'Where do you think you're going?' The warrior in command tired of beating up Uten and pointed an accusing finger at another shipmaster who'd been drinking with him.
Dev crept along the deck to raise the Amigal's sail, keeping the silence he'd woven wrapped tight around the mast. There was barely enough breeze coming off the land to stir the canvas. Scowling, Dev slackened his magic just enough to call up a stealthy gust. A wave took the little boat and the Amigal wallowed, afloat, if only by a hand's breadth. Dev ran forward to pull up the fore anchor, tense as he listened for any challenge from the shore. As he did so, two things struck him. Firstly, the Spotted Loal and the galley next to her were blocking his way out into open water. Secondly, there was someone in the little forehold beneath his feet. There was nothing in there that could have made the knocking sound he'd just heard.
He looked back at the beach. Satisfied that the galley's crew were thoroughly cowed, the swordsmen were spreading along the sand, new light blazing bright as anything they didn't like the look of was tossed to rekindle campfires that had all but died out for the night.
Dev wrenched the anchor free of the sea bed, and kicked a coil of rope on top of the fore hatch. Wrapping the weighty metal in yet more silence as he pulled it out of the water, he placed the twin-fluked anchor on top of the coil of hemp. Then he ran the length of the Amigal, feet slapping on the deck planking, dragging the long stern sweep noisily from its place beneath the side rail. Digging the heavy oar into the water, he drove the Amigal into the concealing shadow between the Loal and the other galley. Then he silently secured the heavy sweep against the rudder pintle with a cunning knot he'd learned from the man he'd tricked the boat out of.
Lifting the stern hatch with exquisite care, Dev slid silently down the ladder. He had to do this with natural stealth, not magic that might prompt unwelcome curiosity, even from a thief. Moving slowly, he found his keys and unlocked the door with barely a click. He sharpened his ears with a hint of enchantment, to hear any breath, no matter how shallow. There was no one there. Feel and familiarity guiding him, Dev walked slowly through the hold, anger held in check. All was as it should be, wine barrels secure, the tally of liquor bottles beneath his questioning fingers correct.
So this thief was after his other goods, chewing leaf, the powdered herbs blended for dreamsmoke and the expensive extracts that could spice a meal with myriad temptations. Dev reached unerring up into the cross beams barely a finger's breadth above his head and pulled down a long, curved knife with more than twice the reach of any of the daggers Aldabreshin warlords permitted in their domains. He walked towards the fore hold door on silent feet, feeling through his keys until he found the one he wanted. Unlock the door and be through it before the thief had a chance to think. The scum would go for the fore hatch and find it weighted. Dev would cut out the bastard's kidneys before he could make his escape.
He flung open the door and thrust with the knife in the same movement. His arm brushed past cotton loose over skinny ribs as some last-minute twist saved the thief from a gutting. Dev reached unerringly into the darkness and his merciless hand closed on a scrawny arm, the skin slick with sweat. He drew back his blade for a second thrust.
'Please don't hurt me!'
Dev's killing stroke halted halfway. That terrified shriek wasn't some shifty-eyed galley lad, nor yet some friendless fisherman driven to desperate straits. He'd caught some addle-brained slut of a girl.
'You come with me!' He hauled his squealing captive bodily out of the fore hold. 'Thought you'd try stowing away on my ship? More fool you, my lass. No matter, you can go naked into the shallows like the thief you are and take your chances with Taer Badul's men. They're so roused already they probably won't even bother asking your name, let alone your business.'
Dev dragged the wailing girl through the ship, not letting her find her footing, shoving her into the stern cabin and throwing her into a corner. She hit the wooden wall with a thud that set the whole ship rocking.
'Please don't hurt me,' she begged. 'Please don't hurt me.'
Ignoring her trembling sobs, Dev found his spark maker and reached for the lamp that hung from the beams. It was an awkward task one-handed but he wasn't about to put down his knife, not that she looked much of a threat. With the lamp lit, he saw a light-skinned girl about his own height, with hacked-off black hair no better than a rat's nest, her sleeveless tunic and knee-length trews rags over bruised and filthy limbs.
'Who are you?' He stood over the girl, voice cold. 'And I'll hurt you properly if you don't answer my questions.' He looked around for a piece of cord, a rope end, anything he might use for a lash.
As soon as he took his eyes off the girl, she moved. Not trying to reach the ladder; he was between her and that. She seized his knife hand, clawing it and biting. Taken off guard, Dev's fingers loosened and before he could regain his grip, the girl had the blade. She twisted away from him, one hand reaching for the ladder now behind her, the other holding the curved steel out.
'I want your word that you will not harm me.' Her voice was still shaking but the hand holding the knife grew steadier with every passing breath.
'You steal from me and you expect to get away without so much as an arse-kicking?' Dev laughed, mocking. He drew his Barbak dagger from his belt. 'Now what are you going to do, fight me?'
The girl quaked but the long curved knife stayed pointed at Dev. 'I know how to use this,' she warned. 'In under your breastbone, up into your chest to cut through lungs and liver.'
'And read your future in them?' He didn't take another pace forward. 'I can tell you a thief's future, lass, and it's full of pain, I promise you.'
'I am not here to steal,' she said hotly. 'I haven't touched a thing of yours. All I want is passage out of here.'
'You and half the stinking scum on the tide line,' Dev scoffed. Without taking his eyes off the girl, he stooped and caught up one of the discarded scarves from the floor. 'All right, explain yourself He sheathed his Barbak dagger and made as if to bind his scratched hand with the dirty silk.
'I didn't think you'd agree if I just came and asked.' She raised a defiant chin and Dev saw she had blue eyes that spoke of thoroughly mixed blood. They lent an exotic note to her narrow, undistinguished face. 'I thought I'd wait till you were out at sea and then show myself.'
'Then I'd have to put up with you?' Dev shook his head with insulting pity. 'You didn't think I'd just throw you to the sharks or the sea serpents? What do you take me for? Zamorin? Too lacking to stand up for myself?' I He leered, his gaze lingering on her chest. 'Your reasoning's as lacking as your tits. I've just as many stones as the hairiest man on that shore. Want me to show you?' He gestured towards his groin.
'I don't care what you keep in your trousers,' she said stoutly, knife still firmly held. 'What I want is passage south. I'll do my share of the work. '
That surprised Dev more than her assault on his knife hand. 'South? When every man and his wife is scrambling to get a berth going north?'
'That's their business.' The girl's voice grew more confident. 'You're going south. I heard you on the beach.'
'What's your business there?' challenged Dev.
'I'm a poet.' Her fierce expression dared him to doubt her.
He laughed anyway. 'You?'
The knife didn't falter.
'Prove it!' he jeered.
'My bag, where I was hiding.' She jerked her head towards the prow. 'Fetch it and I'll show you.'
'That would be in the fore hold,' said Dev sarcastically. 'Much use you'd be, when you don't even know your way around a ship. Are you any use on your back?'
'I don't spread my legs and I can learn about ships.' she sneered back at him, uncowed. 'I know barrels of wine when I see them and bottles of barbarian liquor.' She nodded upwards, her eyes not leaving Dev's face. There was still an appreciable uproar to be heard ashore. 'What do you suppose Taer Badul's men would say if I told them what you're carrying?' She paused for a moment. 'Never mind th
e chewing leaves and dreamsmoke powders in the prow'
'You think you can get ashore to tell them before I kill you?' Dev tightened the scarf between his hands with slow deliberation. 'I won't even need to dirty my dagger. Ever seen someone who's been strangled?'
'I'll wager I can get on deck and give one good scream. That'll bring them running, all hot-blooded, like you said. 'She cocked her head on one side. 'Do you want to try explaining a dead body still warm in your hands as well as your cargo?'
'You've thought this all through.' Dev feigned admiration.
The girl's skin was pale enough for a blush to darken it. 'No poet can afford to be a fool.'
'And there's proof of that in your bag.' Dev pursed his lips. 'Let me see. I go looking for that and you grab whatever you can steal and make a dash for the shore where you betray me to Taer Badul's swordsmen.'
'I don't see much worth stealing here.' Her mockery answered his own, but this time, her eyes strayed towards his hammock.
Dev was on her in an instant, knocking the curved knife out of her hands, the silk round her neck, his fists crossing behind her head. Before she could summon more than a stifled whine, her knees buckled and she went limp beneath him. Smiling with vicious satisfaction, Dev rolled her over, tying wrists and ankles with the scarves, binding hands and feet together behind her arched back. When she stirred, scant breaths later, her puzzlement cleared to furious realisation. She tried to spit at Dev but her mouth was too dry.
'You just rest there,' he soothed as he unhooked the lamp from the beam. 'You've got me wondering, so I'll have a look at this proof of yours.' Stroking her matted hair tenderly, he shoved the last of the rags from the floor in her mouth and gagged her. Making sure she could hear him laughing, he sauntered through the main hold.
The first thing he did in the prow space was assure himself that the boxes and bags of leaf and intoxicants were untouched. Satisfied that the scrawny little bitch hadn't been lying about that at least, he caught up a tasselled shoulder sack of heavy woven cotton, yellow trumpet flowers embroidered on the dark blue cloth.
Swinging it thoughtfully from one hand, he went back to the stern cabin. 'Feels like you've been stealing from more than me. Let's see what your loot is worth.'
The girl's glare was as fierce as a netted jungle cat's.
Dev untied the drawstring and upended the bag, sending a cascade of oddments to the floor. Squatting down, he tossed aside a tunic even more ragged than the one the girl wore, then a faded silk dress. He shook his head disdainfully. 'A fine poet you must be, if this is your performing gown.' Ignoring smeary cosmetic jars and tawdry ornaments, he reached for a solid black cylinder. 'Now, what might this be?'
It was a scroll case, leather sewn tight over ironwood, painted with dark tarit tree resin. Dev twisted the cap off and tilting the case, he slid out a thick bundle of reed papers and uncurled them.' The Ringed Dove, The Owls and the Crows, The Loal and the Turtle? He nodded with approval at the quality of the pictures. 'You stole this from a poet with a good repertoire of moral tales for children.'
The girl looked back at him for a moment before deliberately closing her eyes and turning her face to the planks beneath her.
'You'll pay attention when I'm talking to you.' Dev replaced the pictures in their case with some care, recapping the cylinder and tossing it up into his hammock.
Sitting cross-legged beside the girl he grabbed a handful of her hair and turned her face towards him. 'Try and bite me,' he continued conversationally, 'and I'll knock every tooth out of your head. Are we clear on that?'
The girl nodded but her eyes were still scornful rather than intimidated.
Dev chuckled as he ungagged her. 'You show plenty of spirit, I'll give you that.'
She licked her lips, working her dry mouth to moisten her tongue. 'You can give me my belongings and let me go.'
'But I thought you wanted passage south?' Dev looked quizzically at her. 'Changed your mind?'
She looked at him with contempt. 'Just untie me and let me go.'
'I'll give you passage south,' Dev said obligingly. 'If you are truly a poet. Though I must say,' he added with frank surprise, 'I've no notion why a poet would want to go in the opposite direction to all the potential audience.'
'I am a poet,' the girl said stoutly. 'I was apprenticed to Haytar the Blind.'
'Haytar the Blind is dead,' Dev pointed out with a grin. 'I heard that news in the Mahaf domain, not ten days since.'
She ignored him. 'Haytar was the greatest interpreter of The Book of Animals. Even a lout like you must know that.'
'I'd heard that said. Though I prefer poems about lecherous slave boys and round-arsed dancing girls myself.' Dev nodded, with an insolent glance at the girl's rump. 'So you looted his corpse and fled, did you?'
'I was his apprentice,' she repeated, tight-lipped. 'His last apprentice. He gave me that picture scroll on his deathbed and bade me use his poems to live by, until I should find a theme of my own, something to inspire a new cycle of poems that everyone would know by my name.' For the first time, tears shone in her eyes.
Dev raised sceptical eyebrows. 'And how exactly is making a voyage to the south going to lead you to one of those?'
The girl squirmed in her bonds. 'There's magic abroad in the southern reaches, truly.'
'Is there?' Dev hid his interest in disdain. 'What would a doggerel merchant like you know about that?'
'More than a vice peddler like you,' she shot back. 'There's warlords fighting wizards in domains clear across from Aedis to Ritsem. Take me as far south as you dare and when you run scared, I'll make my own way onward. There'll be tales of valour and tragedy in battles like that and I'll make an epic out of them.'
'To make your name,' Dev mocked. 'What would your name be, so I know your epic when I hear it?'
'Risala,' she said grudgingly.
'I always thought poets were mad.' Dev got to his feet, grinning. 'Now I'm sure of it. Very well, I'm tired of working this boat single-handed. I'll carry you south as long as you do whatever work I give you, and as long as you split whatever you take on shore for telling your little animal stories.' He paused by the foot of the ladder. 'Play me false and I'll cut your throat and throw you overboard for the robber eels.'
'Lizard eater,' Risala said with feeling. 'Aren't you going to untie me?'
'When we're good and clear of the beach,' Dev assured her. 'Far enough out for no one to hear you scream, if you've a mind to try tricking me from the outset. Now, you keep a civil tongue in your head, or I'll take the lamp away from you for a start.'
Risala opened her mouth again and then shut it, lips pursed.
Dev winked at her. 'Not so hard, is it?' He climbed up the ladder, his amusement fading. How much time had that nonsense cost him? How far had the Amigal drifted?
Once on deck he was relieved to see the little ship was still lolling in the dead water between the two great galleys. Better yet, the fat-bellied ships had drifted apart to leave him a way out. There was still a fair amount of commotion on shore but Taer Badul's swordsmen appeared to have left the beach. Time to go before they came back. Loosing the stern sweep from its knot, Dev drove the broad blade through the water, manoeuvring the Amigal out into open water, wondering how best to turn this unexpected turn of events to his advantage.
So Majun said that Ulla Safar was starting a war? That could be true, then again, maybe not. The girl sounded certain magic was abroad in the domains just south of Ulla waters. The first thing to do when he had her well away from shore, with nowhere to swim for, was to find out just what that certainty was based on. She could tell him or bleed for it.
What then? A more important question: was this Risala any good? If she wanted to stay aboard, she'd better give him a little recital. If she was any good, she could be an excuse for him sailing south. Everyone knew poets were mad. A trireme's shipmaster might still look askance at him, but Dev could let slip he was pandering to the girl's whims by day in exchange for the fa
vours she was doing him by night. Besides, sailing single-handed was attracting more attention than he liked. A girl aboard would put an end to that.
He leant hard into the oar, to ease the Amigal out through the narrow space between the great galleys. Risala had just been an apprentice, had she? A likely story. He'd wager old Haytar'd had at least one eye not yet blind and most poets' dancing girls were little better than the whores of the mainland docksides. The girl could drop on her back to satisfy any trireme shipmaster with a deaf ear for verse.
Looking up, Dev saw clouds that must surely herald the overdue rains obscuring the moons, greater still several days from full and lesser waning past its last quarter. He changed his mind about trying the channel in the uncertain light. Anchor on the sand bar in the middle of the bay, he decided, and sleep on deck. The light would wake him and he could cross the reefs while there was still enough water.
Chapter Eleven
Kheda stirred. Then he felt a distinct sensation of being watched. He opened his eyes to find he'd rolled over in his sleep, doubtless to escape the inexorable light of dawn. All he could see was the nut palm fronds he'd gathered to build a low shelter the previous evening.
Not that you need have bothered. When are the rains going to come? The nights are as hot as the days now. Is this delay some evil stirred up by the magic to the south, driving away the storm winds? What is that noise? There's definitely someone behind you. Who could it be? You hid yourself more than adequately.
He'd found a gully lined with thick cane brakes and well away from any game trails or the wider track running to some distant village. He'd lit no fire to risk attracting curious attention, even though his ankles throbbed with bites from the bloodsuckers hereabouts that weren't deterred by crushed perfume-tree leaves.
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