Accidental Sorceress (Hardstorm Saga Book 2) (7 page)

He leaned toward me as if to watch, placing a large hand above my knee, then caressing my thigh up and down in a soothing motion.

Boots slapped on wood outside as the crew went on with their work. Then people stopped by our cabin, talking in whispered voices. I could not make out the words but could hear the anger behind them. I did not like the way those men sounded. But, after a few moments, they hurried away.

“Should we go up on deck?” I asked when I finished with the sack.

Batumar nuzzled my ear as he pulled me into his embrace. I set aside my mending. His familiar scent relaxed me. He even smelled like a warlord: leather and steel.

I pressed against his body and let his heat warm me. “Should you not be helping?” Not that I wanted him to leave.

He ran his fingers over my hair. “We should stay out of sight as much as possible. Best they do not even remember that we are here.”

His warm hand moved down my arm. “If the captain needs me, he will send for me. His crew should be able to handle easy sailing like this. They are more likely to need help once we reach the storms.”

Already the winds were heavier, the waves tossing the schooner up, then dropping us down. Yet, so far, the sacks of potatoes beneath us stayed firmly anchored in place, thank the spirits.

I shifted away from a big lump that dug between my ribs. “At least we shall have more room as our journey progresses. These potatoes will be eaten by the men.”

Batumar kissed my neck. His strong fingers massaged my back, then moved to my side, then up until they rested under my breast. Suddenly I was breathless, my whole body tingling with anticipation.

The evening of Lady Lalandra’s summoning, he had not sent for me afterwards. The night before we left Karamur, he had insisted that I had enough rest. Then, in the mountain, we spent the night without being able to touch, wedged in a narrow tunnel. Now I was suddenly starving for his hands upon me. When his large palm covered my breast at last, I arched into its warmth.

He deepened the kiss, fully claiming my mouth. Then his hand trailed down, slipped under my tunic, his fingers moving to the waistband of my thudi. Heat rushed through my body and pooled low in my belly.

“Someday,” he said between kisses, “after the war, I shall take you on a sailing trip around the islands, on my own flagship.”

I enjoyed that thought very much. But only for a brief moment before I remembered the way I had left the High Lord’s Pleasure Hall.

Me and all the other concubines?
I wanted to ask.

I would not. The High Lord owed them his protection and more. They were his duty, according to the ways of the Kadar. He had brought
me
on this journey, and that would have to be enough, even if he only brought me because he believed the enemy sought to kill me.

I wanted to ask what would happen when we returned to Karamur, but I had given in to my jealousies too much already. He loved me. I knew he did.
But why will he not say it?

Suddenly, I realized that he had drawn back a little and was watching me.

“Are you unwell?” he asked, the heat in his eyes turning into concern.

He would think me such a fool if he knew all I had been thinking. “We should store up on rest. We will not have much once we reach the hardstorms and the waves start pitching under the ship in earnest.” I glanced toward the door, wishing I could leave for a few moments until I collected myself.

He misunderstood the gesture.

His lips twisted into a rueful smile. “Next time, my lady, we shall travel in a cabin with a lock on the door.”

A sharp rap on the door drowned out the last of his words.

“Up on deck!” Pek shouted outside. “Captain’s orders!”

Batumar reached into his boot and retrieved his dagger, handing it to me. “Block the door with potato sacks behind me. If anyone comes in…” He wrapped his fingers around mine as I held the dagger. “Aim for the heart.”

He leaned forward, mindful of the dagger, and brushed his warm lips against mine one last time, lingering but for a moment, then he was gone, leaving me alone in the cabin.

I did as he instructed, barring the door, then settled back on our uncomfortable bed with little to do but worry about him up on deck. I refused to go back to my thoughts of jealousy and be like a child who picked at a sore until it bled.

When the hunger grew worse, I drank. I had emptied one of my flasks on our journey through the mountain, and now, to ease my grumbling stomach, I kept drinking until I nearly emptied the other, but I knew we could refill our flasks from the freshwater barrels we had seen being loaded.

To relieve myself, I used the old bucket in the corner as we had before, then dumped the contents out the porthole. I preferred that to squatting over the side of the ship in full view of the pirates.

The rest of my time was filled with worries about how we would fare at the market of Rabeen, whether we would leave it as a free woman and man, or be left behind as slaves.

Dusk neared by the time Batumar returned, calling through the door so I would let him in.

When he said, “We reached Rabeen. I will take you to see the island,” I relaxed a little. At least he had not yet been seized. I straightened my clothes, then followed Batumar up to the deck, both of us alert for an attack.

But the pirates ran about their tasks, barely sparing us a cold glance. The
Doomed
was nearly in port.

In front of us, mud-brick dwellings mixed in with market stalls, covering most of the island, barely any land showing, so Rabeen looked as if the islanders had built their houses on top of a surfaced whale that could at any moment dip back under the sea.

I did not draw an easy breath until the ship had docked and we were on firm ground, still uncaptured. Only then did I allow myself to fully inspect our surroundings. The whole of Rabeen was but a single city, and the whole of the city was but a marketplace.

Batumar briefly placed a hand on my arm. “We must not draw attention to ourselves.”

On this, we fully agreed.

Beggar children ran around in flocks like honking geese. Seeing us depart a pirate ship, at first they did not approach, only watched us closely. But once they convinced themselves that we did not look like pirates, they swarmed around, begging for food. Two had no eyes; others had missing limbs.

Batumar had our food sack under his arm. The little beggars grabbed for that, then cried out with disappointment upon finding it empty.

I gave the ribbon from my hair to one little girl. The small, grimy hands of the others were everywhere. When they discerned that we had no more to give, they ran off for their next target.

I stared after them, wishing we could take them all back to Karamur.
Maybe on the return journey.

“Were they left behind here by slavers because of their injuries?” I guessed that feeding them through a sea voyage would cost more than a slaver could get for them at the nearest city.

“Or else, their beggar lord maimed them himself.” Batumar scanned the colorful sea of people around us. “Good health in a beggar is a disadvantageous calamity.”

I could not fathom such cruelty. I shivered, but not from the wind that blew from the sea.

We passed a man in threadbare clothes, leaning against a pole, sleeping standing up, both hands missing from the wrist.

“And him?”

“A thief,” Batumar answered. “The first time, they cut off a hand, the second time, the other hand, the third time, they cut off the head.”

I stared at him.

“That is why you never see a beggar child with only the hand missing. Beggar lords are always careful to remove at least half an arm, so the little beggars are not mistaken for thieves. Nobody would toss a coin to a thief.”

We walked on in silence, my mind spinning. I had seen many dark things in war, but the customs of Rabeen made my heart sick. “Are many cities like this?”

Among the Shahala, those too sick to work were fed by their neighbors. Those caught in a crime were taught by the elders to do better. At worst, a criminal might be cast out. My people did not go about chopping up others.

Among the Kadar, each warlord made his own law. In Karamur, under the High Lord’s law, theft had to be twice repaid, even if it meant servitude for the thief.

“Why is Rabeen so barbaric?” the words slipped from my lips.

“No market town is kind to thieves.” But then Batumar, his gaze scanning the crowd, added, “Rabeen was not always like this. Once, they had a smaller market but grew all the most exotic fruits here on the island, in hanging gardens. They traded only food back then. They had ways of irrigating their crops and growing tenfold in raised containers, one atop another, as clever as if the gods had invented it themselves. Once, the merchants of Rabeen were more than merchants. They were inventors and philosophers and poets.”

I longed to see such a place, a shining contrast to the now overcrowded island that teemed with a wide range of goods but also with the mutilated. “What happened?”

“War. Their old ways were lost. Now they grow little. Ships bring merchandise, and other ships take it away.” Batumar turned toward the market stalls. “Let us purchase what we need.”

I glanced back toward the handless beggar and caught sight of Pek instead. He seemed to be watching us, but he ducked his head when he realized I had seen him.

As I followed Batumar into the labyrinth of passageways, staying close to him, I tried to shake off my unease.

The market buzzed like a nest of hornets. Not even the sounds of the sea could overpower the noise that rose and fell like the waves. Here on the outskirts, merchandise was sold in open stalls, canvas stretching above to protect the tables that offered fruits, meats, vegetables, and spices.

Various smells assailed us, some pleasant, others stomach-turning. I had never before seen so many things fermented.

We bought hard-fleshed ican fruit that would last the long journey. Batumar also purchased some sweet mosan berries, which we ate at once. Then cheese, which we sampled. And strips of dried meat. We ate some of that too as we moved on, our stomachs filling at last.

The farther we progressed, the more substantial the stores became, square, high-walled tents first, then mud-brick houses stuck to each other. In these houses, colorful clothes and furs were on display on the lower levels, or carpets standing in tall piles. At the top of stairs that led to the second, private, level, children sat, playing, chewing on sugarcane, watching their fathers work, already learning the trade.

We stopped at a candlemaker, and Batumar selected six large tallow candles. Then he tugged off his left boot, shook out a coin, and paid.

He added the candles to our sack.

A droopy-mustached merchant called to us as we passed his shop. “Silk for the mistress.”

“I have the finest perfumes in the world. Try my musk and jasmine,” another offered, wiggling his sizable nose like a rabbit smelling clover.

“Soft kid boots.”

“A jewel to match her eyes.”

All this we passed by. Soon we were nearly across the city. Straight ahead was the sea again and another port with a long wooden dock. To our left, animal pens stood near the water so they could be easily cleaned.

The fowl merchant listed his entire inventory in a singsong voice. He had everything from purple-plumed nefel that lived on swamp frogs, to curved-beak emerald machup that nested on high cliffs. Next to them chickens and ducks were packed two dozen to a cage, but the roosters were kept separately from each other.

“Fighting cocks,” Batumar said. “If they were packed together, they would kill each other.”

As we passed the fowl merchant, I glanced to our right, toward the sprawling slave market.

My breath caught when I saw Pek again, talking to a slaver.

Chapter Six

(The Tiger)

Before I could point out Pek to Batumar, the boy was gone, and my attention was drawn to the shocking sight of women and children kept penned in, separated from the men, all huddled against the cold. In another area, I saw two dozen other children in individual cages like the fowl merchant’s fighting cocks.

The cages were not much bigger, entirely too small for the children. Their feet hung out between the bars on the bottom, their arms to the side, a hole allowing their heads to stick out on top.

Their bodies had conformed to the shape of the small cage, unable to grow past it. I envisioned their bent and stunted bones, and could only imagine how much pain their little bodies must be in.

My spirit sickened. My heart pitched in my chest like a ship in a storm. “Are they deformed by design to make them better beggars?”

But Batumar said darkly, “Dwarves are for entertainment, not for work. One of them is worth twenty times the coin beggar lords pay for a beggar.”

He turned me from the sight and kept talking as we moved away. “The Emperor Drakhar has a fondness for dwarves. There are not enough of them naturally. Some slave masters try to breed them for the Emperor’s court, but it is slow work and does not always bring result. The slave masters of Rabeen invented a different way.”

I truly and well hated the slave masters of Rabeen. I could see a handful as I glanced back, standing together and talking with each other, wearing fanciful clothes decorated with beads and shells, the lower portion of their faces wrapped, but not as with a healer’s veil.

Their wrapping was much more substantial, the cloth ending on the top of their heads in some sort of a turban. Only their eyes showed, and I thought it fitting that they would hide their faces in shame.

As I returned my gaze to the children in the cages, I was shaking with anger and grief. I could not imagine how so much darkness could live in a man’s heart as lived inside the Emperor. How could he be amused by such cruelty? As we walked through rows of animal pens, I kept thinking how we could possibly stop such a man.

I turned to Batumar. “Those children… On our way back?”