“Me? Aren’t you going to kill us?”
“No reason to,” said Roo. “In fact, we’re doing you a favor. Sometime in the next few hours a full-scale war is about to erupt around here, and by that time I plan on being safely out of this harbor and on my way south.”
“War?” said Valari.
“Yes, the very one you were told was the signal for you to sink this ship in the harbor.”
“Sink this ship?” said Valari. “Why would we do that?”
“To keep Kingdom ships out of the harbor,” answered Roo.
“We have no such orders,” said Vinci.
“Then what are you waiting here for?”
The question was answered by silence.
Roo looked as if he was turning away, then he rounded hard and slammed his fist into Valari’s stomach. The man collapsed to the deck, unable to breathe for a moment, then he crawled to his knees and vomited on the deck. Roo knelt and grabbed him by the hair, pulling his face up and saying, “Now, what are you waiting for?”
Again the man looked at Roo but said nothing. Roo pulled his dagger and held it before Valari’s eyes. “Would you speak better if parts of you were missing?”
“We’re waiting for another ship.”
“What ship?”
The man was silent until Roo put the point of the dagger in the meat of Valari’s shoulder and started to push, slowly increasing the pressure so that it became painful quickly, without doing serious damage.
Valari winced, then his eyes watered, then he cried out. “Stop it!” he begged.
“What ship?” asked Roo, letting the point dig deeper. He knew it was a light wound, but he also sensed that Valari wasn’t a man who knew that and was not used to enduring pain.
Valari sobbed, “My Lord Vasarius comes to Sarth.”
“Vasarius! Here?” said Roo, wiping his blade and putting it away. “Why?”
“To escort us back to Queg.”
Roo stood up, eyes wide. Turning to the leader of the smugglers, he said, “Get ready to raise sail. If I shout to get underway, I want to be moving by the time I’m back up on deck.”
Roo hurried to a hatchway and half-jumped down the companionway to the lower deck. He ducked through a low door into the main cargo hold and saw crates and sacks lashed down along both sides of the hold. He grabbed a large sack and tried to lift it. It was too heavy to move. He used his knife to cut loose a small cord tied around the top of the sack, and gold spilled out onto the deck.
As loud as he could, Roo shouted, “Get underway.”
Men shouted up on the deck, and the sound of a fist striking a jaw informed Roo the smugglers were insuring the captive sailors were obeying orders. He heard an ax fall and knew they had cut away the anchor and chain.
Roo found a pry bar and opened a crate. Inside, in the gloom, he had no trouble recognizing riches. Gems, coins, jewelry, a bolt of expensive silk, all had been haphazardly dumped into the chest and it had been nailed shut.
Roo knew what he had stumbled across; it was the booty of Krondor and Sarth, boxed and stored aboard this ship to send to Queg. As he made his way back up to the deck, Roo began to wonder. Why would General Fadawah be sending riches to Lord Vasarius?
He saw sails falling from the yards and his appointed man on the tiller as the ship slowly began to move forward, toward the mouth of the harbor. Roo moved to stand before Valari and said, “What is Fadawah buying from Queg?”
If Valari had any inclination to refuse to answer, it fled when Roo produced the dagger and showed it to him. “Weapons! He buys weapons.”
“What weapons?”
“Swords, shields, pikes, and bows. Arrows, crossbows, and bolts. Catapults and ballistae. And fire oil.”
“And it’s being shipped here?”
“No, it is already delivered, to Ylith. But the gold was here and Fadawah arranged for it to be secretly stored on this ship.”
“Why wasn’t it guarded better?” asked one of the smugglers nearby. “I mean, if we had known, we’d have taken this ship ourselves, days ago!”
“Because guards would have called attention,” said Roo. “They circulated a rumor it was a blockade ship, to be sunk in the harbor mouth.” He grinned. “Lads, you’re going farther than we thought. We’re not going down the coast to the cove and then ashore to meet the army. We’re heading down to Krondor itself.”
“Why?” asked one of the smugglers.
“Because I’m claiming this gold for the crown, and the crown owes me gold beyond imagining, so I’m taking this cargo in partial payment of my debt, and because all of you will be paid a month’s wages for each day we’re at sea.”