Wheel of the Winds

by M J Engh

  “No good, Lethgro,” she greeted him. “We'll have to try Rotl. And we'd best be on our way right now.”

  Indeed she had been sadly disappointed by her reception on the waterfront, and it was a relief to her to have come safe again to the dinghy. The rewards and threats of the Council of Beng, no doubt, had had their effect; but worse, as she told Lethgro, had been her own honesty. “They asked me where I've been,” she said ruefully, “and I told them across the Soll and around the world. Some of them didn't believe me, and some of them did. Either way, nobody is willing to hire out a ship to me; and the prices they're asking for an outright purchase would take all your money and leave us nothing to pay a crew with.”

  She had told lies enough on other points, claiming that she had left the Warden and the Exile on a desolate stretch of the Coast before she had crossed the Soll; and no one had argued with her on this. Many people had warned her that she was in danger, but none had threatened her or tried to apprehend her, and she did not believe she had been followed. “But people will be thinking about the reward,” she added, untying the mooring rope, “and likely enough somebody's reported me to the Council by now. Can you steer a boat through harbor traffic, Lethgro?”

  For they must pass the mouth of Beng harbor, and Repnomar thought best to pass it under the mats, leaving only Lethgro and Broz to manage the boat. And Lethgro, seeing her look, answered that he had learned a bit on the voyage downstream and thought he could find his way without bumping into anything.

  “Especially patrol ships,” Repnomar said, settling herself among the treenails, and pulled a mat over her face.

  That was the last talk they had for some time, for traffic in and out of the harbor was heavy indeed, and Lethgro did not dare to speak to the Captain where others might notice the conversation. So, with several near misses but no collisions, and with a few grunts from the Exile and stifled curses from the Captain when he stepped on them in his hasty movements, he got the boat past the harbor and headed downcoast.

  Now he called the Captain out from her nest, and they rowed out from the cliffs to catch the wind, and set sail for Rotl. Here they had elbowroom, with only a few sails in sight. So they let out the crows, who had much to say about their long confinement, and even the Exile was able to stand up and stretch and take his turn at the oars.

  This was a pleasant enough voyage. Lethgro, feeling the rhythms of the wind and the waves and the boat, fancied that he was beginning to get the knack of being a sailor; and the Captain so far agreed with this that she was content to let him handle the business alone from time to time. Traffic between Beng and Rotl was steady, so that they met and were passed by vessels large and small, under sail and oars; but it was nothing like the crowding, rushing traffic of the Sollet. They felt they could relax at last, seeing no likelihood of their being recognized and arrested, so that it was a grave surprise to Lethgro when he was hailed by a passing ship and ordered to come on board.

  It happened that he alone was upright in the dinghy just then, Broz being curled in the bow and the others asleep under the mats. For a moment, he thought it was a pirate vessel that had hailed him. But he saw the insignia of the Council of Rotl hung on the rail, and groaned. With the ship on one side of him and the cliffs on the other, with their few weapons under the mats, and a row of archers at the ship's rail training their bows on him, there was no hope in either flight or resistance. So he trod on Repnomar, saying loudly at the same time that he was alone and unarmed and there was no need to threaten him with arrows. The Captain jerked convulsively under his foot, but any noise she made was covered by his voice and by the growls of Broz, who had sprung up bristling. They flung him two ropes from the ship, one to make fast the dinghy (which he did very loosely, whispering to Repnomar all the while) and one to haul him aboard. So he lowered the little sail and was pulled up the ship's side and over the rail, and the dinghy trailed behind, with Broz snarling in the bows. The crows circled high above, seeming to withhold judgement till they saw the outcome of this affair.

  Bad luck, as Lethgro reflected later, was a prickly fruit that might have good luck under its skin. It was bad luck that a member of the Council of Rotl had been homeward bound and leaning over the ship's rail at that particular hour. But it was good luck that Repnomar and the Exile had been out of sight, and that the councilor had been an old friend, who looked at him with such a mixture of disbelief and gladness and reproof that for a few minutes neither of them could speak. Afterwards they had much talk in the ship's cabin.

  They were hard at it when a sailor came to report that the dinghy had come loose and was drifting toward the cliffs. The councilor merely waved one hand in dismissal, saying, “Let it go,” and Lethgro took a drink of ale to hide his relief. “So you think,” he said gruffly, “I may be able to keep my head on my shoulders. But will the Council give me a ship to chase the Exile?”

  Meanwhile the Captain and the Exile were having their own discussion. Lethgro had not had time to tell them anything except that he was being taken on board a ship that bore the Council of Rotl's insignia, and that if he survived he would look for them, and for a ship, on the waterfront of Rotl. The Captain had waited till all was calm, no sound but the rowing song from the ship and the sounds of the water and the oars, before she stretched out a cautious hand to undo the towrope. They must lie hidden, unable to steer, for it was likely they would be seen from the ship, and all their hope was that no one would think it worth while to retrieve what seemed only a shabby dinghy and a dog.

  But they could talk. The cliffs here were not greatly dangerous, as coastal cliffs went, and the Captain thought they had good chances of getting safe inside one of the wave-eaten grottoes at their base, though the dinghy might take some damage. After that, the first question was how to reach Rotl. The Exile could not pass as a child, because of his beard; so he must stay out of sight, whether in the grottoes (while Repnomar made her way on foot to Rotl) or under the mats in the dinghy (while she sailed them there). The Exile was for sailing, since it would likely get them there sooner and no one would need to return for him. The Captain, though she agreed in her heart, said it must depend on what happened when they struck the cliffs, which by the sound would occur at any moment; and just then they struck.

  The dinghy was thudded and pounded as the waves sloshed and sluiced between the great knobs of rock that stood in the water, and its port bow stove in just above the waterline before they had been half a minute in the surf. The Exile had to scramble hard, not to be buried in nuts and pegs (for the cargo hammered from side to side in the boat) and the Captain shouted to him to dump them overboard as fast as he could. She herself had snatched an oar with which to fend off from the rocks, and before they had shipped enough water to settle them below the hole in the bow, she had got them pointed into an opening between two rocks, and with the next wave thrust they slid into a cave. Here the water, its force broken by the rocks outside, ran mildly back to a little curve of beach less than a yard wide. And here in the wavering half-dark, lit by ripples of light from the moving water, they dragged the dinghy up onto the gravel. And with the waves sloshing about their feet and lifting and nudging the boat and threatening to pull it off again, they jettisoned most of what was left of their cargo, though not the money-box; and contrived to patch the bow with a few mats. Their weapons (two swords, with Lethgro's bow and arrows, and a short pike for the Exile's use) were undamaged though tossed about, the arrows being secure in a stoutly-made quiver; but their food, along with the basket for the crows, had gone overboard. At this the Captain laughed shortly, saying that people who had crossed the backside of the world on a few handfuls of moss and rations like dry leather could probably make it as far as Rotl, and the Exile agreed very cheerfully. Most important, the mast and sail and one of the oars were safe, and they could see the second oar dashing among the rocks at the mouth of the cave.

  So with much labor and not a little danger they worked the dinghy out into the surf once more, rough-ho
using it along from rock to rock, and caught the floating oar (which had its blade split but not shattered) and in that tumult, with their side against a cliff and every wave smashing against them like a waterfall, they raised the little mast and set the sail. Next they shoved off as violently as they could with a receding wave, and plied the oars with all their strength. And though they were thrown back more than once, with much striving they got the boat out far enough at last to catch a breeze. Repnomar gave the Exile the warmest smile she had yet bestowed on him. “Keep it up and you might do for a sailor someday,” she said cordially. And the Exile grinned.

  It was an easy enough voyage to Rotl, but the Captain was weary by the time they came in sight of the harbor; for she had not been able to sleep except in brief snatches. The Exile maintained that he could handle the boat alone, at least in the easy stretches; but the Captain pointed out that it was not safe to be seen handling the boat alone. So she took her sleep sitting upright, with her head propped on her hand or sunk on her chest, while the Exile peered from under the mats, ready to rouse her when the boat needed her attention.

  What came next seemed to the Captain as hard as anything she had ever done. It began with doing nothing. The councilor's ship would have reached Rotl long before the dinghy, and the whole town would know by now that ex-Warden Lethgro had been taken. Repnomar was as ready as the next captain to take risks, and readier than some; but with their lives and all else at stake, it would have been foolhardy to venture onto a waterfront buzzing with talk of them. On the other hand, if Lethgro got free he would look for them, so that they should be where he could find them. And if Lethgro did not get free ... “I've never done business with pirates,” the Captain said grimly; “but I can learn.”

  With these things in mind, they skirted Rotl harbor and tied up near the point of the long island at the harbor mouth. Here the dinghy could be seen from the waterfront by an eye that knew what to look for, but it was not likely to attract anyone else's notice. And, “If it comes to it,” the Captain said, “we'll be ready to drop down the Coast.” For the Coast below Rotl was a warren of pirates.

  Here the Captain bought food from the shore fishers who lived on the island, and slept for a solid watch on the rocky ground beside their mooring, while Broz and the crows stood guard. But she slept restlessly, and not only because of rocks. When she woke she saw the Exile's eyes peering over the side of the dinghy from beneath his mat, and he asked her very wistfully how long she meant to stay here.

  This was hard. It was against all Repnomar's inclinations and habits to sit still when she could be moving, and she knew that in the Exile's opinion there was a desperate need to move. But she was not willing yet to leave Lethgro boxed up in Rotl. He might have been executed already, or his case might be haggled over in Council for many watches to come. And the end of that haggling would be one of two things: either he would lose his head or he would gain his freedom, and the Captain saw nothing she could do to make one likelier than the other. So with a sigh she stood up, saying, “Not much longer,” and sauntered over to the little wharf where a few loafers lounged around a fishing boat, idly laying bets on two dogs that were fighting over a pile of fish heads.

  Presently she returned and untied the dinghy's mooring rope; for, as she told the Exile softly, “If they'd chopped off the Warden's head, the news would be all over the harbor. He's not dead; but he's not free, either, or he would have found us. It's time for a little excursion down the Coast.”

  What made this part of the Coast a pirates’ nest, in spite of its nearness to Rotl, was that here the shore curved like the inside of a bowl and the cliffs sank to a rocky jumble, and the curve of the bowl was filled with islands, some of them no more than rocks and some big enough to raise sheep on, and all of them full of inlets and waterline caves. From time to time the Council of Rotl, and sometimes the Council of Beng, sent ships and soldiers to clean out the pirates; but there was no denying that there were still pirates here.

  Into this stew of trouble the Captain steered. As she explained it to the Exile, “We'll be the safest boat in these waters. Nothing to steal—as far as anybody can see—and no way to do harm.” She was not quite so confident in her thoughts, for some of the pirates might take her for a Council spy, and some might recognize her as an old enemy (for she had fought pirates more than once).

  There seemed no need now for the Exile to hide himself; and when he saw the Captain lay a sword where it would not show from outside and would yet be convenient to her hand, he did the same with his little pike. Once they were well among the islands, they lowered the sail and sculled gently with the oars. And the Captain watched narrow-eyed as two boats came swiftly to meet them, one from each side and closing in.

  When Lethgro sailed out of Rotl harbor, the first order he gave was to take down the Council's insignia from the rail. He had none of his own to put in their place, and so the ship moved unmarked out into the Soll and turned upcoast toward Beng. The Council had accepted his story (how much they believed it was another question) of chasing the Exile through strange countries. He had searched Rotl and its surroundings for any trace of Repnomar (claiming that his search was for the Exile) and found none. It seemed likely, then, that the dinghy had never reached Rotl, and he was sorely afraid of what wreckage he might find.

  But the wind was rising, and the skipper told him somewhat testily that even with the use of oars they could not hold close enough to see every floating plank that might be knocking about among the rocks. So Lethgro sent two boats to comb the surf line, looking for any sign either of a wreck or of a landing. The skipper made a sullen face, for he did not approve of so many sailors gone from the ship with an early Windrise threatening, and he did not like to risk the boats; but Lethgro carried a certificate from the Council of Rotl and was not to be disobeyed lightly.

  It was while they were thus occupied, the ship standing far out and the boats busy along the foot of the cliffs, that they sighted another vessel bearing down on them from the open Soll. It carried no sail and moved fast under oars; so that the skipper, without bothering to consult Lethgro, immediately began to signal to his boats to come in. At this, Lethgro had the Council insignia put back again; for while he had not wanted to scare off Repnomar or the Exile, he wanted decidedly to scare off pirates.

  There were no other vessels in sight except a distant sail upcoast and a pair of fishing boats out by the edge of the Current. But the skipper raised all piracy signals and steered straight away from the approaching ship, so as not to take the impact broadside when it came; for many of these pirate vessels were beaked and could stave in a slower ship with one blow. Now weapons were made ready, though there were few enough to use them, for what sailors remained on board were almost all busy with the handling of the ship, and the boats did not look likely to reach them in time to be of much help. But now as Lethgro was pulling back his bow-string till his fingers brushed his ear and taking aim at the pilot of the pirate ship, a flicker of blackness caught his eye, and at the same moment he heard a familiar yell; and there in the pirate's bow were Broz and Repnomar.

  “Heave to, Lethgro!” the Captain was shouting. “I've got a ship for you!”

  Lethgro lowered his bow, with a great breath of relief that swelled his chest. “And I've got one for you!” he shouted, and turned to give orders to the skipper.

  When all was calm again and the signals taken down, they gathered on the foredeck of the Council ship: Repnomar, Lethgro, the Council's skipper, and the pirate captain, with Broz sniffing about their legs. It had not been hard to persuade the Council skipper not to fight, for he was glad enough to keep his crew safe (at least till they could all be brought on board and armed) and his ship undamaged; but he was less willing to join forces with a pirate. His commission was to search for the Exile, under Lethgro's command; but Lethgro had been an outlaw a few watches back, and this meeting on the Soll smelled of conspiracy. What made the skipper most dubious was that Lethgro had commanded the ship's boat
s to stand off a little way, and the pirates had promptly put a boat of their own between them and the ship.

  Lethgro, for his part, felt like a juggler with too many balls in the air. It had been a fine stroke of Repnomar's to keep the Exile under cover, so that even now the Council skipper did not know he was on board the pirate ship (though Repnomar had whispered that news quickly to Lethgro). But sooner or later the skipper and his crew would learn that the supposed object of their search was already found—indeed, the pirates might let it slip at any moment, and in that moment Lethgro would find himself an outlaw again.

  It was Repnomar's idea that two ships, both with well-armed crews, would more than double their chances of coming through the hazards ahead of them. She had not expected to find Lethgro in command of a Council ship; she had only hoped to capture this one while its boats were away and enlist the crew for a voyage across the Soll. But when she had spotted Lethgro on the deck she had given a cry of jubilation and shoved the Exile hard, so that he fell at her feet. The pirates (none of whom had altogether grasped what enterprise they had embarked on when they undertook to do business with Repnomar) took this as a quarrel among friends; but the Exile himself had quickly understood, and crept to a hiding place behind the forward anchor.

  Now her hope, like Lethgro's, was to arrange all without fighting, so that they could begin their voyage with two full crews and with clean hands. But if the Council skipper could get his sailors back on board, within reach of their weapons, he might well decide to fight, for clearly a shipmaster commissioned by the Council of Rotl should have no truck with pirates. Considering these things in her mind, Repnomar proposed a choice to the skipper: either he could swear to sail with them wherever Lethgro commanded, or he could be put ashore here and now, and make his own way back to Rotl.