They hadn’t even been allowed to refill their water casks, and that threatened to become serious. A number of casks in the bottom tiers had sprung leaks or been ruined by sea water. Golden Cup had to not only replenish the sound casks but repair the damaged ones before it was fit for the open ocean. The prospect of dying of thirst two miles from Karthay’s bustling waterfront would have been ludicrous had it been less real.
Indeed, the prospect of anything unpleasant seemed absurd on a day like this, when they were snug in harbor after their ordeal in the storm. The sky was a patchwork of shimmering blue and fleecy white, a light breeze cooled the skin and filled the sails of small craft, and the white walls of the port fortresses and warehouses blazed brighter than the foam on the waves. (Farther north than Istar, Karthay was hotter and mostly whitewashed its buildings to repel the heat.)
But dark undercurrents flowed beneath the still more splendid facade of Istar the Mighty. Pirvan knew that well-and like any wise thief, knew that no one man’s knowledge reached far. Doubtless the same flowed in Karthay-but here he was as ignorant as a newborn babe.
He could only wait, swallowing his frustration, until either Golden Cup’s folk were allowed ashore or the Karthayan axe fell.
The Karthayan axe fell two days later, after a water barge met the ship’s most urgent need. The hammering of carpenters at work repairing or replacing the water casks crept even into the captain’s cabin, as the Mate of the Hold (who acted as the captain’s deputy in matters of business) explained the situation.
“Thirteen thousand castles!” Lady Eskaia exclaimed.
“To be precise, twelve thousand, eight hundred eighty four, seven towers, nine staves,” the mate said. “This is exclusive of the cost of ship repairs.”
“Be quiet,” the captain said.
“No,” Eskaia said. “I want to hear the worst.”
“You already have,” the mate said. “There’s the consolation that we won’t have to pay for the repairs until after we’ve paid for the rest. They won’t allow us anywhere near the dockyards until-”
The captain muttered something rude, loudly enough for everyone to hear, not so loudly that anyone had to take notice. Eskaia’s face hardened. Pirvan risked a quick look at Haimya.
The guard-maid seemed to be trying to do the same as Pirvan-imitate a statue, with neither power of movement nor any senses. The captain had not been happy about Eskaia bringing her guards to this private conference. If they called themselves to the captain’s notice, they would find themselves out the door even at the price of a quarrel between Eskaia and the captain.
They had always agreed on the importance of avoiding that. Even though Haimya was still marching in silence across her private battlefield, she seemed to believe that still.
“Captain, the gold is there,” Eskaia said. “Even to pay Karthayan prices for repairing Istarian ships. But it is the principle of the matter, not the price. They seek to shame Istar through shaming one of the great merchant houses.
“Allow them to do this, and who knows what they will try next? It would be a sorry day for both cities, if Istar must subdue Karthay and garrison its lands, citadels, and ports.”
“Also a costly one,” the mate of the hold muttered. “The taxes we’d have to pay-”
This time the captain imposed silence with no more than a rude gesture of his left hand.
“Very well, my lady,” he said. “This voyage is your conception. I but serve to execute it. If you will suffer no harm through a few days’ waiting, neither will I or my men. Perhaps the Karthay ans will relent.”
“Perhaps sea trolls will become priests of Paladine, too,” Eskaia said. “I was thinking more of finding ways to repair Golden Cup for the remainder of the voyage without Karthayan help.”
“You ask much of me and my crew-”
Eskaia held up a small hand, which now showed a few calluses of its own. “Only patience. Not facing needless danger. Patience-oh, and any knowledge of Karthayans who may not honor their rulers’ writs in such matters.”
“Such wouldn’t come for’ard without a pledge of secrecy,” the mate said. “No sailor likes to be shipbound in a port like Karthay, for fear of a flogging or a work camp.”
“No one will be leaving the ship before this matter is settled anyway,” Eskaia said. She looked at the captain, and he nodded reluctantly. “So no one’s secrets will reach Karthayan ears except by treachery, and I judge the sailors can deal with that themselves.”
The two mates exchanged looks which Pirvan had no trouble translating: If the traitor’s friends don’t do the job, we will.
Chapter 9
Night over the West Port-a cloudy night, moon and stars alike invisible, and the air so still and heavy that Pirvan feared another storm. And Golden Cup without so much as a spare anchor-although the mates had improvised one, from old barrels filled with stone ballast and strapped with scraps of iron, rope, and leather.
Forward, the blacksmith’s forge glowed and his hammer rang as he worked on more fittings bent or twisted by the force of the storm. Pirvan turned to look at the more distant, silent lights of the shore, as a familiar, massive shape loomed out of the darkness beside him.
“Come with me, Brother,” Grimsoar said.
“I’m allowed here.”
“I’m not, save on duty.”
“Isn’t this duty?”
“Some folk wouldn’t call it such. Not if they heard what I want to say.”
“If they’re not going to hear it, is it important?”
“What’s your itch, Brother? Haimya?”
Pirvan sighed. “She’s eating herself alive from within over that broken rope. Does she want to die in the next fight?”
Grimsoar shrugged. “I’ve seen both men and women with that itch. But I don’t think it’s Haimya’s problem.”
“Then perhaps you should tell me what you think it is, instead of offering riddles.”
“Remember, you asked.”
“Remember, Brother, I also have a short temper.”
“So be it. She’s betrothed to one man, a gentleman who may have turned pirate. She’s falling in love with another, a thief who’s turned honorable comrade.”
Pirvan could never afterward recall how long he was silent. Finally Grimsoar laughed softly.
“If you let your jaw drop like that again, you’ll punch a hole in the deck right over Haimya’s cabin. That might douse her affection for you, the next time we take green water-”
Pirvan mimed thrusting a dagger into Grimsoar’s ribs. “If I go with you and listen, will you be silent on the matter of Haimya?”
“Unless I see you making a fool of yourself, yes.”
This promise did not much console Pirvan. He remembered that Grimsoar One-Eye often had a rather broad definition of “fool.”
* * * * *
Outside Synsaga’s hut, a moderate Crater Gulf rain was falling. That was to say, it looked like a heavy rain in more civilized parts of Ansalon, instead of a waterfall.
Gerik Ginfrayson resolved that if he ever attained servants here, he would have one to do nothing but dry, scrape, and oil his possessions. Otherwise the moist heat would eat them like ogres in a pigsty, and a man could be unarmed and in rags between one voyage and the next.
“You’ve been asked for by name, for hard but important work,” Synsaga said.
Ginfrayson returned his attention to his chief. The pirate was as dark as most sea barbarians, but shorter, and with a black beard so splendid that it seemed to have leeched all vitality from his scalp, which was entirely bald. The beeswax candle in a polished coral holder (the one loot, the other made in the camp) set amber light dancing across Synsaga’s bare skull.