Treason's Shore (14 page)

Fnor said, “Thank you, Dag Signi,” braced her shoulders, and let herself back into her husband’s room.

Buck jerked up on his elbow. He snarled, “Why did you bring her here? Now she’ll blab that all over the world.”

Fnor was not the most even-tempered of persons. She knew that. The old Jarlan had given her lengthy series of tedious and exacting tasks during her girlhood in order to teach her to curb her temper.

Now she drew in a deep breath, and held it until she could speak with composure. “No, she won’t.”

“So you made some kind of deal? Or she thinks I’m too pitiful even—”

“I didn’t ask her, Buck. I wouldn’t insult her that way.” When he just cursed, a little of her pent-up temper escaped. “She’s kept better and more important secrets than your problem.”

Buck fell back against the pillows, his hair in his eyes. “Shit.” He gave his head a savage jerk to fling the hair aside. “So now you know her secrets?”

“No. But I’ve heard from others what you should have seen right under your nose up north. Or maybe not you, but your rock-headed brother. All that healing, and before that, she caused a geyser to blow a city sky high? That woman is a
powerful
mage. Did Cherry-Stripe learn a thing about her? No. No one did. She keeps her mouth shut. Give me one single instance when she yapped.”

Buck moved restlessly, his damp hair sliding into his eyes again. “Damn the Venn and her secrets. Fnor, there’s no feeling in my prick, not after half a year. Everyone keeps saying ‘Let it heal’ but nothing’s going to happen.”

He looked away at the window, his mouth so unhappy all her anger was doused. “Maybe we need more time—”

He flung up a hand. “I’ve been thinking. You should take a favorite. I know I’m no good to you lying here. And I know my temper’s been bad. You’ve been patient. You shouldn’t be left with me, as useful as shit on a plate.”

“Buck—”

“Go to the hot-house. Then come back and tell me about your fun. Maybe that’ll cheer me up, if you find a good fellow to whoop it up with. But go find one. Fair’s fair.”

And watch you drink yourself to death as soon as you can find your way to liquor?
They’d already hidden the knives after he’d off cut his hair.

She hesitated, trying to find the right words. She needed Mran, who was good with words, but even setting aside Mran’s problems, instinct insisted that this conversation be private.

She had to resolve it on her own.

All right. The kingdom and custom only required there be a Jarl and a Jarlan. Whatever happened in your own rooms—or didn’t—was yours to decide.

She’d discovered since her queen’s training days that picked marriages, like Riders’ and her bow guards and castle people, were pretty much like Jarl treaty-marriages. People married for all kinds of reasons, and those reasons could change. But as you aged, your duties changed, too.

As youngsters she and Buck had thought it would be fun to reserve sex with one another for after they were married. She’d had Vedrid Basna as a favorite—oh, those were good days. But they’d parted at her wedding, as agreed.

She lifted her eyes, not seeing the winter sky, but Vedrid’s handsome face. The fire was still there, oh yes. And everyone liked Vedrid, even Buck. Vedrid would never marry—King’s Runners didn’t—and no one had reported that he’d picked a mate, so she wouldn’t be interfering with another woman’s life. Should she invite him back to her bed?

She looked down at Buck lying there, the wreck honor and glory had left of him. Her throat tightened. Maybe someday they could send him to Sartor, but she knew from writing to Hadand that there was no regrowing limbs even among the highest mages.

As for sex? Who knew. So what did she know? That Buck had never in his life had a favorite. Frequent sporting in his academy days and after, yes, but his heart had never gone to any of them.
Why are these things never straightforward?
she thought sadly.
Horses and dogs have it easier
. Then she caught herself up. She hated pity and whine as much as Buck did.

Honor. Buck had done his part, now it was her turn.

“Fair’s fair,” she repeated his last words as she sat down beside him on the bed. She took his sweaty, anger-tense fingers in her two hands. “You and I made a deal when we were fifteen—half our lifetimes ago. Didn’t matter what anyone else did. Marriage was going to be a ride neck and neck for us.” Her voice roughened. “It was a good vow, is how I see it, so I’m making it again. Just like we did before. Neck and neck means we go over the hedgerows together. Through the swamps together. We ford the river side by side. If one’s horse throws a shoe, the other dismounts and we put it on together. And if the shoe doesn’t stay on, we both walk the horses home.”

His eyes squeezed shut, his mouth twisted. She pulled his head against her shoulder, stroking his damp, tangled hair. “Side by side, Buck. Wherever the road goes.”

Chapter Eight

T
AU’S trade ship skirted through The Narrows well ahead of the first ice and beat northeastward into the Sartoran Sea.

Tau was just getting ready to shiver through a night watch when he absently touched his golden case to discover the magical tingle that meant it actually contained a message. His third ever? Jeje had written twice, once to let him know she’d found his mother, and the second message had been even more cryptic:

Typically, Jeje had not written back since. Tau fingered open the box. The note was in Inda’s handwriting, seldom seen, his letters still school-boy round:
My popularity has doubled,
Tau thought wryly.

Tau looked up, and not for the first time sustained an intense wave of . . . what was this? Regret? Unhappiness? Definitely the desire to turn around and sail back.

He spent his watch pacing the ship and composing an answer. As the sun made a bleak appearance over the distant juts of southern Halia, the mate of the watch shuffled forward, squinted at the sandglass, yawned, then gave the bell a
ting-ting! ting-ting!
Tau withdrew to the cramped wardroom nook in the forepeak and pulled paper and pen from his gear bag. Tired as he was, he wrote out his letter while all the turns of phrase were fresh in his mind, stopping only to hold his fingers over the candle when they began to go numb from the cold.

“. . .
Would you like me to remind you what ship gruff tastes like, especially when the cook is glad-handed with the old potatoes and pinch-tinklet with the cheese? Your army slurry is a Colendi delicacy by comparison
.” Inda lowered the paper. “The rest is mostly ship talk. It’s probably funnier if you know what the mizzen hatch is, and a capstan bar.”

He and Evred sat in the royal schoolroom, which Inda had meant to use only to finish off reading the piled up reports of wounded still in lazaretto or released to duty. But as the days slipped by he discovered he preferred this room, with its four tall light-streaming windows overlooking the academy, to the dark parlor in his and Tdor’s quarters, or the cramped, windowless old Harskialdna office down in the guards’ command center.

He waved the letter. “I’ll skip the rest. Though it made me laugh. I wonder why he wrote all that. Think he wants me to miss being on shipboard?”

“Do you?” Evred asked, the humor fading into the familiar shuttered countenance.

Inda was getting used to that look and to the fact that he just was never going to figure it out. He shrugged it away, and considered.
Did
he miss being on shipboard?

Evred scorned himself for the poison-spear of jealousy. Tau and Inda were not lovers. Evred had experienced that side of Tau in a way that Inda never would. And there had been no detestable demands, or assumptions, on Tau’s part afterward.
I must accept that Inda had his own Sier Danas, undefined by any custom, but just as loyal. And Inda’s loyalty is to me
.

“I do miss sailing,” Inda said. “Sometimes. But would I go back? No.” He threw his letter down. “My day makes Tau’s look like a snooze in the hammock, and won’t I tell him so!” The dawn bells began their unmusical clangor, and Inda jumped up. “Drill, and then Gand and I have to—ah, never mind that now. Listen, you’ll be with those guild fellows about the ore, when I get back. Have any message for Tau?”

“No,” Evred said.

Inda bolted out the door, his voice fading down the hall as he issued orders to the Runners waiting outside.

In the fading light the Fox Banner Fleet sailed steadily northward toward The Fangs, at the extreme eastern end of the strait. Everyone was at battle stations. The smell of smoke from the firepots singed Mutt’s nose as he stood forward on the bow of the
Sable,
glass pressed to his eye. His bow team crouched along the rail behind him, some rubbing their hands to keep them from numbing, others with their mittened fingers tucked in their armpits, their breath puffing in soft white vapor trails as the wind whipped the last of a sleet storm above the formidable line of round-hulled Chwahir ships ahead.

The Chwahir were silhouetted against the retreating clouds, obscured by slanting showers.

Mutt bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself alert. The long two days of battling this storm had left him exhausted and unprepared when the departing clouds revealed the battle fleet forming ahead.

At least I’m not on the
Death,
he thought as he swept his glass toward Fox’s flagship, a long, low, lethal silhouette just in front of them. The
Sable
flanked the
Death
at the left,
Cocodu
at the right, the rest of the fleet spreading behind them in arrowhead formation, which had become Fox’s favorite: he liked breaking lines himself, the
Death
being designed for speedy attack. The others, stationed in the widening wake, could either comb a line or combine to take on pairs of enemy ships, depending on how the enemy reacted.

Mutt thought he’d said those words inside his head. He held conversations with himself when pulling long watches at night. He discovered he’d spoken when a snort just behind alerted him.

“Bet Fox is in a real good mood,” chortled Kanap, one of the
Sable
’s old crew.