Epilogue The Sea Captain
Epilogue
The Sea Captain
For the past two years, the Mariner captain had enjoyed his stops in the Southern Isles not for the rest, though it was needed, nor for the hospitality, though it was some of the finest in the world. No, he made his way there, to a very specific inn on a very specific island, for one reason alone.
That reason was about five inches across. Perfectly circular and impossibly buttery. Soft and yet crisp, with a warm, gooey center of sliced apples, custard, and honey blended with spices he’d never found anywhere else in all his travels.
The crew of his ship often mused over why the captain insisted on detouring to this particular port, on an island shaped a bit like a bird’s wing. They reckoned it was a woman. Or a man. Perhaps even a family.
The captain snorted. He hadn’t told his crew anything about this place. Primarily because there were a limited number of the pastries every day. And the captain had no interest in sharing.
He sighed as he finished the last bite of pastry at one of the wooden tables on the porch outside the bakery. The beach stretched only a few yards from him, the sands as pink as the heart of a rose. Crystalline waves crashed in the distance, a soothing roar.
The truth was, his crew wasn’t refined enough for the likes of this pastry, nor the little inn where he’d first found it, a gem of a place.
They’d just act like boors and offend the proprietor, a stern-faced, dagger-eyed woman whom everyone was a little afraid of but whom the Mariner captain found endlessly intriguing.
“Another, Captain?” a voice inquired. “Bakery’s closing soon.”
“How could I refuse, Mistress Harper?” The captain smiled at the woman, who was tall and clad in the long tunic and ballooning pants that most island-folk wore.
The azure of the tunic brought out the blue in her eyes, which were bright as a jinn’s.
She was a beauty, though not the kind that any man with half a brain would approach—unless she invited it, of course.
The captain had fantasized about it plenty of times.
No luck, yet.
Ah well. There were other women willing to bed a widely traveled and, if he did say so himself, ruggedly handsome sea captain. Pastries of this quality were not as plentiful. He wouldn’t do anything to risk his supply.
“What news of the world?” Mistress Harper sat, extending her long legs in front of her and cracking her neck as she ran her fingers through cropped silvery-blond hair.
She had old, faded scars all along her arms and two thin silver scars on her cheeks.
Something about them always rang a tiny bell in the captain’s mind, but never loud enough for him to do much about.
The first rule of the Isles was whoever you were in the past didn’t matter.
And anyone digging it up would be dealt with accordingly.
“The Mariner king just married off his oldest daughter to a Kegari highborn,” the captain said. “Greedy for Loha, no doubt. And the port of Sadh has finally reopened, so I’ve a shipment of rugs I’ll be picking up.”
“Prices must be high.”
“I’ll sell them for higher.” The captain took a judicious bite of the pastry, trying to make it last. “Ankanese High Seer has stepped down. New one’s a bit of an extremist, I hear. Building her army.”
“To fight whom?” Mistress Harper said. “No one crosses the Ankanese.”
The captain shrugged. “They must be upset at someone. I’ll avoid that end of the world for a bit. More trade in Imaana and Mehbahn anyway. Rumor is the Kegari are escorting ships across the Southern Ocean now. Many riches to be had, for a price.”
“What of the Empire?”
The captain eyed her, surprised. She usually didn’t ask about one place in particular, but then, he had meandered a bit in his tellings.
“The cothon at Navium is finally rebuilt, as is the Imperial fleet,” the captain said. “About bleeding time. Damned Jibautian pirates were getting bolder than a sixteen-year-old with gold and a greedy tailor. The Empire should make safe the seas again. And I hear the young Emperor is finally—”
Mistress Harper stood suddenly, as if the captain wasn’t in the middle of the sentence. Her gaze fell upon two figures who’d appeared far along the beach, heading toward the inn.
“Forgive me, Captain.” She smiled and hung her apron on a hook. “I’ll leave you here. Bakery’s closed, but you’re welcome to sit. Take in the sunset. It’s beautiful this time of year.”
“Until next time, Mistress Harper.” He waved as she walked down the beach, a lightness in her step that the captain envied.
The two figures met her, too far away to see much of, except the man was a big fellow and the woman slender, with dark hair that fell down her back.
The three of them hugged, their laughter like bells on the sea breeze.
The captain scratched his beard as he watched them. Something about them struck him as familiar, some story he’d heard on his travels, some old tale—
It slipped out of his mind. He shrugged and ate his pastry, smiling as Mistress Harper walked along the water, arm-in-arm with her friends and slow as molasses, as if she had all the time in the world.
—30—