Ikos considered. Or wavered. Or at any rate, thought about it. “I like the girl,” he said at last. “Pretty solid.”
“I know.”
“Huh.”
“You have a boat, and I urgently need to get to Akylaxio. I could pay for your time and trouble.” Pen did not suggest a price; no need for anyone to know how much of Duke Jurgo’s purse he was still carrying.
“Not my boat. It belongs to some friends.”
“All right, I could pay them.”
Ikos pursed his lips. “Doubt they’ll like to have a sorcerer aboard, either.”
“You don’t have to mention my calling. Or anything else about me, really.”
“You want me to lie to my friends?”
“You want to listen to this same argument all over again, at length? If you think you’re tired of it, imagine how I feel. You don’t have to lie. Just… leave it out.”
“Which tells me something about you, I suppose.” Nothing that Ikos approved of, by the sardonic expression on his sweaty copper face.
Pen waved his hands in frustration. “I’m supposed to meet your mother and Nikys in Akylaxio, to escort them on to Orbas. It could be a chance for you to see them. Your last for a while.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Why didn’t you say so first?”
While Pen was still mentally flailing for a reply, Ikos led off down the side path. “Come on, then,” he said over his shoulder. A tight smile. “You can carry the machine.”
Pen scrambled after his guide for about two miles on the scrubby trail following the shoreline. In a tiny cove, they found the boat attended by three men as sunbaked and tough-looking as Ikos. The crew waved and exchanged laconic greetings with him, but stared at Pen.
“That your mother, is it?” said one. “There’s things you haven’t told us about your family, Ikos, my lad.”
Ikos shrugged. “Change of plans. It seems my mother’s gone to Akylaxio. We need to get there.”
“What, after all your trouble?”
“Aye. I’m not best pleased about it either.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “This one says he’ll pay for the ride.”
The dickering was short, since Pen, wildly anxious to be gone, closed the deal at the first suggested price. The fellows, who could have been brothers to the hardy fishermen Pen had observed putting out from Guza, presumably had been told by Ikos what risks they ran, or if not, it wasn’t for Pen to apprise them.
Riding in the clear water as if floating on air, the boat might well be just such a day-fishing vessel, smelling of sun-warmed tar and timber, salt and fish-scales. It would have been substantial for the cold lakes of the cantons, but seemed disturbingly undersized for this vast blue sea. When they cast off and raised its one sail, Pen hunkered up in the shifting shade and left its management to the men who, he hoped, knew what they were doing. Ikos doubtless thought it was perfectly safe, because he curled up on a folded sack and fell into a doze. Either that or he was just too exhausted to care.
Had Nikys and Idrene reached Akylaxio unharmed? Or had they run afoul of some trouble or delay in that long night-ride they’d planned up the coast road? Lamed horse, cart-wheel come off, a tumble into a ditch? Or bandits? Pen expected Bosha could speedily dispose of one bandit, or two, but what if there’d been, say, six, or a dozen?
Two ex-army widows are not going to make for easy victims, Des pointed out. I doubt Bosha would end up doing all the work himself.
That was not quite reassuring. Although Pen was subtly impressed with what little he’d seen of Idrene’s cool head so far. And Ikos, who knew her better, had plainly believed she’d handle his vile machine without panicking. Or puking. (Des growled.) If it was true that women turned into their mothers as they aged, Pen’s future with Nikys might prove even better than he’d hoped.
If they both lived to see it. Or even start it.
The women couldn’t yet have been overtaken by official pursuit, more dangerous than bandits, he persuaded himself. At this hour, Idrene’s gaolers should still be searching Limnos. As the boat tacked southward to parallel the coast, he leaned up to watch as the island fell behind them.
And so he was the first to spot the slim, speedy patrol galley, ten oars on a side and sail set as well, as it rounded Limnos’s rocky, surf-splashed curve. No fishing or cargo vessel, that. It reeked of military purpose. A distant figure in its prow pointed an arm at them and shouted something, and the galley began to angle in their direction.
Pen crept over and shook Ikos by the shoulder. “We seem to have company. Might be trouble.”
Ikos stood up on his knees by the thwart, scowled, and swore.
I could take care of them if you wanted, Des suggested. Just like pirates. An unsettling sense of the chaos demon licking her nonexistent lips. Ripped sails. Snapped stays. Fouled oars. Popped pegs. Opened seams in the hull. Fires in the galley. So many amusing things to be done…
No wonder captains didn’t want sorcerers aboard.
Ruchia was the only part of Des to protest. Stay calm. If they’ve anything to do with us, they are looking for an escaped woman. No women on this boat. Let them search, and then go away.
Yes, Pen agreed with Ruchia. He offered a sop. And should things go badly, there might be an opportunity later for even more chaos.
Not at all fooled, Des gave way, grumbling.
Ikos’s crewmates didn’t look any happier than he did at this visitor. Pen had heard that Cedonian islanders sometimes supplemented fishing with less benign sources of income. Smuggling. Or even piracy. But—he glanced around their lightly laden vessel—they didn’t seem to be carrying any obvious contraband today.
And no escaped prisoners, either.
“Where did that thing come from?” Pen asked Ikos. The galley looked all-business, and they clearly stood no chance of outrunning it in this mild weather.
“Imperial navy keeps a station around the other side of the island,” Ikos replied. “Not a full garrison. Couriers, mainly, and vessels to carry the alarm to the mainland if a threat should heave over the horizon.” He added after a moment, “I checked. Didn’t you?”
Pen let that poke pass.
When the galley drew close enough for shouts of Heave-to! to carry across the water, Ikos’s crew reluctantly did so. Oars were raised, and some officers clustered at the rail, looking down into their open boat. A young sailor in an imperial uniform climbed along a rope net and made a daring leap aboard.
“We’re searching for a woman.” He gave a brief, tolerably accurate description of Idrene. His first close look around verified there was no one of that sex aboard, although he stared hard at Pen, distracted for a moment by his foreign eyes. Which were not the brown of his quarry, so he went on, “She might be drowned by this time. If you find her body, bring it to the officers at the Limnos cove. There’s a reward. Pass the word.”
Ikos’s crew mumbled some interest in that last, and the sailor caught the rope tossed from his galley and managed the harder trick of returning upward, without even dipping himself in the waves. Ikos pushed off with one of their own oars, and, as soon as they were clear, the galley’s oar bank came down and bit the water once more. Going who-knew-where, but, as Ruchia had predicted, away.
And not ahead of them toward Akylaxio, or at least, not yet.
Penric exhaled and sat, bonelessly.
Ikos sank down beside him. Judging by his wheezing, Pen was not the only one with his heart thumping in his ears.