Page 475

PARAGON OF THE LUDLUCKS

A LTHEA WAS AT the top of the mast, watching, when Vivacia’s sails first appeared, white against the threatening overcast. Paragon was lurking in an inlet with a clear view of a channel just outside Divvytown, but Vivacia had not yet passed the mouth of the inlet.

Brashen had studied his scraps of charts, and gambled that this was the approach Vivacia would use to return to Divvytown, assuming Kennit would be returning from the direction of the Others’ Island.

Brashen had guessed correctly. Even before Althea could see her hull or her figurehead, she recognized her mast and sails.

For a moment, the long-awaited sight left Althea speechless.

Several times over the last seven days, she had spotted ships she thought might be Vivacia.

Twice she had even called Brashen to the top of the mast to confer. Each time, she had been wrong.

Now, as she watched the familiar rigging come into sight, she was certain: this was her ship, and she knew it as she knew her mother’s face.

She did not cry out the news to all, but came spidering down the mast and hit the deck running.

Without knocking, she barged into Brashen’s cabin.

He was in bed; he had taken the night watch.

‘It’s her. To the southeast, whence you thought she would come.

No mistake this time, Brashen. It’s Vivacia. ’

He was instantly awake and on his feet. ‘Then it’s time. Let’s hope that Kennit is truly as intelligent and rational as you believe he is. Otherwise, we’re offering our throats to a butcher.’

For a moment, she could only stare at him, wordless. ‘Sorry,’ he offered huskily. ‘I didn’t need to say that. We both decided on this plan. We’ve both convinced the crew it will work. Don’t feel I’m putting it all on you.’

She shook her head. ‘You only spoke aloud what I’ve been thinking for too many days. One way or another, Brashen, it is all upon me. But for me, this ship and this crew would not even be out here, let alone considering this mad plan.’

He caught her in his arms for a rough hug.

For an instant, the scent of his bare skin was in her nostrils and his loosened hair against her cheek.

She rubbed her face against the warmth of his chest. Why, she wondered, was she willing to gamble this man’s life and her own on such a wild venture?

Then he turned her loose and caught up his shirt from a chair.

As he put it on, he became the captain again.

‘Go shake out our truce flag and run it up. Tell the crew to have weapons ready, but none in hand. We’re offering to talk first to Kennit; we’re not inviting him to board us. At the first sign of aggression from him, we respond in kind.’

She bit her tongue to keep from telling him that the crew needed no reminders.

They had drilled it into them rigorously.

Without Lavoy’s subversion to deal with, she felt far more confident of the men.

They would obey. Perhaps, in a few hours, she’d stand on the Vivacia’s deck again. She jumped to carry out his orders.

‘There, sir. See it now?’ Gankis pointed and squinted as if that would aid his captain’s vision. ‘The ship is holding anchor just off the beach. He’s probably trusting to the shoreline and the trees to make him hard to see, but I spotted –’

‘I see him,’ Kennit cut the man off tersely.

‘Go about your duties!’ He stared at the masts and riggings.

A strange certainty filled his soul. The old lookout left Kennit’s side, chastened by his captain’s tone.

The chill wind blew past Kennit and his ship plunged on through the waves, but he was suddenly separate from it all.

Paragon. The other half of his soul rode at anchor in the inlet.

‘Can I know him from this far away?’ he asked himself softly. ‘How? Is it a feeling in the air? A scent on the wind?’

‘Blood calls to blood,’ whispered the charm at his wrist. ‘You know it’s him. After all these years, he has come back.’

Kennit tried to breathe, but his lungs felt heavy and sodden.

Dread and anticipation warred in him. To speak to the ship again, to tread once more his decks would be to come full circle.

All the past defeats and pain would be drowned in that triumph.

The ship would take joy in how he had prospered and grown and…

No. It would not be like that; it would be confrontation and accusation, humiliation and shame.

It would open the door to all past sorrows and let them pour out to poison the present.

It would be looking into the face of your betrayed beloved.

It would be admitting what he had done to ensure his own selfish survival.

Worse, it would be public. Every man on his ship would know who he had been and what had been done to him.

The crew of the Paragon would know. Etta and Wintrow would know, Bolt would know.

None of them would ever respect him again.

Everything he had built so painstakingly, all his years of work would come undone.

He could not allow it. Despite the screaming in the back of his mind, he could not allow it. The beaten, begging boy would have to be silenced once more. One last time, he would have to erase the grovelling, craven lad from the world’s memory.

Jola came running down the deck to him. ‘Sir, that ship the lookout spotted? They’ve unfurled a truce flag. They’re taking up their anchor and coming towards us.’ His words died away at a baleful look from Kennit. ‘What do you want us to do?’ he asked quietly.

‘I suspect treachery,’ he told Jola. ‘Faldin’s message warned us.

I will not be lulled by their actions. If necessary, I shall make an example of this ship and its crew.

If this is perfidy, the ship goes to the bottom with all hands.

’ He made his eyes meet Jola’s. ‘Prepare yourself to hear many lies today, Jola. This particular captain is a very clever man. He tries to use a liveship to take a liveship. We will not allow that to happen.’

Abruptly, his throat closed with pain. Terror rose in him, that Jola might turn towards him just now and see his eyes brim with sudden tears. Feelings change , he reminded himself savagely. This is the choking of a boy, the tears of a boy who no longer exists. I stopped feeling this long ago.

He coughed to cover his moment of weakness.

‘Ready the men. Bring us about and drop anchor. Run up a truce flag of our own to chum them in closer. We’ll pretend to be gulled by his ruse.

I shall have the ship send forth the serpents.

’ He showed his teeth in mockery of a smile.

‘Let Trell negotiate his truce with them.’

‘Sir,’ Jola acknowledged him and was swiftly gone.

Kennit made his way forwards. The tapping of his peg sounded loud to him.

Men hurried past and around him, each intent on getting to his post. None of them really paused to look at him.

None of them could really see him any more.

They saw only Kennit, King of the Pirate Isles.

Wasn’t that what he always wanted? To be seen as the man he had made of himself?

Yet still he could imagine how Paragon would bellow in dismay at the sight of his missing leg, or exclaim in delight over the fine cut of his brocade jacket.

Triumph was not as keen, he suddenly saw, when it was shared only with those who had always expected you to succeed.

On all the seas in all the world, there was only one who truly knew all Kennit had gone through to reach these heights, only one who could understand how keen the triumph was and how deep the pits of misfortune had been.

Only one who could betray his past so completely.

Paragon had to die. There was no other way.

And this time, Kennit must be sure of it.

As he climbed the short ladder to the foredeck, he saw with dismay that Etta and Wintrow were already there.

Wintrow leaned on the railing, deep in conversation with the figurehead.

Etta stared across the water at Paragon, a strange expression on her face.

Her dark hair teased the rising wind. Kennit shaded his eyes to follow her gaze.

The Paragon was drawing steadily closer.

His heart turned over at the sight of the cruelly chopped face.

Shame burned him, followed by a rush of fury.

It could not be blamed on him. No one, not even Paragon could blame him.

Igrot’s fault, it was all Igrot’s fault.

The cold horror of it reached across the water and burned him.

Dread dizzied him, and he lifted a shaking hand to his face.

‘You let him take all the pain for you,’ the charm breathed by his ear. ‘He said he would, and you let him.’ The charm smiled. ‘It’s all there, waiting for you. With him.’

‘Shut up,’ Kennit grated. With trembling fingers, he tried to unknot the damnable thing from his wrist. He would throw it overboard, it would sink and be gone forever with all it knew.

But his fingers were oddly clumsy, almost numb.

He could not undo the tight leather knots.

He tugged at the charm itself, but the cords held.

‘Kennit, Kennit! Are you well?’

Stupid whore, always asking the wrong questions at the wrong time. He wrenched his emotions under control. He took out his handkerchief and patted sweat from his chilled brow. He found his voice.

‘I am quite well, of course. And you?’

‘You looked so … for an instant, I feared you would faint.’ Etta’s eyes roved over his face, trying to read it. She tried to take his hands in hers.

That would never do. He smiled his small smile at her. Distract her. ‘The boy,’ he asked in a low voice. ‘This may be hard for Wintrow. How is he?’