Back in the main room, an islander man and woman appeared and conscripted the few able-bodied, headed by Pen, to set up the trestles and help carry food from the back kitchen: plain but wholesome fare of flat bread, cheese, olives and sardines in oil, dried figs, and heavily watered wine. Pen was amused when the captives begged ‘Learned Pozeni’, in his capacity as a divine of the Father, to bless the meal. This he managed to passably do, which incidentally revealed by the return tally-signs that all those present were Quintarian or chose to appear so—apart from the Jokonan girls, who, adrift on the unfamiliar speech, sat mute and motionless. The food was abundant enough that Pen had no need to exert himself to make sure his ‘nieces’ received their share. So, they were not to be starved into submission.
Upon inquiry, Pen delivered a tale to their tablemates, in urbane Lodi Adriac, about encountering the sought sisters by wildest chance in the pirate hold, surely a blessing of the white god. This dramatic and unlikely fiction was accepted wide-eyed by the old woman, and with narrower skepticism by the rest. Pen wished he could be as sure the mystical assertion was untrue. In return he was gifted with the unlucky travelers’ own tales, none remarkably different from what he had already construed.
By the time they cleared the trestles, the relaxation induced by the wash and the meal had Pen swaying on his feet, hoping to be led to those dormitories soon. Both the ease and the hope evaporated abruptly when the pirate captain, whose name Pen had learned was Valbyn, returned, trailed by the port clerk with the sheaf of his pages in hand. Totch with his truncheon tagged along. Two new men, one with an attendant servant, followed them in through the door.
The shorter, sturdier newcomer had dark hair and eyes. The tunic, trousers, and leather shoes he wore might have belonged to any active merchant around this sea, but the rings on his hands were heavy gold, and his sleeveless coat, its embroidered hem swinging at his knees, was richly dyed in a dark red. The younger man who dogged him, carrying a writing box, had similar height and coloration, if more humble dress. They might or might not be related, but they both looked very Darthacan.
Pen’s guess was confirmed when the older murmured in that tongue, “Watch out for these islanders. The port officials won’t hesitate to collude with the free captains to foist off any rubbish they can’t saddle on their Roknari neighbors.” The younger man nodded earnestly.
The taller, leaner arrival had skin sun-burnished to a gleaming bronze, possibly enhanced with a touch of oil. His reddish-bronze hair was bound up in a complicated braid around his head, a few artful ringlets allowed to dangle at his temples. A wide-cut sleeveless tunic fell to his ankles, allowing him to sensibly dispense with trousers in this heat. The bleached cloth was caught up at his waist by a belt, studded with colored gleams that might be jewels or glass, supporting a long dagger in a tooled scabbard. Good leather sandals, well broken-in, protected his feet. Like his Darthacan counterpart’s, the garb seemed everyday working dress for an established trader, suggesting neither man felt need here to impress anyone.
The two exchanged familiar, measured chin-ducks. “Captain Falun,” said the Darthacan. “Good to see you well,” receiving in return a slightly dry, “Master Marle. I trust your last business prospered.” Both in thickly accented but serviceable trade Adriac, establishing the language of the hour, and the hint that neither was privy to the other’s tongue.
“Tolerably, tolerably,” said the swarthy Marle. “Yourself?”
“The sea was kind to us, last voyage.”
“Always a blessing.” The Darthacan, who had to be Quintarian, politely did not suggest from which god.
“Aye,” agreed the Quadrene captain, as politely not quibbling.
Signaling business, not theology, was to be the order of the day. Really, Pen was relieved.
The house servants brought out two chairs graced with cushions for the important guests. Customers? Totch, waving his truncheon more in gesture than threat, had the captives drag over their benches to the near wall and seat themselves, instructing them to line up in a row and keep their mouths shut, and maybe they’d get some good news.
Doubt that, murmured Des.
Mm, thought Pen back. He whispered in Roknari to the intimidated girls, who’d tucked themselves up one on each side of him, “I think one of those men might be here about ransoms. Be quiet and wait, till I find out what’s happening.”
They both nodded trustingly. Pen concealed his wince at their baseless faith in him.
The Darthacan and the port clerk put their heads together over the entry papers. The assistant opened his writing box and set up to take notes. Captain Falun, Captain Valbyn following, rose and wandered over to the array of captives.
Falun sniffed in disapproval at the old couple. He made their middle-aged son unship his swollen, empurpled arm from the sling and hold it out; pressing long, strong fingers down it, at which the man choked back a cry of pain, he frowned at Valbyn and said in Roknari, “You’ve damaged this one beyond my use. That’s never going to heal straight.”
Valbyn shrugged. “Marle will take the family whole, then.”
“Marle is welcome to them.” Falun looked over the somewhat younger pair of Adriac merchants with equal doubt. Or feigned doubt, Pen realized, likely the first moves in some delicate dance around prices. “Same problem with this fellow. Looks feverish to me. Would he even last the trip home to Rathnatta?” He touched a palm to Aloro’s forehead; the man jerked back. Pen thought the merchant might be catching a few words of the Roknari, and all of the interplay.
So the dapper Falun was a Rathnattan, specifically; that semi-independent princedom being either the northernmost large island of the Carpagamon chain or the westernmost of the Archipelago, depending on how the map was divided in any given year.
“You could likely sweat the fat off of this one,” Valbyn remarked with a nod of his head at the partner Arditi, supporting Aloro as he sagged on the bench.
“Or he would drop at his oar of an apoplexy.” Both trader and pirate were haggling in a low dialect of Roknari, with the special endings and honorifics left out, fluid and quick. Pen suspected Falun, at least, could rise to court Roknari at need.
Falun moved on to the skinny Carpagamon. “Really, Valbyn. Can’t you do better?”
“He says he’s a divine of the Father.”
“And you believe him?”
“Doesn’t matter to me. If it’s true, Marle will scrape his ransom out of the Temple somehow.”
Falun stepped along to the next bench. His gaze skipped approvingly over the girls, then rose to Pen and stopped. “Oh.” He gave the exclamation a musical lilt, amused and inquiring.
Valbyn suppressed a smirk. “Aye. Claims he’s a scribe in the curia of Orbas.”
Falun caught up Pen’s hands—Pen, pretending to less command of Roknari than he actually possessed, set his teeth and did not resist—and looked them over. “That, I will believe. Daughter’s blessings, those are beautiful.”
“Goes with the rest of him, wouldn’t you agree?”
Falun stared fascinated into Pen’s face. “Where are those eyes from? I’ve never seen the like.”
“The cantons, he claims. But no family left there. He’s relying on the curia for his ransom.”
“Seems optimistic.” Falun released his hold and stepped back. For once, he did not offer some price-suppressing disparagement. Pen considered coughing in a consumptive manner, but his mouth was too dry.
No matter, said Des. We can deal with him later. In so many ways.
Des’s prior rider Learned Ruchia had been a sometime-spy, Pen was reminded, if a generation ago in another country. Perhaps that was how Des had learned to listen prick-eared and not interrupt a flow of useful information.