There followed a few minutes of Pen’s increasingly practiced overseeing of their morning wash-up, and getting them properly fed. He was able to foist off all the fish planks on them, since apparently people ate something similar in seaside Raspay, thus acquiring an unearned air of generosity whilst snitching most of the boiled eggs. Godino sat in watchful silence. Pen thought he followed the gist of the murmured Roknari.
Pen supplied him with a brief synopsis of the sisters’ misadventures, leaving out his own theological speculations or mention of his magic. “Helping smuggle us aboard some ship bound for Vilnoc or even Lodi would get us out of your temple about as quickly as anything,” Pen finished, invitingly.
Godino’s “Mm,” in reply was unenthusiastic, but not at once negative. With a last injunction to stay quiet, he took himself off to his further temple duties.
More exploration of the harbor town and its other possibilities must wait till dark, Pen conceded, however anxious he was to do something, because this island wasn’t going to sail itself to Vilnoc. Soft-voiced language lessons in Cedonian filled some time, till his captive pupils grew mulish.
Then he hit upon letting Des tell stories in Roknari. Not only had six of her ten human riders once been mothers, even Pen hadn’t heard all of her two-century stock of memories despite thirteen years of bearing her. Gloomy Umelan in particular was cheered to be called-upon. Her clever efforts even won some halting wonder-tales from Jokona in return, which Pen happily stored up. This served much better, as the sun-splashes crept across the floor.
For all of you children, I think, Des murmured fondly.
Pen couldn’t muster reproof.
After three days trapped in this gentler prison, Pen was growing quietly frantic. A few covert visits to the temple’s tiny library provided scant diversion. Library was a grandiose description to start with, as it consisted of two scantly filled bookcases sagging against the wall in the old divine’s study. When the pirates had ransacked the place, they had carried off anything with fine leather or gilded bindings that might be sold for a high price, leaving only ratty codices protected by thin planks or waxed cloth sewn together with twine, and some tattered scrolls.
Shabby coverings did not necessarily mean that no rare treasure lay hidden within, as Pen was reminded by the example of Jedula Corva, so as he waited for Godino to find help he leafed through every one of them. Despite his diligence he unearthed no sign of his perpetually sought prize of some lost work on sorcery that would teach him more about his craft than he and Des already knew.
Aye, that would be rare indeed, mused Des.
It could not possibly be the case that he was—they were—already the most knowledgeable sorcerer-demon pair alive in the world today.
Someone must be, Des pointed out logically.
It can’t be me. I still have so many questions!
At least he was able to carry back a couple of simple books written for children in Adriac, and a pair in Cedonian and Roknari, to his young chamber-mates. The well-worn copies were left over from the time when the previous acolyte had taught neighborhood children in the lecture hall, Pen guessed, being religious tales and saints’ legends. Some should be lively enough to divert the girls, he hoped, and give point to the language lessons with which, for want of better entertainment, he filled their waking time.
They were probably starting to wonder if he really was a dull scribe, and the alarming sorcerer part a self-serving lie like Pozeni’s claim to be a divine. He’d so far resisted their urgings to show them some magic, apart from lighting the night-candle, too convenient a skill to forgo. Well, and demonstrating how he’d supplied them with water in the hold, which rendered them gratifyingly wide-eyed. Especially when he followed it up by producing little hailstones, which they held and marveled at and, inevitably, sucked into their mouths and crunched on, grinning.
Benign little tricks, not scary at all. If you don’t think them through. He could as easily induce an ice ball to form inside a lung, or a testicle. Or, more helpfully, in a tumor, true. But not in a brain, because that would kill at once, laying Des open to repossession by her god. Thus the subtleties of his skills.
Godino’s temple kept a cache of donated used garments to be redonated to those in need; Pen supposed he and the girls qualified. It did allow him to cover everyone and then sneak out to the fountain square at night to wash their reeking clothes, a task made easier by a few of Des’s surprisingly large stock of small domestic magics. Well, really, Pen. Ten women. How do you imagine we would not think of these possibilities? Once he’d learned to access them, he’d found her aids had made his Order’s choice of white robes for their learned divines much more manageable. He was starting to miss those robes, and everything that went with them.
Godino brought food and drink faithfully, yes, and bits of news which suggested Pen and his charges were not suspected to still be on this island. But he was inventively elusive about his failure to secure some trusted boatman to ferry them to Vilnoc, or—Pen was getting less fussy—anywhere on the opposite coast from which they could at least walk to Vilnoc. Pen began to wonder if Godino was trying to wait them out, induce them to leave on their own from sheer frustration without him ever having to stand up to the menacing sorcerer. Or the menacing pirates. That Pen could perfectly understand his point of view did not make it any less maddening.
The girls, too, grew restive in the enforced quiet, slowly recovering at least physically from their ordeal. Which, really, had begun with their mother’s last illness and hadn’t let up yet.
On the fourth night, Pen gritted his teeth and slipped out to make a new survey of the harbor.
In the deep dark, the crooked streets of Lanti were deserted by its timid or sober residents, which left only the other sort abroad. Pen had picked out tunic and trousers in a muddled green dye from Godino’s stores, and let the girls knot his hair at his nape and tie a black headcloth over it, so at least he didn’t glow like the moon in the shadows. As he neared the shore, both Des’s Sight and dark-sight allowed him to avoid the late carousers reeling home, and more disturbing sullen shapes curled up in passageways. Not appearing weak to their hungry eyes would fend off the latter, but not being seen at all was better.
He dodged around the warehouses and the customs shed. A cargo-loading crane on heavy wooden wheels was drawn up near the pier by the prison, and Pen quietly climbed it for a better vantage.
Two new ships had arrived and tied up, though whether they were pirates, prizes, or merchants was unclear. The prison was already repopulated, though, and there were a few more guards around it, so at least one vessel must be a prize. In addition to the fire-watch patrolling the shore, crew lingered on board, keeping night-lanterns glimmering orange by the gangplanks. Falun’s galley still rode at anchor out in the harbor, so the Rathnattan slaver evidently hadn’t filled his quota yet.
I would dearly love to sink that thing, Pen sighed.
I’m for it, Des agreed cheerfully. Now?
Tempting. But there might be prisoners chained belowdecks, so it wasn’t simply a matter of deploying his favorite sabotages from here. He’d have to swim out, climb aboard, and somehow free them first, multiplying his risks. Not least that of revealing the continuing presence of a sorcerer in Lanti, triggering a serious hunt for him. One ship mysteriously sinking in perfect calm could be put down to any number of causes. Two would start to look decidedly odd.