Rudolfo waited, listening, as a longboat-also magicked-was lowered. He heard its oars sliding across the water and slipped away from the tree to pick his way onto the dock.
There was no way to know how many men might be in the longboat, nor any way to know what their intent was. Though it seemed to Rudolfo that no friend would arrive magicked.
He tensed his muscles as he heard the sound of wood on wood.
When the first magicked sailor stepped onto the dock, Rudolfo kicked him into the bay and then danced back. “Stay put,” he said, “unless you’d like to swim in the winter bay with your friend.”
He heard movement in the boat.
The water thrashed and sputtered. The sputtering became a voice. “Wait,” it said. “Damn you, wait.”
Rudolfo knew that voice but couldn’t place it immediately.
Meanwhile, the thrashing became a more practiced swim. “I’m going to climb out,” the voice said. “Don’t kick me again, you ridiculous fop.”
Ridiculous fop. Rudolfo smiled and remembered those words. How many years had it been since he’d heard them? At least twenty, he thought. “Rafe Merrique,” he said. “I thought you’d drowned by now.”
“No thanks to you,” Rafe said, grunting with effort. “Gods, it’s cold.” Rudolfo watched as wet handprints appeared on the dock and a dripping, man-shaped shadow pulled itself up out of the water. “And what in all hells is that terrible smell?”
“Me,” Rudolfo said. “I’ve been at the cages.” He sheathed his knives and whistled for his scouts to do the same. He whistled again, and moments later, a thick woolen blanket drifted out of the boat house and into his waiting hands. He extended it to the magicked pirate. “Petronus has sent you for me?”
He’d known that the Order had used Merrique’s services over the years, but he also knew that those services could not come cheap. When he and Gregoric had sailed with him in his youth, even then it had cost a goodly sum.
Rafe took it and wrapped himself in it. “Not quite Petronus,” he said. “But his host has arranged this. quietly, of course.”
His host. Quietly. Rudolfo frowned. It explained the magicked ship, though the last time he’d seen Rafe Merrique, when he and Gregoric had been young men bound for the Wastes, the pirate had nothing so elaborate under his command. “And where is Petronus, exactly?”
“It would be better,” Rafe said, “to talk aboard the Kinshark. Suffice it to say that he is safe. for the moment.”
“I need to speak with him.” But already, Rudolfo wondered if that were true. It was possible that all he needed stood, magicked and dripping, before him on the narrow dock.
Rafe’s voice lowered. “Then time is of the essence, Gypsy King. I’ve been instructed to free the birds, close this station and invite you to accompany me.”
Rudolfo looked from the sopping blanket to the shimmering ship half a league out. The drizzle moved gradually toward downfall, and he felt the temperature dropping. He whistled his men in and pressed his fingers into their shoulders, passing instructions to them silently. They retreated and ten minutes later, the birds lifted out of the boathouse and scattered. Rudolfo used that time to scrawl a hasty note homeward and sent it with his own bird as the scouts handed their packs down into waiting hands.
Then, he and his men climbed into the longboat and took their place in the bow.
“You’re surely a long way from home during interesting times,” Rafe said as they pulled away from the dock.
I am indeed, Rudolfo thought. “Our world is changing.”
He could hear Rafe’s smile around his reply. “It is,” he said. “But as our gray-robed friends used to say, ‘Change is the path life takes.’ ”
Rudolfo grinned. “You’ve not changed so very much, it appears.”
Rafe chuckled. “Ten years ago and I’d have dropped you into the bay with me. I’m getting older. Slower.”
Rudolfo nodded. Rafe Merrique had been middle-aged the last time he’d seen him, just coming into the pinnacle of his success at sea.
They were quiet now as the oars whispered into the water, moving the boat forward. The rainfall increased and Rudolfo watched the drops splash into the whitecapped bay, watched the splashes leap half-heartedly back toward the sky before surrendering to gravity. When they came alongside, he felt the hull with his hands and let Rafe guide them toward the waiting rope ladder.
Rudolfo scrambled up and let the hands there at the rail steer him toward the hatch.
Belowdecks, he sat with his men near a small furnace in a long, paneled galley while dusky women served them steaming hot firespice and fresh black bread with sweet butter. The same women had shown them their cabins and offered them baths. Rudolfo declined, choosing instead to wait for Merrique.
When the door opened and a shadow slipped through, he put down his mug. “So exactly where are we going, Merrique?”
Rafe chuckled. “Still impatient, aren’t you? So impatient that you still reek of those damnable birds.” A chair moved across the floor and creaked as Rafe sat. “We sail for the Delta. Esarov himself has sent for you. He has something he’d like you to keep an eye on.” The pirate paused. “I’m not privy to more detail than that, but I do think your friend Petronus is climbing onto a narrow limb in a very high tree. And a storm brews for him there.”
Esarov. That name had come up more and more since the end of the war. His little revolution had sprung to life in the chaos around Windwir’s fall and had gained momentum once Sethbert was removed from the equation. Erlund hadn’t the stomach or resolve to treat ruthlessly with the root of that insurrection when it had first taken hold, and now open warfare was his only option. Esarov, a master statesman and strategist among other things, had bent his pen and his words in the direction of change, and slowly, the Delta followed.
And now, somehow, that Democrat was in league with Petronus. “What does Esarov play at with our former Pope?” Rudolfo finally asked.
“Something with high stakes,” Rafe answered. “I know that much. And I know Esarov was pleased to no end that you were already nearby. He offered me twice my normal fee to fetch you.”
“I wanted to speak with you about that,” Rudolfo said, resisting the urge to stroke his beard. “I will soon have need of a fast ship and a fierce crew, and I’m prepared to sign letters of credit for whatever price you require.”
Rafe Merrique chuckled. “Whatever price I require? What will my ship and crew be doing for you, exactly?”
Rudolfo thought for a moment that he saw the briefest glimmer of the pirate leaning forward intently. “I need to find Vlad Li Tam and his iron armada. Petronus may know where he’s sailed. Once I know, I will need someone to take me to him.”
The pirate snorted. “He could be anywhere by now, regardless of where he sailed for.” He waited, and when Rudolfo said nothing, he continued. “Still,” he said, “I’m certain we can come to some kind of arrangement.”
Rudolfo nodded, though he knew Rafe Merrique couldn’t see. “It will be good to sail with you again, Captain.”
The chair grated back. Already, parts of Rafe flickered back into focus as the magicks burned themselves out. Rudolfo thought he saw him incline his head, and he returned the gesture.
“I’m at your service, Lord Rudolfo,” the pirate said.
Rudolfo remembered the first time he’d heard those words. It was in a Delta tavern over two decades behind him. It was one of his first assignments for the Order; he’d been sent to meet his transport with Gregoric and a half-squad of scouts.
Rafe Merrique paused at the door. “By the way,” he said, “congratulations are in order. I’m sure he will grow into a fine, strong boy.”
In that moment, Rudolfo was glad for the magicks. They masked the shadow that crossed his face as fear and sadness washed him. He wasn’t sure how to answer.