The sun was climbing toward noon next day when the shifting of the ship betrayed more frequent tacking. Feet thumped overhead, and calls. Pen added a few new terms of ship slang to his vocabulary in two tongues. A rattle of stays and lines, the whooshing thuds of folding canvas, odd groans as ropes and timbers took up slack. Docking, murmured Des, relieved. The ship rocked one last time and came to a halt too still to be a mere heaving-to, motionless, blessedly motionless.
Port, five gods be thanked. Maybe.
At length, the grid was heaved up, a rope ladder lowered, and the prisoners were invited to climb out of their noisome hole. Pen made sure the sisters went up safely first, then followed close. He squinted around in the hazy warm air.
Their ship had been tied to a stone-and-piling pier, one of a pair jutting from a rambling shore settlement. Out in the tidy harbor created by a low headland, a few fishing boats were moored, and some larger vessels including, disturbingly, a galley with a long row of oar slots; too broad to be a war vessel, but certainly of Roknari build. The dry green slopes cradling the town rose up to rugged mountains, their spines not high enough to bear snow.
The lay of the light told Pen they were on the eastern side of the sea from Cedonia, therefore on a Carpagamon island, or buffer island. As soon as he discovered the name of the place, he could affix it on the map in his head. But… it gave him some of the same problems of escape as a ship, except that Des couldn’t accidentally sink it.
A couple of the crewmen were looking back out to the horizon, hands shading their eyes, scowling. “Where are the bloody fools?” muttered one. “I thought they’d got ahead of us.”
They were one ship, Pen realized. Not two in convoy. His coaster appeared to be missing. Separated in the night, and then…? It didn’t look as though the pirates knew, either.
The disheveled prisoners from the other hold were being prodded off across the gangplank. No one had bothered to chain them together, and little wonder. An elderly woman limped between two men scarcely steadier on their feet. A lanky, lugubrious fellow hobbled feverishly, held upright by his very stout companion—the Adriac merchant partners. A last skinny man, presumably the scribe-or-divine the girls had named Pozeni, whined in their wake, protesting to his supremely uninterested guards, one of whom poked at his backside with a short sword and grinned when he yelped.
A pirate dubiously regarded Pen, fit by contrast. “You going to give us any trouble, pretty boy?”
Pen shrugged. “Where’s the point? I can’t swim back to Orbas.”
“True enough.” The man smirked, swinging his truncheon to his shoulder and tapping jauntily, then gestured him after the others.
One Corva sister grabbed Pen’s hand fore and the other aft as they made their way over the unstable gangplank. He kept hold of them as they veered onto the dock, and they kept hold of him, though Seuka switched her tight grip to his tunic hem. The stout merchant glanced back at them in curiosity. In a few moments the echoing boards underfoot gave way to solid ground at last. Its vague rocking, Pen reassured himself, was an illusion fostered by his time at sea.
Now? murmured Des. You promised.
I did, Pen allowed. He’d diverted them both during the fitful night by working out the details, and this needed to be done before they were marched out of range.
Under his guidance, Des ran a line of deep rot through the hull along the starboard side of the keel, bow to stern. On the port side nearest the dock, they unraveled slivers high up on all the stays that held the mainmast in place, leaving a few delicate threads pulled taut. To make sure, Pen ran a thin layer of rot half-through the mast itself, at what he hoped would be the most destructive height. The galley on this ship was rudimentary, a mere sand table under an awning, aft, with coals banked. The supports on one side of the table gave way, spilling sand and hot embers onto the deck. The awning puffed alight.
Truly, nothing increased disorder as efficiently as fire. Pen bit his lip and did not look back.
“Stay close to me if you can,” Pen told his small clinging companions. “Let me do the talking. If we do get separated, I’ll find you somehow.” He hoped this pledge would not turn out to be hollow.
They trudged up the shore to what was obviously, despite this being a pirate haven, a customs shed. Did even pirates not escape taxation? It was a long, low building with a wooden roof, not the more usual stucco and tile, and Pen wondered if it was built of old ship timbers. As the party of prisoners was being chivvied through the door, the first cry of alarm rose from the dock behind.
The man whom Pen took to be the captain, by his age and the way he’d been issuing orders, swiveled around, and he cursed in surprise. “Now what…!” He glared at the rising plume of smoke, calling, “Totch, get them recorded. Figure the port fees and the guild charges. You two, come with me,” and sprinted back down the slope, followed by two of the three guards.
Which might have made a good opportunity for Pen to try a daring escape, except for his baggage. He grimaced and let himself and his charges be prodded by truncheon-man Totch into the shed, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the reduced light. The air inside was hot and close, with a faint reek of stale urine, old blood, and stressed sweat.
The bare space had only a dirt floor, though a few benches were shoved up against one wall. The fat fellow escorted his injured comrade at once to one of these, helping him to gingerly sit, and the old woman was settled on another by her husband and son. A long table with a few stools occupied the other side of the room, though only one stool was currently in use. Despite his rough garb, the islander who sat there ordering his quills and paper had the air of every customs clerk Penric had ever encountered: middle-aged, ink-stained, underpaid and unimpressed. A couple of big armed men, flanking him, took in the new arrivals with experienced eyes, then drifted back to lean more comfortably against the wall.
“Totch.” The clerk waved greeting at the pirate Pen guessed was the first mate. “Is this your whole catch? Falun is in port. He’ll be disappointed.”
“Aye, I saw his galley.” Totch looked over his bedraggled prisoners. “This lot is mostly for ransom. We’ve two more prize ships coming later, with a fair number of fit men. We were separated from the first a week ago in a storm. The other… should be here. Soon.” Pen thought he sounded uneasy in this claim.
“Well, let’s get started.” The clerk, whose rustic Adriac accent matched his beard, motioned Pen and his hangers-on forward. Pen moved without truncheon-prodding.
The clerk poised his quill. “Name?”
“Penric kin Jurald.”
The clerk hesitated; Pen helpfully spelled it out for him. Because in case word did get back to Orbas, he wanted it to be recognized.
“Age?”
“Thirty-two.”
The clerk snorted. “Good try, but it won’t save your tail if someone wants to buy it, Blue-eyes. What’s your real age?”
“Thirty-two,” Pen repeated patiently. “Many people misestimate me.” And let’s keep it that way.
The clerk shook his head and wrote down twenty-two. Pen didn’t bother pursuing the argument.
“Family?”
“None to speak of. My parents died some time ago. Back in the cantons.” The latter part of which was perfectly true. The inquiry, of course, was to flush out some gauge of how much ransom might be squeezed out of relatives, so many captives lied. As he was doing, by omission.
“Ah.” The clerk pursed his lips in satisfaction at the explanation of Pen’s alien name and coloring. “Profession?”