“Have dancemistress Sairet escorted home,” Wensomer said as the steward opened the door.
“Try to be in bed early, my lady,” advised Sairet. “Rest is as important as practice.”
The eunuch saw Sairet safely to her lodgings. There, Senterri was waiting, along with her two handmaids. All three of them had already done their stretching exercises. Dolvienne was the sensible handmaid, who made the other two practice rather than gossip. For Perime, her mistress could do no wrong, and she would do anything for her. This included arguing with Sairet when she tried to correct her mistress’s mistakes. It had been a particularly long day for the dancemistress, as there had been no cancellations and all lessons had gone full-time.
“There are times during daylight hours that might suit you better,” Sairet suggested as they began.
“Oh no, I am only able to slip away during the night,” Senterri insisted, trying to seem conspiratorial and failing completely.
“Mistress Senterri is watched very closely,” Perime added unconvincingly.
“Mistress Senterri might be recognized by other servants were she to come here in bright daylight,” said Dolvienne. “They would betray her to her father.”
“My father disapproves of dancing,” said Senterri. “He says only harlots, windrels, and clowns dance, and that it is not a skill that any respectable girl should learn.”
“But Mistress Senterri is none of those,” Perime said hurriedly.
“The mistress thinks dance is important in courtship,” said Dolvienne.
“Yes, why should harlots dance and be seductive while good girls just sit about and try to look winsome?” asked Senterri.
“But Mistress Senterri does not want to be a harlot—” began Perime.
“Enough!” snapped Sairet. “You are paying to learn dancing. If you want to gossip you can do it for free elsewhere. Now, then, I want to see your hip rolls.”
Sairet followed the city’s gossip closely, and even had a web of informers among her associates. Senterri did live in a Sargolan trading house, but the merchant there never made the slightest attempt to restrict or constrain her. It was almost as if she were a tenant, yet there was better accommodation in Diomeda for a woman who could obviously afford two handmaids and a lot of quite expensive clothing. Wensomer had her own mansion, after all, and was open about her wealth. Senterri was playing the role of a daring and rebellious girl, yet doing it with two personal servants to look after her. Neither of Sairet’s two best-paying pupils were what they seemed, the dancemistress was sure of that.
After what seemed to Sairet like the longest lesson in her teaching career, Dolvienne paid, Perime packed up their costumes, and the three girls vanished into the darkened streets, accompanied by a guard from one of the escort guilds. Sairet retired for the night. As she lay on her small pallet bed she could not escape the feeling that her two most wealthy pupils had some agenda far larger than learning to dance to impress their friends, relatives, and suitors. In particular, Wensomer had allowed a carefully crafted mask of glittering bubbles to slip for a moment. Beneath her laziness and indulgence was a hint of hard, sharp acumen. The real question was why Wensomer was trying to hide it.
At that very moment someone else was puzzling over the behavior of Sairet’s two most mysterious pupils. He was, however, a lot better informed than Sairet. Admiral Forteron read the scroll that he held while displaying no more emotion than a slight scowl. Presently he looked up and glared at his surveillance marshal.
“Now, let me repeat all this back to you in my own words,” said the Torean admiral. “That way you can see what is actually in my mind, and hence can judge it to be true or false.”
“Very good, Admiral.”
“A dancemistress named Sairet lives in this city. She specializes in belly dancing, she is insane, and she is also the former queen of Diomeda—deposed when the king that we deposed led a palace rebellion and had her husband and children killed.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“Why did he not kill her, too?”
“Diomedans consider it unlucky to kill mad people. Their gods—”
“Enough, question answered. Apparently this mad, former queen and teacher of belly dancing has many pupils. One is a quite lissome Sargolan princess named Senterri, who has been living in secret in Diomeda for some months, but whose presence was known to authorities from the minute she stepped off her ship.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“Why was I not told about this two months ago?”
“Most of the former king’s informers and spymasters joined the underground resistance against us. Yesterday one of those spymasters fell into our hands. After we tortured him briefly with a large bag of gold, and free passage to the port of his choice, he revealed the location of the Royal Surveillance Archives.”
“Ah, I see. I wish to speak with him.”
“He was assassinated this morning, Admiral.”
“Understandable, I suppose, given the circumstances. Getting back to this report, the other … peculiar and worrying student of belly dancing is an extremely powerful but somewhat overweight sorceress from North Scalticar. Her name is Wensomer.”
“Ah, by your leave, Admiral, Wensomer is not considered to be a problem—”
“I know, I know. The note on her file says, ‘Harmless, except to a cake stall,’ and goes on to say that her mother lives in Diomeda. The reason given for her visit is stated rather baldly in the Wayfarers’ Register as, ‘For her weight.’”
“Ah … yes.”
“She has come to the pastry capital of the known world to lose weight?”
“Er, well, yes,” replied the surveillance marshal, running his finger around the inside of his collar.
Forteron stood up, walked over to his subordinate, and sniffed the man’s breath.
“You don’t appear to have been drinking.”
“No, lordship.”
“Yet you wrote this?”
“Lordship, it is all true.”
Forteron returned to his chair. He sat down and began massaging his temples.
“I am an admiral,” he said presently. “I manage large numbers of warships, determine strategy and tactics, fight battles, and look after the welfare of my thousands of sailors and marines. Belly dancing is a little out of my experience. I mean, as entertainment during the occasional dinner it is all very pleasing. I am as fond of the sight of minimally clad dancing girls as the next man.”
“Speaking as the next man, lordship, I most wholeheartedly agree.”
“So I am rather badly in need of someone to explain what is going on here.”
“As am I, lordship.”
This was not the answer Forteron had been hoping for.
“Wars are fought on the whims of royalty as often as for pragmatic reasons,” he explained with more of an edge to his voice. “If some princess has a whim to have dancing lessons, her father may have a whim to declare war if we don’t clap loudly enough at her graduation performance.”
“My feelings entirely, Admiral.”
“I suppose it will not hurt to have a meeting with her.”
“I advise caution, Admiral. If she is having the lessons in secret, you may spoil some surprise she is preparing for her father.”
“Then we shall have a secret meeting. Arrange one.”
“If you please, Admiral, for what day?”
“Today.”
“But—but, Admiral, it is nearly midnight.”
“Then you had better run, Marshal.”
Although Senterri had a love of adventure, she had never been in circumstances that could be even remotely described as perilous. She liked to do things in secret rather than really take risks, and that was the current appeal of being in Diomeda. There had been an invasion, and the city had been occupied, but the markets were open again the following day, and no restrictions had been placed on shipping. Confident that she could return home whenever she wanted to, Senterri had decided to stay in th
e city. Her letters home were, however, full of stories about danger, chaos, lawless streets, and fearsome, invincible invaders. She had gone on to describe how there was a warrant posted for her arrest, that she could not flee the city, that she had been bravely hiding in the house of the merchant Aramadea, and that she was helping distressed citizens to escape the Toreans and hide.
The problem was that her letters had been believed, and her father was an emperor.
Senterri arrived back at Aramadea Silks, Spices, and Fine Wines with her two handmaids and contract guard, weary from the night’s dance lesson and anxious to collapse into bed as quickly as possible. She rapped at the door, but the steward did not answer. A group of men appeared at the end of the street. Just as her guard drew his ax, another group appeared, to block their retreat. Now the door was opened—to reveal a Torean noble flanked by two guards of his own.
“Your Highness, I am truly honored to meet you,” he said smoothly as he bowed. “My name is Admiral Forteron, late of Damaria.”
Senterri backed into her cowering handmaids, looked about, realized she had nowhere to flee, then turned back to Forteron.
“Wha—Wha—What are you going to do to me?” she stammered.
“Nothing at all, Your Highness,” replied Forteron, spreading his hands wide as if to show that they were empty. “Your father has sent word that he is concerned for your welfare. I was not aware that you were here at all, but now that you have been located I am at a loss. Your father wants you home, but you seem to have no immediate plans to return home. Normally that would be no concern of mine, but your father’s army is on its way here across the desert. He intends to lay siege to Diomeda until you are released. The only problem is that you are not being held in the first place. Now, according to my sources, you are visiting the city for dancing lessons. Belly dancing, to be specific.”
“It is not what it seems,” said Senterri, unused to being interrogated, and now thoroughly alarmed.
“Oh, I am sure of that. Well, Your Highness, far be it for me to be ordering royalty about, but I need to have you off the premises, so to speak. As soon as it can be arranged, you will be put on a warship and sent to a place of safety. Your father will be informed, and that will be the end of his siege. Have you a problem with that?”
“No, no, not at all,” Senterri replied quietly.
“Excellent, would it be that all my problems were so easily solved. Well, then, I must be on my way. A true delight to meet you, Your Highness.”
With that, Admiral Forteron and his two guards left. The other guards had already vanished. Senterri, her handmaids, and her contract guard found themselves in an empty street.
“Ah, I‘se brought ye home,” said the guard, hurriedly shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Best be on wi’ it.”
He hurried away. Now Senterri and the two girls were alone.
“Perime, Dolvienne, we must flee, now!” Senterri whispered to the handmaids. “The admiral is toying with us. Men love to toy with women.”
“Your Highness, he said you will be kept safe,” Dolvienne pointed out.
“Oh, yes. Safe in a dungeon, as a hostage to stay my father’s hand against the Toreans. We must flee. This very night!”
“Your Highness, they will be watching—” began Dolvienne.
“No! We shall go before they think to stop us. All we need is a dozen guards, a wayfarer’s wagon, and a driver. At dawn the city gates are opened, so we have the rest of the night to get ready.”
Thus it was that the following dawn saw six guards, a guide, two drivers, and a wagon with three young women arrived at the Great West Gate of Diomeda. The customs officers noted little in the way of trade goods on the wagon, although the passengers did declare thirty gold pagols. They were, they said, going to the inland city of Gladenfalle.
“Ah, it’s not as if I want to seem awkward, excellent ladyship, but d’ye know it’s five hundred miles to Gladenfalle?” the shift sergeant asked Senterri.
“Aye, it’s not like a trip ter the markey,” added another guard, leaning on his spear.
“Ah, we shall being shopping at Gladenfalle market,” said Senterri.
“Buying costumes,” added Perime.
“We are dancers, trained in Madame Sairet’s academy for dancing,” said Senterri, producing a scroll she had forged only an hour before, and which gave her handmaids honors and herself first-class honors. “We are going on a great dancing tour of Lioren Mountains, starting with Gladenfalle.”
The guards let them pass. Senterri’s plan had been to go west to the river port of Panyor, then turn south and begin the five-hundred-mile trek to the city of Lacer, in the Sargolan empire. By the time Forteron realized Senterri was missing, this plan had been modified rather considerably, however. The guards had waited until they were forty miles from the capital before turning on their charges, killing the guide and two drivers, stealing the thirty gold pagols, setting the wagon on fire, and abducting whom they believed were three dancers. Two days later Senterri and her two handmaids were sold—as dancers—for two pagols each; though the nomads who bought them were more aware than the guards of the value of white-skinned girls who knew windrel belly dancing. After a little more coaching they could be sold in Hadyal to a caravan going north, and ultimately they might fetch a hundred times more than the turncoat guards had been paid.
The voyage back to Helion took the Shadowmoon thirty-five days, through some unseasonably rough weather. Laron nevertheless kept the schooner trimmed to catch every breeze, and crowded on as much canvas as he dared whenever they came within sight of any other ship. They used the plain green mainsail, and did not light the running lanterns at all. At last they picked up the cold polar current that moderated Helion’s climate, and a few days later Helion’s two volcanic craters appeared on the horizon late one afternoon. There was a heavy overcast, and the crew was very relieved to see the navigation pyre on the higher of the two peaks.
News of the annihilation of Banzalo’s settlements and fleet had reached the island already, and ships departing for Scalticar were already crammed with refugees. The sun was long down as the Shadowmoon berthed, and there was an ominously large number of spaces along the piers.
“Do I get my ship back now?” Feran asked sullenly as Laron stood beside the gangplank.
“No,” the vampyre replied impatiently. “It is not your ship.”
Laron breathed a thin, glowing streamer into his hands, then squeezed them closed. When he opened them again, the streamer lay coiled in the palm of his hand. He stood still for a moment, then flung the coil into the air. When he drew it in, there was a small bat snared at the end. He breathed a fine red mist over the little animal, enmeshing it.
“Fly to the temple, little brother,” said the vampyre. “Tell Worthy Terikel that the Shadowmoon has returned, and that Laron awaits her instructions.”
Driven by the auton, the bat launched itself from Laron’s hands and disappeared into the night. On the deck of the Shadowmoon, the crew stood watching.
“Wait here,” said Laron in a thin, distant voice, then he strode off down the pier.
“Suppose he’s to do some eating,” said Hazlok, but nobody else was inclined to comment.
Laron returned some time later, with patches of his beard missing and the rest caked in blood. He put his hand over one of the bollards to which the Shadowmoon was tied. A small, faintly glowing figure materialized, sitting hunched over with its hands clasped. It had large, soulful eyes.
“Did any of them leave the ship?” asked Laron.
“No, master,” the figure peeped in reply.
“Did anyone visit the ship?”
“The crew called vendors over and bought bran cakes and wine.”
“Good work. Come to me.”
The figure floated up from the bollard and dissolved into Laron’s hand before the astonished eyes of the crew.
“Prepare to sail on the next tide,” said Laron in a flat but firm voice.
“What?” exclaimed Feran. “Why? You said I could have the Shadowmoon back at Helion.”
Laron flipped him a coin. Feran caught and examined it.
“A Timagric coin,” said Feran. “So?”
“I found it on someone named Dinner. Look at the date.”
“The third month of 3140.”
“A new coin from an inland Torean kingdom, minted just before the fire-circles. The crew of this vessel salvaged many such coins, but they had no other way to reach Helion.”
“You’re saying the Rashih-Harlif called here? Why not check with the harbormaster?”
“I did. It did not. However, the General Movements Register notes that a Sargolan deepwater trader met the Rashih-Harlif in midocean a few days ago and sold them supplies in return for gold. Druskarl’s gold. It was sailing due west, straight for Diomeda. My figures say that it did not have time to call at any Vindic port to set Ninth and Druskarl ashore. She is being taken to a dangerous place, perhaps to be sold into slavery. I am very concerned, Feran, and very disappointed with Druskarl. When I become disappointed with someone, I also become ever so hungry.”
At that moment Terikel appeared at the base of the pier, with two men dressed as deacons, but whom Laron remembered to be temple guards. Laron stood waiting as they approached.
“Worthy Elder,” said Laron, sweeping off his tricorner hat and bowing.
“Laron, you—you all survived,” she responded, casting her eyes over the scene.
“I am very hard to kill, Worthy Elder.”
“We heard tales of terrible massacres on the shores of Torea.”
“The massacres did take place, I am saddened to say. Ah, what is the status of these two gentlemen?” he asked, indicating the guards.
“I have decided to confirm deacons as well as deaconesses. These two are the first. They are former guards, and when not doing their own study they have been instructing all Metrologans on Helion in the use of weapons.”
Voyage of the Shadowmoon Page 27