The King's Blood(26)

Jorey didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

“It would be wiser if you didn’t make this alliance,” Dawson said. “The girl’s history shows what she is. We already have connections to Skestinin, so the family gains very little by it. Your brothers aren’t married yet, and it seems odd to have the youngest marry first. When my father came to me and told me who I’d be wed to, I was grateful to him for his guidance and wisdom. I didn’t bring some stray home and beg him to keep it.”

“I see,” Jorey said.

“Do you?”

“Yes, Father.”

“If I tell you now to go to the girl and break things off, will you do it? Out of loyalty to me and to this family?”

“Is that what you’re saying, sir?”

Dawson smiled, and then laughed.

“You wouldn’t,” he said. “You’d go to your mother and arrange some way to force my hand or elope to Borja or some other idiocy. I know you, boy. I’ve changed your diapers. Don’t think you can fool me.”

Something shy and tentative plucked at the corners of Jorey’s mouth. He stepped forward.

“Go,” Dawson said. “Take my permission, and do what you’d have done without it. And take my blessing too. She’s a lucky girl, my new daughter, to have a husband like you.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“Jorey,” Dawson said, catching his son at the doorway. “The world’s briefer than we think, and less certain. Don’t wait to have children.”





Cithrin



T

he Stormcrow was one of the first ships Cithrin had accepted an insurance contract against, and it took time to put the story together of how she was lost. She was a three-masted roundboat, deep-bellied and well crewed. The captain, a Dartinae man whose eyes glowed green rather than the usual yellow, had walked Cithrin across the deck when the contract had first been made. She still remembered the pride in his voice. He’d told how many times the ship had made the blue-water trade to Far Syramys before he’d settled into his retirement. No more the long, landless weeks navigating by stars and hoping for the distant coasts. Now he was making the simple, riskless trade between the Free Cities, Pût, Birancour, and Narinisle. The storms of the Inner Sea might swamp the little galleys they ran, but not a real ship like the Stormcrow. She’d weathered cyclones in the ocean sea. He’d made light of the pirates that haunted the coast of Cabral. Coast-humpers, he called them. Anyone makes trouble, just set the sail toward open water and let their own cowardice do the rest.

Cithrin had found him charming, his record of delivery impressive, and his confidence in himself so high that he was willing to accept very good terms on the contract. He insured the cargo only. If I lose my ship, I’ll be dead anyway, and the money won’t matter, he’d said. It hadn’t sounded like prophecy at the time.

The ship had wintered in the great port of Stollbourne, sleeping through the winter in the shadow of the floating towers of the Empty Keep. It left Narinisle as soon as the ice broke, heading south for warmer waters and Porte Oliva despite sleet and storm. The journey south was sure and steady. It had joined a group of ships making for Herez and remained in that company for the better part of a week. Then, when the other ships had turned in toward their home ports, it continued south past Cyrin and around the Embers, the sharp stones that rose from the depths of the sea off the cape of Cabral.

It passed Upurt Marion, hailing and being hailed by the captain of another roundship just coming north from Lyoneia. The Stormcrow had come that close to home, but never reached Porte Oliva. The other roundship captain said that half a day after the Stormcrow had vanished over the horizon, three small, fast ships bearing the colors of no nation had passed by far to the south, leaning toward the open sea.

After that, more guesswork was involved. Without doubt a storm had blown up three days after that last sighting. It made sense, then, to imagine the Stormcrow pulling in its sails and nailing battens over her hatches, preparing to endure the high, white-topped waves and the vicious, cutting rain. The captain might have taken the lookout down from the crow’s nest with the very real concern that they might be tossed out by the violence of the weather. If so, the pirate ships could have been almost upon her before she knew they were there; black shapes against dark water.

Against an enemy coming in from the sea, the Stormcrow’s defenses had little hope. Pirate ships were smaller and more maneuverable, their rigging unconstrained by the needs of long voyages. Perhaps the Stormcrow tried for open water, and was intercepted. Perhaps she turned for shore and was chased down. The wreckage that had been blown ashore stank of linseed oil. Pouring oil on the waters was a well-known trick for boarding ships in rough seas, and it made it seem more likely that the assault had come nearer the land.