But pleasures are like poppies spread—
You seize the
flower, its bloom is shed . . .
Robert Burns
“Tam o’ Shanter”
Yardiff Bey was making for Death’s Hold. His trail, read by astute Glyffan trackers, made no secret of that.
Swan shook her head in perplexity. “The Mariners gutted his fortress with their sea-and-land assault. There is only smoking rubble there; how can Bey hope to profit?”
A woodcutter, dwelling near the roadside, said she’d heard riders gallop by in the night. Gil tried to guess how much lead that gave the sorcerer, as Swan stepped up the pace. Stopping the occasional traveler, they met no one who’d seen Bey.
They’d covered twenty-five miles on rutted roads, much tougher going than the Western Tangent, when darkness forced them to halt, the trail no fresher than when they’d taken it up. Swan considered going on by torchlight, but feared that the way would be lost or their pursuit misdirected somehow by the Hand of Salamá. He might use such minor magic, though it chanced detection if the Trustee were near, and tricks like that were far more likely at night. Too, the horses must rest.
When he’d unsaddled Jeb, Gil made his way to Swan’s spot in the bivouac. She’d dispensed with her tent, making do with a tarp set up as a crude lean-to. He found her in a huddle with subordinates, naming relief commanders for the night’s guard. Maps were spread before her in a lamp’s glow. All faces turned to Gil, then Swan.
“Yes?” she asked in neutral tones. She was all High Constable now, intent on her work. He saw he’d intruded, remembering how he’d hated people looking over his own shoulder. He excused himself and went off to sleep, curling at the base of a tree some distance from the Sisters of the Line.
The first relief had yielded to replacements when he woke to find her by his side. She slid into the warm cocoon of his cloak, adding her blue cape to their covers. They made wordless, exigent love unconnected, he knew now, with what they might do or whom they might be by daylight. He was, as she had called him, her exemption; in a way not wholly different, she was his.
Lounging afterward in the tangled clothing, the mingled aromas, the sudden heat that left them with less regard for that warmth mere cloaks and capes provide, he apprehended that areas of mutual consent had been defined. They slept in each other’s arms, and just after the last relief came on, she rose and went off, picking her way surely among recumbent cavalrywomen. The squadron departed in first light.
On the second day of the chase, they had word from two men, cowled Sages on their way to Ladentree, that confirmed their route. The Sages said ten mounted men had passed them the preceding day, bearing westward in haste. The savants had been surprised, but assumed them to be outland allies. The gap between hunters and hunted hadn’t closed at all.
“Squadron’s too slow,” Gil opined. “If we drop the heavy cavalry we could catch him.”
“With less than a company of light horse,” Swan pointed out. “We are going into unpoliced territory, where he may have arranged for reinforcements; my instructions direct me not to be drawn out headlong. There will likely be traps; so says the Trustee.”
Though they were south of her own Region, her blue cape and flashing, winged bascinet gave Swan clout. Despite that, there were no fresh mounts to be had, the country having been stripped of every worthwhile horse for the Trustee’s army. The fact cut both ways; the sorcerer wouldn’t be able to obtain remounts either.
The chase stretched into grueling days and exhausted nights. They strained their eyes in dazzling sun and saturating, dispiriting rain, hoping the next hill would bring sight of the Hand of Salamá. It never did. Gil didn’t see how the horses of the sorcerer’s party could endure it. Jeb Stuart and the Glyffans’ were close to the limits of their means to comply. Swan thought magic might be involved. Wolfing rations, sleeping and other amenities became major luxuries, infrequently enjoyed. But the merciless pursuit didn’t keep Swan from coming to him when responsibilities permitted. Both were amazed at how little fatigue mattered when, together, they were enfolded by the night. If Swan’s subordinates knew of the affair, none gave any sign.
But after a time they began to narrow the southerners’ lead. The spoor grew fresher, Bey’s brief campsites more recently abandoned. The day came when the hunters followed the Wheywater River around a bend to see Final Graces, once a trading port, deserted when Death’s Hold, downriver, had revived its menacing activity. No Glyffans had yet re-entered it. The tracks veered that way, rather than on along the river bank road toward Bey’s onetime stronghold.
Swan had expected to find no one there, but over the little cluster of rooftops inside its wooden stockade, they saw two masts, sails furled. The gates were closed; the trumpeter blew a fanfare while the squadron deployed itself along the wall. There was no reply; the High Constable had the call repeated.
A face appeared at the wall. Gil had the Browning out, hoping it would be Bey or one of his men. He was disappointed; he gradually recognized Gale-Baiter, the Mariner captain who’d intervened to rescue Brodur and himself in Earthfast.
“What would you?” demanded the captain.
“Open those gates,” the trumpeter directed. “The High Constable of Region Blue will enter.”
Gale-Baiter hefted a cutlass. Other Mariners appeared on the wall, with bows and javelins. Among them were Wavewatcher, the giant red-haired harpooner and Skewerskean, his smaller partner. “Be you gone,” the captain told the Sisters of the Line, “for we know you to be no true Glyffans.”
Some cavalrywomen had bows out, nocking arrows; others shook lances, hollering angry denials. Gil dismounted, a sure sign that a cavalryman wanted no trouble and offered none. He swept off his battered hat with its bobbing quill.
“Gale-Baiter, it’s me, Gil MacDonald, remember? I swear, these are really Glyffans. We’re dogging Yardiff Bey. You’ll let us in, right?”
The Mariner was taken off guard. He swapped uncertain looks with Wavewatcher and Skewerskean. “ ’Tis assuredly he,” the harpooner admitted. Gale-Baiter ordered the gates opened. Swan was pondering the American.
“You have friends in unlooked-for quarters,” she remarked. He bowed.
“We had been told you would be enemies,” Gale-Baiter explained when they’d joined him inside. There were twenty or so seafarers. They were swaggerers, dashing figures. They wore embroidered shirts and brocaded tunics, bibs of coins at their necks, chains of them at their wrists. Thick armlets and bracelets glittered, and on their buckles gemstones sparkled. But their cutlasses, bows and javelins were unadorned and well-used. Wavewatcher and Skewerskean stood warily to either side of their captain. The harpooner wore a sealskin shirt and a big scrimshawed whale’s tooth on a thong against his hairy chest, and his barbed throwing-iron was in his hand. His smaller friend’s sleeves were sewn with tiny bells that jingled as Skewerskean moved.
“It was said impostors were abroad,” the captain said.
“By whom?” Swan rapped.
“Our Prince’s special ambassador, who set sail this morning, after arriving in great hurly-burly.”
Gil blasphemed, clenching his fist in the air. Soon, it was established what had happened. The Mariners’ fleet had shattered Southwastelander sea power in a two-day engagement in the Central Sea, then pursued remnants to this area. The seafarers had laid waste to Death’s Hold, to deny the southerners future sanctuary and erase their foothold in Glyffa. Afterward, the bulk of the Mariners had sailed northward after their surviving foes, leaving several ships on patrol in local waters. Gale-Baiter, remembering what Gil had said in Earthfast, had mentioned to his Prince that travelers from Coramonde might be coming to the ruined fortress. The Prince of the Mariners had assigned him to the patrol, ordering him to check upriver at Final Graces periodically, where wayfarers would logically stop first, to gather any recent news. Gale-Baiter had done so once, a week before. Three days ago he’d returned, but his ship had been damaged by a submerged rock, barely making Final Graces.
He and his men had hove down their ship, the Long-Dock Gal, for repairs. The following day, another craft had appeared flying Mariner colors, bearing the ensign of an ambassador extraordinary. Her master’s papers showed she was on a mission for the Prince of the Mariners, awaiting a diplomatic entourage from the Glyffans and Veganáns. The newcomer’s crew couldn’t even aid Gale-Baiter’s in repairing the Gal; their orders were to stand ready for instant departure.
Only hours before Swan’s squadron arrived, the expected party had appeared, worn from strenuous riding, and ducked aboard their ship. Hooded and cloaked, they hadn’t been seen by Gale-Baiter’s men. Their horses, used up, had died at their tethers within minutes. Before their summary departure, the entourage had dispatched word that they might have been trailed by Southwastelanders masquerading as Glyffans.
It had to have been Bey and his men, using a contingency plan. But in leaving Gale-Baiter to cover his withdrawal, Bey had been unaware that Gil had met the captain, and could dissuade him from a bloodletting.
Gale-Baiter testified, ”I had seen the papers they bore. Their ring-seal proved their mission was of highest priority, I was angry they would not assist our repairs, but could make no objection. Unhappy am I that I cannot go on their wake right this moment.”
“ ’Tis well-sent that you were repairing damage,” Swan observed, “or they might have worked some ill to stave off pursuit.”
“Rot him! I shall set sail on that liar’s course. The body of the fleet is overdue to return, and there are other ships patrolling. We will take him; the Prince boasts vessels swifter still than mine.”
Gil pounced on that. “You’ll be ready that soon?”
“Aye, and if those were Occhlon scum, they can set only one course. North of here Mariners still scour the oceans. There is but unending water to the west. South will they voyage; the first hospitable landfall they can make is Veganá.”
“Uh-uh,” Gil told him, “Veganá’s no good anymore. The Occhlon got whipped by the Crescent Landers.”
“Then, to be safe, they can make no nearer port than the Isle of Keys. We shall catch them in open seas.”
“But where would Yardiff Bey have gotten Mariners’ safe-passage letters and seals?” Swan mused.
“There is only one place I wot of,” Gale-Baiter said darkly. “The Inner Hub, whose destruction started this war.”
Gil concurred. He himself had fooled enemies during the thronal war with phonied dispatches. That the scam had been turned around proved how fast Bey learned.
“ ’Tis to be sea chase,” the captain was telling Wavewatcher. The hulking redbeard nodded happily, scratching the tangle of rust-red curls on his chest. “See the repairs finished,” Gale-Baiter continued, “with all speed.” The harpooner went off, Skewerskean by his side.
Gil took the captain’s elbow. “Hey, hey; I’ve gotta go along.”
Gale-Baiter sized him up. Gil avoided meeting Swan’s gaze, proceeding: “You’re headed south and the seas belong to the Mariners, right? You’ll overhaul Bey, most likely; if you don’t, you’ll still get me south a lot faster than I could get there on land. The Crescent Landers have a whole load of real estate yet to take back from the southerners. I can’t wait that long; you promised me passage whenever I wanted.”
The Mariner scratched his head. “Very well. I gauge the Isle of Keys will be our next objective, saved for last.”
They all went to the dock. The Long-Dock Gal had been moved to the quayside for final work. Seamen were laboring with caulking irons, mallets and grease wells. Braces and bits, carpenter’s hatchets, rave hooks and augers lay nearby. She was a small brig, carvel-built of finely sawn, smoothly trimmed planks, more a thing of the sea than those ungainly cogs the Crescent Lands used. The Gal didn’t have her name on her bow, what with literacy uncommon. She bore instead a painting, a winking blonde. Right away, though, the American saw she had no ram or ship-fighting engines.
“Your boat doesn’t look like it can protect itself,” he pointed out.
Gale-Baiter winced, collecting his self-control. “She is not a ‘boat,’ nor is she an ‘it.’ She’s a ship, you see? On open sea she dances rings ’round anything not best friends with her. No southern scow can match a Mariner craft. We come alongside and board; that is the long and short of it.” He took in the progress his men had made. “We will not be done by nightfall, and I won’t navigate this poxed river in the dark. First light, then.”
Swan billeted her troops in the dusty, deserted houses of Final Graces. For herself, she took the cobwebbed inn. Gil found her seated in a rickety chair, helmet put aside. She’d just finished writing up the day’s report in her journal, and had a compact ledger open, balancing expenditures and funds of Region Blue. She looked up.
He was having a tough time getting started; she broke the silence. “This damnable war has leached away monies I needed. It was my hope to squeeze into the budget a bridge project. Trade would have doubled.” She sighed. “Impossible, this year, and there will be extra hardship for that. But you didn’t come to give ear to administrative woes, did you?”
He stared into heavy-lidded brown eyes. “I thought,” he began, halted, then switched from what he’d wanted to say. “I thought you might not mind taking Jeb with you. You could leave him with Ferrian at Ladentree.”
She closed the ledger. “I shan’t be stopping there. It falls upon me to rejoin the Trustee with all speed.”
“Oh.” He fooled with his hat, thumbing its creases. “Will you tell me what’s the matter?”
She leaned on the chair’s arm. “You are being rash. Your friends may need you, in Veganá, and I mislike what is in your mien when you speak of him, the sorcerer. Does he look the same, do you think, when he talks of you?”
“No. I mean, he’s one pretty cold fish.” He lost patience. “Are you holding this against me, or what? Every Mariner alive is heading for the Isle of Keys; this whole thing could be over before the Trustee and the others get the baby to her home city. Angorman and Andre don’t need me, but Dunstan does. Swan, I can’t depend on anyone but me. Can you tell me you wouldn’t hang in for the whole distance, in my place?”
Her severity failed. “No. No, I should imagine I couldn’t tell you that.”
He took her hand. Rising, she pressed to him. He kissed her, taking the pins from her hair deftly, familiar with them now. She shook out the flowing blue-blackness. Her finger hooked for a moment at the chain that held the Ace of Swords to his breast. When he pulled her toward the stairs she didn’t resist; events were shifting again; their respite was almost done.
They took one another hungrily. Neither had expected their exemption to last forever. They made a last denial of any truth but their own; it wasn’t altogether futile.