“Go bandage your hands,” said Kta. “You have little whole skin left. You are due to lose what remains.”
XVII
The clouds had gone by morning and Phan shed his light over a dead calm sea. Tavi rolled with a lazy motion, all but dead in the water, her crew lying over the deck where they could find space, wrapped in their cloaks.
Kurt walked to the stern, rubbing his eyes to keep awake.
His companion on watch, Pan, stood at the helm. The
youth’s eyes were closed. He swayed on his feet.
“Pan,” said Kurt gently, and Pan came awake with a jerk, his face flushing with consternation.
“Forgive me, Kurt-ifhan.”
“I saw you nod,” Kurt said, “only an instant ago. Go lie down and I will stand by the helm. In such a sea, it needs no skill.”
“I ought not, my lord, I-”
The youth’s eyes suddenly fixed on the sky in hope, and Kurt felt it too, the first effects of a gentle southern breeze. It stirred their hair and their cloaks, touched their faces lightly and ruffled the placid waters.
“Hya!” Pan shrieked, and all across the deck men sat up. ‘The wind, the south wind!”
Men were on their feet, and Kta appeared in the doorway of the cabin and waved his hand in signal to Val, who shouted an order for the men to get moving and set the sail.
In a moment the night-blue sail billowed out full. Tavi came to run before the wind. A cheer went up from the crew as they felt it.
“Ei, my friends,” and Kta grinned, “full rations this morning, and permission to indulge, but moderately. I want no headaches. That wind will bear Edrif along too, so keep a sharp eye on all quarters, you men on watch. You rowers, enjoy yourselves.”
The wind continued fair and the battered men of Tavi were utterly content to sleep in the sun, to massage heated oil into aching limbs and blistered hands, to lie still and talk, employing their hands as they did so with the many small tasks that kept Tavi in running order.
Toward evening Kta ordered a course change and Tavi bore abruptly northwest, coming in toward the Isles. A ship was on the western horizon at sunset, creating momentary alarm, but the sail soon identified her as a merchant vessel of the house of Ilev, the.white bird emblem of that house shining like a thing alive on the black sail before the sun.
The merchantman passed astern and faded into the shadowing east, which did not worry them. Ilev was a friend.
Soon there were visible the evening lights on the shores of a little island. Now the men ran out the oars with a will and bent to them as Tavi drew toward that light-jeweled strand: Acturi, home port of Hnes, a powerful Isles-based family of the Indras-descended.
“Gan t’Hnes,” said Kta as Tavi slipped into the harbor of Acturi, “will not be moved by threats of the Sufaki. We will be safe here for the night.”
A bell began to toll on shore, men with torches running to the landing as Tavi glided in and ran in her oars.
“Hya!” a voice ashore hailed them. “What ship are you?”
“Tavi, out of Nephane. Tell Gan t’Hnes that Elas asks his hospitality.”
“Make fast, Tavi, make fast and come ashore. We are friends here. No need to ask.”
“Are you sure of them?” Kurt wondered quietly, as the mooring lines were cast out and made secure. “What if some ship of the Methi made it in first?” He nervously scanned the other ships down the little wharf, sails furled and anonymous in the dark. “Hnes might be forced-”
“No, if Gan t’Hnes will not honor house-friendship, then the sun will rise in the west tomorrow dawn. I have known this man since I was a boy at his feet, and Hnes and Elas have been friends for a thousand years…. Well, at least for nine hundred, which is as far as Hnes can count.”
“And if that was not t’Hnes’ word you were just given?”
“Peace, suspicious human, peace. If Acturi had been taken from Hnes’ control, the shock would have been felt from shore to shore of the Ome Sin. Hya, Val, run out the gangplank and Kurt and I will go ashore. Stay with the ship and hold the men until I have Can’s leave to bring our crew in.”