“We need to get back to the Eagle!” he shouted over his shoulder, loud agreement coming from the sailors. They retreated, slowly, weapons raised, alert for any sudden rush from the enemy. Several of the black-clad assailants paced them down the deck, just out of reach, taunts clear in their unintelligible tongue. “Ignore them.” Temar shook his head at a sailor whose backward steps had halted, captured axe eager to rejoin the fray.
Temar felt inside the breast of his jerkin for his throwing dagger. Retreating like this was all very well, but it was too slow. As the ships writhed in the snapping toils of the ropes, he could hear the snap and whistle of breaking hemp, every movement as the wind tugged at the Eagle’s sails putting intolerable strain on the remaining lines. He palmed the dagger as they drew level with the remaining grapnels, relieved to hear eager shouts from the Eagle’s deck, hands and ropes offering assistance.
“Make ready to go,” he commanded sternly, judging distance and wind, wondering if he could do this.
“When?” demanded a sailor at his elbow.
“Now!” yelled Temar. He took a pace forward and brought his hand up and back in one fluid movement, sending the bright blade shooting the length of the vessel, a flash of silver in the sunlight as it buried itself in the Artificer’s chest. His yell of agony halted the troops on deck who were just about to fling themselves on the sailors desperately scrambling back over the rails of the two ships, unable to defend themselves adequately. As blond heads turned this way and that, Temar and his men seized the moment of indecision to escape to the Eagle, where waiting knives hacked through the last fibers of the entangling ropes to free the vessel.
“Make sail and head for open water!” Captain Grethist roared, his voice sending sailors scrambling into the rigging, hands still sticky with gore, clothing stained with their own blood and that of others. The Eagle moved on rising wings of white canvas to pull away from the Salmon, now drifting away at the mercy of wind and current as dark figures struggled with her ropes.
“We can’t just abandon the Salmon!” a voice protested.
“How do we go about retaking her?” demanded Grethist scornfully, but his own outrage was plain on his twisted face as he moved to instruct the helmsman. “No, we’ll let those bastards look after her for a little while, just as long as it takes us to get back to port, raise a flotilla and come back to send every last fancy whore’s son straight to Dastennin’s feet!”
This prediction raised a general shout of agreement and defiance, insults hurled from every side as the Salmon finally got under way and lurched toward the distant headland.
“D’Alsennin!”
Temar looked toward the stern of the ship, trying to place the unfamiliar voice. He saw the tall, spare figure of Avila For Arrial on the aft-deck, struggling to support a fainting Guinalle.
“Here, let me,” Temar shoved his way through to the aft-castle and swept Guinalle up in his arms, alarmed by her extreme pallor.
“Let’s get her to our cabin.” Avila silenced the startled questions of the sailors with an imperious look and hurried to open the doors to the accommodation in the rear of the ship. Temar laid Guinalle gently down on the narrow cot and clenched his hands in unconscious dismay as Avila deftly untied Guinalle’s girdle, unlacing the high neck of her gown to check the pulse in her neck. The older woman bent her head close to Guinalle’s, a grunt of satisfaction as she felt the girl’s breath on her cheek.
“She’ll do well enough. She’s just exhausted herself.” Avila laid a fond hand on Guinalle’s forehead, herb-stained fingers brown against the white skin.
Temar didn’t know whether to be more relieved or furious with Guinalle for giving him such a fright. “She always thinks she can do everything herself,” he burst out. “Is this the first time she’s over-reached herself like this? Why can’t she pace herself better?”
Avila was pouring water into a shallow bowl and paused, a linen cloth in her hand. “The reason Guinalle has to do so much is the lack of other trained hands to lift the burden from her,” she said crisply. “If enough people would come forward to be trained in Artifice, her life would be a great deal easier. The problem is that so many of those that start give up as soon as the studies become at all demanding.” She didn’t bother concealing the contempt in her voice or in her eyes as she looked across the cramped cabin at Temar, brushing a wisp of graying hair back from her broad brow with the back of her hand.
“I had my reasons and I have my own duties,” Temar snapped. He looked at Guinalle again, a faint flush of pink starting to soften her cheeks again. “Messire Den Fellaemion asks too much of her,” he said reluctantly, hating himself for the disloyalty.
“Messire Den Fellaemion is ill.” Avila sprinkled an aromatic oil from a tiny bottle and laid the dampened cloth across Guinalle’s forehead. “Guinalle’s Artifice is just about the only thing keeping him on his feet some days.”
Temar gaped at her. “You’re not serious?”
“As plague spots, Esquire!” snapped Avila, wiping her hands heedlessly on her plain brown gown. “If it weren’t for Guinalle, he wouldn’t see out the year. So she has to spend her time and strength on him as well as on all the other duties laid on her.”
“What am I supposed to do about it?” Temar demanded, more to defend himself than expecting any answer.
Avila gave him one nevertheless. “Stop finding every excuse to leave the port to take your sulks about Guinalle off with you,” she glared at him. “You’re Den Fellaemion’s obvious successor, boy! Stay and learn from him, take over some of the real work of the colony, stop gallivanting off up river and inland whenever someone offers you the chance. If Den Fellaemion has less to do, he will need to demand less of Guinalle, and she might have a chance to stop spending from the bottom of her purse all the time. Get yourself in hand, D’Alsennin! I’ve been watching how you behave toward Guinalle. Drianon save me, you’re not the only boy who ever got turned down. Guinalle’s not the first woman to see more important paths lying before her than just being a wife and mother!”
Pent-up grievance escaped Temar before he could restrain his tongue. “And I have got you to thank that she’s taken them, haven’t I? Guinalle kept mentioning your name when I was trying to find out what turned her against me. Just because you chose not to wed, I don’t see you have the right to meddle in other people’s happiness.”
Avila regarded him steadily, but her blue eyes were bright with a suspicion of tears. “I would have wed, D’Alsennin, had my betrothed not died of that same Crusted Pox that took so many of your House to the Otherworld. My father died too and my mother was left an invalid; it fell to me to nurse her for the next four years, youngest and unlooked for daughter as I was. By then, with so many dead, any chance I had to marry had passed me by. But you’re right, I did advise Guinalle to think very carefully before hampering herself with a husband, children and all the expectations of society. It’s not as if there is any middle way, not now, not here. Guinalle has had education and opportunities I could only have ever dreamed of, and I would hate to see her cast them aside for a self-centered boy who has so much growing up left to do!”
Guinalle stirred in the bunk, a vague hand reaching for her forehead. Temar looked at her for a long moment, then, not trusting himself to speak, turned on his heel and slammed out of the cabin.