«You have invoked Truce, Blahyd. And you bring word that might best be laid before the Council of Captains. Otherwise I would take your ship and kill your men before your eyes, then send your cods to your high-born doxy! You will follow me.» She turned her back decisively to bark orders to her crew, who began dropping down to the rowing benches. Sea Witch swept away while Charger turned under Brora's orders to fall in astern of her, and Spider Prince curved round in a great circle to take up a position at the very rear. Like a convict and two guards, the three ships set off for their goal, the ever-growing pirate fleet that now blackened fully half the horizon.
At the brutal pace Witch set, they came up with the advance guards of the pirate armada within half an hour. Blade saw familiar badges on the sails of the galleys as they fell behind and saw their crews pointing and staring at his own flags and the Truce banners flying from Charger's masts.
Beyond the advance guard lay a stretch of open sea, then the main body. Four hundred ships now seemed a conservative estimate of its total strength, Blade felt. There seemed to be an endless arc of galleys interspersed with high-prowed merchant vessels, now stretching completely across Blade's field of vision, and seeming to reach around to either side to engulf the three ships racing up to it. He could see the sun winking on helms and weapons aboard some of the merchant vessels, the intricate frames of catapults and ballistas on the high castles of others, skiffs and pinnacles with bright orange and blue and gold sails darting back and forth among the larger ships, like swallows around cliffs.
Blade soon saw that Cayla was leading them toward a particular ship, a huge merchantman even larger than Khystros' long-gone Triumph. From its three masts streamed the green and white banner of the Captain's Council of the Brotherhood, the same that Blade had seen over Council House on Neral. As Charger drew closer and the flagship loomed higher and higher over him, Blade saw that her decks were crowded not only with armed soldiers, but with Captains in full battle gear, as well as their ceremonial white baldrics and green cloaks. It appeared that Charger had arrived in the middle of a full meeting of the Council itself. Blade wondered what the Captains had been discussing before and smiled at the havoc he would be wreaking on their carefully planned agenda. Those Captains senior enough or distinguished enough to win seats upon the Council were also often old enough to have developed a taste for complicated paperwork and tidy agendas.
The seniors were out in even greater force than usual, judging from the amount of gray and white in the beards that appeared at the railing as Charger ranged alongside the flagship. A rope ladder plummeted down onto Charger's deck. Blade caught it nimbly and scrambled up to the deck of the flagship.
As he stepped onto the deck, so did Cayla on the other side of the ship. The mercenaries and even the Captains eased themselves out of her path as she strode toward Blade. He could read her expression now-suspicion, hatred, and sheer cold fury mixed in constantly changing proportions. She too was now wearing the emblems of a Council member, a sight that made Blade even warier. She must have been rising fast and far in influence to take a seat on the Captain's Council while still barely thirty.
She stood watching him, hands clasped behind her back and feet braced apart, while the High Captain, chairman of the Council, ran through the formal greetings in a chilly and perfunctory manner. Not even for a traitor would the Brotherhood now violate a proclaimed Truce, but the control Blade saw written in many faces was stretched thin.
When the High Captain had finished speaking, the sudden silence and the eyes turned his way told Blade that it was now up to him. «Captains,» he began. «I did indeed flee from Neral, and it was indeed after slaying a fellow Captain. But that Captain and certain others-«he glared at Cayla, whose face showed no reaction «-for reasons of their own attempted to murder me by night in my own quarters. I defended myself, slaying Esdros and some of his companions. I plead guilty to bad judgment in having fled and suborned my crew to help me flee, rather than await the justice of the Brotherhood.» He hoped that last bit of flattery would go over well with some of the senior Captains. But he could see no change in the frozen faces staring at him.
«So I came to Royth, and far from being welcomed as a traitor to the Brotherhood, was cast in prison and only liberated by unexpected influences.» He would not have Larina's name dragged into this debate if he could avoid it; he owed her that much. «As I gained the freedom to move about, I saw that Indhios was planning to betray not only the Kingdom of Royth, but afterwards the Brotherhood, and rule over the ruins of both. He was a man to whom it came naturally to betray everyone in succession.» That, at least, was no lie. «So I set myself to defeat him, for the good of the Brotherhood, and did so. How, I am sure you all know.» There was still no thawing of the faces confronting him, but heads began to nod. The silence went on until the High Captain cleared his throat.
«Blahyd,» he said shortly. «You have proof of this?»
«I do.»
«Let it be brought before the Council, then.» He turned sharply on one sea-booted heel and strode away toward the aft cabin, the other Council members following him, all except Cayla, who glided like a prowling cat over to Blade and hissed in his ear (at least it sounded like a serpent's hissing to Blade's tight nerves), «Remember, Blade. I will denounce you if I once suspect you of telling a lie.»
Blade nodded. «I still serve the Brotherhood, Cayla. Why should I tell a lie? It seems to me that you have more to conceal. How many of the Captains will fight to restore the rule of the Serpent Priestesses, I ask you? Denounce me, and they will find out all you so freely told me.»
Cayla sprang back as though she had stepped barefoot on hot coals, and her face turned white and red and then white again with rage. Her lips tightened until they were bloodless; then she let out a long, whistling breath and nodded. Blade waited until she was out of earshot, then let his own breath out in a long sigh. He was gambling that Cayla was still so committed to her fantasies of reviving the Serpent Cult that a threat to reveal them in open Council would intimidate her. If he could keep her from stripping the «cover» off his-and Royth's-cover story, he felt he had at least a fighting chance of convincing the Brotherhood to follow the desired course.
It was indeed a «fighting» chance that the Council gave him, when they sat in the great cabin of the flagship to listen to his story in more detail. After three hours of presenting his own arguments and listening to the Council wrangle, Blade felt as wrung-out and sweat-soaked as he had felt after more than one battle.
He had spent only a few minutes of those three hours reviewing what had happened between his flight from Neral and Indhios' fall. Whether they held him innocent or not, the Council apparently had little interest in that part of his adventures. Indhios was dead; he could not be revived. «So,» as one elderly Captain put it, «we need to play with the cards Blahyd dealt us, whether we will or no.
What really kept the Council's attention centered on him was his story of the panic in Royth. No part of that story was a total lie. Everything happening in Royth over the past few weeks was, he knew, known to the pirates. It was simply a question of shading the truth, of revealing the actions but hiding the motives.