Page 266

‘The boat was more heavily laden then. Besides. I am greatly wearied from our hike. Remember that I am a man still recovering from a grievous injury. But in time, perhaps, I shall take a turn at the oars and let you rest.’ Kennit turned his face to the breeze and closed his eyes to slits.

The bright sun danced on the moving water.

Suddenly even his weariness felt good. This was something he had needed to do.

He had taken independent, physical action on his own.

He had proved to himself that he could still sway others to his will with little more than words.

His body had been diminished, but it was sufficient to his ambition.

He would triumph. King Kennit. King Kennit of the Pirate Isles.

Would he some day have a palace on Key Island?

Perhaps after his mother had died, he could establish himself there.

As his father had once foreseen, the opening to the bay in Keyhole Island could be easily fortified.

It would make a wonderful stronghold. He was still building his towers when Sa’Adar spoke again.

‘Should we be able to see the ships by now?’

Kennit nodded. ‘If you were pulling at the oars like a man, instead of slapping and skipping them on the water, we’d have cleared the point of that island by now. Then, we’d be able to see the ships, though we would still have a long row ahead of us. Keep rowing.’

‘The journey did not seem to take this long last night.’

‘Things never seem to take as long or be as hard when someone else is doing the work. It is much like captaining a ship. It seems easy, when someone else is doing it.’

‘Do you mock me?’ It is hard to be disdainful when one was out of breath, but Sa’Adar managed it.

Kennit shook his head sadly. ‘You do me wrong. Is it mockery to tell a man a thing he should have learned long ago?’

‘That ship…by rights…is mine. We had…already taken it…when you came.’ Sa’Adar’s breath was coming harder.

‘There. You see. If I had not come alongside and put a prize crew aboard, the Vivacia would be at the bottom now. Not even a liveship can sail herself completely.’

‘We would have…managed.’ Sa’Adar abruptly flung the oars down. One started to slip through the oarlock into the water. He snatched at it, and pulled it half into the boat. ‘Damn you! Take a turn at this!’ he gasped. ‘I am as good as you are. I will be treated like your slave no longer.’

‘Slave? I have asked no more of you than I would of any ordinary seaman.’

‘I am not yours to command. I never will be! Nor will I give up my claim to the ship. Wherever we go, I shall be sure that all hear of your injustice and greed. How so many can adulate you, I do not know! There is your poor mother, abandoned to a harsh life alone for Sa knows how long! You return to visit her for less than half a day, leaving only a trunkful of trinkets and a half-wit servant to wait on her. How can you treat your own mother so? Is not a man’s mother to be ever revered as the symbol of the female aspect of Sa?

Nevertheless, you treat her as you treat everyone else.

As a servant! She tried to speak to me, poor thing.

I could not make out what distressed her so, but it was not a lack of teacups! ’

Kennit could not help himself. He laughed aloud. It incensed the other man so that his face grew even redder. ‘You bastard!’ he spat. ‘You heartless bastard!’

Kennit glanced about. It wasn’t far to the point of the island now. He could manage it. Once there, if he grew too weary, his coat tied to an oar and waved would bring someone from either the Marietta or the Vivacia. They would be watching for him by now.

‘Such language, from a priest! You forget yourself. Here. I’ll row for a bit, while you recover.’

That quelled him. Sa’Adar rose from the rowing bench.

In a stiff half-crouch, he waited for Kennit to change places with him as he rubbed at his aching back.

Kennit tried to rise from his own bench, but sat down again heavily.

The small vessel rocked. Sa’Adar cried out and made a wild grab for the gunnels.

Kennit grimaced in embarrassment. ‘Stiff,’ he grunted.

‘Today has taken more out of me than I thought.’ He sighed heavily.

He narrowed his eyes at the disdainful look on the priest’s face.

‘Still. I said I would row and I shall.’ He picked up his crutch, took a firm grip on it, and then extended the tip towards Sa’Adar.

‘When I give the word, you heave me to my feet. Once I’m up, I’ll wager I can move about. ’

Sa’Adar gripped the crutch end. ‘Now,’ Kennit told him, and tried to rise. He sat down heavily once more. He set his jaw in grim determination. ‘Again,’ he commanded the priest. ‘And this time, put your back into it.’

The weary man took a double-handed grip on the crutch.

Kennit made better his own clutch upon it.

‘Now!’ As the priest heaved, the pirate suddenly thrust forward, shoving with all his strength upon the crutch.

It hit the priest in the chest and he went flailing wildly backwards.

Kennit had hoped for a clean splash overboard.

Instead, the man fell athwart the gunnels, almost out of the boat but not quite.

Quick as a tiger springing, Kennit flung himself forward.

He kept his weight low, as the landsman had not.

He gripped one of Sa’Adar’s feet and lifted it high.

The man went over, but as he went he launched a kick at Kennit that slammed his bare foot hard into Kennit’s face.

Kennit’s head rocked back on his shoulders; he felt a warm gush as blood flowed from his nose.

He wiped it hastily on his sleeve, then scrabbled to the rower’s bench and took up the oars.

He seated the oars well in the oarlocks and began to pull mightily.

An instant later, the priest’s head bobbed up in the boat’s wake. ‘Damn you!’ he shouted. ‘Sa damn you!’

Kennit expected the man’s head to go under again.

Instead, he struck out after the boat with long powerful strokes.

So, he was a swimmer. Kennit had not reckoned on that.

It was a pity the sea was warmer here in these island waters.

He couldn’t count on cold to kill him quickly. He might have to do it himself.

Kennit did not strain. Instead, he set a steady pace and pulled on the oars.

He had not lied to Sa’Adar. He had been stiff, but this was loosening him up.

The priest swam with the swift, frantic strokes of a desperate man.

He was gaining on the small boat; his body offered far less resistance to the waves than the lightened boat did.

When he was within a stroke or two, Kennit carefully shipped the oars and drew the dagger from his belt.

He moved to the stern and waited. He did not try for a killing stroke.

He would have had to extend himself too far to do that easily and might end up being dragged into the sea by the priest. Instead, each time the drowning man reached for the boat, he slashed at his hands.

He cut his reaching palms. He slashed the back of his knuckles when his grip closed on the stern.

Kennit was silent as death itself while the priest cursed him, screamed, and then begged for his life.

When he seized hold of the side and clung there stubbornly, the pirate risked a blinding slash across the man’s face.

Still he clutched the side, begging and praying to be allowed to live.

It infuriated Kennit. ‘I tried to let you live!’ he roared at him.

‘All you had to do was what I wanted you to do. You refused me! So!’

He risked a stab and the dagger went deep into the side of the man’s throat.

In an instant, his hands were warm and slick with blood thicker and more salty than the sea itself.

The priest fell away suddenly. Kennit released the haft of the dagger and let him go.

For a wave, then two, he bobbed face down on the water. Then the sea swallowed him up.

Kennit sat for a time, watching the empty water behind the boat.

Then he wiped his hands down the front of his coat.

Slowly he moved back to the rower’s bench.

He took up the oars in hands that had begun to blister.

It didn’t matter. They would hurt, but it did not matter.

It was done, and he would live. He knew it as surely as he knew his luck still rode with him.

He lifted his eyes and scanned the horizon. Not so far to go and he’d be where the ships’ lookouts could spot him. He smiled to himself. ‘I’ll wager Vivacia sees me before any of them. I’ll wager she knows right now that I’m coming back to her. Watch for me, my lady! Cast about those lovely eyes!’

‘Perhaps I should open those eyes for her,’ suggested a small voice close by.

Kennit nearly lost his grip on the oars.

He looked at the long-silent charm strapped to his wrist. His own features in miniature, encarmined now in blood, blinked up at him.

The small mouth opened, and a tiny tongue emerged to lick his lips as if they were parched.

‘What would she think of her captain bold, if she knew you as well as I do?’

Kennit grinned. ‘Methinks she would think you a liar. She has been with me, and knows my deepest heart. She and the boy both have. And they love me still.’

‘They may think they have,’ the charm conceded bitterly. ‘But only one creature has ever seen to the bottom of your dark, dirty heart and still chosen loyalty to you.’

‘You refer to yourself, I assume,’ Kennit hazarded. ‘You have little choice in the matter, charm. You are bound to me.’

‘As tightly as you are bound to me,’ the charm replied.

Kennit shrugged. ‘So we are bound to one another. So be it. I suggest you make the best of it, and do the duty you were created to do. Perhaps that way, we shall both live longer.’

‘I was never created for any duty to you,’ the charm informed him. ‘Nor does my life depend upon yours. But for the sake of another, I will do what I can to preserve you. At least for a time.’

The pirate made no further reply. The blisters on his right palm broke stingingly. An expression, part grimace, part grin, lit Kennit’s dark face. A little pain was nothing. His luck was holding. With luck, a man could do much.