The world does not revolve around the live swords, although there's always the temptation for those in the Order to think that way, when we're not thinking that it revolves around the Crown, Shield, and Dragon.
No: the three pillars of the world are faith, wisdom, and justice. They're shaky supports, at their best; and there are times when I think we have damnall to do with any of them.—Gray
A storm was coming.
While the morning sun was hidden behind the bulk of the island, it had risen only a little later than Niko had; beyond the cove, the horizon was clear as far as he could see, and the sea was calm, with only the wide deep swells that gently raised and lowered the skiff at the cove's mouth, and barely a trace of chop beyond.
Still, the east wind was far too strong for the smoke from Kela's island, just now a smudge at the very limit of visibility, to carry any messages—save for the fact that the paucity of the smoke suggested that her family's smokehouse wasn't nearly as busy as Niko's was. He found himself somewhat smug about that, and felt even more guilty at his smugness.
But the storm was coming. Niko could feel it in his bones, just like Grandfather could, although with Grandfather it was always his knees and knuckles that hurt. At least, that's what Grandfather always said. Niko thought it was worse than that, not that Grandfather ever complained.
For Niko it was just, well, his bones, in a general sort of way, without any pain. What pain he had was inside, and could be kept there. He had even stopped crying himself to sleep weeks ago. Father was dead, that was all, just as Mother and his dimly remembered Grandmother died before him—although, granted, not in front of his eyes.
But he could save those thoughts for late at night, when he couldn't push them away.
Now, he ran easily along the almost invisible path across the rocks, his feet landing on the usual almost-flat spots on the stones without much thinking about it, ignoring the way that the occasional tide-scattered sharp stone cut into the long-hardened soles of his feet. He would soak his feet in brine again, tonight, as usual, while working on the nets, and they would grow even tougher. His one pair of sandals was for visiting neighbors—Kela, more often than not—or the rare trip to Pironesia.
He didn't want to look like a barefoot fisherman, not in front of her father or on the streets of Pironesia.
Though that's what he was, after all. Just that, and nothing more. A fisherman, who would spend his life hauling bounty from the sea to be exchanged with traders for those necessities that the sea itself couldn't provide.
He would live with that, and, were it not for the traders bringing stories of distant lands, it probably wouldn't have occurred to him that there even might be anything else to live with.
In the meantime, ignoring the way that the salt on the stones increased the pain from the cuts in his feet was something he was used to, and might as well stay used to—today he was working the net alone, and the longer he left one end open while the other was staked down, the more fish would escape, and this looked to be a large haul. They would spend the rest of the day salting down the sardines and smoking the rest, and have a larger-than-usual load for Captain Andros when the Kalends arrived on its latest trip, which meant a larger than usual payment.
He smiled at the thought of a new bolt of sailcloth and one of woven cotton, a roll of good netting-string and another one of brass wire, a few sacks of flour and turnips, a bag of nails, even a few carefully wrapped injan candies for the girls, and a small leather pouch filled with bright coppers—and perhaps even a new knife for Niko, as repeated sharpenings had worn Father's old knife down to less than a finger's width.
And perhaps they would buy some hickory, if the Kalends had some, and had a good price on it—hickory-smoked fish brought a higher price than seaweed-smoked, although both Niko and Grandfather thought that it didn't taste nearly as good, not that they ever mentioned that to Captain O'Reilly of the O'Reilly; he either had a taste for it himself, or more likely had a better market for smoked tunnyfish than Andros did.
Niko made the sign of the trident, and touched it to his lips in hope. The gods were cruel, although you weren't supposed to talk about the gods.
It had always been that way. In Grandfather's youth, they had been supposed to worship the three-in-one Triune God; by Father's boyhood, that had changed to the One God, although Grandfather said that the only difference he could tell was that the language the new priests in Pironesia insisted that they pray in was trader-talk, rather than Latin; the priests even dressed the same, after all, and the only difference between a One True Church priest's cross and a Triune's crucifix was, Grandfather explained, that a crucifix was usually heavier, generally fancier, and always hung around a Triune priest's neck.
But, of course, Niko's family did worship the old gods—just not in Pironesia. High on the ragged peak that topped the island, the midday sun still shone brightly over the ancient stone altar for its seasonal joint sacrifice to Zeus and Demeter, and every full moon saw the monthly sacrifice to Poseidon, and while the altar was scrubbed fresh of blood immediately after, that was just from habitual caution that had long ago become part of the ritual, not because there had been any danger of a ship of the Inquisition anchoring offshore since Grandfather had been a boy—the Inquisition was an office of the Triunes, not the One True Church.
Regardless of which church claimed hegemony over the islands, the gods would have their blood, and it was best that it be a sacrificial goat for Zeus and Demeter and a fat tunnyfish for Poseidon; the red blood was the same, and the same as that which flowed through Niko's veins, and it was safest to offer the red blood willingly and freely, lest the gods decide to choose their own sacrifices.
And, besides, Zeus and Demeter only wanted the liver and heart consumed by fire for them, and Poseidon only the blood and viscera of the tunnyfish dumped into the sea; Niko's family was free to eat the rest, as long as they properly thanked the gods for their generosity with every bite, lest the food turn to ashes—or worse—in their mouths.
Yes, the gods were cruel, but their cruelty was every bit as unreliable as their kindness; Father's death had been followed by a dramatic improvement in fishing off the island, as though Poseidon himself was sending them fish in apology for the awful, fiery death that had been brought to shore in the nets; and, of course, they had always offered the odd sacrifice to Him, even though they weren't supposed to worship the God of the Sea anymore, the priests said.
Grandfather said that it was more important to show appropriate gratitude than it was to keep the priests theoretically happy over things that wouldn't bother them because they'd never know about if you just keep your mouth shut when outlanders are around, like a good boy, Niko, eh?
And while there was much to resent, there was much to be grateful for.
The cave that they used as a storehouse was filled with baskets of salted and smoked fish, so much so that Niko and the girls were spending almost as much time gathering salt at the salt pans and stretching out seaweed to dry on the sand as they did in anything else. Very strange to be in a situation where they had more of a shortage of salt and seaweed than of fish, but that was easily enough remedied. There was no luck involved in that—all it took was work.
There had always been more than enough work to go around, and it was more so now that Father was dead. Even with a lighter catch, handling the net was really a job for at least two, but the morning wind had carried Grandfather and the boat out past the mouth of the cove and into the heavier seas beyond, leaving him barely enough time to set the net—the combination of handling the skiff and setting the net was really another two-man job in any kind of wind—and Niko wasn't about to wait until Grandfather could manage to make his way back around the point before hauling in the catch.
He pulled harder on the net, feeling it struggle back against him.
He smiled. It never failed—the fish could feel the storm coming, too, and that drove them in closer to shore for reasons that even Grandfather couldn't explain. With Father dead, and Lina and Mara up on the ridge salting down what remained of the morning's disappointing previous catch, that left Niko to handle the net by himself. Neither of the girls had enough strength to handle the lines, and would be more of a hindrance than a help—although he envied the way that their smaller fingers could gut a fish far faster than his thick, clumsy ones could.
Each to his own, he decided, and set his feet firmly against the rocks and pulled.
He had to be the man of the family, Grandfather said, although at fourteen summers he didn't know that he felt like a man.
A fisherman, well, yes. Niko couldn't remember the first time he had held nets in his hands, and balancing his pull on the two lines to keep the edges of the nets together was almost second nature to him. He had to set his feet into familiar indentations in the rocks and pull hard, but balance was the way of it. Too much pull on the float line, and the ends would open; too much pull on the weight line, and it would tilt the flat wooden float, making it impossible for even someone with much more than Niko's weight and strength to move the net ashore.
But pull it ashore he did, and the nets were heavy with wriggling silver flashes of sardines, leavened with the occasional bulk of a blue-and-gold tunnyfish or silvery mackerel, the odd dragonet and ermine, and even a few crabs.
The crabs had to be dealt with first. He took the short wooden club from his belt and quickly cracked their shells, even before he opened the net. A panicky crab would damage valuable fish with its sharp pincers—and worse, the net. As it was, his evenings were too often spent with thread and awl, patching the nets.
They did crab, of course—a shorebound fisherman couldn't neglect any of the bounty of the sea—but Grandfather and Niko had set the brass-wire basket crab traps the day before, and wouldn't return to them until tomorrow, at the earliest. Let the sea hold them until the Kalends arrived again, and let Captain Andros's crew pack them in seaweed to keep them alive for the relatively short trip into Pironesia.
He smiled, remembering the unusual oaths that the sailors swore when a crab managed to move its nimble pincers faster than the sailors could move their clumsy fingers. Listening to sailors was one of the best ways to learn parts of the trader-language that weren't in the Bible.
That was much more fun than this, he decided, not for the first time, as he sorted through the fish, pitching the sardines into a broad, shallow indentation in the rock that served, at low tide, as a holding-pool. The tunnyfish he quickly gutted with his sharp knife, spilling their guts into the chum bucket—a fisherman wastes nothing of the fish—then stooped to rinse off the bright red blood from fish, knife, and hands in the water, digging his fingers into the cuts on his feet to make sure that it cleared out the sand. Sand and dirt, left alone, would fester, and cleaning it out was a constant irritation; he would rather have been on the boat, where he could merely have dipped each foot in the water in turn, and expected the wounds to have closed themselves up before he had to return to shore.
But Niko was stuck on the shore for the day, and despite the necessity he resented it, and missed the water.
There was something pleasant about diving down, into the dark sea, the heavy basket-hook in his hands pulling him down, down, down, all the while searching through the haze for a glint of brass that showed where the trap was, his feet kicking him over as he fell through the cool blue, then quickly examining the trap to see if it was full, or simply needed to be rebaited. Rebaiting could be done quickly—it was just a matter of taking a handful of chum from the bag at his waist and thrusting it into the cage. If the trap was full, it was even easier; that was just a matter of fastening the hook to the lip of the cage, and then kicking himself up toward the surface, pulling himself up along the line, assisted by his fast-kicking feet.
There he had to move fast, while the fire burned hotter and hotter in his lungs, as the roof of sky grew ever closer, until he finally broke into the air that always, always tasted sweeter than honeyed wine.
Here, the only thrill came from carefully avoiding the spines of the two dragonets that had apparently been injudiciously away from their usual hiding places in the rocky bottom. Pretty fish—while their backs were the dull gray colors and mottled patterns of the rocks on which they hid, these two had lovely bellies the colors of a summer sunset—and tasty, but the flesh didn't keep well, even when salted down, and tended to fall apart in the smokehouse. Eating-fish, not selling-fish. Well, the family had to eat, as well as sell, after all.
He carefully gripped first one then the other by their tails, and threw them back up the beach along with the cracked crabs, smiling as Lina squealed in delight from the ridge above. Lina was more than passingly fond of dragonet, and while all of the flesh would go into the stewpot, Niko was more than certain that most of it would, eventually, find its way into Lina's bowl.
Which was fine with Niko.
The skiff appeared from around the point, tacking back and forth. Niko beckoned to the girls on the ridge above, although they were already making their way down the path. He walked back above the high waterline and took off first his belt, and then his kirtle, and then carefully set belt down on top of the kirtle to keep it from blowing away.
Yes, it was soaked, but he once had had a kirtle blown away by an offshore wind very much like this one, and Father had explained to him, in great detail, just how many sardines they had to salt down to pay for that small scrap of cloth that he had carelessly offered to the sea.
He waded into the water waist-deep, then set out for it with quick, sure strokes that kept his eyes above the water. Connecting with the moving skiff was tricky, and Grandfather, who had little patience for Niko's occasional clumsiness, would be as likely to come about one final time as he would be to drop the sail.
But this time he not only dropped the sail at Niko's approach, but actually knelt in the skiff and reached out his hand.
Niko gripped it; it was rough and calloused as his own; the gunwale tipped dangerously close to the water as Grandfather pulled him aboard, but righted itself with the aid of a gust of wind.
"Ah, Niko," Grandfather said, "I see you've left the girls to do the work while you went for a swim, eh?" His smile took the sting out of his words.
"Well, Grandfather," Niko said, putting one hand on the gunwale, as though he were about to vault back into the water, "if you want to beach the skiff all by yourself, I'll be more than happy to let you."
"No need to go that far." Grandfather laughed. "I'm happy of the help, at that," he said, as he finished lashing the sail in place. He gave a glance at the beach. "The nets look good and fat."
"That they do." Niko followed Grandfather's gaze. The girls were already busy at work; there was certainly plenty of it to do.
Grandfather unshipped the long oar, and set it in the oarlock at the rear of the skiff behind the tiller; Niko took up the long gaff, and took up his usual position at the bow, ready to shove the skiff away from the rocks that seemed ready to bite it. Beaching the skiff was easy at high tide, as the rock formations were buried far enough beneath the surface that they couldn't endanger the hull, even with the centerboard down. It it was tricky at low tide—there was a narrow passage that had to be carefully navigated, with the waiting rocks always eager to reach out and stave in the hull, and Grandfather would be busy with sail and tiller and centerboard.
Niko had a scary moment when a gust of wind combined with a swell almost made the butt of the gaff slip off the tall rock that Father had named Acharis—Father had been much for naming things—but he recovered at the last second and swung the bow away, into the safety of the final approach to the slip. Grandfather's grandfather had, so the family legend had it, carved it from the stones all by himself, with long-worn-out tools, and generations of sliding boats up and down from the water had left it almost glassy smooth, polished enough that two men could slide the boat up and far enough beyond high tide to be safe even from a storm.
A quick plunge into the water, and several minutes of grunting and pulling, and the skiff was safe ashore.
And then the day's work really began.
It was midafternoon before he finally had to take a break. It wasn't the work as much as the smoke—there were only so many times that he could unload slabs of smoked fish and replace them with raw slabs on the racks before the combination of the smoke and the heat made it impossible. Years of practice had given him the timing of it; his last stoking of each smoldering fire pit with just the right amount of dried seaweed left just enough so that it would have almost died out when it was time to unload it, but the difference between "almost died out" and "really died out" had his eyes tearing, his lungs on fire, and his body sweating so much that even guzzling water in between trips into the smoke-tents had left him ready to pass out.
Mara set the long wooden spoon down on the flat rock next to the kettle and ran over to him, the waterskin held in her skinny arms. She was every bit as nut brown from the sun as he was—at least as he was under his present coating of smoky dirt and streaked sweat.
"It's going well," she said, with a sage little nod that she had inherited from Father, accompanied by the usual broad smile, revealing the gap where her new front tooth hadn't quite grown in.
"Oh, and you say this from your long experience?" he asked, returning the smile to take any sting out of his words. He gave her head an affectionate shake as he accepted the waterskin, then used both hands to tilt it back, careful not to waste any—the pool refilled itself just fine from the rainstorm runoffs, but every cup had to be carried uphill.
She frowned. "You don't think so?"
"No, I think it's going very well," he said. He lowered himself to a squat to rest, while she laced up the smokehouse door, her small fingers working the lacing more quickly than his thick ones could have.
He looked around for the next basket, and was rewarded by a smile.
"That was the last one. And Lina's got all the sardines salted down," Mara said.
Grandfather walked up the path that led to the cave, stacked empty baskets dangling from each end of the yoke that he easily balanced across one broad shoulder. His long beard, a few black strands still visible among the white, was caked with smoke and salt, but there was a decided bounce in his step that couldn't be accounted for merely by his light burden.
"Not a bad day's work, eh?" he asked, snatching the waterskin out of the air when Niko threw it to him. He drank deeply, and wiped his mouth on the back of one sun-browned arm. "I think we can take the rest of the day off," he said, frowning judiciously. "It's possible that I might even be prevailed upon to read some."
Mara squealed. "In the daytime?"
Reading lessons were for nighttime, when the family gathered around the fish oil lamp with one of the few, precious scrolls and printed books. Niko and Lina knew all the books by heart—they had learned most of the trading-language from the thick Bible scroll—but Mara had yet to memorize most of them.
He shrugged. "Why not? We're very low on seaweed, and I've just finished cleaning out the salt pans and putting away the nets. There's a nice patch of kelp beyond Nicarus, but even if we filled the skiff with it, it would be a week before it was dry enough, and I think that sailing toward the storm would be a bad idea, all in all." He gave a quick glance at the darkening sky to the west. "I'd be tempted to send Niko over to Ari's to see if they've got any extra seaweed for trade."
Ari's island was closer, yes, but Kela's family generally had more seaweed—they had a good patch just south of their island. "Perhaps Stavros's, instead?" he asked.
Grandfather smiled knowingly, and shook his head. "Or Stavros's, instead, but with the storm coming, he'd likely have to stay overnight, and I'm not sure that Kela will tolerate his presence for that long," he said. "Too windy to smoke a message, asking," he said, rubbing his knuckles. His mouth twisted. "Think you'd be welcome?"
That, of course, was a deliberately silly question. Neighbors, of course, were always welcome, and too little seen in the islands.
"It's a possibility," Niko said.
"I could help you get the skiff into the water, if you'd like to go."
He didn't need to be asked twice.
There isn't much in the world that's easier and lazier than sailing with a full wind at your back, Niko decided, not for the first time. The wind blew from the west more often than not, and the trip out to Kela's was almost always much quicker than the trip back, when he would have to tack back and forth. It didn't feel quicker, of course—sailing close-hauled to the wind made you think you were going faster than you really were, just as running before it deceived you the other way.
It was faster, easier—the only tradeoff was that it was hotter; the aft wind pushed the skiff along quickly, but it left little breeze to cool Niko as he sat at the tiller, sweating under the sun.
He cast a look over his shoulder. The dark, oily clouds were growing closer and closer as they chased the skiff ahead of them, and he thought, when he squinted, that he could even see an occasional flash of lightning, although he couldn't be quite sure.
The skiff rode high in the water, which made it jounce across the chop even more than usual. What cargo there was—a doll for Kela's little sister that Niko had carved out of a piece of driftwood; a small sack of wild onions; a bag of salt; and a half dozen pots of Grandfather's famous pickled octopus—wasn't much ballast at all.
But there wasn't much to do except to tie the tiller down, and then bathe himself with the bailing bucket while the skiff jounced around so hard that the loose cake of soap slipped out of his fingers more than once, and if he hadn't been careful to be lying on the sole as he bathed himself, it would have easily gone over the side, and along with it all the work that soapmaking was.
As it was, he banged his head hard against the mast, and cursed the waves almost as much as he cursed himself for having been in too much of a rush to add some rocks for ballast. The two things that they were never short of were seawater and rocks.
But, still, by the time he was ready to come about so that he could round the island and approach the leeside cove, he was clean and dry, and his kirtle—which was the first thing he had washed, and which had spent the trip hanging from the mast, not drying much in the absence of a felt breeze—was only annoyingly damp around his waist. His sandals, along with his gifts, were safely—he hoped—sealed in the oilskin bag, shortly to be joined by his kirtle. If none of the Antillides family saw his arrival, he would have to anchor the skiff until he could get some help beaching it, and he would no more think of arriving at a neighbor's empty-handed than he would of spitting in their shadow or failing to belch loudly at the end of a meal. Niko was a simple fisherman, but Father and Grandfather had raised him to understand simple courtesy, even though it had taken a clout or two.
He was so busy coming about to swing wide of the rock spit that spiked out of the north side of the island—jibing would have been quicker and easier, yes, but a jibe in a heavy wind could capsize the skiff, and was harder on the boom rigging—that the ship seemed to appear in front of him.
His jaw dropped.
He had always thought of the Kalends as large—and certainly it was not only larger than any of the other regular trading ships that called on them, and larger than most of the ships he had seen in his rare trips to Pironesia—but this ship could almost have carried it as a launch, and the launch being raised by a dozen seamen was itself easily twice the size of Niko's skiff.
The ship was a long and sleek monster, two-masted, with rigging for probably a full dozen sails, although none were flying as it lay at anchor, of course. Niko could count easily a dozen men on the deck, besides those working the pulleys and ropes to raise the launch.
The black flag of the Crown, Shield, and Dragon fluttered atop the foremast; and below it, the red-and-gold pennant of the Royal Navy, and below that a golden cross on a white field, representing the One True Church, and, finally, a blue and white one that Niko couldn't identify.
The deck was crowded with half a dozen ballistae, and large traps in the side of the hull more promised than suggested that there were catapults below; Niko didn't need to see the flags to know that it was a ship of war, not of trade.
"Ahoy the skiff! Drop your sails!" the watchman shouted in trading-language from the raised rear deck. "This is the Wellesley—what ship are you?"
I'm not a ship—I'm just a fisherman on a skiff didn't seem to be a good answer. The Navy wasn't known for having a sense of humor or brooking disobedience, so he let the boom swing free, and quickly dropped the sail.
"Niko Christofolous," he called back, using the family name that the Triune Church had given the family, and the One God Church had left alone. "The skiff doesn't have a name—it's bad luck to name a skiff." He was surprised that the outlander didn't know that, although he shouldn't have been; outlanders were notoriously ignorant. "I'm a fisherman."
The wind and the current kept carrying him closer to the man-of-war, and he started to reach for the gaff before he decided that that might be seen as a challenge, and you didn't challenge the Crown, so he made his way forward, slowly, empty-handed. He could always hang on to the bow and stop the skiff from bumping into the ship with his feet.
"More like a fisherboy, I'd say," the man said, with a chuckle. His comment was directed at somebody just out of sight behind one of the wooden boxes stacked on the rear deck, but the wind carried it to Niko's ears, and he felt the tips of his ears reddening. "And your business here, fisherboy?"
"Visiting," Niko answered, "and seeing if I can get some dried seaweed—we use it to smoke fish, and—"
"Enough." The seaman cut him off with an upraised hand. "I don't have all watch to stand and listen to you chatter. On your way, then. You'll need a call-and-challenge from ashore before you leave." He looked up at the sky. "Not that anybody's going to be going anywhere for a while," he said, turning away in dismissal. "Hey, you—yes, you, Blodgett, you clove-footed son of a Byzantine whore and her priest-pimp—get that rack lashed down, and smartly now. There's a storm coming, and while I don't care if a wave shoved a rack up your back passage, it probably wouldn't be good for the rack and I suspect the captain wouldn't like the spectacle of you jumping around and capering about while squealing like a stuck pig, and yes it will end up up your back passage if it's not smartly lashed down, as I'd shove it up there myself, so move your lazy ass . . ."
Niko didn't have any intention of leaving until the storm passed, and he didn't envy the sailors who would be aboard the ship when the storm hit, but it wasn't his problem, and he was still being carried toward the ship.
He raised sail, pulled hard on the tiller, and tacked into the cove.
A party was waiting for him on the beach.
Niko had always envied Kela her beach: broad and sandy and with only a few boulders, and a deep cove, instead of rocky outcroppings, which made landing a lot easier.
A small launch was beached just above the waterline. The family skiff had been beached, as well, although the skiff had been pulled far up the beach, dismasted and flipped over, in anticipation of the storm.
Kela was nowhere to be seen but her father, Stavros, and brother Andrea were waiting, along with three outlanders, the two younger ones in the overly heavy outlander clothes that Niko didn't envy, while the old one was dressed more sensibly, at least for an outlander. All three of the outlanders stood silently watching Niko without comment, while both Stavros and Andrea waved a greeting.
The two younger outlanders were obviously nobility, of some sort—each man carried two sheathed swords, stuck through the black sash around his waist.
Niko dropped his sail, raised the centerboard, and let the skiff coast in to where he knew it was shallow enough to beach himself, since Stavros and Andrea weren't dropping their kirtles to the sand and swimming out to help him. He was about to toss off his own kirtle and lever himself over the side when Stavros and Andrea dropped their clothing and waded into the light surf, Stavros making a be-still patting with both hands, and Andrea beckoning for the line, which Niko obediently tossed him.
"No need to get wet," he said, in a friendly enough way, although without the usual smile. "The outlanders want to talk to you," he said, quietly, as he gripped the gunwale, and leaned over.
"Me?"
"I don't think they know of another Niko Christofolous, son of Niko Christofolous; I certainly don't. It's about your father, and that sword. Just as well you came here—they were talking about heading over to see you, even with a storm coming."
"They're not sailors." Niko didn't know the ins and outs of it, but some Crown sailors were nobles—you could tell by the fancy clothing, and the swords. A sailor would know enough of storms to stay anchored on the lee side of the island.
"No. They're priests, among other things," Andrea said, with a frown that flashed into a smile. "The big one insisted on confessing all of us."
"Priests, with swords?"
"Either that, or they were just playing with us. Me, I confessed the usual sins, and muttered the right phrases, and suggest you do the same, when it's your turn."
Niko went through the rituals at the church in Pironesia, of course, whenever they went there, but those priests wore simple caftans, with the strange high collars and the silly cloth caps that barely covered the top of the head, and couldn't possibly have been of any real use in the sun, and the priests were, well, priests, not nobles.
The islands had, in their time, been ruled by adherents of other religions than the Triunes and the One True Church, and the islanders had always simply gone along with whatever the foreign rulers insisted on; fisherfolk were, of necessity, practical folk. But compared to tales of the days of the Triunes and their Inquisition, or even to the Musselmen that the Triunes had replaced, the One True Church that was bound to the Crown and Dragon was an easy master.
Keeping their priests as happy as priests could be was just a matter of learning their rituals in the trading language, paying an occasional visit and contribution to the church in Pironesia, and confessing the appropriate sins—and never, ever mentioning offerings to the gods—and there was no trouble that Niko had ever heard of.
Perhaps their One God could read the mind and soul of a man, but of a certainty the priests couldn't, and largely left the islanders alone.
Maybe that was changing—priests coming out to the islands? It would hardly be worth their trouble to collect the scant offerings that were all fisherfolk could afford—a ship that large would easily cost a dozen coppers a day, just for the hire of the sailors!—but perhaps they had religious reasons? To take confessions? That sounded too much like the tales of the Triune Inquisition—did they think that Father had been worshipping that sword?
That would be very bad. The tolerance of the One True Church didn't extend to what it called idolatry, any more than to heresy, and though Niko wasn't exactly sure of the difference between the two, he was very sure that he had no wish to be hanged for either.
Niko wanted nothing more than to turn the boat around and make for the open sea, but there was no point in that, even if these strange priests would let him, even if he could slip by the anchored ship. The storm was coming, and even without that, the Wellesley's sleek two-masted launch could easily have caught up with his skiff, in light air or heavy.
And, besides, if this was to be the One True Church's version of the Inquisition, it wasn't just Niko who was at risk, but the rest of the family.
Flee? That was a fine idea, but how? Where? There was nowhere to go. He squared his shoulders and walked over to where the three men stood.
They were a strange-looking group, even for a trio of outlanders. Their skin was outlander pale, even paler than city folk, although the old one, who was wearing only a blousy white shirt and trousers, rather than the robes of the others, had darkened some; Niko could tell by the fish-belly white where the shirt was open to mid-chest.
The old one had a full white beard, but the other two had theirs close-cropped, and had shaped their beards in that strange outlander way, leaving the skin on their upper cheeks naked, save for some stubble. None of them had their hair bound back in a proper queue, or even hanging loose around their shoulders, but had the hairs trimmed, to perhaps a finger's length.
Priests? Nobles? Or some combination?
Niko stopped before the old one, and dropped to one knee. "I am Niko Christofolous, Your Excellency," he said in the trading language, not sure if "Excellency" was the right honorific. British noblemen were addressed that way, but priests were to be addressed as "Father."
"You don't need to kneel," the old one said—in unaccented language, not in trader-talk. "And we're not 'Excellencies.' Come on, boy—on your feet, on your feet. That's better. Sir Joshua Grayling, sometimes known as Gray," he said, indicating the tall, gloomy-looking one with the long face and deep-set eyes. "Sir David Shanley"—the big one, with the wide nose and the gentle smile—"sometimes called Bear. You call them 'Sir Joshua' and 'Sir David.' They're knights—addressed as 'sir.' And I'm 'Cully.' Just 'Cully.' "
"Sir Cully," Grayling put in. "At the very least, Father." His voice was lower in pitch and volume than Niko had expected, although he wasn't sure why.
Cully ignored him. "We're looking into the matter of the sword that we're told your father found."
Yes, Father had found the sword in their nets, and picking it up had killed him, right in front of Niko's eyes.
"Yes," Niko said. "It came ashore in our nets, and when he picked it up—"
"It killed him." Grayling nodded. "In fact, it ate—"
"It was very sad, I'm sure," Cully said, interrupting. "And from there?"
Niko explained that Grandfather had prodded it with a stick, at first gingerly, then more vigorously, and finally worked it onto a net and dragged it away, offering it over to Andros of the Kalends. He had heard of cursed swords, and passing the curse along to someone else only made sense, even though Andros insisted on halving what he would have paid for their catch in payment for taking it and its curse away.
"He did, did he?" Grayling tilted his head to one side. "That's interesting, and—yes? What is it?"
"I mean no offense to the Sirs," Stavros said, "but we do have a storm coming."
Grayling, who seemed to be the leader, nodded, as he looked at the darkening sky. "Well, then, we probably should return to the ship and continue this discussion there," he said without any visible sign of relishing the prospect of riding out a storm on even so large a ship.
"Will you honor my home?" Stavros asked, as custom required. "And you, too, Niko, of course."
There was no particular enthusiasm in either request. Visitors were one thing, but outlanders—outlanders with swords, no less—were another thing entirely.
Grayling didn't seem to notice. "We'd be delighted," he said, smiling, patting at his stomach. "I was hoping you'd invite us; I really hate the rolling aboard a ship even in clear weather."
While Niko was trying to sort that out—how could somebody possibly be bothered by something so ordinary?—Grayling raised a hand, and a man that Niko hadn't seen before appeared from behind the trees, tucking his pipe into his belt as he approached. Thickset, fiftyish, and with the same sort of outlander beard that the others had, although the only weapon he carried was a knife at his belt.
Niko would have guessed him to be a sailor, except for the fact of his wearing a pair of fine boots—what would a sailor need with boots? How could he afford such?
"Bosun," Grayling said, "unload the launch, please; the three of us will be staying the night. Tell Michael that he is not to come ashore; we can see to our own needs for one night, without being waited upon."
Bosun—was he one of the outlanders with only one name?—had leaped into a curious position when he was first addressed by name: his arms held straight down at his sides, his legs and feet close together, his eyes staring straight ahead. It wasn't just that he didn't meet the Sir's eyes—he stared off into the distance, his face blank and expressionless.
Outlanders were very strange.
"Aye, aye, sir," he said, far too loudly. "Will there be anything else, sir?"
"Yes. My compliments to the captain, and tell him that he's free to ride out the storm where and as he sees fit—we'll expect to see the Wellesley offshore in the morning, if it's clear; otherwise, the day after."
"Yes, sir. Compliments to the captain, and he's to ride out the storm as he wishes; return in the morning if it's clear, return the day after if not. By your leave?"
"On your way, Bosun." Grayling smiled. "And good luck to you."
"Aye, aye, sir." He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled, and half a dozen more men, dressed similarly, even to the boots, ran out of the woods and to the small launch and quickly removed a half a dozen canvas bags, then removed their boots and launched the boat with Bosun climbing aboard at the last moment that he could without wetting his boots.
Bosun kept up a stream of invective at how slowly and clumsily they were moving, although Niko couldn't find any fault with it, and it was in just a matter of moments that the six men, three on a side, were quickly pulling at their oars, all in perfect unison, while Bosun glared at and insulted them, his words and his glances not seeming to have any effect, one way or another, on their precision.
Grayling beckoned the others over to the canvas bags. "Your hospitality, Stavros, is most generous—I wasn't looking forward to a night riding out the storm. You'll find that we're good guests, I trust," he said, "and where I was raised, a guest always brings gifts."
"That is our custom, as well," Stavros said, with a smile. "Although I wouldn't take offense if it wasn't yours, Excellency."
"Would a full bolt of good Londinium denim be insultingly small?"
"Small? Not at all, Excellency—you are far too generous. Guest-gifts are usually some trifle; I couldn't think of—"
"Then a bolt of denim it shall be." Grayling handed one of the bags to Niko. "You'll favor me by carrying this?"
"Of course, your—I mean, of course, sir." Niko tried to draw himself up straight, like Bosun had.
Grayling smiled, and Cully laughed.
The storm hit.
Outside the cave, rain sheeted down, and below, waves shattered themselves upon the rocks, as though trying to claw their way up and to the cave mouth. Lightning lanced from cloud to cloud, occasionally painfully bright, crooked fingers dazzling his eyes while the thunder rang in his ears as they reached down to claw at the sea itself, in Zeus's ancient reminder to Poseidon that while Poseidon ruled the sea, Zeus ruled all.
Niko thought that he envied the Antillides their cave even more than their beach—it was much larger than his own, and bent back into a fishhook shape, leaving the sleeping chamber completely protected from the elements.
The only thing about it that he didn't envy was the crack along the roof of the outer chamber, which quickly started dripping water in even the lightest storm. While rain barrels had been carefully placed to catch the stream, they now had all been filled to overflowing, and the leak had become a constant stream that ran down and exited the cave mouth, only part of it obediently adhering to the too-shallow channel that had, ages before, been carved into the stone.
Even so, there were advantages; one could relieve oneself into the stream without getting battered by the storm, as strange as it felt to piss into fresh water.
He could hear Kela splash up from behind him, and adjusted his kirtle before he turned.
"Kela."
"Niko."
There was only a little light leaking out from the oil lanterns farther back, and what little there was illuminated her outline, though not her face. That didn't matter. He knew it almost as well as he knew his sisters'. And while Grandfather said that his sisters Lina and Kela looked enough alike to be able to pass as twins, Niko didn't think so. Certainly being alone with Lina didn't give him that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, much less farther down.
It was strange to be left alone with her without a proper escort—Niko was no more left alone with Kela than that gangly Arno that found every opportunity to visit Niko's family would be left alone with Lina; it was indecent for a girl who had reached her bleeding-time to be alone with a boy—but he guessed that it wasn't a problem. With a dozen people gathered around the fire in the sleeping chamber, they weren't really alone, were they?
Still, it seemed almost indecent, and it made him nervous.
"I'm very sorry about your father," she said, just as she had said when she, Andrea, and Stavros had come visiting to pay their call. She glanced behind before she made the sign of the Trident and touched it to her lips. "The outlander priests talk about the sea giving up their dead someday, and they could be right."
He shrugged. There was no point in talking about it, after all. That just made it worse. Better to think about other things.
"How have you been?" he asked.
Has that Milos Abdullah been visiting you again? he didn't ask. He didn't like Milos, and it wasn't just because Milos insisted on being called by both first name and surname, as though he was some sort of outlander nobility.
The Abdullah family had not been assigned a surname by the One True Church. While proclaiming their loyalty to the One True Church, and still making it a point to visit Pironesia more often than anybody else Niko knew of, the Abdullahs had given up the hated surname that the Triunes had laid upon them and resumed their Musselmen name, although—so it was said; Niko didn't know nor care—they had not resumed their Musselman rituals, whatever those rites might be.
Niko didn't know why he disliked Milos so, unless it was simple jealousy. He didn't much care about whether or not they were performing whatever Musselman rituals were, although he had never seen any sign of such; everybody knew that only sacrifices to the old gods mattered, after all, and the rest was just superstition or going-along.
The Abdullah family's island was actually a trio of close-set islands, and the smallest one was larger than Niko and Kela's families' islands put together. A preposterously huge number of people lived on the Abdullah island; Stavros said it might be as many as three, perhaps even four hundred, although surely that was an exaggeration. Their great numbers let them be traders, as well as fisherman, and their fleet of three ships seemed to be in constant motion, whether fishing in deeper waters and for more days than the shorebound could, or carrying their catch and what they traded for not just to Pironesia, but sometimes as far away as Gazipasa, or—rarely—even to Konya, braving the dangerous waters around the pirate havens on Seeproosh to trade for gemstones from the Dar al-Islam.
They even managed to keep livestock. Not just the chickens that Niko's family kept, or the wild goats that roamed about the high ground of their island, the goats that Father or Grandfather would, once or twice a year, take with bow and arrow for meat and leather. Kela's family did the same, as did most of the families on the islands, although a few supplemented that with the occasional pigs.
The Abdullahs, on the other hand, had chickens, and tamed goats, and a huge flock of dozens of sheep and even a few cows; when the wind blew the wrong way on a Sunday, distant hints of the tantalizing smell of roasting meat were often carried across the water.
"Yes," Kela said. He could more hear than feel her smile. "Milos Abdullah has found quite a few occasions to guest here, of late."
"Oh."
"Then again, Father wonders aloud, every now and then, how I'd feel being a junior wife in the Abdullah family, and he seems to worry about that."
Niko smiled.
"Then again, he also wonders out loud, even more often, as to what sort of bride-price an Abdullah might be able to offer, as compared to some other people I might name."
His smile went away.
She laughed at him, which only made him angry. Niko didn't like being laughed at.
"Don't be so silly," she said. She reached out a hand and touched his arm. "I've told you that I'll ask Father to set my bride-price at something you can afford, although I don't know what he'll say."
"I hope you manage to find a moment to bring it up before he marries you off to Milos."
"I'll talk to him soon, I promise," she said. "I'd rather . . . be a big sister to your sisters than be a scullery maid for Milos and his mother."
"I—"
"Kela," the harsh voice sounded from behind him. "This is not proper."
Stavros' face was stern in the flickering light of the lantern that he held high above and in front of him, probably more for the benefit of the three Sirs, who picked their way carefully across the unfamiliar cave floor.
Her mother, Nikea, waddled around from behind, and fastened her thick hand on Kela's arm. Kela ducked her head as her mother pulled her away.
"I'm sorry, Father," she said. "But we weren't—we were just—"
"You were just alone and unaccompanied with a man not of our family," Stavros said, shaking his head. "And with honored guests present, as though you were some shorebound whore, and—" he stopped himself when Sir Cully cleared his throat.
"There's no problem on our account, good Stavros," Cully said, gently. "And, as a guest, I'd take any insult to your daughter's virtue as a personal slight," he went on, less gently, "were there someone here who would be so crude as to utter such—as of course, I believe that there isn't."
As if in answer, lightning flashed and thunder roared so loudly that Cully had to wait a moment before going on. A smile flickered across his thin lips. "And, truth to tell, where I grew up it was not unknown for a couple of young people to find some private time by themselves, when they could—just to talk. Speaking of talk, we need to talk to young Niko; embarrassing you or your family is not our intent."
Stavros didn't like it, but they were both guests and nobility, and he ducked his head briefly. He hung the lantern in a wall niche, and ushered Kela and Nikea back toward the residence chamber.
"So, young Niko . . ." Cully said. He tilted his head to one side. "You don't like being called that?"
"I've no complaint, sir."
"Then why did you look like you'd bitten into a piece of meat and found half a maggot?" Sir Joshua asked.
"I've no complaint, sir," he repeated. But he wasn't 'young' Niko, not anymore. With Father dead, that made him the man of the family, Grandfather said, and entitled to his name without the diminutive. But he could hardly say that to these outlanders; they might take offense.
"Niko, then? Is that better?"
Niko nodded. "I don't mind if you call me Niko, sir," he said, choosing his words carefully.
"Well, then, Niko-sir," Cully said, smiling, "we—"
"Stand easy, boy," Sir David said, his growl somehow more reassuring than frightening, although Niko couldn't have said why it was so. "We don't mean you any harm, but you look like you're about to bolt." He gestured toward the storm outside. "Which doesn't seem to me like a good idea, even if we did mean you any harm—"
"Which we don't." Cully raised both hands, fingers spread, the thumbs tight against the palms. "Truly, we don't. We just need your help."
Niko was having a hard time figuring out which one of them was in charge. At first, he had thought it was Grayling, despite Cully being the elder. And then it seemed that Grayling was taking his lead from Cully, but they kept interrupting each other—even Sir David, who he had thought was the junior of the three of them.
Niko didn't know which one he was supposed to be addressing, so he just stared off into the distance, not meeting any of their eyes. "Anything you want, sirs, I'll tell you. It's all about that cursed sword?"
"Cursed sword, indeed," Grayling said. "More than you know." He patted at the hilt of the uppermost of the swords supported by the sash around his waist. "Like this one. That one is locked in a strongbox on the Wellesley at the moment, and the only key is around my neck, even though there's not a jack aboard who would be foolish enough to touch his flesh to its steel."
"Yes, sir."
"Do you have any idea where it came from?"
"It came from the sea, sir," Niko said. "Father and Grandfather just hauled it up in our nets, just a short ways beyond Silver Point, off Marcosia; there's good bottom there." He started to shrug, then stopped himself. They might think he meant he didn't care about answering their questions. "You get an odd thing in the nets every now and then, particularly when you're deep-dragging on a sandy bottom."
"Silver Point? Marcosia?" Grayling asked. "I don't recall those names on any of the charts."
"I don't know anything about chartages, sir—"
"Charts."
"Marcosia is probably a local name," Sir David, the one they called Bear, said. "This region hasn't been properly surveyed—we're still using the Byzantines' charts."
"There were probably better ones in the Vatican—if they hadn't been carried off to Byzantium," Cully said. "Not that it would make much of a difference. Idiotic to put it to the torch, I always said."
Sir Joshua snorted. "Well, take that up with His late Majesty, when next you see him, Cully. He had his reasons, I'm sure."
Cully snorted. "Always the obedient servant, eh?"
"Always." Grayling answered Cully's smile with a stern expression.
"I've never thought that loyalty ought to be blinding; it's supposed to be enlightening."
"Some other time, Cully." Grayling made a patting, be-still motion. "This still leaves us without a proper chart." He turned to Niko, a raised eyebrow asking the question.
"Yes," Niko said. "I could show you where Silver Point is. Or Stavros could—anybody could."
"It's a big sea. Do you think you could find that exact spot again?
"Of course, sir."
It was a silly question. When you found a good spot for bottom-dragging, one where your nets wouldn't catch on rocks, you always memorized it. This one wasn't difficult. Niko could see in his mind's eye how, at that spot, Scolia's Rock, the big boulder that stood like a watchman at the shore of Silver Point, was just left of the big, jagged crack in the rock face of the island itself.
"The Crown will pay for your time, Niko," Cully said.
"I wasn't trying to cadge money, sir," he said, although it was nice to hear. An extra copper or two would always be more than welcome. "I was thinking that my family will expect me back by dark tomorrow, at the latest, or they'll start to worry about the skiff."
"Easily enough handled—Stavros or one of his sons can be dispatched there in the morning, along with some guesting-gifts, and perhaps an advance payment on your account. This could take a few days—not that you're likely to need the few coppers. Easy, boy—there's no threat meant in that."
"The reward." Grayling nodded. "Live swords belong to the Crown—and there's always a reward for their return."
Do you lose them a lot? he didn't ask. "But we paid Captain Andros to take the cursed thing away!"
"The Crown will settle with Captain Andros as to that. By rights, your family should split the reward with him—you for the finding of it, him for the surrendering of it," Grayling said. "It was substantial—"
"I should say so," Sir David, the one they called Bear, said. "And it's cheap, at two hundred golden crowns, to have that in hand."
Two hundred crowns? That was a preposterous amount of money. Niko couldn't imagine what one could buy with five or ten crowns of gold—and hundreds?
He had to ask: "My family is entitled to some of that? Sir?"
"Oh, I think your family is entitled to all of it," Grayling said. "I'm not pleased at all by this Captain Andros cheating you; I'll have a word or two with the Governor about that."
Niko's hopes had been raised only to be dashed. The Governor? Who would such an important man side with? A well-to-do ship's captain, or a barefoot fisherman? It wasn't difficult to guess.
Well, it had been a nice fantasy, even better than visions of a huge net filled with struggling fat tunnyfish, but that was all it had been.
Cully chuckled. "Sometimes, Gray, you can be such a fool—Niko, Gray will pay you the reward, out of his own funds, and get the Governor to reimburse him. Halloran can squeeze the money out of Andros—and it's a thing he should do personally, and a thing he'll probably enjoy."
"Of course." Grayling appeared puzzled. "I'd give you the money right now, but our traveling funds are in the strongbox aboard the ship, and I've barely got a couple of crowns in my purse."
A preposterous claim—why would even a noble need to travel with such wealth?
"So give him that now," Cully said.
"Excuse me?" Grayling drew himself up straight. "Is there some reason that my word is not good enough?"
Bear laid a hand on his arm. "Your word, Brother and Father Gray, is better than gold for me, and, I trust, for Father Cully, as well—"
" 'Cully.' Just 'Cully,' Bear. I don't wish to have occasion to tell you that again."
"—but for an island boy? One who only knows the Crown, Shield, and Dragon from the Occupation?"
Bear reached down to his waist and produced a small leather pouch, dipping his fingers into it momentarily to remove a ring and small glass vial, which he tucked into the sleeve of his robes before he handed the pouch to Niko. "I believe there's three or four crowns in there, Niko. Does that make you feel better?"
Well, of course it did, he thought, as he let the half-dozen-or-so coins fall into his hand, and made a fist around the hard, cold weight after a quick glance downward.
Niko had never held a gold coin before, although he knew that you were supposed to bite into a gold coin, to make sure that it was gold, but the knights would surely take offense at that, and he did believe that these were indeed gold. Niko didn't believe in this nonsense about almost two hundred more to come, but what of that?
This money alone could purchase enough hickory to smoke a lifetime's-worth of fish, a pile of hard candy that was taller than his sisters, and still leave more than enough left for a calf and a bull and enough oats to feed them forever.
New nets, bronze wire for more crab traps—he was suddenly a rich man, one more than able to meet any bride-price that Stavros could think of asking. If Father had known that his death would bring such wealth to his family, he would surely have thrown himself on that cursed sword with a smile on his worry-lined face.
And for the promise, a believable promise, of almost two hundred more?
Bear was still waiting for him to respond, and Gray's face had clouded over.
"I would have taken your word, sir," Niko said, choosing his words carefully.
"But gold in the hand is even better, eh?" Bear smiled.
Gray glowered.
Cully laughed out loud.
The lightning flashed, and the thunder roared.
The storm had passed, leaving behind good fortune in its wake.
For the third day in a row, the Wellesley lay at anchor just off Silver Point, rolling slowly in the gentle, post-storm swells. Off in the distance, the ship's launch was moving quickly, close-hauled, toward where the twin masts of the Abdullahs' fishing sloop was just barely visible, while the Wellesley's longboat was beached on Marcosia next to Scolia's Rock so that a hunting party could try for some more goats to supplement the ship's stores with fresh meat.
That last vaguely bothered Niko, although he didn't know why; Marcosia hadn't been inhabited in living memory, and there was nobody to care if the Navy swept it clear of life, and nobody who would object, even if they did care.
Niko took a secret pleasure in the Abdullahs being shooed away like they were bunch of chickens, and he surreptitiously patted at the pouch concealed beneath his kirtle, trying to ignore the discomfort of the doubled thong he had tied too tightly around his waist.
It was a fair enough trade. Most of the coins, of course, were still in the knights' strongbox, although Sir David had ceremoniously counted them out for him, and separated them into a separate leather bag, not commenting at all when Niko had taken out a handful, and put them in the pouch that Sir David had given him.
He needed to keep that with him. He didn't really believe that he'd be allowed to keep the entire fortune, but a dozen crowns was a sum so large he could barely wrap his mind around it, and if the thong bit into his flesh, what of that?
Much better to put up with that discomfort than have to worry about losing all his family's newfound fortune, which he did, day and night, sleeping only a little, and waking at the lightest sound. He had been billeted with what were called the mid-ship-men, although they seemed to have little to do with the middle of the ship, and were not men at all, any more than Niko was—less, if anything; not one of them had a proper beard.
Their quarters were well toward the bow of the ship, on the second deck, and the "men" were boys of about his age who, strangely, seemed to be given deference by the sailors, although he couldn't see why. It wasn't that the sailors treated boys that way—the "runners" got their share of muttered curses and occasional clouts.
Maybe it was the clothing. The mid-ship-men wore officers' clothes, while the runners had merely sailors' trousers and jerkins.
Still, it was interesting to listen to the mid-ship-men talk at table, with the oldest one presiding, and enough of that strangely potent wine regularly served to have him reeling off to bed to lie down on his pouch and fall asleep immediately thereafter.
The main result of him being billeted with these men-who-were-boys was that sailors and soldiers treated him with the same deference they treated the mid-ship-men, and, unless engaged in some work, all but the officers would stand and assume that curious stiff posture when he walked by, although they didn't bring their hands to their foreheads for him.
Outlanders were strange, but he could get used to that part of it, as funny as it looked.
It was strange not having any real work to do since the skiff had been taken aboard, and in fact he was going to leave the ship with it in better shape than it was taken aboard in, as a bunch of particularly scruffy-looking sailors—mid-ship-man Reifer had called them "prisoners at large," whatever that meant—had been set to working on its hull with bricks, sand, and tar in the middle hold, while the boy who seemed to be the sailmaker's servant busied himself with reinforcing seams and patches on the skiff's sails. Mid-ship-man Reifer had explained that Niko was not to speak to the men working on the hull—and certainly not pay them—but that a few coppers to the sailmaker's boy were traditional, and had shown disdain when Niko had inquired precisely how many were "a few."
Niko could live with the scorn. They were all outlanders, after all.
The only thing that was uncomfortable was being required to help supervise things from the raised rear deck, along with another man named Bosun, while the captain and Sir Bear looked on, saying little.
This bosun was strange-looking in a different way than the other one; where the other one was squat and muscular, this one was tall and lean—with hair the color of straw!—and a peg where of his right foot and part of his leg should have been. That lack didn't inhibit either his movement or his mouth—he kept moving about the raised deck, the brass ferule capping his peg maintaining the beat of his incessant stream of abuse to the sailors walking round and round, pushing the wooden arms of the strange device that, so Sir Bear had said, constantly delivered fresh air to the divers below, and that surely kept the calm sea churning with bubbles.
Shipboard life was apparently not terribly busy, as easily a dozen sailors were lolling against the rail below, just standing and watching what was going on, apparently not having any real work to do, other than staying out of the way of the soldiers—Sir Bear said they were called "marines"—engaged in some bizarre outlander rituals that involved all performing the same motions on space that had been cleared on the main deck.
Other groups of sailors took turns seeing how quickly they could load and fire the foremost mangonels and catapults, the mangonels apparently for distance—rocks were cheap, and could easily be resupplied from shore—and the catapults for accuracy, using one of the several targets that had been towed some distance away, then anchored in place.
There was, unsurprisingly, some cursing from the bosun's friend supervising it when the catapulters missed, but only silence when, about one time in five, the bolts actually hit the floating target.
Still, there was constant talking, and that took some getting used to, and he still wasn't quite used to it.
The man standing on the platform at the top of the main mast was constantly shouting out reports to nobody in particular, and one of the young boys called "runners" were always coming up to the captain, taking that strange stiff position, and rattling off something that always began with somebody's compliments and ended with the captain gravely nodding, taking a puff on his pipe, and giving a set of instructions that always ended with "on your way, and smartly."
How anybody was able to think with all this chatter was beyond Niko's comprehension. A fisherman's life was much simpler.
Grayling and Cully were nowhere to be seen. For the past days they had mainly stayed below, which left Niko thinking that Bear was the junior of the three, minding to their affairs while his seniors got away from the noise and clatter. As far as Niko had seen, the only time that the two other knights were regularly on deck was for their late-afternoon sparring sessions, where all three knights would don padded clothing and go at each other—sometimes one-on-one; other times two-on-one, or each on all—with various wooden implements as well as bare hands, only quitting when all were breathing heavily and bathed in sweat, and would unselfconsciously strip down to their bare skins and go over the side for a quick swim, leaving behind their gear to be gathered up and washed by some of the same "prisoners-at-large" who were working on Niko's skiff.
A couple of times Bear and Gray had even put on that strange metal clothing over their padding, and that had been even stranger to see.
Bear looked over the side at the diver on the raft below, and shook his head. "Nothing, he says." He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. "I've got something to ask you, Niko, but I don't want you to think it a threat. I mean you no ill, I swear."
He kept saying things like that, as though the words would reassure Niko, and, well, maybe they did, at least a little. Anything was better than the piercing stares that Sir Joshua gave him.
"Yes, sir," Niko said.
"Oh, don't stand at attention. It looks silly on you—you're not in His Majesty's service, or in Hers, either. Are you sure that we're at the right spot? The same spot where you brought it up?"
"Yes, sir." The question had been hanging in the air for the past three days, and he had checked, time and time again, but he went through the motions of looking at Scolia's Rock again, but the jagged rock face was just to the left of it, as he remembered.
"I could take a turn below, if you'd like," he said, hopefully.
Niko was more than a little curious about the diving bell. The notion of being able to get the benefit of returning to the surface without returning to the surface was enticing, although it seemed like cheating.
But, as Grandfather always said, anything that filled the nets with fish was the right thing to do, and it might be possible to use even a hoop-net to gather fish, if you could simply loiter around on the bottom and wait.
"I've thought on that," Sir Bear said, then shook his head. "But there's some tricks to using a diving bell—it's not quite as easy as it looks, and there's a sickness you can get if you stay down too long or come up too quickly—and I'd not want to lose you, even if I didn't find you pleasant company. As I do." He smiled and gave Niko a friendly pat on the arm, then beckoned to the captain, who dispatched the latest runner with the usual "on your way, and smartly now," and stalked over to join them.
"I'm thinking," Sir Bear said, "of moving the ship again—of asking you to move the ship again, that is. Perhaps a hundred yards out?"
Captain Johansen puffed a few times on his pipe before answering. "Hmm. Begging your pardon and all, Sir David, but perhaps you could tend to your knitting and permit me to tend to mine?"
Niko half expected the sky to split open and vomit lightning and thunder, but the big knight just smiled. "I could. Perhaps you could explain to me why?"
"Of course." Johansen nodded. "Of course. It's a big sea, Sir David. Very big," he said slowly, as though he wasn't sure that the knight had noticed that the sea was large. Perhaps he hadn't been told that it was wet, either? Outlanders were strange. "And the currents hereabouts are damnably tricky," the captain went on, "and change with every tide; something on the bottom could easily tend to be pushed this way and that, and this way might be a much longer distance than that." He pointed the stem of his pipe at the windward shore of the island. "Anything driven to a stable position would be likely driven there, which is why I've had the longboat over there most of the past two days, in water shallow enough that the divers don't need the bell, and they've found nothing there, either, save for some old pottery shards, which suggests to me that the currents sweep things clean hereabouts."
"Which is why—"
"If you'll excuse me, sir, that's why, if we're going to find anything that was on the bottom here, we're going to find it near here, or we're not going to find it at all." He took a few puffs from his pipe, thinking it over, or at least affecting to.
"You give me half the Fleet and half a century, and I could search this stretch of sea, perhaps. But steel is heavy, and metal, when it's thrown in the water, it sinks—steel rarely floats, sir; not even small pieces—and if something or some things, if you take my meaning, were thrown over the side here, even some long time ago, they're likely on the bottom here, even now, unless they're too far away to find. I'm assuming that if there is another sword here—and I say if—it was covered and uncovered by sand, not blown about like a bit of fluff, or driftwood." He puffed some more. "The bottom sand is deep here, deeper than any of the sounding poles can reach. I've got my divers searching the bottom, of course, but poling the entire bottom, even for just a few leagues, would take months, or longer."
"And if we can't find it?"
"Then either it's not here, or nobody else could find it here, any more than we could, without a fleet and a century, and some bloody good luck. Sir."
Sir Bear nodded. "Which will have to do."
"There is the other alternative, sir. A master wizard, sir, of the Royal Academy—"
"Would be no more capable finding a live sword than a diver would, and much less so, unless he were a skilled diver himself. It's not like the swords announce themselves, Captain, although I wouldn't doubt that most would want to, some exceptions aside." He patted at the hilt of the sword at his hip. "Red Swords tend toward the thirsty," he said, with a quick glance at Niko, "and they call out as loudly as they can, so I'm told, but you have to be in contact with them, metal to flesh, to hear it—at least, very close to that contact." He shook his head. "Perhaps one of the Great Wizards could hear the call a short ways away, but even She wouldn't be of much use in this—we're talking about a few feet, at the most."
The captain started to say something, but then stopped himself.
"No," Sir Bear said. "I didn't ask Her myself; I wouldn't disturb her. But Gray—Sir Joshua did. Well, She summoned him—that's why we're here. Word of what sounded like it might have been an unknown live sword worried Her, Captain. As it should." He shook his head. "No; the only way we could locate it by unearthly means is if God Himself takes a hand."
"He answers prayers upon occasion, I'm told," the captain said.
"He always answers prayers, Captain. And that's what Father Cully and Sir Joshua have spent every spare moment doing, over the past three days. I've spent a moment in prayer on the matter myself, as well."
"A moment?"
"Yes; just a moment." Bear nodded. "It's one of the things I disagree with many of my fathers and brothers on. It seems to me that since He notes the sparrow's fall, a quiet word or two is sufficient; He does not need to be shouted at. I pray thrice a day, but I do so for the sake of my own soul, not to nag Him." Once again, he touched his hand to the hilt of one of his swords; once again, he sighed. "So be it. We're done here. Please be so kind as to recall the divers, the cutter, and the longboat; prepare to raise anchor."
"Aye, sir." The captain casually touched the stem of his pipe to his forehead and walked away, already beckoning to the waiting runner.
Bear turned to Niko. "We'll get you home, and then return to Pironesia. Perhaps there have been some developments there, or perhaps Cully or Gray will have some other idea." He smiled. "I'll see that you're paid your full reward before you're off-loaded; there's no need to worry on that score."
Niko nodded. "Thank you."
"Then why the concern?"
"I—I don't know." He still couldn't understand these knights.
"Really, Niko—it's safe to ask me any question; I'm not easily offended."
"Well, sir, meaning no offense, honestly, sir, but I've been trying to figure things out, and if I understand it correctly, you're the junior of the three knights—but you didn't ask permission from the other two before ordering the captain about, and, well, this is a big ship and . . ."
He let his voice trail off; Bear was smiling, and Niko was just rambling.
"Well," Bear said, "when it comes to Father Cully, it's much more complicated than that, although, yes, Gray's my senior in the Order, not just in years, but in rank. But I am a Knight of the Crown, Shield, and Dragon, Niko, and a knight is expected to be able to make decisions by himself—and I don't need to beg Gray's permission when it comes to matters so obvious." His grin widened. "Although when we were boys at Alton, matters were somewhat different. But we were both just novices then, not knights.
"But enough of that. Mmmm . . . and I should hear your confession, and that of the rest of your family, as well, unless you'd prefer that Gray hears it? I know that you don't travel to the port very often, and the local bishop seems rather lax in dispatching priests," he said, frowning in disapproval.
"Whichever, sir. You'd be fine. So would either of the other two." He tried to seem eager; you were supposed to be eager about that sort of thing.
Bear smiled. "Good. Not that it should make any difference to you, but I'm a lighter penance than Gray is, and Father Cully . . ." He let his voice trail off, then shook his head. "Well, Father Cully is of the opinion that he's not a priest anymore, so he probably wouldn't hear your confession in any case. Let's find ourselves some privacy and get to it, shall we?"
"Yes, sir."
It had been an interesting few days, but not as interesting as the thoughts of what two hundred crowns of gold could buy. This business with the swords was the knights' affair, not his, and while they had treated him well, he'd be more than happy to see the Wellesley vanish over the horizon, leaving the gold—two hundred crowns!—behind.
"You say that your—that the One True God often answers prayers, Sir Bear?"
"Always." Bear nodded. "He always answers prayers, Niko. But often, so often, the answer is no."
Home.
Even a shallow-water fisherman could find rounding the lee side of his island a warming time, and this time Niko had more to be warmed about than the usual. The gold had been loaded into a small strongbox—they had just given it to him!—and locked with a key that even now hung from the thong around Niko's waist beneath his kirtle, along with the small pouch that he couldn't quite bear to let go of.
Unsurprisingly, the family was still working hard—the wisps of smoke blowing across the water spoke of active smokehouses and that spoke of some remarkably good shore fishing.
There was much to think about. His first thought was that they should keep the fortune a secret—let Grandfather negotiate a decent bride-price, before Stavros found out about it. But would Stavros feel that he had been taken advantage of?
And what would they do with it? Father Cully had spent an evening talking to Niko about what he called investment, as though a fisherman could just walk into Pironesia, lay down gold to purchase, say, a dockside warehouse, and expect to keep it.
Probably the best thing to do would be to let out word that the outlanders had given him some relatively small amount of money. Word of this sort of fortune would spread fast and far, and might even reach as far away as Seeproosh and draw pirates. That kind of money might make the risk of entering Navy-patrolled waters appeal to a pirate, although perhaps not.
Another thing to think about.
But it was probably worth spending at least some of the money on an appropriate sacrifice. The very idea of buying a bull to offer up to Poseidon would have seemed preposterous a week ago, but now it seemed like it could be a useful investment. What did a bull cost, anyway? Two silver crowns, perhaps four? It would have to be handled carefully, making it clear that the bull was being bought for breeding, lest the One True Church think that they were sacrificing it.
As, indeed, they would.
It could be that the sea would disgorge itself of another of these cursed swords, and the reward would turn that into a blessing—this time, he would know better than Father had, not to touch hand to metal, and would know better than Grandfather had that there was not only a curse on the sword, but a reward, as well.
It was a—
Wait. There wasn't too much smoke, but it was too broadly spread.
And there was something strange on the shoreline. The remnants of a fire? But why would Grandfather make a fire on the shore?
"Three bodies, sir, lying on the shore," the lookout called from atop the mast. He raised the glass to his eye again. "Hard to say for sure, but I don't think they're moving."
No.
Niko's gorge rose. He dropped to his knees, his bowels heaving.