The Coming Of Wisdom (15 page)

“But . . . ”

Wallie put a finger to his lips.

Surprise became a smile. “We never discussed it! But I will not take your gold, Lord Shonsu. My family can afford to contribute a few hacks—’I lost them, Grandmother.’ ”

Wallie let him win the argument that time. The secluded jetty might be more than an escape route. It could also be his access to the sorcerers’ mine and the back door to Ov, an ideal place to land and muster a small army. The unwanted horses would not likely stray from such an equine heaven. They would be useful again.

Down at the jetty, Katanji was still sitting in lonely boredom on the lumber. Garadooi caught the two horses he wanted, and they were quickly loaded with supplies and a tent. Then Wallie accompanied him and Quili to the top of the cliff and helped drag the cart back to the flat. The River valley stretched off beyond the lake, with no signs of sorcerers yet.

The second horse, he noted, was tethered behind the cart as a spare; Garadooi was going to ride beside Quili. As he once more thanked them both, shouting over the noise of the falls, Wallie did not need Jja to point out a change in the little priestess—in both of them. They stood close. They had the undefinable air of two people wanting to be alone together. He wished them good luck and Goddess-speed . . . and very nearly offered congratulations, also. But perhaps that would be premature.

Then he saw that a tiny, distant figure on the jetty was jumping up and down and waving both arms.

“I must go,” Wallie said. Again he thanked them both, smothering the priestess’ renewed apologies for the initial misunderstanding. He shook Garadooi’s hand. Quili he kissed—her honor maybe, his pleasure certainly. She blushed crimson, but cooperated, seeming to enjoy the encounter as much as he did. Then he went scrambling and sliding down the hill again. The expedition was back to seven.

By the time he joined Nnanji and his brother on the jetty,
Sapphire
was close enough for sounds of angry voices to be floating in across the water. The wind had dropped completely, and her sails hung limp in the noon heat as she drifted toward the dock. She was not listing so badly as before.

Katanji was impressed, Nnanji triumphant—

“I just looked away for an instant, my lord—then there she was!”

“This time they’ll do as She requires of them, my lord brother!”

Wallie was not convinced. Obviously some of
Sapphire
’s crew were not, either. Now he knew how swordsmen regarded sailors and, therefore, why Matarro’s news had caused them to depart so hurriedly. The Goddess had brought them back to the same place, but he wished he could make out the words of the arguments going on aboard. The largest and loudest discussion was taking place on the raised deck aft . . . poop? The high bit at the front would be the fo’c’sle in English, but he seemed to lack maritime terms in his vocabulary. That was odd, because Shonsu must have traveled by ship. Then two men ran up on the fo’c’sle and the anchor ran out with a roar of chain. It stopped with a clang and sudden silence as it reached the water, apparently jammed. Oaths and screams of rage were followed by hammering noises.
Sapphire
continued to drift closer.

Wallie turned to see how the rest of his party was proceeding, coming at Honakura’s slow pace. “Nnanji! Look!”

A solitary figure was dancing up and down on the cliff top—Garadooi. He had a horse beside him. Wallie waved to show that he had noticed, and the lad acknowledged. He remounted and rode away.

Nnanji’s eyes had narrowed to slits. “They’re coming?”

“That’s how I take it.”

How long for mounted men unencumbered by a cart to travel the length of the lake? How long to scramble down the hill? And that might not even be necessary, if a spell cast from up there could summon demons to down here.

Wallie wiped sweat from his brow, but some of that was from the heat, for the sun was glaring off the water and the dark stonework. The still air was dead and enervating.
Sapphire
was very close, obviously about to reach the jetty at the exact place she had been tied up earlier. The arguments were over, and so were attempts to free the anchor. Two men were adjusting fenders, but most of the rest seemed to have disappeared. Jja, Vixini, Cowie, and Honakura had reached the jetty.

Gentle as falling feathers,
Sapphire
nestled against the pier. Wallie stepped to a bollard, waiting for a line. Nothing happened. No gangplank?

He jumped up on the pile of lumber, which put him almost level with the men standing on deck, and some distance back from the ship.

“You forgot this?” he asked politely.

For a while there was no reply, only a staring match. Five men were visible, and no one else. They were standing along the near side, well spaced to repel boarders and holding their hands down, out of sight below the gunwale, so he could not tell if they were armed. All he could see were bare brown chests and angry faces. He thought briefly of a line-up of wrestlers.

The one in the center was closest, and therefore likely the spokesman. He must be the captain, Tomiyano. He was visibly furious, eyes slitted, powerful white teeth bared in a grimace. Three shipmarks just below a Caesar haircut told of his rank and craft. He was young and well built, bone upholstered with muscle, and he was barely keeping control of himself. His hair was reddish—not as red as Nnanji’s—but his skin was burned to the same dark rosewood shade. In spite of his youth, he looked like a man accustomed to having his own way. He looked dangerous.

Wallie was not on board yet. He made the sign of acknowledgment of an inferior.

The sailor snarled. “What do you want, swordsman?”

“Permission to come aboard, Captain?”

“Why?”

“I seek passage for myself and these companions.”

“This is a family ship—we have no room for passengers.”

“I am willing to pay any reasonable fare.”

“That will not make the ship larger.”

“Then put your Jonahs ashore.”

The sailor’s weathered face flamed even brighter, although there was no shame in being a Jonah. “What the hell do you mean by that, swordsman?”

Wallie waited a moment to cool his own rising temper. To address a highrank by his craft was deliberate insult. He was also fighting a searing desire to turn and look at the cliff, to see if sorcerers had appeared there yet, but that would be a tactical error in this nasty negotiation. He could only hope that Nnanji was watching and would tell him when it happened.

“If you have no Jonahs aboard, then perhaps you were brought here to get some?”

Tomiyano, if that was who he was, drummed fists on the rail in frustration and looked up longingly at the limp sails.

“Sailor, this is benefiting no one. Let me come aboard and I shall salute you. Or you salute me here. Then we can resume our discussion in civilized fashion.”

The captain was silent. A whole minute seemed to drag by in wordless glaring. Then he snapped: “I am Tomiyano, sailor of the third rank, master of
Sapphire
 . . . ” He gabbled off the rest with a few careless gestures. It was the cultural equivalent of spitting on a man’s foot.

Wallie let the rudeness sit in the air for a moment, then drew his sword. “I am Shonsu, swordsman of the seventh rank, chosen champion of the Goddess, and am . . . ”

“Chosen what?”

“Champion. This is Her own sword, Captain. It was given to me by a god. Note the sapphire? My hairclip is another sapphire, and also came from him. I am on a mission for the Most High. I am presently in need of transportation, and your ship was brought here, I understand, by Her Hand.”

Tomiyano spat. “Firsts talk too much.”

“He was lying?”

“No,” admitted the captain.

Katanji coughed loudly. Wallie’s head turned before he could stop it. Five men in cowled gowns were standing on the cliff top.

Tomiyano had noticed. He smiled with joy. “Running from someone, swordsman?”

“Yes, sailor. Sorcerers.”

“Sorcerers? This close to the River? Hah!”

Wallie glanced at the other four men. They were frowning, perhaps wavering, but he must convince their captain first. He turned to the cliff again. The sorcerers were hurrying toward the easiest descent. Nnanji was paler than Wallie had ever seen him. It was not fear of the sorcerers that was eating at Nnanji—he wanted to get at this insolent sailor. The rest of Wallie’s party were huddled behind the lumber, unhappily waiting. This might be another of the gods’ tests—Wallie had very little time left to negotiate his way onto the ship.

Tomiyano jeered. “You’ve been gulled, swordsman! You’re running from bogeymen.”

Keeping his voice calm with an immense effort, Wallie said, “Not so. A year ago, in Ov, forty swordsmen were slain by sorcerers.”

“They can have three more as far as I’m concerned.”

“And Matarro of the First? Save him, then! Sail away quick, Captain.”

The fury blazed up again in the sailor’s face. That reminder of his own impotence seemed to rob him of speech. His ship had been hijacked, and he could do nothing about it.

“The sorcerers summon fire demons, Captain. You wouldn’t want those near
Sapphire
, now, would you?”

Tomiyano seemed ready to start grinding his teeth. He turned to look at the River. For some distance out from the jetty, the water was as clear and smooth as plate glass. Beyond that it was rippled by wind.

“If I let you and your riffraff on board, then these sorcerers will come after you.”

“Let us on board and you can depart. It is Her will you are flouting, not mine. I did not summon you here.”

“
No
!” Tomiyano had thought of another solution—dead men do not need to go anywhere. His hand appeared, holding a knife. Wallie had no need to call on Shonsu’s encyclopedic knowledge of blades to tell him that it was a throwing knife; the way the sailor was holding it showed that. Suddenly he felt very mortal. He was utterly vulnerable at that range, but too far away to use his sword.

“No damned landlubber swordsman will ever set foot on my deck again! I swore at Yok that—”

“Quiet!” shouted a new voice. The captain’s arm dropped, and he turned to glare as a newcomer emerging from a door in the fo’c’sle. Wallie relaxed with a gasp. He stole another glance landward; the sorcerers were invisible, hidden in the trees, but they must be close to the valley floor by now. He looked at the River. The edge of that mysterious calm was racing landward—the wind was coming. He could only have minutes left before
Sapphire
began to move. If he could not board, then he and Nnanji should be heading for the trees, to meet the enemy under cover . . . 

“I’ll handle this, Tom’o,” said the new voice, and Wallie aimed to stare in bewilderment at the figure now standing beside the captain—a Fifth, in red. A swordsman, for there was a sword hilt beside the gray-streaked ponytail, but old enough to wear a sleeveless gown; short and enormously fat, and the harness was a strange type, with the chest straps crossing in an X instead of being vertical . . . Too fat. Fat in the wrong places . . . 

Then she began her salute: “I am Brota, swordsman of the fifth rank, owner of
Sapphire
 . . . ”

A fat, middle-aged,
female
swordsman? As he drew his sword to respond, Wallie’s mind was reeling from this latest shock, and he could hear Nnanji growling. Tomiyano began to argue; the woman told him to be quiet, and he obeyed. Owner? She was obviously the true master of the ship, almost certainly Tomiyano’s mother. When the seventh sword clicked back into its scabbard, she turned her head briefly to study the River, then the apparently empty valley on the other side. Her ponytail was bound by an incongruous pink bow.

“What talk is this of sorcerers, my lord?”

“They slaughtered the garrison in Ov a year ago, mistress. The Goddess has sent me to deal with them—but at the moment I do not have the forces to do so. Five of them will be here in a few moments. I am not the only one in danger. You and Novice Matarro . . . ”

She was not as tall as Wild Ani, but probably fatter. Yet that pillowed brown face held none of the sullen air of defeat that haunted always the face of a slave. There was an ominous hardness there, and Wallie tracked it down to her eyes. The rest of her features were soft and rounded, but the eyes sat in dark caves like lurking dragons. Her eyebrows were bushy, white more than brown. They were an old man’s eyes peering out from a woman’s face.

“Thirty years we have traded on the River, Lord Shonsu, and never have we been taken by Her Hand. Never has She troubled us, nor we Her. Never have I heard of a ship being taken while at anchor, either. Perhaps you and I are indeed intended to do business together.” Again she glanced at the River, studying the telltale ripple of wind approaching. Above them the sails stirred very slightly. She was playing for time.

“Then we had better do it quickly, Mistress Brota.”

She shrugged bulky shoulders beneath crimson cotton. “What exactly do you seek from us?”

Wallie hesitated a second to line up his thoughts. With this woman he would prefer a signed, sealed, and witnessed contract backed up by affidavits and secured by a performance bond, but he would have to settle for a handshake. He glanced again at the innocent-seeming valley.

“Immediate embarkation. Safe passage for my companions and myself to . . . ”

Careful! The geography of the World was variable—Aus might not be the next city by River. “Safe passage to the nearest city where I can enlist some swordsmen. Food and shelter, of course.”

Again Tomiyano tried to speak, and again she slapped him down with a word. “Very well. The fare will be two hundred golds.”

Nnanji’s blasphemous shriek was lost in a bellow of relieved laughter from the captain. The other sailors grinned. The sails rippled.

Shrubbery rippled also, close to the two ruined cottages at the landward end of the jetty.

Two hundred golds was blatant extortion, far beyond the means of anyone but the rich. It would buy a farm.

“Done!” Wallie said.

Her eyes narrowed in anger, those dangerous male eyes behind a rubber female mask. “I would see your money, my lord.”