She suggested, “Lomoz Borab is sound. And what about Eenzie?”
“Eenzie the Clown?”
“I’d like one more woman along, Noteen. And Eenzie makes us all laugh. We may need laughter.”
He assented. “Six, then. Porabji, Dooraz, Borab, and Eenzie. You, Highness. And me.”
“You, Noteen?”
“I will send the troupe back to the steppes. Nunoz can take them.”
“I had not thought of you, Noteen.”
“You object?” He asked it humbly enough.
She thought of this. He had not bullied her more than he had bullied anyone else. She could detect no animosity against him in herself. “Why not. And I have a thought about it, Noteen. You will command our group. So far as they are concerned, Queen Fibji’s message came to you.”
He thought on this, overcoming his immediate rejection of the idea as he confronted her thoughtful face. It might be better, he thought to himself, if no one knew who Medoor Babji was. “It might be safer for you,” he murmured.
“I was not thinking of that,” she said. “So much as the comfort of the voyage. We have done well enough with me as a novice. Why complicate things?”
“Thrasne owner doesn’t know?”
“I told him we were ordered to go. I didn’t tell him the seeker birds came to me, or what words they carried.”
“Do you have enough coin to pay him?”
“Strange though it may seem, Taj Noteen, he isn’t doing it for coin, or at least not primarily for coin, but yes. I have enough.” Among the tokens she carried was one that would open the coffers of money lenders in Thou-ne. The Noor had accounts in many parts of Northshore.
“We’ll need more yet for stores. How long a voyage do we plan?”
“Queen Fibji commands us to provision for a year. A full year. We will need most of the hold space for stores. Thrasne knows that.”
“Well then, I’ll get Dooraz and Porabji ready. They’re good storesmen, both of them.”
And it began.
Thrasne talked to the crew. He didn’t give them his reasons, just told them they’d be well paid. Several of the men told him they’d go ashore, thanks for everything but they were not really interested in a voyage that long. Thrasne nodded and let them go. The others chewed it over for a time.
“You’ll want me to replace the ones that left,” Obers-rom said at last. “We’ll need full crew, Thrasne owner. I don’t suppose those blackfaces will be up to much in the way of helping on a boat.”
“I don’t suppose so. And we’d better get in the habit of callin’ ‘em by their names, Obers-rom. Or just say ‘Noor.’ They count that as polite.”
Obers-rom agreed. He hadn’t meant anything by it. Boatmen weren’t bigoted. They couldn’t be. They’d never make a copper if they couldn’t deal with all kinds.
And it was Obers-rom who worked with Zyneem Porabji and Fez Dooraz—they were Obbie and Zynie and Fez within the day—to fill the Gift of Potipur’s holds. From the purveyors and suppliers they ordered dried fish and pickled fish and salted fish, grain in bulk, grain in dry cakes, and grain in flour, dried fruit, jam, hard melons, half barrels of slib roots—ready to sprout salad whenever they were wet down, even with the brackish River water. They ordered smoked shiggles, procured by Fez from some unspecified source along with kegs of Jarb roots. They bought sweetening and spices and kegs of oil, both oil for cooking and for the lanterns and stove. They paid for bolts of pamet cloth and coils of rope, extra lines for fishing, and bags of frag powder. They sought a pen of fowl for the rear deck with snug, watertight nesting boxes, and the cooper began making an endless series of kegs for fresh drinking water.
They ordered spices and medicines, a set of new pans for the cook, and supplementary tools for the carpenter’s locker.
Not all of this was available in Thou-ne. Some of it was mustered mysteriously by the Noor and arrived as mysteriously on other boats coming from the east. This meant delay, and more delay, but the Noor were patient, more patient than Thrasne owner, who wanted only to put some great challenge like an impenetrable wall between himself and the way Pamra had gone. The harder he worked, the less he thought of her, yet he could not give up thinking of her entirely