‘Stay awake, Hoyt,’ Hannah shouted, then to Milla said, ‘come on, Pepperweed. We’ve got to hurry.’
Captain Ford drank his third beer. It wasn’t enough to get him drunk but it would soften up his corners a bit. He never got drunk before going to sleep; he needed to be able to get on deck in a hurry should the overnight watch cry out. He skewered a piece of Tubbs’s jemma, simple but hearty fare, and with the schools running south, there were plenty for the taking. He never tired of watching the old sailor heave his ancient net over the rail. Tubbs would never allow anyone to help him, and sometimes he had a hard job of it to keep from being dragged overboard.
Save for two lamps the captain’s cabin was dark. The Morning Star, riding the heavy, rhythmic swells towards Averil, rocked gently. Other than when he was at the helm, this was Captain Ford’s favourite time at sea.
He thought of Kendra, back home, and wanted very badly to be with her. She wouldn’t mind if he came into Southport with an empty hold; she knew the run from Strandson to Orindale had been a gamble, but she also knew that he had to take it. They had plenty of money to see them through the winter Twinmoon, even without an inbound shipment, but Captain Ford had his crew to think of. He needed to keep them working, earning enough that they wouldn’t need to consider leaving the Morning Star for a bigger, more lucrative boat. He was happy with the brig-sloop; she was not the biggest of ships, but she was quick. His crew knew their jobs, got on well with one another, and were invariably ready for the next run. He was lucky; there wasn’t much turnover of manpower on the Morning Star, so he rarely had to worry about new people getting used to the culture established over time and adventures together.
But this journey had put all of that in jeopardy. He had put everything in harm’s way – his lifestyle, his crew, his ship, everything – for a bag of silver, and he felt sick to the stomach about it. He regretted ever letting Brexan talk him into delaying his Orindale contracts for this ‘daisy-run’ into Averil – daisy-run? He was shipping sorcerers, partisans, killers to Malakasia. What would Eastland partisans want with Averil? Were they planning to burn the city down? Poison the flour shipments, maybe sink a few galleons? Who knew what these people were capable of? He propped his elbows on the table and rested his forehead in his palms and sighed. ‘But you brought them there, didn’t you?’ he said out loud. ‘You rowed them to shore, even gave them a big, wet slathery kiss as they said farewell and began planting their explosives. So they all get killed, but not before they mention you and your boat during the interrogation. Then you get to spend the rest of your life shipping dirt to dirt farmers in Dirt Village for free, because no one in Eldarn will hire you. Or, even better, you get to run from the Malakasian navy until they finally corner you in some gods-forsaken cove at the arse-end of nowhere and burn your ship to the waterline. And all because Marrin Stonnel got you thinking about tits one night after one too many beers. And maybe it would have been different if she had just walked over to the table, but no, the place was crowded, and she almost danced her way to us. That’s all there was too it: bad luck, bad timing and bad decisions.’
Captain Ford finished his beer, tried to steer his thoughts back to his wife, and considered opening a fourth bottle. Maybe it would help him sleep after all. He stabbed another mouthful and cursed, ‘No, you bastard, no easy rest for you tonight.’
A knock at the door derailed his thoughts. ‘Marrin,’ he growled, ‘bugger off—’
Brexan stepped inside. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you were eating.’
‘Of course they sent you,’ he muttered.
‘Of course who sent me? For what? Did I miss something?’ she sounded genuinely confused.
Have you not been huddled all day in the forward cabin with Garec, Kellin and those new fellows, the two young men we picked up this morning?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘So they sent you.’ He reached into his crate for another beer. It was heavy, clumsy to ship in bottles, but he didn’t care for fennaroot, and wine was a luxury, like tecan, a port drink. And I’m certain I know why they sent you. I’ve had my dose of Garec Haile and his esoteric brand of diplomacy. Does he kill everyone he meets, I wonder? So that wouldn’t work; after all, I’m already in fear for my life, my crew and my ship. So you wouldn’t get any further with me by sending Garec. But you’re not stupid, are you? You know I’ve taken a fancy to you, call it a schoolboy crush, maybe, or a feeling of getting a bit older and losing a step and wanting badly to have it back. And ka-blam, you enter my life, bat your pretty eyes at me and ask me to ship your friends to Averil. Of course, I say yes. What else can I say? It’s a huge amount of silver for almost no work, and I get to spend the better part of the next Moon watching you, Brexan, I watch you hauling lines, and mopping decks and even helping Tubbs dole out the evening crud for supper. I’m getting older, and I should know better, I should have known better, but I didn’t, and now I’m here, waiting to see what bucket of grettanshit they’ve sent you in here to sell me.’
‘No one sent me,’ Brexan said. ‘I came on my own.’
‘An honest answer? Or are you just softening me up? That tunic isn’t nearly as flattering as the one you were wearing when you asked me to take you on this little pleasure-cruise.’
‘I didn’t lie.’
‘But you didn’t tell the whole truth, did you?’ Captain Ford leaned forward, then relaxed back into his chair. He had been taken for a fool; now he wanted to salvage what dignity he could. ‘What’s happening in Averil, Brexan?’
‘I can’t—’
‘Or are we not really bound for Averil?’ He saw her involuntary reaction and sighed. ‘Rutting whores, that’s it.’ He poured the beer. ‘You want one?’
‘No, th—’ She paused. ‘Actually, yes, why not?’
‘Have a seat,’ he said politely. ‘We can discuss our destination.’
‘They meant to tell you,’ she said. ‘I was just coming to apologise. I didn’t want you to think—’
‘Well, I’m thinking it. So you can take what little conscience you think you have and toss it over the side. What do you do for the Resistance? I know you’re not a scullery-maid. And was the old lady, Nedra, in this with you, or is she the reason you’re trying to salvage your self-esteem?’
‘I’m a … a spy, I suppose,’ Brexan confessed, ‘and yes, Nedra’s one of the reasons I came to talk to you.’
He was shocked at her admission, but he wasn’t sure what he meant to do about it. ‘You must not be much of a spy; I don’t know of many spies who go around admitting it’s their job.’
Brexan half-grinned. ‘No, I’m not a very good spy, but you should have seen me in the beginning. I was downright wretched.’
Captain Ford didn’t join her in celebrating the thimbleful of honesty. ‘So where are we bound?’
‘Averil, if you insist. I can talk them into it. I know I can.’ Garec’s words came back to her: If a guilty conscience and the loss of their trust is all we have to suffer from here on in, then I’m all for it. There’s much, much worse waiting for us in Malakasia.
‘Don’t do that.’ Captain Ford was angry. ‘Don’t try to make amends now. Where are we bound?’
She hung her head, remembered Garec again, and forced herself to look the captain in the eye. ‘Pellia,’ she said quietly.
‘Pellia!’ Now he leapt to his feet again, shouting, ‘Pellia? You’re joking, aren’t you? Why not just sail upriver to Welstar Palace? I can hear the Malakasians manning the blockade already – they have one, you know, a gods-whoring net as tight as my uncle’s arsehole. “Where are you bound, Captain Ford?” “I’m bound for Pellia, sir.” “What are you shipping, Captain Ford?” “Oh, nothing!”.’ He was raging as he spat out the little scenarios. ‘And that’s where the road ends, Brexan, in case you were wondering where and how your life would unfold over the next two hundred Twinmoons. Nope. It ends right at that exact moment. And not just yours, but mine, Garec’s – well, thank the gods
of the Northern Forest for that one – and the rest of us. We’ll all be taken prisoner and escorted into the blackest, most foul-smelling nightmare of a pit you’ve ever imagined.’
‘It’s important,’ Brexan said quietly.
‘I knew you were going say that. Of course, you think it’s important. You wouldn’t be sitting here with your guilty heart bleeding all over my charts if you thought it was a “daisy-run”. But let me share a secret with you: It’s not important to me or my crew!’
‘Actually, it is,’ she said, trying not to sound as desperate as she was. ‘Your life depends on it – all our lives depend on it. Without this trip, we will all die.’
‘We’re going to die up there anyway.’
‘Not just us,’ Brexan shouted, ‘all of us, every single person in Eldarn, everyone! That means your wife and family as well.’
Captain Ford lunged across the table and took her by the throat. ‘Don’t you dare mention my family, Brexan Carderic, not ever. Do you understand, spy?’ He spat out the word as if it were an obscenity.
‘They’re all going to die,’ she repeated, her eyes watering and her face flushing red. ‘I’m sorry.’
Trembling, Ford let her go, gulped the rest of his beer and rooted in the crate for a fifth. ‘Tell me—’ His voice was shaking; he took a long swallow before continuing, ‘Tell me how we’re all going to die.’
Brexan fell into her seat, gulped a mouthful herself and rubbed feeling back into her neck. Wiping tears from her face, she said, ‘The three frigates that shipped north from Orindale, you remember them?’
‘Apart from the naval cruisers, they were the only ships in the harbour left untouched by the storm.’
‘They’re shipping a stolen Larion artefact, something with the power to open the Fold and usher into Eldarn an evil so destructive that we will all be killed in an instant, or, worse still, enslaved forever in a foul, never-ending nightmare.’
‘Larion?’ he said, disbelieving.
‘It’s true, and the two men we picked up this morning have the power to destroy it and kill the man who’s stolen it. They can’t defeat him if the artefact is in operation; they don’t believe they could even get near it, but if we can arrive in Pellia before those frigates, Steven and Gilmour could be at the wharf when the stone table is transferred.’
‘And kill the thief before he has an opportunity to begin using this artefact?’
‘Exactly.’
‘So your friends, these magicians, are on their way to Pellia to kill another sorcerer?’
‘Yes.’ Brexan didn’t see any point in confusing the situation by telling him Steven was determined to save Mark Jenkins.
‘And all we have to do is to reach Pellia and get through the blockade with no cargo and no reason for being there so that your boys can be on the wharf when three ships carrying what looks to be a whole division of Prince Malagon’s soldiers pulls into port.’
‘That’s it.’
‘Have you forgotten that they left before we did? They have a significant head-start.’ Captain Ford had calmed enough to return to his supper and finished another mouthful before asking, ‘How will we get past them? The Northeast Channel is a rutting highway this Twinmoon. We’ll be held up just by the amount of traffic running through there, that’s if we get there in time to catch the northern tides. And while we might be able to put on all sorts of sail and run the channel faster than most other ships heading north, bullying our way through the archipelago is just another way to draw the attention of the Malakasian navy. It won’t fly, Brexan.’
‘It will if you hug the coast and skip the Northeast Channel.’
Captain Ford laughed, a great burst of genuine disbelief. ‘Oh, that’s a much better option,’ he said, almost choking. ‘You’ll avoid the edge of the blockade right enough, but Brexan, a rowboat can’t get through that way. We’ll be kedging off every mud flat and rock formation the gods saw fit to sprinkle along that coastline. Have you ever kedged off in a brig-sloop? I know it isn’t a very big boat, but hauling it over a sandbar, even with the capstan and the anchor-line, you realise it’s a touch heavy. And during this Twinmoon, the water is quite cold. So scurrying about out there in all that nasty mud, we’re bound to catch a sniffle or two.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘You’re talking about suicide.’
‘I’m talking about the end of life in Eldarn as we know it,’ she said, deadly serious.
If nothing else, she obviously believes wholeheartedly in what she was doing, he thought. ‘You lied to me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I liked you.’
‘I hope you might again some day.’
‘If I refuse, Garec will kill me and take the ship?’
‘He probably won’t kill you, but they will take the ship.’
‘You lied to me.’
‘You said that, and I’m sorry.’
Captain Ford sighed, letting his shoulders slump. He was tired and frightened. Considering Brexan in the lamplight, he said, ‘I’ve never been anything but… My wife and I are …’
Brexan closed the door latch; it slipped noisily into place: warped wood on warped wood. Turning to him, she pursed her lips and unfastened her tunic belt.
‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t need your sympathy, and as much as I might need your … company, I don’t want it. I want to—’
‘What do you want?’ she asked as she went on removing her clothes.
‘I want you to go.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ It was hard for him to say. ‘You don’t want this, and if you don’t want this, I certainly don’t want this.’
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
You’re going to die, Brexan. Don’t thank me. I’d just as soon wear about, drop you with Nedra and make way, empty, for Southport and my family. This whole thing makes me want to run and hide.’
She buckled her tunic belt and finished her beer. ‘There is no place to hide.’
Captain Ford closed his eyes; it was easier if he didn’t have to look at her.
‘And I’ll make you a promise, not as a spy or a partisan or whatever you think I am, but as a scullery-maid and a friend of Nedra Daubert. I won’t lie to you again. It isn’t much, especially now, but I’ll be straight with you, about anything you ask.’
‘Do you find me attractive?’ Captain Ford murmured, unsure why he had asked, but hoping that perhaps chasing his emotions into this business might not have been an old man’s folly.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want to sleep with me?’
Now Brexan sighed. ‘No, but I will.’
‘Very well then.’ He ushered her to the door. ‘Thank you. You can tell the others we’ll make for Pellia.’
‘Thank you, Captain.’
‘Again, I don’t want you—’
Marrin Stonnel crashed through the hatch, catching his foot on the doorframe and tumbling to the deck. ‘Captain,’ he cried, frantic, shaking.
‘What is it, Marrin?’ Captain Ford’s demeanour changed in a heartbeat as he became again the man he had been before Brexan’s unexpected visit.
‘A ship, northwest of us, was running off the wind, but she must have caught sight of something, because she’s just jibed to cut us off.’
‘Horsecocks!’ Captain Ford pushed past Brexan into the companionway, giving orders as he went. ‘It’s probably a naval cutter, or a schooner, maybe. If they’re running full, it’ll be a close race. Douse every flame, every light, and dump a bucket over the galley brazier.’
‘The coals, Captain?’
‘We’re upwind, Marrin; we don’t want them smelling smoke.’ Ford paused at the hatch, briefly making eye-contact with Brexan. ‘I want us in the dark, as dark as you can make it. And no smoking, no leftover food, nothing. Make our course due west; I want us running for the Pragan coast like a shadow. We’ll heel to the bloody scuppers on this beam reach, but we need to be hull-down by dawn. With luck they’ll think we
doused the lights to make a run past them to the north. This wind is tempting; lots of captains would try it.’
‘But we’ll turn west?’
‘Right,’ Ford said, ‘and even if they catch sight of us at sunrise, we’ll come about and put on every bit of sheet we’ve got and make a sprint up the Pragan coast. Now I need to talk to these sorcerers.’
THE NAVAL CUTTER
Steven heard the hollow thud of someone running on deck. ‘What’s that?’
‘Probably the captain,’ Garec said.
‘Captains don’t run,’ Gilmour said. ‘It instils too much fear and excitement in the crew, makes them jumpy.’
‘You don’t know this one,’ Garec said. ‘He’s not your ordinary merchant captain. With him, when it’s time to run, he runs. Ouch!’ He flinched as Kellin extricated another stitch.
The forward cabin was lit with all the candles they could find so Kellin could see what she was doing. She was just halfway through when Captain Ford barged in, pausing on the threshold to make sure none of his crew were within earshot. ‘Are you two truly sorcerers?’ he asked, a little out of breath.
Gilmour answered, ‘I wouldn’t say that we’re sor—’
‘No time for lies, my friend,’ the captain interrupted. ‘We’ve got a naval cutter, very fast, tacking to overtake us. We’re quick, especially running empty, but we’re not quick enough to get past them without a fight.’
Steven started, ‘We can perhaps—’
‘Let me finish,’ he went on. ‘I’ve ordered the ship about. We’ll make a run for the Pragan coast.’
‘West?’ Garec asked, stopping Kellin as she started on the next stitch. There would be time for that later.
‘It’s a difficult tack, granted, and the wind will carry us northwest, but the cutter’s on the same wind so even if he sets a course across our current heading, he’ll be carried to the northeast, towards Falkan. So we put out all the watch-fires and run on a beam reach in the dark. My goal is to be hull-down on their horizon by morning. If we’re lucky it’ll be hazy. If we’re blessed by the gods, there’ll be fog.’
The Larion Senators Page 39