David Drake - Godess of the Ice Realm

The men were Lusius' Sea Guards, though for the most part they were in tunics rather than linen cuirasses and only a few wore their swords. That was a factor Chalcus would have noticed from the moment theBird of the Tide drew within bowshot; it explained why he was blithely taking theBird 's handful into the midst of the much greater number of Lusius' men.

The Sea Guards used many lamps, more than the work itself required, on theQueen of Heaven and the pair of barges. Lamp light illuminated only a small circle around each flame, and by doing so hid whatever was beyond those circles more thoroughly than the darkness itself. Lusius his men so feared what might be lurking aboard the merchantman that they ignored the possibility another ship might slip up on them.

TheBird thumped alongside the barge. Shausga and Ninon looped ropes around two of the oarlocks that lined the other ship's gunwales. Though the barge was by far the larger vessel, its deck was actually lower than theBird 's. Ilna and Chalcus hopped aboard together.

"Hey!" cried a Sea Guard as he and his fellows turned to see what had struck them. "Com-"

Ilna saved his life by spreading the pattern she'd knotted. She held it out so that lanternlight fell squarely on its seemingly effortless artistry.

The man who'd spoken doubled up, spewing vomit which appeared to be mostly wine. Those nearby retched and covered their eyes. A man who'd been at a distance so that he'd gotten only a slanted view of the pattern called, "What? What?" in the voice of one waking from a nightmare.

Hutena cracked him hard over the head with the peen of his axe. "Tie these scuts up while we're gone!" the bosun ordered over his shoulder. He grabbed the boarding net a moment after Chalcus and Ilna had started up.

Ilna's eyes watered. She sneezed fiercely, smothering the sound in the shoulder of her tunic. TheQueen of Heaven reeked of brimstone. Had it been a grain ship, it might have been fumigated before setting out on this voyage, but there was no call to worry about rats seriously damaging a cargo of tapestries. Besides, the smell hadn't clung to the timbers when they'd boarded the ship with Commander Lusius.

The netting was made from the same sword-leafed desert plant as the rope Ilna had handled earlier. It had a clean, dry feel, and the strands had been twisted by a careful workman who knew her business. There was nothing so simple that there wasn't a right way to do it-or for most people in Ilna's experience, a wrong way.

"Hey, what's going on down there?" a man called from theQueen 's railing. "Stop playing the fool or we'll tip this bloody tapestry on your bloody heads!"

Chalcus vaulted the railing, using his left arm as a pivot. He hadn't drawn his inward-curving sword, but Ilna knew how quickly the weapon could appear in his hand when he wished.

The Sea Guard screamed and stumbled back, crossing his hands before his face as if to keep from seeing his own oncoming doom. There'd been four of them lugging a rolled hanging, a full weight for them all together. Silk with gold and silver wires on a wool backing; valuable no doubt but journeyman's work, exceptional only in the value of the raw materials… The others jumped away also, and one started to draw his sword.

"Gently, lad, there's no need for that," Chalcus said, taking the man's sword wrist with fingers which Ilna had seen bend iron nails. The Sea Guard gasped in pain; then Hutena mounted the railing behind him and quieted him with another rap from the axe.

"Who are you?" demanded the Sea Guard who'd first spoken. He wasn't armed, which may have been the reason his tone changed from hectoring to merely inquisitive in the course of a short sentence. "Sister take you, I didn't see you when I looked over the side, and I thought…"

He didn't bother to explain what he'd thought. Ilna could've guessed closely enough, even without a pair of Sea Guards coming out of the deckhouse hauling a corpse between them.

Part of a corpse: a man's head and shoulders, with the torso below that ending in a ragged slant at mid-chest. Ilna believed that the victim was the chief of the Blaise armsmen.

The men dragging the torso had sour expressions, and their minds didn't take in the things their eyes glanced over. They walked past the group around Chalcus and tossed the fragment into the sea between the two barges.

"We're guests of the Commander, don't you recall?" Chalcus said. "Now, where is it he would be, friend? For we've business for his ears only."

"You're…?" the Sea Guard said. He shook his head in puzzlement. "Well, I don't know, in one of the holds, I suppose, but-"

"Hoy, Commander!" Rincip bellowed, striding out of one of several open doors on the side of the deckhouse. He held a lantern high in his left hand. "There's a strongbox but there's money bags all over-hey!"

His eyes fell on Chalcus, then Ilna. "Where'dyou come from!"

"In a crisis like this, all men must stand together," said Chalcus, stepping toward Lusius' second in command. "Not so, Master Rincip?"

Rincip touched his sword pommel but didn't let his fingers close around its shagreen grip. After only a moment's thought he pointedly lifted his hand away.

"Civilians have no business here!" he snarled, but he didn't try to keep Chalcus and Ilna from entering the cabin he'd just left.

A lighted candle burned in a free-swinging holder hung from the ceiling. It threw a pale tallow illumination over the interior of the cabin, sufficient to see by even before Rincip followed them back in with the lantern.

A bedframe was folded out from the wall. The mattress was a common one of waxed linen filled with straw, but the bedclothes-now mostly tumbled on the floor-were silk. Instead of an ordinary sea chest roped to floor bitts so that it didn't skid around the cabin in bad weather, the wealthy occupant's large chest was cross-strapped with iron and padlocked to the bitts. The lid had a hasp and staple also, but the padlock which should have secured it was missing.

Three heavy leather moneybags closed with lead seals lay on the floor. Beside them was a document case and several thick codexes. Ilna recognized those last as ledgers, though she couldn't have read them even if they weren't in cipher-as they almost certainly were.

On the floor, half-covered by the bedding, was a man's hand and wrist. The hook-bladed sword it'd been holding lay beside it. One of the long bones of the forearm was still attached, broken off at the elbow end. The muscles had been stripped away, but some tendons still dangled.

Smiling in friendly innocence, Chalcus gripped the hasp of the strongbox in his left hand and tugged. The lid didn't rise; it was fastened even though the external lock was missing.

"What's this about money?" said Lusius, stepping into the cabin with a Sea Guard holding a lantern. "There should be a specie chest-you!"

Four men and Ilna crowded the cabin. Hutena remained on deck, very possibly overlooked in darkness and the confusion. Chalcus had a way of drawing eyes to him, which-given the bosun's demonstrated ability to think and act quickly-could be the key to escaping a situation that was literally-Ilna smiled-getting tighter by the moment.

"Aye, Commander," Chalcus said. "We saw the trouble in the sky and came to it, like good citizens of the Isles. And what should we find but you and your men?"

"It's my job to be here!" Lusius said. He didn't reach for his sword; the cabin was too cramped for sword work, and he'd seen what Chalcus' dagger could do in less time than a victim could blink. "You don't claim that I did this, do you?"

The commander thrust his boot under the bunk and hooked out the severed hand. "We saw the light, same as you did, and came to it as quick as possible. We were too late to save the crew, just as I warned the fools would happen if they didn't take my guards on board."