Pen wanted a year to instruct, to counter whatever lies the Quadrene teachers had instilled in the youth that were dividing him from his choosing-if-not-chosen god, but neither of them was going to get it. Yet… whatever Pen had so clumsily said and done, it must have been enough to tilt the necessary moment of assent, since ghost and Presence disappeared abruptly from his Sight.
Pen didn’t even get a holy pat on the head for his pains. This wasn’t saint-work. Pen hadn’t, couldn’t, channel a god; he was otherwise already inhabited. Arguing with a human on the god’s behalf, now, that he might do. He let the visions go with a huff of relief.
The respite was short-lived. He’d taken his attention away from the world of matter for a little too long. Evidently thinking his captive had been gibbering in hysteria, hammer-man slapped Pen’s face, fortunately with his open hand and not his weapon—which in the seeping light turned out to be a rusty old Cedonian army-issue war hammer, Pen noted dizzily—and grabbed him by the scruff of his tunic to drag him along the deck. Pen let himself be dragged, trying to reorient himself.
“What have you got yourself there?” another rough voice asked.
“White rabbit.” The grip shook Pen, cruelly amused. “Says he’s a scribe. What d’you want done with him?”
“Could be a prize. Or dinner. Drop him in the small hold with the other virgins.”
“Is that safe?”
A thick hand checked the security of Pen’s looped belt, lifting his arms up in ways they weren’t meant to bend. Pen yelped, wishing he were acting. “What’s he going to do with his hands tied behind his back? We’ll deal with him later.”
Safe for who? Pen wondered as he was hoisted over the rail by his two finders and flung down onto the deck of the other ship. He had a quick, swinging impression of mast and boom, spars and ropes; then a heavy wooden lattice set in the deck was heaved out of the way, and he was chucked into a dark, square hole. Feet first, thankfully.
He plummeted only a little more than his own height, but without his arms for balance he landed crookedly and fell sideways to smack into a bulkhead, then flop to the floor. He lay for a moment catching his breath as the lattice thudded back into place overhead, a black weave set with graying squares. The dark smelled of old timber and tar, fish and rancid oil, spilled stale wine, with a more recent overlay of piss and sour vomit. He’d been in worse oubliettes, though not lately.
More importantly, he wasn’t alone.
…Or less alone than he usually wasn’t. He had only to want his dark-sight, and it was there, stripping away the shadow. Thank you, Des.
Any time. Her curiosity seemed equal to his own; her alarm, now their captors were out of hammer range and the soul-harvesting gods had decamped, less.
Grunting, Pen heaved himself upright and rested one shoulder against the bulkhead. In the corner of the space, as far from him as they could creep—which was only about six feet—two small figures cowered.
Oh. Children. Pen started to ease to the opposite corner, realized it was the designated chamber pot, and stayed where he was. Des, at his wisp of thought, unloosed the straps around his wrists, and he retrieved and redonned his belt. He propped his back against the wall more comfortably, stretching out his long legs, and took stock.
Two girls. Perhaps ten and eight? Sisters, possibly, though resemblances were hard to gauge from youth-rounded features. Their clothing was ordinary, calf-length tunics with dyed braided belt ties, simple but carefully sewn; little jackets, leather sandals. His summation of their medical state was reflexive, still hard to resist for all that he had disavowed the calling of physician. They were parched, bruised, tense, hungry; but without broken bones, cuts, or deeper hurts. It could be worse.
It still could.
Pen licked his own dry lips, gentled his voice. Tried Adriac. “Well, hello there, you two.”
They flinched and clamped each other tighter, staring wildly at him.
Cedonian. “I won’t hurt you.” Still no help. He repeated his greeting in Darthacan, and then Ibran, which won a twitch. All right, one more…
“Hello, there.” Adding the endings in high Roknari that suggested teacher to student, he continued, “My name is Master Penric. My rank is scribe. What are your names?”
Their frozen grips upon each other scarcely slackened, though as the silence stretched the older proffered, a bit convulsively, “I can write. A little.”
A social effort? Claiming value for herself? In any case, the brave venture into speech should be rewarded. “That’s very good.”
Not to be outdone, the smaller one put in, “I can draw.”
Sisters, no doubt of it. Pen’s lips twitched up in a smile that wasn’t even false. “So what should I call you?”
The older swallowed and said, “My name is Lencia Corva.”
“I’m Seuka,” said the younger, frowned, and added, “Corva.”
Seuka was a Roknari name, Lencia was Ibran, and Corva… Corva was interesting. Their accents were revealing; not the pure Roknari of the Archipelago, but the melodious variant of the Roknari princedoms that capped the great peninsula of Ibra on its northern shore. The girls did manage the polite endings that placed Pen’s claimed rank as higher than their own. A Roknari princeling would have addressed a scribe as a servant. Or, Pen was grimly reminded, as a slave.
In the growing light from the grating, Pen noted cropped brown curls on the older one’s head; tighter, redder curls on the other’s, their springy unruliness prisoned by a grubby ribbon at her nape. Lightish eyes on each, though he could not make out the color quite yet. Both skinny, but not starved despite recent hunger.
“Did the pirates get you, too?” asked Lencia.
“I’m afraid so.” Pen leaned his head, which unsurprisingly ached, back against the wooden bulkhead. “I was sick from the storm, and then I was asleep. I was supposed to be sailing to Vilnoc in Orbas.” He wondered if it would reassure them to mention the wife who awaited him there, with luck not-yet-anxiously. No. He would keep Nikys, and every other vulnerability, clutched tight to his chest for now. Though tossing out these little verbal breadcrumbs as though trying to attract birds seemed to be fruitful.
“We were going to find Papa in Lodi,” said Lencia. “But then everything went wrong.”
“He was supposed to be in Agenno, but he wasn’t,” said Seuka, sounding peeved.
Agenno was a major port on the coast of Carpagamo, near the border of Saone; about the halfway point in the eight hundred east-west miles that separated the Ibran peninsula and Lodi. These girls were farther from their birthplace than Pen was from his.
Hm, said Des. A hundred years ago, ‘Corva’ was an Ibran nickname for a whore. Crow-girl. Not wholly rude. Doesn’t exactly square with a papa. I suppose it could have become a surname since then…
“Master Corva of Lodi, then?” Pen led on.
“No, our papa is Master Ubi Getaf,” said Lencia, with earnest precision. “He’s a merchant from Zagosur.”
Which was the royal capital of Ibra, and its main entrepot.
“Taspeig wrote to him after Mama died, but the letter just came back saying he’d gone trading to Agenno. So Taspeig tried to take us there, but at the factor’s post they said he’d gone on to Lodi, and she wouldn’t go any farther.”
Taspeig was another Roknari name, by derivation at least. “Was she a relative?”
Seuka shook her head, the wad of curls moving with it. “No, she was Mama’s servant. We don’t have any relatives. Mama said that’s ‘cause she was an orphan.”