Page 461

LOYALTIES

K ENNIT LOOKED DOWN at the scroll in his hand.

The pieces of wax seal on his desk had borne the sigil of Sincure Faldin.

That worthy merchant had adapted to the loss of his wife and one daughter.

His sons and his ship had survived the slavers’ raid on Divvytown unscathed, for they had been out trading at the time.

As Kennit had predicted to Sorcor, Sincure Faldin had accepted Sorcor’s marriage to Alyssum, for the Durjan merchant had always been swift to see where power resided.

This urgent message was but one more effort by him to curry goodwill with Kennit. As such, he regarded it suspiciously.

The writing on the scroll was laboriously elaborate, and the wording stilted.

A full third of the page was an opulent greeting and wish for Kennit’s good health.

How like the over-dressed Durjan merchant, to waste his ink and his time so painstakingly before unfolding his dire news.

Despite the hammering of his heart, Kennit forced himself to reread the scroll with an impassive face.

He sifted facts from the merchant’s flowery prose.

Faldin had mistrusted the strangers who came to Divvytown, and had been among the first to suspect the ship was a liveship.

He had had his son lure the captain and his woman into his shop and ply them with tales to get them to divulge some of their own history, but to little avail.

Their abrupt departure in the middle of the night was as strange as their arrival had been, and tales told the next day by men who had deserted the ship bore out his suspicions.

On board was one Althea Vestrit, who claimed ownership of the Vivacia.

The crew of the liveship had been oddly mixed, men and women, but the captain had been that Brashen fellow, lately of the Springeve , and before that, Bingtown born and bred, or so rumour had it.

If one could believe deserters, the ship’s true mission was to reclaim the liveship Vivacia.

Hence, due to his vast respect for the pirate Kennit and his great loyalty to his king, and with another long string of flowery compliments, Sincure Faldin was sending Kennit this warning by the swiftest ship in the Divvytown harbour.

The ship had been a liveship, the figurehead badly damaged, and by name Paragon.

The inked name seemed to burn into his eyes.

It was hard to concentrate on the meandering section that followed and quoted gossip and bird-borne rumours that Jamaillia City was raising a fleet to sail northward and inflict punishment on Bingtown for the kidnapping of the Satrap and the destruction of his tariff dock there.

It was Faldin’s studied opinion that the nobles of Jamaillia had long been seeking an excuse to plunder Bingtown. They seemed to have found it.

Kennit raised incredulous eyebrows at that tale.

The Satrap had left Jamaillia, gone to Bingtown and been kidnapped there?

The whole narrative seemed far-fetched. The meat of the rumour, of course, was that Jamaillia City was raising a retaliatory fleet.

Purposeful warships passing through Pirate Isle waters were to be avoided.

When they returned with the spoils of their war-making, however, they would be fat prey.

His serpents would make such piracy near effortless.

The missive closed with another string of earnest compliments and good wishes, and rather unsubtle reminders that Kennit should be grateful to Sincure Faldin for sending him these tidings.

At the bottom was an intricate signature done in two colours of ink, followed by a tasteless postscript exulting over how ripely Alyssum was swelling with Sorcor’s seed.

Kennit set the scroll down on his desk and let the cursed thing roll itself up.

Sorcor and the others gathered in his cabin stolidly waited to hear the news.

The messenger had followed Faldin’s explicit orders to deliver the message to Sorcor so that he could take it immediately to Captain Kennit, probably so Sorcor could admire his father-in-law’s cleverness and loyalty.

Or was there more? Could either Sorcor or Sincure Faldin suspect what this news meant to Kennit?

Had there been another message, for Sorcor’s eyes only, in which Faldin bid him watch how his captain reacted?

For an instant, doubt and suspicion gnawed at Kennit, but for an instant only.

Sorcor could not read. If Faldin had wanted to rope his son-in-law into a plot against Kennit, he had chosen the wrong medium.

The first time Kennit had read the liveship’s name and description, his heart had lurched in his chest. He had forced himself to continue breathing evenly, and maintained his calm expression.

A second slow perusal of the page had allowed him time to compose his voice and manner.

There were many questions to answer. Did Faldin suspect the connection?

If so, how? He did not mention it, unless the words about the sailors who had jumped ship from the Paragon were a hint.

Did those sailors know and had they talked?

Did this Althea Vestrit know, and if she did, did she intend to use Paragon somehow as a weapon against him?

If it was known, how widely was it known?

Was it beyond the control of killing a few men and sinking a ship again?

Would his past never stay submerged?

For one wild instant, Kennit offered himself escape.

He did not have to go back to Divvytown.

He had a liveship under him and a fleet of serpents at his disposal.

He could abandon all and go anywhere, anywhere there was water, and still make his fortune.

He would have to begin all over, of course, to establish his reputation, but the serpents would assure that that happened swiftly.

He lifted his eyes briefly and scanned the people in his room.

They would all have to die, unfortunately.

Even Wintrow, he thought with a pang. And he’d have to get rid of his entire crew and replace them somehow.

And still the ship would know who he had been…

‘Captain?’ Sorcor prodded him gently.

The daydream popped like a bubble. It wasn’t feasible.

Far more pragmatic to go back to Divvytown, tidy away whoever suspected, and go on as before.

There was the ship himself, of course, but he had dealt with Paragon once.

He’d just have to do it again. He pushed that thought aside. He could not face it yet.

‘Bad news, Cap’n?’ Sorcor dared to ask.

Kennit managed a sardonic smile. He would parcel out the tidings and see if anyone flinched.

‘News is news, Captain Sorcor. It is up to the recipient to make good or bad of it. But these tidings are…interesting. I am sure we are all pleased to know that your Alyssum grows ever rounder. Sincure Faldin also reports that a strange ship has visited Divvytown, professing a desire to join us in our crusade to rid the Inside Passage of slaveships. But our good friend Faldin was not convinced of their sincerity. The ship arrived rather mysteriously, negotiating the passage to the harbour in the dark of night, and leaving the same way.’ He glanced back at the scroll negligently.

‘And there is a rumour that Jamaillia City raises a fleet to plunder Bingtown, in revenge for some affront to the Satrap.’

Kennit leaned back casually in his chair to have more faces in view.

Etta was there with Wintrow at her side.

He always seemed to be at her side lately, he reflected briefly.

Sorcor, his broad, scarred face beaming loyalty and devotion to Kennit and pride in his woman’s fecundity, stood next to Jola, Kennit’s current first mate.

All were resplendent in the rich yields of their most recent piracies.

Etta had coaxed even Wintrow into a wide-sleeved shirt of dark blue silk embroidered with ravens, by Etta’s own needle.

Staunch Sorcor wore emeralds in his ears now, and a broad belt of leather worked with silver held two matching swords.

The richness of the fabrics Etta wore was only heightened by her remarkable cut of them.

Had cloth-of-gold ever been worn to climb a mast before?

In the hold were other harvests from the sea: rare medicines and exotic perfume oils, gold and silver stamped with the likenesses of many different Satraps, jewels both raw and wrought into jewellery, and fabulous pelts and glowing tapestries.

The wealth in his hold now easily equalled last year’s full gathering.

Hunting had been bountiful lately; piracy had never been so effortless.

Flanked by his flotilla of serpents, he need do no more than sight an interesting sail.

He and Bolt selected their targets and she sent the serpents forth.

An hour or two of harassment by the serpents, and the prey surrendered.

At first, he had then closed on the demoralized ships and demanded surrender of all their valuables.

The crews had always been subservient and willing.

Without even a sword drawn, Kennit fleeced the vessels and then sent them on their way, with a stern reminder that these waters were now the province of King Kennit of the Pirate Isles.

He suggested that if their rulers were interested in establishing generous tariffs to pass through his territory, he might be willing to treat with them.