“Nor we. Indeed we shall brighten your lives considerably! Go aboard.” The big man gestured to a rope ladder, which had just unrolled itself down the dhow’s side.
Somebody yelled a warning overhead and a barrel crashed to the deck. It exploded on impact, spilling black fluid everywhere. At once the djinns began throwing nets on the mess. “Pitch!” Jarga cried.
“Pitch.” The officer glanced contemptuously at the open skylight. ”We are about to torch you. The ladder will be removed in a few minutes. Stay and fry if you prefer.”
The expression in Jarga’s blue eyes caused his hand to jump to the hilt of his sword—she was very nearly as tall as he, and jotunn. Inos stepped between them and pushed the sailor toward the ladder. Jarga went reluctantly. Passing the skylight, she called out, “Abandon ship!”
Feet drummed on wood as the men hurried up the companionway.
Minutes later, when Arakkaran came under way again, Northern Vengeance was already a smoking inferno upon the sea, sails and rigging dissolving in yellow flame. The eight prisoners huddled together on the dhow’s deck under the amused and puzzled gaze of at least fifty huge djinns. In the bright light of the open sea, their eyes were the color of dried blood.
Inos had never seen a finer craft. Every scrap of brass shone like gold. Every plank was waxed and gleaming, every cable smooth and new. Bright-hued lacquer traced out exotic carvings on any surface that did not need to be flat. This, she supposed, was Azak’s doing. He was a perfectionist. If Azak built a fleet, it would be the finest fleet the Gods had ever seen.
She glanced at her companions. Jarga seemed to be in a trance, bewitched by the splendor of the dhow. The dwarves just glowered, out of their element. The goblins were shiftyeyed and jumpy; Shandie’s face was almost as green as theirs. Raspnex was imprisoned in his self-imposed cocoon.
The imperor was too ill to think, and all the others must be concentrating mightily on not using sorcery within the occult inspection of the Covin. With her newfound sea legs, Inos was in better shape to cope than any of them, but a woman was no more than a domestic animal to djinns. Nothing she said would be heeded, even were it credible: I am Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar, this is the imperor, and, may I present Warlock Raspnex . . .
The cordon opened to admit a portly man of middle years. He was weather-beaten, his unfastened blouse displayed grizzled chest hair. The blouse, his turban, and his voluminous pants were blue; he wore a jeweled scimitar and ornate shoes. He could be assumed to be the captain.
“A motley catch!” he boomed in the metallic accents of northern Zark. His red-and-white brows rose ever higher as he inspected that catch.
Inos turned away from his arrogant gaze and her eye was caught by a movement up on the poop deck. Her heart stopped in its tracks. She stared in disbelief. It could not be! That was nineteen years ago, woman!
“By the beard of the caliph, what are these two?” the captain demanded. He addressed the question to Wirax, the oldest male.
“They are goblins, eminent sir.”
“Goblins? Got a bad case of seasickness, have they?” The unjustified mirth this remark generated in the onlookers confirmed that the speaker must be the commander.
But the one up on the poop? The young one leaning on the rail and staring down at the play? Exceptionally tall, even for a djinn . . . impossibly wide shoulders and narrow waist . . . a nose like an eagle’s beak, face weathered to a rosewood red, and an arrogance to face down Gods . . . green clothing.
He was far too young, but the likeness was uncanny. “Your names?” the captain barked. He was clearly puzzled now. He had probably never even heard of goblins before. “And stations, if any.”
“Jarga, sir, master of Rosebud.” “Frazkr, iron founder.”
“Yshan, merchant,” Shandie mumbled. “Inosolan, widow.”
But Inos was distracted, wrestling memories. That huge young man wore green, royal green! Which of them? They had all seemed so alike in their childhood and she had never paid them much heed anyway.
And none of them had ever seen her face!
The litany of names and lies had ended. No wiser for it, the captain scowled. ”And what business brings goblins and dwarves and the rest of you to the shores of Zark?”
Wirax launched into a wild tale of seeking opportunities for mining ventures. As the noble lord was doubtless aware, goblins were exceptionally skilled at detecting ore bodies . . . But the goblins were becoming steadily more nervous. Any minute now, Inos thought, young Pool Leaper would crack. He would unleash magic and the watching Covin would swoop down on the ship. Then everything would be lost. Better the djinns than Zinixo, but how could she justify or explain that to the goblin?
What was his name, that arrogant prince on the poop? That prince who looked so astonishingly like his father? Like his father had been, twenty years ago. The oldest. Name! Name! Name!
“I don’t believe a word of it!” the captain roared, ending Wirax’s fantasy. He turned away. “Throw the men overboard and give the women to the crew.”
“Wait!” Inos shouted. She had it! And that one had seen her face! “Prince Quarazak!” she called. “We have met before, your Highness!”
A beefy djinn at her side lifted a fist to silence her, and stopped as her meaning penetrated. All eyes swung to the dandy on the poop deck. Inos expected a summons, but he reacted exactly as his father would have done—instantly and dramatically. He vaulted over the rail and landed on the main deck like a giant cat. Then he stalked forward and sailors backed in haste out of his path. He stopped in front of Inos and stared down at her with deadly red eyes. Like his father, he wore his beard trimmed to a narrow fringe; it was darker than she remembered Azak’s, though.
“Not likely. I have never had a woman as old as you.” No one laughed, because the remark was not intended to be humorous. The only female faces he would have seen since his childhood would have been those of his daughters and his concubines. Perhaps daughters. Daughters were failures.
Inos was familiar with the attitude and did not let it distract her. ”You bore a golden chain on a cushion. When the ceremony was interrupted I lifted my veil. You saw me.”
The red eyes widened and the young man seemed to grow even taller. His reckless intervention had landed him in a confrontation so unpredictable that it might cause him to lose face before the crew and the ship’s officers, but his composure did not waver. His response was calculated and prudent. “What name do you go by now?”
“I am Inosolan of Krasnegar. You know where we met. And you know who my husband is.”
That last he might not know, if he was not in his father’s confidence, but the rest he did. Oh, yes, he knew. He had been only eight years old, but he would not have forgotten the day his father married the foreign queen. No one who had been present in that hall would ever have forgotten the battle when one lone horseman overcame the entire palace guard.
He looked over the captives, the goblins in particular. Then he made an instant decision, just as his father would have done. He turned to the captain, who somehow contrived to grovel without moving a muscle.
“Strike my flag. Signal my brother to raise his. Break out of line and set course for Quern.”
“Aye, Prince Admiral!”
“Send the woman to my cabin. Put the rest in irons until I decide what to do with them.” With that, Admiral Prince Quarazak ak’Azak ak’Azakar of Arakkaran, oldest son of the caliph, spun on his heel and stalked away.
Inos was roughly shoved after him, knowing that now she must play a part as she had never played before.
5
In Thume, on a snoozy summer afternoon about a week and a half before Longday, Kadie and Thaile were lounging in the woods, weaving baskets. It was not, as Thaile had explained, necessary to weave baskets. Weaving baskets was no great feat of artistry or skill. The finished product would be singularly useless in the College—it was just a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.
Kadie was perfectly happy to weave baskets with her friend. She was quite content to do anything in Thaile’s company. She knew she would never have woven baskets in Krasnegar, even had suitable withes been available. In Krasnegar she would probably have denounced the whole procedure as an idiotic waste of time; she might have gone so far as to describe it as peasant’s work and thus provoke a sermon from her mother, but in fact it was a pleasant way to pass a hot and sticky afternoon.
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