Sailors planning a long voyage in warm waters often smeared their ships' bottoms with poisonous grease, to discourage weeds, barnacles, and woodborers. The most common base for such grease was crudely-rendered whale oil, except in waters where the Dargonesti were known to roam.
The Dargonesti knew that humans hunted whales elsewhere, but in their home waters they regarded all the great sea mammals as under their protection. This had led to ugly, even bloody incidents more than a few times in the past, when the Dargonesti had been more numerous, better armed, and more widely scattered.
"I'm not," Hem said. "If there are Dargonesti around Suivinari they might help us, with knowledge if naught else. Small point to offending them. That's seal blubber that went into the oil. Takes more seals than it does whales, but we won't be in-eh, Torvik? You still listening?"
Torvik realized that his face must have shown more than it should have. "With all my ears," he lied.
"Didn't look like it. Your mind was-ha! Is it true what they say about Dimernesti around Suivinari?"
Torvik shrugged. "I only know what I think I saw," he said. "Everybody's used their own imagination on that, to spin tales. So what have you heard?"
Hem lowered his voice. "That a Dimernesti came aboard, in her woman shape, and-ah, what men and women do, she did with the men of Kingfisher's Claw?"
Torvik laughed. "Don't forget the other half of the story, the Dimernesti in man form who entertained all our women!"
Hem laughed in turn, longer than Torvik thought the joke deserved. When he'd caught his breath and wiped his eyes, the older captain shrugged. "I suppose the odd Dimernesti or two's nothing important," he said. "Not when Suivinari's grown magic that can kill minotaurs and make tree roots dangerous, and we've got to sail up there and put it down before the minotaurs blame us for it! But it's been so long since there've been any tales of the Dimernesti worth hearing that I'm curious.
"So you tell me what you remember, and I won't spread any more tales."
Torvik told of what he'd seen, and added, "We were so far off that I doubt the woman knew I was watching her, let alone whether I found her desirable. And I was so far off that I couldn't tell whether she had six toes on each foot and a harelip!"
Torvik heard relief in Hem's voice, whether at the absent of Dimernesti or at Torvik's not having lain with one, the young captain could not tell. He hoped it was the first. Captains who believed the kingpriest's babble about "lesser breeds who stood beyond the law through their lack of virtue" would be a burden the fleet of Vuinlod did not need.
"So," Hem said. "Should I try tallow for Dart's bottom? Stands to reason that the Dimernesti might feel kinship for seals, the way the Dargonesti do for whales."
"They might well, if there are enough of them to make a difference," Torvik said. "Remember, even if I saw the woman, she might be the only one of her kind in those waters."
"So she might," Hem said, plainly relieved. "I mean no offense to her folk, but if I have to scrape Dart clean and grease her again, I'll be another half-month before sailing.
"I've ordered some fish oil to add to our tallow," Torvik said. It reeks so that only a god could smell anything else on a ship's planks. Let me give you some to mix with the seal oil, and what the Dimernesti don't know won't hurt you."
They shook on that, and Torvik left, much relieved. Hem was no hater of "lesser breeds," only a captain with much work to make his ship ready and little time to do it. There were many such about these days.
He himself had best learned to command his face better. Other captains, less friendly, might also read in it what he did not want known. Even captains spread tales, of his lack of self-command if nothing else.
Also, the Knights of Solamnia who would be sailing aboard Vuinlod's ships would be riding into town within days. And they worshiped self-command almost as a lesser god, and would expect much of it from the son of a man whose memory the knights mostly held in respect.
Gerik had wanted to greet the woman-the lady, by courtesy-and her companions as befitted one who named himself Gerik of Tirabot.
He wished to ride up to her, dismount, bow, give his name, and ask hers as well as her reason for coming onto land given into his trust by Sir Pirvan of Tirabot, Knight of the Rose. Meanwhile, a mounted escort of men-at-arms would keep their distance, and hidden archers would keep an even greater distance-as well as keeping their arrows properly nocked and aimed.
Instead, everyone who could ride or run swarmed toward the gate, until the sergeants' rude language put a halt to the chaos. Even so, Gerik rode out with ten men instead of five, not all of them by any means fighters, and several other people rode or ran off toward the village.
Gerik only hoped that their riding or running would stop in the village, and that they were only going to bring the marvelous tale to friends and kin, not to those who would carry it to hostile ears. Gerik had no idea who this woman's friends or enemies might be, but he would prefer not to learn by having either of them sprout from the ground at his father's very gates!
It was a short journey to the woman, and the riders took most of it at a canter. As they reined in to a trot, Gerik saw that the kender numbered five, one of them a woman, and that all were armed: two hoopaks, two spears, and a crossbow.
They also took neither their hands from their weapons nor their eyes from the newcomers. Gerik had the sense of dealing with a trained war band, or at least with folk accustomed to working together-something not rare among kender, but seldom seen in daylight by humans.
He waved his men into a half-circle, facing the forest and well back from the woman. Then he himself dismounted and walked toward her, keeping his hands in plain sight, away from his steel. It did not take much learning to realize that the green grease on the head of the crossbow's bolt might be poison-or at least something brewed by a kender healer who intended it to be poisonous.
The kender archer would hardly need poison, however. Among the things forgotten in the rush out from the manor was Gerik's armoring himself. Besides a hastily girded-on belt with sword and dagger, he wore only a light helmet and his ordinary clothes.
"Greetings, mistress," he said, raising a hand palm outward. "And welcome to the lands of Tirabot Manor. I am Gerik, son of the lord Sir Pirvan, Knight of the Rose, and in his name and my own I bid you welcome."
The woman, who had been standing taut as a bowstring and with a hand inside her cloak, seemed to ease visibly. Her hand came into sight-empty-and the points of the kender weapons dropped by a whole handsbreadth.
"Greetings, Lord Gerik," the woman said. "My name is Ellysta. I claim your protection, in the name of justice and honor. I will explain why-" her breath caught and she pressed a hand to her side "-if you deem it necessary."
The woman spoke like one of birth and education, and her tattered, grass-stained gown and still worse-afflicted cloak were of good cloth. Her feet were not only bare but bloody, and plainly not commonly unshod.
A further look told Gerik that Ellysta was not much older than he, although at first glance this was not apparent. One had to look under dirt, cuts and bruises, a black eye, a split lip and an air of fear, hunger, and weariness to see her youth.
"There will be a time and place for that, Lady Ellysta," Gerik said. "But not here and now. You seem in need of food at least, perhaps healing as well."
That meant a message to Serafina, wife of Grimsoar One-Eye, his father's old companion and formerly steward of the manor. Serafina was a singularly accomplished healer for one without magicworking arts. Indeed, she might already be on her way to the manor house, summoned by one of the riders to the village.