The Shamer's War

by Lene Kaaberbøl

  “It’s his ship,” said Nico curtly. “Who else would I give it to? One of his men?”

  The very idea of any of them holding it, touching its black smoothness, their heavy fingers on its slender neck, their fat lips—No. It didn’t bear thinking about. My outrage boiled so hotly that for a moment it almost matched Nico’s fury.

  “That flute is irreplaceable.”

  “You shouldn’t have taken it with you, then, should you, back when you decided to play the stowaway.”

  But without it I couldn’t have got aboard at all, and he knew that.

  There were steps in the hold, and I felt Nico hold his breath. He didn’t even dare to shush me, but then, that wasn’t necessary. I was no more interested in getting caught than he was.

  Footsteps. More than one man. Four or five, perhaps. And voices.

  “Where the devil is the cargo?” asked an unknown voice.

  “We sold most of it at our last port of call.”

  “And where was that?”

  “Pottersville.”

  “In Loclain? You didn’t stop at Farness, then?”

  “We thought it best to stay clear of the Highlands.”

  “Wise man. If you are telling the truth. Traveling with empty holds is not your style, Cador.”

  Cador was the Crow’s real name. Not many people called him Crow to his face.

  “It’s no crime.”

  “No, just very strange. And not your usual profit-making habit. Hallan. Bosca. Take this poor excuse for a ship apart at the seams. I’m betting he does have a cargo somewhere that he has just forgotten to tell us about. Meanwhile Mesire Cador will do me the favor of accompanying me to my offices so that I can run through some new regulations with him. This way, Mesire, if it pleases you.”

  The Crow clearly wasn’t pleased at all, but he managed a barely civil reply. And the men began their search.

  It reminded me of the time I had been hiding beneath the boards in Master Maunus’s bed in Dunark Castle while Drakan and his men took the place apart looking for me and Nico. Did Nico think of that time too? I had been so scared. Almost too scared to breathe.

  I was frightened now too. But back then, all I could do was lie there, waiting to see if they found me. Now… now, there was perhaps something I could do. I couldn’t see the men up there, could only hear them rummage around, knocking on boards to test for hollows, prying into nooks and crannies. They were looking for exactly such a space as the one we were in right now, and if they kept looking, they would find it. Now the Crow had two reasons to curse the decision to dump his cargo at Troll Cove. Dunbara’s Harbormaster might not have been quite so thorough if his suspicions hadn’t been aroused by the empty hold.

  “Yeecch!” There was a sudden exclamation of disgust from one of the men.

  “What is it?”

  “A rat. A rat the size of a dog!”

  Normally, I wasn’t crazy about rats. But right then, I could have kissed the beast.

  Rats are disgusting, I thought, as loudly as I could. And where there’s one, there are more. Filthy creatures, spreading disease. If they bite you, you can die.

  Nico stirred uneasily. It wasn’t his head I wanted to fill with pictures of rats, but since I was lying practically on top of him, he was bound to catch it too.

  “There’s another one!”

  “Lord, what a biggun. Did you see the size of him?”

  “Yanus Roper was bitten once,” said one of the men, revulsion in his voice. “His hand swelled up so badly the fingers were nearly black. All but did him in.”

  “Disgusting creatures.”

  “Yes. You done at your end?”

  “Yup. Nothing there.”

  “I think the master is off on a wild goose chase. There’s nothing to find here except rats.”

  We heard them tramp up the ladder, and then the cargo hold grew quiet except for the creaking of the hull and a scuttling that might or might not be a rat.

  “I’m not afraid of rats!” said Nico suddenly, rather loudly.

  “Nico—”

  “You did that, didn’t you? You made us think of rats!”

  He said it so accusingly that I ended up having to defend myself.

  “Would you rather have them find you? Perhaps you would have liked for them to haul you out of your hole and drag you to Dunark so that your beloved half brother could finally cut off your head? I think he is quite bothered that he didn’t get the chance last time.”

  “It was you!”

  “What if it was?”

  “Make it stop now!” he said, and his voice trembled. “I want those rats out of my head. I want the darkness out! And the smell of blood.”

  The smell of blood? That was none of my doing.

  And suddenly I knew what had happened. It wasn’t Master Maunus’s cozy workshop Nico was thinking of, lying here in the darkness. It was the dungeon cell where they had made him sit with his dead family’s blood on his hands for one whole night and one whole day. There had been rats there too.

  “Nico, please, this isn’t—”

  His whole body shuddered, head to foot. His breath came in gasps, as if he were choking.

  “Nico, nothing happened. We’re safe!”

  “Make them go away,” he said between clenched teeth. “Make them go away now.”

  But that was no easy thing. You can’t make people not think of something. The more you try, the worse it gets.

  “Nico, think of something else.”

  “Think of something else? Is that all you can say?”

  “I mean it. Think of something nice. Something you like. Your horse, Nico. The Highlands. Master Maunus.” But he was still shaking, more so than before, and I was running out of ideas. “Oh, hell. Think of Carmian, if that’s what it takes.”

  Apparently, that helped. His breathing eased, and the worst of the shudders stopped.

  “You two don’t like each other much, do you?” he finally said.

  “No. I don’t suppose we do.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are both remarkable.”

  I had to mull that one over a bit. I wasn’t sure I liked being compared to Carmian, but I knew he meant well. After all, he did like her. Enough to… I might not like to think of it, but that didn’t change the facts. Enough so that she had once been his girl. Or whatever one called it, in Nico’s old world where princes could do pretty much as they liked, as long as they didn’t get funny ideas about marrying girls like Carmian.

  “Do you think we might get out?” I asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “They’re gone now.”

  “Yes, but we have to wait for Carmian to let us out. We can’t open this ourselves.”

  I hoped she would come soon. One leg had gone all pins-and-needles, and even though I was not afraid of rats or darkness or had nightmares quite like Nico’s, still I would have liked some light, and some air that had not been breathed in and out a couple of times by someone else, and space to move without crushing another person. Even if that other person was Nico.

  “Why did you write to her?” I finally asked.

  “I had to do something. I couldn’t just keep on waiting while other people died. Every day, Dina. Every single day.”

  “Yes, but why Carmian?”

  “She knows people. People who will do dangerous things for money.”

  “People like the Crow, you mean.”

  “Yes. Like the Crow.”

  “But Nico, you know plenty of people who will do dangerous things without getting paid.” The Weapons Master and the Widow and all their followers. Master Maunus, Davin. Me, for that matter. We would all do just about anything he asked us to do if there was a chance of ending Drakan’s rule.

  “I know that,” he said, almost as if he could hear what I was thinking. “But they are people whose lives I’m not willing to risk.”

  I could see how it might be easier for him to put th
e Crow’s life at risk. But Carmian’s?

  “But Carmian’s life, you would risk her?”

  It came out more harshly than I had intended. But Nico’s answer surprised me.

  “Carmian isn’t like other women. Or like very many men, for that matter. She thinks she does these things because people pay her. But Carmian was born for danger, I think. Or perhaps she grew accustomed to it very early in her life. If she didn’t risk her life for me, she would be off risking it somewhere else. She can’t help herself.”

  Was he right? He knew her better than I did, of course. But I remembered what she had said the night before, as they stood together by the railing. Her you would wrap up in cotton wool to keep her away from harm. Not me. With me it doesn’t matter so much, does it? And I was fairly sure that the envy in her voice had been real. Maybe even girls like Carmian liked to be cotton-wrapped every so often. Especially if it was Nico doing the wrapping.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  In the end, Carmian did come to let us out.

  “He isn’t here,” she said.

  At first I wasn’t sure who she meant, but apparently Nico was.

  “Where, then? When will he be back?”

  “He’s gone off with the Dragon Force somewhere. And no, we don’t know where or for how long.”

  Drakan. It was Drakan they meant.

  Nico cursed quietly, but I breathed a huge sigh of relief. More time. That was all it meant to me at first. More time before Nico could get on with his dangerous plans.

  “We shall have to wait, then,” he said.

  “Well,” said Carmian, “that’s one way of going about it. If you think the Crow’s patience will last.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. If it becomes a bit too hard or a bit too risky, well, then, the Crow has an easy way of making a modest but very nice little fortune. He can sell you to Drakan’s people—even if Drakan himself isn’t in Dunark.”

  “He will get more by waiting and doing as I tell him.”

  “Only if you succeed. If you get caught without his assistance, at best he can kiss his fortune good-bye. At worst, he will face trial for hiding and abetting an outlaw. The penalty for that is death, particularly when the outlaw is you.”

  Nico cursed again, more loudly this time.

  “How long do you think—” Nico broke off, but Carmian was not afraid of calling a spade a spade.

  “Before he betrays you? Is that what you mean?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Only the Crow can tell you that. But I wouldn’t leave it too long if I were you.”

  I felt sick, almost as if I was about to be seasick again. But the Sea Wolf was riding at anchor and moving only gently up and down, and it wasn’t her motions that made my stomach contract.

  “Is he back yet?”

  “No. Still at the Harbormaster’s.”

  “Nico.” I spoke softly. “Perhaps we should get away from the ship.”

  Carmian looked at me attentively. “Your little friend could have a point,” she said. “It might not be wise to tempt the Crow too far.”

  “Where would we go? All Dunark is a death trap.”

  Did you only just realize that? I thought, but I didn’t say it out loud.

  “We could go ashore, move on, try to find the Dragon Force and Drakan,” said Carmian persuasively. “I… there are some people I know. People who might help. Surely anything is better than being stuck here like rats in a trap.”

  Nico thought about it. Then he shook his head.

  “No. We stay. I’ll talk to the Crow.”

  Carmian looked angry. “Nico. Don’t you get it? Anything you can promise the Crow depends on your success. If he no longer thinks you have a decent chance, you can promise him the sun, the moon, and the stars, and he will still turn around and betray you the minute your back is turned.”

  “No. We have a deal. And surely even the Crow has some sense of decency.”

  Carmian looked at him darkly.

  “I wouldn’t count on it if I were you,” she said.

  DINA

  One Girl, Ordered and Paid For

  “Wake up, girl.”

  Someone was shaking me by the shoulder, and not very gently either. I opened my eyes—and looked straight into the sharp, dark features of the Crow.

  “What—”

  “Come on. Move. Someone wants to meet you.”

  “Meet—”

  He practically hauled me out of the bunk.

  “Yes. Come on. Save the talk for later.”

  I was muddled with sleep, and my head hurt from the heavy air in the cabin. But his grip on my arm was a no-nonsense one, and before I was fully awake, he had dragged me up the ladder, up on deck. But when he tried to get me down the gangway too, I balked.

  “Wait. Where are we going? Where is Nico?”

  “Waiting for us. Come along, girl.”

  I wasn’t buying it.

  “What do you want with me?” I said, remembering only too clearly all his talk of ransoms. Had he found someone he could sell me to?

  The Crow looked at me for a moment with no expression whatsoever. Then he suddenly jerked his head. Just one brief, sharp movement, but apparently that was a signal they had arranged, because all of a sudden I was blinded by a blanket that someone threw over my head, and although I waggled and fought and tried to call out, it didn’t amount to much. The blanket muffled everything. They spun me around and wrapped me up like a parcel someone had ordered and paid for.

  Where was Nico? Where, for that matter, was Carmian? She hadn’t been in the other bed.

  I was lifted and carried and handed from one man to the next. My hip bumped against something hard—it might have been the gunwale—and then there was a drop, so sudden I was afraid for a second that they had simply dumped me over the side. But rough hands caught me, and I ended up head down over someone’s shoulder. Not the Crow, I thought, but one of his men.

  “Nico!” I shouted, as loudly as I could. “Where are you?”

  “Quiet,” hissed the man who was carrying me—it sounded like the one called Enoch. “Do you want the guards to hear us?”

  The guards? For a moment I considered yelling even more loudly. But no, probably not a good idea. If we weren’t actually headed into Drakan’s arms, there was no reason to ask for it. But if it wasn’t Drakan they expected to sell me to, who then? And what had they done with Nico? I couldn’t believe he had agreed to this.

  “Put me down,” I said. “I’ll walk.”

  “Captain? She says—”

  “No,” said the Crow curtly. “You never know with a witchling like that one. See to it that you keep a good grip on her.”

  Enoch tightened his hold on my legs. What did he think I was going to do? Fly away?

  A dog barked loudly and angrily quite close by, and at once, six or seven others took up the chorus.

  “Damn mutt,” growled Enoch. “Wake the whole town, why don’t you?”

  “Hurry,” said the Crow. “The sooner we get off the streets, the better.”

  I hated not being able to see. Being scared was bad enough without being blinded into the bargain. I tried to worm one arm free of the rope, but sailors don’t tie the kind of knots that come undone with a bit of wriggling. I could hear the footsteps of the men, first on boards and then on gravel and pavement. I could also feel how Enoch’s breath grew shorter and shorter, burdened as he was with me. But I could see nothing but blanket.

  “Can’t you carry her for a bit?” he groaned to one of the others.

  “Is she too much for you? Slip of a girl like that,” came the teasing answer.

  “Quiet,” hissed the Crow. “We’re there. Keep your gobs shut and let me do the talking. These aren’t ordinary folk.”

  There was a gentle knocking, and then the sound of a bolt being drawn.

  “Inside,” whispered a low voice.

  The men obeyed. And I could hear the door closing behind us, an
d the rattle of a lock.

  “Put her down,” said the Crow.

  Enoch did as he was told. I was so dizzy that I could barely stand. People weren’t meant to hang head down like bats.

  “Let me see her.” A new voice, both strange and yet familiar.

  The rope was loosened, and the hateful blanket was finally removed. I saw a small, low-ceilinged room almost without furniture. A table, a bench, a fireplace. And by the fireplace…

  My heart clenched. It couldn’t be.

  But—

  “Papa?”

  The word slipped out of me unasked. But then he moved. And I knew that miracles did not happen. It wasn’t him. He looked like him, so much so that it made my chest ache to see it. But though the hands held the flute knowledgeably, they weren’t my father’s hands, and there were other things too—the set of the mouth, something about his nose and chin. It wasn’t him. He was dead. I knew this, and yet it felt as if he had just died all over again.

  “My name is Azuan,” he said. “And you must be my brother’s daughter.”

  His eyes were as green as mine. As green as my father’s. He had no serpent earring, but the pin that held his cloak together had the same shape—a silver snake, with tiny green gemstones for eyes. It had to be true. He was my uncle. My father’s brother.

  “You say nothing?”

  “What do you want me to say?” It came out more defiant than I felt. I wasn’t defiant. I just felt as if someone had hit me over the head with something heavy.

  “You might start by telling me your name.”

  That had been the first thing my father had said to me. What is your name? I mean you no harm. I just want to know your name.

  He had done me harm. But also good, whatever other people said about him.

  “Her name is Dina,” said the Crow, apparently thinking me too slow and unresponsive. “Dina Tonerre. She is the Shamer’s daughter.”

  “Yes,” said Azuan. “The rebellious Melussina. We remember her well.”

  There was something about that “we” that caused a shiver down my back. As if his whole family were there behind him, watching over his shoulder. My father had never talked like that, even though it was clear that he never forgot who he was or where he came from.