Forgotten Stairs Read online

  “Welcome aboard, Lady Soma,” he said and left me to enjoy the view.

  * * *

  The night was short and the morning rough. The easy waves we had cut through the previous day changed direction and became slowly larger as they pushed northeast up the coast, even as the wind blew steadily west. Asking after how this could be, Mercanfur told me the waves were likely from a large storm as far away as Eril. Waves just keep going until they run into something, he told me, but did not have time to tell me much more. He turned us out to sea for a time and then jogged back in, riding the waves diagonally to prevent us going nose first into the high and lazy waves.

  The high prow on the Phalia that I had thought so awkward-looking served her well as she pitched down into the trough of each wave and cut up into the next. She did not have to jog back and forth as we did.

  The greencoats liked the waves least of all. Up and left we rolled and pitched as our deeper keel was pushed upon by each wave. The crest of each lapped up the rail and sprayed all those on deck. Then back down and right we pitched and rolled. Up and left, down and right, up and left, down and right. They wet the deck with sick, and the stricken soldiers retreated below.

  I went down as well to check on Pix. It was a trek to get there. The wide rectangular space at the bottom of the companionway was not only jammed with our cargo but also the moaning greencoats. I had to climb over a few in order to reach the door astern that led to the tiny triangular wardroom where Mercanfur had installed my family. I found Pix sound asleep upon a cot while her father vomited into a bucket. He swore at me, so I closed the door and made my way back up.

  There was some commotion above, but the glare of the sun held me up for a time. I made it aloft, at last, to see half the crew gathered near the prow looking forward along the coast to an island with a tall tree-covered ridge. A narrow column of smoke rose from its forward slope. Its shore was a great tumble of wave-lashed stones.

  “Someone lives up there?” the boatswain asked as they contemplated the thin line of smoke.

  Mercanfur said, “On purpose? Not a very friendly shore.”

  A commotion aboard the Phalia drew my eyes. She was forward of us and a bit farther out to sea. Her crew worked to run out oars.

  I said, “Mercanfur, something—”

  “Corsair!” the lookout called. “Putting out from the bottom of the island. Two sails, Admiral. Thirty oars. She’s as big as a Bessradi war galley.”

  We could not see it from the deck. Our captain scurried up the yards like a squirrel up a tree. He was back down even faster and ran a pair of pennants up the lanyard that I knew. “All speed” and “proceed.” He was telling the Phalia to make a run for it.

  “Acknowledged,” the lookout called after reading the pennants that Etchpay raised in response.

  “Helmsman Rindsfar, our best line into the wind,” Mercanfur said. “Boatswain, all oars on the quick and make ready a sprint.”

  My husband got in the boatswain’s way as he started back toward his drum stand.

  “Turn us around,” he ordered Mercanfur.

  “Get below, Master Sevat,” Mercanfur replied calmly.

  “What? No. Do as I say, Admiral. We are not going to engage this corsair. Take us back to Enhedu. That is an order.”

  Mercanfur pointed a pair of his men at him. They snatched my husband by the wrists and collar and marched him below before he could say another word. The boatswain continued to his station. Lieutenant Kennculli and his sergeants joined me by the mast as the crew got into action around us. None of them worsened my embarrassment with comment on my landsman husband.

  Neither kings nor exaltiers countermand the orders of a ship’s commander when in sight of the enemy.

  “You think this corsair will engage us?” Bohn asked.

  “They are making a line on the Phalia, not us. Mercanfur means to make them turn.”

  “The risk …” the lieutenant said in a whisper and looked at me.

  I said, “It is hard to argue that I am more valuable than twenty men and a fat cargo of Enhedu’s crops and hogs.”

  “No,” he said sternly. “It is not.”

  We did not get a chance to argue it further. Mercanfur ordered us to the oars, and we leapt to our places.

  We got our first look at the corsair then, as the boatswain began beating the strokes. Our adversary was not impressive at first glance—another fisher like the Phalia, but larger, with a second triangle of patchwork cloth catching the wind forward of the prow. Her oars were not well organized, their rhythm lazy. They rode high in the water and fast, and their line would intercept the Phalia easily. Mercanfur needed to reach the corsair first, or our sister ship would be lost.

  “Who are they?” the sergeant asked. “Tracians?”

  “No one rules these shores,” one of the sailors said. “We never sail south, and I can’t imagine why they would ever want to go north. Enhedu’s peninsula has been nothing but trees and poor dirt farms for centuries.”

  “But we are just a day away from Urnedi,” I said. “How could we not know they were here?”

  “A day with perfect wind and waves is a very long way.”

  That seemed clear. I gave up the topic and focused on the ships. I could not judge if Mercanfur could force them to turn and fight us, and if he did, if we had any chance against them. Thirty greencoat would prove hard to overcome if we were to tangle and fight it out, but there could be a hundred men or more aboard the corsair.

  “Ready a sprint,” Mercanfur called then.

  The boatswain swore, the greencoats groaned, and the drum thundered the ferocious pace of the sprint.

  We swung in behind the corsair, missing her on the angle Mercanfur had taken, but he jibed us ten strokes later back onto a starboard tack across both the wind and waves. He banked his sails to catch the westerly and growled encouragements to the oarsmen as we angled back toward the enemy. We were gaining on her.

  “Lieutenant,” I called. “Beautiful wind for longbows.”

  He led the dozen greencoats not at the oars to the triangle of deck behind the prow. One man took a shot to test the range. The heavy arrow liked the wind very much, and it sailed clear over the corsair.

  “Fire at will,” Kennculli ordered and readied a bow for himself. It seemed it should be a difficult shot—upon a rolling deck at a bobbing target that grew slowly closer—but the shafts were striking the corsair as often as not. We gained a bit more on them, and the arrows started to find the space between their rail and sail. A pair of oars on their left side went dead into the water and fouled half the rest. The drag jibed the corsair back across us, even as the rudder on their starboard side tried to hold them on their line. It was a poor rudder in those conditions, most of its length out of the water as they descended each wave. It got worse for them when their mainsail collapsed and their short prow dug straight into a wave. Much of their pace went with it.

  Mercanfur made no move to turn us as we closed the gap. A few archers began to return fire as the corsair’s captain struggled to right his oars and get turned back onto a stronger line.

  Mercanfur seemed unable to decide if he wanted to go left or right as we tore up their wake. He ran forward then, hollering menacingly for the archers to clear out of the way. I chased after him, drawn by his urgency.

  The corsair archers were right there above us suddenly and fired. One of our oarsmen was struck in the chest, and another shaft struck the lieutenant on the shoulder.

  And then a collision! Our prow stabbed into their flat stern as we raced down a wave. Mercanfur was right there, broken prow post in one hand and a dock loop in the other. He flung the circle of rope up toward their long tiller but missed. The rope slid down the rudder and fell into the sea.

  I scrambled with him to get hold of the line. More arrows stabbed above us as we started up the next wave. Screams pierced the air all around us. We yanked up the wet length as we raced down the next wave.

  Such a crash as we conve
rged. Mercanfur and the greencoats tumbled to the deck. I somehow stayed upright and was standing quite alone when I looked up to see four sun-baked men in yellowed linen holding hooks and lines. The voices of so many more carried over the corsair’s stern.

  I snatched the dock loop, coiled the trailing rope as I ran up upon the prow, and flung it all desperately at the corsair’s tiller. Up it all went and came down in a great mess of rope. And miraculously, the loop held fast to something upon the corsair’s deck.

  “Helm, hard to starboard,” I screamed, and Rindsfar, may the Spirit bless him, did so the same instant. The ship lay dangerously over on her right side and turned as we flopped down into the trough of the next wave. It seemed certain we would capsize.

  But then with a great snap, the dock line went taut; the ship was hauled back over, and from the corsair came a great tearing of timber and breaking of cordage. Their rudder was pulled clean away, taking a dozen men and the starboard corner of the ship’s stern with it. She veered further off line and away from the Phalia.

  The crew roared in triumph until our admiral began to belt orders once again. He seemed intent upon bringing us to bear again.

  “I’ll capture her,” I heard him growl. “Lieutenant, archers fore and aft as we circle.”

  “Sails,” came the fresh and startling call from the lookout. “Six more corsairs, Admiral. Close haul, single lateens, ten oars each. They’re making dead for us.”

  “Let’s take all seven,” Lieutenant Kennculli said defiantly, the arrow still sprouting from his shoulder.

  It had been stopped by the armor beneath his greencoat, but it made him seem quite fearsome, regardless. Mercanfur took note of it and chuckled, until he registered the deathly coughing from the oarsman who had no such protection. We gathered round him. The arrow was deep into his left breast, and as we watched the man desperately try to cough up the blood that choked him, he died.

  “Helmsman Rindsfar,” the admiral ordered. “Quarter down the wind. Best speed out of here. Boatswain, make ready for rotations. We’ll be on the oars until sundown if they give chase.”

  But the drum did not start booming, and the boatswain’s gruff bark did not start the call. We all turned to see his station empty. We found blood smeared across the drumhead and along the starboard gunwale. His mallets lay upon the deck. He had been struck by an arrow and had gone over the side.

  “They’re straight on us, Admiral,” came the call from above. “Gaining fast.”

  Mercanfur handed me the boatswain’s mallets, and without another word about it, went to see to his sail.

  A priestess to the Spirit of the Earth should not be grinning at so mundane a posting as boatswain aboard a thin merchant ship. But grin I did, for a long and glorious moment.

  I called all the men I knew by name and urged them to get hold of the oars. They got themselves organized, and I took my spot behind the drum. The heavy mallets had blood upon them.

  I felt a tingling scratch upon my thigh and snapped my eyes down to catch an angry waft of shadow curling around my oilskin satchel.

  The bloody rags. Barok’s blood!

  The Shadow had been summoned by the boatswain’s death but did not want to be—not by me. I rubbed the sticky blood between my fingers and understood why. I could bend Him to my will with Barok’s blood. The Shadow hated me, and my grin became a ferocious smile. I smeared the fresh blood across the drumhead, pulled free two strips of Barok’s bloodstained bandages, and tied them tightly around the head of each mallet. A wafting cloud of the Shadow enveloped me. He hissed in my ears.

  Mercanfur appeared and looked ready to lash me for not having started the stroke. He stopped short. “They gain upon us. Be quick, priestess. Be quick.”

  The Shadow growled, and the darkness enveloped the drum. Mercanfur withdrew to his sail.

  “Oars, stations,” I called, and the oars came out of the water. “Catch and stand,” I yelled and brought the mallet down.

  It seems it must have made a sound, but I cannot remember that first crack of the magic I made. The men at the oars pulled with such force that the ship leapt forward. The froth of a wave boiled up before the prow as we stabbed into it.

  “Finish,” I called and struck the drum with the second mallet. The oars swung back sharply and caught the water. “And stand on it!” I barked with my whole body and beat the drum as savage punctuation to my rhythmic call. “Finish! And stand on it! Legs! Legs! Stand on it! Stand on it! Sitting up! On the finish! Together! Together! Building! Build it! Legs! Legs! Stand on it! Stand on it! There! There! Standing! Standing! Here we go! Together! And again! With the legs! Legs! Together! Winding! Winding now! Legs! Legs! Let’s go! Let’s go! Jump on it! Jump on it! Legs! Legs! Stand on it!”

  The red face of the drum became black as the mallets spread the boatswain’s soul upon us. On we crashed through the rolling breakers.

  I blinked my eyes and lost all sense of things. I could taste blood in my mouth. The oars had stopped. Then I was upon a cot. I tried to rise. “To the oars,” I said.

  “No, great lady,” Helmsman Rindsfar said as Lieutenant Kennculli pushed me gently back down. “We are away. They gave up the chase. Sleep. Please. You must rest.”

  My husband and Pix were there huddled low in the corner of the dark wardroom. Sevat’s expression was dark and sickly. Pix had been crying, but as I looked at her, she smiled.

  16

  Madam Dia Yentif

  Lady Pemini

  “Of course he did,” I said after Pemini told me where Barok had gone.

  She’d come to collect what I’d tried to eat for breakfast, and I was happy for the visitor despite my headache and sickness. Lilly was riding to Hippoli with her family for a wedding, and Umera’s mornings still belonged to her storefronts. She’d hired on more staff, but clothes and furniture were in very high demand.

  “Come,” I said before Pemini could move on. “The cistern has run dry. Help me convince Horace to fill it from the well, and we can both take a nice hot bath.”

  Pemini was still by the window. She hadn’t heard a word I’d said. She was smiling too—well, frowning less, I suppose I should say. The view of the energetic town and the vast green rug of trees could still stop me in my tracks. Her gaze was fixed above it all.

  Was she sad about the death of her brothers? I could not imagine so. She’d been the rock upon which the staff had anchored after the Battle of Urnedi had claimed so many.

  She slowly returned and frowned down at the tray upon the desk.

  How many meals have you cooked and brought for me?

  “Lady Pemini Kennculli?” I ventured.

  “Sorry?” she replied, startled to hear her full name, and looked across at me for the first time. The dress and corset draped over the desk chair between us caught her attention.

  “Pregnancy corset?” she asked and turned it over in her hands.

  “Umera made it, but I’ll rot before I wear it.”

  “Oh, shush,” she said with the confident tone I’d so come to rely upon. “You’re barely showing. But the way Selt is talking, we’ll see all kinds when the road clears. You’d best get in some practice. An appearance will be required if any of Lord Vall’s men visit Urnedi.”

  I did not like the topic. “Lilly was quite a sight yesterday, all dressed up on her way to that wedding. What about you? When was the last time you got away from Urnedi for a while?”

  “Me? Well, I have that nice house in town now.”

  “Beyond the town, I mean.”

  “Well, all the funerals, of course. And the trip downriver to the yew was quite nice,” she said, and after a long moment she shrugged. “Can’t recall the time before that. Was probably the walk here—when I got the job in the scullery. My brothers walked the whole way with me.”

  I almost began to cry at the smallness of her life. I couldn’t understand why she was smiling. She was as trapped inside the keep as I was, and I hated it. She’d lost her betrothed and two of her br
others to Barok’s service. I wondered, though. Her forlorn look out the window, perhaps it was not aimed at the horizon I wished to chase. She wanted something else.

  I stood and took her arm. I’d have the story out of her in no time. I gestured toward the empty tub. “Help me convince the sergeant, and you can go first.”

  She’d not used the keep’s tub, which meant she’d not taken a hot bath her entire life.

  “He’d be in the barracks about now,” she said, grabbed my hand, and tugged me along. Our laughter echoed down the stairs.

  “Pardon us, Madam Yentif,” a Chaukai said at the landing. Another stood guard with him. “Can you wait in here?”

  “What is going on?”

  “Sergeant Horace discovered someone in the storeroom,” the first said. “He’s just taking him out now.”

  “Someone? Doing what?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. My orders were to guard you until relieved.”

  The pair was as likely to step aside as they were to fetch buckets.

  “We can get a look from the window,” Pemini suggested, and we opened one that overlooked the drawbridge. Horace and others crowded around a man as they brought him out. He was bound and looked like he’d suffered a terrible beating. He wore a greencoat, and his black head of hair made me think instantly of Erom’s son, Anton.

  It was Anton. My mouth fell open.

  Horace was holding something as though it was a snake.

  “That’s the mangor root,” Pemini said. “From our hiding place.”

  It was, and all I could think about was what even a slice of it would do to the baby growing in my belly. I should not have been surprised that the girls still kept some on hand. Pemini, Fana, and I had all had occasion to use it.

  A rumble of voices from beyond the wall got some of the men moving, and the gates below the drawbridge opened. Barok and the rest came striding in like conquerors but stopped short at the sight of the drama playing out before them.

  “Get your hands off my son. What have you done to him?” Erom yelled and started forward, but he was stopped short when Horace held up the mangor root.