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Who took our hand and said Yes to us. And to our god.

That had been an unexpected codicil. But the corners of his lips edged up in memory regardless.

His stray smile emboldened the girls, or maybe they were revitalized by the food and water. In this better light, he saw their eyes were a bright coppery brown, suggesting a measure of Roknari blood. They inched closer to him across the boards. “Can I touch it?” said Seuka, already stretching out a small hand.

“Yes, go ahead,” Pen sighed, wrapping his arms around his bent-up knees and propping his forehead on them. For his privacy and theirs, equally. Touching quickly turned to finger-combing, as one hand became two and then four, and his hair tie was made away with. Then, inevitably, braiding. And rebraiding, because of course everyone wanted a turn.

Somewhere, there was an important boundary between calming their fears, and keeping enough respect that they would obey his orders in an emergency instantly and without question. He wished he knew where it fell. Though as pacification ploys went, letting them groom him like a pony cost only a little of his dignity.

And it’s rather soothing, Des observed.

Hush. But his eyes were slipping closed as his head grew heavier.

He jerked upright before he started snoring, though not before he started drooling. Rubbing at the wet patch on his trouser knee, he said, “That’s enough, now,” and retreated to his propping bulkhead. His handmaids frowned at him in disappointment, but shuffled back to their own claimed corner.

“When I was being dragged aboard,” he began again, “I caught a glimpse of another hold, aft.” And he needn’t mention that this survey had not been with his eyes. “It had six prisoners in it. Not sailors. Are they other passengers from your ship?”

“Maybe?” said Lencia. “There was only our ship taken, and then yours.”

“Are they all right?” asked Seuka, freshly apprehensive.

“Alive, at least. There was an old couple, roughed up. A fellow who seemed to be with them had a broken arm.”

Lencia nodded. “He’s their son. He tried to defend them, but the pirate hit him with his hammer. It made a horrible sound.”

Ah, the war hammer again; it must be a favorite of its wielder. The son, himself middle-aged, was lucky it wasn’t his skull broken. In any case, not three people Pen could count on in a fight, or to help sail the ship.

“Another middle-aged man, portly.”

“That was the merchant from Adria,” said Seuka. “He was nice. We asked him if he’d ever met Papa, but he said no.” She vented a glum sigh.

“Another older man, skinny. Dyspeptic… um, grouchy,” Pen amended his bookish vocabulary, and they brightened with recognition.

Probably an effect of his worms, murmured Des.

Well, there’s some more vermin for you, in a pinch.

An impression of a tongue stuck out in disgust.

“Oh, Pozeni,” said Lencia. “The captain told us he was a scribe from Carpagamo, but as the pirates were grabbing him he was crying that he was a divine of the Father, and they’d better watch out.”

“So… which was the true tale? Do you know?”

Lencia wrinkled her nose. “I think he was a scribe, and was just trying not to be murdered.”

“Fair enough.” Pozeni might be fit enough to help sail the ship; probably not a hand for a brawl, if it came to that. “There was one other man. Cut up, feverish, weak from blood loss.”

“Yes, he was the other Adriac merchant. Partner to the fat fellow, I think. He tried to fight.” Lencia hunched at the brutal memory. “He held them off for a little, but then they got him down and were really mad. I thought they’d killed him.”

Pen had been disoriented in the moment, but his own quick surrender was beginning to seem a tad craven to his own eyes.

Not to mine, put in Des. Even your lumpish army brother-in-law is in favor of living to fight another day.

And it was a measure of… something, that Pen could actually wish for Adelis Arisaydia to hand. Though What would Adelis do? was likely not a very useful model for Pen.

In any case, with the exception of the scribe it was plain the occupants of the other hold were mature persons of property, poor prospects as slaves but promising for ransom. No doubt why they were sequestered together. So they didn’t need rescuing exactly; they would be invited to rescue themselves, at a cost painful in purse rather than body.

Pen considered whose name he might cry for ransom. Not Duke Jurgo; that would suggest too high a price. General Arisaydia likewise, besides being much too near to Nikys. His best bet was the archdivine of Orbas, who had sent him despite his protests on this ill-fated errand in the first place and thus deserved the debt. Well… all right, the archdivine of Trigonie’s request for the loan of Penric to examine a potential candidate for Temple sorcerer had been a legitimate call upon Pen’s skills. The dozen administrative chores both archdivines tacked on As long as you’re going to be there, eh? had been more irksome.

Pen could easily feign to be a favored scribe in his home curia; his name should be enough to alert his superior to his ploy. Maybe? It was a delicate balance, to suggest a ransom high enough to outweigh his profit as a slave, without running up the total as high as it could go. …Which led him in turn to muse upon just what price would make his ransomers choke. What was his value to Orbas?

Less than my value in Orbas.

Besides, the Temple was always running on a tight budget.

These Jokonan sisters lay outside all such calculations. Pen wondered if he could attach them to his own bill, One stray scribe, plus two orphan wards of my Order. It would be tricky to claim the three of them as a set to whatever middlemen bid on them, when the pirates knew very well they were not.

The day dragged. Twice more scant provisions were dropped down: some hard barley bread, an oddly generous portion of dried apricots that Pen recognized as filched from his own former ship’s stores. The edges taken off their appetites, the girls thought to offer back a portion for their new holdmate, which due to the hungry ache in his head Pen now accepted. The leather bottle was raised and lowered refilled. In the dark bilges below, a stray rat quietly died as the price of Pen’s pure water shared around.

When the light dwindled, Pen, in place of any too-revealing anecdotes about himself, dredged up some dimly remembered nursery tales from the cantons, figuring that at least they might be new to his Jokonan audience. Translated into Roknari terms on the wing, some of them came out a little oddly, but they seemed to work nonetheless. The girls ended up creeping close to the cadences of his voice and finally falling asleep in a huddle with one head pillowed on each of his not-well-padded thighs. Which left Pen again leaning back propped by the bulkhead, speculating that with Des’s aid, rotting out some boards and breaking through the wall was possible, but pointless as long as they were still at sea.

Children, he reflected as he shifted uncomfortably, trying not to dislodge them because surely sleep was a good restorative, attached themselves much too easily to any friendly-seeming adult. Though his persona as a timid scribe did not seem hard to maintain—for all that he walked through the world trailing a discreet cloud of destruction and death as the price of his magic, Pen had never felt less lethal. Tally: innocent rats, one; murderous slaver pirates, zero. He rolled his shoulders and tried to doze.