David Drake - Mistress of the Catacombs

“Captain?” Costas called from some distance above them. “I’m coming, captain. Which way are you?”

Mounix didn’t answer; he might not even have heard. “We’ve gone this way, Costas!” Cashel shouted. He knew what it was like to be alone in a strange place…and this island was stranger than most.

“Metra?” Tilphosa repeated more sharply.

Metra spoke in a tired murmur. Tilphosa said, “I can’t hear you. Please speak up.”

It struck Cashel that the girl was—or anyway felt she was—of a higher station than the wizard. Cashel had spent most of his life as a poor orphan, so for the most part he’d been on the wrong side of that division.

It was kind of interesting to see how it worked from the top, so to speak. He hadn’t told a stranger that he was Tilphosa’s guardian; and maybe by now Metra was wishing she hadn’t done that either.

“This island, this place ,” Metra said, “has always been a focus for Chaos. When the powers that work the cosmos rise, as they’re rising now, the tendency toward…bad luck, call it, grows stronger. We were caught by that, and so was the vessel that crashed on the peak. But at an earlier time.”

A lot earlier. Sharina would understand it better, though Cashel didn’t guess it made much real difference. He wished Sharina was here, though.

He could hear men’s voices ahead of them, and the slope was leveling out. “We’re getting close,” he said. He turned his head, and repeated loudly, “We’ve reached the shore, Costas!”

Tilphosa let go of Cashel’s belt; they walked together through the palms fringing the sand. Captain Mounix stood with half a dozen of his crew, talking in angry frustration. Cashel heard him say, “By the Lady, Hook! If you don’t have the dinghy ready to take us all away before tomorrow midday, I’ll take her with enough men to work her and leave you here!”

Sunset lighted the beach, but the inland jungle was jet-black save for orange and pink tinges to the topmost foliage.

“Costas!” Cashel called. “This way!”

A terrible scream split the night—and stopped. Mounix fumbled as he tried to draw his sword. Several of the sailors ran toward the dinghy, then paused uncertainly.

Cashel stepped toward the forest. “No, Cashel!” Tilphosa said.

He halted. She was right. In the darkness he couldn’t have found where the scream came from.

And from the way it had broken off, there wasn’t a thing anybody could do for Costas now anyway.

Sharina watched past Carus’ right shoulder as Ilna’s close-coupled friend swaggered toward the conference room with a grin for the Blood Eagles. She murmured, “Will you be wearing your sword when you interview him, Carus?”

The king—and Sharina didn’t know how anyone could mistake the face for her brother’s, for all that the physical features were the same—glanced at her and smiled minutely. “I’d insult him if I took it off, girl,” he said. “That one isn’t afraid of my sword—or my temper, either one. Though I think he respects them both.”

He faced Chalcus again. Out of the corner of his mouth, he added, “But I’ll keep my temper on a checkrein; and you’ll be here to tell me if I’m out of line, will you not?”

“Yes,” said Sharina. She grinned. “Of course.”

The guard officer snapped a command; two of his men stepped shoulder to shoulder across Chalcus’ path.

“Your dagger, please, sir!” said the officer loudly, his back stiff, and turned to Carus. He pointed to the weapon in Chalcus’ sash.

Carus frowned. “Captain Deghan—” he began.

“Your majesty, on my oath I won’t let him by while he carries that blade!” the guard officer said.

Chalcus looked past the two Blood Eagles. He cocked an eyebrow at Carus, then handed his sheathed dagger to the officer without deigning to look at him.

“Shall I give him my belt as well, my brave lad?” he asked Carus. “Many a man’s been throttled with a leather strap, you know.”

“I’ll take the knife, Captain Deghan,” Carus said. He held out his left hand, palm upward.

Deghan—young for a captain in the Blood Eagles, in his early twenties—turned, trying to control the emotions skating across his face. “Yes, your majesty,” he said; all he could say, on his oath.

He placed the curved weapon in Carus’ hand. The sheath and hilt were both tin, decorated in black niello with symbols that looked like writing—though not in a script that Sharina recognized.

“Sorry for the rigmarole, Master Chalcus,” Carus said, gesturing the sailor into the conference room. Sharina stepped back to let the men enter. “There’s wine on the sideboard, and I suppose we can find food if you need it.”

He drew the hilt and sheath a finger’s breadth apart to look at the steel, then clicked the blade home. He said, “A nice piece, though I don’t fancy curved blades myself,” and gave the weapon back to Chalcus. Nodding to Captain Deghan, Carus closed himself in with Sharina and the sailor.

“You’ve a good pack of hounds there,” Chalcus said, tossing his head slightly to indicate the black-armored guards on the other side of the door. He slid the sheath into the folds of his sash and walked to the sideboard.

“Aye,” said Carus, walking to the other side of the table. “But sometimes I wonder which of us serves the other.”

Chalcus laughed, an infectious sound that made Sharina realize how little laughter there was in the palace. Little of it in the presence of great ladies like the Princess Sharina, at any rate.

“Oh, I don’t think there’s really much doubt, is there?” Chalcus said. “When it matters to you.”

Two carafes of etched glass stood on the sideboard, one full of deep red wine and the other with a lemon-colored fluid. A mixing bowl, drinking cups, and a larger vat of water with a ladle—all of the same pattern as the carafes—were ranged tastefully behind them.

Chalcus raised the red wine and said, watching Carus, “And this is such a vintage as the poets sing of, is it not? Sunlight pressed from grapes, a nectar fit for the Lady to offer the Shepherd in their bower?”

Carus shrugged. “I suppose,” he said. “You’d have to ask somebody who cared.”

“And if I cared, I would,” Chalcus said agreeably. He swigged from the mouth of the carafe to make his point, then set it down on the sideboard again. “So if we’re not to talk of wine, what is it that you brought me here to discuss, then?”

Carus put his palms on the table and leaned his weight onto them. “Would you care to go to Tisamur, Master Chalcus?” he asked; his tone challenging, though playful rather than hostile. “Lady Merota has wide holdings there, granted her by the crown to replace the wealth she lost when her parents were murdered.”

Chalcus raised an eyebrow.

Carus grinned. “No, she doesn’t know it yet,” he said. “But it’s true regardless…will be true as soon as I’ve talked to Royhas, anyway. You and Mistress Ilna would pass unnoticed travelling as the child’s servants, of course.”

“Would we indeed?” Chalcus murmured. His left hand reached for the wine again, then withdrew; his eyes never left Carus’ face. “But you haven’t discussed this with Mistress Ilna. Why is that?”

Carus straightened, lacing his fingers together before him. He was watchful; not tense, exactly, but as controlled as an archer throwing his weight onto his left arm to bend a bow. Across the room, Chalcus’ posture was identical.

Sharina remained motionless. She understood now why Carus wanted her here. Though neither Chalcus nor Carus acknowledged Sharina even by a glance, her presence was a reminder of civilized behavior to men who were only by courtesy civilized.