This sea was not the Winter Ocean! Rap rose and hopped to the top of the stair. Leaning on the handrail, he worked his way down, step by step, to the water. The boys gave him startled looks, and soon afterward he realized that they had departed. Without removing his clothing he went down far enough to sit in water up to his neck, and it was marvelously refreshing, soothing his scrapes and scratches. He ducked his head, wincing at the sting of salt on his cut, but soon that stopped. Easing himself up and down on his arms while the little waves went by, he watched the barnacles and floating weed and wished his head would not throb quite so hard, and that his eyes would attend to their duties. His farsight still said that the sea had a tilt to the left.
He must have gone to sleep, because suddenly he was choking and thrashing, in danger of falling off the steps and drowning. Who would come to his rescue? Probably no one in Milflor would believe that a man couldn’t swim.
He hauled himself up by the handrail and hopped back to the stone bench. Already it was hot as a griddle, so that he was glad his clothes were wet. He must rest his ankle for a while and wait until his eyes began behaving. His head pounded with every heartbeat, his vision flicked in harmony. But at least he seemed to have stopped bleeding; his tattoos were aimed safely seaward, away from the passersby.
He sat on the bench for quite a while, wondering when he would cook himself to death, when someone would come and investigate a solitary man being idle while everyone else was busy, and when he would die of starvation. Why, oh why, had he gone and broken his ankle?
For the first time in months he was truly alone, and the feeling was unexpectedly unpleasant. He had lived by himself for days on end when he was herding; why should solitude bother him now? Lonely lost boy had better start behaving like a man pretty soon!
He discovered he was mourning Little Chicken and told himself not to be crazy. The goblin had been dedicated to killing him in the nastiest ways possible, so his death should be good news, not bad. Perhaps Rap’s sorrow was only guilt at having left him to fight alone, but that suicidal assault on armed men had been Little Chicken’s own decision.
Or had it?
How many soldiers had the goblin dealt with before they, in turn, disposed of him? Why had those particular men broken ranks to come running down the path? Rap’s scalp prickled as he considered the occult possibilities. Legionaries had ravaged the fairy village. The one surviving fairy had died in telling Little Chicken something, probably her name, and certainly a magic word—and for no apparent reason. The goblin’s natural talent had been physical strength, which had been sorcerously magnified, and now a group of soldiers had rushed to their own destruction at his hands. Might those very men have been the perpetrators of the original crime? Could Faerie magic seek out its own vengeance like that?
Things on the water were very hard to see, and his farsight was growing blurry, also. The head coming toward him had to be a seal, he decided. Then he squinted, shaded his eyes, and decided that it was a man swimming.
He had never watched swimming being done. It was obviously slower than walking and must be hard work, for when the swimmer reached the steps and clambered out, he was audibly gasping. After a moment he came plodding up, still stooped and puffing and wringing water out of his hair-pale blond hair hanging to his shoulders. He was short for a jotunn, but broad.
Although Rap had accepted that this was a warm climate where men might go around bare-chested even in a town, he was still shocked by the newcomer’s scanty rag. That was indecent! Nor was it very practical, and when the man moved to sit on the other end of his bench Rap called out a warning. “Careful! The stone’s hot!”
The man stopped and turned to stare at him over a silver mustache large enough to sweep out a stable. The rest of him had been put together from knotted rope, brown leather, and wet polar bear combings. His eyes were pale as an arctic sky, fog gray with only a hint of blueness-but they gleamed at the sight of Rap’s scrapes. “Too hot for me, but not for you!”
“No! Sorry, sir! No, I didn’t mean that at all, sir.”
“Ah! You mean I’m being stupid?”
Rap had never expected to sweat any harder than he had been doing a few minutes earlier, especially not when feeling icecold, as he did now. “Not at all, sir. I should have seen that you have bare feet. I mean, that you know exactly what you’re doing, sir. I meant well, sir, but I was wrong to presume to advise you—sir!”
The jotunn shrugged, disappointed. He sat down, deliberately leaning against the backrest and spreading his arms along it, carefully not flinching at the heat, while all the while keeping watch on Rap, as if inviting comment.
Even the homegrown jotnar at Krasnegar were dangerously touchy, even Rap’s personal friends like Krath and Gith. He should have remembered that the nomadic sailor types were all homicidal maniacs, especially when fresh ashore after a voyage. Dockside taverns in Krasnegar spilled more blood than beer. Even to get up and leave now could be taken as an insult.
It would be nice to have Little Chicken handy.
Keeping his blurry eyes innocently pointed at the little boats sailing in the bay, Rap studied his new companion out of the corner of his mind. Jotnar turned pink in summer and shed skin in sheets; he had never seen one so bronzed, to about the same faunish shade as himself. To assume that a male jotunn was a sailor by trade was usually a safe bet, and quite certain in this case from the pictures tattooed on the man’s arms and hands, all of which were either obscene or erotic, or both. He was regarding Rap with the open curiosity of a man who could choose to be nosy-hard and heavy. His knuckles were badly twisted by old breaks; his angular jotunnish face was ominously unmarked.
“What’s that ‘round your eyes, boy?”
“Goblin tattoos, sir.”
“Make you look like a half-wit raccoon.”
“Oh, I agree, sir! I didn’t want them. I was unconscious.” The man sighed.”You haven’t been fighting.”
“No, sir. I fell.”
The sailor groaned and looked away. For a while there was peaceful silence. Gradually Rap began to breathe more easily. Even when he was feeling his usual self, he had no interest in brawling as a sport.
Then the jotunn began studying him again. “You’re not pure faun. That’s a jotunn’s jaw if I ever saw one.”
Tell him it was none of his business? “My father was a jotunn, sir, my mother a faun.”
“Rape, of course?”
“Probably. But he married her later, sir.”
“Lucky girl.” Resignedly the sailor clasped his hands behind his neck and turned his gaze on the harbor. Rap would have enjoyed being furious, but anger would be a dangerous luxury at the moment. Besides, this man might be of some help if he would ever accept that Rap did not want to fight.
So this time it was Rap who resumed the conversation. The jotunn had dried already and he glinted all over as if he were swathed in gossamer.
“My name’s Rap, sir.”
Elbows and arms pivoted like the wings of a banking gull. Faded eyes regarded him with bored contempt. “Who cares, halfrnan?”
“Sorry, sir.”
A grunt. “But I’m Gathmor, first mate on Stormdancer.”
“Sir . . . I’m seeking passage back to the mainland.”
“Where on the mainland?”
“Zark, if possible, but anywhere will do.”
The weatherbeaten skin around the sailor’s eyes crinkled in amusement. ”Then you’ll walk to Zark?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I hope they’re not keeping your dinner warm?”
“Sir, I don’t mind working. I’ll row, if I have to.”
“I bet you would! Nice try, though.”
“I don’t understand!”
“Excisemen can count, lad.” He lowered his hands, as if about to rise.
“Sir? I still don’t understand! I can’t sign on as a sailor?” Gathmor regarded him curiously. “You banged your head harder than I thought. Or else you haven’t been here very long. There’s a big—no, a huge—tax on exporting slaves from Faerie. Or importing them, for that matter. I use the word `tax’ loosely.”
“I’m not a slave!”
“Of course not! Slavery’s illegal within the Impire, we all know. Terrible thing, slavery. Which is why you ran away, and why the excisemen know exactly how many we had in irons when we arrived and how many officers, and why they’ll make sure we leave with no more and no less.” He paused, as if asking if Rap was now satisfied.