“Spare me, Jacquelaine. I was ready to do this before we came here tonight. Just don’t imagine that you’ve somehow finessed me into going in your place.”
“Jaffrim. Peace. So long as this arrow hits the target, it doesn’t matter who pulls back the string.” She unbound her gray hair and let it fly free about her shoulders in the muggy breeze. “What are your intentions?”
“Obvious, I should think. Find her. Before she does enough damage to give Stragos what he wants.”
“And should you run her down, what then? Polite messages, broadside to broadside?”
“A warning. A last chance.”
“An ultimatum for Drakasha?” Her frown turned every line on her face near-vertical. “Jaffrim, you know too well how she’ll react to any threat. Like a netted shark. If you try to get close to a creature in that state, you’ll lose a hand.”
“A fight, then. I suppose we both know it’ll come to that.”
“And the outcome of that fight?”
“My ship is the stronger and I have eighty more souls to spare. It won’t be pretty, but I intend to make it mathematical.”
“Zamira slain, then.”
“That’s what tends to happen—”
“Assuming you allow her the courtesy of death in battle.”
“Allow?”
“Consider,” said Colvard, “that while Zamira’s course of action is too dangerous to tolerate, her logic was impeccable in one respect.”
“And that is?”
“Merely killing her, plus this Ravelle and Valora, would only serve to bandage a wound that already festers. The rot will deepen. We need to sate Maxilan Stragos’ ambition, not just foil it temporarily.”
“Agreed. But I’m losing my taste for subtlety as fast as I’m depleting my supply, Colvard. I’m going to be blunt with Drakasha. Grant me the same courtesy.”
“Stragos needs a victory not for the sake of his own vanity, but to rouse the people of his city. If that victory is lurking in the waters near Tal Verrar, and if that victory is colorful enough, what need would he have to trouble us down here?”
“We put a sacrifice on the altar,” Rodanov whispered. “We put Zamira on the altar.”
“After Zamira does some damage. After she raises just enough hell to panic the city. If the notorious pirate, the infamous rogue Zamira Drakasha, with a five-thousand solari bounty on her head, were to be paraded through Tal Verrar in chains…brought to justice so quickly after foolishly challenging the city once again…”
“Stragos victorious. Tal Verrar united in admiration.” Rodanov sighed. “Zamira hung over the Midden Deep in a cage.”
“Satisfaction in every quarter,” said Colvard.
“I may not be able to take her alive, though.”
“Whatever you hand over to the archon would be of equal value. Corpse or quick, alive or dead, he’ll have his trophy, and the Verrari would swarm the streets to see it. It would be best, I suspect, to let him have what’s left of the Poison Orchid as well.”
“I do the dirty work. Then hand him the victor’s laurels.”
“And the Ghostwinds will be spared.”
Rodanov stared out across the waters of the bay for some time before speaking again. “So we presume. But we have no better notions.”
“When will you leave?”
“The morning tide.”
“I don’t envy you the task of navigating the Sovereign through the Trader’s Gate—”
“I don’t envy myself. I’ll take the Parlor Passage.”
“Even by day, Jaffrim?”
“Hours count. I refuse to see any more wasted.” He turned for shore, to retrieve his boots and be on his way. “Can’t buy in for the last hand if you don’t get there in time to take a chair.”
2
FEELING THE hot sting of sudden tears in his eyes, Locke slipped his finger away from the trigger of the alley-piece and slowly put it up in the air.
“Will you at least tell me why?” he said.
“Later.” Jean didn’t lower his own weapon. “Give me the crossbow. Slowly. Slowly!”
Locke’s arm was shaking; the nervous reaction had lent an unwanted jerkiness to his movements. Concentrating, trying to keep his emotions under control, Locke passed the bow over to Jean.
“Good,” said Jean. “Keep your hands up. You two brought rope, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got him under my bolt. Tie him up. Get his hands and his feet, and make the knots tight.”
One of their ambushers pointed his own crossbow into the air and fumbled for rope in a jacket pocket. The other lowered his bow and produced a knife. His eyes had just moved from Locke to his associate when Jean made his next move.
With his own bow in one hand and Locke’s in the other, he calmly pivoted and put a bolt into the head of each of their attackers.
Locke heard the sharp twak-twak of the double release, but it took several seconds for full comprehension of its meaning to travel from his eyes to the back of his skull. He stood there shaking, jaw hanging open, while the two strangers spurted blood, twitched, and died. One of them reflexively curled a finger around the trigger of his weapon. With a final twak that made Locke jump, a bolt whizzed into the darkness.
“Jean, you—”
“How difficult was it to give me the damn weapon?”
“But you…you said—”
“I said…” Jean grabbed him by his lapels and shook him. “What do you mean ‘I said,’ Locke? Why were you paying attention to what I was saying?”
“You didn’t—”
“Gods, you’re shaking. You believed me? How could you believe me?” Jean released him and stared at him, aghast. “I thought you were just playing along too intently!”
“You didn’t give me a hand signal, Jean! What the hell was I supposed to think?”
“Didn’t give you a hand signal? I flashed you the ‘lying’ sign, plain as that bloody burning ship!”
“You did not—”
“I did! As if I could forget! I can’t believe this! How could you ever think…Where did you think I’d found the time to broker a deal with anyone else? We’ve been on the same damn ship for two months!”
“Jean, without the signal—”
“I did give it to you, you twit! I gave it when I did the whole cold, reluctant betrayer bit! ‘Actually, I know who sent them.’ Remember?”
“Yeah—”
“And then the hand signal! The ‘Oh, look, Jean Tannen is lying about betraying his best friend in the whole fucking world to a couple of Verrari cutthroats’ signal! Shall we practice that one more often? Do we really need to?”
“I didn’t see a signal, Jean. Honest to all the gods.”
“You missed it.”
“Missed it? I—yeah, look, fine. I missed it. It was dark, crossbows everywhere, I should’ve known. I should’ve known we didn’t even need it. I’m sorry.”
He sighed, and looked over at the two bodies, feathered shafts sticking grotesquely out of their motionless heads.
“We really, really needed to interrogate one of those bastards, didn’t we?”
“Yes,” said Jean.
“It was…bloody good shooting, regardless.”
“Yes.”
“Jean?”
“Mm?”
“We should really be running like hell right now.”
“Oh. Yes. Let’s.”
3
“AHOY THE ship,” cried Locke as the boat nudged up against the Poison Orchid ’s side. He released his grip on the oars with relief; Caldris would have been proud of the pace they’d set in scudding out of Tal Verrar, through a flotilla of priestly delegations and drunkards, past the flaming galleon and the blackened hulks of the previous sacrifices, through air still choked with gray haze.
“Gods,” said Delmastro as she helped them up the entry port, “what happened? Are you hurt?”
“Got my feelings dented,” said Jean, “but all this blood has been borrowed for the occasion.”
Locke glanced down at his own finery, smeared with the life of at least two of their attackers. He and Jean looked like drunken amateur butchers.
“Did you get what you needed?” asked Delmastro.
“What we needed? Yes. What we might have wanted? No. And from the goddamn mystery attackers that won’t give us a moment’s peace in the city? Far too much.”
“Who’s this, then?”
“We have no idea,” said Locke. “How do the bastards know where we are, or who we are? It’s been nearly two months! Where were we indiscreet?”
“The Sinspire,” said Jean, a bit sheepishly.
“How were they waiting for us at the docks, then? Pretty bloody efficient!”
“Were you followed back to the ship?” asked Delmastro.
“Not that we could tell,” said Jean, “but I think we’d be fools to linger.”
Delmastro nodded, produced her whistle, and blew the familiar three sharp notes. “At the waist! Ship capstan bars! Stand by to weigh anchor! Boatswain’s party, ready to hoist the boat!”
“You two look upset,” she said to Locke and Jean as the ship became a whirlwind of activity around them.
“Why shouldn’t we be?” Locke rubbed his stomach, still feeling a dull ache where the Sinspire bouncer had struck him. “We got away, sure, but someone pinned a hell of a lot of trouble on us in return.”
“You know what I like to do when I’m in a foul mood?” said Ezri sweetly. “I like to sack ships.” She raised her finger and pointed slowly across the deck, past the hustling crewfolk, out to sea, where another vessel could just be seen, lit by its stern lanterns against the southern darkness. “Oh, look—there’s one right now!”
They were knocking on Drakasha’s cabin door just moments later.