King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  She had spent the night at Chim’s, as the weather had turned too rough for rowing out into the harbor. Then there was the matter of the King’s Guard having the entire harbor locked down. Chim sent word to a couple of his more trusty watermen to be standing by when Jeje reached the first perimeter.

  “Who are you? Where are you going?” the sentry captain asked.

  “I want to hire a boat.” Jeje poked a thumb toward the hire craft floating at the dock. “Get back on board.”

  “On board what?”

  “My ship.”

  “Which would be?”

  She hesitated. By now she was surrounded. In the lantern light, naked swords gleamed. Not the time to be mouthy. “My ship’s out there on the water—”

  “Look at this,” one interrupted, pointing under the terrible hat, where her ruby glittered in the lantern light. “She’s gotta be the pirate Jeje. I think you better get the Commander.”

  “I’m not a pirate.” At the various shufflings, shiftings, and snortings of disbelief, Jeje sighed. “Look, no one wants any trouble. I just want to get back on deck. Princess Kliessin already interviewed me yesterday,” she added.

  The mention of the princess caused more looks and shuffles, then someone sent someone else loping off into the darkness as the warriors closed in around her, standing within sword length.

  They stood like that, no one talking (Jeje wondering if she’d start a war if she asked the one who’d been eating fried onions not to stand on her toes), until the approach of running feet broke the circle. A tall, strong man with grizzled hair marched up. This just had to be the watch commander.

  “You belong to yon pirate?” he asked.

  “Yes.” That was simplest. “I’ve been acting as envoy,” Jeje said. “Saw the princess yesterday. Now I’m supposed to report back.” She jerked her mittened thumb toward the Death.

  Heads snapped seaward, then back. Another day she’d remember that and laugh. Now she just stood there, jaw jutted, feet planted, arms crossed, mittened hands gripping her knife hilts.

  “Send her.” The commander waved, his attitude adding good riddance.

  Chim’s watermen appeared as if by magic, and Jeje, recognizing them, said loudly, “Got a boat I can hire?”

  “Right at the dock,” was the answer, hint hint, wink wink.

  The commander rolled his eyes at this lumbering attempt at covert communication. If these people were sophisticated international spies, he was a Venn. “Row her out, and you’ll report back to me before you run off to Chim,” he added grimly, causing the would-be secret emis saries to deflate a little.

  On board the Death, Fox had posted sharp eyes at the mastheads, watching the coast as steadily as it watched him. He’d expected someone to row out and demand his business; the long wait made him wonder what was going on inside the city. He was considering whom to send when, at last, a boat set out from the main dock, lanterns aswing at every heave of the oars.

  “I think that’s Jeje,” Mutt yelled, his voice cracking. He was acting as lookout, and as captain of the foremast bow team. And then a triumphant aside to one of his cronies on the mizzen-mast, “Nugget’s gonna be fried she wasn’t here t’see her first.”

  “She’s too busy showing off for Cap’n Eflis,” came the hoarse reply.

  Mutt scowled into the darkness.

  Below, Fox was quite able to hear the sotto voce conversation going on over his head, but the time for absolute silence had passed. And Mutt of course had known that very well.

  So Fox snapped out his glass, satisfied himself that this was indeed Jeje on her way through the night-black, icy waters. He said, “Signal the captains of Cocodu and Rapier.”

  Then he returned to his cabin for the first time since dawn, and sat down at the desk. Two movements were habitual: with one hand he reached for the desk drawer containing the gilt-edged black book, and with the other he touched the golden case. When his fingers tingled on contact with the gold, he shoved the drawer shut again. After months without any message, it seemed Inda had remembered someone besides his damned Montrei-Vayirs.

  Fox, what are you doing in Bren?

  Fox eyed the large, scrawling letters. Of course it could be Inda’s fingers were almost as numb as Fox’s were now, but Fox read anger in those sloppy letters, and laughed. “I don’t yet know, but you’re not going to find that out,” he said aloud.

  Inda deserved to sweat. How stupid he was, to even consider throwing away ten generations of pirate treasure on those fool Montrei-Vayirs, whose own stupidity had run the kingdom aground in the first place.

  Fox warmed his fingers over a candle, dashed off an answer, and tossed the golden case back onto the desk as Jeje’s boat thumped up against the hull. On deck he discovered the older crewmates surrounding Jeje, some pounding her on the back, everyone talking at once.

  Well aware of the spyglasses trained on them from the shore, Fox flicked a drifting snowflake from his arm and said, “Come into the cabin.” And as soon as the door was shut, “Why did you leave Inda?”

  “To find Tau’s mother.” Jeje glared around the cabin. Looking for signs of Inda, perhaps? No, Inda had never left any signs of habitation anywhere he’d lived, and she’d know that. Disapproving of the row of books on the carved shelf? The golden Colendi gondola-lamps, or the astonishing silk wall hanging of raptors taking flight in the pale shades of dawn? All legitimate pirate loot.

  Jeje eyed Fox’s smile as he dropped onto his chair and propped a booted foot on the edge of the table. A knife hilt gleamed in the boot top, winking with golden highlights as the beautiful lamp swung forward, back.

  “Well?” she said finally. “I’m waiting for your usual nasty remark about Tau. Or his mother.”

  “Don’t tell me,” he said derisively. “She’s a long-lost princess.”

  Jeje almost laughed out loud. Fox was interested. Despite himself. She thought about what she’d discovered, and decided he’d have to ask. “No. That is, long-lost yes, princess, no. So where’s Vixen, and who’s in charge?”

  “Right now, Nugget—”

  “She’s alive?”

  “Showed up in Parayid. All but one arm. Instead, you might say, she’d armed herself with the conviction she was now everyone’s responsibility to protect and defend.” His smile turned nasty. “I’ve been thrashing that out of her since summer. Now she’s teaching herself to move around the rigging, either to impress Eflis, or to show me up. Maybe both.”

  From outside boat calls:

  “Boats, hai!”

  “Cocodu!”

  “Rapier!”

  Dasta and Gillor had arrived from their ships.

  Jeje turned her attention back to Fox. “She’s playing in the rigging on Vixen?”

  “No. Maybe. After she and two loudmouths rerig the scout, and finish with some sail shifting practice.” A snort of laughter. “She’ll be back in time for dawn drill. It’s for backchat on deck. We had a little brush with some of Boruin’s former friends just off her old lair east of Danai, and Nugget acquitted herself so well she’s got lippy.” Fox shook with silent laughter as he glanced over his shoulder.

  Jeje grinned. Good for you, Nugget. She hopped to the stern window and peered through the drifts of fog. The Vixen was only a faint silhouette, just emerging from the island’s lee side, sails shifting with commendable speed. It would be a while before it tacked across the harbor.

  Jeje fought off the strong surge of longing to see her scout again, and drew in a grateful breath of brine air, loving even the tangs of wood-mold and slushy ice and a trace of hemp. No better smell in all the world.

  The cabin door banged open and there were Dasta and Gillor, looking tough and weathered. I wonder if I look land-soft to them, she thought, then leaped up, laughing, to find herself squeezed in a rib-creaking hug by Dasta, and then by Gillor. Laughing questions—half-answers—a sudden, sharp, “Where’s Tcholan?” to be reassured by, “He’s in command of the blockade—guarding one end, and Ef
lis at the other. Even a floating plank won’t get past those two.”

  Fox cut through the chatter. “Jeje was in the middle of her report when you interrupted. Do continue, whenever they will let you.”

  Gillor snorted and dropped onto the bench, Dasta preferring to lean against a bulkhead where he could see everyone.

  Jeje smacked her hands together. “So good to be back! I hate land.”

  Dasta ducked his head, making a sympathetic gesture. “But you went to help Inda.”

  “She went,” Fox drawled, “to discover Taumad’s mysterious heritage. And seems to have found his mother. Behold my curiosity.”

  Gillor snorted even louder, though Dasta thought, I’ll wager anything that for once he’s telling the truth.

  Gillor said to Jeje, “Was it true pirates got her?”

  “One of Marshig’s gang was holding Parayid. Got bored waiting for battle. Wanted to burn the town down for fun. She offered to trade herself for leaving the town be. Which is why Parayid was only partially destroyed, unlike some of the other harbors.”

  Dasta looked disgusted. “So she’s now a Coco?”

  Fox’s brows rose in satirical question.

  “Not her! That is, she agreed to be the captain’s favorite, but just for a while. She hated the captain’s habits of carving up crewmembers who’d made him mad. She asked him not to. When he wouldn’t stop, she organized a mutiny. Wasn’t hard, she said.”

  Gillor whooped for joy. “So she’s a pirate captain? Why didn’t we hear about her?”

  “Because she isn’t any more.”