CHAPTER THIRTEEN
POINTS OF DECISION
1
A MILE OF LONELY BEACH separates Port Prodigal from the ruins of its fallen stone sentinel: Castana Voressa, Fort Glorious.
Built to dominate the northern side of the bay serving Fort Glorious before a shift in the fortunes of the Ghostwinds brought an equivalent change to the city’s name, the fort would not now suffice to ward off an attack with vulgar language, let alone the blades and arrows of a hostile force.
To say that it was constructed cheaply would be an injustice to skinflint stonemasons; several whole shiploads of Verrari granite blocks were diverted into the home-building trade for wine money by bored officials far from home. Grand plans for walls and towers became grand plans for a wall, and finally modest plans for a smaller wall with barracks, and as a capstone to the entire affair the garrison of soldiers intended for those barracks was lost in transit to a summer’s-end storm.
The only useful remnant of the fort is a circular stone pavilion about fifty yards offshore, linked to the main ruins by a wide stone causeway. This was intended to be a platform for catapults, but none ever came. Nowadays, when the pirate captains of Port Prodigal call a council to discuss their affairs, this pavilion is always the place and dusk is always the time. Here the captains do business in private, standing on the stones of a Verrari empire that never was, atop the frustrated ambitions of a city-state that had nonetheless frustrated their own ambitions seven years before.
2
IT BEGAN as every such meeting Zamira could remember; under the purple-red sky of sunset, with lanterns set out atop the old stones, with the humid air thick as an animal’s breath and the biting insects out in force.
There was no wine, no food, and no sitting when the council of captains was called. Sitting only made people more inclined to waste time. Discomfort stripped sentiment from everyone’s words and brought them to the heart of their problems with haste.
To Zamira’s surprise, she and Ezri were the last to arrive. Zamira glanced around at her fellow captains, nodding cordially as she eyed them all in turn.
First there was Rodanov, armed now, with his first mate Ydrena Koros, a trim blond woman only slightly taller than Ezri. She had the poise of a professional duelist and a reputation with the wide-bladed Jereshti scimitar.
Beside them stood Pierro Strozzi, an amiable bald fellow pushing fifty, waited on by his lieutenant, called Eartaker Jack for what he liked to slice from the heads of his fallen foes. It was said that he tanned them and sewed them into elaborate necklaces, which he kept locked in his cabin.
Rance was there, with Valterro at her shoulder as usual. The right side of Rance’s jaw was several wince-inducing shades of black and green, but she was standing on her own two feet, and at least had the courtesy not to glare at Zamira when she thought Zamira was watching.
Last but not least was Jacquelaine Colvard, the so-called “Old Woman of the Ghostwinds,” still elegant in her midsixties, if gray-haired and sun-scorched like old leather. Her current protégé, and therefore lover, was Maressa Vicente, whose fighting and sailing qualities were not yet generally known. The young woman certainly looked capable enough.
Until one of them walked away, then, they were effectively sealed off here from the rest of the world. Parties from their crews, about half a dozen from each ship, mingled uneasily at the end of the causeway. No one else would be permitted to walk upon it until they finished.
So, Zamira thought, how will we do this?
“Zamira,” said Rodanov, “you’re the one who called the council. Let’s hear what’s on your mind.”
Straight to the action, then.
“Not so much on my mind, Jaffrim, as on all of our heads. I have evidence that the archon of Tal Verrar may have inconvenient plans for us once again.”
“Once again?” Rodanov made fists of his huge hands. “It was Bonaire who had the inconvenient plans, Zamira; we should have expected Stragos to do what any one of us would have done in his place—”
“I haven’t forgotten so much as a day of that war, Jaffrim.” Zamira felt her hackles rise despite her determination to be patient. “You know very well that I’ve come to call it a mistake.”
“The Lost Cause,” snorted Rodanov. “More like the Dumb Fucking Idea. Would that you’d seen it for folly at the time!”
“Would that you’d done more than talk at the time,” said Strozzi mildly. “Talked and sailed away when the archon’s fleet darkened the horizon.”
“I never joined your damned Armada, Pierro. I offered to try and draw some of his ships off, and that much I did. Without my help you’d have lost the weather gauge sooner and been flanked from the north. Chavon and I would be the only captains standing here—”
“Stand off,” shouted Zamira. “I called the council, and I have more to tell. I didn’t bring us here to salt old wounds.”
“Speak on,” said Strozzi.
“A month ago a brig left Tal Verrar. Her captain stole her from the Sword Marina.”
There was a general outburst of muttering and head-shaking at that. Zamira smiled before continuing. “For crew, he stole into Windward Rock and emptied a vault full of prisoners. His intention, and theirs, was to sail south and join us in Port Prodigal. To fly the red flag.”
“Who could steal one of the archon’s ships from a guarded harbor?” Rodanov spoke as if he only half believed the possibility. “I’d like to meet him.”
“You have,” said Zamira. “His name is Orrin Ravelle.”
Valterro, previously silent behind Captain Rance, sputtered. “That fucking little—”
“Quiet,” said Zamira. “Lost your purse last night, didn’t you? Ravelle has fast hands. Fast hands, a quick mind, a talent for command, and a way with a blade. He earned his way onto my crew by killing four Jeremite Redeemers by himself.” Zamira felt vaguely amused to be talking Kosta up with the same half-truths he’d worked so hard to disabuse her of.
“Yet you said he had his own ship,” said Rodanov.
“Yes. The Red Messenger, sold off to the Shipbreaker just this afternoon. Pierro, you saw it off the Burning Reach a few days ago, didn’t you?”
“Indeed.”
“There I was, going about my business, innocently scooping up prizes here and there on the Sea of Brass,” said Zamira, “when I happened upon Ravelle’s Messenger. Interrupted his plans, to say the least. I poked holes in his story until I squeezed it all out of him, more or less.”
“What story is that?” Rance sounded as though she had a collection of small rocks in her mouth, but she made herself understood.
“Think about it, Rance. Who is Ravelle? One man—a thief, clearly. Trained to do many unusual things. But could one man sail a brig out of the gated harbors in the Sword Marina? Could one man break into Windward Rock, overcome every guard there, free an entire vault full of prisoners, and pack them off in his brig, conveniently stolen the very same night?”
“Uh,” said Rance. “Well, possibly—”
“He didn’t do it alone.” Colvard spoke for the first time, quietly, but her voice drew the eyes of everyone on the pavilion. “Stragos must have let him escape.”
“Precisely,” said Zamira. “Stragos let him escape. Stragos gave him a crew of prisoners eager for any sort of freedom. Stragos gave him a ship. And he did all this knowing full well that Ravelle would sail south. Come down to join us in our trade.”
“He wanted an agent among us,” said Strozzi, uncharacteristically excited.
“Yes. More than that.” Zamira gazed around the circle of pirates, ensuring that she had their undivided attention before she continued. “He has an agent among us. Aboard my ship. Orrin Ravelle and his companion Jerome Valora are currently in the archon’s service.”