Corsair

by Chris Bunch

  “Another reason is magic isn’t precise.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Did you ever figure why every damned piece of string on this ship’s got a different name? It’s not to confuse lubbers, ‘though that’s not a bad accomplishment.

  “Quick. Now, what’s that rope up there — sight along my finger.”

  Gareth obeyed. “Why, one of the lower tops’l clewlines.”

  “A real specific name, right? So if I holler at you in a blow to haul away on it, you know just what to do? Everything on a ship’s like that … got to be like that, or else there’s confusion and maybe disaster.

  “Magic isn’t like that. I know. My sister’s married to a man with some of the Gift, and everything’s a pinch of this, and a beaker of that. How big’s a pinch? I’ve got big fingers, bigger than yours, so a pinch to me’s bigger, right?

  “Not to mention that when a spell’s cast, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and nobody ever knows why.

  “Our provender’s got stasis spells on it, so nothing spoils. But there’s still a good portion of it that’s just salt beef, pork, and dry crackers, like in olden times, in the event the spell doesn’t hold.”

  “You’ve seen the captain pay for a fair weather spell already this voyage, and what did we get? Damned near dismasted. Now, when we make port, he’ll have words with that wizard, and get his gold back.

  “But that’s magic. Vague, wiggly. And surely not to be depended on.”

  • • •

  Gareth asked the captain why he’d insisted on treble payment to carry a cargo of basics — salt, casks of beef, seed, rolls of canvas, bales of cloth.

  “Let’s just say I’m not trying to turn a profit your uncle won’t know about,” the man answered shortly. “And I’m sure you’d like to know what’s in those cases I’ve got lashed to the foremast, getting in everyone’s way. Gods willing, you can ask that question in two weeks, and then I’ll have an answer.

  “But more likely, you won’t have to ask.”

  Gareth didn’t.

  Their course led through a maze of small islands. Half a day after they entered the labyrinth, the first pirates, in craft almost as small as the Zarafshan’s boats, attacked. The captain ordered those mysterious crates opened by the watch on deck. Inside were muskets, powder, ball.

  The watch below and all non-watchstanders like Gareth were turned to. Heavy cargo nets were draped loosely from the yards down to the deck, to entrap any boarders.

  But they weren’t needed. A volley was enough to turn the pirates away, and, hooting and swearing, they disappeared in the ship’s wake.

  The second attempt came the next day. Two larger boats, probably once fishing boats, tacked toward them. This time Gareth saw, with a thrill, the black flag cracking at mainmast of one of them.

  Then he felt terribly sick to his stomach, worse than he had when the Idris first took spray over her bow.

  Something strange was coiling up at them from the depths, some fabulous monster. A seaman screamed.

  “Godsdammit, stand to your duties,” the bosun bellowed, and again the muskets were loaded and readied.

  But this time the two mates loaded one of the two robinets, swung it out, and aimed carefully.

  Gareth just had time to see a man in dark robes in the bow of the leading ship when the robinet fired. The ball skipped water past the first boat’s prow.

  “Load grape, dammit!” the captain shouted, and the mates obeyed.

  Gareth stared at the dark tentacles as they lifted from the water and reached toward him. Then he shouted in pain as the bosun’s rope end lashed across his shoulders.

  “Eyes on your task, man,” and anger rushed through Gareth, vanished as he realized the bosun hadn’t even seen who he’d struck.

  “Careful, careful,” the captain was chanting. “Make sure, gentlemen, be very sure.”

  Gareth saw the tentacles pass through the shrouds, realized the horrid monster was a magical illusion, and the robinet went off with a thud.

  There were shrieks from the first pirate ship, and the robed man threw up his hands, pivoted, and fell overside, where his boat passed over him. Other men where the wizard had stood were down, writhing in pain.

  Muskets banged from the second ship, and a man beside Gareth said, “Oh shit,” in a very surprised manner, looked at the red seeping, just at his waistline, then screamed and fell, clutching himself.

  The other cannon was loaded, and the Zarafshan came about and sailed down on the pirates. They tacked away frantically as both cannon went off. The single mast on the second ship cracked, broke, and sail and shrouds fell overside.

  Again the robinets fired, and smoke curled from the stern of the first ship, flames pouring out as the fish-oil-soaked wood caught.

  “Bring her about,” the captain ordered the man at the wheel, “and take our former course.”

  “Former course, east by northeast, sir, aye.”

  A third attempt was made on the Zarafshan — four small boats this time. The Zarafshan had just struck open water, and simply outsailed the pirates. But no one rejoiced.

  The sailor who’d been shot had died.

  • • •

  Gareth had been out for a bit more than a year when he heard, in a smoky tavern, of the disappearance of the Idris. “Storm, maybe,” the man who told him about it said. “But one of their crew — he went overside before they lifted the hook in Ticao — told me they had orders for the far south. Too damned close to the Slavers’ land to suit him.”

  When he returned to Ticao, he thought about rubbing the icon and thinking of Cosyra, but then thought better. By now Cosyra — assuming she’d been an apprentice bawd or even a seamstress — would certainly have forgotten about him, and would hardly want to play childish pranks again.

  But he didn’t take the tiny eagle off the chain.

  When the Zarafshan had a cargo lined up — worked fur robes Gareth might’ve traded for on his last voyage — he was very ready for the sea.

  • • •

  The woman was certainly not much better than a whore, for who but a harlot or a barmaid would chance the harbor quarter of Irtysh by night?

  Still, whatever the three Linyati wanted with her, it should not have involved pushing, growled laughter, and the flashing hint of steel Gareth saw by the flickering taper over the taproom’s entrance.

  There was no one about, rain drifting across the streets.

  “Stop!” he shouted, and the three Slavers turned. Their laughter grew as they saw only one man, a slender youth, outlined against the night.

  One carried a sword on a low hanger. It whispered from its sheath. The woman saw it, shrieked, and darted inside the taproom. Not that Gareth expected anyone to come out and help. Not in this part of the city.

  The Linyati with the sword started toward Gareth, the other two flanking him. One had a long poignard, the third a brass knuckleduster in his right hand.

  They no doubt expected him to run, and would chase him down for ruining their sport Gareth stood his ground, feeling his breathing quicken, his vision close until there was nothing but the three men. His hand went to his back, came out with a sheeps-foot mariner’s knife not a handspan long, without a point, but honed to a razor edge.

  The swordsman laughed harder, closed on the fool. A lunge, the body tossed into the harbor, and they’d no doubt have a goodly tale when they returned to their ship.

  He flicked a lunge, but Gareth wasn’t there. He’d side-jumped to the wall of the taproom, where a small bench sat for outside drinking in better weather.

  He had the bench in one hand, and threw it hard into the face of the man with the sword. The man tried to block, was too late, and the heavy wood smashed his face. He shouted, stumbled, fell back, his sword clattering on the stones.

  The Linyati with the knuckleduster made the mistake of looking away, reaching down for the sword, and Gareth booted him headfirst into the wall. Gareth heard the crack of
breaking bones.

  The Linyati slid down it bonelessly and lay still; Gareth closed on the man with the knife.

  The poignard may have looked lethal, but its tapering V-shaped blade was only good for back stabbing. The Slaver knew a bit, but only a bit, about knife-fighting, sidling in on Gareth with his free hand open as a block, the knife held on his hip, point up.

  Gareth obliged him by slashing the man’s palm open, leaping back before the poignard strike could land.

  He circled toward the man’s weak side, saw an opening, cut hard into the man’s arm, saw blood drizzle down onto the wet stones.

  Gareth stepped back, back again, as the Slaver came in on him. Then his foot slipped on some muck, and he fell backward, rolling left as the Linyati pounced. The poignard clashed against the paving stones, and Gareth was on his knees, cutting again, this time down the side of the man’s face and deeply into his neck.

  The Slaver cried out, rolled on his back.

  Gareth got up, breathing hard. He stared down at the semiconscious seaman, saw the blood drain from his body.

  If I was a proper bastard, he thought, I’d save the maybes and cut his throat.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to it.

  He wiped the blood from his knife, sheathed it, and disappeared into the night, back toward the Zarafshan.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d fought the Linyati, always remembering his parents’ bodies, sprawled in their looted house.

  A thin, almost invisible scar now ran from the corner of his mouth up his left cheek, disappearing in the hair above his ear, a souvenir of one encounter.

  After that, he’d spent more time offwatch in the foc’sle, learning more than seamanship from the hardbitten sailors. He’d learned to swing a cutlass, fight with the unpointed knives seamen carried, to use a marlin spike, a broken wineglass, almost anything that could be found on a ship’s deck or — more often — in a tavern, for a weapon.

  The Slavers were getting cockier, bolder. More and more, if a Linyati ship was in port, there’d be a brawl. None of these fights was ever friendly, and most Sarosians had taken to carrying some sort of weapon when they went ashore.

  And there were more and more Slavers at sea. Not in Sarosian ports, where they were not met with friendliness, in spite of King Alfieri’s continued policy of peace. But they had a dozen or more countries allied with them, which Gareth couldn’t understand. Doing business with demons, or men little better than demons, would always end in disaster.

  Gareth had been to enough lands now to learn where the Linyati traded their human cargoes. He’d even chanced, when he could, asking these slaves if they were from Saros, but so far all he’d been met with was uncomprehending looks, fear, and, occasionally, the muttered name of another country or city.

  He remembered, long ago, a beggar telling him the only way to deal with the Linyati was at swordpoint. He wondered if, with this new round of raids against Saros and its neighbors, enough would finally be enough, and someone would declare war against the hated Slavers.

  If anyone did, he thought, he’d find a way to join that expeditionary force.

  He knew there was a time coming to stand and be counted, when the allies of the Linyati would also be forced to make a reckoning.

  • • •

  The Zarafshan rode the cresting title up the Nalta, through the center of Ticao. Gareth stood in the bows, feeling more tired than he thought possible.

  It had been a good voyage, at least until the last port Some sort of disease had struck down the purser and both mates. Gareth had not only taken over the purser’s duties, managing the unloading and sale of the cargo, but negotiated for a new shipment for Ticao: ensorcelled trinkets he knew would go for a high price when Saros’s nobility saw these new toys.

  Then he’d stood watch on, watch off with the captain on the three-week voyage home.

  During the long sleepless hours, he found himself thinking of Cosyra. He vowed, if the damned Zarafshan didn’t fall apart under him, or if he or the man at the wheel didn’t fall asleep and the ship go at full sail onto a reef, that this time he’d attempt its magic, find out just what had happened to the woman. She’d be, what, seventeen to his eighteen, almost nineteen?

  When they’d entered the Nalta River’s mouth, the captain had sent a boat ashore to the semaphore station, to signal to Pol of the voyage.

  Gareth was holding hard, counting the yards left to go as the Zarafshan dropped all sails but one and turned toward the Radnor factory. As soon as the mooring lines went across and the damned ship was tied firm, he’d hire a carriage to his uncle’s house and sleep for a week.

  No, two weeks.

  There were people waiting at the quay. There was his uncle, surprisingly his wife, Priscian, some servants, and two men, strangers, waving wildly.

  Then he recognized the strangers, grown though they were: the last survivors of his native village, Thom Tehidy, a bigger barrel than before, and Knoll N’b’ry, his quick-witted companion.

  Fatigue fell away.

  Just let him get his feet on solid land, and then there’d be a time to remember!

  Five

  I did not expect to see either of you again,” Gareth said, feeling a little drunk, although, unlike the others, he’d had nothing but charged water with his meal. His uncle and aunt had cheerfully invited Thom and Knoll into their home, although Gareth thought he detected a slightly quizzical expression from Aunt Priscian over his friends’ stained working dress.

  They’d eaten lavishly, after Gareth had bathed and ordered his sea clothes to be burned. Then Thom had suggested they go out, seeing Gareth’s uncle hiding a yawn.

  “That might not be too wise,” Pol said, before Gareth could answer.

  Knoll had lifted an eyebrow.

  “A couple of years ago,” Gareth said, “I did something pretty dumb, and I’ve got a certain lord upset at me.”

  “Which one, if I might ask?” Knoll asked. “For since we’ve been in Ticao, we’ve learned there’s some to walk most small among, and others, generally the biggest blow-mouths, to never worry about”

  Pol had given Gareth a look, signifying he’d said more than enough.

  But Gareth cared little for secrets, then or ever.

  “Lord Quindolphin,” he said. “I loosed pigs at his daughter’s wedding.”

  “Mmph,” Thom said. “That’s bad, for he’s a vengeful bas — pardon, Lady Radnor, not a nice man at all. His son’s worse, and they carry goons about with them like body lice, ever ready to do their bidding, as long as it’s bloody-handed.”

  “But we know a tavern,” Knoll said, “where not Quindolphin, nor his kin, nor his swordsmen would dare enter.”

  “Then why should a boy like Gareth be safe?” Priscian asked. Gareth concealed a wince. She would probably always think of him as a babe, even if she lived to see him as a graybeard.

  “Which tavern would that be?” Pol asked, interested.

  “The Slit Nose,” Thom said, a bit proudly.

  “I know it,” Pol said. “A place of thieves, rogues, villains — ”

  “And watermen,” Knoll said. “Which is what we are.”

  “I’ve not been in a public house like that in … twenty years,” Pol said, just a bit wistfully.

  “And well you shouldn’t,” Priscian said. “A King’s Servant, soon to be a Merchant Prince? Highly out of his station.”

  Pol smiled gently, didn’t reply, and, not for the first time, Gareth wondered about his uncle.

  “Come, then,” Thom said. “I fancy a rough pint, and I see your family’s a-yawn, and we keep no one up past his bedtime.”

  Gareth wondered why he hadn’t collapsed two hours ago, nose into the meat pasty, but still felt fully alert.

  His friends made their thanks for the meal, were told there would be a proper feast in the next few days celebrating Gareth’s homecoming and that they were more than welcome.

  It was a spring night, but there was a chill coming
off the river. The three pulled their cloaks about them, and Gareth noted Knoll’s was more than a bit threadbare.

  Taking side streets, they went to the waterfront, then down a noisome alley.

  “Follow the screeches,” Thom said, “and you’ll never get lost.”

  The Slit Nose’s door yawned open into the night, and music and singing shouts echoed around them. They were about to enter when two men stumbled out, swinging broadsides at each other.

  “Here, now,” Thom said cheerfully. “Mark your target and ignore the innocent.”

  One of the men broke away and swung at Tehidy. Thom lifted him by his collar, and tossed him over his shoulder to thud into a stone wall.

  “You want to play, too?” he asked the other brawler, who shook his head rapidly, ducked under Tehidy, and was gone.

  “I see you’ve lost none of your strength,” Gareth said, as they went through the crowd to a table where only a drunk snored, his head in a pool of wine.

  Knoll unceremoniously pushed him onto the floor, whistled shrilly through his fingers, and a barmaid saw him.

  “Aye, m’love,” she shouted over the din. “The usual?”

  “The usual … and some iced water?”

  “You’ve not bathed?”

  “For my friend here the virgin.”

  The drinks arrived. Gareth noted that Thom sat with his back against a wall, and Knoll half-turned, to watch the room.

  “My uncle told you all of me,” Gareth said. “It’s your turn now.”

  With Thom interrupting, when he thought Knoll wasn’t being properly fulsome about himself, Gareth learned the two boys had indeed been taken in by another village.

  “But ‘twasn’t like our own,” Knoll said. “They thought they’d brought in a couple of servies, almost slaves.”

  “Busting our ass in the fishhold with the nets,” Thom agreed. “And with not a share in the price, but only a handful of coppers and a bit of silver now and then.”

  But that hadn’t been the worst. The village was one of those who owed tribute to the king, and the tribute was paid with two young men, every year or so, for the navy when the impressment officers came along.