Voyager of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “We’re not going to make it,” Theo muttered.

  “Don’t give up,” Belinda said. “We’re getting close. There are a lot of little boats nearby, so they won’t be able to shoot us without someone noticing.”

  “We do not know if they care,” Cantara said. “Steer right.”

  Their course shifted marginally to avoid a boat, smaller than theirs but also Device-propelled, crewed by a couple of young Karitians wearing nothing but loincloths. The Karitians stared at them. Zara smiled and waved, though her mind was shrieking at her to find a solution, fast. The Karitians seemed uninterested in the pirate ship, which was now only a few hundred yards behind. They just sped away, still staring back at the northerners as if they couldn’t believe what they saw. So, no help from that quarter. “I have an idea,” Zara said.

  “Why does that sentence strike dread into my heart?” Ransom said.

  “Just keep rowing. It might not matter.”

  “We’re not going to make it,” Theo repeated.

  “There’s another boat coming after us,” Belinda said. “It’s got a Device like ours and it’s moving really fast.”

  “Nakati,” Ransom said. “Sort of…harbor police. They may be after the pirates and not us.”

  “You don’t sound certain,” Zara said.

  “That’s because it might be in our best interests to be arrested. It would get us away from the pirates.”

  “…And?”

  “They might convict us of something serious. Karitian prisons aren’t kind to foreigners. And we’re not entitled to due process.”

  “I am not happy with this,” Cantara said.

  “We have to keep rowing until one or the other catches us.” Ransom wiped his forehead again. “Prayer might be in order.”

  Belinda closed her eyes. Theo clutched his belt more closely. Zara watched first the pirates, then the rapidly approaching nakati. The pirates at the rail of the ship were readying gun Devices, stubby-nosed pistols and not rifles, thank heaven, but another few yards and they’d be close enough to fire.

  “Don’t stop rowing,” Zara said.

  She stood up in the boat, flinging out her arms for balance, then shouted in Eskandelic, “If you shoot, I’ll drop it!” She displayed the Device, holding it high over her head, then stretched out her arm so a single movement would send it plummeting into the ocean.

  “Rowena!” Arjan shouted.

  “What did she say?” Ransom said.

  “Don’t stop rowing,” Zara said again, wobbling but maintaining her balance. The pirate ship continued toward them, more slowly now as men and women on its deck began heaving to and slowing its momentum.

  The pirates at the ship’s rail looked confused. One or two of them brought their pistols to bear on her. Zara, unflinching, shouted, “This is what you want! Shoot me, and you’ll lose it forever!”

  “You’re a liar,” Ghazarian said, shoving a few men aside to stand at the rail. “I knew you had the Device.”

  “As if I’d tell the truth to you,” Zara said. “You want it, you let us go. We’ll go to the shore and I’ll leave it here in the boat.”

  “I think I don’t trust you, liar,” Ghazarian said, and raised a pistol to point directly at Zara’s head. Zara felt like laughing. I’ve already been shot through the head once, she thought. You’ll have to try harder than that to frighten me.

  “I think you don’t have a choice,” she said. “Shoot me, and it’s gone. Take my offer, and everyone gets what they want.”

  Ghazarian didn’t lower the pistol. “Rowena, this dangerous is. She will not allow us to go,” said Arjan.

  “For the love of holy heaven, will someone tell me what kind of insane deal she’s brokering?” Ransom said.

  From behind her, someone shouted at them in Karitian, short, terse syllables whose meaning Zara could guess. Ransom let out an exasperated noise and replied at length. “Put it down and you will live,” Ghazarian said.

  “I think not.” Sweat was running down Zara’s back. The Karitian was closer now, still shouting, but Zara had her back to him and didn’t have time to worry about what he might be saying.

  “Rowena, you need to sit down. That nakat is very nervous about all the weapons,” Ransom said. He sounded as if his patience was fraying. Zara carefully sat down, but kept her hand with the Device extended over the side of the boat. The Karitian spoke again, more loudly, and his words seemed aimed at Ghazarian’s ship instead of theirs. “I don’t speak your stupid language,” Ghazarian retorted.

  “That is unfortunate, I speak yours,” the Karitian said. “Remove the weapons and putting down the guns. It illegal is to bring foreign Devices into Bay of Avizi.”

  Ghazarian didn’t move. Zara didn’t take her eyes off her. Then, almost in her ear, someone fired a gun, and one of the pirates screamed and collapsed on the deck, making his neighbors recoil. “That a warning is,” said the nakat. “We do not second ones give.”

  There was another long moment in which Zara couldn’t breathe. Then Ghazarian cursed and lowered her weapon. “Personal Devices are allowed, yes?”

  “You must prove so,” said the nakat. “You will have an escort to your anchorage and an escort to the customs. Do not threaten again or we will not so friendly be.”

  Zara withdrew her hand, glaring at Ghazarian. Her heart was slowing from its rapid pace. One obstacle down, but—

  The nakat said something to Ransom, who replied at length. Zara wished she dared ask him what he was saying, but for all she knew, he was bargaining for their freedom.

  The conversation went on for a while, during which the second nakat, the woman handling the tiller of their Device, listened in silence. Zara wondered if she’d been the one to fire the gun. Both the man and the woman wore loose tunic-like shirts of linen with no sleeves and skirts of the same fabric, dyed crimson and blue so they looked like the ha-ha birds. Their black hair was cut short in the same style, and their dark brown eyes were emotionless, as if holding six people’s fates in their hands happened all the time and meant nothing to them. That might even be true.

  Finally, Ransom turned to them and said, “I’ve explained we were all going to Tammerek and have no intention of landing in Manachen. Except we have to, if we want to find passage to Tammerek. So it’s complicated.”

  Zara caught a glimpse of the female nakat watching them curiously. She was convinced the woman spoke at least some Tremontanese. “Meaning we have to go on shore, but we’re not staying, so the rules are different?”

  “Exactly. I had to make some promises. We won’t be allowed contact with anyone but an approved representative of the government. We’ll probably have to pay a fine, and it might be heavy. And—” He drew a deep breath and looked Zara in the eye. “We have to surrender Ghazarian’s pistol…and that Device.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “All right,” Zara said. She pretended not to notice the female nakat, who was still watching their exchange.

  “But—we can’t!” Belinda exclaimed.

  “Of course we can. It’s not important,” Zara said, flicking her gaze at the Karitian and willing Belinda and the others to take the hint. The last thing they needed was to suggest this Device was anything out of the ordinary.

  Ransom was nodding, slowly. “They’ll lock them up and return them to you when you’re on the transport to Tammerek,” he said. “The idea is to avoid cheap, inferior Devices polluting the market.”

  “Our Devices—” Theo began hotly.

  “Are nothing like the ones the Karitians have,” Zara said. Sweet heaven, could no one use simple reason anymore? “We don’t want to interfere, do we?” She extended the Device, and then the pistol, to the female nakat, who put them into a metal box under the bow seat of the boat and locked the box with a tarnished key she put into a pouch at her waist.

  Theo opened his mouth, then, puzzled, subsided. The male nakat brought out a grappling hook that looked like it might be a weapon itself, with heavy barbs on a
ll three points and a spike at the place where they joined, and his companion steered their boat around until he could hook it to the bow of Ransom’s boat. With a jerk, the crippled boat leveled out, and the nakat paid out line from a winch so they could be towed, gently but inexorably, into the harbor.

  When the distance was great enough between the two boats that they couldn’t be overheard, Ransom said, “Quick thinking.”

  “I don’t want them to search for an excuse to look at it closely,” Zara said in a low voice. “Am I right that the woman speaks Tremontanese?”

  “I think so. The nakati have to be at least bilingual to handle clashes between the northern savages and honest Karitian sailors.”

  “But what happens now?” Belinda exclaimed. “We don’t have any way to pay for transportation, let alone a fine!”

  “I think I can talk them down to a stern warning, especially if Ghazarian makes enough of a stink to be truly obnoxious,” Ransom said. “They might have sympathy for anyone she was pursuing, northerner or not.”

  “And I can promise Falken & Daughter will pay our fare to Goudge’s Folly,” Zara said, but she felt less confident than she sounded. Whatever had happened to the Emma Covington, the Falken cargo was certainly lost, and Mistress Falken Senior might not be thrilled at the prospect of bailing out an employee she’d never even met.

  “We don’t have to,” Theo said. “Where’s the scalpel?”

  “Theo—oh!” said Cantara as Theo scooted back so she sat between him and the nakati in their boat. He pulled off his belt and began feeling along its edges.

  “That’s not your money, Theo,” Belinda said.

  “My aunt won’t begrudge me,” he said, accepting the scalpel from Ransom and carefully cutting the threads at the inner seam. “Besides, even if she did, she doesn’t know how much money is coming to her. How much do you think they’ll ask for?”

  “Let me see what you—holy heaven, Theo, that’s at least two fortunes!” Ransom exclaimed, then glanced over his shoulder to see if the nakati had heard that. “These two stones should be more than enough. I’ll try to get away with giving them just the one, keep the second in reserve.” He tilted his palm so the diamonds caught the light, then tipped them into the pouch he wore around his neck.

  “Will the others be safe, now you’ve cut it open?” Belinda asked.

  “I think I can fold it so they won’t come out.”

  “Or I can stitch it closed,” Ransom said.

  “I wouldn’t think you’d have need of sutures,” Zara said.

  “I don’t. But I have a sewing kit.” He grinned at her embarrassment. “What, you think because I live in the jungle like a savage, I don’t have at least a few of the trappings of civilization?”

  “Do it quickly, because they’re coming up to a dock,” Theo said.

  By the time the boat came to a bobbing halt, Ransom had stitched up the belt and returned it to Theo. Zara kept a close eye on the nakati during the procedure, but neither of them looked back at all. Presumably the northern savages, being unable to go anywhere, were no threat. She climbed up the short ladder out of the boat with no assistance and then stood on wobbly legs until the ground stopped moving quite so much. Belinda, surprisingly, was able to stand on her own. It seemed like an eternity since they’d been on solid ground. “This way,” Ransom said, but Zara was already following the nakati down the wooden pier.

  She felt small, here in this harbor that was so unlike those of Kingsport or even Umberan. Even the smells were foreign: the wet wood of the pier smelled of cedar, the briny tang of the air was tinged with cinnamon and cloves, and from somewhere in the distance came the sweet scent of oranges. It would have been beautiful if she hadn’t been so tense. Karitians stared at them as they passed, though most of them seemed curious rather than antagonistic. Zara nodded politely at each one who caught her eye, but couldn’t muster a smile. She looked across the bay at misty Goudge’s Folly. Who was Goudge, and why had he or she thought a settlement in Dineh-Karit was a good idea?

  The docks were all east of the river Amgeli, which was broader even than the Kulnius and flowed lazily into the bay, defiant of the waves trying to push it back. Manachen, straddling it, looked like two cities joined by white bridges that gleamed as brightly as the river. The coast continued on the west side of the river, but rose high above the ocean in a series of sheer cliffs, atop which houses stood as if preparing to leap into the water below. The red roofs made Manachen look as if someone had swiped a giant paintbrush across the city. It was beautiful, and alien, and Zara found herself straining to see anything that might break the uniformity and make Manachen seem less forbidding.

  Between the harbor and the island, ships and tiny boats turned the bay into a vast sweep of colorful movement. The brightly painted little boats all had Devices to propel them along, and they zipped about the harbor like swarms of dragonflies. By contrast, the ships were all drab grays and browns except for the gaudy designs painted on their hulls, abstract lines and curves that almost resolved into pictures, or letters in some alien alphabet. Were they words in Karitian? Zara was beginning to regret not learning their language, though how was she to have known it might be useful someday?

  They left the pier for stony ground and turned right toward rows of narrow, bright blue buildings with those same peaked red roofs she’d seen from a distance, set on the stone as precariously as birds perched on ice, with nothing to keep them from blowing over in a stiff gale. They were laid out as regularly as a division of soldiers with red caps, standing stiffly to attention, and didn’t look as if they could hold more than a dozen people at once. Each had a single window that looked out on the harbor, and there Zara saw the only differences between them: some of the windows were open to catch the sea breezes.

  Beyond those were weather-blasted warehouses, much larger and with roofs of black tile, their doors wide open to admit the bales and crates being loaded or unloaded from wagons. They too were spaced regularly, with barely enough distance between them for a wagon to pass through. Zara could see six wagons from where she was, all of them identical, all of them pulled by whirring, wheeled brass and wood Devices rather than horses or cattle. It was unnerving, as if Manachen had been designed by a sculptor who kept using the same molds, over and over again.

  The only familiar things were the sounds: the kraaaw of the sea birds, the creak of wet and warped wood, the unintelligible distant shouts of men loading cargo onto boats or wagons. If she closed her eyes, she might be in Kingsport—except Kingsport was never this hot or muggy. Then again, if she closed her eyes she might trip and fall, so she wouldn’t be doing that.

  The male nakat went to one of the narrow buildings, one whose window was open, and climbed a few short steps to rap on a narrow door. The woman carried the metal box Alfred’s Device was locked inside. Zara kept a close eye on it without looking like she cared. One slip, and she might never see it again.

  The door opened, and an older woman in the same crimson and blue uniform poked her head out. The nakat spoke to her briefly. She glanced over Zara and the others with a total lack of interest. “Inside,” she said in Tremontanese, and they all trooped up the steps, Ransom in front and Zara at the rear. She wasn’t sure why she held back, except that she’d never regretted standing back long enough to assess a situation. Ransom could speak for all of them; she could observe, and be prepared for the worst.

  She’d been right about the holding capacity of the narrow buildings. This one had a single room inside, and if there’d been half a dozen more in their group, it would have been very crowded. The air was drier and marginally cooler inside, probably because of the cylindrical brass Device chugging away on the back wall. Other than the Device, the room held nothing but a mahogany chair with eight spindly, round legs supporting a basin for a seat and an ebony table with six equally spindly legs and a trapezoidal top. Despite its alien appearance, Zara was certain it was not a matched set. Between that, and the weathered appearance of the
unpainted walls, this struck her as a room of afterthoughts. Even the Device was corroded, though the rust made a lacework pattern that might almost have been intentional.

  The older woman sat in the basin chair and drew her legs up to sit cross-legged. It looked comfortable. “You approach Manachen without papers,” she said, “and with illegal Devices.”

  “We were going to Tammerek,” Ransom said, “and were forced off course. And the Devices are personal property, not intended for trade or sale. We meant no disrespect of your laws.”

  “Meaning is not in the law,” the woman said. “We cannot see your intentions. This is punishable in law.”

  “We understand, and beg leniency. We will not interact with the citizens of Dineh-Karit and will stay only long enough to find passage to Tammerek.”

  “Not enough. There is a fine. Twenty meshet. Each.”

  Zara saw Ransom’s back go rigid. “That is a heavy fine,” he said.

  “Heavy fine for heavy wrong.”

  “We don’t have that much.”

  Wonderful. They’d found one of the greedy hard-liners. Zara turned her attention to the nakati. The woman was impassive. The man looked uncertain. He glanced at their little group and saw Zara watching him, then lowered his eyes. Ashamed, was he? Too bad she couldn’t think of a way to use that.

  “We have some,” Ransom continued, “and if you allow us to contact our people on Tammerek, we will have the rest.”

  “Not good enough.” The woman gestured dismissively.

  “Not good enough for whom?” Zara said. Everyone turned to look at her at once. Ransom looked as if he wanted to shout at her. Well, they were about to be thrown in prison, so she couldn’t make things worse. She hoped.

  “What say you?” the woman said. She looked as if she’d just heard a cat sit up and speak Karitian.

  “I’m asking about your government. Who decides the fines?” Zara kept her posture relaxed. No sense antagonizing the woman with an aggressive stance.

  “They are by law,” the woman said. The male nakat shook his head, almost imperceptibly.