“I just want to know who owns it,” I said. “Common curiosity is all.”
“Common, ye say? Well, your curiosity is uncommonly like to the Young Lord’s. What would ye know but he asked me the very same thing.”
Did he, now? I wasn’t sure whether that was good news or bad. It proved he took an interest in the ship, but then, we knew that already. And if he had been asking questions, at least it meant he didn’t intend to leap blindly into the arms of the Sea Wolf and her crew.
Dina hadn’t come down for lunch. Rose glared at me across the table in a manner that should by rights have left two scorched spots on my woolen jerkin.
“I just thought I saw someone I know board her,” I muttered, just to say something.
“Aye well, that might be so. But her owner is not known to me. She comes through here half a dozen times a year, drops her cargo and picks up another, and then is off again. A man they call the Crow pays her harbor fees; that is all I know.”
The Crow? Was that the man in the cloak?
“Well, wouldn’t he be the owner, then?”
Again, the Harbormaster laughed his grating laugh. “Lad, ye have much to learn about the shipping business. Merchant ships like her are not owned by those who sail in them. No, there is a merchant somewhere, on the Magdan Coast, it might be, getting richer with every voyage she makes. As long as she does not go down, of course, and as long as he buys and sells the right goods.” He nodded toward the desk where his wife was selling her toddies. “He is in today, the Crow, with his first mate. Sitting right over there. Ye can ask him yerself, if ye care to.”
I scanned the crowd at the desk. The Cloaked Man was not among the people jostling for their drinks.
“Which one is he?”
“The long one,” said the Harbormaster.
The long one. No doubt there—one of the guests stood head and shoulders above the rest. And looking at him it wasn’t hard to see how he had come by his nickname. His hair was black and smooth like a crow’s feathers, and he had the biggest, beakiest nose I had ever seen. It really looked as if he could jab people with it.
“Well?” said the Harbormaster, a glint in his eye. “He does not bite. As far as I know.”
“Stay away from him,” hissed Rose between her teeth. “Surely you’re not that dumb?”
“Maybe later,” I told the Harbormaster.
“Aye well, ye know yer own business. No knowing how long he will stay, though.”
I could tell he thought I was scared of the man, and that bothered me. But Rose was right. It would be stupid to go up to him openly. Wouldn’t it? Or on the other hand…
“I think I’ll buy myself a toddy,” I said, sliding off the bench. Rose made a grab for my sleeve, but I pretended not to notice. Once I was on my feet, though, it occurred to me that the Crow might have been the ambusher with the crossbow. But by then it would have looked like cowardice to sit down again.
The bar was busy, and Maeri, the Harbormaster’s daughter, had to lend a hand with the drinks. She smiled at me.
“Would ye like a toddy, Davin?”
“Please.” And then I thought of the shrunken state of our wallet. “A small one.”
Maeri threw a quick look over her shoulder. Her mother was busy at the other end of the bar.
“One small toddy, that will be two coppers,” she said. But she poured me a full measure and winked at me.
“Thank you.” I raised the glass and sniffed at the spicy steam, leaning against the counter to try and hear what the Crow and his mate were talking about.
“… hear the last of it,” said the first mate. “Trouble and more trouble, that’s what comes of having women aboard.”
“Really? You seemed to be having a fine old time,” said the Crow drily. “Wasn’t it you who lent her the second knife?”
Women aboard? What was a woman with a knife doing aboard a merchant sloop?
“Besides, there’s money in it, I tell you.”
“Money in it for you, perhaps.”
“For all of us. A fortune. As long as I don’t have to listen to any more of your yapping!”
Maeri gave me a brilliant smile—I think she thought I lingered at the bar because of her. If only that had been the case. She was dark-haired like her mother and really very nice. But I didn’t like what I had heard about the money. Nico didn’t have much, not anymore. So how were they planning to make their fortune?
“Drink up,” said the Crow. “And go see to that cooper. I need those barrels today.”
The mate put down his glass and headed for the door. I followed him with my eyes.
Then I felt a hand on my arm. The Crow’s hand.
“Do you like fish, boy?”
I pulled away from him. It wasn’t difficult; he wasn’t trying to hold on to me.
“Not particularly.”
“Then maybe you should keep your ears to yourself. Or someone might invite you to visit with the fish.”
What was it about that ship that made everybody tell me to stay away from it?
“Are you saying I was eavesdropping?”
“Yes,” he said flatly. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
He slammed a few coins onto the counter and left.
“Now, that was a really clever thing to do,” said Rose. “But there might still be one or two people aboard that ship who don’t know how curious you are, so maybe you ought to go stand on the pier and shout at them for a while, just to make sure the slow ones get it too.”
“You think you’re so clever,” I said, knowing it wasn’t the smartest comeback of all times. “What’s your great plan, O Mastermind?”
“How about we get up before dawn so that we can be on the pier to stop Nico from getting on that ship before she sails?”
Well, it wasn’t such a bad plan. Although my idea was not so much to stop Nico as to be sure he didn’t leave without me. But I wasn’t going to tell her that, was I?
“All right,” I muttered. “Have it your way.”
Dina and Rose had it easy. They shared a bedroom with Maeri and her two sisters, and sneaking past three sleeping girls couldn’t be that hard. But Callan… Callan had been a caravan guard most of his adult life, and for the past two years he had been my mother’s bodyguard. He was used to sleeping with half an eye open, to say nothing of both ears. And what would I say if he woke up? But if Nico could do it, so could I.
Or so I thought.
“Where are ye going, lad?”
“Need to pee,” I murmured.
But Callan threw aside his blankets and sat up.
“Use the pot, then.”
“No, I’d rather—”
“Listen, now. Ever since we came here, you and the two lasses have been running around with a wasp down yer pants. First one of ye is off, and then the other. Ye cannot sit still for a moment, and now ye cannot even stay in yer bed at night, or piss in a pot like any other man. Something is going on, and ye can damn well tell me what, or else lie back down nice and quiet.”
He meant it too. I couldn’t see his face—there was only a narrow stripe of moonlight coming through the shutters—but I knew him well enough by now to know that that tone of voice suffered no gainsaying. If I did try to leave, he would do what was necessary to stop me.
Damn. What now?
Nico had not interfered. Not a word, not a move. Was he still asleep? Or even—
“Where is Nico?”
“In his bed,” growled Callan. “Like any normal man. And if ye think—”
And then he noticed. There was a roughly human-shaped hump in Nico’s side of the bed, but it consisted of a couple of pillows and somebody’s cloak. Nico was gone, and so were his saddlebags.
Callan’s huge fist closed around my arm like a vise.
“Out with it, boy. What are ye up to?”
Nico was gone. He was probably on his way to the harbor, or already on board. There was no time for talk and explanations. I half-spun in Callan’s gra
sp and jabbed my elbow into his stomach, just below the rib cage.
He had taught me the move himself, but he never expected me to resist, I think. In his eyes I was still the awkward “lad” that he had taken under his wing. Perhaps he was regretting his generosity now. With a hiss like a punctured sheep’s bladder he doubled up and went down on one knee. I broke free of his hold and headed for the door. I knew he would follow, but one thing at least my nightly runs had done for me—I was fast, and I could go on forever. Or at least for a very long time.
I took the stairs three at a time, not caring if the racket woke the entire household. I didn’t know whether Dina and Rose had made their escape. If not, it was probably all the better. I was not enormously keen on them traipsing around Farness on the wrong side of midnight. Behind me I heard Callan’s voice, still breathless from the blow.
“Davin! Stop!”
He was angry. If he caught me, I would feel his fist. But that was not why I ran. What really put the speed of fear in me was the thought of Nico, Nico alone on the Sea Wolf with the Crow, who had said there was “money in it.” I tore open the door, charged across the cobbles of the yard, and flung myself into the streets of Farness.
The wind had died as much as it ever did here, and the moon shone full and bright through a thin veil of clouds. There had been no time to rummage for my boots, but I was used to running barefoot. Down the steep alley to the harbor, sharp left along the pier… where was the ship?
It had been right—
There.
But there was no ship. Only an empty mooring point.
I stopped. Stared across the black waters of the harbor. And there she was, in a silvery lane of moonlight, her sails still furled. She was waiting, ready to be off, but holding back. A small boat, a dinghy, was on its way out to meet her. They were too far away for me to be sure, but I felt certain one of the two people in the boat was Nico.
I didn’t waste my breath shouting. If it was him, he would not stop just because I yelled at him. Instead, I took five long paces and leaped straight in.
Huuuuuuwwwhhhh. Cold, cold, cold. For a moment I could barely breathe, and my arms and legs turned from living, moving limbs into stiff, awkward sticks. I had to force them to get going, urging them on like some recalcitrant horse. Come on. Move. A stroke. Another. Kick, you miserable legs. Come on, or we’ll never make it!
The boat was already rounding the end of the pier.
Idiot, I hissed at myself. Did you really think you could catch up to a boat rowed by nice long oars when all you have are a couple of frozen arms and even colder legs? It was hopeless.
I kept going anyway. The ship was at anchor and didn’t move. If I wasn’t able to catch the boat, I might swim all the way out to the Sea Wolf.
I battled on through the freezing water, stroke by stroke. Sharp little waves kept slapping me in the face, so that I had to snort the water from my nostrils. How far had I come?
Not far at all. Not even past the pier yet.
I won’t make it, I thought. It’s too far, the water’s too cold. It would be better to turn back now when I still had a bit of strength left to save myself. What good would it do Nico if I drowned from sheer exhaustion between the Sea Wolf and the pier?
But Rose was right. I wasn’t too smart. I kept swimming.
Splash. A different sort of splash, not the waves this time. Splash swish, splash swish… the sound of a rowboat.
“Davin! What on earth are you doing?”
I looked up. Nico was leaning across the gunwale, keeping the boat steady and still with one oar while the other one rested in the oarlock, dripping.
“Swimming,” I said between my teeth.
“You can’t! It’s too far.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Turn around!”
I made no answer. I merely reached up one frozen arm to cling to the gunwale.
“And where exactly do you think you’re going?” I asked.
I noticed now that the other person in the boat was the Cloaked Man. Same cloak, same hat. But something was missing. What?
The beard. Last time I saw him, he had had a beard. “Hit his fingers,” he said.
No. Not he.
Long, red-gold hair beneath the hat. A voice that was not a man’s voice. A face too delicate, now that it was not hidden by the beard. And a shape, glimpsed beneath the cloak, that was by no stretch of imagination that of a man. He was a she.
I almost let go in sheer surprise. The Cloaked Man was no man at all!
“Davin, don’t be stupid. I’m not letting you into this boat. You might as well go back.”
I was still staring at the man who wasn’t. I was so freezing cold it was difficult to think, but somewhere in the chilled depth of my brain, an idea stirred.
“It’s quite a long way to the pier,” I said.
“You’ll make it.”
“The water’s cold.”
“You were the one who insisted on jumping in.”
“I’m actually quite tired.” Not totally wrong.
“You’re a strong swimmer. Don’t you think I know that?”
I suppose he did, after what happened in the cavern beneath the Sagisburg. Even if he had been the one to find the Educators’ fake “golden cup” first.
“My arms are stiffening.” Absolutely correct. “I can’t feel my legs anymore.” Also no lie. “Nico, if you don’t let me into that boat, I’ll drown.”
“Hit his fingers,” said the Cloaked Woman once more. “Nicodemus, we have no time for this!”
Nico gauged me with his eyes. Then he did the same thing with the distance and the dark waters between me and the pier. And then, he held out his hand.
“Come on, then,” he said. “But I’m putting you ashore. You are not coming with me.”
“Nicodemus!” objected the woman.
“Carmian, it’s no good. It’s too far. He really might drown.”
He had to haul me aboard like some large and dying fish. I was a bit shaken to discover how much the cold water had weakened me. What I had begun as a trick, might not in fact have been the lie I thought it was.
“Idiot,” muttered Nico as I lay gasping in the bottom of the boat. “You’ll catch your death of cold.”
He stuck both oars back in the water and began to row for the pier. But right then, lights sprang up in the darkness.
“Davin!” It was Callan’s voice. “Nico! Come back!”
There was a sound from Nico, a sort of irritable hiss.
“Did you have to wake up the entire town?”
“What did you think? That we were just going to let you sneak off into the night?”
Not that I was all that pleased to see Callan myself, or to see Dina and Rose standing next to him. But I might as well make the most of it.
“What now, Nico? Are you still going to drop me off at the pier? And do you then expect Callan to stand calmly by while you sail off into the moonlight?”
“Throw him overboard,” said the woman—what had Nico called her? Carmian? “He’ll find his way to shore, or else his fine friends will help him.”
Nico watched me for a while. I did everything I could to look at least as worn out and frozen as I felt.
“No,” he finally said. “We’ll have to take him with us.”
DINA
Sea Chase
I stood there on the pier, helplessly watching as the ship with the red sails disappeared with my brother and Nico on board. Not again, I thought. Please. Not again. I couldn’t bear it if we were to be parted again, if Mama and me and Melli and Rose had to be half crazed with fear all over again because we didn’t know what was happening, knowing only that it was dangerous, and that we might never see them again.
“Dina?” Rose touched my arm. “Was he in the boat? Was it him?”
“They were both there,” I said. “Davin and Nico.”
Callan turned. He took hold of my arm, not hard enough to hurt, but firmly enough for all that.
Rose and I looked at each other. She gave me a faint nod, and I agreed. There was no longer any reason to keep secrets. At least not the ones that had to do with Davin and Nico.
“Nico is up to something,” I said. “Davin thinks he is going to try to kill Drakan. Alone.”
Callan cursed under his breath. “And that is why the two of them took off?”
“Yes. Or at least, that’s what we think. But it isn’t… you see, we think Nico has picked a dangerous ship. Because someone from the crew threatened Davin with a knife, and one of the others said that there was money in it.”
“Money? The Young Lord has no money now.”
“No. But they might make a great deal of it by selling him to Drakan.”
“A hundred gold marks,” said Rose. “Drakan has promised a hundred gold marks to anyone who can bring him Nico’s head. That is a lot of money in anyone’s book.”
“What is the name of the ship?”
“The Sea Wolf.”
“The Crow’s sloop?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
Callan didn’t answer in so many words. He simply took off at a run in the direction of the Harbormaster’s yard.
“Wait,” I called, because it seemed to me he was going the wrong way. “We can’t just—”
“Stay there,” he shouted. “Don’t ye dare move! If anyone else is missing when I come back, I’ll tan yer hides for ye!”
It was some time before Callan returned. Rose and I stood there, staring across the black waters and watching the sails of the Sea Wolf grow smaller and smaller. In the end we couldn’t even see the ship itself anymore, just the stern light, shining like a tiny, low star in the middle of all the darkness.
“Why didn’t we tell Callan about all this yesterday?” asked Rose after a while.
“Davin wouldn’t let us.”
“We should have done it anyway.”
“Yes.”
“We were stupid.”
“Yes.”
We were both silent for a few moments. Then Rose went on, very quietly, as if she was afraid she might insult me.
The Shamer's War Page 4