“Sap” was right …
Matt scolded himself for not paying more attention to his surroundings. The fact that his assailant had silenced his approach with magic didn’t help much. Made it worse, really—he should have been aware of hostile magic swirling around. The need for vigilance had never occurred to him, though, in the middle of a peaceful countryside in his own land. In the woods, you expected bandits, but not in open fields.
Which meant this duo had been sent after him in particular. Matt took a closer look at the foreigner, but he didn’t look all that Asian—black haired and olive skinned, maybe, but so were a third of the men in Merovence, especially in the south, near the Middle Sea. Still, by his accent, he was an outlander, and that raised the little question of how the two had known where to find him. But headache stabbed again, and Matt had to shelve the item for future consideration. To make it worse, whatever kind of surface he was on seemed to lift up, then sink down, and his stomach rebelled. Frantically, he tried to stifle the nausea—with a gag on, the law of reverse gravity had even less to recommend it than usuaclass="underline" “What goes down, must come up.” Matt had no wish to choke on his own vomit.
He cracked an eye, peering through his lashes, and was amazed to see planking in front of his face. The surface tilted under him, rolling him onto his back; looking up, he saw a low rail and a single mast. Then the surface tilted back, he rolled onto his side again, but that had been enough—he was on a boat, and the rocking and rolling was due to waves.
He wondered where he was going. One way or another he was certainly going to find out—his verse-chanting wizardry doubly disabled by headache and gag, there wasn’t much he could do to change things. When the pain stopped, it might be another matter—he had found out by experience that he could work a few spells without speech, if he concentrated hard enough. But even in misery, curiosity poked through—he had been most definitely kidnapped, and began to wonder why.
“You have slept long enough,” a meowing voice said sarcastically.
Matt tilted his head enough to see Balkis, brown fur shading into the shadow behind an upright, lying with paws tucked under and eyeing him with disgust. Matt shrugged apologetically.
“If you are so mighty a wizard,” the little cat said, “free yourself from your bonds! Whisk us out of here!”
Matt considered for a moment, then shook his head.
“No?” Balkis demanded, scandalized, “For Heaven’s sake, why not?”
Matt raised his right hand, found the left came with it, bound, and pointed with both toward the sun.
Balkis followed his gaze, frowning—as much as a cat can.
“The sun? What of it? … Oh!”
Matt nodded.
“You mean that they take us where we wish to go!”
Matt nodded.
“How if they try to slay you?” Balkis demanded. “What then?”
Matt grinned behind his gag. Balkis read the wrinkles at the comers of his eyes correctly and shuddered. “You are quite sure of yourself.”
Matt wasn’t, but he nodded anyway.
“Would it not be safer to go on our own?”
Matt raised his bound hands and pointed to his ear.
The cat stared, puzzling out his pantomime, then said, “You believe you can learn of our enemy from what they say?”
Matt nodded again.
“It is most horribly dangerous,” Balkis said, coming to her feet, “and I’ll have nothing to do with it!” She stalked away, her tail straight as an exclamation point.
She’d stay, though, Matt knew. After all, if she didn’t, how would she learn his magic? Besides, they were in a boat, and he knew how cats felt about water.
In the middle of the day they fed him and gave him a drink—but the hulking Merovencian stood over him with a raised club as the foreigner took his gag off, promising, “Say one word and my companion will knock you senseless again.”
Matt nodded to show he understood, then ate with bound hands. He gave a groan of pleasure at the first taste of food, then made noises of delight with each spoonful. Of course, those moans and burps had consonants in them, and when strung together they added up to:
Which was French for:
“That had the sound of a word,” the thug said suspiciously.
The foreigner frowned, listening for the next groan of delight, then shook his head. “Not in any language I ever heard.”
That was nothing but plain truth, of course, for the French of Matt’s home universe was quite different from the Merovencian of Alisande’s. Nonetheless, the verse, rude though it was, worked quite well, as Matt discovered the next time the Asian muttered to himself under his breath. What he said was enough to make Matt sorry he’d understood, and to hope the cat didn’t—though it took a lot to embarrass a cat.
They retied the gag and, before they again shortened the rope that held him to the mast, gave him a chance to take care of sanitary functions at the gunwale. This involved standing up, so Matt was able to see that they were sailing down a river. From what he knew of the geography, he guessed which one, and had it borne out several days later when they docked at Playamer, the greatest of Merovence’s southern ports.
Matt’s first hint was the increase in river traffic—small sailboats scudding past, or at least the tops of their sails, and shouts and curses to give way—Matt himself had introduced the tiller, but the sailors were slow taking to the newfangled invention, and couldn’t see any sense in his triangular sails. As the number of masts increased, so did the noise, until, when they jarred against a dock, he was surrounded by a forest of bare poles and a cacophony of voices in a number of different languages, shouting, cursing, and calling their wares. Matt began to regret he’d laid the translation spell, once he understood what some of the voices were saying.
The Asian and the thug untied him from the mast and hoisted him onto his feet. Something sharp poked into his ribs and the Asian hissed, “Put one foot wrong and I’ll skewer your spleen.”
Matt took a step and stumbled, more or less deliberately.
“All right, all right, so it will take you a minute or so to regain your land legs,” the foreigner snapped. “Even so, be wary how you walk.”
Matt was very careful—in fact, as slow as he could be. He wanted to leave Balkis plenty of opportunity to follow. Obviously the little cat had decided to go along with his plan, or at the very least, she would have turned his bonds into mice and chased them away.
“I thought we were supposed to kill him,” the thug grunted.
“We were,” said the Asian, “but why not make a bit of a profit off him while we can? Levantine galleys will ply the Middle Sea until my masters conquer their caliph, and they always want more slaves for their oars. Why not make a bit of cash while we can? He will be dead soon enough aboard one of those ships.”
Matt felt a cold chill down his back, but pretended not to have heard them.
The galley they chose was a merchantman; its master looked as though his home port was Tripoli and honest trading was a sideline. He wore a gold ring in his ear, a colorful scarf instead of a turban, a vest over a bare chest, and knee-length loose trousers. He grinned under a huge black moustache and said, “You would sell me a man with a gag? What is he, a Finn?”