“My lord, you must rest if you are to travel tomorrow safely. Your leg is seeping again. You must have numbweed for the pain so you sleep soundly.”
He hated numbwine; a strong man should not need it. But now his leg throbbed, and the night was hot, the humid coastal air scarcely moving through the windows. He nodded and drank off the goblet of the stuff once it was mixed. The drug took effect; he sank into a soft, dark cloud and neither dreamed nor heard his advisor the rest of that night.
Chapter Thirty-two
Ka-Immer, Aarenis
Dorrin woke in the dark, stiff and chilled from sleeping in the open, to the sound of a high whistle and bare feet running on the deck. Stars had faded; the sky gave enough light to see the masts and rigging black against the eastern sky. Someone grabbed her arm and pulled her into a line of sailors hauling on a rope. She took hold, pulling when the others pulled without knowing why. The rattling of blocks and the rising line of sails made it clear.
“Heyyyy … HO! Heyyyy … HO!” She pulled on “HO!” along with the others.
“Freeeeee—ALL.”
Something thumped loudly on the deck on the dock side of the ship. Another something. The ship jerked a little, and the bow came away from the dock. From ahead and below, Dorrin heard a low chant, counterpoint to the one on deck. She wanted to go look, but if she was being crew, then she should do exactly what crew did.
“Heyyyy … HO! Heyyyyy …. HO!” Other sails were rising now, ever clearer against the brightening sky. The ship did not seem to be moving even as fast as a walk until the sail made a noise, then filled, no longer hanging straight down. FLUP. Another sail … FLUP. The deck shivered under Dorrin’s feet.
“Waaaaay … ON!” someone shouted. She could see the shapes of the sailors now and feel a touch of wind on her cheek. They were pointed almost straight away from the dock.
“Come along,” said a voice she recognized as the cook from the storm. “You’ll be in the way out here.”
She let go the rope and followed him, noticing others now moving quickly about the deck in patterns—a dance she did not know. Half the sails were up, and the one the captain had told her was the steering sail jutted out at an angle to the others. Away from the dock and the city buildings, away from the rise of ground behind the city, the breeze strengthened. The ship glided on, gaining speed as it went, until they were out beyond the harbor, when a still stronger breeze filled all the sails and the ship tilted gently over the first swells.
Everything was back in Dorrin’s cabin but the box. When she went down in the hold, it came to her hands before she touched it. She did not need to open it to know the crown and jewels were still there; the crown murmured its contentment. Back in her cabin, she slid it under the bunk again. From her window, she could see the shore of Aarenis angle away to the northwest, one side of the funnel-shaped bay into which the Immer emptied, with Immerdzan at its mouth.
She ate breakfast in the main cabin with the captain, Sun poured in the windows at the stern. The cook had made stirred eggs, and a southern hot sauce was on the table, along with a dish of oilberries.
“We’re sailing west across the bay,” he said. “We’ll head south between Seafang and Whiteskull, into the Immerhoft itself, and then, barring weather, it’s easy sailing to the western ports.” He shoveled in another mouthful of eggs, followed it with oilberries, then bread and honey, and gave a satisfied sigh. “I don’t expect any trouble. We’re a known ship; I pay the bribes in whatever Immer port I dock—did that yesterday while you were up the mast—and there’s nothing in this cargo that would interest them.” He belched, then went on. “They always look at the cabins—but yours was bare as an eggshell, and your things stowed where they wouldn’t bother. They saw crew, and cargo I’d paid the toll for, and nothing more.”
“Immer was there. In Ka-Immer.”
“Yes, flat on his back in his palace, is what I heard, gossip before I came back to the ship at close of trading and pulled the plank. Took a wound or two in a battle, is what they said, but I don’t know for sure. By the time he’s up to see or ask questions, we’ll be out of sight and any gossipers on shore will have nothing to say about a woman aboard old Blessing.”
Dorrin hoped he was right. What he said made sense, but years as a mercenary had taught her that careful planning did not ensure anything. An enemy might not—too often did not—do what seemed logical.
“Come up top with me,” the captain said after breakfast. “The bay’s a busy place, lots of ships.”