If I have my way, that galley’s not leaving this harbor.
Unusual, that his chaos demon should be the one restraining him. It was normally the other way around. More than one battle had been started by mistake, to no one’s plan, but yes, if he was declaring a one-sorcerer-war on a pirate haven, it would likely go better with a little advance thought.
“When will you be taking them?” the port clerk asked Falun.
The Rathnattan waved a hand expansively. “They may as well stay here for tonight. I’ll wait to sail with a full load, for my profit. What else do you think will make port this week besides Valbyn’s prizes?”
“Captain Garnasvik may send back something. He left here a few days before Valbyn.”
“Mm. Let’s hope he finds fair winds.”
Let’s not, thought Pen. He sank back on the bench between the sisters.
Lencia tugged at him in worry. “What just happened?”
He didn’t want to induce panic and tears, but he daren’t lie. He lowered his head and voice. “Nothing is going to happen right away. We’ll all be staying here together for tonight, maybe for several days. The Rathnattan slave-trader thinks he’s bought me and you. The Darthacan ransom-broker thinks he’s bought Seuka. They’re both wrong. We’re going to do something else.”
“What?” said Seuka, looking at him big-eyed.
“It’s a secret,” he managed after a choked moment. Even from me, apparently.
Des, charitably, refrained from laughing at him, but he sensed it was a struggle.
The bargaining conclave broke up. After a final accounting consultation with the port clerk, Falun took his leave, as did Valbyn. Marle and his scribe ushered the folk to be ransomed to the trestle table, settling them down for a more detailed examination of their hopes and resources. The port clerk lingered for this, evidently with an eye to collecting accurate head fees in due course.
Pen and the Jokonan girls were left to their own devices. The armed port guard who’d sat himself on a stool by the door discouraged any premature attempts to exit. Pen, swaying on his feet after several nights of disrupted sleep, not to mention his disrupted life, took the girls upstairs to seek bunks in the dormitories. They discovered two long rooms lined with sailors’ hammocks, and also a smaller chamber with actual beds. The slit windows were too narrow even for Pen to turn sideways and slip through, but they overlooked the harbor.
The girls, even more exhausted than he was after their long ordeal, went straight for one straw-stuffed mattress and flopped down together. Pen kept them awake just long enough to divest their sandals. Another bed, motionless and so much more enticing than a bare hold despite the stiff straw-bits poking through the not-very-clean cloth, called to him, but he returned to the window to stare out into the evening light for a few minutes.
Every tactical plan needed to start with an accurate survey of the terrain, or so Adelis had remarked. And a keen evaluation of the physically possible. Some poetic epics extolled heroism in warriors; Adelis the actual soldier put his faith in logistics, Pen had noted. Not that Pen could see much terrain from here, the bulk of the town being in the opposite direction, but by shifting back and forth he was able to take in most of the waterfront. Out on the headland, a ruined fortress was in process of being rebuilt. Pen wasn’t sure of the rationale for this, since plainly the stronghold had not held before.
He was about to give up seeking inspiration from the view and also flop down, when Des said, Ooh, look. Something’s finally happening down there. Pen glanced back to the harbor.
At the long dock, Valbyn’s ship was starting to list sideways. The slow creep, stretching the mooring lines, converted to a sudden lunge as the first big patch of the hull near the keel gave way. The water pouring into the bilges overstressed the rest of the weakened boards—Pen could hear the muffled cracking propagating even from here. As yet more water roared in, a mooring line pulled its cleat out of the dock, then another did the same. The mainmast snapped abruptly, taking boom, furled sails, and a mess of ropes over the side. The ship rolled and sank till it hit the rocky sand of the harbor bottom with a peculiar grinding noise. Screams and cries wafted up faintly from the shore.
Pen’s lips peeled back in something like a grin, only not so nice.
Oh, my, said Des, preening. Isn’t that lovely.
Yes, there go all Valbyn’s profits. And for an added bonus, the wreck would take out a quarter of the port’s docking capacity for quite some time to come. Removing that hopeless carcass was going to be a costly undertaking for someone. His glee was muted by the reflection that it would likely be done with slave labor.
This moment of great, admittedly great, personal satisfaction did not exactly solve the underlying problems. Sinking every ship in the harbor would leave no way for Pen to get off this benighted island.
Still… and Pen wasn’t sure if the thought was his or Des’s, who here should next be gifted with an amazing run of bad luck?
Pen rolled over in the night on his lumpy mattress, reaching muzzily for the warm softness of Nikys. Ah. No. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest, wanting her in his embrace but assuredly not wishing her here. Wishing himself there was a separate matter.
His wife didn’t know when he’d left Trigonie, nor on what ship. He’d sent no message because he’d expected to be home before it could arrive. So she couldn’t yet be worried about him, he told himself, couldn’t be in distress, for all that he hoped she missed him in a more general way.
And me, Des put in, diverted by this upwelling of pining.
And you, Pen conceded. After a rocky beginning, Nikys had come to enjoy his resident demon. His mother-in-law even seemed to take Des as a crony, which had led to some very odd conversations of a sort Pen was sure few husbands were privy to.
So Nikys was safe in Vilnoc. She sallied forth daily the short distance to Duke Jurgo’s household as lady-in-waiting to his daughter, which, since the girl was eight, combined the duties of companion and governess. The palace always sent a sturdy page to escort her home in the evening, there to enjoy the protection of her mother, their few servants, and at present her brother Adelis, back after the Grabyat expedition and also in attendance upon the duke.
…Pen still thought Nikys’s garrisoning would be improved by the addition of one Temple sorcerer.
He suspected she thought so, too. Although she bit back any complaints, Nikys had grown tenser at the increasing frequency of Pen’s outlying errands, for all that each success had raised his standing in Temple and court.
Well, of course, said Des. She thinks the reason she never got a child from her first husband was because he was kept so long away from her bed on his military assignments. …Or at least, she hopes that’s the reason. Naturally she’s afraid of the same thing happening with you.
Right down to the tragic conclusion? Pen certainly meant to spare her a second premature widowhood. As for making the other lapse up to her, pursuing it was the pleasantest task imaginable. …He trusted his demon’s leaking chaos magic wasn’t interfering in conception.
It can, but I promise you it’s not, Des soothed him. You haven’t been married that long. You merely need a few more months. You should know that, physician.
Not a physician. I set down that calling.