There was, at least, plenty to do. Yolenka had combed Blanchette market for the most gaudy silky fabrics she could find, and she gave lessons in Tarzine while she sewed what would evidently become her costume. Their progress varied—Dominic and Derkh managed to pick up a few words and phrases, while Féolan seemed to inhale words from the very air. Within a few days he was trying his skills out with the Tarzine crew. Dominic’s years on the coast had given him a working knowledge of sailing, and he prowled the ship, observing the differences that made the Tarzine craft superior in power and stability to anything in the Basin lands. When the weather was fine and the deck relatively free, Dominic sparred with Derkh or Féolan. They all felt rusty and were glad of the chance to sharpen their fighting edge.
Mostly, he tried to plan. Even a rudimentary plan, cobbled together from their vast lack of information, seemed better than none. His mind chewed on it through the day and into the long wakeful nights. It had to, to fend off the terrible thoughts that lay always in wait for him—thoughts of his children, their fear and loneliness and misery.
Yolenka answered all his questions patiently, but when Dominic asked her to draw him a map she shook her head and stood abruptly.
“Is not my skill. Wait here.”
It did not take her long. “Captain will see you after evening meal. Has maps of coastline, harbors, better knowledge of Turga than me. I translate.”
His debt to this exotic woman, a complete stranger, loomed suddenly immense. Dominic reached up and grasped her hand as she turned to go.
“Yolenka, I don’t know how we could have done this without you. I—”
She cut him off with a smile so brittle it hurt to see it.
“Slavers take my sister when I am ten years old, just beginning as dancer. I never see again. We take back your children. Then you thank me.”
“TURGA’S STRONGHOLD CANNOT be entered by sea,” translated Yolenka, as the captain pointed to a tightly enclosed bay at the south end of the country’s western coast. “Is guarded at mouth, impossible.” She held up a finger to forestall Dominic’s dismay.
“But children are going here—to Baskir.” The captain ran his finger north up the rugged coast, illustrated with high cliffs along much of its length. “Is stupid for Turga to go first to his own land, then to slave auction by road. No—he sail straight to Baskir. Is big harbor, big market. Many ships coming and going. We land there, is easy.”
IS EASY . IF ONLY it were true, thought Gabrielle. For one moment, as they clustered around the captain’s map, their quest had seemed a simple matter of sailing to the right place.
Well, she was happy to leave the strategizing to Dominic and the others. Gabrielle’s business was with the children. Her mind never left them, as if her constant thought could keep them safe. She saw the pain and worry behind Dominic’s nervous energy. They were her feelings too.
“Can you send your thoughts out after them, Féolan?” she asked. Elves, she knew, could touch a friend’s spirit with love or strength.
Féolan looked up from his lythra. He had been rehearsing with Yolenka—an impatient taskmaster—and was trying to fix in his head and fingers the strange melodies and rhythms she had sung for him. From the sheltered corner he and Gabrielle had found on the deck the sound floated out and hovered, stirring and mournful, between the dark water and the night’s first stars.
He shook his head sadly. “They are too far, love, and our connection too faint. I cannot find them.”
So he had tried. How she loved him for that. Pulling her shawl closer about her, she leaned against his warm back. The evening was cooling off quickly, but neither was in a hurry to exchange the open sky for the cramped lower deck, redolent as it was of unwashed bodies and the fish oil used to preserve the planking.
“Play on, then, my troubadour.” And she returned to the prayer that played over and over in her heart: Let them be safe. Let them find comfort. Let them have hope.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MATTHIEU HAD BEEN THINKING. Madeleine hadn’t said one word about it, but he knew she had heard the word too. Auction. He knew what that meant. It meant they would be sold, like horses.
When he was little, maybe, he would have imagined an auction for nice families who didn’t have children of their own. Not now. No, he would be no better than a plow horse or sheepdog, a beast existing only to work and obey. And Madeleine...It would be worse for Madeleine.
But that one word had given him an idea.
“Maddy, listen. I think we should try to get that guy back, the one who speaks Krylaise, and tell him who we are.”
Madeleine was bent over with her hair tumbled forward, scratching the back of her scalp with both hands. It brought only temporary relief from the tiny, bloodsucking lice that infested all of them, but the sensation was glorious while it lasted. She flipped the dirty curls back and sat on her hands before they moved on to claw at her wrists and ankles.
“Why?” she asked dully. “What difference will it make?” She was different since that man had spoken to them, thought Matthieu. Sometimes it seemed like she was only half there.
“They’re going to sell us, right?” Madeleine’s eyes shifted away at his words, but her tiny reluctant nod acknowledged them. “So they’re only after money. Our parents would pay to get us back— and you too,” he added, bringing Luc into the family with a wave of his hand. “They’d pay more than anybody! So if we tell them who we are, that they can just sell us back, maybe they will!”
Her blue eyes grew round. “Oh, Matthieu, I wonder...Except they would have to bring us all the way back.”
“So we promise them even more money!”
Madeline nodded, slowly. “I can’t see any reason not to try.” She flashed him a smile, his old Maddy back, hope kindling her features. Then she grew serious and lowered her voice. “There’s another thing. We don’t want the pirates to know they may be trying to follow us. Don’t say anything about that.”
“The rescue” had become a little fiction they were careful to keep alive, though neither had mentioned it in days. It was the storm, Matthieu thought, that had put an end to any real hope. Clinging to Madeleine in the dark as the ship plunged and lurched and spray cascaded down the hatch, he had begun to grasp the vastness of the ocean and the invisibility of their passage. There was nothing for his father, or the best tracker in the world, to follow.
Luc broke in. “Your family must be some rich if they could buy you back.” He was eyeing them queerly, as though they had turned into strangers.
“My father will be king of Verdeau,” Matthieu announced. It was not a boast, exactly, but he could not keep the pride from his voice. Luc would be impressed, even if the Tarzines were not.
But he had not intended to make his new friend grovel. Luc’s face became the picture of dismay. Then he dropped his head nearly to his waist, his fist clamped to the rough forelock that hung over his eyes.
“Beggin’ yer pardon,” he muttered. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have made so free with ye—”
“Luc, stop.” It was Madeleine, looking as upset as Luc did. She walked over and pulled down his arm. “Please, stand up. Look at me.”
It was hard for him, but there was no evading those round blue eyes. “It was exactly right, what you said when we met. It means nothing here, being noble-born or not. And now that I’ve met you, I wish it meant nothing back home.” She took a deep breath, and her pale cheeks colored. “I’m proud to have you for a friend—Matthieu too, I’m sure.” Madeleine fixed Matthieu with the same demanding stare.
He nodded, hard. Luc had got his lip split open defending Maddy, had held Matthieu’s shoulders while he puked into that vile bucket. They were in this together.
TWO DAYS OF CLAMORING, entreating and gesticulating every time a sailor passed near finally brought the interpreter back to the children’s cell.
He listened with undisguised impatience and gave a dismissive laugh as Madeleine laid out their proposal. “Is pretty plan.
But you need very rich father to pay Turga his price, plus return trip!”
Madeleine drew herself up and spoke now with quiet emphasis. They had agreed to save this trump card for last.
“He is very rich. He is the king.”
The broad back, already turned toward them, froze. It hovered, undecided, for a second. Then the man faced Madeleine once more. His eyes narrowed as he searched her face, and she did her best to stand tall under his scrutiny.
“You lie about this, Turga makes you very sorry.”
“I do not lie. My brother here is heir to the throne.” The words startled Madeleine as she spoke them. She had never before thought of Matthieu as—well, as anything but a kid.
Another hard stare, a curt nod, and the man was striding down the gallery.
Time crawled by. Madeleine’s stomach became more and more jumpy as she weighed the possibilities: Would he dismiss their claim? Present it to Turga? Matthieu became so restless she wanted to yell at him. And then more time, a crushing silence, hope bleeding away with every passing moment until Matthieu, kicking the bulkhead with a curse, threw himself onto the platform and burst into harsh sobs. Madeleine felt her own throat close up and the hot tears spill. She cried, helplessly, into her hands.
The touch was so light, so hesitant, that she didn’t notice it at first. Luc’s hand on her shoulder, skittish as a deer. “Hush, now,” he whispered as though to a baby.
She had never needed a friend more. She leaned into his skinny chest and wept.
“MADDY, HE’S COMING!”
What passed for dinner was over, and the light from the hatch-ways had dimmed to gray when their interpreter returned.
“Turga thanks you for your offer.” The formal tone was confusing. Was it serious? A mockery? The children held their breath.
“But is no good. Here he has gold in his fist, easy, safe. There— is long trip, no guarantees and at end maybe more fighting. Not worth trouble.”
The man’s gaze sharpened on Madeleine, became somehow cold and hot at once so that she colored to the roots of her hair. The smile was tight, wolfish. “You make Turga happy. Young princess is sure to bring top price!”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IN THE DARK CONFINES of the captain’s berth, Gabrielle tossed and muttered, trapped in an evil dream.
She couldn’t breathe. A gray fog seeped over her face, oozing into her mouth. Thick wooly tendrils slid down her throat. She gagged and thrashed against them, but each smothered sucking breath pulled the dark miasma farther into her windpipe. The gray fog filled her. It was killing her.
Even in her sleep Gabrielle knew this was a True Dream. She had learned much about dreaming in her years with the Elves, learned to tell the fragmented nonsense of her mind’s fancies and fears from the powerful eye of true dreaming. She had learned to let the dream play out with a delicate awareness that did not jar her into wakefulness. But this time she could not do it. She fought against the dream, fought, as it seemed, for her life.
With a gasp and a retching cough she wrenched herself from sleep’s grasp. Shaky with the clammy horror that still clung to her, she groped for Féolan and found only the clinkered wood of the ship’s hull. Now she felt the crest and fall of the ship over the waves and remembered the narrow berth that was her bed on this journey. Only Yolenka shared the tiny cabin with her, and she slept on undisturbed.
Gabrielle considered waking her but settled for lighting the lamp. Like nearly everything else in the cabin, it was fixed in place, settled firmly into a wall bracket. It made a small wavering pool of yellow light—enough, she hoped, to chase some of the chill from her heart.
There would be no going back to sleep, not for a while. Gabrielle climbed into her berth and set her back against the curved wall. She needed to think about her dream. The gods of light and darkness knew how little she relished the prospect, but since it haunted her anyway, she might as well seek some understanding of it.
The meaning was not necessarily literal, this much she knew. The foreboding she felt, though—and she realized, now, that a growing uneasiness had been stalking her all that day—that could be trusted. The danger was real. But the danger might not be hers; dreamers often felt the dream’s message within themselves, and as a healer she was more prone than most to take on another’s pain or sorrow. The dream might be about her, or someone she knew, or a more general warning of...what?
Gabrielle shivered and pulled her blanket close about her. Again in her mind’s eye the gray fog blanketed her body.
A light knock.
“Gabrielle?”
Féolan. Silent in her bare feet, Gabrielle opened the cabin door before Féolan was sure he had been heard.
“I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Are you all right, love? I woke up thinking of you.”
More than thinking, Gabrielle guessed. If he had reached his mind out to her—and he surely had—he would have felt her panic.
“I had a terrible dream, Féolan, a True Dream.”
Yolenka stirred in her sleep, and Gabrielle pitched her voice down.
“It was so frightening, and the only sense I can make of it is that it’s something bad.”
Féolan wrapped his arms around her and held her close and still. Gabrielle let his warm, steadying strength seep into her. It was as real and certain as the rocking of the ship under her feet. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Least I can do. Do you want to talk it through or leave it till morning? They say dark dreams fare better in daylight.”
Gabrielle nodded into his chest. “Could you sit with me a while, do you think? There isn’t really any room for you, but...”
They did find a hazy sort of sleep, eventually, slumped side by side against the wall with Féolan’s legs trailing onto the floor. And that was how Yolenka found them, in the narrow shafts of light that brought morning to the captain’s cabin.
“Good day, little lovebirds! Time to wake up your eyes!”
The voice was amused, brash and worlds away from any dark dream. Gabrielle opened her eyes to a wide knowing grin.
“Is good you are healer. You are two pained necks and twisted-up backs today, yes?”
SOMETHING WAS WRONG With Luc.
Turga’s rejection of their offer had been devastating, yet Madeleine did not sink back into the dull despair that had sucked at her when she first realized their fate. They had made a good try, something with a real chance of success. If one was possible, why not another? And if the children had been able to think up a worthwhile plan, who was to say their father could not do so as well? It was a slim enough hope, but Madeleine was determined to keep hold of it.
Luc, though, became tense and silent. They had come to rely on the older boy, Madeleine realized; his sturdy friendship helped them cope with everything from seasickness to runaway fear. But that night he did not speak a word or even look at them. He paced and scratched until bedtime, and then twitched and muttered through the long black hours. Madeleine awoke in the morning—what passed for morning in the shadowy hold—to find Luc sitting propped against the bulkhead with his arms wrapped round his knees, his face set, eyes starey and wild.
“Luc, what is it?” She wondered if he would answer, or even hear her.
“I won’t be any man’s slave!” The words burst out of him, hot and emphatic. He shook his head, underlining his refusal. “I can work hard; it ain’t that. I been on my pa’s boat since I could pull up a crab trap. But to be owned like a dog, beaten or fed at another man’s say-so...no. No, I’d rather be dead.”
“But, Luc—” Madeleine closed her mouth. He didn’t need her to point out that they weren’t being offered a choice.
“I’m going to escape, Maddy.” He leaned forward, serious and intent. “Soon as we land, first chance I get, I’m taking off.”
“I am too!” Matthieu was sitting up, hair tousled from his blankets, face shining with enthusiasm.
“Good,” Luc agreed. “We should all three go toget
her. It will take them more by surprise, and there’s a better chance of at least one getting away.”
Madeleine looked at Matthieu’s eager features, and her heart sank. Luc’s talk made Matthieu feel courageous and strong, and that was better than helplessness, she knew that. But she knew too that their brave escape plans would soon butt up against reality. And reality was this: If, by some remote miracle, they managed to get away from Turga’s army of pirates without being killed or recaptured, they would be lost in a foreign land, with no idea where to go and no way to speak to a soul. They might as well plan to sprout wings and fly.
THE LAST TRACES of daylight lent a sheen to the waters of Baskir harbor as the ship eased slowly toward the wharf. Turga took no pleasure in the golden evening. He far preferred to make harbor before midday, with time to unload his cargo and get it safely stored and under guard before his crew got their pay and shore leave. He was not about to unload a ship in the dark; it was far too difficult to track the goods, too tempting for the men to pilfer as they worked. And he knew the limits of leadership better than to try to keep the men on board through the night after two months at sea.
No, the cargo would have to stay on board, with a few hand-picked and well-paid men to guard it. The others would tumble off the ship and into the town, hungry for drink and food and women, and be in poor shape for work on the morrow.
There would be no drunken revels for Turga nor women either, until they reached his stronghold. A man did not stay warlord long by dropping his trousers in a rival’s territory. Grindor grew rich off Baskir’s trade and would not discourage visiting merchants by indulging in outright robbery—but what happened in the streets at night was another matter.
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