Treason's Shore (23 page)

At least I’m saved the cost of a mass execution,
she thought.
I will not tolerate pirates
. So . . . it was time for the raggle-taggle fleet to be tamed and run like a real navy. The advantage was that she gained ships for a navy far too small after the years of Venn control.

Kliessin smiled, and smacked her hand down on the arm of her chair. “Bringing me to my last question. If Elgar the Fox, who’s never lost a battle
anywhere,
has not been training a navy under my nose, what is that black ship doing out in our harbor right now?”

Jeje thought,
I already fumbled. Though it didn’t make things worse, another fumble might
. “That question by rights ought to go to Prince Barend—” (
Was
he really a prince?)”—and Queen Wisthia.”

To Jeje’s immense, almost dizzying relief, the princess gave a nod. “Well, then, perhaps our guest will have time to join us.” Her voice sharpened, but Jeje had her tongue bowsed up tight.

The footman appeared at her side. Belatedly she remembered to bow, then followed him out, sternly quashing the urge to sneak a peek backward.

Down the stairs and past a huge fountain. Running water muted sound, that Jeje remembered from her days at the Lark Ascendant pleasure house. “Good job,” the sailor-footman said as she paused at the fountain and dipped her hand in. “Many lives were still in the balance.”

The water was shockingly cold. She wrung the crystalline drops off. “Chim said the people are in the Bren navy.”

“That’s what they”—a glance upward—“told
him
.”

Another jab amidships.

“Oh.”

They walked away in silence, and she returned to the heights in silence, sensing that she was being watched the entire way.
That’s the end of my career as a diplomat. Soon’s I report and have full dark, I’m gone
.

Chapter Thirteen

T
HE thud of footsteps outside the door brought Barend to his feet. His fingers tapped the locket hanging inside his shirt, though there was no reassurance there.

He backed to the corner, poised for action. If they were going to kill him, they’d have to do it right here. He would not march tamely out to die for some foreigners’ entertainment.

The door swung open, and there were the guards. Looked like a flight of ’em. But they had no weapons in hand.

At the front stood a big, well-dressed fellow. “Your highness,” this fellow said, bowing with grace. “My name is Kavnarac. I’m here to apologize for the misunderstanding and to escort you to Princess Wisthia.”

Barend opened a hand, not sure what the proper protocol was around princes. Kavna’s smile increased, but his gaze flicked aside in exactly the same way Evred used to signal that they might be overhead, when they were boys.

So Barend just said, “Food’s pretty good here, but I wouldn’t mind some variety.”

Kavna laughed that laugh people give when they’re trying hard for humor, and off they went, trailing all those guards. Kavna worked away at a boring conversation about foods the continent over, with minimal cooperation from Barend. The only real comment during the entire journey through the castle, into an open two-seat carriage, down the ridge, across the river, and up the other side was Kavna’s sighing, “I would so love to go to sea.”

The carriage stopped. With an apologetic air Kavna signaled to one of the silent guards accompanying them, who returned weapons and gear to Barend as the prince said, “I trust we will have a chance to speak at leisure. I look forward to hearing some of your sea tales.”

Barend hopped out. Kavna raised a hand and the carriage departed, leaving Barend before a fine house flying three flags at the ridge pole—one of them Iasca Leror’s crimson and gold eagle.

The upper ranks of the city thus having seen the mystery man with the ruby earring taken by Prince Kavna to the ambassador’s, they were left to an evening’s conjecture as the prince returned to the royal palace.

Wisthia was also watching from inside the ambassadorial residence. She came out on her doorstep to greet Barend, sublimely unaware of the warriors stationed at intervals along the street, and the shift in expensive curtains in the grand houses surrounding them.

She led her nephew to her private salon.

There was the curvy furniture he remembered from his brief visits during childhood, the low, cushioned chairs with just enough back for support, and no thought to an assassin trying to sneak up behind. Curtains the color of the sea. Rugs. In the corner, seated on more of the curvy furniture, a trio of young women sawed and plunked away at the familiar deedle-deedle music.

He remembered his mother saying once,
Wisthia isn’t stupid. She works hard at that pretence of obliviousness. That’s her only protection against your father’s suspicion
.

Barend shifted from his aunt’s intense gaze to the room. The only three people in earshot were busy making noise that would keep anyone at a window or door from hearing much.
The low chairs let you see all around. It’s not attack she’s warding, it’s eavesdroppers
.

Wisthia settled herself, observing her nephew as he took in the room. Barend’s triangular face evoked his murdered mother so strongly that it hurt. But there was no time for the luxury of private grief. “Prince Kavnarac nearly joined you in the prison for high treason,” she said.

Barend dropped down next to her.

“It was only because of his sister’s regard for him that he didn’t. That,” Wisthia added dryly, “and the fact that it would be foolish to, say, attempt to overthrow a monarch by issuing orders to a disparate fleet of former traders, no matter how well trained. Especially one you haven’t paid in over half a year.”

Barend cursed under his breath. “I never thought about that. What it must look like. Neither did Inda. He needed a fleet, and they were forming independently.”

“They were fumbling around causing no problems until a pirate showed up and directs their fumbling into purpose. All without talking to the government, who really should have been approached first.
Do
begin to think,” Wisthia invited cordially. “How you Marlovans see yourselves and how the world sees you couldn’t possibly be more different. Now that we’ve dazzled them with stage-illusion, what are you really doing here?” She sipped the mulled wine her servants had brought.

Barend took a gulp of his and sighed as the warmth worked its way through him. “Trade.” He spread thin, rough-palmed hands. “Evred needs trade. The harbor cities alone—”

“Barend.” Wisthia laid two fingers on his wrist. “Why are you
here?
”

Barend grimaced. Inda had been firm about keeping the treasure a surprise. A secret, actually. They both agreed that Evred did not need another thing to worry about. There were too many dangerous ifs attached to the treasure, not the least of which was exactly how to turn it into something more useful than hoarded metal and stone.

He looked up. Here was just the person who could make it possible. If he could trust her. “First tell me your part in what happened after I was arrested,” he said.

“Fair enough.” She gave him a succinct account.

Barend smiled at the mention of Jeje and her opinions. When she was done he said, “Evred sent me to reestablish trade. Inda wanted to hire that fleet. To get us started.”

“Hire how? Or should I say, with what?”

Barend grimaced. “The truth is, there’s a treasure.”

“Treasure,” she repeated, taken aback. “What kind of treasure?”

“Pirate treasure. Mostly gold and jewels. Some in the form of coin, the rest in luxury things. Cups and plate and jewelry and the like. Piled up for years. Maybe generations.”

“I did not think that pirates were the sort to save.”

“Inda said a lot of it was the result of hiding royal hauls until the war fleets stop searching, but the pirate captain is killed, then the killer is killed, and so on. Somehow they always saved the book with the map in it. Until Ramis threw it in a fire. But Inda showed certain people where the treasure lies. They saw it—Inda described it.”

Her brow furrowed. “How much are we talking about? A chest?” She mimed something square sitting on her lap.

“More.”

“How much more? I can imagine a great deal, for example a set of boxes to fill this room.”

“More.”

“The
house?
” Her tone altered from shock to disbelief.

“Say three of these houses. But I don’t really know how big this house is.” He repeated what Inda had said of the cavern on Ghost Island. “A lot of it is underwater. I think we could fill several ships with it, maybe as many as a dozen.”

Wisthia pressed her fingertips to her mouth. “In a way that’s worse than the mystery fleet. I am very glad you did not talk about this treasure to anyone, and I’m even more glad Chim thought to reveal who you were before I did, so that diplomatic courtesy kept Kliessin from dousing you with kinthus and wringing your entire past from you.”

Barend sighed. “Inda wants to use it to rescue the Iascan treasury. The kingdom’s been pretty much shipwrecked by the embargo and war. I know all about going through proper channels to turn it into credit—”

“Barend. Try to see this matter through others’ eyes. First, no Marlovan king has ever taken the least interest in diplomacy, with the result that you are profoundly ignorant. Dangerously so, because I don’t think you know just how ignorant you are. Second, you bring that much gold into any harbor at once, and you’ll throw the local economy into such turmoil you’ll have not just that king astir—” She shook her head. “No, all that is for later. You don’t even have it yet, am I right? That’s what you wanted the fleet for. There is then time for careful—
very
careful—negotiation. Careful, and discreet.”

She paused, thinking:
I could not be a proper Marlovan mother to you, Evred my son. But I can at least be a proper ally
. Out loud, “You may leave that to me. In the meantime, you are theoretically free—”

“Theoretically?”

“—though I notice Kliessin did not interview you herself. Surely you observed the armed guards everywhere? Perhaps your first step ought to begin with an act of good will.”

“Good will? Aunt Wisthia, what’s going on?”

“What’s going on is a stalemate between all the players in the harbor—from sailor to king—and that pirate fleet squatting out there in the middle of the bay. Your act of good will might be to get rid of them.”

“Pirate fleet? There are no more fleets . . . Oh.” “Pirate” in everyone’s view, perhaps, but the fleet’s. “You mean Fox is out there. With the
Death
. How did that happen?”

She lifted her cup in salute. “The entire city is waiting for you to tell us.”

Within a week after Convocation, Iasca Leror’s royal city had resumed regular life.

The royal couple returned to eating dinner with the Harskialdna and Harandviar; it was the only time of day that Hadand could get Evred to sit down to anything but work. Though she could not get him to lay aside kingdom affairs even that long: he almost always brought up business.

At the end of that first week of the new year, Evred said, “Inda, you haven’t begun teaching the King’s Runners your style of fighting?”

“Waited for Convocation.” Inda flattened his hand in negation. “Should I make it required? I thought we were going to run it volunteer. They have to unlearn so much.”

Evred tapped on the table. Hadand had yet to accustom herself to the differences in Evred since he’d returned from the north. The Venn were not an immediate threat, he seemed pleased with the kingdom’s progress, but he worked harder than ever, sometimes falling asleep at his desk.

He hadn’t come to her rooms once since Convocation ended.

“If I give the order,” Evred began slowly.

Inda poked a chunk of bread in Evred’s direction. “If you give the order, they’ll do it. Probably resent it, too. What’s the necessity? Vedrid has been drilling them extra hard, and we know how many your Runner to Ola-Vayir took down before they killed him last spring. And he was old.”