Of course tradition-and nearly everything else-was about to change…
From her cloud of rancid smoke, the old woman chuckled. "Nabbed!" she said. "If there's anyone nabbed it was you, Captain."
Rose shot her a dark look. The cat purred against his leg.
"You didn't want this commission," she said flatly. "You didn't want another turn behind the wheel of the Chathrand. Why not, when they pay you so handsomely?"
"I was bespoken."
"Only by a wish to hide. You led the Emperor on a yearlong chase, island to island, port to port. And you almost escaped-"
"Still a blary witch." Rose glared at her. "Still a trickster and a spy."
"You almost escaped," Oggosk repeated. "The Flikkermen caught you last night, with a ticket for an inland coach. Inland! Why, Captain, that'd be the first time in your life!"
"Oggosk," he growled, "be silent."
Her eyes remained fixed on him. "A secret commission, too. Sorrophran is like a hive of ants, everyone knowing the captain will be named this morning, everyone guessing wrong. Above all they wonder why Chathrand spent three months in this kennel of a town, and not mighty Etherhorde across the bay. Will you tell them, Captain Rose? Will you tell how certain powerful men in the capital might have grown suspicious at, say, the twelve months' provisions being laid in our hold, for a voyage of three? It would be difficult to explain-above all to the Yeligs. Suppose you gave them the truth: that His Supremacy's astrologers have convinced old Magad that this is the hour of his destiny, the moment that will see him crushed-or raised above all princes that ever were or will be. Naya, has it ever been different? A man will leap into a furnace if you tell him it's the way to power over others. It's a madness and a wonder that we let you rule. But the greatest wonder is the threat."
Rose's head jerked up, and Oggosk cackled.
"Ehe! The threat! What did they use on you, Captain? What drives Nilus Rotheby Rose to set sail when he hasn't the mind?"
Captain Rose's face was scarlet, but his voice when it came was low and venomous. "You will recall, Lady Oggosk, that we shall soon be weighing anchor. And you will recall further how very few compulsions indeed this captain tolerates at sea."
The old woman dropped her eyes and shrank into her corner. For several moments they lurched along in silence. Then with a sudden "Whoh!" the driver pulled the horses up, bounded from his seat and flung open the door.
A black man stood framed in the doorway, clearly ready to enter the coach. He wore a dark vest over a white silk shirt, and most incongruously, a round woolen hat such as Templar monks donned for traveling. In one hand he held a parchment case, in the other a black bag with two rough wooden handles. The bag was old and worn and filled nearly to bursting. The man bowed courteously to Oggosk, then to Rose.
"Who in the nine fiery pits are you?" bellowed Rose, his nerves breaking at last.
"Bolutu, my name is Bolutu." The man had a precise voice and an unfamiliar accent. He appeared quite unaffected by Rose's outburst, which irked the captain further.
"Get along, you've no business here."
The stranger cocked his head. "No business? Perhaps that is literally true. Irrelevant, however. For although I must leave my business behind, I have orders to respect-or ignore at my peril."
"What's this Noonfirth prig raving about?" shouted Rose with a glance at his seer.
"He's no Noonfirther," said Oggosk flatly.
"He's as black as a tarboy's heel."
"I am a Slevran, Captain Rose."
Momentary confusion. Lady Oggosk dropped her pipe. It would scarcely have been more startling if the man had claimed to be a lynx. The Slevrans were savage men of the far interior, nomads of the steppe. It was they who attacked and slaughtered caravans making west to the Idhe Lands. The Emperor sent legions to exterminate them, but they merely withdrew into the hills and waited for the soldiers to grow bored and hungry, and as soon as these expeditionaries left the raids began anew. Were they even men? some asked. Did they have morals, language, souls?
"You're a liar as well as mad," said Rose. He waved impatiently at the bewildered coachman. "Drive on, you. We've a commission to respect."
"I have the same commission," said Bolutu, his hand still on the door.
"You're a barking Noonfirth dog!"
"No, Captain, I have never been to the Summer Realm. But you will be taking on a cargo of animals at Etherhorde, and I am a veterinarian. And I am ordered, by His Supremacy Magad the Fifth, to take my place as such aboard the Chathrand. I yet hope to soothe your anxieties about my person."
"Why do you wear a monk's hat?"
Bolutu smiled. "I was raised by the Templar brothers, and keep the journeyman's vows. Some call me Brother Bolutu, but Mister is quite acceptable."
"If you're not a Noonfirther, where'd you learn that tea-and-pastries talk?"
"In Yelig House."
Shocked silence again. The man was claiming to be an intimate of the Chathrand Trading Family. Rose looked at Oggosk, but the witch drew the hood of her cloak over her head, whispering and muttering. The black man climbed into the coach and sat beside her. Relieved, the driver raised the footstool and slammed the door shut.
The trip resumed. Oggosk muttered in Swalish, which the captain did not speak. Having been at sea for forty years, however, he knew a smattering of words in many tongues: jult, which Oggosk said many times with happy emphasis, meant "disease." At her side the black man sat motionless, eyelids half lowered. Rose thought suddenly of how he would look tumbling over the Chathrand's bulwarks, head over heels into the waves. Then he recalled the Special Protection every captain of Arqual swore to provide friends of the Company. If harm befell this Bolutu, a Company inspection would follow. Merely to be the subject of such an inspection would mark one for life.
"Is your cat a woken animal, Duchess?" asked Bolutu suddenly.
Oggosk made a rude sound in her throat: "Glah."
Bolutu was unperturbed. "Do you know, Captain, that the frequency of wakings is exploding? How many such animals have you heard of, in all your life? Three in twenty-eight years, for my part, and just one-a lovely bull with a taste for choral music-did I meet with face to face. But this year all bets are off! Just last month a she-wolf on Kushal pleaded for her life: sadly the hunters killed her anyway. From Bramian comes news of a stork eager to talk gold miners out of poisoning his lake. And several cats have been heard to speak in the alleys of Etherhorde itself. The Mariner had a report."
Sniraga purred, sliding among their legs. Rose stared out through the window. Accidents, he thought. So many kinds of accidents…
They had nearly reached the port: he could hear a vague roaring that could only be the muster of the crew. Then the carriage stopped again. The door opened, and before him stood Ignus Chad-fallow.
This time Rose was prepared, if not pleased: the doctor was Special Envoy-at-Large to His Supremacy, dispatched throughout the world as the human seal on certain Imperial promises. Where Chadfallow sailed, Magad's word was kept. Rose should have guessed the doctor would be tossed into the bargain.
Chadfallow himself, however, looked stunned. His eyes were fixed on the captain, his face visibly paled. He made no move to enter the carriage.
"Rose," he said.
The carriage driver, holding the door once again, began to tremble. From the folds of her hood, Oggosk laughed.
"Climb in, Doctor," said Rose. And then, with a glance at Bolutu: "If you don't mind the company."
Chadfallow didn't move.
"Of course, you won't have the use of the stateroom this time," Rose added. "That goes to Isiq and his family."
"But there's some mistake," said Chadfallow. "You were in the Pellurids."