“Second question: Describe Inosolan.”
Rap took a deep breath and weighed the agony of being flayed against the probability that nothing he could possibly say could ever make any difference . . . but his mouth had started speaking already. Cowardice had a thousand disguises and if it called itself exhaustion and weakness and exposure and—don’t matter anyway, cowardice it was still. Nevertheless, he was not man enough to stop himself talking.
“Somewhere between an imp and a jotunn in height. Hair gold . . . darker gold than . . . well, that man sewing the boot? About that shade. Green eyes. Slim. She rides and—”
“I’m only interested in her body. Is she beautiful?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Face me while you’re speaking. Show me how big her breasts are. Mm. I like them bigger. Is she a virgin?”
“I don’t know!” Rap almost managed a shout.
Kalkor chuckled softly, the sharp sapphire fires never leaving Rap’s face. ”You have occult farsight, don’t you?”
“Me, sir? No, sir.”
“That’s one, Rap! I warned you! One stroke. Can you control it, turn it on and off at will?”
“Sometimes,” Rap muttered. Darad had the brains of a herring. He had talked far too much for his own purposes. Like Gathmor, Kalkor would never willingly part with a seer.
“It’s not easy, is it? So you’re discreet? Do you love her?”
“Inos? Love her? Me? I was . . . No, of course not!”
“That’s two.”
“Two what?” Rap snarled. The pain of those chains could never be worse than the pain now pounding in his hands as the blood came back. And his feet . . . Oh, Gods! . . . his feet . . .
“Two lies, two strokes.” Kalkor waved the whip gently, letting the chains swing like a pendulum, jingling.
In his sudden, utter shock, Rap forgot the torment in his hands and feet. ”No! I was a stableb—” Oh, Gods! Love Inos? Kalkor shook his head wonderingly. “You didn’t know? You hadn’t realized! How sweet! My heart bleeds, my gorge rises. Rap, I’ll take back that `two’! I haven’t felt so moved since the praetor of Clastral offered me his daughters. But let’s be quite clear on this. You lust after Inosolan?”
Rap nodded, too shattered to speak. How had he dared? So that was why he had this crazy dream of finding his way to her side—to be a lover, not just a servant? She had kissed him once, and then let him return the favor. They had held hands. Puppy love! Hopeless love. It was unthinkable—she was a queen and he was a churl. He had been deceiving himself all this time. Gods, Gods!
And that was why he had been so disturbed when he had seen a man coming out of her tent in the looking glass vision. He had been jealous! Fool! Fool! Fool!
And Kalkor was watching him with amused contempt as if he could read all this appalling revelation unwinding in Rap’s mind.
“More than you lust after any other woman?”
“Aye, sir.” By the Powers, it was true!
“Well, that is a recommendation, but I don’t know how reliable a faun’s taste would be. Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
The bright-blue eyes seemed to grow even brighter as Kalkor frowned, regarding Rap carefully. He waited while the ship topped another spume-swept crest, then he probed with care: “Roughly?”
“Probably in Zark, sir. A sorceress abducted her, and she was a djinn.”
The thane was surprised. “Truly? I really thought the Wolf had gotten his head banged once too often! How did you know my name?”
“Saw you . . . in the . . . magic casement.” Rap had to force the words out. The pain was knotting him now and getting worse. His arms and legs would have been a torment by themselves, but he was barely noticing them over what his extremities were doing to him.
“Do you know where in Zark she is?”
“Arakkaran, sir.”
“That’s two now, Rap! The truth?”
Struggling to concentrate, barely managing to speak instead of just scream, Rap said, “The sorceress said she came from Arakkaran.”
“But you don’t think Inosolan is in Arakkaran. Why not?” Shocked, and hurting too much to plan any convincing lies, Rap blurted out a confused account of his meeting with Bright Water and Zinixo, and how the wardens had all been trying to steal Inos away from the sorceress and one another. He expected the thane to throw him overboard for spinning such a yarn—and it would have been a blissful release—but Kalkor, amazingly, seemed to believe him.
The questions thudded home like arrows, Rap croaked out answers in a blur. Describe Milflor harbor . . . how many men in the Krasnegarian army . . . He shaved the truth as much as he could manage, until Kalkor shook his head gently and said, “We’re up to five, Rap. I thought I’d warn you. We’re looking at real damage now, I’m afraid. Next question . . .”
His instinct for truth and falsehood seemed to be infallible, although Rap’s face was so battered that it must be very hard to read, and often the wind whipped the words from his lips. The penalty count was up to “Nine!” before Rap abandoned any further efforts to deceive. Thereafter he just let his tongue babble. He didn’t care anymore. The pain in his hands and feet was driving him mad. If he had the strength, he’d climb over the ship’s side and drown himself.
He must have fainted, because afterward he remembered speaking while lying flat, his bruised cheek against the cold wet planks. Later he sensed two enormous dirty feet right in front of his nose. From them young Vurjuk sprouted like a spare mast.
“. . . clean him up,” Kalkor was saying. “Can you trawl him on a rope without killing him?”
“Can try, sir.”
“Well, make it brief and find him some clothes afterward, because I would prefer that he live awhile yet. “
“A flogging match?” Vurjuk’s voice rang with boyish eagerness.
Thane Kalkor did not answer impertinent questions; the look in his eye was enough to make the kid bleat, “Aye, sir!” and jump to obey orders.
Stripped, trawled, dried, clothed, watered, and fed, Rap discovered to his surprise that he was still alive, although he wished he wasn’t. He was still incapable of walking, but he crawled aft to where Gathmor lay, and gave him a drink. Then he dragged over a battle-ax, which was the only sharp thing within reasonable distance, and found even that hard to hold in hands so grotesquely swollen. The jotnar must have noticed what he was doing but they did not interfere. By the time the last of Gathmor’s bonds parted, Rap was so weary that he was capable of nothing more. He fell asleep where he was, in much the same place he had been before.
3
Rap was kicked awake and told to report to the thane. Reeling and stumbling, he hurried aft, confused by the ship’s new motion. Falling was inevitable in his state, but he managed to make all his impacts on inanimate things—oars, benches, tubs. To land on a sleeping jotunn might cost him half his teeth. The sun was just rising into a blue and promising sky. The wind was strong, but no longer dangerous, and Blood Wave was surging northward over the last remnants of the storm swell. Even the creak of wood and rope had taken on a more cheerful note. Perhaps today he might get dry for the first time since Durthing? Then he reached the stern and sank to his knees before the throne, where Kalkor was just making himself comfortable.
For a few minutes Rap was ignored as the thane rummaged in a leather bag, looking for something. All over the boat, men were stirring, rising, stretching, scratching, cursing.
“Roll that up.” The thane’s gesture indicated his hammock, so Rap rose and attended to the hammock. He could not straighten under the low headroom, but in his condition he had very little desire to. He was as shaky and weak as a sick kitten, staggering with every pitch and roll.
He tucked hammock and blanket on top of the mountain of loot, but before he could kneel—or just fall—down again, Kalkor held out a hand to him. Rap stared at its burden in dumb incomprehension, and then looked into the jotunn’s arrogant blue contempt.
“You lose a finger for every nick. “
It was without question a razor. Still gaping, Rap took it, opened it, and found the finest steel blade he had ever seen, obviously dwarvish. He tried the edge; before he felt anything, his thumb was oozing fine specks of blood.
“Idiot! “ Kalkor said. “Well, you know the rules. Get busy.” Rap’s hands were still stiff and swollen, and if they had not been shaking before, then they certainly were now. He moved near to the chair and tried to steady his head against the overhead beams—had he been a fraction taller he could have rested his shoulders against them instead. He was stooped over Kalkor, and much too close for comfort or even for easy work. The thane was offering his face . . . and neck.