“None taken,” I said quickly, but strode to a chair near the door and sat there instead of at the table. He had every right to make the request, and it didn’t offend me in the least. I watched the play, listened to conversations around me, and when Hannah and Damme entered, they sat with me. Damme nodded at the sword.
“Protection,” I told him in my normal voice in the small room. “I’ve been warned I have enemies on board.”
A dozen ears pricked at my words. Hannah said, “A man must protect himself.”
Damme said, “Do you mind if I examine your sword? I own a few and can perhaps offer a few suggestions, should you ever require another. I might also put an edge on it for you.”
My old scabbard with the new arrow sheath attached must have looked to him like something discarded by another, so why would he believe the sword any better? The handle and hilt were functional instead of pretty. It was a reasonable request, and as custom dictated, I stood and faced him. The sword slipped out of the sheath noiselessly, and while I held the pommel in my right hand, my left palm supported the flat of the blade as I extended it to him for inspection.
“Gods above,” he whispered, but all heard the shock and awe in his voice as he backed away from the weapon.
Hannah said, “That is beautiful.”
Damme’s hands reached for it but came to a standstill before touching. His eyes went from the sword to mine. “How did you acquire this?”
“The King of Dire presented it to me for services provided.” My voice was calm and clear for all to hear and spread the tale. I heard none of the usual jingle of coins or tab of blocks at the table, as I imagined all eyes were on us.
“Those must have been some services,” Hannah said.
“I protect his daughter with this blade.”
Damme touched the blade with his finger where the damage had occurred and said in a disapproving tone, “You did this?”
“Unfortunately. A good bladesmith I trust suggested nobody try to correct it until it can be sent to the maker.”
“Excellent advice,” he said and lifted the blade as carefully as if it was made of glass. “You do realize this is probably the most magnificent sword in your kingdom? Of course, you do.”
There were no other sounds in the salon. No talking, no chink of tiles, no chairs scraping the floor. I turned to find every head in the room looking at the sword, certain most of them had no idea of the value or rarity, but they keyed on Damme’s respect.
Damme said, “I feel a fool, offering you advice on blades. This is the best sword I’ve ever held, touched, or seen. It is an honor to do so.”
Hannah said, “Can you use it? I mean, dare you use such a fine weapon for fear of harming it?”
My king ordered me to use it to protect him, myself, my sister, and my mistress who is his daughter, but he was also wise enough to have his Royal Weapons-Master spend a full year un-teaching my bad habits with an oak practice sword before he spent another year as he trained me to use it. I had to defeat nearly every palace guard in practice, first.”
Damme said to Hannah, “Malawian steel of the highest order. The first I’ve encountered. Perhaps you will examine my collection when we reach Dagger and make recommendations to me? And if you need to practice, I have a pair of swords from Dire you might feel comfortable wielding.”
The salon was as quiet as a locked bakery in a boy’s school used to pilfering. Damme was doing me a great favor in speaking of my sword as he had. If I’d have wanted to keep it, and my training a secret, I would have refused to display it in public. I had every suspicion he knew exactly what he was doing—and why. Only a fool would attack me, now.
It was a thinly veiled warning to every person on the ship. Don’t mess with Damon. He is a master swordsman with a blade worthy of one in ten thousand.
He handed it back, showing the respect the blade deserved. Hannah mentioned they needed to sleep and bid me a good night. I sat and watched out the windows at the storm still raging, noticing the conversation was unusually subdued at the table. As I was about to take my leave, a face appeared in the window inset in the door, off to one side, so only I would see it. Will. He wanted to talk again. In private.
Standing, I yawned and made my way outside, expecting to find Will waiting. He was not. Instead of going to my cabin, I strolled the deck. Near the stern, in the deepest shadows on the ship where there were the least lanterns, Will emerged.
Without preamble, he said, “I’ve spoken with your friend.”
“The gambler-bully?”
“Yes. It seems he knew about the storm before we sailed from Trager. He learned that information ashore, and also that the storm was intended to keep this ship from ever reaching Dagger. No ships sailing from Trager will reach Dagger, for an unspecified time. The south sea will be closed from now on.”
“So, it’s not all about me?”
Will turned his head away as another passenger walked the decks and came too close. After he was a good distance away, Will said, “He didn’t know. He rambled as we talked. There was a mention of a Dragon Tamer, the secret mission of Princess Elizabeth, and the deaths of several mages. Nothing was said directly of you, but he obviously does not like you and won’t forgive you for embarrassing him.”
On a personal note, that was good news of a sort. The cause of the storm and ship delay was not because of me. It could be Kendra, the unknown Dragon Tamer, or Elizabeth, or the deaths of the mages—however, I was only a part of those, so of no direct consequence.
On a broader note, Dagger had blocked all ships in the sea from sailing south. We couldn’t guess for how long, but it delayed our trip at least, and perhaps prevented the king’s mission from ever reaching Dagger. That meant Elizabeth and her entourage may as well return to Dire. We might as well go with them.
“The gambler, is he all right?”
“He will live, although it was dicey for a while.” Will slipped around a corner and disappeared as a pretty young woman made her way near me. I’d noticed her a time or two, which was each time she’d shown herself on the voyage.
She was alone, studiously ignoring me. That meant she was interested. I said, “Good evening. My name is Damon.”
She glanced my way, then turned her back to me. Interested? She was in love with me!
I moved closer. “Nice evening, isn’t it?”
With a tiny shake of her head, she strode away as if she didn’t hear me. Playing hard to get, I figured. While waiting for her to slink her way back to me, another woman approached, a little older and more sure of herself.
She said, “You are Damon, the sword fighter.”
“Yes. And you are?”
She was not from Kondor. Her features were more northern, Dire maybe, but if so, I should have seen her there and remembered. Her clothing was made of fine material, the stitches so small and even they were almost unseen. Her manners were royal. Not the royal manners of a servant such as me, but the effortless manners of good breeding.
With that established, the question became, why was she seeking me out? The coincidence of two beautiful women accidentally meeting me at the rail, one after the other, when there were only a few on board, two being Kendra and Elizabeth, was remote. If they were not working together, they were after the same objective, leaving me to figure out what that might be.
However, as slow-witted as I could be, one thing I did know was that clandestine meetings in the middle of the night bring no good things. Before she could object, I bid her good-night and left to claim my bed. Alone.
The night was warm, the air calm, and the ship moved steadily towards land. Just as I opened the door to the passageway, a wet slap of sound and a muted grunt drew my attention. It came from my left. Two steps took me to the corner of the deck below the captain’s bridge.