Quauh was somewhat taken aback by the size of Port Mandu as the dinghy approached, or rather, the lack of size. She was long enough, fifty feet by Quauh’s rough estimation, but very narrow, with a beam barely above a dozen feet. She had a very tall mainmast sporting a triangular lateen-rigged mainsail of typical size for a ketch, though it only went about three quarters of the way up that mainmast, with the crow’s nest much higher. Her mizzen was typically proportioned to the ship, as were the jib and staysail up front. To her surprise, though, she noted a third small sail up front, a second staysail—or maybe a second jib.
Quauh had never seen that design before, and it gave her pause as she climbed up from the dinghy to the deck. She understood immediately that Port Mandu wasn’t built for cargo, but for speed and maneuverability, particularly in shallower waters. The captain’s gaze kept going back to that strange jib design as the dinghy crewman came up behind her and pushed her along. Her experience solved the clues quickly and made her realize that it would take some clever sailors to properly handle those three small forward sails efficiently, but if they did, was there any wind at all that Port Mandu couldn’t use to serious advantage?
“Well, what did you get?” barked a man (though his gruff speech pattern made it sound more like “whajagit”), forcing her sensibilities back to the situation at hand. She immediately connected the man standing before Massayo to the name she had heard, Wilkie Dogears, because he did indeed have large ears, sticking out wide through his long and thick black hair. And to make it even more obvious, those flappers were adorned with huge feathered earrings that hung down to his collarbone, like the bouncing ears of an Alte Anxellin shortsnout, a breed of dog Quauh’s family had kept for all her young life. He was a thick man, with a round belly and broad shoulders, though nowhere near as tall as the towering Massayo. His beard was huge and full, ringed with hair spikes all about the bottom, braided and tied with metallic baubles, silver and gold.
His waistcoat, pants, and boots were black, trimmed in red, and fancy—or once-fancy, for the clothes, like Captain Wilkie himself, had clearly spent many years at sea.
“They hadn’t much to give,” Massayo replied. “Their prey ran aground at the reef and broke up.” He pointed to starboard, toward the obvious skeleton of the Uey, and Quauh grimaced and did not look. She didn’t need to see her failure again.
“Not much they showed you, you mean. You know the little darlings buried what they looted.”
Massayo shrugged. “Did you want me to start digging up the beach with all the damned Chezru soldiers about? I’d have started a fight there, and Captain Thorngirdle would have left us all dead on the sand. You would have cursed my name all the way to the beach beside the Behrenese boats for the revenge fight.”
Captain Wilkie flashed a smile that was more gold than tooth, and laughed heartily. “Aye, but might be that I like cursing you.”
“Might be that I like being cursed,” Massayo retorted. “But I’m no fan of lying bloody in the sand. It sticks to you, then, you know?”
They both laughed then, cut short when Wilkie repeated, “Well, what did you get?”
“Thorngirdle slipped me three bars of gold before the Chezru got ashore,” he said, nodding to a small box the dinghy crew had put at the top of the ladder. Then he held up the golden coat, Quauh’s coat, which he had carried across his arm.
Quauh held her breath, expecting to be exposed.
“A goldfish captain’s coat?”
“Aye,” Massayo answered, “and a pity that we didn’t get the captain who was wearing it. Still, I expect that some Tonoloya warship would take it in trade for passage. They prize these symbols.”
The big man turned, grinning, and slyly—so slyly that she wasn’t really sure of what she had seen—gave a wink to Quauh.
“Better for you, then,” Massayo said to Wilkie, turning back. “I will take this coat as my own cut of the booty and leave my share of the gold for you.”
Wilkie’s face widened in surprise.
“And new crew for Port Mandu,” Massayo continued, stepping to the side to fully reveal both Benny and Quauh to the captain.
“Bah, but another red-capped runt,” huffed Wilkie. “We haven’t enough of them now, what?”
“Better than most others, this one,” said Massayo. “He can help on the wheel. Helmsman of one of the lost barrelboats.”
“Then why’s Thorngirdle giving him away?”
Massayo looked to Benny and nodded for him to answer.
“Because I cut me cap’n chin to top-skull,” the fierce powrie said, and spat upon the deck.
Quauh fought hard and futilely to hide her shock at Benny’s candor.
“Hmm,” said Wilkie. “I expect that he deserved it?”
“Oh, aye,” said Benny. “ ’Twas him or me, so ’twas him.”
“Helmsman?” Wilkie asked Massayo.
“Good one, by all I been told.”
“Chain him in reach of the wheel,” Wilkie ordered some crewmen, and they hustled Benny away. “And keep him there until he’s come to know that this captain ain’t so deserving as his last!”
The stunned Quauh still couldn’t close her jaw.
“And what o’ the pretty goldfish, then?” Wilkie asked. “She’s not to be much help with a fresh stub.”
“She’s mine,” said Massayo. “I’m keeping her for my cut of the gold.”
“The jacket was your part of the gold.”
“Would you rather I take a torn and bloody jacket and a torn and crippled goldfish, or the half bar of gold I’m owed?” Massayo asked.
“Not sure what she’s worth, though,” Wilkie replied. “We come up on a goldfish warship and she’s likely the trade that’ll keep us above the waterline.”
“Well then, in that event, she’s for Port Mandu, but until then, she’s mine, just mine, and the jacket. Fair deal?”
“Not fair for you,” answered Wilkie. “But Massayo’s ever been a strange one. Keep her locked in her quarters. She shows that sparkling face on the deck and I’ll take no responsibility for the actions of the crew.”
Quauh noted that his voice rose at the end of the proclamation, drawing nods and smiles from many nearby pirates. He had done that for her benefit, she understood, a clear warning of the consequences of any escape attempt.
“You hear that, goldfish?” the captain confirmed.
“Aye,” Quauh answered meekly, playing the role.
“She got a name?”
“I just call her Lefty,” said Massayo, drawing some laughter. “She deserves nothing more.”
“Well, put the lefty to good use then, Mr. Massayo,” Captain Wilkie ordered.
“Oh, but I’ll get my money out of that one,” said Massayo. He called out to a nearby crewman. “A bottle of whiskey to my quarters. I’m not losing this one to mortification.”
He nodded to the man and woman behind Quauh, and they roughly pushed and pulled her to a small bulkhead far forward on the prow. They opened the door and helped her down a short ladder into a tiny triangular room, one without a porthole, which was made even more obvious when the hatch was again closed, leaving her in pitch-blackness.
She tried to keep calm, taking many deep and slow breaths. Massayo had just said that he meant to get his money’s worth, but what that might mean terrified the young Xoconai. She didn’t know exactly what this arrangement might entail, but she wasn’t anxious to find out.
She fumbled around in the darkness for a short while before finding a bedroll to curl up on. She couldn’t even straighten her legs as she lay there in the tiny accommodations, and couldn’t imagine how the towering Massayo could be comfortable here.
Yet another reminder to her of life at sea. So many people, herself included, gave up so much comfort for the smell of the brine, the rolls and sounds of the waves, the night sky unhindered by the lanterns and commotion of a city.
How much comfort they gave up for the feeling of true freedom.
She heard the footsteps of the crew rushing about up above, then the rattling of the chain as the anchor was hoisted, and finally she felt the sudden pull as Port Mandu rushed away.
Quauh could only sigh. She tried not to feel sorry for herself.
At least she wasn’t as bad off as Matlalihi the traitor. Was he still alive, she wondered? Was he feeling the bugs crawling through his cracked skull to nibble at his brains?
She hoped he was.
That wicked thought alone comforted Quauh. Whatever might happen to her, at least she had paid that wretch for his treachery.
She didn’t measure the passage of time as she lay there in the darkness, sometimes dozing, mostly not, feeling the roll of the waves beneath her, telling her that she was part of something bigger than herself, something eternal, something that considered the follies of mankind a mere nuisance, if even that. However many ships might be sunk, however many bodies might be thrown into the sea, the waves would only shrug.
She was startled, her eyes stinging, when the hatch opened and the sun shone in on her. A large form came down the ladder—Massayo, she realized, before he closed the hatch behind him.
A moment later, a small lantern flared to life.
No, not flared, she realized when she was able to see it more clearly, for this, like the lights the powries had taken with them in their diving, was a glass filled with water and small, glowing eels.
“Ah, so you have helped yourself to my bed,” Massayo said.
Quauh rolled up to a sitting position and shrank back against the wall. “Is that not why I’m here?” she spat back venomously.
Massayo laughed. “No, no, nothing like that. We’ll just let Captain Wilkie and the others think so, because if they believe that you are my woman, bought and paid for, then they will not bother you in such a manner.”
“Should I be grateful?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“I think you should, yes.”
The man’s bubbly reply caught her even more off guard. “What do you mean to do with me?”
“What would you like? To be given back to the Xoconai, I expect. For now, I just came here to offer you a bit of whiskey.” He held up a half-filled bottle. “You have been through a lot, I hear.”
Quauh swallowed hard and didn’t reply, and Massayo laughed.
“So you don’t want me to give you back to the Xoconai? Why? Because this is your jacket?” He tossed the old peacoat to the bed beside her. “And because your ship lies broken across a reef, the parts that aren’t at the bottom of the sea, at least, and your boss’s gold is lost?”
“You know?”
“Of course. I survive because I know.”
“Why didn’t you tell Captain Wilkie?”
“Because you are irrelevant to Captain Wilkie, and he does not need to know.”
“But I’m relevant to you, and so you will trade me to the Xoconai.”
“Is that what you wish?”
Again, she hesitated.
“What would they do to you, Captain Quauh?”
The woman remained silent, lowering her gaze.
“Would they reinstate you to a command with your arm shortened?”
That brought a sad laugh from Quauh. “It has nothing to do with my arm. There are many captains still sailing with worse wounds.”
“Then why? For the loss of a ship? Certainly such things are not unheard of.”
“Not this ship, and not this gold.”
“So I ask again: What would they do to you?”
Quauh met his gaze. “If I am very lucky, they would brand my forehead with the red hourglass, a symbol of eternal shame. If I am only quite lucky, they would give me a sword, that I might do the honorable thing.”
“Honorable and stupid are not the same thing,” Massayo interjected.
Quauh spent a moment trying to digest that before continuing. “Most likely, they would behead me, and privately, a quick and clean death. But if I am unlucky, they will hang me and let my body remain dangling above the wharf as an example.”
“That is ridiculous. You were outnumbered and caught in a storm. How can they hold you accountable for such a—”
“The captain is accountable. Always accountable. It is, in the end, that simple.”
“But your anticipated fate seems extreme. Are there no captains in the Tonoloya Armada who have lost a ship?”
Quauh didn’t answer.
“Ah, then it is the gold,” Massayo reasoned. “The Uey was very low in the water indeed.”
She glared at the man, who laughed in reply.
“Fear not, Capta—I mean, Seaman Quauh. I have no design or desire to turn you over to your people. For now, at least, you will remain aboard at my suffrage and serve me.”
Her eyes narrowed even more.
“Not for that,” Massayo said, pointing to the bedroll. He laughed again. “And not for the gold you hid in the rocks. I do not need you for that, of course, since the powrie named Benny knows where you put it. No, your first task will be to help me better learn your language. I can understand it quite well, but my accent does not well serve the bitten endings of goldfish words.”
“You want me to teach you to speak Xoconai?”
“Yes!”
“Then what?”
“I do not know. We will see.”
She could tell that he was lying. He had something specific in mind here, beyond her helping him with his language skills. But what? And why? Why was she here? If they weren’t simply thinking to ransom her back to the Xoconai admiralty, then what might Thorngirdle have told Massayo to make them believe that bringing her here was worth anyone’s while?
“You know, you may begin to see the world a bit differently as the days pass by,” Massayo said, as if reading her mind. “No one aboard this ship has not had a very different life than the one they now know and love.”
“Are you asking me to embrace the idea of becoming a pirate?”
“Pirate?” he said, as if she had wounded him. “Good lady, Port Mandu has a Missive of Reprisal tacked upon her. We are not pirates, but privateers, sailing with the blessing of Chezru Chieftain Brynn Dharielle, a great and powerful woman, and one with whom your Xoconai leaders want no trouble.” He winked. “She has a dragon.”
“So I have heard.”
“Ah, but have you seen it? You should hope that if you do, you are under the red ’n’ black of Captain Wilkie Dogears, and not on a goldfish vessel venturing too near her shores.”
“I am ever so grateful,” she deadpanned.
Massayo laughed and clapped his hands. “But again, that is for another day, likely one far, far away. Behave yourself, Quauh, and serve me well in my language lessons, and I will get you up on the deck as often as I can manage, under the sun and under the stars.
“Ah yes, Quauh,” he continued after she had inadvertently tipped her feelings at that possibility. “I see the sparkle in those clever, golden-orange eyes of yours. I, too, have been on the sea for many years. You hate this room in the darkness, of course! That is why I have brought you this lantern. But even then, you want to feel the sun and the spray and the wind on your face, and I want to give you that. So, behave yourself and let me help you.”
He rose and stretched, then stepped upon the ladder.
“Why?”
His grin back at her unnerved her, strangely. “Benny said that you were his friend, and Benny is now my friend, and I now have a lot of gold.”
Leverage, she thought, but did not say. Massayo wasn’t sharing his little secret with Captain Wilkie, it seemed.
“A lot of gold that will serve me and my friends quite well,” he added, again as if reading her thoughts. “I hope you will become my friend.”
“Why?”
“Do not underestimate yourself…” He crouched lower and softened his voice as he finished with, “Captain Quauh.”
“I’ll not betray my fellows with information…”
“One does not ascend to the rank of captain in the Tonoloya Armada without great knowledge of the sea and of the vessels who sail her. And no unaccomplished captain in that fleet would be given the task that was assigned to you, with the hurricanes spinning and the pirates thick in the waters. I have examined the locations and the fight that lost the Uey. I have heard the story from Benny, who trailed you most of the way. No captain could have saved the Uey short of striking her colors unconditionally. With these options you have described were I to return you, it would seem as if these comrades you’ll not betray have already betrayed you.”
He retreated from the small room then, climbing back to the deck, but left her the glowing lantern, for which Quauh was quite grateful.
Quauh was on the deck of Port Mandu for the next dawn, walking with Massayo. The coast of Behren was clearly visible now to port—they were sailing northward. Quauh had never really seen the desert land this near to shore, and she listened carefully as Massayo pointed out various landmarks, and even a small port village as they passed, the brown-skinned Behrenese villagers offering waves, even blowing horns in recognition of the ship.
“They want us to put in,” Massayo explained. “For rarely is the hold of Port Mandu empty.”
“Is it now?”
“No, we’ve a load of scrimshaw from Durubazzi and rum from the islands, but we’ll find a better market by the end of the day. This is Jhazir. It is just a fishing village.”
Quauh noted the many small oared boats dotting the waters, along with a few small sailboats, and even a pair of two-masted vessels, though smaller than Port Mandu—thirty-footers, perhaps.
“They’ve little to offer in trade beyond fish, and we are all sick of fish,” Massayo explained.
“And next?”
“Djinnit, a favored market city on the central coast. We should make her harbor near to sunset—were it dark now, you’d see her lights in the northwest.”
“Jinnit,” Quauh echoed, somewhat.
“Djinnit,” said Massayo.
“That’s what I said.”
“No, you bit off the front of ‘Dji.’ I want to hear a bit of breath before you say ‘Jinnit’ to soften the beginning. It is not home to juniper-berry liquor. It is Djinnit, warm and welcoming. The name means hospitable, and indeed the people are, even to unthreatening goldfish. Though you should hold your purse close if the children with too-clever fingers are running about. We are well-known there, and they have a second harbor well-protected from storms, and a soft beach where we can tug Port Mandu right up onto the sand to clean and tighten her hull. You will get to know this village quite well, and perhaps come to love the place as I do.”
That brought a suspicious look from Quauh. Was Massayo hinting that he really did mean to sell her?
“We will be there for a few weeks,” Massayo said with a wide grin.
Again, he seemed to be in her thoughts. Her shifting expression and resigned sigh tipped that off and turned that grin into another one of Massayo’s belly laughs in response.
“You’ll not be chained, good lady,” he assured her.
A cheer from the shore drew Quauh’s attention, then brought confusion, for many people were standing on the docks and on their boats, staring at Port Mandu and shouting huzzahs and yipping in unison.
“What?” she started to ask, when she realized they were staring up higher than the ketch’s deck.
Quauh spun about, shielded her eyes from the rising sun, and looked up, fearing that she might be getting her first look at this dragon she had heard so much about.
But no, it was no dragon drawing the cheers from the folk of Jhazir. It was the To-gai-ru woman she had met with Massayo on the beach. It didn’t take Quauh long to understand the cheers, for the woman was putting on quite a show of flying up there. She glided about on a rope attached to the top of the mast, which extended a dozen feet and more above the topmost rigging.
She had her foot in a loop at the bottom of the rope and was only half-heartedly holding on to it as she swung about, for she had a bow in hand, drawn and loaded.
She went out wide, then came back in fast toward the mast, and Quauh clenched her teeth, expecting a collision.
But no, the woman soared in, but then, as if pulled by some unseen force, she went flying out to starboard, and in a wide, swinging loop that brought her coming around over Quauh and Massayo, and in that swing, the woman inverted—never losing the level of her bow, as if ready to shoot throughout the entire movement!
“Chimeg is practicing, as she does every morning,” Massayo explained. “And showing off, do not doubt.”
In the archer went again, flipping back up just in time to avoid clipping the top line of the triangular mast. Out over the port side she went, then back in for the mast pole, where, again, she was thrown out wide into another twirling and twisting spin.
“How is that possible?”
“You would have to ask Chimeg,” Massayo replied. “She wears a bracer on her wrist, like so many of the To-gai-ru people, and another strap on one of her ankles that I am sure is possessed of some magic. And look closely at the mast, just above the rigging.”
Quauh shielded her eyes and focused on the mast. There was a bit of a perch, no more than a small, circular girdle of a crow’s nest about halfway between the top of the mast and the top of the rigging, but that was nothing unusual. Below that, though, she noted something tied about the mast, but she couldn’t make out much about it.
“You would have to ask her,” Massayo said again when Quauh turned a curious look his way. “I do not understand it. All I do know is that the enemies on rival ships are not pleased when Chimeg begins her flying dance. I don’t know that I have ever seen her miss her mark, from any angle. Even among the To-gai-ru riders, this one must have been quite special with her bow.”
Quauh just nodded and looked up, unable to tear her eyes from the acrobatic display, Chimeg’s complete control of her body and of her bow. With all the spinning and inverting, the rolling about and the sudden changes of direction, the set arrow never once seemed to shift out of line.
If what Massayo had claimed was true and Chimeg could shoot accurately throughout these acrobatic spins and inversions and rolls, she would prove a formidable and troublesome enemy indeed. Quauh could only imagine the frustration of her own archers on the Uey, trying to hit that ever-swerving target while Chimeg was spitting arrows into their faces.
Certainly the folk of this fishing village appreciated her act. They cheered and cheered until Port Mandu was far to the north.
“I’ll not put you to work today, with your wound so fresh. You can return to my cabin and rest,” Massayo offered. “Or you can remain topside and watch the sea and the coastline, or go talk to Benny, if that is your desire.” He paused and gave her a wry little grin, then moved closer and whispered, “But don’t you or Benny tell anyone else about our golden secret, okay?”
Quauh just stared at him, then spent the rest of the day staring at the sandy coastline of the desert kingdom, almost expecting a dragon to fly into sight at any moment.
As promised, the city of Djinnit came into view, her spirelets, towers, and domes silhouetted before the giant orange globe sinking into the western horizon. Pennants flew everywhere, topping every structure, every tent, and each of the tall masts of the multitude of swaying ships moored all about her large harbor.
As the ketch moved in, Quauh was drawn to the forward port rail. She could feel the energy of the place—and could hear it, the heartbeat of many drums and the vibrations of horns. And the voices, many voices, chattering and singing. The woman couldn’t hide her anticipation and intrigue. The aura emanating from Djinnit seemed more akin to that of the Tonoloyan cities in the west than anything she had known in the eastern lands.
She didn’t get to go ashore until the following afternoon, on one of the last ferries from the moored Port Mandu to the short wharf of Djinnit. Massayo was with her, as were Benny, Chimeg, and a mountain of a man who seemed as if he could rock a sizable ship just by walking across her deck. He wasn’t quite as tall as Massayo, but outweighed Port Mandu’s First Mate by a hundred pounds at least. His frame was like that of a stout powrie, only many times enlarged, but unlike the spindly-limbed dwarfs, he was thick-limbed, with muscles upon muscles. Maybe he could not rock a sizable ship, but he could likely lift it from the water!
He worked both oars on the dinghy—there wouldn’t have been enough room on the bench seat for another to comfortably sit—grunting with every stroke, pulls so powerful that they lifted the front of the rowboat from the water.
His skin wasn’t nearly as dark as Massayo’s, more of a brown with a golden tinge to it—it seemed to Quauh the most even blend of her own and Massayo’s, as if they had a child whose skin coloring was the most perfect mixture of the two. He wore no shirt and showed a multitude of tattoos, even on his face, where a black line crossed about his eyes like the bandit mask of a raccoon. That animal theme was all about him, with images of the wide-snouted southern crocodile, the fearsome jaguar, the exotic, bright-colored, large-beaked birds so common on the islands, snakes and smaller lizards, and a curious and cute little fellow on his left shoulder that seemed like a large-headed cross between a Tonoloya roof rat and a small bulldog.
He wore no shoes, either, and had tattoos atop his feet as well. Indeed, all he wore were two pieces of jewelry—a small wooden figurine hanging on a rope around his neck and a single earring on his left ear, dangling a pair of square-cut lavender gems, circle-cut in the middle to show a richer and darker amaranthine—and a purple cotton skirt.
And yes, that was indeed all, Quauh discovered from her seat on the back bench of the rowboat when the giant sat down wide-legged.
She shifted uncomfortably in that moment of revelation and looked up to see the huge man scowling at her; indeed, looking at her like he was quite hungry and she was the main course to be served.
Quauh quickly looked away.
Beside her, working the rudder, Benny giggled more than once, finally releasing the poor woman from her embarrassment by whispering, “He’s laughing at ye behind the mask.”
And then the mountainous man did laugh, a great, hearty bellow of pure joy.
“Ah, yes,” Chimeg said from the front. “Do tell us, Quauh of the goldfish, what does an Ata’ino warrior wear under his skirt?”
“His rudder. Aye, Toomsuba?” Massayo said, clapping the giant on the shoulder.
“Rudder?” Quauh echoed, shaking her head.
“More than anything else, it guides a man where to go,” Massayo explained.
The three before her in the boat laughed at that, but Quauh noticed that Toomsuba did close his legs a bit, which she surely appreciated, but Benny beside her merely snorted, “Peoples,” and gave a square-toothed grin. “Ye’re all spending so much time worrying about what’s down twixt yer legs that ye’re forgettin’ what’s most important in life.”
“Oh, and what is that, Benny McBenoyt?” Chimeg asked the powrie.
“Blood!” Benny and Toomsuba said in unison, and both cheered. Benny lifted the bright beret he had taken from Captain Pinquickle high, and all of them laughed heartily.
Raised in the disciplined ways of the Xoconai navy, where such frivolity wasn’t accepted, Quauh didn’t quite know what to make of the banter, but she couldn’t help but smile.
“Are you saying that you have no desire for women?” Chimeg pressed him. “Are there no girls in your powrie homeland?”
“Nope, not a one.”
“You are all boys?”
“Bit o’ both and neither o’ either,” Benny said proudly. “Got no time for the sweaty bumping games what seem to concern ye all.”
“You don’t make love? You don’t have children?” Chimeg seemed quite confused, something Quauh could understand in that moment.
“We clang our mugs together, not our nethers,” Benny said. “We sing together and dance together, fight together, and dip our caps in the blood of our fallen enemies.”
“I have heard you curse your mother’s empty teat,” Chimeg reminded him.
“My mother’s a jug o’ whiskey,” said the powrie.
“It amazes me that your people still walk the world, then,” Massayo remarked.
“Ah, but we’re eternal beasties, don’t ye know? A higher level o’ being than ye poor mortal things, free o’ the silly hunger that makes folks like yerself distracted from what’s what.”
“The ones floating facedown in the sea did not seem so eternal,” Quauh said before she could bite back the words.
Benny turned on her, his face as if set in stone, and a chorus of gasps arose from Chimeg and Massayo, while Toomsuba snorted like a waking bear. For a brief moment, Quauh thought she would be thrown overboard.
But Benny howled and slapped his knee, then sobered immediately, flashed an exaggerated wink at the woman, and quietly assured her, “Them boys’ll be back soon enough. We sung the song o’er their buried hearts.”
The banter continued until they got to the shore, where Toomsuba hopped out into the water, ran to the prow, and tugged the boat and her four passengers high up onto the sand.
“You three go to hear Captain Wilkie’s orders,” Massayo told Chimeg, Benny, and Toomsuba.
“You are the first mate,” Chimeg reminded him.
“And therefore, I already know what he will say, of course,” Massayo told her. “And you,” he said to Quauh. “You are to stay with me. Have you been to a Behrenese city before?”
“Only Freeport.”
“Freeport is not a… well, you will see.” He motioned for her to follow and led her off the beach, up onto the avenues of Djinnit.
“Is it true what Benny said?” she asked him as soon as they were out of earshot of the others.
“About?”
“About his people. A bit of both and neither of either?”
“Who can know? I have sailed with dozens of powries and seen scores more in the port towns, but never a bloody-cap woman. But then, I suppose, who could tell? Never seen one interested in a human lady, either, or a human man. Not in that way.
“What he told you about burying powrie hearts to resurrect the fallen was true, though,” Massayo added. “I have seen it with my own eyes. Truly unnerving to see them crawl from the dirt, confused, their bodies not fully under their control, their memories scattered. It is often days before such a returning dwarf can even speak—they are more zombie than alive in the earliest days. But yes, it is true, and they eventually recall their identity and history.”
“A gift from their god.”
“More a reason they have no god—or at least none that I’ve ever heard them speak of in prayers. Their life is here, eternally, so they believe, so why worry about an afterlife?”
Quauh, who was not very religious, though wise enough never to admit such to any of the zealous augurs of Scathmizzane, considered that for a moment, then nodded.
“But no sex,” Massayo said suddenly, and lightly. “Why would they want to live forever?”
Quauh froze a bit at that bawdy remark, particularly given the tone of the man—since he apparently owned her now. She tried to cover it up with a bit of a smile, but knew it was strained without having to look into a mirror. She was totally inexperienced sexually—personally, at least. She had of course served on ships with randy crews, full of trysts onboard and in port. It wasn’t that she had any problem with the concept, just that she had little desire for it, or knowledge of it, or, at least to this point, much curiosity about it. Her career had been her life and her fulfillment. She fell behind a step in her hesitation, and Massayo swung about, seeming concerned for a moment, then figuring it out.
“Come along, good captain,” he said. “You need fear nothing from me.”
“To where?”
“To see Djinnit, that you can learn of these desert people. You might be spending much time among them in the future, of course.”
“As your servant? Your slave?”
“I already told you, never that.”
“Then what?”
“That will be for you to determine.”
“So I can leave now if I choose, and make my own way through Djinnit, or to wherever I wish?”
Massayo smiled. “Yes.” He stopped and so did Quauh, staring at him.
“I think you would be passing on the best opportunity of your young life, though,” Massayo went on. “But the choice is yours. I do not need servants and abhor the thought of owning another human being. Can you say differently?”
“Do you always speak in such a cryptic manner?”
“If I tell you too much, how could I let you leave?”
Quauh crossed her arms over her chest, which only reminded her of her new infirmity. It truly surprised her that she had to be reminded, for there was no pain in that stumped arm, and no infestation that she could note. Powrie berets were powerful healing magic, she now understood. But still, she had only half of her right arm! Reflexively, and more than a little because of embarrassment, she quickly dropped that right arm down by her side. “Show me about this place you call Djinnit.”
Massayo motioned her up beside him and did just that, and despite her stubborn defiance, Quauh couldn’t help but be enchanted by the sights, the sounds, and even the smells of the city. It reminded her of home in many regards, except that not even the most decorated of Xoconai cities had such a brilliant display of color. Reds and yellows, greens and such shining orange to shame the sun itself, fluttered all about the place—and it wasn’t just the variety of the colors, but the sheer brightness and richness of them. She could imagine these people spending days and weeks dying the fabric. And years and years making the carpets on display in several of the tents! Such workmanship and pride!
Musicians seemed to be on every corner, and there was no dearth of talent here, with fine melodies and harmonies drifting lazily down many side streets, uplifting strings and drums putting a bounce in the step of every person traveling down others.
Many looked at her with obvious interest, staring at her. She got the feeling that they had seen Xoconai before, but probably not many walking freely through a Behrenese city. One old woman, her face wrinkled with experience, ran up to her and said something she couldn’t understand. Quauh looked at her apprehensively.
“She wants to know if your colors hurt,” Massayo interpreted.
“My colors?”
“Your face.”
“No, of course not.”
The old woman nodded and asked something else.
“She wants to know if she can touch it,” Massayo explained.
Quauh arched an eyebrow at the man, who just shrugged and nodded, mouthing, She means no harm or disrespect.
It was an uncomfortable, almost alarming, notion to Quauh, who did not like to be touched. But she did bend low, and the woman traced her fingers over her red nose, then the blue and white flaring to either side of it. Then the old woman clapped her hands together before her, bowed to Quauh, talking excitedly all the while, and after yet another bow of gratitude or respect or both, skittered away.
“She said you are very beautiful,” Massayo translated. “She also mentioned having a grandson who is about your age.”
That brought a higher arch of Quauh’s eyebrow and a wider smile from Massayo in reply, and Quauh had to wonder if he had added that last part on his own, probably to embarrass her yet again.
On they went. At one tent, Massayo purchased two small pita breads of a sweet, finger-sized fruit, and handed one bowl to Quauh.
“I saw these on Freeport, and on the island of…” She let her voice trail off.
“Watouwa,” Massayo finished. “Yes, Captain Quauh, we know where the Uey got the gold and the sugarcane to cover it. You have seen these—dates, they are called, and come from a particular type of palm tree plentiful along the coast—but have you tasted one?”
“They do not look very pleasing.” She cradled the bread under what was left of her right forearm and picked one date up, but dropped it immediately back onto the bread and wiped her fingers on her trousers. “Sticky.”
“Sticky sweet,” Massayo agreed. “Try it. So many possibilities are open before you right here and right now. Are you really going to ignore them, and if so, then why?”
Quauh plucked up a date and popped it into her mouth.
“Beware the pit!” Massayo warned, just in time.
By the time they had reached the other side of this small market square, Quauh’s dates were all devoured, as was the pita. As Massayo finished his as well, he flashed that huge smile at her, then held up a finger, clueing her into a growing chorus down the end of a narrow alleyway. He grabbed her by the hand and rushed off, coming out of the alley onto another market square, and near to a group of musicians, playing and singing a bouncy and happy tune. Before them, people danced and clapped in time with the backbeat.
“Will you dance with me?” Massayo asked, and before Quauh came out of her noncommittal shrug, the large man brought her left hand to his shoulder, put his own right arm about her waist, and pulled out her right arm as he began to quickstep around.
He slid his arm as if to take her hand, then hesitated, an uncomfortable moment hanging before them.
Her hand that was no longer there.
The moment was gone in an instant, Quauh pulling back in shame and seething anger, bringing her torn right arm up across her chest and tucking her chin over it, then covering her face with her left hand.
“My good lady,” Massayo stammered. “I did not… the music… the mood…”
“You have no blame here.”
Massayo came up close and again touched her as if to dance. “Please,” he said when she looked up to match his gaze. “The music is joyous and the company grand.”
She didn’t embrace the notion, but neither did she resist as Massayo gently took her arm again and began the dance. He led beautifully, with surprising grace for a man so tall.
“You see,” he said to her, “no one notices and no one cares.”
“You think me ashamed?”
“I think you in turmoil in many directions, as anyone would be having suffered your last experiences. But it will pass, Captain Quauh. All of it. You have my word. When we get to Freeport in the autumn, I will take you to a man who can help with your infirmity. Crippling wounds like yours are not uncommon, though not as common on the arm as with lost legs. What do you think we should use as a replacement? A hook? Hooks are very useful, though you will need to be very careful in time of itch.”
She couldn’t help but laugh a little at his joke, and even after, her smile remained in gratitude as Massayo was truly trying hard to make it all better for her.
“Or maybe a blade,” he suggested. “With a sheath, of course, so that you do not roll upon your own arm and kill yourself in your sleep, or kill your lover if you find one—and I am sure that a woman as beautiful as Quauh has little problem in such affairs.”
Quauh smirked at his feeble attempt to butter her, and at yet another reminder of that uncomfortable subject. But she couldn’t deny that she appreciated it, for it was clear that Massayo wasn’t saying such things to embarrass her, nor facilitate such an affair between them. He wasn’t trying to take advantage here, with her so out of sorts and vulnerable. She was confident of that, even though she understood that a true rake would want their intended victim to believe exactly that.
“But yes, I have a friend who will be of great help, and now we have enough gold so that we can do it right.”
“We?”
“My friend and I. He is a talented fellow indeed, and owes me as I owe him, as is true with all my friends.”
“And you will have him repair my arm as much as he can? And you will pay for it?”
“Yes. But not just I. We will pay for it. It was Quauh who cleverly salvaged and hid the gold, not I. I and our dinghy companions will help you retrieve it, and so we will use it for the benefit of friends.”
“So now, I too have become a friend of Massayo.”
“Does that trouble you?”
Quauh was about to make some clever retort, to cook up something sharp to say that would sting the man, but instead she paused and considered the question sincerely. “No,” she answered, to her own surprise. “It pleases me.”
“I, too, am pleased. As I told you before we even sailed past Jhazir, I had hoped that you would become my friend.”
“But why?”
“I told you that, too. I do not underestimate you. Not in any way.”
The music stopped and all the dancers turned to clap, as did Quauh, before sighing and slapping her one hand against her thigh instead.
“Come,” Massayo told her. “We must secure a wagon.”
“Where are we going?”
“Captain Wilkie will not bring Port Mandu to the sand for her scraping and tightening for at least a few days.” He nodded out to the south, where some masts could be seen far from the open end of a side street. “There are already two other ships tied up on the beach, and there aren’t enough trees there to properly secure a third. Chimeg and the others will return with a more precise timeline, likely, but we surely have several days to linger about.”
“But why a wagon? Where are we going?”
“Back to Jhazir, of course.”
Quauh looked at him with clear puzzlement.
“Captain Wilkie has offered me my commission,” Massayo explained. “He has been seeking an escort vessel and has offered the opportunity to me if I could find my way to purchase a proper vessel and hire a worthy crew.”
Quauh was sure that the sea breeze would blow her over in that moment if it found its way past the huddled buildings along the street. So much suddenly began to make sense to her, even though a hundred questions bounced about her thoughts. That last part, hire a worthy crew, echoed in her mind most of all.