you for hours or come straight in and take you the minute you hit the water. There’s no telling.’ He shook his head.

  Calis said, ‘Maybe I can distract them.’ He unlimbered his bow and drew out a long shaft, fitting it to the bowstring. He drew back and sighted on the shark closest to the ship, then let fly. The steel-tipped arrow sped through the air and struck the shark just below the fin, causing a noticeable fountain of blood.

  Instantly three of the other sharks veered away from the floating corpses and sole survivor and made a straight course for the thrashing shark.