Underway
O arlocks groaned as they drew near the Messenger.
“Nice ship,” Laren said.
“It is,” Stevic replied. “King Zachary insisted I helm this particular one for your journey home.”
He watched her reaction as she took in the ship’s name board and they passed beneath the prow and the feet of the figurehead. She shifted on the bench to get a better look at it, and raised both eyebrows.
“Oh, Zachary,” she murmured, and shook her head.
“You recognize her?” Stevic asked.
She nodded slowly.
“Sevano and I think it rather resembles Karigan. A coincidence, surely. What do you think?”
“I think,” she replied, “it’s a discussion for another time.”
Her answer perplexed him, but then they pulled up along the starboard hull and his attention was focused on getting the longboat passengers and crew up the rope ladder.
After he himself gained the deck, he assisted those climbing up from the second longboat.
When this was completed, he ordered Sevano, who acted as his first mate, to prepare to sail.
“Aye, Chief,” Sevano said, and he hoisted a bundle wrapped in canvas onto his shoulder.
“What do you have there?” Stevic asked.
Sevano peeled back a length of canvas, and gold glistened.
Stevic laughed. “The angweld cloth? You saved the angweld cloth? I ought to clap you in irons for insubordination, but I am too pleased, my friend.” He placed his hand on Sevano’s shoulder. “You may have saved the clan.”
Sevano grunted. “With this, and what we got from the king yesterday, you ought to at least keep the crew and me happy with our usual pay, and a bonus besides. I’ll go now, secure the cloth, and get us underway.”
Stevic shook his head and watched as his old friend walked the deck, ordering the crew about.
The women they had brought aboard were huddled together near the main mast, but Laren stood apart, speaking quietly with Master Hunt. Stevic joined them.
“Getting the Kir-kranyans to stand up for themselves may be the least of it,” Master Hunt was telling Laren.
“A coup?” she asked.
Master Hunt nodded.
She gazed thoughtfully back toward the harbor. The white and gold palace of King Farrad Vir that had been so prominent a feature on the harbor’s hillside was now ablaze. “Such power,” she murmured, “in uttering so small a word.”
Master Hunt turned to Stevic. “Well done, Chief G’ladheon. King Zachary will be most pleased to have his colonel back, and I doubt we’ll have pursuit.”
“There’s little danger of that since their ships could never overtake Messenger .”
Master Hunt made a noncommittal sound and headed back to the rail to watch the sailors rushing about as they prepared to set sail.
“Why do I get the feeling,” Stevic told Laren, “that this whole endeavor wasn’t just about rescuing you?”
“Zachary has interests in many realms,” Laren replied. “My being in Varos offered an opportunity.”
And sending Messenger to Varos had truly been a message of sorts.
Sacoridia’s king was more formidable than he had imagined, and in rescuing Laren, Stevic had been but a game piece on an Intrigue board.
He was not sure how to feel about that, but he hoped to hear more about it from Laren.
Her comment about “so small a word” made him curious to know what she meant.
“Is that my daughter hanging from that upper spar?” she asked before he could pursue his own questions. She craned her neck to observe the sailors preparing to unfurl the top sail.
“It is,” he replied.
“You’ve turned her into a sailor ?”
“She is an able hand,” he replied, “but I believe she’s other plans for herself.”
“Red!” Elgin limped toward them, his arms wide. Laren rushed into her friend’s embrace. “You’re all right, lass. You’re all right!”
“I am. Good to see you again. Did Stevic draw you into this adventure, too?”
“Couldn’t keep me away.”
Stevic left the two to their reunion and became busy with navigating out of the harbor and making arrangements for the women, which meant shifting cabin assignments.
He gave Laren his own, the captain’s cabin, and would bunk with Sevano.
With most of their cargo left in the burning palace of King Farrad Vir, there was ample space for everyone.
And though they had taken on fresh supplies, more mouths to feed meant stopping at additional ports on their voyage home.
A couple hours later, they made good headway into open water with Sojourner, its figurehead that of a sailor, flanking them. He found Laren at the rail with the other women grouped around her. The breeze took away most of her words, but he moved close enough to hear her ask, “Are we ready, ladies?”
The women shouted “Yi ! ” and “Yes!” and “Aye!” and “Oha!” and laughed.
“Well, then,” Laren said, “let us do it now.”
They produced the veils the Varosians had forced them to wear and cast them to the wind.
The colorful, silky lengths of cloth uncoiled and lofted in the air with rippling yellows, reds, blues, purples, and greens taking flight like caged birds released to freedom.
In Varos, women were not people, and he assumed the veils were not just for modesty in that culture but another way to dehumanize the women by taking away their faces.
And what faces they were! Full of dazzling smiles and laughter, the women were happy to be free, it seemed, to have the fresh wind streaming through their hair as they left captivity behind.
He missed what was said next, until he heard Laren ask, “Now, who would like the honor?”
“Amina!” said one of the women, a Tallitrean.
“Amina,” the others agreed.
Amina of the broomstick. Stevic wasn’t sure where she was from.
Her accent was strange. He wondered if maybe she was of the desert lands, maybe from one of the wandering tribes?
He had encountered a few of those folk in his travels, and her bronze complexion and straight raven hair reminded him of them.
If so, King Farrad Vir’s agents had gone to great lengths to collect his women.
Amina grinned. Delicate of feature, her eyes alight, she stepped before Laren with her palm extended. With great ceremony, Laren raised her hand above her head. Pinched between the tips of her index finger and thumb was the ring of Tol Asmerand. She then placed it on Amina’s palm.
Amina held it there and spoke softly in solemn tones.
Stevic did not wish to intrude and so he approached no closer, even to hear what was said.
She then clasped the ring in her fist and, after a heartbeat, threw it into the ocean.
The women, now free, applauded and hugged and laughed.
Soon they moved on, leaving Laren alone at the rail.
Alone. There’d been little opportunity to speak to her alone.
Her rescue had not gone the way of his many fantasies conjured up during the voyage to Varos, of her throwing herself into his heroic arms. There had been just too many things that had needed attending to, like getting the ship underway, and signaling Sojourner to join them, and too many people to observe them.
He worried also that captivity might have changed her feelings for him, and a pang of doubt rippled through his chest. She stood at the rail, her expression unguarded and serene as she watched the horizon. The sun stroked her hair, turning it to new copper.
He strode up next to her and leaned on the rail, but did not speak.
He, too, looked outward. In the distance lay the islands where they’d meet up with Stargazer.
Messenger undulated gently as it cut through the blue-green waves, spray casting off the prow and sparkling in the light.
Overhead, the sails billowed and rustled.
“How is your man, Ewen?” she asked.
“Lost a lot of blood, but Roderic is confident he’ll pull through.”
“I’m glad,” she replied, then continued gazing across the water.
He stood silently beside her, burning with questions, but hesitant to push her after all she’d been through. However, she spoke of her own accord.
“They kept me chained in the hold on the voyage over,” Laren said, without shifting her gaze. “With the livestock and other prisoners. It was dark and damp, and I saw nothing of our passage. Several of us grew ill.” She shuddered and fell silent again.
“You are free,” Stevic said.
She looked at him then. “Am I?” She tapped the bronze disk embedded in her neck. “Tol Asmerand was not the only one who possessed a control ring.”
“I will not allow any Varosian within a thousand miles of you.”
“Thank you for that,” she replied, “but I’ll never be free with this thing on me.”
“Whatever I can do to alleviate your burden, whatever you need, just ask.”
“All right, I do have a request.”
“Anything.”
“When your mender is available, I want the disk cut off. I suspect the others will want theirs removed, as well.”
He swallowed hard. The metal was fused into the skin, and while the disks were not large, no larger than a silver coin, a fair amount of skin would have to be carved off.
“If that is what you wish...”
“I will not abide the mark of another’s ownership of me,” she said.
“Nor the chance that another Varosian, or anyone who might possess a control ring, use it on me.” She looked once more out to sea.
“Tol Asmerand took great joy in training me. Thing was, he was not content to use it just for training. Even when I was compliant, he used it simply because he enjoyed the power he possessed over me. He wished to break me entirely.” After a time she added, “I know you are full of questions.”
“I am,” he said, “about everything, like the centipede they put in your ear.”
“I will tell you soon. I just need...I need some grace.”
They stood together in silence until Stevic was called away to go over some charts with his helmsman.
Later, when he went to ensure Laren was settled in his former cabin, he found Melry there, a green shortcoat gleaming with gold embroidery in her hands. She had brought along a chest on the voyage full of her mother’s things, thinking they’d be of use if the rescue proved successful.
Laren stood with her hands on her hips, facing her daughter.
“I apologize if I’m intruding,” Stevic said. “I can come back later.”
“Maybe you can talk some sense into her,” Melry told Stevic. She folded the shortcoat and placed it in the chest before brushing by him on her way out.
“What was that about?” Stevic asked Laren.
She sighed. “You might as well know, too,” she said. “I’m no longer a Green Rider.”