King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  “No. All our little matters were just that: little matters. Though we thought ’em life and—” He grimaced.

  “Yes?”

  “Mmm. I was going to say that at least they didn’t touch others’ lives, but even that turned out not to be true.” They were silent as they climbed into bed, and then she heard him say softly, “Oh, Tanrid.” Shortly followed by the compressed, shuddering breath of grief.

  She slid her arms around him and held him until at last, at last, he slid into sleep.

  Chapter Seven

  INDA’S former fleet drifted into Parayid Harbor on the tidal flood, stripped to fighting sail, armed crew hidden along the rails.

  Fox, at the helm of the middle ship, the knife-lean, black-sided trysail Death, knew very well how sinister they must look from the harbor. He did not order signal flags raised. No one would believe them anyway. They drifted in slowly.

  Nobody wanted a fight, but the last time any of them had seen Parayid, just after they’d defeated Marshig’s pirate federation, the Brotherhood of Blood, Inda’s fleet had been mostly driven off by people fearful that the victors would be as merciless as the Brotherhood had been.

  Fox Montredavan-An had begun his command by thrashing anyone who started a sentence with But Inda always did it this way, or Inda always says.

  He had two claims to that command. First, Inda had handed the fleet off to him, before the eyes of all. Second, he could wipe the foredeck with anyone in the fleet in hand-to-hand fighting—including Inda.

  Otherwise, instinct had prompted him to avoid having to explain himself over and over to a fleet made up of independents, privateers, and even outright pirates, most of whom had joined to follow Inda because he always won, and not because they shared Inda’s ideal of dispensing rough justice against pirates.

  So Fox had kept control, but that didn’t mean they were his crew. At most they were Inda’s crew, prudently (or sullenly) putting up with him until either Inda popped up again on Parayid’s long dock or until someone organized a mutiny, whichever happened first.

  What Fox needed, he knew, was a battle—and victory.

  But not against these locals, he thought as he steered the trysail in under a lowering sky, flanked by his two capital ships, Dasta’s Cocodu and Eflis’ magnificent schooner Sable gliding on either side of the Death.

  The harbormaster’s tower, half rebuilt, sent up flags. Fox could just make out the yellow over black-and-red, meaning: Warning! We regard you as pirates, and below that, the green-striped flag for Anchor in the road.

  Pilvig, fifteen, and on duty as flag mid, bounced lightly on her toes, anxiously watching Fox. She knew every single glass in the harbor was on them. On her.

  “You can answer,” Fox said lazily, hands loose on the helm. “Will comply. Parley and supplies.”

  He also knew every glass was trained on them, but that he, not the girl, was the focus.

  He snapped out his glass and gave the harbor one quick sweep; the dozen or so big fishers upwind had people on them, but they were not about to launch out against the tide.

  So he said, “Anchor.”

  Fibi the Delf, his sail captain, yelled in her unlovely squawk, “Flash!”

  The sails thundered briefly, the wind spilled, then came smoothly to rest; the fight teams along the rail straightened up, still holding their weapons.

  From the long dock a single small boat tacked bravely against the choppy sea, two lanky young men pulling hard, and what appeared to be a skinny lad leaning out, tending the sail one-handed.

  As the boat fought its way toward the Death, the harbor’s denizens slowly appeared, lining the dock and the quay, even crowding into small boats. These stayed close to shore, glasses leveled steadily on Fox’s fleet.

  A wash of rain on a strong offshore gust of wind skimmed the boat closer, and the lad’s awkwardness was explained: he had only one arm, and further, he was not a lad, but a lanky girl with a head full of unruly butter-colored curls.

  A high, shrill screech made him wince.

  That was Pilvig, the flag mid. “Nug-get!”

  “Pil-vig!” Nugget shrilled from the water, bouncing up and down so hard she almost capsized the boat.

  There were snorts of laughter, which caused Nugget, once one of Inda’s crew, to grin and preen a little. As the boat thumped alongside on the choppy waves, she called up to Fox, “Some of Marshig’s pirates just left day before yesterday. Are you here to chase them?”

  The rain lifted briefly as a row of supply boats slid down Parayid Harbor’s ebb tide to the pirate ships alone at their anchorage. Three times fishing smacks returning to shore appeared on the horizon, took one look then sheered off, vanishing beyond the land rise to the north. No one wanted to risk the harbor, not with those infamous and sinister ships brooding in the middle of the bay.

  Pilvig and Nugget sat side by side in the mids’ bunk area in the Death’s narrow forepeak, the hull slanting sharply in overhead.

  They had just finished a delicious hot meal, cooked by Lorm, who’d been a chef in Sarendan before he was forced aboard a pirate ship.

  “I missed his cooking. Mmmm.” Nugget licked her fingers.

  “We haven’t eaten that good for ages,” Pilvig said. “We didn’t dare stop for any supplies. Venn were after us, and then we were passing by the Marlovan land. Where they let Inda off.”

  Nugget’s thin face pinched up. “Inda gone? Where did he go?”

  Pilvig sat back on her elbows, the expression in her round, flat-cheeked Chwahir features difficult to make out in the guttering light of their swinging candle-stub. “Dunno, really.” She jerked one shoulder up. “Something about the Venn attacking the Marlovans. When anyone mentions either Venn or Marlovans, tempers get hot and I stay out of the way.”

  The two girls brooded, Nugget remembering how much fun they’d had in the two weeks they’d sailed the Land Bridge before the Brotherhood attack. They’d talked all day and all night, Nugget showing Pilvig everything, introducing everyone. Offering to teach her Inda’s fighting. Those pirates won’t have a chance, she remembered saying right before the battle, when Pilvig’s already pale face had gone chalky.

  But it wasn’t Pilvig who’d nearly died, and Pilvig had spent the two years since with Inda and the crew. Now Pil vig knew everybody better than Nugget did. Nugget didn’t even know who captained that big schooner except that the captain was a tall, handsome woman with fair hair.

  “I was stupid,” Nugget admitted, and saw in Pilvig’s black eyes no comforting denial, but a silent agreement.

  Nugget flushed, but couldn’t get mad. For months she’d had nightmares about the pirate who’d almost killed her, laughing the while. Stabbing her and then laughing while she shrieked and begged for her life as she tried to protect her half-severed arm. Torture had been sport to him.

  She was only alive because the fighting had shifted, and somebody stabbed the pirate in the back. He fell dead across her, and she’d had just enough wit and awareness to lie still and pretend to also be dead.

  “Did any of our other rats get it?” she asked.

  Inda had been firm about the ship rats under sixteen staying out of the main fight, remaining under Jeje’s command in the support boats. They’d had a real job—attacking pirate sail crew with arrows, so they’d have trouble guiding their ships—but Nugget had not thought that exciting and heroic enough.

  She’d gone into the battle thinking it sport, but not because she liked killing. She’d just wanted to be a hero. She wanted people to admire her. She’d never believed that she was in any danger, because even if others got massacred, heroes never did.

  “No,” Pilvig said. “We all made it. Except you.”

  “Because I went with Tau, but we got separated. The Iascan fishers who saved me said he was alive. They said a golden-haired pirate threw money onto the beach and yelled something, as if gold coins could be traded anywhere. Anyway, the fellow they described had to be Tau.”

  “Jeje ordere
d us to stay on the scouts. So I did.” Pilvig jerked her shoulder again. Her life on the sea had begun as a ship’s girl aboard a merchant. Sharl the Brainsmasher took the ship, killed most of the crew, keeping her because he’d killed his last cabin rat in a fit of anger and he needed a new one. She’d had to learn fast that when he sat in this chair, he wanted food. If he sat in that one, he wanted his charts. If he smashed his fist on the table, he wanted a messenger. Or his latest favorite. If Pilvig wasn’t right there, no matter what time of day or night, and fetching whatever he wanted, he beat her.

  Then, when that mysterious Ramis of the Knife killed Sharl and his worst mates, the locals had killed most of the rest of the pirates but left her alone because she was young, and promised she’d not joined Sharl of her own will. They’d spared her life, but never trusted her.

  Nugget’s showing off had been a pleasure compared to life under Sharl, and the begrudged existence in the Pirate Island orphanage. Pilvig said, “It’s past. You’ll know better. Come with us.”

  “I don’t know if I can fight,” Nugget admitted, her voice going high, and hot tears burned down her cheeks.

  Pilvig chewed her lip. “You don’t mean with one arm. You mean at all.”

  Nugget ducked her head, gulping on a sob.

  In Chwahirsland you never admitted to cowardice. Nugget’s soft words, her muffled sobs made Pilvig’s arms tingle with some complex emotion she could not define—something between pity and warning.

  She set aside her wooden mess plate and put her arms around Nugget, hugging her tight. There weren’t any words that seemed right.

  Nugget sobbed, sniffed, then leaned against Pilvig. “They kept me alive, but they didn’t want me. Didn’t trust me. Called me Pirate Girl. Counted the spoons after I left a room, and wouldn’t let me go ashore because they said I wanted to signal pirates! All I wanted was to light a candle and sing the ‘Leahan Anaer.’ For you, and Inda, and Jeje, and the rest. Because I thought you were lost, going to Ghost Island and you’d sail forever as ghosts.”

  Pilvig gnawed the inside of her cheek. Ship-to-ship battle could be bad. Well, she’d seen it. But everyone was afraid of sailing into the deeps and never being found. The old lament “Leahan Anaer”—“the ship without sails”—was reserved for mates who’d sailed away never to return.

  Nugget gave a short sigh. “They said all I was good for was sheep tending.” She gulped. “If Inda was here, I’d go. I think he’d understand. But that Fox?”

  “Some—the ones who came on since we left the east—like him better than Inda,” Pilvig said. “They say he looks like a commander. They thought Inda was crazy. Because he would yell in his nightmares.”

  “He did? Why?”

  “Well, we don’t know. But we do know he got caught by the Venn and Fox rescued him. Jug was on one of the schooners when it happened.”

  Jug was their age, so he was to be believed.

  A quick rap outside the cabin, and Mutt stuck his face in. He looked taller and older than Nugget—seventeen or eighteen, almost grown up.

  “How’s that arm?” he asked, pointing to her empty sleeve tucked in her sash. She hated the thought of sewing the sleeve close to the stump; she wanted two sleeves, even if she couldn’t have two arms.

  “It’s all right. But I feel it in cold.”

  “Was it disgusting, when they took it off?”

  “Wasn’t awake.” Nugget made a face, and the others twitched, Mutt rubbing his shoulder. “Just as glad,” she added, and no one gainsaid her.

  “So, ye comin’ back aboard us?” he asked, his ruby glinting against his bony jaw.

  Oh, it was so good to hear Dock Talk again!

  But the joy was followed by another wave of anguish. Nugget sent a keep-silent look at Pilvig, who returned a I-don’t-blab chin lift, and Nugget sat up, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Nugget had had to get rid of her own ruby when she was among the lands-people, but they’d called her Pirate Girl anyway.

  She fingered her ear, wondering if the hole had grown shut; she’d tugged her curls down to hide her ears. “Can I get another ruby?” she asked, feeling her way.

  Mutt laughed. “Course! But right now, Fox is finally done with them harbor folk, and he sent me to fetch you. He wants to hear more about this pirate.”

  Nugget scrambled up. “Don’t know much, only that she comes from Khanerenth. Just like me. There’s rumor she was sister to the old king, before he got turfed.”

  Mutt whistled.

  “They took the island where I was staying. The fisher people got all of us young ones over here to the harbor last year, but they took a lot of other people hostage. They’d kill them one by one if they didn’t get what they wanted. The pirates stayed on the island a whole year—it was horrible—but they left as soon as a report came that the Land Bridge ice broke. The rumor was, there’s some Marlovan Jarl, Fera-Vayir, who was raising a big army to come down and attack them soon’s the snow cleared.”

  Mutt said, “What have they got?”

  “About sixteen schooners, a few capital ships. I never saw them.”

  “That it?” Mutt asked.

  Nugget nodded. “Fox’s going after the pirate?”

  Mutt grinned, his ruby sparking against his lean cheek. “He says we need the practice.” His smile faded. “Are you coming with us?”

  Pilvig scrambled over to sit next to her. Her black eyes were anxious under her broad, puckered brow.

  Nugget glanced down at her arm, then up, uncertain.

  “We’ve got two single-armers,” Mutt said coaxingly. “Well, one’s missing a hand, not an arm, but still. They fight good, and Sock isn’t any bigger’n you.” He added in a mumble, “Your brother misses you. We miss you.”

  Nugget drew in a deep breath. The salt water, the rocking of the ship, her old friends—so much older now—the two years on land, learning all about wool, seemed part of a long strange dream that had begun as a nightmare.

  She glared at her damp palm and shaking fingers. Fear, well, that happened anywhere. Fighting? She could think about it later.

  The feeling that she couldn’t get over—didn’t want to get over—that felt like wine inside, like the first time you hear a wonderful song, was belonging.

  “Let’s go talk to Fox,” she said.

  Chapter Eight

  THE sounds and smells of home reached down into childhood habit and woke Inda before dawn. He had a slight headache, but carried his clothes down to the baths at the lowest level of the castle. He splashed about, enjoying a Marlovan bath again, though it seemed to smell more dank than he remembered his home being. Maybe it was just this castle.

  When he emerged, the familiar cadenced sounds of drill drew him out to the enormous courtyard between the stable against the castle walls and the long line of the Marlo-Vayirs’ castle.

  There he found Buck and the other two in the front line as the Marlo-Vayir riders performed morning drill under the steady rain. Inda was stiff from the days of riding after so much time away from horses, and his head still ached from the combination of rye cider and powerful emotions.

  Glad for a chance to stretch, he took a position at the back. As he worked through the drills, remembering old patterns from childhood, he wondered why they seemed so slow, the combinations clumsy. He recognized that the drills all benefited the man on horseback, slashing with the curve-tipped sword. The close-in work, he saw with experienced eyes, was intended mostly for finishing off an enemy, not for foot engagement.

  At the end he followed Cherry-Stripe and Cama inside to the roaring fire, where hot steeped leaf was waiting.

  The old arms master who’d led the drill stopped Buck. “That one in the vest. That’s the Algara-Vayir laef?”

  Buck opened his hand. “So?”

  The arms master rubbed his jaw. “From the look o’ him, he ought to be runnin’ drill.”

  Buck whistled softly. “What, was he strutting back there?”

  A shake of a grizzled head. “No. Hel
d himself back, all proper. But the others move heavy, he moves like an arrow through the air, especially with the knife, and the other hand, too. You get him to run us once, if he stays, we all learn something.”

  Buck grunted, remembering what Inda had said about the Venn coming in summer. We’d better learn everything we can. Winter was barely over. Surely one day wouldn’t make a difference. “I’ll do that.” He walked in, absently wringing the rain from his hair, mentally rehearsing what to say.

  Upstairs, Signi woke at the sounds of steel clashing, and found herself alone. Alone in a huge room. She rose and performed a full visan varec—the strenuous set of stretches and exercises the hel dancers of the Venn performed each day. She’d not been able to do the complete routine for many days, confined as she’d been on the little scout ship Vixen, and then in the small chambers shared with Inda whom she might disturb. As yet she had never let anyone see her do the exercises, nor had she danced; now she could no longer bear to hide her first self away, and so, accompanied by the sound of the rain, she danced out the complicated emotions of the last weeks.

  Her muscles were warm, smoothed of the knots of passion, anger, regret, and grief, her blood flowed with the quiet of contentment when she had finished, leaving her mind clear. She bathed and made her way to the dining room, where she was relieved to find that Tau and Jeje had arrived ahead of her. Despite the rain the windows were all wide open. Everything here smelled of horse, grass, and wildflowers.

  When the yellow-haired Jarl appeared in the doorway to join them for breakfast, the man with him looked at first like another tough Marlovan rider. Then Tau, Jeje, and Signi saw the ruby earrings and recognized familiar brown eyes. It was with difficulty that their minds inscribed a palimpsest of their Inda over this strange warrior. His sun-streaked brown hair, usually escaping in curls from his neglected sailor’s queue, had been pulled up tight into a horsetail, which emphasized the hard bones of his face.

  He wore one of those fitted coats of severe lines that splendidly graced shoulders and chest, but it seemed to separate him into another identity—except for the sight of those earrings, which Tau and Jeje knew were emblems of the terrible cost he’d paid as a commander fighting pirates.