Knights of the Crown

Chapter 5

Pirvan awoke with pains lingering in both head and belly. He concluded that he must have struck his head in falling. He also discovered that his bruised temple and scraped cheek had been cleaned, salved, and lightly dressed.

He was on a pallet stuffed with fresh-smelling hay, with a clean woolen blanket over him and a wooden frame lifting the pallet off the wooden floor. Beside the pallet, on a low table, were a jug of water, a cup, and a plate of light biscuits. The water was clean and smelled of herbs, the biscuits an appealing brown, and the jug, cup, and plate good gray pewter with the Encuintras mark on it.

If he was a prisoner of Lady Eskaia’s family, they were either fattening him for the slaughter or wished his goodwill.

Meanwhile, his throat tasted as if a regiment of ogres had camped in it. He washed some of the taste out with the water and cleaned the rest away with two biscuits. He was afraid that the biscuits would make him nauseated, but there was something in the water that settled his stomach enough for them to stay down.

The water also held something to make him sleep. After his second cup, he did. He awoke feeling free of pain, a bit muzzy-headed, and hungry enough to eat not only the remaining biscuits but half of a good-sized bakeshop as well.

When he’d done that, he began to study his quarters. They were well above the level of a cell, not quite a guest room. There was a private cubicle in one corner for the necessary pot, and a second pallet rolled up and leaning against one wall. The light was dim; it came from lamps set in horn-covered niches in the wall. It was enough to let him see a good deal more, once his eyes adjusted to it.

All the walls were smooth-scraped, whitewashed wood, and the other two were largely covered with racks and stands. On one wall were buckets, sponges, jugs, short robes, padded leggings, and what Pirvan recognized as exercise sticks and weights. The racks on the other wall mostly held bottles, stoppered jars, and glass vials that might have contained anything from poisons to spices. Some of them Pirvan recognized as Qualinesti work.

He stood up, realizing as he did so that someone had removed all of his garments and given him a thorough bath-which he admitted he must have needed, after his struggle up the passage into the cellar. This meant that he was neither clothed nor armed, but with the loaded racks in easy reach that hardly mattered.

He walked slowly to the rack with the exercise sticks and took down three, a pair of short ones and a long one. He tested their balance and his own, and discovered that both passed. Then he put on one of the robes, which ended the sensation of being naked and helpless.

It was odd that they would put him in a room so full of things that might be used as weapons, if in fact he was a prisoner. Perhaps they were setting a trap for him, tempting him into some bold escape attempt that would give them cause to punish him more severely.

And perhaps not. They presumably had the jewels, unless that servant had snatched them from Pirvan’s prostrate form before-Haimya was her name-had been able to search him. Not that a man in a loinguard and gloves would need much searching, either …

The plate was empty, the jug full. Pirvan drank some more water (a thief who had traveled among the desert barbarians said that the best place for spare water was in your stomach). It seemed that someone had changed the water since the first jug; this time there was no taste or scent of herbs.

The water did nothing to ease a hunger that by now was nibbling at his stomach like rats. Much longer, and it would be tearing at him like a catamount. He also became aware of scrapes and strained muscles that no one had done anything to heal. Sleep again or remain awake, so they would not take him unawares?

Instinct told him that sleep was folly, keeping from him even a hope of going down fighting. Reason told him that House Encuintras could simply wait until exhaustion put him at their mercy, and take him then. In any event, the better rested he was, the safer. The knowledge that he should not enter a battle of wits half asleep helped soothe him.

Presently he slept again. When he awoke, Pirvan was not alone.

* * * * *

The Crater Gulf was on the eastern shore of the fat peninsula that was one of the northernmost points of the continent of Ansalon. It was not far from Istar, if one could fly. But dragons slept, pegasi were rare, kyrie the next thing to legends, and griffons so untrustworthy that no one wishing to end their journey outside their mount instead of inside cared to use one.

That left land and sea. The mountains that ran down the spine of the peninsula had many names in many tongues, but none of them sang praise. They were not high, but their upper slopes were rugged, steep, and chill; their lower slopes, overgrown with a hideous tangle of vegetation. A man could spend a whole day hacking his way through a mile of it, fall into an exhausted sleep, and never wake again as the leeches drained his blood and the insects devoured what the leeches had left.

In two days he would be unrecognizable. In five he would be bones, and before seven days ended the bone-borers would have come, and nothing of the man would be left except his metal gear, which might last as much as one season before the endless rain dissolved it with rust and corrosion.

Wise men did not seek to reach Crater Gulf by land.

By sea, one had to run the gauntlet of mist and fog, squalls and more enduring storms, reefs close to shore and reaching far out into what rash captains thought was deep water, and enough floating logs each day to build a small ship. Seafarers with no business on Crater Gulf gave it a wide berth-and they were the majority, for it offered little except timber, fruit, and fresh water, and no civilized inhabitants of any race.

It could therefore hardly have been more suitable as a refuge for pirates. Of whatever race they might be (mostly human and minotaur, with an occasional ogre; goblins seldom went to sea of their own will) they wrecked little from dangers that drove most ships well offshore. Their light, fast-sailing vessels could ride over reefs that gutted larger ships, the forest offered refuge if an enemy did contrive to land, the reefs abounded in fish, and altogether a sailor could make a dishonest living on the Crater Gulf more easily than in most other places.

In the year Pirvan the Thief did night work at the Encuintras estate, most of the pirates in the gulf gave allegiance to one Synsaga. They did not give it as readily as they had done to his sister Margiela, and some had not given it at all. But most of those had left Crater Gulf for either honest livings or piracy elsewhere, and Synsaga had needed only one pitched battle five years before to make his rule at least tolerated.

The battle had left gaps in the pirates’ ranks, however, as much among Synsaga’s friends as among his enemies. Thus he came to need men who owed everything to him, and began to seek them from wherever they might come. One source was captives, who might prefer liberty and loot to death, captivity while awaiting ransom, or slavery. One of those captives who swore allegiance to Synsaga, in the fourth year of the pirate chief’s authority, was a young Istarian named Gerik Ginfrayson.

* * * * *

Not much to Pirvan’s surprise, his visitor was Haimya.

She was sitting cross-legged on the other pallet, without armor or any more garb than a sleeveless tunic and short breeches. The attire was mannish, as was the sword across her lap. Everything else about her was nothing of the kind. Pirvan particularly noted the length and muscular curves of her half-bare legs.

“Greetings, Haimya.”

Her bushy eyebrows rose. “You know my name?”

Pirvan bowed from a sitting position. “I injured the honor of your house out of ignorance, but I did not enter with no knowledge whatever.” He refrained from adding that he had seen her even before their most recent encounter. A thieves’ rule was: “Give nothing, for knowledge demands the highest price.”

“Then I presume you know in what way you injured us?”

That was not entirely a question, but Pirvan decided to take it as such. If he appeared to know too much, Haimya (who seemed to have wits as keen as her sword’s edge) might wonder how he came by it. Grimsoar One-Eye and the servant girl were entirely innocent parties; Pirvan would leave no trail leading to them.

“The rumors and certain events were enough to bring me to my decision, to undo that dishonor by further night work. But I much doubt that the rumors told everything.”

“They could not have, for there is much we do not wish known.”

“Altogether wise and proper. But I insist on learning one thing. Are the jewels safe?”

Haimya appeared to hesitate. Pirvan could have even sworn that she looked at the lamps, as if their flickering yellow glow might tell her yea or nay. If she sought an answer there, she did not find one.

At last she nodded.

“I am delighted. I am also free of any further obligation to House Encuintras, am I not? Your hospitality has upheld its reputation-”

“It should have. This is no discipline cell, but my exercise room.”

“Ah. I thought the robes and sticks had some such purpose.”

“Indeed. A warrior must have a private space, for practice.”

Pirvan was of the same mind, but he could not help smiling. Into his mind strayed, not quite unbidden (those legs were still in plain view), the image of Haimya at weapons practice, in garb that would indeed require privacy.

“Such is my custom, too.”

“When there is great sickness in the house, I practice elsewhere, if I have time to do so at all. This is the sick chamber, for those too ill to tend for themselves or too likely to spread their sickness to others.”

The Encuintras pesthouse, to be rude about it, mused Pirvan.

Pirvan’s stomach twisted. A vigorous effort kept his face from doing the same. His horror of disease went far back, to his earliest memories of his mother lying dead and covered with boils, on a pallet far dirtier than this one. But there was no need to let Haimya know how effective her threat to keep him here had been.

If it was a threat. Again Pirvan wondered what construction he should put on the curious conduct of House Encuintras.

“Well, I should not care to cause trouble for either you in health or anyone else in sickness. I should think that after the return of the jewels we have no more business, one with the other.”

“That is not quite so.”

“Oh. Then perhaps you should indeed explain the circumstances of your house. The rumors certainly said nothing about my having given you any further insult beyond the theft of the jewels.”

To Haimya’s credit, she explained quickly. The story was much as Pirvan had heard it, with certain additions that no one not of House Encuintras could have made. Pirvan also heard a certain note in Haimya’s voice that made him wonder what she truly thought of her betrothed.

Oh, the words came out as propriety demanded. But behind the words Pirvan did not so much hear yearning for a beloved partner as outrage at the pirates’ insult in taking him away. For the sake of Gerik Ginfrayson (and, indeed, for the sake of Haimya, on whom he did not wish unhappiness in love), Pirvan hoped he was misjudging the lady.

At last Haimya finished the narrative and looked around for something to drink. Pirvan lifted the jug; it had not been refilled this time.

“I will not dry your throat much more,” he said. “You have told me all I wished to know, except one thing. That is what further service is required of me.” He was able to get that far without his voice betraying him, as far as he could judge from her face.

“Oh, it is simple enough. You will sail with us to the Crater Gulf, when we ransom Gerik Ginfrayson.”

When the gods wish a rare jest, they will answer a man’s questions. If that was not an old saying, it ought to be.

Pirvan decided that he had nothing to lose by firmness. “That may be difficult. Or will you strike further at the thieves with your tame mage if I do not obey?”

Haimya’s face said nothing one way or the other. Pirvan decided to leave her no illusions. “I cannot be the judge of honor for all the brothers and sisters of the night work. Not even my own honor. If I were to cast it away by doing as you ask, I would not be safe in Istar. And if I were not released, your house would be in peril.”

“The watch-”

“The watch can be bribed by the enemies of your house, who I am sure are numerous. Also, night work can be done so subtly that only you will know the injuries you suffer.”

“What of thieves’ honor, in not striking at the innocent?” Haimya snapped.

Pirvan was briefly glad to have broken through that iron mask. “I will be an innocent victim if held here after the return of the jewels.”

“Your innocence will not keep you safe if you remain forever defiant.”

“I will not have to remain defiant forever. I will be out of here, preferably alive but perhaps dead, before Branchala is half gone.”

“Nonsense.”

“If you wish to wager that it is nonsense, wager what you can afford to lose.”

Haimya glared at him. One could not justly say that anger made her beautiful, but her features were certainly so arranged that anger did not mar them. Pirvan looked for his sticks, discovered that they were within easy reach (in fact, unmoved), and decided that Haimya was not planning to have at him with naked steel.

That left only three or four hundred other courses of action that she might be contemplating. Pirvan took a deep breath and lay back on the pallet, his hands in sight.

“Haimya,” he said. “I do not doubt that Lady Eskaia trusts you in all things. But what you have said is so improbable that I must hear it from her. If Lady Eskaia says there is need for me to go to the Crater Gulf, I will listen. I do not promise to go, but I promise to give her the same hearing I would a blood brother or a father.”

He thought he saw Haimya bite her lip, but the sound of the door opening drew his attention. The moment it had opened wide enough, a dark-haired young woman in a simple robe with wine-hued trim at throat and wrists slipped into the room.

“Pirvan, I believe you asked for me? I am Lady Eskaia of House Encuintras.”

* * * * *

It was going to blow up a storm before nightfall. Gerik Ginfrayson knew this, though he had no inborn weather sense, and his reason for being in the healer’s huts had given him none. A fall into a stream while chasing a fleeing captive had twisted a leg, and swallowing the scummy water had given him both a flux and a fever. Nothing to kill a man, only to make him (for a day or two at least) wish he could die.

But he had taken oath to Synsaga a year ago, and in that much time on the Crater Gulf only a fool failed to learn storm signs. The sticky stillness in the air, the thick but high clouds, and the odd note in the birdsong all said the same thing.

It would be a storm from the west, as the mountains tore at the winds. On shore there would be no more than rain, but a few hour’s rowing out to sea it would be a different and more deadly matter. Not as deadly as an easterly or northerly gale, however-there would be plenty of sea room for any ship able to run with the storm.

Gerik knew the perils of a lee shore as well as any seafarer now, though it would be years if ever before he was trusted with keeping a ship off one.

The one-armed sailor who acted as servant to the patients in the healers’ huts appeared in the doorway and coughed.

“Yers, sorr?”

Whatever had taken his arm had also taken most of his wits or speech or perhaps both. There was little magical healing of such wounds here, and Gerik had heard of men so hurt that they took their own lives or begged a mercy stroke from comrades. This man had not wished to die, however, and since he had taken his wounds in avenging the death of Synsaga’s sister Margiela, the pirate chief would have given him a golden throne had it been in his power.

Gerik looked at the bag, then took it from the old man and set it on the table. Everything he had brought into the huts was there, even the few brass coins and the silver tower. Of course, stealing among the pirates was punished in ways that made a sentence to the arena seem a slap on the wrist.…

“Naid barrers, sor?”

Gerik shook his head. He needed no one to help him navigate the path downhill to his quarters, let alone carry him. He lifted the bag and for a moment almost changed his mind; his leg was strong enough for unburdened walking, but running or carrying loads would take longer.

He rummaged out three of the brasses and handed them to the man. “More when I’ve made another voyage and have a share or two to spend.”

“Ach. End whan thet, sor?”

“I don’t know.”

He’d sworn oath only to Synsaga, which protected him ashore and allowed him a place aboard Golden Troll or Sea-cleaver. To the other captains, he was an Istarian of uncertain skill and no loyalty they were bound to recognize. Synsaga was two days overdue already, would not be making landfall in this storm, and might take more than the usual time repairing itself before going out again.

“Warrd?”

“Word of honor,” Gerik said. The man had done more for him than for the other five in the huts, though two of those were in no condition to demand much. One was dying of a gut wound from a brawl, another of some ailment doing vicious things inside his brain and requiring him to be strapped to his bed half the time. Even then, when the fits took him, his howls frightened birds and apes a league away.

Dignity forced Gerik to walk swiftly down the path until he was out of sight of the gate to the healing huts. By then he’d drawn blood from his lips at the pain of muscles pushed beyond their limits.

Must find some way of exercising them, he thought, where no one can see or hear until I’ve regained the lost ground.

He had been hard and fit for a man whose work was mostly counting timber in the city dockyards. Haimya would never have looked at him otherwise. But the pirates had a standard of fitness all their own, and it had taken six months for Gerik to reach it.

In that time he had gained muscle, lost fat and sweat, and come to understand just what Haimya must put herself through to keep her warrior’s body. Woman’s body, too-more than woman enough to disturb his thoughts, in ways that had no place on this slippery path.

Gerik put memories of Haimya from his mind and turned his attention to descending the slope. Out of sight of the huts and everyone else, he could slow his pace to one his muscles could endure. That took him to the most thickly grown part of the path just as the first thunder rolled in the west.

He looked up, eyes rising with the birds as they flew up screaming. The zenith was darker now than it had been, but not so dark that he missed a great black-winged shape soaring into view, then vanishing in the clouds. At least he thought he saw it, and he had been at least as sure the other three times as well.

He continued his descent. What had he seen, always briefly and today for hardly more than a blink as it plunged into the clouds? Long wings, a long tail, a crested head, all a black that seemed to swallow even the dim storm light.

No bird ever took that shape or grew so large. It seemed too large and the wrong shape for a griffon. That left only one possibility.

A black dragon. A creature of evil, a minion of Takhisis-and a thought cold enough to make a man forget the jungle heat for a moment.

The chill passed. A black dragon was also impossible. All the dragons, good and evil alike, had left the world after Huma wielded the dragonlance and died bringing victory to the forces of good. All were in dragonsleep, none to be waked except by the gods.

At least that was what Gerik Ginfrayson had heard. And he had heard that this came from wise men, clerics and wizards, who knew as much about the matter as mortal men could learn.

Either such men were wrong, or what Ginfrayson had seen passing overhead four times was not a dragon.

Another chill thought struck him. Synsaga’s little pirate village had no gods at its command, and was probably not even in the favor of many (save perhaps Hiddukel). But it had a renegade sorcerer, who received gold, slaves, food, and labor as though he were actually doing something useful for the pirates!

Had Fustiar the Renegade found a way to break dragonsleep?

If so, it was a secret to which Gerik would be years being admitted. But tongues wagged when the wine flowed freely, and Gerik could feign both drinking and drunkenness. The wine would flow freely when Synsaga returned, and Gerik could certainly enter that feast, with a sober head and receptive ears.

* * * * *

Pirvan dared not ask how he looked after Lady Eskaia’s entrance. He hardly needed to.

Both women took one look at him and burst into wild laughter. There was nothing ladylike or dignified about the laughter. They looked and sounded like two streetgirls who had just played a fine, profitable jest on a man.

Pirvan waited with as much dignity as he could manage while the women laughed themselves breathless. He thought of taking advantage of the unlocked door and the women’s distraction to escape. But to where? And how, seeing that he had neither decent garb nor weapons and that all in the house were likely awake and alert.

Also, if the women were not entirely out of their right senses-well, he had never wittingly struck a woman in his life, and was tolerably certain he had never gravely hurt one by chance. (Indeed, he was more sure of that than about having left behind no unlawful children.)

It was at this point that Pirvan noted that Lady Eskaia had put down on the floor-put down, the gods be praised, not dropped-a robust wooden platter loaded with cheese, bread, ham, pickles, ripe red grapes, and a bowl of something that looked appetizing even though Pirvan could not have said what it was.

For a moment he tried to maintain his dignity. Then the smell of the bread and the strong cheese reached his nostrils. It had been days since he’d eaten more than water and biscuits. He snatched up a piece of cheese in one hand, a piece of ham in the other, and crammed both of them in his mouth with neither the dignity nor even the manners of a child of five.

By the time Pirvan had started chewing, the women were no longer laughing. Their faces were an identical red, Lady Eskaia’s normally carefully arranged hair was a tangled mess, and Haimya seemed to have the hiccups. But they were in a state where a man might hope to ask a question and even, if he was sufficiently lucky and made the proper prayers to the right god, have it answered.

“Lady Eskaia, I am grateful for your hospitality and your presence,” Pirvan said. “As I made my promise in the hearing of you both, it will be kept. Remember, though, what I asked of you.”

Eskaia touched her hair and grimaced as she realized the shambles she’d made of it. Then her jaw set. It was a well-shaped jaw, in which were set two rows of even white teeth. Had she been born a poor man’s daughter, she would still have been a much-sought marriage prize.

“Very well. But I must ask one further promise-indeed, an oath by all you hold most in honor. That you will never speak of what I am about to tell you, unless Haimya, I, or my father gives you leave.”

Josclyn Encuintras being suddenly brought into the matter briefly unsettled Pirvan. He sensed that what he was about to hear would unsettle him even more. But a promise was a promise; an honest thief could not live in a world where promises were not kept.

Pirvan swore himself to silence, invoking Gilean and Shinare, then looked at Eskaia. “My silver, your service.”

Haimya looked shocked. Eskaia stuck out her tongue at him. Then she sobered.

“It is a matter of what the pirates of Crater Gulf may be doing. Or, rather, what they may be having done for them …”

By the time Eskaia had finished (with a trifle of prompting from Haimya), Pirvan understood why her father was taking a hand in this matter. What might be happening in Crater Gulf could wreak havoc on Istar’s trade and even on the city itself. Josclyn was a leader of the merchants in their rivalry with the priests for supreme power in Istar.

Discovering and ending a menace to the city could bring more than honor or gold to House Encuintras. It could bring an offer of marriage to a high noble or even a royal heir for Eskaia.

Lucky man, Pirvan thought, then turned wits and tongue to more practical matters. Clearly father and daughter were speaking more openly to one another than the rumors said. Just as clearly, this was to his advantage. It endangered no secrets of the thieves, and put more of the resources of House Encuintras behind the voyage.

“I can see why you wish my company on this adventure,” Pirvan said. “I can go where neither of you can. But I did not promise to face the dangers that come with being-a spy, not to make hard an easy matter. A spy, among folk who are even harsher than most in dealing with such.”

“You will be paid, of course,” Eskaia said. “At least the wages of a chief guard, and perhaps more.”

“As well,” Pirvan said. “I returned the jewels gladly, but what they would have bought me must be paid somehow.”

“Why not more?” Haimya asked. “The price of one of the jewels-the full price, not what the night merchants would have given you-upon your return.”

Pirvan looked at the two women with increased respect. There was no foolishness in Haimya, and under the gown and finely done hair, hardly more in Eskaia. But then, a mercenary soldier and a merchant princess should hardly feel soiled by talking of money.

“Am I allowed to pick the jewel?”

“How can you be sure we will offer you the ones you took?” Eskaia replied.

“I will ask to see all of them. Also, one hundred towers now, to be subtracted from my payment.”

“Only that?” Haimya said.

Pirvan nodded. “I thought you might not care to be too generous to the thieves. I have neither wife nor children nor any living kin or sworn friends I know of, so that is all I will ask beforehand. Oh, that and my equipment.”

“The bag you were going to pull up into the cellar?” Haimya asked. Her smile was almost a grin.

“You have it?”

“Yes, although not without some strong words from-a comrade, I assume-lying below to cover your retreat.”

“It is well to know that he is unharmed. Had you shed his blood …” The grimness of his face took the smile off Haimya’s.

He let them change the subject after that. He did not know when they would be sailing, but if it was not tomorrow, he had a plan.

They were taking him north to help guard their backs. Why should he not enlist someone for this curious voyage, to do the same for him?