“And we will be well advised to seek a warm cabin, out of this chilly wind,” Haimya said. This time Pirvan caught her hand before it reached inside his tunic, then lifted it to his lips and kissed the sword-calloused palm.
Chapter 8
Their cabin was small and sparsely furnished, and Pirvan realized that if their baggage ever did catch up with them, most of it would have to go into the hold. However, of most concern right now was that they were out of the wind and the rain, together, and alone.
They were just drifting off to sleep in a bunk barely large enough for one and distinctly cramped for two, when a fearful din from above jerked them both back to full wakefulness. To Pirvan it sounded as if the Servants of Silence might have followed them and were now trying to carry Windsword by boarding.
He leaped out of bed, snatched for his clothes and sword with one hand, and with the other tried to gather up decent garb and adequate weapons for Haimya. He ended by thrusting both of his legs into one leg of his breeches and falling on his face hard enough to cut his lip when he tried to leap for the ladder.
When he rose, all he could see of Haimya was bare shoulders, one bare arm holding a sword, and a face rapidly turning bright red from holding in laughter. About that time, Pirvan also recognized Kurulus’s voice, cheerfully reporting the arrival of everybody’s baggage and a few new hands.
Pirvan was curious about that last item, but not so curious that this time he failed to dress properly and appear on deck like a knight, complete to weapons and low boots. He nearly tripped again, over a line on which several sailors were hauling, but leaped over it as a chest he recognized as his and Haimya’s spare armor swung into view.
The clatter and clang of loading made conversation impossible; Pirvan went to the side to be out of the way. It was then that he saw Grimsoar One-Eye’s Sea Leopard close to port, and equally close to starboard a ship he didn’t know but which flew the Encuintras banner at two mastheads and the aftercastle. That, he supposed, was Kurulus’s ship.
And here came Kurulus himself, grinning rather like a kender who’s just made off with a whole crock of piping-hot biscuits and somebody’s wedding cake from a baker.
“All well?” Pirvan asked.
Kurulus laughed aloud. “Oh, we’ll be telling our grandchildren about this night. We got to the inn in fine style, hiring a few porters on the way with that purse of Jemar’s.
“It took more than the key to prove we had the right to enter your room. Also, a few of the servants seemed ready to slip out and tell someone-I’ll name no names-about us.
“So we had to climb the stairs as if the water were rising at our heels. We entered the chambers, picked up everything we could carry-”
“Not being too careful whether it belonged to us or the inn?” Pirvan interrupted.
“Sailors in a hurry don’t much care to read badges, if they can read at all. Anyway, we got clear, and with a little help from a carter we persuaded to go out of his way-”
“Did you steal his cart, or just force him to drive it down to the harbor?”
“Ask no questions and you’ll hear no sea stories,” Kurulus said, so piously that Pirvan burst out laughing.
“And then?”
“Well, the four of my lads who’d taken you down to Jemar’s boat then launched ours, and warned my own Thunderlaugh. We put our launch over the side, then hoisted anchor and drifted down to join you. I reckoned that three sea barbarian ships and the Encuintras flag is enough protection from anything the kingpriest is likely to send after us.
“If he whistles up the whole Istarian fleet, we’re fish food, but I’d wager all the wine aboard that he’ll do no such thing. There’s plenty in Istar who think virtue means honoring the gods instead of just a man who thinks he’s one.”
Drums began thudding, calling the hands to make sail, and Pirvan stepped aside as men swarmed toward the ratlines to go aloft and toward the sheets to work from the deck. Kurulus gave Pirvan a bone-crushing handshake, then swung over the side into his launch.
Lunitari was shining again, though veiled by clouds, and Pirvan saw, one by one, the sails shaken out and swelling with the wind. Then the drums and pipes beat for the capstan hands to raise anchor, and Pirvan himself ran forward to push on the bars, smoothed by many years of sailors’ hands.
It was not knight’s work, but at this moment Pirvan would have mucked out pigsties to speed his departure from Istar.
* * * * *
They had a slow but easy voyage to Karthay, with many fluky or contrary winds, but no storms. By the second day Haimya had her sea legs, and although she still looked pale, she could sway with the motion of the ship and lock one arm around the standing rigging as if she’d been at sea half her life.
They passed so far offshore of the Flower Rocks that Pirvan had to climb to the maintop to get a glimpse of them, dark and low above the sun-dappled water. There he, Haimya, and Tarothin had helped save Golden Cup, at the price of narrowly escaping drowning and a sea naga.
Now the sea sparkled and danced so that it was hard to believe it could hold anything dangerous. Rainbows of spray rose as the four ships sliced through the little waves, sails flapped and filled alternately with drum cracks, and gradually the coast of the Bay of Istar fell behind them.
Three days brought them into sight of the mountains beyond Karthay, without bringing any sign of pursuit. Pirvan wondered aloud at this, and his curiosity was hardly idle. He had much to do in Karthay, whether they went seeking the Minotaur’s outlaws or not. He could do it faster if he did not have to slip through the shadows of the city, to avoid its own rulers or the Servants of Silence.
Jemar tried to put him at ease. “To my mind, the danger of pursuit ended at the waterfront. The Istarian fleet’s mostly commanded by the merchant families. They’ll not take kindly to chasing a ship of House Encuintras.
“Nor will they be too happy over the Servants of Silence. Custom has been for the temple guards to stay in the temple precincts. Sending sworn killers roaming about the streets could bring down the kingpriest, or at least leave him with no power except to decide when he should go to the privy!”
Pirvan could only hope that Jemar was right. The sea barbarian chief believed in little except his own strength and shrewdness, for all that he professed to honor Habbakuk, Lord of Mariners. He did not know how corrupting it could be to tell a man that he is virtuous above all others.
At least the Knights of Solamnia required that one practice the virtues-and made their practice so demanding that one had no time to sit and think how wonderful one was. Without that discipline in their followers, the kingpriests were threatening to sow corruption in the name of virtue.
* * * * *
On the fourth day, they found themselves off an anchorage on the western shore of the bay. On the charts it bore the name “Istariku.” In a dialect so ancient that only a handful of scholars and clerics knew more than a few words of it, this meant “Eye of Istar.”
What that eye had been meant to watch in the days when the anchorage gained its name, no one knew. Today it plainly was meant to watch Karthay and the mouth of the bay, neither more than a day’s good sailing from the anchorage.
There were also ruins on the hills that suggested Istariku might once have been a considerable town, but of more interest to the travelers was a small village of tents on the shore. Also on the shore, drawn up on the beach, were a dozen light galleys, and anchored in deeper water were several heavier ships, some clearly merchant vessels, but others flying the banners of the Istarian fleet.
Kurulus volunteered to take his Thunderlaugh in to see if he could find buyers for some of his cargo. Even more important, he would seek out captains who might grow loose-tongued after enough wine.