Chapter Two
A hand on Roanna’s shoulder jerked her awake. Fingers dug into her collarbone and wrenched her to her feet. She shrieked, and her knees buckled, but before they gave way, a second hand grabbed her and yanked her upright.
“What are you doing here?” the man demanded, shaking her.
She was struggling to comprehend when she heard her daughter’s shriek.
“Pandy!” she cried, unable to make out what was happening.
“Get the waif,” shouted the man who was holding her, his eyes on something behind her. A second later, he nodded and returned his attention to her. Taking Roanna’s chin in his hand, her brought her face close, pinching her mouth and cheeks between his fingers.
“I asked what you are doing here.”
“Mother! They’re hurting me.”
Her daughter’s voice tore at her, drawing her attention.
“Leave her alone,” Roanna shouted, then sank her teeth into the flesh between the man’s thumb and forefinger.
He howled and tore back his hand. Backhanding her with the other, he sent her careening into a bulkhead. Stunned by the impact, Roanna almost sat. Knees bent and her back against the boards, she planted both feet and braced herself. With a shake of her head she struggled to rise. Once she was standing, she tried again to make sense of what was happening.
The smell of brine and planking overhead, the boarded floor and walls, all served to remind her this was the ship’s hold where she and Pandy had taken refuge. Timbers creaked and the floor shifted, suggesting they were now underway. Scant light filtering through the cracks provided the barest visibility, but she made out two men holding Pandy. The one who had struck her seized her arm, this time with a grip she knew she could not break. She realized she had reacted badly, and things would not go well because of it. Even so, she met his eyes and shouted, “Tell your men to let my daughter go.”
“Are you giving me orders?” he growled as droplets of saliva spattered her face.
He shook his hand and regarded the tooth marks she had left. His face soured and he struck her again, then turned to another man standing near the stairs.
“Help me with this bitch.”
Roanna struggled to break free, but the second man seized her other arm.
“Think you’re smart?” asked the man holding her, jerking her toward him. “Try explaining yourself to the captain.” He forced a smile and softened his voice in feigned camaraderie. “Word of advice. Unlike me, he’s a man of no patience whatsoever.”
His smile broadened when Roanna recoiled from his breath.
“Love me, do you?” he asked, then threw back his head and guffawed.
He dragged her to the staircase and pulled her up after him. Roanna tried to glance back to see what was happening, but pinioned as she was, she could only listen and try to learn from the noises how her daughter was faring.
She cursed herself for failing to look beyond coming aboard. The fact that these last few days had exhausted her, robbing her of critical thought, did little to alleviate her guilt, and the pounding she was taking as the men hauled her topside prevented her from envisioning anything beyond the present.
The one giving orders shoved the hatch cover open, causing it to pivot on its hinges and slam onto the deck. Maintaining his grip, he pulled Roanna up the last few steps into daylight, and the brilliance forced her to squint. She stumbled from the hatch and would have fallen had the men not been holding onto her.
“Bosun! What have you there?” someone called from across the deck.
“Stowaways,” the foul-breathed man shouted back.
The one who had hailed, a man perhaps in his fifties, stood with his hands planted on the poop deck’s railing, and was leaning toward them. His uniform—a dark blue tailcoat and matching tri-cornered hat, both trimmed with gold—set him apart from the crew.
“Found the ones who stole the skiff and set her adrift, Cap’n.”
“Thieves, you say? Bring them here where I can see them.”
As the bosun and his shipmate dragged Roanna toward him, she glanced back. Another crewman had slung Pandy over his shoulder and was toting her like a sack full of grain. Roanna hated the way he was handling her, but feared he would hurt her out of spite if she dared to object. She didn’t have long to assess her surroundings, but she knew she had to get things right.
Glancing around, she saw the vessel was far larger than she had envisioned. It sported four tall masts, and instead of square-cut sails, each canvas was a large quadrangle—a rectangle with a diagonal cut across the top. Although this was her first time aboard any kind of ship, she could tell they had been underway for what might have been hours. The land was already well off to her right, which would put it due east. That meant they were heading north, perhaps to Monhedeth or lands beyond. Although the stiffness of the breeze, the ship’s tilt, and the hiss of water against the hull indicated they were making good time, the binary suns were still low in the sky, so she suspected the ship had set sail in the dark hours before dawn to have come this far out so early.
“Here they are, Captain,” the bosun said, sending Roanna towards him with a shove.
Pandy’s escort followed suit, dropping the girl onto the deck beside her. Roanna began to help, thought better, and turned to face the captain instead. She drew herself upright, standing as tall as she could, then smoothed her rumpled leathers.
“Captain,” she asked, trying to take the anger out of her face, “is this treatment really necessary? My daughter is just a child, hardly a criminal, and we have neither harmed nor threatened your crew.”
“But you’ve lost my property, haven’t you?” he asked. “You are the ones who stole my boat and set it adrift.”
“We were running for our lives, running from men who were hunting us with wolves. Unarmed, we didn’t have much choice.”
“So you admit you are criminals.”
“These days, not everyone who runs is guilty,” she replied. “You should know the state of the world as well as anyone. All the lands are at war, and none of us is safe.”
“The fact remains, you came aboard uninvited. I have provisions enough for my crew and have no need for two extra mouths. Why shouldn’t I toss you over the side?”
She didn’t have time to consult the future. Hesitation would not do, but the wrong answer could be deadly.
“My name is Roanna and this is my daughter, Pandy,” she began evenly.
Then, uncertain whether he might be sympathetic to Essem Cargath, she veered from the truth, deciding the general panic of the lands east of Sandoval would serve her better.
“Hath Kael is waging war with Liad-Nur, and we were running for our lives. Somewhere along the way, we learned we were being pursued. We didn’t dare stop to ask why. If they meant to rob us or kill us, what chance would the two of us have had when they caught up with us? When we reached Sandoval, the harbor was deserted. We had run out of land and your ship was our only option. We had no choice, Captain. There was nowhere left to run.”
She paused for barely an instant, then insisted, “But we are not stowaways. I have some money for our passage. Had the ship not been empty, I would have offered to pay when we came aboard. We came to the harbor with exactly that intention.”
That part was not a lie.
“Our pursuers forced us to come aboard in the manner we did.”
The captain stroked his chin, then looked to someone behind her and pointed.
“You. What’s your name? Didn’t you tell me you were fleeing that battle when I signed you on?”
“My name is Harad, Captain,” a man answered.
Although Roanna was curious about the man he was addressing, she thought it best not to turn.
“And, yes, I said as much,” Harad admitted.
“Did you come across these two females on your way?”
“It is a long road through Chadarr to Sandoval. I crossed many paths and saw many faces. Still, I have to tell you, these two do have a familiar look. I couldn’t swear to it but, yes, I believe I saw them more than once along the way.”
Roanna whirled. She knew it looked bad, but she and Pandy had not come that way and his support caught her by surprise. Harad met her stare, but his face revealed nothing. He gave her a nod and slight smile, then returned his eyes to the captain.
“And you, Roanna, do you remember seeing this man?”
“The road through Chadarr to Sandoval is very long, indeed,” she affirmed, which in itself was not untrue. “I cannot say if we saw him, nor will I tell you we did not.”
The captain paused. He shook his head and frowned.
“A ship is no place for women or young girls. Being confined with this many men carries obvious risks, but there is nowhere between here and No’eth to lay in and put you ashore. You will debark at the first possible landfall. Until then, you will keep to yourselves. I will not be responsible for anything that happens to you between now and then. You chose to come aboard, and you will take responsibility for your own safety.”
“Thank you, Captain,” said Roanna with a smile and the best curtsy she could manage absent a dress.
Turning to the man who had brought her topside, the captain said, “Bosun. Make a space in the fo’c’s’le for the woman and the girl and instruct the men to keep their distance.”
The bosun replied with a sullen, “Aye, Cap’n,” then turned and headed forward and went belowdecks, motioning several men to follow.
Turning to Roanna, the captain said, “I will consider the price of your passage over the course of the day and I will give you my decision by morning.”
Roanna started to thank him, but when he turned away, she went to her daughter and embraced her.
“Oh, Pandy. We will be safe for a while.”
To her surprise, her daughter looked into her eyes and said, “You must leave the ship.”
“What did you say?” asked Roanna, certain she had misunderstood.
“I will be fine, but you must leave.”
Roanna frowned and shook her head.
“Nonsense. The captain has granted us passage. We will both be fine.”
“Look ahead, Mother. Look at the choices. He needs me. But if you stay, he will kill you.”
“You’re not making sense. Who will kill me? The captain?”
“No, Mother. Not the captain and not his men.”
“If not them, then who?”
Pandy paused, then with an exasperated sigh said, “Harad, Mother. Harad will kill you. He doesn’t need you, but he intends to take me with him. Please, look ahead.”
She looked into her daughter’s eyes, then looked around for the stranger. A short distance away, near the rail, the man had separated himself from the crew and stood staring. Harad met Roanna’s gaze with a smile and a wink. His eyes held neither kindness nor friendship, and Roanna, looking ahead, saw Pandy was right. If she remained, she would die before morning.
“I won’t leave you here,” she said. “If we have to leave, we’re leaving together. We’ll jump ship if we have to.”
She turned and took Pandy to the railing across from Harad. She grasped it and stared out over the water. Her thoughts spun through what could happen if both were to go, and all of the outcomes were tragic and black. Panicked and uncertain what to do next, she stood watching the bow wave stream past in an endless ribbon until a tug on her sleeve returned her to the present.
“What is it?”
“There isn’t much time, Mother. A critical moment is approaching.”
A critical moment was a concept Roanna had taught Pandy long ago when she was trying to describe a point in time when an opportunity could either be seized or lost forever. Roanna thought of time as a river and had always pictured herself floating down the stream on a platform. Most of the time, all one could do was move the platform a little to one side of the stream or the other, changing the view a bit as one headed towards an unvarying destination. Every now and then, however, the stream branched and a new platform, heading down the other fork towards a new destination would present itself. Sometimes one would have a great deal of time to consider the consequences of jumping onto the second platform, sometimes almost none at all. But there was always a point in the flow of events when, if a decision were not made and acted upon in that instant, the opportunity would disappear forever. Pandy was saying that one of these instances—a critical moment—was almost upon them.
“There’s lots of time between now and daybreak. We can find a way,” she said, trying to diminish the urgency in the girl’s words. Roanna was about to ask her to clarify what she had seen when Pandy said, “I love you, Mother. Grab the log.”
“What …?” she started to say, but Pandy pushed hard against her middle with both hands, almost knocking the breath from her lungs, as she launched Roanna over the railing.
Not all outcomes were foreseeable. Too many unmade decisions clouded the yet-to-be. But as Roanna cleared the railing, floating weightless—before her heels struck wood and upended her—she thought she saw a look of satisfaction in her daughter’s eyes and knew Pandy’s choice had been correct. Never mind they would not see each other for a long time to come. Pandy would live, and so would she. Her feet flipped upwards and sent her spinning and plummeting downwards.
Cold!
The icy water stunned her, returning her to the moment. Roanna’s eyes followed the curtain of bubbles rising and saw she was still near the surface. Instinctively, even though she was a poor swimmer at best, she brought her arms down hard against her sides and the force of the act moved her toward the light. When her ascent slowed, she kicked hard, brought her arms down again and broke the surface a second after.
Gasping for breath and casting around for the ship, Roanna saw the stern disappear as an ocean swell moved between them. The sound of its hull cutting through the waves receded and was replaced by the slap of water against her head and shoulders. Any thoughts of loss, however, were soon replaced by a new urgency. The weight of her sodden leather clothing was pulling her back under, and she knew she could only remain afloat a minute longer at best.
How far was the shore? She turned towards it as she fought to prevent herself from submerging. She could barely make out the shoreline beyond the swells. Even so, she realized the distance was much too far to swim. It was then that a large dark shape loomed in the corner of her sight. As her body came around, she looked up to see … a portion of a tree! What had once been a tree was now a stump.
“Grab the log,” her daughter had told her.
As it came within reach, she grabbed and held on, realizing had she hit the water a few minutes sooner or a few minutes later, she wouldn’t have landed where she did. In fact, had she not turned around at that very instant, it might have drifted beyond her reach. A critical moment. Life or death. Pandy had reacted in time.
Roanna held tight, fearing what would happen should she lose her grip and surrender the tree to the currents. She searched the weathered hulk for purchase and gradually pulled herself up from the sea to a place where she could sit and dry in the sunlight, riding the thing until it eventually came ashore. It would, too. She could see it coming aground. The joy of this realization quickly soured because, on one hand, she knew her young daughter was right, but on the other …
“Oh, Pandy!” she cried, and began sobbing because she could not foresee a reunion.
In all the girl’s fourteen years, Pandy and her mother had rarely been apart. Consequently, knowing Roanna would be all right, if only for the present, was still not enough to comfort her. As much as her foresight should have made parting easier, as much as averting her mother’s death removed whatever horror she would have felt had Roanna been trapped aboard this ship with a killer, the emptiness and pain welling inside were beyond her experience and threatened to drop her to her knees.
“Clever, aren’t you?” a voice interrupted.
Pandy knew at once who had spoken and turned to face him. As hard as it had been to watch her mother go, she refused to give Harad the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She swallowed, took a long deep breath, and returned his look with a stolid stare.
“Clever enough,” she replied in a monotone she hoped would conceal her emotions.
“Well, you have accomplished what I would have in another day or two. Less mess, but the result is the same. She is gone and now I have you all to myself. Come,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll show you to our cabin.”
Pandy twisted and wrenched free.
“The fo’c’s’le is forward, sir, and men are not welcome there.”
“That was while your mother was here. I’m taking care of you now.”
“I may have no say in what happens once I’m off this ship, but I think the captain will be displeased if he learns you have disobeyed his command. Shall we tell him?”
Harad’s expression soured. He removed his hand and took a step backward.
“You have a few more days before landfall,” he said. “Be a good little girl and don’t provoke me.”
He opened his mouth again, as if about to add something, then closed it and stalked off.