The Fox Page 6

  “That’s right,” Cherry-Stripe said. Then frowned. “So where is he?”

  “Ambushed,” Fnor said, eyes narrowed.

  Buck grinned. “Right. You find your horse, ride back north, and fake an ambush.”

  “Fake?” Vedrid frowned, perplexed.

  “You take off your blues.” A finger indicated the Runner’s coat with the silver crown over the heart. “Hack it up with your knife. Bleed on it.” A slice of a finger across the inner wrist. “Leave it on a Runner road. They’ll think you were left dead and either someone else did the old Disappear Spell or wolves ate you.”

  The Runners had their own paths, cutting short the more general roads that often circled wide, following old land borders.

  “And?”

  “Then it’s up to you. You could vanish, begin another life. We will never snitch,” Buck said.

  “Or you could find Sponge—ah, Evred. Tell him what happened,” Cherry-Stripe suggested.

  The lines of torment in Vedrid’s face smoothed a little.

  Cherry-Stripe rubbed his hands, then put into words the shift of allegiance that would satisfy Vedrid’s own honor. “You’re dead to the Sierlaef, since he ordered your death himself. Swear a new oath to Evred-Varlaef. Become his man.”

  Fnor added, “He will need you.”

  Chapter Four

  COCO looked down at Taumad’s sleeping profile, bitter-sweet anguish hollowing her heart. Oh, how beautiful he was!

  She resisted temptation long enough to enjoy the rare sensation, then reached with her forefinger, tracing the high arch of his brows down around his eye, brushing her fingertip along the extravagant curve of his lashes, then down to his lips—severe even in sleep—to his splendid chin and then around his ear to his hair, spread on the pillow. She ruffled her fingers through it, so like combed and shining golden corn silk, warm near his head, cool on the pillow. She would not permit him to braid it.

  His eyes opened, clear, appraising, gold as clover honey in the morning light shafting through the stern windows. Gold, real gold, not mere light brown: those flecks of yellow were the luster of sun through honey—or golden coins in candlelight.

  “Your wish?” he asked, his voice slightly husky.

  She’d had him to herself ever since Walic left to supervise the new attack, but desire kindled again, as if it had been months, and not a watch-bell since their last tangle. “Ooh, my pretty-pretty-pretty,” she crooned, running her hands down his smooth, muscled flesh to ruffle the golden hair on his chest.

  His breathing stayed steady, his hands still.

  He was ready. It was a matter of will, if you knew the way of it. She, who had been trained in the ways of pleasure since sixteen, had recognized another with the same training, and for the first month it had been wonderful to possess this beautiful young man who knew almost as much as she did about what could be done in bed, and for how long . . . but.

  She stared down into the waiting face, her thoughts fluttering as helplessly as a moth pinned down by knife points.

  She wanted—no, needed—to see him want her as much as she wanted him. How strange! Everyone on the ship wanted her. Gaffer Walic had wanted her so desperately he had offered her anything she asked, anything at all, if she’d leave the House of Spring and come aboard his ship.

  She’d had Walic kill hands who didn’t show instant obedience or respect—kill them slowly, so she could watch them beg. Taumad showed those things instantly, with the same readiness she’d shown when she was a worker at the House of Spring and not queen of a pirate fleet.

  If she commanded him he would beg and plead, but it would be the lessoned scenarios of the pleasure house with no emotion behind it. “I could kill you,” she said, to see if he would show fear.

  He didn’t. He smiled, that glorious sardonic smile with the deep dimples shadowing his enticing mouth. “Then do it.”

  “You really want to die?”

  A shrug. “Someday I have to. Why not by a pretty hand?”

  The thought of a knife in her hand, that beautiful skin marred, smote her with deliciously piquant torment. Someday soon he would surely reach for her first, but until then she could possess him whenever she wished. She covered his skin instead with soft kisses and flicks of the tongue. It was time to exert her own skills, to try to please instead of being pleased. That, too, was new and enticing; could she make him lose control?

  Tau sensed the change in her mood and spun it out, almost too long, until he saw she was on the edge of anger; he shifted to the attack and sent her into a swoon of bliss.

  Sated at last, she flung herself across his chest. He waited until she had slid into boneless slumber, then arose and moved soundlessly into the adjacent chamber. The ship was reasonably steady. He unlatched the carved wooden lid to the captain’s fantastically expensive bath, kept clean by magic, the water refreshingly cool. He bathed long enough to rid himself of her favorite scent. Then he dressed, leaving his wet hair hanging down his back, and ran down to the galley, ignoring the stares of resentment— or lust—or a combination of the two.

  Uslar was helping the cook with one of his complicated sauces. Captain Walic’s food was quite good, the supply maintained by the endless prizes the pirates had been taking; Tau had heard Walic gloat over how long it had been since they’d had to plan a shore raid. Because, of course, Walic never paid for anything: that was one of the first rules of the Brotherhood.

  When Uslar saw Tau he reached beneath the prep table and brought out a cloth-wrapped loaf. He handed it to Tau, his dark eyes pained.

  Something had happened. Again.

  Tau said quietly, “Inda eating? Or was he part of the boarding crew?”

  Uslar flicked a glance upward toward the weather deck.

  Tau took the food: enough for two. He climbed to the deck, staying out of the way of the hands, and squinted out through the glaring haze rising off the greenish sea. The prize was a long, elegant private two-master, the wood embellished with carving and fresh gilt glinting in the sun; beyond it one of Coco’s consorts was a shadowy silhouette, bracketing the capture, aboard whom the crew still fought. Faint cries carried over the water, and the clash of steel. Pale orange flames licked at the great triangle of the mainsail, now hanging uselessly, as a pump crew of pirates aimed a hose upward. Tau tried to pick Inda out of the busy figures aboard, but the glare was too bright, the haze too thick to make out individuals.

  A roar of triumph: surrender. Either that or all the defenders were dead. Tau winced, wondering how many more lives had been snuffed from this world’s sunlight. He wondered if their ghosts would walk on the Ghost Isles, and if so, how they got there.

  Leaving their bodies to be vanished, and their presence as memories in the minds of the living. Tau still grieved over the deaths of those he’d known, shared meals and jokes with, fought side by side against pirates with, against wind and weather with. He strove to imagine Kodl, Niz, Yan, even old Scalis, all drifting along some mysterious island, their forms somewhere between flame and smoke, but the idea of them wandering as ghosts hurt worse. Surely there was no pleasure in the existence of a ghost—no wine, no talk, not even the warmth of a touch.

  The regret was not his alone. All the former marine defenders felt it: Thog the least, Inda the most.

  Self-loathing had come to grip Inda so strongly that his nights had become a torment of dreams in which the dead lived and fought again, and he was helpless to save them. I want this ship for myself. And you will help me take it.

  His own survival had become a matter of indifference.

  Three times now he’d been sent to the forefront of an attack and each time he’d meant to escape the bitter despair by standing open to a defender’s steel. But his defenses were too good for that, too quick, far too habitual. He discovered with no joy or even curiosity that instinct seemed to prod him right before a sneak attack. He’d whip around and there was always a weapon raised, instinct bringing his arm up to meet the attack.

 
; He could control himself well enough not to return any death blows. Because he fought to defend, and not to win, he gave in to the old habit of watching everything around him. He noted who fought to kill because they loved to kill and who fought out of fear, who wanted to live.

  Then, no matter how hard he worked, how tired he was, sleep brought those dreams. Not only the dead marines walked through them, but the boys from the academy before he was disgraced and exiled.

  Clash, clang! His body responded with the ease of years of drill though his mind was locked inside his skull, living again Dogpiss Noth’s death—seeing his hand, dirty under the nails, freckled across the wrist, fingers tense and spread, and Inda reaching, reaching, touching his wrist. But Dogpiss fell away and lay there in the stream, his open eyes reflecting the stars overhead—

  “Hold! Sloop’s ours,” the second mate bawled out in his huge voice, and Inda flung down his sword, his breath whooping, his once-broken wrist throbbing.

  Someone thumped his back. “Captain’s barge, Stupid.”

  Of course he wouldn’t be part of a prize crew. Walic only permitted new pirates to serve on prize crews one at a time, and never with the mates with whom they came aboard.

  He dropped into the barge heaving on the swells and took up an oar, ignoring his swollen wrist except to wish he’d put on a wrist guard—Walic had plenty of gear in the hold, taken off other ships. But Inda had only gotten clothing to replace his ripped, bloodstained clothes. He hadn’t taken a wrist guard because he’d intended to die.

  Walic glanced over into his exhaustion-dulled face and smiled to himself. He’s good. Fast, strong, skilled. But doesn’t take any initiative. The perfect hand. Too perfect. If he lives through a few more battles, we’ll test his loyalty a little. Walic chuckled, mentally tolling the new recruits, wondering who would provide the most entertaining display under his knife and hot iron.

  But that brought back the old grievance. Walic stirred with impatience when he thought of the loss of that boy’s commanders. If someone as dull-witted as Stupid was so good with steel, his Marlovan commander must have been beyond human excellence. Subsequent questioning had proved that it had taken two full attack groups to bring down the handful of defenders around Stupid—and half of those had been killed. No one at fault, from what he could discover. It had been the hottest fight they’d had in a couple of years, and he’d lost far more hands than he’d taken— though the death toll of the enemy had been correspondingly high.

  What he could have done with someone like that if the Venn had refused to give him what he would have demanded as the cost of his prize!

  Ah, his plans. Those were more satisfying to think about.

  Walic glanced with tired contentment at his new sloop as the oars dipped and pulled, dipped and pulled. Quite a fleet he was building. Now all he needed was another capital ship or two, the recruits to crew them, and he’d be strong enough to make his bid to join the Brotherhood.

  He climbed aboard Coco, saw that everything was as it ought to be, then stumped down to his cabin for some rest.

  The rest of the crew clambered up after him, Inda one of the last. He turned to help boom the boat up and secure it. When he was dismissed, there was Tau, holding food.

  “You haven’t eaten,” Tau observed, speaking as they were alone, everyone busy with tasks.

  Inda didn’t ask how he knew that. Nor did he argue. He took the braised fish-and-cheese-stuffed bread and bit into it without thought or pleasure, though he was hungry.

  “Get hurt?” Tau asked, aware of the Marlovan redhead watching from above. Tau didn’t have to see the contempt on the fellow’s face—he could feel it, a matter of indifference to him: the only interest he took in either Fox or Rat was how they’d managed to hide their origins from the captain, who was not unobservant. Maybe he didn’t hear accents. The two talked in an abrupt, almost comically harsh Dock Talk that might confuse someone not familiar with the tongues of the Iascan coast.

  While Tau mulled this over, Inda forced down a few more bites. He glanced furtively around—so did Tau—then Inda said, “Thog and the others are making a set of red sails.”

  “So?”

  Inda looked into Tau’s face, saw only question. “That means the captain wants to be invited into the Brotherhood. ”

  “That’s a surprise?”

  “You knew?”

  Tau lifted a shoulder. “First night. One of what my ma calls unpleasantries of the pillow that he revealed.”

  Inda grimaced, stole a look at Tau’s golden eyes, and then asked, “They say he . . . watches. Is that true?”

  Tau smiled. “The first sign of human interest in you in two months. You are alive after all!”

  “Huh?” Inda blushed, looking very young, despite his scars. “Never mind. Sorry.”

  Tau laughed without sound. “It’s no matter to me. You spend years naked in a pleasure house, just living. What my ma used to call the symbolic boundaries between us that clothing represents become meaningless, the clothing a costume for players. Sex is a commodity you choose to sell or to trade. It can be a game, it’s nearly always a drama, or it’s a competition between wills—but always, always a commodity. That’s why I wanted to leave, and why it’s so ironic that I ended up doing it anyway, and for no pay, just the price of my life.” Of your life, too, had you known it, he thought, but now was not the time to tell Inda that—if ever.

  Inda looked up, his brown eyes sober, and even direct, like his old gaze. “I know you did whatever you did to buy our lives.”

  Tau only pursed his lips, but inside he felt unsettled as he had in the old days, when Inda, probably five years younger, would offer some remark that made it clear he was as observant as Tau was: observant, emotionally as distant as the seabirds overhead, yet not unconcerned.

  “I’m glad you can bear it. Him watching,” Inda said, looking away.

  Tau remembered how recent Inda’s own introduction to sex was, but he didn’t smile. Just saw that everyone was busy, and no one cared about a conversation between Stupid and Coco’s new pet. “I don’t know what Walic’s habits were before. But he wears a heavy scar down there. Coco was the only one who could bring him up, and it involves, oh, call it watching a seduction using both pain and pleasure.”

  Inda looked down at his half-eaten sandwich. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

  “Inda, why don’t you eat? Why try to get yourself killed?”

  A flickering look, and then away. Inda would not meet his eyes. “Brotherhood,” Inda mumbled. “He wants to join the Brotherhood. I’ve betrayed Thog.”

  “How is that possible?” Tau asked, forcing his voice to stay low. “Nothing here is your doing. Nothing.”

  “But I haven’t done anything to free us, either.”

  “You will,” Tau whispered, leaning closer. “Or I will. Or maybe it will be Thog. We will escape this recruiting ground for Norsunder; it’s the one thought that keeps me sane.”

  Inda’s color changed, but he didn’t speak, and Tau, who thought he’d gained insight into Inda’s despair, realized that he’d only penetrated a single layer. More lay underneath—probably having to do with that mystery back in Iasca Leror that Ryala Pim had flung in his teeth, whatever it was that had brought Inda to the Pim ships in the first place.

  Tau sensed a shadow at the edge of his field of vision and leaned against the rail. In Dock Talk, “So the prices of the pleasure houses along the north coast are for the toffs. But you get more sex games to choose from. Now, in the south coast—”

  Inda’s face slackened a heartbeat before a heavy hand smacked his shoulder.

  “Talkin’ sex, eh?” It was the second mate, who usually had the night watch. He was a big man, a golden hoop of a ship kill at one ear. His long braided hair was decorated with little golden chimes. “You’re not so stupid after all, Stupid, goin’ to the one that knows.”

  Inda looked up, his mouth open.

  “But it’ll be a long cruise before yo
u get on land, or any pay to spend on sex.” Haw, haw, and two laughers joined in from behind. Tau felt relieved, then angry at himself. Being up all night was no excuse for not staying alert.

  “Uh?” Inda asked, right on cue.

  The second mate thought derisively, This rockhead was a commander? “It’s your snore-watch, Stupid, which you better get. You’ll be replacing the standing rigging on the sloop tomorrow, and you better not be asleep at the job.” He swaggered away, the chimes in his swinging braids tinkling sweetly.

  Inda slouched below. The crew quarters were empty, as often happened directly after a battle. Walic did not like idle crew. The first mate had taken a party to repair and sail the prize, leaving the low forepeak crew quarters empty. Inda whirled into the modified knife drill that he and Dun had developed out of the precise drills used by the women in the knife style they called Odni back home. Not that he had his knives. Those had been taken before he woke on this soul-sucking ship; he had no idea who had them.

  His mind cut free, remembering Dun, a coastal Iascan coming aboard as a carpenter’s mate—just happened to know some fighting—boarder-repel drills on the Pim Ryala trader—blond like Marlovans but taller than they usually were—who was he really?—last fight, he seemed not only skilled, he fought like the king’s Runners at home—defensive fighting—offensive fighting—women kept Odni a secret—

  Hadand, his sister, saying We have to be able to strike once—the long drills up behind the pleasure house at Freedom Island—Dun never speaking—refinements—dead, dead.

  Kodl dead. Like Dogpiss.

  As he had since he was eleven years old, when the pain was too great, he shoved it all away, behind the mental wall between the past and the present. A wall that needed to be stronger and higher, to keep grief and pain inside, where it couldn’t escape.

  Finished, he wiped his face on his sleeve and dropped into his bunk, staring up at the bulkheads, fighting sleep— imagining that wall going up, stone by stone, to hold as long as possible against the invading dreams.