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The harbor bustled, as it always did, with men and women engaged in loading and unloading cargos, boarding boats to be rowed out to the tall ships thronging the harbor’s mouth, arguing tariffs with the harbormaster, and hailing friends or even chance-met strangers. The cries of the seabirds cut across the rumble of a thousand conversations all being carried on at top volume. Jouncing along in the wagon, Sienne watched the excitement in fascination. So many people, going so many places! And she was one of them.
“Do we need to make a fuss about leaving? Repeat where we’re going in loud voices?” she asked.
“We did most of that while you were gone,” Dianthe said, “but it won’t hurt to announce it to everyone we meet. We want Master Delucco to have as little trouble as possible following us.”
“Maybe not literally,” Alaric said. “I don’t know if even he has the resources to send thugs to Omeira after us.” He grinned. “Though if he does…well, nobody there will make a fuss if we have to beat those thugs bloody.”
“A possibility I await with great enthusiasm,” Perrin said.
The wagon trundled to a halt at the head of the pier. Alaric helped Sienne out and refused to let her carry her bag. “Rest,” he reminded her. “Do you get seasick?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been to sea before.”
“Well, it can be unpleasant the first couple of days, and if you’re prone to it, you don’t want to add to it by exhausting your magical resources.” He threw several bags over his broad shoulders and nodded at the end of the pier. “We’re looking for the boat for the Wave’s Crest.”
Sienne trod down the pier in front of him, squinting at the names painted across the boats’ hulls in the bright afternoon sun. Heat radiated from the pier steadily, making Sienne grateful she wasn’t hauling anything; sweat prickled under her arms and beneath her breasts as it was.
She didn’t know the proper name for the little boats that lined up along the pier, so different from the ships at anchor in the harbor. The boats had no masts nor sails, though some of them were big enough to carry a dozen people and others looked too small to hold more than two. Some were unattended, but most had two or three sailors loading bags and boxes into them, arranging the cargo neatly regardless of the varying shapes of the packages. It made sense—you wouldn’t want cargo shifting in bad weather—but Sienne couldn’t help wondering how long you’d have to work at being a sailor before you could stack things so perfectly.
She saw a boat painted a weathered blue and purple with the words WAVE’S CREST painted on its rear. That was another thing that no doubt had a name beyond “back of the boat.” A woman reclined across its bench seats, a large hat pulled over her face. Aside from her, the boat was empty. “Over there,” Sienne said, pointing.
Alaric laid his burden down beside the boat. “Five passengers for the Wave’s Crest,” he said.
The woman sat up and flung the hat away, squinting up at them. “About time,” she said. “Load up. The others went out already.”
“You’ve been waiting long?” Alaric said, in the overly polite tone he used when someone irritated him.
“Ages. At least ten minutes.” Her accent was smooth and rippled like the waves, though she looked Rafellish. “I hate waiting for anything. Sleep only gets you so far.”
Sienne stepped into the boat, wobbled, and the woman grabbed her elbow to steady her. “New to the ocean?” she said. “You’ll get used to it soon enough. I’m Brigit.”
“Sienne,” Sienne said. “Thanks.” She let Brigit help her to a seat near the front of the boat, thought about asking what the front of a boat was called, and decided she didn’t want to draw any more attention to her ignorance than she already had.
Alaric took a seat on the bench opposite her. “Still excited?”
“Of course.” She reached out and trailed her fingers in the water. It was warm and, when she sniffed her hand, smelled of salt and something else she couldn’t identify.
Brigit finished arranging their belongings wherever they’d fit, and said, “You’ve certainly got enough to be going on with. Long journey?”
“All the way to Omeira,” Alaric said. “I understand your ship goes farther than that.”
“We’re making the run to Seawall now. Stay aboard long enough, and we’ll take you home to see your kin, Ansorjan.” Brigit shielded her eyes and looked off across the pier. “And now we wait…no, there he comes.”
Sienne couldn’t figure out who Brigit meant, what with the crowds, but eventually a tall, dark-skinned Omeiran man strode toward them. His shaved head gleamed in the sunlight and contrasted strangely with his full red beard. Sienne realized she was staring and averted her eyes, looking instead toward the ships moored farther out in the harbor. Which one was the Wave’s Crest?
“Brigit. Sorry to leave you with all the work,” the man said. His Omeiran accent, while still as sibilant as Kalanath’s, was more fluid, the accent of someone who’d spoken a second language long enough to be comfortable with dropping pronouns and using contractions.
“Lazy,” Brigit said without animosity. She jerked her head. “Take your oar, man, and let’s away.”
The man jumped down into the boat, making it rock and causing Sienne to fling her hands to either side for balance. The man either didn’t notice or didn’t care, taking a seat in the middle and picking up one of the two giant oars. With a minimum of fuss, the two sailors maneuvered the boat away from the pier and into the open water.
Sienne, facing backwards from the boat’s forward motion, saw only the pier receding from view and, nearer to hand, the rowers. The ocean breeze cooled the sweat around her hairline, bringing with it more of the salty scent and the bitter tang of hot tar. “Do you want to change seats so you can see where we’re going?” Alaric suggested.
She didn’t want to admit she was afraid of falling out if she stood. “That’s all right, thanks,” she said. “Do you know how long the journey will take?”
“To Chirantan?” Brigit said, though Sienne had addressed Alaric. “It’s a good week’s travel, barring storms or kelpie attacks.”
“Kelpie attacks?” Sienne exclaimed.
“She’s teasing you,” Dianthe said. “Kelpies don’t attack humans. Seals are their natural prey.”
“Kelpies will defend themselves if humans attack first,” the Omeiran said. “But it’s true, they’re not dangerous. It’s the sea serpents you have to watch out for. Thirty feet long, with spiny backs and teeth like daggers…they follow the shipping lanes, looking for easy prey.”
Sienne shuddered. “Are you teasing me, too?”
“Ajhital doesn’t tease. He’s too literal,” Brigit said. “But don’t worry, miss, our ship is too big for them to tackle. Unless one of those deep-sea beasts comes in close.”
Sienne closed her fingers on her spellbook in its harness. “I’m not worried so long as they’re not immune to fire.”
“Fire?” Ajhital said in alarm. “You’re not a wizard, are you? Best not be casting spells aboard ship. Especially not fire. Could kill us all.”
“I wouldn’t do that!”
“Don’t like wizards,” Ajhital murmured. “Got jumped by a wizard once. Took my purse and left me chasing wisps all night.”
“I wouldn’t do that, either,” Sienne protested. “Not all wizards are the same.”
“As you have famously told me on more than one occasion,” Alaric said with a grin. Sienne kicked him on the knee, not hard enough to hurt, and he grinned more widely. Then he looked past Sienne’s ear and said, “That looks like the ship.”
Sienne slewed around in her seat to watch the Wave’s Crest approach. It was of average size, based on the other ships in the harbor, with sails furled to give the masts the look of tall pines stripped of their needles, bare to the sun. With a minimum of maneuvering, Brigit and Ajhital brought the boat around, barely bumping the side of the ship, and hollered up to a couple of men looking down at them.
&nbs
p; Sienne gasped and ducked as something came flying toward the boat. It turned out to be a rope ladder whose end puddled in the bottom of the boat. Alaric steadied it. “I’ll go first,” Dianthe said, and clambered up the ladder as nimbly as if it were made of sturdy wood and not loose, twisting fibers and sticks.
“Sienne?” Alaric said. She swallowed and took hold of the first rungs, wishing she hadn’t overextended herself—jaunt would be so much more graceful, and wouldn’t require her to dangle who knew how many feet in the air over the ocean in front of all these sailors. Gritting her teeth, she made her slow ascent. The rope ladder twisted uncomfortably with every step. In midair, the ocean breeze felt more like a wind, shaking the ladder further.
She was so focused on where her feet went it startled her when someone grabbed her wrist. Her foot slipped, not much, but enough to set her heart pounding. “Just crawl over the rail,” Dianthe said, holding her tightly. Sienne did so, ungracefully, nearly falling over the rail to the deck and managing at the last minute to get her feet under her. “Not so bad, right?” Dianthe said.
“Next time, I’m using magic,” Sienne said.
She paced the deck while she waited for the others to climb up, getting used to the movement of the ship beneath her feet. It wasn’t as bad as the boat had been, probably because the ship was so much bigger it wasn’t as disturbed by the waves lapping against it. When her friends were all aboard, she leaned against the rail and watched the sailors hook chains to the boat and haul it up, dripping, to dangle above the deck on one side of the ship. Its bottom was dark with water and a greenish scum that turned the blue and purple of the paint gray. It was hard to imagine it had ever been new.
Compared to the docks, the ship was remarkably quiet. Sienne had always imagined, when she thought to imagine it, the shouts of sailors filling the air from the tops of the masts to the depths of the cargo hold, but almost everyone talked at a normal volume. Even the sailors dangling from the ropes woven around the sails and between the masts were quiet, though in their cases it was likely because the wind carried their voices away.
“Captain,” Brigit said, and Sienne turned away from her contemplation of the sailors to see who she’d addressed. There were any number of sailors crossing the deck, doing mysterious things with rope, but only one who looked like Sienne’s idea of a sea captain, if a short one—the woman who approached was barely five feet tall, and some of that was the high heels on her boots, shiny with wear. She wore the same clothes as the other sailors, cotton twill trousers and a cotton shirt open at the neck, but had flung over it a red coat, trimmed with gold braid and buttons, that was much too warm for true summer. Her three-cornered hat bore an ostrich plume that added another two inches to her height. Wrinkles from years of staring into the sun nearly buried her gray eyes, but despite that, and the gray in her dark brown hair, she didn’t look old so much as distinguished.
Sienne’s eye was drawn to the knife thrust through her belt. It was no utilitarian blade, but ornamented with jewels and gold, the kind of treasure scrappers dreamed of finding. Normally that meant the knife itself was worthless as a weapon or even as a tool, but looking at the captain, Sienne found it hard to believe she would carry anything simply for vanity’s sake.
“Like it?”
Sienne, startled, looked up to find those gray eyes regarding her with an uncomfortable directness. “Just wondering how well it holds an edge,” she blurted out.
“Because it looks like a bordello whore’s nightmare?” The woman laughed and extended her hand to Sienne. “It’s sharp enough for my purposes. I’m Sylvie Talvanus, captain of the Wave’s Crest. I take it you’re the rest of my passengers.”
“We are,” Alaric said, shaking hands. “Alaric, Sienne, Dianthe, Kalanath, and Perrin.”
“Welcome aboard. We have a few rules for passengers. Stay out of the way of the sailors. If you can’t do that, stay below for the duration. If I tell you to do a thing, you do it, for all our safety. No fraternizing.” She eyed Sienne and Dianthe as if questioning their morals. Sienne opened her mouth to be outraged that the captain didn’t think the men might be inclined to fraternize, but Talvanus rode right over her. “Everything but the deck, the mess, and your quarters is off limits. We’re a cargo ship and most of what’s here is none of your business. You’ll address me as Captain. I’ll probably address you as ‘you there’ until I learn your names, and since you’ll only be with us for a week, that might not ever happen, so no offense intended. Any questions?”
“What is the ‘mess’?” Perrin asked.
“It’s the common room where we all eat. Hope you’re not fussy, because you get what the rest of us do.”
“We’re not looking for special treatment,” Alaric said.
The captain looked him up and down. “Scrappers, are you?”
“Yes.”
“You willing to fight for the ship if it comes to it?”
Alaric’s brow furrowed. “You think that will happen?”
Talvanus shrugged. “Pirates have been known to attack lone ships even along this well-trafficked path. And there are other threats at sea. I doubt it will be a problem. I just want to know if you’ll be a liability.”
Alaric moved his shoulders so the hilt of his sword shifted, catching the sun and gleaming like polished silver. “We never have been before,” he said.
A smile touched Talvanus’s lips briefly. “Well said, Ansorjan whose name I’ve already forgotten.”
“Alaric.”
“I’ll try to remember.” She put two fingers to her lips and blew a shrill whistle. “Ajhital! Show these scrappers to their quarters. We set sail in one hour,” she told them, and walked away toward the front of the ship.
Ajhital, who’d been supervising the removal of their belongings from the boat, came toward them. “This way,” he said, gesturing toward a hole in the deck and a steep staircase that was practically a ladder. Ajhital descended it backwards, as if it were a ladder, so Sienne followed suit, her spellbook banging against her hip.
The dimly-lit space below smelled of unwashed bodies and tar, and Sienne held her breath, suppressing a sneeze. Most of the light came from a larger hole than the one they’d entered by, through which a net filled with crates and sacks was descending, but there were dim magical lights affixed to the walls. Without thinking, Sienne made them glow brighter, then glanced at Ajhital to see if the Omeiran had noticed. How presumptuous of her! But he was already walking away toward another hole in the deck below the first one.
“We cover the hold when we’re underway,” he said, gesturing at the net, which continued its descent into the belly of the ship. “You’re not to enter the cargo hold. Nothing down there worth looking at, anyway. This is where we mess.” He pointed at a couple of doors. “Galley—that’s where the food is cooked—and the head. For relieving yourself,” he said, in response to Sienne’s confusion. Why couldn’t they just call it the privy? “And back that way is captain’s quarters,” he added, pointing at a door in the opposite direction.
“Where do we bunk?” Alaric asked.
“Passengers get these cubbies,” Ajhital said, waving a hand toward a couple of other doors in the direction of the captain’s quarters. “Not much privacy aboard ship, if you were wondering. Hope you brought bedrolls.”
“We did. Thanks. We’re used to sleeping rough.”
“Guess you would be, being scrappers and all.” Ajhital nodded. “Bells ring for meals and at midnight. You’ll hear them. Any questions?”
“Are there any other places we should avoid?” Dianthe asked.
“Aft of the weather deck, mostly. Where the wheel and capstan are. If you stay out of the way of the sailors, you’ll be fine.” He nodded again and retreated up the ladder.
Alaric opened the door Ajhital had indicated. Inside was a stuffy small space, unlit, that smelled of damp and tar. He dropped his burdens on the floor—the deck?—and stepped aside for the others to do the same. “Where do the sailors sleep
?” Sienne asked.
“They sling hammocks in the big room,” Alaric said, “and I’m sure some sleep in the cargo hold when they sail in cold weather.”
“Look at that,” Dianthe said, pointing at the rafters of the mess room. A flattened pallet of weathered wood pressed against the ceiling, held there by ropes. There were several of these, Sienne saw, at regular intervals across the ceiling. “Those are tables with benches,” Dianthe said. “They lower them at mealtimes and tie them away all the rest of the time, or when it’s stormy, so they don’t take up deck space and they aren’t free to fling themselves all over the place. It’s clever.”
Sienne couldn’t help wondering what happened if the ropes broke. “Clever,” she agreed, and sat down on her bundled bedroll. “Do you ever get used to the smell?”
“It will pass,” Alaric said. “Let’s arrange our things, and then I think you should lie down for a while, before we get underway.”
“I’d rather be up top. It’s stuffy down here and I feel a headache coming on.”
“All right. Let’s find a place we can watch from.”
They arranged their bags and bedrolls, then returned to the upper deck. No more cargo was being lowered into the hold, and a net woven of fat ropes had been slung across the upper hole so no one could fall in. Sienne gave it a wide berth nonetheless, fearing superstitiously that she might trip and fall regardless.
She followed Alaric to the front of the ship, past where the sailors worked, all the way to just behind the figurehead. The mermaid, bare-breasted with wildly flowing hair, faced the sea fearlessly for someone so exposed to the elements. Years of sun and wind had scoured the paint from her body, leaving her age-darkened and smooth. Sienne wanted to touch her, to see if she was as smooth as she looked, but doing so would have meant either climbing over the side of the ship, or casting float, and neither of those was possible.
Alaric put his arm around her, and they stood watching the waves lap against the ship’s nose far below. “It’s not called the nose, is it?” she said.
Sands of Memory Page 4