Mariner's Luck [Scarlet and the White Wolf Book 2]

by Kirby Crow

  For fun and because there was no one there to see or scold him, he kindled a withy-light in his hand and idly made it weave a dance in and out between the fingers of his left hand, the tiny blue flames very cool against his skin. He was surprised he could make the withy last as long as he did, far longer than he had ever done before. Perhaps his Gift was growing stronger, though he had never heard of anyone's Gift suddenly getting better at his age.

  The coals in the small brazier were turning dead gray and Scarlet was thinking about getting up and stoking it when Liall finally returned. The Northman smelled of wine at ten paces and was unsteady on his feet.

  "Scarlet!” Liall exclaimed happily, and flung himself down on the bunk next to Scarlet, on the inside near the wall.

  Scarlet did not mind that, except that Liall chose next to nuzzle his ear with a wet tongue. For an instant, Scarlet was incredulous, and then, as Liall began to shift over him, he was alarmed. He rolled quickly to one side fell off the bunk, banging his knee.

  "You're drunk,” he accused.

  Liall smiled lazily. “Perhaps a very little, yes."

  Scarlet knew too well how it could be when men drank. There were many tabernas in the Ankar souk. “I told you not to touch me,” he reminded Liall. “Whatever the crew thinks, I'm not your whore."

  Liall sat up. “Have I ever called you that?"

  He rubbed his sore knee. “Throwing yourself on me makes me wonder."

  Liall looked down the length of his aristocratic nose, and his voice had the quelling tone of a man speaking to an inferior. “You are certainly behaving childishly at the moment."

  "Because I don't care to have a drunken man paw at me?"

  "Paw at you.” Both his white eyebrows arched. “I'm gratified to know precisely how you feel, Scarlet. Pray enlighten me further."

  Scarlet wondered if all Liall's words got longer when he drank. “You've been treating me like a child since we boarded this ship and I saved your life in Volkovoi."

  Liall examined a loose thread on his cuff. “I was briefly distracted in Volkovoi."

  "You were getting your skull beat in."

  Liall narrowed his eyes. “I will not linger and quarrel with a child,” he said haughtily, and rose unsteadily from the bunk. “Perhaps in the morning you will be clearer-headed."

  "One of us will be,” he snarled.

  Liall ignored this and stalked out with less than his usual grace. The door snapped shut behind him. Scarlet stayed on the floor and dragged some of the blankets off the bunk with him. If Liall stumbled back in, let him wonder why he avoided the bed.

  All he did was argue with this man. He was not even sure how he felt about Liall, and here he was, following the man across half the world.

  And you want him, he concluded with a sigh, closing his eyes and snuggling deeper in the blankets. The boards of the floor were hard against his back. You want him, but damned if you'll let him know it.

  Though he knew it was unfair, Scarlet also realized he still blamed Liall for all the bad things that had happened since they met, as if Liall were the bird-messenger of Deva and had brought ruin riding on his wings. He did not understand the impulse that had prompted him to make that harrowing leap from the dock, but Liall could not be blamed for the fact that Scarlet was not resting at Shansi's house with Annaya, eating spicy persa stew and talking to people in his own language. He could never go back to Annaya.

  At least, he thought blackly, not until there was a new Flower Prince in the palace, and perhaps he could explain what Cadan and his soldiers had planned to do to him on that long and deserted stretch of road. He had still not confided everything to Liall.

  The dawn came in gray and blustery, bringing a brisk wind that smelled of ice and felt like being buried in snow. Scarlet awoke stiff and freezing. He had slept—what time he had slept?—on the thick pallet with the hard boards pressing his shoulder into numbness. Only a full bladder forced him out into the cold. When he returned, his skin was all goose-flesh and he noted with some astonishment that he could see his breath in the cabin. It was getting measurably colder every day they sailed north.

  He was on his knees rolling the pallet up when Liall came in. He looked vaguely unwell.

  "Scarlet,” he began, and sank down on the bunk with a groan.

  "Yes?"

  Scarlet heard him sigh. “I crave your pardon for my behavior last night. I'd had more wine than was wise."

  Scarlet began sorting through his pack, rearranging it.

  "Scarlet."

  "Yes, I heard you. You were drunk. And?"

  "And I know you are not a whore. Despite our bad beginning, I never intended to treat you like one. Now, will you for the sake of all the gods turn around and come here and not make me shout?"

  Scarlet turned and sat on the cold floor, resting his back on the bulkhead. Liall was holding his forehead as if it pained him.

  "I was feeling enthusiastic about your presence last night. I intended no insult or—” he groped for the correct word “Impropriety."

  Scarlet said nothing as he regarded Liall, pulling his legs up and dangling one wrist over his knee.

  "You really are a right little bastard,” Liall said conversationally. “I'm suffering here."

  "And I haven't?” Scarlet echoed. His voice turned strident as his temper wore thin, made worse by the cold and his own feeling of isolation, which was beginning to become constant. “I've been ill, I've been propositioned, I spent four days walking the soles of my boots thin, had to fight off murderous thieves on my crossing of the Channel—"

  "What?” Liall roared and then held his head.

  "-I've been sneered at and mocked and I'm sick to Deva's hells of being cooped up in this stinking cabin!"

  "Stinking or not,” Liall muttered “you'll stay in it."

  "That sounds like an order."

  Liall continued to rub his forehead. “Take it for what you will. You may be curious about the crew but they are not, beyond the basest of inquiries, curious about you."

  Scarlet gritted his teeth and banged the back of his head lightly against the bulkhead. “I don't even know why I'm here,” he grumbled to the ceiling.

  "You are here because you've made yourself a wanted man in three countries by killing a Byzan army captain,” Liall said deliberately. “Now ... who tried to murder you?” He demanded too loudly and closed his eyes again, groaning.

  Scarlet waved a hand. “It's not important."

  "The hell—” Liall started out loudly and got quieter, “The hell it isn't."

  "Let me understand you. It's all right for men to grope me or pay me to grope them, but killing me is strictly out of bounds."

  By now, Liall was holding his head in both hands. “You're killing me,” he snarled. “Let me say this before my skull cracks open: I'm sorry things have been difficult for you, but there is little I can do about it."

  "Maybe not, but that's no reason to punish me."

  Liall gave him a look that was so startled and hurt that Scarlet felt ashamed. “You believe I am punishing you?"

  "Why are you going back to Norl Udur?"

  "I told you."

  "You told me very little. I'm sure there's more."

  "As you have guessed, there is,” Liall replied uncomfortably. “But I am not attempting to punish you. I cannot tell you certain things because it would be dangerous for you to know them. Have you never heard that ignorance is bliss? In your case, ignorance is protection. There are things I will not know for certain until we arrive in Rshan, and I'd rather not risk you."

  "Risk me how?"

  Liall sighed and sagged a little. “You insisted on coming,” he repeated, avoiding a real answer, and he put his hands down to grip the wooden edge of the bunk. “Do you think I enjoy knowing that stinking mariner tried to buy you? Do you think I enjoy drinking and eating with men who have nothing but contempt for you and would happily kill if I were not here to stop them?” He looked unhappy and glanced away for a moment. �
�As for my behavior last night, it was an excess of drink, not contempt, and ... and I am only a man, after all.” He risked a glance at Scarlet. “The wish that prompted me to treat you so badly at the Kasiri camp is still very much in force, I fear."

  Scarlet grew still. “What wish is that?"

  Liall regarded him in strained silence for a long moment. “The wish of a man who wants very much to be your lover, but does not know how to go about it.” After a pause wherein Scarlet was held silent purely by surprise, Liall held his hand out to him. “Come, please, let us mend this quarrel. You must trust that there are things I cannot explain to you yet, and trust in what I feel for you."

  There was no ‘must’ about it, but Scarlet relented at the pain in Liall's voice. He got up and sat stiffly beside Liall on the bunk. “It's hard for me to believe you don't know how to go about something, or anything."

  "Believe it."

  "Is it...” Scarlet paused, thinking. At first, Liall had done the pursuing. Now he felt like he was the one chasing Liall, and suddenly Liall had absented himself from the equation. “Is it something I've done?"

  "No,” Liall said quickly. He pressed Scarlet's hand. “But I cannot talk about it yet. Please forgive me."

  Scarlet sensed the conversation was hopeless. They seemed doomed to misunderstand each other. He changed the subject. “Have you taken anything for that bad head? Maybe you should lie down."

  "If I lie down, I will not get up again for the rest of the day,” he said and closed his eyes briefly. “With some breakfast and che inside me, I will feel better. I'm also sorry I left you alone last night. That was a foolish thing, considering the mood of the crew. It won't happen again."

  Scarlet shrugged, as if it did not matter, but he suspected Liall's eyes saw more keenly, despite the hangover. He offered to scrounge breakfast, but Liall declined.

  "Good penance for my indulgence, and the fewer encounters you have with the crew, the better."

  3.

  Pursued

  Someone pounded on the door at the turn of the watch, around dawn or thereabouts. Scarlet had already risen and was careful not to disturb Liall, sitting on the floor and busying himself with repairing a lace on his boot, which looked to be close to falling apart after nearly a month at sea. Liall had already told Scarlet that he was wasting his time mending, but the pedlar did not listen. He would get much better gear for them both in Rshan, and cover Scarlet's white skin in silk.

  The knock sounded again and he cracked one eye open. Scarlet glanced at him and then the door, and he nodded. Scarlet was safe enough with him nearby, or as safe as he could make him. The crew's hatred for the foreigner in their midst was a tangible thing, heavy and onerous to live under, but there was no way around it. Scarlet got up and answered the infernal pounding as Liall's hand crept toward the hilts of the knives he kept forever near.

  The hatch opened and Oleksei stood there, eyeing Scarlet in hostile silence. He would not even speak to ask for Liall, and the unnecessary rudeness made Liall sharp when he roused himself and edged Scarlet out of the way.

  "What?” Liall growled.

  "Captain Qixa wants you."

  Liall nodded and dismissed Oleksei with a curt gesture. The mariner went, but not without a last glance at the object of his dislike.

  "Is something wrong?"

  "I do not know yet. Perhaps."

  "Can I go with you?"

  "No. Remain here."

  Liall threw on a woolen coat and slid his hands into a pair of fur-lined gloves. The weather had turned steadily colder day after day, until now they huddled in the cabin most days, conserving body heat and talking about this or that, playing dice, or inventing word games and riddles to stave off boredom. Scarlet had told him so many tales about his family and of the people of erstwhile Lysia that Liall now believed he had known each and every one of them individually. He was a little surprised that his young companion proved to be such an adept storyteller. When asked, Scarlet would only reply that he inherited the talent from his mother. For Liall's part, he did his best to remember the books he had read in childhood. Those were the tales he told, more charming and neat than Scarlet's stories of Lysia, but infinitely less frank. When he ran out of books, he told Scarlet of his years with the Kasiri tribes, and the splendor of the kingdom of Minh, the exotic provinces of Khet, and of the Wasted Lands that lay far to the west, beyond the reach of all civilization. He was sure Scarlet did not believe most of it, especially the tales about Minh, which were stranger than fiction, yet he enjoyed them immensely.

  "It sounds very odd,” Scarlet would say for the tenth time. And then, once: “My brother Gerda is in Minh, among all those splendors and strange wonders. I wonder if he'd think me as odd as I'd think him?"

  In moments of boredom, Liall would consider ruefully that they could have been entertaining themselves in other ways, more pleasurable and heady ones, but that open door led to a dozen others, each thornier and harder to breach than the last, so he let it be. It was enough for now that they had found some middle ground with each other. There were certain compensations: when they bedded down at night in the single cabin bunk, Scarlet lay close to Liall and sometimes accidentally pillowed his head on Liall's shoulder after falling asleep. Liall might have sought to relieve his body then, seeking to quench the fires Scarlet ignited in his bones with the press of his body and the warmth and nearness of his skin, but he dared not. There were too many secrets between them, and Liall had not taken a lover—a real lover—in a very long time. His last experience with love had been catastrophic, to put it mildly.

  Liall patted Scarlet's shoulder. “Leave the door open if you wish. They won't trouble you."

  "I might trouble them,” Scarlet shot back.

  Qixa was on the quarterdeck, his breath steaming in the frigid gray dawn. He did not need to ask Qixa what he wanted. The schooner was on the leeward side in the near distance, still far enough away yet, but she was faster than the larger, heavily-laden brigantine and her gaff sails were trimmed for speed. Obviously, she was trying to catch the brigantine. Liall observed the red and yellow flag she flew at high mast.

  "Arbyss colors,” Qixa said, not believing it a bit.

  Neither did Liall. “Not at full sail this far north. What are they hurrying to, an iceberg?” There was no trade in the winter with Rshan, and that was the only land that lay on this course. Besides, the schooner moved too swiftly even for full sail. Her holds were empty. Liall surveyed her lines. “No cannon,” he stated. “It could be worse."

  Liall knew they were in deep trouble. So, apparently, did Qixa. The captain turned and barked orders at Oleksei: secure belowdecks, douse all fires, break out the weapons. Qixa gave Liall a look that spoke much.

  "Not my doing, ap kyning. You can believe it."

  "I do. This is Faal's work coming home to roost, I suspect. That schooner is not after our cargo."

  There was no other sense in the schooner's pursuit: she could not carry away a fifth of their holds, laden with wood and oil and spice and furs, and there was better piracy in warmer waters without the hazards of ice and wind and a well-armed crew of giant Northmen. The Rshani brigantine was altogether too much trouble for mere pirates. No, the cargo they wanted was roughly man-sized and white-haired. Liall did not know for certain who wanted to prevent him from reaching Rshan, but he had a good idea. Now, he resolutely turned his thoughts away from Rshan and to the present. There was to be a battle. Once more, he fiercely regretted last night's wine.

  Liall returned to the cabin and found Scarlet seated on the floor mending his boot. Scarlet looked at Liall's face and rose immediately.

  "What? What's wrong?"

  Liall put his hands on Scarlet's shoulders. “Now, you must listen to me, and do as I say. In a while, perhaps less than an hour, you will hear some noise from topside. I want you to bolt the door and be quiet.” Scarlet's own Morturii knives were on the bunk. Liall took one up and slid it from its sheath, putting the hilt in Scarlet's hand.
“If anyone tries to force their way in, kill them."

  Scarlet looked at the edge of the dark, eerily beautiful knife and then at him. “What's happening?"

  "What always happens with men like me. You would have been safer going into the Wasted Lands than following me, little one."

  Scarlet seized his arm when Liall would have left quickly. Liall could not look at Scarlet. He was too sick at the thought of what would happen to the pedlar if the crew were not strong enough, if they did not prevail and drive their pursuers back or burn them into the cold sea. He could see the scenario unfolding in his mind's eye: the crew dead, himself fallen or taken, and the bloody raiders finally discovering the bolted cabin and its lone inhabitant.

  Beauty, like gold, is coveted everywhere, and being male had never guaranteed Scarlet's safety from certain kinds of assault. There would be the inevitable joking and leers. They would take their time, no longer being in haste, and they would have him as they willed. Liall quailed to think of it, he who had seen so much of blood and death, but the thought of what they would do to Scarlet's flesh made him weak.

  It was then, after months of denial, that Liall began to realize he no longer had a choice in whether or not he loved Scarlet. Fear welled up in his chest and he pushed it back savagely. He had loved once and men had died for it. Many futures had been lost, his own among them. He would not make the same mistake again only to watch his world fall apart. Yet, at that moment, he could not imagine any future at all that lay beyond Scarlet's death. The world seemed to drop off at that point; a far vista abruptly severed into a hopeless void.

  Liall made to go, keeping the words he wanted to say behind his teeth.

  "No,” Scarlet urged, stepping after him. “Stay here."

  "It's a small difference, but I can be of more use above."

  "Then I'm coming with you."

  "No!” Liall turned and grabbed Scarlet's shoulders, shaking him hard. “You'll do as I say!"

  Scarlet gaped at him, shocked by his sudden violence, and Liall's anger vanished. “I crave your pardon,” Liall said in shame.

  "I'm not afraid, Liall."